Here is what thanksgiving looked like. Wednesday night I ran the board while KICY was broadcasting the Community Thanksgiving Eve Service live from Old St. Joes, and later that evening Neil and I recorded the morning show so we could sleep in on thanksgiving. We had all been volunteered to cook a turkey for the community thanksgiving dinner, so that required waking up around 6:15am to stick the turkey in the oven. Lydia and I both enjoy sleeping, and didn’t wake up on time. It was around 7:30 when we got up and stuck the turkey in, but figured we would have enough baking time….and then we went back to sleep. We got up around 10:30, and found the house smelling wonderful, and our turkey cooked. We started cleaning up the house, because at noon our thanksgiving guests were coming over for an early dinner.

We had one of Lydia’s co-workers over, and her boyfriend. They moved up here about a year and a half ago, and are here to make and save as much money as possible. They were very fun to spend the meal with, and it was good to get to know them. Hopefully we will get more chances to spend time with them in the future. Lydia and I are so used to hanging out with ‘couple friends’, that its been weird to not have anyone like that up here.

The 6′ 9″ polish immigrant boyfriend had to work at 2:00pm, and our official thanksgiving was over, but we were stuffed. We hung out for the rest of the day, and went over to the station in the evening for “the edge”.

Friday Lydia was going out to Shishmaref for work, and I was hosting the morning show by myself for the first time. Neil and a friend who had come into town for the week were out camping on the beach. The show went pretty smoothly, although it was a bit awkward because I’m not yet used to filling time with only myself on the air. Lydia ended up not getting in on her 5:00 flight back to Nome, and called with an approximate 9:00 arrival. I went back to the radio station in the evening and recorded the edge, my second radio show of the day where I was by myself….not quite as awkward this time. Lydia ended up calling at 9:00, saying she was marooned there for the evening, and would try and make a flight in the morning. Saturday morning she got home and had plenty of stories to tell about village life.

Last week I posted about our experiences at youth group, and how a simple game of taboo can even be different here in Alaska. Today I wanted to take a few moments and explore some other things that I’ve found odd here in western Alaska; Sports Mascots.

You’ve got the old standards, like the Falcons…and regional favorite such as the “King Salmon”, and the “Nanooks”

Now growing up in a junior high where the mascot is the “Kent Junior High Vandals” I don’t have a whole lot of wiggle room to find mascots that are more controversial. It’s not uncommon to have “The Cheiftans” or “The Warriors”, something that might start a lawsuit for a major league team, doesn’t cause a blinked eye up here.

But if you want to get really odd, we will start with the Point Hope Harpooners, a school that isn’t likely to get a PETA endorsement for the basketball team anytime soon. Or best yet, the Aniak Halfbreeds.

The students of Aniak were given the opportunity a number of years back (I think it was in the 70s) to choose their own mascot. Because of their proximity to a military station, it turned out that most of people there are half Native, and half Caucasian. From what I understand, every so often someone will come to the school board meeting asking to consider changing the name….and they will get thrown out of the meeting. The people of Aniak have embraced their mascot, and have enjoyed the attention it has gotten them.

The best part of the whole thing is the logo:

northslope.net has a bit of a new look! If you miss the old header, make sure you visit the BLOG!

Well, the blog is no longer just a web-log. Can I still call it a blog? I hope so. This evening I sat down, and figured out how to automatically export my blog entries from the website, into a word document that I customized….then I was able to print it all out, and I had a hard copy of all the entries! That’s really exciting for me because now I know that I won’t lose this entire journal if some computer in Austin TX (or wherever my server is located) unexpectedly crashes.

While we are just sitting here talking about the blog, and how great it is…. we can also celebrate its 6 month anniversary! That’s right, the first post was all the way back on May 20th, 2004 (see it here). Since then we’ve left a collective 4 jobs, moved three times, made *dozens* of friends, and said goodbye to twice that. Its pretty hard to believe that its been six months since we were in our Maple Valley home, driving two cars, with two steady incomes. But, as weird as that is to think about, and as sad as that can be; God has really blessed us, and has brought us to a really amazing place. He is using both of us in a very tangible way.

This weekend was great, it was very relaxing. Friday night we had Neil with us on the Edge, and had Lon calling in from downtown Nome during a blizzard. It was really a fun show with a lot of laughs, and to top it all off, we called Sarah Sommerman during the last segment of the show. (hear it by clicking here)

Saturday we didn’t do a whole lot other than go over to Dennis’s house in the evening for the KICY staff mooovie. We watched a 1967 film,”The King Of Hearts” which was a surprisingly great movie!

This evening (Monday) I attended the Nome City Council Meeting, took diligent notes, and got audio from the *other* radio station that aired the event live. I’ll have some good stuff for my Alaska News segment tomorrow on the morning shows.

The days keep going by.

so, last evening…Lydia and I spoke at the local youth group. Its something that people from KICY have been involved with in the past, although Neil is currently the only one right now. We went, and had a fun time, but I took one experience in specific away with me. We were playing taboo (which apparently you MUST play at youth group), and the person was trying to get across the word “Clam”.

Here were the clues and answers:
“Its something that is from the Sea…and you eat it!”
and someone guessed “Walrus”
someone else shouted out “Whale!”
and finally, I heard “Seal!”

I don’t think I need to say anymore…..it’s different here.

Hey Folks,

A lot has changed since my last post, well…at least landscape wise things have changed. Saturday and Sunday we have large snow dumps, and are now sitting in almost a foot of snow, with another 2-3 inches coming today. This provided for much excitement around town, as always comes with the first snow of the season. Now, this isn’t the first snow that Nome has seen since we’ve been here, but it is the first snow to last more than a few days, and to accumulate this much. There were zipping sounds all over the city as people started to dust off their snow machines which haven’t seen much action since May last year. Even though almost everyone in town and their dog (including myself) got on a snow machine Sunday afternoon, although there still werent very many places to ride. Because of wind, the snow coverage was pretty sparse in spots, especially on the tundra which is the snow machine link out of town. So, now its not to uncommon to see snow machines sitting outside grocery stores, and in parking lots.

Something that I took from spending most of my formative years in Seattle, is that when it snows you either close the entire city down….or you run into parked cars while driving. Remarkably, neither of the two happened! The roads here are all ice, (an inch thick at that) and I’ve been trying to learn to drive on winter roads. The city has been working feverishly on getting the *snow* off the roads, which in itself is quite the task. Yesterday we had 4 foot high snow medians in the middle of the roads. I’ve also learned how great it is to four-wheel in the snow. Its not a big deal to fishtail in a four-wheeler like it is in a truck or car, its pretty fun. You can tackle snowdrifts with ease…most of the time. On Sunday I did get stuck twice, and required quite a bit of manual labor to get myself out. Oh well, I’m from Seattle. When Lon, Neil and I were done playing in the snow Sunday afternoon, we all came inside and had hot chocolate. (see pictures of the first snow here).

Things at the station have been going well so far this week. Monday I was able to have Jordan Haymond on the air with us during the Edge, and that was lots of fun (listen here). I keep finding new music to add, and I try to stay on the cutting edge of Christian music currents. Yesterday I was listening to the web-cast of Spirit 105.3, seeing what they were playing and listening to see how we stack up.

I’ve been thinking of Seattle more lately, and have been reminiscent over the past few days of our life that we left behind when we came up here. Camp this summer was one of the greatest experiences Lydia & I have had, and we sure miss our friends both from camp, and from Kent. I continue to be amazed at how God has blessed us in the past, and I know he is doing something great with and through us right now….its very exciting. But as is second nature for both Lydia and I, the future is already in the back of our minds…

Here are some more pictures for ‘yall.

More Freezing Ocean – (click here)
The First ‘real’ Snow! – (click here)