Fairbanks, Alaska, Diary for November

Where's the Snow?

Today it rained. A couple of weeks ago, the Fairbanks Daily News Miner said, "Fairbanks Playing Hide and Seek with Winter". We have a little snowfall. We have warm weather and it melts. Some remnants of snow remain on the ground, but not much. We've had a couple of nights that the low temperature dipped below zero. Overall, though, the temperature has remained in the twenties and thirties above.

I remember one winter my sister came to visit in November. The temperature was thirty below the whole month. She liked it so much that she came to visit me the next time in January.

Daylight

Sunrise was at 10:00 a.m. and sunset was at 3:16 p.m. giving us 5 hours and 16 minutes of possible daylight.

November Photo Album

See photos of Fairbanks weather

Of Mice and Men

Setting up this project is a bit more involved than a regular blog. However, I'm doing the page in such a way that it will be easy to update. That makes the coding a bit more intricate than I'm used to.

This wouldn't be a problem except that I've been suffering from an abscessed tooth for the past three weeks. I can barely think straight. The dentist drilled a hole in the two teeth to let them drain. One was so badly infected that he has left it open to keep draining. That means that any time I eat, I aggravate the pain again. I got a sesame seed stuck in it yesterday. Wowwee, it hurt. I go to the dentist next Monday to get the crown.

This photo was taken the day of the smaller earthquake on October 23.

I suppose I shouldn't make such a big production about this blog, but I want each month's blog page to match the diary page. To do that I have to change the background and graphics each month. I have to do it in such a way that I don't mess up the previous month's blog when I update for the current month.

I was just working on the page for December. I know that I haven't done much with November. I'm having a problem getting the blog to post more than one day's posts. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, and it's hard to figure out glitches when I'm feeling so crummy.

About the time I got all revved up with the Fairbanks 99701 blog, I went over my 50MB limit for my site. That means I couldn't add *anything* until I deleted something. I've got it down to about 37MB now, but the whole situation really knocked the steam out of my sails. (LOL mixed metaphor, I know!)

Rocking and Rolling

Another Earthquake! 7.9

I just came back in the house! I didn't time it, but the duration felt like 5 minutes to me.

When the earthquake didn't subside quickly, I grabbed the baby and an afghan and went downstairs. As I rounded the second set of stairs past the split entry, the five glass globes hanging from the ceiling were banging together.

Then I heard something glass falling upstairs (not the globes). I grabbed up my tennis shoes (I was barefoot), and we went outside.

The house didn't even creak or snap. The sensation was similar to when a piece of heavy equipment is going up the hill. The concrete sidewalk felt like someone was using a jackhammer on it.

I sat down in a lawn chair to wait for the shaking to stop. I slipped my feet into my shoes and snuggled the baby up in the blanket. The hanging baskets were swaying over my head, so I moved away from the house a little more.

Then it dawned on me that the electricity might go off so I opened the garage door so I could get the car out if needed. I sat back down in the plastic chair, and then I decided, "I needed it now."

I backed the car out of the garage. Everything was still quivering and rumbling. I could hear another wave coming that would sound like a jet taking off. I can see the airport from my house. No planes were in the air.

I stopped the car equidistant from trees and power lines. So if anything started falling over, I was as far as I could get from it. The blue pickup was rocking up and down. Tops of trees were moving laterally. The air was still.

I turned on the radio and music was playing on every station. I turned on the heater to warm up the car. Outside temperature here is about 30 degrees. I looked at the fuel gauge and wished that I'd filled the tank with gas.

The bottom of the well house door was vibrating. The flower baskets were still swinging side to side. I kept looking at the door for a clue when the shaking had stopped.

Now I wished I had brought the car seat with me in case I had to drive somewhere with the baby. I also didn't bring a diaper or a bottle one. Brendon didn't care. He stretched and seemed to be enjoying the adventure. Just when it felt safe to get out of the car, there was an after shock.

Eventually I went back in the house. Two aftershocks were strong enough for me to go stand over Brendon in case I had to dash out again. While I waited for the "big one", I put on some heavy socks and laced up my shoes. I gathered everything I needed next to the diaper bag. I'm putting a car seat in the car, just in case.

I got on the computer and tried to get an earthquake site, any earthquake site, and none of them would come up. I downloaded my e-mail for the first time today. I've tried sending one e-mail, and our ISP cannot be found. LOL

The dishes that fell landed on the carpet and didn't break. A few items fell off shelves, a doll fell off a bookcase, and something toppled in the garage. The empty baby swing was still rocking.

Keith came home and said he had been driving down the road. The truck had felt "like there was a water tank in the back." Then HE looked up and saw the stop light jumping up and down.

Keith went to the utility where he works, and there were alarms going off, ding ding ding. He said 6 of 17 substations had been knocked offline. He couldn't call with his cell phone because all the circuits were busy. He couldn't have called me anyway because I was in the car, and my cell phone was on the piano.

Next Keith dashed over to the cabin to see if it was still standing. Then he came home. I guess he figured the cabin would collapse before our house. LOL It took it better than I did. My nerves are still fluttering.

I'm much more affected by this earthquake than the last one. This was too much like 1964 for my comfort. Even as I type this, two more after shocks have kept my vigilance up on step.