CASC

Today is the first day of CASC which stands for content area standing committee.  A few teachers from across the district are here in Unalakleet to help revise the standards that are the ground work of our instructional moodle.  I am in the Technology session.  The tech standards were created by one individual about four years ago.  They have not been modified, and need a little improvement.

Randy is running the show. We started by breaking down the basic usage and mechanics we thought were important in technology. We then broke that down into the tools that you would need to facilitate the technology use. We then broke down the tools into what they each consisted of. Darla is putting it all into the bssd wiki if you’d like to take a look.

Sounds like we are heading over to a barbecue with the Holts and the Johnsons and friends this evening. It should be a good time.

Home from Homer

Last weekend Erin and I went to Homer.  She had to work, and I had to take a couple days off.  So when she was done working with the project GRAD crew from down there we did a little Halibut fishing, and spent some time together outside of the usual Unalakleet hustle and bustle.  We did fairly well on the halibut boat.  We didn’t catch big fish, but we were able to catch our limit of 2 fish each.  We ended up with about 50 pounds of fish.  We took the filets to a company that packages it into whatever size you want, flash freeze it, and box it up for you.  We were planning on sending most of it down to MN, so we had them make one box weigh 50 pounds and put the excess into another box.  So we ended up with a box weighing 50 pounds on the dot that Erin took down to Minnesota, and another box with three packages in it which I brought up to Unalakleet with me.  We took some pictures which you can find at the Homer section of the gallery.

AAA

Made it back home today. After our little trip to Stebbins Randy and I finished up this afternoon in time to catch the hageland flight back to Unalakleet. We stopped off in St. Michael to drop off some mail, and in the proccess the plane got a little stuck in the soft gravel on the side of the runway. They tried hooking a truck on the front to pull us out, that didn’t work so well. Here is a picture and a video of the whole ordeal.

[QUICKTIME http://www.bbryson.com/movies/stuck.mov 321 257]

Stebbins Mission

After an evening at home, I am off on the road again.  This time to Stebbins which is one of our larger schools in the district.  Hopped on Doug Air (the BSSD plane) at 9:00 this morning.  A quick 40 minute flight over the crumbling ocean ice brought us to the little gravel strip just outside the village of Stebbins.  Randy and I spent the morning getting equipment and web space ready for working with the students after they finished up with their structured morning classes.  I worked with a couple of girls who promptly imported the vide from the last couple years of the Native Dance Festival.  They chopped the clips up in to roughly 5 minute pieces, and then got them ready to be compressed.  Since compression is really a sit and wait step in the process I let that run through the evening.  The girls will work with me tomorrow to get it up on the web.  Some of the clips are kind of big which will make it a slow download for dial up users, but those of you with high speed connections will be able to view them in a matter of minutes.

After we get done here I will be heading to Homer to go halibut fishing with Erin.  I still have to take a couple of days off to stay under contract, and Erin was going to Homer for work, so we decided to meet up down there for a little get away.  We signed up for a day long halibut charter.  We are hoping to be able to fill our freezer with tasty halibut for next year.  We’ll see how lucky we are that day.  I hope Erin gets one.  It is pretty fun to pull in those big fish.

ASTE

Since I havn’t blogged in a few days I will catch you up quickly on my adventures of late.   I am sitting in a meeting room at the millennium hotel in Anchorage.  We are in our second morning of an ASTE board meeting.  The weekend has gone pretty fast.  We went out to dinner Friday evening at the Brewhouse.  Dinner was very tasty.  Dan Foote (a guy we contract with for his tech services) was there, along with the rest of the board, the CEO of United Utilities, and the head honcho in Alaska for ATT.

After dinner we tried to go out to see Mission Impossible 3, but the theater closed at 10:30 so we missed out on that.  Saturday morning we started out at 8:00 working our way through the agenda.  We took a bit of a break for lunch, and then ended around 5:20 P.M.  We went out to dinner at Simon and Seafords.  A very nice resturant down by the ocean in Anchorage.   I had a very tasty ceaser salad and new york strip steak with blue chease dressing, and crem brule for dessert.  After dinner we went around shopping to a few places, and then met up with my parents back at the hotel.  We visited for while and then crashed for the evening.

Today we started out at 8:00 AM again.  Afully early to be up on a weekend, but thats part of the deal I guess.  The meetings went pretty fast.  One of the things I was working on was a logo for next years ASTE conference.  Here are the ones I threw together really quckly.  Let me know what you think.

So I had better get on the plane.

I Eat Brainz

Well, I played around with my itunes library a bit today.  There is a really cool app called “I Eat Brainz” that looks at your iTunes library and updates the titles, artists, and album information.  I have a few CD’s in my collection that I ripped ;)  on my old computer and never put the track names in.  So my new machine can’t figure out the information using the CDDB access built into iTunes.  So its nice to get the library all filled out.

Today went pretty fast.  John was busy working on the Dart project today, so we didn’t get to work together at all.  Randy was still in Wales working with the staff ther.  Hageland decided they didn’t want to fly out there and pick him up this afternoon, so he go stuck in Nome for the evening.  Im sure he wasn’t too happy about that.  Its pretty lame that they can decide to just not go out because they don’t feel like it.

Tonight is the first night since we got the 4-wheeler going that Erin and I didn’t go for a ride.  We had Josh over for dinner.  Tacos and strawberry margaritas were tasty.  We then watched Alias and Lost.  Both were new episodes, and had crazy plot twists.

Fast Weekend

Well, I made it back safely from Nome.  The week went well.  I think the kids not only had fun, but learnd a lot too.  Erin and I spent the weekend relaxing and watching movies.  Last night we went over to Kim and Greg Johnson’s place for a little socializing.  It was a lot of fun.  John and Rebecca, Terry and Linda, Ted and Tonya, and Peggy were all over as well.  It was nice to visit.  Today We watched Red Eye, which was okay.  Very predictable….

Exciting news…. We were able to get our 4-Wheeler running today.  A couple weeks ago I was able to drag it out of the snow which wasn’t easy, and push it around the edge of the house where it would be in the sun most of the time.  So after pulling on it for a while today it started up.  I then went and asked Jason if I could barrow a hammer and a punch to take care of that pesky front drive shaft that had broken off.  Well, not too long thereafter Erin and I were out on a ride up the road.  We took some nifty pictures.

If you would like to take a look at some more you can find them at the new bbryson gallery.

This should be a pretty fast week.  I can’t belive how fast the year has gone.  Erin and I started reading “The Chronicles of Narnia” tonight.  I don’t know how soon we will be able to finsih it.  I head to Anchorage this weekend for an ASTE meeting, and she is planning on heading home soon.  So we’ll have to get a lot of reading done this week, and pick up the rest when my year finally ends.

There’s No Place Like Nome….

With NYO finishing, my travels brought me to Nome.  I am here for the OS Help Desk Certification that BSSD is jointly putting on in conjunction with Southwest Region School District, and to help with the gifted and talented camp.  The help desk kids are staying at the NACTEC dorm, which I visited for the first time today.  The facility is very nice.  They have bedrooms, common rooms, and a kitchen.  The students are responsible for all of their own cooking and cleaning outside of their classwork. So its a good experience for them. The GT kids are staying at the Aurora Inn.

Tomorrow, the GT kids will be flying in.  I will be working primarily with the OS Help Desk kids for tomorrow, and then floating between the two groups after that.  I would write more, but I am exhausted, and need to hit the sack.  I’ll fill you in on the rest of the details tomorrow.

NYO Day Two….

The tournament has finally come to a finish.  The kids were great.  Everyone was very polite, and their sportsmanship was excelent.  These events are amazing.  The “one foot high kick” reached a max height this evening of 104″.  I’ll post some video later on this.  Its really impressive how high they can kick.

I got all the gear packed up.  4 students and I fly to Nome tomorrow morning aroudn 10:00 AM.  I will be staying at the Aurora (Thank you Rebecca) which will be so nice. Im looking forward to getting some sleep.

Erin is in New York right now.  She is presenting at an SFA conference.  Sounds like she may have the morning to get recooperated after a 4 hour time zone change.  I hope her sessions go smoothly.  There was a lot going on today, but Im too tired to write about it.  🙂

I did help Conrad, a teacher from Stebbins set, set up a blog today.  You should check it out.  He put a lot of work into it today.  You can find it  at http://stebbins.bssd.org/radwood/.

More to come from Nome tomorrow…..

NYO Day One….

The first day of NYO is finally over. I started my day out by hopping Doug Air at 8:00 AM. I was scheduled to fly into Nome then catch a Bering Air flight back to White Mountain. Tim who does all of the maintenance on the BSSD plane, and who also is a pilot does a lot of the scheduling for the BSSD plane. He made a couple changes, and set things up so I would be dropped off at White Mountain right away, which not only saved me a ton of time, but the hassle of dealing with extra luggage on Bering Air.

We took of in cloudy skies from the Unalakleet airport. Moments later we had left the clouds behind to find a bright blue sky over crisp snow covered tundra. The ocean is still frozen in most places. You can see the chunks breaking where the ocean is biting away at the pack ice. It looks like a giant jigsaw puzzle. As I’m flying to the 21st annual district Native Youth Olympic competition and looking at the pack ice. It made me think about how the Inupiat’s used to travel and hunt across that ice. There is one competition called the scissor jump where they jump across the gym crossing their one leg behind the other in the jumping process (kind of like a triple jump) to see how much distance they can cover. The sport originated from jumping from ice burg to ice burg over the near freezing water. It amazes me they were able to survive.

So I landed in White Mountain just 45 minutes after I left Unalakleet. For those of you who haven’t been to White Mountain. It is a small village nestled in the trees on the side of a small mountain. In the summer there is a river that flows right in front of the village. This time of year it is still covered with ice. The school is spread out in a few buildings in an area approximately half the size of a city block. It is a very pretty place.

I got all my gear dropped off in the gym, and then dropped off my bag up in the apartment I am staying in. Andy the principal pointed me in the direction of one of the buildings to steal some kids to help set things up. I was able to get two students who quickly helped me unpack all of my tubs, and get all of the gear set up. After-which time I had about 8 hours to kill before the competition started. So I worked on setting up a gallery for the pictures that would be taken to be uploaded to. If you are interested you can find them at www.bssd.org/gallery/.The events went really well this evening. We started off with the scissor jump, and then ended with the Alaskan one footed high kick. This is where they lean back on one hand, use their other hand to hold one of their feet, then they must jump up with the other foot, kick a ball that is hanging in the air, and then land on the foot they kicked with without falling over. Its amazing how high they can go. The winning boy this evening was able to kick a ball 80 inches off the ground.