Saturday Morning Odds & Ends

Good morning, all!

It's 11 degrees this morning - clear skies, sunshine, northwest winds, wind chill of zero or below, as the winds gust and subside. In other words, a fairly typical February morning.

The sunlight through the bare branches are throwing all sorts of interesting patterns on the blinds. The days are getting longer, of course, as we gain about six minutes of daylight each 24 hours. For those of you who are interested, sunrise was at 8:23, and sunset will be 6:04. Tomorrow's times will be 8:20 and 6:07.

I love this time of year, as the days are noticeably longer and brighter. It's way too early for plants and most animals to respond, because winter is far from ended. Just the same, the humans respond to it quite favorably!

My girls have jointly decided we should watch the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings today. We've laid in a pizza or two, so I guess it's going to be a Couch-Potato Day. I want to go to the range, and it should be open this weekend, but I suppose it will have to be tomorrow.

The volcano is still quaking and shaking, but doing little else. Most of us have concluded that it won't erupt - at least, not this time around.

In local news, a copyright story in today's Daily News says a 2nd Amendment Rights group in Fairbanks (325 miles north of Anchorage) is calling for its members to wear their guns openly, this weekend and next. Their local newspaper promptly ran to the chief of police, who said, "There's no law that prohibits a citizen in the state of Alaska from carrying an open, legal firearm ... It's perfectly legal."
* The group, Second Amendment Task Force, is protesting what it sees as an openly-hostile political climate in Washington, D.C. It wants as many people as possible to participate, to bring attention to the "ongoing encroachment" against the natural law of self-defense, protected by the Constitution.
* You can read the article here.

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The winds seem to be picking up, so perhaps the decision to stay in today is a good one. I think we'll all be happier this way.

Be happy and blessed, folks; remember that there's always a better tomorrow coming down the line.