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Deep breath…

istartedaproject365andamnowmorethan150daysintoit(whichshowshowlongitsbeensinceiveblogged!)
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itraveledtolasvegasforalongweekendwithbethanytomeetupwithmyfamilywhichwasawesome
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ifinishedmyfirstsemesteratuaswitha4.0gpa
ispentchristmasandnewyeariniowawithbethanysfamily
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iphotographedtheheckoutoflocalsleddogracesandhadmultiplefeaturesraninthetundradrums
ipassedmyapplecertifiedtechnicalcoordinatorexamsinosx10.6havingneverseenwithsnowleopard
ibecameweirdlyaccustomedtodrivingontheriverinmytruck
igottoridemysnowmobileafterlousysnowallwintersofar
iwillhavecompleted18collegecreditsthroughuasbytheendofjuneafterregisteringformoreclassestonight
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ihaveanothertripbookedtofairbanksatthestartofapril
inolongerwearadressshirttowork

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!

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.

This morning I had my practical driving test after the written test a week or so ago. Given I was doing it at 8a.m, I ended up passing it before I’d even had breakfast The plus side is my new Alaska driving license has me looking like a serial killer!

I also then called up the immigration department after not being able to check the status of my green card renewal online or on the phone for a week or so. I had received a request for additional information which was due back by July 23rd, and I was getting concerned the mail had messed up and they hadn’t received all the paperwork I sent them. After being transferred up the chain to a supervisor and starting to really get worried, I then had to explain my problem again, which the very helpful lady didn’t seem to understand. She casually informed me my case had been approved on July 22nd and that the new green card had been queued for printing and mailing out Well, that certainly was a lot better than I was expecting! I think I had to ask her to repeat it, just to make sure!

Hopefully it arrives pretty soon, as I’m still a tad nervous until I actually have it in my hand. Would much rather still be able to see the status in writing online as being ‘approved’ as with previous cases, but certainly sounds like it’s for real! Within like two hours this morning I’d tied off the last couple of major things with being over here and getting through the renewal on my own. Has also gone through incredibly quickly if so, given I didn’t file until the end of March, but then I had got a biometrics appointment within 3 weeks, and everything seems to have moved smoothly. Will see what I get in the mail over the next couple of weeks.

I am starting to really love my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens Does take some getting used to as especially at low f-stops, the auto focus just can’t quite pick out when I’m wanting to do. Auto is for whimps anyways, right?! This was scrambling around some old machinery on my way to Jeff’s last night:

And we may not have KFC in Bethel, however there was a QFC at one point:

But, the important thing was getting another front page photograph on the Tundra Drums of my shot of Joseph repairing his salmon nets:

Very happy I have a few extra photos on flickr I got from Friday night which were fun. Tonight I had some friends over for poker which then moved on to Rock Band which was great fun too!

This has been another busy week at work, with a couple of nights doing a remote server gig down in Wyoming as an outside project, as well as a late night Tuesday working with our VMware consultant. Starting to see the end of that project, once we work around yet another networking snag. I did finally get my VMware Certified Professional certification in the mail yesterday after passing the exam at the of January though, so that was pretty cool.

Dog sitting has not been particularly easy at times either, even Nikko is starting to tire of the little monster that is Suka. This Nikko earlier today whilst Suka was distracted elsewhere:

And the other monster trying to big scary guard dog at the window as a plastic bag blows by:

This past week I also got cell phone through GCI. When I figured out I can pay the same amount per month for a cell phone with 800 anytime minutes plus unlimited evening and weekends as I do for a fixed landline, it made more sense to switch, especially given how little I actually use my landline as I’m usually out elsewhere anyways. Feels a little weird having a cellphone again and be sending text messages, just sucks to not have data service out here for mobile internet or MMS. As with everything out here, it will slowly arrive, and service/quality has been better than expected actually. Just need to get an iPhone working now…

I’m now camped out at Jeff + Angel’s dog sitting Niko and Suka for the next week Is a nice little change, though was weird driving them up to the airport and then coming back myself and dealing with the joys of AC store parking lot! Never imagined I’d be driving round Bethel. Still, there were a few little errands I was wanting to get done in the next few days, so will be a help having a car to use.

The last couple of weeks have slowly been easing up at work with the bulk of the teachers and associated staff winding down. I am feeling kinda like a lost puppy with so many of my play buddies gone though now! I have the last of the VMware SAN replication to do this week with a consultant on-site Tuesday + Wednesday to move our second Equallogic unit off site. I already moved an ESX host to our off site location which works nicely given we have a 100Mb fiber line out there too.

I have a couple of website projects lined up, and a few photography projects to think about over the summer. Nice to have contacts now Some of those could turn out to be quite fun and a good experience. I scanned in 4 rolls of 35mm film the last couple of days too which gives me plenty of post-production work to do this week whilst hanging out here with the dogs. There’s a right mix of photos from the last few months, so will post some when I’m happy with the results.

He’s a bugger to photograph with all the light in this room, and I’m not using the EOS 50D here (though there does seem a glimmer of hope on that note…):

Not quite as impressive as some of the aquariums I’ve had in the past, but it fills a nice little corner of my desk and adds a little interest too.

I haven’t exactly had a quiet week or so. It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m lying out on the couch with the sun streaming through the window and loving it. This is the first time in 10 days I’ve just been able to slow down and rest.

Last Thursday I headed out for drinks with a friend which became early morning walking home with the sun still up. That was just weird. Friday night we then celebrated Jamie being crowned intercontinental teacher of the year (well, teacher of the year at ME, but Jeff + I didn’t think that sounded quite as grand), that rolled on til gone 2a.m. Normally, such a finishing time would be respectable, however when you are then woken up less than hour in to bed by firefighters coming in your house and up the stairs telling you to get out, it does not bode well. My neighbour had a small fire in the chimney flue which was cause for concern with smouldering roof timbers, and my side of the duplex being the only way way in to the attic. Cue fire hoses dragged up the stairs, through my bedroom, and getting to sit in a fire truck and look at the purty buttons and dials. At 4a.m after drinking a tad, this was the best I could figure with the camera:

I finally got back in the house around 5a.m, but then had to be up at 7a.m to get out to the airport to head to Anchorage for the weekend. When you’re boarding the plane and the stewardness says “don’t worry, sir, there’ll be coffee shortly” you know you look rough So, I made a sensible choice of not renting a car and called Beth for a ride. I spent the day with her and Loren before heading out for a meal at Orso and some drinks, before the draw of Chuck E Cheese won us over and we went to play skeeball. Quite surreal, but incredibly good fun. I won a bunch of coupons so traded them in for activity books and stickers which the guys in the office didn’t seem impressed with…

After poker til 3a.m which gave me a few of those green beer vouchers, Sunday was a lazy day with shopping, a barbecue with Beth + Loren’s friends, then off to the hockey game to see the Aces play in the conference final (which they ended up taking 4-0 a couple of days ago and now go to the Kelly Cup!). Tim Miller and a friend met up with us, and was a great game with plenty of fights. More poker ensued until the early hours of Monday morning, and then a quick medical appointment on Monday before heading back to Bethel. Where I needed a canoe to get home:

There was a waist-deep water down 6th avenue which was bizarre, especially since it ended up all clearing away within a couple of days. But, was fun whilst it lasted. Got some awesome photos too, some of which I’m hoping get printed in the Tundra Drums, such as Katrina Dominic rescuing Spencer:

I spent Monday night at a friends to let the water recede a little, then Tuesday evening went out canoeing around the slough with Sarah which was good fun. Figured since I could just about walk home with water boots on, was a good sign. Wednesday all hell broke seemed to break loose, but stayed remarkably together. I had a lot of stuff hit me at once I wasn’t quite sure how to deal with, but getting out the office with Dennis for lunch helped diffuse things to the point I can smile about it now. Opened my eyes up a lot and made me appreciate those I have around me. Feel like I’ve become a lot closer to some people as result of the trust and friendship they’ve shown.

Thursday night brought guy’s night at Ted B’s, so I snagged a ride to ACE to pick up a couple of cases of IPA to donate and save on a cab ride! It was a good warm up for last night, since my house was picked to host happy hour, which was really good. Was so nice to be able to have all my best friends round, plowing through case after case of beer, and munching on pizza. We also found the buzzer on the dryer, when bumped in to, is a perfect signal for everyone to take a drink! I also managed to get Bethany and Brent to don a Sunderland shirt to start the Bethel branch of the the Sunderland AFC Supporters Association. Honestly, I don’t think they had a clue what they were wearing:

Outside, a highschool graduation was quietly going on (seriously, they were all very well behaved) with a bonfire as the focal point. By 1.30a.m, we were like moths to a light bulb and being drawn in. For what it’s worth, wearing a cap on backwards does not let you blend in. Even as the youngest of our mob, I felt old! But, we had a good few minutes hanging out before deciding we needed another drink and some snacks and retreated back home.

By 3a.m I made it to bed, and then got to deal with the clear-up this morning, generally involving an insane amount of empty bottles + cans! Good times though. Thinking a barbecue is in order next weekend. Anyways, my plan is to leave the house as little as possible this weekend and spend as much time on the couch as I can.