TGIF Bits & Pieces

Happy Friday!

It's 23 degrees with light snow, and our dart-throwing friends at AccuHunch say we could get a couple of inches of the white stuff. Meh. It's also supposed to be nearly 40 degrees tomorrow, so it's not exactly a blizzard warning.

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Our friend Mr. Black Bear is stirring things up in a city park, already. He's chasing food, trash, and people; read about the excitement here.

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The mayoral race, here in Anchorage, didn't hit TV spots until a couple of days ago, although there have been lots of radio commercials airing. It's kind of refreshing to have only a week of campaign commercials.

On that subject, apparently the front-running local pollsters are declaring that it will be run-off between the top two contenders.

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The It-Takes-All-Kinds Dept.: a guy being tried for multiple homicides & violent assaults here in Anchorage is blaming the attacks on aliens. Seriously. His attorney asked the police, on the stand, if they noticed any extra-terrestrials - or their craft - during the initial investigation.

Sigh.

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Mt. Redoubt has been reasonably quiet for the last couple of days, until this morning. The prevailing winds are targeting Anchorage again, but will swing around to the northwest later today. The vulcanologists are pretty sure that Redoubt has built another lava dome, and are likewise expecting that it will collapse in another explosive eruption of ash. As always, the questions are a) when, and b) which way will the ash blow.

Update: Redoubt huffed & puffed again this morning, but with only minimal results. The Alaska Volcano Observatory has downgraded Redoubt's status from Red to Orange.

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Let's see ... snow, bear, volcano, ash, and aliens ...that's about it for now. There's always something else interesting coming down the pike, so stay tuned. Same bat-channel!