A Florida Cracker in the Last Frontier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itcMLwMEeMQ  - Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms It's one of the busiest times of the year so I haven't written as much as I wanted to. Last Saturday, I did the Jingle Bell Run at the University of Alaska Anchorage to raise money for the Arthritis Foundation. I wish I had brought the kids because they had Home Depot crafts, Santa, hot cocoa, doughnuts, and much more. One of the employees that I manage, Kathryn was there and it was fun to hang out with her before the race. As a Florida boy I am not versed in the ways of running in Alaska during the late Fall / Winter. I wore my base layers (wool long underwear), running shorts, running shirt, and a hoodie. I did not own any ice cleats, especially ones that are used for running. The blue shoes are mine and as you can see this lovely lady with the long socks has some nice ice cleats. The race started on a slippery ice surface but transitioned quickly to sidewalks with gravel, then c...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX6LmojEWy4 E Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen Growing up in Florida the only "shuffle" I knew was the "stingray shuffle". If you don't know when out at Florida beaches it is wise to drag your feet in the sand when walking in the water because if you lift your feet up and step down on a stingray, which can happen during certain times of year, you will get stung. I don't mean like a bee sting it's a huge ugly gash akin to being sliced by a small harpoon. Lately I've been doing a different shuffle. The streets and sidewalks are plowed but covered in ice and light snow. It makes them extremely slippery and some way more than others. I try to walk to the edge of the road or sidewalk is to walk in the plowed snow to keep from slipping but sometimes that's not practical because the snow is really high. So, I've adopted a type of shuffle that is like playing broom hockey on ice. It's like half skating a...

Ice, Ice, Baby - Vanilla Ice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE  I am so behind on blog posts. I have been super busy at work and to be honest the last thing I think of doing on home is hopping back on another computer, just seems a lot like work. We had a week straight of ice. It was pretty cold, one day it was down to 8 and had a few days that didn't get higher than 21. It made all the rain water freeze into ice. So, Gracen (and the other neighborhood kids for that matter) started throwing ice on to the street to watch it shatter. I has all fine with the cold and ice but I had to use a work vehicle and had to scrape the windows and heat the thing up. The inside of the windows had water streaming off them once they started to warm up, so I had to clean them off. All of this told me, snow is coming soon and I planned to switch my tires on Saturday morning. As far as dressing for the cold, I wore my base layers and they worked really well but being wool ...