luck of the irish

ive been waiting for inspiration to strike- a great idea about the next exciting edition of the hype....nothing has come...except for a holiday.


i finally got kaela to go in the boat with me

if you, like we do, pay attention attention to hard hitting news from ireland or vatican city- you would know that ireland petitioned the vatican to move the feast day of st. patrick to saturday, march 15th so the holiday would not occur during holy week. chelsea, who lived in ireland for a year told us that they also petitioned one year so st. patty's wouldnt be on good friday- because everyone wanted to eat corned beef.


chelsea & jesse preparing some of the food

i mean, who doesnt love corned beef? even our house of "selective meat eaters" and vegetarians aren't immune to the lure of a good piece of cured meat. and cured it was. about two weeks ago, kaela and jesse decided that wanted to make corned beef, from scratch, for st. patrick's day. they looked up a recipe- and wow- it takes 2 weeks to make corned beef. with a strict timeline they set out for two weeks of brine making, meat massaging, and crock pot preparing.



kaela under our house in one of our summer "adirondak" chairs made from pallets


robin geshcke, mary & matt gulling, and nanc and ken supplied us with some great green decorations and celtic jams and we were all set for a great celebration of our heritage- well 4 out of 6 of us were ready to celebrate our heritage. krissy maintained staunch support of her polish pride by reading the paper as we prepared rye bread, shepard's pie, and corned beef & cabbage.



my friend arrow, in the holiday spirit

when the day was done- it was declared a success. so much so, that i forgot to wear green on the actual st. patrick's day on monday and was pinched by teenagers all day.


chelsea had the best costume

dog tired

this is one of those great posts where you pretend it is a month ago and love it all. so think back to mid-january. the "premier mid-distance dog-sled race" the kuskokwim (or k) - 300 hit bethel january 18-20th (or about the 24th- when the last musher finally hit the finish line). it's tradition that the jvs help out at this 300 mile "race to aniak and back." if you dont believe how "traditional" is it- pick up jodi piccoult's book- "the 10th circle" and read about her mention of bethel jvs & the k300. so, here we are, all geared up to be checkers in some of the villages for the race- bridget and i head up the the turn around point in aniak, chelsea and kaela, along with our friends jesse and kristy, to tuluksak, and krissy and courtney were headed to man the station at kalskag. we took probably the smallest plane every created- i think it was a cessna 170 for those aviation buffs- for everyone else- it was a damn small plane with 3 seats besides the pilot. we stayed up all night waiting for mushers to come in and out of the checkpoint, recording their times, counting how many dogs they came in with, if they were going to drop or leave a dog or two at the checkpoint with the vet, and be their wake up service if they decided to nap.

dog racing is probably one of the most dramatic and intense yet anticlimatic sport ever. it is the epitome of hurry up and wait. you sit outside for 3 hours for 3 minutes of high intensity work when a musher comes in- but hey, it's all for the story. below is the photographic timeline of the weekend.

we found a peace taxi in aniak:



braving the perils of the aniak AC for $8 pretzels and expired juice:


...waiting....


entertaining ourselves with some good tunes while we wait:


oh, look, a musher. i look so official. duh.


flying back to bethel:


now that's what i call tundra:

just another manic monday

nothing big to report, yesterday it finally warmed up enough to get some snow. so it was nice to get a dusting of powder on top of the rock solid ice that has been a pain to drive on in the recent weeks. so, after school, im tying up ends, checking my email and my boss comes up to me with a helmet covered in stickers of skulls- "i'm snow machining you home today" and walks away.

a snow machine- snow-go- snow mobile- is the main mode of transportation in the winter around here. they costs about 1,000 bucks for a simple machine, and they can take you anywhere and everywhere-particularly where you can go with cars- between villages on the ice road, hunting for caribou, or to check your ice fishing nets & hooks. or to take your jv home from work. it was a quick ride across the tundra to my front door. hey, i had to get my kicks somehow because all of my roommates had off to celebrate the presidents. i, on the other hand, chose to honor them by teaching political science.

spirit fridays are still going strong, 2 weeks ago was "red, white and blue" day. because i would be on retreat- i had to electronically submit my costume- so i dressed up before we went and took pictures- all of these items, if not personally owned came from our house which has been pretty great when it comes to costume manufacturing...

smaller personal item

in an effort to increase my carbon footprint, i have been doing more flying during my "year of simplicity" than ever before. we've all learned that frequent flyer miles are just a perk of the necessary evil that is living in a state with a practically non-existent highway system. i'm 17,000 miles in to my goal of 20,000 to get a free trip on alaska air. i do it all for the free beverage service and snack.

4 of our merry crew just got back from a long weekend in juneau on monday night- chelsea stayed in anchorage to have a week-long vaca capped off with a wailing jennies concert on saturday. our sixth man, courtney, is headed home to springfield, ill by way of st.louis to spend some QT with the Adams clan. during our 4 hour layover in the ted stevens international airport, we proved just how inept we have become at interacting with modern technologies when we made the waitress at "chili's too" reconsider her career choice and took over brookstone to sit in the massage chairs- for about an hour. after a while, i pretended to look around like i might buy something, just to make the employees feel a little better. i'm sure it helped...




now there are some unique features of alaskan air travel. when traveling in-state you can check three bags- i dont really know of any other state where travel is common between cities- or any that have their own airlines- but, the three bag rule is pretty fantastic, particularly considering what people check and carry on to the planes. most people that live in bethel, go in to "town" (read: Anchorage) to go shopping. all that is required for this venture is: a costco card, a huge rubbermaid tote, a sharpie, and some duct tape. repeat the following steps as many times as necessary: go to costco, enjoy free samples, buy in bulk. place foodstuffs in large rubbermaid tote with name and po box written on top of box in sharpie. proceed to duct tape rubbermaid tote and take to your nearest baggage handler. it is helpful however, to use a bathroom scale to ensure that your tote is not over the 50 lb limit. after our fall retreat in anchorage, the rest of the jv houses (anchorage, sitka, and juneau) watched in amazement, or amusement, as we sat on the anchorage house's porch and taped 2 30 packs of toilet paper together for someone's third checked item.

but, what if you have more things- and you have already checked 3 items? never fear, that is the beauty of the "smaller, personal item." in airports all across this great land, business men are traveling with laptop bags, young parents with their diaper necessity, and everyone and their mother has a fashionable purse- in addition to their carry-on- that is used as a smaller personal item. those, in fact, are specific examples of the spi as defined by tsa. however, in alaska, particularly in during bethel flights, i have seem some pretty creative smaller personal items including- kaela's carry-on of a 25 lb bag of kidney beans, a 20 lb bag of potatoes, 5 lb bag of pancake mix, cats, dogs, fishing poles, and pumpkins. traveler beware though- when i traveled back from baltimore/dc area- a layover in anchorage allowed for the ever necessary costco trip where i purchased trashbags and peanut butter. when our tote proved to be 5 lbs over the weight limit- i decided that i could just carry on the peanut butter. but, tsa had other plans- when they confiscated the jiff as a threat to air safety because it is "a paste". life lesson- always pick the trashbags.

green with envy

first- two disclaimers
1) my goal is to update my blog- so i will have many posts backdated...so, just pretend it is mid-january, etc. you'll love it. i promise.
2) you'll probably be really jealous of these pictures. it's ok. i expect no less.

now to the real stuff- we spent the weekend in juneau for our "winter retreat" below is a photographic depiction of the weekend...
from top to bottom:
some mountains flying in to anchorage
with kaela on mendenhall glacier
yeah, i licked a glacier, what did you do this weekend?
shrine of st. therese. gorgeous.
in search of sea lions

holy war

numerous emails have reminded me that the game to end all games is today- yesterday's super bowl was the penultimate to the sju vs. villanova game happening tonight in philadelphia.

just in case any one has forgotten...nova sucks.


LET'S GO SAINT JOE'S!

bethel: now hiring, apply within

i know i know, i havent updated. but i figured, since i would be seeing most of my "loyal" readers over the holidays- some in person story telling would buy me some time. and it did, it was so good to see everyone. but, the hype has returned. somewhat triumphantly, hopefully with some new tales to tell.

now, since we have been in bethel, the running joke has been that if you show up to work- you can basically get any job in town. when people would tell us that we would laugh it off- until recently when it started becoming pretty apparent that this the main hiring practice around these parts. in recent history, after one or two years at a job (one of those years serving as a jv) some fjvs (former jesuit volunteers) have risen to the ranks to be directors of several of the non-profits in town. my roommates and i have been offered positions in a wide variety of areas around town if we stick around next year- most of which we are not really qualified to have.

jv's aside, bethel is hiring almost everywhere for everyone. alaska airlines is always looking for a few good (wo)men to do baggage handling- apply for the cool reflector vest- stay for the free flights. in a similar strain, tsa is hiring- now- they may call you at 5 am for an interview- not taking into account the 4 hour time difference between here and dc (as happened with susan's, the church administrator, granddaughter) but hey, someone needs to regulate this 3 oz of liquid law. into safety but not necessarily of the airport variety? we've got the place for you- the bethel police department is now hiring. you can tell that because they have 20 ft now hiring sign strewn across police hq. now, this is not a violent city like i'm used to- there's no virtual murder map a la the city of brotherly love- but, the powers that be in bethel think that they might need more than 3 police officers. on the upside, if you are one of bethel's finest- the lack of coworkers significantly cuts down on competition for police officer of the year. finally, perhaps the creme de la creme of employment opportunities in bethel, the city is currently accepting applications for mayor. yup. that's right. the mayor. looking to hand out some keys to the city? enjoy public speaking? need to build your resume? well, then just fill out your application to become the next leader of this fine city.

now, even with all of these opportunities, 6 fine ladies still choose to live here for 80 dollars a month for a more than 40 hour work week. we must just enjoy the frozen eyelashes.