snowzilla rises again....

each year a guy on columbine street makes a giant snowman, named snowzilla. his neighbors have had issues with the snowman and added traffic in the past and there was even some picketers downtown when the guy was told by city he couldn't build snowzilla. that seems to have passed. suspect the neighbors are still buttheads about it. i also suspect the snowzilla builder has ruffled some feathers in the neighborhood in the past. seems i heard that his is one of those houses with old cars and crap built up. for me...i just like the snowman. the nuts in our nation can find a way to politicize a snowman, what does that tell ya?

yesterday was the first time i actually made my way over to check out snowzilla. he's pretty close to my place. i was worried i'd not be able to find him, but as you can see below he's pretty hard to miss driving down the street. there were a few people out there to visit with the snowman like i was. didn't seem overly disruptive to me, but then i guess i don't have a giant snowman living next door to me. i'd like to think i'd be chill about it though if i did. perhaps i should just build my own giant snowman. not sure of my snowman skills, plus, i think some fresh snow would help.

got some nice folks to take my picture with snowzilla...bartered as i took thier picture with snowzilla as well.

did pull out my guitar the other night. played and sang til about 2:30 am. of course, my singing voice is still rough and those steel strings are a killer on the fingers if you don't play often and build up the callous's.

it's been pretty chilly all week. clear as a bell and cold. today was the coldest i think. read 9 below zero as i drove home from work this morning. don't think it warmed up much through the day. wednesday i went to n. bivouac and did some loop-de-loops in there. pretty days anyway and i love all the frost. of course, i just ordered the macro lens i've been wanting forever and i'm sure that it will arrive after the frost is all covered by fresh snow. can't say as i'll complain about that, but i would love to play with some close up and the frost. doubt much will be postable, but i can try.

blossom and rio are both sleepy tonight. i have done my work as a good dog owner. rio would love to chill on the couch, but her fear of being left behind mostly trumps her desire to lay on the couch.

work was not to bad for me these past two nights. they had me orient karen for a night. she has been off work for 1 year after her slip on the ice which caused more damage than a slip on the ice should. great to see karen back in the trenches...YEAH KAREN.

karens presence also allowed me to finish all my online charting courses. not sure i learned much. most of them i did down in acc last week and thier computers were totally slow with the classes. there was a delay of 1-2 minutes at times. by the time the dude giving the course started back up i had no idea what he had been talking about. will be a huge learning curve and i'm totally not looking foward to the transisiton. i suspect our staffing hospital wide won't be as helpful as one would hope. murphy's law will no doubt assure that the hospital is totally packed when we try to go live. wish i could just go on vacation through it, but nobody is allowed vacation at all for those weeks.

above is just frost on a post at the trailhead...below is the trailhead sign. my second home in the winter it seems.

kids are amazing at recovering when you never thought it possible. we joked that my one patient only had 2-3 of her own blood cells left. 23 units of blood. we call that a mass transfusion. amazing. i'm sure i removed those last few cells doing lab draws though the night. some cases will stay with you. though some sadness with this case i have to hand it to her many doctors for keeping her alive and doing an amazing job in the operating room. that anesthesiologist should be very proud. we are all just humans. trained humans, but at some point all that training can only do so much, at some point some humans are able to take all they've learned and experienced and direct it into one miracle. thanks to those who sacrifice and study hard and are willing to give more than they ever thought possible.

rio is telling me that i should have been putting her booties on in this cold. poor pooch. she did get a little touch of frostbite a few years back. will have to bootie up tomorrow, whereever we go.

went to university lake dog park yesterday between shifts and before visiting snowzilla. there are still tracks for classic skiing and groomed trails for skate skiing and though i suspect the snow is less than optimal, the skiing continues. i really should head up to independence for some skiing. see how awake i feel tomorrow. my appetite is back and at full strength. still seem to sleep a bit more than usual.

more frost pictures....i get a bit obsessed, what can i say.

the sun is definitely staying up a bit longer and coming up a bit earlier. though when i mentioned this to a traveler the other night she looked at me like i was nuts. guess she doesn't think the light is returning fast enough. alaska....love it or hate it. :-)

the movie for tonight is "the boys are back". no clue at this point. the sheets are still in the washer/dryer so not ready for bed at all yet. i do love fresh sheets though so that will be great.

blossom is happy as always.

had a great chat with my neice, claire. she calls or i call. we are 13 years apart, but in some ways we grew up together. since i was thirteen when the neices/nephews started coming i got lots of babysitting time in. think we talked a few hours. always fun. tried to call her dad as he had a birthday this week. they are in texas for another neices wedding. she got engaged and set the date within a few months. no time to even ponder a trip out. haven't been much into attending my neices/nephews weddings. there were alot of them and it's an expensive trip, plus i can't actually attend most of thier weddings anyway. most of my family is mormon and so they wed in temples. in order to attend you have to acquire a temple recommend. to do this one has to be mormon, which i no longer am, and one also must go through several interviews. all the best to haley and her husband to be...i need to get on the gift thing i guess. late as always.

so many pretty parks in town.

saw three moose at the lake yesterday. jsut a few sightings today, no pictures. the place is crazy with em though. bark doesn't seem like its all that tasty, but i guess if that is all you have to eat...

moon always gets high in the sky this time of year while the sun just gets up a ways over the horizon.

i've been told from many sources that i was wise to split my 8 hour training sessions into 4 hours sessions. just figured 8 hours of computer class at one time would be enough to make me nuts. we have one nurse in peds who is a bit older than the average nurse. not sure how she'll do with the computer transistion. i really don't get the impression that she ever has embraced the computer world in general. cracked up last night as i brought sunflower seeds to work and it was the first time she's ever tried them. she liked them i guess. doesn't seem possible to have missed sunflower seeds. proves you are never too old to try something new!!

today i took the pups to the chilly trails in north bicentenial park...we did rovers run/moose meadow. had my skhoop on, but never lost the chill. taking my mittens off for pictures led to rapid chill down to my phalanges. so these last pictures were taken at great discomfort. hehe.

everyone in anchorage seems to be skhooping up. my friend tiffany has a new one...it looks great of course! she says she was talking to the owner of amh, the local mountaineering store that is carrying them. he said his wife had suggested he get some and sell them. he didn't think much of them, but now laughs as that is a huge part of thier business of late. his wife made a wise decision on that one apparently.

this creek is on black bear or brown bear trail, which heads to the hillside trails. the trails all interconnect and you can never get bored out here.

again, i'm trying to catch some frost shots.

the bridge at campbell airstrip trails. i wasn't alone out there. always amazing, but nice to see that i'm not the only anchorage soul willing to get out in the minus temperatures and enjoy all that anchorage has to offer.

of course, my braid was frozen solid and i was covered in frost. oh dear...look at that schnoze!! great gramma harriets genes live on...

stopped by goose lake with blossom for a short kicksled outing. this is a kicksled. there are two runners and i changed to shoes with cleats. blossom wore her harness, which she looks very cute in and we cruised around a bit.

mostly she's not to into pulling. i was also already chilled from being out in the cold for a few hours so i didn't last too long. brr...just have wanted to get out there on the kicksled as it's always a blast.

goose lake didn't have as many side trails as i'd hoped. will have to head to westchester lagoon. maybe i can get sandra to skate so that blossom will chase and pull.

hard to get a picture of blossom actually pulling. not because of her, but just dealing with kicksled and dog pulling and camera. not easy.

here she is pulling though..brief as it was. good night. my clean sheets await me. warmth....