Ok, I’ve never done one of these online “who are you things”, but I fell for this one….and its the geeky-est thing i’ve ever done in my life…..but interesting.

Which OS are You?

Odd, it feels like Christmas just swept right over us this year. I’m sure part of it has to do with being in a job this year where I had very little time off, part of it is due to the fact that Christmas was on a weekend….and the largest majority is because we aren’t home, things were different, and there were no after Christmas sales to be sought. Things are moving right along again at work, and at home. We were even forced to take down our christmas tree last night because all the needles were falling off and driving us crazzy.

A month ago Lydia and I decided that we wanted to order a satellite dish. We had been holding of for a long time, and the time was right. We’ve decided to go with a dish, because to pay for cable here, its about $80 a month. The dish came about 2 weeks ago, and I soon learned that it was going to be a tough project to get this 1.2 meter monstrosity on the side of our house…and facing the right way. Its about 4 times bigger than what we had on our house back in Seattle, because of Nome’s position on the earth. Within a few days I got the mount up, and the dish assembled. However I figured out that there was no way that I could point this thing in the exact position that it needed to be in to receive a signal. I called up the dish service guy in town and asked him to come out. He found this signal, however told me that it wasn’t going to last because my dish wasn’t mounted properly…and wind would knock it out of alignment. He was right, and 30 minutes later I was back to a blue screen. After talking with Lydia, I called him back and asked if I could hire him to
re-install the entire dish. He could come back in 3 or 4 days. I called him up the afternoon we had planned on him coming out, and he asked for another 3 or 4 day delay. Much to his credit, I wouldn’t want to work when it was 25 below zero, and would ask to come back when it was 40 degrees warmer too!

So on Sunday, the day after Christmas he came out to our house and re-installed the dish. At first he was having as much trouble as I had finding the right spot to bolt the support arms to as I had…but then he was able to get things going. Sunday evening Lydia and I sat down an watched “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”, a show that was a Sunday evening tradition the last few months we lived in Maple Valley. We are excited to have survivor thursdays, while also making sure that we don’t over do it on TV….it was kind of nice to have quiet evenings at home (when we weren’t renting DVDs ).

Things are rolling along at the radio station too. I got a 12 hour christmas program that aired christmas day, and I also got one for New Years. They are hosted by christian artists like Rebecca St. James, Jars of Clay, FFH, Mercy Me, and Erin O’Donnel. Its a pretty cool show, but it takes lots of work to rip all the CDs into the computer, and then edit the log so they play in order…..well, not so much lots of work, but lots of time….so I’m working on New Years this week.

New Christmas Pictures

So, 4 to 6 inches of snow, and 50 mph winds really made an interesting christmas away from home. Now you can experence it all along with us. From the annual unwrapping of the gifts, to the weather, and dinner at the Weidler’s house.

Click here for Christmas Day 2004!!

Hey Friends!

We sure enjoyed hearing from many of you over the holidays, it was great going to the P.O. box and getting cards and packages from friends and family. It really made us feel missed, and completed a great Christmas. It was hard/different to not be at home this year, it was the first time Lydia and I had ever been away from friends or family for the holidays. However, we survived and were able to build some good memories on our own. Christmas eve I was given the morning off to sleep in. While Neil is out of town, I’ve been hosting the morning show with Dennis. His wife offered to come in and cover, and it gave me a nice morning to sleep in. After Lydia and I got up, she called over to the house and said everyone was going out to breakfast at the Polar cafe, and we were invited. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast. Later Christmas eve afternoon, we were airing our annual show “the talking Christmas card”. People from all over the area called in with their Christmas greetings, and we put them on the air. We took over 100 calls, and were on the air for over 3 hours. We went over to the Christmas eve service at church, which was very nice. Lydia has been involved with leading worship over the past few weeks, and was up front this time too. We went home after church, changed our clothes and headed over to the Hobb’s house. They invited us, and a few other people over for snacks. We had a fun time meeting people and talking. When we left, it was around 11.

Christmas morning we woke up around 9:30, and after getting presentable started opening the presents that had collected from under our small “Charlie brown Christmas tree”. We both had a great time seeing the stuff that was sent from family members and friends, and opening the stuff that we purchased for each other. We called Lydia’s family, and then called mine. While on the phone with my family, we realized that we had more gifts to open!! One of the things that we had been given by my parents was a set of luggage, and they sent one up for us to see. Much to our surprise, there were gifts inside the suitcase!

Christmas afternoon we went over with the rest of the remaining KICY staff to the station manager, Dennis Wielder’s house. He and his wife had prepared a delicious meal for us that included turkey, stuffing, hot rolls, and more. We then played a new game that Lydia purchased for us for Christmas, Cranium Hoopla. After a few rounds of Hoopla, we watched Christmas in Connecticut. We got back home at 9pm that evening.

Well, its cold outside, the coldest its been since we’ve been here. Currently it’s 20 below zero. I just got back from lunch at subway with Lydia, I walked the 15 minutes there and then the 15 back….when you dress for it, its not that bad. However, the air is harder to breathe when its this cold out.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we went caroling with some friends from church, its nice that we got to do something that has been a tradition for a long time…even though it will not be with our friends from home. I ordered 80% of my Christmas gifts online this year, and Lydia’s stuff has all arrived, so thats a big relief.

We’re playing 80% Christmas music now on both the AM & the FM station, tomorrow it goes to 100%. I’ve enjoyed making notes of Christmas songs that I’m not fond of, or doesn’t fit the station format and replacing them with my favorite Christmas CDs. Here are my favorites, tell me yours:

Crystal Lewis – Holiday!: I’m not a huge Crystal Lewis fan, however this is my favorite Christmas CD. Its full of great jazzy songs to get you in the holiday spirit. I’ve replaced this CD twice now…

Pottery Barn – Hip Holidys: Lydia purchased this CD for me a long time ago, and it has become one of my favorites. With Christmas classics from Dean Martin, Ella, Louis Armstrong, and Wayne Newton…you can’t go wrong!!

Erin O’Donnell – Christmas Time is Here: This is a brand new Christmas release, I got a copy of it when they sent two to the radio station. Its another CD that has great vocals and very simple, yet jazzy music.

tjr – an acoustic Christmas volume 1 & 2: When Jordan (Whitten) gave me a copy of volume one after they finished recording it last fall, I was amazing with how good it was. I really like the rocky cover of The Christmas Song, and the female vocals are amazing. This year’s volume two is just as great.

Michael W. Smith – Christmastime: Ok, so I’m also not a big MWS fan but this is another one of my favorite holiday CDs. If you have, or plan on getting this CD….when you listen, close your eyes and see if you can picture a “Michael W. Smith on Ice” show just as I can.

Then you’ve got the Harry Connick Jr. CDs, and the Mannheim Steamroller stuff..

Am I forgetting anything???

Covenant College in Alaska attacked on the front page of the Anchorage Daily News:

Author: SEAN COCKERHAM

Tucked away in spruce woods off the Kenai Spur Highway is a new Bible college with just 37 students. It’s a little-known enclave of evangelism, counseling and congressional spending.

Alaska’s congressional delegation has delivered more than $1 million to Alaska Christian College over the past two years. That’s more than $20,000 per student and about equal to what the school president figured is a full year’s operating costs. Most of the federal funds go to teacher salaries, student scholarships and recruitment.

The money for the 3-year-old school came from the federal Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, designed to support innovations in education. Of the 342 colleges and universities to get grants from the fund this year, Alaska Christian College was the only one that is not accredited and does not award degrees.

The Soldotna college, which has a goal of preparing rural Alaska Natives for “whole-life disciplesh! ip,” has applied for accreditation by the Association for Biblical Higher Education.

Alaska Rep. Don Young was responsible for most of the federal spending on the school. In fact, the money for Alaska Christian College was one of just nine individual spending earmarks Young claimed credit for in the 3,000-page spending bill Congress passed last month. His office said it sees the school as a good transitional program to help village youths prepare to go on to degree-granting institutions.

It is not uncommon for the federal government to give grants to religion-affiliated schools. But some longtime Congress watchers were surprised to see such big money for a college with so few students.

“I’ve never even seen a college with 37 students; I’ve never known such a thing existed,” said David Williams, the vice president for public policy at the Washington, D.C., watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste. “In our estimation this is not something federal ! taxpayers should be paying for.”

Williams said it’s an example of the reason federal education grants should go through a competitive process, rather than be stuck by members of Congress into bills that are thousands of pages long.

Other small Alaska colleges got money through the same fund in the giant spending bill Congress just passed. Figured per student, none of them is close to the $435,000 for Alaska Christian College.

Presbyterian-affiliated Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, with an enrollment of more than 200 students, got $500,000 for an adult-learners program. Ilisagvik College in Barrow, with 318 students, received $250,000 to work on its distance-education programs. Alaska Pacific University, which lists an enrollment of 634 students, got $300,000 for its rural distance education.

Most of the federal money for Alaska Christian College have come from Young, a Republican and Alaska’s lone congressman. Pamela Day, senior legislative assistant for Young, said the federal help won’t keep coming forever and i! s meant to help the school get off the ground.

“Hopefully people can become aware of them and they will receive funds from other sources,” said Day, who is in charge of handling the requests for federal funds that come into Young’s office. She said she has visited the college and is satisfied the money is being well spent.

The “vision and plan” on the college’s Web site said: “We wish to serve where the need is the greatest, preparing disciples to return to rural Alaska to minister where there is a void of leaders.”

But Alaska Christian College President Keith Hamilton said it’s not about training ministers or missionaries. He said the school, which is built around a yearlong Bible-based program, is more to help ready its village students to go on to other colleges and get their degrees.

High dropout rates are a big problem when students leave small rural villages and go off to college. The University of Alaska has programs to help address the pr! oblem, such as the Rural Alaska Honors Institute on the Fairbanks camp us. It brings students to the campus the summer before their freshman year to get them acclimated and then provides support once school begins.

Hamilton said Alaska Christian College recruits in the villages and offers counseling, support and classes on its campus that help people make the transition from remote and tiny villages to college life.

“We provide a safe, caring community,” he said.

The roughly $400,000 a year in federal funds from Young the past two years makes up a large chunk of what Hamilton figured was an annual operating budget for the college of about $1 million a year. The school also gets church and private donations, including a large gift from the Washington-state based M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, which the school used to help build a dormitory on the campus.

Alaska Republican U.S. Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski also got the school a $200,000 federal grant last year for the New Hope Counseling Center, set up on the c! ampus to help students who come from their home villages with drug and alcohol abuse or other issues.

“Pray for a possible second federal grant that we will hear about the first of the year,” Hamilton said in a press release in fall 2003 that described the grant for the counseling center.

That grant came; it was the first of the roughly $400,000 federal grants through Young’s office.

Documents the college filed with the federal education department show $250,000 of that went to salaries for five faculty members. Seventy-thousand dollars was for scholarships. The rest was for student recruitment, a student literacy center and community service efforts.

Hamilton said the college was able to boost its enrollment by 35 percent with the federal money and hire new staff.

The college has not decided how it will spend the $435,000 it got last month, Hamilton said. It will have to prepare an accounting to submit to the education department.

! The school doesn’t offer traditional college course work such as math or English. Course offerings listed on Alaska Christian College’s Web site cover religious subjects, including Bible studies, ministry, worship and choir. Hamilton said there are also counseling classes, a transitions course to teach about college life, physical education and a course on service — teaching students to serve their communities.

Hamilton said the college in February started a second-year program, which allowed it to apply to get accredited. He said the Association for Biblical Higher Education requires three years of monitoring after the application, so it cannot get accredited until spring 2007.

The second-year program is in cooperation with nearby Kenai Peninsula College. Students pursue their degree at the public college while still living in the Christian school dorm and taking more classes there. KPC director Gary Turner said nine or 10 students from the Christian school are now working toward their associate’s degrees at his college, which ! is an extension of the University of Alaska Anchorage.

“We have a great partnership with them. … It helps to increase the diversity of our campus,” he said,

Alaska Christian College lists its student population as 90 percent Native, including a handful of students from reservations in the Lower 48. The school is affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church, which has churches scattered throughout rural Alaska.

The students are no strangers to Alaska’s congressional delegation. Stevens and Murkowski have visited at the request of the college, which wanted to thank them for the counseling center funds.

Murkowski stopped in last October as part of a day trip to Kenai to campaign in the last heated weeks of the U.S. Senate race. The college Web site has pictures of her visit, with students holding Lisa Murkowski campaign signs, giving her a gift and singing her a song.

Hamilton said he doesn’t know about the politics of the federal grant! s, whether it is odd for a college with just 37 students to be getting so much money. He said the school serves students who don’t have very much money, and the help from lawmakers is appreciated.

“We always ask,” Hamilton said. “It doesn’t hurt to ask, and the worst they could say is no.”

Reporters Nicole Tsong and Rich Mauer contributed to this story. Reporter Sean Cockerham can be reached at sockerham@adn.com.

Take a look at some of the new pictures!

Some of these were added over the past week, but I moved and added a bunch more today:
Christmas Decorations at home and at KICY
Around Nome in December
Freezing Ocean 3
Freezing Ocean 4

Today, before I drove our 4wheeler to the store (about a minute away), and before I strapped our groceries down to the front of the ATV with two bungee cords for the drive home, I left the house thinking “Man, I don’t need to put to many layers on, its pretty warm….its only 21 out!” And as I drove down the street, I was basking in the warmth. I am constantly amazed at how much our life has changed in the past few months, and how seamlessly we have adjusted. Our life now is so completely different than it was last Christmas season, but other than missing family and friends, I’m not sure I prefer one over the other. Now, there is something to be said for going to downtown and shopping at a big mall with festive people all around you. But there is a simplicity to life here in Alaska that is soothing, and I think I like it.

Christmas is upon us here, and it is very odd not being home for this time of the year. Lydia and I are used to the visits downtown, the runs to southcenter, the church Christmas activities, and the familiarity of our family. Next weekend is our staff Christmas parties, for both of our jobs. Last week we decorated our house with as many Christmas decorations as we could get our hands on. Neil went out to Council, a 2 hour snow machine ride south of here and got a bunch of trees. We put ours up, and in replace of a tree stand we used a Ragu jar (its not a big tree). There is a Christmas eve service at church, and we have been invited over for egg nog at a couple’s house with some other people afterward. Christmas day Dennis and Candice are hosting a staff Christmas dinner, although Neil and possibly Lon will be out of town. Christmas has brought an onslaught of holiday bazaars to Nome, but we haven’t found to many good buys.

This week I was able to nail down our trip to Washington DC, everything is a go! Lydia decided to join me, and it looks like we will able to get tickets to the Inauguration. We will also get to spend a number of days at home, over two on the way there, and then 12 hours on the way home. We are very excited, as we did not expect to make it home until we moved back. Even though it is over a month away, it is in the forefront of our minds constantly.