I’ve switched themes in an attempt to solve my ongoing difficulties in logging in to the site. It’s TwentyTwelve, the same theme I use for SafeIsNotAnOption. If it fixes the technical issues, I’ll start to pretty it up.
Category Archives: Administrative
Site Problems
As you may have noticed, the site’s been down since yesterday. Apparently, mysql had crashed on the server. It should be fixed now, though I still have issues with logging in as administrator (one reason that posting has been sparse lately, in addition to the fact that I’ve been busy).
My Five-Year-Old Laptop
…has finally given up the ghost. It won’t boot, or even bring up a POST screen. It just lights up for a couple seconds and dies. I’ve been planning to replace it for a while, but now it’s urgent. I only use it to travel, and not for entertainment, so I don’t need a high-end machine. I’ve been toying with the idea of tablet/keyboard, but don’t know if it will meet my needs.
[Friday-afternoon update]
This look like a pretty good deal to me. Basically, a new version of what I had.
AIAA Space 2013
I’m down in San Diego attending the conference, and the setup is not particularly conducive to laptops or blogging.
Heading Down To Seward
…then back up to Anchorage late this afternoon for the flight back to SoCal.
Off To Fairbanks
… and then, south to Copper Center. Be good in comments.
Denali
Heading into the park for the day. I’m check back in tonight. If you don’t hear from me, send out a search party. #Joking
[Monday-morning update]
Hope no one sent out a search party. We got in, not that late, but WordPress was playing its little game with me that doesn’t allow me to log in to post or edit comments.
We went all the way to the end of the road in Kantishna. Fall is happening rapidly up here — you can almost see the leaves on the alders and birches turning yellow in real time, and winter will be here very soon — there was a fresh dusting of snow on the lower peaks on Saturday. It didn’t rain on our trip out and back, but it was cloudy. We saw most of the mountain, in terms of mass (everything below about 12,000 feet), but not the upper reaches.
We sighted several bears, one of which — a big blonde grizzly — was right by the roadside, then wandered around the back of the bus over to the other side, too busy eating blueberries and low-bush cranberries to pay much attention to us. It looked pretty plump and ready to hibernate to me, but it obviously had a different opinion. I may post video later.
Also saw ptarmigan, grouse, ducks of several varieties, a golden eagle and falcon, ground squirrels, red squirrel, several caribou. What didn’t we see? What we most expected to — a moose. Except for one that I might have seen running the opposite direction to the bus through the dwarf spruce, that we didn’t have time to look for at the end of the day.
Today we head up to Fairbanks, and then down to Copper Center, where the red salmon are still running, presumably with accompanying bears.
Denali
I’ve got Internet, obviously, but we’re too busy to blog. We got a bonus yesterday, driving up to our B&B outside of the park. We decided to take a side trip to Talkeetna, and happened to stop in to a little gift shop of local Alaskan art, when the proprietor looks up from the phone, and asks us if we’d like to land on a glacier for a hundred bucks each. The plane’s about to leave from the field and they want to fill seats. So we head over there, and hop aboard a DeHavilland Beaver with skis, with a 23-year-old pilot with a philosophy degree, head up into the mountains, and drop down between the ridges onto the ice. Unfortunately, the ceiling was only fifteen thousand feet, so we couldn’t see the big mountain, but the others were pretty spectacular. Pics anon.
Off To The Land Of The Midnight Sun
Well, OK, not that far — I’m unlikely to get further north than Poker Flats, but I am off to Anchorage. I’ll take a computer, but don’t know what connectivity will be like.
[Evening update from Anchorage]
OK, had a good flight. Flew right over Yosemite and the fire, but unfortunately, things got socked in north of the Oregon border, and only cleared up briefly around Graham Island. It’s kind of dreary here, weather wise, but beautiful. I had dinner (fresh-caught halibut) on the top floor of the Captain Cook Hotel, with a gorgeous view of the Inlet and mountains. More anon.
Light Posting
I’ve been busy doing final editing on the book (it’s amazing the problems you see when you actually print a proof copy), and getting ready for a combination business/pleasure trip to Alaska (I leave tomorrow morning, and won’t be back until the evening of September 4th). But I’ve also had problems logging in to WordPress (it times out). It’s not a server problem — I can ssh into it, and the blog itself seems to load properly and people seem to be able to comment. I’ve heard that there are some brute-force password attacks occurring to WordPress logins, so that may be the problem. Anyway, I’ll put up a couple posts right now, because I seem to be able to (at least momentarily) get in.