New Samoan puppy

Loads of wild dogs terroize school children, church goers, and all other walkers and bikers in Samoa.  They’re a pain.  This stray dog, however, is being cared for in the ‘western’ way (for lack of a better description) and will become a house pet.  He’s adorable.  Contact me for higher resolutions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Samoa - random notes 1

Random notes from the first week in Samoa:

There's awesome plants.  Many tropical flowers; too many to use up bandwidth with.  There's plants with two-tone leaves:

 People like to make their gardens pretty, often with planting species in particular order.

There are signs for villages and a few other things.  Generally, things are really hard to quickly pronounce.

There are stray dogs, all over.  They're very mean and barky and bitey.  These few were photogenic.

There are pigs, all over.  They're not stray, but they're not on leashes.

I almost sat on a scorpion in a chair; also, it turns out an empty coconut makes a wonderful white backdrop to photo scorpions.  This one was about 1 inch long, and sedated from a fumigation session earlier that day.

This guy got unlucky, and lives on a lava flow.  Hard, rocky, but driveable.  Not uncommon.

This is a "fale;" a common hut to live in / rent for a night, by the beach. Sometimes with tarps for sides, other times with much prettier woven mats for sides; either can be raised for better air flow, or lowered in a storm.

It's very humid.  Despite that, very little fungus or mold in nature, though some slimey stuff.  Here's a rare, bright fungus.

Here's an awesome thing that I know nothign about; it's the size of a lady bug, but beautifully bright green, brown, black.

It's lush here.

There are large flowers.

And waterfalls

This is the extent of marketing for a beautiful, ~100m (~300 ft) waterfall, set back about 50 feet from the road.  Marketing to tourists isn't a strength of Samoans, in my experience.

The waterfalls of such verbose signeage.  We walked to the top, and looked right over the edge; no guardrails.  Nice to be responsible for our actions.

I also learned that in a tropical environment, one turns a bit sticky, all the time.

Narrating videos the world over.

So remember how I posted a video of the Iditarod first place racer, Lance, coming down the stretch back a few weeks ago with my Iditarod 2008 wrap up?

Turns out that I was the main commentary for other videographers! James J Keller, a sponsor of Mitch Seavey (2008 All Alaska Sweepstakes winner), happened to be standing next to us and I ended up on the web because of him, as well!

[Picture pinched from JJ Keller website]

>> Check out the my voice and his camera moves here.

This video from across the street and higher up gives a good feeling for the ambiance that night as well!

Also, he's got quite the IROD website if you're interested in more video footage.

All Alaska Sweepstakes

Thanks to AD for keeping me in the loop on this one. You might remember the winner of the Iditarod a few weeks ago, Lance Mackey, who was going to try to set another record this year, by winning three major sled races.

Last year he set a record by winning the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod in the same year.
This year he set another record by repeating last years performance.
And he would set yet another this last week if he'd won the All Alaska Sweepstakes.

Unfortunatly, it was not to be, as a worthy competitor, Mitch Seavey, put his son's wedding plans on hold to win the race and Jeff King also finished before Mackey.

Mackey's third place finish doesn't go quietly, though, as tragedy befell his team near the finish. With less than 22 miles left in the 408 mile (three day) race, a snowmachine clobbered Mackey's sled, and some of the wheel dogs! Full writeup of the incident here by Anchorage Daily News.

Lance Mackey with main Lead dog and stud, Zorro.

[BOB HALLINEN / Anchorage Daily News archive 2007]

So sad, as the one dog, Zorro, that was critically injured (life in jeopardy now) was Mackey's main stud dog -- 40 of the 80 dogs in his kennel being related to Zorro!

Iditarod 2008!

Sorry for the delay, folks, here is my post about the Iditarod 2008! Sorting through a few gigs of pics and movies wasn't easy, but here I give to you some of the best moments captured digitally. I was visiting a college friend (with a few other college friends) who has lived in Nome for the past few years, and it was really helpful to have a local around! Thanks AD!
First off, where is Nome? It's a small town (3,500 people) in western Alaska, on the Bering Sea. This time of year the Bering Sea is frozen there, so the only way to get to it is by airplane.

Places Not to Fall Down Episode 7:

(Joe actually fell through to some liquid water trapped between layers of ice, wetting him up to his calves, necessitating one of the fastest "Run to Nearest Bar" times of our trip!)

(and shown on the back side, 7181 miles from Sydney, where I was 2 weeks ago. I know, I know, carbon footprint!)

Nome is the finish of the 1049 mile Iditarod Dog Sled Race, where mushers and their teams of sled dogs take between 8 and 18 days to cross from Anchorage to Nome. There's not even a road between these two cities, so dog sled is one of the only ways to get around! (Here's me at the finish line)

After a few days in Nome, we got to cheer on the first place musher as he and his dogs crossed the finish line. For a great pre-race story, check out "Iditarod racers set their sights on Nome" in the March 2008 edition of Alaska Airlines magazine (sorry, I can't find one online).


2008 Iditarod, First place finish, defending champion, Lance Mackey!


These guys and gals are as tough as they get, and Lance is no exception. Having conquered cancer, he has won his second Iditarod in a row, as well as multiple other sled races in Alaska. Check out his wikipedia page.

A bit later in the race, we got to welcome Scott Smith to Nome, which was exciting as he was the musher staying with us at AD's place.
One of Scott's lead dogs, Puma:

It's pretty sweet to see a team mushing across the frozen Bering Sea, as JR caught on film so well (click image for full resolution):
Not quite as cool, but still neat to be walking down the street randomly and get passed by an Iditarod finisher on their way to the burled arch finish line:

After the race, we got to go with Scott (in between his much deserved naps) to the dog lot, where the dogs rest before flying back home:
Some dogs wear blankets and sleep in kennels, but others don't. The dogs have slept for a few hours at a time over the past 10 days on just straw in well below freezing weather (in fact many dogs got sick because of the approaching-freezing temperatures outside of Anchorage this year, I heard). They're amazing animals who are just used to the cold!

After a day or so, the dogs are put in their kennels and flown home on Alaska Airlines, on one of their sweet 737-400 "Combi" combination planes, which are half full of seats (back half) and the rest of the space is reserved for cargo (frong half).


One other cool thing I got the chance to do up there is herd a herd of reindeer, on foot and snowmachine (snowmobile). Here's me on a snowmachine (behind the herd):
And a closeup of the herd:

And one random other picture showing this town's 100 year history, from when it was a booming gold town (gold on the beach!) with a population of 20,000 people, to now, when the population is lower, but has better tools for the job. Here's the old truck on the left, and the new one on the right!