I now know how to get to Sesame Street.

The USO brought Sesame Street to Fort Greely, middle of nowhere, Alaska. They did an excellent job. I got to be part of the show. The opening is a commerical for the USO and sending messages to soldiers via the USO. They played it on a big flatscreen in front of the stage. When the video was over, I got to roll the TV out of the way. I didn't say I got a big part in the show. After rolling the TV away, I worked as security keep the crumbsnatchers in line. I only had a few secret service style diving tackles to keep Elmo and Cookie Monster safe. Some of the kids were fit to be tied. One kid kep slapping his mom's hand in an effort to get her to let go. At one point she had a hold of his thigh and I could see her squeezing it hard everytime he leaned forward to start for the stage area. The actors actually go out into the crowd to hug kids but the costumes are like 7 feet tall so some kids head for the hills but most just scream like teen girls at a Bieber concert. Cracks me up. All in all, it was something special for the kids in the community and they'll remember it for, well, at least a few days.

The actors don't pose for pics with the kids, this is a photo backdrop. They said they tried photo op stuff in the past and it just takes waaaaay to long, even at small events like ours.

Here's the stage. The whole show was lip synched of course to a set music and voice score. They must have practiced it a lot because their timing was awful good. Especially the mouth movements.

Yep. I know how to get to Sesame Street.

Iphone pic of Dome

Here's one last picture of the Easter hike. This one was on my Iphone and I just downloaed it this morning.

This is of the normal trail up which was still full of crusty dep snow that we were postholing through which is why we decided to try bushwacking and the rest is history. I hope to make it up to the top via the backside Sunday afternoon after church. Wish me luck.

Easter Kinderfest Pics

Now that's a cute and cuddly Easter Bunny, not the way I'd look in that same suit. She's like 5 foot nothing and 125 pounds. Add a foot and double the poundage. Scary!!!

Photo opportunity.

We had facepainting.

The youth volunteers had a "cool" easter styling happening. Easter Bunny mafia.

On your mark, get set, go!!! The kids couldn't wait to get to the stash of good eggs.

Happy Easter, Easter Bunny, Bock Bock!

Easter Bunny or Serial Killer, you decide!

My newest hunting mount. Biggest bunny I ever saw and he had a basket full of eggs and candy with him too. double bonus. Hossenfeffer anyone?!

My pre-church Easter attempt, Climb Donnelly Dome, met with certain failure. Never believe anyone named Mark or Brooke. "Oh yeah, it's like an hour hike to the top." Poppycock!! It's 2400 feet of elevation gain over a couple miles. So it's a 4 hour day in the summer without 4 feet of snow drifted along the trail. We decided to bushwack for an hour or so instead. Ugh! Alder scrub, postholing through crusty snowdrifts, cold wind and super soft tundra all around. Glad I didn't twist an ankle. We made it maybe 1/3 of the way up the front face before turning around.

Bushwacker!!

Granites to the East. Pure wilderness. I wanted to get up before sunrise for Easter but seeing as sunrise is 0430 right now, uh, didn't happen.

You can see the car in the distance. Well, okay, I can see the car in the distance, but then I know which green speck of color it is. Where's Waldo?

Joel. My bushwhacker partner, he hates postholing through crusty snow almost as much as I do. Almost.

Yes that is a handgun on Joel's right side. Most folks up here carry guns year round, especially this time of year when the brownies are coming out of hibernation and hungry!! Not me though, I just figured I had to outrun Joel.

At one point I found myself up past my waist in a hole through the snow crust and when I tried to crawl out, the crust just kept breaking underneath me. I slithered across the ice on my belly for 5 feet uphill to get to something more solid.

Shameless self-portrait.

All in all, it was a fun morning. We climbed for about 2 hours total up and down. Huffing and puffing. Didn't break anything. Sweated a lot but lived to tell the tale. Notice Gamecock hat. Clemson sucks.

Afterwards, I shot home, showered, came back to post, went to Easter service and had a healthy ham luncheon. I ate too many carbs though, not a lot of protein choices. Lots and lots of noodle dishes. I am bloated to say the least. Like Thanksgiving day while watching the first football game of the afternoon. Damn you carbs. Damn you.

Happy Easter everyone.

paleo and constipation- warning- bodily function blog below

I made a valiant effort to cut my carbs to zero or darn close on Tuesday and Wednesday. Meat, meat and more meat. Well Thursday I paid the price. My tummy was bothering me all day. It just looked distended. At lunch, in an effort to help clear my system out I ate a gigantic salad with a prepared salad of cauliflower and broccolli on the side. It had some kind of mayonnaise mix holding it together with raisins and grapes. Not bad tasting but I think my digestion was on full lockdown so it came to a scrreching halt when it hit that obstacle. Definitely roadblock instead of speed bump. I weighed myself at the gym last night and had put on like 6 pounds in a day. A lot of it was water weight I'm sure from the prosciutto I had at lunch on Wednesday, too much salt. I was retaining water but a lot of it was my stalled salad. I felt horrible. What to do?! Well dinner was out of the question, you don't shove more TP down a clogged toilet, right?! No. You grab the draino and let it do it's work. So i decided after reading up on natural laxative options that I'd more or less fast for a full day until they did their jobs. Dinner last night was 3 avocoados, good fats to help grease the wheels so to speak and lots of water. The Avos went down easily doused in Crystal hot sauce. Not that there is another  hot sauce. Anyway, off subject. So after my 3 avo meal, I waited and waited and waited. Drank water, and more water. For breakfast I downed an apple, I read that the fiber and pectin help get things on track as well. I waited and waited some more. Slowly but surely things started to move, then finally the big one came today in the middle of the day. When we headed to the gym, I weighed myself. Back down to 252 1/2. I still feel a little bloated but after another dinner of avos tonight, I think I'll be in the clear. If nayone has other suggestions except coffee, tea, cigarettes, straight olive oil or an enima let me know. 

Hippity Hop Hop

I've been wrangled into being the Easter Bunny tomorrow. Yep, that's right, stupid costume and all. Originally, I was going to just take pictures of the crumb snatchers chasing after plastic eggs for candy and crappy chinese made lead filled highly toxic plastic toys. However the GC, who was the furry bastard last year, has skated out this year by taking leave in conjunction with a conference in Texas. S.O.B. That's in reference to the situation, not the boss. There's a pretty cool looking head except it smashes the wearer's nose. After an hour, jut refer to me as pancake nose. There's a suit. I hope it fits. Gloves and shoe covers. I'd be okay with it if it was 10 minutes, you're in, you poop some eggs, you're out. Lickity split. But No!! They want me to sit there with the kids for pictures. I just know one of these little booger eaters is going to piss all over me. I can feel it deep down inside. Now, in general I love children, in one or two on one settings where I get to make the rules. "No peeing on Dan" is top of that list. But in large groups where you have to act a certain way and can't dip if you don't like the way things are progressing, UGH!!!
On a brighter note, if it's not too windy in the early morning, I plan on hiking to the top of Donnelly dome. It's melted enough around here that most of the trails have almost snow on them at the lower elevations. It's supposed to have a spectacular view from the top, so the camera will be in tow. Then I'll take it to the kidorama and get some bunny pics for all the pic fans out there, both of you should be happy! The hike is something like 1500' of elevation gain in a mile and a half.  Most folks can scurry up in under an hour. I haven't really got out and stretched the legs much outside the gym, so it'll be a treat. I've been contemplating a sunrise hike on Sunday in celebration of Easter also. Church isn't until 1100, so there is plenty of time to get up and down, grab some breakfast, then make it to service and special ham lunch afterwards. Good stuff for sure.

Monday through Friday routine

Like most working stiffs, I have fallen into a usual workday routine. Goes something like this.
Wake up.
Cuss at sun for waking me once again. Just let me sleep a bit longer.
crawl out of bed.
Put on sweat pants. Mandatory now that I share a house with a 12 y.o. girl. Walking around in tightie whites or birthday suit is severaly frowned upon.
Grab tooth brush and paste.
Head into bathroom.
Brush jibs and floss (sometimes, the flossing not the brushing, my wife might disagree though given my past)
Admire well sculpted 1 pack in the mirror while making silly faces.
Turn on the shower.
Remove sweats.
Check water temp.
Step in shower.
Lather up.
cuss up storm when leaky toilet upstairs robs the cold water and I get scalded. I have developed a 6th sense about when this might happen. I tried timing it but probably due to the earths rotation and the position of the moon relative to venus it is random. using intuition I've been right once out of 138 showers, which is really pretty good if you think about it.
Shut off shower.
Grab towel.
Smell it to check freshness.
Towel off regardless of funkiness, fresh towels in laundry room. (yes, i'm brilliant)
Admire scalding redness in the mirror on 1 pack abs.
More funny faces.
Sweats go back on.
Scurry into room.
Locate workout clothes, checking for relative funkiness. (using twice saves laundry soap- heal the planet)
Pack gym bag depending on day with clothes, swimsuit or both. Usually both just in case.
Dig out work clothes. Grab keys, money, cards, phone, water bottle.
Fill waterbottle in kitchen.
head out to car.
Cuss for forgetting something on above list (keys, phone, water bottle, underwear)
Head back in house.
Grab offending item.
Back to car.
Start car.
Drive to work.
Fiddle with radio.
Drive off road while fiddling with radio.
Get to gate.
dig for i.d. card. (it is a missile base for Uncle Sam after all)
smile and say "good morning"
Drive to Dining Facility.
Get eggs, bacon, ham and sausage.
Find hot sauce.
douse eggs, bacon, ham and sausage.
Find table.
Devour paleo plate while thinking of hardening arteries and what first heart attack might be like.
Return tray and dirty crockery (good word huh) to washing conveyor.
Head to truck.
Off to office.
Check emails.
Look at to do list.
Do some of to do list tasks
Check emails
update to do list.
1130 rolls around.
Find richard to pester about going to gym.
head to gym.
Workout.
Grab to go lunch from DFAC in styrofoam container.
Check PO Box.
Head back to work to eat styrofoam of mystery meat and salad items.
Whine about lack of degradability of styrofoam and curse Uncle Sam and market economics.
Wander halls looking for people to talk to.
Check emails.
update to do list.
do more tasks on list.
check emails.
more tasks.
head to the gym for second go around.
eliptical, swim, lift, whatever.
Sit in sauna.
Shower.
head home.
Watch prime time tv.
go to bed at 9pm unless in middle of good movie or a great Food network show is on.

Repeat Monday through Friday.
Sound Familiar to anyone? maybe minus the gym visits.

Cardiac Infarction and other ways to spend a weekend

No, I didn't have a heart attack. This post is rather about the fear of a heart attack. Many of you may already know but others may not, so I will begin at the.....beginning. Good place to start things usually. My health and fitness has been an on again off again and again kind of thing over the years. Especially dietary considerations. It's probably a habit I started oh so many years ago in high school. Being a three sport person most years, our football coach "required" us to go out for track if we didn't play baseball, I could eat damn near anything I wanted and not gain much weight. Decent genetics, youth and constant exercise combining to make a perfect storm of easily maintained skinnyness. Basic training in 1990 kept up the trend. Enter college and much beer and much less exercise. The pounds came on rather easily. If I got a little heavy, I'd hit the gym or rugby season would roll around and voila, back in some semblence of shape other than round. And so it has been for many years. I'd add a few pounds, lose a few pounds, be active in sports, not so active, do outdoorsy stuff, sit behind a desk, always the push and pull stumbling along into my 30's and now nearing my 40's. The one thing that never changed really were the basic dietary guidelines. Lots of grains, good lean meats, fruits and vegetables in unlimited quantities and avoid the fatty fat fat as much as possible. This was always the mantra, never fully realized in my life, I love fried chicken too much, but still in the back of my mind everytime I lifted a fork or spoon to my lips.
In walks paleo/primal. This is the idea that many ancient cultures, especially those before agricuture, lived on meat and fat and our bodies developed and adapted to this diet with very few exceptions for millenia, since original sin in the Garden of Eden or since the first men tread on terra firma depending on your personally held beliefs. That ancient code of fuel preference lives on in our genes. Our bodies are great machines able to run on many different and diverse foods (fuels) as evident by our omnivorent status. But also like a multifuel vehicle, if you run long enough on substandard fuel (high carb/sugar), eventually you'll gum up the works. This is the premise behind Paleo/primal. I've read about it for years, always kind of considering it's value but afraid of crossing that oh so indoctrined food pyramid of my youth so deftly held up by the big wide all powerful grain base. Having grandfathers with unhappy tickers and the words of Billy Crystal from 'CitySlickers' "you can't have bacon at every meal", I was always hesitant. The Adkins craze didn't help either. Watching folks shed dozens of pounds in months just to watch it creep back on slowly surely doggedly, sad but predictable. So when Hollie started doing paleo on a limited basis, I watched carefully. Granted she broke her max carb set limit often so the weight came off slowly but then she did a 'paleo challenge'. 45 days of meat and fat. Her body fat melted away. I was impressed by her new physique. So I read and read and read some more. Hours devoted to reading the differing hypotheses. Then it jumped off the page at me. The solution, the reasoning, the reality. Paleo/Primal/Adkins. These weren't meant to be diets. Not short term solutions. Not a craze or fad, but real lifelong dietary changes. Give up pasta, give up breads, give up rice, give up potatoes and corn, give up sugar, give up sweets and batter dipped foods for the rest of your life. Make them a once a month or once a season treat at most. Fear them like the plague they were to ancient peoples and still are to us. Too much of a good thing is, well you know the saying.
Yes. Pancakes taste good. Yes. Light flaky croissants are food of the gods. But all great works require sacrifice. Require loss. Require persistent effort.
I thought it might be easier to be paleo in Alaska. Lots of large hooved herbivores walking around. Damn legislation, damn rules. Why can't I just walk around gnawing on caribou and moose? Who says!! A license to fish, really, in Alaska?! Why!! Lately, it's been a lot of eggs, bacon and sausage, breakfast steaks and humburgers without buns, oh and protein shakes. Not the most exciting diet, but it's working at least in part, along with lifting, slight calorie reduction and a mixed bag of cardio and aerobic activity daily. Which is most important, who knows? How long will it last, I'd like to say forever, but only time will tell. Some would say that all of life is an experiment to find out what works for us. We'll see if this works for me, so far so good. Right now I say, bring on the bunson burner and porkchops, heart attacks be damned. Beef, it's what's for dinner!!

Ode to love handles

From whence do you come
handles of love
is it because from the
table i did not shove
Was it the fried chicken
or the the shrimp and grits
Did they give me you
instead of just the sh**s
Was it the couch
so inviting and soft
Those days at the gym
I missed! Must of dozed off.
Or hot Krispy Kreme
chocolate filled delights
dancing across my lips
on way too many nights
Could it be Carolina BBQ
drowned in tangy mustard sauce
That kept you and the spare
tire from coming off
I think I see the culprit
my vision is crystal clear
It was all those blurry
hazy nights marinated in beer......

And all of the above!!!

Preparations for the summer season

If you've been following this thing, then you know I have decided being a chubby chicken fried, shrimp and grit eating guy isn't going to cut it in Alaska. Getting up mountains carrying an extra 40, 50 or 60 pounds will flat out kill your knees. Especially coming back down. Plus it wastes energy. In my effort to lose the excess baggage I have recruited a friend, Richard. Richard is a co-worker. Much skinnier and a bit fittier than I am, he played basketball most of the winter. I do have sheer size on my side, genetics I guess. 1 part stocky, one part tall and wide but lean. I am a mix, Tall, wide and stocky. Oh fun. Our lunch workouts consist of lifting but lots of reps at lighter wieghts and in quick succession to build endurance as well as strength. Every so often we go heavier like in the pic above. I am deadlifting 315lbs. Not quite my personal record but still some weight. The mean face makes me look like the eagle from the Muppet Show. The other part of my workouts is at night. I am training not only for the summer fun but also for a sprint triathlon in June. So I sometimes do 6 miles on the eliptical slow or I do a test run of 3.1 miles as fast as possible. My time last night which is my PR is 26:50. I also swim half miles. The distance in the race is only 500 meters instead of 800 (half mile) but the extra distance means I'm burning a few more calories which will help me shed the fat a little faster, or so my theory goes. When I weighed the morning of the 22nd of March the scale read 272. When I weighed this morning it was 253. So that is 19 pounds in just under 4 weeks. I may actually hit the full 20 by Tuesday. I expect the weight loss to slow a bit as my bodyfat drops but I hope to be around 230 by the triathlon a full eight weeks away.

Photos of Black Rapids Lodge and their backyard!!

Beautiful Alaskan Sunset

The Lake

Waterfall hike anyone?

Their post and beam dining room. The whole place is done in such gorgeous Alaskan wood detail.

The glacier is up the valley.

One of their rooms with a gorgeous view.

Michael, the owner along with his wife, out enjoying his backyard, literally.

The definition of wilderness, untrammeled by man. Go 100 feet off the road and anything is possible.

Teleturns in fresh powder snow. Could any skier ask for much more?

Green and rocky.

No lift here. Feet don't fail me now.

Another summit visit.

Rowdy the dog. He needs a barrel of schnapps on his collar!!

Another beautiful waterfall that's just asking for me to visit it.

Black Rapids Lodge- the visit

On the way back from Arctic Man, I stopped at the lodge for the first time. its a beautiful timberframe structure with beds for about a dozen couples. It sits right next to Black Rapids Army Training Center so is a logical choice to partner with to add a bit of flair to our programs. Hence the visit. This weekend the lower level was occupied by 2 NatGeo videographers who were onsite to film Arctic Man for an upcoming episode of 'Alaska State Troopers'. I showed up and met Anne. The owner along with her husband Michael. The lodge is off grid which provides some serious challenges in interior Alaska. On this particular day their well had frozen solid and Michael was working to unfreeze it while his son hauled water from a neighbor to fill their 1000 gallon cistern in case Michael was unsuccessful. Mary, their new cook, the cordon bleu one didn't work out, was busy assembling dinner in the kitchen. And other assorted friends and guests were milling about. Anne and I made our way to the top of the lodge which is a birds nest of sorts surrounded 360 degrees in stained glass with all the hues of the rainbow. We talked about what they might be able to offer our patrons and I explained our ideas and the hurdles we face working for Uncle Sam. She invited me to stay for dinner since a couple guests had cancelled last minute, they had extra for sure. Our discussion ran the gamut from the weather, big fat flakes were falling, to her father's time in the military and at West Point, to her husbands skiing passion, attempts to climb Mt. Hayes, and everything in between. All the while I was eyeing the eclectic beauty of the lodge itself as well as the fine furnishings they'd chosen. Beautiful wood tables, stone fireplaces, leather couches, fine metal work in nature themes. The whole place was styled in a fashion reminiscent of the great National Park lodges of old, but especially on a famous lodge found in Yosemite. it was grand but cozy at the same time. The whole decor pulled together well and the views were stupendous with craggy peaks right out the back door towering overhead and the river and opposite side of the valley out the front windows. What a beautiful place. Dinner was actually pretty darn good also. We started with a house salad with oil and vinegar and piping hot fresh wheat bread. The main course was chicken over polenta with fresh greenbean side followed by an amazingly moist chocolate cake with a gooey center. i definitely messed up my paleo diet for the day. After dinner we sat around as a group talking about anything and everything again. The overall atmosphere was easy and relaxing.
And I paid for dinner to make sure everything was above board in case we use them as a government vendor in the future.

Here's their website if you want to see the lodge itself, I unfortunately left my camera in the car. I now have a ready excuse to visit again.

http://www.lodgeatblackrapids.com/

Arctic Man- Cancun of the North

Saturday, I headed to Arctic Man. I decided to run down and see what all the hub bub is about. Arctic Man happens down around Summit Lake, just north of Paxson AK, about 60 miles south of Fort Greely. It's a beautiful drive down through the mountains. I passed it at first, it is tucked up back in a valley and I drove right past the entrance and into Paxson. Realizing I had gone too far I turned around and headed back. I saw a glimmer off in the distance up a mountain pass and a train of cars coming out. I guessed it had to be it. You figure with sponsors like Red Bull, the major beer guys and all the snowmachine ATV folks there, they'd have a decent entrance sign up, but no. The saying goes that for the week that its happening, Arctic Man is the 3rd largest city in Alaska. I believe it. It reminded me of a Nascar race. The smell of gas and methanol combined with portipotti freshener and the hum of generators give it the oh so familiar festival assault on one's senses. RVs were everywhere and unlike Nascar open fires are permitted. Like an angry nest of wasps, snow machines, atvs and minibikes scurried to and fro. I headed straight for the Vendor area to check it out. The beer tent was massive, but since I wasn't staying long, I only did a quick once over and headed to the vendor displays. All the 2011 models were on display including fashionably dressed teens and 20 somethings promoting their off road capabilities. One girl was even in snow pants and a bikini top riding around in a 4seat utv. It was about 45 degrees so I'm sure she had to be cold or was so full of anti-freeze it didn't matter. I saw all ages. Kids, teens, young adults, middle agers and even grandmas and grandpas, all whooping it up. It would make for a great family vacation for families into motorsports for sure. I was a bit camera shy walking around so I took some pretty vanilla shots of the general camping set-ups and some shots of the mountains.

You can see the oilpipeline crawling up the mountainside in the middle of this one.

The top of the mountains were obscured by fog. 5 miles of avalanche danger ahead. This area had a big one earlier in the spring that closed the highway for about a week.

Another one of those wonderful Alaska sunsets and sunrises. Civil twilight lasts forever up here after the sun goes down, so you get these transitioning colors literally for hours.

I'm not a baller

Wednesday, after swimming my mile on my way out, Ray grabbed me and asked me to play basketball with them. I am many things but a talented basketball player is not one of them. I played none the less. Lots of passing, a little defense and only a couple shots. I was 2 for 5. We were getting waxed pretty well by a team of mostly young soldiers. Something happened the second half. We played our game, slow and steady. They'd dish to me, I'd hit someone in the middle and we were catching up. Slowly but surely. Then we went ahead. Up by 5, up by 2, up by 3, up by 1, up by 3 with 2.7 seconds left. They got the ball in, and threw up a wild shot the ref blew the whistle, penalty. 3 shots from their best shooter. First shot, swoosh. Second shot, swoosh. Third shot, hits the back of the rim, rolls around and pops....out. OT baby. We won the jump and Jeremy hit a 3 right away. then we got 6 more unanswered points. By the end of the 4th minute and the buzzer we had spread the distance to 12 points. it was pretty fun. We played with 5 bodies against their 8 and edged them out with a total scab player....ME!!

Pictures of April

I ran around sunday taking shots of stuff on Greely after swimming. Here they are.

Snowmachine season is quickly fading away. It doesn't look like it but much of the old snow has melted and while we got an inch on Wednesday, most of that is gone today. A couple more days in the 40s and we will be into the muddy spring. Hoorah.

Spring is in the air because they have pulled out the Valdez Fishing boat for the summer to prep it for Fishing trips starting in late May. Twin 200s push this baby around and help find the halibut.

Sorry snowmachines. A quick summerization and you'll be done until November or December.

Same to you ice augers. Time for you to go into storage.

Here's a happy little fella. Look at the big smile on his face. That's because he knows he'll be on the trails soon and covered in good old Alaska muck and gunk!!

Same with the Blue Brothers. Jake on the left and Elwood on the right. They hate Illinois Nazis.

The edge of the granites. South of post.

Here's a close up of those craggy ridgelines. A hike up there will reveal all sorts of crazy wildlife seen very few other places this summer, dall sheep and mountain goats.