Lovely Day!

I finished with my lab early today, and not I m happily perched in a third story lounge over looking campus.
And I feel a little bit omniscient. If I look down I can watch the dramas of life unfold. One girl chatting on her phone, and a guy running after he bus. And he misses it. He does that little woe-is-me shrug, and walks back to where ever he once was. One guy struts by all macho. That girl is still chatting on he phone. A couple cars drive by. One going the wrong way down a one way street.
The black of the roads is starting to show through the snow. Its been great weather this week. Clear. About 10 to 20 degrees (perfect for no ice, but I can go check he mail without a coat), The sun is rising earlier and earlier. And setting later and later. Currently it is 5:30 and the sun is still half an hour away before it dips behind the mountains.
Oh the mountains can be seen today! Standing in a solid ridge against the horizon. They are father away here than they were where I was living in Utah. Fairbanks in surrounded by foothills mostly, but the mountains, on a clear day, can be seen to the south standing like the Iron Mountings from Lord Of the Rings. The south has less hills than the north. After Fairbanks the terrain looks flat with only a couple  bumps before the mountings jut out like teeth.
I have such  lovely view right here. I have towering Blue Spruce trees standing like Giants on their march to war, Standing in heir almost untouched field of white, Behind them, down the hill there is forest, most still green but with some brown and reds from the non-ever green. I can see the break in the forest (which is also Fairbanks) where the river runs through it. After the river the forest starts up again, and I lose it to just a mass of brown before I can see the mountains. The sun is setting beautiful oranges and golds, and father to the south I see some pinks which look magnificent against the blue gray of mountains.
I wish I had a camera to share all of this with you. I tried to take a picture with my el cheapo phone, but it cannot show the beauty.

Currently it is 25 F, with a low of -8 tonight. The sun rises around 8 in the morning and sets around 6 in the evening.

HE SHAVED!

I must announce to the world that my husband is a changed man. He is now shaven. I look before and after pics. He looks so handsome! Of course it will not be long until the bristling beard is back, not that I mind it much, but he does look much more dashing without it. He says he was having issues with beard getting too long and getting into his mouth. In truth it could have been solved by a beard trimmer, but we haven't bought a new one yet.

And After

So Hot It's Burning! (before the fire)

I wrote out some things I wanted to have written for my next blog post. Oh how quickly life changes course! This was what I wrote quickly - brainstorming - the day before the fire.

"I have bread rising, hubby is doing laundry.

I made some pizza crusts - in the freezer - for a quick meal, some cinnamon rolls, some muffins. I really wanna try some sourdough popovers, I'll try those this next weekend.

We ate reindeer sausage pizza yesterday and last week we we’re invited over to a friend’s home where we ate moose meatloaf. I am sure expanding my palette up here with local game. Both meats were very delicious.

We are mostly settled into our apartment now, we have the kitchen functional all the cloths put away, we only have a few nick-knacks that need a place. Like where to put the sewing kit. Does it go in the bathroom or in the closet with the clothes? Or with the office supplies?

Pictures!"

I had been meaning to take pictures of our apartment with being all settled in. We had found some white Christmas lights and strung them up. It wasn't much but it was home. I had been meaning to take pictures of our place when the sun was up - hard to do on weekdays where it was only up for the hours I was in school.

Strange huh? The moment I was getting comfortable the world turns upside down. Luckily in the world of biology that simply means when my environment changes, I must change as well. That's called adaptation. (Although it's defined for a population not for an individual.)

I also must admit the recent titles of my blog have been foreshadowing this, with too warm and freaky warm. Now its so hot its burning!

"Fairbanks couple loses apartment to fire 1 week after move-in"

"FAIRBANKS — Two weeks ago, Gordon Spencer and his wife moved to Fairbanks. One week ago, they moved into a new apartment on Geraghty Street. Two days ago, their apartment burned to the ground.

Spencer awoke abruptly Wednesday morning to the sound of a loud bang.

“We were asleep, and then it was just like a big bang, is really the best way I can put it,” Spencer said. “It didn’t sound too much like an explosion, but we got up and what was weird was the building was moving, and there was like this subliminal white noise you could hear in your ears.

Spencer said at first he thought the noise had been a storage container they had been keeping on a shelf that had fallen before, but after a moment, they began to develop a clearer picture of the situation.

“As the noise kept going, I was like, ‘No, something is wrong.’ Then I heard people screaming ‘Fire’ and running,” he said.

Spencer opened the door to a thick black column of smoke.

“That’s what really got me going. ‘Yeah, this place isn’t going to last,’” he said. “When we got outside, the center portion of the building was just lit up.”

After calling the fire department on his wife’s cellphone, Spencer called their church leader and moved to sit in a neighbor’s car to keep his bare feet off the snow while they waited for crews to arrive. He said he was amazed they picked up, considering the time of day.

Spencer and his wife attend the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — which he said has been amazingly supportive in the aftermath of the fire.

“I think the most important thing during this is to remember that even though you lose everything physical, the fact that you’re alive, you can rebuild what you once had,” he said. “You can continue to move forward.”

Spencer is studying para-medicine at University of Alaska Fairbanks, and his wife is studying [wildlife] biology and conservation."

This was published in the local paper (newsminer) on January 31st. Here is the link to it: http://www.newsminer.com/news/local_news/fairbanks-couple-loses-apartment-to-fire-week-after-move-in/article_8873bfae-8a4e-11e3-8342-001a4bcf6878.html

For those who have been following the story on Facebook, this is old news. I hadn't gotten around to posting anything about it yet mainly because my laptop was turned to a crisp and everything else I owned, which made posting, taking pictures, and overall spare time hard to get. 

I did take some pictures of the adventure.

The first picture shows how at first the fire was mainly in the middle of the building, on our side facing the road, it came out the windows licking the roof. The snow on the roof was melting extremely fast, great chunks were falling down off the sides. The fire continued to spread from the middle window to the left and right windows. (We were trying to stay peppy by joking with others in our building who's rooms were going to go first, theirs was to the left, ours was to the right. Ours lasted longer ) For the most part it spread left and collapsed that side of the building first, which is the second picture. You can see part of the buildings facade on the unfortunate truck parked in front of the building.

The smoke was really dark and smelled awful. We all smelled like it for days afterwards.

This first video shows where the building stood, and how it stood even with the far right of the biulding having collaped already (you can see the fire at ground level). The second video was taken from the same location. You can see how much of the building is left at that point, which wasn't even the end of it all yet.

By the time the fire had stopped, the entire building was rubble with the exception of the stairs on either side of the building, that were knocked down once the firemen went through all the rubble and found two dead bodies and as much evidence as possible as how the fire started. The cause is still under investigation. I've heard everything from arson, to meth lab, to electrical fire, to someone shooting their water heater. I don't know what it was. I do know how grateful we were able to get out so quickly. 

We were sleeping, like normal people do at 3:45 in the morning when we hear and explosion and a ton of white noise and the building is trembling. My first thoughts are: earthquake, it should be over soon, roll over and it will go away. Only I rolled over and they didn't go away. My smarter husband got up and grabbed a pair of gym shorts and a pull-over sweater that were laying on the back of a chair and urged me awake. By this time I could hear the sirens, and realized I heard more than a bookshelf falling over. I could also hear people yelling, "FIRE!" I was scrambling to find my glasses. By the time I found them Gordon had opened the door to the hall. Black smoke immediately started billowing in a foot thick from the top of the door. I am so grateful I was sleeping in Yoga Pants, I through on my boots (I knew we were going outside, and that I needed to call 911) So as I balanced myself against the table in my rush to slip on my boots I grabbed my phone. At the last moment I realized I needed a top of some sort for modesty, I grabbed the sweat shirt I had worn the day before and had draped in over the back of a chair. I quickly followed Gordon out the door. We lived only two doors from the stairs, which was advantageous. We could hold our breath the entire time as we ran out. We never had to inhale that smoke. Gordon was ahead, the moment he hit the ground he took my phone and called 911. Where he reported the fire and location, name, and whatnot. I was busy making sure the people who were out looked alright. After the phone call Gordon realized his bare feet were sticking uncomfortably to the icy ground. He quickly made a friend with a floor mate (the ones we were bantering with later about who's apartment would last longer) who also had a car and let Gordon sit in it. I wandered about a bit, looking at the fire from the many angles. I wandered around to the back of the building and heard some people yelling for help. I quickly got to them. They were on a shed that connected to our building. The fire had started directly across the hall from them, they were unable to get to the stairs. They were safe enough until the firemen arrived. As soon as the firemen arrived I told them about the people trapped on the shed, they pulled out one of their ladders and helped them down. I helped them around the front and put them in the fireman's cars so they could get some oxygen and warmth. After that there wasn't much to do but miss my cookie dough left behind and banter sitting in a car with my new friends. While I was doing this, Gordon was talking to his father and got the number of our bishop. We called him and picked us up around 6:30 am. We got some coats, and socks, and Gordon a pair of shoes, and I got a notebook and some pencils and after they generously feed us breakfast, we went to school. We continued on with our day. I found once word got out in my classes that I was in the fire, I became rather popular. Everyone wanted to know how it happened, how it started, and everyone had been told by reliable persons a different story of events. 

The most recent news report that has come out has been this: http://www.newsminer.com/news/local_news/woman-who-died-in-geraghty-street-fire-identified-investigation-continues/article_2ad25fc2-8d0a-11e3-8a0c-0017a43b2370.html

That's our exciting Alaska Adventure so far.