Anchorage Alaska. The first thing you notice is the wonderful beauty all around you. And the next thing you notice in the grey dirt that seems to cover the entire town. It's a sprawling dirty place that at it's best will remind people why Alaska is truly the last frontier.
Anchorage at it's best combines all that sucks about Alaska and all that sucks about a city, with none of the advantages of either. The architecture is circa 1970s strip mall, the public transportation is erratic and because of the bowl shaped geography and the cool weather, the air quality can rival a large metropolian area like LA or Boston. The scenic mountains and access to "real" Alaskan destinations (Alyeska, Mt. Mckinley, Kenai Peninsula, etc.) are all it has going for it. My advice: live in Girdwood or the Matsu Valley or the Kenai Peninsula. -- GeneMerrill
To hell with the Mat-Su Valley. That's like Night of the Living Hicks out there. Definately Girdwood or the Peninsula (Homer rocks). Then there's Juneau too... -- MorganLikely
The best thing I can say about Anchorage is that at least its not Fairbanks. -- FredPolsky
That's also the worst part about Anchorage; if you live somewhere shite in the lower 48, you can catch a Greyhound. If you're in Anchorage, you're already in the best place for a couple thousand mile radius. --AndrewWoods
Did you live in Anchorage Drew? I'd say that I'd put Homer, Girdwood and maybe Talkeetna above Anchorage. I'm not a RealAlaskan though, I only lived there for a few years. -- AdamShand
Yeah, born and raised. Left for a bit during the 99-00 winter, lived in San Jose, then was back for a year or so, then moved here last fall. Homer, Girdwood and the like are nice to visit, but if I had to live in an alaskan town, I'd probably still pick Anchorage. I guess the optimal solution is to shuttle between them, or get a Cessna. Hope you don't mind my bitching about my bitter hatred for my hometown on your personal wiki. --AndrewWoods
Oh, the other thing that was fun to do in Anchorage for us new-driver-aged geeks was dumpster diving. CompUSA was a goldmine, for a while, until the TheTragedyOfTheCommons happened, and they caught on. This may or may not be related to my embarrassing confession on InternetAlaska. --AndrewWoods
Anchorage dumpster diving was awesome! ATU (local telco) and cell phone companies were my favorites. We ended up with admin access to the main voicemail system for awhile, and lots of free cell phones and parts, a lineman's handset (that seemed to work perfectly as far as we could tell), and other goodies. Oh yeah, and a phone booth... but that wasn't really in the trash...
Did you ever go to the 2600 meetings at the Dimond Center Mall? -- GeneMerrill