Alaska, again

So this is my new online journal about moving to Homer, Alaska — a place where it snows in October, where moose traipse through my backyard, and where everyone can spell my last name but if you can’t spell “Xtratuf,” well, so help you God.

This is kind of the obligatory first entry where I have to explain to people who I’ve really lost touch with that I live in Alaska. I lived for a while in Idaho Falls, Idaho – home of potatoes and the self-proclaimed “northern” Mormons, and life was good. But after a brutal hot summer and several months of distant coercion by Geoff, I somehow was talked into moving to Alaska, home of grizzly bears and the self-proclaimed “northern” Libertarians. And – life’s still good. I guess it’s possible to be happy anywhere – just as long as those studded mountain bike tires and stack of DVDs arrive soon.

So, now a little about what we’ve been doing for the past couple of months. We arrived in town Sept. 11, and by the next day found a cabin loft on the ridge above town. We have two acres, an early-season snow base and our closest neighbor is a horse. We’ve spent the past few weeks filling the place with secondhand stuff and furniture Geoff builds with lumber he scavenges at the dump. He found a job working construction with some quintessential Alaskans – the Xtratuf-wearing kind. I work at a small-town rag called the Homer Tribune, where I’m the arts and entertainment reporter, production editor, and somehow the Webmaster (which is really funny, because I have such an incurable case of ADD when it comes to technology.)

On weekends we do Alaska stuff like go sea kayaking in the freezing rain and backpacking to a cabin in the snow so we can chop wood, catch grayling and to return to discover that a bear has walked all over he top of Geoff’s car. The usual things, you know. So, anyway, I plan to post to this blog regularly in lieu of the mass e-mails I’ve developed the bad habit of sending. I'm also going to continue posting pictures. So keep in touch and post comments. I’d love to hear from people.