I'm sitting in the Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, Alaska and I'm feeling the need to vent some anger. So I was supposed to fly to Utah today at 2, but when I showed up I was told that my mom--who purchased my ticket--had entered the times wrong so that I was arriving at my destination before I left. I was confused because I had a printed itinerary that made perfect logical sense, which I showed the customer service rep. She then said that somebody must have changed something in the system and then proceeded to book me onto a flight 9 hours later. Grrrrrrrr!!! That's a lot of time to kill. In short, my day, and my parent's day, was ruined. Even shorter, GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
Of course, with all my free time I accessed the Internet to check up on BYU's first game of the season and was pleased that they had won. However, this brought up some more bile. The BYU ticket office changed their whole system so that the All Sports pass was sold only online. Then made it all stupid and complex. You have to form stupid groups on the net--which is fine, I want to go to the games with my sister--she formed our group and got hers. But, I was in the field and never got a chance to purchase mine until August 25th, but when I tried I was told the system was arranging the seating. When I got on again, the next day, all the tickets had been sold out. No All Sport pass for me this year. I don't know what happened, but somehow I never was able to access the group that my sister had made; I was never e-mailed of it's creation, and there was no way to access it when I signed in to the BYU ticket website. On top of that, my sister was charged two unexplained fees for her ASP, totalling $19. I'm sure one of them was an online transaction fee but I have no clue about the other. Rip Off! How can they MAKE us buy it online and then charge us an online transaction fee?!? In short, no ASP for me this year. Grrrrrrrrrr!!!!
I am angry.
If I didn't censor my writing, this venting would possibly look more like this: I am angry @&%&%$W! &&%# #$*&(@$%@ @&$** *@@*(2*(*(*( @#^@^%@#$! @%%@$!@%^ @%&!@&@ @%^@ @@ @%&@^%#@#&^*&@#$ !!!!(*&#@^&*!(*^&^$*&(*&(*&*&*&****@^&*(!&@!!!*&^@^#%%^##^@%$$@$@!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
The Future is Here. . .
This has been a good summer, but I am quite ready to return for another year of school. I have high hopes for the next two semesters. This semester I have a couple of pretty cool English classes lined up: Literature and Film and Mythology and Folklore. I'm very excited for the second class, my writing delves a lot into mythology so I am hoping that this class will help me more fully develop some of my ideas.
Most of all I look forward to my Ballroom Dance classes; I've only been able to sate my appetite for Ballroom by watching videos on youtube. I can't wait to get back to dancing, though I will confess that I do have some nervousness about this--opportunities for dance being quite rare in the wilderness. I am afraid that I have lost what little I gained last year. . . while all of my friends have progressed through the summer. I'm going to be very, very behind; the classes that I need are audition based. Plus I have to find dance partners all over again. . . blah!, but with hope.
Coming back to Alaska has also illustrated how much I really do enjoy some sort of contact with humanity. I may be an introvert, but I need some social exposure. This semester I vow to be a bit more aggressive in inserting myself into the social sphere. Good luck to me.
Anyway, I've been ready to go back to a place filled with sunshine, dance, and women for the last couple weeks. Now, that future is here. Only three more days of preparation, and I'll be on my way.
Most of all I look forward to my Ballroom Dance classes; I've only been able to sate my appetite for Ballroom by watching videos on youtube. I can't wait to get back to dancing, though I will confess that I do have some nervousness about this--opportunities for dance being quite rare in the wilderness. I am afraid that I have lost what little I gained last year. . . while all of my friends have progressed through the summer. I'm going to be very, very behind; the classes that I need are audition based. Plus I have to find dance partners all over again. . . blah!, but with hope.
Coming back to Alaska has also illustrated how much I really do enjoy some sort of contact with humanity. I may be an introvert, but I need some social exposure. This semester I vow to be a bit more aggressive in inserting myself into the social sphere. Good luck to me.
Anyway, I've been ready to go back to a place filled with sunshine, dance, and women for the last couple weeks. Now, that future is here. Only three more days of preparation, and I'll be on my way.
Bear Encounters II
I think I might have a superpower; I can sense bears with my sixth or seventh sense. While I was camping for work last week there were several times that I had thoughts like I am going to see a bear tonight, or There is a bear outside my tent. I only get these random thoughts when I am isolated; if I'm in a group of people I am oblivious as anybody when it comes to the presence of my bear friends. But when I am alone, my extra senses kick into high gear. When I had thoughts like those I mentioned above, I was right.
So the first example of this. . . I was alone at our camp and I knew I was going to see a bear. Sure enough, at one point I turned around from what I was doing and there was a black shadow several hundred yards away among the trees. I knew it was a bear before it even moved. It turned out to be a pretty big black bear and he wandered closer to camp, pretty much ignoring me. He didn't actually come into our camp, which would have made things very hairy--me being by myself and all--but he did come pretty close.
The next day I was in my tent reading when I sensed a bear outside my tent. Three different times I looked out my little plastic window and couldn't see anything. Finally, I poked my head out of my rain fly, and there was a little black bear chewing on the berries not fifty feet in front of me. I watched him munching for a little bit, and he ignored me, which I consider to be a good thing.
Anyway, when I get feelings like this, I am always correct. I think it works with any living creature, but bears are fairly easy for me to sense.
One time, when I was young and afraid of bears (because I had read Alaskan Bear Tales), my family was living in a little cabin. I woke in the middle of the night, terrified, because I KNEW there was a bear outside. Nobody believed me, though my mom did get up and look out the windows, but she didn't see anything. The next day, there were fresh bear tracks everywhere.
That's just one of my superpowers though. I have many, many others.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
That Sam I Am
My brother is in the room next door reading Green Eggs and Ham to my very adorable niece and nephew. People always interpret this book to say---try things you don't think you will like because you might actually like it. . . obviously. But I have to wonder: What if Sam is a salesman? A drug dealer? Whoa! There are a few twists on this classic Dr. Seuss that I never thought of before. . .
People, don't trust Sam! If you don't think you will like green eggs and ham, stay true. Trust your instincts.
May Creek
I haven'
t talked much about working for the NPS lately. Basically it was all I was talking about on my blog. . . boring. However, I think I will mention my latest excursion into the bush. This time we went to a place called May Creek which can only be reached by plane. Here is the only real picture that I could find on the net of May Creek.
This is the airfield, which I must add is pretty snazzy; it's almost a mile long. . . long enough for a C-130 to land on.
First of all, flying on a bush plane. AWESOME! We flew in on a Beaver, built by de Havilland in 1948. It's serial number was like 38 or something like that. . . the plane was a classic. The cool thing that I noticed about flying in a bush plane was that we only flew at an altitude of 3000 feet, meaning that we flew between the mountains instead of above them. It was pretty awesome to look out your window and watch the mountains sliding by, or being able to pick out individual trees on the ground below. Cool stuff. I've decided that I still wish to pursue my childhood dream of becoming a pilot and will, at some point in my future, when I am rich, buy myself an airplane to facilitate the fulfillment of this dream.
We touched down on the Airstrip, unloaded our gear and then reloaded it on a couple ATV's and proceeded to our cabin. One of the first things I noticed on the way was a big fat pile of red pooh. Bear pooh. The area is berry heaven, and therefore bear central. It seems bears don't really get that much from berries, they shoot right through their digestive system, so the pooh was about as abundant as the berries. EVERYWHERE!
We had a cabin, complete with woodstove, propane, and solar power for the lights, and a sweet outhouse. Yes, we were living the high life.
Work was typical for the next week; rainy, which wasn't too bad because we knew that we had a warm dry place to go after work. I spent most of my time working a chainsaw, and swamping (dragging what we cut off the trails into the woods), not that fun, but not really all that bad either.
It may have been day two or three when I saw three bears, a mother and two cubs crossing the airfield. They sure took their time, and didn't even pay any attention to us. One of the cubs, after they crossed, darted back out of the woods and wrastled one of the orange traffic cones that outlined the runway for a few minutes before mama got him back on track. That was my only notable bear encounter. The rest of the crew had their own encounters at some point, and I would wager that we had upwards of 10 encounters/sightings of different bears among the whole crew. Some of the guys had their coats hanging under a weather port, and a bear shredded them a bit. I was with a group that startled another. We never saw it, but we heard it scramble down an embankment and then were able to track where it had sprinted down the trail ahead of us. There were tons of bears, but thankfully, there were no. . . physical. . . encounters.
There was also a wolf that was scouting our cabin, but I only caught flashes of him moving through the woods. I've seen them before, but it still blows me away how ghostlike wolves can be. . . or any other predatory animal for that matter.
On a different note, because we are a group of hairy Alaskan men, we naturally gravitate towards competition, and in honor of the Olympics, we had our own version right there in May Creek. Our events were things like: left handed football toss, free-standing ladder climb, the ladder hop, horseshoes, and the May Creek Mile (run on the Airstrip). I can't say that I did particularly well in any event, though I did have a pretty sweet stall in the freestanding ladder climb, showing a dancer's balance, but I wasn't high enough enough to win--the typical technique was to scramble up as the ladder was falling. Bah! Where is the poise? The control?
The mile was a beast! I have not run since high school basketball, but I still beat my previous fastest time by seven seconds. . . which isn't saying much, I'm not a fast runner.
We flew out on Sunday, and while waiting for our plane, a group of us hiked up the trail towards the old Chititu gold mine and did some gold panning above some falls; cleaning out a seam in the bedrock. Of course this included a pretty hairy crossing of the Chititu, which was quite fast and muddy. We found some color, and a copper nugget, in about an hour of panning. What could we have found with a full day, and a shovel?
Anyway, those are the highlights of a pretty fun trip. Alaska rocks! Even if it is a bit cold and rainy this summer. And, someday I will own a digital camera so I can capture at least some of these moments on film.
t talked much about working for the NPS lately. Basically it was all I was talking about on my blog. . . boring. However, I think I will mention my latest excursion into the bush. This time we went to a place called May Creek which can only be reached by plane. Here is the only real picture that I could find on the net of May Creek.This is the airfield, which I must add is pretty snazzy; it's almost a mile long. . . long enough for a C-130 to land on.
First of all, flying on a bush plane. AWESOME! We flew in on a Beaver, built by de Havilland in 1948. It's serial number was like 38 or something like that. . . the plane was a classic. The cool thing that I noticed about flying in a bush plane was that we only flew at an altitude of 3000 feet, meaning that we flew between the mountains instead of above them. It was pretty awesome to look out your window and watch the mountains sliding by, or being able to pick out individual trees on the ground below. Cool stuff. I've decided that I still wish to pursue my childhood dream of becoming a pilot and will, at some point in my future, when I am rich, buy myself an airplane to facilitate the fulfillment of this dream.
We touched down on the Airstrip, unloaded our gear and then reloaded it on a couple ATV's and proceeded to our cabin. One of the first things I noticed on the way was a big fat pile of red pooh. Bear pooh. The area is berry heaven, and therefore bear central. It seems bears don't really get that much from berries, they shoot right through their digestive system, so the pooh was about as abundant as the berries. EVERYWHERE!
We had a cabin, complete with woodstove, propane, and solar power for the lights, and a sweet outhouse. Yes, we were living the high life.
Work was typical for the next week; rainy, which wasn't too bad because we knew that we had a warm dry place to go after work. I spent most of my time working a chainsaw, and swamping (dragging what we cut off the trails into the woods), not that fun, but not really all that bad either.
It may have been day two or three when I saw three bears, a mother and two cubs crossing the airfield. They sure took their time, and didn't even pay any attention to us. One of the cubs, after they crossed, darted back out of the woods and wrastled one of the orange traffic cones that outlined the runway for a few minutes before mama got him back on track. That was my only notable bear encounter. The rest of the crew had their own encounters at some point, and I would wager that we had upwards of 10 encounters/sightings of different bears among the whole crew. Some of the guys had their coats hanging under a weather port, and a bear shredded them a bit. I was with a group that startled another. We never saw it, but we heard it scramble down an embankment and then were able to track where it had sprinted down the trail ahead of us. There were tons of bears, but thankfully, there were no. . . physical. . . encounters.
There was also a wolf that was scouting our cabin, but I only caught flashes of him moving through the woods. I've seen them before, but it still blows me away how ghostlike wolves can be. . . or any other predatory animal for that matter.
On a different note, because we are a group of hairy Alaskan men, we naturally gravitate towards competition, and in honor of the Olympics, we had our own version right there in May Creek. Our events were things like: left handed football toss, free-standing ladder climb, the ladder hop, horseshoes, and the May Creek Mile (run on the Airstrip). I can't say that I did particularly well in any event, though I did have a pretty sweet stall in the freestanding ladder climb, showing a dancer's balance, but I wasn't high enough enough to win--the typical technique was to scramble up as the ladder was falling. Bah! Where is the poise? The control?
The mile was a beast! I have not run since high school basketball, but I still beat my previous fastest time by seven seconds. . . which isn't saying much, I'm not a fast runner.
We flew out on Sunday, and while waiting for our plane, a group of us hiked up the trail towards the old Chititu gold mine and did some gold panning above some falls; cleaning out a seam in the bedrock. Of course this included a pretty hairy crossing of the Chititu, which was quite fast and muddy. We found some color, and a copper nugget, in about an hour of panning. What could we have found with a full day, and a shovel?
Anyway, those are the highlights of a pretty fun trip. Alaska rocks! Even if it is a bit cold and rainy this summer. And, someday I will own a digital camera so I can capture at least some of these moments on film.
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