Anchorage Blog

*love* asked:


I would like to know what department in the town hall I need to talk to, to get my birth certificate. If the Anchorage Alaska town hall does not have them, then where else would I look? Can someone let me know ASAP? I can not get my drivers liscense with out it. I already have one, just need to get one in a different state (I moved). Also I am unable to register my vehicle without my new liscense!

WIGLEY

odium213 asked:

Building a Better Spaceship in Anchorage Alaska. Jan. 2007

TROVILLION

michael Webster asked:


By Michael Webster: Investigative Reporter Sept 1, 2008 3:00 PM PDT

 

Gov. Sarah Palin



 Gov. Sarah Palin. Get complete past and current coverage of Alaska’s Governor as she battles to become the next vice president.

 

The serious claims against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin asserts that the Governor ordered the head of the Alaska State Troopers Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire her brother in law State Trooper Michael Wooten which is being reported by the Anchorage newspapers to have roots in the governors family feud. This scandal erupted into public view with the July 11 firing of the state’s top public safety official.

Even though the John McCain camp says they were aware of this legal action pending it’s not resolved even now as she becomes U.S. Sen. John McCain’s running mate.

The papers are calling it “Troopergate” and reporting Palin’s abrupt dismissal of Monegan on July 11 is being investigated by a special counsel hired by the Alaska Legislature.

The Laguna Journal has learned that the Governor has now hired her own lawyer to defend and help unravel this potenuelly embarrassing circumstance.

 

Lisa  Demera reported in the Anchorage daily news that the issue is whether Palin, her administration or family improperly pressured state Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire a state trooper — the ex-husband of Palin’s sister — and whether Palin fired Monegan when that didn’t happen. Trooper Michael Wooten and Palin’s sister, Molly McCann, are divorced but still battling in court over custody and visitation rights.

The McCain campaign says Palin “was never directly involved” and blamed the controversy on the campaign of the Democratic nominee, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.

“The Governor did nothing wrong and has nothing to hide. It’s outrageous that the Obama campaign is trying to attack her over a family issue. As a reformer and a leader on ethics reform, she has been happy to help out in the investigation of this matter, because she was never directly involved,” the campaign said in a statement. When the Obama people were contacted by the Journal we were told that the Obama campaign was not the source of the story.

 

Palin has repeatedly said she did not pressure Monegan and did not know until recently that anyone on her staff might have done so.

 

This trooper controversy is not new according to locals James Wright of Anchorage who said,” this family trooper thing has been talked about by Alaskans for weeks, long before Palin was picked for the Vice Presidency. It has been brought to light and being thrust into the bright lights of the national campaign because of her appointment to the national stage.”

Trooper Michael Wooten claims Gov Palin was directly involved and was attempting to help her sister by using her powerful office to intervene and tried to have me fired, Wooten said. The governor twice brought up Wooten to him — once on the phone soon after she took office, and once in person not long after that, Monegan said.

Plus, the governor’s husband, Todd, talked to him several times about Wooten, three top officials in her administration contacted him, and another Palin aide contacted a trooper lieutenant, Monegan said.

 

Palin recently acknowledged, based on an internal inquiry, that a half dozen people in her administration had initiated contacts with the Department of Public Safety about Wooten.

Monegan also disclosed for the first time Friday that Palin sent him two or three e-mails that referenced her ex-brother-in-law and his status with troopers but he wouldn’t provide them because of the ongoing investigation.

Monegan said he believes his firing was directly related to the fact Wooten stayed on the job.

“It was a significant factor if not the factor,” Monegan said.

No one from the McCain campaign ever contacted him to vet Palin as a candidate, Monegan said.

Who did they contact?

“We don’t talk about the vetting process,” said Maria Comella, Palin’s vice president campaign press secretary.

Demera went on to say the Legislature is spending up to $100,000 “to investigate the circumstances and events surrounding the termination of former Public Safety Commissioner Monegan, and potential abuses of power and/or improper actions by members of the executive branch.”

The investigation is supposed to wrap up by Oct. 31, just days before the general election.

Palin will be deposed along with others in the governor’s office and former administration officials, said state Sen. Hollis French, a Democrat and former state prosecutor from Anchorage who is serving as the project director for the investigation. The special counsel just this week was trying to arrange Palin’s deposition, French said.

 

The investigation will continue, French said.

“I think it raises the profile but it doesn’t really change the mission or the work,” the senator said.

Before she was governor, Palin pushed for a trooper investigation of Wooten over a number of matters, including using a Taser on his stepson, illegally shooting a moose, and accusations of driving drunk. At one point, Palin and her husband hired a private investigator.

Troopers did investigate, and Wooten was suspended for 10 days, later reduced to five. That took care of it, Monegan said. But the Palin administration and Todd Palin wouldn’t let go, he said.

Palin initially said that, after she took office in December 2006, she broached the subject of Wooten with Monegan just once, when they discussed her security detail. She said that she told Monegan that Wooten “had threatened to kill my dad and bring me down.” She said she thought that was the end of it.

Monegan said Palin called him on his cell phone one night in January 2007 about Wooten, but it wasn’t related to her security detail. He said he had already met with Todd Palin about Wooten, whom he hadn’t heard of before, and had looked into the family’s complaints only to learn they already had been investigated. Palin seemed frustrated that nothing more could be done, he said.

“For the record, no one ever said fire Wooten. Not the governor. Not Todd. Not any of the other staff,” Monegan said Friday from Portland. “What they said directly was more along the lines of ‘this isn’t a person that we would want to be representing our state troopers.’”

Palin again brought up Wooten in February 2007 as they were walking together to wish a state senator a happy birthday, Monegan said. He said he told Palin he had to keep her at arm’s distance on the matter and she agreed.

Andrew Halcro, was the first to publicly mention the Wooten matter in connection with Monegan. He titled his blog post: “Why Walt Monegan got fired: Palin’s abuse of power.”

“This is a governor who really built her name by stepping on the back of sinners — Randy Ruedrich, Greg Renkes, Frank Murkowski,” Halcro said in an interview Friday, referring to the Republican Party chairman, the former attorney general and the former governor. “And now her administration seems to be taking the same approach as the people that she criticized.”

More of the story came out on July 17, when the Public Safety Employees Association, with Wooten’s permission, released the investigative file concerning the complaints brought against the trooper by the Palin family and others.

The personnel investigation began in April 2005, long before Palin became governor and months before her October 2005 announcement that she was running. The investigation into Wooten wrapped up in March 2006, before she was elected.

Troopers found four instances in which Wooten violated policy, broke the law, or both:

- Wooten used a Taser on his stepson, to show him how it worked.

- He shot a moose without a permit. At the time he was married to McCann, who won a highly coveted permit in a drawing but never intended to use it herself.

- He drank beer in his patrol car on one occasion.

- He told others that his father-in-law — Palin’s father, Chuck Heath — would “eat an f’ing lead bullet” if he helped his daughter get an attorney for the divorce.

On July 28, the state Legislative Council, a bipartisan panel of senators and representatives, approved hiring an independent investigator to look into Monegan’s firing and any abuse of power. Retired prosecutor Steve Branchflower was named special counsel.

“I’ve said all along you could come up with dust, you come up with no evidence of wrongdoing, or you could come up with clear evidence of wrongdoing. And it might be by the governor, it might be somebody else,” French, the state senator, said Friday.

Meanwhile, Palin also faces an ethics complaint filed by Andree McLeod, a former state employee and political activist. McLeod has accused the governor’s office of using its influence to get a Palin supporter a job. Complaints against the governor go before a three-person state personnel board. McLeod based her complaint on e-mails between members of the governor’s staff that are among four boxes of papers she got through a recent public records request.

This month, as Palin’s administration gathered materials for the legislative investigation, the governor released a recording of a phone call in which one of her aides pressured a trooper lieutenant to fire Wooten.

That contradicted her earlier claims that there had been no pressure. She said she was unaware of the conversation until then.

In the Feb. 29 phone call, which was recorded by troopers as they do routinely, aide Frank Bailey told the trooper lieutenant that Palin and her husband wanted to know why Wooten still had a job.

“Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads, ‘Why on earth hasn’t this, why is this guy still representing the department?’ He’s a horrible recruiting tool, you know,” Bailey told Lt. Rodney Dial.

Palin has put Bailey on paid administrative leave during the investigation. She said she never asked Bailey to make that call.

After Monegan’s dismissal, Palin’s pick for his replacement backfired. Charles Kopp, who had been police chief in Kenai, lasted just two weeks in the job, stepping down as public safety commissioner in July over revelations of sexual harassment while police chief.

At a press conference to announce Kopp’s resignation, both Palin and Kopp read brief statements then, in an unusual move for Palin, dashed off without answering questions.

Regarding Monegan, Palin has maintained that her decision to fire him had nothing to do with his refusal to dump Wooten. She said she wanted a “new direction” for the department.

Palin has formed a committee to help her pick a new public safety commissioner.



FERN

alaskapodshow asked:

Welcome into the Alaska Podshow. Today’s VideoCast features Anchorage at Dawn, filmed at 7:30 AM to 9:45 AM around town and in the mountains.

KIMPEL

Dan H asked:


The Anchorage Daily News endorsed Obama, saying that putting Palin one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.

I thought Palin was popular in Alaska. Why would the main paper endorse Obama?

FRAGOSO

Be Here Now. asked:


Yeah, it’s Alaska, it’s cold. But what is it like in the summer?

SHIELDS

Looty asked:


Either as a waitress or bartender…

MARTES

Jeffery Anderson asked:


Perhaps some voyages begin smoothly. When Jason and the Argonauts boarded the Argos in the Volos harbor thousands of years ago and sailed off toward the Black Sea in search of the Golden Fleece, it’s likely their friends and families gathered on the shore and thought to themselves as they waved goodbye, “Those Argonauts sure know how to handle a boat.” Or perhaps the Christians from Antioch, waving to Paul from the wharf in Selucia as his ship headed off toward Cyprus in 47 A.D., noticed that the captain looked sure and steady.

That is not the way it was for Janet and me in SailingActs.

On the morning of June 18, we woke early. I noticed, checking the barometer, as usual, the first thing in the morning, that the hand had fallen considerably overnight and was still dropping. Locals had been commenting on how unsettled the weather had been that spring, so this didn’t surprise or discourage us from leaving that day as planned. Janet and I scurried around taking on fuel, checking our e-mail at the Internet café for the last time, buying last-minute supplies, and saying goodbye to our boating neighbors whom we had learned to know in the six weeks we were in Volos.

We had aimed for a noon departure, but at 1:00 the insurance agent still hadn’t brought the necessary documents to the boat as promised. And besides, we were still stowing things and chatting with friends. Janet was on the shore talking to Jenny, who came to see us off, when the agent arrived and handed me the insurance documents. Suddenly we were ready. It was exactly 1:35 in the afternoon.

With so many people watching our every move, I was a little nervous about pulling out, even though it seemed like such an easy task. We’d been living aboard the Aldebaran since May 7, during which time I had started her engine, hoisted the sails, spun the wheel, and changed her name. But she’d been tied firmly to the wharf the whole time. We had no idea of how she would handle.

We began to unfasten the mooring lines. Somehow, it seemed, a growing and bemused crowd began to gather out of nowhere, anticipating some sort of “inept American” spectacle. With Jenny looking on apprehensively from the wharf, the Austrian boat neighbor on one side shouting encouragement in German, and the Dutch couple on the other side defending their immaculate boat from an assault they seemed to anticipate, I threw SailingActs into gear and moved smoothly away.

For a few feet all was well. Then suddenly a mooring line caught and we were almost rubbing against the fine Dutch boat — a boat you do not want to scratch, especially when the alarmed Dutch owners are standing on deck. This was a situation in which the famous Dutch tolerance perhaps would not apply! To avoid disaster within the first 10 seconds of voyaging, I hurled myself to the rear rail to free the line, then heroically lunged face down across the hatch of the rear cabin and grabbed the wheel in order to get back on course. From this undignified position — flat on my stomach, legs sticking straight out over the stern rail like a human wind-vane — I steered SailingActs away from the wharf. For some reason the Dutch woman found this amusing. I could hear her thunderous laughter above the throb of the 42-horse-power, diesel engine from 100 yards off shore. But who needs dignity if you have adrenaline? We looked back and everyone was waving and smiling and so were we. We were off!

We watched the disappearing shoreline where we lived for six weeks. How small it seemed compared to the open sea in front of us! Farewell, Volos, the Internet café down the street, the helpful shopkeepers, the international boating neighbors, Captain Steve and Jenny.

We rounded the harbor entrance, the motor throbbing. Janet and I were still congratulating each other when we noticed dark clouds rolling in from the north. Thirty minutes later, the sky turned black. We stared uneasily, then with alarm, at the dense sheets of rain pouring in the north, then around us, and finally directly on us from above. We continued to motor as the wind increased, whipping the water into whitecaps. I shut down the motor and just ran with the wind, doing three knots with no sails. Janet steered SailingActs as she pitched and heaved in the squall, while I went below to check our bearing and position on the chart. I’d never been seasick in my life, but on this day of many firsts, I got seasick instantly. This was not good.

We needed to get some sail up to steady the boat. I managed, in 45 minutes of nauseous struggle with the wind and the waves battering the front deck, to raise the storm jib, then the mizzen, and SailingActs settled down as we picked up speed. I pulled on the foul-weather gear Janet gave me for Christmas the year before and ploughed through the torrents of rain and great gusts of wind, peals of thunder and bolts of lightning. I realized, with gratitude, that we had purchased an extremely seaworthy boat.

Then the squall passed, the sun came out, and for the final hour that day, we followed the course we had plotted over waters we had never before crossed, on a boat we had never before sailed. We were heading for the island of Palaio Trikeri, some 16 miles from Volos. The charts made sense, the descriptions were accurate, and we found the harbor — full of charter boats. As in Volos, when we had pulled away from the wharf, everyone in the harbor seemed to be watching us as we drew near. Not wanting to demonstrate to the spectators that we had never dropped SailingActs’ anchor before, we decided on a secluded anchorage just west of the harbor. Janet released the brake on the windlass, and the anchor dropped but did not seem to hold.

“Let’s try over there,” I suggested to Janet, pointing to a patch of sandy bottom we could see through the crystal-clear water. “I’ll push the button to run the windlass and raise the anchor. Then I’ll move the boat and you release it when we get directly above that spot.”

I went back to the cockpit and pushed the anchor-windlass button. Nothing happened. I tried again harder, jiggling then pounding the button. There was no movement or noise from the anchor windlass. Did Captain Steve forget to tell me something?

Although Palaio Trikeri is a very small and rather remote island, and even though the anchorage we chose was even more remote, there were a couple of houses on the cliffs overlooking the little bay in which we were struggling. One of the island’s few inhabitants watched the whole nautical circus with binoculars from the porch of his house above the little bay. Others joined him. I ended up cranking endless yards of chain up with my hands, which I thought were quite tough by this time, but I had blisters before I finished the job. We finally got the anchor up, found another anchorage on our chart, and headed toward it with the hope that in this one there would be no spectators. If it’s this difficult to anchor smoothly, I thought to myself, what will it be like trying to back into a crowded berth? Tomorrow we’re going to do some practice maneuvers, I vowed.

We tried again in the isolated anchorage we spotted. Watching the depth sounder carefully, we crept into 12 feet of water and dropped the anchor, which set firmly, then backed the boat toward the shore. As our cruising guide recommended and is often done in the Mediterranean for extra protection, I took a line to shore with the dinghy and fastened it to a tree on the water’s edge. Before boarding SailingActs, I checked the depth under her keel. There were only about six inches — too risky. Though very tired, we decided to reset the anchor a little farther out. I’m still not sure what happened next as Janet attempted to payout the line tied to shore while I winched up the anchor by hand, then motored forward in order to drop the anchor in deeper water. Somehow the line became tangled, and as we moved ahead, the rope suddenly whipped through Janet’s bare hands and she screamed with pain and fear. It was terrible. She sat in the cockpit sobbing with the pain and frustration.

We eventually got the anchor reset and the boat tied off properly, but Janet was still in shock and pain. That evening wasn’t quite as idyllic as we imagined it would be in our first anchorage. We had sailed only 16 miles that day but were physically and emotionally exhausted. And we still have several thousand miles and 14 months to go, I thought to myself.

Around 9:00 that evening we made something to eat, then climbed into our bunks. I lay awake, thinking and praying. Please, God, help me make wise and safe decisions on this journey. Help me to stay calm, to be helpful and encouraging. Bless Janet tonight especially, and help this voyage be enjoyable for her.

Sailing the Mediterranean hadn’t changed a lot in 2,000 years, I realized that first evening on the water. We had already experienced the reality of sea travel on the same sea as Paul sailed. We faced some of the same kinds of perils that Paul experienced and were no more in control than he was. I thought about how my resolve to continue on had wavered that evening as we were overwhelmed and confused. Did Paul ever waver during his “trials at sea” that he writes about? I wondered. Maybe, but he endured and triumphed. So will we, I thought as I drifted off to sleep.

Reprinted from SailingActs: Following an Ancient Voyage. (Published by Good Books; October 2006;$14.95US; 1-56148-546-2) Copyright by Good Books ( www.goodbks.com). Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Linford Stutzman was born in the logging community of Cascadia, Oregon. He learned many of his carpentry and mechanical skills by working alongside his father who was a farmer, logger, and pastor of the community church. Linford’s teenage years were spent in the remote interior of British Columbia, Canada. Linford and his wife, Janet, have served in various ministry roles over 20 years in Jerusalem, Israel; Munich, Germany; and in Perth, Australia.



GROSSNICKLE

Jimjamesak asked:

Final Score: UAA - 4, Minn - 2
Scoring Summmary
1st
Minn - Barriball (Hoeffel Fairchild) 10:58
UAA - LaFranchise (Cartwright Tassone) 15:56
2nd
Minn - Okposo (Fairchild Fischer) PPG 18:43
3rd
UAA - Cartwright (Tarkir Tassone) 6:04
UAA - Clark (Lunden) GWG 7:53
UAA - McCabe (LaFranchise DayChief) 10:02

MASSENBURG

Erika S asked:


sausage, bread, vegetable, cookies

MAUDLIN