Finally Friday

The week has finally come to an end.  To cap off the week I successfully broke the school districts website this morning.  It was only visually down for about 5 min.  It wasn’t fully restored for a few more hours.  I won’t go into the nerdy details too much, but it involved a corrupt file being uploaded causing the site to not work.  I have since made a complete backup of the entire system just for such an occasion.

Erin and I decided to go out to a movie and dinner tonight.  So while I was waiting for her to drive over from school Tony and I went out for a tasty beverage.  When Erin got to Virginai we headed out to the mexican resturant for dinner and caught up on the day.  After that we went and did some grocery shopping before heading to see 4 Christmases at the theater.  The movie was pretty funny.  I really do like Vince Vaughn.  After the movie we made the 40 mile drive home in a pretty heavy snow storm.  It was very difficult to see at times, and the road was less than visible.

Its very nice to have the week done and better yet have the opportunity to sleep in tomorrow.  More than likely I’ll be up at 8:30 feeling like I’ve slept forever.  Crazy to think back to the days when I’d sleep till 2:00 in the afternoon.  Man that was nice.

Ehh

So I figured I should keep up the schedule of posting, but I couldn’t really think of a title for this post.  Work has been well… Work…. The 9 – 5 hasn’t been super duper fun lately, but I guess that’s how it goes sometimes.

I got to work with a few of the Parkview teachers this morning.  They were getting trained in on how to use their staff websites.  They were great to work with.  Very upbeat and willing to learn.  I know some of the things asked of teachers (such as a staff website) can really add a lot of work to your already busy day.  These folks sure took it in stride and were brainstorming ways they could utilize this online system not only to connect with parents, but also to provide information for their students.  I hope they are able to log in a couple times in the near future and post a couple more times.  It always helps to practice a few more times right after you learn it to help make it stick in your brain.

My broadcasting class have been given the task of creating a 30 second commercial about the school district to have aired on the local television channels.  Its a tight timeline to have it all done by Christmas break, but they are eager for the challenge.   I’ll keep you posted on our progress and will more than likely post the finished product on here when its completed.

My web design class just took on a big project.  I put them into groups of three and gave them the task of creating a full website including a main site, a forum, and a gallery.  All three installs need to have a very similar design and layout which is very time consuming.  I’ve asked them to make this very professional looking.  Up until now I’ve let them be “creative” with their design, and it has really opened up wide range of design styles.  It will be interesting to see how these come out.  They are a fun bunch of kids to work with.

I was going through my iPhoto library and came across this photo…  I think its kind a cool… A reflection of a tree at the edge of the lake on one of our BWCA trips.

Have a happy Friday.  I’m sure looking forward to the weekend.  Hopefully some fancy posts to follow.  🙂

Lots to catch up on…

I know its been a long time since my last post, so I’ll try to give you a quick recap of whats happened since then.

Currently I am waiting for the third overtime in game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals between Detroit and Pittsburgh.  If Detroit scores the next goal they win the cup, if Pittsburgh scores they force a game 6 back in Pittsburgh.  Its been an exciting game.  They are tied at 3 a piece.

A few weeks ago Jesse and I took a weekend motorcycle class in Eveleth.  It started Friday night from 5 PM to 9 PM, and let me tell you, they used every minute of it.  The 4 hours was basically going through a book they had sent in the mail with instructions to read it before the class.  The evening came to an end with a multiple choice test.  Jesse’s quick studying in the parking lot allowed him to pull off a 100%.  My diligent three days of reading through the book and answering the questions through out the book enabled me to only miss one on the test.  So with the first step done we were back bright an early at 8 AM for the first 5 hours of actual riding time.  The class assumes you know nothing about riding a motorcycle, so it was perfect for me.  They walk you through everything from how to use the clutch to shifting, swerving, and turning.  We had great weather for the occasion with cool over cast skies.  I am so glad it wasn’t 90 degrees out.

The next day we were back again for the last day at 8 AM.  We had another 5 hours on the bikes picking up the speed and difficulty a bit working more on quick stops, running over obstacles, swerving, and slow tight turns.  The day ended with the actual driving test.  I made a couple of mistakes, but passed anyway.  The cool thing about the class is the test you take is good enough to get your Minnesota motorcycle license.

A quick break in the story..  Pittsburgh just won in the third overtime.. Game 6 in Pittsburgh on Wednesday…

So when I got back to Baxter I went into the DMV and not only added the motorcycle license, but also got my address changed to Erin’s Grandparents place in cook since we are moving there in a couple days.

Also since my last post I have finished my BSSD contract which feels really good.  Getting all 15 videos done was quite a job.  Its nice to have that all wrapped up before the summer really starts.

Two weekends ago I flew out to Tacoma to attend Katie’s college graduation.  It was fun to hang out with family and spend a quick couple days with her.

When I got back to Baxter I had a couple days off and then drove down to the cities to pick up Rick Holt who was coming over for a couple of days to work with me on finishing up my RISC contract.  Along with the barrage of video editing we found time to play a little Wii golf.  Rick is a feisty competitor.

Friday I drove him back down to the cities to fly out, then back up to Baxter to pick up Erin and we continued on our way up to Cook for the weekend.  We got in super late and worked all day Saturday on her grandparents house.  The new carpet was installed and looked and felt really nice.  We went out to dinner Saturday night with April, Jesse, and Trisha and then worked again all day Sunday on the house before heading back to Baxter.  We pretty much have all the plumbing done, and are getting closer and closer to having the place all fixed up.  Its really starting to look nice.

Erin is finishing up her last bit of work this week.  She worked Monday and still has Tuesday and half of Wednesday.  The nice part for her is there are no kid on any of these days.  She gets to work on packing up her classroom since they are cutting her position.

Tomorrow morning I will be picking up the Uhaul to load up everything in our apartment.  It’ll be a big job, but we should be able to get it everything packed up tomorrow.

Then Wednesday morning I will head off to cook, and Erin will follow when she is done with work.

I hope it all goes well…

Also in the last few weeks Jim and I have been working on getting his Motorcycle up and running.  I’m happy to say after a few parts from DennisKirk and some new gas and oil the bike is running like a charm.  Erin and I have been out for a couple short rides.  Once the house gets all settled I’m sure we’ll be out for some longer excursions.

Well that’s all for now.  Sorry there aren’t any pictures or video, I know they make posts a ton better.  I’ll try to do a better job of that on the next post.

Home

Well, I’m back in Minnesota again…  The funny thing is I recall three weeks ago when Erin and I were getting ready to leave she told me that when I came back from my trip it would be spring.  Well let me tell you…  Right now we are in the middle of a pretty healthy winter storm.  Forecasts say we should be getting up to 13 inches of snow by Saturday morning.  Excellent spring weather don’t you think?

I’ve been trying to get caught up on sleep.  When traveling around rural Alaska its pretty tough on your sleep patterns.  If you stay in the school, your sleeping on a classroom floor in which case you need to be up and packed up before the teachers come in the next morning.  Regardless you usually are flying the next day and have to be packed up anyway…

I was weathered in Breivg Mission for a few days, so I was able to visit with the Rudstroms..  I guess my last post kind of summed up that experience.

Anyway its nice to be back at home.  Nice to hang out with Erin again.  She’s been sick the last couple days 🙁  poor girl.  I hope that the district here decides to close school for tomorrow so she can rest up.  The downside to that is they have already canceled a couple of times and that in turn pushes the last day of school later into June.

So now that I’m back I will be hitting the video editing super hard.  I’d like to have all of it done before summer break.  I’ll keep you posted and will put finished pieces up for you to ridicule and critique.  🙂

Storm Bound in Brevig Mission

I was going through my iPhoto library to get photos for this post, and came across a picture of Sandford and Drum that Erin and I took on our way back from Valdez.

A few days ago I was in White Mountain filming a cross country ski race and a biathlon competition. It was a beautiful sunny day out and really not that cold which was a nice change from the last time I was up here and had sunny weather. I shot some video of the start of the biathlon race and got some video from different parts of the trail. I then made it over to the shooting area.  It was really fun to watch the kids ski up to the range huffing and puffing.  Lay down grab a rifle, slow their breathing down and hit 5 out of 5 on the target.

I left White Mountain and flew to Nome on my way to Brevig Mission.  I stopped over at Fat Freddies for a little lunch since my flight wasn’t leaving for another few hours.  I had a bacon cheese burger and a peanut butter milk shake and killed time watching movies on my laptop.  Lance Macky came in to eat just after finishing his latest sled dog race.

After a little food and a couple of movies I was off to Brevig Mission.  The usual rout when flying to Brevig is you leave Nome, fly to Teller, then to Brevig, then to Wales, and then back to Nome.  Well on this trip we went first to Wales then to Brevig and then they were heading right back to Nome.  So I got a little longer flight out of the deal.  While in Wales I snapped this picture of Razor Back mountain.

When I landed in Brevig the local Frontier agent gave me a ride to CO and AnnMaire’s.  CO and I visited for a little while… AnnMaire was on her way back from Unlakleet with Doug the BSSD pilot.  So when she was about to land I got to watch Harold while CO went to pick her up.  In the few minutes that he was gone the little guy crashed out.

The next day CO and I headed over to teller to get the video I needed for the BSSD recruiting video project.  It didn’t take very long, so we decided to go out for a ride around the mountains behind Brevig.  Here are a few pictures from the trip…

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2008/04/co_slide.mov 320 260]

I was supposed to fly back to Nome to get to Savoonga the next day.  The weather however had different plans for me.  There was freezing rain in Nome, and both Bering Air and Frontier Alaska (who just merged with Hageland) canceled all of their flights for the day.  This gave me some extra time to play with Harold and visit with CO and AnnMaire.  It was very nice to have the extra time to spend with them.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2008/04/harold_laugh.mov 320 260]

So this morning it wasn’t looking good for me to get out of Brevig.  The weather was still pretty bad in Nome, and it was going between rain and snow in Brevig.  Really not the best flying conditions.  I got a call around 10:00 letting me know that Frontier was sending a plane out.  So I got all packed up and hopped on the plane.

I am now sitting at Airport Pizza in Nome waiting for my flight out to St. Lawerence Island.  I’ll be going to Savoonga tonight.  Then my plan is to go from Gambel to Savoonga in the morning and then Gambel to Nome in the afternoon.  I hope the weather will allow this to happen.  🙂

BWCACAST Anouncement!!

For those of you who haven’t heard…

I will be starting an IPTV show (Internet Television show) or if your more familiar with the term VideoPodcast.

The show will be a weekly trip into the Boundary Water Canoe Area (BWCA). Most trips will be just day trips in and out the same day, but once a month the show will be a multi-day camping trip. I entered the permit lottery back in January and was able to get all three permits that I wanted. One in May, June, and August.

I will be shooting the show in High Definition and viewers will be able to subscribe to a HD feed, a SD feed, a video ipod feed, or watch each episode embedded in the website. I will be looking for sponsors for the show to help pay for equipment, travel costs, and editing time. So if any of you are connected to any companies that are looking for a new way to advertise have them take a looks at the site in a couple months, I should have some content up by then.

I have built a website for this whole new endeavor. You can find it at www.bwcacast.com.

Here is a preview….

Tied in with the website I have created a forum (Discussion Board) for viewers to chat about the show or anything BWCA related.

There is a link off the main site to the “Discussions”, or you can go directly to it by using this link. www.bwcacast.com/forums/

Here is a preview of the discussions site…

Feel free to sign up for an account. It has many features. I’ve set it up so when you log into the forum your also logged into the blog so your able to comment on both. In the forum you are able to upload a personal avatar that will be associated with all of your posts. I hope that people enjoy the show. Feel free to send me feed back on the site. I’ll need help looking for bugs and typos.

The Sun Is Back!!

The last couple days have been amazing all around the Seward Peninsula.  As you could see from yesterdays post the sun was shining up in Shishmaref.  Well this morning when I woke up in White Mountain the temps were around -30 and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  I decided to walk through town and shoot some video and then make my way up to the top of White Mountain to get some video of the sun rise.  As I walked through town it was fun to see the smoke rising out of each house.  It really looked cool on the cold morning.

I finally made it to the top of the mountain and as rewarded with a very beautiful sunrise.  Looking down over the river valley and the snow covered trees it really made for quite a picturesque scene.

As you know I like to take self portraits, it can be quite difficult when the temperatures are as low as they were.  You can see the bottom of my ruff building up with frost from my breath, and the sun trying to poke through the top edge.

Andy came and picked me up with the snowmachine and we stopped by one of the teachers houses to film what housing looks like in White Mountain.  As soon as we stepped in the door however the camera fogged right up.  They do fine out in the cold, and they do fine inside when they are warm, but when you take a cold camera inside you’ll need to wait about 10 – 15 minutes to let them warm up and defog.  So we left the camera inside and went to try out White Mountains new panorama kit.  When the school burned down last year their old panorama kit burned up in the fire.  So when Andy was making the order for the new one last spring I told him about the cool OneShot pano kit he could get from Kidan.  Its a half dome of optical mirroring glass that mounts directly onto the lens of the camera.  You take one photo and an entire 360 degree picture is taken.  You then take the photo into some software on your computer and it unwraps it and turns it into a normal pano picture or interactive Quicktime file.  Here is what the unit looks like.

We didn’t read the instructions before we went out, so we didn’t have any really successful results, but I can tell you this.  The very little time that we did take our gloves off to assemble the pieces to the camera and take the photo our hands went completely numb.  Man it was cold.  As soon as I could I put my gloves back on and jammed my hands into the little pockets on the chest of my parka.  It usually warms them up pretty well in there, but they were so cold it took us going back to the teachers house to warm them back up.

Here is a shot of the village of White Mountain from the top of White Mountain.  🙂

While I was shooting the sunrise on top of the mountain I looked over and saw a moose across the river munching on some willows.  I was able to get some pretty good video of him for quite a while.  Not super super close, but sill good video.  Then when we went to pick up the pano kit I looked across the river and saw another moose in a different area.

Sorry my little camera doesn’t have a better zoom, but if it did I probably wouldn’t have had it with me because those cameras are too big to take with you all the time.  But you get the idea from this picture.

Hageland picked me up from White Mountain and flew me to Nome.  We flew really low to the ground and saw two herds of muskox, and a herd of reindeer.  It was pretty cool.   I tried to shoot some video of it with my little camera.  It came out alright, but we were going so fast, you only get a glimps of them.

Hageland then flew me from Nome to Stebbins, putting my flight total for this trip so far at 23.   I came back to Stebbins because when I stopped there at the beginning of my trip it was very blizzardy out, and I didn’t get very good video.  Today was a different story.  The sun was shining and the snow was glistening.  Stebbins has some land features in the area that are very noteworthy.  On one side of the village is a very large cliff.

On the other side is a hill that drops down into the ocean.  Very pretty.  So just like the sunrise in White Mountain I was able to catch the sunset in Stebbins.  Here it is about to drop down behind the frozen ocean on the horizon.

I’ll shoot a little more here tomorrow and then head to Unalakleet in the afternoon.  I’ll do some shooting there, stay the night, and then head down to Talkeetna to see the Holts.

Video Misconseptions

This morning I woke up to some pretty chilly weather in Wales, Alaska.  After a quick breakfast of oatmeal, I bundled up and headed out into the cold.  It was about -20 and a slight breeze that really bites at your nose and cheeks.  I hiked around town a bit and shot some video.  Wales has some impressive drifting going on.  The snow builds up all around the houses.  While I was out I snapped this picture of Razor Back Mountain.

By then my hands were getting quite cold.  I have to take my gloves off to film, and even though I have the fancy bag that encases the video camera the folks at the DO failed to send me any of the hand warmers that fit in pouches inside the bag.  So it helps cut down on the wind, but its not any warmer inside the bag.

Around 1:25 Doug landed to pick up a BSSD school board member and myself.  We were the last two on the plane filling all 9 seats.  It was a quick flight up to Shishmaref, following the coast all the way up.  We flew over a few caribou, and I kept my eyes pealed for Polar Bears.  Unfortunately we didn’t see any.

The reason the flight was so full going to Shishmaref was because one of the BSSD school board members wife had just died of cancer.  He was from Shish, so the rest of the board and a couple DO staff went up for the funeral.

When we landed in Shish, it was noticeable colder than Wales  I shot some video as I walked into town, and then got into the school to warm up and check the temp online.  Weather Underground had Shish at -29 with the wind chill at -49.  So it was pretty chilly.  I warmed up a bit and talked to Erin on the phone, then went out and shot some more around town.  I was able to get some video of the sun setting over the tundra.

I didn’t stay out long.  The cold was making my fingers go numb pretty quickly.  The metal tripod was also a bit troublesome.  If I ever touched it with my bare hands it kind of burned them with the cold.  Any moisture in your fingers freezes instantly so you get a little freezer burn wherever you touch.

After the funeral was over Doug flew back to Shish and picked us all back up.   We went back to Wales and dropped off that board member.  As we were coming in for our landing I noticed another plane in the sky.  It was dark out, but you could see its lights flashing.  I thought I saw another one near by it.  The Russian have been known to fly over to see if the U.S.A is on the ball as far as intercepting their illegal entry into our air space.  Just a little while ago we had to scramble some fighter jets from Elmendor Air Force base to intercept a Russian war plane over Wales.  So I was thinking to my self… Great we are going to be caught in the middle of some international mid air relations.  Turns out the one plane was actually an Evergreen helicopter that was making its last trip off of Little Diomede for the night, and the other lights were from Tin City an Air Force radar site just on the other side of some mountains from Wales.  They are the ones that catch the Russians flying over and call in the fighters.

So we left Wales and flew directly to White Mountain.  Andy Haviland (the White Mountain principal) was waiting to pick me up.  I tossed my bags into the sled and hopped on the back of the snowmachine and he dropped me off at one of the school buildings to crash in for the night.  White Mountain school burned down last year, so they are in the process of rebuilding.  They currently have 4 or 5 building scattered throughout the village that they hold class in.  Andy was saying how nice it was going to be to not have to get the kids all bundled up to go to lunch or to the gym.

I’ll shoot around here tomorrow until about 12:30 when I hop a plane to Nome, sit for about an hour and a half, then hop a plane to Stebbins.  More to come on that tomorrow.  I hope the weather warms up a little bit.

OHH yeah the title of this post….

When its sunny out it looks great on video, but the viewers have no idea that its flipping cold out.  When its overcast and gray out, it doesn’t look that great on video, but its a lot warmer out.  So showing off these to hire potential teachers.  They are going to find out pretty quickly that the beautiful days are really so cold you think twice about going out and enjoying them.  🙂

The Tripple Play

Sorry for not blogging yesterday.  I know I must have an insane amount of people following my blog now that I have been up dating on a daily basis.  I wouldn’t want to lose my readers because I let it lapse for a day.

Here is a photo from my morning flight out of Gambell to Nome.   The sun was just breaking over the horizon.

I was stuck in Nome again yesterday.  Bering Air canceled their flight out to Brevig Mission.  I guess the weather was marginal, but I think the real reason was the fact that there were only two passengers for the flight, which doesn’t bring in much money for the company.  So I stayed at the Aurora Inn again.  I was able to video skype with my lovely wife for a while.  It really is tough being away for so long.  Not to mention since I’m visiting people at most of the sites, its difficult to find time to get away to call her.  So it was nice to hang out even if we were 3000 miles apart.

This morning I was down at the Bering Air “terminal” at 9:00 because they said that check-in was at 9:15.  Turns out we didn’t actually leave until 10:15.  We flew to Teller and dropped of a state trooper, then took the quick jump over to Brevig Mission.  I didn’t have much time there.  You’ll see why as I continue this post.  So when I landed I got a ride to the school.  I stopped in to AnnMaire’s room and said hello to here, then I was out around town shooting video.  I shot the post office and the clinic, then I stopped over at CO and AnnMaire’s house.  I got to finally meet Harold.

CO and I visited for just a little bit, then I was on the run again.  I filmed one of the teacher housing units, and then borrowed one of the school snowmachines and took it across the frozen ocean 7 miles to Teller.  Just as I pulled into teller the right ski broke free of the tie rod and started to spin around.  As I pulled into the school it was facing backwards.  Not good.  I needed it to get back to Brevig.

So I let Jay Thomas (the Teller principal) know about my situation and he got the school maintenance guy working on a solution.  I went around Teller and shot some video.  The post office and some shots around town.  I even got a few seconds of Joe Garney mushing through town.  He is a local Iditarod Legend.  I got back to the school and the maintenance guy was nowhere to be found.  I waited and waited and waited, and finally really needed to get going.  So Jay tried to jam a stick between the two skies and then tie the tips of the skies together hoping that the stick and rope would hold the broken ski on track with the good ski.  Well, I got all bundled up for the ride back and got all of 4 feet and the stick popped out and the ski was sideways again.  Just as I was working on jamming it back in there and thinking how this so was not going to work the maintenance guy showed up.  He had been looking all over town and finally had found an old broken down machine and “borrowed” the part off of it that we needed.  It only took him a couple of minutes to change out the part, and I was on my way.

I got back to Brevig and had about 30 minutes to visit with CO and AnnMaire at their house before Bering Air came to get me again.  I was on my way to Wales.  The state trooper that was on my morning flight was on there again.  She was on her way back to Nome.  As we approached Wales you could tell that it was covered in clouds.  I snapped a couple pictures of them out the window.  They were very wispy which told us there was some decent wind blowing around out there.

It really hard to tell from the photo because the sun was so bright.  Wales is known for its crazy winds.  They are right on the tip of the Seward Peninsula and the arctic winds blowing out of the north have little to slow them down as they race over the ice pack.

We landed just fine and found that the clouds were pretty high of the ground.  I quickly shot some video of Razor Back Mountain, and of the setting sun nestled in the clouds over the frozen ocean.  Then took this self portrait before hopping on the snowmachine for my ride into town.

I shot some more video around the town of Wales and then stopped into the school.  Craig Probts is the principal here and a very nice guy.  I will be staying at his place this evening.  We chatted a bit and then I gave Erin a call on the phone.  She is up at home this weekend visiting with her dad and April.  I guess the girls are going to run up to Duluth tomorrow.  I hope they have a good time.

I check the BSSD Travel iCal (a calendar subscription that displays all BSSD travel for each day)  I found that once again Teresa had worked her magic and has me flying on Doug (the BSSD pilot/plane) from Wales to Shishmarf tomorrow afternoon, then from Shishmarf to White Mountain tomorrow night.  This is really awesome.  I was so worried about how I was going to make Shishmaref work without having to stay for two nights there.  This will really help me out on the rest of my trip.  That puts me in White Mountain on Sunday, and I am basically back on my original time line.  I should be able to make it down to see the Holts as long as everything goes smoothly.  Keep your fingers crossed.

The Island is Calling

Well this morning I hopped on my 12th flight, this time from Nome, destination…. St. Lawrence Island.  My first stop was in Savoonga.  I hopped off the plane and got a ride into the school.  I went in and visited with Doug Finn, a friend and one of the teachers in Savoonga.  My bags came in a little while after me.  There wasn’t room on the machine I was riding on, and the guy that brought them to the school for me was the local Hageland Agent.  He needed to drop off the mail and the supplies for the store before getting my stuff to the school.  So that gave me time to check email.

Doug, his wife Michelle, and I had lunch at their house and when they went back to school I borrowed their snowmachine to go shoot around the village.  I drove out of town a ways and shot back over the village.  It was pretty white out, so we’ll see how things look when I get them into the computer.  I snapped this photo of me before I headed back towards town.  The sticks in a tepee shape in the background are markers for the trail.  They have these every 100 feet or so along the trail.  This helps you find your way when the weather is really bad.

So I shot around town some more and took a little video in the classrooms.  By then it was working on evening time and I was hopping on another plane to go to the other side of the island, this time to Gambell.  I made it just as the sun was going down.  The view flying in was amazing.  I tried to shoot it with the video camera, but my window was iced up and I couldn’t get a very good view through the crystals.  So as soon I got to the school I borrowed a 4-wheeler and drove it up the side of the mountain behind the school until I got stuck, and then hiked on from there.  I didn’t get as high as I would have liked,  but I was able to shoot the sunset, and down over the town some as well.

I’m off to Brevig tomorrow (weather permitting).  I’m looking forward to visiting with AnnMaire and C.O., and getting to meet Harold.