Category: Uncategorized

Matt and Suka skied out on Mendenhall Lake to catch up with Chip McMillan and Eric Hackathorn (Rob’s next door neighbor, in town from Boulder to do a three day second life training at UAS!). We went on out to the terminus of Mendenhall and there was a nice big crevace opening up on the face. So we went back in–over 100 m in. I only had the iphone (and Carrie called when I was in the glacier!). I took a handful of iphone pictures, but hopefully I’ll get even better ones from Chip and Eric. Enjoy:

What a great visit to the big city! It was a good AGU, a great visit with family and friends, and especially nice (and crazy!) to see Torsten’s cousin Taariq.

A nice deep freeze (especially up in interior Alaska!) brought in 2009. In Juneau, we got 50+ inches of snow in the first 12 days of the year! The low temp for a few days was -10F. Then, yesterday (Jan 18) the thermometer went above 60F!! The airport temp (official recording spot) was 53F, a new record. Here’s the pictorial history of our back porch for the 12/26/2008 – 1/4/2009. Thanks to Bob & Jaye for the idea of taking the pictures!

The global weirding is from Friedman’s “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” which I’m reading after “The World is Flat” for our book group. It has interesting ideas (such as that global warming is much too simplistic a term–the prediction of more extremes, an acceleration of the hydrologic cycle, etc–who would believe that?!? :). But it also has some ridiculous prose and analysis, which is appropriately (and very well!) mocked at this blog post.

We are having a great relaxing time, hanging with Nana and Grandpa Bob. Going up to Eaglecrest, out to Mendenhall Glacier, etc.. More details to come… (And first test linking to Carrie “Ms Facebook” galleries.)

AGU time.  Busy and fun with another 15,999 geophyscists in San Francisco.  It is a great science-fest (new results from the messenger flyby of Mercury! more lightning! great glaciers and ice sheets! volcanos, earthquakes, space physics, plasma, climate change, seismology.  it just doesn’t stop!).  Live webcasts!  And great catching up with friends!  And some politicking.  And some good food and drinks!  And—a challenge.  Keep it healthy.  Rob and Matt are trying to run the AGU marathon.  This is to run 26.1 miles spread out over the week.  If we get desperate on Friday, we can estimate the mileage of walking back and forth between the Triton Hotel and the moscone center, but hopefully it won’t come to that.  Keep track with us in the comments to this blog entry.

Matt put in 6.1 miles Sunday around noon on the Triton treadmill (drizzly rain outside, feeling wussy…)

The geophysicists must have been good this year–Santa(s) are here to greet us!  I finished up a grading and took a walk around Chinatown.  There were about 3000 folks in Santa get ups (according to one reputable Santa).  Just walking around.  There were elves (with “agent” tags, and “ear bud/coil” like the agents from the matrix) helping santas only cross streets when it was a walk sign, etc.  There was even one very convincing Jesus walking (with serious elve guards–no pictures, no touching..).  It was awesome!

UPDATES:

1) out of control santas! A bunch were walking around w/ joints, many had brown bags they were drinking out of, I saw lots with pints of brandy

I think one just took a leak in the street bush in front of the triton!

They are having a blast.  The elves are hilarious.  Jesus was awesome. They are ignoring traffic.  A few have picket signs but the are just pictures of santa.  It is awesome-lots of city people having fun.

Sorry, no pics of Santa taking a leak.

2) it gets better and better.  A female santa just walked by the Triton–she flashed everyone in the Triton lobby (sorry, no pics of that either).

She had a “bra” that had bells stitched in and totally covering the bra.  She jumped up and down, making the bells ring.

All The santa’s seem to love the Triton fountain out front.

After a great Thanksgiving, it is time for the biggest weekend of the year for Talus Tiles–Public Market in Juneau.  Carrie and Abbey have a table together again:

Carrie got a great selection of tiles and other ceramics together for this year.  Here is a bunch of 6″ x 6″ tiles:

New this year are sushi plates:

And here’s the whole 2008 Talus Tiles Slideshow:

Brian’s Birthday was last week.  We took over a six pack of beer, but not just any beer.  A 1996, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 Alaskan Smoked Porter!  That emptied out the beer cellar.  But there are rumors that the Alaskan Brewery is selling some of the older smoked porters every now and then–Torsten and I stopped by yesterday with no luck, but we’ll keep trying.  Brian let us share the 1996 and compare it with the 2004.  I really was impressed with the 1996.  No hop at all, but really complex, delicious, good smoked, earthy, yummy taste!

Scanning a few old photos.  Here we are: Sept 22, 2001.  If you were there, you were lucky.  Memories….

 

That big black lovable Newfie is Baby Jesus.  Just walking through the Fairadise woods, calling for Baby Jesus is a great memory in and of itself.  We’ll miss you Baby Jesus.   Our thoughts are with ya, Bevin!

This tune is for you (and all of us): With a Little Help from My Friends

Playing catchup, we all went to Houston for the Geologic Society of America meeting.  Cathy Connor and Rob Fatland were there as well, and lots of good scientific presentations went on.  In the “Global Warming Science: Implications for Geoscientists, Educators and Policy Makers” Matt made an afternoon presentation.  James Hansen was the special featured one hour lunch lecturer.  One of the biggest impressions I got from his great talk (“Target Atmospheric CO₂: Where Should Humanity Aim?”) was that a major challenge in understanding climate change is the difference between knowing and understanding.  We can “know” about gigatons of carbon dioxide, but can we understand it?  Anyway, enough of the good science, and on to the cute pictures!

Downtown Houston was very nice–the rail, Icon Hotel, and conference center were great.  We got into town after a long and crazy flight (with an overnight in Seattle, Carrie and Torsten going through Dallas, while Matt waited in SeaTac for a direct to Houston flight).  We caught up at Grandma and Grandpa Talus’ house.  We were all time-zoned and jet-lagged.  We walked in the sun down to the playground, and checked out the hurricane damage in the neighborhood.

We went downtown, and Torsten was in heaven:

   

It was a great visit with Mike and Ellen.  We went down to NASA, enjoyed the tour of shuttle and ISS training facilities, the Apollo Mission Control, and a Saturn V rocket.

   

Matt had to give his presentation, then head back to Juneautopia to teach some classes.  Carrie and Torsten hung down in the sun for a big dose of Vitamin D.  They went to visit Nana and Grandpa Bob, enjoying pool time in the backyard, go cart racing at the awesome pizza place (including a first place ribbon for Torsten in the go cart race!), catching up with the Buckis, and a fantastic trip to the renaissance fair.  Here are a few photo highlights:

        

And, you can enjoy the full gallery of photos: