Another big week.
Last weekend the vessel we get weekly was actually early by about 8 hours. But it took forever to unload it, not sure why. It took a day and a half to get a couple of the 7 vans. Frustrating to explain that to customers. I drove by the container vessel and noticed the vessel was almost completely unloaded, which I have never seen. Only some of the vans are removed, usually. The vessel was just a frame of the racks where the vans are set and secured.
We had a change at our office where our office manager and us parted ways. She had a great attitude but was in a bit over her head. It is a tough job, and we all agreed it was not working out.
Gnu Girl started today, and is doing great. She worked for us a couple years ago, then moved off the island. Now she is back, and we are glad. I went solo a couple of days and the paperwork really piled up. First morning by myself the internet crashed, as well as our quickbooks system. Kept it interesting.
Last night I noticed from my window several emergency vehicles near Unisea Seafoods. Today I talked to a friend who lives right there. We actually had a rare murder in Dutch. A troublesome employee had been reprimanded a few times but was kept on board. But other employees were getting tired of this guys actions. Last night there was an argument between these employees. The troublemaker was confronted and beaten up. He went down, and was repeatedly kicked.
The confronters then fled, but there were witnesses. Police and medical showed up, but it was too late. They caught and arrested the attackers. The victim was DOA. Normally the ambulances plod along near the speed limit. But last night I saw the ambulance flying with an escort vehicle. I knew there was a problem. Not a lot of violence here. Normally...
The BIG MELT happened a few days ago with warmer temps. Then it all froze again in a thick plate of ice. We have had several vehicles get stuck in supposedly simple places to drive. A slight incline on that ice, and there is 1% traction. All it takes is a cuppla guys pushing.
Yesterday we 60 mph gusts that set up some nice drifts. Dramatic drifts. Sharp tipped drifts with irregular shapes. One 4 footer is in front of one of my doors. It has a 6 inch solid ice base, so I won’t be egressing there for a while. Another monster drift is extending out from my “yard” to the road below. A huge bulge that looks like a magma dome ready to explode. Tonight I got stuck in a small drift in my driveway. I was heading to the Grand Aleutian (STYX?) to have dinner with GNU and my boss who is in town. Just sliding in a few inches of snow. We got it out with a little pushing and supped.
Coming home it was snowing steadily. The road up the hill has grown very narrow. One narrow lane in places, as the snow is not getting plowed back. Now there are 5 foot walls of snow on each side of DEADMANS CURVE. That is the far point of the road seen in THE ROAD BELOW MY PLACE. A sharp turn. Even going at 5 mph there is a risk of a head on collision. It is a sharp curve with no real distance visibility. A second bad turn is a couple hundred feet down the hill, where I ALWAYS meet a vehicle coming the other way. I have yet to meet one on Deadmans Curve. Thus I live on. Gnu guy lives within one hundred feet of DMC.
When I returned tonight there were new drifts in the driveway. I plowed into the drive, and tried to turn around for a straight out departure in the AM.. I got stuck right away, but skillful maneuvering resulted in breaking loose. Now I am pointed out down the tire marks I created coming in tonight. But the snow is making it interesting. My footprints of an hour ago are now filled in. ALL the rough edges from the BIG MELT are being smoothed over with the new snow.
DUTCHIE went out for a while. She has gotten good at jumping up and banging on the window where I am sitting at (I think she chooses the window with light in it...) when she wants in. She did so, and when I opened the BLOCKED door a few inches, she approached in deep snow. The last 30 feet was entertaining at least for me. She was in deep snow, and tried jumping up on that big drift. You will learn kitty. Soft snow, and she was swimming to the door. She was never in trouble, just a new experience.
Wish I had my camera out.
I will tomorrow morning...
Page: 1 — Blog Index
Big blog entry, Joe. Will have to read in more detail later... thank you for continuing the blog.
My thoughts go out to the family, troublemaker or not.
Quiet little Dutch has had a spate of violence that would seem to justify locking up every 20 something man and throwing away the key.
Last Friday the hugely inappropriately named ANGEL and his twin brother Antonio got very drunk and Angel fell down outside the infamous Harbor View Bar. A female bar worker, apparently well used to dealing with such an occurrence (I’ll bet she is…) gave the little Angel a hand to get to his feet – whereupon he decided to put her in a chokehold to the point she could not breathe. Bystanders stepped in and pulled Angel off only for his equally lovely twin bro to lay in to the poor woman and hit her in the face.
Their folks must be so proud.
Then on Monday night a chap in the same venue, having perceived himself threatened by the much bigger chaps in the bar, decided - having been asked to leave said venue, that the best idea would be for him to go fetch his gun. He was heard threatening to ‘kill everyone he could find’ when he unwisely returned to the bar seeking revenge, so he got disarmed by bystanders.
It occurs that being a bystander warrants some kind of danger money in Dutch.
The guys that disarmed the chap with the gun were themselves (briefly) arrested whilst the passing police officer who witnessed the fracas figured out the innocent from the guilty as hell.
I’d imagine that can take some doing when everyone has had a skin full.
Altercations a go-go.
Scary to think how easily one life can be taken and others changed for ever though isn’t it?
GNU GUY must be thinking just that, as he lays awake at night listening to traffic pass by.
He either needs the protection of a row of steel bollards or a big row of innocent bystanders.
Whichever is cheapest.
UL got beaten by South Florida last night. Sad. It was Senior's night and the after-game program was canceled. UK plays tonight. I don't think they can be beaten. Next week starts Big East tourney. Should be interesting.
Spring is coming. Another day in the high 60s. Storms tomorrow. Tornado south of us yesterday. Pansies are blooming. If basketball is almost over and pansies and daffodils are blooming - it must be near spring. Things are looking up.
Friday Night
Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm. Low of 27F with a windchill as low as 19F. Winds from the WNW at 15-20 mph. Chance of rain 20%.
I researched just how rare this is for your area, knowing that you have never experienced a thunderstorm there yet. I found this:
Where can you go to avoid thunderstorms?
Many people really enjoy thunderstorms, and some don’t. For the latter, may we suggest St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea off Alaska. On 8 November 1992, they reported a thunderstorm - the first one in 40 years!
http://www.sky-fire.tv/index.cgi/thunderstorms.ht ml#recordlows
Thunderstorms make the air suddenly feel much cooler, I wonder if anyone would notice given THAT windchill?
Ylee: Were you affected by this?
I am glad we were spared the high winds and tornadoes. This weather pattern must be getting old for all you folks to the south. My heart goes out to those who lost life and homes and businesses. DotMom is right... you don't mess with mother nature, you take what you get whether it seems fair or not.
I am glad all the Joebloggers seem to be safe so far!
After hearing from all of you back in the east and south, I would be ashamed to complain. We are really lucky. However, there is no rain in the 10-day forecast. Actually supposed to get up to 79 this weekend!
Really interesting batch of photos, Joe. I think you have a lot of really hungry foxes right now. Hope you don't run short of chow. Even if they aren't a native species, they are so beautiful that I think they deserve to live. They are really very polite fellows, better than a couple of our cats.
Very bad about that murder. I'm surprised that it doesn't happen more often considering the conditions. Too much alcohol in circulation, not enough daylight and not enough of a lot of other civilizing influences.
Be safe everyone!
Dotmom I too want to say how thankful I was to learn Louisville was not on the list to be hit by the tornadoes yesterday. We kept in touch with our son several times during the day. He kept saying the sirens have not gone off yet. You are so lucky to have your basement. What a good feeling when these horrible storms approach that you have a safe place to go. Enjoy your quiet weekend.
Yesterday, we had a feeling it was going to be rough around here when Jim Cantore, meterologist for the National Weather station was in town. He was right, sad to say.
It is bright and sunny here this morning - a good way to start the day to bring some hope to those facing the worst of it.
The ‘lucky’ ones lived to tell the tale.
Scenes showing your big yellow school buses thrown around and trashed by storms always have that extra surreal feeling. They so often feature in disaster movies that when you see one thrown into the side of a building it’s hard for the brain to deal with it as a reality. Seeing the school building in Henryville so heavily damaged brings it home, and a high security jail took a hit? Nightmare scenarios.
Are the warning systems and tornado prediction services accurate enough to almost always give enough time to close schools and businesses early? To allow people time to head home, fetch their kids, reach a place of safety?
What would happen if they had a big sports event on? I’m thinking of that huge KFC arena that Joe visited (with the death defying seating in the GODS) – do they cancel games at very late notice when the weather people predict trubba? Or do they have an underground place of safety designed to shelter thousands? What about shopping malls? Airports?
When you see the devastation of half mile wide tornadoes in largely rural neighbourhoods you wonder just what that level of damage would look like in a city landscape.
Has it ever happened?
Incidentally, that lack of ‘other civilizing influences’ in Dutch Harbor which Haupty makes reference to?
218 males to every 100 females.
And that concludes the case for the prosecution…
We have looked high and low and to no avail. The only thing I have found is more dust! We will keep looking and also when FranKY gets home from work - before we say hello - we'll ask her if she has seen it. I think it must have blown away with the storm. Keep an eye out for it!
It will turn up when you least expect to find it. Could it have fallen out of his hand when he was putting it into his pocket and gotten under a piece of furniture. Maybe it fell into the cushions on the couch. I will send hunting and finding prayers up your way. Good luck.
Several hours later I changed back into my comfortably shabby, usual attire and discovered that there was no pocket knife. I remembered that thud and immediately searched all the floor area under and around the chair where I'd hung those pants. The knife hasn't been seen since! Following Ogal's philosophy, I soon bought a cheaper replacement; I can't stand being without a pocket knife. I hoped that this minor act of defiance to the "God of the Lost" would make the Kershaw suddenly pop out of its hiding place. NO!
My next plan is to go buy an expensive pocket knife, more expensive, certainly, than the original. Then, I am sure the old one will pop up behind my left ear the next morning. And if not, I won't care because I have a better one now (until I lose it).
But the thing is this: I know that that knife never left this house. It will be found; but maybe not in this life.
My advise though is this. Anytime I lose something, or realize that I have, I immediately sit down and write up a list of everyplace that I have been since I positively remember having it (all the places I can remember, that is). I can assure you that I haven't seen it in California.
So if JoeKY's wallet has indeed gone off to Oz, just be glad that JoeKY didn't go with it.
UK had me in stitches in her posts, as usual. :) I imagine we all have tornado stories. I was working in a downtown Houston high-rise office once when a tornado struck another high-rise a couple of blocks away. We didn't have any warning, and as far as I know, there wasn't any plan. UK, funny thing about tornadoes is that when you are right up in one, or very close, you can't see them, but you can hear and feel them. So, when the windows started sucking in and out on the floors with windows, the people hit the inside stair wells and ran to one of the floors with no windows (it was the company cafeteria on the 4th floor, so everybody knew it was there). It seems to be safe in such a place. People were pretty shaken up, but nobody was hurt. Even in the building that got hit, some people were cut by broken glass, but nobody was seriously hurt. It seems the office tower won against the tornado. There was a big stripe of broken windows all up and down it where the tornado hit, but otherwise not much damage. I'm not sure if they were lucky it just hit a glancing blow or if it actually kind of bounced off the building. My guess would be a glancing blow. I don't know if a tornado could tear down an office tower, but I bet it could do more damage than broken windows if it hit it square on.
When I was growing up, the schools did have tornado plans of sorts. Basically--run into the interior hallways away from any windows and try to get underneath something solid (at least try to cover your head). But, no, a tornado would never leave time to evacuate. I have never seen school kids sent home during warnings. If they stayed home every day there were tornadic storms around, it would be way too many days. And when they had a very high probability warning, by the time they got all the school buses and drivers together--it would be over. I have memories of us all sitting there in school, anxiously keeping one eye on the clouds out the windows, trying to concentrate, on those days.
Dave, that is something about your favorite knife. How could it go any place. Keep looking, it will turn up sooner or later.
Thanks to those who expressed concern for us yesterday and then the wallet today. This is unbelievable but... There was a little two-year girl (Indiana, I think) that was picked up in the tornado vortex and carried 10 miles and found in a field. She is in the Children's hospital in critical condition. Her parents,brother and sister were ALL killed. How bad can it get.
http://www.gohorseshow.com/article/Columns/Sudden _Scoop/McCardle_Family_of_Kentucky_Devastated_by_T ornados/37222
Sad how these storms are tearing up our country year after year.
Here's an interesting article on the tornadoes: http://rss2.earthsky.org/~r/fullsite/~3/dWxf3bCOE oM/recap-of-deadly-u-s-tornado-outbreak-february-2 8-march-3-2012. EF3 confirmed about 50-80 miles north of my location.
It's good to hear that Dotmom and all are safe and the runaway wallet was found. A bright spot in all this heartbreaking time.
Sounds like it's time to ban Yukon Jack sales in Dutch. Do you handle the booz sales to the ships?
Most boats, if not all boats, allow no alcohol on board.
Viewing: 1 - 26
Page: 1 — Blog Index