I didn’t realize when I planned this trip that my next-to-last day would coincide with the start of the 38th running of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.  But I consider it a pretty cool bonus. At 10a this morning (1p Dallas time) the teams took off here in downtown Anchorage amidst a festive, party atmosphere that engulfed the entire city. It’s a very big deal here.

The dogs are amazing and seem to be having the time of their lives:

Another full day of work and research here tomorrow, and then I head for home Monday morning. I like this place. Wouldn’t want to live here. But I like it. In an email to a friend yesterday, I described it this way:

Snowy. Gray. Gorgeous. Alien. There is much about the culture and vibe that reminds me of Texas. Just replace Hispanics with eskimo/indians, add ice, and stir.

I’ve learned a lot here, too. Maybe I’ll write a book about it.

It’s better than being ensconced in Escondido or sequestered in Susquehanna, I suppose.

I’m safely and warmly nested in my hotel room here in Anchorage–my home for the next week. This is my first time in Anchorage, if you don’t count the time back in ’88 when I flew through here for an hour on the way to South Korea (long story).

Anchorage in March feels a lot like our winters in Minneapolis in February (except for the gorgeous snowy mountain peaks off in the distance.) Piles of dirty snow on every corner. Constantly using your windshield washers because of the spray from the car in front you you. Black slush in every parking lot.

Off in the distance, however, the views are spectacular.

The Chugach mountains which surround the city are beautiful. Tomorrow I get to leave the city for a day trip into the countryside. Looking forward to it.

I think I’ve sufficiently recovered from moving now to resume blogging. Why, I’ve regained almost full use of my hands! And I don’t collapse into a weepy puddle every time I need to find something I last saw laying on a counter back in the other place. So . . .

Stand by for news!

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Paul Harvey’s passing. In a more just, more perfect, more lovely world, I would have been on radio and television this last weekend talking about Mr. Harvey and giving the book another little goose up the Amazon sales charts. But alas that’s not the world we live in. (Of course, it’s never too late to send a father or grandfather the Paul Harvey’s America as a gift!)

Speaking of news. I still can’t share any about the new book project. It’s still top secret, but I’ll spill when I can. Or you can ask my wife. She’ll tell you.

In other, utterly-unrelated news, I’m off to Alaska today–Anchorage and environs for a week. The forecast is for mild (by Alaska standards) weather. Highs in the mid-30s, snow showers most days. In other words, about the same as in Mineeapolis. I mention that because in the six years we lived in Minnesota, I developed a habit of comparing the winter temps in Minneapolis to those in Anchorage. Nine times out of ten, it was warmer in Anchorage.

Look for my Twitterings and Twit-pics to be all Alaska-y over the next few days.  Why follow me on Twitter? I can’t think of a single good reason. Unless you enjoy random musings like this one from the other day:

Regrets? I have a few. e.g., I rooted for Taylor Hicks on American Idol a few years back. That one still stings a bit.

Here’s something I came across on BoingBoing the other day that I’ve been meaning to mention. I can’t express how much I loved the story that relates to this picture:

The photo is from a 1949 LIFE magazine pictorial/article about the great battle of the bench that roiled Whitney, Texas back in ’48/’49. You can get the full story here. But at issue was a long, rough-hewn bench which had sat outside the local drug store in Whitney for as long as anyone could remember. From almost the very day that it appeared, it had been occupied all day long by old ranchers and farmers who would chew tobacco and comment on everyone and everything that moved into eye-shot.

I loved this story because my home town of Wilburton, Oklahoma had a bench that performed pretty much the same function. It sat outside Fern’s Cafe, (which burned to the ground a few years back) and was always occupied during daylight hours by gentlemen I called the Spit and Whittle Polo Club.

The Battle of the Bench in Whitney erupted when some image-minded busybodies tried to have the bench removed. My favorite quote from the article was this one:

“I’ve never heard of such foolishness”, ‘cried 97-year-old Tom Rose, dean of the bench sitters’. “Come here in ’77 from Tennessee, been married 76 years, and my wife ain’t whipped me yet.”

That was “1877” he was referring to, by the way.

Now I’m off to Alaska!

(via Letterheady)

You knew it had to be something awesome . . .

The last several times I’ve subjected myself, my family, and my friends to a household move, (’99, ’01, ’08) it was in July or August each time. After a string of these sweat-fests, I decided about six months ago to give everyone a break and move in February instead. After all, the average high in February for Dallas is close to 60 degrees. It would be a nice change to move in mild, pleasant weather for a change.

We are now in the middle of moving to our new place.

So it snowed more in Dallas today than on any day since they started keeping records. Tomorrow morning it’s supposed to be super icy.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Not since George W. Bush last got to nominate a Supreme Court Justice have feminist and liberal panties bunched so collectively and so tightly.  The trigger for this epidemic of the vapors? The announcement that Focus on the Family had purchased 30 seconds of Super Bowl spot time.

A group called The Women’s Media Center, with backing from NOW, hyperventilated: “An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year – an event designed to bring Americans together.”

I was gratified to learn of these feminist groups’ previously hidden appreciation for the unifying pageantry of football and the telecast of it’s greatest championship. I wonder if NOW president Terry O’Neill thinks the Colts should have blitzed Breese more in third down situations. I also wonder which commercials the leaders of NOW enjoyed more, the bimbo-laden Go Daddy spots or the jiggly beer ads.

Feminist lawyer Gloria Allred launched her own preemptive strike on Mrs. Tebow–calling Pam Tebow a liar via the Huffington Post. Hilariously, it only took about two minutes of rudimentary Googling for a HuffPo commenter to turn up a New York Times article that destroyed Ms. Allred’s theory.

Here’s the ad that had Planned Parenthood types all over the nation rending their garments and wailing:

The ad, and the controversy it sparked, speak volumes about the various parties. It exposes the huge gap between the wholesome reality and the monstrous way liberals view Focus on the Family and Dr. Dobson. And it should once and for all kill the myth that feminist organizations are “pro-choice” rather than pro-abortion.

When one woman, in gentle, joyful terms, wanted to tell the world how happy she was she chose life, groups like NOW did their best to have her silenced.

Paulson: Crazy Putin Pushed China To Dump Fannie Bonds And Crush The U.S. Financial System

Mrs. Blather and I headed up to Oklahoma City for the weekend with Female Offspring Unit #2. Our purpose: to visit the campus of the University of Oklahoma with a view toward FOU #2 going to school there in the fall.

As loyal readers know, she graduated from high school last May but delayed college for a year in order to spend the late summer and fall of ’09 working at an orphanage in Nairobi Kenya. She had previously been accepted to Belmont University in Nashville and Baylor, but somewhere on the plains of Africa she misplaced her certainty that either of these was where she was supposed to be.

This, in spite of the fact that the majority of her closest high school friends are already at Baylor and rooting mightily for her to join them this August. But as I mentioned in this post when she graduated, she’s never been one to follow the crowd or seek the comfort of the familiar.

So, on Saturday, the three of us got an official tour of the OU campus. Even in the lifeless gray of a damp January day, the Norman campus really is impressive. The preponderance of the older buildings reflect a Gothic architecture that isn’t overly heavy. The Bizzell Library is a great example:

Of course every college campus seems to have its share of buildings designed in what we now know to be the Dark Age of American architecture–the late ’60s and ’70s, and OU is no exception. On our tour of the campus, our guide pointed out the physical science building–this beauty:

Believe it or not, that’s not a tall building standing behind a squatty, windowless Soviet bunker. It’s actually a tall building sitting on top of a squatty, windowless Soviet bunker. Since the time of its construction in ’70-’71, this charmless hulk has been known to students and faculty as “The Blender.”

Our guide felt compelled to explain why the first 50 vertical feet of the building is trapezoidal block of concrete. He said that the building had been designed in 1969 as campus riots were commonplace all over the country–with even OU experiencing a bit of acid-fueled anti-war anarchy. The architects made the lower four floors windowless concrete to make it riot-proof. Hand to my heart.

At that point in the tour, I leaned over to my wife and commented (a little more loudly that I had intended), “Yeah, and now all those rioters are tenured faculty teaching sociology and history.”

She burst out laughing as did several of our fellow tour mates. The student leading the tour smiled nervously and  just kept the tour moving.

In any event, it look increasingly likely that, come this fall, we’ll have one in Waco, one in Norman, and one at home. And that’s alright with me.