What have I been up to, you ask? Well, working mostly of course, thanks for inquiring. But here and there, in betwixt, I’ve done a few interesting things. {Andrew} and I went to a decent concert at the Cat’s Cradle a few Mondays ago. The headliners were the Electric Six who are probably most famous for the very humorous “I wanna take you to a gay bar” (this is an even funnier third-party video using their song, circa 2003). They were pretty good, but honestly better were their opening acts. The Blue Van is a really good Danish modern-day classic rock band, akin to Led Zeppelin or The Doors. It’s not normally something I spend much time listening to but I could definitely appreciate their talent.

Aberdeen City were the true standouts for me though. It’s somewhat hard to categorize them: a bit Interpol-ish but more like early Radiohead. I picked up their CD and it is pretty damn good, especially for just $10. I did make one fairly large blunder though; I forgot my earplugs. We were standing fairly close to the stage and were too close to the left speaker and I had ringing for days. This was worse and longer than my previous run in and it scared the crap outta me. Seriously, I had resigned myself to a life of slightly impaired hearing and it was a sad few days there. Fortunately it did fade away but I have to be way more careful — there’s a set of earplugs in my car now, just in case.

read more »

The party’s over. I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, ever since I got back from Alaska really. I know it’s very common to feel a sort of anti-climax at the end of a trip, especially a really good one. So I’m sure that’s part of my current mood, but there’s something more I think. Despite all my wonderful friends, family, and pets, when I’m alone I really feel it: lonely. *sigh* Yes, that’s right, you read it here first: the dude who lives alone feels lonely. Details to follow…

I’ve spent the past two weeks hanging out with various friends, partially I think to help chase away my low spirits. I took Sandra and Andrew out to dinner in return for pet-sitting. They, as always, assured me that it was unnecessary but I feel like it’s the least I can do and I’m happy to. I’m just so lucky to have people that I like and trust that are so open to the idea. I also helped Ian move in a new bed into his new house, as well as a washer and dryer. He’s got a nice place, I predict there will be some good parties goin down there. And I went to a nice party at Deborah’s.

read more »

Got up a bit earlier than normal today, around 8, as I have an 11 o’clock flight. Kodiak’s airport is pretty small, but still I felt like I should be prepared for a slow ticket counter agent. The airport is so small that they don’t have any TSA screening, or security at all for that matter. Because of this I would have to go through security in Anchorage (of course, I had to switch terminals anyway, so security would have been an issue anyway). Anyway, I finished up my packing and grabbed a quick breakfast. Andy had an early charter and Betsy and Renee were still asleep. So poop, I didn’t really get to say goodbye to any of my new friends.

As we still had a bit of time, Matt suggested a final but brief hike out on Miller Point, not that far from his house. So that’s what we did and it was pretty nice. During WWII there were some big guns at that location and they’ve since been turned into a small landmark/museum. Anyway, it was a nice quiet place and gave me one last cloudy look at the Kodiak coast and Fognak island.

read more »

Today we decided to go shooting. Matt has several rifles and we both wanted to go shoot the shit outta somethin. Matt has a 22, a .270, and a 30-06. The only rifle I’ve ever fired is a 22 so I was eager to try my hand at something bigger. We saw a fairly large ship in Mill Bay so we stopped to take a look. We had actually passed it while on the Celeste the previous day. Turns out it’s bringing Kodiak its first fiber optic cable; so that should help phone and data latencies immensely (something that driven me a bit crazy on this trip).

We headed out towards Termination Point, stopping at a few places before choosing a nicely secluded beach. We scrounged around for some appropriate target materials, set them up about 80 yards away, and loaded up the 22. I did pretty well with my first magazine, getting 5 on the 6 inch target, one more in the backing, and one misfire. Then it was on to the .270, which I was a bit leery to fire. Matt has an optical scope, so that made things easier although I managed to smack myself in the forehead with the recoil on the first shot. Son of a bitch. I should have known better.

read more »

Batteries, goddamn batteries. I totally forgot to charge my camera’s battery for the whole trip, and today it finally pooped out. And as my camera takes a special rechargeable battery, it’s not like I could just stick a couple of new AAs in that sucka to get it working again. This was particularly unfortunate as I saw some of the most beautiful scenery today.

As I’ve mentioned, Andy runs a marine outfitter company called Orcas Unlimited. They do fishing expeditions, kayaking, hunting charters, etc. Andy normally operates his boat, The Celeste, out of Kodiak’s main harbor, but tomorrow has an expedition in Anton Larsen bay. This requires taking his boat around the coastline, so Matt and I accompanied him.

read more »