Again, all this is done via the USB connection. I don’t have an Ethernet shield which would have made this somewhat easier, as removes the need for Python to do most of the lifting. But, for those without an Ethernet shield and wanting to be able to control their Arduino via twitter, this method works pretty good and is a lot cheaper given you have a USB cable and computer already

The Python script and Arduino sketch is available under twittering-arduino on my Github. The Python script uses the same twitter API as previously, so assumes you have all the required Python dependencies and application registered at dev.twitter.com – check the blog post I wrote outlining getting all that going if you need to set all that fun stuff up.

All we’re doing is calling api.GetMentions(), grabbing the most recent tweet sent to our Arduino twitter account, and then parsing out so we end up with just the status message sent to us. We then do an if: elif: to do an arduino.write(x) where x is the integer we determined in our if logic dependent on the twitter status sent to us, and arduino is our initiated serial connection via USB. You’ll need to edit the Python script to include your own twitter API tokens, as well as adjust what you want your if statements to process. I wanted to watch for ‘lights on’ or ‘lights off’ and send a ’1′ or ’2′ respectively:

if message == "lights on":
arduino.write("1")
elif message == "lights off":
arduino.write("2")

As shown below, tweeting @fouldsy_arduino lights off causes our Python script to read in the ‘lights off’ part, convert that to the integer ’2′ and send it via the serial port to the Arduino, which is monitoring it’s serial port for incoming data and then calls turnLightsOff();. I was running a Python script that was monitoring both ways and so the Arduino then tweeted back out “turned lights off” via the same mechanism outlined in my earlier blog post:

My Python isn’t quite up to speed to figure out how to constantly monitor the serial port for the Arduino sending data that then needs tweeting out, whilst being nice to twitter and only making an API call every 5 minutes to see if any tweets have been sent to it that need passing back to the Arduino, so I’ve made the code to read from twitter to the Arduino available on Github, and hope someone else might be able to figure out that niceity and contribute back

Also note that the Python script passes back ASCII code data, so you’d need to some converting based on an ASCII table like this if you wanted to pass something other than a single integer. You can pass entire strings back and forth, but to me that seemed inefficient and required a lot more processing when the Arduino receives the serial data, so the method I used in this code, at least to me, made more sense.

But, it would be cool to at least look at how to push data from the Arduino out the Internet, and so I started looking around at ways to utilize the USB connection and have the computer the Arduino is connected to act as a go-between. Cue some fun python libraries. The setup entails using pySerial to monitor the USB port and read in data printed to the Arduino serial port, and then python-twitter to push that data out as a status update to twitter. This was all based off an awesome post from Brad Wells on using Arduino to Twitter over USB.

To get the python libraries installed and ready to roll:

• Download pySerial – unpack the archive and then from the command line within that directory run
  python setup.py install
• python-twitter has three dependencies that need installing first:
  • simplejson – download and unpack the archive, and then from the directory run
    python setup.py install
  • httplib2 – download and unpack the archive, and then from the directory run
    python setup.py install
  • python-oauth2 – download and unpack the archive, and then from the directory run
    python setup.py install
• Now you can download python-twitter – unpack the archive, and then from the directory run:
  python setup.ph build
python setup.ph intall

Now we need to get twitter ready. The python script uses the twitter API, so it requires you to register your own application in order to get the access tokens needed to function. Most people create a separate twitter account specifically for the Arduino to tweet to (the entry in the Arduino playground for tweeting using the Ethernet shield has you running through an external service to pass the tweet, so you probably shouldn’t use your primary account), and when registering your application at dev.twitter.com, make sure you’re signed in to twitter using this dedicated Arduino account. After registering, your consumer key and consumer secret key are immediately provided – click on ‘My Access Token’ to gain the access token and access token secret.

The python script, broken down and detailed in Brad’s blog post, requires you to copy and paste those four twitter tokens in to the script. On the Arduino side, the sketch can be as simple as:

Serial.begin(9600);
Serial.println("Tweeting arduino!");

within setup(). All you need to do is initialize a 9600 baud serial instance and then print out a line. Whatever your print out to the serial port is what the python script will read in and tweet. Make sure you compile and upload the sketch to your Arduino before you run the python script – as you have python monitoring your USB port to watch for the serial output, you can’t then upload via USB to the Arduino. Once you sketch is uploaded, you can fire up the python script and then hit the reset button on your Arduino.

The python script will just sit at the command line, watching for messages sent out to the Arduino’s serial port. If you check your twitter feed, you should see your tweet You can easily expand beyond simply printing a line of text to reading in data from sensors and have that included. It would definitely make it more useful, and within the python-twitter library, there are functions to also monitor twitter updates and send data back to the Arduino. That’s something I haven’t quite figured out yet, but is definitely an appealing feature!

I wrote a fairly wide-ranging RTC timer sketch that I posted to Github that will allow you to execute a given block of code or function based on a start and end time that you specify. Although the default sketch is simply turning on and off an LED connected to digital pin 2, there’s probably a lot of situations beyond just turning a light on or off that this could be used for.

Hopefully it’s useful, and it’s definitely something I’ll be incorporating in to other programs I’ll be writing

There’s a few basic little circuits built around the DS1307 chip that act as a real time clock – I went with this little kit from Adafruit. It only took 5-10 minutes to assemble and solder, and then I had fun playing with outputting various time formats to the serial monitor and calculating dates in the past and future. Ultimately, I wanted to hook it up to the LCD screen though.

I also got a tiny TMP36 temperature sensor, with the plan being to craft a waterproof housing so it could sit in the aquarium to record water temperature. It only uses one analog pin (in it’s most basic form of connecting), which is great since I’m basing things of the Arduino Uno so don’t have a massive number of pins available. But, with the LCD backpack reducing the numbers of pins required, it’s not too bad. I discovered to output the degrees symbol (°) is written to the LCD using lcd.print((char)223); or to the serial monitor with Serial.print(176, BYTE);

Anyway, after figuring out running both the LCD backpack and the RTC off analog pins 4 + 5, I managed to get the LCD displaying the current time and temperature in both degrees celsius and fahrenheit as shown above. Here’s the actual diagram of the circuit (Fritzing file available via Github below):

It was a pretty cool set up, though it was kinda annoying that there’s nothing built in to Arduino or the RTC library that allows for a leading zero on the time if only a single digit is present, such as 7 seconds when on a clock it should ideally display 07 seconds. A simple if (now.second() < 10) lcd.print("0"); checks if the value returned from the RTC requires this leading zero and outputs it to the LCD before the actual time value.

The code and circuit schematic for this little project is available on Github at Arduino-LCD-time-temp, and I guess is the first little program beyond basically copying and pasting example code that I've written. It was largely based on the DS1307 RTC tutorial by Ladyada along with her TMP36 temperature sensor tutorial. The Ardiuno forums also had a good few little snippets on how to write out the degrees symbol both to the LCD and to serial when I was testing, and different methods to write out the leading zeros when dealing with time.

I bought a 16×2 LCD from Adafruit which helpfully included the header pins, along with an i2c/SPI backpack which allows easier connection to the Arduino and uses less pins. After remembering which end of the soldering iron to hold, I got the header connected and the backpack attached (though I really need to clean up my soldering job…):

Using a modified LiquidCrystal library for using the i2c connection made it pretty straightforward to write out to the LCD. Using two analog input pins along with the 5V and GND made it really quick to hook up the board too. The basic code for displaying two lines of text is:


#include < Wire.h >
#include < LiquidCrystal.h >

void loop() {
}

Which should display something a little like this:

This was all based on the awesome tutorials from Ladyada on connecting the i2c backpack and writing characters to an LCD. There’s a wealth of awesome info and tutorials, and a great starting place for components and code ideas I’m looking forward to playing around with the temperature sensors and battery powered real time clock over the next week or so.

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.

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.

We watched the first half from up on the balcony to try and figure out how things worked, then headed down on the floor for the 2nd half to cheer on Mighty Mighty Boston, here on the left:

It was cool to be able to get pretty close to the action, and there was certainly a whole lot of bumpin’ and bangin’ going on, along with more than a few tumbles:

I guess like with hockey, not only do you have to pretty good at playing the game, you pretty much have to be a natural at skating too:

It really was a team game – here’s Mighty Mighty Boston getting a little help from one of her teammates whilst keeping the opposing team’s jammer behind:

Unfortunately, ‘Rebel Skate Alliance’ won the bout by 3 points, with the game staying really close for the last 20 minutes. It was still fun to watch, especially since it had been so close and engaging.

Photographing indoors at an event like this was a different challenge, and I was definitely casting a wishful eye over the Canon 70-200mm f2.8L-IS I saw another photographer wielding. I struggled to get much below 1600 ISO even with the EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS I have, so I was left quite noisy shots at times. But, hopefully next time I’ll be able to do a little better, as although I’ve been good, I don’t think Santa is bringing me a 70-200mm f2.8L this year

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.

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, on Monday I flew in + out of Kwethluk, Tuesday I hit up Toksook Bay and flew back to Bethel via Newtok, then Wednesday I flew down to Kwigillingok and then on to Kipnuk where I camped out overnight at the school before coming home on Thursday. After getting things squared in the office through Thursday afternoon and Friday, I then helped figure out next week’s installs So, this Monday I fly to Mekoryuk (where it wouldn’t be awful I got stuck overnight…) and then Tuesday I’m scheduled for Kasigluk to do installs at Akiuk and Akula, before then heading to Atmautluak on Wednesday. Phew!

It was really nice to get back to Nelson Island again and spend the day in Toksook Bay, and then getting down to Kwigillingok and Kipnuk on the coast was great after being out here 4 years and Tunt being fairly close to them. It was quite, quite different to what I expected. It was a lot more desolate than I thought it would be – pretty much every day direction was completely flat and devoid of shrubbery or elevation change. The climate was also totally different. Kwig had 4ft high snowdrifts alongside the boardwalks where they’d plowed the way, and Kipnuk had boardwalks impossible to walk on at times because of the snow! I rode a snowmachine back to the airport on Thursday and really got cold in howling winds, before then driving around in Bethel not two hours later with sunglasses on, window down on the truck, and no snow to be seen at all! I’m quite intrigued as to what Mekoryuk will look like, as Nelson Island was still covered in snow.

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

Anyways, Fairbanks was a little different than we expected. Was good though once we got used to the layout. Downtown was pretty run down and not much going on, but elsewhere was fine. We headed up to see the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, something I’ve wanted to see for a long time:

Something else we both wanted to see was the Northern Lights. On our way north of Fairbanks, I stopped to watch the Ice Road Truckers make their way home:

A little after midnight, we finally got to see the Aurora:

We were like 40 miles north of Fairbanks and totally on our own. It was pretty awesome! We got a couple of short shows which kept us happy:

On Friday we headed 20 miles or so out of Fairbanks to North Pole, which was quite a surreal place. The street lights were colored like candy canes, trees had lights and decorations on them, streets were named ‘Santa Claus Lane’, etc. No trip there would have been complete with going to Santa Claus House (though Santa himself was on holiday…):

To get over North Pole, on Saturday we drove out to Chena Hot Springs, which was just awesome. It’s nestled away in the mountains all by itself, and has geothermal hot springs which feed a couple of pools. The outdoor rock pool was very, very relaxing. Surrounded by snow capped mountains and trees whilst in the warming pool was great, and it was about 45F out, so even lying on the rocks in the sun kept us fairly warm. It was also nice to then wander around the resort and check out all the old and rusty machines and gold panning area and stuff:

For more photos, check this flickr set of Fairbanks

Overall, it was a great few days. Felt weird once we landed in Anchorage and were waiting on our flight back to Bethel. Would be the last time I would be flying out here (assuming I don’t get roped in to helping with Cama’i for Pat’s final year next March). Plus, it matched up that 7 weeks to the day I would be flying back in to Anchorage from Bethel for the last time, and then 8 weeks to the day, I would be leaving Anchorage to the lower 48. I’ve flown to Bethel something like 20 times over the past 5 years, and will be weird leaving. Last night I sold my snowmobile, and have my boat up for sale too. Hopefully that will sell soon. I’ll be mailing off the last few boxes in a couple of weeks when I’m done with my desktop computer and winter clothes and stuff, and then that’s it

I’ve got it parked at Pat’s house and will put it up for sale next week once I’m back from Fairbanks. Seemed weird to be towing it away knowing I’d be selling it. I always looked at life out here as experiencing things whilst I could, and buying a boat was simply a case of being able to buy a boat and use it until I moved. Was a good experience

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!

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!

Here’s Mitch Seavey, two-time K300 champion taking a corner weaving through University Lake:

With the trail fairly narrow, mushers often ended up close together and with no way of passing. Here, Dallas Seavey, son of Mitch, pulled over to let Sonny Lindner pass. As the teams aren’t racing, I guess Dallas was just wanting to enjoy himself and take his time:

Aliy Zirkle, along with her trailing-sled rider also enjoying herself:

Rookie Dan Kaduce:

A good looking and happy team of Tom Thurston:

I’ll finish off processing the photographs from Sunday’s official restart in Willow over the next few days. To check out more of what’s online so far, head over to this Iditarod 2010 set on flickr

As they can’t sweat, their tongues swell up to allow them to cool, which is quite safe.

You then had this guy who just wanted to keep running, not stop on the trail for a minute or so whilst the musher untangled some lines:

Peter Kaiser of Bethel was running his first Iditarod, with his father, Ron, riding the second sled:

Mike Williams Jr of Aniak is also running his first Iditarod this year. Both are currently doing well in the middle of the pack.

Up in Willow, we got to mill around the teams as they were setting up thanks to the press passes we had, which got some great candid shots of the puppies like this one after sneaking a little snack from a way-ward food tub lid:

Some mushers were more stressed out than others as they got ready for the start of the ‘real’ racing, such as Martin Buser, barely able to contain himself:

And once everything was underway, great to see all the mushers and teams make their way across Willow Lake to begin the journey, such as DeeDee Jonrowe:

I’ve processed and uploaded around 50 or so photos now, with hundreds more to go. I’ll slowly be uploading them as I go, again, check this flickr set for more now and over time. Any stand out ones I’ll also post here. I’m really going to miss photographing sled dogs. I guess that’s why I did so much with the Kuskokwim 300, Bogus Creek 150, Akiak Dash, Holiday Classic, and now Iditarod the last couple of months. I just love being around the dogs! I had been hoping to get up for the Akiak 150 this weekend, but there’s a little too much going on at work to have taken more time off so soon after the Iditarod. Hopefully I’ll be able to get another local sled dog race around Bethel before the end of winter.

After dinner on Saturday evening with friends Beth + Loren, we snagged their press passes which meant we could wander around amongst the mushers and teams setting up for an hour or so which was awesome! We then headed over the lake to where the teams pull off and in to a little wooded area. It was really good fun seeing the teams start their Iditarod journey, and I’m now resigned to following the race progress via the GPS tracking on Iditarod Insider.

Today we had a lazy day around Anchorage as the weather wasn’t too good for heading down Turnagain Arm, but it was still good fun. Back to work tomorrow, and with 3 x 8Gb memory cards full of photos to process on the evenings. At least it’s Spring break at UAS so I don’t have much college work to get done over the next week or so and have time to process them. I’ll have photos on flickr as slowly over the next few days hopefully.

I haven’t packed any clothes yet, but at least am checked in on-line and have my camera gear packed I’m taking a little more than I had for the K300 races and Holiday Classic where I stuck with the 18-200 the whole time, as I’m hoping to get a little more landscape shots done around Turnagain Arm and such, we’ll see. My poor MacBook is rapidly running out of space and will barely hold one 8Gb memory card, let along the three of them I carry! So, it might need to wait until I get back to Bethel to post some photos.

Of course, it’s blowing snow and IFR here in Bethel right now, and the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and Alyeska Resort are closed along Turnagain Arm due to severe weather, but hopefully we’ll be okay and have a great weekend! If nothing else, will be nice to get out of Bethel for the weekend. Heading up to Fairbanks for 4-5 days at the start of April, so at least gives us a couple of trips out of the delta to keep us going as winter rolls on.