Petcast LIVE from 9-11 am PT today

We've got a terrific lineup for the Petcast this morning, including a cat psychic and an animal-rights advocate who wants to refute some of the claims made by last week's controversial guest, Iditarod trainer Vern Halter.

Head to LVRocks.Com from 9-11 am to hear it and join the live chat room. We record four half-hour shows two Saturdays a month and then post new podcasts every Tuesday and Friday.

If you miss the live show, head to ThePetcast.Com for the latest shows.

Good readin's

Since today was a travel day, I got to go through several newspapers. Many national journalists claim they read four or five a day, but I don't read that fast. It used to make me feel guilty that I barely ever got through the local newspaper, let alone fill up on USAT, NYT, WSJ, WP, LAT and whatever else the fancy people pretend they read cover to cover. Then I lived in China and had no access to Western newspapers or an unfiltered Internet and realized I could function just fine as a journalist without all that -- and without the guilt.

But I do enjoy reading as much as possible, and today I got to read a lot. A few things worth recommending presented themselves:

* The Las Vegas Sun had a terrific piece by the very talented Kristen Peterson about a crappy downtown motel that got a big facelift and is now going after a boutique-hotel market niche. It's just crazy enough to work; I'm smelling a story in that one for me, actually. Peterson is consistently the best writer on fine arts and architecture in town and deserves more than the back-of-the-insert real estate she is often relegated to.

* The Wall Street Journal, aside from continuing to bring out more damaging information about possibly wrongdoings by Nev. Gov. Jim Gibbons and his wife (dissected on Hugh Jackson's Las Vegas Gleaner site today), had a fascinating center-column piece on miracle fruit -- no, really, that's its name -- from Africa that makes sour things taste sweet. The piece is here but since you can't get it online unless you're a registered subscriber, just go here and read about it on the Eatfoo.Com blog which is written by one of the key sources in the story.

* The Las Vegas Review-Journal's Benjamin Spillman had a good story about a tourism conference focusing on rural Nevada (but held, evidently, in Primm, just outside Vegas.) What amused/fascinated/saddened me about this was the poor soul from the Elko tourism board sort of admitting that the only way to attract, say, Chinese tourists, is to help them pretend like they have business in Elko's gold mines in order to get visas to come to the US&A. The logic was bizarre, but the thrust was clear: There is no legit reason why almost anyone would want to go to Elko for a vacation, least of all overseas travelers. Just give up already and give Vegas your water.

* Jennifer O'Connor of PETA offered a really harsh rebuke of the Iditarod that had me starting out saying "Oh, come on" and ending planning some hard-hitting questions for Vern Halter of Dream A Dream Dog Farm, who showed us dogsledding in Alaska last week, when we get him on The Petcast. Most interesting was her point that the Iditarod would be illegal on animal-cruelty grounds in most other states. (Note: The editorial ran in the R-J but I found it online from a different newspaper. Kudos to the R-J, which is a fairly conservative newspaper, for publishing it even though I doubt the editors agree with it.)

...But it's a DRY cold...except all this snow...

Today was probably the highlight of our Alaskan adventure: We rode on dog sleds and then hopped into a Cessna to fly around Mount McKinley. It was quite cold out -- high in the mid-20s and, in fact, we clocked -5 F while we were up there in the air. We wore those long johns I still can't remember why we Las Vegans own in the first place.

The top picture is me and Miles in flight, which is remarkable because Miles hates to fly and really, really had to psyche himself up for the ride. But the folks at Talkeetna Air Taxi were so comforting and encouraging, and he rolled with it. We were so glad we did, however, to be able to snap such sensational views as this one to your right. That wing you see is our plane. Also joining us was Karen Harris, the proprietor of the Garden Gate B&B where we're staying and an old friend of mine.

It was quite a beautiful -- and chilly -- flight, and we heard from our pilot, Danielle, that global warming is very much in evidence up here in shrinking glaciers and such. Hard to imagine as you look out at all that snow and ice -- rivers so frozen over they appear to be made of marshmallow Fluff. But surely they know of which they speak.

Earlier in the day, we went to Dream a Dream Dog Farm in Willow, where Iditarod veteran Vern Halter explained the ins and outs of professional and competitive dog sledding. Then Vern and one of his handlers took each of us on an 8-mile dog-mushing jaunt through the frozen wilderness. To your left is Miles on his dog sled. Each sled had 10 big dogs. One of my dogs was pregnant. Vern was so great that I'm bringing him on The Petcast in a few weeks to discuss the whole business of raising and training these dogs. There was no question in my mind that these dogs, while being asked to work hard, clearly enjoy their work and are not tortured or prodded into pulling the haul.

Will write more later. We're tired. Tomorrow we go snowmachining. Not snowmobiling... that's apparently the passe term.

Signs of Spring in Alaska

So it's about 25 degrees for a high here in Anchorage and looks very much like this picture, which I ripped from somewhere else, of course. This is apparently a signal to every Walmart and Sears in town to dump the winter gear and explain to us that it's almost spring, dumbasses. We arrived as prepared as two fellows from the desert could be - we even had long johns, and I cannot recall why on earth we would have ever bought or worn them before - but we assumed we'd find some ear muffs and maybe a nice sweater or two up here. No dice. Will have to borrow some from the innkeeper at the Garden Gate B&B in Palmer, where we're staying.

Oh, did I mention that the innkeeper is an old, old friend, Karen Harris, who gave up a journalism career in Minneapolis to open a B&B in Alaska, a lifelong dream. I can't wait to see how that worked out for her.

We're now chilling at the Dark Horse Coffee Shop in Anchorage. It's cute, although Miles complains that his mocha-machiatto-whatever is a little too heavy on the whipped cream, light on the juice. Oh well. My hot chocolate looked sumptuous, but isn't really. Oh well again.

We had lunch at terrific trendy eatery called the Snow City Cafe that a college-campus feel to it. I had the "crabby omlette." Yum. And we're likely to go to some brew pub for dinner where Karen has advised they have the best salmon chowder in, uh, history or something.

I am forbidden on this trip from working, which is difficult when there are a few good stories up here I could so easily string for the Times. In the center of the state, the mayor is following a middle school social studies class' advice to repopulate and giving away 26 large land plots. The results have been fascinating. Plus, there's a dog-beating scandal in the Iditarod, which is wrapping up now.

OH! And one last thing I did today. I made Miles stop and let me browse a tourist trap called the Ulu Factory. Why? Because for years now I've been using the word "ulu" in Scrabble and I've never known what it meant. I just thought it was a clever way to dump unwanted vowels.