sara-meat

So my roommate tells me he has never liked summer sausage. I have never met anyone who hasn't but I grew up very close to Wisconsin. Along with my German relatives almost half the population of Minnesota has roots back in Germany.

For Germans sausage is like water for the rest of the world. There are many different kinds, and I've never had a sausage I didn't like.

My roommate had a shaft of moose summer sausage in the freezer and it's been staring at me since I moved in last spring. I asked if I could try it and that's when I found out he didn't like it and that I should go ahead.

I tried it out and I now have had a sausage I didn't like. My old friend Craig would be so disappointed.

The sausage in question is gamy in the extreme. It might be my imagination but I keep thinking there are tufts of hide stuck in my teeth.

Since trying it I've discussed it with some hunters and they think it was made wrong. Sausage made wrong??? Who knew???

I used some suggestions to tame it a bit: I made a vat of spaghetti sauce (acid from the tomatoes) with lots of garlic, and added vinegar to further up the acid content (which is supposed to numb down the gamy-ness).

It still didn't work! I had some friends over and they were very polite about it, but I knew it was still too gamy.

I have since finished it off (too cheap to waste even this food). I meant to bring my roommate some fine sausage from http://www.louiesfinermeats.com/, but I forgot.

and the beat goes on...

Yep, still here. It's been a busy season. The Mrs. has joined me in Anchorage for the last days of my job. She will be driving with me back to Minnesota on Jan. 4, weather permitting.

She got to come to Lihue Hawaii with me for Christmas and we attended a nice glow-stick Christmas eve service. The facility owners did not allow candles.

It sure was nice in Hawaii because it's been COLD in Anchorage (I don't think it's gotten above 10F since the 19th). Today it was -40 C/F in Fairbanks when I was there. (I love that -40 is the same temp on both of those scales. My favorite conversion is 61F = 16C).

I've been trying to get the Mrs. out hiking but she is having a tough time with the cold. If it weren't for our soon to be lack of income I would buy her a fancy mask, but instead she suffers the cold she avoided for 20 some years in Texas.

I've gotten her up along the gasline trail a couple times. Today (-5F) we went up to the Denali lookout trail and back up the powerline trail back to the car. Probably a solid hour and she was hurting pretty good.

I made the mistake of pointing out that it's not just the cold but the fact that she's no longer in good shape...turns out that's not a good thing to say.

Tonight we are nursing our sore limbs with hot chocolate and maybe some post-Christmas cutout cookies if they are finished this evening.

Doom and Gloom

That's what airline folk say when we hit the lows of our roller coaster careers. I guess this time it is for real for me: I'm getting laid off in January.

So that's why I haven't posted in a while. The job market is bleak my friends. Turns out Obama doesn't want my help righting the ship, so I guess it's time to eek out a living doing a real job-type-job.

I've been using the MN Work Force Center to aide my job search. Not too many jobs I'm qualified for that meet our expenses (which we cut back to bare minimum a year ago to take my new job pay cut). The MWF has nothing to do with unemployment payments.

The MWF makes everyone attend an orientation meeting where they talk about some programs that interested me buuuut there's a catch (didn't see that coming didjya?): before you can sign up for the program you want you have to attend Employment U for five days a week for two weeks!

Today I found out that I can't do a week now and a week when I come back in January: all at once or nuthin! So when would the classes be in January? No one knows. They will call me when they have it figured out...or they won't...matterz.

So the hunt is on and I did find a snow shoveling job...if only my winter gear were here and not Anchorage (I don't think it got above 5F today and there are nasty windchills with the associated advisories going since last night).

The Mrs. will join me in January for the trek from Anchorage to Minneapolis in the mighty Saturn SC2! Yep, we're going over the Canadian Rockies in January. WOO HOO!

It will either be gorgeous, or miserable. Maybe we'll dress like this and see who can go the longest without car heat:

3.5 hours of fun

Today I had my long call out where I get 4 hours from the call to get to the airport. So I went for a big ski.

I've never gotten all the way to Powerline Pass and I gave it a go today. I skied for 2 hours and wasn't there yet, but it was in my sights. I chose to turn back, but now I know it can be done in about half a day.

Here is a view of the mountains:

Here is the same view but from where I turned around:

This is a cool bridge that goes over the same creek that you may have seen in previous posts, but this one leads to Hidden Lake:

I saw a few dozen crows squawking over something in the distance. I suspect it was a moose kill from bear (they are still awake those bastards!).

I also found some bloody snow on the trail, but I suspect it was from a bloody nose of someone who needs more water in their diet.

Here is a picture of a trailing F-28. I tried to get my camera out to get the four which were flying in formation, but this is what I got. It also shows a good example of the valley walls I look at while I ski this trail:

Today is the most I've skied since I was on the ski team when I was 14. It felt good to know that I could do it, but I sure wish I had my 14 year old knees back. They took some ice when I got home and are doing pretty well. Have to see what they are like when I wake tomorrow.

another Tuesday hike

Last night I went to the local theater pub and watched Elegy for a whopping $3. It was really well acted, which is good since the story has been done, A LOT!

Today I decided to hike in Kincaid park and took some paths less trodden. I think people ride these in the summer when the Devil's club and other plants don't overcome the trail.

It was pretty cold out there today:

I saw what I thought was a dog on another trail below me. Turned out to be the biggest fox I'd ever seen. Sometimes it's hard to tell because they poof out their fur so much.

I watched it for a while and got to see it pounce on some sort of vermin off the trail! Pretty cool. Too bad no pix, it was too far away.

But, here is an owl I came across later in my walk:

After taking the photo I walked closer and it did the cool head swivel to check me out. I did my only owl call to see what would happen*. This owl left it's perch to do a flyby, staying a safe distance away and then returned to its perch. It was beautiful!

*When I was a kid I got taught the screech owl call when I was at camp one summer. The next summer I went on a canoe trip down the St. Croix river with a different bunch of kids.

Every night after we'd be sitting a while around the campfire I'd try this call, and nothing happened. The other kids were kind of snickering at me even though the councilors were telling them that I had it down.

On the last night I got done calling and we all returned to conversation when an owl swooped down over us and the fire and screeched really loudly! Everyone was scared and amazed. A few minutes later the kids who were previously snickering were now trying to do the call but the owl never came back. I felt pretty good.

dreamy

Yesterday I returned to Anchorage after a couple days at home with the Mrs. While back in Minneapolis I took the ol' Murray on the http://hiawathacyclery.com/ Saturday morning ride.

I should have understood when my friend from http://3speedblog.blogspot.com/ said I was going to keep the pace down that the ride was not the cream puff it had once been.

It used to be 45' of easy riding, 20' of pastry and coffee consumption, and then back to the shop to open it up by 10AM. Now the shop opens at noon and that means longer riding, and more consumption.

The Murray was not pleased. In the end I was bringing up the rear and the group split in two, with only two of us in the slower group. That's what I get for not having the right gear (almost all my bike stuff is in Anchorage).

This morning I awoke to the end of a recurring dream. Every recurring dream I've ever had seems to happen over a period of weeks to months before I wake up and realize that the things happening in my head are only just that!

Today was the end of my 1st good recurring dream: it was about MTBing. Basically there was an amazing piece of land that was all twisty turny single track all taking place in a huge oval field.

Some of it was sand and some was through long prairie grass and wheat, some through dark forest.

Out of this field two epic double track trails sprouted into the mountains. If you took them you always had pristine views of the mountains and the sea.

I sure hope this dream will keep coming back.

SNOW BABY!!

Yesterday we got about 5 more inches of snow! That will help make a nice base here in town, but we will need another 5+ to make skiing at the parks in town do-able.

Today I went back up to gasline and powerline trails and had a blast on the new snow. I tried something I've never done before: ski-music.

There is a long slog (about 30 minutes) uphill from the car and I thought maybe I'd spice it up with some tunes. It may have been the first time I've had a headset on while skiing, it won't be the last!

I've always enjoyed working out to music and today it really helped me keep a good pace going. It was weird hearing the Hellakopters and the Clash while looking at the mountains, but it was sooo worth it!

I got to a union meeting yesterday to hear the state of negotiations. 2 1/2 hours later I had a "free" lunch in me and no new news.

This morning I got together with some other FOs on call for breakfast and it was nice meeting and re-meeting some folks.

Don't stare at this too long or it will consume you!

Check out the last day of the beard for tomorrow it goes away (sometimes the snow won't stop clinging to the hair):