A few trick-or-treating photos

And so another spook-tastic Halloween comes to a close.

Here are a few photos of our night. We had a lot of fun passing out candy to the trick-or-treaters. I was going to take  pictures of the kids all dressed up, but then I decided it might seem kind of creepy. Haha. Oh well.

My roommate, “Tigger”

Our big ol’ bowl of candy

My roommates’ anti-Yankee jack-o-lantern…does it still count as a jack-o-lantern if it doesn’t have a face?

Dressing up for Halloween in Fairbanks

I always loved Halloween as a kid, but I despised having to wear a snowsuit and boots underneath my costume. Let me tell you, snowsuits can severely limit your choice in outfits and test your creative abilities. I can remember being a puffy pumpkin, a bulbous witch and a princess that looked suspiciously like the Michelin Man with a crown. The snowsuit issue is not just a drag for the kids either. Parents often have to deal with creating a costume to fit over their kids’ snow clothes since it is unlikely they will find a costume suitable for Alaskan weather at the local Wal*Mart. This falls in to the category of “crazy issues most people don’t have to deal with” along with plugging in our vehicles at -40 degrees, seasonal affective disorder and dealing with rampant misconceptions involving igloos, penguins and polar bears.

A few photos from my childhood:

Here are a few examples of Alaskan creativity at its finest. That’s right, it is the Ninja Turtle and the…50’s sock hop girl? All I know is I wanted that poodle skirt BAD. Mom came through for both of us that year. She is a crafty lady.

I love my brother’s face mask in this one…priceless.

Haha…notice my faux-rabbit fur jacket and stylish pink boots and hat.

I’d like to point out the handmade turtle shell, compliments of my mother, and the store bought knee pads, elbow pads and belt, all stretched to the breaking point to accommodate the rather puffy snowsuit.

A few winter photos

So, I finally got my digital SLR camera. I still don’t know how to use it all that well, but I’ve been playing with it a lot outside. Here are a few pictures I have taken.

Icicles on my roommate’s license plate.

Frost covering my side view mirror.

A little frosty twig (taken by my boyfriend Randall..of course his is better than mine)

This one didn’t have good enough contrast, but the snow crystals on the little plant were very cool.

A flower from my garden. Just kidding, it’s a fake flower in my room. Bright and cheerful though, right?

Doubling of alchohol tax proposed

The city is considering doubling the tax on alcohol. It just seems cruel. How will people entertain themselves throughout the long, cold winter if they can’t afford to buy booze?

Coach DelCastillo speaks about his players

The News-Miner ran an article this week with a bunch of quotes from Doc DelCastillo, the new head coach for the UAF hockey team. He spoke a bit about each of the players, emphasizing each of their talents and abilities so people can get to know the players before Governor’s Cup starts.

My favorite was his quote about Erik Largen.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen goaltending wise, but I know with Erik Largen is he’s going to be very successful in life regardless of what happens at the rink,” he said.

Ouch.

Mike Gravel for president

So, I think I speak for most Alaskans when I say prior to the announcement of his presidential candidacy, I had no idea who Mike Gravel was. Yes, I heard from other people that he had once been an Alaskan senator, but he disappeared from public sight long before I was born. All I knew was he looked suspiciously like Ed McMahon and was pushing eighty.

This week in my Journalism in Perspective course, we were discussing the Vietnam War and the Pentagon Papers and Gravel’s name came up. Turns out he played an important role in publishing the Pentagon Papers and was somewhat of a rebel when he served as our state’s senator. I came home from class and googled him and found an interesting transcript about his involvement with the papers.

In 1971, Gravel attempted to block legislation renewing the draft by way of a one-man filibuster. He attempted to read the Pentagon Papers aloud in their entirety as part of his filibuster, but due in part to exhaustion, his dyslexia and uncontrollable sobbing, he could not get through the documents.

He submitted the papers to be added to the Congressional Record and  eventually Beacon Press agreed to publish the documents in a 4,100 page “Mike Gravel Edition” of the Pentagon Papers. Gravel succeeded in blocking the draft legislation for five months and eventually the Republicans agreed to let the draft expire in 1973.

I’m not saying that I will vote for the man in 2008, but I thought that this was an interesting story and I have a new respect for him; not everyone is willing to take such a big risk, get a colostomy bag and sob uncontrollably in Congress to stand up for what they believe in.

Do you see the resemblance?

Football is coming to Fairbanks

According to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, It looks like a new football team will soon be calling Fairbanks home. Unfortunately, it is not a new high school team, a college football program for UAF or an NFL team; the yet-to-be-named team will be a part of the Intense Football League, the same league the Alaska Wild plays in. It is hard for me to take a team seriously when it is advertised as part of the Intense Football League. Really, intense? Is that the best name the marketing team could come up with? Come on now, the league’s championship is called the Intense Bowl. Is it just me or does that sound like something you would find on a Taco Bell menu? Maybe one day the NFL championship team will challenge the IFL champions to a game and they can call it the Super Intense Bowl.

The News-Miner article mentions that the Alaska Wild has had trouble trying to fill the stands at the Sullivan arena, averaging a little over half of the seating capacity in the first season, so I don’t understand why the IFL feels Fairbanks would be any different. Yes, we are desperate for things to do in the winter, but this is a hockey town and I don’t think that an indoor football league is going to be able to compete with that. According to a March 2007 Sun Star article, UAF’s hockey team has been struggling for years just to break even after incurring all of the costs associated with use of the Carlson Center. UAF has to pay for parking, spotlights, traffic control, practice time, ushers, security, medical personnel and janitors among other things. Unless the IFL can find a lot of corporate sponsors or somehow work out a deal to receive a portion of concessions and parking from the Carlson Center, I don’t see how it will make any money off of this venture.

Ahmadinejad’s solution: Send the Jews to Alaska

Iranian President Ahmadinejad made the papers again this weekend as he spoke out against Israel on Jerusalem Day. Now, after calling the Holocaust a myth and declaring that Iran does not have any homosexuals, he has decided that the best way to solve the conflict between Israel and Palestine is to move all of the Jews to Europe and Alaska. Ingenius! This man is on a roll.

I am sure the Jewish people are all on board with this plan; they will just pack up their belongings and haul their families half way around the world, giving up their sacred holy land to a group they have been at war with for years in exchange for a little piece of our frozen paradise. I definitely feel that discounting Jewish beliefs and calling Israel’s existance an “insult to human dignity” will help his cause. Offending and alienating people while asking them for favors is always the best bet for getting what you want.

This does make me feel a bit better about the leadership of our country; lately a lot of people have been feeling pretty stupid for electing Bush, but the Iranian’s have got to be seriously questioning their sanity after electing Ahmadinejad to lead their country. 

The “$100 laptop”

I saw this article in the New York Times and thought the idea behind it was really cool; not only does this group want to get laptops into the hands of underprivledged kids, but they are giving Americans the chance to put them there. I was actually talking to a lady at work today who is looking to buy a computer for her 10-year-old son; she is trying to decide between a Mac and a PC, but this XO would be perfect for a kid. The company’s promise that the computer is “spillproof, rainproof, dustproof and drop-proof” will definitely be tested by a ten year old and the price can’t be beat; for $400 you could get one for your kid and donate one to an underprivledged child at the same time.

I think teaching kids how to use computers and harness new techonology is fantastic; I was looking for something on the University of Nebraska Omaha site today and saw a feature story about a tech-savvy alumnus who became a 5th grade teacher; he built a Web site for the school and started posting stories written by students who were assigned the job of “roving reporter” for the day. Eventually the kids started doing podcasts, blogging and creating their own radio shows online. How cool.

I think it is smart to introduce children to computers at an early age; they have become an integral part of our daily lives and kids need to know how to use them. I never understood why elementary schools expect kids to type papers and research using the internet, but wait until junior high to teach kids keyboarding skills and proper internet search techniques. I wish I had been exposed to all of the new technological advances as a kid; I would probably have a much better grasp on new media and could have used that knowledge to improve my school work growing up.

Iranian president speaks at Columbia University

His Excellency the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, spoke at Columbia University on Monday.  He used the opportunity to defend his country and provide some comic relief for a skeptical, and somewhat hostile, American audience. Full transcripts of the speech are available online.

My favorite quote came after a student in the audience asked the president why homosexual Iranian citizens were being executed. President Ahmadinejad’s response was, “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. (Laughter.) We don’t have that in our country. (Booing.) In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have it. (Laughter.)”

David Horsey, an editorial cartoonist at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer summed up the speech with a fantastic cartoon that ran in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner today.

 Hilarious. Why don’t people like this ever come to UAF?