back to the old work grind again. well, sort of.

i'm in aniak alaska now, which is sort of in the south-west. there are trees and mountains here, so that's nice. the king salmon have begun their trek through aniak. the neighbors are brining in 75 pounders. it's pretty cool. i showed up in town with tiny hooks, 4 pound fishing line, and a plan to nab the best piece of alder on the Kuskokwim river - you know, fishing huck finn style. apparently this will not work, cause up here they recommend 80 pound line, and some pretty beefy fishing poles. i suppose i could just charge a pole and reel to the company like my coworkers did. or not.

so the moisquitos have arrived. that's the main issue. if there isn't any wind, it means big trouble. if I stripped off my cloths i would be sucked dry immediatly. i can't think of a worse way to die. kevin, one of the geologists working up here, got this sweet picture of me being swarmed by the little bastards. at least it does feel kind of good to swat your back and know you just killed 8 mosquitos. sort of anyway.

the real big news here is that we have a TV. We had a weather day the other day and sat around watching a marathon of this stupid show on VH1 called the "White Rappers Show". It was awesome. It's my new favorite show. it's even better than "stargate" and "beauty and the geek." the dudes are just so stupid. there's a guy called the "King of the Burbs", and he won't stop talking about the "Ghetto Revival". What? Huh? you gotta see it i guess.

i wish i could report some awesome adventures, but the bears haven't attacked anyone yet. if they do i'll be ready, cause my aim is quickly improving with the shotgun, and i'm going to spend some time in the next few days learning to throw my rock hammer like a tomahawk. this is actually what we spend our time doing up here. sweet, huh?

ed

From the Seward Peninsula in Alaska. It's fantastic country. Not many trees though.

I'm back now in Minnesota. Raced the track on saturday and got smoked. My old man took third in the combined 1/2/3 80 lap unknown points race. It was pretty cool. He lapped the field with Mulroony, Regester and Super Rookie.

When last I wrote in, I forgot to mention a couple very important nuggets of information that I think nobody will be glad to know about. well, at least the second nugget anyway.

First, the helicopter I rode in during the first four days or so up in Alaska was in fact the very same helicopter used in the O.J. Simpson car chase. This will always be my claim to fame, and I don't expect to ever be a part of anything more important.

Secondly, I feel obligated to mention that before I left for Alaska in May I made a return foray to the Gay 90s. I am sorry if this lets anyone down. However, this time I was able to control myself a little better. Kavi and Matt on the other hand were not able to. Kavi payed for a kiss from a dude chick he was really digging at the drag show. Matt didn't seem to care about the drag show, he was too busy downing mixed drinks. By the time we ended up downstairs in the main dance hall he was starting to get very aggresive with me. He would sneak up on me, put me in a tight bear hug, and proceed to violenty dry hump me. It was pretty awkward, especially when he caught me when we were all dancing on-stage, and was thrusting so hard my feet were flying off the ground. Seriously, what am I supposed to do? Pretend that I like it or pretend that I have no idea who this guy is and get security on him. I, in all my wisdom, pretended that I liked it. Thus Matt did not get kicked out, and I lost what dignity I had left.

I'm sure you're all glad to know this.

Ed

stardate 061107. arctic explorer's log:

today i met a legend of the alaskan bush. his name is wild bill. nobody knows his last name. he flew his little plane into our camp today to hang out. He didn't know any of us, but he still hung out for close to an hour. but our pilot and our cook had heard of him. I guess the FAA is after him because he's always equipping little planes with huge engines, and he also makes equipment runs illegally on the same enourmous plane that was featured in the epic hollywood film Con Air - a fact he made sure we were aware of during our conversation.

so i'm having a blast up here. i commute to work on a helicopter in the morning, explore the tundra for about 8 hours, then take the helicopter back to camp. its pretty sweet. we saw a grizzly bear the other day too, and since then we've stopped "accidentally" forgetting to bring the shotgun into the field. incidentily, i'm currently the gunman in my two-person group (the other geologist is a girl), a fact i personally find hilarious. we were target shooting the other night with the slugs and i couldn't hit the blamed board from 15 feet away. Also, I have a bad history of hightailing it when I see bears. Like when that black bear in Colorado jumped out of a bush in front of me while I was peeing, and I took off running mid-stream, urinating all over my leg.

the wildlife here is amazing. we see moose just about every day. also porcupine, caribou and fox. wild bill told us there were some musk oxen a few miles from camp too. i'm really hoping to spot a wolverine, but that might be too much to ask for. anyway, it turns out the company pays for plane trips home during vacation so I'm heading back to Minnesota for a week starting on Saturday. I should make it for Smither's track race Saturday night. hope to see some of you there.

Ed