Wordless (almost) Wednesday- Sunrise

Sunrise, 12/2/07 11:40am - Kotzebue, Alaska

Christmas Cookie

*cough* *cough* *hack*

*cough* *sniff* *hack* *sniffle* *cough* *sniff* *gag* *cough* *sniff* *sputter* *sniff* *cough* *sniff* *sigh*



Still sick.

Gone to the Dogs

I have had a few requests for photos of sled dogs, mushers, handlers, etc... so I have been trying to get a few here and there. We have some great distance dog mushers here in the region....John Baker, Ed Iten, and Louie Nelson.


Everybody, meet Ozzie and Bianca....Ozzie and Bianca, meet Everybody. Ozzie and Bianca are Ed Iten's dog handlers. I think they are from Norway...or something like that. They had mushed a couple teams of Ed's dogs into town for the usual post office/store/civilization run. I saw them at the craft fair and asked about some pictures, they happily obliged. I took their pic and they told me that the dogs were parked down on the lagoon if I wanted pics of them. Here's a few pics....







If anyone is interested in learning more about Ed and his kennel you can check out his website at http://www.editen.com/

Craft Fair

St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church here in Kotzebue had it's annual Christmas Bazaar. It was Friday from 5pm-9pm and Saturday from 12pm-5pm. I wanted to get a table but as the time for the bazaar came closer I started to wimp out. I kept thinking that maybe my stuff wasn't good enough. Maybe no one would buy anything. My friend asked me if I was going to reserve a table and I said maybe not. She said nevermind, and she picked up the phone and reserved one for me. Anyway....I went, I set my prints up on a table and.....I actually sold some!!! I think all together I sold 14 prints of various sizes. That's pretty cool. Here are a couple pics of my table....

*sniffle*

My poor neglected blog. I was starting to get a guilt trip thinking about people coming here and finding nothing new. I left for Anchorage on the 23rd and got back on the 26th. I have been sick since last Saturday. I finally went to the clinic for what I KNOW is a sinus infection. I saw one of the PA's, his name is, I kid you not, Chuck Luck. He gave me some Amoxicillin and what we like to call around here the "Chuck Luck Cocktail" (take 3 Tylenol and 1 ibuprofen every 6 hours). Hopefully it will clear up soon cause I feel like I've been snorting water up my nose.

Anchorage was good, but the weather stunk. I didn't take any pictures because everything was so overcast and ugly looking. I can't stand taking pictures when the weather is like that. It's not even worth the effort of taking them because then I look at them and say yuck to all of them.

I spent A LOT of time in Walmart....... A LOT! I think I get sensory overload in there. We got into ANC about noon. I had to go ever to the Social Security office so I could apply for a new SS card. After that we went over to the 5th avenue mall. What a ZOO! I went into JC Penny and it looked like a bomb went off. All I ended up buying was 2 packages of socks for my son and a New Christmas shirt for him. That was all I could stand, I had to get out of the mall. I was lucky though....as crowded as it was we never got there until after the rush.

I was able to see one movie. We went to see August Rush. It was a very good movie. You should see it if you get a chance. Funny, when I lived in NH and NY I rarely went to the movies. Now I try to go to at least one if there is anything decent playing. I think it's the fact that I can't just go whenever I feel like it. It makes it seem more special I guess. Hahaha....kind of like Walmart. Walmart may not seem like that big of a deal...but when you have to fly 550 miles in a Boeing 737 jet to get there it's a big, fat, hairy deal.

The nutcracker was great. It was the first time I have seen it on stage. It was a joint effort between the Oregon Ballet and the Alaska Dance Theatre. It was very nice. It would have been even better if I hadn't had the luck of sitting behind the only guy in the theatre who was at least 6' 6". This is my interpretation of the view I had for the whole show...



By the end of the performance I had quite the cramp in my neck from trying to look around that guys noggin.

Many of the people were all dressed up in suits and dresses. Little kids with cutsie little outfits and wool coats. And then there were some people who were dressed in jeans, a t shit and a ratty fleece jacket. Hahaha....guess which one I was????. I know of the tradition of wearing your best to theatre and ballet, I expected to see that, but geez, I live in the bush. I don't even own a dress or a skirt. Not even one! I'm certainly not going to buy one just to go to the dang ballet.

My new four wheeler (or ATV as the rest of the planet calls them) came in on Tuesday. I didn't get the Honda. I decided I really wanted another machine with Independent suspension in the front and back like my old Arctic Cat 4 wheeler had. So I went with the Yamaha Big Bear. It's a nice rig. I was so proud of my brand new ride I rode around all day with the dealer tags flapping in the breeze cause I was so proud of it. My friend Kathy called me Minnie Pearl (anyone remember Hee Haw?. Anyway, it looks exactly like this...



I keep meaning to take pictures of it but we are down to about 6 hours of visible light...5 hours of which looks like dusk. Not enough light for a decent pciture.

So we are in for some warm crappy weather. It has already started. Here's the current conditions.............



Here is what the next few days forecast looks like......



So anyway, that's all that's going on around here.

Wordless Wednesday

Noatak River, Northwest Arctic Alaska.

Wordless (almost) Wednesday- Cottongrass

Northwest Arctic Alaska

Playing Out

Today was a nice day/ Clear and cold. I finally hauled the snowmachine out and too Uyaana and Kaija for a ride. There is enough snow on the ground and the ice is thick so I figured it was time. I broke my "No Ice Before Thanksgiving" rule by a few days. We went out behind town so Kaija could have a good run. She has been cooped up in the house lately and is getting bored and naughty. We left the house for our ride at about 3pm and were gone about and hor and a half. The temperature was about 1 F
( -17C . Here are a few of the pictures I took......
















This picture is my favorite!

Brrrr.....

Yesterday was the first real cold day that we have had so far. It was about 1F. Ok, in the grand scheme of things that is not very cold around here, but at the moment it seems like it is. It's funny how your body adjusts to temperature, because in about a month or two 1F is going to seem like a warm day.

I went out to take some pictures. Guess what I took pictures of....you guessed it....sunset and cemetery!


I have several shots of this particular cross.


Here is a different section of the cemetery.


Here's a sunset photo with a plane taking off from the airport.

Of course. That's ok. It's practically impossible to take pictures with gloves on so I didn't last very long with bare hands. My hands are terrible in the cold. They seem more sensitive to cold than most people I know. After ever 30 seconds in cold they are ready to quit so I only took pictures for about 5 minutes. See how I suffer for my art.

I have been trying to get used to using Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 to make simple corrections to my photos. I don't do much. I usually leave the colors alone and just fix spots or blemishes I might find, like the spot on this photo........


I think it was some dust or whatever on the outside of the lens...it showed up on several of the photos.


It was easy enough to clone it out. Out out damn spot!