Its been a pretty great week here in Nome! Last Thursday evening brought Emily here to visit us. She was supposed to come in Thursday moring, but one of the flights from Anchorage to Nome got cancelled so she got to spend some time in the state’s largest city. Its kind of funny being here in Nome for 8 or so months now because I’ve got the Alaska Airlines flight schedule memorized….the same three flights each day. So depending on when someone comes into Nome, I can pretty much tell what flight you’re on or vis-versa. It fun having Emily in town but with all of our visitors we keep finding ourselves making sure that we are having a unique experience with each person, especially two weekends in a row.

Josh’s Daylight-o-meter OR How much light will it take to drive the Rogers insane??

Today, May 25th 2005 - The sun rose at 5:03am and will set at 12:54am for a total of 19 hours and 51 minutes of daylight!

For the past few weeks Lydia has been scouting out dogs over at the animal shelter. We knew that we aren’t supposed to have pets in radio station housing but as a life long pet lover, Lydia couldn’t help herself. We asked the manager if we could get a dog that stayed outside and he thought that it shouldn’t be a problem. After some debating and doggie elimination, we picked a pooch that we both really like. After building a doghouse, making a tiedown, and a pet naming webpoll…we were ready for the new pet. His name is Kobuk, we really liked “Brando” which is what the web audience suggested…but the more we thought about it, the more we wanted an Alaskan name for our Alaskan Dog. Kobuk is a river just north of here, and the Kobuk 440 is one of the smaller dog sled races. We’ve been having fun training, walking, and poop scooping.

Tomorrow morning I’m heading down to Anchorage to spend the weekend with Neil and Jamie. Neil has been working at the radio station for almost 2 years now and is headed back home to Iowa. We are planning a trip down to Seward, and up to Denali….it should be pretty fun, stay tuned as I’ll try and journal as the trip goes on.

Ok, I’ve never blogged about TV before, even though it is one of my favorite past times….however this evening I feel like I had to call out my man Mark Burnett. I just watched the (most likely series) finale of “The Contender” on NBC. I was one of the few people who watched this show every week, even when it was put in an extremely competitive Sunday night time slot. It all came down to this final fight, which would be live from Cesar’s Palace. I’m not a big boxing fan, and I knew that the fights wouldn’t be nearly as exciting live as they are after being edited to include punching sound effects and cool slow jabs. But what I didn’t expect was a very poorly produced and directed finale. Somehow they managed to get a few celebrities to attend the fight, Justin Timberlake, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Hulk Hogan were all there watching the match (didn’t the get the memo that this show was cancelled last week???). Here is what else I didn’t expect coming into tonight’s show: a pre-taped boxing match from a few hours earlier determining the 3rd place finisher of the show. I didn’t expect Sly Stallone to start saying during the SECOND ROUND of the title match “I wonder what would happen during in a rematch?”…how about we find out what happens during this fight, then Mark Burnett can pay you to try and peddle this thing back on the air next season.

I didn’t expect the fan fights, which were so highly promoted online as fights that you could vote for and pick the contestants to be only shown in the last 2 minutes of the show. You can watch them online over on contender.yahoo.com….oh yeah, you can also be notified in case of further fights and rematches.

I’ve got a regular entry coming tomorrow night….but I thought it would be interesting to do a semi-review of this television event.

Lydia and I have just decided to adpot a new dog . We weren’t allowed to have pets inside here at radio station housing, as per our rental agreement..but were still given the “ok” as long as it stays outdoors. We’ve been waiting for it to get warmer!

(click here) to take a look at the process it took to build a dog house
(click here) to see photos of the new dog

Also, Emily Martinson was up for the weekend hanging out, you can view her photos in the gallery as well. Expect a new edge with emily up and posted later tuesday or wednesday.

I just got back from a spur of the minute fourwheeler ride with Neil. Its pretty beautiful outside and it was a nice break from the tech stuff that I was working on tonight at home. We took the machines up to the west beach, it was the first time I had been up there since the snow started melting a few weeks ago. I was amazed at how many miners were out on the beach. You’ve got all these guys going out and living on the beach in houses made out of palates. I’ve got to get some pictures of this stuff sometime in the next few days, its pretty crazy. I also learned that miners who live in palate houses don’t like it when you do donuts outside their “house”.

Matt & Nicole were here over the weekend and we had a blast playing games, walking around town and burning up the beach. There is so much driftwood down on all the beaches that you can just go out and start a huge fire! I plan to do this often during the summer. Thanks again for coming up guys, we had a great time!

Lydia said that the sunrise was gorgeous this morning, although I don’t know what she was doing up at 5:30am…but that reminds me, its time for:

Josh’s Daylight-o-meter OR How much light will it take to drive the Rogers insane??

Today, May 16, 2005: Sunrise at 5:33am and a Sunset of 12:23am for 18 hours and 50 minutes of daylight.

The guitar recital went pretty well last week, I was the oldest person there, but I still had fun and was able to show off my mad skillz. The cold is also gone, although I did suffer from “tissue face” for about a week.

I think I’ll apply for survivor.

Also, I’m trying to figure out if I’ll abandon the blog when we move from Alaska someday… I don’t really have anything else to write about, but if you can think of any interesting topics I’d love to hear them. I’m not really into the “everyday” blogs, and the only reason this feels like one is because I’m chronicling our adventures here in the great white north-land. I’d be all over keeping this up if it was able to find another purpose. Shoot me off an email.

Hello my internet friends,

Its been a pretty interesting week, Lydia was gone in Anchorage for training and I held the fort down here in Nome…where by the way, there is pretty much no more snow, and where tomorrow the sun will set after midnight. I think I’ll start documenting the daylight in the blog, since I pretty much always mention it anyways, so I’m introducing (drumroll please)…

Josh’s Daylight-o-Meter OR How much light will it take to drive the Rogers insane??

Today, May 9, 2005: Sunrise at 5:57am and a Sunset at 11:59pm for 18 hours of daylight.

This week Matt & Nicole will be coming up, that should be fun! I’ve got a guitar recital the day before they arrive, that was a close call. I haven’t actually experienced a recital for myself, although I did attend lots of Janell’s piano recitals when we were growing up. I’m pretty sure it will be one of the most embarrassing events of my lifetime, as a married man to fingerpick “Oh Suzanna” as a duet with a 15 year old in front of a bunch of strangers… but I’m actually learning stuff about playing, so I guess it will be worth it.

I’ve been sick for a few days and hoping to kick this pretty soon. It’s no fun to be on the radio when your throat makes you sound like a 65 year old smoker, or a 14 year old who is still going through “special changes”…. that was last week, the cold is running its course and now I’m Gilbert Gottfried nasally.

I think I’ll host a big northslope blog party in a few weeks as we mark the 1 year anniversary of its inception. I’ll keep everyone updated.