And lo - yet again, no grue.

( No grizzly, neither. Poor beasts, i hope they've got *something* to eat. )

Oh yeah.

Something that made me blink, a lot.

Just for the hell of it I occasionally look for my family name in phone books when I am away from home. I don't often find it. Our spelling isn't very common. I think there's maybe ten or so entries in New Jersey for our last name that aren't genetically related to me. Last night I picked up the White Pages marked 'Anchorage' and looked. nothin'. No surprises there.

Bear in mind that the phone book marked 'Anchorage' is more accurately titled 'Anchorage and Everywhere Else With Any Kind of Significant Population Whatsoever In The Main Body of Alaska, Possibly But Not Necessarily Including the Panhandle'. That's somethin' on the order of 9/10 of the state's population.

Next to the Anchorage white pages there is a much, much smaller book, which says it is the directory for the Alaska bush communities and the Aleutian Island chain. I flip it open.

There is one person with my last name in this book. He lives in Bethel. That's literally Way The Hell Out West, Alaska, on the Yukon River delta.

If he ever, by some freak of chance, happens to read this...

Hi, Carl!

Eeeeeee, my thigh muscles.

( Despite the fervent wishes of grues, bears, and wild canids everywhere, I have not been eaten. Nyar. )