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Ketchikan: Ken C. Eichner Healing Garden Ribbon Cutting Wednesday - Ken Eichner was an aviation pioneer who was instrumental in navigating the direction of Ketchikan in the twentieth century. The co-founder of both the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad and TEMSCO Helicopters, he died at the age of 88 in 2007.

His legacy will continue with the opening of the Ken C. Eichner Healing Garden at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Wednesday. The garden is an outgrowth of the Eichner family’s generosity. The gift they made in his memory in 2014 is the largest private donation made to the Ketchikan Medical Center Foundation.

Everyone is invited to the grand opening celebration Wednesday, June 06, at 12:30 for the ribbon cutting ceremony followed by lunch with the Eichner family.

Elements of Eichner’s career are included in the garden. Helicopter blades and parts are incorporated into the design along with native plants and flowers and seating which will include benches and chairs and tables.

A handcrafted iron gate by artist Rhonda Green, depicts a helicopter pulling the American Flag, a tradition for Ken to kick-off the fourth of July parade. - More...
Tuesday PM - June 05, 2018

Ketchikan: RACE TO ALASKA ORGANIZERS SHIFT GEARS - Race to Alaska, now in its 4th year, just closed it’s registration and 47 teams will be at the start line. “This is when we start looking at our field on racers for who we think might win and who is going to make a really good story.” says Race Boss Daniel Evans. It’s his belief that it will be a slower paced year then in the past. “We don’t have the concentration of larger multi-hulls we’ve had in prior years. They’ll be some fast boats, but the average boat size has gone down.”

In the burgeoning tradition of the race there are those teams that are pushing the boundaries. For the first time ever there is a prone paddler attempting the race. Team Extreme Sobriety will attempt to complete the race laying on his stomach and paddling the board with his hands all the way to Ketchikan. “Yeah, and he intends to ride a bicycle from Ketchikan back home on Bainbridge Island.”

Daniel added, “We also have a 40’ international offshore racing boat from the 80’s (Superfriends), a team trying to be the first to complete the race by pedal power alone (Take me to the Volcano), 2 teams returning (PT Watercraft and Trak Kayaks) are trying to beat the world records they set for fastest solo and fastest kayak with no sail and another Stand up Paddler (Torrent) who is using the race to fuel a documentary to raise awareness about Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD in veterans.

There is no end to the stories this year. And the tracker is a good place to start.The tracker is a free to view map that allows online viewers to follow each team and even connects viewers to team social media pages.

Daniel and the media film crew will follow the race on a variety of power boats recording and interviewing the teams as they find their own way to make it to Ketchikan.

“We kind of make it up as we go,” said Zach Carver, the creative mind behind most of R2AKs videos. “We go where we have to to get the shots and stay up editing and cutting while the boat moves to the next location. It’s a kind of 24 hours a day operation. And it’s during that time that we start to see the stories of the race grow and become tangible.” All of the video clips and well as daily updates and the tracker can be found online for free. - More...
Tuesday PM - June 05, 2018

Alaska: Scientists find pre-earthquake activity in central Alaska By FRITZ FREUDENBERGER - Earth scientists consistently look for a reliable way to forecast earthquakes. New research from University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute professor Carl Tape may help in that endeavor, due to a unique set of circumstances. 

“Our observations have recorded an unequivocally interesting sequence of events,” Tape said. 

Tape and his colleagues found evidence for accelerating activity before a 2016 earthquake in a laterally moving fault zone in central Alaska. The activity included a phenomenon known as very low-frequency earthquakes, referring to the type of energy waves associated with it. 

Typical earthquakes have two associated energy waves, called the P and S waves. Very low-frequency earthquakes do not have such signals. Instead, their waves occur on much lower frequencies.

“Most earthquakes start abruptly, but not always,” said Luciana Astiz, a program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Earth Sciences, which supported the research. “A fault zone in central Alaska monitored by new scientific instruments offers a look at a more complex process. This study reports the first observations of a slow process that transitions into an earthquake — something previously observed only in laboratory experiments. These new observations contribute toward understanding the physics of earthquakes.”

In 2015, Tape installed 13 seismic stations in the Minto Flats of central Alaska to capture the area’s fault activity. Nine days later, the instruments recorded a long-duration, very low-frequency process, normally only seen in deep subduction zones. This event showed a small amount of activity gathering, or nucleating, in a central area below the surface. It did not lead to an earthquake.

A second, similar event in 2016 led to a key observation. At Minto Flats, a magnitude 3.7 quake occurred at a depth of about 10.5 miles, not an unusual event in itself. However, the event was preceded by a 12-hour accelerating sequence of earthquakes and 22 seconds of distinct high- and low-frequency waves in a concentrated area.

Tape said that this kind of slow event transitioning into a rupture had previously only been seen in laboratory experiments.  - More...
Tuesday PM - June 06, 2018

MONEY MATTERS: FINANCE 101 FOR WIDOWS By MARY LYNNE DAHL, CFP® - Financial problems are common at all ages, for both sexes and across all income groups of people. Widowhood is difficult for everybody, but for some women, it creates a major stumbling block over making necessary financial decisions she may not be qualified to make. This does not have to be that way, however.

Widowhood brings a new perspective on money to many women. While men have concerns, too, they have demonstrated less stress over the financial aspects of widowhood as compared to women, statistically. For whatever reasons, more women than men report being fearful and apprehensive of making the necessary and sometimes new financial decisions they face as a result of being widowed.
The big issue for most women, especially those who have stayed at home, raised their children and remained out of the workforce, are having a reliable and adequate source of income.

The easiest and least expensive solution to this problem is life insurance on the wage earner, oftentimes through an inexpensive policy purchased through the employer. It is generally accepted that the amount should be enough to produce income to support the family at least until all the children are grown and educated, but I have observed that employer policies may not offer enough to meet this need. If that is the case, an inexpensive term life policy can be purchased to provide the additional amount needed. Many women report, however, that they do not know if their deceased husband did, in fact, have any life insurance, either through his employer or additionally through a privately purchased policy.

Sometimes they do know, but are unaware of the cost, the death benefit or how to access this much needed insurance. I recall speaking with a woman one time who had been widowed about 7 months earlier and was still paying the premiums on her deceased husband’s life insurance policy. When I showed surprise at this and asked her why she was paying the premiums, her reply was that it was “a bill, and I pay all the bills as soon as they come in.” I gently informed her, of course, that she should notify the company of her husband’s death, stop paying premiums and collect the death benefit was now hers, tax-free. She was a little embarrassed but got on with making even more financial decisions after that.

Along with lack of knowledge about the income needed to run their households, women report a lack of knowledge about prioritizing the expenses for the household and family, particularly for expenses related to home maintenance, vehicles, insurance, credit cards, taxes and contributions to retirement plans. This lack of knowledge usually stems directly from not participating in the financial aspects of marriage and family life, not from any specific inability to manage money, however. It is the result of an arrangement in the marriage that delegates all financial matters to the husband and all family/child matters to the wife. This arrangement may work well while both husband and wife are alive, but it falls apart when the husband dies. The result of not understanding the household expenses is sometimes chronic overspending and the accumulation of credit card debt for a newly widowed woman. - More...
Tuesday PM - June 05, 2018

Yeah, yeah, I get that everything blocks out the sun in Our Fair Salmon City.

Especially the endless clouds.

Which reminds me that once upon a time, one of my smarty pants cousins from Seattle said that Ketchikan must be on Venus because it is always covered in clouds.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

At least our atmosphere is not full of sulfuric acid and other modern pollutants like Seattle, I responded, showing off my impeccable grasp of Venusian meteorology.

Of course, that was before the atmosphere of Seattle became 97.8 percent cannabis smoke.

Oh, did I just say that?

But, I digress.

Anyway, a cruise ship blocked the sun in Ketchikan this week.

It was an amazing astronomical event.

One in which hundreds of Ketchikan residents immediately went outside their abodes and raised their cell phones to the sky to snap pictures of said nautical/celestial event.

At least that is impression that I got from Facebook, where posting after posting  after posting appeared of photos the "Great Blissful Norwegian Eclipse of 2018." - More...
Tuesday PM - June 05, 2018