We're still here

It was wild week in Anchorage, and Lindsay left Molly and me alone for a few days, so I figured this would be a good time to get the blog back up and running. Sorry for the 8-month hiatus.

First, a few updates on what's been going on with us since our last post on January 31:

• I had my first jury trial in February. The jury found my client guilty, but I didn't throw up or pee my pants during my closing argument. Small victories, folks.


• Later in February, Lindsay and I went back to Hawaii for a few days, this time to Oahu (we went to Maui for our honeymoon). We saw Chris Brown, the singer who got in trouble last year for beating up his girlfriend. What a nice surprise.


• In March, Lindsay flew back to Indianapolis to be named the Indianapolis Bar Association Young Lawyer of the Year for 2009. Still don't know how I tricked her into marrying me (maybe she had to settle for me because of her cat - Molly pooped on our floor four times while Lindsay was in Indianapolis . . . the bad kind of poop).


• In April, Lindsay turned 30. Now she's too old to marry anyone else. Small victories, folks.


• In May, Lindsay and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary with a night at the ski resort outside of Anchorage. The hot tub was broken, but we had a good massage. It was my first massage. So many candles and exotic oils. So much soothing music. They gave us flavoured water (notice the "u" in "flavoured" - the fancy hotel massage made me fancy).


• The day after we got back from our anniversary trip, I started my first felony trial. The jury found my client not guilty of vehicle theft after I got the alleged victim to say that warm is the same as cold and that morning is the same as night. I'm a regular Ben Matlock.


• It was light out until midnight for most of June . . . Molly was all discombobulated. She always thought it was time to eat (of course, that wasn't new - that has more to do with her mental illness than the 20 hours of light per day).


• August was a big month. I accepted a job offer from a law firm in town and left my job with the state, Lindsay took me kayaking for the first time, and we had four visitors: Lindsay's friends Megan and Erica came up from Indiana for a week, and the day they left, my friend Matt and his dad arrived from Iowa.


• This month, I started my new job, and Lindsay's brother Drew visited from Rhode Island. He might be the one person who talks to Molly more than Lindsay and me.

It's been a busy year, but a pretty good one. I got a lot of experience during my year as a public defender, but my caseload eventually got out of hand. Lindsay and I are hoping that my new job will bring a more manageable schedule and more time to enjoy Alaska.

So, what was so wild about the past week in Anchorage? Mother Nature was a real diva. Last Monday, there was a 4.9 earthquake about 15 miles outside of Anchorage. In my office, on the seventh floor of a building, the leaves on my plant started shaking and my door started swinging. The other people in my office, most of whom have worked there for more than 25 years, told me not to worry about it. "It's not the big one" (the 9.2 "Good Friday Earthquake" hit Anchorage and other parts of the state in 1964 - the biggest earthquake in U.S. history). Well, for a guy who has spent the majority of his life in Iowa and South Dakota, they're all "the big one". When I called Lindsay, whose office is on the sixth floor of the courthouse just down the street, she had to crawl out from underneath her desk to answer the phone. I should clarify: she wasn't under there because of the earthquake - that's just where she likes to work.

On Thursday morning, we had to scrape our car windows for the first time this year. Friday brought 60 mph winds, which knocked out power for thousands of people around Anchorage. Then, early Saturday morning, I woke up to a loud thud. I figured Molly had fallen onto the floor in a valiant effort to find some food, but it was just another earthquake - this one was 5.4, though it was centered farther from Anchorage. Finally, I woke up to snow flakes on Sunday morning - "termination dust", as they call it in Anchorage (the end of summer/beginning of winter - fall lasted for about 3 hours on Sunday afternoon).

It's not all so terrible around here, though. Here are some pictures I took at sunset last night at the lagoon by our apartment:

The termination dust on the mountains outside of town:

How's this? Lovely?


That's all for now. Check back soon. You might get to see a picture of Molly wearing a bolo tie.