you can never have too many people in your life...

 

it takes a lot for me to completely cut someone off.  even a few i've emotionally cut off i will still be nice and interact if it comes up. dogs...you can 100% depend on dogs, but humans, we do need other humans from time to time and it's best to not burn too many bridges. 

someone recently commented about someone, "I don't understand why you still hang out with...". 

in truth...why does anyone still hang out with me? none of us are perfect.  you find people who accept you and your quirks and faults and who you can accept their quirks and faults. thankfully, there are still folks out there willing to tolerate me and for that i'm always going to be grateful and give back my tolerance to them

having many friends fills many needs. one person can't really fill all our needs, no matter how much people claim it's true. some friends have life skills, some are brutally honest when you need that.  others are kind and compassionate when you need that. some can entertain, some to make you laugh.  we have different things in common with different people.  why limit yourself.  when the crap really hits the fan...you may need every person you can find who will tolerate you and who have tolerated you over the years.

i always think i'm an acquired taste. i am not for everyone.  it takes time to appreciate the person that i am. serious at times, sarcastic at times. overthinker, dreamer, annoying at times. 

my stretch off is nearly done.  boo. it never feels long enough and i am happy for the day to come when i no longer have as much work. thinking more and more of looking at maybe picking up a shift here and there in an urgent care center perhaps...not related to prov in the fall? see how that goes through the winter, then start to drop off more at prov and see what i can do for the next few years before retiring completely. just don't think i want to be doing full nights much longer. it takes longer to recover that is for sure.

the iditarod is over. the red lantern is in.  hopefully, the sport can last for several more years. we shall see. 

watched a mini series on WACO branch dividians...the cult that the fbi/atf got into it with. lost 4 atf agents and  over 80 cult members, many of those children.  many just blame the government and use that as a reason to defend guns rights more. mistakes were made for sure. i'm sure that those mistakes caused the fbi to back down on the bundy brothers who took over the federal building in Oregon...which led many to believe that their possession of guns and the fbi backing down was proof that they could win against the big government....the big government could have won, they chose not to. i'd guess because waco was such a mess.

ultimately, people need to take some responsibility. the atf and fbi would not have even come there had there not been proof of them totally not following the rules in regards to what weapons were legal. they were manufacturing and stockpiling illegal arms. i suspect this stock pile in the end caused their deaths.  well, that and their irrational belief in their cult leader. 

anyone wants to annul all the marriages so he can have sex with all the women...that is not the messiah.  people just gotta not be so f...ing stupid.  sorry but the ones responsible for the deaths of all of those people are the people in the cult and the cult leader. they could have left, they could have walked away. they could have sent their kids out. 

that is not to say that mistakes and screw ups did not happen. they appear to have happened for sure. 

how many millions of dollars should we invest in crazy cults that are heavily armed to save these lives? it's a tough choice really.  the building was poorly built and it was full of ammo and guns. the feds added the gas and it wouldn't have taken much for the place to blow. one guy said as it burned a shot went past his head.  he thought someone fired shots as the building was burning...it could have just as easily come from an explosion of the massive amounts of military equipment inside the burning building i suppose. a few got out despite fire, adults...they didn't stop to grab kids it seems. 

they blame the fbi.  easier to blame the big government than to take any responsibility for your own foolishness getting caught up  with a crazy cult leader. we will never really hear all of it from either side. sad that so many died and sad that things went the way their did.  nobody likes to hear of a loss of kids, especially to something as devastating as a fire. hate fire...awful. the cult members had many days to make other choices and they stuck by their cult leader. 

just another reason to avoid religion as far as i can see. it really f's people up. 

discussion about culture and how most European Americans do not really have much ties to the culture from the places their families came from.  how does this relate to natives and blacks...it doesn't really. the main difference being our forefathers that came over from Europe made a choice to come here and to leave their culture behind in order to start new.  

natives/blacks...others.  attempts were made, many very successfully, to extract them from their cultures and languages.  their kids often were taken from them in order to indoctrinate them into a new Christian order.  it's kind of amazing really that any of these folks who's families were deemed uncivilized and had Christianity forced on them, "for their own good", still attend these churches. 

i always wondered that with blacks and mormonism.  i was taught white and delightsome...that blacks were black because of the sins of their fathers...why would anyone stay in a religion that was open about that. religion is pretty powerful stuff and that is why it is often so abused to the detriment of those who believe.  it's all very sad. 

in the case of the branch dividians..it cost them their lives.  jonestown as well.  many died there. 909 under jim jones. suicide by poisoned Kool aid. one lady that left the davidian complex seems to still be a bit of a believer.  she had been instructed to blow up the women with a grenade and she still blames the fbi...does she think she was the only one instructed to blow them up if the fbi closed in.  not sure how they could have done things much differently.  these cults do not go peacefully.  one grenade in a poorly built building filled with guns and ammo...that is all it would have taken really. 

i also watched another mini series about the Malyasian passenger jet that disappeared from radar and was never found. who knows what happened there.  it's been years and still really nothing concrete. 

 a disturbing thing that was relayed in that show was that those oxygen masks that drop down in an emergency on planes...it only has 15 minutes of oxygen.  that is not much use really. so it only delays the death. it's like when i was in a near crash.  we landed in crash positions, that position was really just optimal to make sure our necks all snapped.  no survivors that way for sure. that is what i was thinking up there as we prepared for crash landing.  snapped necks was cheaper for the airlines.  one payout for dead bodies. live bodies require bigger pay outs. 

the snow is melting as each day the temperatures rise to over 30. lots of dripping.  of course, at night the temps drop a bit and then the ice forms.  so slick roads out there at times. 

went with friends out to Beluga cabin for a night.  always a fun escape in the Spring. 

snow was forecast but it didn't snow.  it was pretty and warm.  

i often do not sleep great away from home, new sounds, uncomfortable bed. worried the dogs will disturb others. at 2 am i was pretty impressed as i dug through my bag for a  benadyl and found one along with some ibuprofen.  soon i was out and slept very well. woke too early and we packed up and headed home. i planned on unpacking, showering and then taking the dogs for a walk...in the end unpacked and then took a nice long nap

the dogs get worn out just being off their routine. they are pretty happy to nap after any adventure. 

the last two days i took them on a nice loop at Campbell Airstrip. today i drove up to the bear tree.  didn't see any sign of her. the bears should be starting to wake up though. need to restock my bear spray.  need to figure out what to do with the old cannisters. can't rely on the ones that have frozen and thawed. maybe i'll check with fish and game and see if they need some to fire off for practice or training. 

from a trek down to Homer last summer. well early summer, late spring. i've heard they have had a lot of snow up in the pass so that road sounds like it's been pretty sketch this week. 

doesn't look like i'll catch many nice low tides this summer.  my vacation will be approved i think, so that is good. didn't get approved last summer, ridiculous. that was actually a first but still.  we deserve vacation.

in truth, i'm starting to feel a bit embarrassed when people ask me how long i've worked at the place i'm at.  feels like only fools stay with one company that long.  for me it was more about living my life than making money.  i'm more of a work to live not  live to work but still... i wish i felt more like companies appreciated and respected their labor force rather than feeling like they do what they can to take advantage of their work force. 

Sunny had fun exploring the beaches.  a new experience for him 

this is clam gultch.  a stop on the way to homer. 

having fun

it's all a big adventure when you are a dog.

still have photo's to look through from the Iditarod. another day.  i'll head to bed soon i think. reading a good book. got some recommendations so i am into one of those.  actually got some reading done at work one night. 

still have to do the cpr dummy for the quarter. i'm signed up for the enpc class in may.  should be last time i take those classes.  easier to think of it that way.  it lasts 4 years.  by then i should be done with bedside really...hopefully anyway. 

this was one of over 20 moose i spotted on the side of the road this particular trip...never seen that many before.  the most i saw was like 15+ on the trek from Valdez to Anchorage.

it was a beautiful evening in Clam Gultch.

have been a bit lazy this stretch off.  i really do need to get myself motivated soon here.  time for a spring clean.  it was nice to have back door open and toss the toy for the dogs...just let that fresh air flow in. 

we have such great clean, crisp air up here. great to just breath it in.  i grew up in smog. 

as a kid we would have smog days where we had to stay inside during recess as it was too smoggy for play outside to be healthy.  i remember a doc in Ketchikan laughed when i said that...not believing it.  it's true. we had rain days and smog days. 

we didn't require active shooter drills in those days. it was cold war time so we had bomb drills and earthquake drills...which as a kid i thought was odd that we'd have both since in both cases we just got under the desks. they were the same. just called something different 

eagle in flight

landed

dog learning about tides i guess. he was getting braver in the water...though he is still not really big on swimming

two eagles

juvenile. well, that is the exciting news of the week. 

thankful for A. rest and relaxation B.  another camping trip in the books for this year.  :-), always fun. C. safe travels to Nome for humans and dogs.