December 8, 2003

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  Trick Pic?

  
  

  A question from wixer in comments to my latest water-run blog asked if this shot is sunrise or sunset.  Would you believe high noon?  Although the clock was reading noon while we were at the spring, due to politics it’s really an hour or two off solar noon, but close enough.  I was facing just a bit east of due south when I took this.  It is typical mid-day windwinter sun angle at this latitude. 

  
  

  After having grown up in temperate zones where the sun rose in the east and set in the west with only minor north/south seasonal variations, it has always fascinated me to watch how here its course is east/west at the equinoxes and then quickly moves until it is rising and setting in the north at summer solstice and in the south at winter solstice.  In Barrow, it set (in the south) in November and won’t rise again until late January.  Likewise, next summer it won’t set at all for a few months, but just dip toward the northern horizon every evening.  Ain’t celestial mechanix fascinatin’?

  
  

  Also, after seeing all those pics of my son Doug in his new red hat, spinksy wanted to know how old he is.  He’s twenty-two in physical chronology, this lifetime.  In his mind and soul he seems ageless:  never in a hurry to grow up (as I always was), he has memories that include ancient Egypt and prehistoric Asia.  The first time I looked into his eyes this lifetime, I recognized the old soul in there.  It’s been to his benefit as well as mine that I did, because it has let me understand and accept his quirky personality, and enabled me to explain to him and help him understand those otherwise troubling and inexplicable dreams and memories he has.  Each of us has a big measure of warrior karma and knowing that has helped us gain a rational perspective on our atypical reactions to such things as the sounds of artillery fire (chills) and the sight of blood (basically no reaction, which in itself is atypical).  More than you wanted to know, eh?

  
  

  There has been more snow falling here, but not on the magnitude of the East Coast storm this weekend.  It is just the normal winter white stuff for us, and Greyfox, as usual, has been bitching about how much of it has to be shoveled twice.  It comes off the cars and then has to be cleared out of the driveway, or off the roof and then out of the path to the outhouse.  Both guys have been spending a lot of time and energy both here and at our old place across the highway, keeping roofs from caving in.  According to Greyfox’s survey this morning, the job is about two-thirds done.

  
  

  It’s warm in here now, 61° F, since I just finished baking a batch of muffins and the outdoor temp is up significantly, to about 28° above zero.  The warmth is the result of warm moist air moving in from the south, so of course it’s snowing, making Greyfox’s estimate of the snow shoveling job still ahead of them grow by the minute.

  
  

  This weekend there was a great picture of the aurora on the front page of the Anchorage Daily News.  It showed a long swirling streamer of light.  I waited too long to go to ADN.com and copy it to post here.  When I went today to search it out, I couldn’t find it.  That site has links to just about every section of the previous week’s papers except the front page.  Looking through the galleries, however, I did find this one taken in November in Girdwood–pretty good aurora, but lacking that distinct swirl pattern.

  
  

  (photo by Daryl Pederson) 

  • 6:08 pm
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