each day an adventure in alaska

looks like some blue skies are returning out there again this evening. before that we had snow falling most of the day. had to pull out my snow pants...that i had just put away. been out Campbell Airstrip the last two days...very different looking days.

these were obviously Easter Sunday. just having fun with the puppies and some bunny ears. time to put those away for the season.

today we met with speedy to hear tales of her run..well done my friend. we wanted to give her a little celebration for her achievement. SH made a Boston Marathon decorated cake/brownie..well done on that as well. i found some knock off American Doll tennis shoes for the decoration and i think we all had fun at coffee today..on this not Monday walk, Monday walk. :-)

ran a few errands after the walk and by the time i got home i was feeling chilled so i curled up under the covers and reheated while reading and watching reruns.

did take time to make the annual polka dot snowman in the back yard. soon after it was build Tusker and/or Ivy Rose dug at it and it came tumbling down. they are clearly no respecter of the arts.

i of course, took my turn with the bunny ears as well.

prepping for the annual lecture at REI tomorrow night. can't wait to see the Walrus cookies that speedy arranged for us. should be awesome!! a little switch from our usual walrus cupcakes...:-)

our main speaker will be Polly, who worked out on the island years ago and has returned to help out with breaks these past summers i believe. will be cool to hear her perspective and stories about life on the island. i still think it would be cool to get a collection of stories from rangers who have been out there.

have continued on a bit of a cleaning trend. put together a shelf with organizers for the guest closet. want to organize and de-clutter the place. crap just can really start weighing in on our lives.

read a bit more of the Mueller Report. really feel that folks on both sides should make the effort to get through it. it's not that many pages and some are redacted so you can skip those parts....haha.

our nation was attacked. no matter what side of the equation you are on, that should be enough to run a chill through you. now many have been heard saying that they didn't care what happened to get Trump elected, just that the evil HRC wasn't the one. of course, it does appear that the news that has been called the "fake news" was more correct than the "news" that many thought was the real news...but since that remains where they get the bulk of their "news" and that is the only ones they believe, well i don't see much changing.

none of us want to believe that we were taken for fools. that we would allow ourselves to be sucked into believing things that aren't true, but that is exactly how the Russian operatives attacked us. one prong was through social media. the IRA (Internet Research Agency) was an LLC funded by a Russian and company's he controlled, Prigozhin. this is described in details in the Mueller report.

they created mostly fake pages that reached millions of US citizens through their social media sites, especially FB and twitter. they created things to support Trump mostly and to trash HRC. now folks hate her so much that i suspect most will never unbelieve all the lies told about her. i am in no way saying she is a saint, but i think it is becoming more and more clear that a persona was created of a she devil that she will never be able to shake for the rest of her life. a Russia and right wing media character assassination.

the IRA also posted derogatory things about other candidates, but in the end the bulk of it was directed at HRC.

these were widely retweeted/reposted by some widely known and believed folks on the right..name were the likes of Hannity, KellyAnne, Trump Jr, stone, flynn, eric trump...

the Russian operation began as far back as 2014. they targeted folks from various belief systems. they created fake accounts, pretended to be US Citizens. it must be noted that this administration has done virtually nothing to counter this blatant attack on our nation. it helped him, it will no doubt help him again.

there were no connections made between the HRC campaign and the IRA, however there were connections between members of the Trump campaign and the IRA. mostly by members of the trump campaign retweeting/posting items created by the IRA. they also were able to fool them by representing themselves as US citizens in order to communicate more directly with them. they did this to seek assistance in IRA organized political rallies on behalf of the trump campaign.

it was stuff about HRC like that she had mishandled classified information. lies, that were passed along and that many on the right still buy into 100%. not to trash them..i mean the Russians could have just as easily decided they liked the Democrat contender and gone that way...of course, until we have some clarity...or any clarity on the Trump finances we will not really know the extent of the Russian influence there. releasing taxes and looking at his business ties seems vital, especially considering that there were efforts being made to make a deal about Trump Tower Russia.

this report will also not cover, at least not that I'm aware of, anything to do with the private meeting between Trump and Put. what was said there? 2 hours without anyone in the room with them but a translator, the notes of which were taken and no doubt destroyed by Trump. amazing to me that so many were angry and made crazed by Clinton having sex in the oval office, but the idea that Russia interfered with our election, the idea that our current POTUS may have financial debts owed to the leader of Rus, that seems to not rile them at all. of those two things...which can have more long lasting and devastating effects.

"in sum, the investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election through the 'active measures' social media campaign carried out by the IRA, an organization funded by Prigozhin and companies that he controlled. as explained further in Volume I, section V.....the office concluded (and a grand jury has alleged) that Prigozhin, his companies, and IRA employees violated US law through these operations, principally by undermining through deceptive acts the work of federal agencies charged with regulating foreign influence in US elections". Prigozhin has direct ties to Putin.

section III will discuss Russian Hacking and Dumping Operations. I'll just read it section by section and discuss it.

it really is fascinating to me how little interest many on the right have to hear the truth of what happened. it seems that having their agenda erases all that was involved in getting to that agenda. it seems as well that many, especially those in DC, have set aside their morals, values, ethics and the norms in order to have their way. this could be and i suspect already is quite detrimental to our system of government.

creating chaos was the goal it seems of some on the right, the Bannon types, but it was also the goal of Russia, to sew division and create chaos and distrust in our system of government.

if our system of government is going to fall apart it seems clear that the ones who want to be at the top of the heap after the crash and totally get their way are those on the right who are in power.

back in the time of Clinton and the oral sex mess, they screamed that they were the moral majority, the screamed that they were the ones who owned ethics and morality...now it seems it was a ruse. it was a ruse that worked. much of what they have done has worked. you watch it play out.

Barr writes a summary and has press conferences to say what those on the right wish to hear, Fox news and other right wing media repeat the "good news" over and over and over. in doing this they blame the left, trash the left. they set it up so that their followers believe that the left is on a witch hunt, chasing nothing burgers...all the while. when you actual read the report....you see that pretty much what the mainstream media has reported...was true. it was true all along, but the right screamed fake news so often and so loud that many on the right refuse to believe anything that doesn't come at them through the right wing sites and stations. it's so easy....it's scary how easy it is to manipulate the masses.

dots were not able to be connected between the Gucifer leaks of Podesta's emails on the same day as Trumps pussy grabbing tapes were released. do we really want this to become the new norm. that our elections have outside governments, especially adversarial governments tampering with them. helping our their preferred candidate? 12 GRU officers were charged. they will never be tried i think because they aren't here. these folks can't be interviewed. many in trumps orbit used whassup to chat, it's encypted and destroyed quickly...people lied, people took the 5th...we don't have the proof to connect those dots but there is a lot of evidence that pushed up to conspiracy to defraud the American voters...they may be happy with who won the election, but shouldn't folks on the right be concerned at the very least with how much the Rus helped and that there was some evidence that there was coordination...even if it wasn't proof.

"officers from Unit 74455 separately hacked computers belonging to state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and US companies that supplied software and other technology related to the administration of US elections". that should be concerning to us all. what have we done to protect against such intrusions in the next elections.

these are from the Iditarod. always enjoy pictures of the dogs.

this stuff by Russia makes the Nixon crap look pretty small by comparison.

DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 were operated by the same organization. they transferred much of the information they stole to Wikileaks. Assange was a Hillary Hater....those are easy to find. "she's a bright, well connected, sadistic sociopath". there do seem to be direct connections and discussions between Wikileaks and DCLeaks. first contacts began in June 2016. goal was to cause conflict between bernie and hillary....it seems to have worked. the notes between Wikileaks and DCleaks were specific about when to drop information, when it would be helpful.

Assange used the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to use the internet for these drops from what I'm reading. this is pretty crazy read really. i am happy that not as much as feared was redacted.

Assange seems to have falsely implied that a former DNC staffer had been murdered because he was the source of the DNC stolen emails. this was false. just a ruse to throw people off the Wikileaks tract. this staffer was Seth Rich. the family sued a Fox news for compensation for emotional distress from the networks coverage of a conspiracy theory about their sons death...interesting. I've heard this one a lot. the fox news passes out conspiracy theories right and left and people seem to eat it all up. police reports have his death being due to a robbery attempt. Hannity continues to spread this fake story.

it's so interesting to read this report...it gives credence to reports and news outlets that have been demeaned over and over by this administration. even if folks on the right will never read this or believe it....the truth is the truth. conspiracy theories are theories. great for making a news show more interesting and for pulling in viewers but not news. they should all learn to do a better job at making it clear when they are theorizing and when they are stating facts.

the Mueller report identifies that the GRU also targeted various other systems related to elections. these are supposedly being followed up by FBI, DHS and individual states involved. they did state that GRU did gain access to millions of voters in Illinois and extracted data of thousands of US voters before the activity was identified...this is getting down to Russia attack getting to individual citizens of the US. that is pretty frightening.

how much more do they know, have they already gotten. it can and possibly will be used to make folks feel less sure of outcomes in future elections.

redaction's over the next several pages...ongoing investigations...those seem to be related to contacts with the campaign about Wikileaks.

that entire section is basically redacted.

only on page 58...much more to go. it is fascinating reading, what you can actually see. I'm sure there will be movies and books written for years. i also suspect, it will be like the assassination of JFK with conspiracy theories blurring the lines of truth.

not sure what the draw is for conspiracy theories, but my guess is that we have a gaggle of conspiracy theorists in the highest positions. it may be fun to ruminate on various conspiracies, but it's not good to try to run a government based on conspiracy theories. trump is what happens when you get sucked into conspiracy theories. he trusts nobody and believes the wildest things.

darkness if falling. I'm getting hungry. i still have a few things to organize to take to the talk tomorrow. fingers crossed for another successful lecture. we are getting pretty good at these though i think. i also think there will be a few familiar faces there.

getting interesting...Trump Jr...seemed to have continued discussions with wikileaks. it's like the campaign and wikileaks were working together as one organization at some level. there were many efforts to find emails..the usual right wing obsession...does it ever stop? "the investigation did not find evidence that the trump campaign recovered any such Clinton emails, or that these contacts were part of a coordinated effort between Russia and the trump campaign".

it is clear that trump is obsessed with those lost Clinton emails...like so many others. there has been a lot of money spent looking for them and i suspect a lot of scams promising to supply these lost emails. do they even exist? are they just about day to day crap or even just spam that she received? with all the money that has been spent to find them...i suspect there isn't much there...but the looking has become a business on it's own. I'm sure some have gotten rich searching for the lost emails. again, those who have hate are easy to manipulate. those who have an agenda and are desperate are also easy to manipulate.

i better stop reading for the day...

enjoy the dogs. our snow is fast disappearing. earliest thaw on record i think. we had snow on Earth Day...guess it's a good week to learn about walrus.

get your earth on....take care of the planet and all it's inhabitants...

my friend KR at the Iditarod restart. have a good night. read that report...it is fascinating...and a bit terrifying.

thankful for: A. transparency, when you can find it. B. that we are able to speak our opinions in this nation...even if we bicker about it all, other places an opposing view will get you killed or imprisoned. C. dogs, wonderful dogs...

more from the cruise. these are of us leaving Honduras. funny to sit and watch those rushing to the ship before they close it up. would not want to have been left behind. many stood on the ship watching and applauding the late arrivals. would have been easy to do as we were required to use "ship time" instead of Honduras time. not the same.

they do have pretty clear waters. progress seen. looks like they are making it more attractive to tourism. happy we got there before it got too touristy..our stops got more touristy as we went back north so nice to see one that was pretty basic as far as tourism goes. plus seeing this clear water and knowing how delicate the reefs are, it's kind of sad to see the progress and know what it may do. everyone deserves to have their chance to make a living so it's always a balance between the environment and some level of progress. i guess for me it's when it becomes grossly materialistic and you see greed has eclipsed all.

had plans for a longer walk, but my gut wasn't really having it today. don't think my breakfast set well. so we just hit the dog park. really the dogs don't care. chilled and watched a few episodes of "Northern exposure" the old show from the early '90's. it wasn't filmed in Alaska and they got a lot of details wrong. the characters were good though. we do have more than our share of quirky folks up here. i know I'm one of them.

in Ketchikan a co-worker had just started and you got so you could tell who was going to make it here and who was going to book. i could tell she was going to make it. when the discussion came up, i told her she was independent and quirky, which was a good sign for longevity here. she was a bit offended that i thought she was quirky. i tried to explain that it wasn't meant as a bad thing at all...i mean you really have to be a bit quirky to live out in the bush up here especially. some 6-7 months later she brought it up again, laughing this time, and admitting that she now understood and yes, she was probably quirky like the rest of us.

the mix the stuff of natives in the lower 48 with those up here. they don't have names like they had in South Dakota when i lived there...names like you heard from that old movie filmed there, Dances with Wolves. they did have names like that. up here, not true.

there is talk of doing a remake of it. would be nice if they filmed up here and took more time to get the details right.

it was nice to have the dogs all clean today...of course, that made me hesitant to take them out walking because i knew they would get a wee bit dirty...it's break up and the snow is falling and melting and mud is everywhere.

did manage to get out for a few errands and got my second wind this evening. it's now after 1 am and i just finished doing some spring cleaning projects. still want to de-clutter and organize the garage and the upstairs closets. crap just piles up and it's time to just get rid of it....if it can't be used or organized. put stuff in bags that i haven't worn for years. i think we all hang onto things and then one day you look at the thing you've looked at for years and you finally realize that it is no longer useful or meaningful or something. we all just have too much crap.

it always feels so good to organize and purge that extra crap. it really can weigh you down.

need to get stuff ready for the lecture this coming week as well.

guess there were some suicide attacks in Sri Lanka. no one has claimed responsibility, but i think it hit some church services for Easter Sunday. so very sad. so much violence and hatred in this world. just too many people...too many too rich and too many too poor.

some young woman flew from Florida to Colorado and bought a shot gun with plans to head to Columbine High School, maybe try to repeat what happened 20 years ago...but in the end she killed herself.

plane taking off down the island from our ship. looked windy out there.

Georgette (Georgia Engel) from Mary Tyler Moore show has passed away. they said the cause of death is unknown because she was Christian Scientist and didn't see doctors. interesting.

this is our arrival the next day in Costa Maya. another beautiful morning.

looking green. we were headed to Mayan ruins, Dzibanche and Kohunlich.

a bit of a long dock.

a bit more built up than Roatan was.

so on to Mexico. another warm day....this Alaskan was not used to the heat.

if anyone wants a cockatiel, a man died suddenly leaving hundreds behind. they are being adopted out by the non-profit group, Alaska Bird Club.

i sometimes work with people who are really off their rocker. it's not easy...i mean it's their reality. they believe the stuff they are saying. they come in for stuff, which i mean you gotta laugh at but it's also super sad that for some their delusions are so real it drives them to hospitals because they are scared.

waves and pelicans as we neared the port town

my niece and her kids

we walked to our next tour, go to the ruin and turn left were the directions

then we had a 2 hour drive out to the ruins.

always fun to watch the sights along the way...at least for me. i think the kids slept or read.

nice to get a sense of the places beyond the port where it's beautified for tourists.

we really loved all these pretty flowers on these trees

we saw one sad monkey. it lives on this chain in this front yard.

lots of indoor/outdoor living

i think they grow sugar and stuff for thatched roofs, which can last like 40 years i was surprised to learn...of course, that would probably be 40 years in normal rainy weather, not hurricane type weather.

here is the delivery system

we stopped at the visitor depot to check in at both places then walked on into the parks. we were super lucky in that we had our own guides and basically had both places to ourselves for most of the time we were there.

random dogs are all over the place.

just so you know where we are. :-)

it was great to get out and walk after the drive, also after having been on the ship.

i felt pretty wimpy....walking in the heat of Mexico very different than walking in the cool of Alaska.

we approach our first ruin...there were several in the area and again several in the second area. my niece picked these because you can still climb on them. many of the other places are more popular and have stopped allowing climbing on the ruins...great choice i think.