Gold rush days

Is it possible to have too many hobbies?

I might have too many; or rather desire too many hobbies.

One of my main reasons for wanting to move was to escape the feeling of stagnation I was beginning to develop in Albuquerque. I wanted to do many things, but in reality did very few. Sure, I hiked, went to the gym, watched movies, went out with friends and got drunk at bars on occasion, and did a couple other things very seldomly. But only a couple of these were actually things I would consider hobbies. For the most part, though, I worked and tried to get through my classes. My life was one big, bland circle of recycled experiences, and although I would throw in various "activities" to spice it up a little, it still tasted like a stale saltine cracker.

For some reason, I didn't see real tangible opportunities for me to get out there and explore new things, new outlets or mediums for expression and enjoyment in Albuquerque. I know they were there, and if I looked hard enough I could find them, but something kept me from trying. Albuquerque is a big city, to me anyway, and I was sick of it. Sick of the crime, the people, the atmosphere, and some negative memories I associate with it. When I realized that I couldn't get past this mentality, it was then that I turned my sights north.

Everyone who knows me knows that I came up here with some pretty big expectations of what I wanted Alaska to be for me. I could list off twenty things I wanted to do or experience in a heartbeat. I saw it, in art terms, as a blank canvas or a ball of clay that I could paint or mold into whatever I wanted it to be. It was fresh! In food terms, it was an empty plate for me to fill with whatever tasty morsels I wanted to choose from the buffet of life. I'm loving these metaphors, hah!

I am happy to report that, after over three months in Alaska, it has met my expectations. Probably exceeded them. I've already experienced some amazing things, and have started building an arsenal of hobbies. But this is where my question comes in. I feel almost overwhelmed with everything I want to do now that I am here. I have to work, and will be starting school in a couple of months. I also have to keep up with implied things like cleaning and cooking. But when I am not doing those things that have to happen without question, how do I cram everything that I want to do, and enjoy doing, in? Since I don't live in a Harry Potter book, I can't use a time-turner. But man, that would be nice.

I got the flat tire on my bike fixed the other day, so we will be biking weekly. I might start riding to work if I can get my butt to agree to the distance. We have a kayak coming in about two weeks, and want to do weekend-long kayak trips as well as short outings after work on weekdays. I have a ukelele that I haven't touched in months, but finally got my instructional book this week. We've started learning Norwegian through a Pimsleur Norwegian program. I have a stack of books I want to read. I want to spend time in the darkroom, and outside taking pictures. I always want to hike, have a bonfire on the beach. We are taking sailing classes one weekend in August, and have dreams of boat ownership. I want to start volunteering and participating in community events. Last week we went to a film festival supporting civil liberties. As I type, a event is taking place on Douglas Island, called Gold Rush Days. I'm headed there in a few minutes.

Whew.

Now that I have pinpointed all that I want to do here, I need to figure out how to prioritize and do it all! I'm certainly not complaining :)



Last Sunday we took a stroll in the state game refuge wetlands.



Not much to do or see.



But the sun warmed my bare shoulders as we zigzagged through waist high grass, reminding me of the hot New Mexican summer I am missing for the first time in 22 years.







Later that night, we headed out the road.
Our plan was to make a fire, drink wine and eat smores. We first went to our favorite spot, Sunshine Cove, but discovered that it had been trashed from a weekend full of parties and cookouts. As I watched a whale surface in the distance, I thought about what a shame it was to see such a beautiful spot littered with cans and sanitary napkins. I guess there are inconsiderate, lazy, ignorant people everywhere. But I still don't get it. Most Alaskans seem so proud to live up here, so why would they want to destroy what they know they're lucky to have??

Anyway, we turned around and pulled off in front of a path leading through a thick wood and out onto a tiny stretch of beach. We spoke loudly to scare off any bears or people lurking in the darkness as we fumbled down a steep hillside, eroded and layered with roots. When we emerged onto the empty beach, we were greeted by the lave of small waves against a million shiny pebbles, and one big granite boulder, sheltering a well used fire pit from the sea breeze. Perfect!



Somehow (ok, with the help of a bottle of lamp oil, dry wood, newspaper, and a lighter) we lit a successful fire!



Looking south down the beach, toward Juneau.



And west. That's our fire smoldering.







YUM.



Eagle!







At this point, Steph decided to go for a late evening swim..



three times. She's underwater in this one. We didn't even drink all of the wine!



Somehow she managed to convince me to come down from my perch on the granite boulder and join her in "truly living". I would feel more alive, she told me.



She was right.



My condition, however, was that we had to leave as soon as I got out of the water. While I was slipping my boots back on, I heard a crack in the woods. We exchanged nervous glances, and quickly gathered our things.

We headed through the hole, pictured above, and into the woods separating us from the car. I held my collapsed camp chair high on my shoulder, phone in pocket, and we sang 'Sentimental Heart' by She & Him at the top of our lungs. I was too afraid to look into the deep forest to the right. The sun had set and the sky was darkening quickly. Steph kept the flashlight pointed on the path as we scurried back up the hill.

As we pulled back on to the road, we caught a very brief glimpse of a tiny bear cub crawling into the brush on the opposite side of the road. It was clear that he had just crossed the road from the side we had come from. We slowed the car and watched him disappear, and I suddenly became very uneasy. Where there is a baby, there is a momma. I scanned the left side of the road for her, but saw nothing. Steph stepped on the gas and we headed back to town, excited and shocked that we had narrowly missed a very real bear encounter. To think that they had been lurking in the woods behind us!

Time to get bearspray.

Aurora in June

First, I got this picture in an email forward. Taken in Sitka, Alaska, a Humpback's huge mouth surfacing under a kayaker. Assuming it's real, it's pretty amazing (and terrifying, but according to the email, the guy was fine.) Thanks Al!

My first full week of work is behind me and I am still happy with my job. I started working on the project I was hired for on Thursday. As it turns out, it is going to be a little more time consuming and is going to be a pretty substantial task overall. I have determined that my official title should be changed to Staple Remover, as opposed to Scanning Clerk. This is because, for the first half of the project, I will be sorting packets, or "batches", of vessel licenses and fishing permits that are older than I am. Sorting entails removing about 15 staples from a single batch, inspecting each permit for tears, wrinkles, and making sure it is in order.

There are about 100 individual batches in this drawer, and there are about 50 drawers total. So, this is what I will be doing until my boss tells me I can take a break from the prepping and do some scanning. Scanning will be a huge task in and of itself. Clearly this is not a desirable job to most, and that is why I am being treated like royalty in the office. They want me to stick around and do this awful project that nobody else wants to do! So my boss took me to an office supply store and I picked out a new desk.

My next mission is to secure a new chair, since I'm going to be sitting all.day.long. and the chair I have now squeaks when I make the slightest movement, and my back hurts after about an hour of sitting in it. Also, my boss gave me some really nice noise reducing headphones and told me that I can listen to music while I work. Perfect! We all know that in today's day and age, you can listen to a lot more than just music through headphones, provided you have the right tools. And tools I have! I've discovered the wonderfully entertaining world of podcasts. I now listen to a few different ones each day, including Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Missed in History Class, Best of the Left, Democracy Now, The Moth, This American Life, Aprn Alaska, NPR Environment, and others. And let me tell you, they shave HOURS off of my work day. Pulling staples requires very little brain activity, so these give my brain something to munch on. I'm also going to buy audiobooks. A woman came into my office one day, and after trying to set me up with her 21 year old son, looked at the stack I was working on and said "I hope they're paying you well!" I smiled. I think they're paying me way more than the job, albeit tedious, is worth.

Enough about work. After about a week of overcast and rainy weather, the sun came out just in time for the weekend! I woke up to the aurora borealis on the ceiling.
Thanks to the greenery outside, my neighbor's boiler, and sun shining through the window.

I'm starting to get really excited about my sister Kelli coming to visit! I came up with a list of things we can do a couple of weeks ago, sampling some of what Juneau has to offer:

-The Sandpiper for breakfast or lunch
-The Sandbar for halibut sandwiches lunch or dinner
-Palmenis for Russian dumplings lunch or dinner
-Silverbow bakery/restaurant for breakfast or lunch
-Pizzeria Roma for lunch or dinner
-Chan's Thai Kitchen for dinner
-The Grind for chai tea
-Breeze Inn for lunch to go
-Seongs Sushi for lunch

-4th of July fireworks/parade
-Jet ski rental
-Tracy Arm Fjord day trip by boat
-Mendenhall Glacier visitor center and possible bear viewing
-Twilight Eclipse movie (yeah yeah)
-Downtown tourist shops, cruise ship docks
-Treadwell Mine walk
-Bonfire at beach
-Out the road drive
-Kayak mendenhall glacier lake
-Overnight kayak trip
-Mt. Roberts hike and tram down
-Sunshine cove, Eagle beach
-Douglas Island rainforest trail
-Flume trail
-Neighborhood/downtown/Russian church walk
-Harbor walk
-Alaska Brewing Co. tour and free beer tasting

She'll be here for about 10 days, so hopefully we can cram as much of it in as possible. I've never been a host to visitors before, so the planning and prepping has been a lot of fun for me. I wonder if she'll think this place is as great as I do. Even if she doesn't, I know she'll appreciate it's beauty and simplicity, and we will have a really good time. We're going to have another set of visitors at the end of July, when Steph's Dad and his girlfriend come up for a few days. So that'll make it a fun month, full of visitors and getting to show off our awesome new home.



This evening we bought overpriced slushies and went to the glacier, where we sat on a large mound of dirt for a while, watching swallows swoop through the sky dive for fish in the lake . What beautiful birds! The glacier has a pretty special place in our hearts. It was in the parking lot that we first learned that our application for our house was approved, and it was also where we saw the northern lights for the first time. Who knows what other cool things happen there. No pun intended..





I'm having a hard time coming up with interesting things to write about. I think that I've been so focused on work and dealing with all of the emotions that come with starting a new job that I haven't really given a lot of thought to much else. Maybe next week I'll feel a little more inspired and less focused on a job that doesn't really need that much focus.

Workin' for the weekend

Well it is official, I have successfully assimilated into the Juneau, Alaska working class.

I have an office, health benefits, a 401k. Soon I will have a steady paycheck, a nameplate outside my door, and business cards. (Side note: not sure why my boss insisted I have business cards since I will be in my office all day, far away from the public's eye..)

My co-workers all have cubicles in one of 3 offices in the building. On my first day, I was whisked around from office to office and introduced to each person. This was rather awkward for me, as it felt like every introduction went exactly the same.
"So and so, this is Sara"
I stood and smiled as so and so turned around to face me, and then I extended a hand and said "Hi, nice to meet you!"
After a handshake, which most didn't seem to expect, they said "Hi, i'm so and so"
And I smiled and nodded as my boss finished by saying "she will be the new scan person"
"Oh okay, well welcome"
I started to turn and said "thanks, it was nice to meet you"
"You too.."
And then we were off to the next office. I did this about 17 times.

I also spent the first 3 days comparing and contrasting the job with my old one at CarMax, and it didn't take long for me to realize that the fun, team oriented atmosphere at CarMax is nowhere to be found here. With the exception of birthday cake in the common kitchen and brief conversations in the halls, people stay in their separate offices and work. This is fine with me, since I am typically pretty introverted and have never been one to divulge my entire life story to someone I know in passing. When I left CarMax, I knew I would likely never work with such a fun, friendly group of people, so I had in a way prepared myself for this kind of setting already. But that's not to say that I won't go through a period of feeling lonely and missing my old co-workers.

My office is in the quieter of the 3 offices. The upstairs office is full of testosterone and smells weird, the main downstairs office is loud and full of estrogen, and the third office is narrow and home to only 4 employees, myself included. I couldn't have been stuck in a more perfect spot. All of the important people get personal offices with windows facing outside, and everyone else gets a cubicle. I, however, get a personal office with a window that faces into the hall of the main office complex. There is a fake plant positioned right outside my window, and anyone walking down the hall can look in on me. But hey, a window is a window! On my first day, my office looked like the storage closet. By the end of the day, however, most of the extra boxes, supplies, chairs, fans, etc. had been relocated, and it finally looked like a real workspace. My boss was great about making sure I was happy with the office. She went out and bought me a fan, cordless mouse and keyboard, printer, noise-reducing headphones, and said that she will get me a tv with dvd player so that I can watch movies while I prep documents to scan. She also said I can decorate my space with pictures and such, which is really exciting for someone who has never had an office of her own. At CarMax, we had a general office space, with multiple computers and an open layout. You'd just plop down at whatever computer you felt like working on. While that eliminated the ability to really personalize any part of the office except your cubby, it also created the opportunity to socialize with your co-workers, and I think that it had a major role in creating that feeling of camaraderie.


Here's my office on my first day. It' a lot neater now. The scanner is on the left.


My workspace. Note the tiny, ancient computer!

On Friday, I spent all day in a file room filing documents in numerically filed folders by myself. A couple of people came in and talked to me, but for the most part I was left alone with my thoughts, stacks and stacks of fishing vessel license applications, and the hum of the fluorescent lights. At one point, in passing, someone flipped the lights off on me. Now luckily, this is not something I will be doing on a regular basis. I am helping out the licensing department for a week or so before I begin training for the job I was actually hired for. So, helping them means I am doing the work nobody else wants or has time to do. I will be stuck in the file room on Monday as well, and I've already decided to bring my iphone with me so that I can listen to music.

I really can't describe exactly what I will be doing at this point. I know that there are boxes and boxes of documents that have to be scanned and saved as pdf.s to electronically archive. Most of these documents are from between 1974 and whenever the commission started using computers to archive records. My job will be to prep the documents, scan them on a high speed scanner that takes up most of my desk, and then do something with them on the computer in my office. This computer runs on WIndows 2000 and cannot be updated because it is the only one that is compatible with the scanner. Whenever someone has poked their head into my office to say hi or help me with something, they make fun of my computer! While I am stuck working on this fossil, everyone else has TWO brand new lcd computer monitors, set up in a way that allows them to work from both screens at once. Also, my "desk" is an unhinged hardwood door supported by two metal filing cabinets. I'm assuming this is because they needed something larger and more sturdy to support the scanner on? All I know is that my boss just had a brand new desk delivered Friday and I'm working on a door.

At any rate, i'm definitely looking forward to learning the job so that I can go in every day and know exactly what it is that I need to be doing, do it, earn money, and leave!

And after re-reading this, I realize that I sound like I hate the office so far. But I really don't. I realize that this is how most offices like this are, and I am looking forward to leaving work at work to really savor the time I have away from it. Plus, come September, I will only be working 20 hours a week and spending the rest of the time in class. So a little loneliness at work, a door for a desk, and a crunching computer are definitely things I can handle for the time being :)

Green

The view outside my window at 11:00 pm is a strange one. A cool blue glow lingers in the sky, darkening as I scan the horizon farther south, and slowly tucking itself behind peaks still spotted with snow. The street in front of my house is quiet now, most commutes have long since been over for the day, with the exception a few late night cars streaking by. I stand in the kitchen with the lights off, looking out as moths flick against the glass windows searching for a warm illumination they will never find.


Summer here continues to amaze me! Behind our house, where we were once able to access the woods via some light bushwhacking, has become a wall of green. Brambles, ferns, salmonberry bushes, and every other type of shrub indigenous to this part of Alaska seems to have grown up overnight, creating The Great Wall of Juneau between us and the forest. Good riddance, I say! Perhaps it will keep the bears away.




I think there's more greenery in a square foot of my backyard than there is in five miles of land in Albuquerque.


Our yard looks amazing and is full of pleasant little surprises that require no tending to, like this one!


And this!


Here's an oddly angled shot of our flowerbed.. actually blooming (I had my doubts)!


Our yard looks pretty good these days. We have to mow and weed whack about 3 times a month, but one thing I've learned about myself recently is that yard maintenance is something I quite enjoy. What??


I went across the road to take these next ones. There are wildflowers everywhere you look here in the summer.






Horsetail and Buttercups. Our neighbor, a very friendly and talkative older lady, told us that Buttercups were a weed. Sure, they grow everywhere seemingly uncontrollably, but I'm not convinced, lady! I think they're lovely.







I start a new job on Wednesday, working as a scanning clerk for the state of Alaska. It's got a lot of things that I wanted in a job like independence, weekends and holidays off, no interaction with the public or answering a phone, incredible flexibility that will allow me to choose what time I go in for work and leave as long as I work a certain number of hours each week, the ability to work part time when I start school, I can wear jeans, and I can listen to my ipod. These are all huge pluses. On the other hand, it lacks a few things I would have liked. The pay is not as fantastic as it could be and the job will be simple, probably somewhat boring, and tedious. The thing that made my job great at CarMax was working with my awesome coworkers, and I'm not sure how closely I'll be working with other people. I will be in an office of my own, which is a nice change. It's also windowless, which I am used to thanks to our faux windows in the CarMax business office... but a window would have been nice.
Alas, it seems like I am going to have to sacrifice a few things to get a few others.
I know one thing for sure- that I cannot wait to get back to a steady job with responsibilities! I'm so sick of being unemployed. It is definitely not all it's cracked up to be.

Whalesongs

To kick off the whale theme of this post, the above video is from Fantasia 2000, which was released by Disney in 1999. I loved it when I first watched it years ago. Whales erupting out of the ocean and into space? Yes, please!

My first memory of whales is a book my sister and I shared when we were really young, probably 5 or 6. It had beautiful illustrations of all of the Cetaceans that inhabit the ocean. Next to the Humpback whale illustration was the dark blue silhouette of a human, illustrating how massive they were. I'm not sure if I really believed that something that big could exist in the ocean.

There was also Baby Beluga. My sister had an illustrated book that featured the words to the popular children's song 'Baby Beluga'. The song began, "Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea, / Swim so wild and you swim so free".



Lets not forget about Keiko, the Killer Whale we all knew and loved, who burst through tinseltown in 1993 starring in Free Willy. I loved everything about Free Willy as a 7 year old, from the cheesy Michael Jackson music video at the beginning, to the water dripping on Jesse's face as the Willy iconically launches himself over the young boy and into the free sea. After seeing the movie, we painted Killer Whales on large canvases at my dad's art school. One of my favorite pictures, which I was going to post but regrettably was unable to find, is a shot of she and I holding our paintings side by side and smiling, hair wild and teeth missing. These paintings were entered into the State Fair juried youth art exhibit by my dad that same year. My sister's won first place, earning her a blue ribbon that I envied for years after!

My sister and I were lucky enough to get to see Keiko the Killer Whale during his 3 year stay at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon. I vividly remember the whale, who appeared magnificent in the film, floating lifelessly in front of the thick glass window of the multi-million dollar facility built specifically for the whale. I remembered the movie, and how similar us staring in at him then was to all of the spectators at Sea World pounding on his glass windows. Even as a child, I remember feeling pain for such a beautiful creature. My dad, probably seeing that we were upset about the sight, bought Kelli and I each a stuffed Killer Whale from the gift shop before leaving.

Reading about Keiko on Wikipedia presents a tragic life for the whale. Captured off the coast of Iceland in 1979, he spent years at an aquarium in Iceland, Marineland in Ontario, and an amusement park in Mexico, where F ree Willy was filmed. along with the two following films. Money was raised through the Free Willy Keiko Foundation after the movie original came out, and he was moved to the custom facility in Oregon where I saw him. In 1998, the whale was moved to a bay in Iceland to to begin training for a release into the wild. This never happened. Instead, during his training period in which he was monitored by "trainers", he was "lost" twice, once found 870 miles away from his original location, and once spotted in Halsa, Norway where fans were reportedly crawling on his back and playing with him. This was in 2002.

In December of 2003, Keiko was found beached in Taknes Bay, Norway. His cause of death was Pneumonia according to biologists. Most Killer Whales in the wild live 50-80 years, while Keiko lived only 24. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiko_(orca)

When I was in middle school, my dad took us on a trip to Victoria, B.C. We took a ferry across from Anacortes, through the San Juan Islands. I spent the trip with my eyes glued to the water, hoping to see a whale. I didn't see one on either trip across the water.

My love of whales has followed me to Alaska, which just happens to be one of the best locations to view them. I later found out that Humpback whales come to Alaska to feed, so seeing them breach here is a rarity. They do most of that down around Hawaii and Fiji, where they migrate in the winters. So we got pretty lucky.

A few weeks ago, we were at Hearthside Books in the "mall", buying a book on native plants of Southeast Alaska. We again got lucky when we spotted a sign advertising $50 tickets to a whale watch cruise as a fundraiser for a nonprofit. I didn't really care to support the nonprofit, but a $50 whale watching cruise when they're typically $150? Sign me up!



The cruise was on Sunday evening, a 3 hour event that took us North from Auke Bay, up Favorite Channel and past Admiralty Island, Herbert Glacier, and a few smaller islands. As soon as we boarded, we noticed that almost everyone knew each other. It felt like we had been invited to a family reunion but weren't family. All of the seats were taken by the time we got on, and luckily the weather was sunny and warm, so Steph and I happily spent the entire time on the windy stern, gazing across the water at the Chilkat Range, my favorite range of mountains that appears to stretch on forever. Since we were already on the deck, we had the best view of the whales, too. When one was spotted, most people had to clamor out of the cabin to the back of the boat. But once the guide announced where a whale was, 9 o'clock, 12 o'clock and so on, Steph and I lined ourselves up against the cold metal railing and didn't have to scramble for a good viewpoint.







Every time a whale surfaced, which was pretty often since we saw 4 Humpback whales on the trip, little kids squealed, a woman exclaimed "OH OH OH" in hopes of seeing it's fluke, and there was a collective "AWWWW" if it didn't show it's tail as it dived back under the water. While a fluke is always a fun thing to see, it's not all a whale sighting brings to the table. Many of these people didn't seem to understand that. If I were a whale, and knew that if I didn't provide a peak at my tail I would be seen as "boring" or a disappointment, I'd never show it!





I could have done without the crowd commentary, but Steph and I got a good laugh from it regardless. I took pictures, and she recorded most of the sightings on the camcorder.

The 4 whales, all Humpbacks, certainly didn't disappoint me. I'll never get tired of seeing their slick black backs slice out of the water as they dive down to feed, or the rare glimpse of a bumpy mouth or lace patterned fluke sinking back into the freezing water. They're such graceful, calm animals. One surfaced really close to our boat at one point, probably curious about what we were. Another turned towards us and appeared to he headed straight for the boat until he, too, disappeared into the dark water.









One day I'd live to come really close to a whale by kayak, or maybe even dive dear one. To be able to observe such a magnificent creature from the underwater perspective would be a thrill.