Own the Sidewalk

• The Last Great Smokeout

  Apparently the Iditarod is going to start drug testing mushers in 2010, and Lance Mackey, the superhuman, eight-fingered, possibly crazy repeat Iditaquest champion, thinks it’s because other mushers don’t like the fact that he’s been beating them soundly the past few years while toking — or, excuse me, dosing — [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: December 06, 2009, 3:42pm EST
  

• On The Road

  Last night at the gym, while putting on my makeup, I overheard the following exchange in the ladies’ locker room:
  “I didn’t know you wore glasses!”
  
  “Yeah, well, I’m supposed to wear them when I drive.”
  
  “I’ve never seen them before.”
  
  “Well, I really had to wear [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: December 03, 2009, 8:05pm EST
  

• It Speaks

  Oh — apparently I am the proprietor of some sort of weblog. Perhaps I should think about updating it from time to time.
  
  The good news is, the semester is almost over, and when it is, I’ll be able to put the hours I’m currently using to teach people [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 30, 2009, 8:11pm EST
  

• Gone Rogue

  I read “Going Rogue” this week. Well, speed-read, more like. Let’s call it an intense skim with my sharper microscope.
  
  One of the women from our business office was showing a new graphics contractor around the newsroom this week. The contractor spotted my dogeared, marked-up copy of “Going [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 20, 2009, 6:31am EST
  

• Halcro Reads Palin, Part III

  [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 19, 2009, 9:16am EST
  

• Halcro Reads Palin, Part II

  In which our hero goes off-script.
  
  
  I love my job. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 18, 2009, 11:44am EST
  

• Halcro Reads Palin On Halcro

  This is what I did at work today:
  
  
  You can be jealous later. When you're done laughing.' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 17, 2009, 2:30pm EST
  

• Another Winter Day With Barry O

  Someday I’ll get a chance to see the president that doesn’t involve me standing outside in the cold for a long time. That day was not today.
  
  Barack Obama came to town today, and when offered the choice between hearing him speak in a hangar and watching his [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:01pm EST
  

• Real Estate Reunion

  I had one of those “Oh yeah, I’m a grown-up now” moments last night in the grocery store. As I was walking out with the ingredients for a compromise dinner (Side Note: Cooking reasonably nutritious meals that a reformed semi-vegan and a man who doesn’t eat vegetables can agree on [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 06, 2009, 9:35am EST
  

• Happy Anniversary To Me

  I realized something last night: I missed my own anniversary. It’s hard to believe, but yesterday marked the fifth birthday of Own The Sidewalk and my entree into what has become known as the blogosphere. (Side Note: Can I just say I really don’t like the word “blog”? I mean, [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 02, 2009, 9:45am EST
  

• Ethan’s New Look

  I told Candidate Berkowitz that if these photos had come out in an earlier election, he would have made the cut for Alaska’s Dreamiest Politicians for sure. (Also, it’s a good thing for me that he, like so many other local politicians, has a good sense of humor.) [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 02, 2009, 7:30pm EST
  

• Close Encounters Of The Moose Kind

  Last night I took the dog out to the yard to take care of some errands she had. (Side Note: Did I mention we’ve moved? Well, we have. I’ll tell you the whole story in due time. For now, all you need to know is we no longer have a [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: October 29, 2009, 5:47am EDT
  

• It’s Not Your Momma’s Chorus

  Maybe I’m the last person in America to have stumbled upon this (considering they have something like eleventy billion views on YouTube), but have you heard the P.S. 22 choir?
  
  
  
  If elementary school students singing The Cure doesn’t turn your crank, perhaps you’d prefer some [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: October 27, 2009, 7:59am EDT
  

• On The Pitch

  MLB and I went to a soccer game today at my alma mater. The Pilot women scored eight goals. The Dons did not.
  
  “Eight-nothing qualifies as a blowout, doesn’t it?” I asked.
  
  “Three-nothing qualifies as a blowout,” MLB said. “Eight-nothing qualifies as a cricket match.”[...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: October 26, 2009, 7:04pm EDT
  

• Cognitive Dissonance

  Cooper Landing, the Kenai Peninsula town that, back in the 1990s, capitalized on the popularity of the television show “Northern Exposure” by erecting along the Sterling Highway (where all the tourists would see it on their way to the Kenai Princess Lodge) a sign bearing the town’s name in the [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: October 22, 2009, 8:35pm EDT
  

• The Shoe Is On The Other Foot (Mine)

  Bless me, readers, for I have sinned.
  
  See, it all started a few weeks ago when we had this party, before which I stood in the kitchen cooking and cleaning for two days. The kitchen has hardwood floors, and I don’t wear shoes in the house. At about four [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: October 18, 2009, 9:34pm EDT
  

• Serving Two Masters

  I got an irritated e-mail from Brendan this morning.
  Your "job" seems to be really interfering with your blogging girl... I already read the damn Naughty Monkey post...Why I’m taking abuse from someone whose own “job” appears to be (a) going to Hawaii and (b) scanning for typos in my [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: October 13, 2009, 8:39am EDT
  

• I Am Not Making This Up.

  This landed in my inbox this morning:
  
  
  
  Attention Naughty Monkey contest judges: If Sarah Palin does not win this contest, we will know for sure that either (a) she didn’t bother to enter because she assumed — as she should — [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: October 06, 2009, 9:33am EDT
  

• Elevating Alaska

  Remember back in March when we met Nils Andreassen, the brainiac behind Candidate Speed Dating? Here’s what I should have realized when I met Nils for coffee that day: If you make eye contact with this man, you will be locked into his tractor beam of civic engagement. Which [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: October 02, 2009, 8:11am EDT
  

• What’s The Deal With Vikram?

  My friend Vik has complained — on multiple occasions — about the fact that I never mention him on this blog. I mean, honestly, a lot of my friends complain about not being mentioned here, but most of them don’t then run out and decide to become stand-up comics in [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: October 01, 2009, 9:35pm EDT
  

• A Kindred Spirit

  At last, someone else who gets it:
  Of all the current assaults on our noble republic, perhaps none is more dangerous than the public option - specifically, the public library option.Read the rest at SFGate. (Side Note: If you didn’t “get” my post Monday about “Annie,” don’t bother. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 24, 2009, 7:44am EDT
  

• Stage Fright

  I was listening to show tunes and painting the bathroom tonight (because, honestly, what else would I be doing on a Monday night?) when I became aware of a dangerous cultural phenomenon the treachery of which I feel morally obligated to inform the American people — or at least the [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 22, 2009, 8:48pm EDT
  

• This Must Be What It’s Like To Be Deborah Bonito

  So. I see how it is.
  
  

  Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

  
  
  I’m pretty sure Sen. Mark Begich was invited on your show to talk about health care reform, not to make out with you via satellite link, Rachel [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 14, 2009, 8:00pm EDT
  

• Things I Will Not Be Making A Habit Of Doing

  I was over at B-Dice’s house yesterday afternoon, cleaning his oven. (Side Note: Yes, I will explain later this week why I would clean B-Dice’s oven.) Here’s a sampling of our exchanges as I cleaned and he didn’t pretend to contain his amusement:
  
  B-Dice: (As I clean grease [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 08, 2009, 6:13am EDT
  

• A Different Kind Of Birther

  As a Red Sox fan, I liked Curt Schilling more when he was playing baseball and staying out of politics. But I have to take issue with this piece by Boston Channel commentator Ted Reinstein, who advises Schilling against running for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat, saying:
  You [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 04, 2009, 9:36am EDT
  

• Levi In His Own Words (Only More So)

  I think I’ve made no bones about the fact that I’m Team Bristol all the way (not to be confused with Team Sarah, which is a horse of a completely different color). That doesn’t mean I’m not as excited as anyone else about Levi’s tell-all Vanity Fair article, which won’t [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 03, 2009, 6:14am EDT
  

• A Different Kind Of Vigilante

  A woman about my age was arrested in Anchorage yesterday after she tried to run down a rookie police officer with her car. Apparently she was doing it for the good of society, to teach those terrible peace officers a lesson:
  

  Margaret Andrew, 29, told rookie officer Nicholas Saldana [...]

  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 01, 2009, 8:02am EDT
  

• One Year Ago Today

  I was all set to write a big reflective post about the Palin nomination one year later, how it changed Alaska, blah blah blah, but after getting about seventy-five words down I realized I just couldn’t do it. So if you’re dying for some Palin anniversary insight, here are my [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 29, 2009, 6:32am EDT
  

• Air Rage

  My feelings about air travel have been well-documented on this Web site over the course of nearly five years, and yet I keep writing about it, perhaps because there’s some part of me that believes that being humorously neurotic about flying will help me get [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 27, 2009, 5:36am EDT
  

• Lessons In Sensitivity

  This week Mayor Dan Sullivan vetoed the ordinance that would have added sexual orientation to the Municpality of Anchorage’s anti-discrimination laws. But believe it or not, that is not necessarily the saddest story I’ve heard this week. Here’s what it’s up against:
  
  Dedicated readers (so... my dad and a [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 19, 2009, 3:15pm EDT
  

• Cultural Differences

  With most people, if you were to ask them to act out a scene from a movie and then give them twenty minutes to put it together, you’d get some lines from “Star Wars” or maybe a reenactment of the deli scene from “When Harry Met Sally.” With camp people, [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 18, 2009, 2:06am EDT
  

• Coming Up Roses

  I’ve been out of bed for just under an hour, and already I’ve managed to correctly operate the public address system and solve a printer drivers problem on my MacBook that had me running around camp yesterday afternoon with a flash drive in my hand, frantically trying to print celebrity [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 17, 2009, 1:57am EDT
  

• This Is Where The Apple Falls

  I was told last night by a family friend that when I talk about the former governor I look just like my dad looked at an anti-Trans Alaska Pipeline System protest on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus in the early 1970s. Apparently my dad, who organized the rally, was [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 14, 2009, 12:21pm EDT
  

• Vacated

  MLB and I are making the rounds of New England this week. So far, we’ve experienced:
  The most picturesque country inn in Vermont.The Ben & Jerry’s factory tour.
  The most perfect wedding of all time. (Not ours.)An Adam Sandler sighting on Newbury Street.
  Yawkey Way on game day.MLB’s [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 12, 2009, 4:22am EDT
  

• Sullivan’s Tweets Set Free

  Apparently someone in the Begich administration didn’t remove Own The Sidewalk from their RSS feed before moving out of City Hall. That has to be it, because I can’t think of any other reason for the mayor’s communications director to be reading (unless, of course, she enjoys things that are [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 08, 2009, 8:37am EDT
  

• Open & Trans... Oops.

  Despite the derision ex-Gov. Sarah Palin has drawn for her use of Twitter, many politicians and public figures are using the microblogging service successfully and appropriately to spread their messages and communicate with their supporters. I would imagine that it was in this spirit that Mayor Dan [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 07, 2009, 4:23am EDT
  

• Mayor To Residents: Oh Yeah? If You're So Smart, YOU Fix It

  There's a long list of Jobs Somebody Has To Do But I'm Glad I Don't Have. The list includes such items as "garbage collector," "proctology resident," "professor of chemistry," and "spokesperson for either of last year's vice presidential candidates." But at the top of the list right now is "Mayor" [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 04, 2009, 10:13am EDT
  

• More Political Lawbreaking

  Apparently Ethan Berkowitz isn’t the only politician who lives his life with flagrant disregard for the rules of the road; alert reader Laz spotted Mayor Dan Sullivan jaywalking at the very same spot in front of City Hall earlier this week. You can’t tell by looking at him, [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 01, 2009, 3:45pm EDT
  

• Some Final Thoughts On Sarah Palin

  I’m kind of over Sarah Palin and I’m way stoked to be moving on to more interesting subjects. But before we kiss the ex-Gov goodbye for good, I have a few parting remarks:
  Girlfriend was definitely rocking a Bumpit at the Governor’s Picnic in Fairbanks. Check the photographic [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 31, 2009, 7:11pm EDT
  

• Peace Out, Girl Scout

  And now we bid farewell to Governor Sarah Palin in Own The Sidewalk’s traditional fashion: A Spice Girls reference.
  
  
  
  Brought to you by the First Blog In The World To Compare Sarah Palin To A Spice Girl. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 26, 2009, 8:13am EDT
  

• What I Did This Weekend

  It almost seems unfair that a day that begins with two Sunday newspapers and then includes such events as (a) one’s boyfriend coming home from Las Vegas with a bag from Tiffany & Co. tucked into his carry-on and (b) being complemented complimented on one’s fine taste by the lady [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 22, 2009, 7:35am EDT
  

• Farewell To Frank

  A little over a year ago, when Nephew was born and he and Geneva were still in the hospital, Geneva, the Brubster and I whiled away a few hours at this Irish baby names Web site. I think they already knew they were going to name Nephew after the [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 20, 2009, 8:30pm EDT
  

• Role Model Fail (Or: Libertarianism FTW)

  I was on my way to meet a friend for coffee yesterday when I spotted former legislator and once-and-future-candidate-for-stuff Ethan Berkowitz dashing across Fifth Avenue... against the signal. And I’m not talking about a flashing red hand or a yellow light, kids; this was a steady “don’t walk” red hand. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 18, 2009, 3:18pm EDT
  

• A Second Chance At Salmon

  A couple of weeks ago I mentioned (in my usual winding, self-absorbed manner) that Trout Unlimited was giving away free samples of Bristol Bay salmon at the South Anchorage Farmers’ Market. I was out of town that weekend, drinking every bottle of wine in the state of Oregon, [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 15, 2009, 6:07am EDT
  

• Underwhelmed By Overstock

  Oh. Hello. Do I have a blog? Perhaps I should post something on it now and then so you don’t forget I’m alive. That way when I finally sell my novel I can be sure at least six people will check it out from the library.
  
  Someone asked me [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 13, 2009, 2:23pm EDT
  

• Arctic Thriller

  This is awesome.
  
  
  
  Read the story of the video at Chemical & Engineering News Online. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 08, 2009, 7:47am EDT
  

• Coincidence?

  The Alaska Ear reported this weekend that Sen. Mark Begich (D-Adorable) will move his Anchorage offices into the Peterson Tower, where Rep. Don Young and Sen. Lisa Murkowski already have offices. The Peterson Tower is literally blocks from my home, and even closer to Ye Olde Law Firm, where [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 06, 2009, 7:16am EDT
  

• Don’t Cry For Me, Dr. Suzuki

  This morning our good pal Gov. Sarah Palin shocked the heck out of everyone by announcing she’ll step down in a few weeks. Her reasoning goes, in part:
  Once I decided not to run for re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional “Lame Duck” status in this [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 03, 2009, 10:22am EDT
  

• Edward Sitkahands

  Southeast Alaska is buzzing with rumors of Johnny Depp sightings. Among the rumors in the air:
  He’s hanging out in Juneau.
  His sailboat is moored in Auke Bay.He was at a Ketchikan restaurant until 4 a.m. so he tipped the waiter $4,000.
  Johnny Depp, if you happen to be reading [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 02, 2009, 12:04pm EDT
  

• The Race Is On (And Off)

  This just in: Hollis French is thinking about running for governor. In other news, the sky is blue, Dan Sullivan drinks beer, and Friendster is totally over.
  
  There has been some disappointing news out of the 2010 gubernatorial race, however; apparently, APOC is reporting that failed mayoral candidate (and [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 01, 2009, 4:01pm EDT