Fishing Fools

It's time for tomcod.



There are all sorts of happy hookers out on the ice fishing for tomcods.




As soo as the ice is strong enough people are out there hooking.



They were pulling a few out here and there.




The ice is just a few inches thick so all you need is a tuuk to chop through.




I like to hook for tomcods too, but my knee is too scary to be walking on glare thin ice. I would fall down for sure, but it is nice to see people out on the ice again having a good time.





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Happy Birthday to me!!!

That's right, today I am 28 years old! Well, maybe for the 8th year in a row. Actually 36 does not seem so bad. I seem to be effected by birthdays in increments of 5. I had a rough time with turning 30. There is something about being able to say you are twenty something that really puts you with the young crowd. Then I had a problem last year with turning 35. I mean 35 is 5 years from 40, which is ten years from 50, which is only ten years from 60! Holy cow!




So today I got to sleep in. I opened my presents while drinking coffee. My mom gave me some shirts and this really awesome Bergsma print.




She also gave me this framed set of pictures of Uyaana when he was about two years old. I love these pictures. They were taken at my sister's house in New Hampshire.




Uyaana gave me this snow globe (which looks an awful lot like one that I gave him) that he put a fake 10 dollar bill inside. He wrapped it himself with black and white construction paper and lots of tape. It was cute.

Then my mom and Uyaana were going to take me out for a late breakfast. The only place to do this on a Sunday is Bayside. So we go to bayside and the place is packed and the phone is ringing off the hook and they were taking forever so we left.



Then my friend Bree stopped by and brought me a cake.

After that Uyaana and I brought the dogs for a run with the 4 wheeler. I will post the pics of that later. With my camera charger gone I need to spread out the pics that I am taking over several days so that I will have enough pics to post until my new charger comes. I wonder if someone in Kotz has a EN-EL9 (Nikon D40) battery charger?? Anyone? Anyone?

So after our 4 wheeler adventure (during which I scolded myself several times for not wearing ski pants) we went to have dinner with my friend Kathy and her parents and husband. We had grilled steaks and baked potatoes, yummy. And Kathy had bought me a cake(you know those yummy chocolate ones in the box from Peperidge farms)and some ice cream.

All and all it was a good birthday, even if I am 4 years from 40 *YIKES*

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If My Head Wasn't Attached I'd Lose That Too

It seems that I have lost the charger to my camera. As someone who carries their camera with them everywhere they go that is a bit of a crisis for me. I have about 2 bars of power left in the battery. I am ordering a new charger from B&H photo tonight. It will take at least a week to get here so I will have to be conservative with my camera until it arrives.

Do You Think.....

....that maybe he is sick of getting his picture taken????















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99752

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http://www.wordlesswednesday.com

More

Here are more pics that I took on Oct 5th.....




















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Pics From Yesterday

I am headed to Anchorage in the morning for a conference on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I will be back to Kotzebue on Friday night.























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Good Dog

Her's some pics of Kaija the Karelian Bear Dog on our evening ride.






























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First Snow

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Winter, She is a Comin'

As usual I rode my 4 wheeler to work today. I have been wearing just a jacket and gloves lately and that has been enough. This morning while I was warming up my 4 wheeler I thought it might be a good idea to go back inside and get a hat. Good thing cause even with a hat on I froze on the way to work. It's cooooooold. When I got to work and looked at the temp I saw that it was twenty t-t-t-t-two degrees.Alaapaa!

Living in the arctic I am certainly not a hater of winter. There are lots of fun things to be doing in the winter. It's just that after 4 months of nice weather winter always seems to come as a shock to the system, even though you know that it is coming. It's unavoidable, the days start growing shorter and the nights are getting cooler you slip into this kind of denial....until one day you wake up and there is frost all over and suddenly you realize that it is time to order new winter stuff from Cabelas.

Cold is relative. If you live in south Florida 50 degrees is parka weather. ...but it is also relative to those of us who live in the arctic. After months of mild spring and summer weather lots of people here are remarking on the cold. 22 degrees? Brrrr, alaapaa! Come April we'll be saying "22 degrees! Wow it's downright balmy out!" See? It's all relative.

A lot of people ask about the dark. Contrary to popular belief there is not 6 months of light and 6 months of dark in the arctic, especially in Kotzebue. While we have a period of about a month that the sun never sets during the summer, there is never a time in the winter that the sun doesn't rise, at least a few degrees, during the winter. The shortest day of the year has about an hour and forty minutes of sun just barely above the horizon with about an hour of cheap dusk before and after.



These pics are a good example of the low sun we have in the winter.



These pics were taken later in the winter when the sun is a bit higher on the horizon than it is in November, December and January.

The lack of significant light during the winter has never really affected me much. By the time I am getting sick of the dark it is about January and the days are already getting longer. By the time April rolls around the sun is setting around 11pm and it's bright enough all night that you can no longer see stars (until mid august.)

Woo....that's more than I have written in a post for a long time. Enough.