Enough With The Expensive Repairs

So.........I have a few pictures loaded onto my computer at work, and just for the heck of it I doubtfully (but hopefully) tried to load them onto my blog this afternoon, just to see if they would....well.....load.

And they did.  Without problem.

Which means that, although I have read many complaints on the internet about this site, and others recent problems (that are similar to mine) in loading pictures, the problem does appear at the end of the day, to be related to specific programs on specific computers.

One more trip to the computer store I guess.

This past month has been highlighted by both multiple trips to a mechanic (expensive tune-up for LC and expensive brake job on my car), and trips to the local computer-geek-shop.

Enough with the expensive repairs already.

After messing around with this lap-top multiple times I did figure out that I could load pictures one at a time, if I sign-out after each picture and then sign back in.  

Which is what I did tonight, just so I could get some pictures loaded.

It is an extremely tedious way of blogging, but one that I can live with for one night......

I took these pictures tonight on the way home, after dropping my Mountain Boy off to pick up the car at the garage.

There are many different pull-off points that lead to the water and boats at Auke Bay.

The picture above was taken at one of those pull-offs close to the ferry terminal.  

The skeleton is about 10 feet tall, hangs from a crane and towers over the area.

A wonderful Halloween decoration that brought a smile to my face as I drove by it this morning on the way to work...........  

As I was driving to work this morning I looked over at the lake and mountains of Auke Lake, as I always do when driving by, and saw that the water was incredibly calm and that snow covered the peaks of the mountains.

I resolved to stop on the way home to take some pictures of this most beautiful of places.

One of two float planes that park on this lake............

I have been thinking a lot about my children lately.

Missing them a lot.

But satisfied that they are both moving ahead positively with their lives.

They are both fine, both at very different places in their lives.

I only hear from my oldest son irregularly, but he continues to build his life - building a career, working hard to pay off student loans and car loans, and settling well into life as a young, married professional.

My youngest boy will be out of the military in just a couple of weeks, and has plans to go back to New Brunswick and go to college.

Feeling good about these men, and good about their life choices, and I miss them a lot.

My favorite picture from today...........

Pictures taken at Auke Bay.

There are very few boats on the water these days because winter is approaching very quickly.

After almost a month straight of rain, some days with winds over 50 miles per hour, much shorter days and snow levels increasing daily in the mountains, everyone in town is now gradually but inevitably moving into winter mode.

We had the oil tank topped off last week (still more money) because the oil truck cannot make it down onto our country side road in the winter.

LC will be checking the snow blower soon.

The prospect of winter in Juneau is slightly daunting, to be truthful.

This area has the potential to see more than 200 inches of snow in a season.

I can't even imagine 200 inches to be honest.

I lived in Sault Ste Marie Ontario for a while.

It was singularly the coldest place I have ever lived in, and a place where three of the Great Lakes converged, meaning that we saw huge amounts of snow.

I still remember looking out the window of my Soo office building in disbelief as it snowed heavily on October 2.........

But I was not one to follow statistics back then in another life, so have no idea how 200 inches compares to what I experienced in the early 1990's.

Last winter, when I was here in Juneau alone, we experienced much less snowfall than is normal for this region of the country.

And many times last winter it was colder in Tennessee (and sometimes even in Florida) than it was here in Juneau.

Regardless, I think back to a couple of times in March when my car was little more than a door-frozen meat locker, and when I could not get the vehicle up the ice and snow-covered hills leading to Glacier Highway.

A spring, summer and fall later I find myself less concerned about the prospect of being snow-bound in BFE Juneau Alaska.

I have enough vacation and overtime accumulated now to simply be able to blow off a very heavy snow accumulation, hunker down, and potentially stay home if the roads are awful, rather than attempting to make my way through a mess of country hilly icy driving..........

But it is not winter yet, and for now, for today, the sky was quiet and so was the water.

And so was the mood.

This place is always always always wide open and very beautiful.........

The Halloween skeleton by the ferry terminal........

This is also the same place where many whale watching boats are located. 

Throughout the summer there are non-stop buses that come here to load and unload eager and excited cruiseship tourists.....

For three weeks after I first arrived in Juneau I stayed with a crazy-lady who lived in a condo only minutes drive from the ferry terminal.

This was the view from her balconey..........