Napaskerville Checkout

So it's been awhile. I haven't been mauled by any more bears as of late, nor lost any more personal belongings to the gnashing teeth of my studded snow-go track. Relatively smooth sailing, although my daily triangle commute from Bethel to Napaskiak to Oscarville to Bethel was starting to wear me down a bit. Speaking of the commute, here's a couple peeks of what my morning commute might look like:

My river commute would start at the Lomack building, which would be just off the left edge of the above photo. Then you can see the ice road heading down the center. Then it's about a 10 minute (or less) ride down thissa way...

You can see just a little overflow at the edge on this particular morning. Crossing overflow is not the time to back off the throttle, unless cold and wet is your thing.

Back to what I was saying though...of course, at this time of year, wearing down=getting a cold, which I realized was destined weeks ago. So, although I've enjoyed being able to commute from home, I look forward to moving on, feeling better, and not putting in quite as many hours.

One pretty cool thing happened this past Thursday. I was in Napaskiak, working after school with some students on this project, a rack for their new dumb bells in the weight room.

My students were working away, about to put in another weld when I noticed some people approaching, so I told them to hold off and let these people pass so they wouldn't be flashed by the arc light. Seconds later this man approaches and greets me with a handshake saying "Hi my name is Sean Parnell." It's kind of an odd feeling when your state governor comes up and greets you unexpectedly. We chatted a bit about the project and our program. Nice guy. He was out visiting sites that are perspectives for getting new schools built. I wonder if having the governor encounter a welding class being taught outdoors in February helped Napaskiak's chances....couldn't hurt I suppose.

Monday, weather permitting, I'll be flying out to Quinhagak for a few weeks. I'm looking forward to working with the friendly folks I've met who work at that site. As well, I'm looking forward to being near the mountains again, and being able to hopefully feel the pull of a fish on a line again. The world famous Kanektok River flows nearby and I'd like to get some more fish for the freezer.

That's about it for now. Pitchers report for spring training in 7 days. GO BREWERS!!