J. Jason Lazarus Blog

After right about two weeks of living in the new house, I’ve finally gotten around to taking pictures of it - we’ve been slowly moving out of the old place and we’re about 95% of the way out of there (and at that, we have to be out by the 15th).  I’ve been wanting to take pictures for a while but with the constant stream of additional boxes and constantly trying to unpack them, I’ve been wanting for every room to be decent before I took pictures.  With these pictures, I’m only missing one room - Deanna’s Office / Aidan’s Room - which is currently in a state of flux - somewhere between complete mess and not so complete.

That being said, the house has a huge backyard, huge back porch, a play house that we’re planning on making into a play castle within the next year or two, 3 (technically 4) bedrooms, 1.75 baths, a den that acts as a home theater and so many other pluses that I can’t even think to bring them all up.  We’re so happy right now in this place and still have so much room we don’t know what to do with it - which is a great thing!  We’ve actually got the room to decorate, have a social living room without a huge TV in it, have separate offices and eventually another bedroom for guests and for Aidan when he grows up.  For me, the biggest perks are the home theater and the soon-to-be workshop converted into a personal home darkroom! Enjoy the pics and feel free to comment - we’ll be having a housewarming party fairly soon.

Lotta new news on the Aidan front - all is good news, though. Aidan had his 1 month checkup a few weeks late today due to the doctor being extra booked lately - and he’s doing excellent. He’s now 12 lbs, 1 oz., went from 60th percentile in weight to 80th, I believe 40 centimeters in head - went from something like 60th to 70th in percentiles with that, and 23 inches long - once again, I believe 60th to 75th. He’s progressing well, eye-tracking with both eyes, smiling, pooping like there’s no tomorrow and even starting to coo. We got an awesome infusion of new cute outfits for him to wear from Ashlee and now I’m pretty certain Aidan will never have to wear the same outfit twice for at least the first two years of life

Nonetheless, there’s new pictures of him available in the gallery - enjoy! Unfortunately the cute one that we got of him that’s featured in this blog post is horribly blurry but still looks too cute to be true in thumbnail size. Man, are we ever mean parents taking such pictures of a poor, defenseless child.

Read the following Newsminer article: Sonic Booms rattle Interior Residents

For those of you unwilling to read it or too lazy here’s the breakdown - recently our local airmen have been doing training runs over some populated areas around Fairbanks and apparently rattling some people’s nerves as well as their fine china.  This comes on the tails of the local army at Ft. Wainwright doing urban training from helicopters following marked vehicles through downtown Fairbanks as a training exercise for direct implementation in wartime strategies.

What irks me is how absolutely short-sighted so many of our local residents are: potentially one of the unfortunate blunders of the new Newsminer site is that it lets brainless wonders comment to stories they have no reason to comment intelligently to - they whine, grumble and moan about these training maneuvers and even go so far to call up the Air Force to complain.  Apparently our troops should only train on and over their military bases and leave actual training over urban areas to when they actually get over to the Middle East - far be it that we frustrate one nutjob sourdough  to save hundreds of our couragous troops by providing a unique urban environment and a free-range training field for our airmen.  God forbid we break one precipitiously balanced glass that tumbles to the floor because of these booms - although one makes me wonder, would this same individual send a bill to the state of Alaska if said glass fell due to an earthquake?  Seriously, who has their glasses stashed so in an earthquake-prone area?

But this isn’t the worst of the comments - it’s those that say that they can’t wait for the day that the military packs up and leaves because of all the ruckus they cause on and off-duty.  I’ve been personally known to say negative things to how some of our military act like children out on the town but I’d have to be honest in saying that we have as many, if not more, yokals that do the same mind-numbingly stupid things.  Doesn’t this person realize how much more secure Fairbanks is because of the military base?  Was this person saying the same thing when days after 9/11 our brave troops were endlessly guarding and patrolling the skies and streets of Fairbanks, high on alert waiting for any other potential terrorist threat?

And finally, the most hypocritical part of this is - we whine, we cry, we moan as a community about how the local military  is negatively effecting our lives and yet - and YET - three years ago when BRAC was slating Eielson for closure, we all banded together to save the base, knowing full well without both Eielson and Wainwright that our interior communities would constrict, hemorrhage and die?  We can’t live with the military effecting our lives in only specific ways - if we want some of the benefits, there is always going to be some negative impact to come with it.  I spent three years of my life living next door to Fort Bragg’s artilitary ranges - less than 2 miles away - and consistently watched my mother’s crystal rattle and few did actually break - and not once did I become so enraged - there are prices for freedom - those of which that do not choose to serve to protect that freedom should at least give those that do endless opportunities to train and refine their skills so that they do not, in fact, die protecting that freedom some of us obviously take for granted.

In the past two weeks I’ve dealt with quite a bit with getting my website set up perfectly - I’ve got a long way to go, but at least I’m finally on a hosting server that cares enough to give two shits about their customers. Ipower is potentially the worst major hosting company out there - bar none. I’ve had nothing but issues with my website since their big “server switchover” in January and, without going into the details of it too much, I’ve been fighting with them ever since that what issues I was having were not only genuine but also not because of my own personal internet connection. Blame who they may, the last person that Ipower wanted to point the finger at was themselves - and finally when they got around to doing so, it was 6 weeks after my blog/gallery/forum had started experiencing 1-3 minute loading times - and at that, even after they admitted it was their fault, it took them 4 weeks more to fix the issue - oddly enough, it started working two days after I bought new service through Host Gator. I was even considering staying with them until the site went down again because of Ipower while I was in Anchorage. You’d think that this wouldn’t cause any stress but I’ve been dishing out my website to all my relatives so that they can get a peak at Aidan - and I used to use it as a substantial part of classes as an effective teaching tool - killing that functionality off itself was practically unbearable. So, due to that, I got Host Gator to willfully move over the entire site without me having to do much at all - and to boot, I’ll be saving 1/3rd of my normal yearly price.

That being said, there’s still a bunch of transitional things I’m up to right now with the site - trying to get more pictures up on the gallery like I used to have as well as fixing some old parts of the site - this all on top of work and moving. Aidan’s fine and is up to 4 hour blocks at the very least during the day - usually now managing to sleep between 4-7 hour blocks at night. He’s quickly growing out of his 0-3 month stuff long-wise (no girth on this kid except around the chin) so we’re going to have to start shopping for bigger stuff - and he’s only 6 weeks old!

I’m in Anchorage for the weekend - Deanna and Aidan are in Fairbanks. I’m certain that some would paint me cruel for leaving my wife when she’s got a month old at home to do things that are almost certain to be more fun than taking care of said one month old but I’ve got reasons - mainly supporting a good friend that’s been there for me quite a bit over the last 9 years. Brian’s got his recital this weekend - he’s now a music major at UA-Anchorage and apparently doing darn good at it.

I’ve rented a Chevy Aveo for the paltry one and a half days that I am down here and I can honestly say, albeit with less than an hour of driving behind me, I’m not too happy with the car’s design. It rides like a lumbering SUV or Minivan, your cabin seems obnoxiously high-seated and although relatively vast, it’s a bit unnecessary when you consider that it’s *supposed* to be a subcompact.

On to other things, I’m hoping to take in some different cuisine in Anchorage while I’m here - Deanna and I tend to find the comfortable spots while we’re down here - only rarely slipping from the standard Bombay Deluxe (Indian), Glacier Brewhouse, Applebees or Fridays. I’m hoping to get over to Cafe Amsterdam for lunch after hearing about their expansive beer list - and yes, I know, beer for lunch is a bit on the odd side but given the limited hours of these unique restaurants, I’m forced to take in the unusual today because nothing “unusual” is open on Sundays. I’m also hoping to try out Yak N Yeti’s tonight - a Himalayan restaurant with both Indian and Nepalese dishes - and for those that have heard me praise our cuisine choices from our last trip to California, you’ll remember Deanna and I both fell in love with Nepalese food in Berkeley.

Other than shananigans in Anchorage, we’ve been painfully busy this week - buying a house. Yes, we are now proud owners of a house - 3br (technically 4 but one is a “office”), 1 3/4 bath, living/dining/kitchen with a den already set up as a home theater (curtains included) and *holding my breath* a nice little workroom in the back - with no windows - perfect for my first, very own, darkroom. We get the keys Monday morning and currently have no concrete plans on when exactly we will be moving in - but knowing me, I’ll try to push to have everything moved by the next weekend. Photos to come - it’s in a wonderful established neighborhood with nice houses for, quite literally, at least a half mile to a mile radius (and that’s something significant when you’re talking about Fairbanks lack of concrete zoning laws). It’s been so stressful this week with the purchase that my left eye is slowly starting to *not* twitch after about 5 days of doing nothing but. Wish us luck with the slow move that’s ahead of us and if you’re willing to help, call us up!