fouldsy.com

Since it looks like GoDaddy finally got around to fixing my web hosting, may as well make a blog post. Dunno how long it had been down, though has been at least 2-3 days. Helpfully my e-mail runs off a different server so I didn’t even notice there was a problem until I tried to post something over the weekend.

School broke up last Wednesday, with prom + graduation for the seniors the previous weekend. Was nice that there were 6 or 7 people graduating as a lot drop out once they get to 18/19 years old. Quite a few already have college places lined up, so the teachers were all pretty happy about it. Some of the teachers have headed away for the summer already, and more are leaving in the next few days. There’s also been a bit of house switching going on with 3 teachers leaving - Marie has managed to move into a much bigger house which she seems really happy about. Rocky does too since he has more room to run around!

As we had to get all the house cleaned up ready for Frank to check over as part of the end of year procedure, we decided to move things around a bit in the house. Kat was feeling left out with not moving ourselves I guess! Figured it was also a good chance to finally take some photos of the inside of the our house:

This is just inside the house from the entry way looking into the living room. It’s all one open area, with the dining table in the corner (taken over by my computer stuff!) and the kitchen to the right. Here’s another shot looking from the kitchen corner back into the living room:

And here’s the kitchen with our spiffy stainless steel fridge-freezer:

The house feels a lot more open with the change in the living room as we get the full width of the room now, rather than having the couch in the middle separating the dining table. Kat seems pretty happy, and that’s the most important thing I also cut the shelving units for the gaming consoles to split them into two smaller units which works really well with the TV being central rather than stuck in a corner. Nearly lost my head a few times cutting the wood outside as there were a pair of birds nesting near the school that really didn’t like the bandsaw - am guessing they have eggs or chicks they were protecting.

We’d also ordered in a few groceries from Bethel today since we’re staying here another couple of weeks. Good excuse to ride the 4-wheeler up to the airport:

Not much else been going on the last couple of weeks really. Waiting back on a rescheduled biometrics appointment in Anchorage, hopefully it will be either the 11th or 18th of June so we can get down Lake Tahoe in plenty of time for my family coming out. We got flights for Kat’s mom + brother booked a week or two ago, just to sort flights for us now!

A couple of months ago whilst continuing my quest to read the Internet at least once, I came across various forums and articles on ‘freebie’ sites. To be honest, it all sounded well dodgy - you complete a trial offer such as DVD rental program like Netflix or music clubs with discount CD’s, right through to weighloss pills and stop smoking programs. You then need to get a certain number of people to sign up and do the same thing. After figuring it out, it’s not like a pyramid scheme when it builds up and you need dozens of people to get anywhere - for most rewards, 5-7 referrals is often enough depending on what scheme you attempt.

You’re still left trying to convince people to sign up for the offers, unless you hit somewhere like the Anything4Free or The Free Lunch Room forums where people looking to make a little extra money will complete the offers for you for say $10 or $20. Again, to me, that sounded even dodgier, but it’s easy to play safe and stay sensible.

Fast-forward to a couple of days ago, and Nick arrives with two Nintendo Wii’s - one for me, one for him (after he also cottoned on to how easy it is)

I’ve been after a Nintendo Wii since they first came out, and I spent 3/4 days in Anchorage popping into every game store and electronics department we came across trying to find one! No luck, so stumped up a little more money and bought an Xbox 360 instead. Haven’t regretted it as I love it and probably waste too much time playing it (though it’s not like I have much else to do, is it?!).

But, the Wii looks so appealing from a fun perspective, and Kat was also really drawn in by the TV commercials, so was still wanting to get one. The Xbox 360 is great when Nick or Jason come round to play video games, but there’s not much that Kat’s interested in, and with Wii Sports and Wii Play having fun little games such as tennis, bowling, golf, boxing, table tennis, etc. it’s something we’d both like to play. Not working made it a little difficult from a money point of view aside from actually being able to find a Wii stock, especially online, but thanks to a scheme on ClickPerks, I paid out less than $60 to complete a trial offer and then ‘hire’ enough referrals to do the same

Kat loves creating the Mii’s, which are little characters you create based on your appearance - I’ve also found a nifty little script called Mii Transfer for OS X that let’s you transfer your Mii from the Wii controller onto your computer, and you can then edit them online using Mii Editor. You can see the Mii’s Kat and I use around here It’s pretty cool replicating your appearance (or make yourself look however you please!), then see yourself playing golf or tennis in Wii Sports. When Kat first saw the Wii and looked at the TV to see what I was playing, she went “Wow, it’s you!”

The motion sensing controls on the Wii are are an awful lot of fun, and even though I’m used to high definition graphics on award-winning games like Gears of War on the Xbox 360, you’re not paying any attention to lower quality graphics of the Wii whilst you dodging + weaving punches with a controller in each hand or lining up your tee shot on the 2nd hole in a quick 9-hole round of golf. Whether the novelty will wear off after a while remains to be seen, and this is one of the main concerns over the Wii all over the Internet, but the games are so addictive and easy to pick up and play (Kat beat me first time on the bowling game…) it’s something that’s always going to be around when you just want 20 minutes of fun. I’m also really looking forward to hooking it up to the Internet to download Virtual Console games since you can pick up original NES titles to rekindle my childhood!

Slightly downplayed from the Wii, but I also received a Playstation 3 from ClickPerks a few weeks ago too This turned out to be a bit of a disappointment - though considering it cost less than $150 to complete the scheme, I wasn’t that bothered in a $500 state-of-the-art gaming system failing right out the box. For a full read on the hoo-hah getting it sorted and my opions on the PS3, check out my gaming blog on Live Space. A dodgy slot-loading Blu-Ray drive required a return right back to Sony for a replacement unit, a process which took a month. Poor customer support from Sony turned me off, and although the PS3 is actually a pretty impressive unit, I think I’ve spent too long playing the Xbox 360 to look at it objectively.

Still, it’s a nice system to have, even if a lot of the major titles coming up over the next 12-18 months are also releasing on the Xbox 360. I’ll always get the Xbox 360 title simply down to the achievements system, something sadly lacking in the PS3, even with Playstation Home and their trophy idea - that’s only one per game, a limit of 12 in your cabinet, and you must be online to show them off. But, considering various taxes, shipping, and warranty exchanges (easily bringing it close to $700), I’m not complaining for $150. Hell, even with the Nintendo Wii, around $200 has got me $750+ worth of video game consoles

Now that I’m spoilt for choice with an Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii, I’d also ran out of space on the TV cabinet! I managed to get hold of a few sheets of wood and time in the workshop at school to knock up nice little shelving unit to hold everything:

I got a set of component video cables for the Wii to allow me to hook up all three consoles via a Impact Acoustics A/V Selector (cut price deal on Amazon ) and I also have a Netgear WGR614 802.11g Wireless DSL router sat in another corner of the lounge pumping the Internet around the house including to all the consoles to stop me getting bored. Considering I got somewhere in excess of $800+ worth of video games consoles by the time you add on taxes and shipping for around $200, I’m not complaining Certainly all keeps me entertained!

Although it was a little cooler this evening, down to around 40F, we headed out for a walk anyway. I’d taken the 4-wheeler up to the airport yesterday to pick up some groceries we’d ordered in, and all the ice had cleared on the river and it was all flowing freely. There were still a few large chunks of ice that had become grounded against the river bank - thankfully this one didn’t decide to start floating away:

Just to add insult to injury over mess with the biometrics appointment, the USCIS in Anchorage ended up giving me the appointment originally requested weeks ago - only took 3 rescheduled appointments. Of course, May 29th is no good now we have to attend an interview on June 14th, so need to reschedule it again. Shame they’re not pre-paid envelopes when sending them back though…

Just as I was leaving the house yesterday afternoon to go Nick help mount his projector for the interactive whiteboard (went well - we got the SmartBoard 680 running last weekend and then the mounting pole + bracket arrived yesterday), Mark walked up the steps saying he needed my muscle… Stage right, a new fridge-freezer balanced in the trailer of the 4-wheeler

Does puzzle me sometimes, living up here. Some things can go weeks, or months, without being resolved, and other things get fixed pretty much right away. No-one expected this to arrive until July-time when the barges bring cargo down the river (no, the river hasn’t cleared *that* much just yet!), but guess the nice people at the district offices in Bethel decided to load this up on a plane and get it out here quickly. Not complaining.

Of course, the stainless steel finish seems kinda out of place up here, but as the rest of the kitchen is very smart anyways it actually looks really good! It’s a bit bigger than the old fridge-freezer, as the freezer compartment is quite bit bigger than the old one.

With the water now being safe to drink, might even hook up the ice-maker. Kat ordered in a load of fruit + vegetables from a grocery store in Bethel yesterday, so will be able to keep them nice + chilled rather then using them up quickly before they turn bad!

Need to give it another day to actually get down to temperature as it needed to settle for a day before being hooked up, but since we’re spending another 2-3 weeks up here now waiting to go for an interview in Anchorage, is much better than living out of a cooler. Is just kinda funny we waited a couple of weeks to get a cooler shipped up here and have only used for a week or so before this arrives! Still, least it means we have a good cooler for camping this summer and can load up on meat products coming back out here in August.

Hasn’t been a great deal going on over the last week or so except from encountering more problems and delays with the USCIS in Anchorage. Still waiting on re-scheduled biometrics, but I’m not bothered since I’ll be putting it back again now that I have to attend an interview on June 14th with regards to my application for permanent residency. Other than the irony of it being on June 14th, I’m past caring, so the less said on it the better. I’ve been biting my tongue, hence the lack of postings on here.

But, during the last couple of days the river has started flowing again which is pretty cool. The lakes around the village have been pretty much clear for two or three weeks now, though there is still all the ice underneath that’s just waiting to break up. It’s weird looking out the windows from the house and not seeing any snow, just clear lakes.

The river is flowing quite nicely by the old school buildings, then starts backing up again around the airport. Once it loops round and gets back to school on the other side of the village it seems to be moving nicely again - might wander over there tomorrow and see. The video doesn’t quite capture it, but the sound of all the ice piling together was cool:

Although the river has only started flowing the last couple of days, it has been broken up into chunks with large amounts of standing water for a while which is why it’s not ideal conditions for snowmobiles! Won’t be long before all these boats will be seeing some use too:

Looking across to the airport, you don’t want to come up short on the runway anymore! The river actually loops round the airport, with the runway being on a peninsula basically (knew 8th grade geography would come in useful…) so what didn’t look too bad with snow + ice at both ends now looks a little more menacing with water all around!

Although the chunks and sheets of ice appear to be floating along quite happily, it’s easy to see how something scaled up somewhat brought down the Titanic - 4/5 inches of ice is showing above the water, but at least 2 foot lurks below:

Just as further proof snowmobiling isn’t such a good idea anymore, this is one of the winter trails running down from the banks onto the river itself - you’d want be putting the brakes on pretty heavily right around where I’m standing…

Kat got her college class finished up last week so is enjoying not having extra work to do on an evening anymore! We also found out Josh + Melissa have been offered jobs elsewhere in the school district in Mekoryuk, on Nunivak Island, where Josh will step up and become a principal, so Kat will be teaching 3rd grade next year. Will be a bit different, but she’s looking forward to it as it means a bigger classroom but fewer kids

Kat was taking her kids along to the airport this afternoon to collect rocks for a project they’re working on, so I decided to tag along. Pretty glad I did, as just as we were coming up to the airport a larger visitor than normal came in to land:

I had to go on-line to figure what it was - it’s a Short Bros & Harland SC7 Skyvan (series 3, if you want to be really precise!), one of only about 35 left in operation! Those things can carry about 5,000lbs worth of cargo and/or passengers so reckon a fridge freezer would comfortably fit in one…

Whilst I was on Wikipedia trying to find out about the SC7, I came across an entry for Tuntutuliak which is pretty current (with a few external links to blogs now added ) for anyone wanting a bunch of numbers to send them to sleep, along with some satellite imagery thanks to Google Maps showing why it’s pretty difficult to move around now that so much of the snow + ice has melted!