29 March 2006

 

AK Continued

Seward Tsunami Warning

Tuesday
It was warm and a little drizzly. We drove down the Kenai Peninsula to the city of Seward. Had dollar tacos, karaoke, and fun for everyone at DJ's Wheelhouse. It was a _very_ local bar. After tacos, we got bored so we wandered down to the Yukon. As we were leaving, people started trying to buy us drinks and chat us up. It was odd.

At the Yukon we drank good beer, petted dogs, and played Scattergories with unemployed fishermen. It was great. We stumbled back to the hotel happy.

Wednesday
Dallied a bit in the a.m, noonish we caught a wildlife cruise around Resurrection Bay. We saw Dall porpoises, eagles, sea otters, sea lions, harbor seals, and mountain goats. All kindsa stuff, as well as parts of Kenai Fjords National Park. They served Halibut for lunch on the ship, and made fresh baked cookies.


I'm an Otter - I do cute little human things with my hands.

Then we wandered on to the Alaska Sea Life Center, where we got to poke tidepool creatures and learned more about the aquatic wildlife native to the area. Edjumakational.


Yummy seafood for dinner. All fresh. Gotta love a fishing town.

Thursday
We blew town early and turned up in Eagle River to pack for the BOW clinic. We did dinner at a Thai joint in Anchorage and proceeded to drink ourselves silly at Humpy's, enjoying the music of H3, 3 Hawaiian guys who live and play around Anchorage.

Friday
Caught a breakfast burrito at the Burrito Factory and drove out to Chickaloon, North of Palmer in the Matanuska Valley. Victory Bible Camp - heated cottages with bunk beds, and a big central building with mess hall and meeting rooms.

I caught the Avalanche Safety class, we dug the snow to see the different layers and learn which would slide first. At dinner we heard about the girl who got lost in the snow machining (snowmobiling) class. 'Twas the source of many jokes.

Saturday
Some of the broads in my cabin started moving around at 5am. Breakfast wasn't til 7, and we didn't have to be at the first course until 8:30, but they had to blowdry their hair and do their makeup. Good Lord.


Morning was Dog Mushing, learned about dog care, and got to rip around a trail mushing my own 3-dog team. Very cool, but I could never get into caring for that many animals. Afternoon was Skin Sewing - I made a mitten of elk hide and beaver fur. I'll get the other mitten done someday, I'm sure.

In the evening I wandered over to sample the food provided by the Dutch Oven Gourmet class - got to try Black bear, elk, and venison dishes. Verrry tasty.

Sunday
Oh yes, they got up at 5 O'clock again. And most were packed and ready to ship out before breakfast. After food I took the Snow Machining (mobiling) class. We zipped around a frozen lake to get the feel of the machines' handling. Next it was into the trails. It was fun, but not as good as motorcycles. It was more like 4-wheeling or riding a jetski. I got it up to 75mph on an abandoned airstirp, but the trail-riding was in the 15-20mph range. I can do that on a skittery little mountain bike, so it's way less exciting (though not as taxing) to do it on a stable internal combustion sled.


After stopping at a beautiful lookout for mug shots, we headed back down to the lake. I got bored with the handling exercises, so I went off and jumped some snowbanks. I wandered back up the trail and tried to turn at an intersection.

Long story short, I beached the huge unwieldy machine and had to dig it out myself. When I finally got it out (half an hour after the class ended) and drove it back to the shed, the Polaris guy looked at me funny. "I thought you might have noticed that I'd made off with one of your $8,000 sleds. Guess not."

"Oh, we were about to load the truck. We probably would have noticed then."


On the way back to Eagle River we hit the Musk Ox farm in Palmer. Petted the arctic beasts, learned more than you ever wanted to know about them, and went back to ER. We worked pretty hard on the leftover keg that night, and watched Shawn of the Dead.

Monday
We knocked around Anchorage, I bought the last of the prezzies I wanted to take home and learned how to operate an Eskimo Yoyo. Then it was dinner and a pitcher at the Bear's Tooth movie theater. Breakfast on Pluto - Sheila and I both get into Irish cross-dresser movies. Good and buzzy, I piled onto the plane and headed home.

These pix and more are up here

Many thanks to Meredith and Matt for putting me up. Also to Sheila for carting me around and partaking in the mayhem. :) Next year in Israel.

21 March 2006

 

AK first report

Day 1 Anchorage:

Coffee at Kaladi Brothers, lunch at Snow City Cafe - Reindeer sausage reuben, mmm.

Next, a visit to the Oomingmak musk-ox collective. Bought myself a nifty little neck warmer, knitted by Edith on Nunivak (first place musk-ox were reintroduced), and a skein so I could knit myself a hat. I was _absurdly_ geeked about this. I'd only read about quiviut in knitting mags and thought of it as one of the most exotic fibers, something i'd never get my hands on. But here I am! *eee*

Picked up the kegs, took a nap, and had a St. Pat's Party. Noone got naked, but it was still fun.

Saturday:
Visited the Native Peoples' Heritage museum just outside of Anchorage. Wandered through the exhibits and learned a lot about the varied cultures of AK. It was Yupik/Cupik day, so there was a lot of story-telling, native crafts, and some traditional dance to be taken in.

Then more napping, and a visit to midtown Anchorage. Dinner and live bluegrass at the Organic Oasis, Soul Man playing at the Blues Spot, and finally on to Chilkoot Charlie's - many rooms of varied decor and musical styles. The live rock band (don't know their name) was playing covers, and doing pretty well. The Swing room had some good techno, and the hip hop room was hopping. I got my picture taken in the Bird House room, where the decor is primarily undergarments. I'm such a tourist! And a drunken Filipina was looking to fight later in the evening. I had to decline, and we left without much fanfare.

Sunday: drove to Girdwood.
Lunch at the Chair 5 restaurant, where I had a musk-ox cheeseburger and fries. Couldn't find any lodging cheaper than the Prince Hotel (the only 4 diamond in AK), so we're here at the resort. Free wifi, we got a pizza and a movie with our 2 day stay. Night skiing is ended, so we went snowshoeing, ordered our pizza, had a coupla beers and turned in.

Monday: Riding Alyeska
We broke fast, rented, and headed up the mountain in a gondola packed like sardines. At the top, on new equipment in a new (to me) kind of snow, I fell a bunch and ended up touring a double black diamond slope, instead of the blues I thought I was headed for. Oops! It was at least manageable because the 3' powder didn't hurt to fall into, and gave me something to work with on the hill.

I was about halfway down, and could see the blue runs I wanted to hit. All I could think was, "those trees look very far away!" So it took me a while to get down the mountain, but after that it was smooth sailing. ...in braille. It was snowing so hard all day I couldn't really see much in front of or behind me... Either way, I got to ride a LOT of powder, and I am now in love. :) Next year I'll have to join a ski club, or at least get myself to somewhere they have honest to god mountains. This was fun!

That's what I've got for now. Pix will follow at some point. Probably when I'm back in MI. I haven't found free wifi with enough upstream bandwidth to make posting pix less than an 8hour task.

03 March 2006

 

on the edge of international

I've been dissatisfied with the whole auto industry thing, but moreso I'm dissatisfied with my surroundings. I think it's because I've lived here my whole life, I'm 27 now, and it's really just time to wander a bit. I've got the itchy feet, and not in a Gold Bond sort of way. I haven't really mixed it up anywhere else. People ask me where I'm from, and I have to say, "uhh..here."

Growing up, my parents used to talk about the years they lived in England. And I always thought, "That's what I've got to do, live in another country someday."

Ginny lost her job, and is thinking about working for a cruise line. The downside is that it'd require her to be at sea for 2-4 months at a time. That'd be a downside for her, not so much for me...

Last night I saw an old pal. I met him in college, and we spent some time together when I was divorcing. I've seen him at least once a year since. Yesterday he said to me, "I’m surprised you're still in Detroit. I thought you'd be in Germany by now." And I have to admit that I'm not. I've been to Germany once in the last 3 years of working with this company, and I specifically chose this company because there was the opportunity for assignments abroad. I've made it all kinds of clear that I'm ready to go, I'll throw my toothbrush and laptop in a carryon bag, grab an extra pair of undies, and I'm there.

Said friend also remarked, "I've always been intrigued by you. If you had a band, I always thought it'd be named Gloria Steinem Car Crash." I was flattered. But I feel like I haven't been doing enough lately. Haven't been pushing the limits.

I'm updating the resume. Going to start sending it around over in .de and see what turns up. I talked to my boss today and laid it out: If I don't get some kind of foreign assignment somewhere, I'm going to take my years of hard-won knowledge and experience, my familiarity with the company's product and business systems, and walk out the door. I vest in April.

I'd start putting the CV out for engineering positions in the Pac NW, and maybe try switching to the travel industry. I don't think I'd mind slinging hash on a cruise liner if it meant I got to spend months on a cruise liner..

Today at work we were talking about vigilante-ism. Fight Club came up - the scene where Brad Pitt takes the convenience store clerk out back with a gun and asks him what he wants to be. A veterinarian.. and how it took fear of death to motivate the clerk to pursue a life he wanted.

"Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessell's life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal he has ever eaten."

I've been kicking along, giving it the old college try, but I haven't had a "most beautiful day" in a while. It's not as dramatic as a revolver pointed at my head, but every moment that passes is a small death, especially if that moment wasn't filled with living. This body's a timebomb, I could go at any time.

COURSE OF ACTION:
I'm polishing up the resume. I browsed our intranet and found 3 good positions in Hallstadt Germany, and some interesting ones in Nagoya Japan. I've always said I don't want to work with the Japanese, but I think I might be able to swing it, if it's the only way of getting out of Detroit.

My boss is talking about sending me to Sweden, or bringing me along with him back to .de. I've done a lot of development for this company, I've got more experience than anyone on designing our 'way forward' products. I told him I don't need to leave the country tomorrow, but I need to know that we're working on a plan, and that it's really going to happen. I might get hit by a beer truck tomorrow, but at least I'm starting to make the international thing happen. I might even get there someday...




Best Regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Door System Design - Product Engineer

 

Concert Karma

Busy week - Metro Times Blowout - $15 for all the bands you can eat. I started blowing it out Wednesday, and would have done more yesterday, but...

A neighbor knocked on my door at 7:30pm, and asked, "Do you like electronic music?"

"Yes..."

"We have an extra ticket to Paul van Dyk. Do you want to go?"

I replied with, "... umm, Yeah!!!!!"

The pause in my answer had to do with the fact that I'd have to break plans with 2 sets of friends to see the show. But I did, and they were very understanding. One went so far as to say, "I'd ditch you for Paul van Dyk too". Forgiven. :)

I drove myself down separate, as I might have other stops to make.. And the guys from across the hall seemed very interested in leaving early.

The warmup DJ's were pretty good. The crowd was thin at first, and when the warmup kids really warmed up there was som fine dancing to be had. When I stopped for my second beer, I ran into Tom and pal. It's always nice to run into your friends when you're out and about.

PvD put on a good show, and was playing for more than an hour when I wandered out. The music was great, but I just got all tranced out and had to split around 1. So I wandered back to the house of a warm, sleeping Scotte. Showered and not quite so stinky any more, I crawled in and slept well.

I'm reaching my little goal of taking my hangover to the office 3/5 days this week. w00t.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?