All Sarah, all the time
That’s what my life has become in the last two weeks since her VP nomination has been announced. All Sarah, all the time.
All.
the.
Time.
I’ve even put my ‘day job’ on hold so I can blog and take care of the website and store full-time, and it’s still hard to keep up.
See, I have another blog that I’ve run for a couple of years going back to since Sarah Palin was running for Governor, called Palintology.com. I started it to blog about my first real hands-on campaign experience while working with Sarah and her team and trying to learn from a woman I admired and always knew would accomplish great, great things.
As one might imagine, things have kinda blown up over there with the recent announcement and there’s been lotsa traffic, lotsa comments (good and bad), tshirt sales (my only income at the moment) and the growing-infamous ‘Trademark Issue’ with Newsweek and their Sept. 15th issue with ‘Palin-tol-ogy’ on their cover.
That’s a whole other issue that I can’t really get into here for obvious legal reasons but let’s just say it’s eating a good chunk of my time. Which in turn pisses me off and then just makes me madder and press on harder. Mainstream mass media is a thorny issue with me anyway, but now it’s personal and they’re diluting what I’ve worked really hard for the last 17 months. I will not go quietly.
But yeah, Sarah Palin now lives in my house. I can’t get away from her if I try. I’ve got boxes of Sarah Palin tshirts all over my living room, order invoices and legal documents cover my office. And look, even now, I’m blogging about her while trying to unwind before bed. I tried watching t.v., but she’s there, too. My phone rings and it’s either a supplier, a media agency looking for Sarah fodder, or even worse, friends that have seen the Newsweek cover congratulating me for something I was never credited for and ultimately does more harm than good. Is it some sort of strange and sadistic irony that the ‘Talking Heads’ come to mind?
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself blogging for a Republican (wtf?!)
And you may find yourself talking to people from all over the world about a woman who once fed you cookies in her kitchen and is now running for Vice President of the United States of America
And you may find yourself confronting and facing down Newsweek Magazine
And you may ask yourself-well…how the F did I get here?
I’m still trying to figure that out.
August.
Ling cod
It’s been a busy August. Lots of fishing, lots of work. It goes without saying that I’d rather be fishing. So I won’t say it.
We went on our 2nd annual halibut trip with Jimmy Swelltime out of Seward and it was even better than last year. Once again we got lucky and the guys we shared the charter with were pretty cool. There were 3 of them up from Minnesota on their annual fishing vacation - one being on his eighth year.
They all had terribly thick accents and as Wes said, it was like being trapped in a Fargo movie for 12 hours. I couldn’t help but laugh every time Hilly said, ‘Git ‘em, Jer-mee, you can doo et!’ and I wanted to ask Jeremy if he knew his name actually has three syllables, but he was the quieter of the two and I wasn’t sure how well he would take the ribbing. But they were wild guys, I’m sure he would have taken it just fine.
Hilly & Jeremy
The first Busch got cracked open at 9:30 when we dropped anchor and flowed throughout the day. They brought 2 large coolers and only one had a little food in it. But they maintained and never crossed the asshole drunk line. And they didn’t even give me too much shit when I got sick.
Yeah, sick. I refuse to call it seasickness because it didn’t last. I think it was a bad combination of no sleep, lots of coffee, generic dramamine and a strange sausage biscuit thing I got from the bakery in Seward. But once I puked up the coffee and biscuit, had a couple hours of sleep curled up in the tiny booth in the cabin, I was good to go. Evidently I didn’t miss much and we changed fishing holes a couple of times while I was out, but I never woke up. I needed the sleep. We had stayed at Miller’s Landing, in one of their ‘backpacker’ rooms and they suck. SUCK. The mattress’s shouldn’t even be allowed to be called a mattress. So don’t do it. Do not stay in the backpacker rooms at Miller’s Landing. You’ve been warned.
Captain Jim bonks a Ling
Anyway. Finally, about noon, I woke and we were at the Chicken hole. If you don’t know, a chicken hole is a known area where large schools of smaller halibut are known to be. I don’t mind the Chicken holes - they’re pretty much a sure thing, there’s not too much work in bringing the smaller halibut up and you usually get some bonus fish like cod, rockfish or quillback. Chicken sized halibut are also usually tastier than their larger, older fish.
Ling cod are my favorite to catch, though. They come up easy and they can be pretty big, bringing lots of meat for the freezer. And they sure are ugly. Almost as ugly as the halibut. That’s fine, I love them for what they are on the inside. It’s what is inside that counts, right?
So the fishing trip was a success and we ended up with about 60lbs of halibut and cod. That should make us plenty of fish & chips and halibut tacos to get us through the winter.
So then, the following Saturday was the Alaska State Fair and rodeo.
Flag girl at the Alaska State Rodeo, 2008
It was fun. The rodeo was kinda small, it rained, the PA system sucked and the roping was really bad, but it was fun. And bull riding is always fun, no matter how good or bad the riders might be. And some were actually pretty good. I finally had a chance to check how fast my new camera is and I got a few decent shots, except that I’ve only got a 28mm lens! There’s a few more photos here, in the gallery.
Get that ribbon!
The highlight of the event had to be when they turned 60+ kids lose on a calf to retrieve the ribbon tied to his tail. That poor calf sauntered out into that ring and was quite immediately descended upon by a screaming, racing mob of children. He made a valiant effort but got cornered in a round arena and an 11 yr old girl won the contest. I lol’d. There’s a few photos of that in the gallery as well.
After the rodeo we walked through the farm & animal exhibits, grabbed a funnel cake and headed home. By that time, people were shoulder to shoulder everywhere you went and they squeezed us right out to the parking lot.
Baahhh!
Tomorrow we’re headed back down to the Kenai and Uncle Jim’s cabin. Hopefully we’ll hunt down some nice silvers for smoking. It’s the last big meet-up of the summer and all the friends, family and neighbors from the cul-de-sac will gather for an end of the season bar-b-que and campfire bullshit session to rehash fish stories from the summer and tease Jim about how many times we’ve all heard his stories. It will be awesome.
And finally, there’s a nice tide so we’ll be hunting down razor clams, and then back home again on Sunday to process fish and clams. We could save so much money in gas and time in driving if we could just move.
Move.
Soon, we must move to the peninsula.
For now, I will continue to tend to my micro garden of tomatoes that has taken over my entire living room picture window. And boy oh boy, do we have tomatoes. I’ll have to post photos when my new lens arrives next week. Yay! A new lens! Actually two new lenses! I can’t wait! A Canon 28-90MM F/4-5.6 and a Tamron 75-300mm. Woot!
Movies I can’t wait to see.
Burn After Reading
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Appaloosa
