Sweet Home Alaska

As soon as I stepped onto the jetway from the airplane, that all too familiar feeling struck me...frigid cold. Welcome to Alaska.

I hadn't been back for a year and spending all this time in California has made me a weather wimp. I used to be adept at walking around in the winter, sometimes without a coat. Now I can't even make through the parkinglot without bundling up. Instead of boring you with all of the exciting time I spent puttering around and hangin out with my parents, let me share the highlights.

Snow is definitely fun stuff and it snowed a ton the 10 days I was in Anchorage. Driving in the stuff brings a funny combination of fear and fun. Slippin and sliding all around the neighborhood and fishtailing turns is exhilirating, but when the antilock brakes engage at every other traffic light, you kind of realize the danger you're really in.

On another note, people not from Alaska always seem to think that the population is so small that I there's a good possibility I'll know Joe Schmoe they met one time who was from Alaska. Despite Anchorage having a population of 300,000 though, it seems like I see at least one person I know whenver I go out and about.

It all started on the plane ride. I had to stop in Vegas on the way to Anchorage and there happened to be a guy on my flight whom I hadn't seen since highschool. He's one of those "what ever happened to ___?" kind of guys. Turns out he's now writes R&B songs for various artists. In fact, he's got some songs now that artists like Neyo, Joe, and Jojo may pickup.

Seeing famiilar faces continued throughout the week at everywhere from Nordstrom to Costco to the Airport again when I was leaving. Yes, someone else I knew was on my Pheonix bound flight.

The highlight of the week though was last Sunday which went like this:

9:00 - Arun wakes up very tired to watch the Chiefs play the Jaguars in the regular season finale.

10:45 - Arun hurts shoulder doing excessive fist pump after seeing the first successful flee flicker ever pulled by the Chiefs.

12:00 - Arun proceeds to do "Will Farrel Old School Robot Air punches" after Chiefs beat the Jags.

12:17 - Arun's heart skips about 10 beats when he realizes the Patriots beat the Titans and the Steelers luck out and beat the Bengals in overtime! The Chiefs have a shot at the playoffs!

1:20 - Arun jumps up and down when the Broncos throw an interception for a TD. Meanwhile my Mom downstairs thinks there's somekind of an earthquake going on.

3:03 - Arun barries head into Sofa after Broncos win the coin flip in OT.

3:21 - Arun has a mini depression as the Broncos are driving. Arun then does an air "Judo Chop" as the Broncos are stopped!

3:30 - Arun does happy dance all over the house as the 49ers win and send the Chiefs go to the playoffs.

3:36 - Arun goes outside to move the car and totally eats it on the icey driveway from still doing the happy dance.

Merry Christmas to ME!