"No! Poor people are crazy, Jack. I'm eccentric." - Dennis Hopper, Speed

I wonder if the owner charges a partially refundable fare for visiting him?

The Mrs. and I were out driving, and thought we'd take a picture of one of our favorite sights in Fairbanks: the house the guy is building out of an airplane. I can’t fathom why a man would want to live in a house made from an airplane.

I guess the problem might lie with me. When ever I’m on an airplane, most of the time I can’t wait to get off.

They’re:

• cramped,
• expensive,
• often late,
  
• don’t give me peanuts anymore because of the one in a million chance that somebody on the plane might be allergic to peanuts, and
• don’t give out free beer in coach.

Perhaps I’m alone, but I also wonder about the relative intelligence level of the FAA. They believe that the general public that has to be told how to assemble a seat belt. Also, my chances of being in a water landing between Fairbanks and Anchorage is roughly as likely as Democrats and Republicans getting together and having a reasoned discussion that doesn’t result in the term “booger face” being used. Give me information how to rappel down a crevasse instead – all the water between Fairbanks and Anchorage is frozen. Perhaps they should tell me how to use my seat cushion as a sled, or what are the best recipies if there happens to be a South American rugby team on board.

The gentleman who’s constructing the house above, however, seems okay with all of the things about airlines that make me shiver. Given that this is Alaska, something tells me that he won’t have his own version of the TSA taking tiny pocketknives away from people, but allowing them to carry on four-inch long scissors. As The Mrs. said, “Hmm, that’s just two four inch knives. Do you think they thought that one through?"

Me, I say the TSA should give everyone a pistol with one shot. Talk about democracy.

In your neck of the woods, this person might be thought of as “eccentric.” Up here, he’s known as “neighbor.” Odds are he's the kind of neighbor that will check on your house when you're gone, or help you learn to hunt Alaska style if you just moved up this way, and not the kind of neighbor that calls the cops to complain if your stereo is too loud.

Alaska represents freedom, freedom to make an old airplane into a house, or to carry an exotic handgun that shoots ammunition that would have been classified as artillery rounds as late as WWI into the grocery store to buy beer.

I had a conversation with a nice young soldier who was picking up some extra cash by working part time in our Home Despot. He was from Georgia, and couldn’t fathom that people would or should be allowed to carry virtually any legal weapon (concealed) most anywhere. And, that there was no registration of weapons.

“Hey,” I said, “I’ve got all my numbers down, so if they’re stolen, I can give them to the police.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know them now.”

For the life of me and despite his best arguments, I still don’t know how a police database of the weapons I own would make me (or you) safer. Perhaps it would stop me from stealing them from myself and then burning my own records? He just doesn’t get it.

As I said earlier, the gentleman putting up his airplane house here in Alaska is eccentric. Even I have been called eccentric. That’s okay, in fact I'm flattered. To find enjoyment in –40F (which is –40C, which is what it was last night) you’ve got to be a bit nuts. By definition, if you live up here and like it, you’re a bit off. In Alaska, eccentric is average.

But, you can have beer in a chilled glass. By chilled, I mean the glass is chilled to –40F just outside the front door by sitting on the deck railing. And, as I stare out at the snow falling down in straight lazy lines directly down from the overcast sky, well, it might be -20F, but it sure feels like heaven.