lack of sunshine

 I have a serious lack of sunshine going on here. i just had a four day weekend, and i have decided that it is OK to sleep 12 hours.  the sun doesn't rise till 11 am  anyway,  well I did on Saturday. 

 today the cold spell hit , its -34 and my motivation has gone to hell.

 I looked outside today and saw it was light.  and sat back down at my desk, 

 I had this brilliant idea to check the tire pressure, ( you know its related to temperature) and check the oil.  and watching TV  and taking a nap is  way more appealing. it s only 11 f in the garage, relitively warm when it is -35 outside. 

 the exhange rate has gone to hell on me the euro is at 1.42 when it was 1.25 2 weeks ago , the Brit pound is ok at 1 .45.,  aparently there is lots of  good sales in UK right now. I hear some shoping   coming.  I still have 12 days to go.

 i need some sunshine!!  i am so ready for  Vacation

Christmas Alaska style

Most people know that I do not have any family in Fairbanks. so for Christmas I rely on the goodness of friends, so for Christmas eve I was invited to  D 's place,. got to help decorate a small Christmas tree with all the adornments from his family of 30 years. No one seemed to remember the details of the decorations, they had made as kids or maybe they just didn't was tot say. 

 anyway it was fun.

 a leisurely sleep in on Christmas day,( what get out of bed early when i don't have to  - never) and i went out to Matt, Amy, and Charlotte's in North pole.  No I didn't take the camera. to eat smoked turkey and and pumpkin pie.  A cashmere scarf and some Baileys to my name  and i am quite happy.

  The other day  I had this wonderful idea of posting on Travel advisor to check the status of safety in Greece. and the locals say go to Greece and have a good time. Protests are always magnified in the media and are localised.  this made me feel alot happier.  Thanks travel advisor.  booked some accommodation in London at my favourite hostel in Piccadilly.   I need to start packing,.....

Sunshine or lack therof

 I went shopping yesterday to get some stuff for my trip, you know like a waist bag for the passport etc, and sunglasses. i 'll need those in Seattle assuming i remember what sun is. i think i saw some yesterday.

 I went dancing down the spur last night,  got to dance with K quite a bit as his other half was dealing family that were stuck in Seattle  and other bad weather things. meanwhile i have a friend who was trying to leave here and go  through Seattle. I don't know if anyone was successful yet.

 i don't leave till the 10th of January.some of my Friends just tell me to go to Greece , and jut be careful , while others say that Italy is much better, i will make a decision my new year to  change tickets.

We start gaining daylight tomorrow.  yeah !

Thoughts of winter

Well not sure what i have done all week, it's still dark when I go to work as well as when I come home.
Got my hair cut on Saturday, just a bob that is supposed to curl under, but you kow it only does that the day that you go to the hairdresser. But lots of positive comments from people.

And i went for a swim today at the local pool , i thought it would be crowded but it was nice and empty only 3 of us in the pool. Yes I have been eating too much Christmas stuff, and this will catch up with me sooner rather than later.

I try not to read to much about Greece, there was nothing in the news today so all is much calmer. Malta looks to be an interesting placwe that s close and meets the back up criteria. it was 61 ( 16 c) degrees in Malta today. and it s the middle of winter. I keep on thinking of more security things to remeber, yes i still would rather go to Greece.
3 weeks and 3 days to go.

Back up Plan

well I have this wonderful plan of going to Greece in about a month, but not sure if you have read the news lately that there are horrible riots there the last few days. and i am not sure that they will go away. anyway just in case i am formulating a back up plan.
Now this vacation is supposed to be somewhere warm and with lots old stuff, so how about Malta, lots good war time stuff and and knights of St John to keep me happy. then there is the Canary islands.
Greece in the middle of riots is not my idea of a good time specially when I travel by myself.
I have a month to play with right now tickets to Greece on the 13 of January.

Photo with Sarah

Sarah Came into work on Friday, (Fairbanks Convention and Visitors Bureau) to sign some stuff about more pipe lines. with lots of media , and someone asked if she would do a group photo when she was done.
so here it is, my photo with Sarah
Some of the people I work with From left Karen ,Liz ,( being silly) Yuki, me, Chris, Julia, Ashley, Anna, Sarah P, and Jamal

Snow

Well It snowed a whole lotsa last night , so,after geting home at 11 30
I thought i would go out and take photos I have better camera than i did last year for the

same photos so here is my fense and the snow, almost individual snow flakes. nad reflection of the snow on the tree. Cool picture if you ask me.

Then there is the bread that I made for thanksgiving.

mothers Garden

its winter , and we need some colour, , and mother has just sent me pictures of her garden.- her roses, so i think they are pritty cool
she did actually tell me wha they were all called but well .... does it matter.
the colur is just wonderfull
photos by Barbara ( mother )

Virus'

Virus are nasty guys, .. guess what i ran into last Thursday. yup I couldn't get to open any programmes , but sometimes you realize immediately that something is beyond your skills and so Friday morning took the computer to computer works. they are worth there wait in gold .. well worth the money. They removed the virus and the totally reinstalled windows. ( it was a bad virus) and gave me a few new things that i didn't have before software that is.
so i got the computer back today and have spent the evening restoring all that i could in other programmes , printer drivers, Picasa. and Quick books. I have a few hiccups to deal with and i 'll be back functioning.
my computer is lots faster as well.
So that 's why i havent posted this week.

Other wise life is dark, the sun rises late and sets early. My christmas shoping is done and mailed.

Fairbanks

fairbanks 005, originally uploaded by capthonor.

well there are skills one needs to practice before you go on vacation, and puting photos where you want is one of the more immportant ones Tonight a friend told me you can blog from flickr.
it sounds cool to me, but you need to practice.
this this photo was taken last january one a wonderfull clear day.
and this is why i am going on vacation in january to Greece.
7 weeks and counting.

Yukon Quest Fund Raiser

Tonight i got to volunteer as the bar tender at the Yukon quest fund raiser, it was a Hawaiian luau. The a very reasonable band and some dancers from the pacific island dance group.
One of the woman had the most amazing hip isolation's, and i did a very good job of photographing her mid wiggle.
I thought the background was pretty cool to say the least.
and yes i found this cut guy to photograph me behind the bar on our background.
Anyway it was fun tonight

Runing Water

Well there is still a small area of open water on the river, but what your definition of open water. there was a couple of tracks where someone has been on the river skiing and even a snow machine but fairly close to the edge , not out in the middle.
It's snowing again today, just lightly, and these days it is just no light after i am done work to even think about taking photos. We are 6 weeks form the shortest day.
and 8 weeks from my vacation!

Tango Lessons

Tonight was the second lesson of American tango.
what fun , i am actually getting the hang of this and my partner has good lead and we know each other well enough to have good time with it. you can even get to be quite slinky with it.
I have a friend who wanted to learn to Tango, we just don't live in the same state.
Saturday was the Fairbanks Symphony Ball at the Princess, it was fun. The dance floor always gets crowded fairly fast. but we had a good time. if only I had some photos of me that were reasonable dancing. but that is just not likely. it would be nice if I could find someone who likes to dance and is taller than me. who knows how to Tango.

Pictured Woody, Renner, Don, Holly, Janet, Sue. and in front Jan, Donna, and Scott

Vacation plans,

One step closer to vacation tonight. You may or may not know that the US dollar is getting stronger and the British pound is getting weaker. so i figured it was time to continue with the bookings of tickets.

I had to make a slight change in plan, I get get to just go to Greece, I couldn't get a ticket back out of Rome to London. so I get to fly in and out of Athens from London. i 've been to Italy so no big deal. I get longer to hang in Greece. where it s warmer. maybe i can swing that trip to Istanbul.

Anyway tickets were 82 pounds or $128.00 a the current exchange rate. it looks like a 3 hour flight so i guess i shouldn't complain.. it the same price as what I paid to get to Rome 4 years ago.

tickets to Athens January 13 and return to London on the 30th.

B & W Photos

We got to play with some black and white photos for once the other day. Nobody does B&W any more, and they can be kinda cool. Sometimes i don't smile and sometimes i do, but out the other photos are the interesting ones. I have the full size ones here for you nice large ones rather than 100 KB

another thing i thought to tell you is , as to the computer skills i am developing. I have been trying to get Quick books to function on my computer. quick books pro 2008 and windows Xp service pak 3 are incompatible. so last week i uninstalled sp3. didn't fix the problem. i discovered that .net framework 2.0 has large problems as well with QB's . the idea is to repair these things rather tan uninstall. neither of those options worked. So on Sunday i got to run the installation clean up utility. (Use this as last resort, written everywhere -yes scary) but it worked, I got net framework uninstalled and re downloaded. so now quick books works. Computer skills way beyond what i thought I were up to. and with not too much help from anyone else as well.

So here I am going to rest on my laurels and say "I rock"

Photo session 2

Well i haven't got the full size photos yet, from the photographer , but I just thought these photos were pretty cool. and thought i should share them, My favourite here.

There is a style of wearing these hats, that comes from, elderly scotish fisherman, the hat style just reminds me of my grandfather Fred. i guess i just caught his look

More freezing in Fairbanks

Saturday , another nice fine day, and cold, but armed with camera I went down the river again.
Rumor has it we are due to break the records for the coldest October on record. Not sure how long the records have been around. they say it is 20% colder than usual.. so considering my oil company filled my oil tank in July at $4.54 a gallon. i am not a very happy camper. but i don't control the weather.

Its kinda funny the way the ice freezes , and cracks. I wouldn't have thought that it would crack this time of year , i think the water currents may have something to do with all this

the river has frozen all the way over in some spots , but i don't see anybody walking on it yet. not even dogs.

voting NZ style

well i voted this week, no not in the USA in new Zealand, its kinda cool.
i went to the website downloaded the forms , pdf file and filed them out- simple ,
I had to have a friend witness my signature, it s not even necessary to have a notary do it.
and faxed it off to NZ
i am not even sure how they check when last went to NZ , maybe they check passport control maybe they don't. I am not sure what they record when you leave the country, but it was less than 3 years ago. So will they stop playing the stuff on TV, hell no . i live in the states and we have a week to go.
I did get some junk mail form the green party last week. I wont tell you what i did with that.
anyway I voted. done.

Ice and Water.

Today was the first clear day in a while , so I got to take the camera down the river to catch some more freeze up. It amazing how fast the river is freezing, but i must admit that this is the first year i have tried to watch it in detail. let alone catch it on camera.
The water looks like it is warmer than the air. The gentle fog rising.

There are lots of bits of ice drifting down , at quite a good speed. I was also surprised to see the interesting pattern in the ice along the edges. I am not the person to ask about what causes them, water currents maybe. then it clouded over this afternoon. the thermostat says it was 20 today , but to felt colder.. We haven't had a day above 32 in 10 days at least, so freeze up has occur ed. we are just waiting for the river to freeze. i think i did see a duck today but it didn't want to be in camera range. maybe another day.

Photo session 2 the Preveiw

So I got to play model again last night, it is a whole bunch of fun, thse are just preveiws as the photographer was busy for the weekend and these are so small in size , i don't want to show you the good ones till i get a better size to them, hard copies by disk.

This is my " Im not a muslim' shot

I was much more relaxed this time, and had a way better ratio of good shots, - one can learn to smile on demand

Dance Class

It s time for some stuff about dance class. my other hobby in winter - well exercise is hanging out with the ballroom dance club. I get to take lessons mostly on Wednesday, currently bachatta and samba,( think Latin lots of hips and almost sex on the dance floor - if you want - or not) Megan is the instructor , from the university, she had a wicked sense of humor and her sound effects of how to keep the beat have you laughing.


Samba is really fast paced, but is good for when you get that head banging music that you think you cant dance to. it s usually a samba beat. and looks way good if you get it right.

here is my friend Don dancing with Judy last Saturday with Holly and Woody in the background.

At the university pub Megan does a class on Tuesday nights. more Bachatta this week, it was fun, but like usual we are lacking men, so if there are any men who have nothing to do and like to dance,...





So since we were short on men I got to do a marenge with Megan. My hip swinging is a lot better, it just takes forever to get the habit after one s grow up thinking ones hips are large. ( they are but you have to swing them when you are dancing Latin stuff. )


http://www.ballroomfairbanks.org/index.htm


dance class is just total fun.

Charlottte

Charlotte came over today, i got to babysit while her parents went out. shes now 16 month and walking well / (running) last time she was only crawling. Now she has the skills to investigate all my house. the bathroom trash, the cupboards. by the time she was ready to leave i needed a nap. just full on the go. She is still the cutest thing in my life.

Chena river

today after dance class i stoped by the chena river , it was a lovely day about 20 f , and the river slowly freezes

Yikes.

It was -3 this morning. and I am not talking Celsius, I mean Fahrenheit.( -20 C ) it was too dam early for this. I need some heet in the car, plastic in front of the radiator, hell and someone to keep me warm. I put on a warmer coat this morning.
The good side was it warmed up to 19. I sat in the sun for lunch, ....inside that is...

The Chena River

On Sunday the 12 October , we woke up to more snow a good 3 inches in my front yard. the winter seems to stretch in from of us like long rail road tracks. I went for a drive down the river again.


just to photograph the ice forming. I did something i have never done before , something i have said to my self that I would never do. drum roll please......

Photograph ducks, Mallards to be exact. But they were just making themselves at home. having a good time. and of course came toward me as fast as they could expecting something.

The ice is forming rather well down the river. whats covered in snow is a sand bar, a very shallow river is the Chena. The temp the last few days has not been warm it s been down to 10, F ( that's -12 c ) it was 123 today, at least the sun was out.