I can't believe I'm seeing green; blue and orange train wreck at the window; poet tells me of the generation that grew up not reading comic books

I really can't believe it...

...yet there you have it...

Green!

I zipped into town tonight, grabbed Margie and zipped right back home. Just before we left Anchorage, Jobe caused a train wreck in the window.

Today, I had my at least-once weekly breakfast at Abby's, the breakfast Arlene picks up for me in exchange for shooting the December wedding of her daughter, Aurora. 

You will notice that Allie, the poet and advanced student who, at the age of 16, graduated from high school with high honors, is no longer a blonde, but a red head - a bright red head. If there is a ever a slow moment when I am at Abby's and Allie is there, she will tell me a story or two or three or four about being a teenager in today's world.

Today, she told me about going to Blockbuster all winter long to check out and watch movies, but now that the darkness is gone and we are definitely into the season of light, she doesn't check out so many movies anymore, because who wants to sit or lie around in the living room watching movies when it's light outside?

So I asked if she had seen The Avengers, because to watch a movie in the darkness of a theatre rather than a sun-lit living room is quite a different thing. Yes, she said, in 3D and she had loved it. Fun movie. She asked if I had seen it. I told her how Margie and I tried on Sunday, but got shut out because it was sold out. I told her we will try again. She said we would enjoy it.

I told her I was sure we would, but I also said I doubted that any comic book movie could ever surpass or even equal the experiences I had reading comic books as a kid growing up. It was absolute Magic. "My generation didn't read comic books," she told me. Instead, she explained, they grew up watching movies and reading Harry Potter - but not comic books.

Allie very recently turned 17. She was very pleased. She got to go to an "R" rated movie. She told me which one, but I can't remember. It wasn't that bad, she said, but still... a bit surprising...

Note: As I put together my Return to India series, I continued to make my regular stops at Metro Cafe and Abby's and I shot quite a few pictures. Sometime within the next week, I will catch up with a major post, maybe even two, on both Metro and Abby's.

Brief appearance by the boys; Thomas the Train friends and the real train; yellow moose drives down Lucille; marsh moose gets spooked

I back up two nights ago, to when I dropped Margie off to babysit the grandsons through Thursday. We had tried to go to the 6:00 PM showing of The Avengers at Tikatnu Theatres, but it was sold out, so we went over to the new Olive Garden about two blocks away, but there was a huge waiting line and the lady told us we would have to wait 45 minutes to be seated. We said to hell with that and ate at PHO Saigon instead.

PHO Saigon is good, so I was not disappointed.

Then we went back to Jake and Lavina's at about 7:30 PM. Lavina and two boys greeted us as we got out of the car. 

We will see The Avengers another time.

Inside, I discovered that the love affair between Kalib, Thomas and His Friends and all things train still rages.

Pretty soon, I was on the highway, headed home. About 8:30 PM, I came upon a train. When I saw where it was, I was hopeful that I might catch the engines crossing the train trestle - a very rare and blessed sight to catch when driving randomly back and forth between Anchorage and Wasilla.

Oh, hallejuah! Praises be!

I caught the train on the trestle, crossing Knik River! But, damnit, I had my shutter speed set at 1/125, doing 70. I could have caught this rare and blessed moment in a bit crisper detail had I have bumped it up to 1/800 or something, but, oh well.

I don't really care. I'm not shooting for a tourist brochure. I'm shooting to the catch the moment, and this was it and it was glorious. To me, anyway.

Had Kalib been with me, he would have been thrilled, too.

He would have seen details in the train that I did not see.

Then I was in Wasilla, on the final stretch to the house. A yellow moose came driving in the opposite direction. I was so amazed I almost forgot to take the picture.

Come morning I took a walk. As I came home through the marsh, I spooked a moose. I apologized to the moose. I really didn't mean to spook it at all. I tried to be quiet. I tried to be stealthy. I think it heard the click of my camera. I think that is what spooked it.

On Easter, Thomas gets out of hand; the boys do a typical Anchorage Easter Egg hunt

Kalib and Jobe had stayed with us since Friday and none of us had any idea of the mischief their parents had been up to while they were with us. It all had to with Thomas the Train. They had found this battery powered, ridable Thomas the Train on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago, had kept quiet about it, but had been arguing inside their own heads the whole time.

Should they get it? Or was it over the top? Spoiling their boys just a little bit too much, maybe?

Well, they got it - and boy, was it fun! At least for Kalib and his cousin Ashley. Jobe was asleep in the car.

Oh yea, cousin Julian, too. That's him falling down.

As train wrecks go, it was grand and glorious.

Now, it is still Easter Sunday and this is the second post I have put up today - even though on Friday I said I would put up no more posts until Monday, and then I would take this blog right back into India.

What was I thinking? Yes, on Monday, I will still take this blog right back into India - but what made me think I could let Easter pass without making a good morning Happy Easter post and an end of the day, kids celebrate post?

Except for Melanie, who is doing a job up on the Arctic Slope, and Caleb, who opted to stay home, watch the Masters golf tournament and do laundry, everyone came and everyone contributed. Rex and Cortney bought themselves a smoker and smoked a ham with cherry tree chips - and I swear, it was the best ham I have ever tasted.

Oh, my goodness! Was it good!

I felt bad for the pig that contributed to our Easter feast with its life, but still it was good.

I wonder why God made the Earth this way?

And does the ressurrection apply to pigs?

How could it not?

Someday, I might meet this pig. It might say, "Bill, I am not very happy with you."

I might respond, "but you nourished me and all my family, pig, and you tasted good, and we thanked you and thanked the Good Lord for you."

"Well, okay," the pig might then say. "I'm resurrected, anyway, so what the hell. Everything is fine."

"Being ressurrected is good, but I sure miss the taste of ham!" I might then add.

"BILL!!!!" the resurrected pig might then squeal.

Of course, if it turns out that reincarnation is the real deal, then I might be the pig next time, and the ham might be the man. That would be karma. Sooner or later, though, we would get it right and we would both be happy.

I photographed everybody who came for dinner, from the babies Lynxton and his beautiful cousin Arial - the youngest in the family right now - on up to Margie. But I still have a lot to do and I can't let this post get too long, so I am restricting it to the Easter activities of the children, beginning with the arrival of the big Thomas the Train.

Maybe I will squeeze a couple of the others in this week, somewhere between India posts - at least Lynxton and Arial.

Then I move to the Easter egg hunt. After his Uncle Anthony (Ants) hid the eggs in the nearby park, Kalib slid down the snow bank on his butt and then led the way to the hunt. The first Thomas picture and all the egg hunt images were done with my iPhone, by the way - not because I was following Richard Murphy's example, but because the battery on my 7D went dead.

Cousin Julian heads out in search of eggs, just ahead of Kalib and Jobe. That's Charlie's lens. He photographed the action, too, and already has images up on Facebook - including one with me.

Ashley and Kalib search for eggs at the teeter totter - finally beginning to emerge after Anchorage's snowiest winter on record - 135 inches so far, undoubtedly with more to come.

Julian searches for eggs on the slide. I thought sure he would spot and grab this one, but he didn't. So I did. And I ate it, right there on the spot.

I JOKES! I JOKES! I JOKES!

What? You think I steal candy from babies?

Crimeny. Don't take everything I say so seriously!

Ashley finds an egg. I took it away from him and ate it right there, on the spot. It was really good, but it needed pepper. At first, it needed salt, too, but I turned Ashley upside down and sprinkled his tears on the egg and that was salt enough.

Jobe with his eggs.

It was the kind of day that turns snow into water. After hoarding a good supply of eggs, Jobe wandered into a puddle.

After awhile, he got out of the puddle. Then he dropped an egg into the puddle. "Ohhhh noooo!" he said.

Jobe does not yet have a big vocabulary, but he's got "ohhhhhh noooooo!" down pretty good.

As Ants looks on, Lavina and the boys frolic in the puddle.

Kalib and Thomas derail my gray whale rescue series - 6 studies; store in planning

Lavina brought Margie home from her week of babysitting today, in time for lunch. Kalib and Lynxton came too. Being a night person, morning is the hard time of day for me and, furthermore, I had worn myself out working on the gray whale rescue blog so far and so, by the time they arrrived, I had barely managed to complete a list of non-blogging maintenance, PR and promotional tasks. I felt groggy, half brain-dead.

"Get Thomas out!" Kalib ordered upon entering the house. So I did. And there went my whole afternoon, and evening, too. I had lots of work to do to get my next gray whale post up, but sometimes a grandson and a smiling blue train engine must take precedence even over blogging a long-past gray whale rescue, so that people can know what really happened.

They left about 8:00 PM. As my gray whale blog posts have all been taking full days plus to put together, I decided just to completely bag it for today. I decided instead to do today's blog on Kalib and his train, in six serious studies. Hence:

Kalib and Thomas, Study # 46: Kalib is energized by Thomas the Train.

Kalib and Thomas, Study #6544: Kalib and his grandma swear at Thomas the Train.

"Damn you, Thomas, Damn you!" Grandma swears.

"You damn, Thomas, you damn!" Kalib follows suit. In matters of order, he still needs a little practice - but he makes me very proud.

 

Kalib and Thomas, Study #3: Kalib and his mom. Thomas swears back:

"Damnit, Kalib!" Thomas swears. "Damnit, Lavina. For Hells sake! Bells hells! Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!" So swears Thomas.

 

Kalib and Thomas, Study # 49, round, round:

Round and round, Thomas goes. Round and round, Kalib's eyes follow.

Thomas and Kalib, Study #6: Grandma in the background.

Don't be surprised if I don't post gray whales again until Monday. I am going right back to work on it, but I need to finish it soon and it is already out of control. I think maybe I will be better off if I do some better plotting and planning on the weekend - figure exactly how many more posts I want to make and then pick the pictures for them all, work out the story lines and then drop them all in in rapid sucession.

Plus, Sunday is Jobe's second birthday, so I will be going to Anchorage to eat cake and ice cream. I won't be blogging gray whales while I am busy partying with Jobe.

I plan to start a store to go with this blog. I work for love, not money, or I would not do such a blog as this in the first place. Imagine, if you can, all the long hours I put into this blog, without the hope of receiving a penny in return, but I need money just the same. If I am to build this blog to where I want it to go, I need to figure out a way to make it generate income. I had a "donate" button on the last blog and people actually did donate - not enough to justify the effort when judged by the minimum wage standard, but enough to show me that there are people who are willing to pay for what I do even when they don't have to.

Rather than just pleading for people to donate, I will make a store so people can get something for their money - to start off with, just prints. A few different people have already requested prints from the gray whale rescue series, so I think I will start there, pick a dozen or so images and then offer two sizes each - large, 13 x 19 printed on Velvet Fine Art Paper with a fairly high price tag and then smaller prints that will be more affordable.

Throughout my entire career so far, I have never sold prints - except a few to museums. I have just not wanted to. It has not felt right to me. Yet, there are a number of artists in Alaska who have made paintings and other art work off my photographs, using the same pictures I have not wanted to sell as prints. Apparently, some have made pretty good money at it. It appears to me that Uiñiq will no longer be funded and that is okay if I can find a way to live and to build this blog so that I can do the same kind of work right here. If others can copy my work into theirs and sell it as art prints, I ought to be able to make prints of it and sell those, too.

I did sell a print about 20 years ago. There was a show in Anchorage that I was invited to enter but all prints in the show had to be marked for sale. I did not want to sell the print - so I picked a price that I figured nobody would pay - $300, and let them hang it in the show. And that was the only print in the show that did sell.

I also want to make iPad books. I have a book in draft form that probably needs another week or two of work. I hope to make it my first iPad book. I had hoped to have it done before I leave February 19 for five weeks in Arizona/India, but I have been too busy. That is not going to happen.

But it is coming. It takes two subjects that are very common in picture books, but combines them in a most uncommon pairing. Even though the two subjects are common and popular too, it will be the only book of its kind in all the world. (Hint - one of the subject types just jumped onto my lap, crawled to my chest and now lies across my arms even as I type. The other subject surrounds me, extending for hundreds, even more than a thousand miles, depending on what direction I look.)

Maybe I will make a 2013 calendar, too. How about a coffee mug? Ha!

I want to stay away from advertising. Advertising uglies up a good photo blog. Those ads that suddenly pop up over what you are trying to read? They anger me. And all the little videos that when you click "play" force you to watch 30 seconds of ad, first? I hate that.

I don't believe ads would generate that much revenue for me anyway.

In fact, I don't really believe selling prints or iPad books or calendars will, either, but I've got to start trying to do something. When I met the cameraman for Big Miracle, he told me I could make some limited edition prints of my gray whale work and sell them for as much as $12,000 each. Boy - 20 prints and I could fund a good year's worth of blog work! In the Arctic and the tropics, too! I liked the idea, but I didn't believe it. It's not going to happen. So I will see what I can make happen.

Brief interlude from Loft into near present: Kalib forgives me - three studies with Thomas the Train; his brothers; the cold road

Even as I blog my Loft Workshop experience, I want to keep this blog rooted in the near present (the absolute present already being the near present the instant we perceive it). So here are some studies of Kalib and his brothers, who spent Sunday night and all day Monday with us.

Kalib - Thomas the Train, Study # 6982 - Kalib forgives me:

Sunday night, Kalib very nicely asked me if I would get Thomas out. I did, and set him back up.

Kalib - Thomas the Train, Study # 7: slowy, Kalib says:

 Several times, just for fun, I tried to make Thomas go fast around the tracks - as fast as Thomas could go. "No, grandpa!" Kalib protested each time. "Slowly! Slowly!" Then he would go to the controls and slow Thomas down to as slow as Thomas could go without stopping - because Kalib loves to study Thomas as Thomas goes slowly by.

Kalib - Thomas the Train, Study # 2424: Kalib did not cry:

Kalib keeps his eye on Thomas for as long as he can, but once Thomas goes by, he studies the cars that follow. Kalib has come to understand the situation. When it came time to put Thomas up and take Kalib and his bros home, Kalib did not protest. He did not cry. He did not pout.

Kalib gave me a hug. He knew that Thomas would be here waiting for him, the next time he comes to visit.

Jobezilla study # 54: He did not get to wreak havoc.

Jobezilla went to sleep very early. He slept through the entire running of Thomas the Train. He did not get to wreak havoc. He did not get to send Thomas or his cars flying all about.

Upon arising, he did, however, get to the still assembled tracks and tear them apart. He bent some of the connecters, but I am certainly I can easily bend them back.

Lynxston study, # 9,999,999.999999: He sleeps in Rex's cradleboard:

Lynxton was awake for awhile, and he looked so damn cute I could hardly stand it - but I could not find my camera, which I had hidden away for safe keeping so that Jobezilla could not get to it. When finally I did find it, Lynxton was asleep in Rex's cradleboard. If any of you have access to the February, 1980, issue of National Geographic, you can see a picture of Rex in this very cradleboard, made for him by his Grandma Rose.

He is not sleeping in the picture. He is wide awake. He has a serious look on his face. I always thought National Geographic used the wrong picture, in this case. In one of the others, he was smiling big - as he was prone to do, just like Jobe is now. His mom and grandma look happier, too. But they had the ultimate say, not me, and I was just happy to be having my work featured in National Geographic. I thought my career was set, that the money would forever thereafter always be there to do any job that I wanted to do.

Lynxton's Aunt LeeAnn has made him his own white buckskin cradleboard, but she and Lavina did not manage to connect before Lynxton left Arizona back to Alaska on December 10. The new cradle has not yet arrived.

Come Monday, yesterday morning, Lavina was most anxious to get her boys back. She kept sending texts to Caleb telling him that she could hardly take the separation and was thinking about jumping in the car and coming out to get them immediately.

This made no practical sense, however, as I need to take Margie into Anchorage so she could spend the rest of the week babysitting. She could not ride back with the boys, because once they are buckled into the family car, the family present, there is no more room for Margie.

Having spent the night battling shingles and thus sleeping little (yes, the damn shingles still hangs on - not as bad, but bad enough to make good sleep hard to come by) I was slow to get going. Then, I had committed myself to starting the Loft Workshop series yesterday and it took me a little longer than normal to get that post put up.

So we got a late start to town, about 5:30. But here we are, in town, exhaust condensing in the chill air, ready to drop the boys off and then go to a movie.

Now we are in the driveway of their parents. The temperature is - 8, F (-22 C). On the colder stretches of highway coming in, it had been close to -20 (-29 C). Compared to Interior and Northern Alaska, this may be relatively warm, but it is still deadly. 

What a responsibility it is, to drive these little people around!

Even in warm weather, for the highway is always deadly.

What a responsibility!

God help me to always live up to this responsibility; God help me to shun road rage - even when the other driver is a total jerk who should be banned from the road.

The movie was "The Descendants" with George Clooney. I would highly recommend it but with this warning - however different your home situation might be, it will put you back in the hospital or hospice rooms, or perhaps your own bedroom, with any loved one or cherished friend that you have ever been at the time of their passing.

It will put you right there.

And if you are like me, come one or two scenes, the memories will be so strong, coupled with the knowledge that you are not yet done with this life and so more such scenes await and that they could involve absolutely anyone that you love, so strong, that tears will leave your eyes and roll down your cheeks. You will not be able to stop them.

Afterwards, I dropped Margie off to babysit, gave out hugs all around and drove home. Here I am, about to go under the Palmer overpass and enter greater Wasilla.

When I pulled into my driveway, the temperature was -18 and dropping. The house was empty of humans, but there were cats moseying about. The last logs in the woodstove had nearly depleted themselves and were little more than glowing goals. The air was very chilly.

It was after midnight and I did not wish to rebuild the fire, just to heat up a house that would be empty, except for me, sleeping. I spent two hours on my computer, acccomplishing nothing, then went to bed. I piled the blankets on.

When I first climbed into bed, the blankets were so cold as to chill my entire body, feet included, but in time my body-heat warmed them up. The cats came, and burrowed their way into the blankets with me. I was so tired I wanted to do nothing but sleep, sleep, sleep - and for awhile I did. Then the shingles began to manifest themselves.

The air grew so cold as to penetrate even the thick pile of blankets I had covered myself with. Finally, somewhere between four and five AM, I got up and turned on an electric heater. I hate to do that, because the heaters really burn up the wattage, but I just could not go through the process of building a new fire at this time of morning.

I did not sleep good until it was time to get up. I did not get up. I stayed in bed until 11:30, then got up, threw a couple of logs into the fire that Caleb had built after he returned from his night shift, before going to bed himself.

Then I went to Abby's for breakfast. It was midafternoon when I returned home, the warmest part of the day. The temperature in the driveway stood at -16 (-27 C). I have not checked, but it some of the colder parts of Alaska, I would not be at all surprised to learn that temperature are 30, 40, or even 50 degrees colder than this.

So I am way behind. But still, I will post another Loft workshop entry.

This one will be easy. It will cover our first get-together, really just a short social gathering. So for this one, I do not have much to work with. It won't be that hard to get up.

So check back in about four hours. Maybe five. Possibly six.

Right now, I am going to go to Metro and get my afternoon coffee.