Labor Day Weekend

This was our last real weekend of freedom before heading back to school with kids.  I have been working for the last three weeks trying to rebuild all of the district websites… Its quite a task.   The list runs something like this…

• District Website
• High School
• Roosevelt Elementary
• Parkview Elementary
• Nurses Website
• Each staff member has a site. (roughly 250)
• All the sports (basketball, track, football, tennis, etc.)
• All the student activites (chior, band, orchestra, etc.)
• Community Ed

Im sure there are more that I am either not thinking about, or haven’t even been made aware of.  So that has kept me pretty busy.

Aside from that I’ve been helping Rudy (the network admin for the district) set up polyvision boards, install projectors, set up airports, which doesn’t really fall under my job description, but its a lot of work for one guy.  I have also been helping teachers get their classroom websites up and running, and working with a few of them on how they can start to implement some technology into their classroom.

Needless to say, I’m wicked behind and have decided I’ll work as hard as I can, but at the moment I have more tasks then can be completed before school starts.

So back to school starting tomorrow morning.  Amidts all that I haven’t really had time to plan for the two classes I’ll be teaching.  One being web design and the other broadcasting.  I’ve worked of the last couple of days hammering out a syllabus for each class, and lesson plans for the first week.  Those are finally under my belt, which feels good.  We’ll see how those plans play out in the classroom this week.

So to take a little break from the actual computer we headed out on Donny’s new pontoon boat yesterday with April, Trisha, Tonya, Cindy, Erin, myself, and of course Donny.  It was a great day to be out on the lake.  Very very warm, and just enough of a breeze to keep us somewhat cool, and throw the occasional wave up over the bow splashing everyone from the front of the boat to the stern.

I was reading up on CSS (cascading style sheets) while we were out and about.  I haven’t had time to do any reading lately, so it was a perfect time to relax on the boat and listen to everyone chit chat and catch up on all that fun xhtml/CSS goodness.

Although summer feels like it has come to an end, the days are still warm, and the lake is still swimable.  We went out a couple times today.  Its nolonger like bath water, but it sure helps cool you off from the hot sun.

The McDonalds

Erin and I were lucky enough to have Jeremy and his family drive up from Bemidji to stay with us.

Its been fun to spend some time with their little girl Scout who is a little cutie.

They pulled in this afternoon and we hopped in the boat for a little tubing and swimming out at twin islands.  Rowan is pretty much a pro when it comes to the tube.

We did a little swimming out at Twin Islands.. Jeremy had a great jump off the top of the island.  It really is a fun place to go swimming.

We boated around a bit and even went to MooseBirds by boat to get some ice cream after dinner.

Its been a great day.  Its so much fun hanging out with Jeremey again, and getting time to spend with Nikiya, Rowen, and Scout.

Kickin It in the BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area)

Last week Jim, Erin, and I packed up a few days worth of food and clothing, threw the canoe on the car and headed up to the BWCA.  Our jumping off point was the Moose River.  We were a little concerned about the water level.  In the fall there seems to be considerably less water than in the spring, so we weren’t exactly sure if we were going to be able to make it into Moose Lake which was our goal.

We started paddling on the first section of the river and things went really well.  The water level was high enough to clear most of the hidden rocks and lily pads.  After about 45 minutes of paddling we made it to the first portage.  A portage is where you carry your boat and gear between two bodies of water.  The fist portage was about 160 rods, a rod being 5 1/2 yards which made the portage about half a mile.

We made the little hike quite nicely getting all of our gear and the canoe over to the next portion of the river.  This one however didn’t have quite as much water to speak of.

We started paddling and soon were pushing and pulling the canoe through the ummm swamp.  Erins dad ended up almost losing his sandal a few times in the muck while trying to get the canoe pushed along.

It took us a long time to make our way through the shallow river and ended up at the second and final portage of our trip in.  This one was about 60 rods so it was a much quicker trip on land.  This dumped us on the edge of Big Moose Lake.

We set up our tents, did a little fishing, of course a some swimming.

The trip was very nice.  To be off the grid and relaxing with Erin and Jim.  I am looking forward to our next trip into the BWCA.

Cabins and Baptisms

Erin and I had a few days to rest after our Ireland trip.  Last week Wednesday we drove down to the cabin in Cass Lake to meet up with my mom.

We had a nice few days relaxing and reading intermixed with some biking, swimming, and hanging out with family.  Zac and Bunny (my aunt and uncle) came out a couple days.  Bunny brought with the scrapbook she got for her birthday this year.  The pages were made by family and friends.  It was fun to look through all the pictures.

My Grandma even came out for a little barbecue.  Erin and I picked her up from Bemidji and drove her out to the cabin.  She was out for the afternoon and we had her back home in time to watch the Twins game on T.V.

From the cabin Erin and I headed to Brainerd.  Our friends Mike and Amanda were having their new baby boy Axton baptized and they had asked us to be the godparents.  We were very flattered to be given this honor.

It was a fun weekend of spending time with family.  We played a little bocce ball and grilled up some burgers on Saturday and then had the baptism on Sunday morning.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/06/bocce_ball.mov 320 260]

We spent the rest of the day hanging out.  It was very nice to catch up and spend some time with the new little one.  He is a very calm baby.

When we left this morning Mike and Axton were participating in the normal morning ritual of sleeping on the couch.

We are back in Cook for the evening and are leaving for Wisconsin Dells early tomorrow morning.  Not much down time for the two of us.  We should have posts up from the water-park excitement.

Shrimping

Well we were back out to pull the shrimp pots today. Dad and I went out in the boat this afternoon. On the way out we discovered that the pot puller (and electric machine designed to pull pots up off the bottom) was missing. That meant we would be pulling in the pot by hand.

250 feet of rope later we had the pots on the boat. From the 2 pots we ended up with 21 ginormous shrimp.

They were both tasty…

And decorative…

Some of them were quite large…

Then we had to clean them before we headed back into the harbor. Here is a video of the procedure.

[QUICKTIME http://www.bbryson.com/movies/shrimp_cleaning.mov 320 258]

Out for a hike…

With Katie off at work my parrents and I took off for a hike on the Gold Creek trail.  It goes out along the ocean making for a very beautiful hike.

Here are my mom and dad on the trail.

Here is a little fireweed with the ocean and mountains in the background.

The mountains around Valdez are quite impressive.

One of the problems with hiking this trail is the abundence of stinging netles on the trail.  This is a terrible plant that when brushed up agains stings you like a bee.  The sting continues to throughout the day.  Here is a picture of one of those nasty plants.

We hiked out a ways until the trail became unkept and the stinging netles out numbered the other plants on the trial.  We headed back towards town and stopped off on the beach along the way to have a little snack of apples and cheese.  The dog was with, and was pretty thirsty.  We didn’t want him to drink the ocean water, so I constructed a makshift bowl out of some big leaves.  My mom posted some pictures of the bowl on her blog.

Update on the skiing

Erin, Jim, and I went for a swim today off of the boat.  While we were out there Jim took a look in the compartment below the floor of the boat.  There happened to be a ton of water in there.  No wonder the boat didn’t have the punch requited to yank my big butt out of the water yesterday.  I am hoping we will get the chance to give it another try today.

Skiing and Swimmin

Today was a lot of fun. The sun was out and the water is warm. After some home made waffles care Erin, we Laura, Erin and I went out to do a little water skiing. Erin went first, and is quite a pro. Here are a couple pictures of here scooting outside the wake.

I wasn’t able to get up on one ski by itself, but was able to get up on two skis and drop one after a little bit.

We were out for probably an hour skiing around. It was a lot of fun. We headed back to the house to find a few of Erin’s relatives over for a visit. We loaded up the boats, and headed over to balck bay. It is really close to Erin’s house. The nice thing about the bay is there are a bunch of leaves that have sunk to the bottom making the lake a very dark color. Which means when its sunny out, the water is really warm. There is a public dock/camping area in one corner of the bay. We docked a couple boats there, and pulled people out on the tube while everyone else went swimming. After a couple hours of playing around in the water up there the clouds started to roll in and the there were a few drops falling out of the sky. So we headed back to the house. I am feeling some of the muscles in my back after Erin whipped me off of the tube.

It’s always nice to spend the day out on the lake. I fly back up to Alaska on Tuesday, so I am trying to spend as much time in the water as possible.

HOT HOT HOT!!!

Well, I am at a fast Internet connection for a little bit. Which allowed me to catch up on emails, and look at blogs and news feeds.  It is really nice when the Internet is fast. 

I am in Northern Minnesota right now where the average temperature has been in the 90s for the past week.  We spend as much time as possible in the lake. One of our favorite swimming areas is called black bay.  The problem is the weather has been so hot that the water up there is like swimming in a hot tub.  Not the greatest for cooling off, but its still really nice.  We have been out tubing quite a bit. 

We went to a twins game last Thursday…  We left cook at 2:30ish, drove the 3 + hours down to Minneapolis.  Watch the game.  It was fun buying dome dogs, and sitting in the cheap seats.  The game ended a little after 10:00 PM, and we were back on the road heading home.  We pulled into the driveway at 2:30 in the morning.  So it made for kind of a long trip.  It was fun though. 

I have uploaded a few pictures to the gallery.  You can check them out at http://www.bbryson.com/gallery/v/album_003/

Hope you all are doing well.  I’ll write more later.

Dad’s birthday on the farm

Well, it was my dads birthday yesterday…  I picked up katie from the minneapolis airport yesterday and then drove down to the farm.  We worked around the farm a little bit.  Dad and I worked on putting a new depth finder in grandpa’s boat. We got most of that finished up and I took off to a near by field to see my cousin Erik.  He was working on mowing hay.  I hopped up on the tracker and visited with him while he was working until the mower broke.  :(  We then headed back to the farm for the party.

We barbecued some burgers, and then made home made ice cream to go with the fresh strawberries and German chocolate cake.  It was all very tasty.

Here is dad blowing out the candles on his cake.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2006/06/dad_candles.mov 320 300]