This is the second time I've had the garage door folks out to look at my door. The issue is that, somewhat randomly, the door will get hung up at the top, and the operator's force sensor, in trying to get it around the curve of the tracks, binds a little and will make the operator think it's hitting something, and back the door into the open position. This is a frustrating thing to happen just as you're leaving for work
I had somebody out last week. Their solution was to turn down the force sensor. While maybe not the best solution, it appeared to have solved it for a few days.
This Tuesday, it happened again, forcing me to shove the garage door down its tracks.
Having the more senior guy out today, he adjusted the tracks slightly, giving the wheels a little more breathing room around the corner. The real problem, however, wasn't the rails.
As he was packing up, the guy apologetically said, "Who was it that did this original work? Tall, skinny guy? Yeah. I sorta mourn this guy's work... take a look at that wiring."
He showed me a series of wires that connected the operator to the laser sensor. "See those? I put on those wire caps. Previously, those were bare wire, and when the rail would vibrate slightly, it would sometimes make contact, making the operator think the laser sensor had been tripped."
I laughed, signed the paper he handed me, and wished him good day. Hope it's fixed.
Anchorage Bike trail report (east side): Thurs. April 21, 1500 hrs. Russian jack is a mess, avoid at almost all costs. Lots of snow, but very soft on the verge of slush, pretty much unbikeable in places. After walking my bike through most of russian jack, rode west on 20th street, through a couple neighborhoods and then picked up the Chester Creek trail just west of lake otis. Chester creek was clear and dry until just east of goose lake where you pick up small patches of snow and some puddles, but still very good conditions for April. Rode CC to university lake and back to Bonifice and 20th along the road. Lots of blowing grit once you get out of the protection of the trees, but nothing a pair of glasses can't handle. Nice first ride of the season - it would have been nice if the sun came out though...total ride time ~45 minutes, 6.5 miles.
There's now a "View Saved Drafts" feature, which lets you view which drafts you have saved to idkfa (and were not cleared upon posting). It's a good idea to check this on occasion, see if maybe you forgot to write something, or if my system carelessly saved something you didn't intend to have saved.
You can access it from the "my idkfa" drop down.
Learning a new skill/technique is fun right? This one is actually just gross, I kinda would rather not learn it this Friday.
http://www.iacuc.ucsf.edu/policies/awspretroorbitalinjection.http://www.iacuc.uc...bitalinjection.asp (www.iacuc.ucsf.edu))
Tying off is for increasing the pressure inside of the vein for better visualization and injection. Apparently it stings like a bitch if you miss the vein and inject directly into your arm or wherever. If you go intraorbital you don't need to tie off because the capillary sinuses located behind the eye are so large.
Randomly I found this (www.lectlaw.com) which is both weird and creepy.
so i could have a function that defines, sets, and calls out a local variable "so-and-so sucks balls", and then in a different function, have a completely different variable, measuring a completely different metric, and still call it "so-and-so sucks balls", and have that be computable code?
i can see how that'd fuck with you if you were debugging.
Indeed. It comes from programming languages not necessarily being machine code. Machines don't understand the names humans want to assign to data, they understand memory locations and operations on those locations. So programming languages effectively become symbol managers, having symbols pointing to different pieces of data and functions, and having those things strung together in the hopes of creating something useful, or at least deterministic. Scoping is a tool for these symbol managers, and can both help and hinder you depending on how you name/misname your variables.
As for Flash cookies, it's the Flash plugin's way of maintaining stateful information over an inherently stateless protocol.
Love the Noscript. But it's not for the faint of heart. In fact I think you need to be a little .. um.. anal.
Other good Firefox plugins:
BetterPrivacy (addons.mozilla.org)will delete the flash cookies on exit
Https-everywhere (www.eff.org) will auto-enable https on mainstream sites like Google and Youtube. Brought to you by EFF.
There's a slew of plugins really for Firefox and people have made collections on Firefox's plugin/extension site if you need more of them.
Closest call on my bike in several years happened last night. Guy makes a right turn without signaling pretty much as I'm riding just off his tail and on the right side. Even with hitting my brakes as hard as I can I crash into the car and the bottom of my drop bars get hooked in his right rear fender. I'm scared as shit as I get drug around a corner and into a parking lot.
Amazingly without falling or crashing I unhook. The guy had no idea what had just happened by the look on his face.
I was a little shaken and decided I didn't want to confront the guy so I left. It was awkward.
I'm entering the blogosphere (cue drop in bucket clip).
You can find my literary themed endeavors here:
EverCritic.tumblr.com (evercritic.tumblr.com)
EverCritic
Indeed, commenting is not yet functional (working on a custom html solution today). In the meantime, I think both you and our dear Scrotor should consider a book called Being (www.amazon.com) by Kevin Brooks. It is technically YA, though not overtly so, and considering both your comments, I think this might be a good fit :).
Gotcha.
Tumblr and Disqus are two pretty frequent pieces I see recently that are blocked from our proxy filter at work, under the suspicion that they are "Social Networking" sites. While they can be considered "social networking" to some degree, it makes it frustrating when technical articles (or other things I want to read) depend heavily on either Tumblr's or Disqus' servers, as their absence carves great big holes out of what I would normally consider reasonable content.
I can always check your updates when I'm home. Just be glad you don't have Erik complaining that your code doesn't work on IE7. Like nailing Jello to Jello.
The Glass Menagerie opens May 6th and runs through the 22nd. If you feel like making a road trip, we goes to Homer the next weekend. Get your tickets! I might be able to get you a two-for-one, even, if you ask! http://alaskapac.centertix.net/eventperformances.asp?evt=801 (alaskapac.centertix.net)
so.... I've started a blog and I'd really like feedback from people. I have no idea what I'm doing (of course, being almost completely computer illiterate). Unfortunately it's all about my profession, which isn't interesting to many people, but if you guys could give me any input on layout etc, I'd really appreciate it!
http://ossiferousarctic.wordpress.com/ (ossiferousarctic.wordpress.com)
A nice start. Very... bibliographical thus far.
I guess I don't know exactly what you intend to write about, but if indeed I'm coming to your blog for the articles, I might be less interested in your six pages full of archaeological references. These links probably less belong in your main navigation, and maybe somewhere else, maybe a "Resources" page that links to the rest, with only "Home" and "Me, Myself, and I" on the header.
That way, people are presented with fewer, better understood links and the content articles rather than being confused (like I was) on what I was supposed to be reading.
that's a good point.... I think I do want the bibs to be the main point, though. one thing I would like to do which I haven't been able to figure out is how to make it let me organize the page titles how I want to... it automatically puts it in alphabetical order, which is annoying and doesn't make sense categorically. any ideas on that? wordpress is confusing for someone of my lack of computer understanding...
Erm, I seem to recall there's some hierarchy when it comes to Wordpress articles. There's also some selection thing somewhere that says which pages appear on the navigation bar, and which don't. Maybe the categories portion of your Wordpress instance?
This is why I build things like idkfa. Everything else doesn't make much sense :)
April 23rd SCARED SCRIPTLESS SHOW!!!
Josh, feel free to take this down if you feel like I'm shaming your site with plugs for Scared Scriptless...
Have you felt a yearning for comedy lately? Need something to fill in the pain of not laughing at hilarious improv comedy? We got it! Come rock the house down with Scared Scriptless as they tackle an epic April 23rd!
Saturday April 23rd – 8:00pm
Snow Goose Theater
717 W 3rd Ave
Tickets are $9 at the door or online at
CenterTix.net , by calling 26-FARTS
Box Office at the door opens at 7:00 pm the night of the show.
For more information or groups of 10 or more call Scared Scriptless at 310-1973
Check out the event on facebook for the secret friend password and get $7.00 tickets. You can also use that groupon that’s burning a hole in your pocket.
We’re bringing our A-game, so we want you to as well. We’ll see you there!!!
I think last summer we saw frisbee run the last of its course, unfortunately. Honestly, I was thinking about sending out an email to that effect. But I just don't care to deal.
Summers during and shortly after high school, it was extremely disorganized, and we only played maybe once a week. Most players were of the same skill level, and very little attention was paid to strategy, or rules, or winning. I remember most of the games consisting of me throwing it as hard as I could, and regularly tackling people (not violently, but still). As people started playing during college, or in official leagues, greater enforcement of the rules set in, but we still played with a "for fun" mindset. Additionally, everybody was a student, with lots of time on their hands.
Now, two years into having an email and calendar organization system, we have a number of people (not myself) that could well compete in a league, combined with people who purposefully throw the frisbee in order to get it to roll unpredictably (and in turn, slowly ruining the frisbee, and pissing off the opposing team). That imbalance, and a frequent misunderstanding we're there to have fun, and not really to compete, has probably undermined our ability to attract new players.
It was also a pretty severe mistake to have frisbee twice a week last year. Our largest turnout for the entire summer was our very first game, likely due to frisbee's perceived scarcity after the winter months. After which, our turnout halved, and then dwindled as scheduling conflicts, injuries, and other obligations took regular players away. For those on the fence, having the choice of two nights in a week meant that people had the option to skip a day if they wanted to just play once a week, which meant that while we had the chance of playing two games, it meant that it decreased our chances of having enough players on both nights.
Also, I understand that people like the game well enough, but compared to other summer sports (soccer, volleyball, baseball, hiking, biking, rafting), it will always play second fiddle. Slightly more skilled as our games may have become, we're still not playing competitively, or as one would in an actual league. And for some, that makes the game extremely boring, and irritating. Without stakes, there isn't much of a reason to play, and without a reason, people tend to lose focus, and generally don't try to get better (see: taco-ing the frisbee guy).
Anyhow. I don't see the trend reversing. People have work, lives, families, hobbies, and things they'd rather be doing than show up for frisbee. As I've said, the email list (penultimate-frisbee@googlegroups.com) is still available, though I can't speak to the maintenance of the email accounts subscribed to it. If folks want to try for pickup games, feel free, I'd love to play, and usually I have all the time in the world. But I am not going to be doing the weekly invitations any more.
I appreciated your efforts sir! Maybe as Mike was saying, the problem is you aren't charging for your services. That'll get those pesky kids out of other commitments! And if no one shows up besides you and myself we could take those funds and go on a Subway shopping spree.
Something like this:
1) Frisbee
2) ?????
3) Profit.
Hmm. For this, I'll cite the classic film, Conan the Barbarian (1982):
Mongol General: Hao! Dai ye! We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?
Mongol: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Mongol General: That is good! That is good.
I prefer the Freaks 1940s movie to emphasize this point.
The setup is a "pretty lady" is marrying into the freak family, I think the gymnast of the group so he's basically just a normal guy. The rest of the freaks (pinheads, no armed/legged man, boy/girl person, typical circus freaks) all sitting around the dinner table chanting in the new lady into their fold:
Freaks: Gooble gobble one of us! One of us! Gooble gobble one of us!
Lady: *Screaming*
Freaks: *Laughing in a crazy manner*
I guess the moral of my story is that I'm still manically laughing while people are screaming. Instead they should be laughing with me. Not sure where I was going with this.
Well, I have a beef against soccer, since both my knees have been raped playing it. So I would much rather play frisbee, and would hope that we could generate enough interest to get a weekly game going.
That being said, I would like more structure and generally more skilled players. But worst case scenario, I have run for at least an hour, typically having fun. In which case, I couldn't complain too much.
Also, who's up for doing a tournament at some point during the summer? I know everyone seemed to be a bunch of pussies the last time I gauged interest, but maybe it'll be a little different this go around...
Have you guys ever considered forming a team for this (www.anchorageultimate.org)? I like pickup games but playing for teams down here is really what keeps me doing it. I' ve been captaining the corporate league team here for the last two years and will do so again this year.
Granted Anchorage is still kinda small so the teams that do play are probably ultra competitive, maybe also douschbags as I find are a lot of ulti players down here.
Thanks for the link. I might have to try out for that, although I myself am afraid of those people a little bit skillz wise. I think I'm at the point in the game where I enjoy it but am not good enough for the competitive edge that those people require thus why I like our general pickup games. I do try to take them seriously though and not be a jerk throwing them all crazy out of field at least on purpose.
Meant to comment on this awhile ago, but just now am getting around to it:
Do you read much on the topic? Not just weight management, but health and fitness in general. I'm kind of obsessed with it, although you would never guess from my habits. There's obviously lots of literature on the subject, much of it bunk, but some things that I've found to be generally agreed upon:
-Data is key. This is not something I have to tell you, the king of cataloguing. I would suggest that you take not only weight measurements, but body fat percentages and maybe measurements. It sounds ridiculous, but it is so much more helpful in determining what works and what doesn't.
-Calories in/calories out only goes so far. There is a lot to be said about how one's body utilizes nutrients based on insulin and food quality. For me, I've found that a low glycemic index does wonders not only in how I feel but in body composition.
-Several sources I've read recommend a cheat day or cheat meal. There is scientific backing for this having to do with metabolism, but for me it is mostly a psychological respite. It might not be a problem for you because you're not as food obsessed as I, but the idea that once a week I can just throw all my better judgement to hell and go hog wild, well, it makes all the rest of it not so bad.
-I'm fascinated that this is a topic of almost universal concern but that, outside of the "fitness/weightloss" section at the book store, we almost never talk about it as a society.
Oy. Portland was fun. But it set me back 4 weeks.
BMI is pretty straight forward: BMI=703*(weight/height^2) where weight is in lbs and height is in inches. Although they say it's to measure "body fat", it's no better measurement than weight, since it still doesn't differentiate between muscle and fat.
Probably the best indicator is body fat percentage, but the ones that measure electrical resistance (which you can do at home with a special scale) are pretty inaccurate and it's pretty big bucks for a submersion test.
Heather's right on BMI, but it is a useless stat. If you're measuring weight (and your height is staying constant) then you know your BMI by default.
You're thinking body fat percentage and um, hello! was I the only one who took caliper readings in 6th grade gym? I mean, I was at Polaris at the time so things were pretty weird, but I assumed that using calipers was like a standard class in grade school gym. You can get some cheap ones online or like at a sports store. It is literally a way to measure skin folds, which sounds gross, but it is the only cheap, easy, and reasonably accurate way to measure body fat, which seems almost a more important metric than total weight.
As for books, I've been kind of obsessed with a book called The 4-hour Body lately. There is lots of interesting info there, and it is all delivered in a kind of "hey, there is science to support this, I tried it, here are my results, you can try it too if you want, but if not, no big" way. Sugar Blues is an oldie but a goodie. Diet books (I don't subscribe to the diets wholesale, but they are each interesting to think about) I've read and recommend are Abs Diet, South Beach, The Paleo Diet, Primal Blueprint. Skip anything that has a celebrity on it. Workout books are all the same and rarely offer anything new.
I don't even think that reading on the topic changes my habits that much. It is fascinating to me, though, so read I must. Don't even bother buying books; I will go skim through if I've got an hour to kill near a Borders, and most books only have about an hours worth of actual meat to them. The rest is usually schedules or recipes or whatever.
I like a cheat day because it means I can have my cake and eat it too. Literally, but just on Saturday. And since I know on Sunday it is back to normal, it isn't like a relapse. Also, I don't think you can get too mad at yourself for binge weekends on occasion, or even when you're put in social situations from time to time that require you break your own rules. I avoid beer for health/calorie/glycemic reasons, but when someone buys you a drink, you can't just say no. It isn't small things like a donut or a weekend that will make or break you; it is the larger picture and your lifestyle choices as a whole.
I suppose. Also means I might have to buy new clothes. The last time I bought jeans, I bought them at Costco. Which is an experience. In anxiety. You've got the massive influx of people pouring in, glaring at you as they push their expectant carts towards their quarry. I panicked. I chose two pair of what I thought was my size and didn't look back. I lucked out that they fit well at the time, but it could have gone poorly.
Also, I should probably work on buying clothes more often than I ruin, wear through, or outgrow them.
Can we please have a shopping date? It'll be just like in a rom com montage where you skip out of a dressing room and I'm sitting there and I make either a face (indicating no) or a gay squeel (indicating OMG SOooooOOO CUTE!). And after you'll have a stack of boxes so high you can't see over it and you'll run into a mysterious stranger who you later see at a social event and then you date but almost break up but then get together in the end!
I firmly believe there is a small and private group of screenwriters/producers that have their refined formulas for rom-com's and demographic comedies (see: Tyler Perry, the Waynes Brothers). They sit in a dark basement with thumbnail headshots of actors and just pin names into mad-lib style scripts. This same room is probably where they store their bags of money.
Didn't we have a shopping date before? Under almost the exact same circumstances (where I'd worn through or ruined a pair of jeans and was down to my last one)? I remember you sighing a lot. Maybe that was just a dream.
On a related note: I've been playing a game on my Nintendo DS. It's a Japanese RPG, full of pop culture references I don't understand, bizarre emotional outbursts, and things that are weapons-grade "cute." Rather than things like armor and weapons, you have clothing and accessories, each which provide different character buffs depending on combinations of brands, matching, and popularity of different styles in the areas you're playing. Much as I dislike the system, it's probably the closest I'm ever going to understand fashion. If only they put things like "+4 Bravery" on labels... or if there was an icon in the top left of my vision which told me if I'm wearing a strong or weak brand.
I am in the same boat Josh. While I won't bore you with details, needless to say college added roughly 30 lbs which I haven't really been able to start loosing until recently. For me, I track nearly everything eat as well as my weight and body fat each day (save for this week of vacation: what's the point? I'm on vacation) and so far have lost 12 lbs over two months. Who knows where I will be after a week here in AK. I agree with Robbie, letting ones self go now and again is actually good from what I have read.
Great work so far. And I'm interested in the boring details: What made you start? What's been working best? Or not? Drastic/subtle change in diet? Or exercise?
I'm appreciating more the "free day" philosophy, given the extreme effects on my psyche when I don't take a free day, but I'm a little disappointed in how often I now abuse it. A free day turns into a free weekend, or a free long-weekend. The results of which are becoming harder to mitigate with increased exercise. Something I have to work on.
After reading Omnivore's Dilemma I had less of a reaction to start eating vegetables but more to start hunting down here for deer and such. Also we pretty much get all of our beef and pork from various local farms and 4H club kids. Not only is it a shit ton cheaper to get bulk meat that way but in general all of the stuff we've gotten has been pretty damn fantastically tasty. I also have no qualms against eating what was once basically someones pet.
I guess it helps that there's a lot of agricultural areas pretty close to Seattle. But I still want fresh game for this fall, its still so much better tasting than beef to me.
I've been told that in the summer there's a few farms in the valley that has grass fed cows that you can buy sides of. Literally you have to buy half of a cow. Supposedly they'll process all the meat for you so you get a bunch of hamburger and steaks and what not. I was going to look into it this summer as well, as it is suppose to be cheaper and way better for you.
Most of the time you do have to buy a half or at least a quarter beef for the best bulk pricing. Its usually like a base of 2 or 3 bucks a pound then a really basic cutting and wrapping fee. But a half a beef cut and wrapped is still over a 150lbs so its best to share with family or another beef loving couple like Katy and I did. You still need a big freezer but anyone who fishes in AK probably already does.
Another interesting thing to check. We found a butcher shop down here that'll do the same deals for buffalo. I have yet to find someone who will split that order.
you can buy buffalo from the farmers in Delta Junction, too. you just have to drive there and be able to transport 300-750+ pounds of meat (depends on the size of the animal) back with you. If several people teamed up to get one, I'm sure it'd be reasonable. he even gives you the option to shoot it yourself, then does all the work for you. you can then keep the hide and the skull if you want it.
Sounds good to me! Then we could split open with our lightsabers to stay warm! Seriously though, I'd be interested in splitting it with peoples.
Or we could do BEARSKIN (www.youtube.com)! (except with buffalo obviously.)
You could get yourself on the moose kill registry in Anchorage. Dan has a close friend who does that, and never has a shortage of fresh moose meat to last through the year. Basically when people hit a moose on the road, it is illegal for them to take the meat because it could encourage illegal hunting if someone - for some dumbass reason - decides to use their car as a hunting weapon on a regular basis. So they go down the list and if you're next in line they bring the moose to your house, then you are responsible for butchering and packaging it. You get to keep half of it, and the other half goes to the shelters in Anchorage. The only catch is that you obviously have to have somewhere to do the butchering and packaging...
I blew my clutch and flywheel on my truck in January after 31,000 miles. (When I drive alone or without something in the load bed, I drive like I stole it.) That necessitated replacing both of those.
Last month, March, my truck had some problems related to firing the spark plugs. The engine would go haywire and the RPMs would spike all over the place. The shop said that the crank arm position sensor faulted, which meant the computer didn't know when to fire the cylinders. Quick electronics fix.
Last week, the exact same combustion problem surfaced. I took it back to the shop, and the same technician who fixed my truck in January and March spent all day Friday with it just diagnosing problems. Turns out he improperly installed the flywheel. Apparently it has a several magnets in it that need to be properly lined up when installed, and he didn't do that when he fixed it in January.
So, I don't have to pay for it. This all just goes to show that once you take something apart and start fiddling with the bits, it never gets put together back in the same way.
Their server has a form of hot-link protection. When accessing the image, unless it came from them, it redirects you to their main page (so that you're forced to see all of their advertisements, content, whatever).
I do the same thing on idkfa so people don't try to steal bandwidth by pointing to idkfa for user icons. I at least have the decency to drop their requests outright.
am I missing the power on the following page? Or how do I calculate this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121415 (www.newegg.com)
thanks Josh! we may or may not need to move now... I just talked to my landlord the other day, and she's moving her husband to a home sometime in the next few weeks, but she doesn't know if she wants to stay in the house by herself, or sell, or rent, or what. Soooo we may not be moving? I have no idea.
Monty Dickson's body has been recovered in Japan according to the Anchorage Daily News. It's better to know for sure, right?
http://www.adn.com/2011/04/05/1794259/body-of-alaska-teacher-found-in.html (www.adn.com)
Why have so many huge hotels inexplicably popped up around Anchorage in recent years?
Perhaps it hasn't been quite so sudden, or I'm just super unobservant, or I only notice now that I drive C Street every day. But from what I understand, tourism in Alaska has been in decline the last few years, and I've yet to identify another industry that requires huge amounts of temporary lodgings.
Here's what I mean:
Proximity to things. Those mid-town hotels are next to International, which swiftly connects to the airport. Sometimes that is more convenient than staying downtown, especially if the offices you are visiting are peppered throughout midtown. Those restaurants are usually the egg that follows the chicken...adjacent to those hotels for walkable meals. The hotels on C-Street can offer cheaper rates than downtown as well, and don't have to run at capacity to make consistent profit (I theorize, anyway). I also know my friend who works in Seattle for Alaska Structures (based up here), stayed at the Diamond hotel - along with a dozen of his coworkers. That leads me to believe there is other year round demand from industry with offices in South Anchorage.
Also, get ready for more hotels in midtown. That giant cleared area west of the existing slew of hotels is for another group of hotels and some restaurants. I did the landscape plans for two hotels and wetlands mitigation plan for the entire development.
> More seriously, I guess the hotels' presence makes me feel like I'm back in Arizona, with pattern-stamped community planning fraught with unoriginality.
The majority of neighborhoods, districts and office complexes of Anchorage can easily be described the same. There is little that gives this city genius loci - a sense of place. Prefabricated, contractor designed (lack of design) homes, windowless strip malls, big box stores - it is all a direct, homogeneous result of a society completely dependent on the automobile and cheap energy. Architectural vernacular is no longer dependent on form that was derived from the functionality of passively heating and cooling a space - high ceilings that direct humid air out of clerestory windows in the southeast are no longer necessary. Pump up the A/C, maw! My point is that nowdays it is easy to construction cheap, shitty buildings that do not reflect the climate and geography of the local region...giving the build environment a distinct identity. Our homes and offices are not crafted from local supplies responding to local conditions.
It's a much larger discussion on the build environment, and thankfully an awareness of the costs, uses and depletion of energy sources has a direct influence on what and how we build. Designers are understanding that people want to live in these spaces, not just exist. And that means create identity, often born straight out of regional geography and historical context. Santa Fe crafted extremely strict building codes - way back in 1912 - to regulate the look and feel of their city. As a result the town attracts tourism purely for it's colonial pueblo style.
I imagine if someone was placed in midtown Anchorage in the middle of a hot summer day, with no context and identifiers (licence plates, signs, etc), they would not be able to determine where the hell they were. Just as someone would at a strip mall in Texas.
tl;dr: this isn't a problem unique to Anchorage
(nods) I see what you mean. Anchorage is only a step above Wasilla in that regard. Which is saying that Anchorage is still for-shit when it comes to building community design. We're just a Walmart town on a bigger scale.
There's also that these hotels, while perhaps serving a function for tourists and/or business travelers, are places that a) I will never use, b) never go into, and c) likely never be able to identify a community benefit.
I actually kinda feel the opposite... Anchorage is starting to slowly run out of wide open spaces. And unless some strict urban planning is initiated, there won't be anywhere for the city to expand, considering it is cornered by bases, mountains, and water. As far as I understand, this is the precise reason for the rapid and steady increase in property prices in Eagle River and other communities in that general direction.
You're also trying to compare Portland to a city that is largely not much older than the state oil boom. For a city built and planned around the automobile, we have surprising connectivity. You'd be surprised at how many cities give you few options for traveling along their axis - in Anchorage you are not constricted to just the New Seward in order to get from South Anchorage to Downtown or on the Glenn. C Street, Minnesota, Elmore help spread the flow of traffic through the North-South corridor. The same applies for East-West. Traffic congestion is almost limited to accidents rather than the regular 5:00 rush that other cities of comparable size experience.
I imagine the city could and should ramp up alternative transportation methods; including bike trails, bus routes, and even light rail. But you can't simply look at one facet of urban planning to solve all the problems - everything is interrelated. Zoning laws restricted development and discourage walkability. Shitty low density housing development and maximum sized parking lots encourage sprawl. Building on wetlands is an earthquake and water hazard. Expanding the ETJ towards Eagle River means extending services that tax payers fund (roads, sewer, electricity, fire, police, schools) - further encouraging traffic congestion.
Mixed use and building density are some of the first steps to address in order to create better urban planning as you call it. The issues that arises is our individualistic society puts little value on living close to retail or employment, and more on private space (houses, cars).
Anchorage isn't a master planned city born of designed foresight. It's a product of cheap energy, rapid growth and individual freedoms. Alaskans will never fully embrace the shared space public transit truly demands until it is just too expensive to fuel our personal vehicles. By that time I imagine the city itself wont need to exist to support the kind of population an oil state demands.
Even public transportation systems have their issues, though. Here in DC the metro system was initially developed only to get people in and out of the city center. It is beyond frustrating if you've just trying to get from one end of the city to another. And if you want to get from the outer parts of one line to the outer parts of another. And now one of the most rapidly growing areas right outside of DC is having to be completely ripped apart and re-done because it grew so fast without even an ounce of city planning that it was almost unsafe. And applying urban planning to such an old area is pretty difficult. So, I don't think Anchorage is alone in the problem. I think the problem is that it's hard to get people in Anchorage to commit to fund anything that would change the problem. As much as I love Alaska, we Alaskans do not like to part with our money even if it means to pay taxes that would fund improvements to the city.
My aunt (in law?) stayed at the Dimond Center Hotel when she came up to Anchorage for my aunt's wedding a few years ago. I was really weirded out by it because I too agree that it is just strange to have it there, but she said it was really nice. And she is so OCD and anal retentive that she makes me look like I'm on xanax 24 hours a day.
Though, I do understand that one in the context of when people come in to Anchorage from the villages to do their shopping. It's conveniently located for that. I just wish there were more hotels in south Anchorage in less awkward locations.
See the Language; Literature; Writing section for all of your literary needs.
Also, the section isn't disabled, just hidden. You can still talk about books and/or book club in here if you want. Just that it won't appear in the Discussion Items box.
