draggonlaady

Next day was time to head home. Which means that once I again, I commend myself to the goodness and mercy of Alaska Airlines.

First thing in the morning, I called customer service.
"Hi. I'm supposed to be flying out of Petersburg, Alaska today. I did not receive the confirmation call which I was expecting, so I just wanted to make sure everything's okay."
"Did you make a reservation?"
"Yes..." (thinking but NOT said aloud: No, I was expecting a confirmation call because I think you're all psychic and just KNOW when I need to fly, without my bothering with this 'reservation' thing.)
She rattles at the keyboard for a minute. "Did you pay for it?"
"Yes!"
After another 4-5 minutes of key rattling, she finally says "Oh, there it is." (This is NOT comforting, thank you!) She confirms that I'll be leaving that afternoon, and that I'll be allowed on the plane.

I walk down town for breakfast, and then back to the other end of town (what? it's not a long walk) to check out the book store. While I'm poking through the stacks, the power goes out. To the entire town. And apparently to Wrangell and another town as well. I am assured that if the airports all shut down just for little things like power outages, half the scheduled flights through Alaska wouldn't happen. Somehow this is not terribly reassuring, as it's been my experience that half of the flights through Alaska don't happen. (What, me, cynical?)

I spend about 2 hours chatting with a random guy in the hotel lobby (yeah, I'm odd), and then hit the little cafe outside of the hotel for lunch. Sweet potato and rock fish curry over brown rice--good stuff, Maynard. Power came back on somewhere in there.

Then we head to the airport; T and J are on the same flight out as I am, and there are a couple people coming in on that flight that Dennis and Toni are supposed to pick up. I go to check in, and the computer refuses to print me a boarding slip or baggage claim strip. Takes 3 tries for the woman to get it done. I realize that this is probably a result of the power outage and not anything the airline did, but still!

Petersburg is a tiny airport; they don't have the baggage x-ray machines, so everything gets searched by hand by TSA. And swabbed for nitrates. Oddly, even though the clothes I was wearing when I tested positive in Ketchikan are in the bag, they pass it. I do end up having to send my carry-on through twice though, because they couldn't figure out what my camera was on the first trip. *sigh*

So we all board, and the flight attendants come by and tell me to turn off my reader. Since I'm still wondering exactly what that's about, I ask. And get one of the stupidest, blatantly bullshit answers EVER. FAA regulations (I am told) require that all devices, even those with no transmit functions, be turned off because (drum roll please) they want people to pay attention to the safety spiel and these devices would be distracting. Riiiight... because the bloke next to me reading his book, and the woman over across the way with the magazine, those people aren't distracted? Why don't these (dare I say non-existant?) FAA regulations require that books, magazines, games, and newspapers be stowed also? And how come I can't turn the reader back on as soon as the flight attendant is done talking instead of waiting until we get to 10,000 feet? Your answer, it makes no sense! A 6 year old could do better.

Bruce suggests that prior to my next vacation, I should download into the reader the FAA regulations regarding passenger conduct, as well as TSA regulations regarding passengers so that when I get obviously bullshit answers like that (or like the one we got on our Knoxville trip, where the flight attendant claimed it was a TSA regulation that passengers not seated in 1st class couldn't use the lavatory in the 1st class area) I can ask them to show me the pertinent section.

Anyway, rather than deal with turning the reader off every time we land as we island skip down the coast, I start in on the book I bought at the Petersburg book store. Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow. As with most of Doctorow's work, it's available for free download on his site. It was a terribly apropos book, given my recent frustrations with TSA. Basic plot is a teenage kid in California, and his struggles with a Homeland Security Department gone bat-shit (even more so than currently in real life) after a terrorist attack. I recommend it. (As you may have guessed from the links to buy or download it, yeah?)

The flight to SeaTac was actually fairly uneventful. Then I spent 3 hours sitting in SeaTac waiting for my next flight. Picked up dinner at Waji's, which was not bad, but nothing spectacular either. Was continually irritated by the "Talking Fountain" in the waiting area. Someone's idea of art, apparently, is to hook a speaker up to a drinking fountain, so that whenever anyone gets water, it makes quite loud, repetitive sounds like rocks banging together under water. Maybe I just don't get art, but I found this intrusive and annoying, not pretty or soothing.

SeaTac decided to play switchery-doo with the gates, and no announcements were made that I heard. I figured it out (just) before they finished boarding, and the flight to Spokaloo was uneventful.

One final note about airport security: I apparently had a pretty basic misunderstanding of how the "metal detectors" work. I wear this shiny piece which Bruce gave me. As you can see, it's not subtle. This is a big chunk of metal. Not a single security machine cared. I was vaguely aware that it was possible to sneak ceramic or polymer weapons through security, but it had never occurred to me that I could walk through with over a quarter pound of metal. Apparently, stainless steel doesn't interfere with electromagnetic fields enough to trip the security. So you can get through security with practically any sort of weapon, if you're prepared. Meanwhile, people who are absolutely no threat are delayed, harassed, and imposed upon. Does this make me feel safer? Hmm. Nope. "Security theater" indeed. Americans lose, the terrorists win.

Since we hadn't gotten out to look at the plane yesterday, Cap'n Dennis, T, J, and I went to look for it today.
We found it. And we began speculation on exactly what it is that Z smokes while waiting for otters to wander into nets.

This is the "white plane with blue trim, and 2 9's in the tail number" that Z found. We called the number in to see who's plane it was, and went back to Northern Song to ask Z if he is colorblind. Red trim on cream is not the same as blue trim on white!
Pretty overgrown. Z had estimated about 10 years old, which would have put it right in the time frame to have been Smokey's plane. Dennis says "looks like a mighty long 10 years."
Tail number was intact. No 9's involved, just a couple 6's. Maybe Z was standing on his head?

Saw a cormorant on the trip back to Northern Song, but no picture. There were many, many marbled murrelets in pairs and trios, a handful of bald eagles, and a bunch of pigeon guillemots.

Got a call back; this plane wreck was already registered. It was a non-fatality crash in 1965. Smokey's plane is still unfound. Z caught much harassment about numbers and colors over dinner.

5 more otters caught and transmitters implanted, bringing the total up to 30 otters. Very happy otter crew!

Started raining a bit that afternoon, so I spent most of it hanging out on Northern Song reading.

Dinner was halibut (thanks to J and T) with roasted potatoes. Quite yummy!

Some more info on the nitrate detectors, courtesy of Hagbard.

It's a broad spectrum IR-stimulated catalysis test. What the false positive rate is depends on what you mean by 'false positive'- ie, alerts on non-nitrates, or alerts on non-terrorist. If the former, very low. It's a pretty good way to detect nitrates reliably. If the latter, crazy high. It detects nitrates, which means if you set foot on a farm or military base within 48 hours of being swabbed or so it hits a lot of people and then they want an explanation. ("I was on a farm" is good enough, and if you're in fatigues, they don't even swab you.) For the record, the TSA has never stopped a single terrorist. Not one. Mostly they annoy, patronize, confiscate nail clippers, and catch people with pot.

This information is interesting, in a "good god what are they thinking" sort of way. Seriously? Farmers, construction workers, US military employees, people on heart medication... these are threats to national security and need to be pulled aside at airport terminals for investigation? The terrorists have won, people.

First, something I forgot on Day 2 - One of the otter crew (Z) is a grad student, writing up this project for his thesis. Z was therefore particularly stressed by the lack of otter catching prior to my arrival. At the end of yesterday, happy and tired and playing around after catching 4 otters, Z decided to cut across the edge of the bay on the way back to Northern Song. In doing so, he managed to rip the lower unit off the skiff's motor on a submerged rock chain. Oops.
Otter project had 2 skiffs, (Sea Weasel and La Tourista) so at bedtime on Sunday, they were half down on transport ability for setting nets and hauling otters to the hospital boat. Plan was to call repair shops first thing Monday morning and have a lower unit sent out via Doug, the still patient private pilot who transported me and then my luggage.

On waking on Day 3, however, things get even less smooth. It seems that overnight, the La Tourista snagged and was rolled under the Jerry O, flooding the motor and dumping a bunch of equipment into the water. J and T (2 other observers like me; not officially on the project) were up early to go fishing, so they took one of the Northern Song's rubber skiffs over to the Jerry O to help retrieve the float-away otter boxes, stuff sack, life vests, etc. and bring Dave (Jerry O's captain) back to Northern Song for breakfast. So now the otter project has no skiffs. The Northern Song has 2 rubber skiffs, but those aren't good choices for pulling otters out of nets; otters bite and holding boxes are sharp edged, and rubber, it doesn't do so well at staying inflated after puncture. So we have a slow/lazy morning of waiting for parts for 2 motors to be located and flown out.
Combined with continued beautiful weather (and they say it's cold in Alaska!), this provided a great time for some kayaking.
Leanna and I headed out along the same island that we'd played around on yesterday, paddling up to the point of the island and letting the tide and wind drift us back along the shore.
This time, we found a couple Sunflower stars where we could reach them, and really appreciate how freaky HUGE they are compared to other stars. There were dozens of common stars arrayed along the intertidal areas, and lions mane jellies in the water. Also saw a couple mink on shore--and I'm beginning to sound like a broken record or something, but those buggers are BIG. I was expecting something about the size of a domestic ferret, but these kids were 2 or 3 times that size. And much quicker than I am; I failed entirely to get a decent picture.

We drifted through a school of about a million humpy fry; seriously, it took several minutes to float from one end to the other of this school.

We saw bald eagles (go ahead and assume that I say this every day, okay?), ravens, and gulls.

At one point as we floated along, several fish flung themselves repeatedly from the water to our side, skidded along and dropped back in. We didn't see what was chasing them, but suspect it was harbor seals.

On shore for an hour or so in the afternoon with Ocean, there were drifts of muscle and clam shells, some nearly knee deep (yes, I'm short, I have short legs. So? it's still a lot of shells!). Leanna reports that there are also river otters here, that pull muscles and clams up to the tide line where there's better cover to eat them. There were miniscule barnacles on everything along this beach; even growing on other barnacles.

My new camera has an impressive macro function, so you can enjoy pictures of these tiny, tiny red spiders (mites?) that look like strawberries with legs.

Black bears supposedly come down these beaches and graze and eat muscles, but we didn't see any of either. We blame the bear hunters who were also in the area. Apparently this particular bay is commonly used by one particular group of bear "guides" who basically run the Alaska version of road-hunting. They bring people out on a boat, float along and shoot bears on shore without ever getting out of the boat. If the bear falls over, they beach and "collect" it. This particular group has been using this bay constantly for a few years now, and as a result, there are very few bears in the area currently. I gather that they are a very unpopular group with the locals; they are actually based somewhere in the lower 48, and unlike other guides, don't seem to see the point in rotating areas. They also had the attitude of owning the bay, and wanted use to leave so as not to interrupt their very important hunt.
We have no proof that the garbage we kept scooping up and hauling back to ship came from them, as we didn't see it being tossed, but since there was only us and them in the bay, and there was still mayonnaise in the jar.... well. We drew conclusions.

Evening brought a stream of moon jellies gliding past under the boat; I took a few crappy pictures that don't do them justice at all, but they are small (about 1 1/2" across, though they apparently get much larger later in the summer), nearly transparent, it was getting dark out, and the flash doesn't help when taking pictures through the surface of the water, so... just trust me, they're prettier than the picture shows. You can go here for much better pictures than I took.

Dinner was sea bass (rockfish) with diced veggies (piccole verdure), and was quite yummy. Thanks, J and T, for catching it!

Right then. We'll start with getting the rest of the way there. Last I related I was stuck in SeaTac after Alaska Airlines' epic fail and 12 hour delay in getting me to Seattle. Seriously; I should have just driven.
Anyway. Up bright and early again at 4 AM the next morning, to catch yet another 6 AM flight. No trouble of note with SeaTac security, just the usual rigamarole. On the plane and off we go. At Ketchikan, we have an hour wait. I ask the flight attendant if it's okay to go into the terminal to get a mocha. She says that shouldn't be a problem. She is wrong.
Ketchikan is small enough that as soon as you get off the plane, you're considered outside of security. Seriously, you can't even turn back around at the bottom of the stairs (yeah, stairs to the tarmac, no bridge) and go back up, they freak out about it. So I go into the terminal building, walk through the downstairs debarking area, buy a mocha, and head upstairs, where I'm immediately met with the friendly face of the TSA. I talk to the security guy at the start of the line for a few minutes, explaining why I'm out and will need to go back in. Then I chill my heels and read and drink my mocha for half an hour or so.
Now the fun really starts, as I go back through security. I'm lucky number whatthefuckever and am chosen for "enhanced screening" (Bruce asks why they can't find a name that's less obviously reminiscent of "enhanced interrogation"). So I get the lovely pat-down, whoo. And the nitrate test. Which comes up positive. Joy.
So I get pulled into a "private screening room" where they pat me down AGAIN. They bring in my bag, and someone else's too, just for good measure? Hah. First thing out of my mouth is "I don't know what's in the black bag, and it isn't mine." I'm sure that's not suspicious at all, yeah? Luckily there was someone outside loudly wondering what became of her computer. Comforting revelation 1: they can't even keep track of what luggage came with their suspect!
So they run the nitrate test AGAIN and AGAIN and of course it comes up positive both times. I get grilled on where I've been (SeaTac airport, their security thought I was fine, since which I've been on that plane sitting right there that is getting ready to leave, and on which I'd like to be again now, please) and then in YOUR OWN AIRPORT. No, I haven't been anywhere else. No I haven't been playing with explosives. Now we get comforting revelation 2: TSA woman tells me that the nitrate scanner picks up all kinds of extraneous shit, like dust from construction sites, and guess what? They're doing construction downstairs in THIS SAME FUCKING BUILDING. So best I can figure, I tested positive on this test because of the fucking airport. How safe does that make you all feel? Because it doesn't make me feel safer, just harassed and cranky. They go through all the stuff in my bag, and can't find anything suspicious.
Eventually, the 2 women who can't figure out what to do with someone who is obviously carrying nothing threatening decide to ask their supervisor. Who turns out to be the TSA bloke I chatted with at the gate while drinking coffee. He looks in, sees me, says "She's been sitting here reading for 45 minutes. Let her get on her damn plane," and walks out. Seriously, I swear he said "damn", I'm not making that up. I think he was fed up with the nitrate BS too, and it makes me wonder how many times they've dragged someone though this crap.
Can't find much about these nitrate sensors to link for you, unfortunately. Just vague comments here and there, about how sensitive they are. Sensitive enough, for example, to trigger if you've recently taken medication with nitroglycerin; guess heart disease makes you a potential threat. Whoot! High sensitivity and low specificity while looking for a VERY small percentage in a huge sample size--how many false positives do we want to wade through here? There is, of course, not a single mention of any actual bomber ever being discovered via this scanner.

So. Back on the plane. And off we go again. To Wrangell. Where we are grounded for a mechanical. Seriously, Alaska Airlines? 2 mechanicals in 2 days on what was supposed to be 1 flight? FUCK. This is NOT impressing me with your reliability. So there's no mechanic in Wrangell, of course. 45 minutes later, they've rounded up a mechanic, who pokes about at the leaking hydraulic for another 45 minutes before declaring he needs parts not available in Wrangell. They'll be brought in on the afternoon flight south from Juneau, 5 hours from now. We're told that when they get the plane going, they'll be skipping Petersburg (where I'm supposed to deplane for real) and going straight to Juneau. They offer to put us up in hotels there and fly us back to Petersburg the next day on the afternoon flight, thus getting me to my destination a full 48 hours late. If that's not acceptable, we can jump plane now, and catch charter boats to the other island. Which is great, but will land us on the south end of the island; Petersburg is at the north end. Oh, and since the flight is not officially cancelled, Alaska Airlines won't be paying for any of it if we leave. We can wait and see if they officially cancel the flight at some point, after which Alaska Airlines might pay for other transportation, but might not, since they already offered hotel rooms, etc.
"Fuck that noise" is the general consensus of about 30 people on the plane, myself included. We leave en masse, pile into 2 taxi-vans to the marina, then onto 2 charter boats to Banana Point. From there we catch vans up the island to Petersburg. The charter boat is the first leg of this entire trip that's actually gone smoothly, and I wasn't even supposed to be on it! But birds and seals and water and open air are good for my head and for calming the rage. Pigeon guillemots and marbled murrelets, loons and gulls. Guillemots are pretty cool looking birds, and murrelets are just darn cute. (Have I mentioned that I bought a new camera just prior to this trip?)

So apparently this is a not unusual thing, as the charter boat crews seem well versed with the "pick people up from the airport" routine. Again, not impressed with the reliability of the airline!

Saw several very fat black tailed deer, a Stellar jay, and a 3-toed sap sucker on the drive up the island. Also several smaller song birds, unidentified. Sorry, winnett. No pictures of those; somehow taking pictures through the window of a moving van didn't seem to work well.

On arriving in Petersburg, I call Toni again, and explain where I am and how I got there, and that I'm going to the airport to find out what I can do about getting my baggage at some point (recall that it spent the night in Juneau while I was in SeaTac). She says she'll get in touch with Doug, the private pilot who will be flying me to the boat, and let him know I've managed to arrive. I get into the airport just as they officially announce the cancellation of the flight I was suppose to've been on. Which incites an immediate (and totally predictable) rush of people to the ticket/check-in desk, just about 45 seconds too soon for me to get there when they were empty. Gah. So I stand in line for 12 minutes. Yeah, I timed it. I was bored. And seriously annoyed at spending 12 minutes staring at the sign behind the counter, which read

Time is important to you, so it's important to us.
#1 in on-time flights, major North American Airlines 2010.

Oh, the joy that sign gave me. And by "joy", I mean "rage". FOURTY EIGHT HOURS LATE is very much not on-time, people. Bad enough that I'm "only" 22 hours late, and that by giving up on you and finding another way!

Ticket lady informs me that baggage is still in Juneau (not dreadfully surprising, I guess, since there's only 2 planes through Petersburg in a day, the one going north that's not happening today, and the one coming south that will bring the part for the broken plane sitting in Wrangell). She informs me that I can come pick it up at 2:30 this afternoon. I inform her that I have no intention of still being in Petersburg at 2:30 this afternoon, as I was supposed to be on a boat YESTERDAY, and there is right this minute a pilot waiting next door to get me to said boat. So in the only actual customer service moment that I receive the entire time, it's arranged that when my luggage gets to Petersburg, they'll have it flown out to me at the boat via private plane. Then she ruins any good feeling by telling me she can't reimburse anything for the part of the flight on which they didn't actually fly me, nor can she reimburse me for the charter boat, but she can give me 2000 free miles! Like I'm going to be booking a flight on your line anytime in the foreseeable future?! Whatever. I'll call customer service when I'm back home. I leave and go next door to catch the float plane to Kake and the Northern Song. Which flight goes quite nicely, with no mishaps (and no TSA!). We stop at the Kake airport to pick up someone going back to Petersburg, see 3 black bears grazing next to the runway, and then head out to the boat. I got no pictures of the bears; which is especially sucky because they're the only bears I saw the whole time. Home for the next week will be Northern Song.

I get passed over to the boat, meet the crew of the Northern Song (Cap'n Dennis, Mate Leanna, Chef Ocean), am immediately handed food and good humor, and just as we finish lunch the otter crew radios that they've "caught a big one!"

When I arrived, the otter crew had been out netting for a week already. The otter they caught as I arrived was otter #11. They were aiming for 30-33, and had 6 days left. They may have been a wee bit stressed. I was shuttled over to the hospital boat (Jerry O) to watch the fun.
Otter #11 was a young male, who really was a "big one". He weighed in at 101 pounds, and was almost exactly as long as the measuring tape. Basic procedure for otter trap/release, since I assume that you are mostly as ignorant as I was:
Set out nets in areas that otters frequent. They were using salmon gill nets.
When you catch an otter, pull the skiff up next to them, 2 people pull the otter, net and all, into the boat and stuff it into a plywood box with holes drilled along the top. One person uses a "stuff sack" to trap the otter's head in a corner of the box while the other person (or persons if there are more than 2 people in the skiff) work the net off the otter. That usually involves cutting the net, and hopefully not the otter. A "stuff sack" is a foam roll inside a duffel bag inside another duffel bag, and it takes on all the damage that your giant water weasel would like to dish out to its captors. The stuff sack is not expected to survive longer than this 2 week project!
Once the net is removed from the otter, the box is closed, and transported to the Jerry O.
Box and otter are then dropped in the water to float for 20-30 minutes while the otter calms down and vents any frustration it has on the Kong toy fastened inside the box.
When otter is calm, the box is lifted onto the Jerry O's deck, the otter is reintroduced to his favorite victim, the stuff sack, and while he's busily mauling that, a doctor jabs him in the rear with fentanyl and midazolam. Then the box is shut again.
Otter soaks up his drugs for about 10 minutes, then is lifted out and weighed. Drugs are touched up if necessary, since he was dosed by estimate based on how hard he was to get in the box in the first place...
Otter is moved to the surgery table, and a nasal oxygen tube placed. Blood, feces, and urine are collected, and milk if available. A premolar is extracted for aging,any wounds and scars are noted, girth, total length, tail length, paw size, and temperature are recorded. While doctor scrubs in, the otter is prepped for surgery.
Now, otters rely on their fur for thermoregulation in cold water; they don't have blubber. So no shaving. They kept the hair out of the surgery site by slicking it back with a mixture of iodine in sterile lube.
Doctor puts a radio transmitter into the abdomen (can't very well expect a water weasel to wear a collar). Bright colored tags are placed in each back flipper, and tissue samples taken from the piercings there.
Then the drugs are reversed, the otter is returned to the box, and the box is transported back out to where the otter was caught, where he's released.

Pictures of this whole process (though not posted in any particular order, as I was present for different stages on different days) are posted here.

Back to Northern Song for dinner (beef bourguignon, yum, and carrot cake with absolutely amazing lemon glazed icing). My bag had arrived while I was at the hospital boat, so I "moved in" to my bunk, and then I collapsed in exhaustion. So that's all you get for today, I'm tired of typing!

Yes. I'm supposed to be in Alaska. Didn't/hasn't happened. Up bright and early at 4 AM to catch a 6 AM flight out of Spokane. Which was cancelled. They rescheduled me to leave Spokane at 8 PM, so much for getting to Petersburg by 2 PM! Supposed to be there at 2 tomorrow instead; which is shitty as I'm supposed to have left Petersburg for Kake by 11:30 AM tomorrow. So I called the folks that run the boat, and they rearranged their pilot's schedule to pick me up in Petersburg later, and still get me to the boat. Bruc came back to the airport to pick me up, and we killed a bunch of time in Spokie, which was kinda nice (for me, anyway--I dunno, maybe he doesn't like hanging out aimlessly with me all day?). Picked the kid up after school, then they dropped me back off at the airport and headed home. I checked in again, and they put me on stand by, so I actually got out of Spokane at 6 PM (only 12 hours late!). When I got to Seattle, I checked again to see if I can get out of here earlier, and the woman I talked to here was appalled that nobody in Spokane had offered me a hotel room and that they couldn't/didn't get me a flight here earlier. So she re-re-rearranged my ticket, and now instead of leaving SeaTac at 10:30 tonight, and sleeping in the Fairbanks airport, then getting to Petersburg at 2:30 PM, I'm supposed to be leaving SeaTac at 6:30 tomorrow morning, I have a hotel room for the night, and I'm supposed to get to Petersburg at 10:30 AM.

However, my checked bag has already been passed through Juneau, so it's probably sitting in Petersburg right now, with all my clean clothes. Gah. At least I can get a shower tonight! Hurray for that.

Also, can anybody explain to me the reasoning behind forcing me to turn off my eReader on the plane? It has no broadcasting or receiving ability, no wifi, no radio, no way to transmit info that's not via USB cord. In what world is this in any way going to affect the plane's communication or navigation? I cannot see any way that it's more dangerous than a paper book.

Also also, a notice to the 2 women ahead of me in line? When the attendants announce that the plane has smaller than normal overhead storage areas, and wheeled bags will not fit, that means wheeled bags will not fit. It does not mean spend 5 minutes each trying to shove your bag into an obviously too-small bin, while delaying everyone else's boarding. Thanks.

Very little on the crazy spectrum today. And Mrs Miller did follow through with giving us money, so no need for nagging phone calls, yay! The only kinda weird was a woman who came in looking for a couple of kittens. When I said that we have a couple sheriff's department impounds that will be going to rescue, but they haven't been spayed yet, she explained that she "doesn't have a cat problem" so she doesn't really care if they're spayed. This is NOT a good way to get me to adopt a cat to you, in case you wondered. I pointed out to her that the fastest way to develop a cat problem is to put a couple intact females out for the males to find, because they will come from miles around, and just because you haven't noticed them doesn't mean they aren't there. And I did not give her any cats.

Oh, the internet thing--I called back the next day and talked to the receptionist again, basically "nobody called me back, what's being done?" and she informed me that J would be stopping by today. Well, that's nice (really), and also nice (sarcastically). Good that he'll come down, rather annoying that nobody thought maybe they should call ahead and see if there was a good time or a time that just flat wouldn't work for me (not gonna be there, we're closed for lunch, whatever). J seems to think that the issue has something to do with the fact that we're using a static IP address. Since I have no freaking clue what that even means, one of you computer gurus wanna hazard a guess as to why having a static IP would cause wireless to intermittently drop service? Just as curiosity, really, because I'm still thinking the faster DSL at the same cost/month is the way to go.

Bought plane tickets to Alaska. For those of you who care, you apparently cannot buy Alaska Airlines tickets through Orbitz, you have to go directly to AA website. Which turns out to be less expensive than Orbitz anyway (by a few bucks, nothing shocking) but the flight choice options were less "build your own" than Orbitz--you can't mix-and-match return flights for some reason; choosing one way locks you into certain return trips. Whatever. But it looks like I'll have a layover in sea-tac on my return trip, if anybody in the area wants to meet for dinner on the 28th of May. And about 4 hours or so in Juneau on the way up, so if there's anything that I absolutely MUST see in Juneau that takes less than 3 hours, let me know.