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Saturday Moment of Zen…

Hello all,

Welcome to another moment of Zen….
(That’s our happy way of saying we’re having server/wordpress problems) As the new WordPress gets updated, we’ve been experiencing intermittent issues that result in you not being able to access the blog, and sometimes the forums too…

WordPress often “gives us the opportunity to practice patience and tolerance” and they also do provide us with this lovely snowfall back on the old blog, and also a place to leave comments while we wait.

Hopefully we’ll be back up and running soon.

Thanks for your patience!

~The Mudflats Team

Saturday, December 13 4:20pm Alaska Time

Update: 6:00pm Alaska Time – ServerGuy is on the scene. Server is busy processing gobs of requests from people to get to the site, that the reboot request has to wait in line. Like taking a number at the deli….

Update: 8:15pm Alaska Time – The Deli has closed and sent us away…  So now we are in the queue at the Network Operations Center in Dallas to have our plug pulled, and replugged.   I’ll keep you posted!

Bedtime in Alaska – Night Kitchen is Open!

Good night, Mudflatters!

More fun stuff going on in the Mudflats Forum!

The Mudflats Book Club is reading The Green Mile in January, and Three Cups of Tea this month.  Get the book and join the discussion!  Click the link for details.

The Mudflats Movie Club has picked its first movie – Chocolat.  Delicious!

Expert Live Chat: To kick off our series of Live Chats with the Experts, Snoskred will be hosting a chat on the secrets of successful blogging. Join us on December 10th at 9 PM EST with your list of blogging questions!  Go to the Forum and click the link in the upper right corner that says Live Chat 24/7!

And if you’re in the mood for an open thread in which to share your thoughts of the moment, join the Night Kitchen already in progress!  And here’s a little secret about the Night Kitchen.  It’s actually open all the time…even during the day!  So if you’ve got an off-topic thought you’ve just got to get out, come on over any time!  The table is always set, and there’s a  coffee cup with your name on it!

Bedtime in Alaska – Night Kitchen is Open!

It’s a dark and stormy night here in Anchorage.  I know “The Windy City” is already taken, so maybe I’ll just have to start referring to Anchorage as “The Windier City”.

There are LOTS of thing happening over at the Mudflats Forums as we roll into the holiday season!  Here are just a few:

December Mudstock Meetups are happening on December 7th in Southern California, and December 13th in  Anchorage Alaska!  Click the links and get details.  Come meet your virtual community in person!

Just in time for the holidays!  The Mudflats Recipe Collection:  Holiday recipes galore! This collection will be available as The Mudflats Cookbook (pdf) within a week or two….so come and add your secret family recipe.

All submissions are in, but there is still time to vote for your favorite photos for the Mudflats Calendar Photo Contest!  I had a hard time choosing my favorites!

And as always, the Night Kitchen is Open and the kettle is on!  What’s on your mind?

Bedtime in Alaska – Night Kitchen – Baby Talk…

Well, the blogosphere is starting to hum already. Can you hear it?  The blog “Sarah Palin’s Deceptions,” whose focus over the last three months has been “Babygate” has released a very interesting picture of Sarah Palin taken in late March of this year… There is no doubt that this photo will become the topic of conversation across the web in short order, so take a look HERE for the image and a detailed description, and join the discussion in the Night Kitchen thread in the Forum!

Also, I’ve added a new link in the sidebar. It’s an advent calendar, only instead of getting pictures of elves and reindeer, or bits of really mediocre chocolate, you get a Hubble telescope space photo each day! There are three up already, and they are just breathtaking. I’ll be enjoying them as my evening moment of Zen during the crazy holiday season. Enjoy!

The White House Ornament That Almost Was…

I really never anticipated writing more than one post about Christmas ornaments, but this one is hard to resist.

From the Washington Post:

Laura Bush asked members of Congress to pick local painters to decorate ornaments for this year’s 20-foot Fraser fir in the Blue Room. The globes (to be unveiled by the first lady tomorrow) are supposed to showcase something special about each congressional district. Washington state’s Rep. Jim McDermott contacted a local arts organization, which asked Lawrence, a collage artist, to create the local entry.

“I was at first nauseated, then realized it was an opportunity,” said Lawrence, 55, who frequently combines politics and satire in her work and saw this as the perfect way “to highlight Jim McDermott because he’s a hero of mine.”

The nine-inch ball is covered with swirly red and white stripes — and, in tiny glued-on text, salutes the Democratic congressman’s support for a resolution to impeach President Bush. (Also showcased: Washington state’s 1919 labor strike, its suffrage movement and the violent anti-World Trade Organization riots of 1999.) Lawrence sent it off to D.C. in September and was very surprised it was accepted for the tree — and that she was invited to this afternoon’s White House reception for the artists, which she flew to D.C. to attend.

“Apparently, they didn’t read it — or Laura Bush is more progressive than I believed,” Lawrence told us.

How I wish I could tell you that the story ended there.  But, alas, when our sneaky artist filled some friends in on the hidden message in the ornament, the news spread like wildfire, and found its way to the White House and the ear of the First Lady.  The ornament will not hang on the tree after all.

“Oh, dear,” said Seattle-based artist Deborah Lawrence, who created the red and white ornament that salutes Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) and his support for a resolution to impeach the president. “This doesn’t really surprise me. But it’s disappointing that I won’t get to see it on the tree.”

Lawrence did attend the artists’ reception, but did not get to meet the hostess.  I wonder if somebody slipped one of those “Thanks, Santa” Obama ornaments in there.  I think I would have had to…

Bedtime in Alaska – Flickr is Up!

I am happy to announce that the Flickr photo function is now up and running. You’ll see the link to photos in the sidebar towards the bottom. This will make life much easier when posting groups of photos in the future. But to start the experiment, I used some shots I took on Thanksgiving. You may or may not recognize the mudflats you’ve been looking at in the header photo at the top of the page. They are distinctly more frozen than they were last year at this time when I took the photo in the header.

As you can see, I felt like I spent Thanksgiving in a postcard!

The Night Kitchen Open Thread is waiting in the forum!

Night all!

Bedtime in Alaska – Brian’s Knock Knock Joke.

I’ve been missing Brian, my local moose, lately.  I saw a lot of him in the fall, but I haven’t seen him for several weeks.  It’s dark early now, and I keep thinking to myself that he could be right outside my door and I’d never know.  But tonight, I knew.

I went out of town for Thanksgiving, and before I left, I meant to take out the little bowl of fruit and vegetable scraps that was ready to toss on my compost pile, but I forgot.  So when I got home, I noticed the contents of the bowl had gotten a little “ripe” in my absence, so I took the bowl and set it outside the back door in the snow, planning on dumping it after I unpacked.  And once again, I forgot.

So, tonight, I was sitting here happily typing away, and the dog raised her head from sleep and let out one of those little, short truncated barks.  More like a “buf!”  But that was it.  I didn’t think much of it.  Then a minute later I hear someone knocking on the sliding glass door.  It’s highly unusual for anyone to knock on that door, especially past midnight, and the door is right next to my computer, so it startled me, and I swung my head around.  There, standing, framed perfectly in the glass of the sliding door was enormous Brian, no more than 5 feet from where I sit!  I almost jumped out of my skin.  I don’t know who I expected to be knocking on my door in the dead of night, but it surely wasn’t a 1500 pound bull moose! Then, I remembered the compost!  Sure enough he was trying to get the frozen plant scraps out of the bottom of the plastic bowl that was just about the perfect size to fit over his nose.  As he licked the frozen veg-sicle that was stuck to the bottom, his head was moving back and forth, causing his antlers to bonk bonk bonk on the glass.

I raced for the camera, of course, and managed to get some pictures.  The flash didn’t seem to bother him too much.  Then I sat on the floor to the side of the door and watched the compost antics.  He became less and less successful in extracting his snack the deeper into the bowl he got.  Finally in frustration he started to stomp on the bowl, which helped, as frozen chunks of carrot and apple core popped out into the snow.  Then he’d nibble them up with his lips and stomp again.  He’d stop periodically and just stare at me trying to decide whether I was something to worry about.  I’m sure he wondered what all the flashing lights were about, but he seemed willing to put up with it in order to enjoy the wonderful frozen treat he’d managed to find.

He stayed a good long while; long after the dog’s hackles had gone down.  He stood like a sentinal, watching me intently with great brown eyes even as I began to type this nighttime thread.  It looks like he’s gone now.  But I have a feeling he will be back, hoping to find another meal at his secret eatery.  I won’t make that mistake again, or I’m likely to have antlers crashing through my door at all hours of the night!

The Open Thread is waiting, as always, in the Night Kitchen!

Knock, knock.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mudflats will be taking a small hiatus today to enjoy the company of friends and family away from phones and electronic devices.  On a personal note, I’d like to thank the extended Mudflats community for all your words of support an encouragement over these last two “interesting” months!  It would have been impossible to get through that time without you!  Although I can’t claim to have read every comment since August 29th, I do get through the vast majority of them, and your insight, analysis, wit and warmth have been astounding.  So here’s to Mudflatters everywhere!  >>>>tink<<<< (toasts you with your beverage of choice)

I’d also like to thank Snoskred and Sephy for creating the forums and spending untold hours getting everything running, and creating a dynamic alternate space for conversation and interaction.  And they couldn’t do it without the help and support of the other administrators (Charcoal and Icy) and the slew of moderators that do their level best to keep things running smoothly.  It’s no easy task and I am continually amazed at the sheer amount of man (& woman) hours that goes into it all…  >>tink!<<

And also a huge thank you to Mudflatter Lisa who is the creative whiz behind the Mudflats Shop!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

(And fear not….we have a troll patrol on duty.  So if they show up to the party, remember not to feed them!  You can pm Snoskred on the forum to hasten the alert!)

Bedtime in Alaska – Night Kitchen!

Mudflats is on hiatus until Friday.  In the meantime,  as a little Thanksgiving gift, I give you Andy Borowitz of the Borowitz Report with a little bit of timely political satire… 

ALASKA GOVERNOR MARKS THANKSGIVING

In order to celebrate Thanksgiving, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin issued what she called “my list of thankfulnesses”

“The first thankfulness being that I’m thankful for this turkey, and also too for the metal funnel thingy that cut the turkey’s head clean off while it was flapping its wings trying to get out and all.  That was fun.

The next thankfulness being that I’m thankful that Levi is going to marry our Bristol, and I’m hoping also that we’ll know soon what his location is.

Another thankfulness too being that I’m thankful for Sen. Ted Stevens, because compared to what he did and all it doesn’t seem like a big deal if you tried to get some dumb old trooper fired.

My next thankfulness being I have thankfulness for our President-elect Barack Obama, and proudness, too, even though he probably is spending Thanksgiving palling around with Bill Ayres and Osama bin Laden and the Unabomber also.

A darned important thankfulness being I’m sure thankful that when the lawyers from the RNC came to take back all of that clothing they didn’t check under Piper’s bed.  Good job, Piper!

And my last thankfulness, which I saved for last because it is the most important thankfulness, would be the turkey again also.  I’m thankful that God created turkeys with so many tiny little bones in them and also too I hope Katie Couric chokes on one.”

Join the Thanksgiving Night Kitchen already in progress!

Bedtime in Alaska – Night Kitchen is Open!

Boy, I’m sure glad the election is over in Alaska, aren’t you??  Except for one thing.  It’s not over!!!  After the final ballots were counted in the Fairbanks House race between incumbent Republican Mike Kelly, and Democratic challenger Karl Kassell, our brave challenger trailed by – ONE VOTE!  I’m definitely glad I’m not a Fairbanks voter who sat this one out!  I’d never sleep again.

 

If a Democrat takes this seat, it would bring the number of House Democrats to 19.  There would be 21 Republicans which would mean the margin would be close enough for a likely majority coalition.  We’ve been slowly adding Democrats to the Legislature and this session we will have a 10-10 split in the Senate, and hopefully a 19D-21R margin in the House.   Baby steps!

 

Needless to say, a recount will be underway shortly in this unbelievable nail-biter, and funds are needed!  The recount will be done by volunteers but there are always related expenses to cover.  If you’d like to help a Democrat you’ve likely never met, but who is only one vote away from making a real difference in the State House, you can donate to the House Democratic Campaign Committee.  And when you click the link, you can see all their smiling faces.  Those are some of the folks you’re emailing for the Alaskans for Truth call to action!

 

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Also, if it’s true, in an incredibly elegant, and metaphorically spot-on piece of karma, Ann Coulter had an accident which has resulted in her jaw being wired shut for a period of time, which will undoubtedly seem all too short.  Details may be available by morning.

 

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And, in a piece of exciting news for me, Mudflats will be taking a day off on Thanksgiving!  I will be heading out of town, and far far away from internet service, cell phones, and electronic media of all kinds.  Spouse even said, “You’re not taking the laptop, ARE YOU?” (sheepish look from me)   What this means for me is a blissful unwinding, and decompression from what I can only describe as a political rollercoaster ride that’s lasted for almost two full months.  What this will mean for you is that I won’t be posting from Wednesday evening through Friday morning.  I may have a robo-thread (a thread set to post automatically while I’m gone) if I can swing it.  But remember there are always plenty of lively places to talk over on the Mudflats Forum and I’ll be sure to leave you an open Night Kitchen thread before I go.

 

And tonight’s Night Kitchen is open!

 

Good night all!

Bedtime in Alaska – Night Kitchen is Open!

KTUU, the NBC affiliate in Anchorage had an online poll this evening.  It’s now closed.

Should the Legislature punish the Palin administration for the abuses of power found in the Legislative Council’s investigation?

Yes   No Thank you for participating in our poll. Here are the results so far. Yes 48% No 52%

Yes, a majority of Alaskans feel that she should not be punished for abusing power.  However, it’s close, and what I take from this is that with some education, this can be changed.  I’m interested to see what the Governor’s approval ratings are these days.

And, as always, the Night Kitchen is Open!