One Man's Alaska

If you happen to need to know the conditions of the roads in Alaska -- as I will very shortly -- the 511.alaska.gov site will soon be your friend. They provide information about Alaska roads, including road closures, difficult areas, construction, etc.

As reported by NPR (and every other news source), Todd Palin played a very active role in the governing of the state of Alaska during Sarah Palin's work as Alaska governor.

The biggest question for me is whether or not this is legal? Did his business interests help run the governor's office? Or can he simply claim the role of "key advisor"?

I'm currently living in Kentucky, but I'm getting ready to move back to Alaska -- hopefully for good this time -- and I'm pretty cranked up. In fact, I haven't slept much the last three nights.

The last time I lived in Alaska I lived in Talkeetna, but this time around I'm looking for a little larger area to live in. As I think about where I want to live, I've come up with this short list of
needs/desires:

Basic needs

Besides looking for places to live in Alaska, I've also been very busy writing lately. Here are some of my latest articles over on the devdaily.com website:

I just posted two new 'geek gift ideas' articles for the 2009 holiday season:

• Geek gifts for under $20
• Geek gift for under $10

I have to say, it's pretty hard trying to find great 'geek gifts' for less than $20 these days, but I'm really happy with the gifts I found.

Sorry for this rant, but I have had a very bad experience with Toyota regarding my Toyota RAV4, and I'm upset about it. This was my first Toyota purchase, and I'm very disappointed by the service from the Toyota dealer in Anchorage, Alaska, who couldn't identify the problem while the vehicle was under warranty.

Now I'm upset that I've spent three days of my life trying to get this problem resolved, and Toyota's "customer care" people don't actually care.

I usually try to keep politics out of this blog, but wow, I didn't see this coming: Sarah Palin resigns as Governor of Alaska. Generally citing the media pressure, ongoing investigations, and cost of these investigations to herself and to the state of Alaska, she is resigning by the end of the month, and turning control over to Lt. Governor Sean Parnell.

A friend sent me this link to a map that shows all the earthquakes in Alaska. As of today's date, there have been 329 earthquakes in Alaska in the last seven days, wow!

The image changes every day, but here's a look at today's picture, with the latest 329 earthquakes:

I missed this yesterday, but a "light" earthquake hit Southcentral Alaska, including Anchorage yesterday. Before my interest in Alaska was piqued several years ago I had no idea Alaska had this sort of seismic and volcanic activity.

I really enjoyed this blog posting titled "I miss the ocean" by a woman named Yaari Kingeekuk. This short blurb tells what her excellent blog post is about:

Here I am living in two worlds, the St. Lawrence Island Yupik and western way. I live in a city which to me is big; and that’s Anchorage. I struggle as I try to survive in both worlds.