Bears and wolves, Oh my

In a land known to be wild and full of wild life, the battle between wild animals and humans invading their habitat is no more evident than this year. During the summer of 2007, Alaskan wildlife made news headlines for venturing into human habitation. Of course humans are the ones who have continued to venture further into animal habitats. In sparsely populated Alaska though, the lines of wild habitat and human habitat are consistently blurred.

Even though humans and wild animals live in somewhat close proximity throughout much of the state, it is still somewhat uncommon to see bears and wolves in so many encounters with humans in the major population centers of the state. In the cities of Fairbanks and Anchorage, bears were the big story makers this summer. Grizzlies roamed near the edges of Fairbanks and black bears were encountered numerous times in the city of Anchorage. In one incident in Anchorage, a black bear was shot and killed in the Mountain View area after roaming through the West side and downtown, both urban human habitats, not bear habitats. In the Midtown section of the city we had an encounter just outside of my house with a young black bear. Bears in the outskirts of the cities are not abnormal, but having bears inside the city and so often is somewhat unusual.

Now comes several stories of recent encounters with wolves just outside Fairbanks and Anchorage. Wolves have killed several pets in the Two Rivers area of Fairbanks and areas around Anchorage. As it was this summer, residents are on heightened alert for these dangerous animals. I guess this is what life on the Last Frontier is like. All I know is that if another deadly woodland creature comes on my porch, I'm either runnin' or gunnin'. Dorothy, who's from Kansas, said "There's no place like home", and I have to agree. In the Midwest, you'd never see a story like this. Maybe it's time to head back down south... well someday anyways.

More mayor's stealing

I am stunned that this is legal - ' ML&P gave $230,000 to charity in '06, over half of city's gifts'

For those that don't know, ML&P is the city of Anchorage Alaska's power company. In Anchorage there are two, ML&P and Chugach(CEA for short). When I was there we had Chugach. If they had given tax payer money to charity I would have been less outraged because as a private company they have that right. As a tax-payer group that is present to provide power they have no right to run charity programs that do not have anything to do with electricity. If they give breaks to poor folks on their utility bills or help them improve heating in their home that is energy efficient, I can see the merit in that. Giving money away, or buying fund raising dinners is ridiculous. That's the type of BS you get in a Dem run city though. There is absolutely no problem with them stealing money and redistributing it without permission. I am offended by this, but thankfully I don't have to put up with Anchorage stealing my money that way, since I've moved more into the wilderness of the Interior. But still this is almost unbelievable!

More Alaska

I had mentioned Finland in my previous post and I have begun to get a bit fascinated by that country. One reason is that in some ways it is similar to Alaska. The capital Helsinki is in a similar latitude as that of my home, until recently, of Anchorage. The weather is similarly affected by the ocean, but Anchorage is colder due to exposure to the colder North Pacific, unlike Helsinki which is influenced more by the warm Atlantic. The Laplands also have similarities to where I currently reside. From what I have heard, dog mushing is a pastime there, as it is here. It's cold and snowy as well and sparsely populated. It's also near the Arctic Circle, like where I currently am, about 90 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

Another reason is that I am so enamored with Europe in general. I have never been there, but will someday. I have been to Canada and seen pictures of Europe. Canada seems to be sort of a cross between Europe and the States. With that in mind, the thing I notice about both Canada and Europe is the cleanliness compared to America. America seems somewhat like a crumbling empire at times, just past its prime. Alaska is a bit less like the rest of the country, mainly because of its isolation, but nonetheless I long to see other cultures and other places.

The main purpose of this post is to share Alaska with you. Unfortunately, due to my situation and being unable to access my main computer (I'm working on an old laptop right now) I can't share some of my personal photos of Alaska just yet. I do have pictures of moose, wolves, otters, and bears as well as pictures of volcanoes, Denali(the highest peak on the continent), and much more from the last five years here. I will share them when I get a place to live and get set up. If you want to help, theres a PayPal donation button on the side. I've dropped much of the ads for now as they were annoying me as much as you all.

Well on to the sharing, the best way I can for now, by links that I visit often.

• Volcano webcams of Alaska
• General Alaska webcams(all over the state)
• Denali from Anchorage(on a clear day) and Downtown Anchorage
• View from work(almost)

The last link does not do the view from that location justice. Often the camera is blasted with glare from the sun. If you were standing at that location on a clear day you could literally see for about 200 miles to the south with a spectacular view of the Alaska Range and the peak of Denali(also over 100 miles away). It does give you an idea of the weather though in Fairbanks. That camera is located on a hill, with the temperatures being sometimes as much as +30 F higher than that of the valley locations a few hundred feet lower in elevation. Alaska is quite an interesting place. I'll definitely share more as time permits.

Here's a quick pic of Denali from Anchorage, courtesy ACS archives.

Finland Rocks!?!

Well for the last couple days I've been getting a good deal of traffic on this blog from Finland. For this blog, a good deal of traffic is simply more than a handful, not really a lot. I've got to say I have been very pleasantly surprised though! So why the hits from Finland you may ask? Well I stumbled into another blog and posted a comment there, which was followed by the 'flood' of hits here. So as a show of gratitude I wanted to post a link back for others that might stop in from other locations. So if you get a chance, go to http://www.finlandforthought.net/
There are some really well written articles and lively discussions about life there, from an American living there. I'm keeping an eye out to go ahead and read the next post and maybe comment again, if I wish to do so. Anyways, check it out!

A bit of Alaskana.... cold

Taking a bit of advice from a recent comment I received, I'm going to throw in a bit of Alaskana, with a weather report. I've done this before, but today's rant is about the cold. It's still warm, by Interior Alaska standards at -8 F. It's forecast to drop to about -25 F tonight. It gets much worse this time of the year and we can expect within the next month or less(basically any day now) to reach -40 (F or C doesn't mattter, this is the only place on the thermometer that the two scales meet) or even much colder. As I speak, it is almost -30 in Northway, Alaska, a small town near the Canadian border. I have not been in Alaska that incredibly long and the Interior even less, so I've only seen it reach that temperature a couple times the one winter I was here before. I'm told that winter was not that bad, so I expect worse. I hate cold weather! I am so living in the wrong place!

Well that is all for now, but I will post more about the Last Frontier, including weather, lifestyle, politics, and other Alaska specific topics.

Still busy, busy

Well for those of you following this blog ( well okay no one is yet.. but still), I'm very busy and almost think sometimes I might have a nervous breakdown. I'm trying to sell my house, before I can rent a place to actually live and it's not going too well yet. I've moved almost 400 miles from my home and my family and I are staying with relatives until our home does sell. Damn the mortgage crisis! The sad part is that my region is not so affected by the financial aspects or falling prices. The idiots in the rest of the country are scaring the folks in this market though. So because of hype I'm stuck in one room with 3 other people (who I love dearly by the way). Being stuck in one room with any relative, friend, or even enemy still sucks much the same. It's very stressful to say the least. Anyways, one of those wonderful folks just came back... so I'm gonna run. If you stumble across this, please take a look at the other recent posts to get more entertaining (or not) info.

Go Bucks!

Okay, normally I won't do sports posts at all, but I just have to support my team and represent! After blowing a game to Illinois a few weeks back, Ohio State football is on the edge of getting back into the national title game this year after last year's debacle against Florida. If Missouri loses to Oklahoma for the second time this year, or West Virginia loses to rival Pitt, then OSU will be back in. I'm not the kind of person who will literally pray for a sports victory, so let's just say I'm hoping really hard. I think the greatest chance is for Missouri to lose to Oklahoma, since Pitt sucks and WVU is a pretty good team. Anyways, I won't ramble long about sports... but I just had to say GO BUCKS!


EDIT
Looks like they made it! LSU is going to be pretty tough though. Oh well, hopefully OSU will win, but if they don't it's still better to be runner-up two years in a row than to not get a chance to play at all.