"Maybe we should call in a bomb threat to Houston. I think it's free beer night at the Astrodome." - Mulder, The X-Files Movie

Saw this sheep just eating precious, precious tundra by the side of the road in Denali National Park. Maybe, just maybe he didn't see the fifty bazillion signs saying that nature was far to fragile to walk on, let alone eat. Stupid sheep. They're killing the environment. Let's get 'em and then have some mutton.

Okay, for the first part of life, I’m working on a title for the blog. Life in Alaska seems, well, a bit like being Pamela Anderson Lee Mrs. Kid Rock or whatever she’s calling herself right now – what you see isn’t what you get. Unless you see herpes. Then you’d be getting that.

But, I can announce that visiting Life in Alaska has, unlike Pamela Anderson, been pronounced 99.8745% hepatitis free.

So I need help coming up with a new name. My primary contender for this is, “Gone to Texas.” I like the title, it says a lot, but I just don’t know . . . other things, like, “Wilder by Far,” come to mind. Perhaps I’ll just call it “google.com.” That has a nice ring to it, and I’m sure nobody’s grabbed that url yet. If you’ve got a suggestion that you would like to submit for consideration, well, I’m game. Keep in mind that I can’t pay you for it, and that I own it in perpetuity, and when I win the MacArthur Fellowship and that pesky Nobel, well, be satisfied that I won’t mention you and will have built my success on your cleverness. (Keep in mind I really, really, really want to win this. If I did, well, heck, I might move back to Alaska. If you’re on the nominating committee, please don’t make me beg. Because I will. I really, really will.)

Back to the main question in comments on the last post: Why?

Well, why do birds fly east for the summer? Why does Adam Sandler keep making movies? Why do fools fall in love?

Well, since none of the visitors to the site was ponying up any cash, doesn’t mean that Pugsley (now 18 months and about 158 pounds) still has to eat. (An ironic aside – I got e-mail from an Alaska paper wanting to publish my stuff regularly and kinda maybe pay me and an e-mail from the History Channel wanting background info on Alaska . . . just after I moved.)

Were I independently wealthy, I don’t think I could have been dragged out of Alaska. Actually, that’s not exactly true. I would allow porters to carry me, like a Pasha. Maybe in one of those old-time cart thingys. But mine would be gold. And, really, it would be in Fairbanks.

But, we're here.

There are advantages, writing-wise, to being in Houston. Houston is a bigger, more anonymous place. It may be a steel and glass ant-hill of people who say “ya’ll” a lot, but there were times when I held back on blogging fodder because Fairbanks was just so darn small. You don’t flip off your next door neighbor and expect peace. In Houston, I can branch out a wee bit more. I’m not looking to do dirty jokes - my goal is still to produce writing that would barely pass muster on HR’s radar screen if you were reading it at lunch and the Internet Nazi’s at your business pulled you into a room and said, “Hey, he keeps talking about Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton as if they were filthy tramps.” Then one HR person would say to the other, “Dude, they are filthy tramps. And he never qualified what exactly trampdom was, so, you know, make him sign the papers that said we never beat him.”

So, in the coming weeks, expect a name change. “Wilder in Texas”? “Where’s my damn MacArthur Fellowship, already?” “Wilder Trek II: The Wrath of Texas”?

Hey, I’ve got it: “The Wilders of Texas are Upon You.” That’s great . . . oh, wait, it sounds like a cannibal movie. "The Texas Chainsaw Wilders" isn't much better.

Dang.

Back to the drawing board.