This afternoon, I was sitting in our living room working on homework when I felt the chair jiggle. Once in a while we have heavy trucks drive by that make the house shake, but this was different. It was sort of a rolling wave-like feeling. I looked around the room, and nothing was shaking except a mobile of autumn leaves we have hanging on the bookcase. The leaves were shaking at the same frequency I was feeling. It lasted about 30 seconds, maybe a bit less.
After a few mintues, I checked the Alaska Earthquake Information Center website, and sure enough, there was a 5.0 quake recorded about 60 miles North of Anchorage.
As you can see from the site, there are small earthquakes everyday. If I hadn't been sitting still (something I rarely get to do during the day, by the way!), I would not have noticed it.
South Central Alaska is known for "the big one," the Good Friday Earthquake in 1964. That one measured 9.2.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Moose Alert
Q: What do you call a bull moose tangled in Christmas lights and drunk on fermented crab apples, standing glassy-eyed and dizzy in the front yard of a downtown bar?
A: The lead story in our local paper.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Turkey Day in Anchorage
I'm in Bloomington Indiana tonight on business, but jet lag has me up way late. So, I thought I'd catch you up on our recent Thanksgiving adventures, and hope to fall asleep afterwards with a sense of accomplishment.
We were sad that we couldn't make it home to be with family for Turkey Day... I think that was a first for all of us. So the Anchorage Pucketts decided to have our own feast with all the fixings. We made mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green beans and mushrooms with almonds, cranberry sauce, and turkey gravy, all from scratch. We also made Monken's pumpkin pie (both with and without the Bisquick), and tasty Stovetop Stuffing. And to top it all off, we brined and cooked our own 14-lb turkey!
For the turkey, we followed Alton Brown's recipe. The brine was chicken stock, salt, brown sugar, and spices with a healthy dose of ice water. Mr. Turkey soaked in that for about 8 hours starting Wednesday night, in a cooler in our bathtub. Maia helped ferry the ice water to the bathroom:
Mr. Turkey came out of the oven with a viking breastplate, to protect the breast from drying out:
Mr. Turkey and friends:
Carving at the table:
Oh right, I forgot to mention the Macy's parade at 9am (tape-delayed) and some football (which we should've TiVo-delayed for prime post-feast viewing). So we had a pretty nice day!
We were sad that we couldn't make it home to be with family for Turkey Day... I think that was a first for all of us. So the Anchorage Pucketts decided to have our own feast with all the fixings. We made mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green beans and mushrooms with almonds, cranberry sauce, and turkey gravy, all from scratch. We also made Monken's pumpkin pie (both with and without the Bisquick), and tasty Stovetop Stuffing. And to top it all off, we brined and cooked our own 14-lb turkey!
For the turkey, we followed Alton Brown's recipe. The brine was chicken stock, salt, brown sugar, and spices with a healthy dose of ice water. Mr. Turkey soaked in that for about 8 hours starting Wednesday night, in a cooler in our bathtub. Maia helped ferry the ice water to the bathroom:
Mr. Turkey came out of the oven with a viking breastplate, to protect the breast from drying out:
Mr. Turkey and friends:
Carving at the table:
Oh right, I forgot to mention the Macy's parade at 9am (tape-delayed) and some football (which we should've TiVo-delayed for prime post-feast viewing). So we had a pretty nice day!
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Land of the Midnight Noon Sun
Folks have been asking lately if we've already been plunged into eternal darkness, so I thought I'd set the record straight...
First, some definitions: Civil Twilight is the time before sunrise or after sunset, when there's still enough natural light to perform normal outdoor tasks. Then sun is between 0-6 degrees below the horizon. There are two other kinds of twilight (nautical and astronomical), but I'll just call the civil one "twilight." Beyond that, I'll just point out that we have some pretty high mountains to our east, so we may not see the sun when I claim the sun "rises," but it's still pretty bright out.
Today, we have 7 hours of daylight (9:16am-4:13pm), but about 8.5 hours including twilight (8:23am-5:06pm). This means I'm walking to and from the bus in darkness, but civil dawn/dusk happens during my commute. For comparison, St Louis today had 10 hours of daylight, or about 11 hours including twilight (6:18am-5:13pm).
We won't be in Alaska for the shortest day of the year (Dec 22, Winter Solstice), but if we were we'd only have about 5.5 hours of daylight (10:14am-3:41pm), or 7.5 hours including twilight (9:11am-4:43pm). Actually, I'm nitpicking here... our shortest day in Alaska this year will only be 5 minutes longer than that! The solstice is the day the sun appears to "stand still" on the horizon, so things don't change very much in the week or two before and after.
For those of you planning to come to visit next year, you probably won't come before the Spring Equinox (Mar 21), when day and night are roughly equal. It's interesting that on that day, although Anchorage and St Louis both have about 12 hours 10 minutes of daylight, Anchorage has about 40 more minutes of twilight.
Finally, if you wait until the Summer Solstice (June 21), you'll get about 19.5 hours of daylight, or round-the-clock including twilight. In fact, the always-at-least-twilight situation lasts from June 8 - July 4. (What, no fireworks?) It actually looks like we'll be back in the "Lower 48" for some of that time, too, although we won't miss it entirely. This is one of the astronomical novelties that made me think about visiting Alaska someday, even before I got the job offer to come up here. (Why does it happen? The Earth is round and has a decent axial tilt. That's it, in a nutshell.)
If you want to explore this more for yourself, go to this site to generate your own sunrise/sunset/twilight calendars for anywhere in the world. But be sure to turn off the extra twilights and other stuff you don't want, lest it get too cluttered.
And in other astronomy news, rock guitarist Brian May of Queen has been named chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University. For those who missed it, he recently completed his PhD on "Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud," 36 years after beginning the research.
First, some definitions: Civil Twilight is the time before sunrise or after sunset, when there's still enough natural light to perform normal outdoor tasks. Then sun is between 0-6 degrees below the horizon. There are two other kinds of twilight (nautical and astronomical), but I'll just call the civil one "twilight." Beyond that, I'll just point out that we have some pretty high mountains to our east, so we may not see the sun when I claim the sun "rises," but it's still pretty bright out.
Today, we have 7 hours of daylight (9:16am-4:13pm), but about 8.5 hours including twilight (8:23am-5:06pm). This means I'm walking to and from the bus in darkness, but civil dawn/dusk happens during my commute. For comparison, St Louis today had 10 hours of daylight, or about 11 hours including twilight (6:18am-5:13pm).
We won't be in Alaska for the shortest day of the year (Dec 22, Winter Solstice), but if we were we'd only have about 5.5 hours of daylight (10:14am-3:41pm), or 7.5 hours including twilight (9:11am-4:43pm). Actually, I'm nitpicking here... our shortest day in Alaska this year will only be 5 minutes longer than that! The solstice is the day the sun appears to "stand still" on the horizon, so things don't change very much in the week or two before and after.
For those of you planning to come to visit next year, you probably won't come before the Spring Equinox (Mar 21), when day and night are roughly equal. It's interesting that on that day, although Anchorage and St Louis both have about 12 hours 10 minutes of daylight, Anchorage has about 40 more minutes of twilight.
Finally, if you wait until the Summer Solstice (June 21), you'll get about 19.5 hours of daylight, or round-the-clock including twilight. In fact, the always-at-least-twilight situation lasts from June 8 - July 4. (What, no fireworks?) It actually looks like we'll be back in the "Lower 48" for some of that time, too, although we won't miss it entirely. This is one of the astronomical novelties that made me think about visiting Alaska someday, even before I got the job offer to come up here. (Why does it happen? The Earth is round and has a decent axial tilt. That's it, in a nutshell.)
If you want to explore this more for yourself, go to this site to generate your own sunrise/sunset/twilight calendars for anywhere in the world. But be sure to turn off the extra twilights and other stuff you don't want, lest it get too cluttered.
And in other astronomy news, rock guitarist Brian May of Queen has been named chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University. For those who missed it, he recently completed his PhD on "Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud," 36 years after beginning the research.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Homer Sweet Homer
On the weekend of November 2-4, we ran down to Homer AK to celebrate my 30th birthday. I knew we were going to Homer, but I didn't know where we were staying. Becca kept it a secret until we pulled into the parking lot... we stayed at Alaskan Suites of Homer, which was a string of 5 little cabins sitting on a bluff overlooking Kachemak Bay. So we had privacy, but it wasn't the rustic interior you'd expect from a log cabin. In particular, it had a flatscreen TV with full cable, surround speakers, a microwave, nice bathroom, etc. If it had been a little warmer outside, we would've enjoyed the communal outdoor hot tub and fire ring, and the stainless propane grill on our back deck. We didn't get any pictures of the place ourselves, but click on their link for pix and panoramas. Below is a zoomed-in view of Augustine Volcano, from our back deck.
Unfortunately, Maia was sick for most of the trip, with a double ear infection and probably also the stomach flu. This made her a very good sleeper during the 4-hour drives there and back, but she wasn't taking fluids or her oral antibiotics. We nearly took her to the local ER, but she turned the corner on our first night there at just the right time. Oddly, in between bursts of being sick, she seemed to be having a pretty darn good time. So for the most part, it didn't stop us from getting out and doing what we wanted.
Homer is a small town (5,400), including a 5-mile-long gravel "spit" that sticks out into the bay. The spit has a boat harbor, businesses, restaurants, cute little boardwalks, RV parks, and at least one hotel. The view across the bay is pretty amazing as well, with glaciers and snow-capped mountains providing a nice backdrop for my ladies in the next pic below. Of course, it was already November and pretty cold when we got there, so the tourism was pretty dead and the fishing seemed to be as well.
Homer is HQ for a regional wildlife refuge, so we stopped in at the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitors Center which was pretty neat. We also tried to stop at the Pratt Museum (natural history), but they were closed so they could set up for their big "Putting on the Ritz" shindig. A few restaurants were also closed due to lack of tourists (the sidewalks roll up in Homer during the off-season), but we had some excellent meals just the same. Fat Olives was a good Greek/Italian place, where I got to sample a local brew. The morning we left to head home, we had a great breakfast at the Sourdough Express. The original "Express" was a van that the owners baked bread from (and lived in), making money as they made their way to Homer, where they parked it on the Spit. It's now out front, for the kids to play in. Maia and I showed off our matching UAA hoodies inside:
The drive back to Anchorage starts on hilly ground, but then moves to higher elevation with mountains on both sides. It was pretty snowy up there! We also passed a few glacial rivers and lakes, which were a shocking teal-blue color. (I guess that's due to lack of impurities, or the particular composition of the glacial ice?) It was pretty amazing, especially because Anchorage and Homer were relatively snow-free.
See more pictures at Maia's Fotki site, under "October 2007". We'll definitely have to run back to Homer again in the spring, when there's more action, we'll be able to enjoy a water wildlife tour, and maybe do some fishing with Uncle Jeff in these rivers on the Kenai Peninsula. It's great that although we're tourists in Homer, we can come back down anytime we have a few days free.
Happy Birthday to Me!
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Sledding
Over the weekend, we received our first substantial snowfall, about 7 inches. We ran out and bought a couple of sleds, and took Maia sledding for the first time. Look closely, Maia is barely visible in the last picture under all that snow!
Monday, November 12, 2007
Happy Anniversary!
730 days
9,000 total air miles
4,000 mile move
165 page thesis
18 hours of labor
1 baby girl
Two years of marital bliss: priceless
Happy 2nd Anniversary to us!
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Happy Birthday Becca! (Belated)
I'm about a week and a half late getting this onto the blog, but...
Happy Birthday Becca!
She may be solidly in her 30s now, but this is still my favorite picture of her, from the old days back at the Ranch.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
On the mend...
Maia is feeling better. We spent the weekend in Homer, AK (will post pictures soon!) and generally, things went pretty well. She is keeping down the medicine for the ear infection, and is sleeping through the night again YAY!
We are perfecting our diaper changing skills as she is still having a bit of- ahem- lower GI issues and requiring several diaper changes an hour at times. Hopefully this will only last another day or two!
We are perfecting our diaper changing skills as she is still having a bit of- ahem- lower GI issues and requiring several diaper changes an hour at times. Hopefully this will only last another day or two!
Monday, November 05, 2007
Happy Birthdays!
A very happy birthday to daddy, who turns 30 today! Another very happy birthday to Uncle Chris! Hope you both have great days!
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Maia's First Haloween
Maia's first Halloween was a memorable one. She's had a cold for over a month, and Andy and I decided to get her in to see the doctor. We were supposed to meet some other moms and babies at a coffee shop downtown for a little Halloween latte. None of the kids are old enough for trick or treating, so this was organized so we could dress them up and take them somewhere.
Maia was crabby all morning, and her morning nap was late. As a result, we were almost an hour late for the coffee date, and most of the other babies were melting down by the time we got there. I tried to take some pictures, but it wasn't working. So, shortly after we got there, we all packed up and left. Knowing that I didn't have much time before her appointment, I ran to a drive thru for some lunch. After placing my order, I realized I had no money in my wallet, so stressed and seemingly without any other options, I just drove away! I came home, threw together a random assortment of things to eat for lunch, and went back on the road to get to Maia's doctor appointment.
It was our first visit to the new pediatrician group, and I was very impressed. Everyone, including the doctors, were dressed for Halloween. Our new doctor was not in, so we saw a PA, who was great. Turns out, Maia has a ear infection in both ears. We have noticed her tugging a bit on her left ear, which was pretty severely infected, but there hasn't been any other indication of an infection. Her ears were so bad that they brought in medical students to take a look. By the time the third one was done commenting on how bad they were, I was almost in tears, feeling guilty for waiting so long to bring her in.
We leave and fill the prescription for Amoxicillin, and I give her the first dose in the early evening. After dinner, as Andy is putting her to bed, she gets sick, yuck! We were half expecting her head to spin around after it was over. Long story short, it was a rough night with her up several times, and us having to use every towel in the house. She did manage to get a good chunk of sleep in, and woke up this morning in her typical smiley mood. We fed her, and had a repeat of the night before.
After another dose of antibiotic and another round of sickness, we took her back in to see the doctor. They suggested letting her tummy rest for a day, but her ears still needed to be treated, so they gave her a round of antibiotics via 2 shots, which are good for 24 hours. :(
The plan is to try to give her the antibiotic over the weekend, while making sure she doesn't get dehydrated. If she can't tolerate it over the next few days, they'll officially declare her allergic to amoxicillin and figure out something else to give her. Meanwhile, we are heading to Homer, AK about 4 hours south of Anchorage for a weekend get-away. It's going to be an interesting weekend!
So that was Maia's first Halloween.
Maia was crabby all morning, and her morning nap was late. As a result, we were almost an hour late for the coffee date, and most of the other babies were melting down by the time we got there. I tried to take some pictures, but it wasn't working. So, shortly after we got there, we all packed up and left. Knowing that I didn't have much time before her appointment, I ran to a drive thru for some lunch. After placing my order, I realized I had no money in my wallet, so stressed and seemingly without any other options, I just drove away! I came home, threw together a random assortment of things to eat for lunch, and went back on the road to get to Maia's doctor appointment.
It was our first visit to the new pediatrician group, and I was very impressed. Everyone, including the doctors, were dressed for Halloween. Our new doctor was not in, so we saw a PA, who was great. Turns out, Maia has a ear infection in both ears. We have noticed her tugging a bit on her left ear, which was pretty severely infected, but there hasn't been any other indication of an infection. Her ears were so bad that they brought in medical students to take a look. By the time the third one was done commenting on how bad they were, I was almost in tears, feeling guilty for waiting so long to bring her in.
We leave and fill the prescription for Amoxicillin, and I give her the first dose in the early evening. After dinner, as Andy is putting her to bed, she gets sick, yuck! We were half expecting her head to spin around after it was over. Long story short, it was a rough night with her up several times, and us having to use every towel in the house. She did manage to get a good chunk of sleep in, and woke up this morning in her typical smiley mood. We fed her, and had a repeat of the night before.
After another dose of antibiotic and another round of sickness, we took her back in to see the doctor. They suggested letting her tummy rest for a day, but her ears still needed to be treated, so they gave her a round of antibiotics via 2 shots, which are good for 24 hours. :(
The plan is to try to give her the antibiotic over the weekend, while making sure she doesn't get dehydrated. If she can't tolerate it over the next few days, they'll officially declare her allergic to amoxicillin and figure out something else to give her. Meanwhile, we are heading to Homer, AK about 4 hours south of Anchorage for a weekend get-away. It's going to be an interesting weekend!
So that was Maia's first Halloween.
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