My Adventures in Ruby, Alaska

Lately

2010-10-27T23:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't been up to too much lately. Just cutting up a few deadfall trees for firewood, teaching, and walking the five mile loop. We did get quite a bit more snow as of late, so I pulled the Ski-Doo Skandic Tundra 550 out of the bus barn. I had to do some preseason maintenance on it, but its still running like a top. I greased up the front end and the rear suspension, and checked the belt, air filter, and spark plugs. Everything checked out just fine. She started up on the first pull. We don't have a real good base yet, so you do hit a few rocks here and there, but I'm limiting my driving of it until we get more snow. I still have my four wheeler "on the road", so I've been driving that most of the time. Its more fun than the snowmachine at this time of the year. Its not super cold yet (between 10 and 20 degrees), so I don't need a windshield just yet. And I can do donuts to my hearts content on the slippery roads and other open areas.
In other news, I am burning wood exclusively this year. Even though the school district pays all my utility bills (including heat), I prefer burning wood. First of all, the heat is much more radiant. I don't even know if that is the right word, but anyone who has burned wood knows what I'm talking about. It seems to be a more complete type of heat than any other type. Secondly, it keeps me busy and in shape. Even with the addition this year of a chainsaw, making wood is still a grueling task. I split all the wood by hand. I burn spruce and birch. Most of the birch is driftwood pulled out of the Yukon. Every spring time at break up the ice pulls a bunch of trees into the river. The ice grinds them up, strips off the bark and branches, and the river delivers them right to the front door of villages along the Yukon. Many people think you can't burn spruce due to high creosote build up, but you can. The key is to make sure the wood is seasoned. It is not the sap or pitch in spruce or any other coniferous tree that causes creasote build up. It is the water in the pitch that causes it.
With our dry climate here in Interior Alaska, wood seasons pretty quickly. Some people at the University of Alaska Fairbanks did an experiment with wood to illustrate this. They cut some green birch at the beginning of summer to length and split it. They then stacked it and put a board on top of the pile to shield from rain. The birch was down to 15-20% water content by the end of summer. That is perfect water content for burning. So basically it takes 6 months or less to dry here in Interior region. Of course you have to cut it to stove length first.
So between burning seasoned wood, cleaning the chimney a minimum of once per year (more during the heating season), using creosote destroyer additive on every third fire, and making a nice hot fire once in a while, I don't have to worry about creosote build up in my chimney. I'll post some wood burning pictures in a later post.

I enjoyed some nice moose summer sausage the other night. Scotty had some summer sausage spices and casings. I cooked it in the oven on 170 degrees for two hours, and then on 200 degrees for another hour. It turned out delicious.

This is a shout out to my buddy Nick. He saved my behind. We didn't have a September inservice in Fairbanks this year, so I never got a chance to buy Halloween candy. I could have bought some candy when I was in Fairbanks in August, but it would have never lasted until now. I would have eaten it up. I am posing with the loot. Nick hooked me up big time, with a whole box full of candy from Fred Meyer. The trick or treaters that come to my house won't leave disappointed.

You might be a redneck if................

2010-10-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

You plow out your driveway with your four wheeler that doesn't have a plow on it. Doing donuts was always one of my favorite techniques for beating on four wheelers. Now that I have my own, my dad doesn't have to harp on me about it.

A pizza I baked a while back. It is homemade whole wheat crust with moose sausage, cheddar cheese, green peppers, and pizza sauce(extra sauce, of course). Overall, a pretty healthy pizza. And it was delicious too.

Side profile of my pizza. The crust was super thick, which is just my style. I've totally cut out the bleached white flour in my diet, and I don't even notice a difference. I use whole wheat flour for baking deserts, bread, and pizza crust. Now when I have white flour it almost tastes bad to me. I still am working on my portion control though. That remains an ongoing battle.

Hunting, fishing, and what not

2010-10-09T22:34:00.000-07:00

Beautiful sunset near Ruby. Reminded me of the old saying, "Red sky at night, sailor's delight, red sky in morning, sailor take warning." It didn't turn out to be true, as evidenced by the next picture. Of course it wasn't near Lake Superior though.

First snow of the season on September 30th. It was wet and sloppy and great for doing donuts with my four wheeler.

Scotty and I went camping up the Melozi river last weekend. We bear hunted but had no luck. We did see a bunch of decaying salmon and skeletons littering the bank. We figured we'd see bears for sure but who knows, they might be starting to hibernate already.

Self portrait near our campsite. Note the greasy hair. That's what'll happen when you get all sweaty hiking around and you don't shower for three days straight.

See the dragonfly? I snapped a picture of him along the riverbank. I think they might just freeze solid for the winter. Maybe they just die every fall when it freezes up? I don't know. I just know that it made a cool picture.

Scotty holding up a nice grayling. We had no luck bear hunting, but caught a bunch of these. It was a nice consolation prize. We ended up keeping a bunch and having a fish fry at Scotty's house when we got back from camping. They are a beautiful and tasty fish. We were catching them almost every cast using number one spinners.

An old cabin we found along the Ruby-Poorman road. It was built into a hill.

Our take from chicken hunting today. They are spruce grouse and are very similar to the partridge of the U.P. They are also very dumb birds, as we got within 10 yards of many of these birds before we shot them. I cooked them up today, and they were delicious.

The story of my first moose

2010-09-26T22:48:00.000-07:00

The season for moose started back at the end of August. We get a special subsistence hunt before the regular season open s from September 5^th-25^th. Scotty and I had been hunting hard all during the first season and during the beginning of the regular season. We were doing 100 mile round trips in his boat, going up different tributaries of the Yukon. And we would stop where there were ponds near the rivers and hike into them. Some of them would be a mile or so off the river. And there were no trails into them. We had to bushwhack our way in. It was exhausting work. And the best part was, we saw exactly zero moose and zero bear. I think it was too hot, and none of the animals were moving.

But it all paid off in the end. We took Scotty’s truck out on the Ruby-Poorman road, which goes about 40 miles into the wilderness south of Ruby to some old gold mines. We left Ruby at about 6 AM on Saturday, September 11^th. We cruised out on the road and slowly drove our way out towards the end. Our plan was to go hike into some ponds and look for moose, and then hike over to some hilltops that were devoid of trees, due to forest fires, to look for bears. We were going to take the first moose or bear that we saw.

As we were driving along, we saw about a hundred grouse and one lynx. That was pretty cool. There were some times where we could have taken five or six in one shot. They were busy eating gravel in the early morning sun on the road. I almost hit a few out of the air with my hand as we were driving. Then we lucked out.

We saw a big brown thing on the side of the road about 300 yards away. We thought it was a big bush at first, but then I saw the antlers. The adrenaline surged through my bloodstream. I crept out of the truck and used other bushes as concealment and Scotty did the same as we snuck towards the moose. We got about 100 yards or so away from it and it was still stupidly looking at us. I don’t believe those animals are too smart when they are in the rut. Not too many animals are very smart when they chase members of the opposite sex, humans included.

By this time Scotty ran back to the truck to grab his rifle, which he had forgotten. I continued to watch the moose. He was still just staring at me. Then he turned and started slowly walking directly away from me. I had not shot at him. Maybe the back of his head/neck, but I didn’t want to risk such a shot. So I just grunted. He turned a little and looked back. Then he started to quarter away from me. I shot him with my 30-06 using 220-grain bullets. He continued to walk slowly. So I shot again. Then he turned broadside and started trotting for the tree line, which was about 20 yards away. By this time Scotty had gotten his .375 rifle and was beside me. He shot twice and I shot twice more as well. We saw him go down right at the tree line, and a big cloud of steam rose from his body. We went forward and he was still alive. So Scotty put a bullet from his.454 Casull revolver into his neck. He kicked his legs in his final death throes, and then was still. All told, he had five bullet holes in him, two from my rifle, two from Scotty's rifle, and one from Scotty's pistol. But he didn't make the treeline, and we were able to back Scotty's truck right up to the moose. Talk about an easy pack out. We had to haul it all of ten feet. We lucked out big time. But I figured we deserved it since we had been hunting so hard with so little luck earlier in the season.

We celebrated with a high five. Talk about an adrenaline rush. I was shaking like I had just gotten in a fight. When you hear athletes talk about an adrenaline dump, which is exactly what I experienced. It was awesome.

Now the real work started. Out here in Ruby, there is no butcher that we can go drop off our moose at. We have to process it ourselves. So I shot it at about 8:30 or so AM. We had it in pieces and back in town (we were about 30 miles out of town) to Scotty’s house by about 2:30. We immediately got to work cutting it up. Another teacher at the school was nice enough to help us cut it up. Thanks Tami! We put up the backstraps and loins first. Then we cut out countless roasts and steaks. Remember, one quarter of the moose is as big as a big deer (about 150-200 pounds). Then we ground up a bunch of the moose into burger. Some we left as plain sausage burger, while some we made into Italian, maple, and Cajun sausage. There was plenty of fat on the moose to put into the sausage so it wasn’t too lean. We took about an hour break to eat at around 11 PM. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast at 5:30 AM. We cooked some of the ribs in Scotty’s oven. It was probably the best meal I have ever eaten. There was some fat on the ribs, and Scotty made a homemade barbeque sauce. Tami ate properly but Scotty and especially me ate with our hands like cave men to our hearts content. What an awesome feeling. You take an animal and bust your butt butchering it, and then get to reap the fruits of your labor. We worked on the meat until 4:00 AM, then pretty much collapsed from exhaustion.

We finished cutting up the rest of the meat on Sunday. All told, Scotty and I butchered that moose for about 28 hours total, while Tami did about 24 hours of work on it. But it was all worth it. We have full freezers and meat for the rest of the year. The fun lasted all of ten minutes or so when we shot it and then took some pictures. After that it was work. But it was fulfilling work and I would do it all again in heartbeat if I had freezer space for another moose.

Notice how the moose only has two legs? We skinned once side of it, then cut off the front and rear quarters, neck meat, and all the other meat we could. Then we gutted it, rolled it over onto the hide, and butchered the other side of it. A pretty clean method. You can also see how the rack is knocked off on the right hand side. We used the rope for leverage as we were cutting off the legs.

All packed up in Scotty's truck and ready to go. I am covered in a mixture of sweat and blood.

600 pounds of meat......

2010-09-13T00:19:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning, around 8:15 AM, I got my first moose. Here are a few pictures. I don't have time to write the story now. I gotta write lesson plans for this week. Since I (and Scottie) shot the moose, we've been working around the clock to process it. Here are a few pictures. I'll tell the story in a later post.

Some of the meat which we ground into sausage and burger. Notice the sagging of the racks. I will have meat for the rest of the school year.

Me with the moose. These animals are huge. One hindquarter is bigger than most deer.We lucked out. Scotty was able to back his truck right up to the moose. Had to pack it all of 30 feet.

Here is Scotty with a better view of the rack. You can see the left had side is pretty nice but the thick part of the right hand side broke off at some point.

38 hours after shooting the moose, and it is almost fully processed. A guy here in town took the head meat and what not and gave me back this. Not a bad deal.

Making wood

2010-09-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of my wood stove and half of my wood. The district bought me a half a cord of wood for the winter. As soon as it was delivered, I got down to business with my new chainsaw and cut it up. Then I split it and stacked it inside. It sure feels good being able to accomplish something that you can see.

This is the other half of my wood. I finished it off tonight. I've grown to love splitting wood, especially nice seasoned birch and spruce. You pop it once with a good splitting maul and they just explode. I'm showing off my splitting ability like a fisherman showing off his catch. Note the Rubbermaid plastic tote that serves as my wood box. I also scrounged the sawhorse from the dump. It works perfect for cutting wood with my chainsaw.

Here is my custom maul. Note the extra reinforcements welded on. This sucker is heavy duty, which is perfect for splitting wood in this neck of the woods. I don't have to worry about breaking handle or the head coming loose. And its heavy enough to make the wood explode after 1 or 2 swings.

The tools of my trade. Notice the custom steel tube handle, complete with electrical tape handgrip. I got it from my friend Max. By the way, my chainsaw allows me to cut wood approximately 100 times faster than with a bow saw, which I was doing last year. It's still a workout though, just ask a logger.

Here is a fillet of one of Scottie's monster pike. I don't know if you can see the ruler, but the fillet is around 22 inches long, even though it is kind of scrunched up and has been in my ice cold fridge for the past 24 hours.

This one shows the thickness of the fillet. I haven't cut out the Y-bones yet. And I also have sausage fingers, so you can tell in this picture how thick it really is.

Hunting and what not....

2010-09-01T02:16:00.000-07:00

I just got back home from cutting fish with my friend Scottie. He caught a bunch of fish in his net. They included silver salmon, whitefish, and pike. The two pike that he caught were monsters, measuring 42 and 43 inches respectively, while both tipping the scales at over 30 pounds. They are the type of fish that makes you question whether you want to go swimming anymore. I wish I had pictures of them but I don't. I'll try to get Scottie's pictures of them or maybe I'll just take a picture of the fillet for everyone to see.

This is me and my four wheeler after fighting a losing battle with the Yukon river mud. Now this is not your ordinary, everyday mud. This is the big leagues of mud. I tried hot dogging it with my four wheeler and got too close to the river. As most everyone knows, the Yukon river is a very silty river, and the banks are usually muddy, especially as the water level drops throughout the summer. So I got too close and the mud sucked me in. At first I wasn't stuck too bad, but then I tried rocking it back and forth while gunning the engine. That only made it stuck worse. Pretty soon the mud was to the top of the tires. And it was like a giant suction cup keeping the four wheeler in the mud. I tried prying it under the frame and axles using some pieces of driftwood for a lever and a fulcrum, but I couldn't budge it. Then a guy ended up stopping by and tried pulling me out with his winch on his four wheeler. That didn't work either. So then I started walking up to Scotties to get some help. I was going to see if he had a come along to yank it out, but I ran into another guy along the route. He had a winch on his four wheeler. I had had a lot of time to think on my walk, and formulated a new plan to get it unstuck. We decided to go try it. We ended up hooking his winch up to the back rack and pulling the four wheeler onto its side with the combination of his winch pulling and me prying. Next we hooked up to the footpeg and rolling it onto the seat, and then hooked up to the opposite side footpeg and rolled it the rest of the way over. We basically winched it into a barrel roll to get it on more solid ground. The whole time I was scrambling around in the mud, sometimes up to mid thigh in it. She was totally covered in Yukon river muck. You couldn't even tell it was a red Honda. I ended up going over to Scottie's and washing it off with his hose. I wish I had my camera down there but I didn't. So I had to settle for this picture of my clean four wheeler with me still all muddy.

I got to go town this past weekend for some teacher union training. I pay my dues every year, and I wasn't about to pass up a free trip to town courtesy of them. I ended up going caribou hunting with my buddy Nick while I was in town. It was awesome. We were hunting the Fortymile herd north of Fairbanks in the White Mountains. The scenery was breathtaking when the clouds cleared, and we got a heck of a workout tromping up and down the mountains.

Here are Nick and I taking a much deserved rest after climbing up the side of this mountain. We ended up parking our tired behinds right in the middle of a huge blueberry patch, and we proceeded to scarf down as many as we could find. They were the best blueberries I've ever eaten, probably because we were working so hard climbing and they just hit the spot. We glassed for caribou all around us, but we had no luck.

Here is Nick sitting on a mountain peak that we climbed. It was quite a view up there, with 360 degree view of the whole area. It was awesome too when some clouds rolled in and we were above the clouds. I imagined it must look like that up on top of Mt. Everest. The mountains make distances seem so small when you are up on top, but when you start hiking towards a certain landmark and a half hour later it doesn't seem any closer, you realize that they really trick you and make it look like things are closer than they appear. We had no luck hunting, but all in all it was a blast.

Me with some new stuff I purchased in town this weekend. A new Husqvarna 455 Rancher chainsaw, and nice helmet for my four wheeler/snowmachine. So no one has to worry about me riding now.

This is a nice whitefish that my friend Martha gave me. My hand is in the picture for scale. The fish didn't fit in the sink. And it cooked up delicious. I gotta run. Have a good week everyone!

Back in the Saddle

2010-08-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

This is where the Winnipeg Blue Bomber CFL team plays. It was a cold, rainy day going through Winnipeg. Overall it was a pretty clean city.

Pulling into Toad River, British Columbia. Some other guys I know broke down in this little town along the Alcan highway.

This is a herd of buffalo blocking the road somewhere in British Columbia. Those animals are huge! I was next to a big male that was taller than my Jeep. He was about 3 feet away from my driver's side window. If he would have put his head down and charged my Jeep, I think I'd be six feet under pushing up daisies. Big males can weigh over 2,000 pounds, so they are definitely not an animal you want to mess with. They just lazily walked around and paid no attention to beeping vehicles. It was quite a sight to see. And there were only around 30 or 40 buffalo. I wish I would have been alive a couple hundred years ago when they numbered in the millions on the Great Plains.

This is Kluane Lake in the Yukon territory. The views were spectacular, and the water was numbing. I would compare swimming in this lake to an early spring swim in Lake Superior. It gave me an instant ice cream headache (brain freeze). I was feeling kind of sleepy driving, so I decided to take a quick dip. It woke me right up.

I finally reached the Alaska border approximately 6 days after leaving the U.P. I would classify it as an epic drive, one that everyone should do at least once. The worst part was waiting in construction for an hour. It goes back to the saying about Alaska: There are two seasons, winter and construction season.

This is me between Delta Junction and Fairbanks. That is the Tanana River in the background and also Mt. McKinley (Denali). You can't see it very good, and it looked much better in person.

Me standing next to my newest acquisition. I bought Max's 2007 Honda Rancher 4x4. He treated it like his baby. It is in mint condition and runs perfect. I rode it out 30 miles from Ruby on the Poorman road tonight. The only wildlife I saw were a few spruce grouse.

Picture Post

2010-05-20T00:37:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from the last two months. My apologies for not posting in a timely manner. Ultimate Victory (summer vacation) is almost upon us. I look forward to returning home to the U.P. for the summer. See everyone in about 10 days!

This is from a spring break road trip I took down to Seward from Fairbanks. Its a sea lion at the aquarium in Seward. They are huge animals. I tried to take a picture of myself in the foreground for scale while the sea lion swam by, but I always missed him as I had to have my back to him. And he swam very fast. So I just settled on this picture.

This is me chilling with the jellyfish at the Seward Sea Life Aquarium. You can see the faint outline of them in the black circle. They even glow in the dark a little bit.

Me standing outside the entrance to the aquarium. And yes, I sucked the old gut in a little bit for the pictures.

I also drove a little ways into Denali National Park during my spring break road trip. It was pretty sweet. Lots of spectacular scenery, but no big animals to gawk at.

I also attended a cage fight in Fairbanks with my buddy Nick. It was a pretty sweet show. A lot of good scraps. Obviously it wasn't the UFC, but it was still a lot of fun.

I also attended a Fairbanks Grizzlies indoor football game the day after the cage fighting with Nick. It was a lot of fun. Our computer guy and myself might try out for the team next year. We'll see though. They don't get paid that much.

Then I went down to Anchorage for a job fair in April. I was lucky enough to go out snowmobiling with the crew from down there. Andy H. was nice enough to lend me his sled. 2010 Polaris Dragon 800. Man, that thing was awesome. Now I want to get one. We were riding in Turnigan Pass. It was overcast with flat light, so it messed with our depth perception. All you could see was white. It was kind of scary sometimes, inching down a hill and watching the front of your ski to see if it is dropping off a cliff. But we all made it through unscathed, and had a lot of fun.

We've had some flooding here in Ruby due to an ice jam between here and Galena, which is about 52 miles downriver. The water rose a lot, and as you can see in this picture, it covered some of the road and threatened a few houses. But overall Ruby is very safe because we live on a hill, with most of the houses well above any threat from a flood. The pond behind me is actually a road.

One of the year end projects we've been working on here in Ruby is clearing out our school nature trail. We are also working on mapping the trail with GPS units. It is severely overgrown, and both the junior high and high school classes have been as busy as beavers clearing deadfalls and cutting brush. Its about a two mile loop, and we are about halfway done with it. I am hoping to finish it by the end of the year. Here are two of my boys demonstrating the proper tag team cutting technique with a Swede saw. Not only is it a good learning activity, its a heckava workout.

In the junior high we've been working on science projects as well here in the last few weeks. Here one of my junior high students shows off her home made lava, illustrating the concept that oil and water don't mix. Its the same stuff that's in lava lamps.

Here is another students project. I think it was called "Barfing Monster". It illustrated the concept of a chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar. The "monster" is a 20 oz. Gatorade bottle designed with paint, glitter, and fake eyes. The authentic looking barf is courtesy of yellow food coloring.

Another student built an electromagnet to illustrate the properties of electromagnetism. All she had to use was copper wire, a nail, two 1.5 volt batteries, and some tape. Wala! We have a magnet. It was strong enough to pick up 3 paper clips and also another nail. The students had a lot of fun with these projects and are presenting them tomorrow night at our annual Break Up Dinner.

One of my junior high students was the photographer for the experiments. Here is my best Chris "The Crippler" Leban impersonation. Only hardcore MMA fans know what I'm talking about. The only thing I'm missing is dyed orange hair and some tattoos.

Here I am with one of our two graduating seniors in the class of 2010. He was pumped to graduate and is now pursuing a career as an electrician.

This is me with our other graduate. He was very excited to graduate as well. We had an awesome meal, watched slideshows of the two seniors, and listened to their speeches. Overall it was a great evening.

Iditarod!

2010-03-14T05:18:00.000-07:00

First off, I should apoligize for not posting in such a long time. It's been a busy few weeks here in Ruby. But since excuses are like farts (everyone has them and they all stink), I won't bore you with any and I'll get on with my post.
The Last Great Race. That is what the Iditarod is known as. It is a exhausting, grueling battle of man and dog vs. nature. The race is about 1,150 miles long, winding through the Alaskan wilderness from Anchorage all the way to Nome. I have been interested in the Iditarod ever since Christmas of 1997, when my Grandma and Grandpa Frantti gave me a book about a kid named Dusty who ran the Junior Iditarod. I still remember getting that book on Christmas eve over at their house for the Frantti Christmas party. My grandma wrote in the book, "To Peter: Our bookworm." I couldn't sleep that night waiting for Santa so I turned my lamp on and read that whole book that night (It wasn't that thick). So I fell asleep dreaming of running sled dogs on that Christmas eve. I even looked at the mushers this year to look for a musher named Dusty, but I didn't find him. Who knows if he's involved with the sport anymore? That's a mystery for another day.
And I still fit that mold. I still love to read. If we had a TV growing up, who knows how much I'd be reading these days. Probably not too much. That is one thing I'm very grateful for growing up. Reading books has helped me experience places that I'll probably never get to experience in real life. My friend said it best. He was talking to one of the students right before Christmas break. He asked where the student was going over Christmas break. The student said he wasn't going anywhere. My friend told him that he was going to visit the Arabian peninsula. That is what you can do with books. You can go experience any place on the earth. So to all you kids out there: Read, read, read! Just like my mom told me once(and continues to tell us to this day): No matter what happens in life, your education is one thing that can never be taken from you.
OK, enough of that tangent. Back to the Iditarod. On the even years, the race takes the northern route, which comes through Ruby. It is an exciting time in the village, especially for some one like me who gets to see it for the first time.
I was supposed to get pictures of the leaders for my friend Derek who taught up here last year, but I was unable to. They got into Ruby around 3 AM Friday. I was sleeping away, getting my beauty rest for the Victory Friday celebration before Spring Break. I got up around 6:30 and got ready for school, and when I went over there, my principal told me and our primary teacher we could take the school truck downtown to see the happenings. I was excited. When we got down to the community hall though, all of the leaders were asleep. I don't blame them. After pulling long hours on a dogsled in sub-zero temperatures, I'd want to sleep too. I bet they sleep like new born babies when they actually do have time to sleep. And by this time I had to get back to school, so I never got any pictures of the leaders. Sorry Derek.
The 1975 winner of the Iditarod is actually from Ruby, Emmit "The Yukon Fox" Peters. He was getting interviewed for the news this year and he talked about the long hours of sleep deprivation that happen out on the trail. Hallucinations are pretty common. Emmit is a really nice guy to boot, and has many stories for a newbie like me every time I ask him.
If anyone has any extra time on their hands, I would suggest a book written by Gary Paulsen about the Iditarod. It's called "Winterdance". We read it last year for high school English, and both myself and the students loved it.

This is my souviner from the Iditarod so far. One of the booties fell off a dog at some point as they left town. They are used to protect the dogs feet. This will be a lifetime memento for me.
Another feature of this picture is my high class curtains. You can see the curtain rod up high, but no curtains. They are coming in the mail from Wendy (thank you!), so in the meantime, I'm using a spare matress for curtains. I make do with what I have.

I recieved some fresh fish from my friend Martha. Northern pike. As some of you know, pike are quite bony. But they are awesome, with a delicate, flaky flesh that is a pleasure to eat.
But how to you get the bones out? Well, if you don't know how, you get on youtube and find out. The wonders of technology. I got on youtube, watched a few videos, and wallah! I was an expert pike filleter. No, not an expert but I did manage to get all the bones out. And the fish was delicious.

This was one of my favorite Christmas presents. Fartless chili makin's. Thanks Timmy and Lori! I'm saving them for a special occasion. And I will keep you updated on whether or not I got gas from them. Hahhaha!
Also pictured is a blueberry pie made by yours truly. Not as good as my mom's, but still good enough to eat in one sitting!

This is the food that was shipped in for the dogs. There are bags and bags and bags of it. Imagine the calories those dogs go through running over a thousand miles. Its pretty amazing they don't collapse from exhaustion. But they are amazing animals. They aren't all that big either. I thought they would be huge dogs, but they are actually pretty small. But they are finely conditioned athletes, bred for long distance races.

Here is a dog team sleeping on their straw piles. I don't blame them. I'd want a nap too, after running those long distances.

Here a vet is checking a dog. No expense is spared when caring for these dogs. Any dog that gets injured or sick gets an airlift home. In Gary Paulsen's book, he jokes about how the dogs are cared for much better than the mushers. But he also says they deserve it, since they are the true stars of the race.

Here I stand at the store with the Iditarod sign welcoming everyone. One of my students decided to jump into the picture. Another student of mine is taking the picture. We had brought some bag lunches down to the store to sell to all the people in town for the race to raise money for the high school class trip to Hawaii in May.

This is Newton Marshall and me posing outside of the community hall. To my knowledge, he is the first black person to run the Iditarod. And he's from Jamaica! He grew up dirt poor, raised by his grandmother in a one room shack. It's an amazing story. He is an inspiration to many people. Look him up on the web if you have time. He visited with us for a few minutes and took pictures with us. He was a real nice guy.

A bit of news

2010-02-25T01:42:00.000-08:00

There is some big news coming out of Rhode Island right now. A school district there fired all of its teachers in an effort to boost education scores. I think that is the wrong approach. Students begin learning at home. If the parents don't do anything with their children at home, the teacher in the classroom is already fighting an uphill battle. Add in the fact that many of the students are learning English as their second language, come from broken homes, and face other problems like drug and alcohol abuse and violence, its a minor miracle when anything good happens to those students.
Which is not to say that bad teachers shouldn't be fired. If they aren't doing their jobs, get rid of them. But to fire them all is not the answer. Students and teachers build relationships and sometimes a teacher is the only stable thing in a students life. If you get rid of that stability, you aren't really looking out for the student. But with the Feds breathing down the administrators necks, I can see where they're coming from.
Anyways, how about some positive news. Its almost March! Time is just flying by. We are gearing up for our state testing, which is coming up in April. The students and teachers here at MAK school are busting their butts in preparation for them.
Which opens up a whole new can of worms. High stakes testing. I am completely against it. Administrators are getting pressure from the bean counters in the government to raise test scores, so the administrators are in turn putting pressure on the teachers to prepare for these tests. I remember back in college some of the professors going off about how teaching to the test is horrible and totally wrong. Well, that's all I've done since I've become a teacher. And that is one of the main things that I have a problem with. We are teaching are kids to be robots who might be able to do good on a standardized test, instead of teaching them to be critical thinkers and problem solvers. And that is just depressing for me. I didn't get into teaching to have some bean counters telling me what to do in my classroom.
And then teachers are judged by their students scores on these tests. If the kids do bad on these tests, then the teacher must be a poor teacher, according to that rationale. Well, if thats the case, my 7th and 8th grade teachers were poor. (In fact, they were not poor teachers, I was a poor student.) In those grades, I thought I was cool being bad and not trying in school. In 7th grade, we took the California Achievement Test. I distinctly remember this: I filled in the bubbles on the scoresheet in a zig-zag pattern (A B C D C B A, etc.) I finished the test in about 5 or 10 minutes. Out of the four tests, I scored in the 7th percentile, 2nd percentile, 2nd percentile, and 1st percentile. That means that on one test, I scored better than 7% of the kids my age, on the next test I scored better than 2% of the kids my age, and so on. So what did this show? Were my teachers poor teachers? Did my school deserve to get punished for students getting low test scores? Of course not. I was the problem. I was acting like a little turd. It goes back to the old saying, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." It didn't matter how dedicated and bright and kind and caring my teachers were. I still bombed those tests, and it was no one's fault but my own. A little FYI for you all: My little problem of acting cool and tough and not caring about school was solved in the 8th grade. I had failed my algebra class, and my parents were not too happy. My mom grounded me until the next report card came out. Six whole weeks of being grounded. I was mad, but it was the turning point in my school career. But it goes back to the parents. My parents disciplined me and I learned real fast. It didn't matter what the teachers were doing to me in school. The ultimate responsibility fell on my parents.
I think a lot of America is looking at schools and teachers to raise their kids for them. Parents need parent their kids, and give support to teachers to put the hammer on the students when they aren't performing. That will take care of a lot of our educational problems.

OK, enough about that stuff. Here are some pictures. This is a blueberry pie that our high schoolers sold as a fund raiser. It was a srumptious supper for me one night this past fall. Not as good as my mom's pie though.

When you think of Alaska in the winter you think of snow covered ground right? Wrong! This picture is 20 miles outside of Ruby. And no, they don't plow that far out. They only plow out to the dump, which is about 2 miles from town. This was a real wind blown area. You can see the big drift on the right hand side of the road, and the rest of it is bare gravel. It was pretty surprising running into this section of road, especially out in the wilderness.

Here is Max posing by his machine. He has a Yamaha Bravo 250. Those are super reliable machines and are the workhorse of bush Alaska. There are probably 25 or 30 of them in Ruby. And they are only about $3,500 brand new.

We were in this gravel pit 12 miles outside of Ruby shooting our pistols. I shot my 44 magnum and Max shot his 357 magnum. It was a lot of fun. Then there was a huge hillside of virgin powder, so I had to take advantage. Max snapped a few photos of me in action. I must report that the Tundra is excellent in the deep powder. The hill doesn't look big in this picture but anyone who has seen video footage of people riding in the mountains will tell you its decieving. There is a small gravel pile in the foreground and I am on the big hill in the background. Its a lot bigger and steeper than it looks in this picture. I might be trying to trump up my riding skills with that lengthy explanation, but I am still undefeated in the Bunker Hill racing circuit vs Bryzo and Helppi. And not to brag, but I could outride Jed and David any day of the week on any machine. hahhahhahha!

Here I am posing with mine and Max's machines. Now kids, make sure you always ride with a buddy, especially when you are way out in the wilderness. You'll also notice we have survival bags strapped to the backs of our sleds. You don't want to forget that stuff either. I am up on that drift that is shown in the earlier picture and Max's Bravo is down on the road level, so you can see how big the drift is.
Hopefully we can get out again this weekend, but this time go out even farther. We'll see though. I apologize for not posting in a long time. I'll try to stay on top of it better here. Until then, take care and remember, only two more days until Victory Friday!

Some new pictures

2010-02-04T00:05:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of a wolf track. As you can see, they are pretty big. They like to run along snowmachine trails, because the footing is better than in the deep snow. Guys around here talk about driving up on a wolf pack from behind when they are running single file along a snowmachine trail. You can pick them off one by one starting from the wolf in the back. They will follow the leader, so if you start at the back, the wolves in front are oblivious to the carnage going on behind them. You can take a whole wolf pack this way. Their fur is very nice for parkas and mitts.

This is a picture of a moose track. It is huge. I have size 14 feet that are as wide as a pasty, and with my bunny boots on it makes them even bigger. And my foot could fit right inside of this track. Moose seem to "post hole" it everywhere they walk in the winter. I can't imagine they stand much of a chance against a wolf pack during the wintertime. But hey, its survival of the fittest, and the wolves gotta eat too.

These picture wouldn't load correctly with the test. This is a picture of downtown Ruby from across the frozen Yukon. The airport is on the ridge behind town in the picture. It was a beautiful day for riding after getting home from a basketball tournament in Nulato. Self Portrait with the Yukon in the background. Note to kids reading this: Always ride with a helmet. Not only does it protect your noggin, but its also very warm. Note to the worriers (Mom): I am getting a helmet when I'm in town this weekend. I would have just ordered one off the Internet, but with the size of my melon, I want to try the helmet on so I know it fits me. I'll have one after this weekend.

The awesome view from my front porch when I'm out riding.

A close up of the Yukon river valley. Its a vast, frozen, but beautiful land during the winter.

One of my staples up here in the Alaska bush. To this day, it still remains one of my favorite meals. And the Wal-mart brand macaroni is so much better than Kraft its not even funny. And yes, I did eat the whole pot in one sitting. But it was after walking the five mile loop and lifting some weights over at the school, so I worked up a huge appetite. And I only used a quarter of the recommended butter, so I cut down on the saturated fat significantly.

The New Pad

2010-01-20T21:44:00.000-08:00

Good evening everybody. Warm greetings to you from the frozen north. Right now it warmed up significantly. It is now only about 20 below zero. But after many days of 40 below weather, it feels so warm! I might have to go do some shirtless jogging to celebrate.

Well, the big news coming out of Ruby is the completion of the new teacher housing. I moved in last Friday night, and have been busy ever since unpacking my boxes, cleaning up, and finishing up unfinished work that was in my place.

All of my crap. Notice the 5 gallon water jug. No more hauling water for this guy. You never realize how great running water is until you don't have it. I lived without it for 5 months, so now I know I can hack it. In fact, when I first moved in I did dishes for the sheer fun of it. I was like a cave man getting thrust into the 21st century. (You mean hot water comes out of this faucet? Sweet!)

My bush league shower curtain. Blue tarp held up with rope. Actually it worked just fine. Then my principal suprised me with a brand new one. It was a housewarming gift. And my lovely girlfriend is also sending me one in a box of assorted other goodies. Thanks Wendy!

One of my staple foods that I eat in Alaska. Dried beans. The bean on the left is a cooked one. The one in the middle is an uncooked one. And the foreign material on the right is rocks I picked out of my bag. To those of you out there who cook with dried beans. Make sure you sort them before you cook them, or you might get a stray rock in your teeth that could rattle a filling loose.
This also serves as a shout out to my boy Chad who just so happens to farm beans. Even if he is Canadian, he's a good guy.

My new place with my new snowmachine parked out front. The new place has increased my commute to work by about 20 seconds. Its about 50 yards farther from the school than my cabin was.

I even have a woodstove, which is awesome. If my heat goes out, I can always fire up this thing and get it nice and toasty warm inside my place. I can also roast marshmallows and hot dogs in the stove, which will help my waistline as well. :)
No, its not fired up in this picture. I might have taken a few hits to the head, but I still know not to put a delicate instrument like a laptop on a hot woodstove.

Me with my niece Cora and nephew Carson. I was pumped I got to see them over the Christmas break.

Pictures

2010-01-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

Me about to enjoy some Vollwerth's Hot Dogs. They were delicious. It was nice to have a taste of the Copper Country up here in Alaska.

The finished product. They turned out delicous.

My bread making operation. Notice the awesome covering. A clean garbage bag works wonders in letting bread rise. It was also whole wheat bread, so it was healthy. Combined with the Vollwerth's hot dogs and Heinz ketchup, it made a delicious and well balanced meal.

My new sled. Makes my cabin look more Alaskan.

Me sitting pretty on my new sled. She lugs me around like a bat outta hell.

Second half of the year

2010-01-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

Happy January to everybody out there. We are back in the saddle here in Ruby, working on the second half of the school year. I can't believe its January already. This year is just flying by.
Some updates from Ruby include the following: The new housing is nearing completion. I might be able to move in next weekend, but we'll see. I'm not going to hold my breath, seeing as it was supposed to be finished during the summer of 2009.
I got a new snowmachine out here. Its a 2010 Ski Doo Skandic Tundra 550 Long Track. I'm still breaking it in but its going great so far. It has been called a "mechanical snowshoe" and I think that its a very accurate description. The other day I was trying to get it stuck and I almost couldn't get it stuck. Between having a 156 inch track with 1.5 inch lugs and push button reverse, the deep powder better watch out for me and my sled. They can't stop us, they can only slow us down.
Seriously, the push button reverse is very handy. Take this example. I was hot dogging it on my sled near my outhouse. I lost control of my sled for a moment. (Yes, even expert riders like me lose control once in a while. :) ) I was about to pile into my outhouse, when I luckily was able to grab the brake. My front skis barely skidded into the outhouse, about as hard as my girlfriend or sister punches me when I annoy them. So not hard at all. All I had to do was push a button, and reverse out of the situation. On most other sleds, getting out would have entailed jumping into the waist deep snow and pulling the skis in one direction, then lifting and pushing the back end of the sled in the other direction so you can drive out. You end up sweating a lot and its just overall a not very fun situation.
Its also even more fun when you are standing in waist deep water pulling a sled out, right Bryzo?! Luckily for us, it was only a mile or so from home, so we didn't suffer frostbite or any other serious ailment. RB decided to drive through a ditch with slushy water in it, and his POS Polaris couldn't make it through. So we had to wade into the ditch and lift that thing out. It was one of my most memorable snowmobiling experiences.
Also, we have started basketball practice. We are going to have a coed team this year, teaming up with Alakaket again. It should be pretty fun.
In other news, the Calumet girls basketball team is 7-1. Keep it up girls! With the wonders of technology, I can keep track of their progress on the Gazette website.
Its pretty cold here right now, about 25 below, and I have my fingers crossed. Why? Because I haven't run out of oil yet this second semester. My cabin is a toasty warm 62 degrees. I get used to that temperature. When I was home for Christmas I begged my girlfriend to turn her heat down in her apartment, because I was sweating like a pig. It was a roasting 72 degrees in there. She compromised and turned it down to 70 degrees for me.
I'm having problems with my computer, so I don't know if I'll be able to post pictures on here. I'm working on it though, so keep your fingers crossed. Until next week, have a good week and look forward to Victory Friday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-29T21:24:00.001-08:00

Good evening everybody. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving with family and friends. Even though the Lions lost, it was still a good Thanksgiving.
I can't believe its almost December. Wow, where does the time go? We are almost halfway done with the school year. One older person that I know told me once, "The older you get, the faster time goes."
That seems to be true for me as well. In only 3 weeks I'll be home for Christmas. I can't wait!
My grandpa Frantti celebrates his 75th birthday this week, so if you see him, wish him happy birthday!
I get to go to town this Wednesday for some training. I'm looking forward to it. We are learning GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and GPS (Global Positioning System) for use in our classrooms. I am pretty excited for it because its the first training that I've been to that has relevance to my major. Ever since I've been a little kid I have loved looking at National Geographic magazines and almost any map.
Sorry for the delay. I've been busy with school lately. The new teacher housing is coming along, and I hope to be in there before Christmas.
My computer is acting up again and not letting me post pictures, so you'll have to stay tuned for those.
Other than that, not much to report. We had about a 6 day stretch where it was 40 below or colder, and I had the extreme pleasure of running out of heating oil at 3 AM one of the nights. So I turned on stove and went back to sleep, and woke up to a 30 degree cabin. It was pretty awesome. Luckily, our maintainence man put some oil in my tank by about 9 AM, so at lunch I was able to crank my heat up and the temperature in my cabin was back up to 62 when school was over.
Well, I hope everyone has a good week. I hear "Silver Bells", "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas", and other Christmas tunes dancing in my head. Its time to get into the Christmas spirit everyone! I know I'm going to do my part and put on my 20 pounds over the Holidays. All that good food can't go to waste right? I hope all of you guys pitch in and help me polish it off. Have a good week!

Ruby Update

2009-11-08T20:37:00.000-08:00

I won some salmon at our Halloween carnival. I meant to take a picture of it but I was craving it so much I ate the whole jar in one sitting. Luckily, my brain finally told my stomach to stop begging for food and alerted my arms to take a picture of what was left. Not much, but you can see the nice, red, oily meat. It was a delicious meal.
I am also happy to report that I won the cupcake eating contest in the adult division. It was a lot of fun. You had to eat one cupcake as fast as you could, without using your hands. It was easy enough to get into your mouth, but then you had to choke it down like a snake digesting its prey. A lot of fun.

Christmas in November! I also got some strawberries, bananas, some candy, and a pizza from some of our district office staff that came out to Ruby.

Progress on the new pad. Its coming along, and the latest estimates say 4-6 weeks until move in time. I'm looking forward to having running water and sewer. It was a beautiful, sunny day in Ruby when I took this picture. We also have snow, which is not good for snowmachiners or for walkers like me. Imagine it being below zero and chewing on dust when a car drives by. It just doesn't seem right. Snow is in the forecast this week, so we'll see.

This is my heating source. I ran out of oil today, and I won't be able to get any until tomorrow. I woke up from a nap shivering in my balmy 40 degree cabin. So I turned the oven on and cranked it up to 500 degrees. It actually keeps the cabin pretty warm. (52 degrees) I'm just gonna layer up a little when I go bed tonight. I also have some built-in insulation that should help in minimizing heat loss.
Oh yeah, I forgot to report the temperature. It was 14 below this morning. So not a good time to run out of oil, but I'll be OK. Mom, don't worry.
I also regret to report that the Calumet Copper Kings were eliminated from the MHSAA football playoffs by Iron Mountain. Congratulations on a great season! On a positive note, the volleyball Kings are still alive in the playoffs. Keep on winning girls, you are making us all proud! Have a good week everyone, and remember; only five days until Victory Friday!

Some new pictures

2009-10-26T01:09:00.000-07:00

The mouth of the Kaltag river. I was the chaperone at YKSD's Phlight Club, which is a leadership academy. The students learn problem solving skills, leadership skills, and social skills. The kids really enjoyed it. We were on the last plane out of Kaltag back to Ruby so we had about 4 hours to kill. Their principal took my 4 students and I fishing for grayling. It was awesome. You could see them swimming up the river. They were huge. Unfortunately, they didn't bite any of the bait we offered. We should have snagged them.
You can notice the Yukon starting to ice up already.

We had a little campfire while we were fishing. It is behind a huge driftwood stump. We roasted hot dogs but no fish. Overall a pretty fun time.

Never thought I'd see one of these in bush Alaska. Its a batting cage with a pitching machine. My friend who teaches there got it this year and finally got it all set up the day before we got there. Its actually a softball pitching machine, and you can set it for slow, arching pitches or fastpitch style. You can also throw curve balls with it too. It was really fun to get in there and take some cuts. The kids really enjoyed it too. In Kaltag they have a softball team that barnstorms up and down the Yukon and Koyukuk rivers during the summer. With this type of training, you can tell why they won all the tournaments they went to this past summer.

Jake's truck. Reminds me of my own. Notice the wood in the back of the truck. He hauls all his wood with his truck. Also note the homemade running boards (literally) on the truck. Pieces of angle iron welded to the frame with a 2x4 for a crosspiece. Maybe I should build some for my truck, huh Wendy? She always complains about getting into my truck. Now that I bought my Jeep, she'll have to start complaining about getting into that when I put a lift on it next summer. Have a good week everyone! Only 5 days until Victory Friday!

Progress on my new house and other tidbits

2009-10-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

You can see the walls going up fast on the new teacher housing here in Ruby. The materials arrived here on a barge on the 24th of September, and the walls were put up on October 2nd. The houses go up pretty quick. They are actually cookie cutter housing kits. A foreman with the company comes out and directs operations, and they hire local labor. It works out good for everyone involved. Notice the snow on the ground. We got our first snow on September 21st.

Picture taken today. Notice the progress on the house. The arctic entry is completed, along with the felt paper and the roof. It sure is coming along nicely. The projected finish date is Thanksgiving. (I'm not holding my breath though, I was told it was going to done over the summer.) Well, that's the way things work in the bush.
Also note the absence of snow. We had about 4 days of fog last week, which caused the temperature to soar up to around 60. It melted all the snow, along with keeping the planes from landing here in Ruby. We had a nice backlog of mail too. Just ask my mom, she sent me some vitamins using Priority mail, and they took two weeks to get here! And yes Mom, I'm taking them every day, so no need to worry.

Congratulations to the Calumet Copper Kings football team, which clinched a playoff berth after taking L'Anse out to the back forty and handing them a good old fashioned butt kicking, 45-0 on Friday night. Kirby, Blakester and the big boys up front have been dominating people left and right, according to my sources, so keep it up. I've been following them on the Gazette website, along with Pasty.com radio broadcasts. The wonders of technology.
The other week when I was coming back through Fairbanks from Anchorage, I was fortunate enough to get to a high school game in Fairbanks. I got to watch the Barrow Whalers, America's northernmost town (check a map), take on the West Valley Wolfpack, a Fairbanks high school. West Valley pulled out the win with touchdown pass with 13 seconds left. It was an awesome game, and it made me wish I was coaching high school football, preferably the Calumet Copper Kings. Someday it will happen, I'm not too worried.
My Michigan Tech Huskies on the other hand, are having a rough year. Hopefully they can turn it around in the final 4 games of the season. Well, gotta run, its almost bedtime. Have a good week.

New pictures

2009-10-04T23:41:00.001-07:00

Christmas in September! My boxes of food and dishes arrived in the mail. It causes a huge boost in morale when I get them in the mail. I did a whole bunch of shopping in Fairbanks while we were there for inservice. Also, Wendy sent me a box. Thank you very much!

Then Nick and I were asked at our inservice in Fairbanks if we wanted to go to Anchorage for some math training. We jumped at the chance and got to go the very next week. And once we got to the airport, we got another surprise. They were out of the sub compact car that was reserved for us, so we got a brand new Dodge Ram truck for the same price. It was awesome cruising around Anchorage in it. I also got to see Hill when I was there, so that was nice.

First snow in Ruby. September 21st. It comes early up here.

I went for a run after the first snow of the season. My girlfriend and mom and principal have been bugging me about my hair for a long time, so I decided to grow it out until Christmas just to spite them. Something about "looking like a professional." Whatever that's supposed to mean.

Yeah, I was just kidding in the last post. I got it cut while I was in town. It cost me $22, or roughly one meal at Taco Bell.
On the bright side though, I am working on a pretty snazzy beard now that my hair is gone.

Some old summer pictures and some new ones and Labor Day weekend

2009-09-07T14:44:00.001-07:00

Aftermath of the pike attack. Those things are vicious.

Ben fights a monster northern pike on a flimsy super light pole as Luke looks on. I thought it was going to snap for sure.
Ben had caught a nice foot long rock bass. Earlier that day we had seen a huge pike jumping out of the water on the other side the lagoon. So we took that rock bass and put a treble hook through his nose with a bobber and steel leader attached and threw him out in the water to see if we could entice that pike to bite. Sure enough, he hammered the rock bass right under the dock. The pike was at least 36 inches long, and he grabbed the bass and took off with it. Ben fought it for a good 2-3 minutes with his flimsy pole before the pike spit the bass out and took off. We all had a huge adrenaline rush while Ben fought the fish, and we'll be gunning for him next summer. The rock bass didn't survive the encounter, unfortunately. But its moments like those ones why you keep on fishing.

My cousin Luke displaying his nice rock bass while fishing in Bete Gris. (Actually in the lagoon behind their house)

Mark "Moham" Luoma and I on a rabbit hunt this past March back in the U.P. Alaska is similar to the U.P., just bigger and more wild. I've heard it described as, "The UP on steroids." That description fits pretty well.

My brother Paul and his wife Jill were married this past summer. (Paul will be embarrassed by this picture)

My current reading selection. I found it in the MAK School library. "The Finns in America" by Eloise Engle. They had them for all the different ethnic groups. So far its a pretty good book.
I didn't know that the first Finns came over in March 1638 to current day Delaware at the mouth of the Delaware river. The Finns were skilled carpenters and woodsmen, so they thrived on the North American continent.
Some Finns weren't very fortunate though. One 1649 expedition of 70 Finns to the New World ended with being shipwrecked off Puerto Rico. They were put in prison by the Spanish, but then freed. They thought they were out of the woods, but then the French captured them at St. Croix in the Virgin Islands and sold them into slavery.

The airport in Ruby surrounded by the fall colors.

View of Ruby from up at the airport. Fall comes early up here in the Alaskan Interior.

View of the Melozi mountains across the Yukon from Ruby.

My take of local grown groceries in Ruby. One family raises chickens and bees, and I am one of their best customers. Home grown eggs, you can't beat them. The honey is excellent as well.

They also gave me a salmon strip, which is a piece of smoked salmon. I had a big plan to take a picture of it when I got home, but it smelled so good that I couldn't wait. I ended up chowing it down on the mile walk back to my house. This was all that was left of it. Sorry. She put a soy sauce/brown sugar coating on it before the smoking process, and my mouth is still watering thinking about it.

My Labor day weekend was pretty uneventful. I just relaxed and enjoyed my day off from work. Even though there was work that I still had to get done, it was still nice and relaxing. Schools back in the UP are not starting school until tomorrow, while we have been in school for three weeks now. On the plus side, we get out much sooner than they do.
I'll give you a glimpse into a typical day of mine. Yesterday I woke up at about 10 AM. I read my book for about half an hour or so. Then I got up and made myself a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs. I bought some cheddar cheese from the store a few days back, so I added some of that along with some tomatoes that my principal gave me. She ordered a bunch of fruits and vegetables for our culture/career/health week the first week of school, but they didn't get here until two weeks after the fact, so she gave some extra stuff to us teachers. They are a nice addition to our diets.
By this time it was about noon. So then I surfed the Internet for a while, and played my guitar. Next I read my book some more and took a nap. Now it was getting close to 5 o'clock. I was kind of bored, so I decided to go for a walk around the five mile loop. I was going to try to walk the loop in under an hour, no running allowed. Seeing if you can walk a five mile loop in an hour proves that you are bored out of your skull, but its a lot healthier what we did when we were bored back in civilization. Seeing if you can eat $25 worth of Taco Bell or going for a five mile walk? Which is healthier? So not having the food options in town is helping my weight and overall health.
It ended up taking over two hours, but that was because I took many side forays into the bush, on side trails I'd never been on before. Overall it was fun and a great workout, as evidenced by my drenched shirt when I got home.
After I got home I talked to Wendy for an hour or so, then I went over to the school for a shower. I also filled up my 5 gallon water jug while I was over there.
By the time I got back, I was pretty tired, so I just read my book and went to bed. That concludes the typical weekend day in my life up here in Ruby.

Culture/Health/Careers week

2009-08-23T20:34:00.000-07:00

Me posing by my bathroom amenities.

My plumbing.

Scenery from our hunting trip out the road. True wilderness. (The UP on steroids)

Our campsite. One new experience I had was setting up the big canvas tent using spruce poles and rope. Not as hard as I thought it would be.

A beaver pond near our campsite. We're up on a bluff. Nice view. The beaver house is on the right hand side of the picture.

Sitting around the fire visiting (BSing). That part of camping never gets old for me.

Old mining crane near our campsite. One of my students decided to climb up on it. I ordered him down right away.

My new living quarters. Its a log cabin near the school. Good enough for me. I ain't too fussy.

My Rubbermaid totes full of groceries. Approximately $600 worth.

Self portrait after coming home from camping. Notice the sunburned face and parched lips. It is very dry in the Alaskan Interior. Also a thank you goes out to Ryan "Buh" Poyhonen for the flashlight that clips onto my hat brim. It is a sweet tool for camping.

A little smoke from the wildfires around Fairbanks when we had inservice there at the beginning of August. The clown holding the plastic bag is Nick "The South Dakota Kid" Graves.

Good evening everybody. I apologize again for not posting in a long time, but I was having some technical difficulties with my computer. But its all good now, so it should be smooth sailing from here on out.

Last week was our culture/health/careers week at the Merriline A. Kangas School here in Ruby. We had a variety of guest speakers come in from Fairbanks to talk to the students. The highlight of the week was our moose hunting/camping trip from Wednesday night to Friday afternoon.

Two ladies from our district office and I chaperoned the high school kids on the camping trip. We went out the road to 28 mile. (28 miles from Ruby) We were in the ghost town of Long Creek, which used to have a substantial population back in the mining days.

Moose hunting was a lot of fun, except we (the boys) didn't see any moose. The two boys and me were moose hunting while all the girls went berry picking. We didn't see anything, but the berry pickers were treated to the sight of a cow. (female moose) I was pretty envious of them.

Another interesting/scary thing that happened on the trip was when I was moose hunting by myself. I was walking along an old, overgrown mining trail when all of a sudden I heard some movement in the bushes to my right. My heart leapt into my throat and my adrenaline starting pumping.
I should probably tell you why. Man is not the top of the food chain in this country. That honor belongs to Ursus arctos horriblis, or the grizzly bear. In Alaska's Interior, they don't grow as big as the coastal ones that live near abundant salmon streams, but still get upwards of 1,000 pounds. This is the same neck of the woods where a local kid was treed by a huge grizzly a couple years back. All he had with him was a .22 rifle. The bear tried to climb the tree but was too heavy. He did manage to grab the kids shoe though. Then he tried to shake him out of the tree. The kid shot him with the .22, but all that did was make him shake the tree harder. Eventually the bear wandered off and the kid spent a cold, lonely night in the tree.
So there I was, walking around on the big bruin's turf. I did have my 30-.06 rifle, along with my .44 Magnum revolver, so I felt some semblance of safety. Even so, who knows how my aim would be with an animal 3-4 times my size built for tearing things to pieces bearing down on me?
It turned out to be nothing. Maybe it was a squirrel or a hare(no rabbits in Alaska), or maybe it was a bear who didn't have any interest in me. Either way, I'm still kicking around Ruby, so Mom, you don't have to worry.
This story reminds of another I heard. When the 44 Magnum was first manufactured, people thought it would be an excellent bear gun. Well, some people did. One Alaskan old timer who had many encounters with bears had a different take on things. A cheechako (greenhorn) was bragging up his new gun, and the old timer was quoted as saying, "You better get a file for that 44 Magnum you've got, and file off the sights."
The greenhorn replied, "Why?"
"So it doesn't hurt as much when those grizzlies take it and shove it up your @%%!"
I got quite a chuckle from that story.

Back in Ruby

2009-08-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

Good evening everybody. I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable summer vacation. I surely did. I am now back in Ruby and school will be starting tomorrow.

I am currently living in a little log cabin near the school. It has no plumbing, but it does have a heater and electricity, so its good enough for the woman I date. I also didn't mention my awesome outhouse, which completes my log cabin's luxurious amenities.

I will post some pictures tomorrow on here, so stay tuned folks, its gonna be another fun year up here in Ruby.

Summer Vacation

2009-06-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. Sorry about not posting in a long time. I'm home in Calumet for the summer, and will be taking a break from writing this blog for the summer. Stay tuned in August for the next edition of, "Out in Ruby, Alaska." Have a safe and happy summer vacation.

The sweet taste of victory

2009-05-09T00:45:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone. Sorry again for not posting on my blog in such a long time. With all the new sunlight up here, its hard to stay inside and post on the old blog on a regular basis. I can't believe its May already. This year has sure flown by. We only have two weeks of school left! Woo Hoooo! I can't believe I'm already one year into my "adult" life.
But I don' t plan on growing up very soon. I will always try to remain young at heart. It makes life a lot more fun and bearable if you can laugh at life and laugh at yourself. Too often people grow up too soon and don't know how to have fun anymore. They are too scared or embarrassed to put themselves in positions where they might look stupid. Some of my students are even like that. So I harp on them all the time about not being afraid to ask questions when they don't know something. Chances are, other people will have similar questions. Just like the Wayne Gretzky saying, "You won't know 100% of the questions you don't ask."

Meanwhile, we do have some huge ice chunks here on the Yukon. My students told me the ice was moving on Wednesday night, so yesterday after school I took walk down to the bank to check it out. When I got down there, I found nothing but massive sheets of ice sitting motionless. It was not moving at all.
But on the plus side, I talked to a local guy here and he volunteered to take me out fishing next fall. Up the Melozi river (a tributary of the Yukon that is right across from town) is where we plan to go. I can't wait.
Then, much to my dismay, I woke up this morning for school and looked out over the vast expanse of the Yukon river and saw water! Open water! I couldn't believe it. While I was snug as a bug in a rug sleeping away, the ice up and left Ruby. I was mad I didn't get to take some pictures. But I am told by people who know better than me that the ice will return. Upriver from us is not broken up yet, so when it does, we will get all their ice flowing downriver to here and eventually out into the Bering Sea. I will get some pictures of it, and eventually post them on here.

In other news, my school district and the computer shop in town are fighting over whether my computer is still under warranty. No telling how long the battle will last. Therefore, I can't post pictures on here until I get a new/repaired computer. I am supposed to be getting one mailed to me next week, but we'll see. Nothing is ever for sure up here in the bush.

Take care everyone! I'll be home in two weeks. Oh, and I almost forgot. My brother Paul got engaged to his longtime girlfriend Jill. Congratulations are in order them. So make sure to give them a hard time the next time you see them. The wedding is in June, and I heard they are going to have some good grub, so be there or be square.

Another Victory Friday

2009-04-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

Good evening, all you loyal blog readers out there. My most sincere apologies for not writing for two weeks. I have no excuses, I just found other things to do.

Well, not too much has been going on here for the past two weeks. Except the start of spring! The sun rises before 6:30 AM (when I get up) and doesn't set until well past 11:00 PM. So it's working wonders on melting snow, but also working wonders on our students work ethics. They are out later now, and not getting enough sleep. But I know how they feel. I'm not getting enough sleep. It's hard to get to bed when the daylight is shining through your windows like its noon. I would venture to say that we are hanging on by the skin of our teeth for the rest of the year. The kids are looking forward to summer vacation, and I am too. Victory May is almost here!

Congratulations to my sister Kathleen, who got the trivia question right from my last post. My old teacher and coach Mr. Croze used to call his tests and quizzes "celebrations of knowledge." Funny how it is that things you used to make fun of or not like end up influencing you in positive ways.

Today we had some all school activities in the afternoon. We gave the gym a good scrubbing down to get it ready for graduation ceremonies here in about three weeks. Then we did some games. It was awesome.
First of all, we divided the whole school into four groups (7-8 on each team), making sure the high school kids were evenly dispersed throughout.
Then we put them on the baseline for some relay races. First they dribbled the length of the court and back, relay race style. The kids weren't too fired up at first. But about five seconds in, they realized how fun it was and started to really enjoy it.
Next came my favorite event, the bat relay race. It is the brainchild of Michigan Tech football, specifically the Husky Challenge, which is a speed, agility, and quickness competition that they do every spring after winter workouts. Here is how it works: The students had to run to half court, where a wiffle ball bat was waiting for them on the floor. Then they had to bend over and put their foreheads on the top of the bat, with the bottom of the bat on the floor. Then they had to spin around the bat five times. Next they had to dizzingly (made up word)run to their next teammate in line and slap hands relay race style.
Before we started the race, I demonstrated the proper technique of bat swimming (and made a total fool of myself) for the kids. They were laughing pretty hard. But sometimes you have to make yourself look stupid to reach your students. And all the students and staff had fun with the bat relay, so it was all worth it.
We ended the physical activities with a four way tug of war. It was sheer pandemonium in the gym as the four teams battled it out for supremacy of the Merreline A. Kangas School. To the victors go the spoils, and the winning team will be gloating for the next week, until we do it again.
That is one of the great things about a small school. We had the entire school from elementary through high school playing together and having fun. In bigger schools, its just not feasible to do things like we did today.

And until I write again, take care and stay safe!

Victory Friday

2009-04-10T22:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I hope everyone is having an excellent Good Friday. I sure am missing spending the Easter weekend with my family, friends, and Wendy. One of my favorite Easter Sunday traditions was eating my mom's succulent ham and scrumptious cheesy potatoes, and then having some apple crisp or home made pie with vanilla ice cream for desert. I would also manage to stuff my face with a Dove ice cream bar, courtesy of my grandpa. He always loved to give all us grandkids candy and other snacks. The most famous was Bazooka bubble gum. I still love that stuff. Thanks Grandpa!

So I'm in the midst of celebrating Victory Friday. "What is Victory Friday?", you might ask. Well, the concept was first introduced to me by my friend. Victory Friday is obviously celebrated on Friday as a victory over the work week. It also serves as a jumping off point to a relaxing weekend. The Victory mentality continues on through the weekend. For example, you get up on Saturday morning and take a Victory Shower. After that, you enjoy a hefty stack of Victory Pancakes. And so on. And so every weekend we celebrate a glorious victory over the work week. I give my friend full credit for coming up with this interesting idea. I will definitely keep this in my back pocket and continue to celebrate the great Victory for the rest of my working life.

We finished up our state testing on Thursday, and the students did an excellent job. When I gave the tests to my students, I thought back to my old stomping grounds at Cal High School. We have a trivia question here. (The winner will get a complementary shout out on my next post) One famous teacher would always call their tests and quizzes "A celebration of knowledge." So I've started to call my quizzes and tests the same thing. And my kids laugh at me for it, but I don't care. Just another thing I will take with me for the rest of my teaching career.

So in celebration of our successful testing, we had a treat today. Ice cream. That's all I need to say. It is one of those treats that we don't get out here very often. So every time I go to town, I make sure to get some (OK, a lot) of ice cream.

We had chocolate, vanilla, and Neapolitan ice cream. I got to serve the toppings. Students could pick between strawberry, chocolate, and caramel syrup, or all three of them. Then they got to choose any combination of whipped cream, nuts, and cherries. It was a fabulous ice cream buffet. In fact, I helped myself to two bowls with all the toppings, with no shame at all. When you get treats out here, you gotta belly up to the bar (another CLK saying, courtesy of Mrs. Corcoran in 7th grade) and not be ashamed or embarrassed. Of course I waited until all the kids had their fill of ice cream before I honed in on the delicious treat. We even have some left over that we are going to incorporate into a bake sale we are having in two weeks. We are raising money for some new playground equipment.

Happy Easter to everyone. My Mac computer is now fixed and is going to be shipped back out to me, so I'll be able to post some pictures on here once I get it back. I have a lot of good ones from the previous few weeks. Until then, take care.

Awards day

2009-04-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

...........The crowd sat aghast. Their jaws were almost hitting the bleachers. I, the high school teacher, had just told them that their kids, my students, did not deserve any awards. It looked like I might be leaving Ruby in a body bag. My colleague Max told me after the fact that he should have held up a sign that read, "Pete, where are you going to work next year?" because I was going to be fired for sure.

We have an awards night at the end of every quarter, and since the third quarter just ended, we had an awards night. Actually, it was an awards day, since we held it at high noon today.

OK, back to the story. I proceeded to tell the crowd that the high schoolers were getting on my nerves and causing me undo stress. I sensed a growing rage in the mob. I was in for it at any minute. I was going to be trampled underneath an angry mob of parents.

"OK," I thought, "the gig is up. Time to high tail it out there. I better leave while my head is still attached to my shoulders." So I threw up my hands in defeat. I was beaten.

"April Fools!" I yelled. The crowd in the bleachers breathed a heavy sigh of relief, followed by some hearty laughing. I had gotten them big time. It was a little payback to my students, who had gotten me on a few April Fool's jokes over the course of today. They all had a good laugh, and so did I.

So Happy April Fool's Day to everyone, and I hope everyone got to play at least one joke on some one else. We all need a good laugh every now and again. Especially up here in Alaska, where it is still below zero on mornings in April, we enjoy humorous situations whenever they happen.

No, I haven't used the old "Oh, I can't stand up" routine to get the attention of my class. Ha hahahahhaha! What I'm referring to is a little Moyryla/Frantti inside joke involving my brother Dave.

Have a good day everyone! Spring is right around the corner!

Just another weekend

2009-03-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

Good evening everybody. Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been busy with school. We have one more week of school, and then the big state tests. And summer vacation is right around the corner. This year has just flown by. Before you know it, I'll be back in the U.P. in less than two months. And then back to Ruby next year. For those who haven't heard, I did sign up for another year up here.

Now to the present. After gym night on Friday, we had a "lock-in" at the school for the middle and high school students. I got the enviable job of chaperoning this event. The kids played around in the gym, watched some movies, and just hung out. I bought a 24 pack of pop for the kids, and that helped them get wound up and bounce off the walls for the entire night. Maybe I'm just getting old or something, but I can't pull off all nighters like I used to. I was gassed and ready to sleep at about 1 AM. I managed to stay awake until about 5 and then fell asleep on the floor of my classroom. I woke up at 8 AM and got everyone else up and shipped them home. Everyone had a lot of fun and they said they want to do it again sometime.

That screwed up my sleeping schedule for the weekend. I got home from the lock-in about 8:30 AM on Saturday, and then proceeded to sleep until 3 PM. Surprisingly, I got to sleep at around midnight on Saturday.

I planned on getting up early Sunday and going to shoot my gun. After my last piss poor showing at the shooting gallery, I figured I needed some quality time with my .44 Magnum at the range. So I eventually got out from my pad at about 11 AM and proceeded to trudge through 4 inches of fresh powder to our town dump, which is 3 miles away. It was a nice little workout. I power walked the whole way, and probably burned off the whole bag of Doritos (left over from the lock-in) I ate for a snack on Saturday night.

On my way to the dump I saw a whole covey of ptarmigan, sitting in the snow about 10 feet off the road. They are completely white with black beaks and eyes, which makes them extremely difficult to see. The only reason I saw them is because one of them was walking around and the movement caught my eye. If it wasn't so close to town I would have taken a shot at them with my .44, but I decided not to. I probably wouldn't have been able to hit them anyways. I just took a few pictures and let them be. Let 'em go, let 'em grow, I'll get them next year when I bring my shotgun up here.

Anyways, once I got to the dump, I had to chase about 20 ravens away from the garbage pile They were enjoying a nice snack of table scraps and other assorted human waste. I set up a few old soup cans and a coffee can for targets.

But then I realized I had forgotten my earplugs. So I did what anyone living in the Alaska bush would do. I came up with a bush league solution. I have a balaclava (combination neck warmer and skullcap) that I wear under my chook(touque? Yooper for winter hat) that is skin tight, so I stuffed my gloves into it to cover my ears. They worked just fine.

My shooting, on the other hand, was not just fine. I shot like a blind old man. I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. But my excuse goes like this. Shooting pistols accurately is tough, especially when you don't do it on regular basis. But I better improve, because one thing you don't want to happen is to miss, especially when a huge, ornery grizzly bear is breathing down your neck.

I am always amazed at how smart ravens are. Before I got to the dump, I saw two of them sitting in a tree watching me. I put my hand down by my holster and pulled my hand up and made it into the shape of a pistol. I brought my hand up and before I could even level my "gun" at the birds, they took off from the tree.

One thing I've noticed about living in Alaska, especially with no family, is that you have to take pleasures in the simple things in life. Things like going for a walk, reading a book, or trying to make a new meal that you've never made before are all things that help you get through the long Alaskan winter without getting depressed. Life out here definitely moves at a slower pace even slower than the good old U.P., and if you can't adjust, you won't last. I heard a story about how they went through about 5 SPED teachers in one year here. I guess not everyone can hack it out here.

My Second Career

2009-03-22T20:53:00.000-07:00

Good evening everybody. I hope everyone had a fun week. I know I did. I flew home this past week for spring break, and I had a blast. I got to see my family, friends, and my girlfriend. One of the highlights of the week was when Wendy and I went eat at Jim's Pizza for our birthdays. She got one of their famous bacon cheeseburgers with fries, while I got a Super Jim's Supreme with extra sauce, with an ice cold glass of fresh milk. One thing I've noticed is that I can't eat as much as I used to, back when I used to exercise (forced) in excess. Nowadays I don't burn as many calories, and consequently, can't put away as much food. By the way, we both have the same birthday, March 19th. Quite a coincidence, eh?!

The flights were long, but uneventful. I usually manage to finagle an exit row seat, which provides some much needed extra legroom for me. So overall they weren't too bad.

On my way home, I flew from Houghton County Memorial Airport to Minneapolis, and there was a friend of the family on the flight. I'm good friends with her brother, so she told him I was on the flight. So then when we got to Minneapolis, my boy John picked me up in his new ride (a sweet Explorer) and we went eat at Subway. It was a nice break from the airport. Anyone who travels a lot can attest to being bored/sick of being cooped up in airports. It gets old after a while, and leaving was just what the doctor ordered for me. A foot long toasted double meat steak and cheese sub helped out as well.

I didn't run into any problems until I got on the bush plane back to Ruby today. We had a full plane, so each passenger was only allowed 15 pounds of luggage. Well, my suitcase from spring break weighed about 55 pounds, so I took my backpack out. It contained such necessities as my computer and my two bags of fresh bananas that I bought from Fred Meyer. (not Wal-mart!)

Then we ran into some turbulence right as we were about to land here in Ruby. It was the worst turbulence I've ever experienced. If you think hitting turbulence in a jet is bad, try it out in a 7 seater bush plane. The wind tossed us around like a little rag doll. I almost lost my lunch. My head actually hit the ceiling a few times. I should have had my seat belt on tighter. It reminded me about sitting in the back of the school bus on purpose for the sole purpose of trying to hit our heads on the ceiling as the bus hit bumps in the road. Back when the older kids got to be "bus patrol" and keep the younger kids in line. It was a coveted position in the CLK bus hierarchy.

But it turns out that was the least of my problems. As we were taking off from Fairbanks, I realized I had left my keys to my apartment in my luggage that got bumped. Obviously I wouldn't be able to stop the plane, so I just hoped my landlord would have extra keys. Otherwise I would have another crack at a second career in burglary.

Well, they didn't. We tried about a million different keys, and none of them worked. So I got to work on my burglary skills again. We used what they call the"Alaskan's key", bolt cutters, to get through the padlock at the bottom of my entryway. Then I used my jimmying abilities on the upper door, and defeated it in about 30 seconds. Not to brag, but it was a major upgrade from my last time breaking in, where it took me a good 15 minutes. My Calumet Public Library card also made it through the ordeal unscathed, compared to my old Michigan Tech ID, which was utterly destroyed (see pics in previous post) in my last B & E adventure.

Well, only two weeks to go until the state testing. We are going to bust our butts getting ready for it. And after that its all downhill. School gets out in mid to late May, and then summer (every day a Saturday) vacation starts. I'm already looking forward to it.

Until then, have a good night!
P.S. I will post some pictures from spring break once I get my camera from my bumped luggage.

March Madness

2009-03-08T21:16:00.000-07:00

Hello, all you faithful readers of this blog. We just got back to Ruby from town. We had the basketball regionals there this past weekend. Except for the late nights and little sleep, it was great fun for all.
We started off the tournament on Thursday afternoon with a win over Nulato. Then we had to play Minto on Thursday night. They came in to the tournament as the favorites, having the top seed in our region. They kicked us to the curb like we were little kids.
The only problem was, my students and I were stuck in Ruby all of Thursday and most of Friday due to adverse weather conditions. So they had to play the first two games with only five players. We finally go there around 5 o'clock, but our game wasn't until 9 pm, so we had time to spare.
Our game Friday night was against Tanana. They had beaten us the previous weekend when we played them up at their tournament. But we came into this game fired up and raring to go. We wanted payback. Then the players went out there and pulled off the biggest upset of the season. It was one of the most exhilarating athletic experiences I've ever been a part of. The crowd was going nuts after the game, and so were Nick and I. Our players had grins from ear to ear. All in all, it was truly a remarkable win for the YKSD Warriors. Nick and myself were just glad to be along for the ride.
We then had to play Fort Yukon on Saturday morning. We were completely drained from our win on Friday night, and the kids showed it. Fort Yukon showed us the door, pounding us by about 50 points.
Then they went on to the championship game against Minto. Minto had beaten them earlier in the tournament (it was double elimination), so it was a rematch. I had the privilege of doing the score book and running the clock for the game, along with a teacher from Huslia and her husband. I was kind of nervous at first, but as I got into it more, I loved it.
The gym was packed. Truly standing room only. The crowd was going crazy the whole game. I was talking to a guy sitting near me in the stands. He told me that "In the villages, most schools don't have cross country running, skiing, football, or baseball. The only thing we have is basketball, and we love it." Man, do they ever. The crowd was as enthusiastic as any sports crowd I've ever seen. The gym was so loud that the refs had to yell at us who were at the scorer's table so we could hear.
Minto ended up winning the championship in another good old fashioned barn burner. Their fans rushed the floor after the game too. They celebrated with the players for a while, and then they all broke into some Native singing and dancing. It was spectacular sight.
Overall it was a very fun weekend. We got to eat some good food, take part in an awesome basketball tournament, and enjoy our weekend in town.
On a final note, the Iditarod starts today, and those of us in Alaska are looking forward to it. The 1,049 mile race from Anchorage to Nome is widely considered to be the toughest dog sled race in the world. It traverses some of the most rugged terrain in all of North America. The finishers should reach Nome in about 15 days or so.
Spring Break is right around the corner. I sure am looking forward to seeing my family and friends. Until then, take care.

Sunny WInter days in Ruby

2009-03-01T18:09:00.000-08:00

The Serum Run sled dog race came through Ruby on Saturday night/Sunday morning. They retrace the route of the 1925 diphtheria serum run from Nenana to Nome, a total distance of 674 miles. This is the precursor to the Iditarod, which starts on March 7th of this year.

This was a musher and his team who were from Washington state. His dogs were a breed called Samoyed. They reminded me of arctic foxes, only a little bit bigger. They were parked right in my yard.

This was another team of Siberian Huskies. Nice looking dogs.
All the dogs were also very loud, especially right before they took off. I got to hold the lead dogs in place while the mushers hooked up the other dogs. Even though they aren't very big, they are extremely powerful. It was awesome holding them back until the musher was ready to go, and then letting them take off. They exploded like football linemen out of their three-point stances. They had to hook up a snowmobile to the back of the sleds for extra weight on their run through town, because otherwise the dogs would run wild and probably hurt themselves/their mushers/innocent bystanders. Once the teams reached the Yukon, they unhooked the snowmobile and away they ran. Their next stop on the Serum Run is Galena, which is about 50 miles downriver from us here in Ruby.
I had some sweet videos of the dogs, but I'm having technical difficulties adding them to my blog. But I still have them on my computer, so I can show them off when I'm home for spring break. (Only 2 weeks!!)

My new gun I bought in Fairbanks. It's a Taurus .44 Magnum.

Me showing off my new gun. The thing is a serious bear stopper. It kicks like a mule and sounds like a cannon.

My moose roast, made with Safeway brand onion soup mix and Montreal steak spices.

It was a nice sized piece of meat.

Tender, moist moose roast. It melted in my mouth. It was delicious, even rivaling my own mom's roasts. I cooked it for a total of about 3 1/2 - 4 hours.

I also want to give a props to my friend Nick, who had to chaperone/babysit our basketball team all by himself this weekend, as I had to stay here in Ruby for computer training. Overall, our team did fairly well, and everyone had fun. Nick must have been so tired from chaperoning all weekend that he used incorrect grammar in his comment to my last post. Ha ha ha!

Boring post

2009-02-25T20:26:00.000-08:00

Showing off my brand new can opener that I bought from Fred Meyer. The one that I purchased from Wal-Mart (remember the store with the outstanding customer service and quality merchandise) at the beginning of the year quit working almost as soon as I started using it. Goes back to the old saying, "You get what you pay for."

The only adventure I have going on is that I locked my keys in my house today. So I was forced to use my burglar skills and break into my own pad.

My beat up old Tech Express card. Jack and I got our pictures at the same time. I made him laugh during the picture and he was quite upset with me. I thought it was pretty funny.

One of my students gave me some moose meat. I'm looking forward to cooking it up.

Well good evening everybody. I can't believe its already the 25th of February. Only three more weeks until Spring Break, and after that, only two weeks until our state testing. After that, only about 5 more weeks until the end of the year. It has just flown by, especially this second semester.
I don't have much going on, except that we have a basketball tournament going on this weekend in Tanana, which is about 100 miles upriver from here. The only problem is, I have to stay home for some computer training. I'm pretty disappointed. (Sorry Nick)
So Nick is left will all the coaching/chaperoning responsibilities for the weekend. I don't envy his position. Its tiring enough when there is two of us. He's in for a weekend of little to no sleep. I wish I could go.
Sorry I don't have any sweet stories in this post. We're just plugging along out here in Ruby, waiting for spring to come. On a positive note, we are gaining sunlight like its going out of style. Spring is just around the corner!
I'd also like to put a plug in for my boys Marc and Mike up in Eagle River, running the Fitzgeralds Restaurant. If you're ever in the neighborhood, stop by. They have excellent food.
I distinctly remember hammering that pizza down in Ontonagon, Marc. I also remember stories about a leprechaun on the bus ride home. Ha ha! The good old high school days.

Busy time of the year

2009-02-18T18:54:00.000-08:00

Derek and I got to go to a University of Alaska Fairbanks basketball game while we were in town. Their mascot is Nook, short for Nanook, which is an Eskimo word for a polar bear. The Nanooks pulled out a 1 point victory on a last second buzzer beating three pointer. The crowd went nuts. It was an awesome game.

Well, a good evening to everyone out there on the World Wide Web. Its getting to be that busy time of year here in the world of education, as we have the state tests coming up in April. We are busy preparing our students to do well on the tests. I'm hoping the students do well, because they have been doing pretty good overall in class.
It's kind of ironic to me, but all of my professors in college were harping about not "teaching to the test," and that's all I've done since being up here. In my opinion, the state test is not a good measure of how well some one teaches. But there is no other way to do it I guess, so those of us down in the trenches just have to suck it up and deal with it. We can't get all pouty and start feeling sorry for ourselves.
As for why I haven't posted in a while, we had Social Studies curriculum meetings in town last Monday and Tuesday, and than had a district wide inservice on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. It was a busy week, but I learned a lot of things that I can implement in my classroom.
In fact, I've already done of couple of the techniques that we have learned. Some of the names include "Banned Word Lists" of words that are too boring or plain to use in writing. We outlined boring words like "happy, sad, mad, good, great" and other words in big bubble letters.
Then we came up with synonyms for those words off the top of our heads.
Next we looked in the thesaurus and dictionary for even more synonyms that we missed.
After that we wrote the more exciting synonyms inside our big bubble letters of the original boring words.
Finally we hung them on the wall.
Now if I could just get the kids to start using those more exciting words in their writing, I'd be all set.
We got a lot of shopping done while we were in town too, so it was a pretty busy and productive trip to town. Some of the cashiers at Wal-Mart and Fred Meyers started to look at us a little funny after we came in there 2-3 times a day for the entire week we were in town. That reminds me of a funny story.
My boy Derek used to work at Kroger (none in the U.P. that I know of) while he was in college at "THE" Ohio State University. So he's got a pretty good handle on how giant shopping stores should be run. This story involves crappy customer service, so stay tuned........
We were in Wal Mart at around 10 or 11 PM. They had 1 cashier at the speedy checkout (20 items or less) and one lady running the self checkout. And Wal Mart and Fairbanks is like Wal Mart in Houghton, still pretty busy at that time of the night, especially with local kids looking for a warm place to hang out.
As we were about to go through the self checkout, they decided to close it. So we were sent over to the line at the speedy checkout, along with about 10 other people, a lot of whom had full carts. And the speedy checkout only has a small counter, not the big conveyor belts like a normal lane. So there were about 15 of us in line at the speedy checkout, waiting impatiently.
So Derek says, "See, Wal Mart doesn't care about customer service, all they care about is profits! Why, when I worked at Kroger in Ohio we had the 1-2-3 rule. If more than three people were in line, we opened a new register. We treated people right!"
And I couldn't have agreed with him more. Even a novice at retail sales like me knows that you have more than 1 register open, especially when it was still so early. I was steamed. Nick and Derek had to talk me out of going to an empty register and paging some more cashiers to the front.
So the next time you go into Wal Mart, make sure they treat you right. If they don't, take your business elsewhere. The next time I'm in Fairbanks I'll probably shop exclusively at Fred Meyer. (None of those in the U.P. either) Maybe I'm just a stubborn Finnlander, but I prefer to shop at places where they appreciate my business.

Road Trip and basketball

2009-02-09T00:26:00.000-08:00

Good evening everyone! I had quite the adventure in the past 5 days. We had a road trip for basketball, playing two games in Fairbanks and then two more 100 miles down the Richardson highway in Delta Junction.
We started off the road trip with a game against Effie Kokrine charter school on Wednesday night. It is a small charter school in Fairbanks with about 150 students 9-12. Their curriculum is geared towards Alaska Natives. So there were kids from the Yukon-Koyukuk villages who played on the team, many of them who were still friends with our players.
The game went well, going back and forth until the fourth quarter, when they pulled away for about a 10 point victory. But the game was really much closer than that. We just ran out of gas at the end. But our kids played hard as usual, they just came out on the losing end.
The next night we played the JV squad from Lathrop High School here in Fairbanks. They have about 1300 students in their school, so they had some real good talent. They came out in a press and jumped out to a quick 13-0 lead. They had a deep bench too, so they could substitute players in as they needed to. We don't have that luxury, having only 7 players.
Needless to say, they pounded us pretty good. I don't even remember the score of the game, but they beat us by 20 or 30. It's hard losing by that much, but we did pretty good when you consider we have a team from 3 villages with school populations of about 30 kids (Ruby), 40 kids (Alakaket), and 80 kids (Huslia), and we played against a class A school. One funny note from that game was that the refs for the game didn't show up so their Athletic Director put the whistle around his neck and reffed the game. He did a pretty good job of it too. He let the boys play, which is just the way I like it.
For our next two games, we traveled 98 miles South down the Richardson highway to Delta Junction to take on their JV team. We were treated to some breathtaking scenery of the Alaska Range on the ride down, and Nick was able to take some pictures with my camera. I will post them tomorrow.
The ride took us about two hours, and it was quite fun with the kids whooping it up in our rental van the whole way. I almost had to pull over a few times and dole out a few spankings to overly rambunctious kids. I know how my parents felt sometimes when we would go on trips as a family now. It gets exhausting.
Our game Friday night went pretty well. We matched up pretty well with their team, and the game went back and forth just like our game against Effie Kokrine. But again, we came out on the short end of the stick. They ended it up pulling it out by about 10 points. Their team also had fresh legs, courtesy of a bench that went 14 players deep.
Our game on Saturday night went better. We had a balanced scoring attack, good hustle from our players, and a bit of luck. We had a ten point lead in the fourth quarter, and nearly gave it away. They actually tied the game at 52 all with about 30 seconds left, but then one of our players drew a foul with about 4 seconds left and was able to hit 1 of 2 free throws for the 53-52 lead. They got a buzzer beater shot off, but their half court heave was off the mark, preserving our third victory of the season.
Our current record stands at 3-8 overall. But we are improving every game, playing hard, having fun, and learning some valuable life lessons in the process. (At least that's what Nick and I hope) That is what high school sports and extracurricular activities are all about.
In celebration of our victory, our kids decided to stay up until all hours of the night on Saturday night/Sunday morning. So we had to leave for Fairbanks at 6 AM Sunday morning with about 1 hour of sleep. We stopped at the gas station in Delta and loaded up on Mountain Dew and other caffeinated beverages, and drove the 2 hours back to Fairbanks, thankful for the quiet ride.
Nick was able to snap a few pictures of our team sleeping on each others shoulders during the ride. They are pretty funny pictures. I can't wait to see their faces when we show them those pictures. Our ride was pretty uneventful, and we saw the kids off on their respective airlines to their home villages.
Then we came back to our hotel for a much needed nap. Operating on an hour of sleep after averaging 3-4 hours the past few nights is not very fun. I slept for a good 6 hours, until the Twin Terrors of Turdism, Nick and Derek, woke me up. We went out to eat at Boston's. It was phenomenal. I got the Italian Trio, similar to the Tour of Italy at Olive Garden. I'm going to sleep tonight with a full belly. It's one of life's simple pleasures, in my humble opinion.
We are now in town for another week, two days of social studies curriculum meetings, and then three days of professional development for all the teachers in the district. It will be a nice break from the kids for a while. When you have to babysit them 24 hours a day for 5 days in a row, it gets very tiring.
Some highlights from the road trip include seeing a whole slew of moose, a whole bunch of buffalo, cattle, elk, and a wolf. The buffalo, elk, and cattle were on ranches/farms around Delta, while the moose were on the sides of the road. And I saw my first wolf too, in the ditch right by Eilson Air Force Base south of North Pole. I couldn't get over how big they are. They look like Husky dogs on steroids.
Other highlights include all the great food we were able to eat during the trip. Pizza, burgers, assorted pasta dishes, and Taco Bell were some of the more memorable meals.

P.S. I forgot to write this last week, but down in Nulato, I witnessed something for the first time. Some one had brought in a fresh pizza from Fairbanks to town, and they raffled it off at halftime of the basketball game. Guess how much it went for? $35! When you don't get luxuries like pizza all the time, people are willing to pay some serious money for them.
I will post some pictures tomorrow. Good night. I hope everyone had a good weekend. I sure did.

Grounded again!

2009-02-02T12:46:00.000-08:00

Well, its a Monday morning here in the Great Alaskan Interior, and I'm sitting in the high school gym in Nulato. Why, you might ask? Because we are grounded again. The flying company keeps their plane at the next village downriver, Kaltag, and then they make a morning run up the Yukon to Fairbanks. We were supposed to be on the 8:00 AM flight but the battery on the plane was dead down in Kaltag. And they have to fly a mechanic in from Fairbanks to change it, so here we sit.
By the way, the reason we are in Nulato is a basketball tournament. We had one last weekend in Huslia, and now here this weekend. Overall a very fun but exhausting weekend. We stay up all day watching and coaching games, and then have to patrol the hallways at night so there isn't any shenanigans going on between the boys and girls. Needless to saying, sleeping with one eye open doesn't lend itself to a good nights sleep, especially for 3 nights in a row.
We started off the weekend with a loss against Galena. They had beaten us pretty good up at Huslia, and did the same thing here in Nulato. We never really got into this game. It didn't help that 2 of our starters were out of town so we only had 5 players. But as usual, the kids played hard, and thats all you can ask from them.
The next game we played against the hometown Nulato Wolves. The gym was rocking. They sure love their basketball up here in bush Alaska. The only unfortunate thing was that we lost. It was a very close back and forth game, and my opinion is that the loud and boisterous crowd gave them the needed boost to beat us. Oh, and I almost forgot, the refs were from Nulato too. One of the ref's sons played on Nulato too. So needless to say, they got the right calls when they needed them. At one point the fouls were 8 to 1 in our favor. I know I'm biased and I know our kids play a rough and tumble style of ball, but 8 to 1 screamed of nepotism to me. Both myself and Nick almost got "T'ed" up. But it was a very exciting game overall.
Both of those games were played on Friday. On Saturday we had a rematch with Nulato. Same loud and crazy crowd, and the same refs. But this time it was a different story. We were leading by as much as 16 points, but then nearly gave the game away in the fourth quarter. They closed to within 1 point and even got off a half court buzzer beater, but it clanked harmlessly off the iron to give a much needed victory. It was a great feeling for both the players and coaches.

Check out my friend Derek's blog to view some pictures from the tournament: http://dafrench.blogspot.com/

Well, I hope everyone had a good weekend, because I sure did. I'm sure looking forward to coming home in March for Spring Break. Adios!

Finally back home!

2009-01-26T19:52:00.000-08:00

My bookmark. When I was in town for the Social Studies curriculum meetings, Derek and I went to the UAF game. It was a great game, mostly due to the fact that after the game was still tied after overtime, they went to a shootout. Tech and the WCHA should do the same thing, in my opinion. The atmosphere during the shootout was electric. No one was going to get a hot dog or popcorn during the shootout.

The current book I'm reading. Delta Force is America's top notch anti terrorist unit. This book is a great read so far, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in military history. I got some time this weekend to read during our downtime.

This one came from the Christmas break archives. Before I surrendered to my mom's constant barrage of criticism on how my hair looked "unprofessional" and "like a wild man" and got a buzz cut, I let Wendy give me a perm. As you can tell, my hair looks nice and curly. I look Italian, eh? Except for my peach fuzz and overall lack of body hair and ability to grow any facial hair.

The all tournament team. Our guys are in the white on the left.

The trophy presentation/ awards ceremony. Our team is sitting in the white uniforms.

The store we went to in Huslia.

Well good evening everyone. I am finally home after a weekend of basketball up in Huslia. It's another village in our district and one of the 3 which make up our team, the YKSD Warriors. It was an exhausting weekend, but very fun.
In our first game, we won by about 30 points against Nulato. Unfortunately, the Ruby players didn't get to participate due to high winds here in Ruby. (see previous post) Apparently we took Nulato to "the back 40 and gave them a good old fashioned butt whooping." I wish we could've been there for it.
Our next game was against the Alak Huskies, coming to Huslia all the way from Wainwright. It is the second most northerly town in Alaska, behind only Barrow. They were tough, fast, and well coached. We got into a track meet type game with them and ended up on the losing end of a 101-72 score.
One interesting side note about the kids from Alak is that they are fluent in their native tongue. They all speak excellent English, but it was very interesting to hear them speak their native language. Here in Ruby, the kids aren't fluent in their native tongue. You have to find some elders to hear some one speak the language fluently.
Then we took on the Galena Hawks. They are a boarding school in Galena, which is about 50 miles downriver from us. So they are similar to a private school in Michigan in that they can skim the talent from the surrounding communities.
We came out on the losing end again, but our guys fought hard. They had a kid who was about 6'2", and he was pretty dominant in the post and on the boards. It didn't help that our tallest player was about 5'10".
Our last game we played Fort Yukon, who came into the tournament as the favorites. They showed it against us, trouncing us by 30 or 40 points. I was so mad I can't remember the exact score.
But again our kids busted their butts. You can never fault effort. I blame the losses on the other teams having the advantage of practicing together. When you get kids from 3 villages together on one team it is pretty difficult to have them play together in any organized fashion.
Another thing I'm proud of is our team's physical play. We put the body on people game in and game out.
To illustrate this point, in one of our games we were in the double bonus with over 2 minutes remaining in the first quarter. To those of you not familiar with basketball jargon, it means we had 10 fouls on the opposition. Layman's definition: Bodies hitting the floor left and right.
They played just the way I used to play. Maybe my attitude is rubbing off on them? But we couldn't match up athletically with them, so we layed the body on them every chance we could. I'm sure after that game the opposing players thought twice about wild, head down, drives through the lane.
Well, I'm looking forward to another week of work, and I hope everyone else is too!

Grounded

2009-01-22T20:23:00.000-08:00

I thought my days of being grounded were over ever since I failed algebra in 8th grade. So here I go on my tangent. I was a jerk back in middle school. If any of my former teachers read this, you have my most sincere apologies. I hope I didn't give any of them grey hair.
Anyways, I thought I was real funny acting up in school. I was too cool for school. The term "study rat" was invented for the people who did good in school. It was jealousy on my part. I thought I could just coast through and get A's but it didn't happen. So I took out my rage on the study rats by calling them "study rats." A real childish move on my part.
So the next thing you know, I failed a marking period of algebra. Straight "E." Needless to say, my parents weren't very happy. They knew I was capable of better. So I was grounded until my next report card came out. And that happened to be 6 weeks later. So I did nothing for 6 full weeks. I sure learned my lesson after that. I grew to love school following that unfortunate event.

Oh yeah, being grounded. We were supposed to fly out to another village in our school district today. I was taking 2 of my students there for a basketball tournament. My friend Nick up in Alakaket is the head coach of our combined team, and I will be the assistant. (By the way, one of my students told me (in all seriousness) that the role of an assistant coach is to "hold back the head coach from going after the refs after he gets a technical foul." I got quite a chuckle from that quote.)
But the planes couldn't land due to high winds here in Ruby. So we sat at the school all day awaiting word on whether or not the plane would come. Finally at 3 they determined they would not be able to land at all. So we missed our first game which is going on as I write this. I hope we win! There goes another travel plan interrupted by Interior Alaska weather. At least I have some good stories to tell to the folks back home.

I just received a breaking news alert!! I was talking to the head coach of our basketball team, Nick, on Skype. He told me we mopped the floor with the opposing team, 69-37! Talk about brightening up some ones day. When I heard this, I could have jumped through my ceiling I was so jacked.
My kids are gonna be fired up when I tell them tomorrow too! They were getting down on themselves before the games even started. So I had to encourage them to keep up a positive attitude and look on the bright side of things. At least they get to play some basketball.
Sometimes I feel sorry for our students out here. We have pretty much zero for extra curricular activities. All they have is Tuesday and Friday open gym nights. Looking back on high school, if I would have been in that situation, I would have gone crazy. Between sports year round, quiz bowl, ROTC, and the annual French Club pig out down at the Loading Zone, my high school years flew by. That's one of the reasons I wanted my kids to play on the basketball team. It's only going to help them in the classroom.
I also bought my plane ticket for spring break. We have a week off in the middle of March so I'll actually get to be home for my birthday with my family and friends. For those of you who don't know, my sweet girlfriend Wendy and I share the same birthday. March 19, 1985. Quite a coincidence.
I hope everyone is doing good and surviving the winter just fine. I'm doing fine so don't worry about me. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can get a flight out of here tomorrow. Bye!

Alaskan weather and what have you......

2009-01-15T21:19:00.000-08:00

This is a dog that barks at me on a daily basis on my walks to and from school. He reminds me of "Buck", the main character from a certain novel about the frozen North. Who knows the name of the book? A clue on the author will conclude this post.

Good evening everyone. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy getting sub plans ready for when I go into town.

I was supposed to go in on Wednesday afternoon, but my flight was cancelled due to weather. The same thing happened today, so I'm hoping to get into town tomorrow.

I was supposed to do some construction math training, but that was cancelled too. I guess I wasn't the only teacher participating who couldn't get into town. Apparently the instructor of the class wasn't too happy about it, but what are you gonna do? Traveling by air in the Alaskan winter is always a crapshoot.

Oh yeah, the weather. One week ago, it got down to as low as 50 below zero. And all of a sudden, today it was 40 degrees above zero. Not that it happened overnight, but a 90 degree swing in the course of a week in the dead of winter is pretty amazing. Just think about the temperature difference between 10 above and 100 degrees, and that will give you some perspective on how warm it's gotten here.

Of course the warm weather contributes to my sweating profusely on my walk up the hill to school. It feels like a late March or early April day in the U.P. Oh yeah, as I write this, it is currently raining quite hard. I can hear the rain on my roof. (I have a metal roof, not your standard shingle covered roof. All the snow on my roof slid off in the warming temps too.)

Our sewage/water problems are still not fixed. We had to bring a power snake in for the plugged lines. Unfortunately, we haven't got any planes in the last few days, so we are still on the 4 hour school day and outhouse/snowbank for bathroom schedule.

Picture of the bright, sunny, and warm day we had today. That is the road that goes out 50 miles from town again. It boosted my morale a lot, and I'm sure a lot of people here in Ruby enjoyed getting outdoors and shaking off some of the old cabin fever that strikes many of us inhabitants of the Frozen North.

The frozen Yukon is the white, winding snake like thing in the background of the picture. I took all these on my walk home from school.

The Melozi Hills across the Yukon from us. Nice view.

Me jammin' out to the packed house at my pad. Actually, I just got bored and decided to take some pictures of me rocking out. If you look closely at my fingers, you can tell I'm not really playing.

Oops, I cut off my head in this take. Notice the satellite dish in the background. I finally got it. It only arrived 4 months after I ordered it. Not bad eh? I will install it probably the next free Saturday I have. I will be in town(hopefully) this Saturday, and we have a basketball tournament next weekend, so I might not get it up for a while.

"The Finnish Warrior" wows the packed house at the pad. I've been taking lessons online on Youtube, and they are really good. I'm getting better every day.
As you can tell, I get bored sometimes and have to entertain myself by taking pictures and coming up with a tall tale to go along with them. Please don't take them seriously.

My stickers pay homage to my Finnish heritage, the United States Marine Corps (Semper Fi is their motto, meaning "together forever" or "together always"), and my place of raising, the good old Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Truly is God's country. I picked up that sweet sticker from Freeman's Gun Shop in Hancock. The Finnish one is courtesy of my boy Garjonson down in Jaunkeegan, IL. The Semper Fi sticker came from the Marines booth at Bridgefest. They had a pull up bar, and you could test your physical fitness. I managed to pound out 2 of them. I know, its a pretty bush league performance, but I'm working on them.

On a side note, Nick and myself are going to have a push up contest when we go into town this weekend. I smoked him last time we were in town, 43 to 22. This time I'm shooting for 50, but we'll see. I hope he's been working as hard as I have been, because myself and my two basketball players have been busting our butts on the push ups and running. NICK, YOU BETTER BE READY!!

Sorry about the side tangent. It reminds me of getting my old American history teacher off on side tangents during class. Mr. Perrault loved trains, so we used to get him going about trains. Sometimes he would catch himself, but then sometimes he could go on for 20 minutes or more. My students do the same thing to me, only with talking about my girlfriend, football, and back home. I let them think they are tricking me into talking so they don't have to work. So then when I really want them to work, they are more likely to do it. I'm sure Mr. Perrault did the same thing with us in high school.

P.S. The clue about the dog question at the top is.......The author was Jack London. 5 extra credit points to the first person who gets the correct answer!!

Shorter school days

2009-01-08T21:31:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. I hope everyone is having a happy new year. I know I am. I wasn't delayed on any flights getting back to Alaska, and its Friday tomorrow, so I have many reasons to smile.

But I also have a few reasons to frown. Our school was besieged by a massive invasion of sewage, of the backed up variety. It came into our bathrooms on the first floor, and it smelled quite pungent. This forced us to use the outhouse. Not a pleasant experience when the mercury is dipping between 40 and 50 below.
Then this morning our water pipes burst, adding to our calamity. Lost was our ability to wash our hands. Without the basic hygiene amenities available, our principal was forced to shorten the school days to 4 hours. We also gave the kids the opportunity to pick up their homework to do at home, where they could use the facilities and wash their hands properly. A good portion of them took advantage it. I know I would if I were in their situation.
But one our head honcho maintenance guys from town saved the day by bringing in 4 big jugs of hand sanitizer. He was lucky to get a flight into Ruby due to the crappy weather. Him and our maintenance man out here in Ruby are working around the clock on our busted pipes and sewage problems. They hope to have it fixed by the time school starts next week. It just goes to show you that both equipment and people take a beating living in the extreme climate of Interior Alaska. At least I can brag to people and one-up my dad now by being in colder weather than he was. I was in 50 below zero. If I remember correctly, he was in -44 when he had his milk route in Minnesota.

Another reason to frown is that with all the problems with the school, Friday night gym night is cancelled for tomorrow. So I'll have to get a workout in some other way. But its supposed to warm up this weekend (to around 15 below) so everything will turn out just fine. Gotta keep the positive attitude going, right Mom?

I gotta run, its almost bedtime for this old fart. Take care.

Christmas break and what not

2009-01-05T21:29:00.000-08:00

Greetings from the frozen north! It was about 48 below zero when I landed Saturday night/Sunday morning in Fairbanks. On my flight from Seattle to Fairbanks I was treated to a spectacular display of the aurora borealis, aka the Northern Lights. They lit up the sky like antiaircraft fire. It was quite a sight.

Another thing I discovered on my flight up here was the joys of traveling first class. I booked my flight online back in September. I thought I booked all of my flights in coach or economy class. But on my way home I found out I was flying first class from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Seattle and from Seattle to Fairbanks. The seats are bigger, there is a heck of a lot more leg/foot room, and the stewardesses even seemed nicer. Oh yeah, how could I forget the food? They feed you a nice square meal too, complete with desert and all the fixings.

I almost got delayed flying out to Ruby today. They've only had about 2 planes land here in the past 4 days. It's been bitterly cold, and the planes can't fly if its colder than 40-45 below. The ice fog that was as thick as pea soup in Fairbanks wasn't helping matters either. My flight was scheduled to leave Fairbanks at 11:45 this morning. We were put on weather delay until it cleared up enough for us to leave. So I got to hang out at the airport until about 2:30-3:00. I am here safe and sound now though, so don't worry.

Here are some pictures from break:

Chuck and I coming home from ice fishing. Note the rosy red cheeks to go along with Chuck's rosy red hair.

Trophy pike I nailed. The baits of choice were dead smelt and wax worms on jigs.

Winter storm moving over us.

Can anyone name the location of our fishing? You guys get one clue. It's in Keweenaw county.

This little guy tried taking a bite out of Chuck's finger after he was unhooked. Apparently he liked the taste of Chuck's brand new Neoprene gloves.

Another Ruby Christmas

2008-12-19T00:32:00.000-08:00

Our final rehearsal today during the school day. Notice the great props, courtesy of the high school. The green wall is made up of folded up lunch tables and plywood, covered in green paper.

I took a run out to the dump today. Much to my surprise, the trash was on fire when I got there. So I just added mine to the fire. That's how we roll in Ruby.

Most of my students and me pose for a picture by the Christmas tree. I didn't manage to round everyone up for the picture. You know how some kids are at getting their pictures taken with their not so cool teacher.

We had our Christmas program tonight. Our whole school K-12 put on a skit, and then we sang some songs. The whole school, staff included, ended the night by singing "Up on the Housetop". It was a lot of fun. And we did a very good job. I was worried, because our rehearsals were nothing to write home about. Frankly, they looked like crap. But tonight they nailed it. Our kids performed like seasoned veterans in front of their parents and the community. It was a great way to end the first semester. I can't believe the school year is half over already. Time sure flies. I look forward to seeing everyone in about 48 hours and the Houghton County Memorial airport. Ruby to Fairbanks, Fairbanks to Anchorage, Anchorage to Minneapolis, and Minneapolis to Houghton County Memorial. That's how my journy is scheduled. Hopefully I don't run into any weather.
Merry Christmas!!

Morale

2008-12-17T17:07:00.000-08:00

Holding Christmas cards that I've received. Wendy, Jack and Kristen, and Paul and Christy's kids. Wow, I must be getting old. Some of my friends are sending out Christmas cards with pictures of their wedding. I'll still remain a kid at heart though.

Max and I were talking today about the military. He was in a forced march competition over in the Netherlands when he was in the army. They competed against units from all over the world. They had to walk 200 miles in 4 days, 50 miles a day. He said the only group that brought women to the competition were the Israelis. He said they were as tough as nails. They had incredible esprit de corp, or morale. Their motto is some Hebrew saying that means, "Never Again" or something like that. It of course refers to the Holocaust, where millions of Jews were decimated during World War II. I can see why they would want to have a tough military. Another Holocaust isn't going to happen on their watch.
Anyways, their women had crappy tennis shoes so their feet became bloodbaths after the first day. So the men ended up carrying the women the last 50 miles. Every single one of their competitors crossed the finish line.
Why did I tell you this story? Because it reinforces something I learned all the way back in 10th grade world geography class. Mr. Glinn told us that Israel had "a crack military, the toughest pound for pound in the world." I am currently teaching a world geography class, and its going good. I try to spice things up in the class with interesting stories like the ones Mr. Glinn used to tell us. Much more fun than a lot of book work or worksheets.
While we are on the subject of morale, mine is currently through the roof. I am coming home in two days, and we have two weeks off of school. Add that I currently have the Internet at home and you can see why I'm flying high. I'm hoping my positive outlook on life is rubbing off on some of my students. They tend to get negative on life, but I'm trying to reverse that trend.
I went to the store today and picked up a cheesecake mix and a regular cake mix. I'm going to bake them for my students for our Christmas party on Friday. Cross your fingers, they might actually turn out. With all my practice on macaroni, I might just pull it off.
Actually, this reminds me of a story. As most of you guys know, I used to live with a bunch of clowns in college. Sometimes Wendy would come over and we would bake cookies. Well, I took quite a verbal beating for that. Not a manly thing to do, you know. So I countered with a, "But I love baking cookies....." My response drew laughter from the peanut gallery. But as soon as my cookies came out of the oven (of course they were perfectly golden brown) they were the first ones to ask for a sample of the masterpieces. I must say the cookies never disappointed either, except when Wendy made them. (Just kidding Wendy) So in the bowels of our Park Avenue pad, I became a legitimate threat to my mom as the best cook in our family.
So I firmly believe these cakes will turn out for me.

Merry Christmas!

Internet at home, one week to go!

2008-12-12T17:57:00.000-08:00

Well good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the first official post of my blog from my home. I just got Internet here last night, and I'm am excited. I don't have to stay up at the school to surf the web. For instance, right now I am listening to my Michigan Tech Huskies play UMD in hockey courtesy of pasty.com. And I'm also chatting with my two friends who are teaching in other bush villages. We throw ideas around on the chat boards on how to improve our classrooms. It's pretty amazing how connected I am in little, tiny Ruby, Alaska. The benefits of modern technology.

I also am getting excited for coming home in a week. I have reservations on two airlines flying out of Ruby. The point of this is to have a "double dip" at getting out of here. If the morning flight is weathered out, then I'll hopefully be able to fly out in the afternoon. Then I stay in Fairbanks Friday night with Derek, who is flying home to Ohio. I fly from Fairbanks to Anchorage Saturday morning, then from Anchorage directly to the Twin Cities, and finally up the the CMX. (Houghton County Memorial Airport) I learned the abbreviation from looking up flights on different websites so much.

But I hope the weather just cooperates and I won't have to worry about the weather at all. I need a break from my students, and I think they need a break from me as well. It is gonna be a relaxing two weeks for me.

I have a list of things to do when I get home. Most of them involve food in some sort of way. (Can you tell I like food? Do you wonder why I'm 3 bills?) It reminds me of the good old days at Tech when we used to sit in the locker room and reminisce about all the good food we got to eat on all our road trips. We (mostly the linemen) would sit and just look back with wonder and amazement at all the delicacies we were afforded on our trips. My personal favorite was the Doherty motel in downstate Clare. They had an all you can eat buffet that was fit for a king. My personal favorite food there were the home made cream cheese and raspberry strudels for breakfast. It took a concerted effort on my part to walk away from the buffet table without having to crawl courtesy of a full belly.

Oh yeah, I forgot about my list. 1. Me and Wendy are going to Jim's Pizza for a nice pizza date. 2. Me and Josh are going to Taco Bell to eat them out of house and home. 3. I am going to raid my parent's pantry and freezer. (Mom, you are going to cook up lots of goodies for me, right? :) ) 4. Shoot a deer to eat some fresh venison.

I gotta run. We have a gymnastics presentation before open gym tonight. Then we have a cakewalk. And finally we have some open gym basketball. I'll probably post some pictures tomorrow.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

P.S. My phone number was changed. It's the same as before, but instead of 4510 at the end, it is now 4662.

Pictures from last weekend

2008-12-10T16:33:00.000-08:00

The sweat poured profusely from my body after the five mile hike around the "loop." My frosted hair looks pretty good, eh?

The wind sock up at the airport. I took a video of a plane taking off. I tried posting it earlier, but it didn't work due to technical difficulties. I will try to post it again.

Sunset at 3 pm over Ruby International.

The sun setting earlier in my walk. The camera was acting quite strange. There was way more light that what this picture shows. I tried tinkering with the settings on the camera, but nothing worked. After it was all said and done I felt like biffing my camera in the snowbank and leaving it. But I calmed down and continued on my walk, thankful to have my good health. There isn't any point in getting the old blood pressure up worrying about things I can't control like my camera. It is top of the line, by the way. Courtesy of Wendy for my birthday a few years back. Thank You!

Mountains (or hills, who knows in Alaska) off to the south of Ruby International.

My feast of Taco Bell brand tacos. It was a special meal for me up here in the bush. Again mega kudos to my big sister Melissa for sending me all the good care packages.

Double Decker Nacho Cheese tacos. Can't beat it here in the bush.

I always do my laundry on Saturdays at the washateria. I ended up talking with this guy who happened to be in there at the same time. He was going out onto the frozen Yukon to get some water. He prefers it to the water in town for making coffee and stuff like that. He asked me if I wanted to go with him. So I did. We chopped a hole in the ice with an axe and an ice pick. Yes, those are gas cans he's putting it in. But they are clean. Anyways, chalk up a good workout and another adventure for this Yooper from Calumet.

He has two snowmachines. He let me drive one. We towed the water in the big sled behind the Yamaha Bravo. They are called the workhorse of the Interior. They start right up at 60 below and are just an overall steady, reliable machine.

Basketball practice

2008-12-04T17:29:00.000-08:00

We just started basketball practices this week. I'm going to be the assistant coach with my friend Nicolas, who is a teacher up at Alakaket. They are another school in our district, way up the Koyukuk River on the Arctic Circle. Apparently it was around 50 below there on Tuesday night. Hasn't been that cold here yet. Only about 30 below.
The kids are getting in shape. I gotta practice and run with them as we only have two of them. As a result, I'm losing some weight and getting in shape myself. A little exercise never hurt anyone. We are combining with Alakaket, Huslia, and Kaltag for our team. It should be a fun year.

No, I didn't catch any fish when I went out ice fishing. They weren't biting. But as the saying goes, "The worst day fishing is much better than the best day at work." It was still pretty fun. And a good workout too.

Well, I gotta run. Have a nice day. Only about two weeks left until I get to come home and see everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving! Christmas here we come!

2008-12-01T17:27:00.000-08:00

I went for a walk around the "loop." From my house downtown, you walk up to the school, over to the airport, down the trail on side of the runway, and down the back road back into downtown. It's around 5 miles total. I walked it in my bunny boots. My feet were sweating less than halfway through the walk. This is our runway.

I asked around about ice fishing. Turns out the best ice fisherman(woman) in town is an old woman. She took me fishing out on the frozen Yukon. This is a picture of her and her chihuahua dog. She keeps him warm by keeping him in a the red bag. Not a cold weather dog, that's for sure.

Bowl of moose soup that she made for me. It was excellent.

My foot next to the bunny boots to give you an idea of how wide they are. My feet are known to be pretty wide, but they fit just fine in my bunny boots.

Another picture of my boots. I've also heard them called Mickey Mouse boots. They keep your feet warm though, that's all that matters to me.

Picture from my walk around the loop. It wasn't too cold, maybe about 5-10 below. Perfect for walking. Notice the frozen nostril hair and eyebrows.

What happens to bags of M&M's and Tupperware when you ship them with Bush's baked beans. Thanks Wendy! Some of them didn't make it.

Ruby trapper with his catch so far of marten. I think they are called the Alaskan trappers bread and butter. They might not always get a lot of wolves or wolverine, but always a lot of marten. He is my principal's husband.

Almost Thanksgiving!

2008-11-25T18:47:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are in Ruby, Alaska, on the 25th of November, 2008. I can't believe its almost December. Boy, the time sure flies when you are staying busy and having fun.

We only have a half day of school tomorrow, and then its Thanksgiving break. I can't wait. I need a little vacation. I'm going over to my friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner. I am bring a pumpkin pie, with the ingredients courtesy of my big sister Melissa. Thank You!

Hopefully the Lions can pull out their first victory of the season in their annual Thanksgiving Day game against the Titans. I doubt it, but we'll see. Anything is possible.

Also congratulations to the Calumet Copper Kings volleyball team as the ended up as the state runners up. I know its disappointing to make it that far and lose, but it was a great year. I actually got to watch the game online from our motel in Fairbanks. It was awesome until they experienced some technical difficulties in the third game. So I was forced to sweat it out and wait. I called my mom and received the bad news. Well, my sister Kathleen is a junior so hopefully they can return and win it all next year.

Speaking of Fairbanks, we had a good time. It was about -25 when I left Ruby, so when I hit the warm Fairbanks air of -8, it felt nice. I bought some bunny boots from this little shop on a corner in Fairbanks. They are the military cold weather boots. They look like big, white Mickey Mouse shoes. They are top of the line though. I shouldn't have to buy another pair of winter boots for the rest of my life. I will post some pictures of them later on. The guy who owns it buys all his gear from the soldiers over at Fort Wainwright, right here in Fairbanks. We actually got lost in town and ended up driving onto the base and getting stopped by some MP's. (I wasn't driving, Derek was) They questioned us and searched our rental car. We had nothing in it so they sent us on our way. In hindsight, it was pretty funny.

I gotta run. Men's night open gym is about to start. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Getting ready for Fairbanks!

2008-11-20T16:32:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm anxious to get to Fairbanks. The flight was scheduled for 4:15, but as usual up here in the Alaska bush, it is delayed. It is supposed to be here at 5, but we'll see.

I am also listening to the Deer Hunters Roundup courtesy of pasty.com. I miss deer hunting a lot. Listening to all the buck kills, along with Da Yoopers and other similar bands, sure makes me miss home. The last song I just listened to was titled, "There's a snapper in the crapper." That or "There's a turtle in my toilet." It was a pretty funny song. But its only gonna be a month until I come home for Christmas, so I'll be fine.

I'm also looking for the Calumet girls volleyball game on the Internet. I hope to find it. Good luck to them! Hopefully we see them playing on Saturday for the state title.

Gotta run and find the game on the web. Have a good night.

Monday in Ruby

2008-11-17T17:04:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!
Today was a pretty laid back day here in Ruby. In the morning, I had 3 out of 8 students present. One kid came in at lunch to make my attendance 50%. So we just spent the day catching up on work that they were missing. We also went into the gym and played for a half an hour.
We have been having a heat wave here for the past week and a half. It has been between 10 and 20 degrees. Although tomorrow and the rest of this week it it supposed to be going back to mid November Interior Alaska temperatures, between 10 and 20 below zero. I'm looking forward to it, less sweating on my walk up the hill to work.
We are getting a shipment of salmon eggs from the state department of Fish and Game. We are going to raise them in an aquarium in my classroom. The kids seem really fired up about the project. To tell you the truth, I'm fired up for it as well. It is something the kids can relate to and teaches them valuable lessons about conservation and resource management.
I can't wait to go to Fairbanks on Thursday after school. It's going to be a nice break from the kids and from Ruby too. I'm gonna get me some fresh milk and 2 large Dominoes pizzas, and have myself an Alaskan feast. I'm looking forward to it.
Here is a link from more pictures from the Santa Drop that came to Ruby. They were taken by the guy from the radio station I think.
http://spotted.kbrj.com/pages/gallery.php?gallery=3443&offset=0
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Good luck to the Calumet girls volleyball team as they travel downstate to Traverse City for the state quarterfinals. Make us proud!
Bye now.

A few questions and answers

2008-11-11T18:14:00.000-08:00

This is supposed to make my brother Dave envious. I received this medal from the CSM (Command Seargent Major, the highest rank an enlisted man can attain) of the Alaska Army National Guard, when I told him my brother is in the Guards. He was here with the Operation Santa drop. He and I ended up talking for a long time. When I talk to people like him and see all the good that the military does, my itch to join gets revived. So who knows, maybe next summer or fall you'll see me in uniform?
For those of you who didn't know, my younger brother Dave (Gut) is currently serving in the Army National Guard as a Heavy Equipment Operator based out of Iron River. On a side note, I can still pound him with one arm tied behind my back.

I had a question about the Iditarod coming through Ruby. It does come through here, but on alternating years. It came through here last year, so not this year. It goes to a different village further down the Yukon.
I heard it is a pretty fun time when the mushers come through here too. It's disappointing, but what are you gonna do? I tend to not worry about things I can't control.
The famed author Gary Paulsen has been through here running the Iditarod, and if you read any of his books, they are a treat. We are just finishing up his book in English class. Its called "Winterdance," and its about running dogs and running the Iditarod. I would recommend it to anyone.

I am very much looking forward to coming home for Christmas. Getting to see my family and friends will be lots of fun. It should also be fun at the Christmas Eve Frantti Christmas party, entertaining such guests as Leroy Buskinen and Elroy Pissanen. I can't wait.

Open Gym pictures

2008-11-11T17:58:00.000-08:00

That's me D-ing up in the white shirt up top.

Notice the great defensive techniques of boxing out. Instead of boxing out, everyone turns and watches the ball.

Fighting for a rebound.

Start of the fast break.

The younger kids enjoy a game of kickball. It is the most popular game for the younger kids in the village.

And our parting shot. Nice action sequence. Notice the hustle back on defense. The level of play is comparable to Wednesday night ball at Cal High School, with way less defense.

Trip to the dump!

2008-11-11T17:42:00.000-08:00

This is the view from Ruby up at the airport.

This is the same spot where I took the picture except I zoomed in. You can just barely make out the buildings.

I took the school truck up to the dump. It is a pretty sweet truck. 2007 F-350. The dump consists of a hole in the ground that was dug with some type of heavy equipment. Maybe and excavator.

Two huge ravens that were hanging around the dump. There was a whole flock of them but most of them scrammed when I stepped out of the truck.

This was another dump scavenger. It was a red fox. It had a nice winter coat, and I'm sure the Ruby trappers are after it.

Even more Santa drop pics

2008-11-11T17:18:00.000-08:00

"We have liftoff!"

Some of the crew and Santa and Mrs. Clause pose for a picture.

The modern day Santa Clause. Even he is getting with this new technology thing. Instead of his sleigh being pulled by reindeer, he now rides around in a military C-130 aircraft.

The C-130 lifts off from the bustling Ruby airport. They said it was one of the smallest airports they had ever landed at.

Me about to stick my tongue on the C-130's propeller. Of course it is a staged picture. I would never do anything as foolish as that. I hope. Of course I might if Bryzo challenges my manhood if I don't. As long as he does it right along with me.

We got to tour the plane if we wanted. It was awesome.

The cockpit of the C-130.

The Air Force band entertained us with lively Christmas music during the meal. They were great.

More pictures from the Santa drop

2008-11-11T16:52:00.000-08:00

Our welcome sign at the airport. I don't know if I fully explained Operation Santa Clause on the last blog, so here goes. It is an operation between the Alaska Army and Air National Guards, who go around the the remote villages around Alaska and bring Christmas to them.
All the kids get a present and a book, and we also got gift bags containing apples and oranges, which are treasured delicacies up here in the bush.
Most of the villages they go to are much bigger than Ruby. We only have about 160 people here, whereas most of the other villages they go to have 400 or more people. It was a great way to get into the Christmas mood, even if it was early.

MAK school staff pose for a picture with Santa. I was fortunate enough to be able to sit on his lap. It reminded of the Moyryla Christmas parties where we all got to take turns on his lap.

Flight crew of the C-130 pose with Santa Clause.

My bowl of moose head soup. It included noodles, moose meat (and hair), corn, potatoes, and carrots. It was very tasty.

I was chosen for the vital mission of recording all of the festivities on the school video camera. It was pretty fun, but I ran out of battery before I could film them taking off.

Election and Operation Santa Clause

2008-11-05T18:30:00.000-08:00

My absentee ballot finally arrived in the mail the day before the election. The joys of living in bush Alaska.

Funny thing happened I was filling out my ballot. The power went out, so I had to finish it by candlelight. (I found out today that there was water in the fuel lines of the generators, which caused the outage. We get all our electricity from big diesel generators which run around the clock.)
I figured it would be a good picture, so I took one of myself sitting at my kitchen table casting my vote. Now I can say that I voted in the first election in American history where a black man was elected president. Something to tell the grandkids about someday.

Operation Santa Claus came to Ruby today. About 40 people came and landed on our little runway with a C-130 pictured behind me. It was awesome, because we were all up at the airfield waiting for them and the pilot buzzed us before they landed, I think to line up the runway. It seemed so close that you could reach up and touch it. The sound was deafening as well.

We had Santa and Mrs. Claus, an Air Force band which played us spectacular Christmas music, and a great buffet from which to eat. I brought jello, which no one seemed to be eating, so I scooped myself some. It was to console my broken heart because no one was eating my jello.

Another picture of the C-130. I will post more pictures and stories from today tomorrow. Have a good November. Good luck to all the deer hunters. I sure miss it.

Happy Haloween

2008-10-31T16:46:00.000-07:00

We had a Halloween Carnival in the gym in the afternoon today. There was a lot of fun games for the kids, and my high schoolers ran the games. We had a good turnout from the community as well. I helped our elementary teacher and our teacher aide make buttons taken from pictures. They are similar to the buttons my mom (and a lot of other moms) used to wear on her jackets for
for football and hockey.
This is the aftermath of the pinata getting smashed open. I remember the good old days of diving into piles scrapping for every last piece of candy.

Here one of my high schoolers lines up a swing at the pinata.

Some of the elementary and high school students dressed up in their costumes. Max and I have our moose horns on. I felt like a girl with a headband.

I had some visitors the other night. 3 of my high schoolers, 2 middle schoolers, 2 elementary students, one of their older brothers who is about 19 or 20, and also our school janitor. Quite a motley crew. But this town is so small that most of them are related and know each other so its nothing out of the ordinary. They were cruising around on snowmachines and decided to stop by. I gave them a Mountain Dew Code Red, and we visited for about 15 minutes. Then they went on their way.

Another picture of the leadership academy at UAF. I'm in the upper left hand corner. It seems to me that all college classrooms are basically the same. UAF classrooms look similar to Tech classrooms.

More conference pictures

2008-10-30T17:21:00.000-07:00

Some of the kids enjoy a game of pool.

We went bowling too. I just took it for granted that the kids knew how to bowl, when in reality most of them had never done it before in their whole lives. I showed them a few technique pointers and they really improved.
Of course I still reigned supreme in the bowling contest with another chaperone. His name is Kurt, and he is sitting in the lower right of this picture.
But the thing you have to remember is that Kurt was never under the tutelage of Dr. Willis in 9th grade PE like I was. I give him all the credit for developing my bowling skills. Any high school boy in Calumet can probably attest to that as well. We spent almost a whole month over at Miller's in Laurium.
On a side note, I still remain undefeated against Wendy in bowling as well. She might argue this point though.
Take care, and have a nice Haloween. I will post some pictures from our Haloween Carnival maybe tomorrow. Bye.

A mounted wolverine in the hunting/subsistence section of the museum. I should have put something in the picture for scale. They are really pretty big animals. I think a huge one runs about 50 pounds. I remember the scientific name of them as well, courtesy of Brent "Bunty" Louma. Gula Gula. Means "glutton" or something like that.

Pictures from Fairbanks Leadership Academy (Labels now included)

2008-10-27T17:35:00.000-07:00

Some of the students enjoying a game of ping pong at the Wood Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. For those of you current or former Techies, the Wood Center is the UAF equivalent of the MUB at Tech.

Self portrait with a totem pole in the background. It is at the museum at UAF.

Some of the guys posing by a huge grizzly at the UAF museum. Kids from all 9 villages in the Yukon-Koyukuk School District attended the conference.

The students and chaperones lining up on the steps for a picture. Unfortunately, we only got to spend about an hour and a half in museum. It was fascinating there, and I could have spent a whole day or more there.

A couple of the kids in the hunting/subsistence section of the museum. They really liked this part of the museum, as it applied directly to a lot of them.

I did have a question about what a pasty is though.

Here is the wikipedia definition:
A pasty (Cornish: Pasti, pronounced /ˈpæsti/ (the 'a' pronounced as in 'cat'), or less commonly pastie, Tiddy Oggy,) is a filled pastry case, commonly associated with Cornwall, United Kingdom. It differs from a pie as it is made by placing the filling on a flat pastry shape, usually a circle, and folding it to wrap the filling, crimping the edge to form a seal. The result is a raised semicircular package. The traditional Cornish pasty is filled with diced beef, sliced potato and onion^[1], and baked.

But as my dad likes to say, the Cornish invented the pasty, but the Finnlanders made them edible. Gotta make it to the post office by 5! Seeya!

Saturday Pasty Fest in Alaska 2008

2008-10-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

Good old fashioned UP pasty shipped directly from pasty.net in Calumet, operating out of the old Hut restaurant. They are delicious. Believe me, it took all the willpower I had not to dive into this pasty as soon as it came out of the oven. My mouth was watering the whole time I was taking this picture. As a matter of fact, it is watering as I write this.

Label with an accurate map of the UP, which is a rare find these days.

Now my fridge is nice and full of pasties. They make a delightful meal at any time.

I actually have a story that goes with these pasties. I was all set to have friends over for pasties and brownies. I preheated the oven for brownies and mixed them up. When I opened the door to the oven, it was still cold. I thought maybe the pilot light went out, so I tried relighting it. No luck. So I went outside to check my propane tank. It was empty. I had to pack up my pasties in my backpack and carry the mix over to my friend's house in the pan. We cooked everything up over at their house and the night went off without a hitch.
Turns out my propane hose was all dry rotted and cracked and had sprung a leak. I found it when I put a new propane bottle in. My landlord is going to take care of it today, so hopefully I can eat a nice pasty for supper tonight. Just another day in Ruby.

Ruby

2008-10-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

Attention Ed Heinonen: This is a picture of Albert Yrjana's house in Ruby. Ed visited here in 1985, for those of you who didn't know.

He built the house over 60 years ago, and its still going strong. It is abandoned now, but it still looks like a stout house. Hollie actually lives right across the road from here.

You think solar panels, you think California or some place warm with lots of sun right? Well, Ruby has some solar panels as well. They are at the Catholic church, in the back.

Our general store here, where you can pay $16 bucks for a frozen pizza. I am proud of myself, I haven't broken down and bought one yet. I have, however, broke down and paid $6.85 for a bag of Doritos. They were delicious.

Campaign sign in Ruby.

Ruby pics

2008-10-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

An old Elks Lodge or something with a sign welcoming a marathon. Nice antlers up top too.

Picture of the men's restroom at the community pavilion. I think its pretty funny. It must be the Frantti in me, as we always bring up flatulence and bowel movements at our family gatherings. Then we laugh and laugh about it. My mom gets embarassed by it, which makes it even more funny.

The community pavilion.

Old dozer tracks rolled up on side of the road.

Old bulldozer collecting rust on side of the road. I think its an old piece of mining equipment. There is a bunch of old equipment around town.

More Sunday pics on my walk

2008-10-21T17:26:00.001-07:00

Picture of the snow along the Yukon river. It is a lot different than the snow in the UP.

Wendy sent me the Yaktrax spikes for my boots. They are great for walking up the hill when it gets icy.

The snow is real dry, not wet compared to Copper Country snow. It has the consistency of sliced, dehydrated onions used for cooking. My mom gets huge cartons of them from Reinhart food service, I think.

The beautiful view on the beach in Ruby.

The only stop sign in Ruby. All the intersections in town have no stop signs. I haven't seen one accident in town yet though. But on the other hand, this town isn't exactly a traffic jam.

Sunday walk around town and other pics

2008-10-21T17:13:00.000-07:00

This is a nice picture of my brother in law Jesse and my nephew Carson. He looks like a proud dad. Carson is getting chubby as well. This is at the Tech-Northern football game in September.

Picture of my pad with the Sunday afternoon sun in the background.

Nice moose rack on an abandoned cabin in Ruby.

Our fuel depot. The white tanks in the background are brand new this year.

The Yukon river already beginning to freeze up. It usually freezes by the end of the month.

New picture

2008-10-17T14:41:00.000-07:00

" This is a picture I got off our school district website. It is the MAK School staff at the inservice in Fairbanks.

End of the First Quarter

2008-10-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

Well, today was the last day of school in the first quarter here in the Yukon-Koyukuk School District. 25% of the school year is over. It doesn't seem like the year already a quarter over. It goes back to the old saying, "Time waits on no one." My first real job, and it is just flying by.
Tomorrow we have a teacher workday, without the kids. It is going to be a relaxing day of grading papers and listening to Mix 93 and WUPY outta Ontonagon streaming live from pasty.net. I don't know if I mentioned it earlier on the blog, but I ordered some pasties from Pasty.net. They are going to be here either today or tomorrow. I can't wait.
The state of Alaska gives all first and second year teachers an experienced mentor teacher, and mine was in town yesterday. His name is Greg and he's from Delta Junction. He is basically there to give me advice and support however he can. He is a good resource for me. We bounce different teaching strategies around with each other, and it helps me.
Last night I cooked us up some spaghetti. He thought it was delicious, as did I.
We also got to watch the debate last night over at Hollie's house. She has been teaching for 34 years, and is set to retire after this year. Her and her husband run a bed and breakfast out of their house too. She also is an excellent cook, and gave us many goodies when we went over to her house. The quote of the night by McCain, "I am not George Bush! If you wanted to run against him you should have run 4 years ago!"
Well, I gotta go pick up my pasties from the Post Office.(hopefully, you never know about the mail in the bush.) Take care.

Cold Day

2008-10-14T17:08:00.000-07:00

This morning it was cold. I don't mean 20 or 30. It was 0 degrees this morning. Needless to say, I walked at a brisk pace up the hill to get the old blood pumping and warm up.
I ate an apple on the way up the hill and it tasted superb in the cold morning air.
I always like to brag about the winters in the U.P, but winters up here are a whole different story. 0 degrees on October 14th. And its not even dark here yet. We don't get 24 hours of daylight, but in the dead of winter I am told we get about 3-4 hours of daylight. I'm looking forward to it! It's a good way to challenge yourself.
Have a good day.

Monday blues

2008-10-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

This is how I talk to Wendy sometimes. It is a program called Skype. You can talk to some one like you were face to face. I see her on my screen, and she sees me. It really is pretty neat how far technology has come. You can tell how good the video quality is from the picture. Nice smile Wendy!

This is a picture from Friday night Open Gym. You can see the mishmash of snowmachines, trucks, and four wheelers in the picture. We had another good turnout, with about 40-50 people showing up. We had about 12 guys for basketball. We get the court at 8 o'clock, the young kids get it from 7 to 8.
Also, I don't know if I'm getting old and losing my memory or what, but I meant to take some pictures inside at Open Gym but I forgot. I will try to remember to take some pictures this Friday.
This weekend was pretty fun for me. Saturday I walked up to the school to listen to the Tech game, which they won in exciting fashion. Then I went home and did some laundry and baked some brownies. Yes, all the guys I used to live with, I like to bake. (I used to catch heck for baking cookies and what not with Wendy)
Then on Sunday I went over to Max's house and watched NFL football all day. He even cooked up some pork chops for us. They tasted phenomenal after eating macaroni and spaghetti for a lot of my meals.
His dog is like a human too. He's the only dog I've ever seen that will eat vegetables. He ate some of Max's green beans. Max carries him around on his four wheeler in a custom made box. I will take a picture of them some time. It is pretty funny looking.
Max is a great guy. He has a bunch of good stories from his Army days. He was gung ho and had his sights set on joining the Green Berets. But he was rejected because he's color blind. He was mad about that.
Then he ended up getting stationed over in Germany with a medical unit. He hated it. So one day they had tryouts for a football team that would travel all over Europe and play other Army and Air Force teams. There were over 50,000 guys in his whole unit that the coaches had to pick from, and he ended up making the team. There were only 2 guys including him on the whole team who hadn't played college football. He made the team on his scrappiness and work ethic. He's a tough old Norwegian. Max Larsen. I give him heck all the time about how the Finns are tougher than the Norwegians.
I ordered some pasties for myself off of pasty.net. They should be here this week. I can't wait to get them.
For all of you readers of the blog who know/are related to Ed Heinonen, you can tell him that I will post some pictures of his old friend Albert Yyjana's house on here soon.
Have a good day.

Two Thumbs Up!

2008-10-07T19:05:00.000-07:00

Me giving two thumbs up to the teaching profession, the lunchroom food here, and the constant adventures here in Alaska.

P.S. Mom, should I get a haircut? I don't think I need one yet.

Adventure Today

2008-10-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

Well, my adventure for today was the power going out for about 20 minutes or so in the morning. It was still very dark so the kids could barely read their books. It doesn't get light until about 10 AM, so they had to move very close to the window to read their books. We have back up generators here, which they turned on after a while.
Oh yeah, we had a fire drill today too. That was pretty fun. We got to stand outside in the sub freezing weather for a good 3 minutes. I don't know the exact temperature, but it was fairly cold. But nothing a Yooper couldn't handle.
Both of these instances illustrate one of the most important things for a teacher. Being flexible. That is what my mentor teacher drilled into my head when I was student teaching. Some of you may know him as the former head coach at Houghton High School. Now he's coaching Todd Storm and other defensive linemen at Tech. I wasn't his biggest fan in high school, but once I got to know him at Tech and especially student teaching, he is a great guy. Like one quote my mom had on our chalkboard growing up, "9 out of 10 people improve upon acquaintance," it applied to me and him. Once I actually got to know him all the misconceptions just fell apart. Anyone guess his name yet? It's Ken Klein. So if you read this coach, Thank You.
I also chatted with Brad Pelli on Facebook today. So that was nice. Got to catch up on local news, especially our beloved Calumet Copper King football team. Hopefully they can make it to the playoffs.

More scenery!

2008-10-06T16:56:00.000-07:00

View of Ruby from up at the cemetery.

Old Glory standing tall and proud up at the cemetery.

View of the Yukon.

This is a fish wheel. Everyone pulled them out of the water. They are huge. I should have stood next to it for scale. My guess is that at the peak they are 15 feet tall. They are heavy duty. Guess how they get them in and out of the water? They use a big bulldozer. I think some people use tractors too. The heavy equipment is also useful in mining and construction operations here.

Looking North from the cemetery, across the Yukon. The snow capped Melozi mountains are in the background.

Weekend pictures

2008-10-06T16:46:00.001-07:00

Our town hall, where funerals, potlatches, Christmas parties, and other community functions are held. It is right across the road from my house.

Our post office here in Ruby. Nice blue hue to it.

Old style wooden sign.

Me up at the cemetery with Ruby and the majestic Yukon in the background. I think the green barn is used to store the grave diggers tools.

My attempt at trying to take a professional picture. It was a piece of snow sitting on the last leaf of a small tree. (Could be a weed, I'm no botanist)

Lunch TIme

2008-10-03T12:46:00.001-07:00

Well, it is lunchtime here in Ruby. I have a half an hour to myself at lunch. It is a pretty good time for me. Being around the kids for a whole day straight is mentally exhausting. So lunch time is where I "recharge the batteries."
Today our lunch consisted of spaghetti and home made garlic bread, along with pineapple and corn. Overall a very excellent lunch.
The ground is covered in a thick, white blanket here. It is snowing hard. the Kids are pretty excited about the weekend. A lot of them are looking forward to taking out their snowmachines this weekend.
Well, gotta run. Ten minutes until the class gets back. Half the day until the weekend begins!!

More pictures from Ruby living

2008-10-02T16:55:00.000-07:00

Shooting hoops at the community basketball court.

It's surrounded by 10 foot tall chain link fence. Pretty handy when it comes time to chase down rebounds.

Old bike that was frozen into the ice in a ditch near the basketball court.

My green house is in the background. You can barely make it out in the gap between the trees.

The contracting company that built a lot of houses in the village built the court as a sort of "thank you" to the villagers for letting them build their houses.

Playing basketball at arguably the most scenic court in America.

October already!

2008-10-01T17:17:00.001-07:00

I can't believe its October 1st already. What happened to September? Well, just like the fabulous Lynyrd Skynyrd song sings, "Tuesday's Gone with the Wind."
Today was a pretty laid back day again today, with half the class being absent. There is some type of strep throat going around.
These pictures are taken with my webcam out of my classroom window. They are supposed to show snow falling, but you can't see it very good due to the poor picture taking quality of my webcam.

Looking towards our baseball field where Hill and his friend were picked up in their helicopter.

Black and White shot of our school garages. Snow is hard to pick out in these pictures, but it is surely coming down now. A little earlier than I'm used to back in the Copper Country.
It actually was snowing on and off when Max and I were fishing, but I never took a picture of it.
Teaching is hard work, and I am already looking forward to the weekend. I also know why teachers get their summer vacations too. This job is mentally exhausting, but it is very rewarding as well. The good things far outnumber the bad in this profession. Did I just say I'm a professional? Kind of a scary thought, eh? Not too long ago we were biffing apples at cars on Lake Linden Avenue. The good old worry free days of childhood. Any kids who read this, enjoy your childhood while you can, you grow up too fast. But just like Grandpa Frantti, I will always remain a little kid at heart.

P.S.- Congratulations to my aunt Michelle for getting the trivia question correct. The technique is a rear naked choke. Though I suspect she received some help from Chad on it.

Pictures of life in Ruby

2008-10-01T16:59:00.000-07:00

This is my laundry bag pictured by my guitar. Our laundromat is about a half a mile away, so I load up my hiking GORP backpack with all my clothes and detergent and head out.

Me ready to set out on my Saturday laundry ritual. It costs $8 for the large washers, and $6 for the smaller ones. I usually try to pack all my clothes in a $8 washer. It usually works. The only bad part is that it takes about $5-10 to dry all my clothes.

Picture I took on Saturday when Max and I went fishing. We caught 0 fish. It was still fun though.

Freddy's. That's how we "Alaskans" refer to Fred Meyer. They send out bush orders for only 10% of your bill. So not a bad deal at all. Sam's Club charges 25%.

This is my can box. I have tuna, canned pineapple, spaghetti sauce, and canned chicken in here. It will make many fine meals for me.

Monday

2008-09-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty laid back Monday here in Ruby. 5 out of my 9 students were absent. So we just had a review/make up day.
We practiced some of the things that the kids are having trouble with, and we also played a game called categories. They taught the game to me.
I split the 4 students into 2 teams. Boys against girls. I would come up with a category. (sports, countries, fruits, vegetables, etc.) Then I would give them 1 minute to write down as many of that category as they could think of. Then they would read them off. Any that were repeated between the groups were crossed out. Then they got one point for each answer that the other group didn't have. It was a pretty fun game.
Since they taught me that game, I had to teach them a game I knew. So I taught them football during our gym time. They really seemed to like it. One girl couldn't play, she had a bum ankle. So the teams were 2 boys against me and the other girl. It was a pretty fun game, even though they emerged victorious in a good old fashioned shootout, 49-21. I had to teach them "one apple, two apple, three apple.......," the meaning of two-hand touch and everything else associated with playground football. (For those of you female readers who don't know about counting "apples" and two hand touch, talk to any of your boy relatives. Chances are, they've played playground football and can give you the full go round.) It was pretty tough at first because they had zero experience except the little bit the boys saw on TV. But they got the hang of it pretty quick and it ended up being the funnest gym class I've ever taught yet.
Another day, another dollar. Bye.

Pics continued

2008-09-29T17:32:00.000-07:00

My Tapout hat. Trivia Question: Name the technique pictured here:

My employer, the Yukon-Koyukuk School District.

Our accomadations for the inservice. Little cabins that were basically a motel room.

Nicolas, me, and Derrek. Nicolas is from South Dakota, Derrek from Ohio. I look like a tourist with my camera bag around my neck.

What I ate in Fairbanks. Lots of pizza, lots of real milk, and assorted other goodies you can't get in the bush.

More pics

2008-09-29T17:22:00.000-07:00

This is how we shop in the bush. This is Derrek's pile of food from Fred Meyers.

I'm acting like it's my food. My pile was even bigger.

We stuff all our food into these Rubbermaid totes. Punch some holes in them and zip tie them shut. Then we express mail them out.

Hauling my precious cargo.

Our rental car in Fairbanks. It was a little Ford Focus. Hard for me to fit in it. Therefore, I either got to drive or ride shotgun the whole time.

Pics from inservice flight

2008-09-29T17:07:00.001-07:00

View from the cockpit flying into Fairbanks International Airport. I got to ride shotgun.

View from shotgun, looking back. My principal, our 3 other teachers, and a state trooper with a prisoner. Sorry about the blurriness. We musta hit some turbulence.

View of the instrument panel. I got to flip a switch to turn the heat on. Up at 10,000 feet it was close to 0 degrees Fahrenheit.

Fairbanks inservice

2008-09-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

I was able to see Hill again in Fairbanks. Him, Andy Heikinen, and I went out to eat at Chili's. It was excellent. I got a Philly Cheese Steak, plus marinara sauce. It was still not as good as the Kauppi's Steak and Cheese though. Those were the best, along with triple cheeseburgers on Texas Toast with triple cheese. Those were the days, working at Kauppi's. They had exquisite brownies at the Kauppi deli as well.

Anyways, off the food topic. It was nice to see those guys. Then we watched some college football back at their motel. Then Hill dropped me off back at my motel.

That night me and a fellow teacher took a sauna at the motel. It was a pretty nice one, except they had a sign that said, "Don't throw water on the stove. It will cause the stove to short out." Nice thing to tell a Finnlander looking for a good sauna. Needless to say, we threw water on the stove. And of course, nothing happened except our bodies getting invigorated by the steam.

We were busy all week long, shopping for food and household supplies at Wal Mart, Sam's Club, and Fred Meyers. We also shopped for winter apparel at Big Ray's, which is a Fairbanks winter clothing institution. I found a sweet fishing rod and reel combo for only $30. Fall clearance sale. Our special ed teacher and I will be fishing until the river freezes over.

Gotta run. Supper is calling my name.

Random pics

2008-09-25T18:28:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend Wendy. She shipped a lot of my stuff up here so she deserves a big thank you. This picture is on my table right by my bed.

Me and Wendy at the trade show at the Superior Dome. We are modeling a Timber Ridge Rustic cedar furniture swing. Hand built in the Copper Country of Michigan's great Upper Peninsula. Big John and Moham were there as well.

My gifts for standing in weddings. Both of which I make use of every day. Thanks Lorn and Lars. Sorry RB, I left yours at home on accident.

Views on my walk home

2008-09-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

Visual tour of my walk home every day. Our school is situated on a huge hill about 1.5 miles from my house.

My principal's driveway in the lower right. Her house has a view of the Yukon River and hills on the other side. A million dollar view.

View of the Yukon from the road.

View of the road from the hill walking home.The road runs 50 miles south of town, out to mining camps. I think 3 or so of the mining camps are still active.

Close up of the Melozi hills. They are on the other side of the Yukon. Beautiful country.

My Pad

2008-09-25T18:13:00.003-07:00

All the books I've read since moving here. Wendy sent my guitar now so I should be better at that when I come home. I'll be playing a lot.

My pad on the second floor. Ruby Health Clinic on the first floor.

View from my street of the mighty Yukon

Panoramic shot of street in front of my house and Yukon River view.

Another pic of the street with Yukon River and clouds coming over the hills on the other side.

PICS!!

2008-09-25T18:03:00.001-07:00

Our school building. Ruby, Alaska. Notice the great color scheme. Same as the Public schools of Calumet-Laurium-Keweenaw. We serve 35 kids here grades k-12.

The school is named after local educator Merreline A. Kangas. Our nickname is the Ravens.

My room. I have 9 students in the high school here. Everyday is an adventure.

Me assuming the teaching position in front of the classroom. In case you were wondering, I took these pics after school was dismissed and the kids went home. Notice our distance learning TV to my right. We take biology classes from a guy out of Wisconsin on the distance learning TV.

More pictures

2008-09-25T17:54:00.001-07:00

I was walking home from school Monday and this guy flagged me down. He was trying to twist off the bottom jaw of this moose. He needed some help. He was really old so he couldn't do it himself. I helped him pry it upwards and break it off. You might be able to make out the bungee cords that are tying the moose horns to the deck.

He also couldn't speak very well so he had to show me his ID card so I knew his name. He was a real nice guy.

You can see the molars in the back of the skull under the eyes. The ribbed tongue is in the front of the mouth. They eat the tongue. I've never eaten any. Everyone says its good. That is what this guy was doing with it. Getting the tongue meat and neck meat to eat.

Pictures are here!

2008-09-25T17:38:00.000-07:00

View out of my bedroom window. Yukon River in the background.

This is the view out my back window. The ambulance is for the health clinic, which is on the first floor of my apartment.