Ireland

Erin and I are on the ground in Shannon.  🙂

The year is done…

With a frantic last few days in Unalakleet, I keep feeling like I forgot something up north.  It was tough saying good by’s to the friends I’ve made over the last 4 years.  I am excited about our move down south.  It’ll be fun to have some new experiences.

I am sitting in the Anchorage airport right now waiting for my flight down to Minneapolis.  Erin will be meeting me there and we’ll be off to Ireland tomorrow.  Can’t wait for a little vacation.  Keep posted to the blog.  We are hoping to keep everyone updated, and post pictures to the gallery.

A little ride…

Erin and I went for a little honda ride this evening after work. It was really nice out today. The temperatures were in the upper 50s. We went out the road all the way past the bridge. Some snow crosing the road had us turning around. But it was a beautiful ride. Nice to get out and enjoy the time we have left here in Unalakleet. We are really looking forward to summer starting. I have 9 more days of work. Then we are off an running.

Here are some photos from our ride today…

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Ubuntu

Well with some help from a friend from work (Gary) I got the bug to install Linux on my computer.  I used boot camp to partition my hard drive so I can have both Mac OS and Linux on the same machine.  The flavor of Linux I used was Ubuntu specifically the latest release called Feisty Fawn.  After a few troubles and some time in the IRC chat channel for Ubuntu I am up and running.  In fact this post is being written in Ubutntu.

Erin and I have had a pretty nice weekend.  Really nice and relaxing today.  Josh has been hanging out with us a lot this weekend which is really nice.  Its fun to sit around and visit.  He came over this morning for some of Erin’s tasty roll-ups.  The rest of the day has been pretty much taking naps and eating anniversary chicken.

NYO in KKA

Last weekend I was sitting in the Koyuk school gym working with students from the school to broadcast the Native Youth Olympics tournament. Its fun to watch the different events. Yesterday we had the Alaskan High Kick and the Indian Stick Pull. This morning we started off with Two Foot High Kick, moved on to the Wrist Carry. Your probably a little confused what these events are. Let me show you how they go. First off a couple cool photos..

So here we go with the demo videos….

Alaskan High Kick

[QUICKTIME http://media.bssd.org/media/nyo/alaskan_one_foot.mov 320 260]

Canadian One Foot High Kick

[QUICKTIME http://media.bssd.org/media/nyo/canadian_one_foot.mov 320 260]

Indian Stick Pull

[QUICKTIME http://media.bssd.org/media/nyo/indian_stick_pull.mov 320 260]

Kneel Jump

[QUICKTIME http://media.bssd.org/media/nyo/kneel_jump.mov 320 260]

One Hand Reach

[QUICKTIME http://media.bssd.org/media/nyo/one_hand_reach.mov 320 260]

Seal Hop

[QUICKTIME http://media.bssd.org/media/nyo/seal_hop.mov 320 260]

Stick Pull

[QUICKTIME http://media.bssd.org/media/nyo/stick_pull.mov 320 260]

Toe Kick

[QUICKTIME http://media.bssd.org/media/nyo/toe_kick.mov 320 260]

Two Foot High Kick

[QUICKTIME http://media.bssd.org/media/nyo/two_foot_high.mov 320 260]

Wrist Carry

[QUICKTIME http://media.bssd.org/media/nyo/wrist_carry.mov 320 260]

Its really amazing what these kids are able to do. The athleticism it takes for many of these events is astounding. The Student Broadcasting Team will be traveling to Anchorage this weekend to broadcast the State NYO tournament. Check out www.bssd.org for information on how to watch the live coverage.

Wayki

Was stumbling along and found this pretty cool site. It looks like its using Google Maps API. We in BSSD use it a little bit for our mushing wiki. Anyway. I put a marker at Eaten Station on the Unalakleet River. If you’d like to check it out try this link. http://www.wayki.com/?item=1177490566 Post a cool place you like on there and paste the link in a comment them to this posting. Then I can check them out.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Well, I’m sure most of you read Erin’s blog, so you’re probably all up to speed on our exciting news for next year.  We decided to get a snake.  After long discussions with James we are going to name him Alligator.  Since the arctic isn’t really the best place for a snake we are going to move to Brainerd, MN.  Erin informed the local middle school that she’d be taking over one of their 6th grade classes for them. We are really excited to be near our friends Mike and Amanda who also live in Brainerd.  They should have a new baby by now, so hopefully Alligator will play nice with their new little one.  (The above is mixed with fact and fiction can you figure out what is real and what isn’t?)

So that was the good.  The bad began a couple of days ago.  I was working on an email when my computer began acting a little funny.  When I tried to send the message it would blank everything out.  The person I was sending to, the subject, and the message itself.  So I deleted the message and tried with a new message.  The same thing happened.  I deleted the message, closed Mail and launched it again.  The message popped up which it shouldn’t have done because I deleted it.  So it was still acting funny.  I opened up a new message and the same thing happened.  I decided I’d relaunch Mail again.  This time when Mail opened back up it told me that it was corrupted and needed restart itself to try to fix the problem.  It did this to me twice.  I decided it would be a good idea to restart the computer and see if that resolved the issue.  When the computer tried to start the only thing that showed on the screen was a folder with a question mark on it.   Not a good sign.  I brought the machine to PK.  He plugged it into one of his machines to work on it.  The only problem was that the partition that had all my data on it was not longer found.  The HD didn’t even know it had anything on it.  :(  Not good.  PK ran data recovery software on it.  The next day it was finished and we were able to recover all my data.  Which was awesome.  I hadn’t backed up in a while, and it would have been a bummer to lose everything.

The Ugly.  I spent the next day erasing the HD and installing Mac OS X on it.  It took me three tries for the install to work.  I thought it was a problem with one of my install disc’s.  So I got the OS installed, and worked late at work getting the updates all installed, and a few programs on.  I went home and started moving my files over and getting things set up the way I want them.  About 1:00 AM the computer started acting up again.  I restarted and it kernel panic’d on me.  this is where the screen turns gray and a message comes up in like 7 languages telling you to restart your computer.  This happens from time to time, so I restarted and it happened again.  After several tries it kernel panic’d every time right when it started up.  Not good.  So after spending the entire day trying to get it back up and running it was down for the count again.  I brought it into PK this morning and he just skyped me a big ago telling me that the b-tree was messed up on it again.  Having two of those in as many days is a very good sign that the HD is toast.  So now I am on a loaner computer waiting for a new HD to come in the mail.  🙁

I flew over to Koyuk today on the BSSD plane.  I am here to work with Koyuk students to broadcast the regional NYO (Native Youth Olympics) tournament.  We will be streaming it live if your interested.  I’ll update the BSSD website with information on how to view the live streams.

Lazy Weekend

The weekend has flown by once again.  Friday night Erin and I hung out and watched Employee of the Month.  It was okay.  Not the best movie in the world, but the main character Dane Cook is a pretty funny guy.  I slept in on Saturday till about 10:00.  Its really nice to sleep after working so much the last month.  Erin went over to Stacie’s house to help out with her “garage” sale.  I went into the office to work on a video I am editing about Little Diomede.  I shot a lot of video on my two trips out there, and am working up a little about Dio video for the district to use for recruitment, and also for myself.  Saturday Night we had the Johnsons over for some dinner and games.  Nice to relax with friends and socialize.  I was super lazy this morning and didn’t get up till noon.  It really makes the day a lot shorter when you do that, but it was nice to just not get out of bed.  Really a low key weekend.  Looking forward to having a couple of normal weeks before NYO at the end of the month.

SBT State Basketball

So I’m in Anchorage right now working with 10 students from the Bering Strait School District, a few from Anchorage School District, and a few from Mediak to broadcast the 1A/2A state basketball tournament. The kids have been doing a great job the last few days. We started out in two separate buildings broadcasting live from both. Half of the group setting up shop in Service High-school and the other half over at University of Alaska Anchorage. It was a little hectic being at separate sites. Patty Vink one of the teachers that came along to help spent most of the day driving kids from the locations around town to get some food in their bellies and some shopping under their belt.

After the first day we packed up all our gear and moved into the Sulivan arena. Randy and I came over at about 11:30 Tuesday evening to get things set up. We left the Sulivan around 1:30 in the morning. Not much sleep that night. The next morning we were over there at 6:45 the next morning getting the rest of the equipment in place. We didn’t really want to leave our cameras and computers out while we were gone. Broadcasting has been going pretty well. The kids have been working really long hours and have had great attitudes for the most part.

The tournament went well.  It was nice to get finished up Thursday night.  The kids helped pack up all our gear.  We got some sleep and the next morning went out to IHOP for breakfast before hopping on flights.

I spent this weekend getting caught up on sleep.  I was really wiped out.  I slept in till 10:30 Saturday morning, and then took a couple hour nap in the afternoon, and then went to bed around 11:00 that night.  No nap today, but looking forward to another nights sleep.

Today Erin and I booked tickets to Ireland.  We are taking off right after school gets out for me.  We are really excited.  Starting to look at things we can do and places to stay.  We’ll keep you updated on what plans we get figured out for the trip.

Fun Trips Part 2

So when we landed back in Unalakleet after the trip to Little Diomede, I wanted to shoot some video of the BSSD plane getting put back in the hanger.  Doug (BSSD’s pilot) had to fill it up with fuel first, so I was waiting around for that to get finished up.  I was talking with Doug and his wife Margaret.  They mentioned that they were planning on going to Nome the next day for a little trip.  Doug has his own plane in Unalakleet a 185 on skis.  Margaret told Doug that they should swing by Serpentine Hot Springs which is about 50 miles east of Shishmaref.  I mentioned how beautiful it was up there, and Doug asked if I’d ever been.  I told him that I had not, and that he had flown me through there on one of our flights last year, and how I really liked the tall rock spires that were all through that area.  He then asked me if I had any plans for the next day, and if I wanted to join them.  I told them I was free, and that I’d love to go.

So 8:30 the next morning (yesterday being Saturday) I showed up at Doug’s door, and we visited for a little bit while they finished up breakfast, and down to the plane we went.  We got it all fueled up, and piled in.  There was Doug, Margaret, their dog Buddy, and Me.  Buddy and I got to snuggle in the back seat.  As nice as Buddy was, it would have been great to have Erin along with.  I hope we are able to get out there together for a weekend this spring

.

So Buddy is a ginormous Malamute Husky, but unlike the other huskies I know, Buddy is like a big teddy bear.  Really a tame, and low key dog.  Sits quietly, and handled flying like a pro.  One of the down sides to flying with buddy is the fact that he is a husky, and has a lot of fur.  When he gets warm, he sheds.  Here is kinda what it was like.

We headed toward Serpentine flying low over the vastness of the open tundra.  We had a bit of a headwind, so the flight took longer than it should have.  I didn’t mind at all, I was shooting tons of photos out the window.  I’ll post them over in the gallery.

We didn’t see any animals until we got to the hot-springs.  We had to do a flyby on the little gravel strip by the springs to clear the caribou off the strip.

There had to have been about 50 or so all over the place.  It was really cool watching them run across the frozen tundra.  Once the strip was clear Doug brought it in for a landing.  He didn’t even have to use the skis.  There wasn’t enough snow to warrant the use.

Serpentine Hotsprings is a really cool place.  Its down in this bowl surrounded by these rock spiers on all sides.  I think it would be a great place to go climbing in the summer and fall.

So there was a grant that paid for these buildings to be built back in the 70’s.  There are two one being a place to sleep.  Its quite big with three rooms.  One in the middle, and from the middle room you can go to either side into separate sleeping/cooking/eating areas.  Its set up to accommodate two separate parties at one time.  So each side has bunks, a fuel oil stove, a Colman cook stove, and a table to eat at.  From there is a boardwalk that connects you to the other building which is the pool for the hot springs.

The little building you can see off at the end has a bit of an arctic entry way, then the main room in which the pool is.  It really doesn’t matter much.  There is so much frost inside from the warm steam of the springs that you can’t get the doors shut very well anyway. 

So I got changed in the main building, and then headed out across the board walk to the room with the pool.  It was really nice out that day. Not much wind, and the sun was shining down.

The pool isn’t that big, but large enough for a few adults to sit comfortably. You control the temperature by a couple of pipes.  One is fed directly by the hot springs, and the water is pretty hot.  There is also another pipe that is fed by a stream, which provides cold water.

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I was really impressed by the amount of frost inside that building.  One thing that really caught my eye was the thick layer of ice on top of the rafters.  I was really cool looking.

In fact everything near the springs were covered in frost.  Here is a wheel barrow that was taken over by frost.

After soaking for a few hours, we hopped back into the plane and headed toward Nome.  We stopped along the way at a little gold mine.  Doug knows the people that run the outfit.  So we landed, and went to see if anyone was around.  Apparently the miners have a couple of dogs that Buddy doesn’t get along with, so we left him in the plane.  I shot this picture of him really wanting to join us.  It looks like he is also trying to fly the plane.  Kinda funny.

After a quick look up at the main house, we realized that no one was home, and that they were probably over at a different area of their mine.  So we hopped back in the plane and headed to Nome.  Along the way we flew over Pilgrim Hot-springs which is really close to Teller and Brevig.  They just have their pool outside, so its a bit different setup

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Very near there is a big range of mountains.  We flew along side them until we found the right valley to fly through.  The mountains were just beautiful.

We made it on through.  Stopped in Nome for a little bit, and then headed back to Unalakleet.  We had a head wind going back believe it or not, which made the trip home a bit slow as well.  We ended up landing back in Unalakleet at 11:00 PM.  It was a great day.  The only thing that would have made it perfect was to have Erin along.  I really hope we get the chance to go spend the night up there in the next few weeks.