The Mudflats

Part of the annual Fur Rendezvous festival every year is an event called Can-struction.  Different companies in town build interesting things out of cans, and people come and vote for the one they like best.  A vote consists of bringing your own can(s) of food and putting them in a large bucket beside the entry you think is best.  I took some pictures of these delightful can creations last week and thought I’d share.

My personal favorite was this lovely boot, because of course it made me think of the Mudflats avatar, a shiny pair of yellow rubber boots.  And it also made me laugh because the boot that this can sculpture is supposed to represent is the kind of boot that the avatar was originally going to be.  I, like every other person in the state, have a pair of these Xtra tuff rubber boots.  They’re good for standing in streams and stomping through wet brush, and walking in the mud, and picking berries in the rain and a variety of activities.  When I first started Mudflats and I was thinking of an avatar, I decided I’d put on my Xtra tuffs and go down to the inlet and get a picture of the boots standing in the mud.  But until I have time, I thought to myself, I’ll find a picture of boots to use as a temporary fix.  I found the yellow ones and liked them.  They weren’t Alaskan, but they’d do in a pinch.

Well, then you-know-who got that VP nod, and “having time” suddenly seemed like an old-fashioned and amusing concept.  And then someone commented that they liked the yellow boots, and I said that I was actually thinking about changing them because nobody in Alaska wears yellow Wellies, they all wear old beat up Xtra tuffs.  And that’s when I really found out how much everyone loved the yellow boots.  Comments and emails poured in, and the yellow boots stayed.

But, back to the cans.  I smiled when I saw the boot, squishing through those bags of macaroni.  So I took a couple of pictures.  And then I took a picture of the sign describing the boot and the fine people who created it.  And only a moment ago, did I realize what company had sponsored this boot.  CH2M Hill.  And who is CH2M Hill you ask?

CH2M Hill is the company that ate VECO, the oil field services company that was the home of corrupt bastard King Bill Allen and corrupt bastard prince Rick Smith.  Wow.  It seemed rather fitting that this boot, which reminded me of “tiptoeing through the muck of Alaskan politics” came from the company that took over VECO.  Not to disparage the fine individuals who designed and created this lovely icon.   And, I am pleased to learn that CH2M Hill seems to be more than several notches above the company they absorbed, having actually won an award for being one of the most ethical companies of 2009.  Go figure! It may be the first case of corporate whiplash.  It just struck me funny – a former corrupt bastard Xtra tuff.

And as the sign proudly proclaims – “CH2M Hill is proud to be part of Alaska’s unique past and is eager to walk “stride for stride” in continuing to build Alaska’s bright future.”

“Unique past.”  Gotta love it.

I’m still stickin’ with the Wellies.

I promised a better blog post than my bleary-eyed one yesterday night.  So, here’s my day up north.

4:15am – Alarm goes off.  Eye opens. Denial.  Hand slaps snooze button.

4:30am – Alarm goes off.  Eye opens.  Horror at the realization it really is time to get up.

4:35am – Shower, teeth, hair, clothes, bag, dog, keys.

5:45am – Airport. Coffee.

6:30am – Board plane. Sleep.

7:05am – Flight takes off.

7:10am – Turbulence over Cook Inlet.  Downdrafts, floppy wings, plane shaking.  If we go down, I hope we crash close enough to shore that someone from the fire department can reach me with a rope throw bag because we apparently don’t have a seaworthy rescue vessel for such things.  And thanks to Dan Sullivan we’ll have to have the Troopers handle the call first because the Fire Department has lost $150,000 that would be used for people who deal with incidents like the one I’m imagining in my head right now.  Thanks, Dan.  A pox on your house…  I am not a morning person.

7:25am – Coffee. Juice.  Why is the flight attendant wearing 4 inch patent leather spiked heels?  She just did a whole thing about floatation and the life boat.  How is she going to not pop the lifeboat with those things? What if we have an emergency situation that involves evacuating people or lifting, or stepping over bodies. They really ought to have rules about that.  Try take picture of shoes, but it’s too dark. 

8:00am – Touch down in Fairbanks.  Feel smug that I have no carry-on bag.  Do not realize that later I will find this ironic.  Twice.

8:05 – Meet up with Sine Anahita from the Sociology Department of UAF.  Get taken to a very awesome coffee shop called the Alaska Coffee Roasting Company.  Get an Americano.  Americano is 2000 degrees.  Must wait.  Engage in wonderful conversation.  Get ready to go.  Americano is now only 1200 degrees.

9:15am – Try to visit the World Ice Carving Championships to see the amazing ice sculptures.  It’s closed.  Plan B – The Museum of the North.

9:30am – Pull up next to the most amazing building I’ve ever seen in my life.  It’s like a giant angle celebration.  I am told it is two colliding icebergs.  I, who normally am not a fan of “modern” looking architecture, am swept off my feet.  I have an hour and a half to myself in this museum.  I can’t wait.

9:32am – I enter the iceberg.  I take a sip of my Americano.  It is now 900 degrees and I get a “fuzzy tongue”.  I put the travel mug in my deep coat pocket so I do not violate museum guidelines.  I walk around with a big stupid smile on my face.  I see amazing things and begin to take pictures.  I call Spouse twice to tell him about the things I’ve seen.  I have “museum joy.”  I have experienced museum joy since childhood.  On field trips, while all the other kids were rolling their eyes, and violating rules, and goofing around in the bathroom, I was riveted to information plaques, and glass cases and tried to absorb everything I saw like I was going to be dead the next day.  I go through rooms of paintings, stuffed creatures, fossils, mummified critters, artifacts, furniture, Alaskana, Native crafts, more paintings, and then, a stairway.

10:30- I am deeply in love with this building.  There are angles that go nowhere, long pointy rooms, walls that slant in or out depending on your perspective, soaring ceilings, open spaces, little crannies, windows, curves, points and slopes.  More paintings upstairs, and then suddenly…

10:45am – …my camera stops working.  There is a blinking message on my screen. “Memory Card Full.”  I begin deleting some pictures so I can fit others on, and then I realize, I had indeed brought a spare!  More clicking.  I am deliberately withholding my discoveries for use in open threads in case you were wondering. 

Gift shop!  Mammoth Christmas ornament, birch syrup, birch lollipops, raven magnet, cool mug with picture of iceberg building.  And a book shelf.  With books.  I feel a sudden need to turn one of them face down.  Can you find it?  I bet you can.

11:00am – My ride returns.  I explain my love for the building and I hear the story of the giant cost overruns, and the person who got blamed for them.  History will judge her a hero, I say.  The colliding icebergs are a monument that will outlive the penny pinchers with no sense of architectural destiny –  the sensible people with no aesthetic vision.  Sometimes we need people like that, and other times they need to just be quiet.   Does anyone gripe that the Jefferson Memorial went over cost?  Do we remember the price of the Brooklyn Bridge? 

11:15am – We go to visit an ice sculpture that is free, out in the wild.  It’s a bear.  I get out of the car to take a picture of it.  It’s about 0 degrees, and I wonder why my right side feels much colder than my left side.  I touch my coat and realize that the travel mug that was in my coat pocket has emptied its contents all down my side.  The Americano is now less than 98.6 degrees.

11:30am – Bathroom across from the Women’s Studies Office.  Paper towels.  Blotting.  More towels. More blotting.  Realization that blotting will only be so effective and that evaporation must be relied upon as the ultimate solution.  My shirt is soaked.  I remember the smug “I have no luggage” feeling and think that if I had luggage, I would also have a shirt.  I do not realize that this is only the first of two times I will regret not having luggage.

12:00pm – Veggie burger and more delightful conversation at the Wood Center.  Marvel at the “stairway to nowhere.”  Must remember to take a picture, I think.   I find out that on a clear day you can see Mt. McKinley from Fairbanks.  I already know you can see it on a clear day from Anchorage.  Suddenly the state seems smaller, and Denali seems bigger.  The distance from each city to the mountain is about the same as from NY to Boston.

12:50pm – I meet fellow panelist Jerry McBeath (pronounced Macbeth).  I think of asking him if he shied away from a career in drama because nobody would ever be able to say his name in a theatre because of the superstition.  Then I think he’s probably heard variations of that his entire life and I decide to spare him.  I meet Kayt Sunwood from the Women’s Studies Department who helped arrange my trip.  I meet Chris Coffman, the moderator.

1:00pm – The panel begins.  I am completely impressed with both of the other people on the panel, and the moderator.  Jerry McYouKnowWho talks about palin from a political science perspective.  He actually has some positive things to say about Palin that I cannot disagree with.  Gold star for him.  Sine Anahita talks about Palin from a sociological perspective.  I find her insightful and interesting.  I say things too, but like always, I forget what they are as soon as the event is over.  But, you can listen to a podcast of the panel HERE if you like.

2:00pm – The discussion is over.  There was so much more to talk about, but alas we only had an hour.  There is apparently a “dead hour” between 1 and 2pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and a dedicated group tries to fill this hour with interesting things.  It makes me wish I lived closer.  I get to meet several people afterwards, some who were readers of Mudflats and some who were not.  Everyone was very friendly and seemed to enjoy the discussion.

2:30pm – Gulliver’s Books.  I’ve heard about it, and now here I am.  It smells like books.  I like it immediately.  They have free coffee.  I like it even more.  I am joined by Kayt Sunwood, and Jamie Smith, the amazingly talented cartoonist who does “Nuggets” and the blog “Ink and Snow.”  He’s contributed generously to The Mudflats and I’m very excited to meet him.  We have a great conversation about blogging, and I notice the doodles in his notebook from the panel discussion.  I am even impressed by his doodling.  He gives me a signed book!  I take his picture with Brian the moose.  The time flies.

4:00pm - Kayt drives me to the airport.  More great conversation.  I see a bumper sticker that says Quitter with a picture of Palin.  It seems like the perfect way to symbolically end the day.  I say my good-byes and my thank yous. 

4:15pm – I check in, and go through security.  “Do you have any liquids?” I know they will ask me, so I quickly finish a bottle of water I have in my bag.  Bags on X-ray belt. Shoes off.  Coat off.  Laptop out.  “Is this your bag?” I am asked. 

“Yes.”

“Is this your bag?” I am asked again.

“Yes.”

Bags are rifled through.  I wait.

“What is this?”   A rubber-gloved hand holds up something wrapped in tissue and bubble wrap.  I have no idea what that is, and then it hits me.  Birch syrup.  More than 3 oz. of birch syrup.  Argh.  Spouse will not have this special treat on his waffles this weekend.  I am sad.  I wave good-bye to the birch syrup and the TSA lady feels bad too.  Second time I wished I had luggage.

4:30pm – Exhausted.  More coffee.  Another Americano.  This one is immediately drinkable.  Still sad about syrup.  Syrup sadness.  I purchase a giant cranberry pistachio cookie to ease the sorrow and board the plane.

5:00pm – Plane takes off.  I eat cookie.  It’s the best cookie I’ve ever had.  I’m almost done when I realize that I should have probably given the cookie to Spouse since he’s the one not getting the syrup.  Oops.

5:10pm – More turbulence.  Flappy wings.  I wonder if the mayor of Fairbanks has cut vital city services too.  The view looks nice.  I wish I was sitting by the window.  The girl who is sitting by the window is reading People Magazine.  She is intently digesting an article about whether Tiger Woods’ wife will take him back.  I don’t care whether his wife takes him back.  I care about the back country rescue team that may or may not exist in Fairbanks and how they are prepared to deal with wilderness plane crashes.  I also think that if you get a window seat, you should have to sign a paper saying you will actually look OUT of the window and enjoy the view instead of reading stupid magazine articles about adulterous golfers. 

5:20pm – Orange juice.  Magazine girl has fallen asleep and is still not looking out the window.   On the positive side, the flight attendant is wearing very sensible shoes that would not contribute to the chaos of a potential emergency situation.

6:00pm – We descend over the mudflats and wheels touch down at the unfortunately named Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.  A great day.

6:20pm – Remember that I did not take a picture of the stairway to nowhere.  Also realize that I did not take a picture of any of the wonderful people involved with the event!  Sigh…

Well, we haven’t had a moose sighting here at Mudflats Central in quite some time. So, here’s a picture from this past summer. Ah….green. I remember that color.

Don’t forget to tune in to The Shannyn Moore Show on KUDO 1080am between 11am and 2pm weekdays. Today in the third hour I’ll be Shannyn’s guest for our weekly conversation “Thursdays in the Mud” when we talk about the news of the day and solve the world’s problems. Your calls are always welcomed at 907-569-1080.

Every once in a while I enjoy sharing a little glimpse of what we get to see in the “back room” of The Mudflats.  There’s one little area that I particularly like.  It shows what search terms people have used to arrive at the blog. The top of the list has things like “mudflats blog” and “mudflats.net” as you might predict. But as you move down the list, things can get very amusing.

Not only are there the misspellings that arrive by searching “the udflats” or “mudflata” or “the muflats” but also some like these below. Some are understandable, but others are complete head-scratchers. This batch came from our Forum Master Snoskred. Enjoy!

stupid sean hannity quotes
levi johnston naked
salmon putty
how do you pronouce coelocanth?
choice porn
what is the proverbs of between the devil and the deep sea
snow white and the seven republicans
how do I get motivated to get off my butt?
the rock of gigralter
poor groundhogs
the joy of snail mail
how to start letters of admiration
what to do for dog pen that is flooding
www.the porn
who sells fake olympic mittens forum
how do you no that you are getting a authentic pair of the red canadian mittens
what does it mean when a valcone blows his top off
sex on mudflats videos
the best trucks to go to the mudflats with
olympic flame passed right in front of my work
Sarah Palin blow up doll
multiple choice porno
define quyana
hypnotic pitbull
print your own olympic torch

Many apologies to those with flooded dog pens, erupting valcones, looking for a source of salmon putty or just hoping to catch a video of some….er…. recreation on the mudflats.

Here’s hoping you enjoyed the visit anyway!