J. Jason Lazarus Blog

So, let me attempt to recount the last few weeks with some clarity.

The 12th was the end of my teching contract for the year so I’ve pretty much been on a local “vacation” of sorts here locally for the last week and a half. It truly hasn’t felt like one, as I’ve been literally swamped with this and that for the last two weeks.

The previous weekend to my last post (6-7th) I went out to a few hiking prospects for the summer, which I posted about during the previous post. On the 13th, I headed up there with my inlaws that were visiting for the weekend to show off the Chatinika Dredge to my father-in-law. I think to say that he enjoyed himself would be an understatement. No real exploring that day due to the inlaws being around but it got me itching to do even more. The 14th I headed out there with the amazing Bonnie - this time with a GPS unit. We actually managed to find Old Chatinika, although there wasn’t much to look at. Photos should be coming soon.

Later on that week, on the 16th, Rebecca and I ventured back out in search of a few places for potential hikes this summer - between them was Fish Creek Dredge, Hi-Yu Mine (went there last year) and various other places down Fairbanks Creek Road. Fish Creek was a dud because of several strict warnings about being too close to Fort Knox Gold Mine and seaching for additional places down Fairbanks Creek didn’t pan out too well so we went on over to Hi-Yu and took quite a few pictures.

This weekend was pretty decent as well - had a BBQ Game Night over at my place that I think went pretty decently. Had loads of fun, great food and lots of laughs. Saturday was driving Deanna down to an event in Clear for the SCA and doing some adventuring myself - well, if you can call it that. I’d never been to Anderson before and - well, I hadn’t ever been missing anything. Tried to find some old towns near Healy and came up empty. Sunday was a day of slacking and so has this entire week - I’ve seen several movies, both rental and theater, something I haven’t done in ages.

Oh, and, well, no need in hiding it…

I got a Xbox 360 Elite. Yes, the black one - or, as I like to call it, the sexy one. *Sigh* I’m such a nerd.

Anyways, more later when I flesh out some of the details of what all has been going on.

Interesting story attached to me reading this book - I started it when I was about 10 years old. I have no idea why it caught my eye back then, back in Germany when I was in 4th or 5th grade - but I had picked it up and tried my best to read it. I’d have to say that back then, and even up to a few years ago, I read at a snail’s pace, yet with the amount that I’ve been reading in the last two years, I sped through this book like it was nothing - nonetheless, it was nice reattaching myself with a book that I hadn’t finished in over 15 years.
Bright Candles is a fictionalized account of the Danish Resistance - fictionalized not to add drama to a drab part of history but to keep names and stories safe - the stories of people who were still afraid of the Third Reich some 30 years after its fall (book was written in the late seventies). You don’t get much media representation of the WWII resistance fighters in the mainstream, and, to be honest, if you weren’t really looking for it, you could easily believe a historical account of WWII completely ignoring how much of a great help all the freedom fighters were and how they were integral in toppling the Third Reich. Although I knew there was some resistance to their dominance, I had no clue how much they actually did - from sabotage to Jewish refugee transport - if it wasn’t for them, many, many more people would have died. WWII as a topic is a relatively small passion of mine, especially after my time in Germany - after seeing the Maginot Line, a variety of Nazi fortifications and, of coarse, touring Dachau - especially at that young of age - it sticks with you. The book was an outstanding journey into the realm of resistance fighters - something we rarely hear about.

I’ve already started a new book - I’ve got virtually no prior knowledge of it short of what the soon-to-come movie has on its website - oh, and that there’s going to be video games based on it. Being so, I picked up what is apparently a children’s classic - The Golden Compass. We’ll see how well this pans.

As for this weekend - damn, was it ever busy - but also highly fun. Friday night was its usual mixture of gaming, movie watching and heartily laughing. Saturday was a wedding to go to - but Sunday was really fun:

My first “hike” of the season was this weekend - not really a hike but more of a scouting expedition for possible places to poke around with a camera this summer. Anyone that’s been anywhere with me during the summer knows that about half of the hikes are successful and half are into the middle of nowhere because we’re using 60-year-old maps that say there should be a old mine, town or dredge here or there and it no longer exists. This summer I’m getting a bit smarter - scouting ahead before the summer really starts.

For the last two years I’ve been wanting to go down into the Dome City area just north of Fairbanks by about 15 miles - or, for those that know the area a bit better - just past Hilltop Restaurant. Dome City is supposed to have a old gold dredge and a town surrounding it - and I’ve been trying to search for easy access to it for two years on and off. Sunday I found the road to it and almost got all the way down to it, were it not for a “No Trespassing” sign. I then went ahead and tried out another minesite - Newsboy Mine near Cleary Summit - and between the three of us - Deanna and Rebecca came along - we didn’t find much short of a old pully engine and a collapsed mine shaft. Our third attempt was to find old Eldorado Mine (not to be confused with the Eldorado tourist trap near Fox) - no dice once again - short of two mobile homes that hadn’t been lived in for about 10 years and were filled to the brim with what is expected in a mobile home. Our last jaunt out was to find Old Chatinika - going past the well-known dredge and down a road in an attempt to find what looked like on the map to be a sizable establishment. No dice once again.

But, oddly enough, talking to Rick the downtown photo guy on Monday, I find out that he knows quite a bit about the local mines and how to find them. Between a lawyer friend of his and himself, we came up with several courses of action to gain access to the mine sites in question - between talking with the Department of Natural Resources to find out who owns the land, to the fact that miners who have mineral rights have no surface rights to the land (meaning you can trespass and it’ll not actually be trespassing) to alternate routes down when gates become… a problem. Oh, and there are buildings out at Old Chatinika. Looks like I’ll be taking out my dad’s GPS unit this next weekend! I’m looking forward to this summer so much it hurts - here’s to hoping I have loads of hiking buddies to enjoy it with.

So, I haven’t actually posted anything about my life in a while - mostly because it has begun to emulate one of those stereotypical day-in-day-out routines. As much as I believe it has, it really hasn’t. I’ve been able to get out, enjoy the weather and try to embrace summer even before its here.
Two weeks or so ago Deanna and I made the annual trek out to Creamer’s Field to see the first bunch of geese in the refuge - had lunch there and sat down and read for about two hours. Very, very relaxing and well worth it. I truly need to do this more in life - my good friend Heather actually got me something last year that emphasizes this so much: a fridge magnet that has a picture of Ghandi on it and one of his better-known quotes:

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

As much as I’d love to say that I’ve been living my life that way ever since, I haven’t - but every time that I see it, it does remind me to be happy with what I have - reflect that things shouldn’t be about what I’m going to have or going to do - it should be about what I am doing. This Monday I started with my normal summer walks to McCafferty’s to sip on a cup of joe and read a book for a few hours - I did this all last summer on my days off (of which I had plenty) and I enjoyed the hell out of them. Here’s to hoping that I do more of it.

Speaking of which - this brings up an interesting point - I am really, really happy with my life. As much as people assume that I’m massively unhappy with life because a day here or there goes wrong or work becomes stressful, my ability to sidestep that stress and zone in on what is important has truly increased in the last year. Although people overall think that I’m a grumpy SOB, it’s usually cause they don’t spend enough time with me to see anything else.

I’ve been playing video games off and on but have been reading quite a bit - almost done with yet another book. I’ve been pretty much starving my interest in video games for my somewhat weekly game nights each friday. Overall, I’ve just been really yearning to get outside. Last night marked the second time that I’ve ran outside this year - and I’m loving it. Even though this last week or so we took off time from the gym, we’re getting back in the habit of it now and I’m almost considering running solely outside (considering weather) for the rest of the summer. Seriously - running around a 1/8th mile track? Not so much fun - especially when you’re doing it about 24 times. I’m hoping that this weekend I’ll get my first hike out of the bag for this year and get to snap off a few rolls of film. But this year I’m going to learn from my previous mistakes - Angel Rocks will NOT be my first hike. In previous years, I’ve always relied on the snow to be completely melted on that north-facing hike and always ended up in 4+ inches of snow and a ice river through all of it. This year I’m thinking of going up to Grapefruit Rocks on the Elliot and scoping that out - we’ll see how that works.

In other news, for the few of you that I told - my mother’s tests came back and they’re certain its not cancerous. You have no idea how much of a relief this was off of my mind - everything started running through my head when I heard about the possiblity of it being cancer. Above all, the fact that I haven’t been the model son - haven’t gone over there every week and spent time with them and made sure to be there for them. It’s especially hard to realize that when you really don’t have any excuse not to do it - except that your own perception of what life is, gets in the way. I’ve been aspiring to get over there more often and spend some quality time with them ever since. If anything, it was a warmly welcomed wakeup call.

Coming up here soon I’ve got almost two complete weeks off and virtually nothing to do during them - anyone with any ideas on what I should do - please post. I’m going to go out of my mind if I don’t figure something out. Whats worse, unlike the lower-48, there’s only so many hikes I can go on locally without feeling unsafe without someone else with me - but I do intend to spend some of the time hiking and picture taking.

Anyways, not *much* going on, but it is an update.

For those locally, you already know about the recent addition into the family of Lazarus - erm, well, at least when it has something to do with our computers. If we’re not a Mac-based family now, I don’t know what kind of crazy-ass definition you’re trying to use. Yes, yes, I finally submitted to temptation and allowed myself to pick up a brand new 2.0ghz Intel Core 2 Duo white Macbook with a 80gb HD, 13.3 widescreen screen, DVD-Dual Layer burner and several other goodies that I could go on and on about. This is my attempt to really get me to work on my photography more as my old g3 900mhz iBook can barely handle some of the loads I’ve been handing it lately. I cannot believe how blazingly fast this little puter is - I have never been so happy with a laptop in my life. Between the integrated iSight camera, the Magnetically-based power cord and closing mechanism - *sigh* it’s a work of art. And plus, either way, it gives me much needed