Today was one of those memorable days; the temps were in the 40's, the sun was shining, the snow is melting, and we had an earthquake. Work was OK, spent most of the day evaluating new Help Desk programs we are looking for to replace the one we have now. During the second meetiing, around 12:15 PM the ground lurched, the tables moved, the overhead cameras swayed back and forth. Just a 4.7 earthquake about 25 miles northwest of us. No damage or injuries, so that was good.
I had my bike with me and had been looking forward to the ride home all day. It was election day so I had to make a short side trip to vote, but it was woth it. What a ride! Even though it was messy it was a great day for a ride.
Last evening, Monday, April 6th, I was at the hospital to co-lead a bike seminar in an attempt to get employees to sign up for the Ride for Life Alaska to be held in July. It is a fund raiser for research and treatment for colorectal cancer. It was a lot of fun and apparently a big success. We had guest speakers 3 from local bike shops and 1 who has a repair business. At least 25 people showed up, which was a great turn out concerding that it was after a long days work
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
It’s March 27th and it is SNOWING again! That and the volcano keep erupting!!!
March 28th, 2009
OK, the Governor of Louisiana thinks it is a BAD idea for Alaska to get $140,000,000 dollars for the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Lots of folks agree with him, I don’t because we have volcanoes in Alaska that really make it hard to cycle when you don’t know they are about to blow their tops!
Redoubt Volcano is about 100 miles away from Anchorage, as the crow flies and the wind blows. It is a beautiful mountain and it is also a restless mountain. I moved to Alaska in 1985 and have been ashed on 4 times so far. Redoubt erupted several time in 1989 and Mount Spurr, just across Cook Inlet from Anchorage ,erupted in 1990 and 1991 and really left a huge mess on us. The ash was so light and fine you couldn’t feel it on your skin when in landed there. The air filters of your car would get clogged in minutes and the car would die, and it would get damaged because the ash got inside the engine and scraped it up. It was a real mess.
Trying to sweep away the ash was impossible, it was so light that it just lifted up off of the ground, floated around in the air and finally landed in another spot. No dust pans or shovels would really work, the ash was too light. Hosing it down with water made a “ashy” mess that was slick and hard to get rid of. The wind would blow and you had to grab your mask because it was in the air and that was not good for your lungs. What eventually happened was time helped by having rain, wind, walking on it and grass growing tamp it down and it became part of the dirt. For years after the eruptions you could dig down in the dirt and pull up a shovelful of dirt to see how far down the ash had migrated. After 2 or 3 years we lost interest and forgot to keep track of the ash level in the dirt.
So this winter we have had a lot of snow and now we are waiting for the ash to fall on top of the snow so it can become a pasty, icky mess when the snow finally melts. When it melts the roads will be really dirty and slick for a period of time then the cycle will start all over again. It is great fertilizer. The ash from Mt. Spurr is really good for the soil; the ash from Redoubt has more glass particles in it and is OK but grittier.
I love cycling in the winter, see other blogs, but right now I have to be careful because of the potential harmful effects of the ash. I don’t want it in my lungs and I really don’t want it in my eyes, I just paid $4000 to get my eyes fixed! So I am being cautious and I am listening to and logging into the Alaska Volcano Observatory to keep up to the minute on what is happening and where the ash is heading. I like having the AVO; too bad others think it is a waste of money!
On another, non-political note: summer will get here and eventually the mountain will stop blowing its top and it will settle down, I hope. I have signed up for 2 bike rides so far, the third will be open for signup at 12:01 AM April 1. The two I have already signed up for are the Larry Holman Ride for Life, fund raiser for Colorectal Cancer support and research and the Fireweed 400, in the new event the 300K (200 mile) 2-Day tour to Valdez, Alaska.
The Ride for Life is special; my Uncle Jim died of colorectal cancer, it was a very long time ago and I never got to say good-bye; it was a terrible way to die and I miss him! He was my favorite Uncle, he understood me and let me be the ornery little girl who loved to have fun and always got into trouble! He thought I was funny and just let me be me! I now have a small way to show him how much he meant to me. If you would like to donate to the cause you can do so at http://rideforlife.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=304614&supId=171592127. It is my personal page for the Ride for Life that is set up for participants in the ride. The website for the event is http://www.rideforlifealaska.com/. It would be great if everyone who reads this blog would donate a dollar, this is a disease that we can treat, and beat if caught soon enough. I am the co-captain of the Providence Hospital /Providence Cancer Center Ride for Life Team and I am glad to do what I can to beat this thing into the ground!
The Fireweed 400 is a multi-event ride that has become a special treat for me. I will never do the RAAM (Race Across America), which this is a qualifier for, but I will have a lot of fun riding in this event. This ride pushes me and makes me realize that I am the only person who can keep me from completing this event, or anything I attempt to do. Same goes for the rest of the things I do in my life. I turned 65 this last December and I embrace the fact that I am now a card-carrying Old Fart with a Medicare Card that can still ride my bike and enjoy every minute of it. The longer the ride the better! Next year, 2010, my daughter Shannon and I are planning a trip to Italy, it is a graduation gift to Shannon, she will graduate from Nursing School in December 2009, and I want to do something very special for her, it has been a hard struggle for her, a divorced mother of two wonderful boys who wants to do something special in this world; Shannon wants to work in a VA hospital in Houston, Texas and help the soldiers coming back from the multiple wars we are involved in. We are going to cycle Tuscany if I can save enough money to make the trip happen. But that is another blog at a future date. Cycling with a surgical face mask on looks funny but it does do a good job of ash control. I have a pair of motorcycle goggles that keep the stuff out of my (expensive) eyes. I just have to be careful and not slip and slide on the ash.
The news just announced that Mt. Redoubt just erupted, again! It is going to an interesting spring, which will eventually start here. We are about a month behind the rest of the country because of where we are located. But I will continue to cycle, ash and all. Life is an adventure and it is so good!
OK, the Governor of Louisiana thinks it is a BAD idea for Alaska to get $140,000,000 dollars for the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Lots of folks agree with him, I don’t because we have volcanoes in Alaska that really make it hard to cycle when you don’t know they are about to blow their tops!
Redoubt Volcano is about 100 miles away from Anchorage, as the crow flies and the wind blows. It is a beautiful mountain and it is also a restless mountain. I moved to Alaska in 1985 and have been ashed on 4 times so far. Redoubt erupted several time in 1989 and Mount Spurr, just across Cook Inlet from Anchorage ,erupted in 1990 and 1991 and really left a huge mess on us. The ash was so light and fine you couldn’t feel it on your skin when in landed there. The air filters of your car would get clogged in minutes and the car would die, and it would get damaged because the ash got inside the engine and scraped it up. It was a real mess.
Trying to sweep away the ash was impossible, it was so light that it just lifted up off of the ground, floated around in the air and finally landed in another spot. No dust pans or shovels would really work, the ash was too light. Hosing it down with water made a “ashy” mess that was slick and hard to get rid of. The wind would blow and you had to grab your mask because it was in the air and that was not good for your lungs. What eventually happened was time helped by having rain, wind, walking on it and grass growing tamp it down and it became part of the dirt. For years after the eruptions you could dig down in the dirt and pull up a shovelful of dirt to see how far down the ash had migrated. After 2 or 3 years we lost interest and forgot to keep track of the ash level in the dirt.
So this winter we have had a lot of snow and now we are waiting for the ash to fall on top of the snow so it can become a pasty, icky mess when the snow finally melts. When it melts the roads will be really dirty and slick for a period of time then the cycle will start all over again. It is great fertilizer. The ash from Mt. Spurr is really good for the soil; the ash from Redoubt has more glass particles in it and is OK but grittier.
I love cycling in the winter, see other blogs, but right now I have to be careful because of the potential harmful effects of the ash. I don’t want it in my lungs and I really don’t want it in my eyes, I just paid $4000 to get my eyes fixed! So I am being cautious and I am listening to and logging into the Alaska Volcano Observatory to keep up to the minute on what is happening and where the ash is heading. I like having the AVO; too bad others think it is a waste of money!
On another, non-political note: summer will get here and eventually the mountain will stop blowing its top and it will settle down, I hope. I have signed up for 2 bike rides so far, the third will be open for signup at 12:01 AM April 1. The two I have already signed up for are the Larry Holman Ride for Life, fund raiser for Colorectal Cancer support and research and the Fireweed 400, in the new event the 300K (200 mile) 2-Day tour to Valdez, Alaska.
The Ride for Life is special; my Uncle Jim died of colorectal cancer, it was a very long time ago and I never got to say good-bye; it was a terrible way to die and I miss him! He was my favorite Uncle, he understood me and let me be the ornery little girl who loved to have fun and always got into trouble! He thought I was funny and just let me be me! I now have a small way to show him how much he meant to me. If you would like to donate to the cause you can do so at http://rideforlife.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=304614&supId=171592127. It is my personal page for the Ride for Life that is set up for participants in the ride. The website for the event is http://www.rideforlifealaska.com/. It would be great if everyone who reads this blog would donate a dollar, this is a disease that we can treat, and beat if caught soon enough. I am the co-captain of the Providence Hospital /Providence Cancer Center Ride for Life Team and I am glad to do what I can to beat this thing into the ground!
The Fireweed 400 is a multi-event ride that has become a special treat for me. I will never do the RAAM (Race Across America), which this is a qualifier for, but I will have a lot of fun riding in this event. This ride pushes me and makes me realize that I am the only person who can keep me from completing this event, or anything I attempt to do. Same goes for the rest of the things I do in my life. I turned 65 this last December and I embrace the fact that I am now a card-carrying Old Fart with a Medicare Card that can still ride my bike and enjoy every minute of it. The longer the ride the better! Next year, 2010, my daughter Shannon and I are planning a trip to Italy, it is a graduation gift to Shannon, she will graduate from Nursing School in December 2009, and I want to do something very special for her, it has been a hard struggle for her, a divorced mother of two wonderful boys who wants to do something special in this world; Shannon wants to work in a VA hospital in Houston, Texas and help the soldiers coming back from the multiple wars we are involved in. We are going to cycle Tuscany if I can save enough money to make the trip happen. But that is another blog at a future date. Cycling with a surgical face mask on looks funny but it does do a good job of ash control. I have a pair of motorcycle goggles that keep the stuff out of my (expensive) eyes. I just have to be careful and not slip and slide on the ash.
The news just announced that Mt. Redoubt just erupted, again! It is going to an interesting spring, which will eventually start here. We are about a month behind the rest of the country because of where we are located. But I will continue to cycle, ash and all. Life is an adventure and it is so good!
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