Well, what should I expect...I do live in Alaska.

It's cold here.  Really, really cold.  And has been since a week before Christmas.  Currently, twenty-six below zero.  But only a light wind, so that's nice.  The consequences of the weather can be quite frightening.  I'll start at the less so, and see where it takes us.

• Upon returning after Christmas break, we in the BIA discovered that the pipes were quite frozen.  Not all pipes, but the drain pipes.  Interesting side note - when the drains are plugged, but not the supply lines, interesting fundamental lessons are learned.  For example, waste pools at the lowest point.  In this case - two teachers at the other side of the BIA - in their bathroom.  Quite disturbing to see human waste returning through the drain in a bathtub to nearly fill the basin.  No fear, the bucket brigade was put to work and overflow was kept to a minimum.  And after only a week, the plumbing was working again fine. 
• School is difficult to have when the weather/wind/snow is so fierce.  Since returning we have had a handful of late starts (I think last count was four) and one day cancelled completely.  We nearly had school cancelled yesterday as all water lines at the school were frozen.  They did thaw, however, and school went as planned - kind of.
• Why kind of?  Well, the thing is, we are running a high school at the moment with only 2/3 of our class.  The remaining third - they've been stuck out of the village...since Saturday.  They left for basketball tournaments (both the boys team and the girls) last Friday, and here I sit, the following Friday, and they still aren't back.  So it's been a slow, quiet week.
• The BIA suffered its latest injury yesterday.  A pipe burst in the vacant apartment down the hall.  This came immediately following a warning from our maintenance guy about keeping my apartment at a warm enough temperature (so much for saving the world(okay, in his defense, he probably had a point - there was a layer of ice in my shower and the water line was frozen...so...).
• The final point is the most serious.  Living in rural Alaska one becomes familiar with how dangerous life out here really is.  In the past week, two people have died traveling over the tundra.  Both became lost or disoriented and ended up freezing to death before search and rescue could find them.  There are stories in Yup'ik lore that say that when the weather is bad, and refuses to let up, that the weather is hunting.  It only lets up after getting its fill.  I am not a spiritual or superstitious person.  But chills run down my spine as I write this.

And with that I end this post on a brighter note.  The weather is supposed to turn beginning tomorrow.  We are expecting a fifty(!) degree change in temperature over the next thirty-six hours.  Maybe the next post will be of me sledding or climbing the hills.  I am feeling all cooped up and to be able to spend some time outside without worrying about frostbite would be amazing.  Check back soon.    

Apparently I just lived through a snowicane

The night before:



Not sure what to make of the major network news stations.  I mean, the Washington Post says that, "A storm of historic intensity continues to pound the west coast of Alaska today. Twice the size of Texas, the storm is as deep as a category 3 hurricane."  A hurricane?!  Really?  Did I just live through a hurricane?

I'm going to say nope.  But it was kind of crazy.  The weather itself was nothing out of the ordinary.  The winds were high.  The precipitation didn't fall (literally - it just traveled horizontally across the world).  But these things are typical of Alaska storms.  What was freaky was the potential storm surge.  The flooding.  Normally these storms happen in the dead of winter when the coast is protected by a mile or more of sea ice.  High waves stay safely out to sea.  The wind can't push the tide exceptionally high.  Last night, however, without our safety ice, people were worried.

News of the storm was buzzing throughout the village the days preceding it.  Reports and rumors mixed and anxiety slowly began to build.  The storm was supposed to hit around 1:00 in the afternoon.  School was going to go as late as possible.  It turned out that 2:45 was that time.  We dismissed early, sending students home with their parents.  Almost immediately following dismissal, the school was reopened for families who wished to evacuate their homes.  A storm surge of 10-15 feet would threaten to breach the sea wall, essentially flooding all of Downtown, including teacher housing where all of the teachers live.

Part of Downtown lost power around dinner time.  At about 10:30 we received a phone call from our principal urging us to spend the night at the school as the water was continuing to rise.  After sending three teachers to get a look at the ocean we made the decision to move up to school for the night.  So all of us teachers from the BIA moved into a classroom for the night.  Waking up a few short hours later a tired group of teachers began teaching a tired bunch of students.  The weather is supposed to pick up again tonight.  I'm hoping it doesn't.  I need some sleep.


Great Pictures of TUNUNAK!
Washington Post article
Diane Sawyer and the NEWS!

We done got chickens (Part 1)

Few weeks back my roommate, Adam, and myself ordered some chicks online. Careful now.  I'm talking baby chickens. And they are the cutest little buggers.




First website wanted to charge us something like $40 for shipping cuz we had too few creatures.  They huddle for warmth apparently and five is too few for adequate warmth generating.  Without the extra brothers and sisters the company inserts some fandangled heating contraption.  So we went shopping elsewhere.  Found a site that would ship for less but warned that they may pack in some extra chicks (most likely baby roosters) to supply that needed warmth.  Sounds good we thought.  Clearly we didn't think that one through.

A few days later the mailman rang the doorbell.  "Your chickens are here.  You need to pick them up at the post office."  Then he went into inquiry mode asking for details.  He was interested.  As everyone should be.

Well off to the post office we went.  At the counter we waited for an eternity.  Not sure where the little things were being kept but it sure was a long ways back.  We heard them before we saw them.  Chirp!  Chirp!  Awwww...  In the box they shuffled and chirped.  We carried them out and strapped them - oh yeah, we were on bikes - to the rack on the back of Adam's bike.  A few bungee cords later and we were off.



Fifteen minutes later we were home.  We open the box to check on our purchase.  I was sure it would be bedlam.  Poor chickens, two days in the mail, in the heat.  I was worried.  Those fears, thankfully, were for naught.  A new problem was quickly realized.  Remember those extra chickens for warmth?  Yeah, we got, um, an extra eleven.  Eleven extra chickens!  So there were sixteen cute, fuzzy, multicolored chirpers in the box.  So cute, but now a bigger problem.  See, thing is, Bloomington ordinance allows for four hens (i.e. females).  We'd ordered five hens and now we have, what we are assuming (as sexing chicks - careful typing - is much harder than it would seem), are an extra eleven roosters.  Oh dear.

Oh yeah.  And their food has not arrived yet.

Thankfully the book on raising chickens arrived.

It's never too late to learn.

I AM AN ARTIST! I am?

Spent two weeks in Juneau, right before returning to Bethel for district-wide inservices, in what I look back on as Artist Boot Camp.  I had applied last spring for the Juneau Basic Arts Institute, as it's officially called.  I mean - it would be covered by a grant, I will get college credit out of it, and I get to learn some things that may be useful in my classroom.  Oh, and there would be four other teachers from my school attending.  Sounded pretty alright to me.

Then the syllabus came.  

And I started to get some doubts.  Dancing.  Ummm...  One out of the four classes would be devoted entirely to dancing.  Yeah.  That's a lot to ask.  Turns out, however, dancing can be fun.  Prancing around the room - yep - pretty entertaining.  Maybe on the simple fact that I'm only moving one-fourth of the time - the other three-fourths I'm watching my classmates.

Just doing a little igloo building.  Seriously.

In addition to dancing we did visual art, digital art, and cultural art.  Teachers were all wonderful.  Juneau was wonderful.  I made some things that turned out pretty well.  I learned some things that are proving to be quite useful.  And I got to see Juneau.

That's all my art.  Pretty.  Great.

Juneau is a beautiful city.  Located in Southeast Alaska, it is a major stopping point for the Alaska cruise ships.  As a result there are a number of things to do - restaurants, bars, shops, but the major attraction is the geography itself.  Mountains, rivers, the ocean, spruce trees, and the Mendenhall Glacier.  Fantastic.  So we hiked, climbed some mountains, saw about a hundred million bald eagles, about two hundred million spawning (ie dying) salmon.  Yeah.  Juneau is great.

Angie and Marcella after they ran a half marathon.

Hands down the best picture ever taken of me.  Angie looks good, too.  Email me - I'll send you a copy to post as your background.  It's that good.

 

Seal Hunting! (Videos)

Okay...so seal hunting happened months ago.  But now that I'm back in Alaska the urge to blog has returned.  The following two videos are phenomenal in their ability to show absolutely nothing about seal hunting. 

Pretty though.

Summery things for summery times

After a two month hiatus from blogging (AKA summer) I'm back.  Summer is full of things to do.

Bike 1.0

School got out at the end of May.  Spent a horribly boring week in Bethel afterwards mapping out high school math curriculum.  Then flew home to Minnesota.  Been living with a buddy and his girlfriend in south Bloomington.  He doesn't have a car.  I don't have a car.  We are very likely have the lowest car to person ratio in the south metro.  Our bike ratio, however is probably one of the higher (it's 2.67:1).  Yeah, there are eight bikes in our garage.


Rode the MS 150 in early June.  Third year for that.  Team Night Bike raised $2695 this year for the MS Society.  Not bad.  The weather was unbelievable.  Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Then Ohio for a few days then Kentucky for one (that state is terrible) where I visited the Creation Museum (easily the dumbest place I've ever been).

It's also been aggravatingly hot this summer.  Today the dew point was 82.  Heat index of 110.  Stupid.

So biking, a little cooking (new obsession - Indian food), happy hours, dinner parties, lakes, grocery stores, biking, oh, I got contacts but can't put them in very well yet, subbing at the Y, swimming, reading, hammocking, and constructing...a chicken coop.  Lots more on the chickens to come.

seriously, what is cuter than this?

Things are a little different here

Things just aren't what I expected.  After living here for almost two years (I know - it's really not that long) there are weekly, if not daily, things that occur where I am caught off guard.

Here's a recap of the last week and a half:

• Thursday, March 31 - The other high school teacher gives me a quick overview of her sub notes - just in case (just in case the sub doesn't show up...seriously, this happens more than it should and all of a sudden I am teaching two classes).  Then she shows me Monday's plans in case she gets weathered in Bethel (she has a meeting at the district office - 125 miles west by air).  Whatever, I think, it's almost April...that weather is over.
•  Friday, April 1 - The sub shows, everything goes fine
• Saturday, April 2 - The snow starts.  Winds pick up.  Visibility goes down.
• Sunday, April 3 - Same as Saturday.  In like a lion, out like a lamb?  I thought that was March.
• Monday, April 4 - No planes since early Friday.  Looks like those sub notes will be important.  The sub works up through lunch when my fellow teacher finally gets in.  Actually, she landed in Toksook, the village seven miles from us and was picked up on a snowmobile by her brother because our runway was still closed.
• Tuesday, April 5 - State testing begins.  Blizzard warnings begin (see previous post).  Fantastic.  Still haven't gotten any planes.
• Wednesday, April 6 - Day 2 of testing.  Blizzard begins in earnest.  By noon visibility is about 100 yards.  The truest whiteout I have ever seen.  We end up dismissing early to waiting parents.  All students are signed out to ensure their safe journey home with a responsible adult.  Overkill?  Nope - we ended up summoning search and rescue about four times to find lost people.  All were found, however two were at the bottom of a cliff.  Snowmobiles + blizzards + alcohol is a TERRIBLE idea.  They both lived, miraculously, but the snowmobile is a wreck.  More on this later...
• Thursday, April 7 - Day 3 of testing.  Weather okay in the morning, but predictions of 70mph winds prompts the second early release of the week.  Students again are signed out as the winds begin to gust.  Not sure we hit 70, but... 50mph is still pretty intense.
• Friday, April 8 - "Eric, there's a plane on the river!"  Unbelievably beautiful day.  It's about 40 degrees and sunny, but our runway is still covered in snow and ice.  The troopers sent out a plane with skis to med-evac the cliff faller.  Not sure on the extent of the injuries, but to get a plane to fly out and land on a frozen river, they must be fairly severe.
• Saturday and Sunday, April 9-10 - Weather blows.  Literally.  Constant wind.  Snow falls at times.  The drifts are impressive.
• Monday, April 11 - It's cold outside (about 8 degrees with 25mph winds).  It's also cold in the school.  Apparently the fuel pumps for the school boilers were turned off over the weekend.  Thermometer read 42 degrees in the high school when I arrived this morning.  I taught four periods wearing my boots, my parka, a hat, and mittens.  I tried to warm the room by playing that fireplace video from YouTube, but had little luck.  We released after lunch.
• Tuesday, April 12 - I can't wait to find out what tomorrow will bring.