A Very Merry One

Christmas Eve was a lovely day! I only had to work half of the day, it snowed all day long, and it was quite nice indeed.

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Early in the morning it really was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. (Thanks to Joe for the photo.)

One of my favorite things about the downtown post office are the metal decorations in their wall. There are quite a few different designs, and all of them depict ways the mail has been delivered in Alaska at one point or another. I admit, the dogsled design is one of my favorites.

Each year downtown Fairbanks gets a bit of ice art. I'm not sure exactly what this one will turn in to, but they got a good start on it before it got too cold to carve the blocks. Joe snapped this picture as we were waiting at a traffic light on the flag bridge.

Food Factory is one of the local restraints. Their food is pretty good, and they have a "Beer Around The World" program. Once you get your beer passport filled out for each country, you get a free t-shirt. Currently a couple of friends and I are about a third of the way done. Not bad, considering it's something we do only twice a month or so.

Another photo for the folks out there who can't seem to believe me when I tell them we do actually have many of the same stores up here as the rest of the country. If only Fairbanks had its own Target too. Then I would be quite happy!

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Lunch after work on Christmas Eve was a lot of fun. I gave a friend of mine a gift card that was frozen in a Nalgene bottle of water. Now I wonder what will happen in retaliation.

Afternoon From Work

Yesterday was much more visually pleasing day than Monday, as I got to see the sun for a little bit sometime between noon and 3ish! The temperature started to fall below zero, but not too very far, as I was still able to run outside and snap a few pictures without bothering to throw on a coat or a sweatshirt. Alaskan t-shirt weather I suppose. The cold up here in the interior feels so different from cold I grew up with back in New Hampshire. I never realized exactly how damp everything is on the East Coast until living in the Arctic Desert. Even the snow is very different. I might have examples of that to post tomorrow.

Everyone up here is getting ready for Christmas. We even have a half day at work! In spite of that, it's been a bit busy this morning.

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First up is a shot of the UAF Power Plant. The tracks in the snow leading into the building are for the coal cars. I can't remember how many coal cars they go through during the cold snaps, but it is a decent amount.

The view from the back yard looked quite pretty yesterday around 2:30. I snapped a quick series of pictures in an attempt to catch part of the pink and yellow afternoon sky before the sun went down. In spite of chopping off a few treetops, and the appearance of a fence rail in the bottom this was about the best of the bunch. Note to self, take the time to at least wear a sweatshirt next time or purchase a tripod for better camera stability after the holidays...

A blurry afternoon sunset sky. Hey, anyone out taking pictures in just a t-shirt and jeans would have a hard time standing still after a while in six or seven degrees below zero... I did think the unintentional blur made the colors look even more soft and pretty though, so I tossed it up here.

Finally, here's some Alaska style decorating. A bunch of the ladies in the office and I added a bit of holiday flair to the warehouse. The tinsel was all my doing. Also to give you an idea of work, I spend quite a bit of time standing behind the counter. Usually I’m standing behind the counter on the opposite side of the little tree.

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I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, and enjoyed a Joyous Yule (my solstice was great thank you very much)!
I'll see if I can get some holiday looking pictures this afternoon, as well as some regular people having fun after work.

A Day Quite Ordinary

After showing some pretty photos from the solstice, I present you with my Monday. Temperatures were around 10 above zero, and on this gray day we had a few flurries during the morning. Life wasn’t all that scenic at work.

10:15 in the morning is still quite dark, not just due to the snow cloud. These flakes fell upon the Facility Service parking lot, and apparently I took a scenic photo of the dumpster for whatever reason. I don’t believe I was all that awake yet.

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This feature is a very gray high noon picture of trees on the hill. It stopped flurrying for a bit at that time, but did not improve the looks of things very much.

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As a chaser to scenery, here are some luminaries one of the ladies at work made by freezing water in a five gallon bucket. Ice art and ice decorations are pretty popular up here during the winter.

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Any candle from tea light sized to a smaller pillar can easily fit in the middle. They look lovely when lit too!

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So there’s some real humdrum Alaska for everyone. Other than a lack of sunlight it isn’t all that different from life on the East Coast.

First Day of a New Season

Earlier this winter I came up with an idea. I decided I wanted to create a way of sharing my day to day experiences with friends and family, as I started to grow tired of answering the same questions or comments regarding my surroundings up here. Many things are difficult to explain and a lot of times the answers are from either side of the spectrum, "Yes, there ARE stores and malls up here," to, "It's sixty below here and will take over 6 hours to get to Anchorage, of course I'm not going over this weekend!"

Alaska is different. The people are quite different, but in a good way as well. With all of that said, it is also shocking how normal daily life is as well. In that case, I live in a gigantic 591,004 square mile Catch-22. In any case, I love it up here.

With all of that said, I suppose I should get down to business and post my first few pictures.

Sunset around 2:30 PM on the Winter Solstice. I loved the orange colors, so I left this one as a large photo.


Even though I couldn't see Denali it's still a nice picture of some of the mountains with the sunset around them.

I believe the layer of fog in the distance is hovering above part of the Tanana River or the flats. It usually is at any rate and tends to look both mysterious and beautiful as the sun goes down.

The building that looks like a sliced off part of the Sydney Opera House is UAF's Museum of the North. I liked the way the sunset reflected in the window.

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Yesterday was around -15, so the weather isn't all that different from a cold snap anywhere else. It is obviously a lot darker here, since the sun doesn't peek too far over the horizon all day. I'll try for a few shots of that today from my breaks at work.

So there you have it. The start of a new seasonal year, and something new for me to keep up.

All photos included in this post were taken Sunday December 21st, 2008.