http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsUS/Quakes/ak00050527.htm

The plot thickens. This is the second 3.0 or higher in the last 48 hours within 20 miles of Anchorage. i didn't feel this one though..

Kind of makes me sad i have to leave at the end of this week. It's kind of like the pretzel franchise episode ("My name's Agnes and you know it's Agnes; it means lamb, lamb of God") where the Yakuza shows up ("The Japanese mafia. The poison fist of the Pacific Rim") and Homer reluctantly goes inside just before something big happens outside and the tiny guy in the white suit gets thrown through the window ("Forgiveness, please")..

Oh well, i guess i'll just have to move back here as soon as i can so i can be here for the Big One. The beautiful irony is i'll be the only one at school this year for whom returning to Palo Alto constitutes a decreased earthquake risk..

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsUS/Maps/AK2/60.62.-152.-148_eqs.html

As a follow-up--

Apparently in the last two days there have been SIX earthquakes within 70 miles of Anchorage that were magnitude 2.0 or higher. i don't know how common that is, but i found it interesting..

So i lied. i figure this is worth posting:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsUS/Quakes/ak00050505.htm

It was awesome. i don't think i felt it as much as people on the ground would. mostly what i felt was the building swaying..

Well my time in Alaska is drawing to a close so this will be my last post. This evening i finally saw more than a handful of stars for the first time since i've been here. i'll post some pictures below from a cruise The Lindsay and i took earlier this summer. You can see some amazing glaciers fairly easily in this part of the world..

Here we have some pictures from the last weekend of our honeymoon; The Lindsay and i took a trip to Denali State Park just north of Talkeetna. It was an amusing trip and full of amazing incompetencies on the part of the Princess staff. i'll include a link to The Lindsay's writeup on OIO once she posts it..

This past weekend The Lindsay and i went to the Alaska Native Heritage Center and took some pictures:

Yes, we only got two pictures before the batteries went out on the camera. Oh, and i "ate" "mammals" for the first time in who knows how many years. They had some whale exhibit, and they offered samples of these toothpick-sized slivers of whale that included skin and blubber. It was very tough to chew, but an interesting experience nonetheless..

That evening we went to Seward for a dinner cruise. Wonderful AYCE salmon, corn, rice, and stuff. We got a room and came back to Anchorage Sunday afternoon. Yep, i totally failed to get any pictures at all on that trip. i guess i'm no good at this whole taking pictures thing.. :(

i'll try to get some pictures up at some point from our first month and a half here, but for now, here are some pics from our trip to the Alaska Zoo last Saturday. Check out their story; apparently the real life narrative about how the zoo started is very similar to the episode where Bart wins an elephant..

So there were bears..

And there were some other animals, but we didn't get any good pictures. Kind of a small zoo, actually. But The Lindsay and i have determined that the musk ox is Suhler-est animal ever. You can't really see it well on here, but we'll try to find the postcard that looked exactly like Suhler and post it..

We also had an amusing adventure last Friday night. Some dude at The Lindsay's office invited us to his place outside Wasilla to hang out at Nancy Lake. So we get off early on Friday, head north, and get there around 19:30. We get to the place, and D's son comes out to greet us. Turns out D left for the weekend to go fishing. Um, okay?! So D's son is like, yeah he said i should take you out on the lake. So D's wife and son drive us to the lake, take us out on their boat, and we spend a couple of hours cruising around the lake and doing this crazy riding an inflatable chariot being towed behind the boat at 40 mph thing with these two people we've never met. Highly amusing. Left around 22:30 with the sun still high in the sky. i love Alaska in the summer..

The other day on my lunch hour i encountered a Native dance performance. Apparently the Alaska Native Heritage Center holds daily demonstrations downtown in an attempt to drum up business for the Center. Here are some photos from the dance performance:

And here is a view from the office. Denali was visible one day this week from the window, but unfortunately you can't see it in the picture:

i saw the moon last week for the first time since we've been in Alaska. i think the whole perpetual daylight thing is finally starting to freak me out. Friday night i saw a few stars for the first time since we've been here..