Wasilla

Trying to find a good rental unit in Wasilla, Alaska is one of the more difficult things I've ever attempted. I suppose if you're willing to pay $1,500 or more per month things are a little easier, but the under-$1,000/month rental market is an extremely competitive battle.

I've had my car at a local repair shop for the last few days (see my RAV4 recall article) to see if they can find out what's wrong with it. It has an intermittent "power lag" problem, but with it being intermittent, and only being worse on cold and wet days, they haven't been able to find it. (Amazingly it has been sunny and warm for the last two days, but much cooler today.)

Not wanting to scrape ice and snow off my car for 150 days in a row, I just told one of my neighbors that I'm looking for a new place to live that has a garage, and she basically said, "Suck it up, you live in Alaska." Ouch.

(For the record, I'm also trying to find a place to live that has a washer/dryer, as I'm not looking forward to carrying my laundry back and forth across the parking lot to our shared laundry facilities from October through March.)

One of the great things about living in Alaska that isn't immediately obvious from my previous blog posts is that the windows in my apartment have been since I moved back here in April. In Kentucky, Illinois, and many other places I've lived in my life, the windows are normally closed in the summer once it gets too warm, but here in Alaska they're opened in April, and will stay open until some time in September.

While I'm posting information about businesses, I might as well include a link to my "Anchorage, Alaska Programmer/Analyst resume" on my devdaily.com website. While I have plenty of work for the time being, it never hurts to have information like this out there, especially when a particularly interesting new project comes along that I just can't resist.

Just a quick note about one of my very nice neighbors ... if you happen to live in the Mat-Su Valley in Alaska, and are in need of a "dog pooper scooper" service, my neighbor owns her own company, and I can personally vouch that she is a very nice person. Here's a link to her Mat Su Valley dog poop cleanup service.

Sorry I haven't taken the time to post anything lately. I have a work project with a deadline that is keeping me very, very busy, and also a problem with my car. Here are a few notes I've been meaning to put out here lately, but never took the time to do so:

Weather

It still keeps raining like crazy. I've never been in a place that has rained this consistently for so long. Just glad there's no lightning, and this morning is just mostly cloudy.

It's 10:40 p.m. on Wednesday, August 4, 2010, and I'm anxiously waiting to see who is going to win this race. The skies were mostly clear just an hour ago, and I was holding out hope that I'd be able to see the northern lights tonight, assuming they actually happen. But now some heavy storm clouds are moving in, and it looks like the whole sky may be blanketed by them soon.

I've lived in Alaska on and off for almost a year now, and still haven't seen the Northern Lights, so when I checked the University of Alaska-Fairbanks aurora page and it said the aurora was going to be active the next few nights, well, let's just say that I'm throwing some food, water, and clothes in the car at 8:30 p.m., and heading farther north, in search of clear skies.

Adios, amigos ...

Look, up in the sky, it's a bird ... it's a plane ... no, it's the sun! Quick everyone, the sun is shining for the first time in weeks, stop whatever you're doing, and run outside!

I think there may be an Alaska state law something like that: If the sun is shining, workers are entitled to walk outside and soak it in for a little while. If not, there should be. :)