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Deep breath…

istartedaproject365andamnowmorethan150daysintoit(whichshowshowlongitsbeensinceiveblogged!)
iturned26andstilldontfeellikeagrownup
ibecameabigfanofprismkites
itraveledtolasvegasforalongweekendwithbethanytomeetupwithmyfamilywhichwasawesome
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iphotographedtheheckoutoflocalsleddogracesandhadmultiplefeaturesraninthetundradrums
ipassedmyapplecertifiedtechnicalcoordinatorexamsinosx10.6havingneverseenwithsnowleopard
ibecameweirdlyaccustomedtodrivingontheriverinmytruck
igottoridemysnowmobileafterlousysnowallwintersofar
iwillhavecompleted18collegecreditsthroughuasbytheendofjuneafterregisteringformoreclassestonight
ihavetakentostudingthebibledailyandevenwenttochurchlastsunday
iamgoingtotheiditarodacoupleofweeks
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.

Friday evening I’d procrastinated too much to arrange a house warming party, but still had a few people round anyways. Was something quite bizarre but strangely relaxing about standing out on the deck with Jeff wearing shorts + t-shirts, slippers, and sipping scotch from a plastic tumbler whilst smoking a cigar Dennis brought back up from the Dominican Republic. Good times though, if only for being able to stand outside in shorts + t-shirts before the bugs arrive!

Yesterday was just beautiful weather (well, for May 2nd in Bethel!) at 60F, so I decided to walk up to Suzi’s house for the K300 volunteers party so I could play with my new camera. Those unacquainted with Bethel will not realize the hike it is out past Larson Sub! Starting out, the river itself is still pretty frozen solid, with a little standing water seemingly flowing on top of the ice on the far bank:

Elsewhere in town, fire truck #1 was outside the fire station in the sunshine:

The visitor center and museum for the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge was also enjoying the warmer weather and big, blue skies:

Coming up on Larson sub, which is way the heck out of town, you got a good overview on how spread out in general Bethel is. This small size doesn’t show the detail, but pretty much everything along the horizon is houses, stretching from Tundra Ridge on the left through the center of town and out to Blueberry on the right:

On the final climb up to Suzi’s, I came across a stack of abandoned vehicles. This is definitely tripod territory for some HDR shots in the future!

So, I decided I hate the Tokina 12-24mm F4 DX lens It’s fantastic – I love how crisp the photos stay, even handheld at 12mm. This is certainly a lens that will deliver some awesome results with the Manfrotto triopd + ballhead!

The K300 volunteers party was thrown to thank all those that helped put on the K300 races, and the great weather meant everyone was enjoying themselves lying around in the sun. A huge sled packed with snow and beer helped, as did the big grill! Games, music and dancing rounded things off. I’m not one to post photos of random people on here, the K300 site can carry those, but Suzi did steal my camera (that’s trust right there!) and grab some photos worth sharing, first of me and Casie:

The Sunderland shirt was down to the fact no-one would realize how well we’ve been playing lately Anyways, here’s another with Angie and Erin:

I then got bored with trying to smile for the camera! But, it was a good afternoon/evening. After wandering home gone 1.30a.m, I then didn’t appreciate Jeff waking me up at 9.30a.m asking if I wanted to go for a walk later But, after lunch we headed out for a ‘little stroll across the tundra’:

Yeah right. Only in Alaska could you have been going from thigh-deep snow to knee-deep water in a couple of steps whilst wearing a short-sleeve shirt… But, I did get to fire off a few clips with a .22 semi-automatic pistol:

The ear plugs were mainly for this beast of a .44 Magnum, which although ridiculously good fun to shoot, scared the crap out of me with it’s recoil!

After making it back to dry land, it had filled in 2-3 hours on a Sunday afternoon, so we rewarded ourselves with a beer. Nothing like shooting guns to build up a thirst. I’ll put up some of these photos on Flickr in higher resolution, and I love my new Canon EOS 50D! Some of the photos from the K300 party were awesome with having the full control of a DSLR, and I’m very excited for what else I can produce with it once I get used to all the features, especially next winter with all the sled dogs.

Last night was the K300 Kids Race, a chance for 13-17 year olds to race a 7-dog team 10 miles up to the Hoffman fish camp for a 30 minute layover of hotdogs and beans before racing back to Bethel. 9 teams raced and everyone seemed to have fun. I rode up to camp with Bev Hoffman in their truck which was the more comfortable way to arrive! This was 2nd + 3rd place mushers coming in to camp:

A little while later, Alison Dahl coming in to camp:

The dogs seemed to enjoy a bit of a rest after running through the soft powder snow:

Although these two guys didn’t need quite as much of a dusting off:

The camp itself was pretty well set up, with Crowley providing the food + drinks. The family were cooking up hot dogs and beans, with juice on hand too. Everyone seemed to enjoy the bit of a break and hanging out.

Rested and warmed up, the mushers then turned round to head back to Bethel. This is Clarence Kalistook pulling out of the checkpoint:

Back in Bethel, Williann Evan was the first musher back, winning by a little over 20 seconds:

There were a few close finishes, including Moses Nick and Shawn Larson in 5th + 6th:

A very nice evening to be out playing on the river, this is Megan Stanton pulling in to Bethel:

Finally, a group shot of the all the kids that took part in the race:

Hopefully there’ll be a Sunday fun run or two yet before spring break up, as I’ve really enjoyed the K300 races recently. I’m in Anchorage next weekend and maybe the weekend after, so might miss any that are put on, though have at least made the most of what races there has been. Other than the Spring 50 I couldn’t get to on time, have got to all the other races Good times!

On Tuesday I threw a sick day. I felt like crap after all the business of Cama’i, and had picked up a nice chesty cough. Having no heat all Monday evening didn’t help. But, I picked myself up and was back in work today. I did have our Apple engineer threatening to wrestle me to the ground and give me a double wet-willy (he’s a big bloke, I wouldn’t have fought back) after spending an hour troubleshooting mobile Open Directory account synchronization problems off-site when the personal firewall is up. Bizarrely, log in sync worked, just not on demand, scheduled, or log out. A smile about April Fool’s didn’t cut it, but he saw the funny side of it, and was actually quite interesting and gives us more to poke around with as to when the firewall is actually brought up and if the log in sync runs differently as a result. Tomorrow I’m being allowed out the office again to head a few miles downriver to Oscarville to deploy their new Open Directory replica which should be good fun.

This evening was the K300 Kids Race, a 20 mile round trip race up river to the Hoffman fish camp and back, with a 30 minute layover for hotdogs, beans, and juice. I snagged a ride up in a truck with Bev Hoffman (I promised my chiropractor I wouldn’t bounce and shake along the river on a *snowmobile*, didn’t mention anything about a *truck* ), and got some good photos over the layover whilst grabbing a hot dog and juice to boot. All the kids had fun, and I’ll try to get some of my photos up here tomorrow. Have processed most of them and passed a few on to Casie for the K300 site, but too tired to edit them down for here tonight.

But, was quite weird tearing along the river in a truck, first time I’ve headed on to the ice road other than on a snowmobile. Was good fun, even with our little spin! A few miles down to Oscarville tomorrow should be cool too.

Greg grabbed a photo of me helping line out one of Myron/Casie’s teams last night:

Thankfully his wife, Jen, wasn’t too worse for wear after a few falls during her race.

After missing the K300 Spring 50 race yesterday with snowmobile ‘issues’, I at least made it to the Sponsors Race this evening as it’s 5 minutes away from my apartment. Casie asked me to help line out one of the their teams so that was good fun as the dogs were all readied! I then jumped on the back of a snowmobile with Mike Parker to ride round as the guys raced, though left my camera in Casie’s truck which wasn’t part of the plan! Was good fun riding round for 40 minutes or so seeing the race develop. The first three runners were really close right through and taking it pretty seriously. Back at the finish line, this was one of the guys coming in:

This is Jen Schiedler, wife of Greg from work, bringing home the same Hoffman/McDonald team I raced month or so ago (who did surprising well considering she fell off three times, the first of which Mike + I were pretty worried about as we chased after the team and brought them to a halt):

Unfortunately, someone lost an ear along the trail:

But I suppose if you put these two guys together, they have a pair of ears between them:

Some of the front runner mushers had dodged away early, so only 4 of the 7 mushers were around for a group photo at the end:

All in all, a good evening, and I then headed out for dinner with Greg + Jen afterwards. In other news, I have running water again, which is nice, and I had another chiropractor appointment earlier. The muscular pains are a little worrying, and confusing, as the spine itself seems to have dropped right back in to place without problems. Hopefully things start improving soon.

Yesterday I took a good few hours to go through all the 35mm photos I’ve been developing and scanning. It’s more interesting than plugging in a digital camera and downloading them as requires more work and time to bring out the best in them, but worthwhile. I’ve uploaded 20+ to Flickr in this Olympus OM-1 set. I’m really pleased with how they came out. I’ve already posted a few of the 35mm photos over the last few weeks, but here’s some of my favourites from yesterday’s processing, starting with a very wet scene of the slough showing why the race was delayed a couple of days:

A young K300 musher making his way out the chute at the start of the race:

And then a Bogus Creek 150 musher pulling his team off the startline:

Before the start of the Akiak Dash, a couple of dogs poking their heads out their box wanting to be hooked up and get the race underway:

I’ve posted this photo before, but really like it – more Akiak Dash dogs waiting to go:

Those guys are probably somewhere in this shot of the en masse start of the Akiak Dash:

Finishing off the last few frames of one of the rolls of film just wandering around outside my apartment gave a couple of interesting photos such as this snowy boat:

Plus, an indication that maybe Bethel used to be a little nicer than it appears now – seemingly abandoned equipment from Gilberto’s Lawn Service:

More of the 35mm photos from the OM-1 along with full-size versions of these ones can be found on Flickr.

Very excited for the Iditarod next weekend now, just not sure as to what to mainly use. The OM-1 gave mixed results, either down to my metering or developing skills, but as I could fully control the aperture it gave some very nice effects and overall a bit more atmosphere. My Fuji S1000fd gave good photos of the K300 weekend across the board, much sharper results, and bracketing options along with instant viewing for feedback.

As I was getting ready down to head down to the river for the first of the K300 Sunday Fun Runs, Casie called to make sure I was planning to go as was going to try and get a team for me to race. I might have mentioned once or twice over the last few months I was wanting to try it, guess the hints had stuck As I rolled up, Casie was starting to get some dogs ready:

Suzi introduced me to John + Bev who have been running dogs for a number of years oout here in Bethel, Bev regularly competing in local races, and they offered to let me race their team. The idea of the fun runs are for non-mushers to get the opportunity to race a dog sled team on a 7-mile loop along the river, with local mushers bringing a team of 5 dogs ready to show someone how to do it. This is John getting the dogs ready:

I wasn’t expecting to be given a 30 second whirlwind tour of who the leader is, how to brake and drop the anchor, and the told to just hold on and let the dogs go where they want! With 6 inches or more of fresh snow in the last day, the running would be slow so I didn’t have much to worry about apparently. It was so much fun, although the leader didn’t want to listen and follow the trail to the right coming up to the island so John + Bev skipped over on snowmobile to help guide them along the right way.

After the first mile or so I was plum last and quite content, as to be heading along the river on a back of sled being pulled by a team of dogs with nothing else around you was just fantastic. With all the soft snow, I was told to keep kicking the sled along to help the young dogs out, and I ain’t a little guy to be pulled along either! Turned in to quite a workout for someone that sits at a computer 8+ hours a day.

Coming in to the finish, Suzi had grabbed my camera out the truck to catch a photo:

She also tried to get an action shot as I anchored the team down, but the joys of the falling snow dropped a snow flake on the lens right over my face Ah well, can still tell it’s me!

And then the racers lined up – I think they’d had a little wait for me to actually get in as all the other teams were happily packed up in the back of the the trucks again! Finishing order from right to left – I think this should have been panoramic with me way out to the left in fairness:

Regardless of the finishing order, I had great fun which is what it was all about I guess! Just a fantastic experience to try something like that out, and big thanks to John + Bev for letting me run their team, and for the K300 guys for organizing it. Don’t think I’m quite ready to compete in the Iditarod, will stick to photographing it in 2-3 weeks time! Can see how it could become addictive once you got started though… Additional photos of the race can be found in this Flickr set which I’ll update over the next few weekends if I catch other fun runs.

After the last couple of evenings, today has just rounded off a fantastic weekend, and re-iterated the feeling of happiness at living in Bethel right now. Does that make the frustrations of work easier to deal with knowing I have a life after 5p.m and on a weekend to enjoy, or make it worse? Maybe I was just fed up after the end of a long day of a long week on Friday. Monday’s the start of a new week, right ?