..when a big bird takes off on a small runway. And, by ‘big,’ I mean 4000 radial-engine horsepower pulling fifteen tons of 1940’s airplane.
Alaska
This is what it looks like..
..to take off from a small airstrip in a small town in the largest state on a beautiful springtime day.
Sitting in the pilot’s seat (left): shana, the coolest girl in the whole world.
Sitting in the co-pilot seat (right): heidi, an astoundingly incredible pilot & flight instructor
Sitting in the back seat and enjoying the ride: yours truly
Angry wind
How does Diomede get electricity?
Well, it works like this. See that picture, that funny looking boat? Well, it’s a barge and tug, actually, loaded with a lot of diesel fuel. They come around once a year. The fuel they deliver powers the village power plant and is sold to individuals for home heating–google ‘toyo stove’ to see how the majority of alaskans heat their homes.
Milepost
Two things here, in order of importance:
1. Robert G. is a person awesome past words. Kinda like Darla G. Well, when I say ‘kinda,’ I mean ‘exactly.’
2. I did my first stall today, under Robert G’s perfect tutelage.
‘Stall’ is flying jargon for what happens when the plane’s wings stop generating lift. Stalling on purpose is a great training maneuver for tons of reasons, while an unintentional stall is a sign of either a poor pilot or equipment failure (really bad situation: both). So, when the wings stop generating lift, the magic of flying goes away really quickly, but not as quickly as the altitude needle spins around on its dial.
The wings stop generating lift when you don’t have enough airspeed, so to do a training stall you bring the 2000lb plane to a complete stop. Zero airspeed. How do you bring an airplane to a complete and perfect stop in the middle of the air? You pull up..the plane starts to climb, and you pull up a lot more, and next thing you know the plane is pointed straight up and right around when you realize you’re pointed straight up, the plane has run out of speed.
We stopped. In the air. Three thousand five hundred feet in the air. Over the Bering Sea. DEAD STILL..for a moment. This dead stillness lasts for an incredibly short moment*. Then that moment was gone, the plane wheeled over through the sky, the sky and the ocean have switched places and now we’re falling straight down out of the sky at 100mph. Spinning, too. No bad words nor good words nor any words passed though my head, as it was too full of mindblowing dumbfounding stupefying terrifying…umm..well, all those words added up then doubled up, that’s just about right.
Robert had told me to step on the rudder away from the spin direction to straighten the plane, so I mashed the rudder pedal, and we stopped spinning. Although there’s still the falling straight down thing going on, and we’re up to 150mph.
‘So, Dave, now what you do, sometime soon here you’ll want to pull up a bit, get ‘er back to level’ says Robert.
I pulled up a little bit, and Robert repeated himself with the addition of the word ‘more.’ I pull the yoke (airplane steering wheel), the plane levels out, I feel like my body was just squashed then turned upside down and inside out then back outside in then wrung out and plopped back into the seat, and then I realized I was grinning my face off like a one legged man who just won a butt kicking competition.
‘So, Dave, now what you do, is you do that again.’
So I did it again…
*calc buffs, here’s the idea: the moment lasts for about as long as d/dx(x^2) = 0
Game scouting ship
Dotted line: signed
Little Diomede Island. The village is named Diomede and I have the privilege, the million dollar job: I am Diomede’s next 7-12 math and science teacher.
‘Excited?’ No. That word doesn’t really work; here, this works better: I’m kinda excited like the horsehead nebula is kinda big.
Reference: here’s the horsehead nebula:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsehead_Nebula
Yeah. Like that.
:D
Will I? YES*
*well, at a least a test won’t keep me back. How could a test keep me back? It’s a sorta-long and very-boring story. TLDR: I am incredibly excited that I passed a hard test.
Here’s what went down. I pulled a dummie and didn’t get my mits onto a study guide until two and a half weeks before the test. Open the cardboard box, crack open the book, 50 bucks for one single 18 page chapter on the particular test I’ll be taking. And oh my word those 18 pages are all little bullet points, things to study each bullet point a huge thing to get into my head and working well. Might as well be 180 pages. Or 500 pages. Yeah..definitely 500 pages.. Biology. Geology. Astronomy. Chemistry. Physics. Lab procedures. Me, I love science, right? Even better teaching science. But this is a LOT of science in not much time.
Two and a half weeks plus three hours later I walked out of a room feeling like I just finished having my science head and knowledge and ability stomped and sqrcckkked (that’s the sound when you twist your foot on gravel) into gravel..because that’s exactly what taking that test felt like. And of course, all the teachers I talk to say “ohhhh that test, yeah that felt horrible after I took it, totally thought I bombed, but then I passed!” and I say to myself Oh gees thanks for the nice little ‘make me not feel so horrible’ gesture.
And four weeks later: 190/200. Certificate of Excellence mailed to me. Kinda felt a bit of the coolness of DiCaprio’s Abegnale at the end of the movie, albeit briefly, as any of the coolness that remained after my nobody-is-around-so-I-can-fully-show-my-joy-by-couch-vaulting was definitely lost in the midst of still-nobody-around-celebratory-somersaults.
So what now?
Diomede. Nunam Iqua. Hooper Bay. Koyuk. Tuluksak. Final polish on my resume today, submit apps tomorrow, job fair friday, my gut says if she goes steady as she goes than Nunam Iqua or Diomede…but I’ve heard that a job fair can be a pretty wild thing, so we’ll see.
No cigar wasting!
Sometimes a few facts tell a story better than telling the story:
-I spent some time with my family in Seattle over the holidays, and as I was leaving a dear brother of mine gifted me a nice Churchill size cigar
-Cigars go bad after a few days of not being kept in a humidor, especially in dry weather
-We’re in the middle of a dry cold spell here (something like 10 or 20 below at the moment)
-I don’t have a humidor
-There sits on my back porch the stubly remains of an enjoyed cigar
-My nose is still regaining feeling. C’mon little nose, just a bit more, you can do it! Get that feeling back already!
-I am currently wearing a hoodie, synthetic down jacket, my Great Uncle Nick’s wool hunting jacket, a stocking cap, neck gator, wool gloves, long johns, heavy carhartt pants, and two pairs of socks
-I’m still shivering a little bit, even though I came back inside half an hour ago
-I smell like smoke
-I like a good cigar
Jugglin fool
It’ll get into your BONES, man!
First foray, again
So a while back I forayed into film, here: http://wp.me/p14q4r-97. Since then, I have: bought a film SLR, a nice digital SLR and four lenses, and I have sold three lenses and a nice digital SLR.
So now, another first foray: development.
Ok, well sorta the first…maybe actually second. But lets just say these here were my first try, ok? I feel better that way.
For those of us: F3HP, e series 35mm, Kodak 400TX, Ilford chems
Last ado: when I got here I took some color film to the only film-developing guy in town, and the shots came out bluer than a song B.B. King wrote the day his dog died. I took these developed negatives to him for scanning, and half came out like these first five.
Long and pretty drive
Great, long and beautiful drive, even better: shared with mom.
Just in case it may not show through well in the one photo with the thumbs up, the thumbs up is actually for 4wd, not the icy road. Um.. on second thought it is for the icy road too. So it should’ve been a double thumbs up. my bad.
Also, review of the 1990 Jeep Cherokee Sport: really, really really cool and fun. Mileage, not terrible but not too hot either.
Food story two: rabbit
(from a week ago)
Neighbor and his little boy walking out of their cabin when I walk out of my cabin to go do some business in the bath house, Hey Dave we saw a rabbit gonna go get him, the little boy dressed up in his stalking cap and jeans and boots and toting a bb gun just like the one I got Christmas morning how many years ago, Sure let me just do some quick business and I’m there. In my jeans and hoodie. It’s cold out.
My neighbor takes the road up the left and the little guy and I go right to wait, but the rabbit was too smart saw and knew he was being flushed into the blazing sight of a bb gun wielded by a dangerous 7 year old, so the rabbit doubles back past pops who doesn’t take the shot so his little boy can have another chance. They keep going, I go back to put on gloves, hands real cold, they keep going, the rabbit’s gone and the little guy’s feet are really really freezing cold Daddy I need to go back to the cabin my feet feel like ice! Daddy I can’t walk my feet are ice! So my neighbor hoists up his little boy and I carry the .22 in my right hand and the little guy’s bb gun in my left and we walk back to the cabin, I can’t feel three of my fingers even though it’s not that cold out right now, neighbor says OK lets go over to the other thicket and find another one so we go, find the rabbit highway and split and start, I’m shivering and wondering which finger I won’t feel next and then a white dash and I see where he went. Hey over here lets head back to the main road I think he stopped close by so we double back and the big white rabbit takes a few more strides toward the road then up, my neighbor still hasn’t seen him but I know I saw him, I stay put he goes up on the road and up further and back into the woods and back down and finds the rabbit. I get closer, still can’t see, Ok I can’t see him still, you see him? You see him then, ok, you take your shot. He wanted to give me a chance, but better a rabbit than a chance right? Crack like snapping a small dry branch echoes muted through dry cold air and Yup got him. Lost feeling in two more fingers on my left hand and where there is feeling it hurts like hell and now my chest feels kinda funny but not woosy because a cute rabbit just got shot, but something definitely feels not right, breathing feels funny. My neighbor goes to his cabin to grab a bite to eat and I go to the bath house to warm up and when I get in and close the door I feel really not good and my head hurts and my hands hurt where I can feel them and my breathing’s funny.
Hands under warm water, hands under warm water, things get better and five minutes later all’s well. Body into shock from cold body out of shock thanks to warm water, it’s been a while since I’ve been that cold. I step out and my neighbor’s got the rabbit on the tailgate of his truck and ready to go and he shows me how to skin and gut it, half an hour, now there’s rabbit in a pot in the fridge marinating and hearty alaska rabbit stew tomorrow. We shoot the breeze about how chicken at the grocery store is just ridiculous, how you can eat rabbit every day if you want, there’s a lot of these guys around. Go out and an hour later you have a pelt in one hand and a rabbit ready to cook in the other. Can’t even get to town and buy chicken from Safeway and get back in an hour.
Well, I will have to go to town for the veggies, but I think that’s ok.
This one time
This one time mom and I drove up to Alaska, and the guy in town who develops c-41 had old chemicals, the shots turned out bluer than the blues, and I even had to pull the big lever to put the jeep in 4wd a few times (so, soooooo satisfying)
