Alaska!!

[J0nny Ling0]

I always imagined people rushing from their offices to stare out over the city at the little golden rays bathing a hill in the near distance.

In Juneau, when I first got here in '82, I experienced a unique thing. I'd only been here a few days and was not yet working and was just walking around downtown Juneau just checking the place out. It had been rainy that morning just like it had the whole time I'd been here thus far. But around 11:00 a.m., the sun came out and it appeared as if it was going to last all day. And within fifteen minutes of the sun's appearance, all of the sudden all of these office worker type people showed up walking along the streets, getting into their cars to head home or were going into local coffee shops for "to go coffee" only to come back out to walk around in the sunshine. And I'm thinking; "Where'd all of these pretty office girls come from, as well as all these guys in suits?" And so, I asked one of the gals standing on the corner sipping her coffee as to what was going on. Her answer? She said; "We are all State workers either at the Capitol Building or at the State Office Building (SOB). We were just given the day off because the sun came out. It's a paid for state holiday down here in Juneau for when the sun comes out. It's called "Sunshine Leave" We get three of them a year." And I was amazed. "Sunshine Leave" I mused. Cool! But then again, it seemed to be an ominous harbinger of things to come which has proven to be true. But, that's why it's so green and beautiful around here...

[Out There]

I was just hired to guide two clients up Denali in May of 2009. I guess about all I will get to see though is Talkeetna international airport (LOL) and alot of mountains and glaciers. I always look forward to every trip to the mountains I take, however I always like to get a feel for the local life and this trip doesn't allow for that. Maybe someday in my old age I can jump on one of those big cruise ships and......

[Watered Garden]

I finally figured out after my second winter there that "Put it where the sun don't shine" really meant "Send it to Seattle."

WG