Northern Exposure

The tour headed north this past week to dip my feet into the Alaska experience, and met up with a couple friends while doing so. 

I signed up for a trolley car/bus city tour along with a guide supported mountain bike ride at Chugach State Park ahead of the trip so I had all my ducks in a row. 

The trolley/bus tour was outstanding as we learned about the earthquake of 1964 and why the mud flats off of the shoreline prevented some serious tsunamis from happening. In addition, we got a sprinkle of some Iditarod dog race history, fireworks in the daylight (it's light at 11 PM on July 4th in Alaska) along with learning that every person with multiple generations growing up in the area seems to have a two seat Cessna plane, handed down from each generation. 

The mountain bike ride unfortunately got cancelled. The company doing the ride also do guided tours on the Coastal Trail, a paved path along the coast that has a bit more demand than the mountain bike ride. Not too many vacationing senior citizens go mountain biking for some reason...   Long story short, one of the guides for the paved path tour threw his back out so they pulled the mountain bike guide onto the paved tour and cancelled our ride. I was bummed but understand as there were only two of us mountain biking and probably about 10 on the paved tour. Alaska has a short summer tourist season and it came down to numbers. I ended up taking the paved tour and enjoyed it; saw a couple moose in the process.

While winding down after the ride, I texted friend Rob as he sometimes works in the state and it turned out he and wife Wendy were in town and we had dinner with another couple. 

A great, beautiful state. While I don't think I could ever live there on a permanent basis, I will be back to get that mountain bike ride in, guide of no guide next time. I'll just make sure to pack the bear spray.

Trail Head

Chugach Mountains

salmon snaggers

large melon in tourist mode

Iditarod dog tribute

Breaking the Law

I got three notifications in the mail this past week from the U.S. census bureau. I honestly can't remember ever completing one but don't recall getting strong armed with threats on the packaging that it is "required by law." That makes me more inclined to throw it in the shredder. Doing your taxes is required by law, why not eliminate the census bureau and capture the census data on a tax questionnaire?

Census bureau renegade, signing off.

99 Bottles of Whiskey on the wall...

Ninety-nine bottles of whiskey on the wall, take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of whiskey on the wall...

Yes, the song is different but I had to do some tweaking for my achievement this weekend as I finished drinking the 99 Irish whiskeys a local establishment has available (no, not in one sitting) and became a member of the Whiskey Club. They give you the attached sheet to keep track/date your progress and put comments for each. For me, it didn't matter if the whiskey was 27 years old or just out of the barrel, it all tasted like whiskey to me with the exception of a handful that made my lips numb. Not sure if that is a good thing or not.

https://www.mlive.com/news/2020/09/why-this-restaurant-has-the-largest-irish-whiskey-collection-in-northern-michigan.html

Bicentennial Minute

Fifty years ago I was just figuring out that this life was going to be more than cartoons; year 1976. I hadn't reached year nine yet on July 4th that year but things were starting to form in my pea brain. The bicentennial year! Spirit of '76 fever was everywhere, they even made a car by the name (a bad one at that). The Tigers sucked, as did the other Detroit teams, but we had "The Bird." Besides the Bird, the one thing that stuck out for me that year was the minute long "Bicentennial Minute" segments that ran at night. My dad was a big "All in the Family" watcher and CBS ran them so I saw quite a bit of them. I couldn't tell you the difference between Thomas Jefferson and Joe Schmoe at the time but found them entertaining.

Go America!

Trail Head

A Bridge Too Far

My 50-something tune-up that I'm working through (until I have to start paying for health care out of pocket) hit a snag this past week. 

My lower front teeth were being supported for about a decade or so by the surrounding teeth, no bone support whatsoever beneath. A bridge to support/replace the teeth was eventually going to happen and no better time than the present. 

My permanent bridge would not be ready for a month so a temporary one was put in place after the dentist popped out the culprits. Be careful I was warned on eating hard objects, bagels, anything that could pop the temporary out. I've had temporary crowns in the past so knew the process.

Off I went out of the dentist office, got home, had a beverage, rolled my tongue around the bridge and out it popped! 

Back to the dentist I went, some stronger cement they said should work and off I went home again. An hour later, still no food in my system yet, rolled the tongue around the bridge and out it came again (I had to get a picture at this point).

Third time's a charm they say as they put on some super glue that will eventually need to be drilled off when the permanent comes in. Yippee.

Trail Head

temp bridge back

Skegemog 2026 - I listen to the wind

"The sea was angry that day, my friends - like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli."

George Costanza

The sea (lake) was angry this weekend for the annual Lake Skegemog fish as the winds were making for some challenging results. My computer chair still has the west wind swaying as I type this. Buddy D. took the big fish for the weekend on a 4+ pound pike, just exceeding the 4 pound walleye (walleye are very rare at Skegemog) that Doke brought in the earlier session. I doubled my quota of one with a gold star to boat captain Slick who worked the winds with his trolling motor around the stumps; couldn't imagine if that trolling motor failed. A few groups brought in their five but culling was extremely rare this weekend. 

Outside of fishing, the meals continued to exceed expectations with the fancy griddles out there these days. The Duff/Weaver acoustic guitar duo entertained the masses post meal last night as we all tried to remember the words to various songs.

Great music and meals aside, I think we are close to creating a red/green light above one of the members of the posse of claims coming out of his mouth in recent years. Red light means bullshit, green is clear on said claim. Many were calling out bullshit to him this weekend.

Lastly, I did lose some valuable time in my life during about a 30 minute or so conversation/debate late one evening as my fellow fisherman were talking on the topic of what opening word they use for Wordle. Yep, we're old, but still enjoying the ride.

Trail Head

Tim V's 4 pound bass that was 2 pound

Munson for the photo bomb

Mother Cup Practice on Lake Favorite

Next weekend is the annual Mother Cup fishing battle so I had to get some practice in on Lake Favorite this morning. The lake is not actually called "Lake Favorite" but don't want word spreading too much of it's actual name as it has become my favorite. I wrote about the lake on here when I first moved to town and only gave it moderate reviews in terms of fish production, however, since then I've never left without hitting at least five keepers, a couple close to 18 inches today.

Hopefully similar production next weekend as I'm due for the weekend trophy.

Trail Head

Timmy Leaves (again)

It's been documented here that I have a propensity to do the Irish goodbye at gatherings in leaving early and not telling anyone to avoid the "you can't leave!!!!" call outs. There is more to it as I have come to the realization that it also applies to doctor visits, with justification.

Rewind about 10 years ago when I was getting some extra dental work done by a recommendation from my regular dentist. The surgeon was well respected according to my dentist but little did she know that said dentist overbooked his clients so everyone had to wait a little (lot) longer in the waiting room and/or the second waiting room. I went through the charade one time in waiting about 30 minutes for the dentist to arrive but fool me once, shame on you but you won't fool me again as I walked out the second time this occurred (DISCLAIMER: it wasn't a complete Irish goodbye as I gave my two cents to the front desk as I was leaving), reported back to my original dentist and never went back to him again. 

Fast forward to this past week when I had my hip replacement follow-up. I knew the process in having the other hip completed last year so I knew what to expect. An x-ray, a "how you doing?" and call me if there is any issues and I would be out of there in 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes came and went, then 30, then I told the nurse I had to leave and left. I got a call later from the doctor giving me a review of my x-ray and an apology. I should I have used the "it's not you, it's me" but it's kind of both as it's kind of sad that doctors have to overbook in order to meet the demand; and kind of sad that I have no patience.

Trail Head

Sunday Paper

A small dip into the way back machine today. "I'm getting too old for this" reason #143, I miss the Sunday paper; the pre-Internet version. The one that could also be used as a door stop in a hurricane it was so big. I was like a Pavlovian dog back in high school hearing that paper delivery person drive by early on Sunday morning. I could be in a cold sleep and pop up to hurry down and grab the paper before my dad claimed dibs. We sometimes would literally have a full out 40 yard sprint to the box to grab it. Being the awesome dad that he was, he usually let me have the sports section first as that was all I wanted anyway. The sports section was a novel itself with every aspect of the high school/college/pro athletic world having it's own couple of pages.  What amazed the hell out of me was there were never any grammatical/typo errors that we see today in the "news now" world we live in. 

"hou" sounds right...

I took a journalism class in college and they did a mock press conference where you had four hours (two hours?) to turn in your paper/story of what occurred. This was the pre-laptop/spell check era where 90% of the students were using typewriters. I must have read and re-read my final copy a hundred times but was too stupid to have a second person look it over. Needless to say, the paper I thought was spotless in terms of errors had so much red ink on it when I got it back from the teacher (I hated the 'professor' label), you would think they had to get a second pen as the first one ran out of ink.

Trail Head

Hip Squared

The local tire store had a special, buy one hip, get one free with every set of whitewall tires. Who could turn down that deal so I got a match for my right side a few weeks back. Looking forward to extra groping at the airport...

Trail Head

Happy 2nd to Headbanger Bird

A belated 2nd birthday to my best friend, "Headbanger" Bird. She has earned the moniker as when I first got her and she banged her head, I was the concerned parent worried about the poor puppy's melon. The poor puppy is now 100+ pounds with a melon so hard, the many collisions with said head are now a just a brush against the table.

Trail Head