I know, I know. “About damn time!” you’re saying. Followed quickly by, “What took you so long?” Well there are many, many reasons why I haven’t updated my site, and almost all of them are totally lame. For example, one of the biggest reasons I haven’t posted an update, is that I’ve been trying to think up really good excuses of why I haven’t posted an update. Here are some un-lame excuses:

One reason is I’ve been practicing with my new electronic drum set. Playing these drums… have led to startling revelations about myself. I now realize that I’m a schizophrenic drummer. I have two personalities. One personality is a drumming God. He has the earphones on with various music playing and comes up with the most amazing beats, grooves, fills and transitions ever, and is drowned in the applause and adulation of his screaming fans. The second personality is apparently a retarded monkey with one arm. He only appears when the “record” light is lit on my computer. He reacts the same when confronted with a “record” light, as he does when confronted with leering zoo visitors… and that reaction consists of a lot of screaming and throwing of feces. Once I clean up all of the crap and kill the monkey, I’ll get some recordings up so you can have a listen.

Another thing that has taken up a lot of my time, is trying to make a decent piece of toast in this apartment.

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Spring is on it’s way. But in this harsh land, Spring cannot just dance in all nice and happy with flowers and bunnies and all of that happy crap. No… in a harsh land, Spring strolls in nice and slow, slapping people around and telling you to put down the ice scraper or else. The signs of Spring are slowly starting to appear, and they have nearly cost me my life.

Apparently just before Spring, my apartment turns into a giant Van de Graaff generator. I can’t come within two feet of the dryer, or any light switch in my apartment (the screws holding on the plastic face plate must be grounded) before a bolt of blue jumps out to hit me like a sledgehammer. I can’t tell if the bolt is leaving from me, or heading toward me as I’m too busy twitching on the ground saying, “fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh” in a vain attempt to curse. In just the past week, I’ve had three near-death experiences… tunnel, bright light, long dead pets… the whole deal. Strangely, it’s not my life that flashes in front of my eyes, but instead episodes of Green Acres which really freaks me out.

Of course, if the electricity doesn’t stop my heart, the explosions will…

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I’ve had a nervous energy lately.  A feeling of… anticipation.  Anticipation toward what, I did not know.  There was a spring in my step.  The post-lunch sleepies weren’t as intense as usual.  I felt like going out and Happy-Slapping some Tearaways. All I knew is that it was a strange feeling to have after this past month.

Alaska in January is perpetual darkness, and bone freezing cold.  It’s dark when you go to work, sunrise when you go to lunch, and dark when you go home.  Sunlight is like crystal meth up here.  You will stand in -10° temperatures just to bask in the Sun for the short periods that it’s actually visible.  But the rush you get is slightly tempered by the huge Alaskan ravens sitting hunched in the skeletal, snow covered trees, staring balefully at you, waiting patiently for you to become carrion.  For two or three weeks, the high temperatures here were around zero Fahrenheit.  If you’ve ever been a cook for a fast-food joint, then you know that feeling you have when you walk into the deep freezers to get more burgers?  The feeling that your boogers are freezing inside of your nose?  Well I’ve discovered that that feeling starts at precisely 7°.  Darkness and sub-zero temperatures sap all of your energy, and when you don’t have to do anything…  you literally won’t do anything.  But here I was, with this weird energy that appeared out of the blue.  I noticed that others had it to.  Then I figured out what caused it.

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Gather around children, tonight we’re going to talk about a couple of lessons you learn when you’ve had One of Those Days®. You know what I’m saying when I say One of Those Days®. I’m talking about like that time you decided to have a Soju and Bourbon breakfast and then, finding yourself out on the streets of Manila at 9am, you thought it would be hilarious to pretend that you were a Filipino transsexual prostitute… then that afternoon, as you were frantically shopping for mouthwash you find the only store that had any, and all they had is one bottle of Scope’s brand new flavor, “Sparkling Ball Sweat,” and you grab it at the same time as a real Filipino transsexual prostitute who kicks your ass in the ensuing fight and takes your wallet and the only bottle of mouthwash in Manila, and you end the day sobbing quietly in a back alley and bleeding from a large gash in your head that you got by hitting the edge of a dumpster when you passed out from the bout of howizer vomiting you had as a result of drinking your homemade mouthwash made from Pine-Sol, Splenda and melted shoe polish.  You thought the Splenda would take the edge off of the Pine-Sol, and it did, but it did nothing for the melted shoe polish.  Yeah. One of thooooose days…

Lesson 1: Be aware of subconscious annoyances.

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Perfection can sometimes be the enemy of ‘good enough.’ -Lt. Col. Convertino

My commander recently said that, and I thought it apt for this site. There hasn’t been any updates and I haven’t done any writing, all in the name of perfection. This site wasn’t exactly as I wanted it so I kept tinkering and such. Now, I’ve switched to phpnuke, and am content with having merely a good site, instead of an empty site striving for perfection.

It’s been a long time so let’s catch up first.

Last time we had a chat, I was juuuust starting to get use to Seoul, South Korea and was beginning to get out and enjoy myself. Well, Uncle Sam just can’t be having any of that, so he packed me up and shipped me off. He didn’t want things to be completely different, so he sent me someplace every bit as cold as Korea… but with less daylight, a longer winter, and a much larger moose population. I’ve been assigned to the last frontier. The land of the midnight sun. America’s 49th state, Alaska.

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