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For a while I’ve been thinking of doing some college classes through University of Alaska, as resident tuition rates are very affordable, and they’re also well set up for delivering classes via distance learning. I’m not sure what will transfer over from my studies at Gateshead College, but I’m looking at more of a rounded education rather than focusing on a specific field such as computing as before. The great thing about the college system over here is that you can study a bunch of general education requirements that all work towards pretty much any degree. A Bachelors of Liberal Arts is probably the final goal, so we’ll see how things go.

This fall semester I’m taking two classes, both of which are a little different, but that’s the whole point. Classes are ‘Intro to Oceanography (OCN101)’ and ‘Intro to Political Science (GOVT102)’ through the Ketchikan campus of University of Alaska Southeast (UAS). I have a 3 hour class each Monday afternoon for Oceanography and a 1 1/2 class each Wednesday afternoon for Political Science, and work has been accommodating shuffling around the couple of hours in early finishes to be made up elsewhere in order to support it. I guess it’s all in their best interest anyways. The rest of the class is self study at home, which works great for me and is how they run mso of the distance courses. Will see how the course load goes with two classes per semester like this, and hopefully register a little more in advance for spring classes, as Cultural Anthropology which I initially tried to register for was already full.

Fun times, and I’m quite excited to be doing something other than computing. I guess the hardest part has been actually doing something about it – applying, getting registered, etc., as is so easy to just do nothing and get by with things as they are.

It’s been a long while since I wrote anything on here. A mix of privacy issues elsewhere and work bouncing from stressful to plain stupid hasn’t helped. In general I’ve just been spending a lot less time around a computer outside of work, focusing on playing elsewhere The last four weekends I’ve been out boating + fishing, with other trips inbetween too. A rare photo of me I like was from taking my little boat way up past Kwethluk fishing, which it coped with just fine, and nice to know I can do a long trip like that without any problems in my boat:

That weekend I found out one of my best friends from school had died in a car crash. Finding out by reading such seemingly meaningless posts on Facebook and having the comments going back and forth made it all seem so impersonal and frustrated me a lot. Partly why I haven’t blogged for a while. The one plus point was at least I had some kind of a connection, regardless of how impersonal it seemed.

A few days later, a friend made it in from Anchorage to photograph local events for the paper. That was fun, and gave me an opportunity to try heading home from work on a sunny day, hook the boat up, drop it in the water, and go play for a couple of hours. Knowing I have that kind of freedom makes such a difference, so we had fun going down to and exploring Napaskiak and Oscarville. Plus, she also made a good photo of me:

Since we’ve had a few good spells of weather and fishing opportunities, we also headed out with Captain Macy (and Erin…), Brian and Bethany to go fishing.

With four of us out there, it was a fun afternoon, though the little noseeums gave me some grief! This is me fishing with Bethany:

Last weekend Jeff and I decided to go explore the Gweek River in anticipation for moose and bird hunting. We did a little fishing, but not much around there except pike, but we had a good day exploring a new area. An hour and a half out of Bethel, quite a way’s up the Gweek, we stepped ashore and found a bunch of moose tracks in an area quite unlike anything I expected of the delta, and very reminiscent of Scotland:

The photo’s don’t do it justice as I just had my little point + shoot, but it was quite a beautiful area. Jeff is certainly going to return in the 10-day moose opening from September 1st onwards.

I also then purchased a Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun this past week to get out bird hunting. The act of purchasing and owning a gun doesn’t phase me anymore, but to walk in to the AC grocery store on a lunchtime and walk out 20 minutes later with a gun was a little weird. So, Wednesday night Jeff + I took a walk out across the tundra just getting used to it (he’s been great in going over the safety aspects, the gun components, hunting methods, etc. and is looking forward to a partner this fall), and Nikko ended up leading the duck count, managing to retrieve an already injured white-fronted goose. Bird hunting doesn’t officially open until September 1st, so we weren’t really looking at doing much ourselves, but again, is nice to have more options for getting out on an evening and weekend now.

This weekend Erin is moving, which is helpful, as Bethany is then moving in to her old place the following weekend. Means Iain’s Moving Services are required for two weekends, but beer and pizza are good forms of payment. If this fairly okay weather holds that we have today, am sure Jeff will be forcing me to go out on the river too. Which would be just awful I have a few more snowmobile parts coming in soon too to get my Indy 500 ready for the coming winter. The temperature dropped below freezing and gave a good frost a few days ago, so we’re definately easing out of summer.

Despite the rain, Ted Berry and I headed out a few miles down river to around Napaskiak to drift net for salmon with a strong run of silvers coming through now. I didn’t take my camera out, so relied (?!) on my cell phone for one of us in action:

We hauled in 33 salmon, 31 of which were silvers, in three main drifts of around 5 minutes After heading back home and sorting out the boat, I then headed home with 17 silvers. I can see the appeal of fish camp to give you somewhere to cut fish if nothing else! It gets messy. This was my two rubbermaids after unloading the truck:

I’d been picking up fish fish here and there from the Tundra Center, so already had a 3 silvers, 2 reds, and maybe half a dozen chum, but I just about managed to squeeze in the 17 silvers from today! This is one full freezer, and also staring to see the appeal of a separate freezer:

Overall, a fun afternoon, if leading to a long evening spending hours cutting fish!