Archive for August, 2008

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Ling cod"][/caption]

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.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Hilly & Jeremy"][/caption]

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.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Captain Jim bonks a Ling"][/caption]

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.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Flag girl at the Alaska State Rodeo, 2008"][/caption]

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.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Get that ribbon!"][/caption]

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.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Baahhh!"][/caption]

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!

Burn After Reading

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Appaloosa

Burning Man starts in 5 days. I’ve never been to Burning Man but it’s definitely very high on my list. I’ve heard a wide range of opinions of the yearly gathering, ranging from ‘duuude, burning man restored my faith in humanity – most awesome thing evar!!’ to ‘meh. buncha dirty hippie druggies getting baked and running around naked in the desert and setting things on fire – ghey.’  It sounds like one of those “You ARE the experience” things, so yeah, I gotta go.

Here are the Ten Principles of Burning Man as listed on their website.  How can this be anything but awesome?

Radical Inclusion
Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.

Gifting
Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

Decommodification
In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

Radical Self-reliance
Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.

Radical Self-expression
Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.

Communal Effort
Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.

Civic Responsibility
We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.

Leaving No Trace
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.

Participation
Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.

Immediacy
Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.

See?!? I must go. You must go. If the list doesn’t peak your curiosity of what this event entails, the photos will.

So while I won’t be burning anything, Wes and I are headed to Seward tonight and will be fishing with Swelly tomorrow and hunting for Halibut in Nuka Bay.  And I’m so happy to be anywhere but home and hanging out with Wes.  He’s been gone so much this summer. I miss him.