Wherein I complain about the snow again

This is the view out of the window of the “Dark Hole of Despair” condo right now. Isn’t it supposed to be spring? And the snow is merely the culmination of several days of bicycle troubles: flat tire, broken derailleur, flat tire again (I had patched it with flimsy pieces of junk from Walmart), and yet another flat tire, this time from a second hole.

But the last few days have been very good anyhow. Yesterday was the first day of the 2008 Juneau Folk Festival (the third year I attend it, after 2000 and two days in 2006). The Folkfest, as it is generally called, is a week-long series of fun concerts which I love, and this year the poster is by Eric Bealer:

The day before, I went to North Douglas Island with an invertebrate biology class in order to look for animals at a very low tide (and under a cold, incessant rain). It was a successful trip. There were all kinds of weird critters such as 5-foot long blood-red worms, the sea cucumber (Holothuroidea) Eupenctata pseudoquinquesemita:

And the crescent gunnel Photis laeta:

The day before that, Saturday, my landlord and friend Jad took me along on his plane on a trip down to Angoon. It was really fascinating all along the way, especially considering that I know almost nothing about Admiralty Island. This is a photo of Jad getting back on the plane at the float in Angoon.

And before that not so much happened, except that I got to briefly meet Fran Ulmer, our former Lieutenant governor, and an unsuccessful candidate for governor (alas, she lost against the power-hungry crook Frank Murkowski, who as he took over the governorship appointed his own daughter to his senate seat).

Enough snow!

Many people are enchanted by snow – I honestly would rather it were summer already. I cannot wait to bicycle to the university, walk around in the mountains with plenty of daylight and no ice or avalanches, and step outside without first wrapping multiple layers of fleece over every part of my body. Many days were bitterly cold, and hiking was painful and short, such as a trip out on Mendenhall Lake to check out the icebergs up close:

I thought my nose was going to freeze off on that one hour mini-adventure.

I then went back up the side of Mount Juneau to look for the goats, with Ian and Mac. It was a fun hike even though I was not wearing crampons and I kept sliding. I just tried to stay off the ridge where it was most icy and dangerous. The photo below is from the bottom of the trail that we started from. Ian and Mac are standing in front of an old gold mine tunnel.

I went back to Mendenhall flats, and once again I was absolutely freezing. This time I didn’t see any unusual birds at all, so I just walked around in the snow with Ian.

Most of my time is taken up by school, though, and some of my classes are very interesting. In decreasing order of interest they are: introduction to oceanography, history of the US II, Spanish conversation, literature and the sense of place, poetry studies. Of course, it isn’t so much the topic that makes a class more interesting than another, as the instructor and material.

And Jad – the pilot who owns the place that Ian and I are sleeping on - just got back this morning. For Ian it is bad news because now he has to sleep on the couch. As for me, I hardly know anyone in Juneau so I am happy to have another familiar face around. So far I only know a handful of Army buddies, and Roman, another Sitka “expatriate.”

As far as long-term plans are concerned, I have some vague ideas which are subject to change of course. I am planning to go to Sitka over spring break (late March) and look at perhaps finding a chunk of land that I could buy. Of course, everything there is VERY expensive, so I may or may not be successful in that particular endeavor.

A tough time for migrating birds

It is still very hot our here - well over a hundred degrees F every day.

Whereas I have gotten disturbingly used to the heat (I even slept the entire afternoon in a humvee in the sun today), the birds are suffering and dying quickly. A "feldegg" yellow wagtail I found wedged between a cardboard box and a wall was dead less than an hour later. Under many parked cars there were dead shrikes, warblers, sparrows, and wagtails who hid in the only shade they could find but died anyways.

Still, there were some live birds. I even saw two species and one subspecies that I had never seen before. This one is the short-toed lark Calandrella brachydactyla. I found it panting under a car, but I was able to chase it out into the light where I could snap a picture of it. Other birds, especially the wagtails and warblers, remained firmly ensconced under cars.

This is one of the birds that just wouldn't budge, so the photo came out really strange. I posted it anyway because it is an other species I hadn't ever seen before: a River warbler Locustella fluviatilis. The legs appear pink because the light outside the car's shadow glows right through them:

I have always had a soft spot for pipits and wagtails, a family known as motacillidae. Whereas the two previous birds were new to me and rather unusual, today's best bird was by far a yellow wagtail Motacilla flava. Most of the yellow wagtails here are of the feldegg (the coolest-looking one) and thunbergi subspecies. This one is the first one I see of the beema subspecies. It looks a lot like the nominate subspecies that predominates in France, but it has a little white patch on the cheek:

And here's a bonus bird: the great grey shrike Lanius griseus. Apparently, this is the pallidirostris subspecies because its beak is mostly pale, and its lores are white. This one wasn't hiding under an object for some reason. He was doing his best to hold on to his barbed wire perch, and kept his eyelids closed because of the sand (I forgot to mention that the wind has been fierce lately, and everything exposed to it is constantly sandblasted).

Things to do in the heat

It’s hot out here – REALLY hot. Not only does the sun beat down almost vertically on us, but the breeze is even hotter, and carries little sand particles that get in our eyes, nose, everywhere. Also, there is no natural shade whatsoever, no grass that might diminish the glare, no rain that might keep the sand down, not a single cloud that might occlude the sun for a short while.

The larks just stand out in the sun, beak open, looking stunned and forlorn. Only the dhub lizards seem to deal with the heat all right. As for myself, I just drink inordinate amounts of water, and I have to watch that I don’t step in and out of air-conditioned areas too much, because that makes me feel sick. In some places such as the command post tent, there’s a good fifty degree difference between inside and the afternoon heat. Going in and out of there makes me feel like I am being repeatedly kicked in the stomach. Jad says it’s because I’m skinny and I have low blood pressure. I think he’s right.

Since this is hopefully the hottest temperatures I’ll ever have to live in, I made a couple of experiments.

First, I ran along the base perimeter at 1700 one day, when the temperature was around 115 degrees F. I made it in 52 minutes and 25 seconds, which for the 6.5 mile distance is slow, but this wasn’t about speed. I stopped sweating around mile four, not because I had run out of water as Army doctrine says I would, but simply because my sweat glands were “turned off.” When I stepped into the air-conditioned gym tent, I started sweating profusely until my body temperature was back to normal, and then I stopped sweating even though I think I still had plenty of water in me. I didn’t get a headache (once again, the Army says I should have), and my skin was not particularly “cool and clammy.” The most disagreeable effect of the run was that my saliva turned into a white paste that was very similar to school glue, but thicker. After ten minutes of AC and a liter of warm water, I was back to normal. So I guess water loss isn’t as dramatic on the long-term as the Army says it is. I don’t know how long I could keep running without any water, maybe another hour or so before losing consciousness. Whatever it is, it’s way past the Army’s limit for hard work in extreme heat. I think I could get used to living and working out here without air conditioning, but it wouldn't be fun.

Second, I read about camel herders in western Sahara (not the country) who spend the hottest part of the day wrapped in wool blankets. I had indeed noticed that when the outside temperature is below body temperature, putting on my ballistic armor makes me hotter, but not as much when the outside temperature is greater than my internal temperature. I put on some long unused polypro underwear to a couple of patrols, and I didn’t really feel a difference.

The only proven remedies for extreme heat remain: going to Southeast Alaska and staying there, or entering an air-conditioned area and staying there. As a result, we’ve been waiting impatiently for the end of the deployment (less than a hundred days in Kuwait left!), and spending as much time inside as possible. Here I am, staying out of the heat:

I just love my computer – how did I ever get by witout it? It’s my post office, radio stations, shopping center, CD player, cinema, and everything else in a single small, relatively cheap, incredibly high-tech toy.

It’s simply incredible what is out there on the web nowadays. For example, I was just trying to by a GPS, and read a comment leading to a link that sounded funny. And of course there went several hours of my not-so-precious time following links from all over the world. I ended up on the blog of a Chilean author I had never heard of before! He writes about interesting books, critics magical realists (“Colombia, un país donde los ‘garciamarquianos’ o los ‘gabistas’ abundan como el café y la guayaba”), and even has some really interesting insights about my perennial dual language problem (he was born in California and moved to Chile when he was thirteen). One of them follows, written in English in the original:

“Yes. Some people believe there is such a thing as bilingualism. I have my
serious doubts. One can speak, even write in different languages, but one of
them must dominate. And in my case, by now, it's Spanish. I am a
Spanish-language author and, more important, a Chilean. In the United States
now, I have an accent. I stumble on spelling and, though I may talk all day in
English, at the end of the day, I will need to revisit things in Spanish.”

So I’m getting one of his books, along with the GPS receiver and some Chinese “Lapsang Souchong” smoked tea. I just can’t believe what is accessible to people almost anywhere in the world. Having grown up in Paris, it came as a matter-of-course that the world’s greatest paintings, libraries that could answer any queries, and any kind of music or food I might fancy, would be readily available. But now this is all easily accessed from my couch!