Winter in Fairbanks

Winter in Fairbanks is: Enjoying the warm snuggles of loved ones while sitting around the glowing hearth...My mouth watering over the pleasant tang of last summer's smoked salmon while my nose twitches at the aroma of fresh baked bread cooking in the kitchen...Laughing together at old stories of adventure from summers past. Nestling among warm blankets while enjoying a good book. These images sooth my head as the cool breeze of autumn enshroud me and the sun dips ever lower in the sky. HOWEVER, these anesthetizing images are ALL CRUEL LIES, LIES LIES!! Don't let such BS fool you.

By the time February rolls around the true pain of the season racks my bones. The following is a true accounting of my home-life last weekend. (Really its a long winded RANT that hopefully will expel it from my system.) Read On if you dare...But if you find that I have included you in my accounting of events please realize that the emotions expressed are no more accurate in describing reality than the ones which "soothed my mind" this previous autumn. My hope is that they will bring a laugh to your lips and I certainly don't mean to burn you with my cabin fever steam.


BZZZZZZZzz. Pulling myself from the tropical beach surf I"m fishing in dreamland I grope in the darkness for the aggravating alarm clock. Extending my center of gravity beyond the warmth of my covers earns me a somersaulting tumble out of bed onto my ass along with two nice gashes on my shins as they scrape the corner of the night stand. My fingers manage to find the "off" button on the infuriating, buzzing box before I am able to obliterate the thing with my fist. Friday morning...The beginning of another beautiful day in paradise!

Pulling on my pants and wool shirt I glance to check the outside temperature being displayed on my laptop's glowing screen. Minus 55 degrees, a little colder than when I went to sleep. I stumble into the bathroom, relieve the night's pressures, brush my teeth and take the handful of pills that the doctor has ordered me to consume in my morning ritual of Paying homage to eternal life. I wander into the kitchen, grab a cup of luke warm coffee left over from my daughters' earlier departure and head out the door to feed my Berretta its morning pint of power steering fluid. The blast of cold knocks the sleep from my eyes better than the coffee and I manage to get the Berretta groaning with life. The steering fluid almost lets me turn the wheel but the limited control really doesn't bother me as I drive to work... It is impossible to see more than about 25 feet through the milky ice-fog anyway.

Noon-time arrives...It's time to go home for lunch and let the dog out so that he doesn't crap on the floor. I can tell the sun is shining because the ice-fog is now luminescing and aggravating my low-grade headache. I leave the car idling in the driveway in the unreasonable hope that its interior might warm-up to a point where I won't see my breath when I get back into it. The door-knob of the house burns my ungloved hand as I turn it and Scrub, not recognizing me in my fur hat, barks and sheds clumps of dog hair all over the kitchen as I enter. Kicking his hairy ass out the door to do his bushiness I open the refridgerator in hopes of finding some pastrami and salami for sandwich fixings. All I find is some slimy chicken that has been moldering inside since the last time my wife went shopping. Now I remember...I had asked her to pick up some pastrami but she had returned with only chicken saying, " I looked all over the store for pastrami but they didn't have any so I got this." Grumbling to myself I grab the slimy chicken and head to the bread box. No bread!!! Screw it, I haven't done enough work to deserve lunch anyway. My frustration worsens my headache so I send my boss an email informing her that I won't be in for the afternoon. What the hell.. I have about 1500 hours of sick leave accrued anyway and I won't ever get to use it unless I get lucky and get cancer or some other long lingering malady...Not much chance of that, since the friggin doctor makes me take all those damn pills every morning!

Settling in for an early start on the weekend I turn the radio on. Bush is drawling on in a Texas accent, reassuring all the good Americans that their blood is buying Iraq democracy, not oil for his buddies. Condalisa Rice is babbling that despite all their protests, the Palestinian democracy will elect a government that will kiss and makeup with the Jews rather than nuke them from the face of the earth. Our good Alaskan legislature announces that under the priorities of their agenda they will link pot-smokers with meth-lab managers and thus put them behind bars irregardless of how the state constitution is writtnen. However, they are not sure if they will have time this session to deal with less important issues like the the natural gas pipeline or the billion dollar shortfall in the public retirement fund. Turning off the radio I lie down in hopes of combating my headache.

"Bringgggg...Ring...Ring."

"Where the hell is that damn telephone anyway? Hello..." I say, after finally finding the handset buried under a pile of old news papers.

"Hi Uncle Tom?...This is Chris. My mom and I are working on filling out some application for a scholarship and wonder if you would write a letter of recommendation for me"

"Ugh...Yah...Sure I can do that. What scholarship are you applying for?"

"Ugh hold on a minute...Ma, what's the name of the scholarship?..Mumble,rustle,mumble,mumble...Uncle Tom? Its some scholarship program for tuition at UAF or something and I guess I need letters of recommendation from three people and one of them needs to be from a non-educated...Ugh..I mean a non-educator person, so I thought I would ask you.

"Sure Chris, I will write one for you. When do you need it by?"

"Ugh...Mom...When do they need it by? Mumble, squeak, mumble...I guess they need it by next Wednesday or something. If you could finish before the end of the weekend that would be great."

I hang-up the phone and think, "Hmm...This is the honor student that once pulled a glowing red-hot beer can out of a campfire with his bare hands because his cousin had suggested he do so. This is my nephew that I haven't seen for a couple of years because he has been barricaded in his cave of smelly under-wear playing video games. This is the nephew that avoided taking gym class in high school by taking it as a CORRESPONDENCE class. This is going to be one interesting creative writing project this weekend!! Maybe I should just have his mother write the letter and I can just sign it. " Realizing that such spiteful thinking is probably the product of my foul mood and not really indicative of my true feeling towards the boy, I direct my thoughts to other matters.

My youngest daughter comes home and heads straight to the basement where she dumps her smelly wrestling clothes into the wash machine. By the time she comes back up-stairs she is already engrossed in lovey-dovey conversation via cell phone with her boyfriend who is away at college. (The same cell phone for which I had seen the bill two days prior and for which my wife swears is a much smaller than bill we used to get before we got this "great new calling plan"...As if this will be good news to my ears. ) Leah interrupts her mush talk long enough to inform me that the water is barely trickling into the wash machine and Wonders if our pipes are freezing or something. After making a quick check that our pipes were not on the verge of bursting, I set myself to the task of making dinner.

"What are you hungry for?" I ask.

"Oh...I can't eat. Weigh-ins are in the morning and I need to drop .8 pounds. But can someone bring me Subway tomorrow at the tournament in North Pole? By the way, can you or mom give me a ride to school tomorrow at 5 AM? I don't want to leave my car in the parking lot all day long with it being so cold...It almost didn't start tonight...Oh yah, can you also go out and see if you can get it plugged in? I thinks there is snow crammed in the holes of the extension cord because I couldn't get the little prongs to stay in." She tells me this as she removes her thin jacket and kicks off her tennis shoes that she wore home. "Oh yah...I think I'm getting sick or something. Man I hate getting sick...Especially before I need to wrestle."

The door bursts open and Rachel blows into the house with a billowing cloud of frost. "Where's Mom and why can't Leah learn to park her damn car? She's parked behind you and I can't park on the other side because blah, blah, blahh...And I can't use that extension cord because ...blah blah blah blah! How smart to you need to be figure out how we gotta park? ...blah blahh...My truck heater isn't working worth a damn. Michael is supposed to change the thermostat but he is being a butt...And I can't wait 2 months to get it fixed...blah blah...He won't work on it because he won't let me pay for it but then he blah blahhh. Where the hell is mom anyway? She is supposed to get off work at 4:30 and its after 7."

The door opens again and my gorgeous wife stumbles in with bright red cheeks beaming from behind her frosted glasses. She wears the ratty, gray, woolen skull cap that doesn't leave the top of head between Thanksgiving and Mother's day. Her green uniform pants are tucked into her Christmas-red, Loben felt boots which she sleeps in throughout the same time period. "Any ideas for dinner?" she asks as she plops the newspaper down on the ever-growing pile that already are scattered across the kitchen table.

"Hmm, how about some slimy chicken with noodles that have had the piss boiled out of them" I think but wisely do not say.

"I can't eat." Leah unwisely states.

"I'm going to have you committed for anorexia...blah blah blahh...You can't wrestle if you don't eat. I'm going to email coach Ritchie and tell him that the Alaska Nurses Association says..blah,blah blah..." Mom disgustedly rambles.

" I had a packet of instant oat-meal at lunch and two raisins after practice and...blah blah blahhh...Bring me Subway tomorrow...I am not a freaking anorexic... Why didn't you holler at Jeremiah when he lost 40 pounds in 2 weeks for wrestling??..."

"Where did you park Mom?...Why can't anyone around here learn to park damnit...Now I need to go out and move my freakin truck and the heater doesn't blow any damn hot air...Michael is being a butt...Won't let me pay...I don't have any money but if you or dad pay I'm gonna tear-up the damn check because I already mooch too much off of you guys...bla,blah,blahhh!"

Ahh...The silence of a winter night. I retreat outside to untangle extension cords, shuffle cars and try to get the "little prongs" on one stubborn extension cord to stay plugged into glob of receptacles emerging from Leah's car hood. The "prongs" refuse to cooperate even after I heat them with a lighter and spray starting fluid into the receptacle they should mate with. Frostnip quickly nibbles my knuckles and in desperation I rip the "ground" prong off the cord. The two remaining "little prongs" now happily mate with the icy glob of receptacles. The ruckus in the house has been replaced with the whine of some constipated actor on TV and a pile of slimy chicken and noodles simmers on the stove.

"Dad,,Dad, wake-up. Are you going to take me to Lathrop so I don't need to leave my car in the lot all day?" I stumble out of bed and wipe the gunk from my eyes. I pull on the same pants from yesterday and sniff the arm-pits of my shirt before putting it on. In the bathroom I perform the "ritual for eternal life" but accidentaly drop one pill to the floor. It lands in a clump of dog hair. Ritual is ritual so I pick it up and pop in may mouth. Saturday morning...Just another beautiful day in paradise!

The drive to Lathrop is as uneventful as any drive at minus 50 degrees can be. The seats in Leah' Geo Storm are frozen granite hard and their lack of cushion causes the top of my head to be press against the roof. The breath from the two of us crammed into the small car quicky ice-up the windows but the ice-fog outside is so thick that we hardly notice. Most people instinctively slow down when driving in such conditions but our trip takes us past the main gate of the local Army base. The GIs and their family members must have their eye-balls implanted with infra-red sensors as part of an experimental weapons program and thus can see clearly through even the thickest ice-fog. They race about at a minimum of 65 mph in case Bin Laden or any of his rag-heads are lurking among the snowbanks. ( There must be quit a number of those rag-heads in the area because I frequently observe GI cars spinning about and diving directly into various embankments. ) It's still early in the morning so I manage to avoid any such military missions and drop Leah off at school where she will board a bus for transport to North Pole for the tournament.

Ahh yes...Winter in Fairbanks...Just another day in paradise!!!

You Might Live in Fairbanks if:

You might you live in Fairbanks if:


You climb into your car in the morning and discover that your half a dozen bottles of emergency DEET have ruptured from being frozzen and are the resulting ice-crystals are eating into yours trucks dashboard.

You know that DEET is the active ingredient in any bug dope that actually repels mosquitoes and don't care that exposure to it causes neurological damage...In fact, you stock-pile bottles of DEET just in case the stupid government decides to ban it.

You take your new Suburu in for warranty work becasue its outside temperature thermometer will not give a reading below minus 22.

When you need beer money you whip out th gold-pan stored behind your truck's seat and begin panning the dirt accumulated on the floor mats for gold.

Your grade-school kid comes home from school complaining because he couldn't go out on the playground at lunch because the temperature was below the minus 30 degree cut-off point.

You get charged an extra 20 percent at the store because you aren't dressed in military fatiques and don't have a military ID..

You read in the paper that the Bourough (county) Assembly barely escaped being lynched at their last meeting because they attempted to pass an ordinance prohibiting having more than 3 junk cars in your back-yard...You wish the lynching attempt had been successful.

The "Police Blotter" section of the local paper lists more females than males for being arrested on domestic assault charges. You hide the "Police Blotter" from your wife so that she doesn't get any ideas.

Your circle of friends includes business executives, a lesbian couple, a couple of auto mechanics, a senator, a few proffessors, several hippies, a couple of VietNam vets, a plethora of construction workers and a preacher. The mechanics have the highest socail standing but everyone gets along.

You recognize that the most dangerous terrorsists in the world are the "big oil companies" and the "tree-hugger" groups that are always fighting them.

Your dress shoes have Vibran soles with insulated camo outers.

Your cell phone has at least 2 speed-dial numbers programed for the "time and temperature" information lines.

The hanger that holds your suit coat has cob-webs encrusting it.

You know that a birch log weighs about 3 times as much as a spruce log of the same size and thus contains about triple the BTU value.

Your passenger seat of your vehicle is occupied by a tangled ball of multiple extension cords.

You warn your teenage children before they drive off to school to "drive carefully because the roads are slippery now that it has warmed up to minus 10."

You curse DOT (Department of Transportation) because they plowed up a snow berm blocking access to the river and your short-cut home. You drop the blade on the front of your pick-up, spend the next half hour plowing a hole through the berm and then drive down the river to your neighborhood. Your neighbors thank-you for this public service by giving you a free guess in the yearly lottery of guessing who will announce the official arrival of spring by dropping their vehicle into the river.(see photo above for this year's lottery winner")

The US Army spends a small fortune to study the environmental impacts civillian airboats might have on the ecological system of their local "live fire" bombing range.

Your bedroom windows are lined with alluminium foil so that you can get some sleep in the summertime.

McMaggots Anyone?

It's lunchtime and minus 20 outside. The old Berreta's ignition sticks in the "start" position and I manually turn the key back a notch to disengage the starter as I back out of the parking space into the noon-day twighlight. "Hmm, where to go for lunch? I could drive home as usual but I really am not in the mood to gulp a sandwich only to return to an already cold car for a frigid drive back to work. "Hey! I haven't been to McDonald's for a while, maybe I'll just go there."

That would have pretty much been my lunch today, cold, boring and mostly tasteless, if some of the local youths had not interceded to add a little color and humor to my day. I am sitting alone in a booth staring out the window at the ravens hopping about the frosty parking lot when this rather round teenage girl comes in the door and sits at a table across from me. She is lightly dressed in jeans and a semi-transparent white top that slightly hides some HUGE dark colored support garment underneath. I notice that her face is rather pretty and my mind drifts to how difficult it must be to live in her grossly overweight body as female teenager. Soon after she sits down I notice that one of the young boy "table wipers" works his way over near her and begins talking with her. He is soon joined by two other boys who are just hanging-out and it becomes apparent that the three all know each other. From their style of dress and mannerisms I quickly deduce that they are members of what my own kids call "skaters"... You know, that sub-class of kids that hang out in parking lots smoking rawnchy cigerarettes or whatever and carrying around skate-boards plastered with grotesque stickers of Satan and other demonic figures. I always sort of like "skaters". I guess their F-you expressions strike a harmonious cord with that streak of rebelliousness that I haven't quite outgrown. They seem to be the neo-greasers of today...Only instead of riding around in 400 horsepower rusted old cars, gasoline prices now relegate them to wheels mounted on motorless skateboards. Anyway, I decide to pass the time by listening in to their conversation.

Girl (to table wiper): " So...Are you a freshman? "

Wiper (in deep voice): "Uhh..Yah...At least according to the credits...Otherwise I'd be a junior."

All of them: "laugh, giggle, snort, mumble mumble"

Voice from across the room (to girl): "You know Gerald is here? He's right back there!"

I'm not sure who Gerald is but the voice has an inflection as if this is an important piece of information for the girl to know. I wonderif he is the manager and the girl isn't supposed to be here or some such thing. At any rate, the girl kind of slouches in her seat as if to avoid detection but at the same time takes on a defiant expression trying to imply that she doesn't give a F---.

Boy with Chains in his Pants: "Do you work here?"

Girl (with look of disgust): "F--ken NO! Grumble, mumble, I wouldn't work in a F--ken place like this...He's just mumble,mumble..Boyfriend"

About this time the other boy at the table who is as skinny as a rail pulls a can of SlimFast out of his baggy pants and pops the top. The girl puts on a look of extreme disgust and continues:

"You drink SlimFast!? What the F--k for!

Skinny Boy: "Ugh...Well sometimes...Some of it tastes good but not this type, it tastes like F--ken chalk. Some of them taste good though, like some of the strawberry and even some chocolate...But not this one...Its like chalk."

Girl: "I won't drink that shit...I used to,, but not no more! You know they put maggot larvae in f those diet drinks? That's how they work, the larvae hatch into maggots and then they crawl through your body eating fat and shit! I won't drink that shit anymore"

Boy with Chains: "yah...Did you hear about that guy That went crazy?...They found a maggot eating his brain! It crawled out his ear but he died anyway cuz it laid eggs in his head!"

Girl: "yah,,, some of the maggots get stuck in your stomach and they just stay there for years crawling around eating shit and stuff. Can you imagine?...Maggots just living in there? Thats just totally gross! I don't drink that shit no more."

Skinny Boy (as he dumps the SlimFast in the trash): "Ugh...Yah...Some of them taste good though, not like chalk. That's pretty extreme though...Maggots in your stomach...I wonder,,,maybe some of them might turn into flies and buzz around. Like,,, I did hear about that guy who had the maggot eat his brain. I guess its like if you eat a seed or something and then it starts growing."

The really scarey thing is that these kids were serious! My god,,,what kind of drugs are kids playing with these days?? Whatever kind they are using, I suspect it must be infected with maggot larvae. Maybe they found one of G.W. Bush's old stashes that he left behind after his trip to Alaska in his youthfull years. After all, remember, "Today' youth are the leaders of tomorrow.'

Insomnia New Year, Everyone!!!

You know it has been one of those nights when your awake to hear Bose Wave Radio begin begin i softly start playing its pre-alarm cresendo and your still lying in bed wide awake. You know its another sleepless night when you're still performing imagination gymnastics and the furnace kicks into its programed pre-dawn warming cycle designed to gently ease you gently from slumber back into the wakefull world. Ringing in the New Year with another bout of INSOMNIA!...That is what I have been doing. Maybe it's the shortage of daylight. Maybe its a shortage of physical activity or stress from work. Whatever the cause, I seem to be alternating between an inability to ever fully become awake or an inability to retreat into slumber for the past couple of months.

I spent most of yesterday working on a project for work...trying to calculate the thermal and electrical load of all the computers and network equipment residing in the machine room. Since I do no have the specifications for a number of the key systems this task has proved about as difficult as pulling a rabbit out of my ass without the benefit of any KY-jelly. This has been further complicated by the fact that most of the people who might have the specific documentation are all out enjoying the Christmas break. On Thursday I attempted to directly measure the power consumption of the systems by using an amp meter on the various circuits where they come out of the power distribution units. This proved to be a rather futile effort, despite my precaution of having the duty operator stand by me with a 2 X 4 so that he could knock me loose from any high voltage wires I might get my hand onto, I eventually decided that I could not get accuate readings on most of the key circuits while maintaining any remenant of safety. At one point I told the operator that he probably ought to just let me fry and not bother resucitating since I would probably just be executed later anyway for shorting out the multi-million dollar computers!

I did celebrate the coming of the New Year by lighting off a roll of 1000 Black Cat firecrackers along the fence in front of my house. It would have been much more fun if my brother-in-law, Mike, had been in town so I could have used the fire-crackers to blow-up his mail box again instead. ( It just isn't as much fun if he is not around to come storming out of his house at the sound of the destruction. ) The little girl who lives across the street enjoyed my pyrotechnic display just the same...giggling and laughing with her mother as each of the 1000 mini explosions errupted into the night.

After the firecrackers I retired to bed where my mind continued to thrash around until the Bose radio and new furnace announced that it was morning. Since most of my mental thrashing consisted of an endless list of things I thought would be cool to write about, I decided to get up, make some coffee, and write. However, I thought of far more possible subjects than I can possibly explore today (or probably this year) so the remainder of this post will just be notes of what I thought about. Perhaps I will return to them at a later date and make some scribbles about them. Writing is a demanding compulsion for me... maybe I'll live long enough to explore at least some of the ideas that nag my mind.

Insomnia Thoughts

Writing Possibilities

Sins To Go The Grave--A list of the very few regrets I have about my life, that I will never share with anyone. The list will remain sealed and be burried with me.

Old Lady Emma's Yard---childhood story set in the "haunted" yard of Emma, the old lady who lived/died in the house down the street from where I lived. It should include the huge weeping-willow, the ancient stone fireplace/barbecue that was in the yard and the secret spot where Mark O. and I had behind it. It might also involve the old squirel bones Mark O. and I excavated in that spot, the creaking limbs of the tree and the legend that Emma "willed" herself to death on a specific day.

The Hand---The horor story I used to tell my kids when we would be out camping. Involves Hurds island, being chased by wild dogs, a thunderstorm, hiding in a series of wrecked cars including one where some guy got killed in and his severed hand was left under the seat where I was hiding. A fisherman goes missing the resulting search finds his empty boat with a long green fingernail embedded on the hook of his abandoned fishing rod. The "hand" is after me and is still hot on my trail even after all these years. I have written this before but need to find it again and perhaps edit it.

Biographical Sketches of People I Know---"Gene K. " "Earl V." "Patches" "Benny" "the Fairbanks Bag Lady" "a Fairbanks Hooker" etc. etc.

History of Computer Networking in Alaska or University

History of Chena River--indians,gold miners,early settlers

Something about catching lightning bugs for a penny-apiece

Something about Mastadon Lake and the "swamp": catching tadpoles frogs

TPing adventures...sneaking out of the house at night

Mystery of The Small People---early childhood story about going to Starved Rock looking down at the beach from on top of the rock and being amazed to see miniture people walking around. No one else seemed amazed by what I was seeing.

Journal of Road Trip to Alaska---I wrote this while traveling up here but need to find it again

Fiction story about a man who can telepathacly communicate/control wolves.

Story about government controling all the major computer processor manufacturers so that they can leave a hidden "back-door" into the technology. The discovery of this and the subsequent exposing of this fact (or the decision to let it remain a secret)