Merry christmas...

In the past I've always started our yuletide greetings with "happy holidays or season's greetings." But now that Fox news and the repugnant ditto heads apparently are on the rampage because the libtards "want to take christ out of christmas, I feel I must use the approved christmas greeting. This despite the fact that most of what we currently do to celebrate christmas has been taken from old pagan solstice traditions (Winter solstice, 12/20/14) and that retailers and advertisers care little about christ, just about maximizing revenue with endless holiday sales.
But I digress. We hosted the neighborhood "christmas eve celebration" for the first time in a few years.   Since we don't normally do much, if any, seasonal decorating, I felt compelled by whatever holiday spirit to take a few photos (I forgot to take any during the party, but maybe I'll get one from someone who did).

Merry christmas to all...

And to all a good night.

First dog run...

Finally got out and put the dog trail in. There were a couple of trees across the trail, but a little chain saw work was all that was needed to clear the way. The main trail down the valley is well used, so only had about two miles to break out, then go back the next day and pull the drag over it to get some compaction. Ran dogs today and it was great to finally get them out for the first time this winter. Barney, my fearless leader, just turned eleven, but he also ran great and appears to have another season in him. Since we're about the same age (in dog years), I figure that's a pretty good sign.

Barney and Jabba look ready to go for another winter on the trail.

Dog daze...

Despite all the snow we've gotten so far this winter, I still haven't gotten out on the trail. Andy snow-shoed in the upper part. She found several large trees had fallen down onto the trail on the back side of the hill, so will need to do some serious chain saw work as soon as the knee gets a little stronger. In the meantime, the dogs get let off every day so at least they can run around for a bit and not be completely out of shape.

The dogs stick around Andy as long as there's dog biscuits left in the pouch.

Obi usually winds up on the bottom of the pile when they play "dog down".

Warm and snowy...

The weather bureau came out with their official summary for November (lightly edited for brevity). As expected, the month was warmer with  a lot more snow than normal:(Http://www.arh.noaa.gov/textforecasts.php?type=statement).

Monthly weather summary for November for Fairbanks, Alaska...

November 2015 was warm, wet and snowy with persistent snowfall.
Measurable snow fell on twenty days during the month and a trace of snow fell on 4 days.
The snow depth at the airport was 15 inches at the end of the month.
Season to date snowfall at the airport is now 50.1 inches
with September to November of 2015 ranking as the 5th
snowiest September to November periods on record.
So far, snowfall this year exceeded the snowfall for the entire winter of 2014 to 2015 of 43.8 inches.
A total of 25.4 inches of snow fell during November,which was 12.2 inches above normal.
This ranks as the 7th snowiest November. Nearly all of the precipitation fell as snow except for a brief period of freezing rain that fell on the 26th. A total of 1.78 inches of precipitation
fell at the airport which was 1.11 inches above the normal and ranks as the 5th wettest November.

November 2015 was much warmer than average with an average high temperature of 16.9 degrees which was 6.0 degrees above the normal. The average low temperature was 1.3 degrees which was 7.0 degrees above the normal. The average temperature was 9.1 degrees which was 6.5 degrees above the normal average temperature of 2.6 degrees. This ranks as the 29th warmest November.

Looking forward to December...the average high temperature drops from 7 above on the 1st to 2 above on the 31st. The average low temperature drops from 11 below on the 1st to 16 below on the 31st. In the last 111 years the temperatures have varied from a high of 58 above in 1934 to a low of 62 below in 1961. Average snowfall is 12 inches but has been as much as 50.7 inches in 1984 to as little as a trace in 1969.

December is the darkest month of the year with possible sunshine decreasing from 4 hours and 42 minutes on the 1st to 3 hours and 42 minutes on the solstice. By the 31st possible sunshine increases to 3 hours and 58 minutes.

Travel Advisory...

No, not for a snowstorm, though there is a winter weather advisory out for Fairbanks today. This was posted on another blog (http://leftcoastsportsbabe.com):

There's a new worldwide travel alert from the U.S State Dept. “U.S. citizens should exercise vigilance when in public places or using transportation." 
To be fair, I suppose it does make sense to issue a warning when we know there are dangerous and crazy people seeking power in another country. So who will be the first to issue an alert for the U.S. based on the GOP debates?

And of course there are lots of political cartoons, with the current crop of repugnant candidates, it's like picking low hanging fruit.

Be very afraid...

Saw an article the other day that speculated what the world would have been like if the Nazi's had won WWII. Well I guess they don't need to write another contra-factual novel, now that the conservative base of the repugnant party rules the roost. With the report that one of the Paris bombers may have been a Syrian refugee, the hue and cry from the repugnant chorus was overwhelming. They say it's because our clueless Muslim loving president, having bungled the war on terrorism, now wants to allow thousands of potential terrorists into the country. But despite the fact that with the exception of 9/11, almost all of the terrorist acts committed in this country were done by white Christians, we should be very afraid. Most of the Presidential candidates, congress and even our state representatives are almost unanimous in decrying the imminent threat to our democratic way of life if these immigrants were allowed in. Even though most of their own relatives came into the country as immigrants, often from countries such as Ireland or Cuba that once had terroristic revolutions. The most ironic quote was from a Texas politician who said we couldn't let them into our country because "it would be too easy for them to buy guns." The irony is almost too much, it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Potential terrorists, coming to bomb a theater near you.
Photo from http://www.worldvision.org.

Air racers...

Saw this poster on a blog (http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com):

It reminded me of a section of Oshkosh air museum (Oshkosh by Gosh...8/30/15) that was dedicated to air racers and stunt planes. Apparently the air races were as popular in the 1920's and 30's as Nascar or the NFL is today. Here's a few photo's from the air museum's collection:

The Laird Super Solution was an air racing champ in the early 30's, flown by Jimmy Doolittle. It's kind of surprising that they were still using biplanes for racing by then.

The Stearman Model 75 was a WWII trainer modified after the war as a stunt plane. It was given a more powerful engine and dubbed "Super Stearman" (photos courtesy of the Oshkosh EAA Air Venture Museum).

Back to winter...

After one of the warmest Octobers on record, the snow and colder weather have returned. The best part, I guess,  if there is a best part, is that it prompted me to get going and head outside, fire up the tractor, and plow the road and driveway. It's the first useful thing I've done since the knee procedure. Great fun.

Now the sun barely clears the sauna roof at noon time. Soon it'll barely clear the horizon.

Here's the October summary, courtesy of UAF's geophysical institute (http://akclimate.org/Summary/Statewide/2015/Oct):
Temperatures were decidedly above normal this October across the state. The monthly mean temperature 37.5°F, a significant 5.5°F above the normal of 32.0°F. This is 5.2°F above the October 2014 mean of 32.3°F. Temperatures were above normal for all 19 reporting stations. Only one day of the month (the 1st) was below normal. The peak warm deviation, an extreme 10.9°F, occurred on the 27th, while the coldest deviation of ‑3.6°F occurred on the 1st. October was slightly dryer than usual;  the statewide precipitation was 4% below normal.

Watchin' the snow go...

In spite of the second highest snowfall ever recorded in September (Storm of the decade 10/3/15), the relatively warm, dry weather in October has melted most of the snow.

Not much else going on, cause I just got my knee overhauled. After the hip work (Summer vacation? 6/30/14), I figured I'd be good to go, but like an old worn out nag, not so much. So now my nickname's gonna be robo or maybe metal man. That's how it goes, I guess, sometimes your hot, then sometimes you're not and you wind up with a medial unicondylar arthroplasty.

And now it looks like Frankenstien's knee!

Back to the Black, again...

Been awhile, but finally got back down to help survey the Delta River at Black Rapids for my friend Mike's project. While in the past we used traditional survey methods (attaching the boat to a cable stretched across the river, then using a mechanical meter and sounding weight to measure flow), we often had difficulties (Busted...6/13/10). So now Mike has an acoustical doppler meter. It uses a sonar-like application for depth and velocity and GPS for position, so there's no need to stretch a cable, often the most difficult part of the survey. It's so easy, it's almost fun; once the unit is calibrated, you just cruise slowly back and forth across the river until you get a reproducible, verifiable survey. Technology can be pretty cool.

Picked a fine day for the trip.

Mike calibrating the doppler meter.

Finishing up the notes afterwards. The doppler transmits the data to an electronic note.pad

Storm of the decade?..

We've had two major snow storms already, the first dumped about five inches of heavy, wet snow last Friday, which then mostly melted, and this Tuesday to Wednesday we got another eleven inches. While this still isn't as bad as September 1992, when we got about two feet of snow, this will likely rank as one of the highest snowfalls in September ever. I would have posted sooner, but the power was out from Wednesday morning to Friday evening. A few photos of the snow:

Here's the yard and deck after the first snow.

How it looked yesterday.

Here's the driveway/garage after the first snow.

Now there's a bit more snow.

Here's some factoids from the weather bureau's September summary:

    FAIRBANKS, AK  SEPTEMBER TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION

AVG MAX TEMP (F)            50.2   15TH COLDEST OF 110 YEARS

AVG MIN TEMP (F)             34.6   47TH COLDEST OF 110 YEARS

AVG TEMP (F)                      42.4   28TH COLDEST OF 110 YEARS

TOTAL PRECIP (IN)            3.74   2ND WETTEST OF 102 YEARS

TOTAL SNOW (IN)           20.90   2ND SNOWIEST OF 102 YEARS

Oshkosh by Gosh

On our way back from Carl's farm (Family Reunion, 9/26/15), we took a detour to Oshkosh. Mostly famous for it's over-alls and air shows, Oshkosh also has the EAA air venture museum (http://www.eaa.org/en/eaa-museum). So we stopped there and toured the museum for a bit. It has several collections: early aircraft, air racers, space vehicles, but the most interesting (to me at least) was the world war II collection. Here's a few photos from there:

Andy is dwarfed by the DeHavilland  Mosquito, one of the few wooden aircraft used in WWII.

The P-51 Mustang, likely the eponymous long range interceptor of the war.

The Grumman Duck, used mainly by the Coast Guard, was the subject of the book Frozen in Time by Mitchell Zuckoff. He describes the loss of one in Greenland during WWII and the current search to locate and retrieve it.

The North American P-64 is the export fighter version of the AT-6 Texan trainer.

The Lockheed P-38 Lightening, another famous long range interceptor.

The Northrop P-89 Scorpion, developed just after the war as an all weather interceptor. When I was a kid back in the fifties, I remember seeing a whole squadron of these parked along side an airstrip in northern Wisconsin.