Xrays

Bear in our parking lot

Sure, I don't post about work anymore but I will post this hastily taken picture of a bear in our parking lot. We get bears, usually in the spring and usually uneventfully. They act like bears, we act like humans (who avoid bears) and everyone goes home happy.

Inflation - Ack

The current exchange rates between Pounds and Dollars reveals that if I took $2.93 US into the bank I could get £1.79.

Or if I took $11.99 into Sagaya City Market in Los Anchorage I could get £1.79 worth of tea. Granted it's English tea and it's in little round bags without strings and it reminds me of my brief stint as a foreign vacationer (thanks again T!)

Joseph Lostrangio - A Memorial

This is a repost of my part of my contribution to the 2996 project.
I intend to post it every September 11 as long as this blog is online.





Those who have read my blog already know about my love for guitars and my complete inability to find the patience or will to master them. Today I'm going to tell you about a guitarist I never met. His name was Joseph Lostrangio.

Joe never met a six string he didn't like and he was an avid player. Friends remember him playing Billy Joel tunes with zeal.

Joe also had a love of saltwater fish. He had four tanks including a 90-gallon showpiece. Have you ever tended a saltwater fish tank? It's not a walk in the park. His enthusiasm was infectious and many coworkers learned how to care for their own fish through Joe's guidance.

Joe had a lot of enthusiasm and many diverse interests. His wife of 26 years, Theresann, called him "a life explorer."

Joe and Theresann lived in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. By all accounts he was a good father to their two children and a good husband. He encouraged the kids to follow his example of devouring new experiences and supported their talents and interests.

Speaking of devouring, Joe had another passion: food. Some friends called him a gourmet chef but others suggested it went way beyond that. He was fearless with food and tried as many exotic ingredients as he could find, often querying staff members of New York restaurants about how to find the next, weirdest ingredient yet.

Which was probably yet another reason Joe was excited about his new job in New York City. He grew up in Long Island and went to New York Law School in Chinatown. He worked as a reinsurance consultant and often visited the city but the new job with the Devonshire Group would put him in the heart of the financial district. And it put him near some great restaurants where he could learn tricks and procure new culinary delicacies.

His son, Joe Jr., was attending St John's College and they agreed to share an apartment so that Joe Sr. would have a place to stay whenever he would be unable to commute home. It was a perfect arrangement.

His first day of work was September 10, 2001. His office was on the 77^th floor of 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower). He called a friend at about 5pm that evening and left a message for them to meet at a Chinese restaurant later that week. Later he called Theresann from the apartment and they discussed family news, what bills needed paying, and that he would call her from work in the afternoon the next day, as was his habit.

I hope they told each other they loved each other. I suspect they did.

The next morning at 08:26 am, hijacked American Airlines flight 11 struck the North Tower somewhere between the 93^rd and 99^th floor. One hundred and two minutes later WTC1 collapsed.

Joseph Lostrangio was 48 years old.

I never knew you, Joe, but researching your story has made me sad that I did not have the opportunity to make your acquaintance and call you a friend. Perhaps you could have taught me to master that silly F chord.

You have inspired me and challenged me to devour life. Yours was cut way too short but you made the most of it.

"… I'm not sure about a life after this
God knows I've never been a spiritual man
Baptized by the fire, I wade into the river
That is running to the promised land

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the desert of truth
To the river so deep
We all end in the ocean
We all start in the streams
We're all carried along
By the river of dreams
In the middle of the night…"

Billy Joel – River of Dreams

~~

This memorial is part of The 2996 Project administered by D.Challener Roe.
You have done an amazing thing Mr. Roe.

Sources:

The New York Times
Wikipedia

September 11 Victims: Joseph Lostrangio

9-11 Heroes: Joseph Lostrangio

Legacy.com: Joseph Lostrangio

September 11 Class Action: Statement of Theresann Lostrangio

The Cake Topper

Did I ever post this picture? The cake topper was fun to do but I certainly couldn't do such a thing as a business.

I do like the way it came out. It was way too tall but I did the heads first and the bodies had to be a certain height or they'd look like bobble-head dolls.


Here are the blushing bride and groom, still happily married after all these months.

Gotta Love A Tramp Stamp

Taken just after I got the camera. And yes, I was riding shotgun with Kelli driving so she knew I was taking a candid bent over tramp-stamp photo. What's a new camera for anyway? One has to accept opportunities as they come.

Tacky-orama.

Pete

Pistol Pete is my inlaws' youngest dog.

If he were competing on a reality show and had just eaten a furniture leg or something I'd probably point out that he has a hole in is heart which means he probably won't live as long as a normal miniature schnauzer. But that would just be to garner sympathy with the voting public.

He's pretty energetic and you'd never notice he had any health problems.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Journey as of July 1st

yeah, kinda creepy.

Elvis, Michael Jackson, and Sarah Palin

I was never an Elvis fan as a kid. In my world you either grew up with the Beatles or with Elvis but never both.

I missed any of the “good” Elvis years. I was born in 1969 so by the time I aware of him he had turned from the young, edgier, star to an older, bloated, caricature. He shook hands with Richard Nixon while professing his anti-hippie views. What’s not to dislike?

Looking back historically it became clear to me that in his prime Elvis was the real deal. Elvis had a much richer voice than any of the Beatles. Elvis’ music was just as catchy. Many artists whom I love were greatly influenced by Elvis, from Jim Morrison to Thin Lizzy to U2.

But Elvis had some bad advisers, Colonel Tom Parker being the worst. He isolated the young artist, turned him toward some bad decisions and away from some opportunities. That and Col. Parker dealt himself 50% of the profits from any Elvis venture.

While it may have been clear that Elvis wasn’t comfortable telling his management “no,” a lot of people seemed unable or unwilling to tell Elvis “no,” most tragically his doctors. He was over-prescribed many drugs. Clearly his death was hastened by his prescription drug abuse. I’m sure he didn’t think he had a drug problem, since the drugs were given to him by doctors. He wasn’t scoring drugs like some dirty hippie, right?

Elvis: dead on the toilet. An inglorious end to be sure.

I was never a Michael Jackson fan either.

Had I been exposed to more Motown records as a kid, I might have been a fan of Michael Jackson from his Jackson Five days. Not so much. Of course I had heard plenty of Jackson Five songs (like I had heard lots of Elvis songs) but I wouldn’t have went out and bought any of their albums.

Off the Wall came out in 1979. By that time I was a rabid KISS fan and wanted nothing to do with dance music. 1979 was all about the FM soundtrack (great, great collection of songs there, worthy of a blog post of its own), or even the Grease soundtrack, but Michael Jackson might has well have been a Gibb brother. No thanks.

So when Thriller came out, there was just no way. A ton of #1 songs is hard to argue with, but c’mon… (or “sham-on”-on, or “mama-se, mama-sa, ma-ma-coo-sa”-on) dance music is dance music. I might tap my toes to it but I’d sooner buy a Madonna album (yick).

So while Michael Jackson was clearly talented and very influential, I didn’t fully appreciate him as an artist. I might not even now but I won’t rule out feeling kinder about the music as I age, if only for nostalgia.

Like Elvis, Michael Jackson also had bad advisers, first and foremost his father, Joe Jackson. It seems unquestionable that Michael’s strange adulthood was the result of an abusive childhood. But there were more bad advisors including lots and lots of folks who were attracted to Mr. Jackson because of his money and in spite of his just plain weirdness.

If you are rich enough you can buy yourself a chimp (against better judgment) but for the love of Dog somebody should have said “no’ to his inviting children for sleepovers. No, stop, wait a minute partner, whoa hold up there little buckaroo – whatever verbiage conveyed the message most effectively.

Like Elvis, he had plenty of doctors who wouldn’t refuse his request for dangerous prescription drug and, like Elvis, prescription drug abuse contributed to his untimely death.

The similarities between Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley seem clear but why, you might ask, am I grouping my Govenor, Sarah “Skinny G” Palin with them?

Skinny G (or as she will now be known on this blog “Skinny GOA”) shared a lot of traits with The King and The King of Pop.

All three were talented, all three were lucky, all three were ambitious, all three are American icons beloved by zealous fans, and all three had some of their wackiest ideas validated by sycophants who had little regard for the health and wellbeing of their employers/colleagues.

Skinny GOA has been something of a giant-slayer for most of her political career. She beat incumbents to win the office of Mayor of Wasilla. The Republican Party old boy network didn’t like her but she still won the office of Governor of Alaska. She was the ultimate underdog. You had to love her.

Well, you might not have but I certainly did. I never had a pair of blue suede shoes or a red leather jacket with lots of zippers but I jumped on the Palin bus. Heck, I ran to catch it.

She was a true-believer and although I didn’t share either her religious or most of her conservative political beliefs, I loved her go-getter spirit and I figured that as Governor she wouldn’t be able to actually do any damage to our civil liberties. Alaska is a red state but we do things our own way. We have no problem telling our government that they are full of crap whether it’s because they are leaning too far left or right.

Then a curious thing happened. John McCain tapped her as his Vice Presidential pick for the 2008 Presidential election.

Skinny GOA had previously done things her way, following her beliefs, and ignoring any discouraging words. This had worked for her. She probably thought her string of political good luck was not just incredible but actually God’s will.

I don’t know this to be true but it’s the only explanation I can come up with for what has followed the 2008 election loss. She didn’t go home and quietly regroup. She didn’t return to Alaska to focus on serving out her gubernatorial term.

Skinny GOA had become a national celebrity and it seems there wasn’t a camera she didn’t want to stand in front of or a microphone she didn’t want to speak into. From People to Runner’s World, she was a magazine icon. She was one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People.” She flew away to attend lavish parties and give speeches and stump for other Republicans.

And since it has become clear that she would have had a tough fight for reelection she has decided to resign her office a year and a half before the end of her first term. Why? She claims she is doing Alaska a favor by not being a lame duck and that she has a higher calling.

This scares me. If she is really as unswerving in her beliefs as it appears, especially in her belief that she is always right, she’s only going to listen to people who agree with her.

Skinny GOA, I know you don’t take advice from bloggers and you’ve never taken advice from me personally (although she has stopped wearing Bono sunglasses in photos) but please, please use this new opportunity. You already have a book contract due, just take some time to lay low and reflect.

I know you don’t believe the media who berate you (and they have mercilessly) but don’t believe all the cheerleaders either.

Not everyone who agrees with you is your friend. Good fortune is not an endorsement from God that you have been chosen for some special mission. Having a higher profile doesn’t make you right, it just makes you louder.

Fame and not being told “no” killed Elvis and Michael Jackson.

It is my sincere wish that Sarah Palin’s post-gubernatorial life is long and happy and healthy.

I also hope she receives, and more importantly takes, better advice than the other mavericky icons before her.

Chromosomes

Separated At Birth, the Spring Edition

as in, spring me from jail due to inept federal prosecutors.

In protest to his unfair prosecution, former Alaska State Representative Vic Kohring grew his hair in jail (really, what better time to get your hippie Jesus look on?).

The result is spectacular. As in... Dude.



I love the Big Lebowski.

check out a Vic Kohring news story at: www.adn.com

Surprise

For nearly 3 months I’ve been consciously not blogging about something big and in so doing (or not doing) I haven’t posted much at all.

That ends tonight.

We’re having a baby.

Kelli is 17 weeks pregnant with an itty bitty baby girl.

Understanding that all pregnancies can have problems and that we are, to put it bluntly, super old, we wanted to wait until all the basic things looked good and healthy before we made a big public deal out of it.

So far so good. Now it’s a big public deal.

I’ll have lots of thoughts to share (or maybe just record for posterity) in coming days, weeks, and months.

Things are changing. Everything will change. Things I don’t even think are changeable will probably change.

I’m starting to get a wee bit excited.

And I’m not going to apologize if this turns into a big ol’ gushing daddy-blog, it will be what it will be.

Did I mention we’re having a baby?

Mark your calendars for Mid-November at which time we’ll be giving our thanks for the birth of one Miss Journey Reese Anderson.

A Great Weight Has Been Lifted

In reality a few medium sized weights have been lifted.

I had a cake topper project to sculpt and I had to prepare a 45 minute presentation for an advanced CIT class. I knew about both of these things since November. The cake topper had to be completed by the end of April and the presentation was last Thursday.

You would think that I would have started both projects in November and have been done since Christmas. Well, okay, you wouldn’t actually think that if you know me. Those who know me would correctly assume that I’d have waited until the last minute and then worked feverishly to finish both projects.

I’m a procrastinator. Yet I’m not one of those carefree happy-go-lucky procrastinators who fritter away the day on merriment and then whip something up at the last minute, confident that everything will work out fine.

Instead I’m the type of procrastinator who starts a project on time and works on it intermittently but obsesses about them continuously. Despite obsessing about it I will go to ridiculous lengths to avoid working on the project when I’m “feeling uninspired.”

What the hell does “feeling uninspired” really mean though? I’m pretty sure I’m not bipolar but I definitely go through waves of enthusiasm for completing a task. If I’m not feeling inspired I have plenty of other stuff I could be doing.

As a kid whenever I told my parents I was bored they always came up with the same smart-assed suggestion (or sage advice) about cleaning my room or doing other housework. I learned not to claim boredom (if only to avoid housework).

Consequently when I have a project that needs doing now but I can’t get myself to work on it , I’ll actually do housework or make yet another attempt at organizing my stuff and eliminating all the crap I seem incapable of throwing away (Need a power cord for a Power Mac computer from the 90’s? I probably have one. That HP engineering calculator I bought when taking engineering classes in the 80’s? I think I still have that too. Remote controls for stereos I no longer own? Guilty. Although there are probably stereo components or VCRs in boxes that I never use which belong with those remotes.)

So I have plenty of stuff I need to get done anyway. And those Netflix movies aren’t going to watch themselves. Every day a Netflix movie goes unwatched reduces the number of movies I get for my monthly fee. We can’t have that.

And the best ideas for projects like stained glass or polymer clay come when I’m already working on three projects which need to get done first. I try to jot them down and stick them in a file but now I have a file of crap I need to sift through – whenever I get the time.

Well, now I have the time. The cake topper landed briefly atop the cake (pictures to come) and is now in the bride’s china cabinet next to her Waterford. Mission accomplished.

The presentation has been presented. Maltreatment and Brain Development in Children was my topic and I think I got my point across. Luckily I was the last presenter.

When I started this road through anxiety and panic attacks I would have pleaded to go first. Now I’m much more comfortable to be last. I can pretty much keep the anxiety away through self-awareness and sometimes half a Xanax (as prescribed). I’ve managed to become pretty good at doing last minute tailoring of my topic to hit on ideas mentioned in the other presentations and therefore tie everything together. Plus I an incapable of being entirely serious so my presentations usually include humor. Hit them with the light funny stuff at the end of the day to keep their interest, that’s why I’m all about. If all else fails, set a guitar on fire. It worked at the Monterrey Pop Festival.

So now I am temporarily project-less. I have stuff in mind but I’m taking a week off from obsessing about projects.

Plenty of other stuff to obsess over.

Old Car

162 shots snapped for fun, one which makes me smile

Podcasts and Horror

I have always loved listening to radio chat shows (as opposed to screechy political talk radio) and I love horror movies so I was pleasantly surprised to find The Horror Etc Podcast.

Ted and Tony are horror fans from Kingstown, Ontario, Canada, who have lively discussions about horror movies and post their podcast every Monday for our listening pleasure.

And a pleasure it most certainly is. Unlike movie review podcasts or juvenile shows dedicated to a lot of swearing and dissecting of kill-scenes from horror movies, the Horror Etc guys usually have a theme and then discuss horror movies from the early days of cinema to new releases on that theme. It’s always entertaining, informative, and thought-provoking.

This is not to say they don’t ever use bad language or discuss special effects but their discussions are usually much more intellectual than the standard fare.

If you enjoy horror movies and interesting discussions, check out the Horror Etc Podcast.

(By the way, I'm not in any way affiliated with these guys nor has anyone asked me to post something nice about them. this is just how I roll).

Condo Blues, Round 2

Here's the local news version of the story I told you May 15, 2008:

Insurance Shortfall Stalls Rebuilding After Fire, Anchorage Daily News April 18, 2009

and here's my original tale of woe:

My grandmother owns a 1 bedroom apartment style condominium unit in a two-building 100-unit condo association in a very desirable part of Los Anchorage. In 2007 her property tax assessment was $210,700.

Last June a plumber’s apprentice, not being supervised appropriately, accidentally started a fire which caused one of the buildings (approximately 50 units) to be considered a total loss. Luckily my grandmother lives in the other building. 50 families have no homes now but still are required to pay their condo dues (which are in excess of $400 per month).

Here’s where her luck stops:

It turns out the condo association was drastically under-insured – somewhere between $4,000,000 and $10,000,000 under-insured. Guess who is going to make up the difference?

Winner, winner, chicken dinner – you guessed it: grandma (and 99 of her closest neighbors). She was just notified by the condo board of directors that all owners should expect a special assessment of about $70,000 (middle ground of the two ends of the shortfall continuum).

70,000 dollars. That’s a lot of tall green.

Who can afford to write a $70,000 check? Chances are if any of the condo owners in her association could write such a check they’d be living in an even more desirable area of town.

After the fire (but before the consequences of the fire were fully known) my grandmother obtained “special assessments insurance” which would cover such a check but it’s doubtful they’d cover an assessment for an event which occurred before coverage started.

Either way there are lots of people who are not merely screwed but really most sincerely screwed.

For the foreseeable future no one will be able to sell their condo. Who’d buy such a thing with that special assessment time bomb coming? And since they don’t have any real idea how much that assessment is going to be, how would you put a value on the property? Would any title company clear the property for a mortgage company?

Speaking of mortgages, my grandmother owns her condo outright. For those who still have mortgages on their property they will need to take out and additional $70K loan. Ouch.

This will take years to sort out. A lot of owners are elderly and frankly a lot of them will be dead and buried before the final bill becomes due. Imagine the estate nightmare.

The only positive thing is that her 2008 tax assessment is $160,000. Hooray. Sort of.

***

Fun fact: if you are under-insured you are soundly penalized. It’s called “co-insurance” and what it means is that if you are under-insured then the insurance company assumes you are self-insuring the rest. If you have a claim they will pay based upon the percentage of co-insurance they cover.

It breaks down like this. Say when you bought your house it was valued at and insured for $150,000. But now say your property has appreciated (through natural market forces or by improvements or whatever) such that the house is now worth $200,000 but the insurance was never modified to reflect that. The insurance company is going to assume you meant to be only 75% insured.

So let’s image that Hurricane Jimminy comes by and blows part of your roof off. The cost of the roof repair is $10,000. The insurance company is only going to pay $7500 less your deductible.

Who’s responsible for keeping up with whether you are properly insured? You. If it’s a condo association then it’s the condo association board of directors. In the case of my grandmother’s condo the insurance broker might have some liability but that’s only if he didn’t follow his rules and responsibilities to notify. I’m certain that each board member will be sued. Another reason not to be on the board.

I Met A Rat Of Culture by Jack Prelutsky

I met a rat of culture
who was elegantly dressed
in a pair of velvet trousers
and a silver-buttoned vest,
he related ancient proverbs
and recited poetry,
he spoke a dozen languages,
eleven more than me.

That rat was perspicacious,
and had cogent things to say
on bionics, economics,
hydroponics, and ballet,
he instructed me in sculpture,
he shed light on keeping bees,
then he painted an acrylic
of an abstract view of cheese.

He had circled the equator,
he had visited the poles,
he extolled the art of sailing
while he baked assorted rolls,
he wove a woolen carpet
and he shaped a porcelain pot,
then he sang an operetta
while he danced a slow gavotte.

He was versed in jet propulsion,
an authority on trains,
all of botany and baseball
were contained within his brains,
he knew chemistry and physics,
he had taught himself to sew,
to my knowledge, there was nothing
that the rodent did not know.

He was vastly more accomplished
than the billions of his kin,
he performed a brief sonata
on a tiny violin,
but he squealed and promptly vanished
at the entrance of my cat,
for despite his erudition,
he was nothing but a rat.
~Jack Prelutsky

found on www.arizonabutterfly.com

photo: LaTimes

You know times are tough when the vultures don’t wait until you are dead

Vulture Crashes Thru Minivan, Maims Woman

Updated 12:12 PM EDT, Fri, Mar 27, 2009

State police say a turkey vulture injured a passenger when it crashed through a minivan's windshield Friday.

The bird crashed into a red Dodge Caravan at about 8:15 a.m. on Interstate 80 in Parsippany. It whopped 32-year-old Vanessa Hurtado in the face, causing minor cuts. Shards of glass got caught in her eye.

The turkey vulture landed in the middle seat behind the driver, 35-year-old Jorge Hurtado, who wasn't hurt. He told police that the bird was alive for a brief time following the crash; the responding officer pronounced the animal dead at the scene.

Eagle Towing (no pun intended) towed the vehicle away. Vanessa Hurtado first asked that the vulture be removed from the car, lest it marinate in the heat.

Turkey vultures, which are not related to turkeys, generally soar in circles on wind currents and are often seen on highway shoulders eating road kill.

This isn't the first time a turkey vulture has left its mark on a New Jerseyan. In June 2004, one hit a motorcyclist in the head. While attempting to get the live bird off of him, the man lost control and struck another car. He died of his injuries.

Story: NBC New York



photo: http://animalwisdom.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/turkeyvulture/