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!!

Why dry?

Yeah, I grumble about the fact that I can't get beer here. I've even had an ongoing debate in my head, trying to reconcile my previous attitudes about "bootlegging" as I've known it to exist, mostly as a romantic outlaw period during national Prohibition, versus the obvious destructive effects "bootlegging" has in this part of the country on a daily basis.

Articles about the issue appear pretty regularly in the state news, and on occasion I think about posting links, but rarely do. But this recent article in Alaska Magazine entitled Turning off the Tap got to the heart of the issue, I think. It's a real battle...some people want alcohol totally banned, all across the region...others want it legal. Still others like the ban, if only because it's a profitable business venture to buy $10 bottles of rotgut and bootleg them into villages where they can sell them for $150.

So yeah, if you've ever heard me complaining about not being able to drink up here, and wondered exactly why that was...read the article.

Getting right down to it.

It's a little hard to believe. Sara leaves for Anchorage in three days! How is that possible? It was just yesterday that we were telling everyone that she had the proverbial "bun in the oven", and now she's headed in to be near the hospital in case baby _ _ _ _ _ decides to come early? He was officially 36 weeks along yesterday, so he's "fully cooked", as I believe the technical medical terminology puts it...but let's just hope he decides to stick it out at least long enough for me to get to Anchorage and be there for the unveiling, shall we?

So, of course, that means that this week has been spent getting as much as we can in order for our return in May, baby in tow. The clothes and diapers are washed, organized, and ready. The co-sleeper is set up and strapped in position. I'll do some hardcore cleaning right before I leave, because let's be honest...anything we uber-clean now will have a layer of brown fur on it anyway by the time May comes around. Silly dog. Not to mention all the travel and logistical preparations. If everything works out without too major of a hitch, I'll be amazed. Gleeful, but amazed.

So that's where we are right now...in final preparation mode, feathering the nest with stuff, gifts, and amazon.com orders (which is in some cases redundant...you know who you are!!). I'm excited, too, that Sara's parents decided to fly up to Anchorage for a week while we're there, and hopefully, if the baby's not too late, they'll get to hang out with their grandson, too. But either way, it'll be good to see them.

But we'll see how the next month or so goes. No matter when it happens, I'll have one heck of a photo post to put up on this site...assuming I make it to Anchorage on time! I may be asking you all to cross your fingers for me at some point, ok??

Dang.

Well, I know one emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Southeast that isn't going to invited to any village feasts any time soon!

What to do with dying villages?

But it all seriousness...with any distance from the obvious emotional and cultural issues involved...does he make a good point? I don't know. I don't think so...but I'm not so certain that maybe there isn't something there.

But don't tell anyone I said that, ok?

Bears!

So never mind about the Polar Bears getting killed off by global warming...how's about we worry about them heading this way and eating me!!

From the Anchorage Daily News (though I first heard it on APRN this morning):

Wandering polar bear pays with life.

A polar bear that drifted 250 miles south of Alaska’s north coast to Fort Yukon was shot and killed after it charged a hunter, a Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story says. Community residents didn’t believe first reports that a polar bear had come that far from its usual territory and was in their region, but half a dozen hunters began tracking it when the reports persisted, according to the story.

Two hunters caught up with the animal outside of town on the Porcupine River and one of them shot it with an AR-15 after it came out of a brush pile and charged him. “I shot from the hip, seven or eight times,” said Zeb Cadzow. “If I had gotten it to my shoulder, it would have been on top of me. It happened so quick; by the time it was down, it was about 10 feet from my feet.”

Why do I think Stephen Colbert might have something to say about this when he comes back with new episodes??

Following the North Trail to the Yukon

We had a three day weekend for Easter, so I decided to ride along with some folks that were headed up to the treeline by the Yukon river. I had never been before, and it was something I've been wanting to do for a while, though every time the opportunity arrives I seem to come up with an excuse not to go. It's a ways, about a 2.5-3 hour ride each way, and I'm always a little over-concerned about whether or not my snowmachine is up to it. Not to mention, it can be a bit of a gas hog, and it's not like there are any other villages (not to mention gas stations) along the way. This time, however, I just said "why not" and decided to give it a try.

So we got started and headed out around 8:30 Friday morning, and I have to say it was a beautiful ride. After about the halfway point you start to see scattered trees, and all of a sudden you come over a small ridge and see trees everywhere. Which I know doesn't sound like all that big of a deal to you Wisconsinites/Minnesotans out there, but here on the flat, treeless tundra, it's like seeing an oasis :-) Even the trail conditions, which last time I rode to Bethel were horrendous, have really improved due to a bunch of powdery snow over the last couple weeks. The ride was a little bumpy, but nothing compared to the concrete-hard drifts a month or so ago.

The big difference in snow, really, was after we got up there. Down here where there is much wind and no trees, all the snow that doesn't pack down and drift just blows away. Well....now I think I know where it goes. As you can sort of see in the top picture, the snow in the trees was deep. Very deep. Like, when I got off my machine to walk into the trees, I immediately sank into my waist and didn't touch the ground. Which made cutting trees (and more notably dragging them out to the river) quite difficult.

I rode up with Carey and Maria, who wanted to bring back a load of wood for steaming, and with Matthew (the school's Site Tech, Community Advocate, and general jack of all trades/glue that holds the school together) and one of his sons. Matthew had brought a chainsaw, so he went about cutting down dead trees, which then had to be de-limbed and de-nubbed, tied to the back of our machines, and drug down to the river where we had left the freight sleds and our stuff. It's quite an operation, and a lot of work dealing with the waist-deep snow while cutting, axing, dragging, and towing. Not that I did much of the work, seeing as I was mostly along for the ride and just to get to the Yukon and see trees...but still. I helped a little, with what I could.

One thing that we could not have done any better with was the weather. The forecast had made me a little nervous, calling for the wind to pick up and snow to move in, but it stayed perfectly clear for us, warmed up to about 10 or 15 degrees, and what wind did pick up was at our back the whole ride home. So, we got back home around 8pm or so, a little sore, but having avoided and of the misfortunes or misadventures that seem to usually plague my snowmachine/airplaine/boat travels around the tundra. Carey attributed our luck to the "evil eye" stone she brought along to ward off evil spirits. Normally, I wouldn't put much stock in such things, but after the poor luck we've had in the past, to go on this lengthy of a trip without anything going wrong....well, I'm certainly not going to question it.

No Halfback Left Behind

So, I know it's basketball season, and that I'm committing a cardinal sin of blogging by posting an *email forward* here, but I just thought this little analogy was pretty appropriate...being testing season, and all.

Plus, it might help all the non-teachers in the audience realize what's really going on in the schools right now. So enjoy:

No Child Left Behind - Football Version

The football version of what is going on in education right now. (If you're not an educator, this may not make a lot of sense to you. But send it to your friends who are in education. They will love it!)For all the educators - In or out of the system.

1. All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable. If after two years they have not won the championship their footballs and equipment will be taken away UNTIL they do win the championship.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or their parents. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL!

3. Talented players will be asked to workout on their own, without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like football.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th game. This will create a New Age of Sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimum goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child gets left behind.

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.

Gotta take a step back..

Been busy lately, as you can probably imagine, but wanted to update on how the rest of last week went, as well as what we're up to this week here in Nunap.

The multimedia training last week was a lot of fun for the kids. They basically got to work on video projects (this group on the right was filming their short movie at Bethel's video rental shop!), play with new effects and learn things about iMovie, as well as hang out with friends and see some of the games at the district basketball tournament that happened to be going on at the same time! So, all in all, while it was a big ol' pain in the butt to be in Bethel and away from home for a week, I have to admit it was well worth it. I even learned how to do green-screening (or chroma-keying, as I found out) in iMovie. So I've got a tarp and a few good ideas...once I get something together in post-able form, I'll be sure to share :-)

And this week is Cultural Week here at A.T.M.S. in sunny Nunapitchuk, AK. I won't go into too much detail (for fear of digressing into an epic rant), but let's just say it's not the easiest week of the year. There are some attitudes on both the student and the staff sides of the coin that combine to make this one of the big "humps" to get through second semester, as I learned last year. This year is certainly proving no exception to the rule. Though on the positive side, I was able to get my snowmachine into the school shop this afternoon and have a couple of the high school boys help me fix a problem I've been having, so that was pretty productive. But I'll post a more comprehensive Cultural Week entry after it's entirely in the rear view mirror. I promise.

So let's take stock...

Here I sit, on a chair in the District Office in Bethel. I'm tired, I'm hungry, I vaguely smell. And my week is just getting started. Time to take a look at my situation.

Sara and I went to Anchorage on Saturday, hung out and had a generally good time, and had our last pre-coming-in-for-good appointment yesterday morning. The plan was to try to get back to the village yesterday afternoon, get a day (and more importantly a night) back at home, and then come in for the multimedia competition and training here this afternoon, and staying 'til Friday.

Well, as often is the case, the weather had other plans. Bethel weather was crappy yesterday, so our flight from Anchorage to Bethel was late, and flights out of Bethel to the villages were all shut down. Too windy and rain/snow mix. Then, Era Aviation, who we like to fly when we don't have the dog with us (slightly cheaper, much more convenient than Alaska Airlines for BET-ANC), bumped our bag. We've flown with them twice now...the first time they sent our bags to Kodiak, despite everything being clearly labeled and us checking in 2 hours ahead of the flight. This time, they just "bumped" our suitcase...the plane wasn't full, our box of groceries made it, thankfully, on the plane, but our suitcase did not. It wasn't heavy, it isn't large, there was room...they just didn't bring it. So I don't think we'll be flying with Era again. Their baggage people in Anchorage are just too...sketchy.

So we spent last night in Bethel, paying Bethel prices for a Bethel-quality B&B room, picked up our bumped bag at Alaska Air, who brought it in for us last night on the jet, and got Sara on the first Yute flight back to Nunap. I'm just hanging here, as it didn't make much sense to me to fly back to the village this morning, only to turn around and fly back in with the team this afternoon. So Sara's going to send a bag with some clothes, my school-issued Macintosh that I need for the training, and other etceteras with the team when they come.

So here I sit. I'm depressed because Favre retired today and the last starting quarterback I've seen for the Packers was Don Majkowski when I was 12 years old. I'm tired, I'm grumpy, I'm dirty, and I'm ready to go home (notice "hungry" disappeared from the list...a very nice lady took pity on me while i was writing this and gave me a donut :-P ). And my trip hasn't even started yet. I'll spend the next three nights on a classroom floor. Wish me luck.