Video Dump!

So! Facebook video uploads are still not playing nice with our internet, so we have a minor backload of videos from the last couple weeks. Mind if we throw them all into one big post? K, here ya go:

Here's Loki out for a swim this morning, dodging chunks of river ice...

Here's Isaac walking home from school Thursday afternoon...

And now some from the Bethel trip. First, a video of our transportation to and from the airport :-P...

Isaac spent an entire day continuously running around the Yurt, destroying everything within his reach...here's a sample...

And finally, a quick one of us taking off from Bethel, heading home!

No, Alanis...

Not ironic (dontcha think?), just bummeriffic timing.

So of course, the weekend after we sell the snowmachine, I have no fewer than three people ask me if I want to go along hunting with them. Where were they last weekend? Ugh.

Though I suppose the family we sold the machine to hasn't actually given us any money for it yet, so I should just call them and ask to use it...but I'm a little too socially awkward to do that. Besides, I'm sure they're out on it hunting anyway.

Ah, spring on the tundra.

Hey look!

We made the news!

Time to get a Blackberry?

Cell phone coverage has made it to the village!

Tundra Drums: Cell phones the latest rage in Bush Alaska

So far, we can get a signal on Sara's pre-paid phone she bought in Anchorage last spring while she was there waiting for Isaac to arrive, but we can't actually use it as we're not on the same plan. We get 3 bars of signal, but the display reads "emergency use only". Still, it's good to know that it works in an emergency. As for my phone, it's on the Sprint network, so it's still useless 'til I get down to the lower 48.

But if GCI has brought a cell signal to Nunap, might internet be close behind? We can only hope...

Hunt for White October

A fine greeting this was this morning! It kept snowing and blowing all day, too...and it's supposed to go all night as well. The bad news is it's so windy (>30mph), that most of the snow is just blowing away. Not that it's likely to stick around anyway, I'm sure there's at least a couple more days near 40 degrees in our near future (if not in the forecast) before real winter sets in.

Same goes for the river...there's ice on the far side, but I doubt it'll last. If only because it's too early for people to put their boats away, and as such will keep breaking it up to get across.

But yeah, just wanted to drop a quick post to say I hope you Wisconsin folk are enjoying your 60-whatever degree weather....I could be snowmobiling in a month ;-)

Long, boring catch-up post.

Oof, I really have let this get away from me, haven't I? If you're still checking here, thanks...hopefully your persistence will begin being rewarded again soon. It's been a combination of lack of post-worthy things going on, the ease of just posting tiny updates on Facebook instead of trying to expand them into blog posts, and the fact that most of what I'd want to post in this election season would have been more suited for my old blog, and not this "Alaska Journal" specific blog. My days are pretty locked into a routine of bottles, diaper changes, and naps (while trying to fit in some school projects and other things where possible), but here goes a bit of a last-3-weeks roundup :-P

A day or two after my last post was the pushed-up date for my first Alaska PFD check. Woohoo! A nice little chunk of change. So, like many Alaskans, first thing I did was purchase some plane tickets. In my case, back to WI for xmas break. In order to save a few hundred dollars, we decided I would fly back a week early like I did my first year up here, so I'll be back in the midwest starting 12/14. Just in case you were wondering.

This year's check was even larger than originally expected, thanks to an additional $1200 tacked on by the legislature (supposedly at the behest of our Governor...you may have heard of her recently), for the expressed purpose of ofsetting the insane cost of living increases out here in rural Alaska, specifically the cost of energy. Well, in many cases, it's having another effect...people are just moving from the Bush into the hub cities, or even into Anchorage. In Bethel, I've even heard a term coined for it..."energy refugees". Now, I'm not up at school enough to be really "in the loop" as far as knowing exactly what's going on all that much in the community, but from what I hear, most of the moving that's going on here is for other reasons, but it seems (to my admittedly narrow perspective) that there's more people moving away from the village. It's by no means scientific, but we're appearing to fit the pattern. Shrug.

Speaking of Alaska news (how's that for a segue?), there was a story on the Anchorage news last night about people here paying more attention to the political news, blah blah blah, and how it can raise stress levels. They even interviewed a therapist who said people who are feeling overstressed by everything should know when to "take a break"...which I found a bit amusing, seeing that I did just about the exact same thing a few weeks back. I dunno, the whole selection of Palin and the lying BS of the Republican convention Alaska attention politically...my head was threatening to explode, so I just decided to stop paying attention for a couple weeks. And guess what...it worked. I managed to save my sanity and not go completely bonkers before election day. I hope.

One thing that's been interesting is all the attention Palin is bringing to Alaska politics. Some has been good, but most of it has been of the negative variety. While national scrutiny has blown open the Troopergate deal and the Stevens trial, it's also basically put the McCain campaign basically in control of state government, acing as council for the Governor and basically maneuvering the day-to-day operation of state affairs to the best benefit of the GOP presidential campaign. In the short term, it's helping Palin and McCain (even though Caribou Barbie's approval rating has gone from 82% to 68% here as news of some of her more...interesting...positions have come to light, McCain/Palin has basically locked Alaska's 3 electoral votes up at about a 15 point lead...you may think AK was going red anyway, but Obama had cut it to a 5 point deficit in August!), I think it's going to hurt Alaska's "solid red state" status long term. I mean, the state is still super "independent"-minded, plus lots of oil interests, etc...but when the newscasts every night are the latest gaffes by our ever-more-obviously imbecilic Governess, followed by daily coverage of our senior Senator's trial and our longtime Representative's scandals and poll deficit...well, let's just hope we can crack this ice yet.

Let's see, anything I'm forgetting? Oh, I had the chance to chaperone a trip to Bethel a couple weekends ago. Got to shop, eat out (gyros!), and watch some of the best cross country runners in the state. I was even able to bring back some goodies for Sara (sushi, anyone?) thanks to some miracles of scheduling right before we left. All in all, it was a good time and a nice 24-hour break.

At the moment, I'm going to keep watching the Brewer game while Isaac naps...with the Twins out of the playoffs thanks to a coin-flip and some shady dealing from MLB, and the Packers facing an uphill road to an 8-8 season thanks to brutal injuries, the Brewers are the only think I've got going at this point. And they're down 3-0 at this point in game one. Yee-haw.

Insanity

Three posts in 2 days? Has Shaun started smoking the crack? No, but something just happened that's so cool that it demanded immediate posting...

Yeah, that's a picture of 2 cold air funnel clouds. There were 3, I guess, and the big one was even larger, but by the time I heard what was happening and got outside, these were all that were left. Isaac and I still watched them for 10 or 15 minutes before they roped out. Not surprising they lasted as long as they did, considering my wind gauge at the house was reading 0.0mph all afternoon :-P

But yeah! 5 summers of storm chasing in WI and the best funnels I see are outside my house in Alaska? There's gotta be a moral to that story...

To touch base...

Wow, 10 days since I last posted? Dizzamn. My bad.

There's been stuff going on, too. Lots of things on the fritz around the house...everything I touch seems to be breaking. Our satellite connection is only half working, my Dell laptop has a few keys now that aren't working thanks to some questionable placement and a clumsy water spill, making anything that involves typing a no-go on that computer for now, until I get a keyboard to plug into it. Not to mention various things around the house, like the heat being stuck on and window installation being...ahem...ongoing. This year is certainly starting off with a bang.

As for school, well, I'm not there. I was on the schedule for the last two hours of the day, but somehow or other they couldn't see fit to let me bring Isaac in and hand him off to Sara for the last 45 min of her day (which was going to be prep anyway)...so I'm relegated to after school duties only for this semester. A "leave of absence", officially. Yee haw.

Crazy news today, though...I got a phone call from a teacher I had in high school, who's the head of the Historical Society back in Point, and somehow he got a hold of a paper I wrote in college on the Prohibition era in Portage County, and wants to publish it. I'm flattered, but more so, I'm curious how he got a hold of it. And I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to writing, I'm never happy with what I've written...I'm sure if I went back and read it now, 7 years later, I'd want to go revise the whole thing. So I doubt I'll even look at it again, for fear of being embarrassed at what's in print with my name on it.

But still...quite a shock. Who gets randomly published? Weird.

Let's see, what else can I touch on in my random drive-by of the last week and a half? I voted today. Had no idea that as someone who is officially registered as "Unaffiliated" that I could choose which ballot to vote on, Democrat or Republican. If you know me, you know that with the really interesting primaries on the GOP side in Alaska this cycle, I had to take that ballot, just to feel like I was working some mischief :-P

More to come...including, hopefully, some pictures of random late-summer village goodness...

Back...barely.

If there was ever a perfect visual representation of how we all felt when we finally made it home Tuesday night, this is it.

To be perfectly honest, I'd rather not re-live the craptastic rest of the trip, but in the interest of give the Paul Harvey-esque “rest of the story”, I’ll go ahead and give you a run down of what happened.

So when I left off, we were hanging out for another 8 hour layover in the Anchorage airport. Which, whatever, there’s internet and Starbucks, and although we were all tired and cranky and in desperate need of showers, we were able to pass the time relatively comfortably. We got the dog checked back in and through TSA (for the 3rd time in 24 hours…most inspected. Dog. Evar.), and made our way through security and to the gate. There were, of course, a whole bunch of people we knew waiting for the same flight as us, so we had a good time catching up and chit-chatting at the gate. When it came time for us to pre-board, we were really relieved to be getting on the plane, because we knew it was packed full of all the people that were scheduled for that flight, plus all of us on the morning plane that circled and came back. JUST as we were handing the gate agent our ticket, we heard the worst sound possible…our names being called over the P.A., asking us to come to the desk.

Let me just preface this by saying I have ALWAYS had nothing but good luck with all of the Alaska Airlines staff people I’ve had contact with…compared to other airlines I’ve flown, they seem to try to go out of their way to be helpful, from the flight attendants to the desk agents to the people who answer the customer service phone lines, I’ve always been really impressed with the level of service we’ve gotten. That’s why I’ll chalk up the attitude of the person at the desk to stress, likely from a long few days of dealing with stranded Alaskans and tourists due to the volcano situation…but this one specific b!%@# was just plain rude. And it’s not just that she was rude, but I have the distinct feeling she was either trying to pull one over on us, or just plain lying. And if you know me at all, you probably know how I react if I feel like someone’s trying to screw me over.

So we get out of line and rush over to the desk, and of course, Sara’s already worried, stressed, and starting to cry…because really, there’s no positive reason that you can be called to the desk at that point. Well, Miss Desk Lady informs us in an accusatory manner that we had “told the airline that our dog’s kennel was a ‘400’ size when it’s actually a ‘500’”, and because there’s 7 dogs on the flight and not enough room, we need to purchase a new kennel from the airline (at their inflated price, of course), or not be allowed to get on the plane. Yeah, you can imagine the reaction that caused. FIRST of all, when we first flew with this kennel 2 years ago, we HAD ALASKA AIRLINES MEASURE IT to tell us what size it was and what we needed to pay to transport it. SECOND of all, when we’ve booked or flights since, we’ve told them it was an extra large kennel. Is there even a size larger that we could book it as? And what’s with this “400” and “500” business? When I asked her these questions, she wouldn’t (or couldn’t) tell me.

Well, upon first hearing the situation, and Miss Desk Lady’s attitude, Sara got really upset, which set Isaac off crying (not that it took much at this point), and I just about lost it…enough to be willing to fight a little bit not to get bowled over, anyway. I’m not sure if she was expecting us just to say ok, we’ll pay for a smaller kennel, and then pay to have our regular kennel shipped, or if she thought we’d just choose to spend ANOTHER 12 hours in the Anchorage airport, but I wasn’t about to do either until I was sure it was absolutely necessary. Long story short, there was another guy there that had two dogs in large kennels, and he took pity on us (or just wanted to quiet the couple with the crying baby) and offered to combine his two dogs into one kennel. This shut Desk Lady up, and she said that could work, but continued to be snotty with us, telling us that thanks to this guy “stepping up”, we could go ahead and get on the plane. Funny thing is, after all that, when we all got to Bethel the guy’s two dogs were in separate kennels, so no rearrangement or new kennels were even needed in the first place.

Aaaanywho, we made it to Bethel in one piece, got all our stuff (which was a relief, as I thought for certain the general mess in ANC, plus with the Bethel flights messed up that day, would have made for some lost bags), and over to JP for the charter home. JP was grumpy as usual, but he’s good and likes dogs, and with the cost of seat fares these days the charter’s not really that much more expensive. Plus, he stayed open for us (as well as another couple we know that had chartered to Quinhagak), which he didn’t really NEED to do. We couldn’t get a hold of anyone by phone to let them know we were on our way, which was a little stressful (to one of us, anyways), but we took off and got home and got a ride from the (new and improved!) airstrip just fine, making it home around 10pm…making for a total travel time of about 37 hours, personal records for both of us.

As for the rest of the week, there’s been a lot of unpacking, cleaning, organizing, etc. We returned to a few surprises at home, including a new floor in our living room (linoleum? I liked our carpet…), and one new window and our bedroom window completely boarded up. Sounds like some classy Nunap youth(s) were going around throwing rocks through windows in teacher housing over the summer. So after cleaning broken glass out of our bed as well as Isaac’s, washing sheets, as well as cleaning up after the folks who were doing “repairs” around the house (picking nails out of the carpet…I even found another two today :-/), we finally got to bed. Hey, at least the boarded up window means it’s dark in our bedroom, right?

School’s a whole ‘nother issue. I’ll probably post on that situation once it’s resolved. Basically, I have no idea yet if I’ll be working at all this semester, and the semester starts Monday. So yeah, to be continued…

Home again

We made it!

After a little bit of suspense, we did indeed make it back to Nunap on Wednesday afternoon. We were worried, because, as you may remember, the airport is on the opposite side of the Johnson River as the school and our house, and the river ice had melted just enough while we were gone to make walking/snowmachining across impossible, but not enough for the ice to actually break loose and leave, thus making crossing by boat easy. It's the "break up" season, after-all...an annual event here in the area, with all the expectation and uncertainty it involves. The tension is thick in the air...everyone's waiting to be able to get out by boat and after the birds that are flying around.

So, after discussing and wavering back and forth a little bit on Tuesday about whether to postpone travel for a few days based on river conditions, it was decided that we'd take our chances and hope that somebody'd be able to help us across. Sure enough, Matthew and Raymond were nice enough to meet us on the "across" side of the river from school. So we loaded into the boat, motored about a third of the way across the river, and then us guys got out on the river ice and pulled the boat up, in order to push it across to the next area of open water near the shore we were trying to reach. It was a little nerve-racking for this kassa'q to be pushing a boat across rotten ice, listening to the cracking and groaning underfoot and radiating out from the boat, but I had a tight grip that (I hope) would have ensured my ability to jump right in had the ice gave way. Alas, we made it to the rest of the open water, and on to the boardwalk and home. Home!

Don't get me wrong, Anchorage was great, for a bunch of reasons. But there really is no place like home, sleeping in our own bed, being able to get into our own routine with Isaac here now. Not to mention, we missed Loki :-)

The weather was fantastic for us traveling Wednesday and yesterday, too...really warm and sunny, helping to melt that river ice. Which it was such a shock to wake up this morning to find 6 inches of heavy, wet snow on the ground. Oh well, it won't last long.

From the update desk...

Let's see, anything new to update? Oh yeah, a bunch of stuff!

Trivia was this past weekend, which was fun as always. It was a little strange, but fun. First of all, it's always tough playing from a distance, what with having to figure out how to listen to the contest (thank you, Skype) and how to communicate with teammates in HQ (thanks, unfiltered backdoor into blocked website that connects to the blocked MSN messaging network). Second of all, the weekend...hell, the entire preceding week...was marred by recent tragic events.

I'm not going to tell the story here, but there was a death in the village last week. A student. So the funeral was on Friday, at the school, and started about an hour before the contest was set to start. So I got to my desk when I could, but the funeral went on for quite a while. Not making any judgments, but just an observation - Russian Orthodox services make Catholicism look like a quick stop, fast food, in-and-out deal! Seriously, you've gotta have some endurance to make it through, it seems.

Speaking of endurance, Trivia. I actually got out and away from my desk more this year than last, and really, I was probably away from "questions" as for about the same length of time I would be if I was in WI and leaving to hunt down Trivia Stones, etc. But I was in and out to let out, feed, and play with dogs (Loki, as well as some co-workers dogs I was taking care of while they were into Anchorage for a mini-vacation). That, along with two naps of three hours a piece on Saturday and Sunday mid-morning (mid day, Trivia-Time...assuring that the basement at HQ would be at full capacity and not missing whatever help I might have been), made for a smoother and less insanity-inducing contest than some have been.

Unfortunately, in what in hindsight will be the big happening of Trivia 39, death reared his ugly head again during the contest, when it was announced that Tom Daniels, the "Voice" of Trivia, had passed away in his sleep. Everyone was completely stunned and taken aback. But to the Oz's credit, and to the credit I think of all the 90fm staff and even Trivia players, we took some time to pause, let it sink in a bit, and then got right back to the contest, really, as if nothing had happened. Leave the grief for Monday, whenever you wake up (or in may case, at work...), play Trivia and have fun. I can't claim that I knew Mr. Daniels, only to have met him once or twice...and I can't claim to know what he would have wanted. But for a guy as dedicated to Trivia, Stevens Point, and 90fm as he obviously was...yeah...he would have wanted exactly what happened. Rack 'em up, Fast Eddie. The show must go on.

So, we kept on truckin' (oops, wrong year), and fought our way to our first top-5 finish. And really, it was an amazing year, considering. Now, I can't claim to have helped much. Between the slow speed of my internet connection, using what seems to be a good chunk of my available bandwidth to just *hear* the contest, and then having a filter block many of the key websites that are useful to a Trivia player, my primary usefulness to the team was effectively neutralized. But I had a good time, communication issues were better than last year, and after getting a little frustrated in the first dozen or so hours of the contest, I came to a realization about my role, and really came to grips with what I needed to do and how I needed to do it. So all in all, Trivia was Trivia, even from 4000 miles away.

Let's see, what else? Oh yeah! Baby!

Sara seems to be doing really well in Anchorage while she's there waiting, getting around to appointments and meetings and stores and swimming, etc. etc. etc. on the bus. She's keeping busier than I thought she'd be able to there by herself, which I'm really happy about.

Now if I can just get this calendar to move a little faster so we can get to next Friday, the 25th...I can get into Anchorage and we can hopefully get this show on the road! I think we're both pretty much good and ready to meet this kid!!

Video Quickie

So as I mentioned, last week was cultural week here at school. As always, it was pretty challenging, but there was fun to be had.

Here's a quick video of some of the students out on the river chipping clean ice. We loaded up sleds (8 in total over the course of two days) and delivered the ice to elders around the village. Kind of an eskimo ice machine, as someone put it...

(Sorry 'bout the video quality...the file got really squashed when I uploaded it to the web...)

Yes, that's one of the students hiding in a hole chipped in the river ice. I didn't have anything to measure with, so I'm not exactly sure how thick the ice was in that spot, but it was a good three feet at least. Hope you're enjoying spring, Wisconsin....heh.

That's it!

Having pretty much had it with the snowbank that keeps enveloping the front of our house, and the precarious, "hope Sara doesn't fall" path that we've been using to get down and out of the house in the dark each morning this week, I went ahead and cut steps in the snowbank while I was outside putzing around with the snowmachine today. Sara seems to like them.

Otherwise, not too much has been up here. We (as in myself, a teacher, and about half a dozen students) were supposed to be in Bethel from Tuesday through Friday this past week, doing some more multimedia training at the District Office, as well as viewing the competing entries, and finding out the results of the judging. As it happened, it was fairly warm the beginning of this week...it had finely gotten above zero last weekend (for the first time in a couple weeks!) and by Tuesday it was all the way up in the low 20s. Hence, there was all kinds of wackiness, freezing rain and the like, that caused the meeting to be postponed to the first week of March. Which sucks a little, only because next weekend Sara and I head into Anchorage for the last of the appointments before she heads in for good, and as such will be heading out Saturday and in on Monday (weather permitting, of course) and I will then have to turn around and head to Bethel for the rest of the week on Tuesday. We'll see how that goes. Not to mention, the Kusko-Delta League basketball tournament that was suppose to be going on as I type this was postponed due to bad weather yesterday, so now it's going to be next weekend as well. Yee-haw. Guess it's that time of year...lots going on, and lots of weather to make everything either happen or not by the skin of its respective teeth.

Gotta love it.

Oh, the ways we find to stay entertained...

So I'm fully aware that this may not be as funny to you as it was to us, but I'm digging it up to post for you anyway.

So ravens...they're pretty smart. And mischievous. They've been taunting this dog that's chained out across the boardwalk from our kitchen window. I think they try to lure him away from his dish when he gets fed so another raven can get in there and steal the food. It's pretty funny to watch...though I'm sure the dog isn't as amused.

Anyways, one day I happened to have a camera handy and caught part of the action:

Our new toy

Well, I promised my father I'd post a picture of the solid (yet collapsible) tow bar he made for us while we were home over xmas break, once I got it attached. We brought it back on the plane with us in a box as luggage, with clothing packed around it for cushioning, and amazingly, it made it all the way to Bethel with just a minor hole poked in the box. And, even with my shaky measuring efforts in the snow a month ago, it ended up fitting darn near perfectly on the sled. So go team.

I've just taken it "around the block" so far after getting it hooked up Wednesday night, but after pulling the sled with a rope a few times this fall, the difference with the solid rig is unreal. Thanks dad!!!

Glad we don't have to shovel

Here's a picture we took yesterday of the drift that's blocking the bottom of our front steps at the moment...mind you, Sara was standing on the second or third step, I think.

Though, the temperature has risen a total of 62 degrees since Monday morning...so that's nice. Gone from wearing fur hat, face mask and goggles to walk to work to wearing my ball cap this morning. Silly weather.

Back in the Saddle (kinda)

Well, sorry for the long break in posting, but here we are, back again after xmas vacation. Far, far too many things to post from break, so rather than try to hit the high points and forget/leave out a whole bunch, I'm just going to skip the whole thing. Suffice it to say, lots of fun, friends, family, food, fermented beverages, and a whole bunch of other things that probably don't start with the letter F. If I'm feeling ambitious and in need of a post topic later, maybe I'll reach back into my bag of stories. And there's probably a photo post to be had out of my xmas pictures as well...we'll see.

So we're back, and what a shock to the system the weather was. Back in Wisconsin, the weather had been beautiful...too beautiful for early January, in fact. Since we've gotten back here, we've had blizzard warnings, a canceled school day, and a reminder that our brand of digital weather station only reads down to -21.9 before saying "off scale - low" (though at the time, the wind was calm, so there was no wind chill to speak of.)

The blizzard that hit us Sunday night through yesterday has left a massive drift in front of our door...I'll try to get a picture of it after school tonight. It's really quite impressive.

Otherwise, just getting back in the swing of things here at school and in the village. Aside from math classes, I've got a "Computer Applications" class with some of the high school kids, and we'll be working on updating totally re-doing the school's website, so I'm sure I'll be posting links for you to see our progress. Good times.

Loki is definitely happy to be back in all the snow...his habit of "needing" to go outside 3 or 4 times an hour is getting worse with all the snowdrifts to play in. I'm sure he misses all of his "grandparents" back in Wisconsin, but he's been having fun running laps both inside and outside of his Nunap house.

Anyways, I'm sure there will be plenty to post on the Loki, baby, school, basketball, and who-knows-what-other fronts in the next few months, so I'll just stop here and look forward to a great spring semester!

Meat is murder yummy!

So our Span frozen order came. Finally.

Admit it, you've always wondered what a few hundred dollars worth of frozen meat products looks like. It's ok...it's good to be curious.

Almost enough to make me sad we'll be headed to WI for Xmas on Friday, unable to really dig into the wonderful symphony of animal flesh in our freezer.

Almost ;-)

"it's all kinda sketchy past anchorage"

[rant]

Christmas shopping from the village is interesting.

Of course, the "revolution" of online shopping has undoubtedly changed life out here...I wouldn't know personally, as I've only been here a year and a half. But to be able to sit at one's desk and browse the full collections of the online retailers of the world is definitely a comforting connection to the world outside. It's just as easy (and dangerous) to browse Amazon or Target.com on payday as it is to go bum around Target in person, tossing things into the cart on impulse...more than once, I've exclaimed my relief that Fleet Farm doesn't have an online store :-)

The only problem is when it comes to the shipping. That's where the title quote of this post comes, from Sara. I've been doing most of my xmas shopping online, of course, but just as planning travel this time of year involves a little bit of dice-tossing, the same goes for the speed (or turtle-like-sloth) of the arrival of anything purchased online. The variables are myriad and sundry...weather, river, competence of a company's shipping people, the service they sent the package with, karma, the phase of the moon, the direction of the migration of the Caribou herds, etc. A package sent regular mail arrived from Florida in a matter of a few days...a box from Seattle sent UPS "next day" a few weeks ago has yet to arrive...frozen food shipped freight from Anchorage even earlier is, at this point, probably halfway over the Alaska Range on dogsled.

Really, anything we need to buy has to be done online, seeing as we won't be getting home until right before xmas. Thankfully, we've been making a few of our gifts this year, so that's dependent only on our motivational level and raw materials. Anything else I need to finish up ordering online, at this point, is going to have to just be shipped to Wisconsin, lest they turn into Martin Luther King day gifts.

[/rant]

Gobble gobble

Wow, how have I let a couple weeks slip by without posting? I suck.

So let's see, what have I missed? Not too much, I guess. Sara and I hosted our first holiday gathering on Thursday, and that seemed to go over quite well. Despite a little pre-event stress, everything came out just fine (even the turkey). Many of our fellow teachers brought over a bunch of wonderful food, and we sat and talked and ate and watched football...pretty much all you can ask for from Thanksgiving :-)

Other than that, not too much else exciting to report. Plugging along into the last month of the semester at school...trying to get everyone where they need to be, etc. Kinda stressful, which may explain my desire to just get out of dodge at the end of the schoolday, and not sit around and blog. Alas, before we know it, it will be Christmas break, and we'll be back in Point, kicking it with family and friends. Just in case you're wondering, we'll be getting into O'Hare and back to town (weather permitting, of course) sometime late on Dec. 22nd, and be headed back to AK on Jan. 11th. So, we'll be bouncing around, trying to see everyone in that time...so if you're around and want to grab a beer or something, just let me know! I have a bit of a rule to try not to turn down *any* chance to go out and have fun while I'm back in WI...'cuz I have plenty of time to sit around and stare out the window when I'm up here :-P