Scenic Anchorage

I shot this image Monday's ride because it seemed to be such a slice of Anchorage: urban sprawl, crappy commercial development and junk, all of which sometimes diminishes a beautiful horizon. Mount Susitna high, trashed-and-abandoned car low.

Don't get me wrong. I love the place. See all that clean air? The biggest city in the state and you can see a mountain 60 miles away like you're looking through nothing but a pane of glass. The people are friendly. Wildlife is plentiful all over town. But well planned and architectually interesting?

Mmm, no.

Little to report bike-wise, obviously. Tuesday morning's commute was cut short a block from my house when I heard a voice in the darkness saying, "Hey, Dad, is Mom up yet?" After nearly a half-hour of waiting in the dark at 18 degrees, my son and a friend had given up on the school bus. And no, Mom wasn't awake yet, so I bailed on my ride and shuttled him and another guy to school. Made up for it by spending 45 hard minutes on the trainer after dinner, with the iPod pushing me along.

Twinges of potential illness were lurking around the fringes all afternoon and evening. Strange gut gurgles. Odd tastes in my mouth. Mount Augustine is still threatening to erupt. I was just hoping I wouldn't.

Felt better this morning and rode to work at 11 degrees. Got the usual strange look from a woman who held the door for me and my bike. When I thanked her but said I wanted to cool down for a minute before going inside, she looked like she was thinking, "Cool down? It's 11 degrees, you freak."

Got my first hit yesterday from Bitter Cyclist in Portland. Thanks to those guys for linkin' me up. I've got to get to Portland of these days. I have a couple of friends to visit there, and it sounds like a place that would be fun to see from the saddle of a bike.

And check out LadyVelo, the high priestess of the 27-tooth cog, one of many Minneapolis riders/bloggers and one I've been starting to read in the past week or two.

One more link out of left field. Please allow me to introduce you to the luckiest (and possibly the stupidest) deer on the planet.

Locals, stay tuned if you're looking for info on this month's Frigid Bits criteriums. (Or would it be criteria? I'll have to look that up.) I'll have the skinny posted here in a day or two. Meanwhile, I'm studdin' up my boots for that lake ice, just in case I decide to enter. And if I don't, I'll have better footing for shooting pictures of everyone else's suffering.

A little gift for those who made it this far:

After hearing numerous reports from the White House that: "We don't even know if Osama is still alive," Osama himself decided to send George W. Bush a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game. Bush opened the letter and found a coded message:

370HSSV-0773H

Bush was baffled, so he sent it to Condoleeza Rice. Rice and her aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the FBI. No one could solve it so it went to the CIA, then to the NSA.

With no clue as to its meaning, they eventually asked Britain 's MI-6 for help. MI-6 cabled the White House:

"Tell the President he's holding the message upside down."