J. Jason Lazarus Blog

For once in my life I’m actually reading the books associated with the class that I’m taking. This is shocking to say the least. For my Fairbanks History class with Dermot Cole, I’ve been required to read three books written by both Dermot and his brother. As much as this sounds like a simple ploy for you to not only take his class and thus, pay him, but also to buy his books - truly there aren’t many other references for Fairbanks History, so it’s extremely understandable.
The First Book, A Crooked Past, illustrates the… colorfulness of our city founder, E.T. Barnette. Through a series of unfortunate mistakes and unbridaled good luck, Barnette not only founded what became the largest city in Alaska (for a good portion of time) but also managed to make a good portion of the town hate him.
The second book, Fairbanks: A Gold Rush Town that Beat the Odds touches on the major highlights of how Fairbanks survived from being almost a Gold Rush Ghost Town to becoming a terminus of the Alaska Railroad, a major military town and a pipeline metropolis.
Both of these books were extremely enjoyable reads especially if you’re from Fairbanks and are at all interested in its history. The class itself has been extremely informative as well - and with each class I get to learn yet another bunch of useless facts that I can use on my friends to make them think I’m a complete nerd. Like…
Did you know at the height of Drift Mining exploration between 1904-1910 you could literally walk from Cleary Creek to Chatinika completely underground in a series of tunnels that zig-zagged through the country at times even 200 feet deep for this 7-9 mile trip?
If you look closely at old photos of downtown Fairbanks you’ll notice that sometimes the temporary Cushman bridge “moved” - some years it was actually the Turner Street Bridge - a street that’s all but disappeared into the parking lots of Sampson Hardware and Key Bank.
Grahl, a town not far out of Fairbanks, was extremely reluctant in becoming part of Fairbanks up until the 50’s and later - nowadays the town site is pretty much non-existant and is nearby where Joann’s Fabrics now stands.
For years the towns of Fairbanks and Chena were bitter rivals and at times nobody could guess which of the two Tanana Valley towns would actually survive. Downriver, Chena existed at the mouth of the Chena River, a more logical place for a settlement that relied on river traffic. Nowadays there’s no recognizable reminants of the city that was situated at the south end of the International Airport.
Prostitution was legal in Fairbanks until the 1950’s - “the line” was constructed very early in Fairbanks’ History and was located on 4th Ave. It most likely would’ve gone on for quite a while longer if it wasn’t for military base commanders that were threatening to blacklist Fairbanks to all its troops if it didn’t clean up its act.

Yeah, Yeah, I could go on and on, but I’ll try to restrain myself.

After those two books I’ve jumped to yet another one - making the third one I’ve started this last month alone. Crazy, I know, ain’t it? Shortly before my Zombie Party on the 13th, I found out that Max Brooks, writer of The Zombie Survival Handbook had just released a new book, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War and I had to pick it up.
This has got to be one of the most engaging and frightening books I’ve read because, just like Brooks did in his previous book, it’s written purely as a book of non-fiction - making the world he lives in as closely representative to our own - so much, in fact, that were it not for the Zombie infestation, there are no differences. In the style of George A. Romero, Brooks tells the story through the eyes of those that saw it first hand, from the first outbreak to how our own human nature became our worst enemy. It’s a frighteningly shocking book especially when one considers that there has been research done in reanimation - although the conspiracy theorists would love to have you think that it has been done successfully to a level that would match current Zombie lore, I whole-heartly refuse to believe that. The entire book is a exploration of what could happen and as hyped up as hollywood makes any Zombie movie nowadays, this explores the individual horror and experience of the infestation at a level that could truly never be captured in a traditional Zombie film, one that doesn’t somehow resemble a documentary more than a actual horror movie. Very, very much worth the read. I’ve had to force myself to put it down.

So, with my, well, for lack of a better term… bad luck… when it comes to actually finding things out in the middle of nowhere that may or may not be there because I’m using a 50-year old map… I was suprised to actually find this one. I tend to use the *latest* USGS maps, some of the most detailed maps available for public use and most of them, especially up here in Alaska, aren’t exactly updated regularly. I suppose the USGS isn’t too interested in insuring that the mine or little black dot that signifies a building is actually there on a quadrant map, one of 3100 that make up Alaska as a whole. I suppose it’s not on their top priority list to insure all civilized structures are represented on these maps, even though one could complain that if you’re using these maps you *could* get lost and knowing where those buildings that *might* save your live might be worth it, especially seeing that you *could* be walking toward nothing because USGS decided *not* to delete that little dot.
Yeah, so enough about my complaints about USGS maps. This last week Deanna and I went to a talk about the FE (Fairbanks Exploration) Company that used to operate all the dredges around town and I actually managed to get the basic location of all the dredges that used to be in operation in Fairbanks - of the 6 or so in the valley, I’ve actually only been on one. My intent was to make this two on Friday.
Driving up toward Dredge #2 in Sheep Creek Valley I had to grimace to myself - here I was, less than five miles away from a friends house who’d be screaming if she knew I was going to a dredge without her - but, alas, she’s in Montana. Sucks for her. heh.
Got over to where the road is to Dredge #2 and found a plethora of “No Tresspassing” signs and decided it’d be best to call the Gravel Pit boss that the road was owned by - coarse, he’s out till Monday.
I decide to drive around a bit on the east side of Ester Dome on a few roads, in my 10 years in Fairbanks, I haven’t actually gone up - Gold Hill Rd., Henderson and St. Patrick. Looking at USGS, there is a mine that *should* be down St. Patrick but I was doubting it. And shockingly - it was actually there. I took a few photos with my 35mm and my pocket dig - and the results have been posted.
I’m still planning to go up to Dredge #2 - as well as a few other. I’ve really been happy with my Fairbanks History class, especially with how much I’m learning about early mining in the area and hearing the stories about many of the mines I’ve visited or hoped to some day. Next summer is going to packed full of trips I imagine.

So… um.. yeah, my experiences with the 8-track player have been tainted with this unfortunate accident. Sad thing was, out of the monolithic pile of 8-tracks I’m encoding, this was one I actually wanted.
I actually had to perform surgery on my parents’ 8-track player just to get all the wound-up tape out of it. Took a while and, I actually got to get it to work. Without the surgery, ABBA was even sounding more high-pitch and chipmunky than they usually do. Yes, I’ve encoded ABBA 8-tracks. How infinately sad is that.
Oh well, no more Badness from Leroy.

The last few weeks have flown by. I can’t believe how fast they’ve just whizzed by - literally, it seems like my Thurdays are extensions of Mondays and that I only truly work one day a week with as much as my schedule has been collasping in itself.
The party on Friday was an absolute blast, although I do see the space restraints in our place now. It only holds about 8-10 people comfortably if they plan to actually spread out. This was not the case. About seven of them were in the living room alone. Must figure out how to spread out guests.
Other than that the party really was awesome. Most everyone came in some sort of costume, although I do have to admit Joe felt a little left out - everyone else showed up as a Zombie - and he showed up as Borat. Just a little awkward. I personally loved my own costume but for *reasons* I won’t have pictures of it online for everyone to see - will be posting them passworded. Email me if you want to see - trust me, it was awesome. The evening went far too fast and quite a few were too tired from the week of work to really stay too long, but between the gaming and movies and tons of food (which we’re still eating through 5 days later), it was great. Thanks for all who came!
Other than that the last few weeks has been full of watching a crapper-load of movies. Two weekends ago we went over to Keith’s (ETZ Video) and picked up four movies - watching three of them in one day. We’ve also been going to the theater a little more often now that we’ve gotten our dividends, gotten rid of a buttload of debt and don’t have much else to do with the cash but save it (of which, amazingly, we’re doing).
Here’s the list of all I’ve seen in the last two weeks:

Notorious Betty Page - story of Betty’s life, what lead her to becoming one of the most well-known and lusted-for pin-up queens in America. I had no clue at all that she was 34 when she was doing her shoots - no clue at all. Really good movie, a nice, fun, light afternoon movie.

Kinky Boots - take Full Monty and slam it together with Too Wong Foo - and you get this movie. Basic plot revolves around a struggling shoe factory owner who is looking for a new niche market for shoes and finds one in the crossdressing community. Really funny and wildly entertaining - worth a watch.

Severed: Forest of the Dead - being that I was only a few days away from my Zombie Party, I thought I’d screen a Zombie film I hadn’t seen yet. Although it was alright for a survivial film, it was way too fast and too much about the running around and gore - not actual storyline. Could’ve easily been adapted for a TV Series rather than a movie as the storyline that they did have demanded more attention that the movie gave it. Even the gore wasn’t that great - not really worth the rent.

Maid - Since The Ring came out four years ago, I’ve been slightly obsessively interested in Asian Horror Films because of their fresh take on the horror genre - something that, in its current evolution, our native horror market has lost. Although it’s definately hit-or-miss with these films, as the critics have begun to embrace anything with “Tartan Video” on the case rather than actually critize the movie, when you do find a gem, you love it. The Maid, although not gory at all, not trilling truly, manages to weave a story that you’re truly guessing till the end. Somewhat like Sixth Sense in it’s approach (with that I’m actually NOT giving away anything) it uses traditional Chinese folklore to weave a story that’s not only odd and foriegn to US viewers but is also wildly attractive as a storyline. Worth buying if you’re a fan of Asian Horror.

Flyboys - one of the only movies I’ve seen in the theater in the last month, I had heard nothing at all about this movie until the trailers started playing on TV about a month ago - looking like a epic on the scale of Pearl Harbor, I went. I basically found Pearl Harbor, but in a WWI genre film - not nearly as engaging of a film as Pearl Harbor was, it is still worth a watch and the special effects are outstanding. One must watch what WWI movies they can - there isn’t many out there.

Grudge 2 - um…yeah. See, they did a damn good job on the first one, and what did they do for the second one? Continue the same damned story. I know, it’s a sequel, isn’t that what they’re SUPPOSED to do? Yes, and no. Sequels are supposed to rejuvenate the series by allowing the first movie to be an introduction and then the sequels serve as introduction to new characters, twists and revisions to whatever lore may define the series - all Grudge 2 did was add more killings in the same exact style as the first one. What saddens me is that the Japanese version of Grudge 2 was well done - and interesting because it changed the path of the films - the American version was even directed by the Japanese director and somehow absolutely failed to interest me. The killings were quick and useless rather than containing elaborate chase scenes, hauntings leading to psychosis of the characters, etc… none of what made the first one original and spooky. Not worth the watch or a rent. Bah. This one makes me mad.

So, other than that, I’ve been gaming in my freetime. With Deanna’s new iMac, we’ve been able to play Guild Wars together finally. I also finally picked up Destroy All Humans! from Gamestop this weekend for $19.99 - a perfect price for cheap bastards like me. Already through 10% of the game.

So, after over a year and a half, Deanna finally got her Mac. A lot more of a Mac than we were previously going to get, however. Our previous plan had been to update to buy her a Mac Mini for almost the last two years until the update of the Mac Mini to intel processors - which brought into the other possibility - her mac could be a windows box as well! But… alas, stupidly, Apple decided to drop the halfway decent video card in their Minis for a integrated piece of crap, which, loosely forced us to buy a iMac.
Course, that’s not all the story. We had also planned to only get the 17” Mac but found this 20” for a decent buy at the tech center, being that they were just recently updated from Core Duo to Core 2 Duo processors. In laymen’s, not much of a processor upgrade for a lot more price.
So, after about 5 hours of toiling on it, I managed to not only get Windows working on her Mac but also Guild Wars playing on it. I would’ve been done in three if it wasn’t for the fact that Norton Antivirus is an apparent memory hog that causes GW to crash. To aleviate this issue, I’ve tried out Panda Antivirus and might actually stick with it.
But, aside from the Geekiness, God, I have to admit, it is kinda frightening the first time you see the Windows boot screen on a Mac.
And I have to admit that more than ever before I truly believe that Macs got it all. The in-box pre-loaded applications are some of the funnest I’ve ever used on any computer - Mac or PC. Photobooth is a great web-cam program for the built-in iSight camera that has about two dozen fun filters and awkward lens filters that make taking pictures with a webcam actually fun. Frontrow makes your Mac into a Multimedia Center for everything just with the touch of your Mac Remote. What shocked me about Frontrow is that it’ll not only pull shared videos off of other computers in your network but also directly pull theatrical trailers off of Apple.com - awesome! Then there’s all of iLife… ugh… I could go for hours!
Nonetheless, I’ve added to my Mac Fetish and committed blasphemy by installing Windows on my new Mac.
*Update*
So, what was probably the best part of this whole Windows install was how simplistic the direct-from-Apple tutorial made installing Windows. I guess it’s understandable, being that Mac users tend to have the reputation of being complete idiots, but still… they really, really dumbed it down:
Some windows appear only briefly during the installation, and don’t require your input.
If it appears that nothing is happening, there may be a hidden window that you may have to respond to. Check the taskbar or look behind open windows.
Eject the Windows XP CD. Go to My Computer. Select the optical drive (D:). Click “Eject this disk” in the Systems Task List
Yeah, so all kinds of special there. Nonetheless, surprising how long this installation manual is - 21 pages. Especially surprising when Windows doesn’t even ship with a real installation manual to speak of, short of telling you to put the damned cd in the drive.
One thing that the geek in me had to boast about was the fact that you indeed don’t need a full copy of windows to install XP - although, you do need an external cd drive with the full Windows version on it. Additionally, although XP says you need at least ‘98 to upgrade from, it took my ‘95 Cd fine and dandy. There’s not much info on the internet about this, seeing that the catch is, even with the ‘95 cd in the external cd drive, you do however have to tell the installation to check again for a previous version of windows - some reason it doesn’t catch it the first time. In short, it saved me $200 for what everyone was telling me would be needed - a full version of XP.
I’m extremely happy with how stable it runs - in fact, the only problem I’ve had yet was that Norton Antivirus was causing it to crash horribly - after about 10 minutes of stability in Windows, Task Manager and Explorer would crash and there wouldn’t be any memory available to open anything - even with an absurd amount of virtual memory allocated. As soon as I uninstalled Norton, changed over to Panda, everything has ran smoothly. There’s A LOT on the internet about memory issues with this install and I’m beginning to get the gist that nobody’s tried another antivirus program because all of them quote that they haven’t installed anything other than Windows, its Updates and Norton and “still have this problem. Norton is the problem.
Anyways, I’m throughly enjoying Deanna’s new Mac in all its glory, even though I do feel as if I’m committing blasphemy. So now my Mac Fetish has expanded to a iBook 900mhz g3, a broken iPod 4G 20gb, a 512mb Shuffle, two iPod Videos (30G) and a iMac Intel 2.0ghz. And with that, I have to note possibly the most enjoyable comment on Apple’s site about the install:
Word to the Wise
Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it’ll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.