Youseph Tanha Dot Com

There are no comic book shops in Juneau. I came to this depressing realization after living here for a few months. The grocery stores are the only places in the city you can go to and get comic books. The Selections at the grocery stores are minimal and poorly handled by the staff that stocks the magazine racks. You just want to slap some comic book edict into every store employee that walks by.

Last Saturday I forgot about all of that. Last Saturday, everything changed for just one moment. I was at the “Friends of the Library Book Store” by the airport with Hannah. This is a store where people donate old and used book to be resold. Just as we had finished browsing and started to walk out the door I gasped.

“What” said the old lady clerk, startled.

“You have comics?” I said pointing to an old bin with haphazardly placed comics books.

“oh yeah, just that one bin though” she replied.

Transformers Comic Issue 10 - Dawn Of The Devastator

I gently dug through the bin while Hannah waited. Inside I found what was to me, a small treasure. Comics like the first issues of “The Crow” and “Marvel Universe” and “He-Man”. I could not believe it. I kept on digging and found the first few issues to the “Marvel Saga” and “Rawhide Kid”. But then I struck pay dirt.

Transformers! In the bin where a couple of issues of the original Marvel Transformers Comic. One of them was one I did not already own! Issue number 10. Dawn of the Devastator! I have not found an original Transformers comic that I did not already own since my trip to Maui several years ago. I have been trying to complete my Transformers collection forever, and now I am one more issue closer to that goal.

One of the things I was shocked to find out when I moved to Juneau Alaska was just how common porcupines are. They are in the trees and crossing the street. They are just about as common as stray cats are. You just don’t want to pet them of course. That would be a new kind of pain for me that I am not ready to experience.

Like BigFoot and the Loch Ness Monster, my pictures of local porcupines have not been the best. They always seem to jump out of frame just as I get ready to snap a picture of them. But last Friday that all changed. Hannah was out walking her dog when she found a porcupine hiding in a near by ditch. She snapped some pictures of it and here they are.

Sucker Hole

When I first moved to Alaska I kept hearing the term “Sucker Hole” all around me but had no idea what it meant. I finally asked one of the guys I worked with and he told me that a sucker hole is when the clouds over head brake apart enough to let some light through and all the suckers in town follow the light around for as long as it lasts.

Wikipedia describes a sucker hole as:

A colloquial term referring to a short spate of good weather that “suckers” sailors into leaving port just in time for a storm to resume at full force.

I thought i might share this with everyone since the weather here has been so bad and as I looked out of my office windows I was treated to a bref shower of sunlight.

The weekend has come and gone with little change in the weather. This however did not keep Hannah and myself inside the whole weekend. We went outside anyway to try and make the best of things regardless of the fact that mother nature clearly has a vendetta against Juneau right now.

We took ourselves out to Mendenhall Glacier in hopes to see some of the Sockeye salmon making their run up stream. When we got there we were lucky to find a decent parking spot because the park was packed with tourists from the cruise ships docked in town. We manage to see a few of salmon and take some pictures of them, but over all the rivers where pretty bare of fish compared to other times we have gone to see them run.

Looking out into the glacier bay we saw kayakers paddling in front of the glacier. It was quite the site to see. These people in their little boats with the glacier towering over them.

Just another day in Juneau with people making the best of bad weather.

It's Gon' Rain!

Has Juneau Alaska became the rain capital of the world? Ever since Hannah and I got back from our vacatin in Washington it has just been either overcast, or rainy. It was really starting to get to me for a minute, but then I just started taking some viteman D and all is better.

I really am starting to miss the sun though. Last summer was kind of like this too. The first summer we spent here was great, but that was 3 years ago. Seattle Washington really has been unfairly called the rainiest place on earth thanks to a little movie called “Sleepless In Seattle“. I have lived in Washington for several years and it’s true it is rainy. But Seattle has nothing on Juneau for rain right now.

I do hope this is not a trend. Maybe it can be blamed on El Niño, or the butterfly affect.

Hannah and I went to the 4th of July parade on Douglas Island just out side of Juneau. Here are some pictures we took.

The 4th of July in Juneau Alaska is a little differnt from any other way I have ever calibrated the holiday. Yeah there is a city parade and a fireworks show for all to see. That aspect of the holiday calibration is the same. What is not the same is the time Juneau rolls out the fireworks.

Because Juneau Alaska is so far up north the city gets more sun light in the summer time then the rest of the lower 48 States. Infact it dose not get dark till after midnight around this time of year. Because of that the city puts on their fireworks show at midnight.

The local Juneau Empire has a little write up on the festivities going on around town.

The day had started out awesome. Sunny and warm. But by mid day we started seeing clouds and rained drops. That however did not stop us from going to see the fireworks display. Hannah and I got in our truck and headed down town to our favorite spot right on the city’s water front at about 10:30pm. The place was packed with people and even one of the cruse ships decided to stay docked till after the fireworks show. Everyone seemed to be all smiles as locals started shooting off their own purchased fireworks. Hannah and setup our folding chairs, I lit a cigar, and we sat back and watched the evening sky light up with colors from all around us.

When the city fireworks show started, I pulled out my camera and snapped just a few photos.

The whole show lasted 30 minutes. It took the two of us another 30 minutes to make it home. A drive that normally takes us 10 minutes on a bad day. That gives should give you some kind of an idea how how many people and cars were in the area.

It was a really fun night. I hope the rest of the 4th is just as great.

This Memorial Day weekend has been nothing but fantastic. The weather for those of us living in Juneau is just amazing. Hannah and I have been getting out and enjoying as much sun as we can get. The temperatures has been climbing to the 70’s. It’s the type of weather that I wish our family and friends from back home could visit us with. We have taken a some pictures this weekend and I thought I would take a minute and share some of them with you. I hope everyone is getting out and enjoying this really nice weekend.

Life styles for both Hannah and Myself (as well as most of Juneau Alaska) has take a big change this weekend. We are running as few electric devices as we can. The lights in our apartment are rarely on. We have candles to light the way for the most part. Everything we own that could be plugged into a surge protector has been plugged into one. We did this because when where not using anything we can just flip the off switch to ensure nothing is drawing any electrical power. We have unplugged everything else. Lights, gaming consoles, computers, and even the microwave.

The two of us went out shopping this weekend for groceries only to find that almost every store in town has at least half of their lights turned off. I am sure there are safety concerns that prevent them from turning off more then that.

At night the town is darker then I have ever seen it. Most building lights are turned off. It’s just dark and spooky almost.

I have been trying to keep on top of the local news paper website (Juneau Empire) to keep informed on what is going on. I feel like it might be a slow week for action. But will see.

The City of Juneau has asked the state of Alaska for $25 million in relief funds.

The Juneau city government shifted into response gear Thursday by declaring the loss of its hydroelectricity a “disaster,” then asking the state for aid to cover a nearly instantaneous 500 percent rate hike.

At a special meeting, the Juneau Assembly unanimously approved the disaster resolution, asking the state for $25 million in relief funds to offset electricity rates for 90 days.

This just gets better and better. Hannah and I have been been living int he dark at our place. The heat has been turned down ten degrees. We are using candles to see our way around most of the time at home. I hope that the city gets this state aid we can go back to living like normal again.

The towers, built in known avalanche terrain by the Army Corps of Engineers, had no specialized structural engineering to reduce avalanche damage, AEL&P Engineer Scott Willis said.

“We’ll probably have to rebuild five towers,” he said. The last tower AEL&P replaced on that line cost about $1.1 million.