I just felt like being artsy...

This one's from quite awhile ago, but I just felt like being artsy...

I got a phone call last week saying that my paperwork to goto Papua New
Guinea has finally moved out of the Black Hole that is their government
system, so I've started going through to clean up my computer a little
bit. You'd think that out of 250Gb on my hard drive, that I'd have more
than 3Gb free, but you'd be mistaken... Time to dump a bunch of stuff
on my external hard drive...

House Sitting - Dog

I've been house sitting for a few days now at a friend from Church's
place. It's a great big house on a nice lot that has a large open
driveway in front of it where the dog and I play catch. The dog is one
of the largest labs that I've ever seen. And, as far as labs go, they
never really grow out of their puppy stages. This one is pretty good,
as long as you tire him out. So, we play catch with the tennis ball in
the driveway with a 'chuck-it' slinger. Those slingers are awesome,
with just a flick of the wrist the ball flies a hundred feet. I guess
they're basically an atlatl, but 'chuck-it' is a fitting name.

The driveway where we play catch has been plowed, and has a little berm
of snow that comes up to the dog's midsection. He likes to grab the
ball without slowing down for the berm and plow over the top of it.
Usually I think he does this because of all the hard packed snow on the
driveway that makes it fairly difficult for him to stop in time to avoid
crashing into the pile of snow. Which is exactly what happened on one
of the throws.

The ball left the atlatl and the dog took out after it, but just as he
was catching up to it, it took a funny hop and the dog hand to go
sideways in order to snatch it. This sudden movement caused him to
slide sideways a little bit on the hard pack, which normally would have
been fine. However, this time he was much too close to he berm and his
momentum carried him directly into it. The berm, being exactly the
right height for this, took out the dogs legs and he went flipping over
it onto his back on the far side, where I saw, for a moment, four
floundering paws waving in the air. I started laughing so hard that I
about had to take a knee to keep from falling down.

On top of all this, the dog hadn't kept hold of the tennis ball, and it
took him nearly a minute in order to find it. Good times.

Winter Solstice

Well, it's finally the shortest day of the year. Since I hadn't done it
before I knew that I needed to take a picture when the sun was at it's
highest point just to show everyone how low the sun is during this time
of year. By the hand method, the sun was at 5 degrees above the
horizon. (if you stick out your fist at arms length, from the bottom
knuckle to the top is supposed to be ten degrees. Using the "stack"
method, you should have your hand directly above your head after nine of
them, indicating ninety degrees... My hands get pretty close to that.)

From looking at this picture it does a pretty decent representation of
what "high noon" looks like. The whole panorama was taken at 12:45pm on
December 20th. The high temp yesterday was about -10 degrees
Fahrenheit, so you can also see all the steam from fireplaces and
furnaces. Also, the sun was almost directly south at this time.

Today the sun rose at 10:58am, and set at 2:40pm, which gave us about 3h
41m of sun... So the highest point the sun reaches should be right in
the middle of those times... I'd say that picture was taken very close
to the highest point.

What's the good news? Tomorrow is 13 seconds longer than today...

Ski Plane

So, I guess it was something to do on a lazy Thanksgiving weekend. I
helped my friend Steve put skis on his airplane, but unfortunately it
got too dark for us to want to take it out that night. It's amazing to
me just how light those things are, but I guess that's good for staying
in the air.

It was strange to run into a guy that just recently got his A&P license
where I was at for Thanksgiving. It's interesting enough for me to
consider school again, but not for a little while.

Haste The Day - Walk On

It seems like I've heard the song a hundred times, but when it came on the play list randomly, it seemed so fresh to me. I dono if it was because I caught some other meaning in the words, or if it's something that I needed to hear right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN1roEt7CVI

Lyrics:

Walk on past me
Never say my name again
I see through you
Your lies will no longer stand
Walk on past me
Never say my name again
I see through you
Your lies will no longer stand
Beauty fades
What's inside shines through
Offered all and gave me nothing
Suffocation setting in
I can't breath when you're around
Believed lies
I see through you
Somehow you see me all too well
And there's no hiding behind lies
If I could only run fast enough
Now I'm running out of time
Walk on past me
Never say my name again
I see through you
Somehow you see me but you see me all too well
I see through you
Walk on past me
Never say my name again
Walk on past me
Never say my name again
Walk on past me
Never say my name again
I see through you
Somehow you see me all too well
And there's no hiding behind lies
If I could only run fast enough
Now I'm running out of time

Paul

Smokey the Tree

Well, I finally downloaded some photos off my camera and relised that
it'd been over a month since I wrote something on this blog... So much
for trying to be better about writing this stuff...

Anyway, here's a cool photo of a tree by the place I live that kept
bending further and further over the road. I took some pictures of it
when it was clear, but the pictures of it in the smoke turned out to be
much more impressive. At some point I figured I'd come tooling down the
road and see the tree lying there blocking my way, but I never saw it
fall. I'm guessing someone cut it for firewood or something...

Blindside lyrics...

I had a dream the other day that was really powerful... this song seems
to remind me of it every time I hear it... Maybe it will speak to you
too: (video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei8Rh_cxh4w ... not what
I thought about when I hear the song, but it will at least give you a
tune to follow for the lyrics...)

That boy is gone
Sometimes I miss the way he wept at night
To be still and not run
To be rocked to sleep in your light
These days there is not much that will bring tears to my eyes
But when I remember who I am and who you are
When I remember
A cloud moves in, rain falls, thunder strikes, and sunshine breaks
through the clouds

I am walking blind
So distracted that I don't even feel when you hold me
When did I grow such thick skin
You are my sunshine and rain
My joy and sweet pain
I'm a spotless stain
That boy is gone
But nobody moves me like you do
When I remember

A cloud moves in, rain falls, thunder strikes
And sunshine breaks through the clouds
I can cry out of sorrow and joy
Every drop of rain turns into a crystal in the sun
So wash my eyes, my clothes, my skin, my bones, my soul
My feet, my love
I'm not forgotten
I'm in your thoughts cause I feel sunshine in the rain

To this day nobody moves
Nobody
Nobody moves me like you do

On Top of Old Smoky!!!

Alas, no cheese.

It's a smoky day in Fairbanks. About eleven this morning the smoke got
pushed into town, and it's just stayed now for a few hours. Hopefully
the wind will blow it out of town soon, because, as you can see from the
rough stitch photo, visibility (and thus breath ability) is fairly
limited today. I guess this is another sure sign of summer in Fairbanks.

I didn't have a good summer photo from the hill on campus, so you'll
have to contend with this stitch of the Sunrise Service on April 12th of
this year. But, I think you can tell that it's not just fog that you're
seeing...

Alaskan Summer

Well, here we go...

I got stung by a bee/wasp/hymenoptera on Tuesday while working on
removing some saplings for a guy I know from church... I didn't think
much of it, other than "ouch". I took an antihistamine, but just one...
that was my downfall. When I woke up on Wednesday my hand nice an
puffy. Not at all what you want to see first thing in the morning. So,
it was double doses of antihistamine for a few days until it finally
caught up enough to get my hand back to normal Saturday night.

I also had an eye appointment on Friday morning where I found out that
my upper eyelid/contacts have been scratching away at my eye and it
needs to heal... a lot... so I can't wear my contacts for at least two
weeks, and I have to put in these strange eye drops every two hours...
(good thing my watch has a repeatable timer.... <beep> <beep> <beep>
<beep>... drop - drop... ahhhh...

Then Friday night I was brushing my teeth and flossing like a good
little boy should, when a tooth started hurting and bleeding around the
gums... AHHHhhhh... ouchy. So, I'll be making an appointment for the
dentist this coming week... Why is my 27 year old body falling apart on
me? Why?!?!

So, Saturday I had a little melt down trying to figure out what I was
going to do (about paying for all this stuff without insurance right
now... I was supposed to be in another country by now...) and realized I
hadn't read my Bible much (ok, at all) this week... Solution? I sat in
the warm afternoon sun (why get up any earlier on a weekend?) and read
for several hours... just enough to have a nice, if slightly pinkish
glow. No, I'm smart enough (I think) not to get burnt, but that would
have made a great story.

What did I learn? Well, I read about Moses being called to lead his
people out of Egypt... "Don't pick me... Me words no gewd... Not it!"
And just laughed because I know that He's picked a path for me, and it's
the one worth following in life.

So, even though I don't know how to fix anything, I know I don't need
to. And even though I'm in Alaska, and not PNG, there are still really
neat things to see and do.

This afternoon I went with the Youth Group from my church and we played
disc golf on Birch Hill... The first time in probably three years that
I've played. I'm proud to say that my team had the lowest score of the
lot, and everyone had a good afternoon.

Then while driving home, I saw two moose next to the road that let me
take their pictures. You know what? Alaska's an ok place to be.

E-Book reader!

I've been thinking over the last few days/weeks/months, that when I get
to PNG, I might like to have an ebook reader so I don't have the weight
of tens of books to carry around with me. This lead me to start
investigating the prospects of ebook readers on the market currently.

The first one that I knew about was the Amazon Kindle
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle) The electronic paper that
is used on the high end ebook readers looks sharp, and leads to long
lasting battery life. However there were some complaints from the user
reviews that didn't like the new Kindle 2 because it doesn't have the
expansion slot for SD card and that the contrast one the '2' was worse
than the original... not the direction you'd like to see out of and
updated version. Then of course is the price. At $359 for the Kindle 2
makes it pretty hard on the pocket book... You do get ebooks downloaded
for free over 3G networks when you download/buy books from Amazon, but
that won't work in PNG... so, final verdict? Let's see what else is out
there...

The next ebook reader that looked good was the Hanlin V3
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlin_eReader) which gets re-distributed
under various other name brands, here it's called the "Astak EZ Reader".
There is also a V5 version that is out/will be out shortly. The cool
thing about the Hanlin is it says it has battery life based on page
turns... somewhere between 1,000 to 8,000... unfortunately quite the
wide range, but it probably has something to do with rendering pictures
and the like. It has a slot for an SD card and an internal memory of
512Mb. The biggest problem that I've seen is that it's so hard to tell
the differences between the versions. Not much was updated from the V3
to the V5, and the prices are still about the same. ($299 for V3 & $250
for V5... yeah, you got me on that one) I haven't been able to locate
where to buy the V5 yet, but this website is a great one for looking up
information on ereaders: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Hanlin_V5

Anyway, the V5 is still more than I was hoping to spend on the
conveyance of reading my books on an electronic device. Well, lucky for
me there is another option...the XO laptop: (http://laptop.org) Since I
happened to participate in the Give 1 Get 1 a few years ago, the
opportunity to use this computer as something special has just come to
mind. It is a low power laptop for kids in developing nations around
the world... A cool project with a lofty goal of delivering a laptop
for every child in the world.

The XO laptop has a Gb of storage, and can lower the back light to a
gray scale for outdoor use, a full keyboard (although very small for
anything but a child's hands), wireless networking (802.11b/g/s), and an
SD slot... The downsides of using it as an ebook reader is that it's
rather large and the interface is a little slow compared to a device
that is built for a dedicated purpose. However, I already own this
one... ;-)

Would I guy it just for an ebook reader? Nope... Would I buy it again to
support the G1G1 project? Yeah, but unfortunately that program isn't
going on right now. You might just have to wait for the XO2...
http://www.olpcnews.com/laptops/xo2/

Here's a review of the XO as an ebook reader:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/02/with-some-polis/
and the XO website: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO

Happy reading!

Far North BMX

I've been attending (and raced once) the Far North BMX race track over
the last few weeks. It's a fairly well maintained track that the kids
of Fairbanks can race around in a constructive manor. But what was
really fun was to take photos of the races. I took over six hundred
photos in the one hour the races lasted. I think there were about nine
moto's, and I'm not sure how many riders there were, but needless to
say, the little buffer on my camera got quite the workout, and even was
full for a few of the shots... Too bad too, because I know that I missed
a few good shots while it was churning away.

The class that I raced in (the one time) was the cruiser class... for
non-BMX bikes... but it was a nice change of pace from the downhill
mountain biking that I usually do. Now, this doesn't mean that I was
any good at it, just that it was fun to try once. ;-) What was really
nice was I didn't gash my leg open, or break any bones... or worse...
What's worse? I dono, but it didn't happen to me on this course.

Not that the page is all that exciting, but here is a link to the ABA site that tells you about the track in Fairbanks.
Russ (the guy that runs the track) is a good friend of mine that goes to
my church as well... Zion Fairbanks.

Paul

Midnight Sun Festival

For whatever reason it seems that fairs and festivals bring out all the
crazies in town, and Fairbanks has it's fair share of crazies. Luckily
there's an event that allows them to flaunt their undocumented illnesses
to the public with little chance of harassment. It's the Midnight Sun
Run, a 10K race where costumes are optional.

Basically the whole festival is an excuse to stay out late and enjoy the
summer light. I can't say that it's all that great, because downtown is
covered with people who browse the souvenirs shops and tents for more
stuff to spend money on, but it does present a good venue to people
watch from.

Since downtown is on the river, there were a few younger people that
were under endowed with brains (other things were the opposite) who
thought it was a good idea to spend some time in the river. I know from
experience (canoing down the river in late August) that this river never
warms up much above sixty degrees, but that didn't stop the brainiacs
from swimming (mostly clothed) in the murky water. Brilliant!

I will say thought that it was an excellent day to sit in the sun and
read a book while every few minutes taking a break to look up at the
crowd and chuckle to my self.

Interesting week

So, I've had one of the most interesting weeks of my life. What
happened? I'm glad you asked.

My week started with a trip to the arctic circle, as you'll see in the
photo, where we went up to Coldfoot, AK and camped for the night. The
haul road is less than in good condition compared to the rest of the
highways in the US, but that's where part of the fun is. Dodging
potholes and trucks as they go speeding through the interior. The
country north of Fairbanks is quite unique to Alaska and it was full of
photo opportunities.

After we returned I had a day to relax and then I jumped on a plane to
go to Homer to the district Pastoral conference to promote my mission
trip to PNG... It wasn't what I expected, but it was very informative
and interesting to meet several pastors from Alaska and get to know them
over three days.

While in Homer there was a house we visited that had a Bald Eagle land
in a tree just outside the best window in the house... How often does
that happen? It was getting attacked by another bird, but gave an
awesome chance for photos.

After we flew back to Fairbanks (oh, I flew copilot both down and back,
well worth it) I met up with Kat and we went to Ignite Alaska, which is
a concert full of Christian bands... I've been taking lots of photos of
it, but right now I get to go meet up with another guy to talk about PNG
some more... then it's back to the concert...

Like I said... interesting week.

Breakup in Alaska

Well, it finally looks like it's happening... the snow is finally
starting to recede in central Alaska. About time... Sure, I don't have
a job if there's no snow to push, but I'm about fed up with show
plowing, hard pack removal, and getting my truck stuck on the soft
shoulders of the road. You'd think that a Kenworth truck wouldn't get
stuck so easily, but you'd be wrong.

I suppose that means I'm really ready for Spring... or I'm ready to be
in PNG, where I hear the forecast for snow is nonexistent.

So, on Monday I had a fun day. It was the last two hard pack removal
jobs that I had to do. One was in North Pole where I plowed this guy's
whole back yard.. yeah, the whole thing. He had about two feet of snow
over an acre and a half or so that I piled up behind his house... oh,
and I only had one good chain left on the loader, so that thing was
slipping all over the place.

Then I drove up in the hills to plow out this guy's horse coral. Yeah,
horses in Alaska. Who knew?

About halfway through removing his hard pack, the loader ran out of
fuel... sweet, my fuel truck is fifteen miles away. Well, the ranger guy
gave me a ride into town and I finished his lot. After I loaded up the
loader on the trailer, I pull out onto the road and!!!... run that out
of fuel too... Funny thing though, the right tank was three quarters
full, the left tank, bone dry...

Some day hu?

Spaghetti feed was a success

I guess I should write a quick note letting everyone know that I had my
Spaghetti feed on Sunday to raise money for my missionary trip to PNG,
and it went well. There were quite a few people from Church that stuck
around for it as well as a lot of the college kids from the UCM group
that I've been attending stuffing their faces with Mr. Doug's tasty foods.

The photos from Africa just got done in time for the fund raiser... I
wasn't sure that they would. I should also mention that the photos look
way better then they did on my computer screen... They don't even look
like my own photos anymore. But I suppose that's a good thing. They'll
still be on auction until this Sunday so everyone can get a chance to
see them before they disappear to the airtight safes... you know, for
posterities sake.

In other news, I'm almost debt free for the 2nd time in my life!!! I
have about three hundred dollars left to pay on my car, which I should
take care of early next month... Man, I sound old, I'm actually excited
about that... well who wouldn't be. ;-)

Long time no type

Wow, has it been awhile since I wrote in this blog site... I have it on good word from many of you that several people were following my travels regularly. That's great news! I'm glad so many people can share in my journeys and see the world through the eyes of my lens.

What have I been up to in the last year? Well, quite a bit. I continued welding and last summer my sister visited me. In August my parents and my Grandmother came up for a couple weeks to see all the flowers in Fairbanks and to see the Aurora's. In November I was involved in a short term mission trip to Nairobi, Kenya to rebuild a health clinic. When I returned from that trip I found out that I had been laid off from my welding job during my absence. Was a disappoint in that outcome... yes, but it was also a great opportunity to test all my current skills while helping others directly somewhere else in the world. So, the original purpose of this wanderer is to continue in a new part of the world...

*whew*... and was worried I'd have to settle down somewhere.

My new wanderings will take me to the island of New Guinea. The independent nation of Papua New Guinea has many different aspects that lend my skills quite useful. Since this country is so rugged, the only efficient type of travel is by air and there are many villages with no road system or reliable way to get medical or nutrient to the people who live in these places. Therefore it was decided some two years ago to build an airstrip that is approximately a two day canoe ride and a days hike from the nearest small airport.

Here's where I come in; I will be the Construction manager on the job and I will be driving farm tractors to level grade (I grew up on a farm) and create the final grass landing strip (I worked for a soil testing lab) and be self sufficient with the tools that are available to me, including a welder (well... this should be obvious).

Currently I am returning from a trip to St. Louis (where the LCMS headquarters are located) where I was involved in a one day mini-orientation for my year long missions trip. I also spent a few days visiting with my family and friends back home since I hadn't seen them in almost two years and won't get an opportunity to for some time.

There are many more details to share, and much more work to be done before I leave, but let me leave you with some quick links to more information before I board the last plane back to Fairbanks.

Project information and need
There is a prayer card that should be updated on that website soon... but since this is all moving so quickly it isn't quite up there yet...

Please keep tuned... there is much more to come...