Fairbanks Day 3
Well, today was perfectly okay.
Two things I forgot previously...
1. My car is a 2005 Ford Focus, like my friend Josh drives, except it is an automatic transmission.
2. I watch a moose cross the road yesterday. Never seen that before.
So today started off terribly, I recieved four police reports from the Fairbanks PD, an Indian kept getting drunk (way to perpetuate a stereotype, nerd!) and hitting his wife. So off to the court I go for records. And I put the guy's name into the computer system, and I get about 12 hits. Half in Anchorage, half in Fairbanks. So I write them all down and ask for the Fairbanks cases. I'm handed one case file and four microfilm cassettes. There's a man using the ONLY microfilm machine, which is fine. So I start with the paper file. The guy leaves the machine. Just as I'm closing the file, a woman gets her microfilm and goes to the machine. Now I have to wait for her.
"Are you waiting for me?" she asks.
"Yeah."
"I only have six pages."
So the lady tries to use the machine, but the film is crooked or something on the viewer. She can't figure it out, nor can I. So she asks a clerk to come over, who has to, for some reason, respool the entire thing. Then she gives it back and things are going smoothly. Then, the machine stops moving the film. So she gets the clerk to come back over. And she can't figure it out. Then she calls a technician, who pulls out a jammed piece of paper. And so the lady gets what she needs and leave, but slowly. She reads each page. Prints what she wants. Reads what was printed, then reads it on the screen again. Takes forever. She thanks me for being patient. But hey, I was in a good mood for some reason.
I notice, as I'm using the microfilm machine with no problems, that I'm missing a spool. I should have five, I only have four. and there's another case I don't seem to have. So after printing off the information I need, I go back and explain I'm missing things. The clerk gets me the other microfilm spool and explains that the other case is in the process of being filmed and could be gone for up to a year. Nothing I can do about that.
But.
But!!
The first guy is back, and he managed to make it back to the microfilm machine with two new spools of film. So now, I have to wait for him. He leaves and I finally get my last spool on. I print and leave.
I entered the place at 9:40. I left at 11:20.
Off to lunch with the other investigators on detail and the two locals. Had nachos, impaled the roof of my mouth with a chip and bled. That sucked.
Back at Eielson AFB, finished my work there. Back to Ft. Wainwright, conducted three interviews.
At Fred Meyer, I bought a CD and some blank CDRs.
Something interesting about Alaska: A Segue
Alaska seems to be full of itself. At Safeway, they have an entire table full of books on Alaska and a stand full of videos and DVDs about the state. Both Fred Meyer stores have "Alaskana" in their boo departments. Rows dedicated to books about thier state. I've never encountered this in other states, unless I'm in a small giftshop at a tourist area.
At Fred Meyer today, i walked past the Alaskana section and noticed a book out of the corner of my eye. Clearly a humor book, it had a drawn cartoon cover. I stopped and looked and noticed: "The Really Big Tundra Treasury." It couldn't be.
Tundra was a comic strip that ran in Salem's newspaper for less than a year back in the late nineties. I loved it. And then it vanished, replaced by Mallard Filmore or Gasoline, or something that I don't read. I can't wait to go back and buy this book (I'm not really sure why I just didn't buy it when I saw it). There was a second book, something about Tundra in Full Color, but it didn't look very interesting. I always regretted that this strip left the paper, and I didn't know the author's name to see if I could find books (I'm too lazy to search through Amazon's 500 books with "Tundra" in the title).
Nothing else to report.
Two things I forgot previously...
1. My car is a 2005 Ford Focus, like my friend Josh drives, except it is an automatic transmission.
2. I watch a moose cross the road yesterday. Never seen that before.
So today started off terribly, I recieved four police reports from the Fairbanks PD, an Indian kept getting drunk (way to perpetuate a stereotype, nerd!) and hitting his wife. So off to the court I go for records. And I put the guy's name into the computer system, and I get about 12 hits. Half in Anchorage, half in Fairbanks. So I write them all down and ask for the Fairbanks cases. I'm handed one case file and four microfilm cassettes. There's a man using the ONLY microfilm machine, which is fine. So I start with the paper file. The guy leaves the machine. Just as I'm closing the file, a woman gets her microfilm and goes to the machine. Now I have to wait for her.
"Are you waiting for me?" she asks.
"Yeah."
"I only have six pages."
So the lady tries to use the machine, but the film is crooked or something on the viewer. She can't figure it out, nor can I. So she asks a clerk to come over, who has to, for some reason, respool the entire thing. Then she gives it back and things are going smoothly. Then, the machine stops moving the film. So she gets the clerk to come back over. And she can't figure it out. Then she calls a technician, who pulls out a jammed piece of paper. And so the lady gets what she needs and leave, but slowly. She reads each page. Prints what she wants. Reads what was printed, then reads it on the screen again. Takes forever. She thanks me for being patient. But hey, I was in a good mood for some reason.
I notice, as I'm using the microfilm machine with no problems, that I'm missing a spool. I should have five, I only have four. and there's another case I don't seem to have. So after printing off the information I need, I go back and explain I'm missing things. The clerk gets me the other microfilm spool and explains that the other case is in the process of being filmed and could be gone for up to a year. Nothing I can do about that.
But.
But!!
The first guy is back, and he managed to make it back to the microfilm machine with two new spools of film. So now, I have to wait for him. He leaves and I finally get my last spool on. I print and leave.
I entered the place at 9:40. I left at 11:20.
Off to lunch with the other investigators on detail and the two locals. Had nachos, impaled the roof of my mouth with a chip and bled. That sucked.
Back at Eielson AFB, finished my work there. Back to Ft. Wainwright, conducted three interviews.
At Fred Meyer, I bought a CD and some blank CDRs.
Something interesting about Alaska: A Segue
Alaska seems to be full of itself. At Safeway, they have an entire table full of books on Alaska and a stand full of videos and DVDs about the state. Both Fred Meyer stores have "Alaskana" in their boo departments. Rows dedicated to books about thier state. I've never encountered this in other states, unless I'm in a small giftshop at a tourist area.
At Fred Meyer today, i walked past the Alaskana section and noticed a book out of the corner of my eye. Clearly a humor book, it had a drawn cartoon cover. I stopped and looked and noticed: "The Really Big Tundra Treasury." It couldn't be.
Tundra was a comic strip that ran in Salem's newspaper for less than a year back in the late nineties. I loved it. And then it vanished, replaced by Mallard Filmore or Gasoline, or something that I don't read. I can't wait to go back and buy this book (I'm not really sure why I just didn't buy it when I saw it). There was a second book, something about Tundra in Full Color, but it didn't look very interesting. I always regretted that this strip left the paper, and I didn't know the author's name to see if I could find books (I'm too lazy to search through Amazon's 500 books with "Tundra" in the title).
Nothing else to report.