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It cannot be Memorial Day next weekend…

The last 5-6 months have been a whirlwind. Starting a new job right before Christmas and having a 15-credit load at college didn’t leave much time for a great deal of downtime, yet looking back I also took three LIFE classes at Eden seminary, flew back up to Alaska to help run tech for Cama-i, moved to a new house, and had two or three weekends in Iowa. Now that college has been finished for a couple of weeks and we’re settled in to our new house, it’s nice to have some time to relax for a little given the upcoming summer plans.

Heading back to Alaska for Cama-i was somewhat weird. Everything was familiar and hadn’t changed, and it was great to catch up with friends again and be a part of running Cama-i. The traveling to and from wasn’t so great, but it was nice to fly Alaska Air all the way from St Louis. And, and having been back in Alaska for literally 5 minutes, I was sat in the bar (of course!) having an Alaskan Amber when Iditarod champion John Baker walked by

Bethany and I moved at the start of the month to a new house still within Maplewood, and we’re pretty much settled in now. The back yard is a little bigger and Kenai seems to like it, and we’re also 5 minutes from the dog park which is great too. Ace seems a lot happier with extra places to explore in this house and a lot more windows to look out of.

Work at SLUH has been going good, again, starting to get settled in, be able to find my way around, and know most of the people working there. It’s a nice place to work, with the atmosphere being pretty laid back and open most of the time. Wednesday evening was nice with the end of year staff which was held on Windows on Washington, a pretty smart banquet area overlooking Washington Avenue in downtown St Louis.

It’s only a month until we get married, and I’m really looking forward to having family around for a little while. We’re also heading back to England for our honeymoon the first week which we’re both really looking forward to. Trying to cram everything in to an 8-9 trip will be pushing it a little to much, but I’m sure it will be great.

Right in time for Christmas, I started work as a technology support specialist at St Louis University High today I was officially offered the job last Monday and spent a couple of afternoon’s at the end of the week in the school starting to learn more about the technology department and try to find my way around the buildings. I’m glad to be staying within education, and looking forward working as part of a team again and having more interactions with students.

Working at SLUH meant I would be traveling in a different direction to work than Bethany, and working slightly different hours too. One of Bethany’s friends has a brother who works for the Bommarito auto group, a pretty big dealership in the St Louis area. We got a good deal on this 2004 Ford Escape XLT which lets us throw Kenai in the trunk and keep the back seat clear of dog hair:

It’s really nice to drive, so now we get to fight over who takes what car And if you need a car around St Louis, get in touch with Craig Gaby at Bomarrito Honda just off I270 + N. Lindbergh!

Christmas is only a few days away now – we’re heading up Bethany’s parents in Iowa for a long weekend. Nikki also got flights booked for her and Dan as well as my parents to come over in June for our wedding, so really looking forward to that. Mam + dad are going to spend a little under two weeks around St Louis too, so will have plenty of time after the wedding to spend together too.

Been in a photography funk since leaving Alaska, so forced myself outside with my camera this afternoon. There’s plenty to photograph around St Louis, just not too many sled dogs, mountains, glaciers, etc. And given England lately, also no snow here. Yet.

I wandered around East Riverfront and the Eads Bridge, where half way across the Mississippi River you walk over the state line between Illinois and back into Missouri:

The Gateway Arch dominates the downtown St Louis area, and somehow we haven’t actually gotten down there yet. Barge traffic up and down the Mississippi River carries crops from farmlands all across the Mid-West, including this one passing the Arch as the sun was setting:

The downtown St Louis skyline itself is something pretty cool on the few times we’ve driven across the Poplar Street Bridge come back from the Illinois side, and definitely something I’d like to get back to photograph. This shot at dusk is still pretty cool though:

There’s more photographs from a couple of little outings around St Louis on this flickr set such as the Sunnen MetroLink station right by our house in Maplewood:

Hopefully I’ll be a little better at keeping things more up to date on here too. We’re settled here in St Louis, Kenai is getting on for 6 1/2 months old now and has slept through a couple of long car rides back up to Bethany’s folks in Iowa and played with his cousin Samson for long weekends, and Ace, our Maine Coon cat also about 6 months plays with Kenai pretty much like he’s a dog too. Which helps them keep each other company I guess. Fall semester at college is nearly over and I’ve done a couple of LIFE weekend classes at Eden Seminary which have been good too. Doesn’t feel like December 1st after the past few winters of seeing snow around the end of September and it being around until May time! I might even end up getting one of those job things before the year’s out too.

So, it’s nearly August, and we’ve been in St Louis for a month. Quite a bit has gone on I guess…

We finished off our time in Bethel and then spent a week traveling around south central Alaska with one of Bethany’s friends, Shannon, who flew up from Phoenix. It was a great way to end our time in Alaska. I’m still working through all the photos, but will get round to them.

After Alaska, we flew down to Bethany’s parents in Iowa and spent three weeks or so in + out getting ready to move to St Louis. We went to the Iowa Conference UCC annual meeting in Grinnel, headed off to meet some of Bethany’s friends in Omaha, Nebraska, then planned our first trip to St Loius for a few days. First, we needed a car, and we got a great deal on a 2001 Ford Taurus SES with only 63k miles on it:

Once in St Louis, we managed to find a really nice two bedroom house for rent in Maplewood, 10-15 mins from downtown, and I got to see the sights of St Louis. The following week we came back down to finalize things and check out some more places, and then moved for real on July 1st. The U-Haul we rented was ridiculous, but worked out really well:

By chance, we had the Alaska detail on the side of our truck It was a good drive down though and we managed to get unpacked okay, and slowly got things we needed.

Job hunting has been slow, and I’ve been setting up to work as a freelance IT consultant which gives me the freedom to work on college classes as I need and not be tied in to working certain shifts. I got to head to Chicago for the first time as one of my projects, and finally sampled Chicago style pizza (it’s all upside down…). It’s working out good though.

A pretty hectic weekend flying out to Seattle for a wedding and re-union of a bunch of Bethany’s peace corps friends rounded off our planned traveling, so we were then able to finally get a puppy

He’s a 10 week old yellow labrador retriever we named Kenai. After waiting so long for a puppy, it’s great to have one around the house now. He’s settling in okay and has his first vet visit tomorrow morning!

So, it’s now the end of April; Saturday ushers in May. The days are rapidly counting down to leaving Bethel on May 30th, and Alaska itself a week later. Hotels, rental car, and day trips are all booked for that, as are our flights. I’m all moved out of my old house, got the deposit back and banked, sold my snowmachine, have sold my truck but am thankfully getting to keep it until we leave, and today have pretty much sold my boat. As of yesterday I’ve mailed out 24 boxes and have a running total at the post office hitting $650 now. I guess it’s a little too late to change my mind!

I’ve got one final paper to write for my GOVT101 class, and finished off my PHIL101 class a few days ago. I’ve got ENGL111 and SOC101 coming up this Summer for 6 weeks, and I’m registered for four classes this Fall at St Louis Community College which I’m really looking forward to. Not quite sure how I’ll handle 12 credit hours whilst (hopefully) working full time, so we’ll see. I’m sure it will be okay, and will at least know to only try 9 for Spring if it’s too much.

I’m definitely loving my iPad which I bought on our way through Anchorage a few weeks ago Combined with the Kindle app, it’s fantastic. I’ve read half a dozen books on it, and it’s great to have Whispersync go between my iPad and iPhone so I can pick up on one device right where I left off. I’m eagerly awaiting Barnes & Noble releasing their dedicated iPad app, and think it’s very smart Amazon and B&N are focusing on still delivering eBooks to the iPad, which is where their primary market should be (selling books).

At the moment, we’re looking at figuring out plans for June. It’s starting to look pretty busy! The plan is to be moved in to St Louis by the start of July

The last few days have been a wash of events. Having made the decision to leave Bethel (and Alaska) at the of the school year, I’ve been slowly sorting out packing things up to ship out, sell, donate, or simply throw away. After a couple of fun trips to the post office, I’ve amassed twenty boxes and $500 in shipping fees:

Has been weird shipping all my possessions off to Bethany’s parents, but figure they’re pretty trustworthy So long as Jericho doesn’t try to eat my Playstation or something… It’s also been a good excuse to go through things and get rid of things I just don’t use/wear. I donated 4 trash-bags of clothes to the Catholic church along with a couple of big blankets; have some canned and dried foods to donate to the Lions Club; and threw out 8 bags of trash. Some things like a mass of flying magazines were tough to get rid of (though the FAA has just adjusted their stance on medications meaning I’m not totally ruled out now), but overall it’s been good. Means I’m starting out a fresh. And have less things puppies will chew when we’re able to get a place in St Louis where we can have dogs.

So, as of today I’m now all moved out of my old house and living with Bethany for a few weeks until we move. It really doesn’t seem like a year ago I was moving in my old house! Other than the cost of heating, it was a nice house, and all the space and light was great. But, as much as I know I *can* live in these conditions, I don’t *want* or *have* to, so it’s time to move on. I have my desktop computer for editing photos since I have some Iditarod photos left, Cama’i photos, and whatever I end up with from our Fairbanks trip in a few days, but pretty much everything else has been mailed off or gone one way or another. I’m hoping to be able to sell my boat, snowmachine, and truck okay, I’m not stressed about it. I have a lot of money tied up in rental and utility deposits and vehicles, so will be a nice chunk of change by the time we head south.

Alaska Air were running a sale on tickets last week, so we got our plane rides sorted. We leave Bethel on Sunday 30th May and have a week exploring Anchorage, Kenai and Mat-Su Valley with a friend of Bethany’s from Phoenix, then fly to Minneapolis and drive down to Iowa on Sunday 6th June. The plan is to have a house sorted in St Louis and be moved by the 4th of July weekend Exciting times, just a lot going on at the moment what with my college classes too!

It seems like the Cama’i festival came and went in a blur! We started out by getting together on Wednesday evening for dinner at Tim’s house and then the show set-up started on Thursday evening until 1a.m or so, but then Friday night’s opening show came round and the dancing started and suddenly it was midnight on Sunday and we had everything packed away! It was great fun though, it was nice having experienced it all last year so I kinda knew what was going on with sound + lights, and we extended it to run up to 4 video cameras which really made things fun. Plus, Marty came back again from last year so we all kinda knew each other and could cause trouble without too much hassle!

I made sure I got to photograph some of the dancers though, one of the advantages I guess is seeing which groups are really cool when they first perform so I could get down by the stage to photograph them later on in the weekend These are some from the first batch I processed last night, starting out with the amazing Mary Ann Sundown of Scammon Bay:

Well dressed dancers from Marshall, including the elder sitting at the front (of which I have some more close-ups to come):

I checked out St Mary’s a couple of times as they were quite lively. This is an overview of how we had the stage, lights and video projectors set up:

And bear in mind, this is a pretty big high-school gym where a district-wide basketball tournament was held a couple of weeks ago!

Tomodachi Diako Taiko Drummers were really impressive, a group of Japanese immersion students out of Anchorage:

One of their leaders was very friendly as we hooked up a wireless mic for him, and his flute playing was awesome:

And here’s one of Marty starting to look a little tired by 8pm on Sunday evening:

Overall, it was a great festival, and as with last year, I really enjoyed being part of the sound + light crew and being able to help put on such an awesome show. Pat is retiring next summer and leaving Bethel, so Cama’i 2011 will be his last show after doing it for 25 or so years. He’s already trying to convince me to fly back up for it!

Deep breath…

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I will try to blog more. I usually can’t be bothered and end up with short updates on twitter or Facebook. If you’re wanting to keep up, that’s probably easier. And my flickr photo stream.

The first three weeks of college classes through UAS have gone well. It’s been a little bit of an adjustment to balance out my time at work with taking the classes and fitting in all the reading assignments, but seems worth it. The goal of giving myself something to keep the brain working through winter will almost certainly pay off as my time spent doing nothing in front of the TV has certainly dropped dramatically (well, NFL season starting a week or so ago not withstanding…)!

Winter is definately coming too, I guess we’re officially in to fall now, and given it was 28F this morning with a good thick frost and hasn’t risen above 38F today, that figures. As much as the fall colors are nice, it really is kinda an in-between season – not quite warm enough for boating or walking around exploring, but not cold enough for a good freeze-up and snow for snowmobiling. The down side to all this is although I love my house, the big windows and lofted living room don’t do much for keeping heat in As a test this evening I brought the heating up to 70f then turned it off. Within 2 hours the temperature had dropped 5f. 62f is about the lowest I can keep it at, 64-65f is about as low I can go and stay fairly comfortable, so with the temperature only being 38f outside, I’m not looking forward to what will happen when it’s -38f outside!

The PFD amount was announced today, an annual payout for Alaskan residents from investments of monies gained from the mining of minerals such as oil. This year it’s $1,305 and should hit my bank account on October 8th. Nice little delayed birthday present! I’m hoping it will help pay for flights somewhere at Christmas, since my Vegas tickets (7 weeks tonight, but who’s counting?) are all paid Won’t be heading back to England, am trying to wait until next summer when I could fly return direct from Anchorage to Frankfurt for like $800.

Over the Labor Day weekend, Jeff and I headed way up the Gweek River camping. It was great fun, the weather on the Saturday was just awesome, well in to the 70F’s with clear blue skies. I have a few photos I’ll post, but the second camping spot we ended up at gave us an amazing sunset and moon rise. We were both a little tired when we got back on Sunday, but experiences like that all add up. It was quite weird to be way up the Gweek to the point of needing a canoe, and to then end up drifting back down to camp covered in camo duck hunting. It got me thinking whilst grilling salmon how much of a difference a year makes.

I never really think back on my times in Tunt and long to be back or wish for things to have turned out differently, but have thought a few times over the summer how different it must be for the teachers that find themselves stationed around Bethel in Napaskiak, Oscarville or Napakiak, or up around Kwethluk; or west coast sites like Mekoryuk, Toksook Bay or Tununak. The southern coastal sites like Tunt, Kong and Kwig are quite, quite different, and feel a lot more remote and desolate. I couldn’t imagine trees like I’ve seen around the Kwethluk or Gweek Rivers, and even small rolling hills or the abundance of bird life or fishing when I was living in Tunt. A year ago this past weekend I was spending the Labor Day weekend moving up to Bethel, and I can first remember feeling something not quite right after my second day on the job here whilst phoning back that the evening.

Contrast to today where I was calmly balancing so many district-wide servers, networking and licensing issues, whilst also taking my first college class through UAS where I’m enrolled on a bachelor’s course, and tonight have been running Facebook and Skype through my iPhone. I own a truck and a boat, and my snowmobile came back home last night and work started on replacing the rear suspension assembly for the coming winter. I would never have believed I could have found myself living in such a situation.

My first political science class went really well and seems like it will be pretty interesting. I spent the rest of the evening working on my readings for next week. The first of my oceanography classes is Monday afternoon and I have some readings to do over the weekend for that.

I also finally got an iPhone up and running out here today It’s taken a lot of patience, but other than the same restrictions on any cellphone out here in Bethel with regards to lack of data coverage, it works great. There are a few apps I’ve installed such as Facebook, Tweetdeck, Skype and Shazam which are cool, and I have a friend coming in to town next week that am sure will point me in the direction of even more. It really is an awesome little device, and even things like text messages bring on a whole new meaning when it’s formatted like iChat conversations. Very happy with it!