It’s near the end of June and I’ve had to work the last 10 days straight, or I did it as a favor really. Anyway, now I have two days off so I thought I’d shovel, er, write some more prose and let you guys have it. Kapow! Right in the kisser! Off we go…………………………………..

Since I was working, I did miss another Solstice Celebration here in Fairbanks. The whole town is set up for stuff, plays going on, lots of music venues, booths, midnight baseball games etc. Mostly outside venues. All to celebrate the longest day of the year - June 21st. I missed it last year too. But, the morning of the 21st, cloudy and rain. Heavy at times. It wasn’t until around 2pm that the weather cleared. So I wasn’t that unhappy about having to stay inside. I was a little disappointed that I missed it again though, two years and I have no idea what it’s like. I really wanted to go to the midnight baseball game but I got lazy around 10:30pm when it starts. Touted as being the only ball game that goes into the wee hours without any lighting. When Hoa (the office manager where I volunteer) asked me to work my day off, I didn’t realize it was on the 21st. Damn.

The last several days it’s been either been light rain, or totally overcast, but last evening then this morning, heavy rain. I sold another computer so I had to run over and install it today stopping at Wal-Mart. The parking lot was packed. These people up here don’t mind the rain. Even when it’s heavy.

Several days ago the sun was beating down on my RV without mercy, so I packed up (this involves getting everything loose tied down, everything stowed, jacks up, etc. - takes over an hour), moved to a spot that doesn’t have water but does have lots of shade. While moving I filled my water tank with water from the park but I used the hose that was connected to the faucet. Medium sized mistake. The hose is for gardens and the fresh water in my tank, 60 gallons, tasted like crap because of it. Nasty. Since it’s such a trial to disconnect, drive over to get water, come back and setup, etc. I kind of put it off until yesterday. Finally got it emptied by dumping it on the ground, drove over and refilled using my drinking water hose, got set up again and all so I’m a happy camper right now.

It has been a little disappointing not having any sunshine to speak of over the past 2 weeks or so. Might have well stayed where I was to begin with, at least I had water at that site.

I’ve started watching ‘Firefly’ on Hulu lately because my daughter is always raving about it. I don’t have cable so I didn’t notice when it originally came on, never saw any trailers for it, and didn’t know much about it other then what she said. Boy, what a great Sci-Fi program. With four babes! And need I mention tight and intelligent writing, excellent performances, great special effects, and on and on? Wow. I’m hooked like most of the rest of you. Just wish I had a faster computer connection.

Well, that’s all for today. I’ll get some more pictures when the weather clears up soon.

Yesterday, I noticed a babe hanging around the park. Didn’t remember checking her in so when she came into the office, I expected her to rent a spot for the night. Turned out she had hung around all night already. Lost her home somehow. Has a thick eastern European accent. Turns out she is Bulgarian. There are two guys her age here already and she had been talking to them at 2 in the morning and they offered to let her stay at their tent site. Then Wa got involved and made them an offer that somehow rased the guys rate from $110 a week to $140 a week while the gal would be paying $10 per day when it’s usually $17. I could see them raising their eyebrows at that but Wa chatted away until they finally agreed to a totally unfair rate increase based on totally lame reasons. Now the three of them are occupying a large tent site, her in her van, the guys in their tents. All three of them have jobs, but she is the only one with money. And the only one so far that has paid us. The more I talk to her the more I like her. Thought she might be a doper, junky, call girl, etc. but it seems shes just down on her luck right now and likes to play the angles to save money and is use to that from growing up in Bulgaria, or so it seems. Like I said though, she has a job. And had no problem paying her portion of the rental fees without complaint, unlike the two guys. Their story was they rented an apartment with a third guy and just the two of them paid the deposit. Then the 3rd guy bailed on them and they still haven’t gotten their deposit money back and don’t expect to, one of those deals where the owner turned other potential renters away. Both just got jobs so they’re waiting for pay checks to pay us. We are allowing them to stay here for 5 more days without paying. Then they pay up or get out. The gal just told me that they’re moving out soon, so I expect them to run without paying…I’ll be watching for that anyway.

I have added a ‘Subscribe’ feature button to my blog site. If you  decide to subscribe, you’ll receive an email letting you know whenever I have added a post. It’s painless, will not add your name to any ’spam’ lists and can be easily stopped if I bore you in the upcoming months.

When you click on the ‘Subscribe’ button, found at the bottom of the stuff in the right hand pane, a window will open with a list of feeds that you can subscribe to, one of the choices will be ‘email’. Click on that and another page will open that allows you to enter your email address and choose one of several methods of notification (including email). After entering the security code, click on ‘Subscribe Me!’ and you’re done with having to randomly check my blog to see if anything new has been added. You’ll get a nice email letting you know when that happens. Each email will also allow you to unsubscribe if you wish. It’s a beautiful way to start or stop a relationship!

Thanks, and welcome to the world of auto-notification! (Why didn’t I do this sooner?… No one asked.)

Although it’s now June 1st, I thought I’d put up a few more pictures of the Ice Carving event from March. Then follow that with a few pics from downtown Fairbanks during the sled dog races in mid-April.

Happy B'day Alaska

One of the kid slides...

The log cabin slide. Very popular with the kids.

Entrance to The Maze...

Snow covered sculpture. We had a lot of snow last winter so this kept happening. We have the equipment to blow them off, just have to find the volunteer that wants to stick with it for the whole season...

Another Maze sculpture.

Waiting...

Wow!

Mirror image.

Musk Oxen.

Huh?

Dinosaur Attack!

I still have lots more and I’ll put them up later. These are just teasers.

After the ice carving show, I wandered downtown in early April and hung around while a dog sled race got started. The route began and ended in downtown Fairbanks and was a 20 mile long loop around the city. I didn’t see many of the teams as I got there late and left early. But I did notice one thing that was really strange…a fur auction. Here they had all these dead animal furs hanging on racks or stacked in piles. They’d hold one up and people would bid on them. In some cases, hundreds of dollars.

On the way to downtown, I stopped and took a picture of the Chena river looking West.

The main street all set up for the dog sled race.

More of main street, showing the 'start - finish' line.

This is how they haul the dog teams around up here.

Soapy Smith was a famous trouble maker. Place is just named after him. Yawn.

Fans wandering up and down the street.

Can you believe it? A fur auction in 2009.

Here's a guy with a full wolf head hat. Whew, really? Yes, really. That's his forehead peeking out from under the wolf's fangs. Strange when you first see him face on.

This skin went for a couple hundred but I've forgotten what animal it's off of. Red fox?

That’s the last of the pics for today. I have more of the ice carvings to put up. I’ll try to get them up soon.

Meanwhile, I was able to move back to the campground in my RV the first weekend of May. Since then I’ve been volunteering as a camp host here. We had a nice warm week in mid-April so I was able to shovel off the top of my RV. Then it got warm, up into the high 40’s F and that melted much snow. But I was stuck at the cabin with a 3 foot deep pile of snow all around the RV. Took many days of warm weather to even be able to think about driving it out.

The last few days of April and first few days of May it got really warm and the melt sped up. I did dig a little of the snow from around the RV but mostly just let it melt. Then on the 2nd of May, with the snow from in front of the RV mostly gone, I turned the start key, with my fingers crossed, and she roared to life. Very little white smoke, purred like a kitten and not sounding at all like a rig that had spend seven months in a deep, deep freeze. I had to drive over a little snow berm of 8-9″ but it wasn’t a problem. Then I parked in my front yard where I could load the rig easier and spent the next 3 days getting all my stuff out of the cabin and back into the RV. On the forth day, I drove it over to the tire center and had them put the tire I took off last spring back on. What had happened was it was soooo cold the winter of ‘07-08 the bead on the tire broke and it lost air. I had a friend help me put the spare on and I was now removing that spare and putting the tire that belonged there back on.  Now with all the tires the same size, topped off with air, and plenty of fuel, I called Stacy and invited her to join me for a shake down trip. I hadn’t been more then 22 miles since July of ‘07. She was all for it and suggested we head down to Delta Junction where she had worked the summer before. Then we invited Dorthy so soon the three of us were heading south on the Alcan highway. Past North Pole (a small town south of here) and into the wilderness. It was about Eielson AFB where we all realized we’d forgotten our cameras! An hour and a half later we stopped for ice cream at Delta Junction and some shopping at a thrift store. Stacy showed us where she use to hang out and drive her Jeep in the river bed for fun. The trip was nice and it firmed up my feeling that I really wanted to get back on the road. So I decided that, yes, I’d be leaving Fairbanks for points south in August. The rig ran fine, brakes felt good, made a couple funny noises at times but nothing that seemed too bad.

We’ve had some pretty nice weather for many days since then (it’s now June 1st) and some light rain and cloudy, cool days. Spotty weather I’d say. Very light RV traffic into the park and we’re seeing the 30-40% drop in RV traffic that was predicted. Since we expected it, and now we’re seeing it, we’re going to open more rentable rooms in the building. Just to see if that works. Need to make money somehow.

Well, that’s all for today, I’m going to ride the bike down to Pioneer Park and hang out for a while. Maybe take some pictures. Talk to you later.

Haf Canadian took me to task today with a comment about how I haven’t posted in a month. It’s worse then that, I haven’t posted since Apr. 24th, so a full 5 weeks. Sorry everyone. I’m very pleased that you all follow my adventures. I noticed that yesterday, after 5 weeks of no new postings, ten of you still stopped by to see if there was anything new. Well, I have no excuse. I do have more pictures of the ice carving competition, lots more, that I want to put up, it just seems difficult to bring myself to sit here in front of the computer and just do it. Then this summer I plan on doing some exploring around Fairbanks to places I haven’t been yet so stay tuned for that.

I promise I’ll get something up this evening. I’m not planning on going anywhere, there is nothing but reruns on TV, so later today I’ll get some more stuff up.

In the news, I’ve firmed up my travel plans. I’ll be leaving Fairbanks and heading to the lower 48 on or around Aug. 30th. My brother Dan is flying in, we’ll head on down to Haines, stay a couple days exploring, then take the ferry over to Skagway. Dan will then climb the Chilkoot trail, maybe I’ll join him, that takes 5 days. He’ll have his camera so I’ll post the good ones. Then we’ll head up into the mountains and into Canada. We will enjoy an extended trip so all together we’ll be on the road for two weeks. Ending the trip in Walla Walla, Washington where my kids are now living.

After a few days or weeks with the kids and my sister (she lives in Walla Walla too), I’m heading east into Idaho and North Dakota to have a look around. I’m thinking that I should also make a trip over to the east coast. It’s crowded, I know, but there is a lot of history over there I’d like to see and visit.

So, keep checking back, there will be many more exciting adventures to come.

It’s a couple days later, not in real time mind you but in picture taking time, and I’ve gotten more pictures of the event so I thought I’d put them up for you today.

The weather sometimes changes in minutes and my work varies so I get out to see the art and take pictures when I can. There are nearly 20 acres with artwork on them so it’s a hike too. Good for me I know but when it’s -20F sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.

Artist impressing the cartoon into the ice...

An abstract family.

It’s a couple days later and the carvings have been viewed by thousands, a winner has been picked and awards passed out. A good time had by all. So, here’s some more pictures…

You can see even better photos at www.icealaska.com.

The show has begun…and when I got a few minutes, I wandered out and got a few shots of the ice carvings. The competition started on Feb. 24th so we had to have the cameras up and running by then. With 30 cameras, that means a lot of computer work for me getting the system running because we end up with 4 networks in the building. DSL is linked to all the office and email (the machines used by the carvers and staff) computers, then there is a T-1 network for uploading pictures, then there is a WebCam network that’s internal only so we can access and adjust the cameras and radio equipment locally, and finally, there is an internal working network for the two cameras that act as web servers. These separations of the various networks protect the system from external attack by hackers or bad guys.

Then we have to physically move the cameras around the park on big stands that support the cameras 12 feet off the ground. Reason for that is we have to shot toward the south, were the sun is most of the day, so the downward angle of the camera housing prevents the sun from blotching the pictures…most of the time. We dragged the camera stands out into the park the night before the opening and got them all running by morning when the carvers went to work. The ice is already there ready for them.

In other areas of the park, the Chinese carvers that come each year have made lots of slides for kids, and a few other large incidental sculptures. Like the main stage that BP is paying for this year. Word is that they ponied up $75,000 for the rights to have their name plastered all over the event. If you go look at the web site… www.icealaska.com you’ll find their logo.

Here are some pictures:

The BP stage...

A front view of the stage.

Some of the volunteers who have passed away but left their mark on the event.

New meaning to the term 'Cold call'.

Down the road a way to the first competition piece. Several days later the keys the birds are fighting over fell to the ground and broke.

Here's another shot of them.

Kind of a double helix sort of design.

Something...

I really like this one.

Here's a side angle shot.

Here's a shot of one of the camera stands we have to lug around.

Didn't know what to make of this one.

Very cool.

OK, that’s enough for today, I’ve got to get up to the Ice Park and work the cameras. Talk at you later.

I’ve been working hard at the Ice Park getting the web cameras all ready for the ice carving competiton at the park. One of the things I did last year was to design and build a circuit that would control an antenna rotation device so I could have ‘panning’ of a camera. This year I designed and built another control circuit that would give me a ’tilt’ function. So now I can pan and tilt the camera that is centered on the ‘BP World Ice Art Championships of 2009′ stage. You can visit that camera and control the zoom feature (that was already there when I designed the tilt and pan feature) at: http://12.12.107.3:8000 , hope you enjoy watching us zip around the area. The show starts on Feb. 24th so this camera will have lots to watch from then until the end of the show on March 22nd. Up until then, you’ll see the volunteers running around getting the place ready. Go here: http://www.icealaska.com to see all sorts of stuff about the ice carving competition and soon all the other 30 webcams will be up an running and pointed towards the many ice sculptures the artists will be feverishly creating within their time limits.

A week ago and then a couple days ago I wandered around the park and got some shots of the preperations we’re making getting ready for the show. Down on the pond they were harvesting some ice…

Must have ice for an ice carving competiton.

The heavy equipment is put into action, it's lifting a 2 ton block of ice...

It was as cold and darkish as these pictures suggest...A week later the weather has improved...

Work being done on one of the incidental pieces...

A kid's slide.

Kids love these things.

Off in the distance, beautiful ice ready for carving, soon there will be hundreds of carvers chiseling away at it...

Huge blocks of 'Diamond of the Arctic' ice...

Another kids slide...

Here a team of Chinese carvers work on the large kiddy slides...

I went down to help harvest ice (for once)...

We try to not fall in the pond.

A close up of the chain saw assembly designed just for this task.

Once the blocks are cut, the loader has to pull them out of the pond without falling in!

Stirring those ice cubes around so they don't refreeze in place.

bp's cathedral like center stage.

Here's a big toy, huh?

That's my baby up there on the pole. Then that white box below the camera houses the circuitry for both the pan and tilt functions.

One of the loaders & I get into a staring contest.

One of the extending boom forked loaders. I use to work for Hyster so I love this big stuff. Although it's a Cat.

That’s all for today. As the show progresses I’ll have lots more pictures to put up of the carvings…and that’s the reason I stayed here another year.

After two weeks of -40°F weather here in Fairbanks, and several weeks of below zero temps, the news reports talked about a Chinook coming in that would raise the local temp up to as high as 45°F.  So day before yesterday (Jan. 14th) I got out the ladder and climbed up on top of my RV to try to shovel the snow off. Snow weighs 3-20 lbs per per cubic foot depending on moisture content and I estimated my relatively dry snow at 6 lbs/cu ft. That can change rapidly if it starts raining. And I didn’t want it to melt on top of the roof either. Melting could cause several leaks and staining inside the RV. Rain could raise the weight to 20lbs per cubic foot! Wet show on the roof would be around 13,500 extra pounds up there. Not really what it’s designed for. Just the dry snow was adding approximately 4000 pounds.

I started by clearing a space off near my bathrooms skylight to get a feel for the amount of work that might be involved. Then, when I determined the snow would be easily shoveled I moved to the rear of the RV and set the ladder up next to the RV’s access ladder for support. Climbing up in the middle of the RV helped me keep my balance as the snow was very slippery. Falling twelve feet to the ground, even snow covered, wasn’t something I wanted to do while I was working alone. I did have sense enough to carry my cell phone with me.

Here’s what it looked like after an hour of clearing:

Two feet of snow and several feet left to clean off...

Looking back at what's already been done. Twelve feet more behind me to go.

Looking back toward the front of the RV.

A shot of the cabin roof. The snow is about two feet deep.

The next day, I woke up to 20°F and all during the day it kept climbing until it did reach that promised 45°F. The trees around the area have completely shed their loads of snow off the branches. Looks like spring around here. The reports have informed us that the few days of Chinook we’re getting now will be replaced by more ‘normal’ temps here in town of -20°F.  I’d be happy if it didn’t snow.