Signage.

Now, the places I have been, literally all of the places I have been, have distinctly marked labels on homes or mailboxes. Something to easily distinguish them from every other house on their street, even if they look exactly alike. I'm sure there are several reasons for this. Taxes, census, receiving mail, letting your friends know where you live.

Not in Alaska. It seems as though nobody gives a shit about identifying where they live. So when your job is to go from specific address to specific address to troll for votes, life becomes a bit frustrating. We have found some of these routes to be extremely aggravating due to the lack of numbers on homes. There are entire blocks here that have no numbers on homes. How does this make any sense? How is this a thing that happens?

I must be spoiled to live in a place where not only are homes relatively close together, but well labeled and not at all shady. For every middle class home or nice, there are 5 shacks that are so beat down it's remarkable they get electricity. Nasty trailer parks, homes with tarp roofs, and yards littered with all sorts of debris are run of the mill here. I must be spoiled to live in a community that gives a shit about how it looks.

I live in a place where things are properly labeled. Streets for instance have signs. Accurate ones. Up to date signs. Signs! Looking on the GPS on the way to a row of homes to knock on, we had to turn down a street called Smoke Pole Ave. I laughed. OF COURSE I DID!! Smoke Pole Ave. would have been the funniest thing I have seen up here. Was there a sign for Smoke Pole Ave? NOPE! It had some other sign, someone's non pole smoking name. Even on cross streets, there was nothing coming remotely close to Smoke Pole Ave. I went from laughing to depressed very quickly.

If you have a road in your town called Smoke Pole, you need to advertise it. Think of the social media benefits. People would think it's funny (because it it) and tweet, share, or otherwise let the world know of the hilarity of your street. Not Alaska. Alaska has no sense of humor. Alaska needs to get it's shit together.

Between the lack signs and lack of humor here, I have no idea how I am going to get through another 8 days of this. I guess it isn't so bad, I shouldn't complain about having work. If I were at home right now, I wouldn't have anything worth writing about or worth, well, anything. I'd be collecting unemployment and furiously searching for work. I would be frustrated with life, instead of a doofus and some dumb shit in a town that got incorporated less than 70 years ago. I only wonder now what each day will bring me to make me more ready to get back to civilization.

They have nothing here. No book store, no record store, not even kitschy shops to buy shit with moose on it. You would think that a place like this, whose population has to swell immensely during hunting and fishing season, would be prepared for people that come from out of town. I guess not.

You have one more week to impress me, Alaska. Moose are fun, but fun is funner.

SD