08/11/2009

Well my Chevy Tahoe (Nina’s) now has a plug. No, I did not go GREEN and get an electric vehicle; I had my car (Nina’s) winterized so it will start in -50 degree weather. I had a battery-warming pad, engine block heater, and an oil pan heater installed. Additionally, the differential fluid and engine oil was change to synthetic and the antifreeze was dropped to -60 degrees. Every place you go around here have plug in spots for the employees to plug in while at work. The locals say you do not have to plug in until -20 but you can start earlier if you want. Next addition to the car is a good set of ice tires and then a remote start. We had frost around here yesterday morning and all of the mountain peaks have fresh snow on them. Winter is a coming.

The moose(s) came back tonight! This time another little baby one was there also. We are wondering what happened to its mother. Hopefully the other mother will start taking care of it also. We are looking forward to moving into our home ~ 3 more days!!! We snuck in there tonight (someone left the doors unlocked) and got to see the new carpeting and the layout of the home again. Nina is getting more excited about decorating!

August 08, 2009

This photo is a glacier that ends on dry land.
The ice must be 30 feet high.
I finished my first two weeks of prepping for school. The school is still closed most staff and faculty due to construction; the only people that can enter are administration, secretaries, and custodians, and when we enter, we must have a hard hat on. We had four days of new principal orientation; it took me an entire day to get my office even halfway set up. After I had most of the construction dust cleaned up and minimal furnishing I have arranged, the construction folks came in and moved it all into the middle of the office so they could paint two walls (they only repaint the walls they put windows on). I guess they are coming back to put on a second coat, after their fishing trip to Valdez, because they left all the drop cloths on the floor and the furnishings in the middle of the room. The transformation of the school during the last two weeks was going very well until we had a small electrical problem. Last Saturday we had 45 – 50 MPH sustained winds, which blew a main neutral power line into a hot power line and sent a charge through both transformers outside the school and into the main electrical panel in the school. It blew a six-inch chunk out of the panel and melted the main feeds into a mess. We were just lucky it did not burn the school down. This put a halt to all construction as the school went dark. A week later half of the school is still without power. The main power line in the school have to be totally replaced, three runs of four cables the entire length of the school. They are running them in the attic since the buried wires are fried. This has caused a major delay, but we will still open on time. Teachers cannot enter the school until August 21st and school starts August 27th. Do you think it will be close? I just think of my daughter who goes into her classroom two or three week before pre-planning to get her room ready versus my teachers who will have six days (3 professional development, 2 weekend days, 1 work day) to get their rooms ready. The new lights in the school look great and it is coming together.

Today was the Huskies first football game. It was supposed to be an away game but it is so smoky in the Fairbanks area that they came down here. The last 48 hours I spent trying to figure out where we can park a team, where we can house them, where the scoreboard controls are, and where the PA system is. This is all compounded by the school being under construction, the normal locker rooms are closed, the parking is blocked off, and the power to the press box is out. Well with a little help from my Superintendent, it was all pulled together and we played today. The Huskies did well the first half, but then the 16-man, majority freshman, team was winded and lost 42 to 0. We have three games next week to get ready for since half the Fairbank’s teams want to use our field since they cannot breathe. Two of the games will not even involve us except for parking.

Nina and I were supposed to move into our house that we are going to rent on August 1st, that has now been delayed until August 14th. Three days before we were supposed to move in the maintenance crew came in to check it out, discovered that there had been a water leak (no telling how long), and decided they had to change out the carpet. When Nina & I went by the house, the rolled up carpet was on the driveway with disgusting stains that we know wasn’t just from water damage but as we suspect the 4-legged damage. We went to the housing office and stated that if it was that bad downstairs the upstairs had to be just as bad. Because of this, they said the company that does the carpeting is from Fairbanks (2 hrs away) and that they were backed up two weeks, hence we are still in the Billeting hotel on post (at $80 @ night). The room at the hotel is not so bad; it’s the cost with us being here for 34 days. That is almost 2 months’ rent! We might have to wait to get a sofa and dining room table/chairs for a while. One good thing is that they (post) let you have a sofa/dining room set on loan for 30 days, so maybe after this we will be able to buy at least a sofa (we can eat on trays for a while). We just cannot wait to be settled into our home and be able to have a home-cooked meal. The “chow hall” is good food, but you can only have so much of it. As a post-note; Kristina (our oldest) called and said that Tiffany went to the dentist and they said she needs a crown. The coverage Kristina has on her and Tiffany does not cover any part of the cost of the crown and it will be approx. $3,100. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Major construction meeting today, will Delta High School open on time? That is the question of the day. I did another walk through yesterday and you can see progress, but is it enough? If they do not finish the Cyber School hallway before we open, then the Cyber School will move to the high school computer lab, which would lock Delta High School students out of the lab. They need to install the ceiling grid, all the lights in the hallways, pipes for the heating system, and the air handlers. Additionally, installing the windows after they arrive is necessary. They are going to stucco the outside above the bricks, can they finish before the rains come next month? All of the outside lighting needs to be in-place before darkness. Then cleaning the school from all of the renovation dust; this is going to be a major undertaking.
Football practice starts next week; will they be able to use the locker room, which is inside the school? Volleyball needs to use the gym and soccer needs to get started also. Teachers normally start coming in the school the first week in August, but not this year, they will be lucky to get in a week before we start. The master schedule is in rough draft, students schedules need to be finalized, year-end roll over is just being completed and we have started a new version of Power School. I am looking forward to a great year!

Sunday, July 20, 2009

Saturday’s fishing was not a complete shutout; I did catch two rainbow trout in North Twin Lake. I had no luck in Delta Clearwater River, I could see the Grayling jumping all around me as I stood thigh deep in clear cold water. I was using spoons and grubs while the guy across from me, in a honey hole, was using flies and caught five while I hooked zero. Went back on Sunday and tried drifting some flies with a spinning reel, still shut out. My fly road is in my household goods, when it arrives, I will slay them! Nina went to Fairbanks with Rachelle to go furniture hunting on Saturday. (We sold our sofa/loveseat/recliner and our dining room table/chairs so of course, we need to get new ones.) On the way back, they saw a mother moose and baby crossing the road. They stopped on the side of the road and took pictures of them in the bogs. She said that they were only about 30 feet away slashing around in the bog eating the plants off the bottom.Today we found out what the Delta Winds are, it was a clear day around 74 degrees with a constant breeze of around 25 mph. It was hard to walk against it and it kicked in the wind chill factor. We can only imagine what it is going to be like at -10 degrees and a 40 mph wind. Nina and I drove back up to Donnelly Dome this evening to look at the Alaskan Range since it was so clear. The temperature dropped seven degrees as we drove through the hills. When we got to the top, the temperature had dropped to 63 degrees and the wind was roaring. Nina had a sweatshirt in the car that she put on, I only had my shorts, t-shirt and sandals, and yep it was cold. The view was fantastic; it is hard to believe how much snow is still on those peaks. You can see the glaciers between the peaks, cliffs of snows, and in one area a huge bowl of snow. One day Nina and I would like to take a flight-seeing tour of it. Nina and I have been in Alaska for two weeks now and the scenery and the wildlife still amazes us daily.

Friday, July 17, 2009We finally found Bullwinkle; yes, we saw a moose, actually two moose with antlers! The antlers were not that big, but they were antlers and we were excited to find the elusive Bull Moose. One of the moose we saw was right along Eielson Air Force Base. I pulled over to take a picture with my phone (we did not have the camera) and while I was sitting there, another car pulled up behind me. I remember I had just passed a sign that said “No Stopping, No Parking, and No Pictures” and figured I was going to get a ticket by the Air Police. First Nina at the Canadian border and now me in Fairbanks; we just need to stop playing tourist and taking so many pictures. Luckily, it was just another tourist looking at the moose, but still I high-tailed it out of there. In addition to the moose, we saw a black wolf. Now talk about big; the wolf was very huge and he looked wicked. I would hate to have a pack of those coming at me. Nina and I felt that the wolf was probably more intimidating than the grizzly bear. Today was the clearest day since we have been in Alaska. The forest fires are only thirty miles away but the wind changed to reveal an entire snow covered mountain range we had not seen before. We went to the Moose Lodge for a steak dinner tonight. I will probably join the Moose Lodge since they have supported the school in the past and I would like to see them continue their support. Tomorrow I am going fishing for trout and arctic grayling. I will have to fish a lot in order to recoup the price of my fishing license. Even though I have an Alaska driver’s license, registered to vote, and registered my car in Alaska I still have to buy a non-resident license since I have not lived in Alaska for twelve consecutive months. It is the same for a hunting license.

Visit to the Big City

We went to Fairbanks yesterday just to look around. It is about 1-1/2 hours from Delta Junction and has most of the amenities of a big city minus the super-mall. On the way we stopped by North Pole, AK to see Santa and his reindeer. Very tourist-orientated town, go figure. We spluged and ate at a fast-food Wendy's. It was delicious and so much more affordable. We are lucky to have a hamburger, fries, and drink for under $16. We stopped by Wal-Mart where we saw our first Wal-Mart Liquor Store. Found out where Sam’s Club was and then dropped by a big Sportsman Warehouse to look at cold weather gear and I picked up a few Arctic Grayling lures. We did not buy much of anything today since we have not nailed down a place to live yet. We are moving out of the Bed and Breakfast in town today and into Billiting on Fort Greely. We will stay in a Recreational Quarters until we find a place to live. Not sure why they're called recreational quarters, must have something to do with the privatization of quarters on the military post. The Fort Greely Housing folks showed us a 4 bedroom field grade quarters that might be available on a yearly lease. We lived in privatized quarters for a year at Robins Air Force Base, not a bad deal. Today we will look at a two-bedroom apartment, a three-bedroom house, and then on Monday a walk-through of the four-bedroom townhome on Fort Greely and then we will crunch numbers and make up our mind. All of them are between 3.2 miles and 7.4 miles from school. All of them are on a maintained winter roads. I am tired of living out of a suitcase and only getting Fox News when the tree is not blowing in front of the satellite dish. (Nina is also experiencing withdrawal symptoms with not being able to see HGTV.) It is strange having almost 20 hours of daylight; we have been up past midnight the last few days and really did not even realize it. I am not complaining, because I know that in a couple of months I will only see sunlight for a couple of hours a day.

Day 1 at Delta Junction (07/07/2009)

First priority is to find a place to live; this is proving much more difficult than we thought. Delta Junction is a small place at the intersection of the Alaska Highway and Richardson Highway. (Even though it is small, it is very confusing ~ it is spread out so much.) Highway work crews or contractors at Fort Greely take almost all of the rentals up until August. We have an appointment tomorrow with a realtor to show us a duplex. We went by today to get Alaska driver licenses but decided to wait since we have to take the written test. We picked up the books to study, oh fun. It will only cost us $100 to register our car for two years. I checked in at the Board of Education and immediately went into a construction meeting with the building winterization crew. I sat there, listened, and wondered how the school is going to start on time. I will continue to attend the Tuesday morning meetings, the superintendent said the one the 21st should be very interesting since that is when they will review the schedule to determine if the school start date will be delayed. Well it is time to head over to the IGA and see what the local grocery store is like.