each day an adventure in alaska: Happy New Years almost...

it's the eve and it is nasty out there. warm, wet, some wind. not sure i will attempt to navigate the trails today. yesterday i was still sore from Monday's PT so i mostly walked back and forth near the trail head and threw the chuck for Blossom. while doing this i did calf raises and very mini squats and lunges that PT had requested i practice. last night i iced quite a bit and took my first narc in days. so far feeling better today and i'm back to my regular PT, Tiffany, today...hurray. the other guy is nice but she is just better. hopefully there are less people there as well. gets confusing when they are jumping back and forth between several patients.

that first picture was taken from my bedroom window. after my little walk i drove around just to keep myself from going stir crazy. went moose spotting but saw no moose so i cruised over to Lake Hood to check out the planes. always fun.

Rio took the day off from walking.

Blossom had loads of energy and had a blast chasing her toy...she's quite easy to please. keep forgetting to carry treats with me...some extra training would be helpful as it seems Blossom has forgotten a few of her skills, which i currently need her to remember.

my house is for sure safe from enemy cat invasions. not sure how Blossom would do fending off real invaders but as far as felines go...she is on those Kitty Cats, no cat wanders the neighborhood unnoticed. she has never figured out that the two cats she lives with are also kitty cats and she lets them get a pass.

the commissioner position for fish and game has apparently 4 applicants. the paper surmises that the guy who is in the current temporary position will end up with the job. of course, the last commissioner seemed to have very little to do with the decision about Round Island. will have to wait and see who gets placed in the other positions.

finally watched, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" the other day. it won all sorts of Academy Awards from what i recall. i suffered through the thing. not my kind of movie at all. Being in English seemed silly. oddly my little DVD player does subtitles anyway and they were completely different than what i was hearing so that was odd too.

joined SH for a movie at a theater last night. thankfully it was discount Tuesday as that movie was another fail in my opinion. "Wild". basically, Reese Witherspoon walking with a frown, naked shots of her having sex in flashbacks and a shot of her poop in the woods. rumor is that she had no body double...now i'm wondering if she had a poop double?

it was long and boring and dreary. the last few minutes they finally allude to her finally "getting" a bit of what life is about and that she goes on to live a relatively happy life. otherwise, it's total misery. the scenery should have been grand but even the cinematography is lacking considering. so skip it, unless you really want to see naked shots of Witherspoon engaged in drug induced sex...these sections could have been completely removed as we all don't need a visual of people taking drugs and boinking strangers....we can imagine that well enough.

sitting for long periods of time not overly comfortable anyway.

there really just wasn't anything uplifting or interesting about that movie.

they have found the wreckage and some bodies from this last plane crash. much more shallow water than the area suspected for the flight that was lost earlier where no trace was found. sad, but at least the families can get some closure knowing of the flights fate. that has to be easier in the big picture. probably happened fairly quickly as they had no time to get out a mayday or make any attempts to make contact. those last few seconds of any crashing flight have to be horrible though...knowing your fate like that.

when i was in a plane and was told to prepare for crash landing....it just got very quiet. everyone was surprising calm that hour in the air. everyone was terrified but i think you do have some shock that protects you some. the panic didn't really settle in me until the next day when i was safe at home.

those are words that nobody wants to hear from your pilot..."please listen to your flight attendants and prepare for a crash landing". as we landed in crash positions the flight attendants could all be heard yelling, "brace, brace, brace, don't move" over and over again. it was so steady that i honestly believed it was a taped thing that they just pushed play.

a woman in Idaho was killed by her two year old by accident. she was carrying a concealed weapon in her purse which she stupidly left sitting in a cart next to her kid. the kid took the gun out and it went off. it's always seemed a bad idea to leave any purse sitting in a cart, lest someone steal it, let alone a purse with a loaded gun. brilliant. still sad...stupid and sad.

my gut is not happy today. they have me taking aspirin but i suspect my gut is less than happy with this. headache today....the knots i predicted have arrived. can't wait for my massage on Monday. hoping to get a script at my DR appointment Monday. fingers crossed.

i've never been a fan of Dr Oz...the guy actually freaks me out . little article the other week saying most of what he says on his show is crap...so surprising. haha.

tough Alaskan is a survival story this week. he was out on the sea ice on his snowmachine when it crashed through the ice. he survived 3 days wet, frozen clothes with temperatures well below zero with the wind chill. he had internal injuries, frostbite, hypothermia and dehydration...not to mention he was being stalked by a wolverine. guess i didn't realize that wolverines lives so far north. they will eat anything and can be pretty brutal. of course, Barrow would be in polar bear country as well..that is where he went through the ice.

ski's on wheels. you land on these in the summers on glaciers. take off with wheels and then the ski's can be dropped down for landing. the same applies in winters. seems like they use a hand crank to elevate and drop them. probably not all planes but i've seen that.

action film star Jackie Chan's son was arrested on drug charges. his statement was that he felt shame for his sons behaviour. this made me think about how rarely a family in this country feels any shame for the actions of their kids. in this country you simply defend your child, no matter how heinous their behaviour is. strange.

i am so behind on my newspapers. pretty much skipped news until just a few days ago. just caught glimpses on Yahoo as i checked mail.

got the winning calendars mailed off yesterday. thought i better get that done before it gets too far into the new years. nobody wants a calendar in February.

smugglers were attempting to get over 200 box turtles into China. they were caught here in Anchorage and now all those cute baby turtles that survived are being transported for care. there were 6 different species, some of which are protected species.

a few baby black bears were being held at the local zoo while awaiting transport to permanent homes. they were found abandoned in different area's. seems late in the year for orphaned bears, but perhaps the warmer weather is a factor.

the skies were pretty out yesterday. i would have liked to have stayed out and watched the sunset with these planes, but i get sleepy and so i headed home for a nap.

watched the rest of the sunset from the comfort of my bedroom. then crashed for a bit

the way the clouds and colors came out...it looks like it was a super pretty sunset out there.

not back to my baseline at all. needed ice last night. can just use my ice packs tonight. so warm out i fear buying ice as it may just melt. it does say in the forecast that colder weather maybe coming, but then every day it says snow is coming and that hasn't really happened.

last season on Denali not the most successful. i guess there was quite a bit of snowfall in the region and only 36% of those who tried to summit did.

a few weeks back the Taliban attacked a school in Pakistan, killing 132 students. i guess to them an education is to be feared as i suspect if all kids were able to be truly educated and not just brainwashed their member numbers would drop. it's a battle the rest of the world must continue to fight...that of educating the children of the world.

sadly, the children in our own country often don't seem to grasp the value of their own education. i'm all for putting them all in uniforms and helping them see that schools aren't for socializing but for them to do their "job" of getting educated.

seems this is lost of far too many kids who disrespect the system and the teachers.

plane takes off in a cloud of snow

my gut continues to be upset...making for a long morning already. not sure whether eating will help or make things worse. may need to try soon though. getting hungry.