Christmas Day

Christmas is coming to a close here in a couple hours. It was a pretty packed 24 hours. Last night we went over to Rick and Sue’s place (Erin’s aunt and uncle) for Christmas Eve festivities. The whole Aune clan was there. There was a little food to be eaten, and some presents to exchange. They do boy and girl gifts. All the boys bring one present, and all the girls bring one present. Then every boy draws a number and every girl draws a number, and when your number is called you grab a present from the boy pile if your a boy, and from the girl pile if your a girl. We left there and headed over to an 11:00 PM church service in Cook. That lasted until a little after midnight, which put us back at Erin’s house at 1:00 AM. So it was a late night. This morning we were up around 6:45 AM, and did the present opening thing. I was lucky enough to get a sweatshirt, a knife, a fossil watch, and some candy. We went over to her grandparents place (for those of you that don’t know, that’s a 10 second walk) and watched Erin’s cousins’ kids who are 4 and almost 2 open their presents from Santa. We chatted for a bit, and then it was time to head over to the other end of the lake to Erin’s mom’s house. We had a nice dinner over there, and opened presents. Erin and I got a feather bed, a new phone for our place (ours was on its last legs), I got a sweatshirt, and an iTunes gift card. Erin got a bracelet, some tootsie rolls, cocoa, and some perfume. After that we played the DVD version of “Trivial Pursuit”. Then it was time to head back over here. When we got back we watched a little bit of the Vikings game, I heard they ended up losing, and Erin has been uploading some pictures to the gallery. Hope you all like them. I am now tired out and ready to hit the sack. I hope everyone else’s Christmas was nice an relaxing.

MSP

I’m sitting here in the Minneapolis airport waiting for my flight to Duluth. I found a plug in near my gate to charge my laptop and ipod up with while I wait. There are a lot of people looking for outlets. I have had probably 10 people walk by looking for a plug-in as well. There are two plugs on this outlet; unfortunately the second one is broken somehow. It’s like there is something jammed in one of the connection slots. You can’t get your plug into it. Oh wait, make that 11 people. So my flight went really well. When I checked in I told them that I had a first class ticket for my return flight from MSP to ANC, and that I would really rather fly first class on the way down, so I could sit with my wife on the way back up. I explained that she had a coach ticket and so on. So he did a little looking in the computer, and said he couldn’t switch my ticket coming back up to a coach seat because they were completely booked, but he upgraded me to first class anyway, and told me that I shouldn’t have a problem talking someone into trading seats with me on the way back up. No I am left with the dilemma of still having a first class seat on the way back up, and weather I should give up that comfort to sit with Erin. 🙂 We’ll see if she can convince me to give up living the high life or not. I watched a couple movies on the flight, one on the computer, and one on the ipod. I have decided I really really need to get another battery for my computer. These ones really don’t last very long. It took both my batteries to get through one movie. So that’s a little disheartening. It was nice to have the video ipod to fall back on when the “big screen” went out on me.

Last night we ended up going to the theater to watch Harry Crapper, and got there about 5 minutes after the movie had started. Now mind you not the credits, because we know there is like a half an hour of credits before movies, so we asked about that and the person selling tickets told us that it had actually started. So we ended up buying tickets for the 7:00 PM show, and went out to dinner. We decided to go to the Outback. It’s like two blocks from the theater, so we just left our car at the theater and walked over. (12 people looking for an outlet now) Dinner was tasty, I had prime rib that was really good. Katie nibbled on some fettuccini alfredo, since she is still recovering from losing her smart teeth. So after dinner we walked back over to the theater and got there early enough to get the best seats in the house. The movie was pretty good. Even though I am not a Harry Crapper fan. After that mom was in the mood for another movie, so we ended up going right into “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”. It was also a good movie. We didn’t get back to the hotel till about 1:00 A.M., so it made it a short night for getting up to catch the plane this morning.

I just got a VTC request in from Laura a teacher at NACTEC. Its crazy to think that there are people that don’t get this time off. I feel bad for them. It’s nice to have a break. I got that scheduled and updated on the VTC calendar. That is one thing that is tough to get behind on. I got to a point there where I would schedule them the day they happened, and that ended up causing some problems. I am going to try to not let that happen next semester.

Well for the rest of my time here in the Minneapolis Airport, I think I’ll be surfing the web, maybe watching a movie or something.

Christmas Presents

Erin and I picked out one of Steve Richardsons pictures for my mom for Christmas. We hid it behind on of the pictures hanging on the wall at our house in Valdez. So a couple nights ago since I was getting ready to head down to MN, I figured it was time it surprise her with it. So I went and pulled the picture out from behind the picture and brought it over to her at the dinner table. She immediately grabbed it all excited and held it directly over one of the candles that were on the table. I kind of foresaw that happening, and was quick to move it out of the flame before it was burned. Here is a picture of mom with the picture after the close encounter with the flame.
So we are now in Anchorage and about to head out for a little shopping and maybe catch a movie. I’ll probably end up going to the Harry Crapper movie since the rest of the family loves that little magic guy. Well looks like we are taking off. Catch ya later.

Driving to Anchorage

We have about 100 miles left on our drive to Anchorage. Katie is getting her smart teeth taken out, and she has to also do all of her Christmas shopping. It is a really nice day out. Not a cloud in the sky. I’ll post some pictures on the gallery if you want to take a look at them.
We are listening to the audio book “Deception Point” by Dan Brown. It says there is only about 12 minutes left, but we still have a lot of the story left to tell. I hope it doesn’t stop on us part way through.
My toes have been cold for the last 150 miles, but I don’t want to have the heat turned up because I don’t like riding in a really warm car. It can kind of get me carsick. So I try to wiggle them and get the blood flowing to warm them up.
We saw a few moose on the drive, but that was a long way back. It was still pretty dark out, and closer to Valdez. We just saw a fox a little bit ago, so it has been a pretty interesting drive.
We are going by rabbit valley right now. It’s a place alongside the rode that is a little valley going up into the mountains. The valley has really steep sides, and very little room along the base. I hear they call it rabbit valley is because people used to hunt rabbits there. They would walk up the valley, and the rabbits would try to run away, with the sides so steep, they rabbits had a hard time climbing them quickly, and with very little cover it was easy to shoot them. It made for a pretty sure way to get some dinner.
Well it is official the audio book ran out in the middle of the story. How lame is that? I’ll have to check to see if I did something wrong when I was joining the tracks together.
I have been stumbling a lot lately on the Internet. There is a plug-in for Firefox called “Stumble”. It puts a button on your browser window that when you click it, it takes you to a random website. So its pretty interesting what you find. One I found last night that I thought was pretty interesting was a flash animation of someone drawing. Here is the link if you are interested. Its pretty amazing to see how artistic some people are.

A beautiful day

I am sitting in the chair in the living room that my dad made. It’s pretty comfortable. I took a look out the window a minute ago, and saw an abundance of blue sky. One of those days where you see how beautiful Valdez can be. Katie and I might go take a few pictures while we have the chance.
We take off for Anchorage tomorrow morning. Katie is getting her wisdom teeth out tomorrow afternoon. Poor girl, she won’t even be able to go out for dinner while we are in town. I think we might hit a movie and do a little shopping. Hopefully Katie won’t be in too much pain.
Haven’t done a whole lot since I’ve been home. I’m still really tired and have been trying to catch up on sleep.
Katie and I went out and took pictures today. The mountains look pretty cool on a sunny day. We are now going to watch the third episode of Lost. So I had better get going.

The Last Night

Well I just got back from Randy and Lynn’s place. They had me over for dinner. We had salmon, which is always nice, then sat around talking and listening to music. It was a lot of fun. I need to get some of the music they have.

Okay I need to pause here for a sec and talk about something that just came to my attention. I just received an email from our superintendent wishing the entire BSSD staff a happy Christmas. He and his wife wrote up a little Christmas parody that I would like to share with all of you….

‘Twas the day before vacation, when all through the schools

Not a principal was focused; no teacher using those nifty new tools.

The books were all veiled; the party food greatly evident.

With great hopes that Jim Hickerson would not call or be present.

The children were filled with sugar treats all adults dread,

While visions of more goodies raced through their heads.

When out on the ice there arose such a clatter,

All sprang from their seats to see what was the matter.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave the luster of mid-day to objects below.

When, what to their wondering eyes should appear,

Oh no, it can’t be, the Superintendent is here!

With Doug at the yoke, so lively and quick,

All knew in a moment it must be a very sad trick.

More rapid than soaring eagles down came his plane,

And he whistled, and shouted, calling all principals by name:

“Now, Andy and Jeannie, Rick, Robin and Dan!

Now Terry, Now Vern! You know I’m the man!

On Margaret, Elise, Edna, Craig and Steves (2);

On Joe and on Dave!” Oh my gosh, what a crew!

There are children to be taught and teachers to be frightened;

There are masses to be fed and test scores to be heightened.

So up to the school the Superintendent he strode,

With a gleam in his eye and a look that was quite bold.

And then in a twinkling, students and staff heard on the step

The most feared sound of all, the sound of Dr. D’s footstep.

As new staff drew quiet, and tried to hide the evidence of no work,

He came through the door with that famous and very stern look.

He was dressed in his snow pants; and his hair was quite messed,

His clothes were tarnished and torn from years of being poorly dressed.

A bundle of questions, his backpack in tow,

He looked like the last person they wanted to see or know.

His eyes how they twinkled! They all became wary.

His cheeks weren’t like roses, his nose nothing like a cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up ready for the first question,

The staff did not dare laugh, no request did they mention.

It was that wink of his eye and twist of his head,

Soon gave them all to know they had something to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

He began walking around, visiting the kitchen first.

Then went “strait” to the high school, and next the middle school near,

Finally, to the kindergarten room, the teacher in great fear.

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

Giving a nod, he finally arose.

He declared this place the best with the grandest treats and also so neat.

And there he stayed the rest of the day while teachers toggled complete,

While moodling so skillfully with their two feet.

As he left, they all heard him exclaim, as he quietly slipped out of sight,

“Merry Christmas to all and a most Happy New Year’s Eve night.”

Post some comments and let me know what you think about their creative writing. I am not that creative when it comes to writing. I am more of a video guy.

Speaking of video, I just finished up a pretty cool DVD of the Student News Broadcasts. It was the first dual layer DVD I have ever created. All of the videos together were way too big for a single layer DVD, actually almost double what one would hold. I set up a couple tracks that play before you get to the main menu. The main menu has a drop zone in it showing the SBT intro, with a link under it to a second menu with the episode selection. Once in menu two you have the choice of the first six broadcasts, or to go on to the next menu, or back to the main menu. The third and “final” menu has three more broadcasts, the interview that Tori did with Albert (the student in Savoonga that killed the whale a couple weeks ago), a slideshow of pictures of the kids working, and the interview Mia did with the two scientists studying the bird flu that flew up to Brevig Mission. Its a pretty cool interview. The first scientist is currently studying the bird flu, and is very knowledgeable in the subject and linked the 1918 flu pandemic to the current bird flu. The second scientist is the one that obtained the tissue sample from the lung of a Brevig Mission lady who died from the 1918 flu. He was the one who supplied the first scientist with the biomaterial he needed to make the connection with today’s bird flu. There is also another portion of the DVD that is held in a close circle and I won’t get into it here, but I can tell you the DVD ended up being 8 GB.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I am TIRED. I have been staying up till 2:00AM the last few nights, and getting up early. I am crashing early tonight. My plan is to be asleep by 10:00 PM. We have our last broadcast of the semester in the morning. The kids have done pretty well this week. A few of them really worked hard on their stories. There was a lot of video editing invovled in this one. I think the kids are getting the hang of Final Cut Pro which is really cool. That’s what the pro’s use. If they keep up on the tech they could easily hit college with some pretty powerful skills they could use towards a digital video career.
John and I are haeading to MacWorld in January. We just bought the plane tickets, hotel, and confernce admissions today. Should be a great expierence. As Erin says its where the biggest mac nerds go for the week. I will be taking a two day session on video compression. I know its going to be way over my head, but I’m hoping to glean something from the wealth of knowledge around me.

Well its time for some sleep….

5 more days…

With only one week left before Christmas break I find my self sitting here wondering what happened to the last few months. I can’t believe how fast this fall has gone. I have spent my weekend relaxing. I really haven’t done a whole lot. I slept in both days, which was really needed. I can’t remember that last time I was able to sleep in. The last two weekends I have been busy.
We didn’t have a broadcast last week. The kids didn’t get their work done while I was gone, so we had to cancel. I was pretty bummed out about that. The kids had a lot longer than usual, and they still didn’t get it done. I know they need a lot of support and guidance, but I kind of thought after doing eight broadcasts they would be able to pull it off. So that gears us up for this last broadcast of 2005. We have a couple stories that could be great depending on how the kids end up editing them up. One is an interview with a couple scientists, one that exhumed the bodies in Brevig Mission years ago to study the 1918 flu pandemic, an the other is the scientist that took what he recovered and grew it in a lab, and linked it to the modern day bird flu. The other interview is with a 17-year-old student from Savoonga who was the striker on a whaling boat that got a whale last week. They are both pretty long interviews, so I think they are going to edit them down to a couple minute pieces, for the news show, but then work hard on doing a longer one for a more documentary type production. We’ll have them posted as separate vodcasts. I don’t know when the documentary type vodcasts will be finished, but the news broadcast will be live Wednesday morning at 8:30.

Bose

The one thing I have done this weekend more than anything else is use my new Bose Quite Comfort 2 headphones. I am very happy Erin talked me into buying these. With all the noise that is involved in a tournament like this from the loud music that must be played to hype up the players to the cheering and yelling by not only the fans but the players as well, it is imparative to have a way to escape the chaos. When things hit the fan it helps not to be distracted while trying to resolve the issue. There were a couple of times when our conferences completly tanked on us requiring some quick work to minimize the downtime for our audience.
The tournament is going quite well. We are in the last match of the weekend. We just finished the championships with Unalakleet taking the victory. With Golovin losing to them set us up with a manditory “true second place” match where the second and thrid place teams play eachother to decide who should be the other team to travel to the state tournament in Anchorage. Right now Golovin is down 1 games to 0 with the score in teh second game at Galena 10 Golovin 6. Doesn’t look good for Golovin.
After this match I am hoping to get our gear packed up for the evening, and nessle into my sleeping back with either book or some surfing of the world wide web. 🙂

BSSDPN (BSSD Sports Programing Network)

This week’s sports coverage is brought to you from Stebbins and Unalakleet. We have some great high school sports for you this weekend. Unalakleet is hosting the regional Wrestling tournament available to you via video conference and windows media player web cast. You will find the links to each wrestling session web cast at the BSSD website. If anyone is able to watch the live coverage we would love to hear your feedback. Our students work extremely hard and really appreciate any comments they get. You can email them at feedback(at)bssd.org. The other exciting live broadcast is a mixed six-volleyball tournament being held in Stebbins. There are teams from all over the Bering Strait School District, as well as Galena who is from another district. These matches will be viewable only by VTC (video teleconference). Once again students will be doing all of the work that is involved in these broadcasts, and if you are able to watch this coverage the same email address will work for sending them a note.

Today I got up and got over to work around 7:45 A.M. As soon as a I walked in the door the scrambling began. I needed to get John and Randy’s equipment together that they would need for the wrestling broadcast. Gave them a quick run through on how to run the equipment. They knew what they were doing. I just wanted to go over it with them, so they could have a refresher before they started on their own. We took off from Unalakleet around 10:00 A.M. It was only a 20-minute flight over the frozen ocean to Stebbins. The Stebbins staff greeted us warmly. We got our stuff up to the balcony over the gym, and then grabbed some lunch. After we had some food in our stomach’s Hunter, and Austen (the two students that came with to run the broadcast), and I pulled out the equipment and started setting up. We brought with us two GL2 mini dv cameras, and a couple 20-meter firewire cables. We put one camera on each end of the gym up on the balcony, and the cords met up in the middle at the computer running the show. We ended up having John send over a special firewire cord from Unalakleet on the last plane flying this evening to set up a third camera. So I think we are going to be able to put on a pretty good show for everyone this weekend.
Austen and Hunter are really good guys. They work hard, and both have great scenes of humor. They are fun to work with. There will be some students from Stebbins that will be helping out with the broadcast as well. We are hoping that they will get excited about doing this and become more involved in the BSSD news broadcasts. Our goal is to get every site going with a news crew.
I just heard that Savoonga, which is one of our two schools on St. Lawrence Island just, got three whales a couple days ago. I was trying to convince one of their teachers into getting some students out there with a video camera and shooting interviews and getting some footage of the experience. That is something that not many other people in the world will ever get the chance to see. It would be a great addition to the student news broadcasts.
It is now 12:30 A.M. and I need to get my sleep for tomorrow. It is going to be a long day. I’ll see if I can get some blog time in during the busy day, and hopefully get some pictures up as well.

All for now…..