la bomba shelter

Blogging break

I hadn’t intended on taking a nearly month and a half break from putting up new posts here.  A combination of other diversions kept me away:

• A nasty little flood in the crawl space of my house cause by a water pipe springing a leak;
  Busier than usual at work;
  A budding love relationship [after years of inaction] conducted over distance; and
  A rather melancholy summer in Anchorage, until the last few days — it rained 31 days in a row, setting a new record.

With most of these items resolved or on track, I expect I will get back to posting regularly.

Fishing buddies.

Had an awesome fishing trip to the Copper River on July 29th-30th.  Dipnetted 63 red salmon in about four hours, with three others.  It was my 6th or 7th trip there since the first time in ’97.  Then, last Thursday I subbed for somebody else who had to cancel and went on a half day boat trip out of Seward with one of my fishing buddies — caught a couple silvers and just enjoyed the picture perfect weather.  I have been smoking a lot of the fish in one of those little aluminum fish smokers that used to belong to my dad.

I’ve not been doing as much hiking and biking as the last few summers, and it’s showing a bit on the waistline.  I dropped from 235 to 180 lbs. in ’07, but back up to 215-220 at present.  If I start biking 100+ miles a week and eating well all of the time I can drop back down again.  [So what’s keeping me from doing it?]

Have spent a lot of time in Homer this summer.  Saw a great jazz concert at Bunnell St. Gallery on Aug. 7th.  Not my usual pursuit, but really great.  A jazz combo and orchestra led by a brilliant 19 yr. old.

The isolation of Alaska means I don’t get to see my relatives enough, and I hope to take a trip in the fall.

Finally, I’m considering putting up older photos here, since I don’t seem to ever follow through on my one photo per day pledge.  New photos three or four days a week, and one from the archives on the other days.