Fun Trips

The last couple days have been really amazing.  Friday morning I hopped on 406SD (which is the BSSD airplane) with Dr. Davis (BSSD Superintendent), Kim Johnson (BSSD Ed Support Coordinator), and Rebecca Concilus (BSSD Special Ed Coordinator).  We were headed for Little Doimede.  You may have remembered me going out there last fall via helicopter.  Well the Bering Sea got cold enough in the last few weeks to provide a nice layer of sea ice to land on.  Diomede locals were telling us that the ice was about 4 feet thick, which is pretty amazing since it is salt water.

The weather was perfect.  Very sunny out which makes the snowy surounding just that much more stunning.  Here is a different perspective than I was able to show you last time, since I was able to stand out on the the ocean in front of the village.

The kids went out skiing after school on the ice.  They really love to be out and about.  There was a little wind which made it really quite cold if you weren’t covered up.  Nathan Pitt (one of Little Diomede’s teachers) helped me work with a couple of students to shoot a few panoramas on and around the island.  I’ll hopefully post those in a week or so.

Nathan and I hopped on a snowmachine and headed out over the International Dateline.  We wanted to go check out tomorrow or as most of you know it Russia.  Here is a shot of me standing in Russia.

We didn’t want to stay for too long since the Russians don’t really like you visiting.  We shot a couple of photos, and I upheld forgien relations, and we headed back to the USA.

On the way back we stopped by 406SD.  I snapped a cool photo of it with the village of Little Diomede in the background.

Here is one of my classic “self portraits” that I like to take with a student and Little Diomede in the background.  It really amazes me how remote this place is, and the lives the people live out there.

We were only out for a few hours, and had to head back.  It was nice to catch up with friends out there, and see this unique place once again.  I wish Erin could have been along. I think she would have really been impressed with how beautiful this place is.  And its always fun to travel with her.

Climbing Pain

Doug Finn a teacher friend that lives in Savoonga was in Unalakleet for a C&I (curriculum and instruction) meeting. Doug and his wife Michelle really like to climb, unfortunetly Michelle wasn’t able to come along. So afer work on Monday Doug came over for dinner and climbing. We had some tasty Lasagna, and after letting the food settle for a little while hit the wall. We worked on some new routs. Its fun to have someone to work on problems with. Erin humors me from time to time, but it isn’t one of her loves. So we climbed for a couple hours until our hands could no longer hold on any longer. I took a couple of good falls. You’ll see one in the video clip below. The next day I was pretty sore. The day after that I was really sore.

Jason and I headed out after school on Wednesday up the Unalakleet river. We were scouting out the conditions for pulling the sat-uplink sled for broadcasting the Iditarod live from the trail. It was a pretty rough ride once we hopped off the river. Keeping up with Jason is no laughing matter. Doing 60 mph accross the tundra really gets you bouncing. My back is extremely sore today. Im looking forward to the mushers coming into town.

[QUICKTIME http://media.bssd.org/podcasts/big_fall.mov 320 256]

A funny video I thought I’d share…

[flv:http://www.bbryson.com/bill/video/wooden_spoon_prank.flv 480 320]

Hit the ground running…

ASTE was a long fast weekend. John, Randy, and I flew down to Anchorage last Thursday. We stayed at the Captain Cook Hotel which is very nice. Since we were there for the ASTE conference the hotel waved the health club fee which came in handy a couple days into my stay. Friday night I had a board meeting/dinner to attend. We had steak and halibut. It was very nice. The meeting however went awfully late though. I was pretty tired when I finally made it back to my room around midnight.

Erin had just driven in from the Holts. She really enjoyed spending time with such great friends. I wish I could have gotten a chance to get over there for a visit too. We’ll have to find another time to catch up. So it was nice to have her there to spend some time with before she headed south to visit family.

The next day (Saturday) the ASTE pre-conference started. This is two days consisting of half and full day sessions that people can take before the conference starts. I was teaching a half day class that morning on event broadcasting. Teaching people how to help students broadcast school events live. We basically went over how to use Wirecast and incorporate multiple cameras into the mix. I had about 10 or so people in the 3 hour session. It went really really quickly. At noon when our time was up I was thinking I should have set it as a full day session. I think we could have really had people feeling a little more comfortable with starting up their own program in their own school.

With that all finished up I began to start feeling a little under the weather. I spent the afternoon helping get things ready for the conference and installing a live steerable web-cam on the ceiling of the main conference hall. That evening Apple computer took the BSSD EdTech staff and significant others out to dinner. We ate up in the Crows Nest which is a restaurant at the top of tower one in the hotel. It over looks the semi frozen ocean. With the sun setting it was very picturesque. Dinner was very nice.

The night however was not so nice. After dinner I went to bed with a high fever. I was freezing cold and radiating heat. At one point I was curled up in the fetal position trying to stay warm, but was so warm that Erin couldn’t be near me. Along with the fever I had a bad cough, and a headache. Needless to say I didn’t sleep well. The next day more of the same. Really high fever and just generally not feeling well. I didn’t have to present which was really nice. I was in no condition to be in front of a group of people.

Sunday night brought the official start of the conference with a keynote by Marco Tores a teacher from California. A very good speaker if you ever get that chance to hear him I recommend it. He teaches in a rough area, but sounds like the school is a bright spot amid all the bad. The school is open 24-7 and doesn’t have any problems with theft. Marco uses technology to entice students into school that wouldn’t normally fit the mold. They are doing amazing things with apple computers and making their own music. I am musically challenged, so it truly amazes me what they produce.

I presented a few more times on Monday and Tuesday. Again on student broadcasting followed up by podcasting, then helped out randy with small technologies, and finished up with Mac OS X Q and A. Through all this I continued to fight my cold.

I am back in Unalakleet now still fighting my cold wondering if it will ever subside. We have the IditaProject starting up on Monday. There are over 100 schools and up to 5000 students across the country signed up to participate this year. We are really excited hoping that everything goes smoothly.

So with the Iditarod holding its ceremonial start this Saturday and the official start taking place on Sunday I will be working the weekend.  Next weekend I will be traveling to Elim to help students broadcast the regional basketball tournament.  I am supposed to get home late Saturday night.  Scott Slone from IditarodPodcast.com will be up working with the SBT on podcasting, and Vin Capone from Apple will be arriving on Sunday.  The Iditarod mushers should be coming through Unalakleet around then, so it should be getting exciting about then.  We head to Nome that Tuesday to catch the mushers final run to the finish.  That weekend we prep and fly to Anchorage to broadcast the small schools state basketball tournament.  That will be a week long event bringing this crazy crazy March to a close.

More on all this to come…

Windy Sunsets

Its been a nice relaxing weekend. Erin and I have lounged around the house reading, watching TV, and playing on the Internet.

It has been really clear out latley but really really windy. Thats why I dont say nice out the wind makes it very cold.

Erin and I have been out on a few walks. This picture was taken about a week ago. It was another chilly day, but nice to get out for some fresh air.

So with all the clear days we’ve has some really nice sunsets. Here is one from tonight.

If you would like to check out what it looks like in Unalakleet any time try this link. It may take a while for it to load the Java applet, so be patient.

http://www.bssd.org/unkcam.html

I have also uploaded a new album to the gallery just of sunset pictures.

http://www.bbryson.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=3199

Climbing

After work today Erin and I hopped on the wall. Climbing was a lot of fun. Its nice to have someone to climb with. It makes it a lot more fun. Climbing was difficult as usual. My fingers are out of shape. I have to be careful not to try to bare all my weight on the little crimpy holds right now for fear of blowing tendons in my fingers.

Here is a little window into my climbing.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/02/red_rout.mov 320 260]

Here is Erin climbing.

Outside the window of our climbing room there was a spectacular sunset.

Here is a video pano of the sunset.

[QUICKTIME http://bbryson.com/bill/files/2007/02/sunset.mov 320 260]

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.