alaskan sun...

 this photo of blossom totally shows the amazing winter sunlight.  stunning at times.  i turned around from looking at the sunset on gasline trail and there was blossom reflected in the light.  love this pup!!

 rio stayed home of course. she looked to debate coming briefly.  kinda happy she opted out.  i tossed blossoms tennis ball at one point only to realize that she'd run right past a large bull moose.  we were closer than i like to be. he didn't seem to care about our presence.  blossom even barked before running past him again to return with her tennis ball.  i put blossom on her leash and passed that bull within just over 5 feet, just some brush separated us.  amazing how a 1000 pound animal can hide so well in the brush.  with rio i would never have attempted the pass.  this frost is from the other day in the bog between shifts.

 and this one here is from sunset on that day in the bog.  nice to have winter sunsets so early when i'm already out and about.

 these are sunset shots from today on gasline trail

 just went up and back rather than do the loop.  worked the last three nights. yes, three nights no on call and no 1:1's!!

 a night in picu followed by 2 nights in the adult icu running the continuous dialysis machine.  i actually like crrt patients (not pediatric ones though).  it's just that i don't have the experience on this machine like i did before.  it just becomes second nature when you run it all the time.  i really should just bite the bullet and go to the sims lab as they call it and practice setting up and taking down the blasted machine.  i'm good at sick people...and those continuous dialysis patients are some sick folks.

 liking that option for netflix on my tv.  tonight i watched a documentary, "somewhere between" i think it was.  it just followed several girls adopted from china when they were young and brought to the US.  often just sad stories of just being ditched by their families.  such a different culture.  boys are just more highly valued, a spare daughter is of little use.  oddly, it's not that they don't have feelings for the daughter they ditch it's just that it becomes an impractical idea to hang on to them.  so hard to fathom though.  watched this on the day that was hearing on the news that China is relaxing it's 1 child only rules.  a rule that resulted in the death and abandonment of countless girls.

 was in my patients room a lot last night with the news on so i'm all caught up now...at least with the same stories over and over as that seems to be the way we do news.  i'm always amazed that on this huge diverse planet we are only able to hear the same few news bits repeatedly and miss out on so much other much more important news stories.

 a few others that were focused on...a passenger on a small plane opened the door mid flight and bailed.  a crazy mayor in toronto has been caught in his own web.  so nice to see these crazy people exist all over the planet and not just here.   of course news on the aftermath of the typhoon in the Phillipines.  there is a great deal of suffering and the concern is that these massive storms will become more and more normal with the global warming trends.

 another one of blossom.  she destroyed her tennis ball and i think it looked more like a football than a tennis ball.  hard to pick it up in the chuck it.

 a few from another sunset in the bog between shifts.

 been the bog several times this week and no signs of moose. strange.  it's a pretty common moose hang out.

 i'm still not trusting ice being thick enough to walk on.

 there was quite a lot on the news about the obamacare roll out issues.  the president came on with statements of apology for all the mishaps. of course, i tend to be a bit of a conspiracy theorist as i am thinking more  and more that there are members of the republican party who will do anything to make Obama and this healthcare program fail.  looking for any and all loopholes and working with insurance companies to try and tear it all apart.  they seem to have the tenacity of wolverines or hyena's.  seems more would have gone right had they been working with others to get this off the ground rather than diverting all the efforts with their shenanigans.  also, many republican dominated states, including alaska, have dragged their feet getting their own system up and running and this is going to bog down the national web sites.  so all part  of the conspiracy i say.  i do agree that these big programs can't be expected to go off without a hitch and while i'm not trusting of government in general i doubt Obama would be lying about all the stuff the pubs seem to say he is lying about.  it just doesn't make sense.

 i may just relax with a nice root beer float tonight.

 loved this pink sky the other day.

 tuesday i ended up walking rovers run with gail and leo. again rio stayed home. she did the bog walks and one day we walked up patterson.  there is a dog on patterson that rio always liked to greet and play with between the fence, keva.  about a month ago there were signs on the fence saying "please don't feed dog, she is diabetic".  the signs were down when we walked yesterday...makes me think keva has passed.  rio will miss her friend.

 pretty light out there on tuesday as well.  also the snow was just so pretty.

 i often find it tough to capture that all the time.

 life is good.  just a few weeks til i head to texas for thanksgiving.  should be fun seeing family.  sounds like 5 of the 7 kids will be there.

 liked the light on this one.

 another pretty tree

 some bad storms hit the alaska coastline up north last weekend.  Kotlik and Unalakleet were apparently pretty hard hit.  their storm surge waves have ice bergs in them.  tough to deal with those kind of storms that wipe out houses with it's less than 20 degrees out. will be tough on many folks what with winter coming on.  tough to fix things, tough to get supplies as it is and just dang cold.

 better get another load of wash started and the dishes run tonight before i crash. those days off go fast.  i actually now only have 3 more days of work before i head out.  yikes!!  want to get all the Texas Christmas stuff ready so this week i'll have to try and do that.  i also need to give myself a colonoscopy for Christmas...need to see if i can get in before the end of the year as i should have met my deductible.  hope i haven't procrastinated too long.  not that i'm worried, just that we have a family history of colon cancer.  i'm behind what was recommended for me.  

 and then there is the mammogram to schedule as well...looks like it's going to be a fun holiday season for me, right!!

 here is my moose from today.  this was after i passed and i think i may have been a bit nervous still....it was a risky passing.  i've passed them that close before you just really have to trust your instincts on how that moose is feeling in the moment.  he seemed chill, but they are rather large and i'd hate to guess wrong.

 when i got back he was in the parking lot.  i attempted to take a few pictures but it was dusky and so they didn't turn out very well.  good looking guy though.

 gasline trail.

 walked up powerline just a few hundred feet to see the view of the sunset before i headed back down to the car.

 funny story.  i got my tb test this week,  we get them at least annually.  so i stopped in employee health as i was walking out from work.  i have been wearing my skhoop to work.  we lovingly call it an ass jacket as it's like a coat skirt.  the nurse who gave me the shot asked me if i was wearing a lead apron.  she was a travel nurse so a skhoop was a new item for her.  could be great weight loss idea though, wearing a lead skirt around. i introduced her to the anchorage fashion world, i'm sure she will now see skhoops everywhere now that she knows what they are.

always nice to end a hike with a sunset.  the sun was going down by 4pm today. the days are getting short.