A little Rant

John sent me this article today about a principal out east that banned blogging at the Jr. Sr. High School. I really feel strongly that the opposite should be happening. Here is an email that I was planning on sending to the principal before I relazied that the article was from 2005.

Hello Mr. Sousac,

Just read the following article online, and wanted to hear your thoughts on a little different line of thinking.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050329/NEWS/503290316/1027

I understand the dangers of students blogging, however I feel that if students in a school setting are banned from everything that may cause problems in their lives, how are they supposed to learn to deal with these issues?

When our students leave our schools, they are on their own. There will not be filters on the internet, nor will there be someone keeping an eye on them to make sure they make wise decisions. As an educator I believe that schools should be teaching appropriate use of the internet and online communities, not only how to use it as a learning tool, but also how to interact with it. In this digital age, students are immersed in an online world. They need to learn safe-use in an environment that allows growth. If we shut them down, and expect them to figure it out on their own I believe we are endangering them more. If we were to integrate these “new technologies” into our daily lessons I think our students will leave our schools not only with a greater understanding of how to integrate current technology into their business and personal lives, but also to do it in a safe manner.

I realize this requires more classroom management from our teachers, but I feel its something schools really need take a closer look at, and maybe reevaluate their current practices.

So that was it in a nut shell. Really frustrating that our schools are not educating our students, but taking away their learning expiences because they don’t want to deal with managing proper use.

So thats my rant for today. As I was walking home from work I was greeted with a beautiful sunset. Wish Erin were here to hang out with.

Back to UNK

Well the Hawaii trip came to an end in a hurry. Time flies when your not working. Its amazing how fast the days go by. We left Kona on Thursday evening. We made the same stops we had on the way down, just in the reverse order. We arrived in Anchorage in Friday afternoon. Pretty tired from the trip. We did go out for dinner, and on a whim went to the Anchorage Aces semi-pro hockey game.

The game was a lot of fun. Before the game started the mascot lit the rink on fire. The flames formed the letter A in the center of the rink. It was the first time I’d seen anything like that at a hockey game. The game was fun to watch with good scoring chances and the Aces taking the win.

[QUICKTIME http://www.bbryson.com/movies/hockey.mov 320 260]

The next morning I got some grociery shopping done before hopping on PenAir back to Unalakleet.  It was nice to get to hang out with Erin for a little bit before she had to take off for St. Michael.  We were on a bit of a 24 marathon.  I don’t know if you guys have started to watch it, but I’m sure I have Erin’s support when I say we recommend the show to anyone who likes a bit of suspense.

Luau

Tonight for dinner we went to a luau which is a Hawaiian feast.  Dinner was tasty with many different kinds of food right down to the pig.  Traditionally they dig a deep hole in the sand.  In a fire they heat up large rocks.  Once they are really really hot, they put them down in the bottom of the pit. They cover the rocks with palm leaves, and put a dead pig on top of those.  They fill in the area around the pig with different tropical fruits.  On top of that they put more palm leaves, and then more hot rocks.  They fill in the rest of the hole with sand.  After a day sitting in the imu (the name of this type of oven), the pig is cooked to perfection.  Here is what ours looked like.  I don’t know if it was cooked in the ground or not.

Sorry the picture is a bit blurry.  I didn’t want to use the flash and ruin the lighting, but in hind sight, that would have been better.  So we sat around with all the other people from the Alaska Telephone companies, and talked through out dinner.

I loaded up my plate with many tasty things.  Here is what I ended up with.

Look even some salad.  🙂   Along with dinner they had live music.  A few people ventured out for some dancing, but the majority of the bodies on the dance floor were kids under the age of 9.

It was a fun evening, and after a day of diving, being in the sun, and eating a large dinner, I’m wiped out. Time for some sleep.

Dive Makai

Dad and I were signed up for a dive trip this morning. We had to get up at 6:30 this morning. Man that’s early on vacation. We headed out hoping to miss the majority of the rush hour traffic. We did pretty well. Its quite a hike to get to the other side of the hotel where our car is parked. So after getting up at 6:30 we had made it across the hotel, and the 20 mile drive to the marina by 7:00 AM. We met up with our crew from Dive Makai. They came in about 7:10 with the boat in tow.

With the boat in the water, we headed out to sea. The weather was nice hovering in around 80 degrees. It was a quick jaunt out to the dive area.

Our crew consisted of the owner of the company Mike, and one of his employees Mark. I only have a picture of Mark. They were both very nice guys, and fun to dive with.

All of our gear was supplied for us. Which was nice. That included the BCD (which is the jacket thing you wear that not only holds the tank on your back, but also can be filled with air to help control your buoyancy while under water.), the Tank of air, the octopus (what you breath through, and also has monitoring devices showing your depth, air pressure left, and a dive computer helping you make sure your not staying down too long, or going deeper than your previous dives.), and of course a mask and fins.

Diving was awesome. The visibility was incredible. We could see at least 100 feet, probably more, the water was so clear. Before each dive Mark and Mike would do a little pre-dive talk. Showing us pictures of the things we would possibly see under water. On our first dive we descended to about 95 feet along the way we saw two octopus. The second one was moving around a little bit, and changing color to blend into its surroundings. Very cool. We also saw a couple eel. We ended up seeing three different types of eel between the two dives. The two we saw on the first dive were pretty much hanging out in the cracks of the coral, not showing themselves too much. Of course we also saw tons of really colorful fish and really cool coral formations.
The second dive we moved to a different area, not too far from our first dive. In this dive we were able to hear whales talking.  Its really amazing to listen to them knowing they aren’t too far away.  We saw a couple more eel, one of which was swimming out in the open, around a rock. He was ginormous at over 3 feet long. We came across a 7-11 crab back in the coral. I guess they call them that because they have 11 spots on them, but you are only able to see 7 of them at any one time. We also came across a local skin diver. This is where they dive down pretty deep, but they don’t have a tank of air with them. In fact this particular skin diver was equipped with only fins, mask, snorkel, and thong. Apparently she is out skin diving topless most days, and likes to dive down and wave to the divers. This was a bit of a surprise as they didn’t mention her at all in the pre dive. The only down side to the day was witnessing a snorkeler from another boat swim down and pull an octopus out of the coral and drag it up to the surface to show his friends. Pretty much a rule of thumb is to never come into physical contact with the marine life if at all possible. The ride back was nice. We went along the shore watching the waves crash up against the lava rock.

After the dive we walked around down town Kona for a little bit. Looking at the different shops on the main street. After we tired of this we headed back to the hotel where we tied into our stash pineapple and papaya. Laura requested a picture of me with a pineapple, so here it is. I also threw in a photo of what papaya looks like before you eat it. (you don’t eat the black seeds)

Tonight we are going to a Luau for dinner. I’m crazy hungry right now, so I’m really looking forward to going. I’ll try to get some pictures for you. Hope everyone is having a good week.

Kona, Hawaii

Well, I’ve been in the tropics for a couple days now.  The weather is warm, and the sun stays up longer than 4 hours at a time. The last couple days have been spend laying by the pool, and reading.  I am trying to be careful not to get burned.  It happens all to easy with my arctic tan.

The surroundings are nice.  There are palm trees and of course the ocean.  You’d think I’d have more stories after being here for this long, but really I have just been relaxing.

 

The hotel has a salt water swimming area that full of ocean fish, and even sea turtles.  Here is a picture I shot of a sea turtle swimming by the stairs along the edge of the pool.  You can snorkel in amongst these animals without venturing out into the ocean.

Last night Dad and I went to a little get together for the Alaska Telephone Association.  They had finger food, and free drinks down by the water.  This all took place as the sun was setting.

There were also whales breaching in the distance.  A couple of times they were 3/4 out of the water.  I wasn’t able to get a picture, of them, but here is what it looks like where they were jumping  😉

We are scheduled to go diving tomorrow morning early.  It will be a two tank dive, which means we do one dive, move to a different area, and do another dive.  Each dive we use one tank until we run out of air.  We were going to try to get on a Manta Ray dive this evening, but they were all booked up.  That would have been a night dive.  I guess some of the mantas have a wing span of up to 15 feet.  Pretty amazing.

I’ll fill you in on the details of the dive tomorrow.

Heading South

Well, I am sitting in the Anchorage airport waiting for flight number two of four on my way to Hawaii.  Last night I left Unalakleet heading for Anchorage.  I met up with my dad at the Barratt Inn.  We had to get up at 3:30 this morning.  After getting to sleep close to 1:00 A.M.  That didn’t leave much time for sleep.  We got all checked in.  I was able to catch an upgrade to first class for my flight from Seattle to L.A.  So that’s pretty cool.  Dad and I are about to go to the Alaska Airline Board Room and buy him a day pass.  We have a couple hours at each airport on the way down today, so it’ll be worth the money.  I am hoping to be sunburned by tomorrow.

More to come soon.

Update…

Not a whole lot going on here in the little village of Unalakleet.  Erin is off on the “road” again.  Kinda funny saying that up here where you don’t drive anywhere.  So I guess its Erin is off in the air again.  She left for Stebbins Monday morning, and will be back tomorrow night.  So we’ll get to hangout Wednesday night, and head to Shaktoolik Thursday.  I’ll be taking off for Hawaii on Friday before she gets back from Shaktoolik.  Wish she could be going with, but she’ll be heading to Savoonga the following week.

Work has been going well.  I recreated our Iditaproject website.  I have a few hacks I still want to perform on the template to try to customize it a little more, but they can wait a bit.  I am also working on configuring one of our webcams.  When they are all up and running we will have four located in Diomede, Wales, White Mountain, and Unalakleet.  I am working on setting up the web interface for the one in White Mountain.  They are petty cool.  When you view them you can take control of the camera for up to three minutes at a time.  This allows you to turn the camera back and forth with a range of up to 270 degrees, and zoom in a fair amount.

Not much else for now.  I’ll blog more often from Hawaii coming this weekend to keep you up on my adventures there.

A little chair work…

Lets take a little trip back in time….

Im a junior in college heading home for christmas.  When I arrive at home, my father shows me this chair he just finished building.  Doesn’t sound like that much work right, its just a chair.  I was then informed that this chair doesn’t have any metal in it.  Thats right no nails or screws.  The chair is held together using a method called mortis and tenon which involves making a tong and grove style joint system.  You use a special table saw blade called a dato blade which allows you to have a custom width saw blade.  This allows you to cut the tenon (the tounge part) with one pass of the saw.  The mortis is a square notch cut into the wood.  How do you cut a square notch might you ask?

Well there is a drill press looking machine called a Hollow Chisel Mortiser.  It allows you to cut square holes.  I know amazing.  So after a learning all about how this cool chair was made I was throughly impressed.  Not to mention that the chair was extremely comfortable.  So at this point I requested a chair be built for me.  I was informed that it would be a great christmas present for me.  My dad and I went in to Anchorage and picked out the special lumbar.  We used quarter sawn white oak.  Since the logs are quarter sawn the blade makes pretty flares along the board.  When sanded and varnished it really looks nice.  So Im thinking awesome, Im getting a really cool chair for christmas.  Well next christmas comes along and is there a chair under the tree????  Not so much.  I come to find out that its not quite completed, which in reality ment it was far from completion.  No worries though Im told it’ll be a great graduation present.  Flash ahead to my college graduation…. Is there a chair ready to sit on and relax after 5 years of college???  Not so much.  No worries though, it’ll get done.  Flash ahead three years Im ingaged to be married.  I learn that the chair will make a great wedding present.  Summer of 2005 Erin and I are unwrapping our weading presents, and there I am suprised not to find a chair shaped box wrapped in the corner.

Flash ahead to now.  I head home for christmas 2006.  I learn that there is some work to be done on the infamous chair.  After Katie was off to  India, my dad and I tie into the chair.

We cut mortis and tenons, and used hand chisels to clean up the joints to make them fit better.  It really is a lot of work.  I only suffered two minor cuts from the chisel.  They are quite sharp.

So we didn’t get finished when I was home, but I informed my parents that the car doesn’t go back into the shop (garage) until the chair is finished.  I think we have a good enough start that dad will be able to power through to the end.  Im very excited to have this awesome chair in my house.  I will be sure to post pictures of it when it’s done.

Skiing in 2007

Yesterday I was planning on driving back to Valdez from Anchorage. I was however persuaded to stay another night and go down hill skiing at the Alyeska Ski Resort located 45 minutes from Anchorage in Girdwood.

The day started out pretty slow. We just hung around Jared and Tonya’s house watching some T.V. In the afternoon we met up with Abby and Steve and carpooled out to the resort. When we got out there we met up with Shannon, John, and Brad. I rented some skis, got my lift ticket, and headed up the mountain.

The skiing was a lot of fun. It had been quite a few years since I had last gone. We did a bunch of runs on Chair 1 which gives you the option of getting on at the bottom of the mountain and Skiing down from the top, or getting on halfway up the mountain and skiing down from the top. Its nice having the halfway point to get on. The snow it better at the top, and the ride is shorter, so you don’t get as cold. We also did one Tram run. You ski all the way down to the bottom, over by the hotel, and ride the tram up. There is a tower along the way to the top that the tram cable goes over. Its kind of a bump in the run, and causes the tram to swing a little. When you have 60 people packed in the tram, its kinda funny seeing everyone sway when you get the tower swing. It drops you off basically where chair 1 drops you off.

We were out night skiing, so we were on the mountain from 5:00 PM to 9:15 PM. By the end of the night, my legs were tired. Going on those last few runs, it felt like there was burning liquid in my quads. It was a lot of fun.

After skiing we drove back to anchorage and went out to eat at the Mooses Tooth for some pizza and tasty beverages.

So today I start the 6 hour drive back to Valdez. I have a book on tape to listen to, hopefully it will be a good one.

Happy New Year

Well, I hope all of you had a nice evening last night bringing in the new year.  I drove Katie into Anchorage so she could catch her flight down to Washington.  We went out to Sulivans for some lobster bisque.  Very tasty.  We stopped by Title Wave Book Store on our way to the airport.  They were closing as we walked in, so Katie didn’t have enough time to find a book.

After dropping Katie off at the airport, I headed over to Jared (high school friend) and his wife’s Tonya’s house.  They just recently moved to Anchorage.  We went out to dinner with Roy another friend from high school to the Moose’s Tooth.  Dinner was great.  Oddly enough I ran into Jim Cammon the principal I worked with up in Brevig Mission.  It was nice visiting with him for a little bit.

After dinner we headed over to Shannon Koszarek’s boyfriends place for a little new years gathering.  It was nice to see Shannon.  I hadn’t seen her in about 3 years.  We visited got caught up on what was going on in everyone’s lives. After midnight we headed back to crash out at Jared and Tonya’s.

It was a fun night.