It Must Be Tuesday

Good morning, out there!

There have been no significant rumbling/eruption/ash clouds from our volcanic neighbor (Mt. Redoubt) overnight. The prevailing winds continue to blow directly toward us, so the lack of activity is a good thing.

Redoubt spat a lot of steam & smoke yesterday, but not much ash made it this way. Most of the plumes remained at about the 20,000-foot level, meaning that the ash settled long before the wind could push it all the way here.

Here's the latest.

In the meantime, life here goes on, although folks remain a little jittery. I think the lack of ash fall, during the first week, kinda-sorta lulled us into a false sense of security. The winds blew all the ash away from us for several days; the sudden arrival of smoke & ash on Saturday afternoon shattered that - the old-timers nod & say, "I told you so" - and now we're left with a brown mess.

We got four inches of fresh snow yesterday, which helped quite a bit. Most people have their cars cleaned off now, and traffic managed to blow most of the ash & dust off onto the shoulders. Driving is almost back to normal, now.

Meanwhile, life in Anchorage goes on (which is a good thing, right?). The Legislature is still debating how much of the stimulus funds that Gov. Palin doesn't want should be claimed in spite of the attached federal strings (read "bad idea").

The multitude of mayoral candidates continue to make noise, although only a handful have even a hope of garnering enough votes to make an impact. Of those, only two or three have a realistic chance. The field of candidates includes one or two whacked-out loonies, but that's part of what makes life here so interesting! Top-secret inventions, the sales of which will make taxes obsolete ... space aliens (I think) are responsible for our problems ... sigh.

Y'all come back for another episode of "What did Juneau, and when did Juneau it" - the fun is just beginning!