Democracy, Hockey, and Cross-Country Skiing

Wow, I'm pretty bad at this "updating" of the blog. But, in all fairness, things have been rather quiet around here. Although it appears that there was some sort of election recently, and that Alaskans may have been involved in this? I don't know, but this is what I'm hearing.

But seriously, though, when I said that Alaskans would probably re-elect Ted Stevens despite his convictions, I was kidding. Apparently, I didn't have to kid about it, because they were totally going to anyway. And before you go and equate this with the stupidity of Alaskans, understand that the majority of people here could care less what the rest of the country thinks about them, and they like Ted Stevens. Thus, they re-elect him, because they like him and they don't care that everyone else sees him as a crook.

Anyway, I've been to all 4 of the CCHA games that Alaska has played so far this year, and they've been pretty fun contests. They're 2-2 in those games, but since they beat Michigan Friday night 4-1 and lost last night 3-2, they're not a bad hockey team. If only their students were more creative and organized in their cheering, it'd be better than watching Western play. But alas, the students are sadly lacking the same creative anger that is found at Lawson, and so the only real entertainment is to be found on the ice.

I am also now officially an Alaskan. Friday afternoon, I went to the DMV and got my new driver's license and registered to vote in Alaska. Obviously, I was waiting until after the election to do this, because there were important things to vote for in Michigan and I didn't really know anything about the elections in Alaska. One thing that strikes me is the speed with which the DMV runs here. I got to the DMV, saw the person at the counter, took my written test, filled out my form, paid, got my picture taken, filled out my voter registration, and got my license in the space of about 30 minutes. Amazing. Not only that, but I actually had the license - not a piece of paper, but the actual license. If Alaska can do this, why can't Michigan? I mean, it's not that hard to have a little printer there, right? I'm pretty sure the DMV here in Fairbanks is serving the same number of people as the SoS in Kalamazoo, since there's only 1 office for all of FNSB (the North Star Borough, our "county"), and there are many more than that in Kalamazoo. Ah well, I'm over it.

I went cross-country skiing today for the first time ever, and I enjoyed it a lot. I also fell down a lot, and my enjoyment may or may not have been proportional to the number of falls I took. I'm not really sure about this. Ronni and I did see a moose, which was cool, but mostly because he didn't see us. My favorite part of doing pretty much anything outdoors here in the winter time is the large frost beard that you acquire, as well as the frost on the eyelashes and any hair that isn't under your hat. It's awesome, and I'll try to get pictures next time. I hope all is well in your worlds, and I'll be back in Michigan almost literally on Christmas Eve, so I'll hopefully see some of you then.