Insomnia in Alaska, photos coming soon

Last night I stayed up until at least 2 a.m., and I can assure you it's still light outside at that time. If I happen to stay up that late again tonight, or another night this week, I'll try to post photos here of different times during the day and night.

Hotels in Wasilla, Alaska (a review)

If you happen to be looking for a hotel in Wasilla, over on my devdaily.com website I've written a review of hotels in Wasilla, Alaska. (I wrote the review on that website while I was in the middle of construction on this site.) Wasilla, Alaska is an interesting place, and the hotels in Wasilla also make for a good discussion.

Late night, bright light

It's now 10:15 pm, but it's almost light enough to be 10:15 am. I just spent some quality time talking with the neighbors outside, the temperature is probably around 55 degrees Fahrenheit, and there's no humidity. In other words, a beautiful night.

No other news to report here, as my heel is still healing, and I'm trying to stay off of it. But, it was nice to meet the neighbors. Sometimes when you live in an apartment complex, your only interaction with the neighbors comes from being upset at the noise they make, so it's nice to meet them, and find out they're human, too.

Great hike: A bruised heel, plantar fasciitis, and a swollen leg

Just a quick note to say that I did some serious damage to my right leg and foot during a hike last week, so I haven't had much to post here lately. While trying out some different shoes, I managed to bruise my heel and cause my plantar fasciitis problem to flare up, while the twisting and turning of walking on a gravel trail also caused my surgically-repaired shin to swell up. I hope to be okay in a few days, and then I won't do that again, lol.

P.S. -- Other than these problems, the trail was beautiful, as usual.

Hatcher Pass - things to do

Just waiting for a yummy pizza to finish cooking in the oven ... in the meantime, here are a couple of photos from a trip to Hatcher Pass this afternoon.

This first picture shows what the local rangers think are good things to do in Hatcher Pass:

Caught in the rain

I decided a late-night hike in the Hatcher Pass area would be a good idea, then got caught in a very cold rain ... so wet, so cold ... shame on me for being unprepared ... [shiver] ...

My "Hide Your Desktop" app (Hyde)

I don't often write about my work on the devdaily.com website here, but since this application was largely written in Alaska, I'll mention it here. :)

19 hours of sunlight

I just checked a weather website, and I can now officially say that we have over 19 hours of sunlight here in Wasilla, Alaska every day now. Beyond that, after waking up several times during the evening, I can also confirm that the sky has at least a little sunlight in it almost all of the time. We've had strong sunlight for the last 3-4 days, and all I can say is that Alaska is a wonderful place to live this time of year.

"Good morning"

I walked past a woman around 3pm this afternoon as I was coming back from the mailbox, and just as I was about to say hello, she says "Good morning". We both pause, and laugh.

The funny thing is that this has happened many times now, I just keep forgetting to write about it. I guess that's what 19 hours of sunlight a day does to people. :)

Great Northern Exposure website

While looking for some information on Marcel Proust, I stumbled onto a wonderful Northern Exposure website. If you loved the Northern Exposure television show, this is a great website to bookmark. I really like how they have organized some of the information, including "facts" from each show. The idea of categorizing Ed's t-shirts, and making note of the films he references, are also great ideas.

Can't sleep? Make videos!

Ever wonder what a person in Alaska does late at night when the sun is shining more than 18 hours a day? Me, I create videos. :)

Here are links to some YouTubes videos I've created over the last several nights:

Photos from Hatcher Pass (Alaska)

Sorry, time is short today, so not much discussion, but here is a collection of photos that I took on Hatcher Pass last night. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed being there.

(Note: You can click each image to see a larger 1280 pixel wide version of each image.)

The ground, she is a shakin'

I was working from home late yesterday afternoon and early evening, and as I sat here typing, I thought for sure the ground was moving again. Sure enough, we had several more earthquakes yesterday, though none were as major as the earthquake we had the first week of April (see "Earthquake in Wasilla").

Here are two pictures from last night of websites that track earthquakes in Alaska. First, this image from the Alaska Earthquake Information Center:

Notes from Wasilla, April 30, 2010

It's been quiet for me here during the last week as I've focused on getting back to work. Just a few quick notes from today's shopping trip:

Parking lot cleaning day

Today is "apartment complex parking lot cleaning day". That may not make sense to anyone in the Lower-48, but what it means here is "Move your car out of the parking lot so we can have the cleaning crew come in and remove all the gravel that we poured on the parking lot before the start of the winter".

Mountain and moon, Wasilla, Alaska

Not much to say today, just a quick picture of a mountain and the moon I took with my camera two nights ago while taking a walk here in Wasilla:

I took this photo with my iPhone, but I hope to have my much better camera in action soon. The iPhone images just don't do justice to how beautiful scenes like this really are.

Dog leads police to fire

Aww, a heart-warming story about man's best friend, a dog who leads the police through some wooded streets to find a shed that is on fire. The story comes with a link to the video of the police following the dog down a few streets.

Wasilla, Alaska sunlight - 17 hours per day, and climbing

Woot! Today we pass the "17 hours of sunlight" barrier here in Wasilla, Alaska, and next up is 18 hours of sunlight, which we should hit eleven days from now (May 1, 2010).

Whoops, what's that? We're really only at 16 hours and 59 minutes, and some extra seconds of sunlight today? Oh well, that's close enough for me. I can barely sleep here as it is, lol.

We were gaining five minutes and fifty seconds of sunlight every day here in Wasilla, but it looks like we're slowing down to gain five minutes and 48 seconds of sunlight every day now.

At least three Greek restaurants in Wasilla

Cool, I've found at least three Greek restaurants here in Wasilla so far:

• Evangelo's
• Sophia's KafeNeo
• Piccolino's

Evangelo's is a large Greek restaurant that you can hardly miss seeing when you drive through Wasilla on the Parks Highway. I'm sure their location gets them a lot of business, but I haven't been there yet.

Alaska weather in April

I've been focused on my work on the devdaily website recently, so I don't have much to report on regarding Wasilla, or Alaska in general. However, it's always fun to take a look at the weather here in Alaska, so here are some iPhone screenshots that show the weather in five different cities in Alaska, ranging from Fairbanks in the north to Sitka in the south: