vacation

goin' dark for a little bit family. Look for more a week or three.

Over the river and through the woods...

So okay, we couldn't get to gramma's house today. So we did the next best thing - road trip!




Miss D and I figured there wasn't much point to cooking a bird without family around, so it was time for a picnic in the snow. Now if you've not come up here, a quick word of explanation. Alaska doesn't have much of a road system compared to the 48. There are loooooong stretches of just plain nothin'. It's kinda like driving across Montana, only moreso. We started the day then by tossing in the "just in case" stuff for a trip out of town - sleeping bags, camping tools, so forth and so on - pretty much the same list as you take when flying, albeit a little light on the food. We took the jeep as well.. not quite as friendly on the mileage as her sedan, but less likely to get bogged down in a snowy spot.

Anyhow, the trip itself was the causal delight, filled with talk of life, history, the country, guys, food .. reveling in all the little joys of living here and now. Conversation was punctuated every now and again with a "God, I LOVE this state" when seeing some folks out for a jaunt on snowmachines, or hearing some little nugget of local cantankerous culture. Sort of an extended thanks-giving in its own right I suppose.

Eventually we arrived at our destination - Talkeetna, a little tourist town not far from Denali. Those of you down south, think of it as the Alaskan version of Asheville, but much smaller. Art galleries and suchlike everywhere. Closed for Thanksgiving of course, but still a neat little place.

We trundled up to a little table buried in snow and broke out the bologna, cheese and apples. Not your most traditional Thanksgiving repast sure, but the company was good and the scenery hard to beat.

After dinner, off to the airstrip for some sightseeing. Beavers and Otters and Cubs, oh my! Those old DHC workhorses are still going strong, especially the Otter with a new turbine engine plunked in up front. Tucked away on a private strip was a classic little Alaskan cub, snowshoes and riflecase mounted to the wingstrut. Despite all the Cessnas and such around, I have to say nothing looks quite so poetic sitting out in the snow or on the water as a well-loved DeHavilland Beaver.

Eventually though it was time to make the couple hour journey back home - where we'd find stew waiting for us in the crockpot, along with fresh cornbread and hot tea.

No turkey or parsnips, sure .. but surely one of the more memorable Thanksgivings I'll ever have.

Good country.
Good company.


Good day.


Happy Thanksgiving y'all.
God Bless.

Hi Dave!

Dave of Joy Circle mentions the civics test that's doing the rounds. So here ya go Dave -



I screwed up the "debt" one because..well because I thought from the answers available that the test was confusing debt with deficit and answered accordingly. In fairness though, this thing is vaguely familiar.. I think I took it once before some months ago and missed another one or two then.

See, this is what you get when you grow up in a house with a history nut for a dad and the most fantabulous history teachers ever to set foot in a public high school. (Even if said Daddy goes off on that "promote the general Welfare" clause in the Preamble all out of context. But he's a child of the 50's/60's, and I'm a child that grew up in what that era birthed - both for good and ill.)

I will confess though, as bad as our history with poll tests is (child of the South, remember?), I still think universal suffrage was the worst mistake this country has ever made - and the one that led to many of our national poor decisions since. Universal opportunity for the vote? Ab-so-frickin'-lutely! Denying it based on race or sex is just obscene. But getting it just 'cause you had God's grace to be born here is incredibly irresponsible.

So then I continue to think though that something akin to the citizenship test our new citizens get ought to be required of us native-borns as well before we get the franchise. It wouldn't fix the problems we face today - but it would at least remind our elected representatives that we expect them to talk like adults instead of just throwing more candy.

Then again, I'm just a southern chick moved on out deeper into flyover country. What the heck would I know? :)

PS... more pics of the airplane coming, I'm about to leave the camera with Miss D for some more documentation. In the meantime.... it's the tiny little yellow dot you see on the airfield behind the monument here -



Don't worry baby, we'll get those wings done by spring...




PPS.... That monument in the foreground? It's for those gallant souls killed and captured by the Japanese of my granddad's day, driving the Japanese off the Aleutians. I wasn't kidding about parts of this state being invaded in living memory. There ya go.

Unintended Consequences... work both ways.

Today I got a little reminder of how sometimes we need to be careful what we ask for. Those of you who follow the news may have heard of the little blip on this Russian feller proclaiming America's possible immanent demise. Don't worry family, I'm not so far gone in tinfoil land to take him serious-like. But what's not in that little Bloomberg piece is the off-hand comment reported elsewhere - that such a breakup would leave Alaska here to his own country for the taking.

After the initial quintessentially American response of - I confess - something along the order of "oh? bring it on..." some funny historical echoes started ringing in my head.

See, those who've run in libertarian-minded circles probably know the book The Probability Broach by L Niel Smith. Neat story.. can't say I agree with the man completely, but we could do a whole lot of walking in his general direction from here before I'd get too terribly upset.

ANYHOW, the whole hinge point to his utopian playland* is that the Whisky Rebellion was successful, the fledgling Federalists deposed, and a free and liberty-minded culture grew up in place of the Constitutional Republic we have now.

Fine story.

But.

See, what TPB doesn't discuss is the context of the times and why Washington was so intent on putting those 'shiners down hard. Here I'm going to plug another nifty book I've been listening to on and off this summer called "The Great Upheaval." What is so awesome about this book is that it focuses on the time of our nation's founding - but ties the familiar history we know (or rather, that we SHOULD know) with everything else going on in the world at the time..the minds guiding our Revolution and the one in France. The differences that led to our having a two hundred-odd year Republic.. while France sank into bloodshed and despotism. The intrigues of the Russian court is covered, as is the (now all to familiar) carving up of Eastern Europe.

What's neat about this book then is the context it provides to our own history.

Of course Washington and the Federalists were intent on consolidating power in the 1790's. All the great powers of the day were still pushing hard into the American continent all around us. We were surrounded by colonial powers even worse than those we'd just fought off... all no strangers to the notion of warfare-by-proxy amongst the natives of the land. It was a scary time. Right or wrong as the bloodless coup was that gave us the Constitution in place of our original Articles - I can see more easily than ever why it was done.

Because now, even as I sympathize with secessionists past and present in the face of our own latter-day Federalists growing increasingly intrusive - I can't begin to say just how much I appreciate those guys down the road at Elmendorf AFB and Fort Richardson.

See.. Tina Fey jokes aside, the Bear is just a short jump away, which makes Mr. Panarin's little fantasy cut a little too close for comfort. Alaskans have already fought off one foreign power in living memory - and without those latter-day knights up there we'd be stuck with inviting in friends from the '48 to come play real-life Wolverines. And that would just be no fun at all.

SO.. for all the grousing about the Feds... and believe me, I do more than my share.. I have to give the devil his due here. Maybe ol' Gallatin made the right decision after all.

On the other hand... I probably would have said much the same thing about Georgius Rex III's finest if I was a frontier housewife in 1770 - one who could look across the river to see an old rotted out French fort. And we all know how that turned out.

Interesting times, that's for certain sure.
History is just fascinating. Especially when you're living in it.









* Yes, I've been listening to the (not so) good Doctor's music. "Back and Forth" is SUCH an earworm.

For Miss D...

Hey gal - here's some pics from the wingbuilding last saturday. Gettin' close!
















PS - talked to Tams today and she says you're made of awesome. :)

Fashion Friday

To answer Mykl's question - Highland wear for the lassies was fairly similar to that of their contemporaries elsewhere.

The "T-shirt and jeans" of the era wasn't in principle all that different from what you see on gals at your local ren faire - a chemise (that doubled as a nightgown) as a first layer, covered with drawstring skirts, stays (basically, a light corset), and some manner of overblouse. Going without that top layer over the stays would be somewhat akin to walking around in a slip and skirt today though, and the neckline wasn't nearly so lowcut as you'll see at faire. Sorry guys.

However, you'll notice a common trend with the old hillbilly stereotype here - no shoes. Just skimming through the plates, a little over half the women and maybe 20% of the men pictured are barefoot. While I could be wrong, I assume the difference is due to function more than anything else - you don't need shoes for puttering around croft and garden most of the time - running through heather and thistles after errant cattle seems another story. Those skirts also look a little shorter than the ones I've seen on pictures of proper ladies of the time... just think of 'em as the 18th century equivalent of Daisy Dukes.

(Sidenote... trousers for women and indoor plumbing came around in our culture at just about the same time. I'm not inclined to think that's a coincidence.)

Finally - the arisaid. This is cool! As close as old highland womens' dress comes to the mens' kilt. It's much the same idea as the great kilt of the era - a plaid worn abound the waist, half hanging below and the remainder draped over the shoulders. However, it's typically worn open in front, doesn't seem as full, and is of course much longer - about mid-shin length. It's like being able to wear a light wool blanket everywhere you go!

Yeah, that looks comfy right about now. I'll take one in Hunting Fraser, please.

I'll confess to being just totally out of time in this respect. I've never found modern clothes as comfy or as simply pretty as the workaday stuff from the 18th century. Their palettes might look a little funky today or the jewelry overwrought, but the basic shift-and-skirts combination? More comfy than jeans, more forgiving than spandex... I could live in that stuff, if it weren't for that little thing about looking like an escapee from the local commune.

Primary Sources

During a delightful evening out recently, we stopped in the local used book store. What should I see on the shelf but a neat old copy of The Clans of the Scottish Highlands. This is a neat old classic from the 19th century English fascination with the clans of old. I suppose it was not too different from our own American romanticism of the native nations of the west... a century after the bloodshed and fear and warfare was safely behind us.

Anyhow, it's a source that's been used to great effect by historical reenactor types ever since, to the point that quite a few of the plates were cribbed some years back in a neat little sketchbook. Until the other night though, I'd never gotten a chance to see the original - it's so cool to finally see the clothing plates in color!

(I so want an arisaid now!)

Given the hills I grew up were settled in large part by the 18th c. Scots diaspora, leafing through it is sort of like looking at great-great-great-great Aunt Nellie's photo album. You don't know any of the people, but lots of those faces and stories just look eerily familiar.

What a curious branch of the human family this little strain of Scots-Irish in America is. Yeah... that's a cool heritage right there.

And bonus? Tartan is waaaaarm.

unwelcome surprises

you know what you really don't want to find when you get home at 1AM on a chilly Alaskan night? Why yes... that the pilot light went out.

Gack.

At least now I know where the lighter-thing is. :)

Christmas windows

You know those little frosty panes of glass you see on nostalgic paintings of once-upon-Christmastime? I never gave much thought to what that meant. Until lately.

That ice is on the inside*.













*Albeit the entryway, not the house proper. Still though - those big ol' Victorian houses heated just with fireplaces, that are in so many of those sweet pictures? Whew. No wonder Ma needed a kerchief and pa needed a cap.


edit...no.. no it's on all the windows. Whew. Miss D told me hanging bubblewrap in the windowframe helps. I've also seen quilts cut up for use as wall hangings in an old cabin. I do believe I'll be trying one or both this weekend. Eek!

Frosty Skies

There's just something magic about the skies here sometimes. When you're in the city, the lights just diffuse into a sky full of ice to give everything a hazy white glow. It's beautiful - even in town like something out of Narnia.

You adjust to the temperature pretty fast to. The roads have hit that in-between stage, where the main thoroughfares are still blacktop but most of the sideroads have been left to ice and peagravel.

And of course, the birds have made their trade long time back now. The ravens and seagulls have an understanding it seems like. The gulls get the town for the summer, then move out and leave it to the ravens along about September or so. As much as I'll miss the sun, I LOVE seeing the Ravens everywhere. All huge and black, they just seem like something out of storybooks from when I was little.

I must confess, there's some unreconstructed Celtic pagan part of my soul that just gets a shudder of delight seeing them sail through the hibernating trees in this dead time of the year. So... poetic.

And I am so not goth, I swear. Shut up.

:)

Building an Argument

Barrel came today. 18" White Oak, mid-length gas system - surprisingly short! I had to pull the measuring tape out of my sewing box to make sure they didn't send me the 16" one instead.

Sometime between now and January I'll scrounge up the rest of the parts.. I think all that's left is a gas tube, gas block, forearm, and some kind of sighting system. Nice as the barrel is, seems a shame not to give it some optical reach as well. Nothing likely to disappear in the near future anyhow.

Ultima Ratio Populi, One piece at a time.

The American Cuba

Working around the edges of the aviation industry, I keep being reminded of the pictures I saw of Cuba once upon a time - an aging automobile fleet that just kept getting repaired and repaired and repaired - because they couldn't be replaced.

Take this for example.

Here we have the cabin speaker assembly for an older Cessna taildragger. From the 1960's. The part hasn't been made in so long you can't get a replacement. So instead the shop had to fabricate a plate to mount a modern speaker to the original hardware.

Oh, Cessna's still around.. making essentially the same airframe from once upon a time, but now packed to the gills with expensive avionics and costing more than a house. (Costing more than a house did before the market crashed, I mean)

Imagine that for a minute. Imagine it being normal to drive your grandfather's car from 1962 on a daily basis, just patching it up best you can over the decades. Imagine the company that made it is still turning out essentially the same car under the hood... just with a shinier paint job and a really nice stereo system. And oh.. you'd need to take out a second mortgage to buy the thing.

The whole thing is just vaguely creepifying. I've heard different explanations over the months.. tort law, limited demand dictating inefficient supply, insanely strict regulation. I'm still not qualified to say why, and yet I simply can't get over the feeling this whole industry is living in an artificially induced coma.

Which is really pretty scary, when you stop to think about it.

After work though, Miss D had the idea to get us all out of town to the range again. Turns out she's taken quite a liking to that little .22. Offhand, I'd say it likes her right back pretty darn well to - hard to believe she's only been out with it... what, this makes the third time I think? Darn nice shootin' gal!

There's something you can't do in the Worker's Paradise.
For all our faults and troubles here.. God Bless America :)

Yay! Camera came!

Since I have a way of breaking electronics, the replacement this time around was an Olympus Stylus 1030SW. They advertise it as a ruggedized underwater camera - I don't know as I'll be that rough on it, but if the thing is made for taking pictures in a swimming pool or going up mountains, it can probably survive anything I'll be doing with it. Fun!

Oh - one bright spot. I was afraid from the reviews out there I read that I was going to be stuck with spendy proprietary memory cards. Not so great true, but given the alternatives I was willing to make do. As it happens - no! The thing ships instead with this little "caddy" chip, that the tiny little phone memory chips plug into. $10 at Fred Meyer.

(speaking of... two gigs on something the size of my pinky nail? Wuh.. welcome to the future, darlin)


In the mean time - something else came in the mail yesterday:



Guess this means I'll have to find some 5.56 for 'em one of these days soon. It'd be a shame to have 'em just sit there all lonely and hungry looking.

The mobius choice

You know those little bracelets you made as a kid? Where you take a strip of paper, give one end a half-turn, and tape it together into a mobius strip? I used to think that was so neat.. an inside and an outside - you could draw a pattern than flowed from the outside to the inside and back again, like the Ouroboros of old.

So curious - no beginning, no end - cause and consequence self-sustaining.

So if ever I were to give a name to a tool.. that's probably what I'd name this one.

Mobius.

I bought something I didn't really want, just to make sure it couldn't be taken from me.

Contradictory, it seems. Self-looping. Choice and consequence, feeding back upon each other.

See, there's so many other things I'd rather do with the money I just spent today on the bits and pieces that will be showing up over the next few weeks, all waiting for me to tinker them together. Maybe a tiny travel fiddle for the trip back to Tennessee this winter, or even an electric version to play around with. A nice set of mukluks. Some flight time. Even a little .22 for the crash bag for our flying jaunts into the bush next summer would have suited me better than this pile of plastic and metal parts.

But I hit "yes" anyway.

Thirty-round magazines from here, a match-accurate barrel from there.. bits and bobs that will eventually go together to make a right smart little carbine. Because years
ago, a man that would in time become a good friend convinced me of the importance of an armed citizenry.

No, I don't think our President-Elect will be some terrifying evil force, any more than our current President is. To the political questions of the day, I agree with one on little, with the other on almost nothing. But neither is a dunce, neither is a Hitler. Both are simply fallible men doing the best they can by their own lights. They are what they are.

But neither of then has to be a Hitler today for the question to be important tomorrow.

A people effectively disarmed now won't be able to leave the bargaining power of the Ultima Ratio Populi to their posterity. And so in addition to the requisite political donations, I went ahead and bought the parts to add one more set of Liberty Teeth to the available inventory in the country. Voting with dollars, you might say.

I can always buy a pochette or pretty boots later. It's only money, I'll earn more. Proper magazines and a threaded muzzle? Maybe not. So there you go. Choice made.

I know when finished, this rifle will long outlive me, one way or the other. Here's to it having a long, boring future plinking pebbles in the backcountry and gathering dust in the dark. Someday, I hope some unknown civilian member of posterity buys this antique-to-be, and gets a giggle over the times it was made in as she loads the first rickety old magazine.

And oh yeah...

*sigh*
Molon frickin' Labe.

Thanks grampa

We don't deserve the likes of you.

God Bless you guys and gals, every one.

backwoods fable

Pondering over all sorts of things these last few days, I kept remembering an old story I read once upon a time.

Seems way back in the day there was this kid they just couldn't keep in jail. Every now and again, he'd just climb the fence and take off. Oh, eventually the deputies would track him down, rough him up a bit, and toss him back in the pen. After a while he'd get bored with the pokey though, and over the fence he'd go again. Apparently it became something of a running gag in his neck of the woods.

Eventually someone asked him how he managed to keep escaping.

"Easy" says he - "ya just have to ignore it when they're shootin' at ya while ya take the fence."


Freedom never goes away.
It just gets more expensive.

coffee coffee coffee coffee

Dear Diary,

You know what happens when you have a mocha over dinner with your friend at the restaurant at 9:30? You find yourself in the middle of a deep involved conversation on the generational differences of Alaskan bushplanes, modifications, so forth and so on... then look over to see it's 3 AM.

Oops.

I think tomorrow is going to be a "sleep till noon" day.

That said, tonight was all kinds of productive! The compression struts are mounted on the right wing, and the tensioning rods are just about cleaned. Next paint the rods (maybe the ribs for the left wing while we're at it - what ya say Miss D?), then finally get the wing all tensioned up. After that, repeat assembly on the other side.. I daresay we'll be ready for covering before much longer!

Dang I need to get a new camera - it's really starting to look like a wing now!

morning after.

Yup, pulled the "morning after" reflections on the election. Nothing big - I just want to reflect on it some more and come back to it later.

Can't say I'm thrilled with the result - but then, neither option would have been a good one. For the time being, at least we have our governor to ourselves again*.

For now.. what is, is. Interesting times, that's for darn sure.







* And from a selfish perspective, having her back here instead of getting trundled around with the Feds all the time means I might actually get a chance to talk with her someday. That "who in this era would you really want to talk with" idea from last week has still been gnawing at me - and she's definitely on the list.

Agivens

Modern-day Fili Brigid posts a reminder of the things easily taken for granted when pondering explorations "out there."

Which set me to mind pondering just how truly gifted we are here and now. It's easy to take that for granted, really. Today:

* No one tried to kill me or my family
* I have a full pantry and a warm place to sleep.
* My body works, more or less - Got my eyes, ears, fingers and toesies - I can walk, talk, play an instrument, make a living.
* No one forced me to into service.. or service against my will.

If you can say that much with me, you're already blessed far beyond what a goodly portion of the human race has had. Millions of other men and women throughout our history spent their brief lives cringing in squalor, fear, and pain. Many still do today.

Add to that -
* I was able to talk today with my father, despite the thousands of miles between us
* I can look up most anything ever known to man in the space of a few minutes.
* A day's lower-middle class wages can buy me the finest meal in town, full of spices and fruits from all over the globe.
* I've had the chance to see the Silicon Valley internet "gold rush" first hand as new technologies were born on a seemingly daily basis - but also hung out with Tennessee banjo pickers, Idaho cowboys, Georgia good ol' boys straight out of Faulkner, and Alaskan back country pilots. I've seen a wealth of landscapes and crawled through wildlands all across the continent. I've seen the clouds from the topside, and marveled at the beauty of photos of the distantmost reaches of the universe.
* My possessions - no great shakes in this place and time - include a machine that can get me hundreds of miles away in a matter of hours, another machine that puts plain ol' me on near-equal footing with toothy beasts (or nasty people) many times my size and strength, and a third that lets me hear just about any piece of music I could desire on a whim, no matter where I am.

.. those are things Alexander the Freakin' Great couldn't have!

Here I am, a middling-to-do, everyday so-and-so in the early 21st century U.S. - of - God-Blessed- A. And like the rest of you reading this, I've been blessed with experiences and comforts beyond the imagination of the greatest kings and pharaohs of days past.

And some folks are trying to make me feel cheated because I don't live as high on the hog as a successful businessman or some fancy-pants Congressman? Sheesh! What does it take to feel satisfied today? Some folks would cry if their dog farted gold gumdrops, once they saw emeralds in the neighbor's goldfish bowl.

Ladies and gentlemen... "Thou Shalt Not Covet" made the Big Ten for a reason. That kind of stuff rots your soul out from the inside. We have it better than the vast majority of humanity could ever have imagined - to toss that aside like it's nothing - or to assume it will always be there, like it's some kind of birthright we deserve to have - is spitting in the face of those who sacrificed so much for us to have it.

We are the inheritors of both Providential blessings and a culture than has generated wealth on a scale unprecedented in human history.

That we don't get down on our knees each and every morning for the sheer wonder of it to thank Heaven - and our ancestors - for what we've had the good fortune to inherit is a testament to just how easy it is to get used to blessings.

Wow.

So thanks. Thanks all. For all our problems, life pretty well ROCKS today.

How to commit suicide.

So this is the second time in as many days I've gotten a message about someone's kid offing themselves.

That's two more families on this earth completely shattered. Four more parents facing the most horrific loss imaginable. God knows how many siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, dear friends and lovers that will NEVER get over losing their loved one. And at least two someones who now have to carry the memory of finding the body of someone they love for the rest of their lives.

The repercussions of that loss are like tossing a nuclear bomb into the family room - they echo down through the years in broken marriages, further suicides, and all manner of nastiness. Even for those that do make it more or less intact - though the wounds of your death fade to a dull ache with the years, they NEVER go away.

So listen up folks.

Put down the darn pill bottle, toss the rope, or dump the magazine. When that pistol starts looking inviting, leave the firing pin with a friend.

Just give it one year of trying to make your life livable - you have all the time in the universe to be dead. One more year of trying to make your already brief stay here a little better won't hurt anything. Talk with somebody. But don't do anything stupid in that one moment of crushing pain, okay?

Because you don't make the pain go away. You just give a heaping crapload of it to everyone who ever loved you.

You're not just killing one person when you pull that trigger. You're ending worlds, ending dreams, and shattering families. Remember that.

Now go get some food in your belly, smell the air, and find a real live human being to talk to.