Getting Busier, But Falling Short Of Being Overwhelmed

Good evening to all of you lovely folks out there!  It's been a couple of weeks since my last post and I've finally found some time to sit down for an update.  The last three weeks have been really busy, starting with the Nulato Basketball Tournament in Nulato, AK (Jan. 29-31).  Since I'm not coaching this year, I jumped right on the chance to chaperon as there was an open seat on the plane, and I ended up having a great time.  We left on Friday afternoon, and played one game against Kaltag that we lost by quite a bit (the Allakaket team is a co-ed team this year, they chose not to co-op with other villages to make separate boys and girls teams).  On Saturday, we played an early game and a late game, we ended winning the early game by four (awesome game) and then losing the later game by quite a bit.  Saturday night was the most exciting part because the All-Tourney team played a combination team of coaches and chaperons (oh yeah, you know I' suited up for that one).  The game went well for us (I dropped two nice threes and maybe a couple of other buckets) and we ended up winning despite some iffy score keeping (it was just for fun, but I don't think any of us coaches or chaperons really wanted to lose).  One of the best parts about the weekend was that I got to fly shotgun on the way down and the way back up.  Because of this stroke of luck, I landed some awesome photos and videos.

This our dainty little bus waiting up at the aiport on Friday morning.  It seems to be a hybrid (definitely not that kind of hybrid) between a short bus and a regular sized bus.  

This is just a random spot along the Koyukuk River, but it turned out to be a nice picture.

This the intersection of the Yukon and Koyukuk Rivers.  

Approaching and landing in Nulato, turned out pretty darn good.

Landing in Allakaket when we came back from the ball tourney on Sunday, January 31.

After returning from Nulato, I came back to a week of school in which I would be leaving for town on that Friday.  The week went by pretty fast and there were no major issues; by Friday I was pretty pumped up for a sweet and lengthy town visit.  This time my Fairbanks trip entailed a lot of work mixed in with an adequate amount of play.  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of last week were spent at a GIS/Mapping Workshop called MapTEACH.  This program is all about incorporating GIS and other elements of mapping into the classroom (which is right up my alley since I do love some Geography).  This was the second portion of the in town workshop, and it was simply awesome.  We learned a lot more about the use of Google Earth and also got turned on to a couple of free pieces of software for enhancing some imagery.  One of the programs that I really liked was called Gigapan, which is a image sticther.  You take a number of overlapping pictures and then it stitches them together and you can zoom in with really high resolution.  Here is an examle...

(I spent about twenty minutes trying to insert one of the Gigapan images right here but ended up being bested by the computer....argh.  I'll try to figure it out this weekend).  

We also had the chance to take a feild trip to a permafrost cave that's just outside of Fairbanks (an opportunity that I jumped on).  Here's a link to the Core of Enigneers site for the tunnel as well.  

http://permafrosttunnel.crrel.usace.army.mil/

This is one side of an ice wedge that is dated around 38,000 years old.

Some really really old roots hanging down from the ceiling of the cave.

Here's another view of an ice wedge.

Here's the Finnish Warrior and I checking out the cave (not much of warrior though, this was the first time that a hard hat had graced his precious little head....sissy).

The cave trip was probably the most exciting thing about the workshop, but we also had a front row seat to see the biggest functioning plane in the world (that just seemed like a strange transition sentence, didn't it?).  The Ukranian Antonov AN-225 (it's a Russian made plane) stopped in Fairbanks for refueling on its way to Haiti with a load of disaster relief equipment.  The plane can hold up to 250 vehicles and has six engines.  If you want to read a quick story on it and check out a slideshow, here is the link.

http://www.newsminer.com/view/full_story/5884101/article-Huge-Russian-jet-lands-at-Fairbanks-airport?

Here are my pictures of the plane.  We were in the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) on the UAF campus; we happened to also be lucky enough to be on the top floor of the building with nothing but windows for the outside facing wall.  

 

  

 

 My pictures really don't do it justice, so check out that link above so you can see how big it really is.

After the MapTEACH workshop was over on Wednesday, we then started our district wide in-service that went from Thursday through Friday.  The in-circus was more of the same thing that we've been doing in our district, and the highlight was this moose that walked around the hotel complex for awhile.  

 

  

 

The in-circus went by in a hurry and it was Sunday before I knew it; Sunday was exciting for me because I finally had the chance to ride one of Angela's (my girlfriend, just in case you haven't read the previous posts) horses.  This was always something that I wanted to do because of my love for Westerns and I would say that I thoruoghly enjoyed it (I'm not going to say that I thoroughly enjoy the nagging pains that are still ravaging my rump and lower back, but it was definitely worth it).  Horse riding is something that I could definitely see myself getting into (uh oh, I feel a change of wardrobe coming on...yeeeeeeeehah).  I ended up sticking around on Monday to work on some teacher union negotiation research, and then flew back out to the vil this morning (Tuesday).  Subsequently I took a two hour nap right when school got out today (it's always a tough day when you fly out in the morning and go straight to school from the plane).  There was some good that came from the morning flight as well;  we landed briefly in Coldfoot, Alaska and it was the first time I've had the pleasure  Coldfoot is actually an interesting little place, it's a little truck stop town that's on the Dalton Highway, the one that goes from Fairbanks to Prudoe Bay.  Here are a few pictures.

I'm guessing this is the terminal or the little restaurant...it was one of the few buildings that I saw.

 

That is Coldfoot...all of it.  

 

Typical landscape around Coldfoot.

I hope eveyone is finding themselves and continues to be both happy and healthy.  Check back with me later this week and I'll try to have some KMZ files up that have some things linkd to Google Earth (something we learned in last week's workshop).  I'll leave you with a pretty sweet picture that was photoshopped by my sixteen year old nephew, Christian (who prefers to go by the name, Stankydoodledandy, don't ask me why); it is actually several pictures combined into one (many thanks to Christian for the picture, he did a really awesome job). 

Peace and Love,

Nicholas

Post Script:  I failed to touch on two mjaor subjects.  First, I've been peart as a ruttin' buck (can anyone name what movie that saying is from?) since the Saints won the Super Bowl; it made it even better that Peyton Manning lost it for the Colts (and yes, those are the bitter words of a Patriots fan).  Second, it's been unseasonably warm here and it seems to be an early Spring, which is basically unheard of in these parts.  I was talking to our back-up bus driver, Fred, and he told me that his 93 year old Grandpa said that he had never seen anything like it.  If you're in South Dakota right now, I know that you have at least three times as much snow as we do on the Arctic Circle (it also seems strange that the eastern U.S. has been getting slammed with winter weather this year...strange weather year I guess). 

Gladly Glacial

Greetings and salutations to all of you lovely folks out there.  Well, it's been about a week since my last post, and since I'm trying to keep up with my promise of persistent posts, here it is.  Last week was somewhat of a crazy week with a really nice end.

By far, last week was the coldest week that I've experienced since living up here.  It was also a different week for myself because I got the pleasure (???) of being acting principal since Nancy was gone.  To give you a good idea of the average temperature last week, here's a little piece of info.  Our school district has a policy that school is optional for students when the temperatures are -50 or below, and everyday was optional for students last week.  Monday turned out to be the warmest day of the week, when the temperature peaked at a balmy -53, and Friday ended up being the coldest day of the week in which the high was -57.  Now, with the high temps being in the -50 to -60 range, you can only imagine what the lows were like.  Before I get into the lows, I'll tell you about the school week.

Despite having optional school days, I had a number of students show up for school (I attribute this all to my super-awesomeness as a teacher...okay, that's a little over the top).  We got quite a bit done, and it was really nice to have some one on one instructional time with the students that did show up (I would say I averaged 2/3 of my high school students everyday).  Thursday and Friday were extra interesting, as our school lunch lady was home with her sick child (you know what that means, hairnets and corndogs for this guy).  It's always a little more stressful when I have to double duty as teacher/lunch person, but corndogs were easy on Thursday and Friday I baked some tasty pieces of chicken with gravy.  The end of the week came quickly and in no time at all I was on a Wright Air Caravan headed for Fairbanks.

My weekend in town was a lot of fun, got to spend some time with Angela and also did some much needed grocery shopping.  We also went and played some mini-golf which I definitely kicked rump at (Brooks Small and Kris Bricker, if you read this, I'm warning you that my putting is going to be dialed in this Summer and that means trouble for you my friends....).  I had today (Monday) off, so I didn't fly back until this afternoon.  As soon as I got off the plane, duty called, and Charles (our bus driver/general helper at everything) picked me up so I could help him pump our 4000 gallons of diesel into the fuel truck to take to the school.  As I was standing on top of the fuel truck, a large quantity of flammable liquid beneath me, I couldn't help but breathe in the -40 degree air and recapture that feeling of being home again. 

Here are the pictures and video that I promised.  These first ones are of my digital thermometer, it always displays five degrees warmer than it actually is (due to the sensors close proximity to my house) and it only goes down to -58...you'll see what it reads after -58.  This is the digression of the temperature from Thursday night to Friday morning.  Remember, add five more negative degrees to my reading, that seems to be my average of being off.

 

Just in case you were wondering, the top is the inside temperature, the middle is the outside temperature, and the bottom is the humidity level....which I have yet to see change from LO%.

....Yep, that's what happens when it gets to cold for the fancy digital thermometer...it just says....LO.

This next picture was taken by our Secretary Marion.

This video is me trying the old, cup of boiling water into the air to make snow.  I decided to change the formula a little bit and try a whole pot of boiling water since it was so cold.  Not quite a perfect experiment, but still pretty sweet.  (My Video Upload option doesn't seem to be working, so here's a link to the video on YouTube, and hopefully I can get it fully embedded) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kScTlGTNaLU

Everyone stay warm and take care.

Peace and Love,

Nicholas

My Apologies For The Hiatus

Good evening to everyone out there!!  It’s been awhile and I hope things are going as well for all of ya’ll as things are going for me.  I sat around and tried to conjure up a good excuse for why I haven’t posted since…gulp…August, but really there’s nothing that would be deemed acceptable.  Basically, I was extremely busy with school (I somehow feel busier this year even though I know more of what I’m doing) and managed to not make enough time to write down my thoughts (I know, I know, it sounds lame).  Either way, the past is the past and I’m going to try and catch you up to speed, so here we go (it won’t be too detailed and there will be quite a few pictures to break up the minutia). 

When I last left off it was just before the school year got going, and the beginning of the school year was just as crazy as I remembered it.  I arrived back in the village (Allakaket, AK in case you forgot) around August 14th and everything was basically the same as I left it.  I was only gone for a little over two months, but for some reason I expected things to change a lot.  One thing that for sure hadn’t changed was my excitement as I was flying out to the village.  Coming back for a second year was a good feeling, almost like a feeling of confidence that I was hesitant to acknowledge for fear that I would lose it and tumble back into rookie status (sing it again rookie biatch).  The newly arrived confidence and my overall excitement about starting the second year of my career was comparable to that of the first year, and I was definitely (and still am) glad to have my first year done and over with.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved the first year of my job, but being a greenhorn is just not ideal (mainly because you get experienced people that make comments like, “Oh you’re just wet behind the ears).  I just had a good feeling that this year would go smoother than the last (and I was right).  The village hadn’t changed much; A few kids got taller, some started talking more (a lot more), and some just remained the same.  It only took me a little while and I was settled right back in and ready to get to work. 

My class this year is quite a bit different than last year.  For one, it’s a lot bigger and for two, it is majority female.  Now, I’m in no way saying that it being majority female is a bad thing, it’s just different from last year (majority male).  We changed our school format around so the 7th-12th graders are all in the high school building with me; we started the year with twelve and we now have fourteen (that’s four boys and ten girls).  Throughout the first semester we changed the schedule around.  I started out teaching the high school students (7-12) for the first 3 hours, having an hour of time to do maintenance and school lunch paperwork (I took these two principal duties on this year as part of a plan for our school to run more efficiently), and then finishing the day with the 4th-6th graders.  After a few switcheroos, I’m now teaching the high school students all day long, every subject.  This schedule will stay the rest of the year and it’s definitely how I prefer it (just easier not to switch).  I can honestly say that I feel like I’m doing a better job this year as a teacher, it’s human nature to always want to improve, but I’m very happy with how much better I feel about the job I’m doing. 
This seems like a good time to insert a little picture action to break up the text eh?

These first two photos were taken on October 25th  (Happy B-Day Josh), and how sweet is that beard?  At this point we hadn’t really had any snow.

These next photos were taken on October 27th, we started steadily getting snow after that.  Now, we don’t have as much white fluffy stuff as last year, but we’ve still got an adequate amount. 

The beginning of the year was cruising by and I was back in town (quick reminder, town = Fairbanks) before I knew it for September In-Service.  September In-Circus was a blast and I actually met Angela, who is now my girlfriend.  She’s a fancy pants who lives in town and she definitely plays the role well (okay not really, but since I live in “The Vil” I’ve got to take my cheap shots at town people when I get the chance, hahaha).  All kidding aside, she’s a 4th-6th grade multi-age teacher who is truly an awesome person (plus she has horses which means I’m one step closer to being a cowboy…bad rump).  After getting back from in-service things really started to get busy, Junior High Basketball started up and I seemed to dive right back into the same schedule that I was on last year (of course there were a few subtle differences).  The basketball season went pretty well this year although we only got to attend one tournament because of the weather (it’s been a pretty damn cold year so far).  Our record was 1-2 on the season, and by my standards that’s not too shabby.  While we’re on the topic of basketball, I should let you know that I decided to not coach high school ball this year for a couple of different reasons.  The main one is the time factor, I feel basketball will just hold me back on how good of a job I could be doing in the classroom this year, and I want to exert most of my energy there.  Now I firmly believe in the importance of organized sports in kids’ lives and I’m still going to chaperone the tournaments, it's just best for me to concentrate on my teaching skills (it was a hard decision for me to make).  I’ve been really happy with my decision and the extra time spent on classroom prep is really paying off. 

These are some pictures from mid-November, on the way to the basketball tournament that we actually made it to.  This first one is a nice aerial view of Allakaket.

This is the runway......home sweet home.

After JH Basketball was finished up, things started running a little more smoothly (in the classroom anyway).  We had some issues with the school site’s plumbing again this year, but after a lot of headaches the issue is now resolved (except for the new issue that came up).  If you recall, last year our well froze up and was declared dry.  Over the summer a new well was drilled but it never got around to hooking itself up to the water system (those damn inanimate objects not taking care of themselves anyway).  For the first three months we were running on the old well (which had been declared dry last year), needless to say it ran dry fairly quickly and we were without water again for a little while (booyah…camp shower time).  After the new well was connected there was a little problem with the cholorinator which caused another halt in the water service, but after that everything was just peachy until the sewage pumps in the lift stations quit working and the sewer backed up into the excess pit (which happened about a month before Christmas Break started).  All of that may sound like a complaint, but I assure you that it was all taken in stride and I seemingly never got frustrated (okay, that’s a little bit of a fib since I’m in charge of maintenance this year and those were all maintenance issues).  Currently, the sewage line is still not functioning properly but we’ve got is set up so that we have water in our housing (we’re just encouraged to use it sparingly, but I will admit that that is definitely better than nothing).  Having more responsibility with maintenance and the school lunch program has been fairly challenging, but I have undoubtedly attained some experience that will serve to be valuable down the road. 

After dealing with the maintenance issues and everything else during the first semester, I was absolutely ready for Christmas Break.  I was unable to go home again after looking at the price of plane tickets back to South Dakota, so I decided that I would wait until Spring Break to go see some friends and family (my apologies to everyone that I didn’t get to see, I’ll be back from March 12th through the 21st (I’m hoping for an early warm spell in SD).  I spent my Christmas Vacation hanging with Angela and doing a little Alaskan traveling.  We spent some time in a cabin on Byers Lake between Anchorage and Fairbanks, and then a little bit of time in each city.  Break was super relaxing and I came back to the village feeling rejuvenated and pumped up about the second part of the year (I also came back feeling a little bloated and completely victimized by the holiday weight gain).  I’m hopeful on losing the holiday excess as I’ve decided to coach cross-country skiing.  It’s a really short season and it’s a great reason to get out in the cold.  Since I’ve never actually had a pair of skis on, I think I’ll make the perfect coach (don’t question my logic).  I’m going to try cross-country for the first time tomorrow, I’ll make sure a keep ya’ll updated on how it goes. 

The weather this year has been anything but the same as last year (well, all except for the whole steady dose of 40 below temperatures).  At this point we don’t have as much snow as last year, but I’m probably jinxing it by even typing that.  The cold came pretty early this year and we had a really bitter cold snap in early November (six days between –45 and –55).  After reading the news the last week or so, I’m starting to think my wishing cold weather on other people is starting to work with the crazy things going on down in the lesser 48 (I don’t think the 48 contiguous states are any lesser, that’s just an expression that’s thrown around quite a bit by some Alaskans).  I’ve been throwing around the idea of getting a snow-go in the near future (that’s the village term, they’re called snowmachines across most of Alaska, and I grew up saying snowmobiles).  The idea of being able to get out from the village farther is a lot more appealing if you don’t have to walk (I love walking, but post-holing out five miles in winter gear and bunny boots is no easy task when it’s super cold).  I will be prompt with the pictures if I’m bombing around on my new snow-go (as my students would say) in a couple of weeks. 

Besides the occasional wrench in the gears, this year has been moving along rather swimmingly.  Again, I apologize for my lack of posting during the first semester and assure you that I’ll be on top of my game this second semester (I know I’ve thrown these false promises around before, but trust me this time…)  I’ll leave this post with a large number of aerial photos from a flight to town in early December (I still have a thing for great aerial views).  I was going in for an awesome workshop that was put on by UAF.  It was a GIS Workshop about incorporating GIS into the classroom (right up my alley).  Anyway, the first couple are of the Finnish Warrior (he still honestly prefers to be referred to as that) and I messing around during the workshop, and the rest were taken on the flight in after we flew above a huge winter storm system (still can’t believe the plane landed to pick us up).  Everyone take care and you’ll hear from me again soon, make sure to stay warm and happy wherever you may be.

Peace and Love,
Nicholas

Back In The Saddle

Hello to everyone out there!!! It's been a while since I've dropped ya'll a line on here, but it was for a good reason (I've been finishing up my first summer off as a teacher!). I had a crazy break over the last couple of months; I did all sorts of fun things and put about 5000 miles on my car from driving all over the beautiful state of South Dakota. From backpacking and taking in Twins games to just hanging out with my bro in Brookings, all kinds of things went on this summer (including my girlfriend Katy and I breaking up). I will post again this weekend and put some of my pictures from the summer on here (I've got some great ones from Dooz and I's trip to the Hills).

The real reason I'm putting up a quick post tonight is to show ya'll what the conditions in Fairbanks are like (I'm in Fairbanks for a week of in-service before heading back out to the lovely Allakaket). There have been several wildfires burning pretty close to town and the smoke really started to settle in tonight. Here's a couple of videos and some pictures of the hazy air. Everyone take care and you'll here from me again soon...I promise. I apologize for the similarity of the commentary, I originally only planned on using one of the videos, but both show good views of the smokiness.


Did you hear that sweet David Bowie soundtrack that was playing on the radio???



The horn at the end is Pete (yes, The Finnish Warrior) being awesome and honking.

These last pictures are just some random smoke photos.




Everyone take care!!!

Peace and Love,
Nicholas

The Loooooong Wait...

Good evening to all of you lovely bloggites out there! I'm coming to you from the delightful, Vail, Colorado (here for a little teacher workshop action). I know it's become somewhat of a common occurrence for me to apologize for being lazy and not posting(the truth hurts sometimes), but I have a couple of good excuses this time (well just one really). The last time I posted was at the end of April when the crazy school year was finally winding down. From that point on, I was insanely busy and getting ready to go on Summer vacation. After finishing up the school year, I've been spending a lot of time trying to process the experience that was my first year teaching in the bush (this has proved to be a daunting task). After lots of time to think, I'm ready to finish up this last post and start getting ready for the next school year (oh yeah, the blog will live on...I know you're all excited). So, as always, I'm going to back track all the way to where I last left off and get you up to date with all that has been going on...hold on to your hats...this is going to be a HUGE one. I also have some sweet videos and pictures (they're at the bottom of the post) for all of you that just check my blog out for the pictures (I have no problem with that whatsoever). Here goes nothing...

The end of the school year was CRAZY. It was a constant battle to get my high school students to get there and even harder to get them to do some work. I'd been warned that this would happen so I was somewhat prepared, but it absolutely made things more of a challenge. The last several weeks of school by itself would have been hectic without Prom and Graduation both happening, but that's when they were and both were absolutely awesome. Of course, I volunteered to DJ the Prom and totally kicked rump at my job (started off with a little "Livin' On a Prayer" and even squeezed in some classic Loggins with "Footloose"). I heard a little bit of grumbling about a few of the musical selections, but it really didn't matter because it was a one man DJ gig with no requests allowed. The prom was a lot of fun, we had a lot of food and my kids enjoyed dressin' up. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we had Graduation and Prom on the same day (there's a mistake we're not making again next year). The graduation was fantastic; these were my first graduates as a teacher and I'd be lying to say that I didn't have some tears in my eyes. One of the interesting things about teaching in the bush is how close you become with your students (which comes from spending copious amounts of time with them). The graduation was held at the hall (the octagon shaped cabin that is pictured in a previous post) and it was different than any graduation I'd ever been to. The graduates came in to the traditional, native graduation song and it was shortly followed by a community meal that's always loaded with tasty food. Getting to hand my students their diplomas and give out a congratulatory hand shake was a really great feeling. It gave me a positive feeling that despite all the ups and downs of the year, we had somehow stumbled our way to the finish line (and no one even got hurt that bad). After the meal was a decent break and then right to the prom (extremely tiring day). It took a little doin', but my kids ended up getting out on the dance floor and showing off their moves (and in case you're wondering, yes, I absolutely showed off a few moves of my own...I'm a self-proclaimed awesome dancer). The prom ended and I finally got to go home for the night...which was something that I definitely needed.

The next day was spent cleaning my house and getting it ready for Katy to get there. She finished up her school year a week before me, so she decided to come up and stay for a week before she went on her big summer vacation (she went/is currently still on a big trip around Africa, and I have no problem admitting that I'm still jealous beyond belief about it). She arrived on Sunday and I realized that I hadn't had a real visitor before, so it was a good chance for me to give her a tour of one of my favorite places in the world, Allakaket, Alaska. That week was a busy one as well, not only was I trying to show Katy a good time, but I was also trying to get all of the end of the year teacher stuff completed. This includes taking a book inventory, cleaning up the classroom, packing away all of the electronics, and a whole bunch of other stuff that will not be interesting to you at all. Katy proved to be a big help with some of these tasks, but she also discovered just how unorganized of a person I actually am (I think I have good reason, with the whole being out of my classroom for 10 weeks thing). It's safe to say that she was appalled by some of my organizational techniques (or lack there of), but I say it's different strokes for different folks and that's just how I roll. After getting everything taken care of in regards to the classroom, I started packing up my suitcase and preparing for the transient lifestyle that I honestly love. To me, there's nothing better then living out of a suitcase and a backpack and crashing people's couches all summer long...it's just a fun way to live.

The last day of school was a little bittersweet, sure it's nice to have a couple of months off (haha to all of you that don't get two months in the summer off), but I'm going to and already do miss my village and my kids. Having the pleasure of spending the first year of my career there was something I will never take for granted. I mean, there's nothing like going into something where you are supposed to be the one passing out all the knowledge, and coming away knowing more about yourself and what you're capable of then you ever thought was possible. Katy and I flew out the next day and spent a couple of days in Fairbanks just hanging out; it turned out to be a great way to unwind. We had made a bunch of plans, but ended up just watching a lot of TV and checking out some good restaurants. Katy took off for Aftica on the 25th of May, and I took off for South Dakota later that evening. It was a bummer knowing that I'm not going to see her for several months, but I couldn't be more excited for her and her summer adventure (she's currently on Mt. Kilimanjaro and having a spectacular time).

This is the point in the post when I need to break up all the typing with some pictures, otherwise I feel I'm going to lose some readers. So here we go, I promise you, make it to the end of the post and you will see some sweet videos and pictures to go along with these.

This is a picture of what happens when you don't have anything to do in the village (or when you are too lazy to do any of the stuff that you have to do).

...and it was delicious.

I arrived in Minneapolis on the 26th and was picked up by my friend Graff at the airport. I stayed with Graff for 4 or 5 days and had a blast. He took work off and we just played a lot of video games, some golf, and some bowling. Hanging out in Minneapolis for a while was a great transition from the bush life to the life I lived for most of my existence. I ended up taking a bus to South Dakota, which turned out to be an awesome idea. It was so great to just sit and look out the window at the endless prairie that I had missed so much. I loved my job and loved every second of being in Alaska, but the remarkable beauty of the sea of grass that is the Midwest, is something that I will never stop loving. As soon as we crossed the South Dakota state line I had an ear to ear grin on my face; I hadn't seen my family since I left on August 1st, 2008, and I was quite overdue for a visit. I rolled into Sioux Falls and my friend Mike picked me up at the bus station. I stayed with Mike that night and we went out and had a good time. The next day I took off to Brookings to see my brother and all of my friends. It was spectacular to see my brother, Josh, we've always hung out a lot, and he was definitely a person that I missed a lot over the course of the school year. After a night on the town in Brookings, I awoke the next day and rolled down to a place that I'll never be able to stop calling home, Blunt, SD. It was fantastic to see my parents who I missed incredibly; they've always been so supportive of me and that support never wavered for a moment while I was in Alaska this year. I suppose I should mention that my little turd of a nephew was also there (he'll know I'm kidding). He was also missed a lot; he's 15 years old now and it's incredible to see a kid that I helped change diapers on, turning into a bigger kid (he thinks he's getting older and more mature, but I remind all the time that that's not true at all and no one knows anything at 15). I spent several weeks in Blunt, and it couldn't have been a better time. The second week was spent camping with my parents and nephew, and then my brother joined us for the last few days. Camping was spectacular and extremely relaxing, it was awesome to spend some time with my family. I forgot to mention that I went and stayed with my sister and the rest of her family for a couple of days. The funnest part about that was getting to spend a morning with my niece, Madison. She is now 7 years old and she is simply a walking attitude; she's a hoot to be around and I can't wait to take her to Chuck "E" Cheese next month (that's what we decided would be the funnest thing we could do).

After spending time in Blunt, I then traveled back to Brookings to start staying with my bro and his roommate (and my friend), Cody. I'm so appreciative to them for letting me invade their living room for the rest of the summer. I did get a chance to do a little gardening at their place, but I'll talk more about that when I get some pictures. I've been having a great time getting to hang out with my brother and Cody, and can't wait to finish the summer out over there. That basically brings me to where I'm at right now (that was the shortest version I could give). I've been in Vail, Colorado since Sunday and enjoying every second of it. The teaching workshop has been informative and fun and Vail is a hoot. I've been enjoying the night life a little bit and also enjoying that beautiful scenery; I've also met a ton of cool teachers (there's a bunch from Houston, Texas and I'm so tempted to talk crap about how their state is just not that big). I go back to South Dakota on Sunday and then I've got a pretty busy July planned...all fun stuff, don't worry.

Now comes what you have all been waiting for, the videos and pictures that I promised at the beginning of the post.

On May 3rd, the ice on the river finally broke up and it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. This first video is the day of break up, and you get a front row seat.



When the ice is rolling, everyone goes down by the bank and just watched the winter wash away.
This next video is the ice flow view from my back window...I couldn't ask for a better spot to live.



This is a short video of the water that just comes bubbling up out of the ground by the river bank, this started happening shortly after break-up.



This next picture is probably one of my favorite pictures that I took all year. As the weather warms up, these folding chairs start to appear by the river bank; they seem to be anxiously waiting for someone to sit down and enjoy what they have to offer. This is by far my favorite, I call this one of the best spots to sit in the world...truly peaceful.
I'll leave you with this one last video. I took this on April 24th; it was one of the strangest weather days we had all year. It was a unique mixture of a large amount of snow falling and a good amount of sun. I hope everyone enjoyed catching up on what I've been doing and finding out how my first year as a teacher finished up. I promise not to go two months between posts again, it's just too hard to catch up. Hope everyone is doing awesome and loving life.

Peace and Love,
Nicholas