We are back on the air.

And imagine our astonishment, almost a month later to the date, when we rise out of the sealed basement, out of the sealed house into the outdoors to find that no eruption actually occurred?! Now don't we feel like a bunch of dumb asses? This is the only viable reason I can find as to why "no post" since February 11, is that we panicked, sealed ourselves inside, and waited out the dreaded eruption safe in the fresh air and fallout shelter of our basement. Only to surface and find it never happened.... Would you buy it? Me neither! Fortunately for timing, we managed to come out just on time to see the annual running of the dogs. The 2009 Iditerod starts today. The ceremonial start will be aired live at 9:30 this morning, and in tradition, Maryann, myself and the dogs will veg in front of the tv to watch all the excited doggies for 3 hours. Why would we choose to be in front of the tv when we could easily drive the 4 hours to bear witness in the flesh, of this event? Try: there is a sofa (and a comfortable one at that) 10 feet in front of the tv, a woodstove that is a blast furnace 6 feet from that, and it is 6 degrees on the curb at the race in Anchorage....do the math. The past week has been the 'Fur Rondy' which is a bevy of festivities that take place the week prior to the actual race. People will come as far as Europe to watch this today. In fact, Anchorage is stoked of the poke it will receive with it's economy for this event.

And to date, still no eruption. It is old news it seems. Possibly 'brutha-O' changed the course of the inevitable eruption with his stimulus....or maybe Sarah ordered a shipping container of Gas-X dropped into the mouth of the crater. Or maybe....they just predict eruptions like they predict the weather? In any event, we are happy it hasn't happened, and frankly hope it doesn't. They say that since 1700, something like 48 eruptions have rained down ash on Alaskans....and none have been blown off the map.... we really don't want to be the 49th eruption.

John is happy in his new job. he has some pretty serious responsibility handed to him and although he finds his new position a challenge, he is taking it in true form. The highlight is the forklift. Which brings back a story, or at least one of many, of a friend who around Johns age worked at his dads canned food grocery outlet. One day while doing brodies with the forklift in the back lot....with a full pallet of canned goods ..... the pallet tipped, the friend quipped and dad flipped (wink). We won't even get into the story of the same friend and the cows.... Anyways, John is loving the forklift scene and has been encouraged against pulling a 'Bradley'. There is hope on the horizon that John will be getting on with the forestry service in Soldotna in the coming months. He has found out that they have a program to hire and train on site, which could have him working the summer fire lines. Not sure how all of this will affect his new job, although the owner of this company is a retired Fire Chief and has already let John know he will work with John on helping to accommodate any needs he has. Cool beans!

Other than this, we are really wanting Spring to spring, and happy that it is getting light out again. I did manage to get a few promised pics from the plow-cam. Guess we need to work on that a bite, don't we....maybe next winter I will have this feature perfected! however, here are a few nice shots taken from the beach here in Nikiski when we took the dogs snowshoeing. This was 2 Sundays ago. Was a brilliant, crisp and cold day. Enjoy and our hopes to every bodies health, happiness, and summer to come!