Mr. Alyeska!

 I have been friends with Chris for a few years.  He is a super interesting person and has a lot of history in Alaska.  Chris has a book out now chronicling his life.  His lovely with Brigetta wrote the book and it turned out great.  The book has been out for about six months now and I have been trying to meet up with him to buy the book and have Chris sign it!  I saw a post on Friday that Chris was going to be at Barns and Nobel on Saturday starting at 1 am, so I made a point to go and see him there.  

Chris was there with two of his sons and was happy to see me.  I said hey and he asked if if I was there to buy his book.  I said yes, of course.  He went to grab a soft back, and then asked if I wanted the hard back. I said yes, I wanted the hard back and he said Wunderbar!!  I re-introduced myself to CJ and told him about the time we hung out on my buddy Peters boat in PWS a few years ago. He sort of remembered that trip and then asked if I had been to his Dad's place in Kussen, which I had.  Chris then told the story of hanging out drinking Pear Schnapps in his basement in Kussen and then an Oktoberfest story, where we tried to pay for an Uber for him and Birgetta and then ended up taking it ourselves and getting lost in the process.  We had a good laugh and then I asked for this photo.  It turned out great!!  I am glad that I took the time to head down for the book and autograph.  

Huff and Puff and 75mph winds in town!?!

 Another January and another round of warm winter wind.  The wind threatened to knock down our storage tents at the property for the truck and boat, but also made the roads around town an icy mess!!  

The Red Dragon ended up sliding towards the street in the driveway.  I tried to move it back by reversing the truck, but no luck.  I ended up putting the stinger down on the driveway to kind of lock it in place!  The next day Sam helped me to chop the ice and I was able to get enough traction to move it back closer to the house and not have it block the driveway.  

The tents faired ok with the winds.  Sam and I went over to the property late and tightened all of poles and strapped the structure down for a big blow.  We ended up rolling up both ends to let the wind blow through.  The boat tent, with no ends, seemed to be fairing better than the tent Red Dragon tent with the ends installed.  The wind was really ripping, and it was no fun standing on top of the ladder trying to push the zipper up!  Sam and I managed and he was a big help.  I tried standing on a few of the 55-gallon drums at one point and fell off and hit the ground hard.  No biggie, but it was a shock to the ol' body.  

The wind was forecast to last only until 10am the next day, but lasted quite a bit longer.  That was the joke at the house as the hours ticked away.  The wind finally stopped blowing around 3pm. I had Zach stop by after school and check the tents again.  They seemed to do ok, and the wind was not bad there, so I had him pull the zippers down.  He was not really happy about climbing the ladder (no one likes climbing high on the ladder), but he was successful in the end.

The very next day we go about 4 inches of snow, making the roads even slicker!!  I snow blew the driveway again and even used WALL-MT to help clear the berm by the road.  All in all, just another fun winter of wild weather.

Clearing snow with the mini tractor

The Red Dragon does not like the snow!!

I absolutely love the sunsets this time of year!!

See Him Coming From A Mile Away

 Sam is able to walk 4 short blocks to Goldenview Middle School from our house.  It IS Alaska, so it is cold and dark when he is walking.  Sam was wearing a dark colored coat and I didn't like that cars would have a hard time seeing him when he was crossing the street.  I had him start wearing his hi-vis coat from the summer projects and low and behold, he liked the idea!  Sam got a few stares his first day wearing the coat, and I think that his teacher asked if he was in construction, but two weeks later he is still wearing it and I am able to see him walking from two blocks away! 

Moving Conex's in the winter . . . A tale of caution

 Knew I was in trouble when I saw snow in the forecast.  A few months back I agreed to help a buddy out and store a couple of Conex containers at our property on O'Malley.  Just a couple of weeks he said.  Well . . I don't mind helping out, but this was early October and this is now mid-January.  Not a huge deal in the scheme of things, but . . . Anyway, Nate said that whatever he had set-up before was not going to work out and that he was going to sell the Conex's.  No biggie.  I figured I would be there to help.  He initially asked if I wanted to move them, but I declined.  I don't like driving the Red Dragon in the snow.  Anywho, fast forward to this morning.  I was to meet the guy buying the Conex's and the tow truck driver at 8:00am.  Ok, I can get up early.  Of course it is snowing gangbusters and it has snowed on and off since Saturday.  Zach and I actually shoveled on Friday and knocked down the snow a bit.  Anyway, the guy buying the Conex's shows up a little after 8.  I had started shoveling the driveway a bit by hand and got a spot cleared in front of both Conex's by the time he arrived.  He asked if he could help, I said no and I continued shoveling.  It was coming down pretty good at this point and I was making minimal progress, so I decided to bust out WALL-MT.  He does a great job of clearing a lot of snow quickly.  So I am Zooming around for about 10 minutes and the tow truck shows up.  I see the lights and the end of the driveway and think myself "he is not going to try to back in . . . is he", sure enough, he backs in and . . . gets stuck.  At first I didn't think it was going to be too bad, he was just off the driveway a bit.  But the more he tried to un-stick, the more he got stuck.  So this went on for 10 minutes and the guy buying the Conex's says "I thought I would be half way to Hope by now.  I didn't realize he was taking these containers to Hope to use at his cabin. Now I am thinking I dodged that bullet and was super glad I didn't agree to move these things!!  The tow truck driver is getting frustrated and says something about "would have been nice if the drive had been shoveled".  He wasn't being too big a dick, and I think he was just frustrated that he got stuck in the first place.  We tried to pull his truck with WALL-MT at first, but that tractor is too light.  I told him that I had a tow truck too and we may be able to use that to pull his truck out.  He said yes, get your truck, so I did.  He was pretty impressed when I pulled back the cover on the storage tent.  I am not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't that.  He immediately said that his boss was looking for another truck and that he was sure that he would want to buy this one.  I politely told him that it was not for sale.  He laughed.  We got the truck out and warmed up (which is kind of a pain to be honest) and I positioned it to pull his truck out.  Well, with the two wheel drive, it just kind of spun.  So, we hooked his winch to my bumper and I put the truck in park.  His truck then tried to winch off of mine, and it literally pulled my truck closer to his truck.  So, we decided to back my truck up . . . anchor it to a tree . . .  and then use my truck as an anchor to pull out his truck.  In the end, this set-up worked.  He was able to get unstuck and get back on the driveway.  At this point it had been an hour and a half.  So we manouever the trucks around the driveway and he backs up to the first Conex.  Now, I must preface this by saying I didn't really think the truck had a chance of moving the Conex.  Rocky and I moved the Conex back in October, but that was when everything was warm . . . and not frozen!  We even had a few freeze thaw cycles that melted snow and then turned to ice under the Conex.  So when the tow truck driver went to pull with his winch . . . nothing happened.  This went on for several minutes in the gently falling snow.  All this trouble and time wasted and nothing to show. We all agreed that these Conex's were going nowhere until spring, so we wrapped it up and they left.  

So after they leave, I clear the drive way for about an hour and beat back the snow once again.  At this point the snow is coming down pretty good and I am ready to be home.  The Red Dragon is out and warm and it is kind of a pain to back into the tent on my own.  I decide to load up the second WALL-MT and take home to thaw. I had never had BOTH of them on the truck before, so I was kind of curious on how that was going to work.  Plus the second WALL-MT's key was frozen and wouldn't turn on, so I wasn't sure how I was going to get it off once it was at the house?!  We'll long story short, I was able to get the second machine on the truck.  I got everything tied down, put the F-150 in the big tent and locked everything up.  Then I slowly drove home in the blizzard like conditions.  I made it home and only partially took out a snowbird by the bridge.  I parked in the street and then with Renee's help, backed in the driveway.  I was able to get the ramp on the Red Dragon down, got machine #1 off and had to take a heat gun to the key on machine #2.  It only took a couple of minutes and then that machine too was running and off of the trailer.  

Both machines are now thawing out in the garage and will be greased once they are fully dry.  Today was a bit of a wasted day, but at the same time a productive one.  I really needed to bring both machines home to dry out.  I probably could have picked a less snowy day, but hey, turn lemons into lemonade right!?  After the fact I thought it was funny that in my haste to get home and get the scary drive out of the way, I ended up leaving my wallet, grey phone and the $12K that the guy gave me to give to Nate for the 2 Conex's.  So in the end, I had to go back over to the property with Zach and get that stuff before we could officially call it a day.  It is always something!!  

Braces are a thing of the past!?!

 Straightening teeth sure has gotten a lot easier and more high tech since I had braces . . . 35+ years ago!!  Sam just got his new Invisalign system today.  It is pretty cool.  Just a series of trays, or what I would call retainers to help straighten his teeth.  The process will take around two years, roughly the same timeline as braces, but you don't have to worry about wires and brackets and weekly checkups!  Sam will have to wear his Invisalign about 22 hours a day.  Only taking out for eating (and maybe playing clarinet).  There are little tabs on his teeth that assist the retainer in moving everything around.  His appointments are spread out further and no longer need to go in weekly, or even monthly.  There is an app for the phone and a device to take photos of the progress (see photo) that gets sent into the orthodontist to check the progress.  It takes a bit more work from the wearer (Sam), but in the end I think it will be worth it.  I think Sam can do it.  Although, he didn't start out so good with forgetting to download the app on his phone prior to the appointment.  Kind of annoying and there were some embarrassing moments while he is sitting in the chair at the orthodontist trying to download the app.  Of course it didn't go smoothly, but . . . in the end it all worked out.  Hopefully the rest of the experience will go smoother than that rough beginning.  Will keep you up to date on Sam's new and improving smile!!

* side note, I didn't know that when I made the appointment that this Monday was MLK day.  I thought that I could make an early appointment and get him to school without missing too much class time.  Of course this was a holiday and the early appointment time meant we couldn't sleep in!  In fact we had to come home a day early from Girdwood due to the appointment.  So much for our three day weekend!

Backpack Modifications

 The Boys and I got Pelican cases for our carry-on luggage a couple of years ago.  Actually, I have had mine for about 8 years now and it has always served me well traveling in the rural villages.  Like the luggage man's quote in Joe vs the Volcano ". . . you travel the world, you're away from your family, all you have to depend on is yourself and your luggage".  I have taken that to heart over the years and have always liked good luggage.  For my purposes, Pelican cases have done the job and looks good too.  So, for traveling internationally, I got both boys the 1510 Pelican Protector Carry-on Case.  Zach and I have a black one and Sam has the tan colored case.  Renee didn't want one, so she uses a different type of suitcase.  To make each case "our own" the boys and I have decorated our cases with stickers.  Like the steamer trunks of old, we find stickers from places we have been and products we support and apply them to our trunks . . . suitcases.  They are coming along and are constantly evolving.  Recently I added a organizer to the lid for both the boys cases and engineered some straps for the outside.  The straps will come in handy for when we are out in the rural communities walking on their boardwalks, or just running through the airport, or overseas on cobblestone streets.  The straps just give us a few more options to wear the case like a backpack, or just pull behind with the handle.  I got the straps on Amazon and fashioned the connection point with sailboat hardware from West Marine.  I think it turned out pretty good and the boys liked it too!

Covid fiannaly caught up with us!

 Well the plague of the 21st century finally caught up with the Huntman crew in Alaska.  Seems that Zach caught the virus after spending time with friends in Girdwood over New Years.  I heard that a lot of teenagers were infected and that a lot of kids were out that first week back to school after break.  Oh well, it was bound to happen eventually.  Neither Renee, Sam or I caught the Covid.  Just Zach.  Right before Christmas break, I went in and got my booster.  Renee got hers not too long before that, probably sometime in November.  Zach was suppose to go in with me to get the booster, but at the time they were only allowing people 18+ to get boosted.  I am not a big fan of masks, unless it is like the one pictured, but I definitely think that the shots and boosters help.  We didn't get sick and Zach only got mildly sick.  Things could have gotten a lot worse.  In the meantime, I treat Zach to room service "he calls it prison food" while he is confined to his room.  Trying hard to keep him isolated to keep the rest of us healthy!!  

Ring in the New Year!!

Despite hearing 2021 was a terrible year in the media, from our perspective we had a great year!  2022 holds the promise of an even better year.  Right now I am deep in the planning stages for the upcoming years projects.  Kivalina landfill clean-up, Bethel Brown Slough Barge Removal, Donlin Kuskokwim Backhaul among others are in the que.  Zach goes off to college this year, still not sure where he is going, but he is still holding out for Montana State.  Sam is going to try out basketball at Goldenview Middle School this winter, so that should be fun to watch.  I made a new years resolution to learn my bass guitar this year, with the hope of joining some sort of group maybe this time next year.  Just not really up for skiing anymore, so I need to do something that is entertaining in my free time.  Still trying to get the Humvee registered and I need to finish that project.  We just got back from Florida and had a lovely time with Mom & Dad and Lisa and her crew.  The weather in Alaska has been cold and snowy, so we thought flight delays may effect our travel.  They luckily did not!!

That is all for now.  Trying to get slightly back into this blog.  It is nice to look back and see where I have been.  If I ever have time, I will try to fill in the blanks from years past.  Looking back at the beginning it is cool to see Sam as a tiny baby. He is so tall and fun to be around now, and wow, how the years have flown!!  

Take care and I hope that 2022 treats you well!!!

Peace