Ok, so I've been slacking a little

Well, not really slacking, been sorta busy doing the holiday bit with friends and family. Was a laid back Christmas this year, no real stresses nor hurries to get stuff done. Although I wouldn't have minded a little snow on the ground.

As per request of EE , I thought I'd post a bit about the weather here. The common misconception of Alaska is that we're operating under conditions of total darkness in the winter and buried under yards of snow. It all depends on what part of Alaska you live in really, the state is so huge that even born/raised here I can't fathom the vastness of the area. If you've ever looked at the state super imposed over a map of the contiguous US you'll see that it's great distances.

Here in SouthEast Alaska where I'm from, our weather pattern is very similar to that of Seattle, albeit a few degrees cooler due to being further north. In the winter time it's not so cold as most people think right here on the coast, we get the warm currents from the South Pacific that flow right up next to the outer shores of the Alexander Archipelago called the Kuroshio current I think, it's been 19 years since I studied Alaska history/geography.

So, at winter Solstice we had a sun rise of 08:13 and a sunset of 15:37 officially, with a high temperature reading of 41 degrees and an over night low of 37. We're gaining seconds every day which seems so painfully slow considering when we start loosing daylight come summer solstice it's measures in minutes per day.

I was talking with a friend I grew up with the other night about the winter temperatures and snow fall. Both of us remembered higher snow falls in the winter when we were younger, and discussed if it was relative us being considerably shorter but the amount of snow remained the same over the years. But doing some research we saw that it is true, we have less and less snow fall now then we did as kids growing up.

January and February 1995 was the last real major snow that I've heard about falling in the winter season, times when it'd fall at a rate of over 1"/hour. Since then it's gotten cold during the winters, but not much snow. Ok, let me define cold for Southeast Alaska, anything that falls below the 20's is cold, I think 0 is the coldest I've ever seen it around here. A far cry warmer then the -30 or so temps I experienced winter term in New Hampshere going to Dartmouth College.

Anyways, just a thought I was able to solidify before it blew off in the wind, I have to look closely at my grey hairs and make sure they aren't blonde.