Twenty-four hours, four planes, and two seasons later

I left Tununak yesterday with Ben and Sara about twenty-four hours ago. The temperature was near freezing, the clouds were about 300 feet off the ground and intermittent fog reduced visibility to under a mile at times. All three airlines were on weather hold. After two hours of stressing out, communications with the airline hinted that a plane would indeed be landing. We loaded up the trailer and instructed Brett to avoid the puddles. He failed. Not that anyone could have done any better. The house-high drifts recently had a path plowed through them resulting in a knee-deep puddle that
stretches from the BIA, through the village, almost all the way to the airport. Pretty great. Our flight was uneventful, and we caught our next flight to Anchorage without problems. After a quick meal at the Anchorage airport I said goodbye to Ben and Sara and rushed off to my gate. Ten minutes to spare - no big deal. Yeah, last to board is pretty awesome. Then Denver, now Minneapolis.


And now summer. Serious summer. The sweatshirt, coat, hat, gloves, and boots I wore out of Tununak were no longer needed. In fact, I'm pretty sure clothes in general are not needed. The thermometer states 100 degrees right now. I can't quite handle it. I am melting.

Took a journey down to the garden (about a mile downhill) on my bicycle. So good. Strawberries are raging. Tomatoes are trying to sort out the seasons, which is nice to see that I'm not the only one. Peppers are loving it. A few rogue bean stalks are erupting from the earth. Tomorrow the work begins. Trellises need to get back in, fence needs to be creature proofed, and obviously, the plants and seeds need to get in the ground. Exciting. Maybe it'll be 70 tomorrow. Probably not. Better get sunscreen.

Left the garden and thought I'd take the long way home. Here I realized some things.  Biking downhill with the wind is way easier than biking uphill into the wind after nine months of not biking. I seem to have misplaced my legs and lungs. Of course the heat didn't help. I have a bit of work to do to get back in bike shape. The five miles I rode today were annoyingly hard. Good thing I have the summer off to get some things done. Teaching is awesome.

Chickens, dogs, and wind

Necessary background information needed for this story:

• My principal has eight sled dogs
• He also has chickens
• He also has rabbits

The other weekend our principal was out of town and needed help tending his creatures.  Fellow teacher, Ben, had been enlisted to help, and I offered to help Ben a few times.  Most of my help consisted of staring at chickens and taking pictures for this here blog.  Yeah, I am helpful.

After attending to the animals we took a jaunt up the hill.  We were escorted by one of our students.  I believe she enjoyed going down the hill a bit more that going up.

But pictures will speak louder than words, so here they are.  Enjoy.

Class of 2010!

I am proud to announce that this past Friday we graduated our four seniors from Tununak High School.  Congratulations Paul, Harry, Virginia, and Carl!

Probably the coolest thing anybody on the planet is doing right now.

My two good friends left Minneapolis this morning atop their bicycles.  They are headed out to Portland via Yellowstone.  I plan to meet up with them there and then on to San Francisco via the redwoods.  Here is their blog if you want to keep tabs.

The Western Expanse

I am so jealous right now.

*Note - I stole these pics from their blog

On zombie movies

I have had a good deal of time to sit around over the past nine months.  Often, while sitting, I find myself watching a zombie movie with my neighbors.  Here's an annotated list of what I've seen.

Night of the Living Dead  
Best to start with this one.  This 1968 black and white film is a must see in zombie movies.  NOTLD is responsible for creating the zombie that we know and love today. 

Fido - Speaking of loving zombies, Fido is set in the 1950s.  Radiation from space has been turning the recently deceased into zombies.  Rather than fighting zombies, a corporation known as Zomcon has developed technology that blocks the zombie's need for flesh thus turning them into docile servants helping out around the house and even playing a game of catch with the son whose dad is too busy.  Yeah, this movie was awesome.


Shaun of the Dead 
Also awesome, this movie exploits the comedic slowness of zombies.  Lots of dead zombies result.  (Dead?  Redead?  Not sure what you call a zombie that is killed).

Zombieland
This gem includes a set of rules to survive the zombie apocalypse and a cameo appearance by Bill Murray complete with the a Ghostbusters reenactment.  So good. 

Død Snø
A Norwegian film (with English subtitles) with Nazi zombies.  This film had promise (zombies, Nazis, many scenes depicting intestines being extracted from non-zombies, and chain saws), but I thought it was kind of a dumb.  My critique was dismissed based on the simple fact that this was a zombie movie, and by definition, kind of dumb.  Whatever - it ranks lowest on my list.  

May 7th, Alaska.

Nine days of school left.  On the last day we have this planned: "Thursday morning we will have school clean up around the building if the snow is gone.  If not, we will stay in our classrooms cleaning and organizing."

Legos!

Huh, look at this Lego kit:

It's Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater.  There is also a Guggenheim Museum and some other models in their architecture collection.  Who new? 

I've been listening to an interesting podcast - Stuff You Should Know - and they are discussing Legos right now.  Pretty awesome.

Here are some facts to amaze your friends:
4 million children and adults will play with Legos this year
Lego is the number one producers of tires in the world - 306,000,000 tiny tires
On average, there are 62 Lego bricks for every person on Earth
People will spend a combined 5 billion hours this year playing with Legos
Lego has 150 designers on staff (fyi my dream job runner up - after playing baseball for the Twins)
There are 4 billion Lego people on the planet
Eleven people have been certified as Lego professionals
Lego is a combination of two Danish words: Leg Godt meaning play well
Coincidentally, Lego also means "I put together" in Latin