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Got a phone call this morning from the school district in Bethel to confirm starting the system analyst job next week Guess I need to find somewhere to stay now… Looking forward to it though, and there’s already a little project lined up for my first day (Tuesday, since Monday is Labor Day public holiday). Plan to fly into Bethel on the Monday evening as even with the best will in the world the bush flights wouldn’t get me in by 8a.m on the Tuesday morning!

I’ve been filling in the paperwork for a new hire - working out your own tax deductions via the W-4 seems inane given all payroll info is going to be handled via computer which could spit out your deductions in an instant. It’s pretty different to back in England though where married filing jointly doesn’t affect things and child tax credits are handled separately too. Guess the idea is to have as much as possible handled within your pay check rather than additional credits here and there and then rebates at the end of each tax year which makes sense. Still think i prefer the UK way where you don’t have to even file a tax return under most circumstances and have it all handled automatically for you

Pending a reference check from Greencroft, today I was hired as the new system analyst managing application systems for the school district, scheduled to start next week It was a fairly informal interview, but a great opportunity to meet the other guys within the technology support team, and I then spent an hour or so with personnel and the technology director to give me a few things to start thinking about working towards to try and hit the ground running on the first day (always easier said than done!).

The role will primarily focus on supporting all the servers across the district in their overall day to day running including backups, updates, and routine maintenace, with two other system analysts in web systems and networking systems maintaining their actual roles such as looking after the e-mail system, school information system, distance learning courses, etc. I’ll also be taking care of the end user support with regards to the FileMaker database systems, as well as the increased use of the school information systems. It will certainly be a very challenging though equally as rewarding role, and the district also hired a new itinerant site technician yesterday that will travel between some of the villages - a good sign they’re continuing to move forward and improve their support services.

I’ll work the next few days here in Tunt to finish off the project dismantling the basketball project as I hate leaving things unfinished, and it will also help with an extra bit of money to see us through as it would be the middle of October before the first pay check from the new role would appear. Living in Bethel won’t be cheap! Hopefully the district will get in touch to confirm all is sorted on the reference checks and I can start next week, and this weekend I might also try chatting with Carl here in the village as he flies into Bethel during the week too working for AVCP so might have some suggestions on getting housing sorted.

At the start of the week I put in an application for a system analyst position with the school district up in Bethel. It’s a little different than what I was doing at Greencroft before I moved out to the US, and in some ways a bit of a step up and away from the network management side of things, but looks like a great new challenge. This afternoon I got a call back from the technology director inviting me for an interview next Tuesday afternoon (meaning, of course, it will snow on Monday evening and I’ll be stuck in the village on weather hold ) which is pretty exciting and encouraging, so this weekend I guess I’m brushing up going through my notes from past courses and exams, as well as making sure my suit still fits… But, small world, although the director spent 40+ years in Australia before moving over to the US, he grew up in England and still has some family in Chester-le-Street, about 7-8 miles from Durham!

But, I was wanting to move away from Windows-based systems even whilst at Greencroft and the school district is pretty much all Mac-oriented, meaning Filemaker would be a little different for me for example, and quite a bit of the role seems to involve the back-end systems rather than installing a new printer cartridge or replacing a RAM module, which is nice. Would mean basing myself out of Bethel, which is mixed good + bad - would be nice to get out the village during the week when everyone is busy teaching anyways and would mean I could easily get fresh fruit + veg brought back in for Kat, but the cost of living in Bethel is pretty extreme with heat easily going to be $500 a month, even before $200 round-trip on the bush flights to get me in + out of Tunt. Depending on exactly what the position includes, might even be possible to work out some time basing myself out of the school here in Tunt during the winter when there *will* be weather holds between here and Bethel.

Still, it’s a great opportunity to get back into working at something I enjoy doing and something I can make a difference with, and the money is very attractive. Would offer enough to rent somewhere in Bethel for during the week and fly back pretty much every weekend and still leave me better off than working two jobs for the school here in Tunt. Not quite your normal commute to work, admittedly. I’ll have to see how the interview goes and exactly what the role would include, as well as how to work the traveling, but would certainly be an improvement from falling off ladders

This evening the skies darkened to the east and flashes of lightning swirled around, though most seemed to be missing us. Then it hit! Only lasted about 5 minutes, but dumped a *lot* of water, all in good sized hailstones

Photo is a little grainy due to the all the hail falling - I was outside for less than a minute and got absolutely drenched. Bethel weather is reporting 60F and storms “May contain some small hail”. The joys of modern weather reporting, eh?

Whilst working on Saturday morning I decided to throw myself off a ladder for something to do I did manage to find the only place in the steel storage building to do this where I wouldn’t crack my head on a 4-wheeler, filing cabinet, or metal trolley, and also landed flat on my back as opposed to something silly like on a shoulder or ankle where a break or dislocation would have been an odds-on favourite to have happened.

Okay, so I didn’t exactly do it on purpose (and apparently the precedent was set by needing to get drunk before falling down and suing the school…). As I was stepping off the ladder onto the upper level of the building, the ladder slipped away from under my other foot, sending me 8 feet or so onto the wooden boardwalk below. Over an hour at the clinic today (ten points for guessing it’s not open over the weekend, though at least there is an emergency call out available if it had been serious) and all I got was some ibuprofen and told to take it easy, which is about all I was expecting, though the doctor that checked over the details back in Bethel did suggest going into the hospital if it get’s worse or doesn’t ease up in a week or so. Which was nice. Hard for them to done anything else really, as nothing is broken or obvious signs of problems other than swelling + bruising, and they were very nice whilst checking me out.

I might be going into Bethel in the next week or so in an attempt to get out of the heavy lifting business anyway- more on that one as things pan out. Could get Subway whilst I’m at it! In other news, Kat’s half-sister Cheri` sent through a care package containing 36 Twix bars

After having a photo selected for the Schmap! Edinburgh guide, I’ve now had two photos included in the guide to Anchorage The first was showcasing the shuttle bus the zoo operates from downtown to the zoo which is a pretty cool deal as it wasn’t exactly the easiest place to find otherwise! The original photo can be found here on Flickr, and the photo in the Schmap! guide is here

This second one is of a dall sheep within the zoo, a pretty good closeup given the camera I had at the time! Here’s the Schmap! page with the featured photo, and the original on Flickr. One of my friends on Flickr also has a photo or two listed which is pretty cool.

The mail has been a little hit + miss the last few days with the weather a bit rainy, so Photoshop Elements hasn’t arrived yet - looking forward to touching up the photos from our trips around Anchorage from a couple of weeks ago when it does as really want to get the photos online I’ve also just redesigned iainfoulds.com, the side-arm with a selection of prints available for purchase.

Hopefully tomorrow’s opening kickoff of the 2008-2009 Premiership season will be as entertaining as my virtual game in Fifa ‘08 on the Xbox 360 this evening - final score was Sunderland 4 - Liverpool 1 Somehow, I think it’s still being slightly optimistic to expect a similar result tomorrow!

I’m going to try watching the match via foxsoccer.com which holds the broadcasts rights over here in the US - our pitiful satellite can’t pick up the actual Fox Soccer Channel, but I’m going to try streaming it online. The first three Sunderland games of the season are being broadcast, and the lads at safc.com have also just fired up the podcast again after doing nothing last season Providing the internet doesn’t disappear in the morning, will almost be as good as being at the Stadium of Light with dad having a pint at half time…

Okay, maybe not. But I will have the new strip on that my parents brought over a couple of weeks ago!

The last few days have slowly been easing us back into village life after our vacation. It’s been nice to see the teachers coming back and meeting the new guys. Everyone is back now, with Pam and Dan are out again in Bethel for a couple of training days. Frank + Mark have me working on taking down the outdoor basketball court which is kinda sad in a way - the court belongs to the tribal council who are charged with then reconstructing it, however the way things work out here, that could take some time meaning the kids now have even less to do around the village. But, playing out well after curfew until midnight and then starting again at 5a.m (no-one knows how they get up that early when standard wake-up time is closer to midday!) means it’s kinda been brought upon themselves, and there’s a new steel building waiting to be built where the court is currently sited so Frank wants it gone.

We had the power out for 5 hours or so this afternoon as the new airport gets their electrics hooked up which is kinda cool. At least the generators wound themselves back up again and power came back on okay Kat has been busying herself at school over the weekend getting her classroom ready - they have a couple of inservice days at the end of the week before the kids start back on Monday. I think all the kids are struggling with such a long summer without fish camp to go to and could do with getting back into the swing of school schedule! The weather has been pretty warm too, though it’s meant a ton of tiny no-see ‘ums that fly right through the bug mesh on the windows Give some fantastic bug bites…

Yup, back to normal!

No problems with our flights back to the village, in fact we showed up at Yute Air for our charter and they pretty much took the bags right onto the plane and then got us in the air. Always amazes me how quickly things happen when you’re paying extra as opposed to sitting for hours waiting on a scheduled(ish) flight But, we’re back, all the food we brought back made it okay, and remarkably none of our bags or boxes were searched. Sure that’s a first! Mia seems to think life is great with getting to lie on the couch and the bed again. Guessing my parents got out of Anchorage and into Vancouver okay, haven’t anything to the contrary Can sleep in tomorrow without having to think about where we have to drive or visit and just relax a little.

We got Mia picked up fine this morning, got the rental car dropped off okay, and then checked in and through security in under half an hour. Always nice to go to the customer service check-in counters for oversized stuff or animals as always seems more relaxed away from the main island of check-in counters. Bit annoyed as one of our boxes was 32lbs, then the cooler was 58lbs, and we were charged $50 for overweight bags. I did try arguing the point of the combined total weight which is what they fuss about due to fuel costs, and the $100 we were being charged for a dog anyway, but figured I may as well have just tried talking to a wall. But, at least the TSA guy checking over Mia was friendly - his daughter is married to one of Elena’s sons who is the school secretary, and he lived in Bethel himself for quite a few years back in the 70’s.

So, just hanging out for another half an hour or so before we can start boarding to fly out to Bethel. Hopefully won’t be any delays like last time (though wouldn’t mind the free beer…), and Kat has now just realised her boarding pass is in her jacket pocket and the zipper has now stuck Crisis over, just got it sorted! Guess she’s coming with me after all.