our govenor quits on us...

but first a few pictures from the past...since this week i have taken no pictures from the present. above is ketchikan from minerva mountain i believe. can't believe how quickly i forget the names of trails, mountains and lakes. have been away for a bit. the mountain you see across the way is deer mountain. a much hiked local trail.
below is the building of a new trail. they were putting in lots of nice new trails when i left. as i mentioned much of the trails are built on boardwalk. it's just easier on the land. otherwise it all becomes huge,wide, mucky, muddy mess. i always thought of myself as some sort of graceful mud gazelle when i lived there. you become quite adept at avoiding the worst of it with mini leaps and hops.

just another totem in ketchikan, alaska. they are quite lovely though.

i really do try and stay out of the larger politics, but was quite shocked when our govenor sarah palin up and quit the other day. i'm sure she has a plan, but her little i'm quitting speech just seemed to ramble on and make little sense to me. would she have quit as vp had they been elected. i know the media can be a bitch, but they can be horrible to everyone and she did seem to bring some of it on herself...the letterman thing as a case in point. i think it's better to just let stuff roll off of you, then it fades off. i think she enjoyed the attention to some degree.

personally i feel like her entire governernship was a lame duck in many ways. at first you are just learning the ropes and then came the vp run...after that it was all about sarah and her media and her future. where was my great state of alaska in that. i think that much she was right about. she wasn't giving us her all after the vp run. i'm happy she stepped down. not sure it was a very politically savy move though. time will tell. depends on what she has up her sleeve.

i haven't done much this week but lay about, read and watch news coverage. after my trip i decided to take a chill day and try and catch up on the gardening. that night i felt a little tweak in the back. for the past several days i've been dealing with lower back spasms. these get me every so often and they are quite painful and disruptive. sitting is nearly impossible for more than a few minutes. i'm usually very flexible so it's frustrating to be so limited. i did manage the dog walks...not my usual 5 miles on days off, but i did manage 1.5-3 miles each day this week. have been at the dog park the last 3 days. it's been very hot for alaska so being by the lake was best for the dogs.

finished reading "the wednesday sisters" by meg waite clayton and then started and finished "pack up the moon" by anna mcpartlin. i enjoyed both and now i'm reading another book by anna mcpartlin. so far am enjoying this as well.

the big news all weekend was the sarah palin thing and micheal jackson. his huge funeral is tomorrow i guess. a bankrupt california will foot much of the bill. his life was sad to me...and the idea that someone found doctors to give them iv propofol at home seems pretty nuts. when you have the money and power that comes with that you can buy anything i guess. i suspect there will be some lisences suspended over that though. i give propofol all the time for patients on ventilators at work. it's a powerful sedative/anesthetic and is not something i would ever imagine used for home use. being a super star really isnt' worth it all. i like my happy simple life. would be nice to have the bills all paid and to have some huge, beautifully decorated house, but overall...i don't think the admiration is worth it all. it just seems to destroy peoples lives. not that i will ever have to worry about such levels of fame, admiration and wealth in my lifetime.