After a few requests for group emails regarding Central America, I’ve finally ceased to be communicatively lazy. So, for those interested, here’s a quick update.

After a brief visit to SE Arizona for Corina & Dave’s extremely aerobic wedding and some tramping into the desert, I headed down to Guatemala City late last month with Heather. Since then, we’ve been through several of the main tourist cities in Guatemala and S. Mexico (in Chiapas), doing normal western tourist things, like over-eating-out, looking at old things/places, and walking accidently down streets of questionable character which may contain large(r) men (than me) who may have lots of guns, jerry-curls and motor-scooters and maybe power/drugs/money.

Some of the highlights include:

• all of the public markets, an amazing scene and the best place to pick up some slang (the newest is ‘para llevar’ or ‘have it to go’, maybe not so slangy, but definitely useful considering the choice coffee around these parts)
• relearning to bargain,
• the easy pace of Guatemalan Spanish,
• meandering and meeting up in the south with friends from the north,
• amazing live music (including killer original vocal solos by an American Rasta,
• a few rare moments of quiet, as the cities are amazingly noisy, as is the hostel scene by likely default
• plenty of fresh, softball sized avocados (yes, the big ones do make great guacamole) among all the other fresh produce
• I’ve also enjoyed the sun quite a bit, and all this walking has been erasing the old pasty Juneau tan.

Some of the definite downsides:

• trying to pick up Mexican Spanish (its much too fast for this greenhorn’s ear)
• keeping up with distance classes
• cholera (too many hallucinations and indigestion)
• being rushed (which may make you shove your passport casually into your pocket, where it likewise may fall out or be filched, necessitating an expensive and untimely side trip back to the embassy instead of doing other, cooler things, like visiting a water project in Honduras, sorry Dan, it ain’t going to happen)
• fried food, which effectively nixes most local cuisine, with the exception of some amazing beet tostadas
• the sinking feeling that every poor country opened to western tourism and interests is experiencing the same awful growing pains, though maybe with less violence and repression than the worst rated democrazy in Latin America (the U.S. even dropped their partnership and support in the poorly-aimed war on drugs in 2002).
• a deeper understanding of how truly terrible U.S. foreign policy has been towards Latin America since independence.

Soon, language school and a new passport. Next time, a better plan to not get stuck in the regular gringo route, which is fun, but unproductive to maybe for everyone but a few.

Also you should check makezine.com has lots of funky DIY projects of all types (some of them are even useful) and especially their rad forums. My favorites here are the Altoids iPod speaker, rare-earth LEDs for illuminating the metal object of your choice, and a gigantic semi-intelligent helium blimp that is attracted to EM waves (i.e. cell phones), how cool and annoying!

a few days ago, I biked from selma to montgomery, following almost exactly Martin Luther King’s historical march back in 1965. going from one civil rights landmark to another in the space of a day was many things: an exciting ride (recreating a four-day march in four hours!), a somber reminder of how close this country is to its history, and an uplifting supplement to Obama’s victory in Iowa.

I reached a trip-high 100 miles not too far into Georgia that day, enjoying the rolling hills and well-marked bike lanes on state highway 96. The good times did not last: I got a flat at dusk and broke my only tire lever – a dinky piece of plastic that is essential for removing the tire from the metal rim of the wheel in order to access and repair the damaged rubber tube underneath.

Hitchhiking was quick and easy. No sooner had one car stopped than four more did as well. I was happy to see such a great display of kindness, until I learned that all were concerned for my safety in this corner of Georgia. Spent the night in a motel up the road run by a former Marine, and learned the ins and outs of rural Georgia. Crooked politicians, lumber interests, crack dealers… real eye opening.

With a ride to and from Walmart I was able to fix the bike on a Sunday, not a small feat in the bible belt. Poured it on for the next two days and reached Savannah, GA last night at around 7:30. New record (for me): 130 miles in a day.

So now, having covered ~700 miles in 9 days, I’m thinking of calling it quits. I have to be in DC next Wednesday, and the forecasted rain up and down the south Atlantic coast probably won’t help. But as usual I haven’t made up my mind…

I think the question is; what would College Bowl National Championship winning quarterback Matt Flynn do?

I think maybe this article sums up my trip pretty well, metaphorically speaking – although this one deserves special mention because of the lede: “Matt Flynn has a lot going for him these days, including being tabbed as a look-alike for People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive.”

what can I say

In the recently released Beyond DeLay Report, 22 memebers of congress were cited as having a hand in rather unscrupulous dealings. Of these, all three memebers of Alaska’s congressional delegation were cited. Sen. Ted Stevens, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and Rep. Don Young. One more scolding to add to a long sordid list. Shame.

-Peter

ps, Juneauites, you should all direct yourselves to JDHS on the 28th @ 6pm for our first Critical Mass! Drinks at Silverbow afterwards.

First off, some fellah decided to publish an article w/one of my pics online at nowpublic.com, one of several newish news source trying to rope together all the bloggy aspects of the media these days (see the article here).

Secondly, the Juneau Empire just posted their ‘Neighbors’ section for tomorrow, and an editor-friend of mine gave me the heads that some pics from a JMR training a while back are in there (see it here, not sure how long the link is good for).
okay, thats it for the plug-of-the-day

-P

ps, just trained with Stowe Mtn. Rescue (SMR) today, seems like they have a good team. I will hopefully get another chance to do some more rope work with them sometime soon, but their next training is during the MRA conference. Utah, or Bolton, VT? Hmmm, choices…

pps, SMR has moolah up the wazu from fatty FEMA grants, a funding source I have yet to examine for some JMR projects….

superbear confusion: the true origin of tic tac toe!!!

auke lake dock & orginizational attempts

yukon aftermath (you should see the inside: 7 people camping, cooking & climbing out the back)

seatac airport viewed through very tired eyes

winglets & dawn enroute to boston

fresh produce!!!

back to the land of milk & honey (& boats)

shelburne beach, a beer, and a book all serving together as fine inspiration to solidify my speech next week as the best man in danny’s wedding.

home (one of them).

An interesting format, but definately a difficult way to communicate any details, theres a lot to share in between the lines, but this old man is turning in. Cheers,

-Peter

So, that was a bit of a downer. I suppose I should be the one to get the ball rolling again then, as well.

Electricity, a luxury most folks take for granted on a daily basis with perhaps the exception of a few, boldly paranoid souls. As a general concept, it’s pretty cool. When electricity is generated, all sorts of nutty things happen to wires, conductors, magnets, and so on.

In the Juneau area, electric generation is tucked away in all sorts of little hidey-holes. Some folks are under the impression that there are no power stations in Juneau, period. This is not too far from the truth. Primarily, current is generated at the Snettisham hydro project, which is located on the lowest elevation of the outflow for Long Lake, just south of Juneau. This station generates 47.2MW. This sounds like more than enough to satisfy the local cravings for heat, lights, and a certain amount of clacking away at a certain keyboard. However, this covers only about ~80% of local demand. Where does the other 20% come from?

Always sympathetic to the localist diatribe, a little poking around in the available literature (read: internet) came up with some interesting and easily digestible factoids one wouldn’t be too mistaken to think that I was working for the benefit of the ‘tourons’. Juneau actually has several generator sites. It is true, most were semi-retired once Snettisham went online, but are still utilized as emergency backups in case of an outage (only the Auke Bay fossil site).

Salmon Creek Reservoir generates 1/3 of the power to satisfy the remaining demand. Additionally, the Annex Ck hydro project covers a 10% of the total demand. Power is currently generated seasonally at the Gold Ck hydro project. Former sites include Sheep and Nugget Creeks, as well as the Treadwell Ditch. Offline fossil plants include Auke Bay, Lemon Ck, and Gold Creek. The Alaska-Juneau mine used to have a steam plant that shut down in the early 70s. Most of these were associated with the mining boom in the early 20th century, but weren’t shut down until Snettisham came online in 1973.

A power outage at Snettisham is not entirely unreasonable scenario. The 44-mile line running between the dam & Juneau crosses several avalanche paths, runs for over two miles under Taku Inlet, and through some extremely dense forest. However, construction was designed to give the plant a 100-year working life with an expandable capacity. Expansion has already been undertaken once in the early 90’s, tapping water from nearby Crater Lake through a tunnel to a new set of generators constructed adjacent to Snettisham. The dam was constructed in a watershed without a salmon run, but water from the dam supports a fish hatchery located at the same site.

It seems like our electric needs locally are well covered, and done in a fairly sustainable manner. Keep in mind that we have tons of highly productive salmon streams, and more water than you can shake a nalgene at. There is even talk (mostly heresay) of farming out electricity to y’all down south from us here on the panhandle (this is likely to be cost prohibative, so don’t get too riled up).