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. ;-)