Alaska and Life

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

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

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