Web Log Entry #0017, Thursday, November 28, 2002: Day 10

Anchorage Sunrise: 9:37am Sunset: 3:56pm High Temp: 41° Low Temp: 31° Happy Thanksgiving! I spent the morning working on this web log. I had lots of notes that had to be typed in and converted to HTML documents. Then the cable modem decided to get squirrely, and I lost time fiddling with that. Then I went to Thanksgiving dinner with Candy and her family (Candy is the administrative support person for the team I'm on at work). She kindly invited me so I wouldn't be alone (Stan flew back down to Vancouver for the holiday weekend, so I've got the place to myself). Everybody there was well behaved; nobody got really drunk, fought about ancient family grievances, or passed out into the pumpkin pie. They told me stories about their regular Christmas cabin trips where they have to snowmachine in for sixteen miles and cross a frozen lake. Right now, the route is bare dirt and unfrozen water. When I arrived, I was asked to take off my shoes and add them to the collection by the front door. When Stan and I came to view our condo, Lee had a sign up asking everyone to remove their shoes. Apparently this is a very common Alaskan behavior. Understandable. Snow and ice are treated with sand, gravel, salt, and/or de-icing chemicals, none of which are good for carpets. All carpets have to be shipped up from the Lower-48 (can you imagine the delivery charges? It's probably cheaper to put sunglasses and a hat on a roll of carpet and buy a discount airplane ticket). Certainly incentive for protecting their lifespan. So everyone walks around in their socks. Note to self: Buy slippers. Even shoeless, I had a good time. I hope you had a good holiday, too!

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© 2002 Evan M. Nichols