As the start of the Iditarod approaches, I thought I would take this time to break down what my plans for the event are. What else am I supposed to do on a saturday evening when I’m running the board for a basketball game?? Here are the plans, we can look back and compare to what I was actually able to accomplish!

This Tuesday (3/1) evening I’ll be flying down to anchorage for Wednesday’s press briefing. There we’ll receive our media passes and be told appropriate behavior and expecations during the start of the race.

Thursday (3/3) I’ll bum around anchorage doing some shopping and stocking up for the rest of the winter & spring. I also need to get a hair cut. In the evening there is a 2005 Iditarod Musher’s banquet. This is where the mushers draw for their starting positions.

Friday (3/4) I think I’ll continue shopping, and spending time around Anchorage. I might find out about some leads and work related things to do on Friday once I get to the Media briefing.

Saturday (3/5) I’ll be getting up early and heading down to downtown Anchorage for the ceremonial start of the Iditarod. For those of you who aren’t Iditarod savy, the mushers will leave from 4th Ave in anchorage and mush to about 11 miles out of town. From there they will travel via truck to the re-start (this year in Willow). As part of my coverage for the Iditarod I’ll be collecting interviews from mushers and families to air during race coverage once I get back to Nome. I’ll also be interviewing the Wells Fargo “Teacher on the Trail”. This teacher is selected from thousands that apply from all over the US. They will follow the leaders in a helicopter and submit reports online to about 5,000 classrooms that will be following the race. I’ve proposed a partnership with Wells Fargo hoping that we can get some of the updates phoned in to us from the Teacher on the Trail.

Also at the start of the race I’ll be working with OLN (The Outdoor Life Network). They bought the rights to Iditarod coverage this year, and have decided to film KICY’s coverage of the race and use it to tell the story of this years’ event. Also, as of today our friend Hannah will be coming up to Anchorage for the weekend to help me out with all the stuff on Saturday. It will also be fun to have someone to hang out with all day.

Sunday (3/6) Hannah & I will be driving out to Willow where the restart will be. Willow is about 70 miles out of Anchorage. Here the musher’s will actually start their times, and leave in the order picked at the musher’s banquet.

Monday (3/7) I leave for Nome at noon. Once I get back to Nome I’ll start processing all the interviews and audio that I got over the weekend, and start planning out when to air it.

Our Iditarod updates will come multiple times a day, and hopefully I’ll be able to make each of them fresh and interesting. I’ll be getting most of our information off the internet and our partnership with OLN will provide me with regular updates from former Iditarod winner, Joe Runyan who will be on the trail and at each checkpoint. Also if the Teacher on the trail updates work out, they will be included in our coverage.

That will continue until about the 13th when I will fly down from Nome to Unakleet and using KICY’s satellite phone that I got on trade (free in exchange for advertising) will be about to report when the first musher comes in to the coast. I then plan to fly to Koyuk, following the leaders up, from there I’ll meet the mushers in White Mountain. I’ll have about 18 hours from the time that the leader gets into White Mountain until he will win the Race in Nome. Hopefully weather will be clear and I’ll be able to catch them before they get into Nome, most likely in the middle of the night.

It looks like the leader will come in on March 15th, sometime in the evening. Lydia’s parents will be coming up on the 18th while all of the Iditarod action is still in the air, there will still be a lot of mushers coming in and they will probably be able to see the red lantern winner (last person in). The Nome version of the musher’s banquet will hopefully be while they are here also.

Its going to be a very busy and hectic few weeks, but I’m sure it will be VERY fun. I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures and keep you as informed as possible. Perhaps I’ll post lots of audio as well.

Hello once again, from this little spot on earth that we like to call Nome. It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, err….Nome. Actually it hasn’t really been that quiet lately! This past weekend we had our first non-family guests come to visit us. Isaac and Andrea Conver braved Alaska Airlines flight 152 on Saturday morning, and stayed all the way through Tuesday morning. It was great having them here and showing them all around town.

We got a few games of “settlers of catan” in, and realized it’s been quite a long time since we broke out settlers! We also had an excuse to go to the “Norton Sound Seafood” plant and buy us some fresh (live) crabs. They were very delicious, so delicious that it motivated us to go the next day and try crabbing ourselves. Now, crabbing is something that I’ve aspired to do, even months and months before we moved up here to Nome. We went out on the frozen ocean via snowmachine, and started digging a hole in the ice. The hole ended up having to be a lot deeper than we were expecting, but after about 2 feet we finally broke though. We put down our baited fishing line with chunks of previously frozen salmon at the end, and all we could do was wait….back where it was warmer, our house. We drove back out a few more times and checked on the lines, but never had too much of a response (or any at all). Hopefully they had a great weekend seeing the rest of town via van tour, foot and four-wheeler. I feel like they got a pretty authentic Nome experience.

What else has been going on?….hmmm. Well, it still is basketball season and I just got done running the board for one game this evening. Iditarod is still coming up, and things are looking GREAT, I’m sure I’ll keep you updated.

Other than that things are running pretty normal. I found out from Isaac that northslope.net doesn’t look to hot when you are using the firefox browser…I guess that means I’ve got some work to do sometime….but it could be fun. Sorry to all you firefox users.

I haven’t heard from very many friends back home lately, other than the ones who just were up here. If you’re reading this, go ahead and send me/us an email.

I’m going to be deleting some photos in the next few weeks, and wanted to give you folks one last look.

The Cascades 2004 gallery was viewed 431 times over the past few months… it contains 14 sub-albums.

Take one last look. It’ll be back with just a few summer highlight photos, but not the hundreds that are up there now.

Here are some more pictures for ‘yall.

I recently took my first snowmachine trip, it was a afternoon trip to Dorothy falls which is not to far out of town. It was pretty fun and we even got to see some moose! (click here)

ALSO:

Check out Rob’s new website: (click here)

Alright guys I realize how incredibly long its been since our last update, and it’s a terrible shame. I think its pretty much this new schedule that has me up in a busy whirl. I forgot how much work even one class is when you’re out of the classroomand that with the guitar lessons it makes for less stress-free evenings. Class is going well, its still just me and the professor in a room on the phone with five native ladies in places like golivin, tuntutuliack, and one in Anchorage. I’m doing really well compared to any other school endeavor I’ve taken in the past..oh, 20 years. I had my first quiz last Friday and will probably get it back today, we will see how things progress. Guitar is going well too, although I still don’t practice as much as I should.

Things at the radio station are going well, Dennis and Lon were gone for a while at Mid-winter in Chicago, then it was just Neil and I running the radio station. Everyone is back plus the addition of Irene, the newest volunteer. She is very nice and has been teaming up with Lon on the AM morning show. I think she will start to help me with FM music soon, and I can focus more on the news (which is a really good thing). Speaking of news.

This just in!! Iditarod is approaching, and KICY is gearing up for our coverage (correction, I’m gearing up for our coverage). Normally we give regular updates from the standings found on the internet, meet mushers before they get into town, and then call the finish live.but this year I’ve got some big aspirations. I’m flying down to Anchorage to cover the start, and re-startand plan to fly out to villages starting at Unakleet (where we can fly for free on advertising trade). I also got a deal worked out with OLN (Outdoor Life Network, or the Only Lance Network). They are doing 5, 1-hour specials to air in April about the Iditarod, and want my coverage to be a story that they tell in the specials.and they want to use my news reports in the specials as well. In return, they are going to have their reporter phone in updates from each checkpoint on the trailmaking our coverage pretty awesome. I’m also working on getting the usage of a satellite phone for live village updates all on a trade account, where we don’t pay cash but offer a dollar for dollar advertising contract with the company, so far they think it sounds good too.

Well, I must again apologize for the lack of updates recently, life here is been busy, and my afternoon is just about to get busier as class starts in about an hour and a half, and I’ve quickly got to finish up some reading. I did post some photos of my first snowmachine trip enjoy!