UA 245 BOS ORD 0600 0735 319 1F Ch9^
was 795 BOS IAD 0600 0734 320 3A
and 378 IAD ORD 0812 0905 752 2E

People had seen some troubles in recent days into and out of
ORD, so I called and had my flight changed to the nonstop,
giving up my carefully chosen seats for a game of chance.
When I arrived at the gate, I was #1 for one place up front.
It wasn't the greatest seat, but it did have a cutout for
my feet. I dozed through what smelled like the standard
breakfast service, sausage, omelet, hash browns, croissant
or Danish, fruit appie, you know the drill.

It turns out that had I taken my original flights, I would
have arrived at the gate for the Anchorage flight after its
scheduled departure. However, that flight was delayed by
almost an hour, so I'd likely have made it, though probably
without my original seat; not to mention the anxiety issue.

CO1738 ORD ANC 0945 1315 738 3F

There was plenty of time, given my self-rerouting, so I
played games at the club and waited around and waited
around. And it transpired that owing to tardy crew, the
flight was nearly an hour late.

A nice clean new plane with puffy seats and what appeared
to be a very tight seat pitch.

Smiling flight attendants. Despite what others say, I've
had pretty good luck with the onboard service on this
airline; it's just the ground staff at Newark that the
globe could do without.

Lunch consisted of a respectable, very thick, tomatoey
minestrone accompanying a not-too-salty but too cheesy
turkey pocket.

My friend Bill was there to pick me up, except that he was
at door 6, and I was at door 4. It took a while to get this
squared away, especially as none of my electronics seems to
work properly in Anchorage. I ended up calling him from the
Traveler's Aid booth. He picked me up in the jalopy, and we
headed to his house, about 15 minutes east of the city, for
a beer or two before supper. After which, it being decided
that I shouldn't have to cook after an arduous day in a
comfy chair, and they shouldn't have to cook after an
arduous day of retirement, we drove to Sorrento's, which has
for decades been Bill and Connie's go-to Italian place. It's
your neighborhood red sauce joint, but pretty good for that.

I started with minestrone (better than the airplane stuff)
followed by seafood fra diavolo, not on the menu, but an
amalgam of seafood arrabbiata (which they make with cream,
a mistake and a sacrilege) and something else fra diavolo,
both of which appear on the menu. Both Bill and Connie had
veal Sorrento, used to be on the menu but no more - this is
a sort of piccata, served with linguine with red sauce.
Pretty good, and it all came out sort of fast - the pasta
was not cooked to order - so we had plenty of time to mosey
to the Taproot for the 7:00 Whale Fat Follies starring the
infamous Mr. Whitekeys and his motley troupe.

Present: beckoa and Jessica, BOBW, jackal, ourselves.
belle3388 was missed.

It's a very Alaska-centric show, and I didn't get some of
the jokes, of which a few had to be explained to me in a
whisper of words of one syllable, and others went over my
head altogether. The Sarah Palin references I did get,
though. After all, I can see Russia from here.

Connie got tapped to go on stage for some foolishness;
she refused, so I was strongly encouraged to take her
place ("GET UP THERE!"); Jessica likewise, but on her
refusal likewise, beckoa was the designated substitute.
We constituted the Duct Tape Symphony Orchestra and
accompanied, with rippings of the provided tape, a
rousing, pleasantly loose version of the Blue Danube
conducted by a lady armed with a walrus pizzle.

Various beers were had. As the place specializes in
local microbrews, they were as palatable as the comedy.

I gave the souvenir duct tape to jackal, who had it
autographed by Mr. Whitekeys. If I'd been younger, I
might have wanted to get the girl singer's phone number
on it, but I have all the phone numbers I can handle.

After the show, we repaired to AKronin's place for more
alcohol and (should we have wanted it, which would have
been impossible) more food. Also good conversation, but
that goes without saying.

Always nice to see one of your reports, it had been a while. Looking forward to the rest of it.

Bill wanted to show me a piece of local culture, so he took
me to the Longbranch for lunch. A low, dark building, it's
either an old roadhouse and biker hangout or a facsimile
thereof, I can't figure out which. At least the food is
good and abundant. Bill's burger was unsurprising - good
meat, a little too small for my appetite but big enough for
his; my brisket sandwich was tender, not oversauced, quite
decent. Beer - Lite for him, Alaskan Amber for me - was more
costly than the appearance of the place would have led me to
believe.

I got dropped off at the Boardroom to meet up with BOBW and
his coworker (FT handle forgotten). The drill was: wait up
for BOBW; get him to sponsor me for a gate pass; take the
priority security, the agents having seen this behavior many
times; wait for BOBW to get the third degree; and into the
club, where apparently the attendant on duty this day was as
dragonish as any of the United Red Carpet guardians anywhere
- it seems she doesn't care for jackal or BOBW, as they show
up at the lounge more often than she deems appropriate; and
words fail in describing how she views beckoa. And, crime
among crimes, she enforces the drink limits. This proved to
be not such a big deal, because the wines are nothing to
write home about, and anyhow there was another, much more
agreeable, attendant servicing the bar for most of our stay.
At some point, the call having gone out, jackal joined us
for the last round or two of drinks.

Dinner was required. Luckily the Spenard Roadhouse is not
far, a bustling place with food much better than the words
Spenard and roadhouse would imply. I had the famous burger
with bacon jam ... or rather the burger with the famous
bacon jam. Very nice, very original, though there wasn't
enough bacon jam, part of whose rightful space had been
usurped by slices of dried apple. The place is famous for
tater tots. I don't really know why. As the place
specializes in local microbrews, I tried the Midnight Sun
Arctic Rhino coffee porter, the Kodiak brown, and Oosik
amber ale, which was surprisingly assertive and not so
pilsnerish as one might expect from something coming from
an Oosik.

Back to AKronin's, where beckoa joined us, and where I was
induced to ingest various other odd liquids, including
Liviko Likoor Strawberry, which tasted like children's
cough syrup, unlike the general run of Baltic boozes, which
taste like adult cough syrup.

Makes me homesick.

6:00 am → 8:34 am SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 81
7:05 am → 9:43 am SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 117
8:00 am → 10:35 am SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 83
9:00 am → 11:43 am SEA-ANC S M T W T F - Alaska 85
9:30 am → 12:06 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 91
10:00 am → 12:35 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 87
11:00 am → 1:36 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 89
12:00 pm → 2:33 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 95
1:15 pm → 3:55 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Continental 1581
1:30 pm → 4:06 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 99
3:20 pm → 5:56 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 101
4:30 pm → 7:03 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 119
5:30 pm → 8:02 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 105
6:00 pm → 8:32 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 109
7:30 pm → 10:08 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 107
8:25 pm → 11:00 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 97
8:55 pm → 11:20 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Continental 1523
9:05 pm → 11:45 pm SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 103
10:10 pm → 12:48 am SEA-ANC S M T W T F S Alaska 731
11:45 pm → 2:21 am SEA-ANC - - T W - - - Alaska 121

So true.

Frankly I thought Mr. Whitekeys had retired after the Fly-by-Night closed; it's good to know he's still working. Were the Spamtones still backing him up?

Presently unable to fly anywhere thanks to criminal dogs whose leashes led to me joining the ranks of the lame for a few more weeks - couple of broken bones in ankle/foot. But I have plenty of time to reminisce. Plenty. Of. Time.

Whitekeys is retired, but he had a limited run at the Taproot
and then the state fair. Seems times are tough.

Sorry to hear about the criminal dogs.

I was almost tempted to join jackal and friends on a
negative mileage run to Aniak, Kalskag, Russian Mission, and
Bethel but thought better of it. The event, I believe, was
cancelled for weather anyway.

Instead, my friends took me southward to see the sights.
We'd gotten an unaccustomedly early start, so Turnagain Arm
Pit, about which we had heard good things, wasn't open yet,
and instead we went off to Girdwood, where the Alyeska tram
took us to the mountainside restaurant, where surprisingly
good halibut and chips and decent reindeer sausage consoled
us. As the sun had come out in abundance, they basked in
postprandial bliss while I went on a short hike up to the
base of a glacier (less than a mile, not a big deal, even
with me in my condition).

Our route back to town went past the old Bird House, which
is no more, which prompted Bill to take us to the replica
Bird House, which is part of the famous Chilcoot Charlie's
- whose motto "we cheat the other guy and pass the savings
on to you" was penned many years ago by the multitalented
Mr. Whitekeys. It was closed.

=

The Windbreak in Wasilla is reputed to be Sarah Palin's
favorite restaurant. As such, it was a must-go or must-
avoid, I'm not sure which. We went. I had chicken-fried
steak and eggs - the meat was firm, more meatlike than
the usual ground and/or extruded stuff and had probably
been glued together with meat glue. It was extremely salty,
but its cream gravy was superior to the norm, made with real
sausage bits and possibly real milk. Worth the pills. Bill
had hash from a can and eggs - just like what I might fix
at home, for only about $8 more than I'd pay at the
supermarket. Both of these starchy dishes came with pallid
hash browns, especially redundant on his plate. While we
were there it started to rain, which put our outing into
question - Connie had suggested he show me Hatcher Pass
but declined to take the adventure herself. We decided that
even though the road is partially unpaved, we'd risk it.
As it turns out, at no time were we or the car in any kind
of jeopardy, as it's a pretty darn civilized gravel road,
during most of whose 40-odd miles you are within walking
distance of shelter at the least. The views are wonderful,
probably even better if it's clear, but in this case very
evocative of the mysteries and hardships of a long-gone era.
The road snakes through a high pass between Willow and
Palmer and past the tiny Summit Lake (protected as a state
park); why anyone would have wanted to go between these
two places is anyone's guess, but the answer lies hidden
in the mists of history. Speaking of which, we took a turn
to the Independence Mine, now a state park dedicated to the
history of prospecting in the state (you are allowed, if you
bring your own equipment, to pan for gold on premises). I
enjoyed this semideveloped area quite a bit; there's
something evocative about walking through a ruined minesite
while the Alaska sunshine drizzles all about you.

We were headed down to Palmer when all of a sudden things
clicked - in fact, this was the same infamous neighborhood
where an old girlfriend had, over a decade before, made a
misguided attempt to teach me to ski.

As we had passed by the Lucky Wishbone many times over the
years, it was deemed appropriate that we actually stop in
for a change, especially as every time I have asked the
driver "how's the Lucky Wishbone?" It's a fried chicken
place and another of the oldest restaurants in Anchorage.
At this time, it was jam-packed with recent attendees of
the various local churches, all in their Sunday best,
which largely consisted of checked flannels and jeans, for
both sexes, not seriously unlike what I wear on a good day.
Bill and Connie ordered chicken, which comes with cornbread
and honey; I got a plate of giblets (hearts, gizzards, and
livers), which were pretty good despite being covered in a
Bisquick batter, done about twice as long as I would cook
them, and very salty. Lots of French fries, which were
pretty good, crisper than the norm.

And then to the Anchorage Museum, which in its renovated
condition is pretty impressive, bigger and better than one
would expect from a city of this size, but of course it's
a whole lot more interesting than many cities of this size.
We spent an inordinate time in the discovery room, a sort of
mini-science museum, where we were as fascinated as children
by the explications of such phenomena as earthquakes, tides,
and best of all, surface tension. Other exhibits included
native basket making, tribal anthropology, 19th century art
(mostly painting, European-style if not made by Europeans),
20th century art (mostly three-dimensional, mostly local),
Anchorage history, mining and metallurgy, and so on. After
we'd had a sufficient dose of science and culture, we tried
another trip to the Bird House, which this time was open for
business. The theatrically slatternly bartender happily
poured us some fine beers (the same dichotomy as before) and
for Connie a glass of wretched red wine, and we inspected
the somewhat bizarre and mildewy decor, consisting of both
business cards and pieces of underclothing tacked to the
walls and ceiling, depending I'd guess on whether the donors
had come here on business or pleasure.

For dinner we got takeout from Smokehouse Barbecue: ribs,
brisket, requested extra fatty, and pulled pork. The food
was quite respectable - not the Salt Lick by any means, but
good. The brisket was somewhat tender but not indeed very
fatty; I'd say the pulled pork was the best of the three.

--

I don't know why Connie wanted to show me the Anchorage
Market, a weekend arrangement of fossil traders, jewelry
and craft vendors, sellers of all cheap Chinese goods some
of which have undoubtedly fallen off the back end of a
truck, and foodmongers. We budgeted I think 2 hours for
this; it was 1 1/2 hours too much. By way of consolation,
there was a Smokehouse truck, where I ordered a brisket
sandwich extra fatty. They gave me the sandwich for half
off, since it was being made with parts that they normally
would have thrown away. It was very good, and I felt blessed
that they haven't figured out the beauties and profitability
of burnt ends. Which leads me to a rant about this dish.
I believe it was Calvin Trillin who brought them to the
attention of the hungry public, in a review of Arthur Bryant
say a third of a century ago, maybe more now. He let slip,
damn his eyes, that despite the unprepossessing appearance,
they are in fact the tastiest part of the brisket, and (at
that date) were being given away free by fine restaurants
everywhere in Kansas City. Since then the demand especially
among the effete snobs and nattering nabobs of positivism
has increased exponentially, and now not only are burnt ends
at least as costly as the sliced brisket, the bbq joints are
making artificial ones, which now are seldom burnt and often
not even ends - they take yesterday's brisket, hack it up,
put sauce on it, and voila. There's not more fat nor more
smoke than the regular stuff, and the dining public loses
out on the true experience. Further, I suspect that they
throw out the real ends and fatty bits, as people don't like
authenticity - it's threatening both to the ego and to the
cholesterol count. The same phenomenon has been visited
again and again with such things as Szechwan food, debris
at Mother's (last I had one, it was just like a brisket
sandwich anyplace), rare beef, and so on.

I decided to repay the abundant and long-standing
hospitality of the ANC FT community, so with Connie's
connivance we had a little Do at the house.

Present: jackal, beckoa, AKronin, Jazon, Foster, ourselves

Bill and Connie are not drinkers except of cheap beer of
various kinds, but I'd laid in a supply of Maker's, in which
I am reasonably pleased. jackal and/or AKronin brought a
bottle of Kirkland 7-year-old 103 proof, of which we
ventured an identification as a higher-proof Knob Creek
after speculating, from the harshness, that it was seconds
of Basil Hayden. It was fiery but okay, with a distinct
bitter aftertaste.

I'd bought a quantity of Snapdragon Pinot Noir for cooking.
In retrospect it might have made sense to spring for a $15
wine rather than a $10 one, which though pleasantly berryish
and appropriately meaty-scented, was quite thin; I note
that it is now available, stateside at least, for $7 a
bottle, which would put it more in line, though some
restaurants, which may have been caught up in the same hype
that I was, still charge prices well into the midrange.

Someone brought the quite nice Treana Cab-Syrah, prestige
brand of Liberty School (formerly the nonprestige brand of
Caymus) - it was appropriately fruity, with good pepperiness
and body, so I drank it in preference to my own wine.

Oh, yes, the main food item was a beef bourguignonne a la
violist after BOBW after Julia Child. I think it was pretty
decent and fairly authentic, and not much remained at the
end - I'm glad the Anchorage community is small. You start
off with 5 lb of flap meat (the proper chuck eye didn't
look so good at the store) and blanched bacon lardons, add
way too much Snapdragon Pinot Noir (which is a way too light
wine, so extra was needed to make up for the deficiency),
then bunches of sliced onions as opposed to pearl onions
(which were 5x more expensive), mushrooms, carrots and
celery enow, a touch of tomato and herbs, beurre manie.
Cook until done.

A good time was had by me. The others, they can fend for
themselves.

===

Anchorage Bucs @ Anchorage Bush Pilots in the first game of
three for the Mayor's Cup. I left town before it was
determined who won the cup.

The mayor wasn't there; he was represented by the director
of parks and recreation, who threw a decent first pitch.
Ferguson Jenkins, of all people, threw a junkball second
first pitch. What this hall-of-famer, one of my all-time
baseball heroes, was doing throwing out the second first
pitch for a game with a total attendance of under 200, I
shudder to think.

The Pilots jumped out to a 7-run lead, which proved to be
enough as they held on for a 7-5 victory; this was fine,
as even the very feisty and vocal Bucs fans (one umpire
was obviously blind and kept making bad calls, most of them
unfavorable to the Bucs; the fans made colorful and amusing
comments, very loud, which I enjoyed but am fairly sure the
umps didn't appreciate) began to hope that there wouldn't
be a comeback when the skies started to open up in the 9th.
By the time we were out of the parking lot, the deluge had
started. We got back to the house somewhat moistened.

The power went out while I was in the shower. Bill and
Connie joked that they were just trying to give me the
complete Alaska experience.

CO1476 ANC SEA 1715 2135 739 2F

As I don't have Boardroom access on my own I hung around
Humpy's hoping for a rescue from one of the bad news bears;
unfortunately, nobody could get off work midafternoon. I've
never left Anchorage in the daylight before - my flights in
years past had always been redeyes - and had never been
aware that fliers from this city were anything other than
jetlagged drunks with red eyes. In fact, I'm still not aware
of that.

The airport spent a vast amount of time paging someone with
a name that sounds very like Muammar Khadaffy. Perhaps as a
result the TSA came by with the folding tables. I doubt they
found Muammar Khadaffy or much of anything, for that matter.

Pleasant, smiling service on this flight.

Mixed nuts out of a King Nut packet. The dinner choice
was described as braised beef with Asian noodles or lasagne.

First, a salad of fresh tasty baby spinach, slightly older
romaine, a lone very tasty cherry tomato, two blobs of and
mozzarella that I didn't taste - quintessential post-9-11
corners cut catering. Speaking of which, so-called Southwest
corn chowder also appeared - a salty pink liquid, heavily
cumined, kernels of very tough corn and some vegetable dice
- usually I'm a fan of airplane soup, as it seems to be
done better than most airborne offerings, but this almost
cried out avoid me, I waste stomach space, not to mention
your sodium allowance.

The beef was the same cut United calls "short rib," but this
had been expertly artificially tenderized to the degree that
it was actually chewable - it was almost tasty; its very
salty brown sauce was okay, heavily flavored with star anise.
Broccoli (would have been better cooked with butter, rather
than oleo) and a couple strips of red pepper accompanied.
Oh yes, the noodles - round wheat-egg spaghetti deep-fried
hard, so that where it had soaked up the soy stuff it was
almost edible, but the rest was something you could break
your teeth on - also it smelled of rancid oil.

A mediocre red wine from Uma or Uno or Ema (not Santa Ema)
was perfectly appropriate for this meal.

There was "apple pie" for dessert - you might be familiar
with it, a heavy cakelike batter with a few apples thrown
in, very lumpen. I passed, having Courvoisier instead.

Speaking of heavy, we had quite a bit of chop during the
descent and a bumpy landing.

Kitchen Nightmares faded in and out, rather like a nightmare
- but it kept me amused for much of the flight, which ran
about 10 min overtime but pulled in right near the PC, so
I had a good long visit there, leaving around 11:15 and
making quite good time to the North Satellite, where they
were just starting to board when I got there. A substantial
number of gate lice were pulled over and, wonder of wonders,
prevented from congregating at the head of the regular line,
instead sent to the back of the crowd.

UA 883 SEA IAD 2344 0726 752 3E Ch9^ Empower^

The cabin service started off a little slow but was on the
whole quite satisfactory, once the crew got up to speed.

Chicken tortellini or tomatoes and mozzarella on a sub roll,
both cold. I asked for just the cookie and was informed with
regret that Walker's in a package was the order of the day.
So I had that with a couple Toblerones and a couple warmed
Courvoisiers, that combination enabling me to doze through
much of the flight. We landed right on time.