One more margarita? Maybe a mojito?

Chillin' at the Columbia, a restaurant specializing in its namesake, after a full day of classes, discussion and all-too-honest self-examination (See more photos from Poynter and Florida below). Nothing like a bunch of journalism nuts and a few extra drinks for a fun night out ...

Slippery Salmon Olympics

A couple of weeks ago Eagle River -- the town where I'm editor of the community newspaper -- had its big summer festival, called Bear Paw. Everything about the festival is a little bit tongue and cheek, including a Running with the Bears event (instead of the running with the bulls in Spain) and the Slippery Salmon Olympics. I decided to inaugurate my first year at the event by participating in the Slippery Salmon Olympics, which requires contestants to run through an obstacle course while clutching a partially frozen salmon while balancing a tray and a cup filled with Coke. I competed with a co-worker at the Alaska Star, and as representatives of the paper, we were team Alaska Starfish. From that came the inspiration for hairdos. Good times!






Photos courtesy of Dan Shepard

Summer grilling

Chet was in charge of the brats and turkey burgers
Megan and Joshua
Megan and Arbor
The delicious strawberry-rhubarb pie Megan made. The rhubarb came from the front yard.
Arbor... a dog with quite a (great) character!

Hills to keep you huffing

Yesterday I ran the 10K race at the Eagle River Nature Center...

The trail had plenty of hills to keep you huffing... and plenty of roots and rocks to trip you up...

But it was a perfectly blue sky... in a perfect mountain setting... making it a basically perfect morning.

About half-way through the course another girl and I started pacing off each other... I would pass her... she would pass me... I would pass her... she would pass me...

We continued this way... until it turned into a sort-of team effort...

As we sped toward the finish line... we encouraged each other... yelling "Come on" and "you got it" while gasping for air and sloshing through mud.

The race ended on a steep hill... I charged up and sprinted toward to the finish line... to a round of applause... Lynn followed right on my heels.

My final time was 1:01:26 and Lynn clocked in at 1:01:44.

It was the first running race I've entered since fifth grade... when I placed second in Evergreen's Freedom Run for the under 12 division... and it exceeded expectations.

Not only did I place third in the women's division... 12th overall... I had a hell of a lot of fun!

Now I'm looking at other races around the state and starting to mark my calendar.