North to Alaska

Following my trip to Atlanta last week while attending the "Heritage Resource Bank" conference of free market think tanks I traveled on to Anchorage, Alaska for a few days of business meetings -- and perhaps a football game -- where we talked business of course.

Since it was the end of April when I was in Anchorage the weather was clearly "nearly Spring" which of course means the annual "city wide clean up" sponsored by the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce. Overall I like the idea of the city -- population about 300,000 -- coming together to clean their city of the winter trash that accumulates so that the city looks clean, safe, and welcoming for the tourist season. Now granted it was just the end of winter when I was there but from what I saw while walking around downtown and via my 20th floor view from my hotel room was the Anchorage Chamber should combine its annual city clean up with a tree/shrub/flower planting event -- perhaps held a few weeks later to avoid a late freeze. I suggest this because from what I saw Anchorage is pretty dominated by surface parking lots and no downtown parks that I could see especially since I walked everywhere so I had a ground level perspective on the city.

As for the football -- what could be better than Monday Night Football via the "Intense Football League" (same game as Arena Football League only the IFL has smaller salaries and smaller crowds!!) which paired the Alaska Wild (Anchorage) against the San Angelo (Texas) Stampede Express?? My little group had a great time at this game especially since the Wild won!! I have to say though there is no reason to "hype up" the league via the "Intense" moniker in their name. The overall quality of play was very good plus the team spirit and competitive drive exhibited by the players was the most entertaining. You really have to admire the players' intensity especially since they get paid about $300.00 per game.

Overall I really enjoyed my time in Anchorage and look forward to future opportunities to see the Last Frontier.

Todd