Quote of the day

"How do you know when Santa's birthday is?"

Robin's response when I said, "Saturday is Janet's birthday."

Note: Robin just met with a hearing aid specialist last week ... I think this clinches the deal.

Computer error message of the day...

Received when Robin tried to check his work (i.e. government) e-mail:

"The requested service is temporarily unavailable. It is either overloaded or under maintenance. Please try later."

Kodiak Shuffle

Snow. Slush. Rain. Ice. Snow. Rain. Ice.

Waaahc, waaahc, waaahc. Everyone walks around like penguins shuffled across the ice. Through the gravel strewn across the top.

Only our friend Jimmy wasn't so lucky ... he slipped on one tiny spot of ice on a grassy yard. Sloooop! Down he went and tore his quadriceps tendon off his kneecap. Ouch! He had surgery Friday and went home from the hospital today.

A long, slow recovery is in store.

Happy Turkey Day

We celebrated the day by being thankful we didn't have to cook! We joined friends at the Coast Guard base for a turkey and ham dinner with all the trimmings. Between the two of us, Robin and I ate 6 pieces of pie: pecan, pumpkin and cheesecake. Now we have bellyaches but it was worth it.

Last weekend, our friend Liz celebrated her last night in Kodiak (at least for now) with an ice-skating Olympics at the awesome public rink. Right here in Kodiak. What a great rink! I dusted off my skates, pulled out my roller blade pads, donned my poncho and skated away.

Here are some photos of skating, our boat and Robin's deer hunt on Raspberry Island.

Failure to appear: Juror number J62324

The stupid City of Lakewood court wanted to have me in contempt for "failure to appear for jury duty" on October 28.

Not that it hasn't been almost 5 years since I lived there.

I e-mailed them a copy of the muzzleloading newspaper article, with the date, and told them that I now live in Alaska.

That wasn't sufficient for the "Judicial Specialist" and I was not excused. Librarian!

I served on the court as a juror once about 6 years ago. The case was a riveting, he-said, she-said thriller and someone's pet rabbit died in the middle of an apartment dispute.

Stay tuned ... I hope they don't press charges!

Fall trip to East Coast

We traveled to D.C., WV, MD and PA in September. Most of the time was spent at Robin's training facility in WV. We traveled to Robin's home town near Gettysburg, visited with friends and Robin's brothers.

Robin took some time and went hunting for whitetail deer, bagging 3 or 4 and carting the frozen burger back to Alaska.

I took some time and visited battlefields, Harper's Ferry (home of John Brown) and the National Apple Museum. That's where you can get your own personalized tour for $2 and spend 8 hours with the old couple who do the tours. (Yikes, I don't THINK so!)

See pictures of our trip out east.

Leathermans make headlines again

We made the front page of the paper again ... this time for a muzzleloading class. It was a two-day class and a cheap $20 to pour powder down a barrel, pack it with a roundball and fire at a target. Robin fired off his rounds and qualified before everyone else had even loaded their guns.

It was fun and we both passed. The instructor did accuse me of cheating on the written test because Robin and I both missed the same question. I said, "Wow, that's weird. I didn't even cheat on that question."

Read the article.