The Epic (fail) of GCI Alaska

Below, please find the contents of a Microsoft Notebook file that I have been composing throughout the day:

Well, it's been a while since postings on this blog have wound down from a crawl, to a drip, to a nothing. I suppose I should apologize, but as anyone who knows me is aware, I haven't given up on filling everyone in on the mundane details of my existence. I've just changed forums. After constantly updating Facebook and twitter, there always seems little left to package up into an original blog post.

But today I need to post about a topic that will take me longer than 140 characters.

The latest chapter in our ongoing, now 4-month loathe/hate relationship with GCI, has prompted me to put the whole story (or at least as much as I can accurately remember, with my notes from phone calls, etc) into writing. Mostly as catharsis, but also as fair warning. Yes, GCI has a monopoly in Bethel, so if you want cable, a cell phone, and internet (though there you have a couple other options, I believe), you'll have to deal with them...but be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sara and I got our cell phones this spring in Nunapitchuk. It was an exciting time, as GCI had just put up a cell antenna, and this was the very first time such "big city" technology was going to be availiable in the village. The representative set up camp in the community building, and residents flocked over to sign up for their contracts and get their phones. I headed over after work, got in line, and after 45 minutes of waiting we were told that the reason the line wasn't moving was that the coverage was down, and that we could stay in line or come back in a bit. This wasn't the first time that day the cell coverage was out, and the reps weren't able to call in and activate new phones. In retrospect, this should have been my first hint at what was to come, but the tech was new there, so there were bound to be bugs, right? Well after getting to the head of the line, watching people be told they were going to need to put down 4, 5, 600 dollar deposits (which I totally understand, by the way), I signed up...only to be told they were now out of phones. Well, not out of phones, exactly...the representative, seeing the results of my credit check, began a "hard sell", trying to get me to "just go ahead and get a blackberry". When I asked (already knowing the answer) if the service to support data was even availiable in the village, he said "well no, but it will be someday!"

Really? So I should purchase a $300 smartphone that won't even work to make calls in the village half the time, in preparation for whenever GCI brings data service to this village? What are the odds that such a thing will happen before this particular model is hopelessly out-of-date? But I digress...

We waited, called Anchorage, got our phones by mail, and they worked about as well as we would have expected in the village. That is to say, not always, but at least as often as out land line, and without the 8-second delay. So we were happy. Then came summer, back in WI, where the service map correctly told us we'd have service in our hometown and points north, but none at all once we ventured 10 miles south. Trips to Madison and Wisconsin Dells confirmed this...no problem, it was expected. Odd things with out phones, though - some folk's text messages wouldnt come through, while other people couldn't call us, only txt, and others would try calling us only to get an error as "invalid number". All calls had a 5-8 second delay. When I asked about this while later on the line with a particularly competant GCI tech, they mentioned this was most likely the fault of whichever service ran the particular towers we were bouncing off of not recognizing GCI phones or their setup, which sounds plausable considering I can't imagine Verizon in Central WI has much use by cell phones from Alaska. GCI gets a pass on that, in my book.

Then in August, we head back up to Alaska and move into Bethel. Hub town, lots of services, obvious the cell service would be better than in the village, right? Heh. This is where it gets interesting.

To date, I have not made a single call from my home lasting longer than 5 minutes that has not been "dropped". And that's when I'm lucky enough to be able to make a call. Often, dialing and pressing send gets a "BEEP BEEP BEEP" and a big red error message on my phone. The specific error rotates: "NETWORK BUSY" is most common, with "UNABLE TO COMPLETE CALL" and "NETWORK ERROR" also making appearances. Now, I know what you're thinking...how's the signal strength in your house? Well, as I sit here at my computer desk typing this, my phone is next to me, showing 4 bars. It was showing 4 bars throughout my conversation with a GCI tech this morning, during the course of which the call dropped and he called me back 4 times (I have taken to asking, first thing when I get on with a human, for them to call me back if we get disconnected. It works.) Now, mind you, this didn't stop a GCI Cell Tech from sounding annoyed and suggesting that I just stand by the window or go outside whenever I want to make a phone call. Dispite the fact that I told him I had 4 bars and that I wasn't convinced signal strength was the issue. Oh well.

This would be a good place for me to interject that the bright spot in my whole interaction with GCI has been their 1-800 line customer service reps and techs. I would say that 75% of the ones that I've talked to have tried to be helpful, and even when they couldn't (and usually after having to call me back 8 or 9 times in the course of a 15 minute converation) they've been very sympathetic, saying they couldn't *believe* how bad my service was, how they'd never heard anything like it, etc etc. One even managed to put a $100 credit to our account for the trouble, which was nice, considering our bills are currently in the $150-$180 range for cell and internet combined. Now if only they could get something done about maybe letting us be able to use it.

Anyways, to shorten up the story of everything leading up to today, we've been struggling to use our phones. After complaining on twitter (much as I intend to now, after today's incident), I was contacted by the very nice, helpful person in charge of the GCIAK twitter account, who forwarded my information and problem to a Cell Help Desk specialist(?), I think, named Michael Lane(?)...the reason those are currently uncertain is because I can't access my email at the moment to confirm them. Anyways, Mr. Lane was extremely helpful and informative about the situation in Bethel, and told me that there were some tower upgrades going on, and asked for some feedback as to how they improved my service. It was marginally better for a few weeks, but as the Internet Tech I spoke to this morning and who had to call me back a nuber of times because the "network was too busy for my call" at 8:45am can attest...that improvement is no longer.

So that gets us to now...our cell phones suck, but they are what they are. Internet is expensive, and the transfer limits archaic for current browsing, but we stay off of youtube, don't download much, and just suck it up and pay the overage when we ultimately go over by a couple gigs a month. Then, yesterday. Heh. Well, our internet just plain stops working. Power-cycle the modem a few times, it's fine, no errors, all lights are good, no firewall issues, no hardware issues, went outside and checked the cable line into the house...it's fine. My first thought was that there was an outage, as happens sometimes...it would suck, but there are other things to do rather than check my email, so no big deal. I wait a few hours, try again, still no luck. Try calling the Bethel GCI office, first two times my phone disconnects before the call rings twice. Third time, "NETWORK BUSY". Fourth time, it's ringing! And ringing...and ringing...no answer. At 3:45pm on a Tuesday. I chalk it up to "it's Bethel" and txt Sara, to see if she can try calling from work while I try the 1-800 number in Anchorage. She gets ahold of someone at the Bethel office who curt and annoyed, tells her there's no outage and we should just turn the modem off and back on again. Thanks. Meanwhile, I have no luck getting my phone to call Anchorage, so I decide to just let it sit unplugged overnight and hope things resolve themselves.

This morning, same thing. Internet connects for maybe 10 seconds, then freezes, "limited to no connectivity". Boo. So, I wait until after 8 and call the 1-800 number to talk to GCI internet tech support. Not to much of a hold at this hour, so I get a tech quickly and tell him my usual "if you lose me, can you call me back?" schpiel. Explain the situation, he runs through a couple things, it's all good, he puts me on hold while he talks to some people. Call drops, he calls me back, and has some interesting news. Our modem has been shut off for non-payment. Mind you, I pay my bills online, have emailed confirmations, recipts, and entries in my checkbook program and on our bank statement SHOWING exactly when and for how much we made our payments. Here's where the frustration turns to absurdity and hilarity. What have we not paid? Our cable television bill! We do not have cable television. In fact, we pay an extra $7.99 a month "cable access fee" on our internet bill specifically BECAUSE we do not have cable TV. I explain this to the internet tech, who is instant messaging different people at GCI in customer service, etc (i'm not sure), and they all agree something is seriously messed up, but that the "shutoff" was initiated in the Bethel GCI office, so he isn't able to do anything right away, he has to leave a message for the people in Bethel.

So that's where I stand with GCI Alaska right now. Despite the troubles we've been having with service, I've been paying my bills on time, using their online "my ebill" system, getting recipts, bank statements, never a word of problem...only to have them shut off my internet for non-payment of a service they do not provide me.

It's 10:40am here in Bethel as I'm tying this. I got off the phone with the internet tech (whose name I sadly cannot remember at the moment, because he was excellent) about an hour and a half ago. He told me he'd do whatever he could to get this mess resolved ASAP and give me a call back. As I'm not going to be able to post this text/manifesto until I get internet back, I will continue to update below if/when anything happens.


*UPDATE* - 11:15am: Nothing from GCI yet, no call and internet not working. Interestingly, just was told by my wife by txt that of the handfull of people around her in her office, two have had similar billing problems with GCI here in Bethel. Now that I think of it, it isn't our first billing problem with them here, they charged us double for installation on our September bill, and double rates for our first month. Not sure that even ever got resolved on our account. I remember calling Anchorage, having a CSR there look at my account, and say "what the heck are they doing at that office there?"

*UPDATE* - 3:12pm: RESOLUTION! So get this. After not hearing from them by 2:15pm, ww decide Sara would call the Bethel office to see if anything had been resolved. She texts me, while still on the phone with them, "they say we never paid a connection fee!" So as you can imagine (see my previous update, re: being DOUBLE CHARGED for a connection fee), this gets me pretty darn hopping mad. I call Anchorage. The CSR, Stephanie, is very nice and helpful, and reads through all the notes on my account, and as far as she can figure, the error has been corrected and our internet has been turned back on as of 11:20am...yet I still have no internet. She forwards me to Rick over in Internet Tech support, who magically zaps my modem and bingo, back online.

Now back to the subject of the mysterious unpaid connection fee. Remember the connection fee of $24.99 we were double billed for in September, the one i mentioned above with the billing problems? That I then called and had corrected by the good folks in Anchorage who couldn't figure out how the Bethel office had screwed up the billing? Yeah, that was for "Internet Setup"...apparently, according to the good folks in the Bethel office, there's another $26.99 connection fee for CABLE SERVICE, even though we don't have cable, and already paid the internet setup fee. Apparently when you set up "Cable Internet", they charge you for each word seperately.

Why didn't we pay this Cable Service set up fee, you ask? Because we never got a bill. Why didn't we get a bill, you ask?? Because the cable billing is ON AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT COMPUTER SYSTEM THAN THE INTERNET/PHONE BILLING SYSTEM, AND SINCE WE DON'T HAVE CABLE TV, THEY DIDN'T HAVE OUR INFORMATION! That's right, the global communication company can't even get it's Cable Department to communicate with the Cell phone and Internet department. They didn't have our address, didn't have our phone number (our GCI cell phone number, I remind you), and as such, simply waited 'til the time had passed when we were far enough past due on our cable setup fee and shut off the cable line to out internet modem.

The genius of this system surpasses anything my mind is able to comprehend.

But at the moment, since my internet is back up and running (thank you un-named tech from this morning, Stephanie, and Rick in Anchorage), I'm going to click "save" on this notepad file, and get to posting. I'd promise more updates later, but god I hope not...

*UPDATE* - 4:37pm: Wow! So the Internet Tech that I spoke to first thing this morning - his name is Carl, by the way...I had forgotten that earlier - called back to follow up. I told him how things played out this afternoon. He did some checking in the notes on my account, with his supervisor sitting beside him checking along, and decided that they need to send a message to Bethel and the CSRs. Apparently, the way Bethel Office explained it to Sara (separate fees for hooking up cable and internet when you're only getting internet) is NOT how it's supposed to be done. And that emphasis is his, not mine. When I told him the Bethel office had waived the late fees and was sending a bill for the "overdue" $26, he asked "Oh, so you haven't paid that yet? Good. I'm going to personally make sure this gets figured out and we get your charges on your account right."

A brief AK political update...

After reading yesterday that our dear Governor's approval ratings have dropped once again, now down to 54%, an interesting article posted today that helps explain why still over half of the residents of this state are still eating up Sarah's b.s. sandwiches:

Tundra Drums: Reformer Palin takes on political machine again

Now that's some quality stuff, huh? The title alone was enough to make me lose my (yummy) Bethel Subway lunch. Mind you, this is the same "newspaper" that published an "article" by the CEO of a mining company last year, extolling the virtues of the new proposed mining project. But it's not just the little publications, the largest paper in the state and the most popular local network's evening news are often using the same kinds of ass-kissy, hometown hero, "she's our girl!" kinds of spins on their stories. Not editorials...pieces of supposed news.

In reality, I guess I should be impressed that 46% of Alaskans have managed to see through the smokescreen. Given what a "big deal" her V.P. nomination was, and how she put Alaska "on the map", she must be scared shitless at this point that her approval rating has dipped to where it is. Maybe people are noticing that while Alaska is facing a ton of vitally important issues at the moment, she's been too busy forming legal defense funds, forming her own P.A.C, and using state funds to travel the country on the paleo-religious-conservative meeting circuit. Not to mention farming out the trainwreck her extended family has become.

Ok, rant over. Watch for a Bethel trip report :-)

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.

Unfortunately, she is my Governor, so I must keep mocking her.

Copy-pasted, because I'm the laziest blogger ever:

From the Urban Dictionary:

Palin

1. An applicant lacking even basic job skills

2. Someone supremely un-self-aware or lacking any relative sense of what he/she does or doesn't know.

HR sent me another Palin for the marketing manager job.

Palin v.

1. to abandon one's principles for short term gain

Tom, a devout vegan, palined when he consumed a happy meal solely to obtain the collectible toy it contained.

Palin n.

1. Pejorative term that refers to an incompetent, impractical, irrelevant or incapable person who has been appointed to a position of great importance.

2. A person who holds authority disproportionate to his or her requisite ethics and qualifications. Derived from John McCain's controversial 2008 Vice Presidential pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

John was recently made principal, but everybody thinks he's a Palin who can't do the job.

My new boss is such a Palin - he took my deserved place because the CEO is
his personal friend.

This list, however, I compiled over the course of the last 2 months...some of the funnier nicknames I've spotted for our illustrious Governor (in no particular order):

Caribou Barbie

Snowbilly

Bible Spice

Nanookie of the North

The Disasta from Alaska

Mooselini

Brain to Nowhere

Iditabroad

The Wicked Witch of Wasilla

Jane Six-Pack

Jane Winebox

Sideshow Moosetits

Sarah Flailin'

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.

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…

FU, NCLB

Yeah, 'cuz I'm sure schools in "rural" Maryland and Illinois have *way* worse problems then in the Alaska bush. Mmmhmm. Morons.

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.

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.

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.

*sigh*

So Sara and I try not to get too serious about looking online for houses at this point. However. Apparently, our dream house just went on the market in Amherst.

Here's a link to the listing.

Please, please remind me that we're not supposed to buy a house right now....40 acres...partially wooded...outbuildings...ceiling beams....BRICK FARMHOUSE...UGH!!

"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]