A whole mess o' pichurs and suchlike

Here be some pictures from Alaska.  Some of them have captions.  You can biggify them with a single click of the mouse.  You cannot smallify them. Please to enjoy!

Massive batch of pictures, part 2

More various Alaska pictures.

w-w-w-whales!!

Q: What do you do if you get stuck inside a whale?  

A: Run around and around until you get all pooped out! 

I know, my wit astounds me too.  Just watch the videos of the whales we saw bubble feeding right next to us while we fished.  By the way, did you know that the Wholphin is a rare hybrid animal produced when you mate a dolphin and a false killer whale?  I also believe that the first Narwhals were the product of whales and unicorns, and although science has yet to find substantial evidence in support of my theory, it's only a matter of time.

A Word from the editor

It is the taste of shame, hot and metallic, that fills my mouth as I type this.  In the corner of the screen, the words “last updated 6/5/12” glower accusingly at me.  Has it really been that long since I’ve posted something here?  Now that I think about it that seems very possible.  My excuses shuffle reluctantly forward like the attornies of a death row inmate who’s guilty as Cain and bound to ride the lightning, ashamedly filing half-hearted appeals they know will be denied with snorts of incredulous contempt.  I have no excuses; I just haven’t made the time to write. 

No, that’s not totally true.  Several times I’ve had a good idea for a post and started to write it down, getting maybe halfway through before I run out of time and save it to my bloated drafts folder, where it sits in an elephant graveyard of other half-finished stories, each as useful as the dusty, half-assembled lawnmower that has sat in the shed since 1992, and about as likely to ever be completed.

Even this post, which is intended to be a summation of some of the shenanigins and goings-on that I should have been writing about but haven’t, has only a slight chance of being added to the glut of traffic on the information superhighway.  I’m writing it in the break room at work, having arrived earlier than my scheduled time, and I’m just about out of time.  Naturally, I intend most earnestly to finish it when I get off work today, and fully expect that I will do so.  Just as sincerely as I intended to finish every one of my other aborted posts that, now obsolete, crowd into my thoughts, morosely wagging their ghostly heads at me, chains a’clanking like the myriad ghosts of Christmas could-have-been. 

I’m now sitting in my bus in between runs.  I’ve got an hour before my next duty and if I can finish this I’ll post it when I get home and that’ll be an accomplishment.

So here’s a rundown of the things I’ve been doing lately:

1)      BURFDAE TIEM!!  June 11^th, 2012 was a big day for double digits.  It was the day I turned twenty-two. It was also my third consecutive birthday away from my family and friends.  Even though I’ve passed the point where birthdays aren’t a huge deal to me anymore, it was still a melancholy thought that it’d been so long since I was with my family for the anniversary of my birth.  Nonetheless, my birthday was awesome.  Nay, it was double awesome, surpassing tubular and approaching the level of radness known as da bomb dot com.  I had expected it to pass as did the birthdays on my mission:  like a fart in the breeze.  Instead, I had one of the most memorable birthdays ever.  I had to work, but that was a good thing since I had a tour and could make a big deal of telling my guests it was my birthday (and thus boosting my tip revenue).  After work, some friends had reserved tables at a restaurant I’d wanted to eat at for a long time and they’d decorated it all with streamers and balloons and junk.  During the meal, which 18 of my good friends attended, gifts and cards were given, gyros were eaten, and all in attendance reported joviality in abundance.  After the succulent supper was had, the birthday train trundled back to the driver house to watch my favorite most hated movie, Troll 2.  Yes, people love me enough to subject themselves willingly to Troll 2 (If you haven’t seen it, speak with me posthaste.  I will make the necessary arrangements).  There was also the spice cake that my friend Olivia baked me, the Spongebob piñata provided by the same, and lots of calls and texts from friends and family back home.  It was a supremely satisfying birthday.

2)      I’M ON A BOAT When I grow up I want to be, one of the harvesters of the sea, and when my days are done, I want to be, A FISHERMAN! –Primus.

One dewy morning in Alaska, there were no cruise ships in town!  Which meant that we got the day off.  So myself, Bob, Alex, Don and Olivia rented a skiff and went fishing in the ocean!!  It was just gobs of fun.  Double handfuls of fun.  Highlights included me catching a halibut (in addition to some rockfish and the largest frond of bull kelp in this neck of the galaxy) and seeing AN ENTIRE SMEGGING POD OF WHALES BUBBLE FEEDING NOT 15 FEET FROM OUR SKIFF OH MY GOSH IT WAS AMAZING LIKE ONCE IN A LIFETIME EXPERIENCE  AMAZING!!!  We got pictures and even a video, which will all be put up soon in it’s own post (don’t laugh!  I really am going to do it!) 

Um, yeah there was tons more stuff but I kinda don't have time and so it'll hafta wait until a later date, when I'm in a state where I'm feeling great, not so much on my plate, which I'll appreciate, like William Butler Yeats, born 1868, before the roller skate, in Ireland not Kuwait, but let us not debate, neither shall we berate, lest we become irate, and without thought misstate, with words we can't negate, this prose waxes ornate, like Nephi's golden plate, which Joseph did translate, and to his wife dictate, in New York (yes, upstate), at a fantastic rate, no time to recreate, he picked a running mate, and ran for head of state, of foes he had a spate, mobbers lying in wait, suffered a martyr's fate, now guards the pearly gates, and worlds he will create, in his final estate, with Emma his soul mate (maybe), and now at any rate, it's kinda getting late, my words must now abate, my twitching hands sedate, (with which I will equate), my swollen brain deflate, my lust for rhyming sate, because I've reached home plate, which doth my soul elate.  Peace.