Gadling

It’s break-up here in Alaska, and not the relationship kind. Streets normally coated with sheets of ice several inches thick now have steep slices cut out of them from melt-water streams. My car tends to lurch and slide, especially on my driveway (probably because we gave up on shoveling about a month ago). What does all this mean? Nothing, really. I just thought I’d share. And now I’ll share five of Gadling’s posts over the week:

• We welcomed new blogger Jeff White. Jeff comes to us from Berlin, Germany, and his travels began underneath his childhood kitchen sink. In his first post, Jeff warns us to beware of sketchy online offers for Beijing Olympic tickets.
• Did you check out the crazy cross-wind landing caught on video? Big props to the pilot.
• Jamie reported the bothersome news that you’re actually less likely to die in a plane as you are in a plane crash.
• Alaska’s Iditarod started this past weekend, but Anna brought stories of a different kind of Iditarod — Portland, Oregon’s Urban Iditarod.
• Finally, Aaron’s open letter to Andrew Zimmern, host of the Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods, cracked me up, and reading it is a good way to end a Friday afternoon and ring in Friday night.

Enjoy.

Hello, readers! I’m just back from a trip to San Francisco and Justin is off at Mardis Gras. Being a travel-writer certainly is tough sometimes.

Here’s what rounded off our week:

• Jamie, Grant and I kicked off our first week covering the list of tentative US World Heritage Sites. Fourteen places made the cut, and we’ll be covering each one throughout February. Here is Jamie’s post on Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (try saying that 5 times fast), Grant’s post the Dayton aviation sites and my post on the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks.
• Anna continues her feature on all things Scandinavian; check out her post on fika — I’m ready to book a one-way flight to Sweden after learning about this tradition.
• Want to know what goes on in the cockpit of commercial airliners? Well, Kent just launched his feature “Cockpit Chronicles;” reading it is the next-best thing to being co-pilot.
• Erik tells us how to avoid rabies if we’re bitten by an animal. (I prefer to take the easy way out and get the vaccine).
• Iva reports that air-traffic controllers are leaving their jobs by the droves. Yikes!

It’s hard to pick five posts out — especially when we have 16 bloggers on our roster! Perhaps it’s time for “Gadling Take Ten?”