Especially for Eric

Since Eric seems obsessed with having me draw something to represent his name, I decided to make a rebus for him.


(Click on it for a larger version)

Now he just has to figure out how exactly this translates to his name. I will provide clues if he wusses out.

Creative Endeavors

I'm trying to pursue my various artistic interests while we're here, since I supposedly have all this free time. Now I will show off what I've done so far. First, my new socks. I knitted them both at the same time on two circular needles, which is an awesome method because it lets me avoid Second Sock Syndrome (the feeling of crushing boredom that arises from working for a really long time on one sock and then realizing you have to do all that AGAIN). In case you're interested, there are instructions here.



I've also been drawing pictures for Soren's room, to make it a little more homey. I've done three so far:





I haven't used colored pencils in a while, so it's cool to start playing around with them again. It's kind of ridiculous that I had to buy a new set when we got here, because I have about 80000 Prismacolors at home, but it turned out that the box-of-fun-stuff I packed to bring here (containing pencils, watercolors, and yarn) was accidentally put on the moving truck. So now I have to buy NEW colored pencils and NEW yarn. Awwww. I did get an amazingly awesome deal on pencils at a yard sale the other day, though -- 52 Prismacolors (plus some Crayolas and other junk) for ONE DOLLAR. And they're all barely used. Considering the pencils cost about $1.25 each in a store, I'm pretty happy with my purchase.

So that's it for creativity, unless you count paid work, in which case I'm designing a logo (for a cockatiel society -- the fourth cockatiel society for which I've made a logo. It's like a fun game -- how many can I do without repeating myself?) and working with a few invitation clients.

Other things I intend to write about at some point:

• Anchorage's "grid" "system" of roads
  
• The cool toys that we bought for Soren that we've been playing with while he naps
  
• Upgrading RAM in a Mac Mini seems to involve a putty knife
  

The Longest Day (written by Chris)

As Kirsten noted, yesterday was the summer solstice, the most daylight of the year, or the most we're likely to get, ever. The official numbers were that sunrise was at 4:20am and sunset at 11:42pm. However, these numbers do not account for the 90+ minutes of dawn and dusk before and after that. As an added bonus, we challenged the record high temperature for today in Anchorage, a sweltering 78 degrees, with humidity in the 60% range. Horrible really. At least to hear Anchoragites (Anchorageans?) talk about it.

We struggled with how to provide the most complete visual experience of this for you. We decided to take a series of pictures, but to prevent the camera from cheating for us, we took all pictures with a 50mm prime lens with 1/200 exposure time and 4.0 aperture. This was one stop overexposed at 10pm. The pictures are facing east, so the sun is setting behind the camera (as you can see from the 10pm shadow).

In December, we'll take the same series of shots and the brightest one will look like the 11pm, but at 1pm.
10:00
10:30
11:00
11:30
12:00

This one was also taken at 12:00 AM, but with the camera's auto light metering on (it more accurately shows how light it really was):

You never forget...

I haven't thought seriously about the bicycle as a form of transportation for people in industrialized countries in about 14 years. It was a staple for me in high school, but since then, I can't think of a time I pedaled my way from A to B.

So, for some reason, something about Anchorage makes me think bike travel is a good idea. Perhaps it is that my bicycle commute is 4.5 miles on a nice paved trail through a greenway, from one block from my house to campus. Perhaps it is that a colleague claims to see a moose on said trail once a week. Perhaps it is that I am aware that, while I have avoided gaining the typical 5 pounds/year pre-tenure, I have only kept it to 3. Perhaps it is that Kirsten and Soren get the car, despite the fact that we pay megarent to be near both a gourmet market/coffee shop and a scenic lagoon, and the alternatives to campus are not good (there is an hourly public bus). Or, perhaps I am masochistic, deluded or insane.

The first step in the bicycling plan is: acquire a bicycle. Since I'm going to be here a short time, I want a cheap bike. Another job for craigslist. The bike ads on craigslist fall into four categories: 1) people advertising one or two old bikes from the garage for cheap 2) people advertising super high end bikes for between $2000 and $4000 3) people advertising lots (6-20) of newer bikes of uncertain provenance for really cheap and 4) people admonishing me not to buy bike X because it was stolen from them. I quickly realize I do not know enough about bikes (parts types, frame sizes, etc.) to buy myself a suitable bike, but I decide I want to avoid the bike fences and, after finding nothing that seems ideal, contact a few people selling a single old bike from the garage.

Now is when it is important to note that this means that I actually have to test ride a bike. Someone else's bike. At their house. While they are watching. When I haven't tried to ride a bike in more than a decade. It is true, what they say....

After some effort, I purchased an early '90s Novara Ponderosa (REI model) for $100 from a guy with a large house in the foothills overlooking the city and water and a Carrera coeval with the bike. It is a mountain bike his wife used and has the following features:

1. It has two wheels that spin
2. It is adult size
3. It has Shimano brakes, gears and derailleurs, and they made good stuff last time I knew anything about bikes (which is about when this bike was made)

I will not take a bet that it is not a women's bike, what with the teal and fucshia logo on a white frame and a woman's seat. However, the top bar is in the right place, and I'm already married, so I'll make do.

The second step in the bicycling plan is: acquiring auxilliary equipment, a helmet and gloves. When I last rode a bike, helmets were for racers looking to be more aerodynamic and safety nuts (he says through the three crowns holding the place of the front teeth he knocked out in a bike accident when he was 12). The local cyclery was happy to provide.

The third step in the bicycling plan is: riding the bicycle. I bought the bike and gear on Friday, and eagerly take my first ride up the bike trail towards school. I live on the coast, and campus is inland, but the ride is not noticably uphill. Unless you're on a bicycle. And haven't ridden one in 14 years. On my test ride, I made it about 3/4s of a mile toward school and was completely wiped; unfortunately, it is not noticably downhill back home. Things were not looking good for the first commute.

The final step in the bicycling plan is: commuting on the bicycle. Far from confident from my trial ride, on Tuesday I mounted the bike, determined to see if I could get to campus. Lacking a map, I made several wrong turns and added over a mile to the ride, but I did make it. After the first day, I learned three things:

1. I am not in good shape
2. Veer right at the third baseball diamond
3. The woman who rode what is now my bicycle had the front of the seat higher than the back; I needed the opposite arrangement

Today was my third day of commuting by bicycle, and after several seat adjustments, many parts of my body hurt. But I am pleased to say that I am feeling stronger with each ride. I am measuring my progress based on the ratio of people who pass me to people I pass on the ride home. On the way home yesterday, I passed another biker, er, cyclist, as we prefer to be called. He was towing a trailer with a kid in it. But today, on the way home, I passed five fellow cyclists, and none were towing trailers. Three were even adults. And only one person passed me.

Perhaps by next week I will be able to climb the big hill at mile 4 without getting off the bike and walking. Or maybe I'll spot a moose.

Happy Solstice!

Longest day of the year, baby! I'll try to get a middle-of-the-night picture tonight. It probably won't be very exciting, because it'll look like every other picture I take here, but it'll be in the middle of the night! Ooooh!

It's gorgeous here today. The temperature might get high enough to match the record high for this date: 78 degrees in 1943. So, yeah, not all that hot. Personally, I think this is the best summer weather ever.

Yesterday was a lovely day as well -- we took a walk in the evening and got some nice photos of the lagoon and Fish Creek (about a ten-minute walk from our house). We also saw our very first beaver! Chris was convinced it was a muskrat, but then we saw the tell-tale... tail. I didn't get any good pictures of the beaver, unfortunately.


The lagoon at 8 PM. The mountains in the distance are part of Chugach National Forest.


Fish Creek. I haven't seen any salmon in it, but I also haven't been there at high tide.

Mom had asked whether the landscape here reminded me of anywhere else (like New Zealand). Of all the places I've been, I'd say it's most like Wyoming -- the mountains and the wildlife are pretty similar. On a side note, New Zealand was a lot like California -- the suburbs of Auckland TOTALLY reminded me of Santa Barbara, down to the little bungalows with Agapanthus in their front yards. The South Island was more like northern California. I think Queenstown must be a lot like Tahoe. I remember Mika saying in her blog that everyplace she visits reminds her of home, and I know what she means! I felt stupid saying that Australia and New Zealand were a lot like California, but... they are. Alaska, however, is not like California. It is like Wyoming. So there you go.

Finally, for all you Soren fans, here's the man himself with a cookie over his eye:


Enjoy the longest day of the year!

Finally seeing some sights

We finally got out of Anchorage yesterday and drove down to Seward. It's an amazing drive along the inlet and mountains:



We must have seen at least fifteen bald eagles along the way. No bears or moose, though (yet). In Seward, we visited the Sea Life Center, which has some very nice exhibits of local marine life (birds, fish, and mammals) and seems like a perfectly reasonable place to take a toddler when you've all got cabin fever and want to drive a couple hours out of town. We're expecting to be in that situation a few times while we're here, so we got a membership.

On the way back to Anchorage, we took a detour to Exit Glacier, even though the powers that be didn't think it was a good idea:



(I'm guessing this is mainly a winter warning)

Chris strapped young Soren on his back and we took a short hike up to the glacier. It's times like these when I get to bust out with the whole "I carried him for nine months" schtick, even on Father's Day. There's no way I can carry that boy in a backpack. Anyway, it was a great little walk -- you can get right up to the glacier, and there are lovely views of the landscape:





More pictures are up on our Flickr page.

Sadly, Soren doesn't seem to be feeling well today -- he slept 13 hours last night and has taken a two-hour nap today. I mean, if this is how he chooses to act when he isn't feeling well, I'll take it, but I feel bad for my little guy. He could just be growing... in which case we'd better get going on more of these hikes before he gets too heavy for Chris to lug around!

Oh, and FYI, we did see more moose poop. I didn't take any pictures this time. You can thank me on the comments page.

Happy anniversary to us!

Chris and I have been married for five years! Yay! We celebrated by having pastries for lunch, buying pillows, and going to Red Robin for dinner. This is what five years of marriage does to you. I guess.

:^)

I'm going to Alaska for six months and I'm bringing...

I was reminded of the classic thought game during the otherwise awful movie The Astronaut Farmer on the flight up here, but play along for a moment and consider the problem of what you'd bring to Alaska from home, what you'd plan to buy when you got here, and what you'd think you could do without. What's important to you? On what do you rely? What can be replaced cheaply? What do you have that really is unnecessary? We are quickly learning that there are a lot of things we simply didn't consider, and that we've become somewhat soft, and can't do without as much as we'd hoped.

If this game does not seem hard, here are some of the constraints. You can bring two suitcases per person, less than 50lbs each. You need clothes & boots, the warm stuff. Shipping is by priority mail; parcel post takes 3-5 weeks (this is true for the return trip too, so everything bought here gets sold or donated in the last week). Shipping things ordered off the internet is outrageously expensive and/or slow. Craigslist is active here, as the community as a whole is pretty transient.

Finally, next time you go to the store, when you're standing in the aisle about to throw any stinking thing in the cart, ask yourself, "Is it possible to do without this for a few months?" Answer the question again, knowing you already have one at home, and this one costs 20% more because you're in Alaska.


Possibly surprising things we brought:
Good cookware, knives, spices, colander, cookies sheets, bowls and hand mixer.

Cables; we had a whole 21" suitcase that was primarily cables (we're not bringing the TV, but we need some way to connect the DVD player when we get there, and do I want to drop $40 on another set?).

Silverware; basic hardware (hammer, pliers, screwdrivers). You need it, and we shipped it in one flat-rate box.

Sheets and towels. Expensive to replace with acceptable quality.

Good birdwatching binoculars; good camera & lenses (OK, not surprising).


Things we planned to buy:
A dining table; chairs; computer desk; aerobed; bike; pillows; coffee maker; a small set of dishes; TV; car.


Where we've caved:
Wine glasses. I broke down before having a bottle of Conundrum with some king salmon. $3 for a mis-matched set of four (two commemorate a conference that occurred in 1994) at the thrift store.

Pyrex pie pan/baking pan. $24 for a 10 piece set, after rebate.

Distilled spirits. I HAVE EXPECTATIONS FOR FATHERS' DAY!

A pepper mill. $5 for a jar of peppercorns with multi-coarseness grinder top.

Soren's walker. He's just weeks from walking by himself, right? No, he wants to walk around, and needs a colorful plastic cart to do it. $30.

A microwave. Soren got tired of cold food after 3 days. $50.

Dutched cocoa. We have tons (OK, pounds) of Callebaut at home. Droste is $11/8oz.


Where we're still holding out:
A "real" mattress. We got the double-height queen aerobed. The alternatives are not good: very expensive new mattress, or a used mattress.

A "real" couch. We're still searching for a futon that will double as a guest bed. They are available on craigslist, but...

A toaster oven. Didn't think we'd miss it, but we do.

A vacuum. We're rapidly losing this battle, as the carpet accumulates a thick layer of Cheerio dust.

Good balsamic vinegar. We bought cheap stuff. It is...not great.

Paper towels. We're going to use 16 rolls in the next six months (one of us is a very messy eater). But we can't bring ourselves to buy the mega-pack at Costco.

Clothing organizers. We each have a cardboard box in the closet.

A TV remote. Ours didn't come with one (we blame Craig and his list).

UGH INTARWEB

Forget the groceries. Freaking internet access is the most idiotically outrageous piece of crap expensive thing in Alaska. Besides UPS ground shipping. But I'll get to that. OH AND I won't even be able to get Harry Potter 7 delivered here on the release date!!!!! HULK MAAAAAAAAAD!!!!1!1!!!

Ahem. Internet. We have a lame slow cable modem connection right now, with a data transfer quota of 3 GB, which comes bundled with not-really-cable cable TV (broadcast stations only) and land-line phone for $40/month. If I want to upgrade to a faster connection, it will cost an extra $50.00 per month for 5 mbps or $70.00 for 7 mbps. EXTRA. If I want real cable TV (not anything special, mind you, just your average basic cable), I have to upgrade to a package that costs $80.00 per month. Yes, plus the extra $50 - $70 for fast(er) internet.

This, plus the fact that it costs $19 to ship a 1 pound package via UPS ground from the lower 48, means that I can not live here permanently. No worries, I'm having a good time and I think it's pretty here and all that. I think I can last six months. And I guess I can go wait in line at midnight with all the kiddies for my copy of Harry Potter.

Well, if that's really what you want...

By popular request (OK, just Eric's request, but he's a popular guy), here are a couple pictures of... moose poop. Or moose POO, also by popular (Mel's) request.

Here's one of the two... um... piles:



A close-up, so you can really appreciate each individual poo:



And a picture of my fantastic $7.50 coffeemaker, so you have something to look at besides poo:

He's getting away!

Soren's got a funny new habit -- he likes to move his playpen around (while he's inside it) by sitting against the mesh wall and banging his head against it. It's very cute, and pretty effective at moving the playpen around, and thank god we don't live in a second-floor unit, because it involves a lot of pounding noises.

It's mainly amusing because I'll put him in there, leave for a little while (to take a shower or let him take a nap), and when I come back, he's in a totally different place. This morning, he moved it all the way across the room to the bathroom door, so when I got out of the shower, he was right there to give me a cheery "HI!!!" I'd love to do some kind of stop-motion film of him moving the playpen around. It would be like some kind of old Benny Hill thing, and there would be wacky music, and you'd just see this playpen zooming all over the place. And then a vicar would start chasing it, and a bobby would chase the vicar, and they'd go through a door on the left and come back out through a door on the right, and then some sort of shark would appear and start chasing everyone, and wow, I really hope you know what I'm talking about.

If you don't, there's a link to enlighten you: Benny Hill Lego thing

Finally, for your viewing pleasure, here are some adorable teeny mew gull chicks at the lagoon!

So you're doing what? Where?

One of the nice aspects of being a professor is that every seven years I am eligible to take off to some far-flung place to study something I find interesting (and which could yield future funded projects). In addition to being an interesting place to hang out for six months, Anchorage is a center of fisheries economics where I've come to study some of the unique solutions to fisheries management problems that have been developed here. I am particularly interested in the design of the processor quota system in the crab fishery (that which may be familiar from Deadliest Catch).

I'm visiting the Department of Economics at the University of Alaska-Anchorage, which has been very generous to provide me with an office. I'm working with several people here in Anchorage, including a fellow experimental economist and a fellow fisheries economist, and with a couple non-academic economists (including a former student of mine). It is an odd feature of my profession that I actually know more people in Anchorage, Alaska, than in Providence, Rhode Island.

After a week of half-days in the office (the other half day was needed at home to acquire the fine material possessions Kirsten described below), this sabbatical thing isn't half bad. In my quiet office, I've caught up on several late journal article reviews, and I've been able to spend lots of time thinking about research problems, something I can rarely do at home. I have an ambitious agenda of publishing old projects, maintaining current projects, and starting new projects, but I'm optimistic I've got a good environment to get a lot of that done!

Alright, this has been low on event content or wry humor, but I figured it'd be good to start by laying out the premise of this adventure. Then we can comment wryly on how well I'm accomplishing those objectives.

Oh yeah, and there's moose poop in the yard.

First blog OMG

Hello to anyone who happens to come here! Chris, Soren and I are enjoying Anchorage, and I thought it might be a good time to start a blog. We'll see how good I am at maintaining it.

We've been here for a little over a week, and have mostly managed to acquire the material belongings we'll need to live in our apartment for six months. Plus internet access, which is way more important than any material belonging. We've gotten most of our stuff off craigslist, which turns out to be an awesome way to get pretty much anything. My best deal so far, though, has got to be our Krups dual coffee/espresso machine, which ACTUALLY WORKS and cost $7.50 at Salvation Army.

Right. Anyway. We're living in a decent apartment in a very nice area -- right near Westchester Lagoon, which is a great birdwatching spot, and with easy access to the Coastal Trail, which is a gorgeous walking/biking path. We've been taking Soren to the lagoon every day so he can push his walker around:


It's always light outside, which makes it really hard to tell what time it is. At 11 PM, which is about the time Chris and I go to bed, the sun looks like it's about to set, but is probably up for another half hour or 45 minutes. I have no idea when it rises again, since I'm sleeping and all. It's nice, because there's no pressure to do anything before it gets dark, and it doesn't seem to have affected our sleep at all (the apartment doesn't have huge windows, so that probably helps). On the day of the solstice, I'll get out there and take the obligatory "It's midnight and the sun's still up!" picture, so that should give you something to look forward to.

Soren's doing great, and seems to be enjoying the great outdoors (as well as our large living room). I think the light-all-the-time thing was bugging him at first, but we hung a sheet over his window blinds, and that seems to help. He still isn't walking on his own, but he can stand independently for a minute or so at a time! Big boy! His vocabulary still consists of "hi," "mama" and "wadda?", but I think he's starting to pick up new words like "banana," "truck" and "car" (all important things in his life). Oh, and he says "huh huh huh huh" (his version of woofing) when he sees a dog. Or pretty much any animal.

Random fun facts:

- In Alaska, you can make left turns on red from two-way streets to one-way streets. We'll see if I ever have the guts to do it.

- There is moose poop in our yard.

- United recently decided to discontinue flights to/from Anchorage between September and May. This was unwelcome news, since we have a United ticket from Anchorage to Providence on December 9. They say they're going to put us on another carrier, but maybe we'll be stuck here forever!

-- You can get a 16 oz. Americano at Kaladi Bros. (local coffee roaster) for $1.50. Cheap. And good.

-- Groceries are expensive. Unless you like salmon and king crab. I can't think of a particular outrageously expensive product right now, so I can't support this claim, but believe me.

-- There is a salmon fishing derby in downtown Anchorage. I think Chris should enter it and win (he has experience).


More soon! I hope!