Opening Day Mariner Fun

Today for the opening day of the Mariner's season we went to the Peanut Farm sports bar to watch the game. It had booths with tvs in each of them, so we were able to sit and watch the entire game. Neil and I wore all of Mariner's paraphernalia, and I brought my knitting in case I got bored. It was pretty fun though. We had some mini chicken wings and a veggie tray. We decided we wouldn't be going there every game, because it was pretty expensive. And, if Neil gets his job (fingers crossed) we'll subscribe to HD cable so that we'll get all of the games on Fox Sports.

It was a pretty good game. The Mariners won 5 to 3 against the Rangers. I had fun taking pictures of the screen.

Multiple Ski Attempts

On Sunday I saw an article in the local paper about skiing along the Ship Creek trail. So, we looked up how to get there and headed about 15 miles south of Anchorage. Apparently the really good skiing was 10 miles into the trail, so all was ended up seeing was a trail of snow broken up by fallen trees and dirt patches. We tried skiing for a while, but had to keep taking off and putting on our skis. Banjo didn't seem to mind. He raced up and down the trail and had a grand time.

Today we tried to go skiing up at flat top. This time there was plenty of snow, but we should have known when we drove into the parking lot and saw no other cars. It was incredibly windy and cold out, so we were pretty miserable. We only ended up skiing for about 15 minutes before we headed back.

The city trails are all just a sheet of ice and some puddles, but we're determined to use our new skis a few more times before spring. We've been gaining quite a bit of daylight, so maybe we can go after I get off of work this week.

Costco + Tempura = Yum!

On our last visit to Costco, Emily and I saw a bag of tempura batter mix. This item intrigued us, so we decided to buy it. On Saturday night we decided to try it out. We borrowed our roommate's giant wok, poured in 2 inches of oil, and cut up an onion, sweet potato, some broccoli, some asparagus, and some fish, and created a deep-fried feast. As far as tempura goes, it wasn't that great. But for a deep-frying food batter, it was fantastic. Definitely worth experimenting with.

Hannah on Millionaire???

Since I'm unemployed, I get to watch 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' on syndication at 4pm everyday. So I had it on in the background on Friday, and the contestant looked like a dead ringer for Hannah. I knew she was in NYC for the week, so I thought that there was a chance that it could be her. It ended up being a lady from Oklahoma, and she said that her Mom really wanted to marry her off. Check out the pics yourself and see if she looks like Hannah.

A reason to wake up

Today was a great day, because at long last, I had my first job interview in Alaska! It was with the Department of Public Safety, at the Alaska State Crime Lab. The position is a forensic scientist, working with the DNA unit. My interview was at 9am, but I was up before 7. I took a shower and put on my suit and tie (minus the jacket), and was all ready to go by 7:15. Too bad Emily and I weren't leaving for more than an hour. I was pretty nervous, so I didn't eat any breakfast, and I watched an episode of LOST to try and calm me down. It didn't work too well.

We finally left, and I dropped Emily off at her work and then drove to the interview. I was parked by 8:35, but didn't want to seem too eager so I stayed in my car until 8:45. I met with two very nice ladies, Jill and Michelle, and they conducted the interview.

It was one of the oddest interviews I've ever had. They gave me a piece of laminated paper that had 9 questions on it. They told me to look it over, get some ideas, and then tell them when I was ready to start. Most of the questions weren't really about qualifications or skills, but were situational. Here are some examples:

-If a co-worker was listening to a talk-radio station in the lab that you found offensive, how would you respond?
-You always walk into a room and find two co-workers talking badly about a third co-worker. What would you do?

Kind of weird if you ask me. The interview barely lasted 45 minutes, but I think it went really well. There are 3 positions open, so hopefully I'll get a call back in a few weeks!

Dirty Little Banjo

Now that the temperature has been warming up a little, there's a lot more water on the streets and the walking trails. And there is a lot of dirty floating around, too. All of these things don't mix too well with a young golden-doodle puppy. Hence, we have to give him lots of baths. He looks rather pathetic when his fur is all wet, as you can see.

Snow-shoeing with 5

On Saturday, Emily and I took a road trip to Girdwood with Banjo, Jared and Kari (Jared and Kari are pretty much the only friends that I've made outside the home). We went down to go snow-shoeing. We actually went on the same trail and Emily and I hiked on our anniversary back in September. It was cool to hike the same place twice in two different seasons.

The snow-shoes weren't completely necessary, but fun to walk in. I think Emily liked them because she could walked pretty much the whole time off the trail. And she could scale the giant snow hills that we encountered along the way. Banjo enjoyed jumping around in the snow as well, and we kept most of the giant snowballs off of his fur.

More snow-shoeing pics

Here are a few more pictures from our weekend trip.

The Solution for Banjo's (Snow) Balls

Check out these pictures of Banjo.

Emily wants to reiterate the idea that I'm a big dork. Go figure.

The stupidist government ever

Yesterday I got a social security report in the mail that listed a summary of my earnings. For a number of the years it listed "0" for my annual income even though I had worked. At the bottom of the report it said to call the social security office immediately if there was a discrepancy. So, today I gave them a call. After 10 minutes of talking to a voice recognition computer person who couldn't seem to get that I was saying Lorimer, not Lorinure, I got through to someone. I told him the problem and he says, oh you will need to go to the social security office and tell them. I got mad and asked him why it said to call him, and he just laughed. Then I asked where I could find the location of the nearest social security office. He told me he could help me with that, so I gave him my zip code. But, apparently my zip code wasn't specific enough so I gave him my state. Then he listed a number of cities: Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks. I responded Anchorage, and paused for the location. HIs response: "Okay Anchorage. That is where you go." My response, "I'm sure glad I wasted the last 15 minutes of my life talking to you morons. Now I know exactly what to do."

I'm beginning to see a theme with government workers. We have a new employee in our unit, but there wasn't an office space in the suite for her so her task for the last 3 days was to determine how to move people around in the offices to make things work. The simple solution would have been to swap offices between 2 people, but instead she concocted a plan that involved 5 people moving office, with one of them dividing his confidential files between 3 places. I sure am glad my taxes go to such competent workers. And don't forget the Claves of the world (competent for a few hours, then off to go play).

Run, run, run

We had a fairly pedestrian weekend. The highlight of the day on Saturday was going out to refill Emily's Vitamin D pills. And making hamburgers (I sure love hamburgers). Sunday we took Banjo for a walk at a dog park, but kept the leash on. We had some Quizno's for lunch, and then I had the draft for my Imaginary Baseball Team (go Artic Banjo's!). Emily worked on a knitting a bear for yet another pregnant co-worker. Except I think this co-worker already gave birth.

We did have one Alaskan first - we went running! Not only that, but we took Not-so-Little Banjo with us. We had a good run to the lagoon and back.

Today I was pretty stoked because I received my bonus check from Amgen for 2007. It's pretty nice when you're unemployed, but you can still contribute to the family income. Maybe now we can spring for that HD cable!

Pet ER

We had some excitement yesterday---with Rio, not Banjo. We left Rio at home while we took Banjo for his walk afterwork. And she got us back by breaking into my bottle of Vitamin D. We get home and I find the lid all chewed up and the bottle on the floor. Fortunately she chewed it up so much that she wasn't able to get too many of the pills out, because it was squeazed shut. But the vet thought that it was still enough for concern. (Apparently Vitamin D is used in rat poison....and why am I taking this?) So she wanted us to make her vomit asap, but since we didn't have anything in the house to do that beside a finger, we had to rush her off to the vet emergency. They gave her a shot to empty her stomach and then they force fed her this black gooey charcoal substance to try and bind to any of the remaining vitamin that might have been left in her intestines. The problem with vitamin d is that it help your body to absorb calcium---which is why it is a good thing in small doses. However, in large doses, you have rat poison. So to follow up, Rio has to have blood work done for the next few days to ensure that her calcium levels are normal. (Today she was fine.)

To add insult to injury that same day Matt's man-purse was stolen from his car. It had his phone and ipod, and a bunch of other stuff. And then today Matt went out to the parking lot afterwork to go home, and his truck was stolen! Hopefully his bad luck won't rub off on us.

Weekend Activities

On Saturday Emily and I drove about an hour south of Anchorage to go snow shoeing. We stumbled upon this place when we got lost looking for Portage Lake when Calvin and Ruth were here. It was a little nasty out - snow and rain - and we took Banjo with us. When we pulled over and started our trek, we realized that the only people who were there were doing backcountry skiing. So we walked where the ski trail was. Even though we had our snow shoes on the trail, our feet would still go down up to our knees sometimes. And off the trail, it would go up to our waists. It was a fun little walk, and Banjo had a blast, even though he accumulated about a thousand little snowball all on his fur.

Saturday night we went to see and hear The Sounds of the 60's. It was put on by the chorus that Margaret from my work is in (we felt pressured into going), but it was pretty good. Margaret promised a "big surprise" in the show, but we're still not quite sure what that was. The evening was completed with some interpretive dance to jesus christ super star. On our way out of the theater we crossed paths with all of the folks getting out of the body building championship, which was held in the same building. It was a much different crowd from all of the middle aged folks dressed in tie dye.

Sunday was a pretty mundane day. We spent most of the morning organizing the storage areas and throwing out all of the crap Meghan left. Then we went down to the Dimond mall to get Neil a belt for his interview, and to look for some clothes for me (this grey dirty melting snow is slowly sucking my soul--that's a quote from one of Neil's friend's who moved to Anchorage for a few years), but I was sick of all of the sweaters and needed a little pick me up. On our way to Dimond we stopped at Costco, which is right across the street to get a frapaccino. We also ended up getting our own membership, because we decided we wanted to get the credit card. For signing up we also got to spin the wheel for a prize. We won a free combo pizza (to be redeemed at a later date). We've been really into watching the "Newly Weds" on tv. It's a reality show about newly weds (go figure). There's a barby/ken couple on it that I really want to get voted off, but instead all of the cool couples keep getting voted off. I'm still holding out for the "amazing race."

Matt has a girl friend now. She is from the midwest and works at REI with him. He's not sure how long it's going to last though, because she actually likes our president and is a big proponent of the war.

Apparently there is a server error on Google that won't let us post up the pictures. We'll put them up later.

Iditarod Movies

This video is of the dogs mushing right by us.

Iditarod 2008 - Willow, AK

Whoo-hoo! Here's Neil at the start of the 1049 mile race.



Here come the dogs right out the shoot!



Here is Emily on hill. Check out everyone behind her.



Look at all of the beautiful dogs. They're so close!

Today Emily and I journeyed 75 miles north today for the REAL start of the 2008 Iditarod race from Willow to Nome. The race is 1049 miles. There was a ceremonial start in downtown Anchorage yesterday, but we didn't go. The drive up was beautiful. It took awhile for us to realize that something was odd - there was no snow anywhere! It was a stark contrast to driving around Anchorage for the last month. But once we arrived in Willow, there was plenty of snow everywhere. We parked for $9 at a school, but it went to the PTA fund so we felt good. We both grabbed a quick Reindeer Dog before heading to the start line. It was the worst dog I've ever eaten in my entire life. The skin was so tough, I was halfway through the dog before I could actually put my teeth all the way through it.

There were a lot of people lined up on both sides of the course. It spanned all the way across a frozen lake, and then up a little hill. Emily and I made our ways from the start and towards the hill during the race. We stayed for about 47 mushers' starts (those are the people who are riding the sleds), but there were probably over 55 mushers overall. The whole thing seemed like a true Alaskan experience. There were people zooming all over the place with their snow machines. Lot's of people were "tailgating" with fires on the snow and meatballs on sticks. It was a great day and a fun drive.