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seven things i might have learned in alaska

ramble
(1 comment)
2013.08.28
  1. While global warming means many coastal areas have to worry about the encroaching sea, Alaska generally has the opposite problem: relieved from some of the massive weight of glaciers, that part of the world is rising, and sometimes at a surprising clip.
  2. I say "I'm worried that..." way too much, and worry too much.
  3. In the town of Gustavus, almost universally drivers and pedestrians do a little finger wave in passing.
  4. I am much, much, much, much less of an athlete than Riana. She bikes everywhere including work and swims every chance she can get, I ... don't. But she was taking on big sloped hikes and even when I joined her, what was a stroll to her was leaving me sucking wind.
  5. Juneau has a streetcleaner running at around 4:30-5am that sounds like a banshee.
  6. I start a lot of sentences with "Man...", or at least I do around Riana, who started pointing it out by saying "M, A, N!" when I did so. But it's a useful phrase for expressing wonder or irritation.
  7. Southeast Alaksa is clear skies and warm 7 days out of 8! (This is probably not a safe bit of knowledge to walk away with, but it's rather more true this summer than most years.)
This trip to Alaska was an experiment for Riana and me, sort of a more concentrated version of what dating is trying to figure out in general, or if she needed someone with a more profound need to be in nature, and similarly for me if we were pop-culture compatible.

Like any good scientists, we had to acknowledge when the experimental results didn't match our hoped-for hypothesis, and so-- we're not dating any longer, but it's very friendly. She needs a full on partner in driving to get out there and hike and camp, and I need someone who, like once a week or so, would be with me to chill and unwind with some movie or video or something on a screen, and that's just not her. Put another way, she's too much of an outdoor cat and I'm too much of an indoor cat.

(Which isn't to say I had an amazing time in Alaska... EB's mom pointed out how animated I was bringing her through the photos.)
Syria. Jeez-loweez. There's so much hubris here, in terms of, humanitarian and WMD-use concerns or no, if we thought Syria could really strike back at us in our homeland, there is NO WAY we'd attack.

We're playing policeman for the world, but we're kind of corrupt.