Like a furry, grey marshmallow

So I rarely post pictures of myself here, not because I'm shy or anything, but because I'm usually the one taking the pictures...but here I am last night.

The weather shifted earlier this week, with the temp climbing 50 degrees (from -15F to 35F), and winds gusting to 40 mph bringing moist air and snow. Of course, as I watched the wind whip the wet snow into soggy drifts around our house...all while losing sight of all but the nearest neighbors' houses...I decided it would be a good idea to cover up our snowmachine, which I had stupidly left uncovered after returning from Bethel. Unfortunately, I had to wait until Sara got home (it was a little too stormy out to bring Isaac out to play in the snow), so by the time I got out there, the machine was pretty well drifted in. I swept it off, covered it, and bungeed the cover down (considering snow seems to sneak under the cover when it's windy), and Sara was kind enough to snap a picture as I came in the door.

Had it been a few degrees colder my face would have been solid ice, but luckily it was just covered in slush...

Another link (with bonus rant)

Gentle reader, I hope you don't mind that many of my posts this year have been links to articles about our lovely state. It's just that we've been in the news, not to mention the lower 48's public consciousness, lately for some reason, and let's face it...the articles by the real, actual "writers" of the liberul media elite do a much better job than I ever could.

So! In that vein, here's an article from the ADN today about our use of wind power here in Kasigluk/Nunap:

Our view: Wind at work

Quite interesting to me, in that I think it provides a little bit of a roadmap to the viability and the way renewable energy is finally going to get traction in this country, at least in my humble and unenlightened opinion. Having less to do with concern about climate change, environmentalism, and worry about our "carbon footprint" (garbage disposal here consists of hauling trash out to a designated "dump" area on the tundra and setting it ablaze on occasion), and more about simple economic self interest. If wind turbines can generate energy in a local economy dealing with $7+ per gallon heating fuel, then hell yeah, we're on it.

Not that things like this would necessarily happen without the "pork" that Alaska gets from the Federal Government...you know, like the "Bridge to Nowhere". Sorry, venting again. I'm getting a little sick of reading all the Alaska-bashing on some of the lefty political blogs I frequent. Haha, we're still counting votes because they're arriving on dogsled...haha, we're all idiots who voted for a convicted felon...haha, we all want to "drill baby drill", shoot wolves from helicopters, and think we have foreign policy experience because we're by Russia. Well guess what, we need some of that "pork" because many places in this undeveloped state still are missing basic infrastructure like roads and plumbing. And those backwards, hillbilly rural voters whose votes they're now counting, more than a week after the election because the dogsled just arrived? Yeah, they just put Begich ahead of ConvicTed Stevens, even though we know not having Uncle Ted in the Senate will probably lead to less money and slower development out here. Yeah, you're welcome.

The Election Day post

Okay, I'll readily admit I'm a big geek for politics (among other things, of course), so election days are pretty much like Christmas, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick's Day and Trivia all rolled up into one. We did it up right yesterday, with a family voting adventure and a party to watch results come in until late in the evening. Plenty of comments I could make about what voting here was like, not to mention the amazing results nationally and some not-so-cool state level results, but for now lets just take a look at some scenes from the day that was:

This is a video I cut together quickly from what I shot yesterday when we went to vote...sorry if it's a little Blair-Witch-y at the beginning, I'm just no good at the walking and the shooting.



Outside our polling place...



Isaac got to celebrate the event by getting his first solid food - avocados! There's video of this somewhere, too...I may spare you that.



Sara showing off the Obama Victory Cake I made...did I mention I'm a huge nerd? But we figured if we couldn't celebrate with beer...



Yeah, we party like rock stars here in Nunap.

Action Shots

So last night Isaac wanted to play in a box. All was well, fun was being had. So much fun, in fact, that he got excited and started rocking back and forth, squealing with joy, as the next picture shows. You can guess what happened next...

Notice the far end of the box a good 4 inches off the ground. Kudos to the picture timing by mama...as appoximately .2 seconds later there was a minor thud on the carpet, and a brief moment of crying...and then immediate return to merryment :-P

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 ;-)

Our little theoretical physicist

Another first

I know, just about everything that happens in an (almost) 5-month old's life is a "first", but some are deserving of a photo...

FIRST SNOW! Woohoo!!

That means first snowmachine ride can't be too far off, right? :-P

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...

Catching up...

See? I told you I’d be back…

So what’s been going on here? Well, a whole bunch and nothing at all, if that makes any sense. A couple of weekends ago I was lucky enough to be able to chaperone a Cross Country trip to the village of Toksook Bay out on Nelson Island. I’d never been there, and had heard that it was a pretty cool place, so I really wanted to go. It was the first X-C meet of the season, and Nunap only had three runners that had gotten enough practices in to be eligible to travel, so Coach Carey didn’t necessarily need a male chaperone, but since the school had gotten a charter airplane instead of paying seat fare, my tagging along to help didn’t add to the cost of the trip :)

The races there are a part of a community-wide Berry Festival, so there were all kinds of things going on, and people visiting from all over. We went to see the traditional dancing for a little while, but for the most part the kids wanted to do what the kids always want to do when we travel…go to the store, hang out with friends from other villages, and stay up as late as possible. As it turned out, I had brought along Guitar Hero for the DS (always prepared…and I was never even a Boy Scout!), which proved quite the popular little activity with the students. At least until the battery ran out. So the rest of the nights were spent playing, reading, talking, and trying to sleep while the fiddle dance raged…if a fiddle dance can be said to rage…until 2am.

The races themselves were fun to watch. Toksook is right on the ocean, but there are some pretty substantial hills, cliffs, and rock formations, all of which the running courses took advantage of. The weather was not the best for a race, it was windy, cold, and spitting rain, but all three races went off without a hitch and the Nunap runners pushed hard and did well. As I said, it was a small group, but there wasn’t a whiner among them…which, to be honest, was a nice change of pace from most chaperoning trips I’ve done.

After staying another night, we flew back early Sunday afternoon. Our flight out on Friday had been interesting, flying low and on an indirect route around the hills because of low cloud cover, but on the way back it was clearer and we were able to fly as high as I’ve ever been in a bush plane – over 3000 feet. It made for some good views, and I was able to get my camera out and take a couple of pics as we were about to land back in Nunap.

So, while it was nice to take a little trip for a couple days, it was even nicer to get home. After all, I’m used to having a lot of baby-time these days, so I missed the little guy. I have to say, staying home during the school day has been working out pretty well. Yeah, I’m going a little crazy, and yeah, there have been some frustrating days (did I mention he has a couple of teeth already?), but on the whole it’s been a lot of fun. I try to get as much stuff done as I can during the day, both around the house and with my side projects. I’m starting a Radio Club at the school, as some of my students last year really took an interest in writing/recording/producing music, and I’m hoping to help them point some of those skills in the direction of their writing phases, expose them to some music that isn’t Tupac and 50 Cent (though, yeah, that stuff has it’s place…it’s just really all that some of them listen to), and I’m hoping to eventually get them to produce a few podcasts, in radio show format, to get them out there for everyone to hear. I’ll let you know once there’s a link…

But back to Isaac. It’s amazing how much he’s changing, getting new skills, discovering new things. I was a little worried the other day that he was getting sick, because he was sort of grabbing at the side of his head, until I realized that nope, he has just discovered his ear and was playing with it. He’s really taken quite a liking to Loki, trying to follow him around, and keeping a close eye on him whenever he’s romping around playing, or even just sleeping in the living room. I can’t wait until he’s old enough for them to play around together. I think they’re going to have a lot of fun.

Otherwise, not too much else going on. Missed the Packer game Monday night because our satellite had only been partially working for a few weeks (no ESPN, or half of our other channels), and I tried messing with the cables in a fit of desperation. The result? No TV at all, and of course the store didn’t have the hardware I need to fix pieces that had rotted from just laying on the tundra for who knows how many years. I managed to hook up a different cable Tuesday evening (the one from Carey’s house, because she doesn’t’ get TV and was nice enough to allow me to steal hers), which required a bit of monkeying around and belly crawling under her house in the muck, but at least for the moment, we have a 90% functioning TV connection. At least enough that I’ll be able to watch football this weekend…and really, isn’t that the main function of television, anyway?

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…

Hanging out with Ted

After dodging ash clouds on the flight from Chicago to Anchorage last night, pulling our usual 8 hour overnight layover in baggage claim with the dog (left), and boarding our flight to Bethel on time, I was just about to breathe a sigh of relief that the latest installment of the migration was complete, or at least near-complete, without too much of a hitch.

That'll show me for even letting the thought creep into my head.

Isaac decided about halfway to Bethel that he was done with airplanes for the day. Not that I blame him, I'd pretty much had it with planes at that point as well. Or so we thought. About 15 minutes out of Bethel the pilot let us know that some pretty dense fog had rolled into the airport there, and that if it broke up enough, we'd "try" to land. Well, after making a circle or two, we tried. And waved off. And flew all the way back to Anchorage.

*sigh*

So here we sit, waiting for our second try at getting to Bethel, not leaving here til 6:45 tonight. That puts us in Bethel at 8, and our charter guy says he'll take us then. If we get there on time. If the weather's ok. So many variables, and it's not even winter yet.

I just want to get home. The thought of being stuck in Bethel tonight is unbareable. We still may just push back 'til tomorrow morning's flight if it looks like this evening's is going to be at all late. At least we can hang in baggage claim again tonight in Anchorage...no such luck in Bethel, we'd have to find somewhere we could take the dog. I just don't know if we can do another night on airport food and no sleep...

You know what's funny?

Well I'll tell you. When someone gives you an awesome piece of baby-type-clothing, which you then look at and say "wow, I can't wait til that will fit him!" Then you decide to try it on him....and it fits just fine. Are babies supposed to grow this quickly??

So thanks to Molly and Peter (seriously...thanks Molly and Peter!!), Isaac has now officially picked a Big 12 team for his first College Football season.

Don't worry folks....he's still a Big Ten boy at heart ;-)

Place your bets...

Anyone care to lay the over/under on when Isaac's going to have a blog of his very own??

Details

Well, considering all the putzing I've been doing with my page layout here in the last couple of days, I figured I'd better post an actual entry, lest the flashiness be for nothing ;-)

It's been a busy last week or so, what with all the back-and-forth, errands, seeing people, and knocking things off our "to do while in Point for the summer" list. Lets see, what have we done in the last week? Ate Barb's stroganoff, went out for our first anniversary, played some "Rock Band", played some Settlers, saw the Bambergs, met up with a Pointer that's headed up to LKSD for the first time this fall, got to the University Archives to dig through the 1880 Census, got an appointment set up for a tattoo, saw my brother, went shopping in Appleton, hung out at a mini-style family reunion, bought some books, checked out some books, watched some nice storms, drank some nicer beer, got some brewing supplies, got to Belt's, visited Democratic Party HQ, and basically had a whole lot of fun...even if it was hard to catch a breath. And there's still plenty left to do and people left to see in the last 2-and-a-half weeks!!

Isaac's been a trooper through the past week of fun. He's used to a certain...well...let's just say prolific amount of napping during any given day. As of course, he should be (and trust me, Sara and I appreciate every last minute of it). Alas, between car rides and window shopping, Main Street adventures and getting cuddled by aunts, great-aunts, and grandmas, his napping schedule has been a little thin. While this usually makes for a little later wake-up time in the morning (yay!), it also makes for a little crankier baby in the evening (boo!)

Oh well, it's not like he'll have much to do come August 12th. Right? Oof.

Pictures, pictures, and more pictures

Well, apparently I've been taking and posting enough pictures this summer to require starting a second album on Facebook.

So enjoy!

Nothing to see here...carry on...

alternate title: what happens when I open photoshop at 12:30am

Let's see if this works

In an attempt to solve my problem of posting new pictures of the rugrat mostly on my Facebook page ('cuz it's easier...and let's face it, I'm lazy), I'm just going to post a public link to the album here...hope this works:

Isaac's Facebook Album #1

A little early, but...

Happy 4th of July, everyone!!

Well hello there

Yes yes, it's been forever. But in my defense...no, I can't say I've been that busy. Well, with baby stuff, I have, but that's in no way prevented me from posting, really. I'm just out of habit considering the summer migration and all it entails...

But yes, we got to Wisconsin just fine...the trip went pretty well, all things considered. Honestly, the biggest challenge with Isaac was the airports, not the planes. Sara and I are considering getting a jet engine installed in our bedroom. It works wonderfully at putting (and keeping) the baby asleep.

So our days back in Wisconsin have been so far filled with babyness and beer and food and family and friends. Pardon the use of the space saving crutch, but I'm sure many (most?) of you are here for pictures...so I'll get right on that...

First visit at Grandma and Grandpa's :-)

Baby's first cheese factory trip!

Big smile in the bathtub...

Loki's enjoying summer vacation too...making sure he gets his proper attention and plenty of swimming :-P

Isaac stretching out on his amazing, handmade puppy quilt. We're just picturing him dragging it around by an ear in a couple years...good thing they're triple stitched. Way to go, Mary!!!

Chillin' on the deck up north at the shack...hanging out, rockin' the hat..

All quiet(ish) on the western front...

So remember when I said I'd try not to let this become an exclusively baby-picture blog? Yeah, off to a smashing start, aren't I? :-P

But really, there' s so very little to report. School's out, which means we're just hanging out, getting things ready to leave for WI on Saturday...but otherwise, there's nothing to distract us from the endless joys of little 3-week old Isaac. He's even occasionally cute, as these newest (grandma-requested) pictures may be able to shed some light upon:

Surrendering in his sleep...maybe he was French in a past life?

Loki's been good around him...showing concern when he cries, otherwise leaving him mostly alone. The occasional curious sniff is about it. Just wait a couple years, dog...you'll be good pals, I'm sure.

I've really been amazed at how alert and expressive a little baby can be when he's not crying, sleeping, nursing, or otherwise occupied...