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.

I’m Back by Popular Demand ;)

Well, I know its been forever and a day since I last posted.  So its time to get back into the swing of things.  Erin and I are both on our Christmas breaks right now.  We had a very nice time down in Cook, Minnesota.  It was nice hanging out with family.  Erin being the ambitious person she is initiated the creation of a skating rink in the lake.  She and her dad got to work with the snow blower clearing off the snow on the lake.  Unfortunetly the snow blower broke part way through.  So it was shovels from there.  I was able to help out with the end of the process.

After we had the ice cleared there were a few bumpy patches.  So Jim and I cut a hole in the ice with a chain saw.  It brought back memories of crabbing on the Bering strait.  With the hole cut we got out a couple garden hoses and a pump used in the summer to empty the rain out of the boats.  We flooded the rink with a about an inch of water.  The next morning we had a nice skating surface.

[QUICKTIME http://www.bbryson.com/movies/skating.mov 320 255]

At times there were many of us out there skating.  I had to go in spurts.  My new skates that Erin helped me pick out were rough on the arches in my feet.  I could skate for a while, then have to take them off and let the feet rest.  Erin was out there the whole time. She is fun to skat with.

Erin got us an awesome christmas present this year.  I was really surprised. She bought really nice tickets to a Minnesota Wild Hockey Game.  For those of you who don’t know.  The Wild is Minnesota’s professional hockey team. Here is a picture of us at the game.

This is where we were sitting.  Nice seats.

The game was awesome.  Minnesota ended up winning 5-2.  We stayed at a hotel right accross the streat, so we didn’t have to worry about traffic.  Really had a great time.  Looking forward to attending more of those next year when we are living considerably closer.

I flew home to Valdez on the 27th of December.  It has been snowing really hard since I’ve been home.  A week before my arrival they had 29 inches in 24 hours.  That wasn’t were it stopped they enededd up with about three feet in that storm.  We have added to that another couple feet by now.  Its fun to watch the big flakes falldown.

Yesterday Abby, her husband Steve, and I went out snowshoeing up Hogs Back a mountain behind Robe river.  Our approach to the base was quite the ordeal.  We missed the groomed trail that takes you right to the beginning of the ridge.

Making our own trail we criss-crossed a stream at times in the water trying to step on the big rocks to keep our feet out of the water.  When we were in the snow there was about a foot of fresh snow that we had to break trail through.  When we finally made it to the base of the ridge is when the real work began.  Snowshoeing uphill and having to break trail at times is tuff work. Since I am really out of shape, it made the whole process that much more enjoyable.  ;)  No it was a lot of fun.

The views were beautiful and the weather was warm with out any wind.  The whole trip ended up taking about 6 hours.  I am really feeling it today.

Thats kinda how break has been going.  I will be back to work on the 8th.  I’ll fill you in on my exciting adventures a little  more often now.  Hope everyone has a safe and fun new years.

The Wall is FINISHED!!!

The last of the t-nuts came in the end of last week.  Yesterday, I borrowed a skill saw from Vance (the person we rent from).  With Erin’s help we got all the t-nuts hammered in.  WE built a frame for the other side wall.  Since we bought studs instead of regular 2×4’s we had a little lip of the plywood hanging over the edge.  The skill saw made quick work of that.

After we had the back wall screwed into the side walls, it was starting to take shape. We found out that the screws we used to screw the plywood into the studs for support were sticking out the back just a little bit.  So when we would walk by we occasionally were scratched by them.  It wasn’t long before I was fixing that issue.

After we got that taken care of we went to work on the roof. It went up pretty quickly.  We were able to secure it into place which added even more stability to the whole structure.  Then it was on to the back slant.  We only used one sheet of plywood for the vertical part of the back wall.  From there we slanted the rest of the back wall to meet up with the one sheet we used for the roof.  It was a bit of a struggle, but Erin and I finally finished up construction.

It was then time to add the holds.  By this time it was around 10:30 P.M.  It had been a long day working in that little room.  Erin jumped right into bolting on the holds.

After we finished putting on the holds that Erin got me last year for my birthday, it was time for a little climbing.  Man has it been a long time.  I can’t believe how out of shape I am, and how great of a work out this is going to be.  I am really excited to be able to climb this year. The district is having its fall in-service here this week, and we have friends coming into town from Savoonga that are bringing their climbing shoes, so it’ll be fun to play a little match game, or set some routs.

[QUICKTIME http://www.bbryson.com/movies/bill_first_climb.mov 320 255]

Я вижу Россию (I See Russia)

As I sit here in Little Diomede with Russia only 2.5 miles away.  I am taken back by the beautiful views in front of me.  When the weather is nice this is a very picturesque place.

My trip started from Unalakleet at 9:00 AM Saturday morning.  A crew of us hopped on BSSD airways and flew to Nome where a couple of us hopped off.  The rest of the crew went on to Wales.  Vanessa and I were the ones who stayed in Nome.  We were the lucky ones that were able to take the helicopter all the way from Nome to Little Diomede.

When we got out to the island we were greeted by the staff and a few kids.  After we got settled in and had a bite to eat we went out to hike up to the top of the island.  It was a beautiful day.  We started hiking up the “North Trail”.    Here is a picture of the village after hiking for a little bit.

When we got near the top I snapped this self portrait where you can see the heli pad by Little Diomede Village, and Big Diomede (Russia) in the background.

We walked across the top of the island which was very flat.  We got to where we were directly over the top of the village.  Here is what it looks like from above.

The school is the building with the red roof.  Just up the hill from that is where Nathan, Ben, and Elise live.  Nathan and Ben were kind enough to let me sleep on their

couch.

We continued our hike moving around to the other side of the village.  On our decent Nathan took this picture of me with Russia in the background.

show off this amazing place.  As the sun was setting over Russia we were all sitting around visiting as we were eating dinner.  It was a very nice day.

Here I am…

I know its been a crazy long time since I last blogged.  I’m sorry for that.  A lot has happened since the 20th of August.  I won’t be able to remember all of the great stories that crop up on a daily basis, so I will just cover the basics, and fill you in on the last few days.

A couple weeks ago I flew down to Anchorage to install a QuickTime server at the GCI school access building.  We are setting up a Quicktime Streaming solution for our video conferences.  This will allow our staff members who aren’t able to make a certain conference to watch it at a later date right from there computer.  We also hope to use it for our event broadcasting so community members that aren’t able to go into the school will be able to watch events like the Native Youth Olympics and our student coverage of the Iditarod.

So I flew down on a Friday after work.  Rick Holt was up in Unalakleet for the week prior working with the high school students on a leadership program, and was flying back to town on the same flight I was one.  So we met up with his wife Tiff and their two boys Keegan and Rohnan for some dinner at the Bears Tooth.  Dinner was delicious.  The next morning at 9:00 A.M, I met up with Tom Obey the School Access Helpdesk manager.   He let me into the building and helped me get a static ip address for the server.  After that was done, I got the interface set up that enables the video conference to be recorded and streamed out.

Erin flew in the next afternoon.  I picked her up from the airport, and we headed out to Rick and Tiffs to help them work on their yurt.  It was a fun couple of days with great friends, working on their beautiful home.  Erin, the boys, and I even got a swim in at the pond/lake by their home. The water was extremely cold, but it was fun to get the boys to jump in.  We headed back to Unalakleet on Tuesday.

Erin took off for Savoonga on Monday, which is one of the BSSD schools located on St. Lawrence Island.   She was out there for her SFA job.  So I was home alone for most of the week.  Its nice to have her back.

While she was gone I started work on the new BSSD website.  I am really excited about it.  I have been working on it really hard, getting to bed around 3:00 in the morning, and skipping my lunch breaks.  I have made a lot of progress, and basically just need to port over the information from the old site.

My goal is to have it completed by Friday of next week.  It may be a lofty goal, but Erin is gone next week, and since I’m home alone, I might as well work.  I should be able to get it finished up.  I will release a sneak peak near the completion to my loyal blog readers.  (I hope both of your enjoy).

Not a whole lot else going on. Erin and I are going to watch a movie.  Hope you all have a good day.