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Got a phone call this morning from the school district in Bethel to confirm starting the system analyst job next week Guess I need to find somewhere to stay now… Looking forward to it though, and there’s already a little project lined up for my first day (Tuesday, since Monday is Labor Day public holiday). Plan to fly into Bethel on the Monday evening as even with the best will in the world the bush flights wouldn’t get me in by 8a.m on the Tuesday morning!

I’ve been filling in the paperwork for a new hire - working out your own tax deductions via the W-4 seems inane given all payroll info is going to be handled via computer which could spit out your deductions in an instant. It’s pretty different to back in England though where married filing jointly doesn’t affect things and child tax credits are handled separately too. Guess the idea is to have as much as possible handled within your pay check rather than additional credits here and there and then rebates at the end of each tax year which makes sense. Still think i prefer the UK way where you don’t have to even file a tax return under most circumstances and have it all handled automatically for you

Pending a reference check from Greencroft, today I was hired as the new system analyst managing application systems for the school district, scheduled to start next week It was a fairly informal interview, but a great opportunity to meet the other guys within the technology support team, and I then spent an hour or so with personnel and the technology director to give me a few things to start thinking about working towards to try and hit the ground running on the first day (always easier said than done!).

The role will primarily focus on supporting all the servers across the district in their overall day to day running including backups, updates, and routine maintenace, with two other system analysts in web systems and networking systems maintaining their actual roles such as looking after the e-mail system, school information system, distance learning courses, etc. I’ll also be taking care of the end user support with regards to the FileMaker database systems, as well as the increased use of the school information systems. It will certainly be a very challenging though equally as rewarding role, and the district also hired a new itinerant site technician yesterday that will travel between some of the villages - a good sign they’re continuing to move forward and improve their support services.

I’ll work the next few days here in Tunt to finish off the project dismantling the basketball project as I hate leaving things unfinished, and it will also help with an extra bit of money to see us through as it would be the middle of October before the first pay check from the new role would appear. Living in Bethel won’t be cheap! Hopefully the district will get in touch to confirm all is sorted on the reference checks and I can start next week, and this weekend I might also try chatting with Carl here in the village as he flies into Bethel during the week too working for AVCP so might have some suggestions on getting housing sorted.

At the start of the week I put in an application for a system analyst position with the school district up in Bethel. It’s a little different than what I was doing at Greencroft before I moved out to the US, and in some ways a bit of a step up and away from the network management side of things, but looks like a great new challenge. This afternoon I got a call back from the technology director inviting me for an interview next Tuesday afternoon (meaning, of course, it will snow on Monday evening and I’ll be stuck in the village on weather hold ) which is pretty exciting and encouraging, so this weekend I guess I’m brushing up going through my notes from past courses and exams, as well as making sure my suit still fits… But, small world, although the director spent 40+ years in Australia before moving over to the US, he grew up in England and still has some family in Chester-le-Street, about 7-8 miles from Durham!

But, I was wanting to move away from Windows-based systems even whilst at Greencroft and the school district is pretty much all Mac-oriented, meaning Filemaker would be a little different for me for example, and quite a bit of the role seems to involve the back-end systems rather than installing a new printer cartridge or replacing a RAM module, which is nice. Would mean basing myself out of Bethel, which is mixed good + bad - would be nice to get out the village during the week when everyone is busy teaching anyways and would mean I could easily get fresh fruit + veg brought back in for Kat, but the cost of living in Bethel is pretty extreme with heat easily going to be $500 a month, even before $200 round-trip on the bush flights to get me in + out of Tunt. Depending on exactly what the position includes, might even be possible to work out some time basing myself out of the school here in Tunt during the winter when there *will* be weather holds between here and Bethel.

Still, it’s a great opportunity to get back into working at something I enjoy doing and something I can make a difference with, and the money is very attractive. Would offer enough to rent somewhere in Bethel for during the week and fly back pretty much every weekend and still leave me better off than working two jobs for the school here in Tunt. Not quite your normal commute to work, admittedly. I’ll have to see how the interview goes and exactly what the role would include, as well as how to work the traveling, but would certainly be an improvement from falling off ladders

Whilst working on Saturday morning I decided to throw myself off a ladder for something to do I did manage to find the only place in the steel storage building to do this where I wouldn’t crack my head on a 4-wheeler, filing cabinet, or metal trolley, and also landed flat on my back as opposed to something silly like on a shoulder or ankle where a break or dislocation would have been an odds-on favourite to have happened.

Okay, so I didn’t exactly do it on purpose (and apparently the precedent was set by needing to get drunk before falling down and suing the school…). As I was stepping off the ladder onto the upper level of the building, the ladder slipped away from under my other foot, sending me 8 feet or so onto the wooden boardwalk below. Over an hour at the clinic today (ten points for guessing it’s not open over the weekend, though at least there is an emergency call out available if it had been serious) and all I got was some ibuprofen and told to take it easy, which is about all I was expecting, though the doctor that checked over the details back in Bethel did suggest going into the hospital if it get’s worse or doesn’t ease up in a week or so. Which was nice. Hard for them to done anything else really, as nothing is broken or obvious signs of problems other than swelling + bruising, and they were very nice whilst checking me out.

I might be going into Bethel in the next week or so in an attempt to get out of the heavy lifting business anyway- more on that one as things pan out. Could get Subway whilst I’m at it! In other news, Kat’s half-sister Cheri` sent through a care package containing 36 Twix bars

The last few days have slowly been easing us back into village life after our vacation. It’s been nice to see the teachers coming back and meeting the new guys. Everyone is back now, with Pam and Dan are out again in Bethel for a couple of training days. Frank + Mark have me working on taking down the outdoor basketball court which is kinda sad in a way - the court belongs to the tribal council who are charged with then reconstructing it, however the way things work out here, that could take some time meaning the kids now have even less to do around the village. But, playing out well after curfew until midnight and then starting again at 5a.m (no-one knows how they get up that early when standard wake-up time is closer to midday!) means it’s kinda been brought upon themselves, and there’s a new steel building waiting to be built where the court is currently sited so Frank wants it gone.

We had the power out for 5 hours or so this afternoon as the new airport gets their electrics hooked up which is kinda cool. At least the generators wound themselves back up again and power came back on okay Kat has been busying herself at school over the weekend getting her classroom ready - they have a couple of inservice days at the end of the week before the kids start back on Monday. I think all the kids are struggling with such a long summer without fish camp to go to and could do with getting back into the swing of school schedule! The weather has been pretty warm too, though it’s meant a ton of tiny no-see ‘ums that fly right through the bug mesh on the windows Give some fantastic bug bites…

Yup, back to normal!

The last two days I’ve been unloading food for the school from a cargo container up by the airport, hauling it back to school, and stacking it up in the food storage building. Was up over 70F yesterday, so I was quite enjoying working in a t-shirt with my sunglasses on, then today it barely hit 50F and rained all afternoon so it was back on with the fleece jacket! One of the locals joked about it snowing next week. I moved 8,000lbs yesterday (do the math on how much total lifting that was given first carrying it out the cargo container, then out the trailer onto a cart, then out the cart onto a shelf…) and gave up counting today as I was more interested in Mark trying to stalk some hares He went hungry though so hope he had a backup plan for dinner as they kept running away (which I did suggest might be eventual outcome before he even started!). Hopefully tomorrow I can get the rest of the food moved before I start on the second container…

But, came back home to find Kat sitting reading a book by the window and looking very sad without any TV or anything. Told me the power had been out for over three hours, which I figured was odd since it wasn’t out at school, no-one had been busily working at the power plant during the afternoon, and there were lights on in other houses. Nice little kiddies had flipped the mains breaker for the whole duplex as it’s located where the power line comes into the building. Mia’s getting let loose on the next kid within 20 yards of the house as a deterrent since I’m apparently not allowed to hook up the handle on the breaker box to the mains (Kat said a lock would be easier; I responded with easier not equating to amusing). Mark told me the kids have been doing the same on other houses around the school and he has to keep checking as some of the houses still have a bunch of frozen food in them, and I really don’t think the teachers would appreciate coming back to that kinda smell!

Kat + I got have got our flights booked up for heading into the Anchorage at the end of July for a couple of weeks with my parents Pretty cool, just need to get a couple of git big needles sent out to stick into Mia to get her sorted too. Now we’re working out where we’re going and what we’re doing to look at getting hotels booked and tickets booked for a glacier cruise and Denali bus ride.

School is all finished up here now, so Kat is enjoying a bit of relaxation before flying down to Minnesota next Tuesday. Will be helping Cris move out to Carson City and then flies up to Anchorage around the middle of June for a few days before heading back to Tunt. Some of the other teachers are already starting to head out the village, and the three moving away completely are hurrying around to get sorted by June 1st when they have to be out the houses. Think they’re all grouping together to charter a Cessna 208 Grand Caravan to get them into Bethel as there’ll be two dogs amongst all the luggage so is probably easier!

I’ve had a few days work clearing wood from around the school after boardwalks have been ripped up and oil tanks removed over the past year, and will have a couple of day next week building some new boardwalk sections. All the materials for hooking up the other four housing units to the water and sewer lines are on order, so hopefully they’ll arrive soon now that the rivers have broken and the barges should be able to sail in the next week or so. That would give me plenty of work to do over the summer to stop me getting bored and bring some money in.

The last few days have been a little annoying. TCSA have strung out a bunch of excuses as to why they’ve simply dropped their service of emptying the sewer tanks when they were due to run it until April 18th, most of them being centered around not having staff to work for them as they’re off doing other things or simply not showing up. Frank + Mark have been trying to negotiate with them to borrow their pumping equipment for a day or two but they want none of it, and when I went down on Monday offering to start working for them right away they wouldn’t bite. The Tribal Council currently has an opening for a custodian to work 4 hours a week cleaning the offices and stuff but I’d get the same reaction even though I’m more than willing to put up with $32 a week and just get on with - I’m not Yup’ik, so no chance of being employed, even though most of the people in the village are too lazy to apply for it or hold it down so the position joins the other jobs on the board that date back to 2006. Pretty much all the sewer tanks in the village are full and everyone’s complaining, but as usual no-one’s willing to suck it up and and do what needs doing. Hopefully they’ll get their act together and either the Tribal Council or Quinarmuit Corporation will take over the services soon as it really can’t be healthy to have raw sewage overflowing around all the houses…

But, now that things have frozen over again from last week’s warm weather, I headed out for a ride on the snowmobile yesterday evening for a good hour or so. Was a beautiful evening without a cloud in the sky and very little wind even though it was around 5F (-15C), and I kept stopping just to admire the peace + quiet (once I turned the engine off…) as it really was quite magical. With the fresh snow, the usually bumpy or packed-down tundra was pretty smooth and soft allowing the snowmobile to just glide over it without needing to slow down much Crossing streams was a bit dicey as the edges had softened, lifted, and then frozen again, meaning I had to get off a couple of times and walk the route first to make sure I could ride where I wanted to, especially when coming back onto the main river.

This afternoon Mia and I had wandered round to the airport just after a plane had come in to land, and it was a completely new one - a Cessna 206 rather than the usual 207’s, and belonging to Vanderpool Air. I’d never heard of them so had to look them up online - they’re a small outfit way up river from Bethel based out of Red Devil I think (pretty cool name!), so guess he was flying a charter for workers at the airport to be this far south.

As it’s getting light pretty early in the morning and staying light until 10.30p.m or so, Kat + Marie have decided to get up on a morning and take the dogs for a walk again like they were before the weather became too cold before Christmas. More concerned about Mia getting up at 7.30a.m than Kat, but sure they’ll have fun! Marie’s really excited at the moment as she was accepted by the Wycliffe Foundation a few days ago to spend two years in Africa doing missionary/teaching work and will find out exactly where she’ll be going in the next week or so. Has to raise quite a bit of funding as the training starts at the of June before flying out to Africa over the summer, but it’s something she’s been planning + preparing for a while, and although Kat + I will be sad to see here leave Tunt, we’re glad it’s to do something like that

This afternoon we had some pretty decent weather for a change - even though it was around 0F with windchill down to -25F, the sun was out and it wasn’t overcast or snowing I wouldn’t say I’d given up on the Project 365 photo a day gig, but as the weather has been so poor for the past month or so with only the occasional break, it just wasn’t exciting photographing things around the house or dragging myself outside simply for the sake of a half-hearted photo converted to black + white as the light is so poor. There’s also not a whole load to photograph out here after a while! So, I’ve decided to wait until day’s like this when I get to head out and enjoy being outside and taking photographs without worrying what will be my shot of the day simply because I feel I have to have one.

Anyways, a few days of snow and winds have created some pretty cool snowdrifts and patterns in the snow, burying the boats again:

With the winds swinging from north east to north west and then westerly, there’s some nice looking snow drifts with lips and curls on them (which Mia loved charging up + down and destroying before I could photograph!):

Out on the tundra, the wind had been able to whip the snow across the flat landscape creating patterns and layouts almost like you’d see on sand dunes or at the beach. Stung like sand being whipped against your face too!

Pam + Marie made it back on Sunday - I was talking with my parents telling them how the weather was horrible with blowing snow, overcast skies at only a couple of hundred feet and one mile visibility at the most when “bbbrrrrmmmmmmmm” over-flies a Yute Air plane Tell you, the worse the weather, the more likely Yute are to fly in + out on schedule! Most important thing was they brought my Subway - apparently they had good trip too

The tables got painted over the weekend and last month’s pay went through via direct deposit which means I don’t have to mess around mailing in a check and waiting a couple of weeks for it to clear. Of course, with only 10 hours last month it didn’t break the bank, but did add a whopping $7.23 to a retirement fund I guess I have.

Oh, and Janette - get back to work

The last couple of days I’ve been pretty ill - I’m blaming it on all the dust from the ceiling tiles on Saturday. Was better today so hopefully will be gone in another day or two. We got most of the tiles done, but there were some broken when the ceiling was originally up a couple of years ago so they need measuring, cutting and installing to finish it off, but the teachers seem fairly happy with it as it is. Adds up to a few dollars in the pay check at the end of month I suppose.

On Thursday the school breaks up for a whopping 3 day spring-break vacation which Kat is excited about. Marie + Pam are heading into Anchroage for a few days but Kat figured it wasn’t worth it just for 2-3 days with our plans for the summer, so we’ve passed on our Subways orders instead Gives us something to look forward to, and hopefully I can get out ice fishing again over the next few days as well so we have some fresh fish.