Alaska and Life

So, there I was setting at my computer with my ample bottom safely and happily ensconced in my sphere of power ruminating about something important when my neighbor beats the door down. “Hey,” guy talk for, ‘hey’; formalities aside, he asked me if I wanted to go to the Mendenhall glacier and take photos. There’s really nothing that I’d love to do more than to give up my comfortable lounge lizard mode to go hike across a frozen lake in friged weather . . . to view a glacier. “Sure,” I responded and the implied contract was sealed, along with my fate.

We loaded up our gear, inserted the requisite chemical hand warmers in our camera cases to preserve the batteries, more for the pockets to warm stiff fingers and forgetting a perfectly good thermos of hot coffee at home, we sallied forth to the glacier and high adventure. Yes, the sun was shining, but, trust me . . . it was damn cold outside. Arriving at the entry to the glacier, we walked, slipped and slid down to the frozen lake and began our journey in earnest.

Following in random order are a few of my photos; all my use them for personal use, but please throw me a bone, and let folks know tlcorbin took them . . . did that sound as whiny to you as it did me?

Hint: Click on photo, when the photo opens, right click and then open them up in new tab for larger view. It’s quirky, but it works most times.

This photo shoot was great, my buddy and I had a great time at the glacier. I haven’t seen his photos yet, so . . . uh oh, I wonder how many embarrassing ones he took of me when I wasn’t looking? Enjoy the little peek at my hood.

tlcorbin © all rights reserved 2010

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Tags: alaska outdoors, alaskan treasures, glacier photos

Have you ever wondered out loud to yourself; WTHey . . . just why aren’t there any Penguins in Alaska? Could the simple answer be that global warming is the culprit or is it something far darker and ominous. Thus begins our journey in search of answers; we’ve chosen to start our tale way back at the dawn of history . . . before cable TV and the internet.

Imagine if you will, that first landscape completely barren of trees, Starbucks and pavement. There is nothing, nada, zip, just an endless panorama of nothingness occasionally decorated with yellow snow n ice and droppings from all manner of beasts.

Now that the appropriate scene has been properly established, I can begin with the telling of my tale. Let’s start our story immediately after the first cave penguins finally evolved from the primal ooze, dust and ice of the arctic far north; they came with progressive liberal political genes, autocratic attitude and were driven by a moral imperative to rule in harmony over the locals in the iced over lands surrounding the Arctic Ocean.

They imposed their leadership through rigged elections and enjoyed a non-partisan peace with the right wing polar bears, conservative seals, walruses, beluga and progressive liberal humpback whales, caribou, musk ox, puffins, tourists and foxes. All was good, and there was food and social spoils aplenty for all, until that tree hugging Raven flew north to view the frozen wonderland, and brought the sun with him to warm his amply feathered behind against the ravages of bone chilling arctic winds. What a crank yanker move that turned out to be.

The sun’s warmth worked its non-partisan magic and icy glaciers soon began to melt, some even disappeared, and for a time, there was rejoicing among the residents who’d never experienced the pleasure of warmth before; it was amazing. The sea mammals soon discovered that they had unlimited access to their food and whale, seal, walrus and penguin were gorging on krill, herring and other small fishes that some had never seen before. Life was good for them, perhaps to easy – over fishing was starting to rear its ugly head. So taxes were levied by the penguins, paid in herring, krill or other small fishes supposedly to fund experiments to control over fishing and cool the tundra plains and hopefully restore the chilly arctic winds and the ice pack. Life shouldn’t be to easy, nice or good and the self proclaimed wise penguins in charge knew this, so their subterfuge concerning their real reasons for the taxes was rationalized and justified ~ just ask them, they’d politely explain things to you.

But the pack ice had melted in the warmth of the sun too, and now the seals, walruses, foxes, penguins and polar bears found themselves land locked. Which was fine for all but those right wing polar bears, their prime hunting grounds – the pack ice was gone, vanished, flat out not there. There was no decent hunting, their fishing gear was sorely lacking and had become to heavy to carry. It was a crisis of epic proportions and the noise from their growling stomachs was deafening. Getting hungrier and hungrier by the moment the polar bears became desperate, their fishing gear left out on the ice flow had vanished beneath ocean and they faced starvation from the weeks without food. When queried, the penguin’s had no real answers, suggesting that the polar bears work out their own solution and sold them official problem solving permits for five herrings each.

Permits in hand, er paw, and desperately hungry, the bears captured and started to eat several of the leading liberal foxes (after all, the bears were known right wingers). The foxes were not at all happy about this new situation and cried out loudly for help, but to no avail. Their pleas were falling upon deaf right wing ears. About to be eaten, one of them had a brilliant idea to insure the survival of all liberal right thinking foxes and cried out, “Brother polar bear, for your own good, don’t eat us, we all have rabies,” continuing, the wily fox said, “Brother polar bear, the ruling liberal penguins don’t have rabies and have become fat and lazy from the easy fishing and fish taxes. Why not eat them?” The polar bears looked at the rangy looking foxes with possible rabies and then at the plump obviously well fed penguins, and in drooling acceptance of the story they released the foxes. But, not before they made those slick talking liberal foxes promise to help the polar bears hunt those autocratic ruling penguins. Well, hey, the plan worked well for everyone but the penguins; they were very unhappy with the turn of events.

Suddenly it was their turn on the BBQ spit, now they were the desperate victims seeking respite from their tormentors and with great urgency the crest fallen penguins cried out to the heavens for help, even the atheist liberal penguins; their population numbers were growing smaller n smaller by the day and the situation demanded an immediate solution. “What to do,” they wailed, “what to do?”

Now it just so happened that the tree hugging raven was loitering nearby, hearing their pleas, Raven flew to the sounds of the commotion and learned what had happened and was dismayed by the outcome of his visit. He had sought to vacation a bit, explore the local singles scene and spread warmth and harmony to the far north, not harm and chaos. Driven by a sense impending doom raven rounded up the progressive Humpback whales and explained the plight of the penguins. Together, they formed a bipartisan committee and debated the matters for a few months.

Finally, a miracle occurred, and a plan was actually formulated, written up, amended, signed, sealed and adopted. It was brilliantly simple, they gathered the Humpback whales and had the remaining penguin couples climb up and onto their backs for a ride south, anywhere away from the Arctic. When the last whale left with its humbled penguin passengers, Raven returned the sun back to where he’d taken it from and smiled as the oceans refroze, the glaciers and ice pack returned. Global warming ended and life in the Arctic was again peaceful, but there weren’t any more ruling penguin autocrats to run day to day affairs so the frigid northern infrastructure returned to its primal state and remains that way until this day.

But don’t feel bad for them penguins. The whales took most of them to the South Pole where there aren’t any polar bears. They now do their own fishing and occasionally huddle together where they discuss their glory days as autocratic rulers of the arctic. Some of them who liked the warm weather jumped off early and now live at the bottom of South America. A few of them make guest appearances in Disney movies, the Leno program and the odd documentaries filmed in their area. Yup, the penguin population is now soaring again, and life as we now know it began its journey into the future.

As for the polar bears, well darn it, the last I heard they were mating with Grizzly bears to keep from going extinct and had learned to hunt Ravens and Beluga whales, who are cousins to the humpback whales . . . to get even with them I suppose. Well, you know how them right wingers are.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

tlcorbin © all rights reserved 2010

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Tags: alaska, Conspiracies, Global warming, Penguins, Polar bear

Life in Alaska is a serious kick in the butt, my wife and I never know how to anticipate or prepare for the wide variety of experiences encountered here on a day to day basis. Although we don’t suffer from the overcrowding, traffic jams, road rage, driveby’s or turf wars that are so common place in the lower 48, you know~that area below our southern border region; we do have unique situations that keep life in this frontier playground a carnival ride.

Here, should we get mad at someone, such as a sloppily dressed or nude public nuisance, policeman, politician or worst, a tourist-we go knock on their door and ring their chimes. That knowledge tends to keep us all honest and to deal fairly with one another; well, it never hurts to bear in mind that most Alaskans have access to firearms and lack the genetics that restrain most folks from using them . . . this sidebar has nothing to do with the tidbit I plan to share with you, but it makes good filler and I don’t care to be predictable.

This morning, I fell out of bed at the crack of 10am attempting to throw my soul piercing alarm clock through the wall and well, it’s just wrong to have to face that sort of an ordeal without a caffeine buffer. Indignant and thirsting for coffee, this Alaskan guy ignored the outbreak of shrieking laughter from his wide awake spouse and stumbled towards the general area of the kitchen.

But this sleepyhead was not able to do so without stepping on three out of the five very agitated feline family members while making that wall bumping, bone jarring journey to the much sought after coffee oasis. Mumbling something clever, like, “what’s up with them?” I continued on my mission. This day was not starting out well. Why is Tisha laughing like a maniac? No matter . . . “I, must, find coffee,” I said to myself mentally (using my best Capt. J.T. Kirk’s voice . . of course).

At the entry into the kitchen and my hoped for coffee salvation, a vague quick glimpse of something large and intangible caught my eye, “. . . what the hell? Forget the coffee, what is that?” Had I really seen a large dark mass on my porch through my entry door window? A bear maybe?

Leaning against the sink and peering out the kitchen window was the confirmation . . . I really had seen something large and dark.

Crap, it is a bear and hey . . . what is it doing to my garbage can . . . that looks obscene. Nonplussed, I watched that damn bear have its way with my trash bins; totally ignoring my window banging, cursing and yelling my sleep addled head off.

Finding a treasure, that bear drug a garbage bag out into the yard and began plundering it; on the way, it walked through my supposedly stout wooden porch gate as though it weren’t there. That is when I noticed that my gate was in splinters. Later I learned that Tisha had watched the bear walking onto the porch, through the latched gate, when it first arrived and had cracked up-this was the third time this summer. She was pretty darn sure that the cats and I would be mildly upset. Trust me, we were.

During the warm weather season, I keep my garage door open just enough to allow the cat’s quick entry into the house, for our mutual peace of mind. They hate the idea of being eaten and I hate the idea of having to clean up the mess. So, the door is usually open to tabby height. A fact not lost on them . . . at all.

So, there we were, at the garage door; cats with their bottoms in the air and their heads low peering out at the bear from underneath and me on my tiptoes looking out one of the window panels while that bear slung garbage around the yard and generally tap danced all up and down our collective pride. So, this is why Tisha woke me up laughing, she knew. She knew this was gonna be one of those days and we didn’t let her down.

The boys and I will be sleeping under the bed for a couple of nights, peeking out from the safety of our cat cave at every strange noise until we have regained our composure; and Tisha stops laughing at us.

Darn, I still haven’t had my coffee . . .

tlcorbin© all rights reserved

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Tags: alaska, alaska living, alaskan tall tales, humor

the Stuff Shaping My Views

I am older than dirt, happily married, a gene pool contributer and parent, an inactive Marine, an artist in several mediums, an avid outdoors man, a writer of sorts and semi educated. Although effectively retired, I am an NCCER Master Trainer and teach vocational crafts and life skills. I am a man of faith, pro life, pro guns, pro education, anti organized religion, pro gold dredging and possessed by 5 cats, Medford, Wasilla, Luke aka Rear View, Guy, Ebony; all with litter boxes and various accessories.

Organized religion and I are at odds with each other, having been exorcised several times as an adult; what’s with these folks slinging holy water around, casting out the demons that torment them from me and then going home to pound on their family? They should learn to unlax a little for sure.

I hate war and conflict but stay ready for either, as a child I was cute, trusting and abused by an confused girl learning to be a woman, she lost custody of us (my siblings and me) and we wound up in a foster home where hormonally crazed young boys experimented with their sexuality on the youngest among them and I learned to fight like a machine protecting my siblings. Later, mom married a bi-sexual pedophile and our lives sunk further into the abyss, when I tried to kill her man she took the hint. You’d think the hell of beatings, cuts and bruises would break a young spirit, but it didn’t, my siblings and I learned to apply the balm of humor to ease any pain and fear. It served us well.

As I look around, I view a world that to me is adrift and searching for an anchor; but a faithless lot have only their own baseless visions to guide them, me, god found me and established the roots of faith within me. Peace has come at long last, but still, there are questions remaining to be answered; just what the hell good is free will? When everyone has it and anarchy prevails? That’s when a belief in something greater than self has kept me from the bell tower with a rifle. Still, I am angry at the gay communities mindset and whining ~ there’s nothing gay about them. They make great Spartans, but that ran it’s course long ago.

I don’t understand asexuality or homosexual behavior, both are abhorrent to me; I don’t get it. Nor can I endorse homosexual couples adopting children other than their own. Oddly, it’s fixed in my head that homosexual behavior is the result of an overcrowded environment, single mothers and feckless upbringing. Marriage is a union between a man and a woman; civil unions can be any combination that the heart desires. Civil rights are guaranteed, and because someone is gay, their rights shouldn’t be superior to those of non gays. From my life experiences, they are predictably predatory-but then so are straight pedophiles, that’s why neither group should be allowed to adopt children at a malleable age.

Interestingly enough, I have mused over this issue: what would have happened, had I met my spouse (who I consider to be my best friend and soul mate) and we were the same gender thanks to a quirk of reincarnation and we recognized each other? The issue of acting on homosexual urges is one that can get pretty heated, but for me it is simple; I could love the person, but would likely remain celibate under the moral standard I grew up under. But what if . . .???

So, yup I have issues.

Career politicians should be outed, ousted and strict term limits should be enforced. Eight years of aggregate political service and you’re outta here pal should be the rule of the land; oh, right . . . it was, until self serving politicians exempted themselves from those laws. Never trust a man that paid out a million dollars to get a job that pays a hundred thousand; there’s mischief afoot in that scenereo. I don’t consider lawyers and politicians as normal, as truthful, honest or moral: they will all set those traits aside for their own convenience, benefit and net gain. So, from my angst filled perspective, those folks are synonymous with thief, swindler, liar, crook or the morally bankrupt.

Asked whether or not there are those that I consider to be heros worthy of being role models, I’d have to answer, “yeah . . . sure.” It’s the loving couple that quietly give up their dreams to help their children realize theirs. But I live in a fantasy world where right is right and wrong isn’t right; where men and women marry, have families and stay together to raise their offspring up without gender identification issues. In light of the anti family and anti faith PC anarchists, my final answer: My heroes would be that first couple that looked around the garden of Eden and declared to god, “This is nice, but . . . we’re outta here and we’re taking the kids.”

tlcorbin

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Tags: alaska, alaska living, alaskan men, alaskan tall tales, alaskan worldview, humor

Many folks dream of coming to Alaska for the fishing trip of a life time, and here’s a  reason to do so.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a volume of things to feast on.

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Many folks dream of coming to Alaska for the fishing trip of a life time, and here’s a  reason to do so.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a volume of things to feast upon.

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Even us hard core Alaskan’s can get used to a song like this; just ask the missus, she said I’d get used to it soon enough if I wanted to survive to my next birthday.

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Source:  a  Nebulus eMale

At 10AM today, I was in my car driving to pick up my wife from work, she was just finishing her shift.

While driving, I sometimes listen to the ABC talk radio program, where people can phone in and ask advice from a well known lawyer.

Well today’s program contained a surprise.

Some old man phoned in to say that his son owned a blog site and he needed some advice about whether or not he can be sued for what other blogger’s write on it.

Evidently, there had been a racial attack and slurs made on the site, that targeted another blogger’s wife.

The man explained that the offending material was removed, but the son had previously received a message from the offended blogger stating that he, “would pursue his son to the ends of the Earth to settle this matter.”

What was the lawyer’s advice?

“First, he needs to work out how he is going to frame his apology,” says the Lawyer.

“Apology?” the man asked.

“My son did remove the item after he was notified of it. It really wasn’t his fault it wasn’t removed sooner, because he only looks at the site every few days. It is just a hobby for him.”

“Well, you see,” said the lawyer continuing, “If a newspaper published a defamatory article then the writer would be liable for the offense, and so would the newspaper, because it is the method of publication. Newspapers always bear some responsibility for what they allow to be published in their medium. A recent legal decision concerning a Melbourne case has put this same responsibility on Web publications.”

Ouch . . . I wonder whose dad was phoning up talk radio for advice?

~ ~ ~

Comments:

First things first: Thank you Nebulus eMale for the heads-up, it brought to light a serious point.

As somewhat rational and civil human beings with a penchant for blogging, we all generally recognize that there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed, and that there exists loopholes in the laws of the land that are constantly being exploited and abused by “others.”

We all like the faceless anonymity inherent to the internet; it provides us with a sense of unfettered freedom to be our inner freaks, and it provides us a venue wherein we can loose our dark sides with feckless abandon. And that makes us all a part of the “others” collective.

But guess what?

That uncivilized and wild frontier atmosphere is being fenced in more and more rigidly everyday. The internet as a whole has largely been left to fend for itself in a legal sense, but no longer.

Recently, the legal system began to rapidly catch up and our choices are becoming ever more simplistic; play nicely voluntarily or you’ll not play at all. It’s being reigned into line and its denizens are being held to higher standards and at levels of accountability never considered possible. And yes folks, individuals and site owners can be sued for content deposited to a site.

We, need to collectively stop our pompous posturing and winking, while serving up lip service protests to inappropriate articles and comments left on our blogs or other sites ~ they can come back to byte us all in the butt.

AND, I used the word byte for this reason, our bites are collected as bytes and held in data bases that many aren’t aware exist. Just because you tried to hide your trail by deleting your work after you’ve launched an attack on another party, you aren’t guaranteed that the data is gone.

Some of us rancorous bastards really will, “. . .pursue his son to the ends of the Earth to settle this matter.”

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Tags: hate, hated, haters

One of my friends, Robert ~ who just happens to be a staunch Obama supporter, got a first hand lesson in the reality of the Obama driven economy yesterday.

This real person and friend is an industrious individual, and works for himself. His income is consistent with other start up businesses and to say it is spotty is kind, but the truth is, it’s more like a long drawn out case of persistent feast or famine economics.

Typically, he falls behind on payments during the droughts and then catches them up when the feast economy rolls around; a situation that doesn’t always set well with his wife and family or his creditors. But, it’s a part of the price he’s willing to pay for owning his business. Like most of the self employed people that I know, his office is in his former dining room, he’s lives with a cell phone plugged into his ear, a laptop with mobile internet card setting in his lap and is constantly on the move in his SUV selling himself and his services. Break any of these links in his business chain and he stumbles.

Well, you can imagine his surprise when he got home a few days ago, and was in his office space billing his customers for recent service, when he heard a knock at the door. Two men were standing there with boxes that they said were recovered from his vehicle. Confused, he was left speechless while one of the men intoned on: it turned out that they had towed his vehicle while he was working inside his house. The bank had them tow it away until he caught up with his payments.
The bank evidently had been made aware of his situation, he’d raised the money to catch up the arrears but hadn’t billed for it or collected any of it, still they opted to strip him of one of his tools needed to continue earning money to meet his financial obligations. Prior to the collapsed economy, they never got to excited about the late payments, he always caught them up.

Is it just me or doesn’t this reek of a modern form of debtor’s prison or the public humiliation of time spent in the stockades at the center of town?

When our government tells us that the economy is improving and that we are in the midst of a jobless recovery; how are we to deal with that?    Were, my friend Robert living in California and trying to  keep his business going, how would his creditor’s share his Official State IOU for services rendered to them?  Does his creditor’s repossess the rest of his property and home, replacing it with photos so that he can be reminded of what it is he’s working for?  Metaphorically speaking, just when did sanity officially leave the building?

Giddy headed liberals like my friend Robert, were absolutely ecstatic over the election of the man of change, Obama.  But suddenly, a few days ago,  a look of consternation begin creeping onto his face.   This situation alarmed him, and has impacted his life in a personal way that he never could have anticipated, not in a million years.  His plaintive admonition is that, “we need to give the stimulated economy a chance, it hasn’t been in place long enough to be effective.”

The questioning should be along this line:  What happened?  And when can he get his car and kid back?

By: tlcorbin                                    Category: fiction                  2009 © all rights reserved

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Tags: alaska, debt, debtor prison, debtors, Obama

Last month, I was unceremoniously deposited into the ranks of the unemployed early retirees, my lovely wife insisted that I indulge her whims and accompany her shopping ~ even to them Lady Things stores. That’s just wrong, but I did my best to go along and not be too bored. Y’know what? That Freddies store isn’t to god awful to visit, but the others fill me with the terrors.

Well, as a guy . . . I don’t do the shopping thing. When circumstances force me through the doors of anything other than a store selling beer, gold pans, guns or fishing supplies it’s a given that I ain’t happy. I tend to get in and out like a devil was chasing my ample ass. That wife of mine isn’t just a shopper, she’s a doggone browser; she clips coupons, store ads and explores every isle under the roof before she makes her selections. It’s enough to drive me to distraction and stone cold boredom, even at the Freddies store with their hot food deli and way cool sporting goods department.

Because of that boredom, I do try to amuse myself while the missus shops, and some clown from the Freddies store got his long john’s bunched and sent the missus the following letter.

Dear Mrs. uh . . . Schmidt,

We greatly appreciate your steadfast customer loyalty and your valued services as a Freddies employee; your skills and ability as a display manager are well known and appreciated throughout our Alaska chain of stores.

While we hold you in very high esteem, your husbands behavior over the winter months has been such that we must ban him from the Juneau store, whether you or the police accompany him while he’s in the store or not, for at least 6 months or until he finishes therapy.

Mrs. Schmidt, we’ve listed a few of his major offenses that we have clearly documented with out surveillance cameras and the statements made under oath by our traumatized security staff. Your husband is a menace.

December 17th ~ Dressed as Santa Clause he put condoms in the shopping carts of pregnant shoppers along with birth control literature and discount coupons for diapers; 5 lawsuits threatened, 1 pending.

January 20th ~ Organized a hockey game in the parking lot after turning on an outside water source which froze over into a very slick section of thick ice in the back parking lot; losses included 7 hockey sticks, 2 brooms, 1 puck, and a 89 Chevy pickup; most lawsuits were settled out of court by paying the assorted emergency room fees for stitching up several of the participants, the truck was scrapped for parts.

January 27th ~ While wearing an over sized fisherman’s foul weather hat with rubber boots, one of which had been punctured and filled with tomato juice, he entered the store screaming as if in pain and dragged his leaking boot leg, he hobbled into the men’s room leaving a nasty trail of tomato juice; 2 elderly ladies and a pregnant woman fainted, and a young lady threw up all over the floor. Staff running to assist the lady’s on the floor slipped in the sputum reposited on the floor by the young girl and sustained minor injuries; 7 lawsuits pending.

February 10th ~ Purchased a single shot shotgun for cash, and got into an argument with clerk about whether or not he could buy a shotgun shell on a lay away plan. We’re still looking for a new clerk.

February 29th ~ Taped signs to all doors and windows that read; Closed For Leap Year Celebration Repairs. It took 5 hours to get enough staff members to return to work and open; auditors are still trying to ascertain the loses for the day.

March 3rd ~ Was caught giving children rides up and down the isles in a canoe lashed to two very large skateboards with jump ropes, a young plus sized girl wearing one of the stores life vests was unable to extricate herself from the canoe in time to escape capture, when it capsized navigating a corner; 3 pending lawsuits.

March 19th ~ Was discovered by security in sporting goods wearing a dive mask with snorkel, swimsuit and swim fins offering to give customers free golf lessons with a hocky puck and a plastic duck while tap dancing; amused customers ran off security who threatened to quit over the incident.

April 1st ~ Placed leg raised stuffed animals throughout the furniture displays over the top of wet spots on the carpet and vinyl floors then started yelling for a haz-mat clean up; clerk on duty had to go home early after wetting herself laughing.

April 7th ~ Got into shouting match with deli clerk for not selling him one french fry at half price after 9PM; clerk left work early swearing in a foreign language. She didn’t show up again for the next three days.

April 21st ~ Started a pillow fight in the bedding section that covered the display area with a generous down feather coating; 2 kids using the bed display for a trampoline during the pillow fight somehow wound up tangled in a curtain display and now the mothers have filed lawsuits, minor injuries were treated at the scene.

May 1st ~ Set up a tent in the sporting good section along with propane fire pit and was inviting kids to roast marshmallows if they brought their own stick; losses included 4 sets of BBQ forks, assorted wire hangers, a tank of propane and 15 bags of marshmallows, 10 pillows from the bedding department and emergency burn treatment for the security team that tried to quell the party, the security team is filing lawsuits.

May 10th ~ Infuriated security by using one of their cameras as a mirror while picking his nose free of fake snot gel; a security person monitoring the screen had to be taken to the hospital for xrays after he severely bruised his knuckles on something metalic.

May 15th ~ While in the Deli, he put seltzer tablets in his mouth and allowed the foam spittle to drool out of his mouth while he pretended to convulse and thrashed about on the floor, yelling for someone to get the voices in his dead to stop; EMT’s were called.

May 23rd ~ Was found in the auto parts stuffing his shorts with a section of radiator hose to do his Johnny Holmes mime; a female employee had to be restrained from throttling him and has been suspended for three days.

June 4th ~ Went into the fitting room, shut the door, waited a while and then started loosing fake farts and toilet noises, yelling at the top of his lungs, Hey! There’s no t-paper in here, while banging on the door; an elderly lady passing by fainted and hurt her head, another pending lawsuit and if we could have caught your husband, he’d be in jail.

For our sanity and his safety, please keep him penned up at home.

Sincerely, Security and Staff

all rights reserved © 2009 tlcorbin

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Tags: alaskan women, humor

When those sophisticates in California and parts back east look into the mirror to view their mental image of high chic, what is it that they are viewing besides a rail thin wraith in designer clothes, mustache, attitude and padded everything?  Many of those elitist fashionistas are highly educated, sexually frustrated, shells of womankind that seek to find a purposeful life via serial affairs, political alliances, mate choices, careers as dry as their wombs, snobbery and for what?  Money, status, the facade of power . . . what is the payoff?

Do they have  time (spare or otherwise) set aside for their families to cook for them, play scrabble, old maid, donkey kong, or to walk in the park with them?  When was the last time they wrestled playfully with their children, spouses or weren’t bound to a fixed sexual routine and schedule?  Can they still relish a lunch of hotdogs, pretzels n beer along with the company of rowdy friends who act the fool?  When did being refined mandate locking the doors to  conceal a real and hearty guffaw over an unsolicited fart?  Why is having faith in anything other than yourself or worshiping at any alter other than a mirror unacceptable? What a sad existence.

When Sarah Palin landed center stage in the political arena, these very same mavens of chic decided that a mother, wife and politician that actually like her married life and career was an oddity to be scorned and ridiculed.  Collectively, they went after her like starving puppies to a teat; they were ravenous in their appetite to savage her character, her gender and her family.  Sarah is an educated, very down to earth, approachable and  pragmatic woman that looks great in a skirt and heels or Carhart’s and boots; she hunts, fishes and shoots, looks and is very much the lady in public and is likely a tramp in bed (five kids stand as testimony to that likely fact).  In short she’s a man’s woman, who loves being a woman, mother, wife and politician.  She can shoot a moose, skin and butcher it and serve it to family, friends and the state legislature while discharging her duties as governor, wife, and mother; now that’s multitasking.

When my brothers first learned that I lived in Alaska, they mockingly queried my sanity and asked if I were dating any fur bearing Alaskan ladies.  The jerks, of course I was.  We all (Alaskans) spend the winters dating partners we hope will be able to doff their fur coats in the spring.  Men and women in Alaska enjoy a relationship that the suave chic will never allow themselves to appreciate, we actually value and need each other, and are actually made stronger by our unions.  The family unit is precious to us and not viewed as an inconvenience.  We irritate, frustrate and fuss with one another while never loosing sight of the gifts each contributes to our relationship.  We speak truthfully to one another, then get drunk and forget what was said.  In a region of the country that possesses ten percent of the nations fire arms, it really  doesn’t pay to get crazy with a spouse of either gender.  Surviving relationships is an art form for us.  And most guys realize that up here at heavens gate, even if divorced you never really lose your mate, only your place in line.

My wife is a typical Alaskan Thai woman, she fishes and hikes my butt off; crikey, she’s like a gazelle going up the face of the local mountains and I get passed up by old folks in walkers.  She’s the quinticential  business woman, she designs and assembles fashionable clothing, cooks disgustingly healthy meals and travels with me to remote villages to conduct workshops.   She laughs at my jokes, lets me rub her feet when she’s stressed and talks constantly about things that make me smile.  She sorts out the occassional tiff among our feline buddies and soothes my ruffled feathers when I am unable to cope with stress and does so with a touch.  She makes my life so much more fun and worth living than it would be without her and knows it.  She’s valued and empowered by being who she is . . . how chic is that?

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Tags: alaskan women

Living in a world class travel destination, Alaska, with all of it’s wondrous beauty, scruffy but magnificent wildlife and quirky populace sort of grows on you and you tend to have a love~hate affair with it, until you discover that it has always been home.  Generally, I love everything about Alaska, well . . . OK, the mosquito and no see’um population is a constant source of irritation during the summer when you are ice fishing, them fellas, meh, I don’t really like them much. But like Ireland, we only have imported snakes, unless you count politicians and we like it that way.

We have 1/3 of the land mass of the lower 48 states, .02 percent of the aggregate population, 10 percent of the nations guns, we are the farthest point east and west in the USA, we can canoe to Russia if we chose to do so, and our Governor Palin could shoot, skin and tan the hide of your governor while fixing lunch for her family, and entertaining foreign dignitaries.  Now that’s multi tasking neither Cheney or Obama can compete against.

We see things differently than the rest of the world, most folks don’t live in a land the will kill you if you ever take it for granted, Alaska will (Come to think of it, the missus mentioned something along those same lines not long ago).  I will never truly understand the first people to visit Alaska; what really motivated them to stay, there ain’t a 1 flavor Baskins~Robbins, Taco Bell, 7~11 or Starbucks in most places for hundreds of miles around.

Well, anyway, Alaskan have opinions about nearly everything and we’ve never been overly concerned about the truth getting in the way of a Tall Alaskan Tale or political promise, and it shouldn’t.

Welcome Friend.

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Tags: alaska, alaska living, alaskan facts, alaskan worldview