Summer solstice

What do you do in Juneau to celebrate the 18 hours and 18 minutes of sunlight at the Summer solstice? Jump into the Gastineau Channel! Or in my case, watch these five goons jump in the channel. It was 1030 at night, I'm down at Sandy Beach, and a car pulls up with these five all excited to freeze their bits off. I stayed in case they needed someone to drive them to the hospital to be treated for hypothermia. Don't they look excited?

There was a count down, a rush, and then some really funny conversations about needing to be fully submerged or not. The water was in the area of, oh, 45 degrees. I guess the deciding factor for the plunge was the purchase of some new floating devices that needed to be tried out. A bright pink inter tube and mattress looking thing were brought out, and were used for about 3 seconds.

It was a good time. And I'm happy to report that no one needed to be driven to the hospital.

Not much else has been going on. I'm in a pretty reliable routine with work. I'm reading another Dan-recommended book, Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. If you haven't read any of Stephenson's stuff, he has a wonderful way of creating settings and characters, and rolling out incredibly complex ideas with a nice blend of subtlty and bluntness.

Here is a view out of my life. At the docks, there are vendors that come each day and hang up all of their signage in hopes of enticing people who didn't purchase tours off of the cruise ships . I believe most of them are working for the same company, as they sell tickets, but the people end up getting on the same buses to go anywhere. When I see them like this, all propped up and waiting to shout out at passers by, it reminds me of puppets from Sesame Street - all of these vendors are stuck in their little windows.

At work, someone has pilfered my beloved coffee cup out of the drying wrack. I have now put up a note asking for it back, in hopes that someone just really needed a coffee cup and will return it when they know it is missed. It went missing the same day as Baxter. I don't want to diminish Baxter's disappearance with something like a coffee cup, but losing both - well, it just sucks.

But lets leave this on a positive note. Dan has regular Internet access now that he's in Dharamsala. I'm not sure of the nuts and bolts, but I'm happier getting to hear from him more often. Less coffee to-go, but more Dan. I'll take it.