It is hard to imagine that Thanksgiving time is already upon us. It doesn't seem like I've been at college all that long, but then when I think about it, it seems like I've been at college for a really, really long time. Memories of my time at the Anchorage camp fade, though I still vividly recall my experiences on the boat in Alaska, probably because it is harder to forget traumatic experiences.
But I might as well start from the beginning.
My first week at College.
I am working on Public Safety, (security) at BJU, so I got there a week earlier than everyone else.
There not much to tell, we had a lot of training going on. They taught us how to direct traffic, and how to deal with people. All different kinds of people, dumb people, angry people, stubborn people, important people, emergency people, problematic people, yeah, people. So we got a crash course in how to act like we know what we are doing, so that we can fool everyone into thinking that we really do know what we are doing. And basically that's it.
During the first week, I had a couple of meals with Jennifer and some of her dinning common friends and I got to know some people that way. All in all, it was a nice week. I was able to settle in and get everything ready, in a very relaxed and quiet environment. By the time the week was over though, I was ready for some people to be there, because it was getting a little boring.
Then Friday came around, and people just started popping up everywhere. The campus seemingly exploded with people. I finally got some roommates. And I saw Jeremiah, Sarah, and Aunt Rachael. Yey! It was nice to see people that I had knew really well. I can remember how excited I was to see them. I can remember how I was the first week, I was quiet, reserved, shy… But when I saw them, I was… well like I am around them, open, loud, outgoing, a funny jokester kind of guy. We went off campus together to do some shopping and stuff, which was fun, I got some things that I needed. So, I was thankful for that.
Another thing I was thankful for was that they brought with them, most of my stuff, because I had flown into Greenville I was limited to 1 bag and one carry-on, I didn't have much baggage with me. So, a lot of my stuff had to be left behind for them to bring when they came up. One of the things that they brought up was my beloved camera. I was so happy to see that wonderful device, it brought joy into the inner most parts of my heart. I'd have to say that it was the first thing that I took out a played with. My happiness was so great, that words cannot express my intense, fervid rejoicing. :P
Time quickly went by, and soon the first day of classes had arrived. I will admit, I was scared. What will I do? How will I do? I want to do well, but everyone keeps talking about how hard it is. Jeremiah did it though, so I should be able to do it. But how? I don't know what to expect. Things are real now, no more putting off tests until I'm ready, and no more games on the computer. How am I going to handle this? I don't think that I can do it. All these thoughts were rushing through my head, as Wednesday came closer, and closer.
On Tuesday night I was especially worried, knowing that classes started the next day. I didn't express my worry to anyone and pretended to be fine. At the time I barely knew my roommates, so I didn't feel like expressing my deep anxiety with complete strangers. So I kept to myself.
Despite all my wishing and hoping that it would go away, the fateful day arrived. I went to my first class not really knowing what to expect. "Ok, Computer applications, I don't know what I'm suppose to do, but I guess that I'll just go, and find out." And so I went, and they passed out the class syllabus, and talked a little about what this class was about, and stuff like that. That first class really calmed my spirit I think, because I realized that they don't expect anything of me yet. They will teach me, and then expect me to know what they taught, but they didn't expect me to know about things that they hadn't taught me. On to my next class, History of Civ. Uuu, I've heard about this class, it's supposed to be really hard, I guess I'll see what it's all about. Well it was pretty much the same thing, we got the syllabus, and were told what it was that we were expected to know.
The rest of the day went pretty much like that, I didn’t have a problem finding my other 4 classes, well… Except for Speech. Did you know that the signs in the Fine Arts Building, don't specify that there is a 3rd floor. The only signs that indicate that there is a 3rd floor and the signs in 2 of the 4 stairways, all of the other signs don't even acknowledge the 3rd floor. But I eventually found my classroom, and made it in. On time.
Things quickly picked up the pace, but it wasn't too bad. I didn't miss not having the time to play Mount&Blade, or reading camera forums. I had stuff to do now.
Things were going well, and I was pleased with how I was doing. I was able to -- by the grace of God -- handle everything that came my way. It was actually a very exciting feeling, feeling like I was on top of things, like things were under control. I kind of impressed myself with how much I was able to get done when I organized everything and sat down and worked on things. There was a distinct sense of satisfaction in accomplishing everything that I need to accomplish, in the time that I had.
Papers, projects, tests, and quizzes began to accumulate, but even though I thought that I didn't feel as though I was adequately prepared for college, college sort of prepared me for itself. Query.
The weeks began to pass by, I had my share of nerve racking moments, -- my first speech comes to mind -- but by the guidance of God's faithful hand, I was able to overcome those moments. In some I was satisfied with my performance, and with other, I just had to learn to just live and learn.
Ah, yes, then midterms. The week before midterms, I freaked out. Then I calmed myself, recomprised my thoughts, and freaked out again. This cycle repeated itself again and again, all through out midterm week, until the end of my last class for the week. But after my last class on that week I can remember doing spins and tap dancing my way across the Bridge of Nations, as I came out of my last class on Friday. People were staring at me, but I didn't care, More people stared at me when I rode my unicycle, so why should I care that they stared at me?
But lets change gears a little bit. For college isn't all about classes. I mean, let's be perfectly honest, college is about girls too. Oh, the drama. Well right off the bat I got the reputation for being a crazy guy who had flocks of girls around him. I don't know how anyone got this impression, but I think that part of it was because I had several meals with Jennifer and her friends, who happened to be girls, so I would often be the only guy in a group of about 4 or 5 girls.
I consider it my "duty," as a guy, to ask girls out to Performance hall plays, and Artist Series. Considering that it is improper, for girls for girls to ask guys out, guys must take the responsibility of asking the girl. So, anyway, I asked a girl out to The Tempest. I must say it was pretty strange to ask a girl out on a "date," because I had never done it before. But I didn't experience the same, knee-knocking-stomach-turning-belly-flopping feeling that I thought I might go through according to all the stories and movies. But it wasn't really that way, at least for me it wasn't. Anyway, I asked a girl named Kendra to The Tempest, and we had a very pleasant time.
My didn't have another "date" until Artist Series. I took a girl who is named Abby. (The same name as my sister. :D ) I'd say that we both had quite a pleasant time. We saw the Pirates of Penzance. A Gilbert and Sullivan opera, performed by the New York Gilbert and Sullivan players. The show was hilarious, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, not only because the show was good, but also because I was accompanied by a very lovely young lady.
So far I have had pretty good experiences with dates that I've gone on. We'll see if that keeps up. I currently have 2 tickets to another performance hall play, Arsenic and Old Lace. And right now I don't have anyone to go with. I asked one girl, but she was already going with someone else. Oops. So now I have to find a girl that is desperate enough to go with me. :P Another Artist Series is coming up soon also…. Hmmm….
Well, on another note, I've been able to get out some, and help with different projects, like the Big Dig, and Farm Fest. Both of which were very good by the way. I've also been able to go on extension pretty much every week since the second week of school. I go with Agape Bible Club, and we have a Bible club for the kids in the neighborhood there. I never really know what to say about it though. It's a Bible club, we play games with the kids, then the kids get a snack, and then we sit them down tell them a Bible story. So, that's basically how it goes. Pretty much like every Bible club, there are of course certain things that make this Bible club special and unique. And some of those things just can't be expressed in words, they have to be experienced, in person.
So, I feel as though I have been able to experience a whole lot in those past few months. Both on campus and off. I've been through some things that I have never had any experience with before, and some things that I'm quite familiar with.
Now, it's Thanksgiving break. I am very much so enjoying the rest and relaxation. I haven't been able to get as much done as I was planning, but I was kind of expecting that. I still have time though. I have been able to do a lot of things that I have enjoyed a whole lot. From playing games, to taking pictures. I am very thankful that I am able to go somewhere for Thanksgiving, because I know that it just wouldn't have been the same, if I had to stay on campus.
Ever since high school I've been looking forward to college because I would finally be able to be around other guys and girls my age. So, now that it is here I am enjoying it very much.
Someone asked me to describe my college experience in only a few words, and the words that I chose were, challenging, terrifying, and very, very profitable. I have learned so much, in my classes, and just from college life. And I have grown in so many ways physically, mentally, and Spiritually. So, yes, it has been a very profitable semester so far, and the Lord has taught me so much, I am just very thankful for being at BJU.
Thank you for reading, I hope that that will bring you up to speed, on where I am, and how college is going for me. :P
If you wish to see pictures you may do so here. ;)
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=11327&id=1109395541
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
To Date, or Not to Date
It is again time for me to share with you my various embarrassing, and otherwise self-consciously distressing tales.
Today was the date of my first “date.”
The girl in question is Kendra, and the place to which we were to go was Performance hall, where a play called The Tempest was to be performed. I was to meet said girl at ten minutes following the hour of seven o’clock. After a quick rundown of everything that I would need, I was off to meet my fair lady, at the last minute remembering to grab the tickets. (Boy, that would have been embarrassing if I had forgotten the
tickets.)
On the journey to the girl’s dorms, I proceeded to talk myself into being nervous, even though there was no need to be nervous. Several girls giggled at me as I set foot inside the girl’s dorm’s lobby, but I paid no heed to them. I stood there in the lobby for approximately 30 seconds before a young lady kindly informed me that, contrary to my understanding, men were not allowed to wait for girls in the lobby.
Acting upon this new knowledge I escorted myself to the door with the big “EXIT” sign hanging above it. Again I paid no heed to the girls who proceeded to giggle at my breach of the well established rules of BJU.
Shortly thereafter, a being emerged from the doorway. Not a mere girl, but an angel. She was pulchritudinous in every sense of the word. Her radiance shone round about her like the sunbeams of midday. No maid have I seen so fair in all my days, for it seemed as though the whole world was beautified by her presence. As she walked there was as if, an aura surrounded her making her 3 stops brighter than anything else around her. (lol photography joke) An aura surrounded her, only to magnify her beauty by tenfold. A stream of light shone down upon her from the sky, like a giant spot light from heaven.
She descended the stairs with the grace of a princess. With a smile sweeter than fructose, she looked at me and said, “Shall we?” The warmth radiated by her expression nearly melted my inner being. It took all my strength and will power to resist the overwhelming urge to pump the air vigorously, and shout “YES!” at the top of my lungs, but resist the urge I did.
We walked slowly along the road to the Performance Hall. Every bystander could not help but stare in awe and amazement at her matchless beauty.
All too soon our walk was over, and we had we reached our destination.
We were ushered in and directed to our seats.
The lights were dimmed, and the play commenced.
Though spectacular in both plot and performance, it was a constant struggle to keep my focus on the play. My eyes continually longed to gaze into Her eyes, but using every ounce of will power that I posses, I managed to keep my eyes on the stage.
The play was in short, hilarious. But the thing that I loved the most was when I could hear Her laughing. Her laugh is like none other, the perfect balance of everything lovely and desirable one could possible posses in a laugh. Every time I heard her laugh my heart overflowed with joy and excitement. Just knowing that she was joyful, caused me to be satisfied.
When the show was over we all were quickly and quietly ushered out of the building. We walked along together to Her dorm, where we said our heart wrenching farewells, and she disappeared from my sight. Once she had departed, I turned and embarked on my lonesome journey back to my place of residence, saddened by the separation from my soul mate, Kendra.
. . .
. . .
Ok, in all seriousness. We had a great time. The show was extremely funny; people would be speaking in Shakespearian one sentence and then modern English in the next. I’d say that we enjoyed one another’s company, because going with a friend is more fun than going alone. Oh, and Micah Coston was one of the performers, he came to Poland on the BJU mission team back in ’03 I think, so seeing him on stage was cool too.
Anyway, we had a good time, but neither one of us is looking for a boyfriend/girlfriend. We just went together because we both wanted to see the show, and like I said, it’s more fun to go with friends.
Timothy
P.S. I finally used pulchritudinous in a sentence. :P
Today was the date of my first “date.”
The girl in question is Kendra, and the place to which we were to go was Performance hall, where a play called The Tempest was to be performed. I was to meet said girl at ten minutes following the hour of seven o’clock. After a quick rundown of everything that I would need, I was off to meet my fair lady, at the last minute remembering to grab the tickets. (Boy, that would have been embarrassing if I had forgotten the
tickets.)
On the journey to the girl’s dorms, I proceeded to talk myself into being nervous, even though there was no need to be nervous. Several girls giggled at me as I set foot inside the girl’s dorm’s lobby, but I paid no heed to them. I stood there in the lobby for approximately 30 seconds before a young lady kindly informed me that, contrary to my understanding, men were not allowed to wait for girls in the lobby.
Acting upon this new knowledge I escorted myself to the door with the big “EXIT” sign hanging above it. Again I paid no heed to the girls who proceeded to giggle at my breach of the well established rules of BJU.
Shortly thereafter, a being emerged from the doorway. Not a mere girl, but an angel. She was pulchritudinous in every sense of the word. Her radiance shone round about her like the sunbeams of midday. No maid have I seen so fair in all my days, for it seemed as though the whole world was beautified by her presence. As she walked there was as if, an aura surrounded her making her 3 stops brighter than anything else around her. (lol photography joke) An aura surrounded her, only to magnify her beauty by tenfold. A stream of light shone down upon her from the sky, like a giant spot light from heaven.
She descended the stairs with the grace of a princess. With a smile sweeter than fructose, she looked at me and said, “Shall we?” The warmth radiated by her expression nearly melted my inner being. It took all my strength and will power to resist the overwhelming urge to pump the air vigorously, and shout “YES!” at the top of my lungs, but resist the urge I did.
We walked slowly along the road to the Performance Hall. Every bystander could not help but stare in awe and amazement at her matchless beauty.
All too soon our walk was over, and we had we reached our destination.
We were ushered in and directed to our seats.
The lights were dimmed, and the play commenced.
Though spectacular in both plot and performance, it was a constant struggle to keep my focus on the play. My eyes continually longed to gaze into Her eyes, but using every ounce of will power that I posses, I managed to keep my eyes on the stage.
The play was in short, hilarious. But the thing that I loved the most was when I could hear Her laughing. Her laugh is like none other, the perfect balance of everything lovely and desirable one could possible posses in a laugh. Every time I heard her laugh my heart overflowed with joy and excitement. Just knowing that she was joyful, caused me to be satisfied.
When the show was over we all were quickly and quietly ushered out of the building. We walked along together to Her dorm, where we said our heart wrenching farewells, and she disappeared from my sight. Once she had departed, I turned and embarked on my lonesome journey back to my place of residence, saddened by the separation from my soul mate, Kendra.
. . .
. . .
Ok, in all seriousness. We had a great time. The show was extremely funny; people would be speaking in Shakespearian one sentence and then modern English in the next. I’d say that we enjoyed one another’s company, because going with a friend is more fun than going alone. Oh, and Micah Coston was one of the performers, he came to Poland on the BJU mission team back in ’03 I think, so seeing him on stage was cool too.
Anyway, we had a good time, but neither one of us is looking for a boyfriend/girlfriend. We just went together because we both wanted to see the show, and like I said, it’s more fun to go with friends.
Timothy
P.S. I finally used pulchritudinous in a sentence. :P
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Guess what happened
Well guess what I managed to do today.
I managed to tighten up my unicycle crank, so in celebration I rode it to the dining common for dinner. After dinner, I was showing it to my friends, and I started jumping down the stairs in front of the dinning common. And... well... when I landed, this happened.
...
I landed the jump very nicely, but the unicycle just buckled. Part of the reason was that the tire was pumped up too much, and it didn't cushion the fall well enough. I didn't notice that the tire was filled up too much, until I actually started hopping on it, and I didn't think that it would be a problem.
Oh, well... :-(
I managed to tighten up my unicycle crank, so in celebration I rode it to the dining common for dinner. After dinner, I was showing it to my friends, and I started jumping down the stairs in front of the dinning common. And... well... when I landed, this happened.
...
I landed the jump very nicely, but the unicycle just buckled. Part of the reason was that the tire was pumped up too much, and it didn't cushion the fall well enough. I didn't notice that the tire was filled up too much, until I actually started hopping on it, and I didn't think that it would be a problem.
Oh, well... :-(
First couple weeks at College (continued)
Today was a pretty good day; I didn’t feel as overwhelmed with school work as I have lately, so I am very thankful for that.
I had lunch with my brother (Jeremiah) and company, and during the conversation I mentioned that I was planning on going to The Tempest, and then Jeremiah asked if I was taking anyone. When I said “no” he said that I should. I argued that I didn’t know any girl well enough to ask, but he said that we didn’t have to be good friends or anything, as long as we knew each other fairly well; it’s not that big of a deal, “Besides…” he said, “Girls like to be asked out.” So anyway, I decided that I’d give it a shot. I already a girl in mind that I wanted to ask, but I didn’t think that I could muster up the courage to ask her; because, like I said, I don’t know her “that” well, but thanks to Jeremiah, I decided that I was going to ask her anyway, and see what happens. Her name is Justine.
I tried to have lunch or dinner with Justine, so that I could catch up with her, and then ask her if she would go to The Tempest with me. Unfortunately, she was busy, so I wasn’t able to arrange it. Anyway, I did get some studying done, but not very much. I had work for several hours in the afternoon. I was working in the Welcome Center, taking names, giving directions, answering phone calls, and writing down the radio conversations. Well actually I didn’t do all those things; I only “helped” do those things, since I’m still in training. I’ll be able to do those things after I get more training, and I know what to do and when to do it.
I went ahead and bought two tickets to The Tempest having faith that I would get someone to go with me.
Today went pretty well, I didn’t get much chance to study on Saturday, because of work, and some other things that I had to deal with, so as a result I had to do quite a bit of studying today in the afternoon, but it wasn’t bad, I got it all done.
I finally built up the courage and asked Justine, if she would go to The Tempest with me. Sadly she declined my offer. I was decimated. I cried myself to sleep the next two nights…. Ok, not really. I was fine. I had prepared myself for her to say “no,” so it didn’t even really surprise me too much. Understandably, I was a tad disappointed though.
By the world’s standards, today would be considered a “very good” day. Since God makes every day the way that He wants it to be, then I can’t say that it was a “good” day, or a “bad” day, because every day is perfect. Though, I can say that today went really well for me. I had three things that were the highlights of my day.
Firstly, I had a quiz in English, and I was a little nervous about that, because English is not my best subject, and I didn’t know how it would go, but my fears were calmed when I first laid eyes on the quiz. It wasn’t nearly as hard as I was expecting it to be, and I feel really confident that I did quite well on it.
Secondly, I had my first freshman speech today. I was nervous about that, because I didn’t have a speech class in high school, so giving a speech is something that I’m not used to. But again, I had prepared well, so I once I got up there I wasn’t nervous, and I did quite well I think. It was a personal experience speech, so I talked about my experience fishing in Alaska this summer.
And lastly, I asked a different girl (Kendra) to The Tempest, and she said “yes.” She, Daniel, and I were having lunch together, when I asked her. Daniel is one of my co-workers; it’s through him actually that I met Kendra. Kendra is Daniel’s best friend, but they aren’t dating or anything, and they aren’t going to date either, they’re just good friends. So, anyway, Daniel and Kendra usually have lunch together, and since Daniel and I are pretty good friends I would eat with them sometimes. So, like I was saying, today was one of those days; Daniel, Kendra, and I were having lunch together, when I asked her. (Even though both Daniel and Kendra had made it clear that they weren’t dating, I still asked Daniel if I he didn’t mind me asking her out. And he was perfectly fine with it.) I really had no idea whether she would say “yes” or “no,” so again I prepared myself to be turned down. When I asked her, she recoiled in shock. Placing her hand on her heart, and took a gasping breath, as if she had just been shot. Baffled her reaction, I didn’t know what to think, so I just sat there, not really doing anything, just looking at her and waiting for her to answer. After she caught her breath, she looked at me again, and said, “Yes.” I was kind of surprised, because after the way she reacted I didn’t really expect that, but I was like, “Ok, great.” And pretty much that’s how it happened. I really don’t know what was going through her mind when I asked her, but maybe that's a good thing.
Just because I asked a girl to go to a show does, _NOT_ mean that we serious. Ok, peoples? ;-)
Timothy Petersen
Saturday, September 06, 2008
First couple weeks at College
Well college sure started off with a bang.
Let me start from the beginning though, I got here on the 23rd. The reason that I came here a week early was for training. I’m working Public Safety, so they wanted me to get a week of training before they let me loose on the streets to potentially, cause widespread havoc and pandemonium, as fun as that might be. The whole first week I didn’t have any roommates, which had its own ups and downs. I did get first pick for the bunk, so that was pretty nice, but the whole room seemed pretty empty the whole first week. Training was fun, because it wasn’t too difficult, and I got to know the campus and my co-workers, which was nice, because that way I didn’t start the year “completely” clueless. I had the general idea of where everything was by the time classes started, which, I would say, was very helpful.
My job seems pretty neat too, right now I’m only allowed to do traffic, but next semester, I might get a uniform and move up in the food chain. If that happens, then I’ll be able to move up to other jobs, such as night watch, or something like that, so I’m pretty excited about that situation.
As fun as the first week was, the campus did seem pretty dead most of the time, so when Friday rolled around, I was ready for some life to come to the college, and it did. Throughout the day I was amazed, by how quickly it seemed that people were showing up. People came swarming into campus, people by the hundreds. Every time I turned around it seemed as though the population had doubled. Jeremiah and Sarah arrived around noon, and I hung out with them for pretty much the rest of the day.
Saturday and Sunday were pretty quiet, but on Monday it seemed as though things just started right up, all day Monday I was running back and forth taking care of everything that I needed. Through the skillful use of my day planner, I was able to accomplish a whole lot though, so at the end of the day, I really felt a sense of accomplishment. Tuesday was pretty much the same way, though not quite as busy. I auditioned for a choir, but I haven’t heard anything back yet, I’m assuming that they didn’t accept me, because they said that they would E-mail the people that were accepted. I am disappointed a little bit, but I know that I tried my best, and I wasn’t good enough. I know that there are many people here on campus, and a majority of them have a whole lot more talent than I do. Because I didn’t make it, I will have a lot more time this semester, which is probably very good, because I’m going to need all the time that I can get if I’m going to do well in my classes, and frankly, with choir practice my schedule looked pretty packed, and without it, it just looks “busy”. J I’m not giving up yet though, I also auditioned for voice lessons, and I’m going to be taking those this semester, and I’ll try for the choir again next semester. :) They’re not getting rid of me that easily!
When Wednesday came around, things “really” started to get busy. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the semester. From day one my homework assignments started piling up, and I couldn’t keep up with them. I got everything done that I needed to for the next day, but I like to get everything done that I was given that day. I got behind of Wednesday, but I didn’t get any more behind on Thursday or Friday, so now I have the weekend to catch up. Thank you God for giving us weekends. :)
One of the highlights this past week were the evangelistic services that we had on Thursday, and Friday evening. I think that they were really good, even though it was prime homework time, (6:30-9:00) I’m very glad that they had those services, they helped to keep us reminded about the BJU focus. No matter how busy we get, we always need to keep God as the center of our life, because that is the only reason that we are here on Earth. We were created by God, for God. So I’m really going to try to make that my goal this year, to always put God first my life. Pray for me that’ll be able to keep that goal.
So, as I look back at this week, I’ve had a great time so far. But, I do miss my family. Especially you, Abby. L And I know that it’s going to stay pretty busy around, here so please pray for me as I get adjusted to college life, it’s something I’m just not used to. :\
And, sigh… I suppose that I should write about my social life too, because I know that you’ll want to hear about that, as it seems it the only part that SOME of you even care about. (Thinking back to all the Missy comments.)
Yes the rumors are true I did have dinner with Jennifer and 4 of her friends, but I practically haven’t seen her at all since then, it’s almost funny, I’ve seen her friends that I ate with all the time, and I say “Hi”, but for some reason I never see Jennifer around anyway. Well, I think that it’s strange anyway.
I’ve gotten to know all the girl freshmen that are on Public Safety, not such a difficult task, as there are only 4 of them. If fact I’ve gotten to know most of the freshmen Public Safety officers, and there are 30 of them total. One of them, Jessica I got to know better than the other girls because we got put together on some of the training. But I wasn’t complaining, because she seemed like a really nice girls, so, naturally I wasn’t against getting to know her a little better. Evidently, back in college, her mom knew my aunt, and her dad knew my mom, but I didn’t find that out until later, when Aunt Rachael was here and ran into Jessica’s mom. Anyway, Jessica and I seem to be “compatible” personalities, so I think that we might become good friends. I haven’t to her much since the FFF on Monday though; I’ve seen her around, but only in passing. The FFF is the Freshman Flit Fest, they took all the Freshmen and let them loose in the dating parlor. And since I didn’t really feel like going over to some random girl and talking to her, like the other guys seemed to want to do, I instead talked with someone I already knew, Jessica. BUT, before anyone gets any ideas…. There is a VERY strictly enforced NO DATING WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT policy. So, no. It is forbidden to date another Public Safety officer; you get shipped if you are caught. So, I’m not thinking along those lines, I’m merely thinking that she would make a good friend.
Another girl that I’ve gotten to know a little better is Ashley. I met Ashley in line to the dinning common one day, she and her friend were talking about how they would like to go to Europe sometime, and see the castles and stuff. (Ashley likes history.) So, I kind of made a comment about how I was an MK from Poland and told them about Malbork, and agreed with them that castles were really cool. Well anyway, so I started talking to them and then they asked if I was sitting with anyone, and I said no. Because I wasn’t. And so then we had lunch together, but then the funny thing is that she is in my Speech class and English class, which we didn’t know about until we were at the class room, and were like “You’re in this class too?” So, I thought that was pretty cool. So anyway, we’ve eaten together a couple times, never alone or anything, always in a small group setting, but I’ve gotten to know her a little.
So anyway, that about sums it up. I think that college is going to go well, and be a very good time for me. A very good time of spiritual growth, as well as academic growth.
But before I leave I thought that I’d try to show you a few pictures. Not the easiest thing to do, because it seems that BJU’s filter blocks just about every image hosting site there is, but I’ll see if this works.
This is Jeremiah’s society’s tent.
This is one of Jeremiah’s society’s posters, I thought that it was pretty cool. :P
This is the construction on Rodeheaver.
Let me start from the beginning though, I got here on the 23rd. The reason that I came here a week early was for training. I’m working Public Safety, so they wanted me to get a week of training before they let me loose on the streets to potentially, cause widespread havoc and pandemonium, as fun as that might be. The whole first week I didn’t have any roommates, which had its own ups and downs. I did get first pick for the bunk, so that was pretty nice, but the whole room seemed pretty empty the whole first week. Training was fun, because it wasn’t too difficult, and I got to know the campus and my co-workers, which was nice, because that way I didn’t start the year “completely” clueless. I had the general idea of where everything was by the time classes started, which, I would say, was very helpful.
My job seems pretty neat too, right now I’m only allowed to do traffic, but next semester, I might get a uniform and move up in the food chain. If that happens, then I’ll be able to move up to other jobs, such as night watch, or something like that, so I’m pretty excited about that situation.
As fun as the first week was, the campus did seem pretty dead most of the time, so when Friday rolled around, I was ready for some life to come to the college, and it did. Throughout the day I was amazed, by how quickly it seemed that people were showing up. People came swarming into campus, people by the hundreds. Every time I turned around it seemed as though the population had doubled. Jeremiah and Sarah arrived around noon, and I hung out with them for pretty much the rest of the day.
Saturday and Sunday were pretty quiet, but on Monday it seemed as though things just started right up, all day Monday I was running back and forth taking care of everything that I needed. Through the skillful use of my day planner, I was able to accomplish a whole lot though, so at the end of the day, I really felt a sense of accomplishment. Tuesday was pretty much the same way, though not quite as busy. I auditioned for a choir, but I haven’t heard anything back yet, I’m assuming that they didn’t accept me, because they said that they would E-mail the people that were accepted. I am disappointed a little bit, but I know that I tried my best, and I wasn’t good enough. I know that there are many people here on campus, and a majority of them have a whole lot more talent than I do. Because I didn’t make it, I will have a lot more time this semester, which is probably very good, because I’m going to need all the time that I can get if I’m going to do well in my classes, and frankly, with choir practice my schedule looked pretty packed, and without it, it just looks “busy”. J I’m not giving up yet though, I also auditioned for voice lessons, and I’m going to be taking those this semester, and I’ll try for the choir again next semester. :) They’re not getting rid of me that easily!
When Wednesday came around, things “really” started to get busy. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the semester. From day one my homework assignments started piling up, and I couldn’t keep up with them. I got everything done that I needed to for the next day, but I like to get everything done that I was given that day. I got behind of Wednesday, but I didn’t get any more behind on Thursday or Friday, so now I have the weekend to catch up. Thank you God for giving us weekends. :)
One of the highlights this past week were the evangelistic services that we had on Thursday, and Friday evening. I think that they were really good, even though it was prime homework time, (6:30-9:00) I’m very glad that they had those services, they helped to keep us reminded about the BJU focus. No matter how busy we get, we always need to keep God as the center of our life, because that is the only reason that we are here on Earth. We were created by God, for God. So I’m really going to try to make that my goal this year, to always put God first my life. Pray for me that’ll be able to keep that goal.
So, as I look back at this week, I’ve had a great time so far. But, I do miss my family. Especially you, Abby. L And I know that it’s going to stay pretty busy around, here so please pray for me as I get adjusted to college life, it’s something I’m just not used to. :\
And, sigh… I suppose that I should write about my social life too, because I know that you’ll want to hear about that, as it seems it the only part that SOME of you even care about. (Thinking back to all the Missy comments.)
Yes the rumors are true I did have dinner with Jennifer and 4 of her friends, but I practically haven’t seen her at all since then, it’s almost funny, I’ve seen her friends that I ate with all the time, and I say “Hi”, but for some reason I never see Jennifer around anyway. Well, I think that it’s strange anyway.
I’ve gotten to know all the girl freshmen that are on Public Safety, not such a difficult task, as there are only 4 of them. If fact I’ve gotten to know most of the freshmen Public Safety officers, and there are 30 of them total. One of them, Jessica I got to know better than the other girls because we got put together on some of the training. But I wasn’t complaining, because she seemed like a really nice girls, so, naturally I wasn’t against getting to know her a little better. Evidently, back in college, her mom knew my aunt, and her dad knew my mom, but I didn’t find that out until later, when Aunt Rachael was here and ran into Jessica’s mom. Anyway, Jessica and I seem to be “compatible” personalities, so I think that we might become good friends. I haven’t to her much since the FFF on Monday though; I’ve seen her around, but only in passing. The FFF is the Freshman Flit Fest, they took all the Freshmen and let them loose in the dating parlor. And since I didn’t really feel like going over to some random girl and talking to her, like the other guys seemed to want to do, I instead talked with someone I already knew, Jessica. BUT, before anyone gets any ideas…. There is a VERY strictly enforced NO DATING WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT policy. So, no. It is forbidden to date another Public Safety officer; you get shipped if you are caught. So, I’m not thinking along those lines, I’m merely thinking that she would make a good friend.
Another girl that I’ve gotten to know a little better is Ashley. I met Ashley in line to the dinning common one day, she and her friend were talking about how they would like to go to Europe sometime, and see the castles and stuff. (Ashley likes history.) So, I kind of made a comment about how I was an MK from Poland and told them about Malbork, and agreed with them that castles were really cool. Well anyway, so I started talking to them and then they asked if I was sitting with anyone, and I said no. Because I wasn’t. And so then we had lunch together, but then the funny thing is that she is in my Speech class and English class, which we didn’t know about until we were at the class room, and were like “You’re in this class too?” So, I thought that was pretty cool. So anyway, we’ve eaten together a couple times, never alone or anything, always in a small group setting, but I’ve gotten to know her a little.
So anyway, that about sums it up. I think that college is going to go well, and be a very good time for me. A very good time of spiritual growth, as well as academic growth.
But before I leave I thought that I’d try to show you a few pictures. Not the easiest thing to do, because it seems that BJU’s filter blocks just about every image hosting site there is, but I’ll see if this works.
This is Jeremiah’s society’s tent.
This is one of Jeremiah’s society’s posters, I thought that it was pretty cool. :P
This is the construction on Rodeheaver.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
All done, now for college.
Wow, over a month since the last update, it's been a while.
A lot has happened since the 11th of July, so I'll start from there.
We got our boat fixed up and then head back out to the bay, where we were getting pretty consistent catches of fish, around 10,000 pounds a day. Until the 13th. On Sunday, July 13th, we had a record breaking (for our season) 19,280 pounds of fish in one delivery. That was a whole lot of fish, all the holds were full, most of them had double bags, we had some bags on deck and we filled them up and had to get them back so that we could fill them up again. It was a pretty exciting feeling. At the end there, we were guessing the weight. The other deckhands guessed low, around 13,000 or 15,000, I guessed higher than they, with 17,500, and then Etta guessed the highest, 18,000. So we were all pleasantly surprised when the man at the tender told us that we had 19,280 pounds.
After we delivered we ran back to where we were fishing, to see if we could get that many fish again, but it didn't happen. We caught nothing, maybe 1,000 pounds. And that was the way it was for the next week, twice we caught 4,000 pounds, but the rest of the time we were catching 500-2,000 pounds per delivery. This went on until the 21st when Rick threw in the towel and decided that it wasn't worth it to stay anymore, so we went back to shore and got stuff ready for the trip back.
Etta flew to Anchorage so that she could deal with some things, like getting the truck which was left in Anchorage, and getting certified to be a nurse in Alaska, so she didn't go on the trip back with us.
The trip back to Homer went pretty well, clear skies all the way.
After we got back to Homer and dry docked the boat, and finished cleaning it up the rest of the way, we were let loose to go our separate ways. On the radio there was a guy advertizing that he was going up to Anchorage, and he wanted a rider who would help with gas expenses, so I called the number and set it up. It cost me $40 to do it that way, and the bus would have been $65, so I was happy with that.
Anyway, I got up to the Anchorage airport, and then the original plan was to get on the next available flight for Tampa, but plans change, so now the plan was for me to hang out in Alaska until Friday and then I'd fly back. (It was a Sunday) I'd go up and see my grandfather, and on the way see my other relatives that I have in the Valley area. Pastor Julian has been very generous to us in the past and kept Jeremiah over night last year so I got a hold of him and asked him if I could stay with them for a day while I get in contact with my relatives. He graciously agreed to host me. He came with his son and picked me up and took me to his place where I met his wife, and family. Rodney and Justine, the oldest of the kids, are going to be at Bob Jones this fall, so that was nice, getting to know them a little.
To make a long story not as long, I stayed two nights at the Julian's, and then Uncle Tony and Aunt Cathy picked me up and drove me all the way up to Grandpa's farm, where I stayed for two days. While I was there I got to see Grandpa again, of course, and I met his helpers, (the Marbles) who helped him hay. And I also got to help do some haying. Haying was fun actually, the whole process is pretty fascinating how it all works together. So it was fun to see and experience that.
After my time was up, Uncle Tony and Aunt Cathy again drove all the way up to get me, and then drove all the way into Anchorage, and dropped me off at the airport. I am very grateful to them for going so far out of their way to get me where I needed to go.
After that I pretty much got on my plane and flew to Tampa, stopping at Dallas on the way. No problems at all, except that I forgot about some shampoo that I had in my bag, so that got confiscated, but my knives and everything important, I had put in my checked bag.
After landing in Florida, I had 2 days to get ready to leave again, because we were going to camp, which I was really looking forward to.
Now, camp is over and everything is settling down some. I'm getting stuff ready for college, because I'm leaving in less than a week now. I'm very excited about heading off to college, and starting a new phase in my life; I am a little scared but, not much, I know that God will watch over me, and I can do all things through Him.
That's all for now.
Timothy Petersen
A lot has happened since the 11th of July, so I'll start from there.
We got our boat fixed up and then head back out to the bay, where we were getting pretty consistent catches of fish, around 10,000 pounds a day. Until the 13th. On Sunday, July 13th, we had a record breaking (for our season) 19,280 pounds of fish in one delivery. That was a whole lot of fish, all the holds were full, most of them had double bags, we had some bags on deck and we filled them up and had to get them back so that we could fill them up again. It was a pretty exciting feeling. At the end there, we were guessing the weight. The other deckhands guessed low, around 13,000 or 15,000, I guessed higher than they, with 17,500, and then Etta guessed the highest, 18,000. So we were all pleasantly surprised when the man at the tender told us that we had 19,280 pounds.
After we delivered we ran back to where we were fishing, to see if we could get that many fish again, but it didn't happen. We caught nothing, maybe 1,000 pounds. And that was the way it was for the next week, twice we caught 4,000 pounds, but the rest of the time we were catching 500-2,000 pounds per delivery. This went on until the 21st when Rick threw in the towel and decided that it wasn't worth it to stay anymore, so we went back to shore and got stuff ready for the trip back.
Etta flew to Anchorage so that she could deal with some things, like getting the truck which was left in Anchorage, and getting certified to be a nurse in Alaska, so she didn't go on the trip back with us.
The trip back to Homer went pretty well, clear skies all the way.
After we got back to Homer and dry docked the boat, and finished cleaning it up the rest of the way, we were let loose to go our separate ways. On the radio there was a guy advertizing that he was going up to Anchorage, and he wanted a rider who would help with gas expenses, so I called the number and set it up. It cost me $40 to do it that way, and the bus would have been $65, so I was happy with that.
Anyway, I got up to the Anchorage airport, and then the original plan was to get on the next available flight for Tampa, but plans change, so now the plan was for me to hang out in Alaska until Friday and then I'd fly back. (It was a Sunday) I'd go up and see my grandfather, and on the way see my other relatives that I have in the Valley area. Pastor Julian has been very generous to us in the past and kept Jeremiah over night last year so I got a hold of him and asked him if I could stay with them for a day while I get in contact with my relatives. He graciously agreed to host me. He came with his son and picked me up and took me to his place where I met his wife, and family. Rodney and Justine, the oldest of the kids, are going to be at Bob Jones this fall, so that was nice, getting to know them a little.
To make a long story not as long, I stayed two nights at the Julian's, and then Uncle Tony and Aunt Cathy picked me up and drove me all the way up to Grandpa's farm, where I stayed for two days. While I was there I got to see Grandpa again, of course, and I met his helpers, (the Marbles) who helped him hay. And I also got to help do some haying. Haying was fun actually, the whole process is pretty fascinating how it all works together. So it was fun to see and experience that.
After my time was up, Uncle Tony and Aunt Cathy again drove all the way up to get me, and then drove all the way into Anchorage, and dropped me off at the airport. I am very grateful to them for going so far out of their way to get me where I needed to go.
After that I pretty much got on my plane and flew to Tampa, stopping at Dallas on the way. No problems at all, except that I forgot about some shampoo that I had in my bag, so that got confiscated, but my knives and everything important, I had put in my checked bag.
After landing in Florida, I had 2 days to get ready to leave again, because we were going to camp, which I was really looking forward to.
Now, camp is over and everything is settling down some. I'm getting stuff ready for college, because I'm leaving in less than a week now. I'm very excited about heading off to college, and starting a new phase in my life; I am a little scared but, not much, I know that God will watch over me, and I can do all things through Him.
That's all for now.
Timothy Petersen
Friday, July 11, 2008
Back on shore because of Engine issues
Fish count: Just over 80,000 pounds, a little behind what we wanted, but we're hoping to catch up.
Well, we were ashore of a little while on the 10th, but I didn't get a chance to check E-mail, or do laundry or anything, so I was pretty bummed about that. The oil pan sprung a leak, so we had oil everywhere, and I was the lucky fellow to clean it up, so that's why I didn't have time to do anything. We were in the harbor for the whole morning, but I was busy pumping, wiping, and scrubbing all the oil off the floor and engine tubes, and walls. Yeah, I was quite bummed that I didn't get to go ashore and get those things done that I wanted to, but I know that there is a reason for everything, even if I don't know what it is.
Rick patched the leak with some full tank fixer that is suppose to work, but unfortunately, today (the 11th) it cracked again, so we are back at the harbor. This time we are going to take the oil pan off and maybe get someone to weld it, we'll see. There isn't oil everywhere like last time, because Rick set it up so that it wouldn't spay all over everything, but that it would just pool up in one spot, so it was just a matter of pumping out, and cleaning up that one spot, so I got that done pretty quickly.
It has been a pretty tiring last 6 days, we have been fishing 9 hours on 3 hours off, so by the time we deliver our fish we have a bout 2 hours to sleep before starting fishing again. Hence, we've been working in shifts, most of the time 2 guys will be fishing and the 3rd guy will be sleeping, and he'll only come out if we get a lot of fish. The fish come in squirts, so we can have a lot of fish one time, and then very few fish the next time, so sometimes when we could see a lot of fish hitting the net we'd get the third guy up before we picked the net. Then afterwards, if we weren't getting a lot of fish anymore then we'd let someone go to bed.
Like I was saying, it's been a pretty tiring last couple days, I'm not sure if it's been that we've been fishing longer hours, or it's been colder, or the wind has been blowing harder, or maybe all of them combined, but I've really been struggling these last couple of days. Power rolling is a lot of work. Power rolling is when we pull the net in by hand and then pick the fish out after the whole net is aboard, you can get the net out of the water quickly, but it takes a lot longer overall, so we only do it when we are running out of time, and have to get our net out of the water, or when we are drifting over the boundary line, and have to get the net out of the water before we cross the line, sometimes we power roll when Rick gets a tip that there is some really good fishing aways away, and wants to get there quickly so that we can try there. Power rolling is always strenuous because, firstly, we have to pull the net in by hand, and that is exhausting, then we have to get the fish out and straighten the net and get it ready to go out again, and that is very stressful because Rick wants us to go as quickly as possible because we can't get the net back in the water until we get all the fish out and stack it up in a nice pile so that it will go out without tangling up, but it's hard to go quickly because we are tired, so yeah, I try to do my best, but it's hard sometimes. I keep thinking about the Patch the Pirate song that goes, "100% of the the time, I'm doing my best..." And Corinthians 10:31, "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." So I try to do my best to glorify God, and because it's the right thing to do. It's been cold, wet and windy, and there have been several times that I have just been out there picking and I'm wet, and cold, and tired, and just not feeling motivated, so I just repeating to myself, "Lord, give me strength." It's been hard, and will probably get harder before it gets easier, but I'll going to just keep at it, try to do my best and keep working as hard as I can.
"I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me."
With God,
Timothy
I uploaded a few more pictures. (6 I think)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27950064@N02/2659803104/
Well, we were ashore of a little while on the 10th, but I didn't get a chance to check E-mail, or do laundry or anything, so I was pretty bummed about that. The oil pan sprung a leak, so we had oil everywhere, and I was the lucky fellow to clean it up, so that's why I didn't have time to do anything. We were in the harbor for the whole morning, but I was busy pumping, wiping, and scrubbing all the oil off the floor and engine tubes, and walls. Yeah, I was quite bummed that I didn't get to go ashore and get those things done that I wanted to, but I know that there is a reason for everything, even if I don't know what it is.
Rick patched the leak with some full tank fixer that is suppose to work, but unfortunately, today (the 11th) it cracked again, so we are back at the harbor. This time we are going to take the oil pan off and maybe get someone to weld it, we'll see. There isn't oil everywhere like last time, because Rick set it up so that it wouldn't spay all over everything, but that it would just pool up in one spot, so it was just a matter of pumping out, and cleaning up that one spot, so I got that done pretty quickly.
It has been a pretty tiring last 6 days, we have been fishing 9 hours on 3 hours off, so by the time we deliver our fish we have a bout 2 hours to sleep before starting fishing again. Hence, we've been working in shifts, most of the time 2 guys will be fishing and the 3rd guy will be sleeping, and he'll only come out if we get a lot of fish. The fish come in squirts, so we can have a lot of fish one time, and then very few fish the next time, so sometimes when we could see a lot of fish hitting the net we'd get the third guy up before we picked the net. Then afterwards, if we weren't getting a lot of fish anymore then we'd let someone go to bed.
Like I was saying, it's been a pretty tiring last couple days, I'm not sure if it's been that we've been fishing longer hours, or it's been colder, or the wind has been blowing harder, or maybe all of them combined, but I've really been struggling these last couple of days. Power rolling is a lot of work. Power rolling is when we pull the net in by hand and then pick the fish out after the whole net is aboard, you can get the net out of the water quickly, but it takes a lot longer overall, so we only do it when we are running out of time, and have to get our net out of the water, or when we are drifting over the boundary line, and have to get the net out of the water before we cross the line, sometimes we power roll when Rick gets a tip that there is some really good fishing aways away, and wants to get there quickly so that we can try there. Power rolling is always strenuous because, firstly, we have to pull the net in by hand, and that is exhausting, then we have to get the fish out and straighten the net and get it ready to go out again, and that is very stressful because Rick wants us to go as quickly as possible because we can't get the net back in the water until we get all the fish out and stack it up in a nice pile so that it will go out without tangling up, but it's hard to go quickly because we are tired, so yeah, I try to do my best, but it's hard sometimes. I keep thinking about the Patch the Pirate song that goes, "100% of the the time, I'm doing my best..." And Corinthians 10:31, "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." So I try to do my best to glorify God, and because it's the right thing to do. It's been cold, wet and windy, and there have been several times that I have just been out there picking and I'm wet, and cold, and tired, and just not feeling motivated, so I just repeating to myself, "Lord, give me strength." It's been hard, and will probably get harder before it gets easier, but I'll going to just keep at it, try to do my best and keep working as hard as I can.
"I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me."
With God,
Timothy
I uploaded a few more pictures. (6 I think)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27950064@N02/2659803104/
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Hey guys! Happy 4th of July by the way.
Well, after being out at sea for 7 days, I'm back on land. We've caught almost 40,000 pounds of salmon so far, things going pretty well. Fishing is still a little slow, but it should be picking up because it's still the beginning of the season.
The reason we're on land and not fishing is because we are switching rivers. Bristol Bay (where we are fishing) is just a place where a bunch of rivers spill into the ocean, and each river has a section of the bay. And the fishermen have to decide which section they want to fish in, because you can only fish in one section at a time, if you want to switch sections then there is a 48 hour waiting period during which you can't fish. So that's why we aren't fishing right now. Since we switched rivers, we have to wait 48 hours before we can fish again. That gives us a chance to come ashore and fix the nets, and gives me a chance to check E-mail and stuff.
The Fish and Game has been letting the fishermen fish during the outgoing tide, from high tide to low tide. In a nutshell that means we fish 6 hours on, 6 hours off, give or take an hour depending exactly how the tide is. So it's been tough work, my days are all messed up because we fish twice a day, and we sleep twice a day, so one day feels like two short days. So it's a bit confusing. Later on in the season we will be fishing for 24 hours a day, at that point we will fish in shifts, 2 guys up and 1 guy sleeps, that way we can always be fishing.
Sorry Jeremiah, I lost my/your gear at sea. It blew away in the 50 m/h winds we were having a couple days ago. I tied it up just like everyone else's gear, but it still managed to blow away. :( I've been using an extra set of gear that Rick had on board. It's really frustrating, my gear was tied up better than some of the other gear, but my gear was still the gear to blow away, I was pretty frustrated about that.
Well that's all for now, I uploaded a few more pictures, but not a whole lot. I've been busy working, so I haven't been taking very many pictures lately.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27950064@N02/2637773672/
Have a good summer.
Timothy
Well, after being out at sea for 7 days, I'm back on land. We've caught almost 40,000 pounds of salmon so far, things going pretty well. Fishing is still a little slow, but it should be picking up because it's still the beginning of the season.
The reason we're on land and not fishing is because we are switching rivers. Bristol Bay (where we are fishing) is just a place where a bunch of rivers spill into the ocean, and each river has a section of the bay. And the fishermen have to decide which section they want to fish in, because you can only fish in one section at a time, if you want to switch sections then there is a 48 hour waiting period during which you can't fish. So that's why we aren't fishing right now. Since we switched rivers, we have to wait 48 hours before we can fish again. That gives us a chance to come ashore and fix the nets, and gives me a chance to check E-mail and stuff.
The Fish and Game has been letting the fishermen fish during the outgoing tide, from high tide to low tide. In a nutshell that means we fish 6 hours on, 6 hours off, give or take an hour depending exactly how the tide is. So it's been tough work, my days are all messed up because we fish twice a day, and we sleep twice a day, so one day feels like two short days. So it's a bit confusing. Later on in the season we will be fishing for 24 hours a day, at that point we will fish in shifts, 2 guys up and 1 guy sleeps, that way we can always be fishing.
Sorry Jeremiah, I lost my/your gear at sea. It blew away in the 50 m/h winds we were having a couple days ago. I tied it up just like everyone else's gear, but it still managed to blow away. :( I've been using an extra set of gear that Rick had on board. It's really frustrating, my gear was tied up better than some of the other gear, but my gear was still the gear to blow away, I was pretty frustrated about that.
Well that's all for now, I uploaded a few more pictures, but not a whole lot. I've been busy working, so I haven't been taking very many pictures lately.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27950064@N02/2637773672/
Have a good summer.
Timothy
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Alaskan Adventure part 3
Last update for a while.
Also, I titled and added descriptions to the rest of the pictures in the gallery, linked in the post bellow.
Monday, June 16th
I got up a little before 7, I tried to put my contacts in, but couldn't. I tried a whole lot of times, but it never seemed to work, and then when I finally did get one in, it wasn't right. It's edge had folded up a little bit and it was very uncomfortable, so I took it back out and put it away. It had a small crease where it had been folded up, so I didn't try to put it back in, I figured that I'd just let it sit and get it's shape back.
The girls were going to go shopping for the day, so they left around 8, and David had to go work, so I was pretty much alone with Mr. Pherson. We talked for a while until Etta came and picked my up. We were going to go and pick up the nets for the boat, Rick had given them to a man to be fixed, and they were done now, so we had to pick them up. It was about a half an hour drive to pick up the nets, and then an hour and a half to get to the boat, and then once we got there, it took is a while to get the nets on the boat, but we got it eventually. Then we drove to Soldatna, which is at least 2 hours away from where we were. There, we bought supplies for the boat, food mostly. Then we had to drive all the way back. And by the time we did that, it was 6 p.m. already. Oh! And I got to drive the truck a little, not very much, but it was some, that was my first time driving a stick on the road, so it was something new for me.
Well, Etta had been invited over for dinner at the Pherson's, so we dropped in, and they were just finishing up cooking the moose steaks. Yum-my!
Dinner was quite good, the moose had a nice flavor to it, slightly different from anything else than I've had. I think that everyone had a great time; the Pherson's told a couple stories about stuff from South Africa, and then everyone shared his or her testimony. I think that that was a real blessing to me, I'm very glad that we did that.
After dinner, David, Etta, Mr. and Mrs. Pherson, and I played a game of Risk. I've never played real Risk before, I played a little on the computer, but it was a little bit different variation, and on the computer is not the same as in real life. The game got intense in a few places; it was very enjoyable, even though I didn't win either round. I'm sure that we all had great fun, I know I did.
It was 11 p.m. before we finished our second game, the time really snick up on us, so after the game we dismissed and went to bed.
Tuesday, 17th
Etta wasn't coming over until 11 a.m., so I helped out some be raking up some cut grass, and sticks and stuff. Then Etta picked me up, and we drove over, and delivered the food, that we bought the other day, to the boat. We organized it and put it away, so that hopefully we'll be able to find it later.
Then we drove ovenr to the library, where they have wireless internet, so we plugged our laptops in and got connected with the outside world. I sent and recived some E-mails, and uploaded my blog. (Sadly no pictures, I didn't have time.) I almost got everything done that I needed to do before we had to leave. We then drove over to save-U-more to get some pizza to bring back for Rick and the crew. Rick and the guys were coming back a day earlier than planned, because we had to get the boat in the water, and because of how the tides are, it had to be Wednesday morning. I was suppose to stay at the Pherson's place for Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night, but I didn't end up spending Wednesday night there. Which I was/am pretty bummed about, because Mr. Pherson and David had planned on getting the guns out a little later, and letting me shoot them, and I was really looking forward to that. But because Rick came back early I didn't get a chance. Frowny face. :(
After breakfast I had tried to put my contacts in, but like yesterday, I didn't succeed. I got one contact in, but it wasn't in correctly, so I couldn't see clearly, and it felt like I had a piece of sand or something in my eye. I tried blinking, to see if that would get it to work its way into position, but it didn't. Then I tried rubbing my eye, that didn't help either. Since nothing was getting it into place, I had to take it out, but when I looked in the mirror, I couldn't see the contact. I looked, and stared, and looked some more. I held my uper eyelid open, I held my lower eyelid open, I even tried holding both eyelids open, but I just couldn't see it anywhere, I checkde the floor, maybe it fell out and I didn't notice it. I doubt it, but whe knows? Then I started trying to pull it out, thinking that maybe it's there, but I just couldn't see it. That failed to provide the solution as well. So I just said to myself, "I don't know." And just went on, I put my glasses on, and then just went about my business. It sure felt like it was somehow stick on the side of my eye, but when I looked I couldn't see anything there.
Back with the story, we (Being Etta and I) were at save-U-more getting pizza. Save-U-more has free wireless internet, which, by the way, I appreciate very much. I was able to finish up what I ran out of time doing at the library. I felt a slight pain in my eye, followed by a blinking frenzy, and then at the end of that I had the small sticky something attached to my eyelid. You guessed it; it was my contact. It looked like church clothes before they get ironed, all wrinkled. I opened it up, and straightened it out, it had all thees creases in it from being folded up for so long. I put the contacte in a place where it would stay safe from being crushed, or anything. I knew that it would probably dry out, but I couldnt think of a better solution, so I went with that, and sure enough, it was all dried up and hard when we got home, a couple of hours later, and when I tried to pull it off, because it was stuck to the container that I put it in. When attempting to pull it off, I broke a small hole in the middle, of the contact. I don't really care though, I thought, "Oh well. It that's what happens, then that's what happens. I've pretty much given up on contacts for this trip, I'll worry about them after this summer, once I get back to a place where I can know that I'm going to be there a while.
When the pizzas were ready we grabbed them and headed out to go meet Rick and the guys. We went up met up with Rick at his cabin, and ate the pizza there with the guys and him. Etta and I ran and got some water for the guys so that they could get showers and not run out of water. And then finally we went back to the Pherson's place so that I could get my stuff ready. That morning, I haddn't known that I was going to leave that day, I thought that I was leaving the next day, so my bag wasn't ready to go yet, so I had to get it ready.
Rick came and picked my up and we all drove to the Deacon. I met Brandon, the other deckhand, he came in on Monday morning, but I hadn't bet him yet because he had been down fishing with Rick.
We cleaned up the boat, and then pretty much waited around for the tide to come in so that they could put us in the water.
We met our captain that is going to take is to Bristol Bay, while Rick stays here and continues to fish in the Sound, and then he'll fly up before we start fishing at Bristol Bay. Our new captain is Shiloh, and his crew will be traveling with us to Bristol Bay; Tal and Hillary.
They put the boat in the water once the tide got high enough, and then we drove on over to the harbor where we parked for the night.
Wednesday, June 18th
Today we prepared the beat and got everything ready for the trip. Rick did a lot of tuning, and stuff, but there wasn't that much for us to do. Basically we helped Rick when he needed it, and did simple tasks, but Rick pretty much wanted to do thnigs himself.
Shiloh and his crew brought their stuff on board and put it away. The living quarters are pretty cramped, because right now we have 5 people in our cabin--we call it the galley--instead of 3 people like we will have later on when we go fishing.
Rick left us around 6 p.m., so we just hung out until Shiloh came at 11 p.m. I did some writing, and took a nap I think.
When Shiloh arrived we got the things ready and started out on our great adventure.
Sleeping 5 people in 3 bunks was a bit of a challenge, but we avoided it by haveing people sleep in shifts; one person would be awake and would stay up with Shiloh to help him keep awake.
Thursday, June 19th
Unfortunately, today I had my first encounter with sea sickness. During the night we were traveling through rough waters, although not really that rough, it was enough to make Richard, Hillary, and me sick. And Hillary had been drugged up with anti-seasickness pills. I hadn't taken any of the pills until now, but it was too little, too late. I took one pill when I wasn't feeling well, but about 30 seconds later I threw up, so the pill didn't have a chance to do anything.
We drove a lot. We drove all the way to the place where we get pulled out of the water, and taken across the mountain pass. Before getting there we had a tone of things go wrong. (1) We didn't have power, so the lights didn't work, and I couldn't charge my laptop. (2) Engine problems, the port (left) engine wouldn't stay in gear, so we were running on only one engine. (3) Our water didn't work haly the time, it would come out slowly, and then it would spay a high power blast, then nothing would come out. But we got by; doing dishes became a challenge though, but we managed.
Anyway, enough of the bad, after we got to where we were going to be pulled up out of the water, we parked it and waited for the next high tide. We arrived on a high tide, but there were other boats in front of us and we didn't get to go right then. The next high tide was about 12 hours away. While we were waiting there, Richard and I climbed a mountain that was close by. During low tide the water got low enough that the boat sat on the bottom, so Richard and I just walked across to the land. The mountain was really steep, but we climbed it, the trees and the vegetation helped because we could grab hold and pull ourselves up. Climbing up wasn't too hard, but it was very tiring. The view was spectacular, but I've seen many spectacular views before, what made this unique was the climb that it took to get there. So, the view was nice, but the satisfaction of climbing up the mountain was the more rewarding part. Climbing down wasn't quite so simple unfornunatly. We tried to climb down, but we got to a rock fack that had a straight down drop off, so we had to climb back up and find another way down. The next way we tried was the same way, it went for aways, and then all of a sudden it dropped straight down. So we climbed up again. Our third attempt at climbing down was successful, we found where we had climbed up, and so we just climbed down the same way. Our little adventure took about an hour and a half of strenuous exercise. I got lots of pictures. :)
A little bit after we got back on board, Shiloh got out his guns One was a pretty standard (for Alaska) hand gun, but the other one was none other than the .50 cal. Smith & Weson. The biggest, baddest hand gun currently available on the market. It was designed fro big game hunting, it could take down an elephant, no joke. Don't stand in the way, and hearing protection is mandatory. Standing about 10 feet away, I could feel the shock wave when he shot it. It was definitely cool. Each bullet costs over $2, so you wouldn't want to use it as a target pistol, but if you need to stop a charging bear, I can't think of any hand gun that would be better. After showing her how, Shiloh let Hillary shoot it too, I even got a video of it. Then he shot the smaller gun, which wasn't as cool, but it was still pretty cool.
After that excitement, we settled down and chilled out until 4 a.m. when they were going to pull up out of the water. Richard and Brandon played rummy, while Hillary and I wrote in our journals. We didn't have light in the cabin, because the power wasn't working, so I tapped my flashlight to the pole in the middle of the room, and that provided enough light for everyone to do his or her own thing.
Friday, June 20th
Wow, it's only been a month since my birthday, seems like much longer. Probably because I've been doing so much since my birthday, it makes it seem longer.
Anyway, we got up at 4 a.m. to got pulled out of the water. Then we drove over and across the mounains. I took lots of pictures hoping that some of them would come out in the dim light and bouncing truck.
After traveling through the pass, which took about an hour, we were put in a huge lake and continued on the way.
We didn't have too many problems, just the ones that we already had.
We exited the gigantic lake and entered a river. Then we continued down the river for the rest of the day, until we stopped at the fishing cabin. We didn't sleep in the cabins, but the owner knows Shiloh and the other captions in our group, and he is going to be our guide part of the way down the river. We're suppose to follow him and he'll lead us through without getting our boats, stuck.
Saturday, June 21st
We spent the night there, (on the boat not in the cabins) and then in the morning our guide lead the way. Once we got through the worst part, we bid farewell to our guide, and continued on our own.
Things, went well for the next couple of hours, but unfortunately, we got stuck. Shiloh did his best to "unstick" us, but to no avail. Brandon and Richard were throwing out lots of crazy ideas to get us unstuck, but the only thing that we could do was wait.
I wrote in my journal while I waited, Brandon and Richard played rummy, and Hillary and Tal watched a movie. They watched "40 Year Old Virgin" I came in in the middle of it and it only took about 30 seconds before I knew that the movie wasn't the kind of movie that could fit my standards, so I went back on deck and continued writing. A little bit later, I heard something that caught my ear, a song. A theme song from a TV show in the the 70's. And it starts with, "Believe it or not..." What is the TV show? My family would know, but I don't know about the rest of you. The TV show is "The Greatest American Hero." It's a funny show, they are constantly making fun of super hero steriotypes and stuff. There is another story about how we got introduced to that show, but I'll tell it some other time.
Anyway once the song finished I went back upstairs and continued writing. We finaally got unstuck after a couple more hours, when the tide came back up, so we were back on the read, so to speak.
The rest of the day was pretty much uneventful. Something was burning down in the engine room, but we put it out and fixed that. When we got close to where we were going, we again had to wait on the tide to come up, so that we could cross a shallow section, and enter into the harbor.
Sunday, June 22nd
We pulled anchor and parked in the harbor when the tide was high enough, which was at 4:30 a.m. Shiloh and his crow went to their boat, so we're pretty much just sitting around until Rick gets here.
We've been doing stuff like cleaning the boat and getting it ready and such. There isn't a lot to do so Brandon and Richard are playing rummy a lot, and I'm catching up and typing up my journal, so that I can send it off. There is a library in town, and they have wireless internet, so I am able to send stuff.
Rick got here on the 24th and we have been getting ready to go out and not comeback to shore for several weeks, I have no idea when my next update will be, so this is going to pretty much be it for a long time. Have fun everyone, I'll talk to you guys when I can.
Pray for me. :)
Timothy Petersen
Also, I titled and added descriptions to the rest of the pictures in the gallery, linked in the post bellow.
Monday, June 16th
I got up a little before 7, I tried to put my contacts in, but couldn't. I tried a whole lot of times, but it never seemed to work, and then when I finally did get one in, it wasn't right. It's edge had folded up a little bit and it was very uncomfortable, so I took it back out and put it away. It had a small crease where it had been folded up, so I didn't try to put it back in, I figured that I'd just let it sit and get it's shape back.
The girls were going to go shopping for the day, so they left around 8, and David had to go work, so I was pretty much alone with Mr. Pherson. We talked for a while until Etta came and picked my up. We were going to go and pick up the nets for the boat, Rick had given them to a man to be fixed, and they were done now, so we had to pick them up. It was about a half an hour drive to pick up the nets, and then an hour and a half to get to the boat, and then once we got there, it took is a while to get the nets on the boat, but we got it eventually. Then we drove to Soldatna, which is at least 2 hours away from where we were. There, we bought supplies for the boat, food mostly. Then we had to drive all the way back. And by the time we did that, it was 6 p.m. already. Oh! And I got to drive the truck a little, not very much, but it was some, that was my first time driving a stick on the road, so it was something new for me.
Well, Etta had been invited over for dinner at the Pherson's, so we dropped in, and they were just finishing up cooking the moose steaks. Yum-my!
Dinner was quite good, the moose had a nice flavor to it, slightly different from anything else than I've had. I think that everyone had a great time; the Pherson's told a couple stories about stuff from South Africa, and then everyone shared his or her testimony. I think that that was a real blessing to me, I'm very glad that we did that.
After dinner, David, Etta, Mr. and Mrs. Pherson, and I played a game of Risk. I've never played real Risk before, I played a little on the computer, but it was a little bit different variation, and on the computer is not the same as in real life. The game got intense in a few places; it was very enjoyable, even though I didn't win either round. I'm sure that we all had great fun, I know I did.
It was 11 p.m. before we finished our second game, the time really snick up on us, so after the game we dismissed and went to bed.
Tuesday, 17th
Etta wasn't coming over until 11 a.m., so I helped out some be raking up some cut grass, and sticks and stuff. Then Etta picked me up, and we drove over, and delivered the food, that we bought the other day, to the boat. We organized it and put it away, so that hopefully we'll be able to find it later.
Then we drove ovenr to the library, where they have wireless internet, so we plugged our laptops in and got connected with the outside world. I sent and recived some E-mails, and uploaded my blog. (Sadly no pictures, I didn't have time.) I almost got everything done that I needed to do before we had to leave. We then drove over to save-U-more to get some pizza to bring back for Rick and the crew. Rick and the guys were coming back a day earlier than planned, because we had to get the boat in the water, and because of how the tides are, it had to be Wednesday morning. I was suppose to stay at the Pherson's place for Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night, but I didn't end up spending Wednesday night there. Which I was/am pretty bummed about, because Mr. Pherson and David had planned on getting the guns out a little later, and letting me shoot them, and I was really looking forward to that. But because Rick came back early I didn't get a chance. Frowny face. :(
After breakfast I had tried to put my contacts in, but like yesterday, I didn't succeed. I got one contact in, but it wasn't in correctly, so I couldn't see clearly, and it felt like I had a piece of sand or something in my eye. I tried blinking, to see if that would get it to work its way into position, but it didn't. Then I tried rubbing my eye, that didn't help either. Since nothing was getting it into place, I had to take it out, but when I looked in the mirror, I couldn't see the contact. I looked, and stared, and looked some more. I held my uper eyelid open, I held my lower eyelid open, I even tried holding both eyelids open, but I just couldn't see it anywhere, I checkde the floor, maybe it fell out and I didn't notice it. I doubt it, but whe knows? Then I started trying to pull it out, thinking that maybe it's there, but I just couldn't see it. That failed to provide the solution as well. So I just said to myself, "I don't know." And just went on, I put my glasses on, and then just went about my business. It sure felt like it was somehow stick on the side of my eye, but when I looked I couldn't see anything there.
Back with the story, we (Being Etta and I) were at save-U-more getting pizza. Save-U-more has free wireless internet, which, by the way, I appreciate very much. I was able to finish up what I ran out of time doing at the library. I felt a slight pain in my eye, followed by a blinking frenzy, and then at the end of that I had the small sticky something attached to my eyelid. You guessed it; it was my contact. It looked like church clothes before they get ironed, all wrinkled. I opened it up, and straightened it out, it had all thees creases in it from being folded up for so long. I put the contacte in a place where it would stay safe from being crushed, or anything. I knew that it would probably dry out, but I couldnt think of a better solution, so I went with that, and sure enough, it was all dried up and hard when we got home, a couple of hours later, and when I tried to pull it off, because it was stuck to the container that I put it in. When attempting to pull it off, I broke a small hole in the middle, of the contact. I don't really care though, I thought, "Oh well. It that's what happens, then that's what happens. I've pretty much given up on contacts for this trip, I'll worry about them after this summer, once I get back to a place where I can know that I'm going to be there a while.
When the pizzas were ready we grabbed them and headed out to go meet Rick and the guys. We went up met up with Rick at his cabin, and ate the pizza there with the guys and him. Etta and I ran and got some water for the guys so that they could get showers and not run out of water. And then finally we went back to the Pherson's place so that I could get my stuff ready. That morning, I haddn't known that I was going to leave that day, I thought that I was leaving the next day, so my bag wasn't ready to go yet, so I had to get it ready.
Rick came and picked my up and we all drove to the Deacon. I met Brandon, the other deckhand, he came in on Monday morning, but I hadn't bet him yet because he had been down fishing with Rick.
We cleaned up the boat, and then pretty much waited around for the tide to come in so that they could put us in the water.
We met our captain that is going to take is to Bristol Bay, while Rick stays here and continues to fish in the Sound, and then he'll fly up before we start fishing at Bristol Bay. Our new captain is Shiloh, and his crew will be traveling with us to Bristol Bay; Tal and Hillary.
They put the boat in the water once the tide got high enough, and then we drove on over to the harbor where we parked for the night.
Wednesday, June 18th
Today we prepared the beat and got everything ready for the trip. Rick did a lot of tuning, and stuff, but there wasn't that much for us to do. Basically we helped Rick when he needed it, and did simple tasks, but Rick pretty much wanted to do thnigs himself.
Shiloh and his crew brought their stuff on board and put it away. The living quarters are pretty cramped, because right now we have 5 people in our cabin--we call it the galley--instead of 3 people like we will have later on when we go fishing.
Rick left us around 6 p.m., so we just hung out until Shiloh came at 11 p.m. I did some writing, and took a nap I think.
When Shiloh arrived we got the things ready and started out on our great adventure.
Sleeping 5 people in 3 bunks was a bit of a challenge, but we avoided it by haveing people sleep in shifts; one person would be awake and would stay up with Shiloh to help him keep awake.
Thursday, June 19th
Unfortunately, today I had my first encounter with sea sickness. During the night we were traveling through rough waters, although not really that rough, it was enough to make Richard, Hillary, and me sick. And Hillary had been drugged up with anti-seasickness pills. I hadn't taken any of the pills until now, but it was too little, too late. I took one pill when I wasn't feeling well, but about 30 seconds later I threw up, so the pill didn't have a chance to do anything.
We drove a lot. We drove all the way to the place where we get pulled out of the water, and taken across the mountain pass. Before getting there we had a tone of things go wrong. (1) We didn't have power, so the lights didn't work, and I couldn't charge my laptop. (2) Engine problems, the port (left) engine wouldn't stay in gear, so we were running on only one engine. (3) Our water didn't work haly the time, it would come out slowly, and then it would spay a high power blast, then nothing would come out. But we got by; doing dishes became a challenge though, but we managed.
Anyway, enough of the bad, after we got to where we were going to be pulled up out of the water, we parked it and waited for the next high tide. We arrived on a high tide, but there were other boats in front of us and we didn't get to go right then. The next high tide was about 12 hours away. While we were waiting there, Richard and I climbed a mountain that was close by. During low tide the water got low enough that the boat sat on the bottom, so Richard and I just walked across to the land. The mountain was really steep, but we climbed it, the trees and the vegetation helped because we could grab hold and pull ourselves up. Climbing up wasn't too hard, but it was very tiring. The view was spectacular, but I've seen many spectacular views before, what made this unique was the climb that it took to get there. So, the view was nice, but the satisfaction of climbing up the mountain was the more rewarding part. Climbing down wasn't quite so simple unfornunatly. We tried to climb down, but we got to a rock fack that had a straight down drop off, so we had to climb back up and find another way down. The next way we tried was the same way, it went for aways, and then all of a sudden it dropped straight down. So we climbed up again. Our third attempt at climbing down was successful, we found where we had climbed up, and so we just climbed down the same way. Our little adventure took about an hour and a half of strenuous exercise. I got lots of pictures. :)
A little bit after we got back on board, Shiloh got out his guns One was a pretty standard (for Alaska) hand gun, but the other one was none other than the .50 cal. Smith & Weson. The biggest, baddest hand gun currently available on the market. It was designed fro big game hunting, it could take down an elephant, no joke. Don't stand in the way, and hearing protection is mandatory. Standing about 10 feet away, I could feel the shock wave when he shot it. It was definitely cool. Each bullet costs over $2, so you wouldn't want to use it as a target pistol, but if you need to stop a charging bear, I can't think of any hand gun that would be better. After showing her how, Shiloh let Hillary shoot it too, I even got a video of it. Then he shot the smaller gun, which wasn't as cool, but it was still pretty cool.
After that excitement, we settled down and chilled out until 4 a.m. when they were going to pull up out of the water. Richard and Brandon played rummy, while Hillary and I wrote in our journals. We didn't have light in the cabin, because the power wasn't working, so I tapped my flashlight to the pole in the middle of the room, and that provided enough light for everyone to do his or her own thing.
Friday, June 20th
Wow, it's only been a month since my birthday, seems like much longer. Probably because I've been doing so much since my birthday, it makes it seem longer.
Anyway, we got up at 4 a.m. to got pulled out of the water. Then we drove over and across the mounains. I took lots of pictures hoping that some of them would come out in the dim light and bouncing truck.
After traveling through the pass, which took about an hour, we were put in a huge lake and continued on the way.
We didn't have too many problems, just the ones that we already had.
We exited the gigantic lake and entered a river. Then we continued down the river for the rest of the day, until we stopped at the fishing cabin. We didn't sleep in the cabins, but the owner knows Shiloh and the other captions in our group, and he is going to be our guide part of the way down the river. We're suppose to follow him and he'll lead us through without getting our boats, stuck.
Saturday, June 21st
We spent the night there, (on the boat not in the cabins) and then in the morning our guide lead the way. Once we got through the worst part, we bid farewell to our guide, and continued on our own.
Things, went well for the next couple of hours, but unfortunately, we got stuck. Shiloh did his best to "unstick" us, but to no avail. Brandon and Richard were throwing out lots of crazy ideas to get us unstuck, but the only thing that we could do was wait.
I wrote in my journal while I waited, Brandon and Richard played rummy, and Hillary and Tal watched a movie. They watched "40 Year Old Virgin" I came in in the middle of it and it only took about 30 seconds before I knew that the movie wasn't the kind of movie that could fit my standards, so I went back on deck and continued writing. A little bit later, I heard something that caught my ear, a song. A theme song from a TV show in the the 70's. And it starts with, "Believe it or not..." What is the TV show? My family would know, but I don't know about the rest of you. The TV show is "The Greatest American Hero." It's a funny show, they are constantly making fun of super hero steriotypes and stuff. There is another story about how we got introduced to that show, but I'll tell it some other time.
Anyway once the song finished I went back upstairs and continued writing. We finaally got unstuck after a couple more hours, when the tide came back up, so we were back on the read, so to speak.
The rest of the day was pretty much uneventful. Something was burning down in the engine room, but we put it out and fixed that. When we got close to where we were going, we again had to wait on the tide to come up, so that we could cross a shallow section, and enter into the harbor.
Sunday, June 22nd
We pulled anchor and parked in the harbor when the tide was high enough, which was at 4:30 a.m. Shiloh and his crow went to their boat, so we're pretty much just sitting around until Rick gets here.
We've been doing stuff like cleaning the boat and getting it ready and such. There isn't a lot to do so Brandon and Richard are playing rummy a lot, and I'm catching up and typing up my journal, so that I can send it off. There is a library in town, and they have wireless internet, so I am able to send stuff.
Rick got here on the 24th and we have been getting ready to go out and not comeback to shore for several weeks, I have no idea when my next update will be, so this is going to pretty much be it for a long time. Have fun everyone, I'll talk to you guys when I can.
Pray for me. :)
Timothy Petersen
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Pictures are up!
I don't have time to name them all, but I named as many as I could.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27950064@N02/2608353990//
I don't have time to name them all, but I named as many as I could.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27950064@N02/2608353990//
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Alaskan Adventure part 2
Here is the continued story of my adventure, I am up to date with my writing, but it is all on paper and I have to type it up on the computer.
I tried to upload photos on Facebook, but it isn't working for me, and I don't know why.
I'm working on getting pictures up, hang with me.
Sunday, June 8th
We slept in and got up around 7:30 or so. Rick and I got some showers, and by shower, I mean we heated up some water, put it in a bucket, took it into the shower place, and powered it over your head with a pot. That kind of shower : )
After washing up, we had breakfast and then Rick ran to get some of our running water. Then we went to church, Calvary Baptist in Ninilchik.
When I was introducing myself to people, a lot of them would go like, "Oh, so you're a Petersen, ok. Missionaries to Poland, right?." And then they would usually ask something about Poland, like what it's like or, what the weather is over there. After I introduced myself to someone a girl, who over heard me, turned to me and asked, "Did I hear you say that your name is Timothy Petersen?" And being the honest person that I am I said, "Yes."
Then she replied with, "Cool, when you guys were here last time you stayed in our cabin. We were away right then, so we didn't see you, but I remember that you guys stayed there."
Then I probably said something like, "Oh, cool, yeah I remember that. You have a trampoline, right? Yeah, we had a lot of fun on that trampoline."
(For my family: It was the place with the wood stove, and the chickens, and the trampoline. I don't know if you remember, I'll post a picture. Sometime.) Later I found out that the girl's name is Sarah Cobbs, just fyi.
The morning service was about studding our Bibles, and giving us some advice and challenges. I enjoyed the message very much, it was very good to hear. Right after the service Rick cutout to go finish up with any thing else that he needed to do on the Deacon. (Deacon, that's the name of the big boat. The Harpazo is the name of the small boat.) Etta and I, along with what seemed like half the church, were invited to dinner at the Cobb's place. (The same place that we stayed in '03)
Dinner was good, we had our choice of either lamb, or rabbit, or halibut, or a little of each if we wanted. After dinner the other kids and I had a lot of fun playing capture the flag, it ended in a stalemate, but we all had a great time. I got to know the kids some too, which I enjoyed quite emphatically.
Afterwards, Etta and I walked back to the cabin, where we met up with Rick, and drove down to Whittier, to go fishing the next morning. We spent the night on the Harpazo, (little boat) it was pretty cramped for storage space, but it worked out ok.
Monday, June 9th
I slept pretty well on the boat, even though it was rocking around some, it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be though.
We had a 48 hour opener, starting at 8 a.m. that morning. A 48 hour opener means that fishing will be allowed for the next 48 hours, so we could (and would) fish until 8 a.m. Wednesday. At that time everyone's net had to be out of the water, or else you could get a huge fine and something.
The Department of Fish And Game decides when and how long people will be allowed to fish. Sometimes there are 24 hour openers, sometimes there are 72 hour openers. I'm pretty sure that it's based on how many fish there are, if there are more fish, then they give longer openers, if there are fewer fish, then they give shorter openers.
At first I just watched Rick and saw how hi did everything, and then I jumped in, and started picking the fish, and grabbing the buoy, and getting the nets ready to set, everything that I'll have to do at Bristol Bay. (The main place where we will be fishing.)
I'm sure glad that I was able to get some practice at picking here at Prince William Sound, (commonly called "The Sound") before we go out to Bristol Bay, because fishing is much more relaxed over here than it will be at Bristol Bay, so it takes a lot of the stress off of me. I know that I'm not able to pick very quickly yet, so being able to get some experience before the "real deal", is nice.
The fishing was pretty slow all day, though it picked up a bit in the afternoon. We caught about 30-40 fish per set (per set, meaning, everything time we threw out the net.) for the first couple of times, but if kept getting a little better as the day progressed, and by the mid afternoon, we got one or two 90 fish sets, which are still on the small scale normally, but they had a cold spring here, so things are a little slow still, they should pick up soon though.
During the night we did 3 hour sets, so that we could get some sleep while the net was in the water. (A 3 hour set means that the net was in the water for 3 hours before we pulled it in and picked it. (picked it, meaning picked the fish out of it.)) Normally we were doing 45-60 minute sets, if there are a lot of fish then we would pick it more often.
Picking is hard, but I know that I'll get it, I can already tell that I'm getting better.
Tuesday, June 10th
About the same as yesterday. The fishing was very slow, (slower than yesterday) and I was still getting the hang of everything. By the end of the day, I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of how to do everything, like preparing the net to go out, or come in.
We got one set that was 142 fish, but the rest were mostly in the 40's or 50's.
I haven't been out here for very long yet but I can already see how this is going to be an endurance contest, it's not really strenuous work most of the time, but you have to work quickly and without mistakes. You can't forget a step when getting ready to pick or set the net, otherwise you could have a major problem and end up ripping your net. Also while picking and setting, you have to be constantly watching for problems, like your lead line,
(bottom line of the net) going over your cork line, (top line of the net) if that happens, then the net will get all tangled and messed up. There are other problems that can occur too, like the net catching on the drum, or snagging on a rock or something, so yeah, there are things to look out for, so you have to be paying attention.
The scenery around here is beautiful. There are mountains in every direction of the compass, some of them are snow covered, and others have luscious green grass and tall, full trees. The water is a deep, royal blue. And the sun is blindingly bright, reflecting off of the water's shining surface. I'll post some pictures as soon as I can, but even they don't display it's true beauty. The weather has been really good, no rain so far, just the sun and the big blue sky. And some clouds, we've had clouds too.
Wednesday, June 11th
We kept fishing until about 7:30 a.m. we were getting very few fish at that point, only about 20 or so each set. The fishing closed at 8 a.m., so there were a lot of boats at the tenders waiting to unload their last fish. So we had to wait our turn, Rick talked with some of the fishermen in our group. We are in a group of fishermen, they don't do much as a team here at Prince William Sound, but at Bristol Bay Rick said that they kind of work together to fish where the fish are and they help each other out that way. Everyone in the group, has a group radio, so that the guys in the group can talk without being on the public radio wave lengths. Mostly, they talk about how many fish they are catching, and commenting on other people's catches, and bragging about how well they did. :P Stuff like that.
Well, we dropped off our fish and then drove - well what do you do to a boat? You don't float it, and it's a motor boat, so you don't sail it, so I guess that you drive it - anyway we drove or whatever you want to call it, over to the harbor and docked.
Etta left because she was going to pick up another deckhand that night. Rick and I fixed up the holes in the net, then I cleaned the boat, the windows, the cooler, and anything else that needed cleaning. Then Rick and I got showers at the harbor master building, and then we each took a nap. After that we went over to the store, and Rick bought some ice-cream, and I bought a pad of paper, which I am actually writing this on, since I didn't bring my computer on the boat. (I wrote this up on paper, and am typing it up on the computer.)
Rick and I too the ice-cream, and went and shared it with one of the guys in our group. We went over there and Rick and Coltan (That's the guy we went to see.) talked about engines and stuff, because Coltan's clutch had broken that day during fishing. One of Coltan's deckhands was an MK from the Philippines, so we talked a little. He is the 10th kid out of 13 in is family. He is 17, and this is his second year working in the States for the summer.
After that we pretty much just wrapped it up and went to bed.
Thursday, June 12th
We got a new member today, and his name is Richard, Richard Hawks. He flew in to Anchorage at 1 a.m., and Etta picked him up and brought him over to the Harpazo right away, (little boat) so that we could leave to go fishing at 6 a.m.
Richard is about Jeremiah's age, 19, just finished his sophomore year at college. He's from Oregon and is interested in making a lot of money.
Last year Rick had one guy that had been around for a couple of years, and then he had two new guys, Jeremiah and someone else. This year we are all new; as green as a premature banana. None of us had fished before, so that's one of the reasons that Rick wanted us to get some practice here at Prince William Sound, before going out to Bristol Bay, where the majority of the fishing will take place. It was great to have Richard aboard, I wasn't the newest guy around anymore, so it kind of helped me, because he had to learn the same things that I had to learn. I trued to help him when I could, but some of the things just take practice.
At precisely 8 a.m. we were out there with our net flying off of the bow. And then we waited. Waiting the agonizing wait. Waiting for time to pass. Waiting for signs of fish hitting the net. Waiting for the fish. Waiting. An hour passed us by, and still we waited. Waiting for the command from our captain. And then long expected words were finally called out by our lowly commanded. "Let's pick this one up." The long awaited order. I flew out on deck, threw on my gear faster than I ever though possible. Then I stood there, again waiting. The icy breeze slapped against my face. My finders numb from the cold, twitched in anticipation, as Rick drew in the net. I stood read, prepared for the onslaught of fish. Then came the fish. Like clockwork, Rick and I, side by side, picked the hordes of fish out of the net. Fish were flapping, blood was flying, adrenaline was pumping. So many fish they couldn't be counted, all of them hopelessly caught in out net. Their outlook is bleak until we free them, only to dash their hopes once again, by grabbing one of their gills, and ripping it in half leaving the fish, gasping for air, and slowly bleeding to its death. Oh, the thrills of fishing, I felt them. I am now a fisherman, through and through.
Ok, well that was exciting. Now do you want to know what really happened? It was pretty chilly, and it can get pretty exciting, but it isn't quite as described in the previous paragraph. Firstly we only caught about 20 fish in that set, so they certainly weren't innumerable. Secondly, I exaggerated about pretty much everything else too. :P
The day was pretty slow for fishing, we were normally only catching about 20-30 fish in a set.
Friday, June 13th
My day started with an awakening at 4 a.m. to go out into the cold and pick fish with Rick. Out on the water it's pretty much sleep when you can, which is not necessarily at night.
Rick decided to call it off early and go up to Ninilchik to work on the Deacon. (Big Boat) So we finished of around noon, and fixed up the nets, then drove up to Ninilchik. We arrived at around 9 p.m. or so.
Etta's parents were visiting from Oregon and they were staying at Rick's cabin, so we had to stay on the boat.
Saturday, June 14th
Today was a lot like Saturday the week before. We worked on the boat, doing all sorts of different tasks, cleaning, organizing, tweaking, welding. One of the things that I did was put up some insulation in the galley. (Where the crew is going to sleep. We call it the galley.) The insulation not only helps keep things nice and toasty warm, it also keeps the condensation down. When the galley is warm, and the walls are cold, because they are in contact with the icy sea water, the water in the air condenses on the walls and drips down and gets things wet. So we wanted to avoid that is much as possible.
We ate pizza at Save-U-more and they have free wireless internet there, so Rick told me to bring my computer, because he wanted to check something. So I brought it. I downloaded E-mail, and then Rick looked for tachometers, because the new one that he bought wasn't working correctly, it was reading about 5 times to high. So, anyway, he didn't find what he wanted, but I was able to check E-mail.
After lunch we continued working on the boat until about 11 p.m., by that time the only thing left to do was the welding of the hatch down, and Rick had to do that himself, so we pretty much had nothing to do, and just stood around in case Rick needed us until about 12 o'clock midnight, at which point I decided to turn in. Richard wanted to stay up a little longer to keep Rick company. Rick and Richard ended up going to bed around 1:30 a.m.
Sunday, June 15th
Happy Father's day!
Rick didn't quite finish up the welding last night, so he got up around 6 and was finishing it up when we got up and 7 a.m.. Then we all cleaned up the boat, and then drove over to Rick's cabin to get showers. I took the first shower so that I would have enough time to walk to church in time for Sunday School. Rick and Richard were still waiting for the water to heat up, so they didn't make it to church until the morning service. I was much more relaxed this time, because I knew some of the people already, or at least had seen them before. Mr. Pherson continued from last week about speaking in tongues and spiritual gifts and stuff. When Rick and Richard got there I introduced Richard to some of the young people, so he met them, but he mostly stuck close to Rick. I went out and sat with David, the pastor's son, he's 16.
After the service, we were invited to go over to Buzz's (Someone in the church, everyone calls him Buzz.) place for an after church dinner. That was fun, I got to talk to a lot of people and answer their questions. One girl in particular I talked to her for quite a while, Misty is her name. She asked about what Poland is like, about the language, about the people, the works. Something interesting about Misty. Last week, when I was here, Misty came up to me and was like. "Hi! What's your name?"
"Tim, Tim Petersen." I replied.
"Oh, really? Wait. Are you the guy with the YouTube video? The one with the juggling, and riding on the..."
"Unicycle" I finished.
"Yeah." *smile*
"Yes, that is me" (Incorrect grammar, I know.) I was honestly fully expecting her to ask, "Are you the missionary to Poland?" Or something to that effect, so her question was a huge surprise, completely not what I expected. So as soon as I recovered from my shock I asked,
"Where did you find out about that video." And then I think that she said that someone E-mailed her the link. So that was really cool, it's the first time I've been asked something like that.
Misty is a really nice, sweet, friendly, and outgoing girl. Last week, she came up to me, all smiles, and introduced herself, and then after the conversation above, she showed me around and introduced me to some of the other young people. And then today when ever I looked at her it seemed like she smiled at me, it's possible that I'm just imagining it, but I don't really think so. At first I thought that she might like me, but I think that it's just part of her character. Her friendliness, and outgoingness. So I talked myself out of thinking that she liked me and decided that she was just trying to be friendly. Etta noticed me sweating when I was talking to Misty, so she teased me a little about that. (I sure hope Misty isn't reading this, because if she is I'm going to be so embarrassed. :P )
Anyway we had fun at the dinner, afterwards, some of us went for a walk to see a waterfall. The water fall was pretty cool, I took pictures. On the way to the waterfalls, we saw some bald eagles, and I was able to climb pretty close and get a nice picture. I was wishing that I had my DSLR and a 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens, (Which I don't own, by the way.) because tat would have been sweet. That lens is a great telephoto zoom lens often used for birding. Anyway, I got a good enough picture with what I had, so I'm happy. It still would have been sweet to have one of those lens. :)
Rick and Richard cut out pretty early because they had to get back to Whittier to go fishing in the morning. I didn't go with them because Brandon was flying in that night at 1 a.m., and was going to go fishing with them. And since there isn't enough room for 4 people on the Harpazo, (little boat) someone had to stay back, and I was the one because I had the most practice at picking, so to let the others get more practice I had to be the one to stay behind. It's not like I wasn't going to be doing anything though, Etta and I had errands to run in preparation for the upcoming trip to Bristol Bay.
After the dinner we went to the evening service, and then after the service we went over to the Cobb's place. (Same place as last week.) We stayed there for a while, the kids played some games and stuff, and the grown-ups talked. I did a little of both. : ) And then after everyone was good and tired, we went home. I was staying at the pastor's house which I was looking forward to. Hopefully I'd be able to get to know the Phersons some, while staying at their house. Kit Pherson, (the pastor) and his family used to be missionaries in South Africa, so we had something in common already.
There was Kit and Joy Pherson, Diane (20's), Easter (I forget), David (16), and Carla (15). And then Emily who is also (20's)
I had met most of the family at church already, but I hadn't met Diane, or Emily. Well Emily isn't really one of Phersons, but she was staying with them; she was also down there in Africa with the Phersons so they know each other quite well. So we went through the introductions, and then they showed me my bed, and then I unloaded my pictures from my camera, and then went to bed.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
My Alaskan Adventure
For those of you that didn't know, I'm going to be working this summer as a Fisherman, in Alaska with Rick Mill. Rick Mill is a fisherman, who goes to one of our supporting churches in Alaska. He came over to see our family on two different occasions, about three and four years ago.
So this is my modified journal for you guys, to keep you all updated with my progress.
I'm sure that there are mistakes and problems in the writing, but I don't have the time to correct them. I am sorry, but that's the best that I can do for now. :)
I hope that you aren't too bored reading it. :P
I'm also sorry, that I can't post any pictures yet. :(
June 5th:
Well the first day of my trip, I was up until about 1:45 the night before, doing some packing and straightening up, but I was able to get it all done and have everything nice and pretty neat, so I knew that I wasn't leaving behind a big mess.
Mom, Aunt Rachael, and I left for the airport at around 7:20 A.M. The drive was pretty good, but it did get a little crowded there when we got near the airport. We got there on time though, we went it and got my bagged checked. That morning before we left and had checked in via the internet, and had printed out my boarding passes too. So it was really easy going, all I had to do was scan my boarding pass and then give my bag to the man who was checking the bags, and that was it. After that process the twins and I parted. I went on to continue through the airport routine, and they were going to "hit up" some of the Publixs that were nearby. After that I know not whither they whenist, but I, I alone went on, to brave the fierce and mighty terrors of the... "AirPort." Da da da dum...
Yeah, yeah, over-dramatizing much, I know. Well started walking to my gate, on the way I walked through security, and I didn't even beep. Which is strange, because normally I always beep. But I guess taking off just about everything: camera, wallet, phone, belt, watch, flashlight, and shoes; helps. Back at the house I had taken off my knife and leatherman, so that they wouldn't get confiscated, and I don't want them taken away from me because I like them. : )
I got to my gate and sat there for a while, well not a long while because right away I started to write my letter to BJ, requesting that I might work security. Somehow I don't think that it was very convincing. Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained. I wasn't able to finish it there, which was a shame because at the Tampa airport they have free wireless internet, so if I had finished it there I could have sent it right away, but since I didn't I wasn't able to sent it until later that night
We boarded the aircraft. I had seat 24F, which was a window seat, I was happy enough with that, I can lean against the window when I want to sleep.
The flight went well, but when I came out my overall impression with American Airlines was that they were cheap. No meal was served, but you could buy some sandwiches or snacks, and they didn't supply headphones as standard, but you could buy a pair from them for $2, which isn't a lot but it's the thought of the matter. Every other airline that I've flone with supply headphones as standard, if they have some sort of entertainment.
Well anyway it was a good enough fligtht, what really surprised me was that I wasn't constantly yawning like I normally do. And I think that was a first for me, every time that I can remember flying I've had to yawn constantly. So anyway I thought that that was interesting.
Well anyway I landed in Dallas, and I had a 3:45 hour layover so I had to find something to do. Well I had a plan that I wanted to execute; it started with finding something to eat, so I looked around and I found two places that I liked, TGIF and McDonald's. It was a really had decision but I ended up going with McDonald's. I got a double quarter pounder with cheese meal, and it was tasty, yum, yum. The next step was to find a power outlet. So I scoured the walls looking for a power outlet, I found one, but kept looking because ideally I wanted one close to a seat, and I found one, looking across the way at a waiting area, I noticed a small something on the wall about a foot off the ground, and so I walked over a sure enough it was a power outlet. "Perfect", I though to myself. So I sat down and claimed my prize spot. Plugged my computer in and launched it up, I had downloaded a movie called "War games" a couple days ago. Well I'll tell you how I decided on that movie. On Tuesday Peter was watching a movie, and it seemed interesting, but I wasn't able to watch it because I had some packing to do and some other things to do, and it was called War Games. And since I wanted to see how it turned out and knowing that I had some extra time at Dallas I decided to download it, and watch it in the Airport. So, anyway I watched it, and I'm glad that I had downloaded it because it cut down my wait by a lot.
I got on my plane to Anchorage. Again I got the feeling that American Airlines was being cheap, because even though it was over a 6 hour flight a meal wasn't supplied, you had to buy something if you wanted to eat. I mean come on, it's a 6 and a half hour flight, from 3:45 p.m. to 7:25 p.m. (3 hour time difference between Dallas and Anchorage.) it's a long flight and prime time for dinner, I think that they should have supplied a meal, but that's my opinion. And you had to buy the headphones again, and they didn't even have LCD screens that folded down from the ceiling, they had the old analog style, and most of them were discolored. So anyway, it got me from point A to point B, but I wasn't impressed with what they had to offer.
I landed in Anchorage a little late, and they it took forever to get my bag. I waited about 40 minutes for my bag, they were being really slow. Not just my bag other people were waiting for their bags too. But while I was standing there Etta (Rick's wife) came up to me and asked if I was Tim, and I said "no" just to see what she would say. :P Ok, so I didn't really, I said yes, and so she pointed out the truck and then said she had to wait by it other wise they'd tow it away. And we didn't want that, so she went out a waited a just stayed there and waited. Waiting for my bag. It did eventually get there, but I was getting pretty worried that it wouldn't get there, but it did, finally.
When I got my bag, I hoped in the truck and we drove off to where we were staying. Rick just went out on a 72 hour opening, and he would be on the water until Sunday, so that's when we were planning on going down and meeting him.
We got to where we were staying, at around 9:00 p.m. The sun was still shining. It was Etta's Aunt and Uncle's house so we went through the introductions, and they got me a room and I dropped my stuff off. We had a desert type thing, and then I asked if they had any internet there that I could use to send an E-mail or something. And thankfully they did. It was a DSL line so I just unplugged the cable from their computer and plugged it in my computer. So I was able to send an E-mail back to Florida, which was good that I was able to do that, because I haven't had internet since I left that house the next morning. (As of Sunday the 8th.)
I took a shower and then took some pictures out my window. It was 11 p.m. and the sun still hadn't set.
June 6th:
I got up a couple minutes before 6 and was the last person up. We ate breakfast and then Etta and I left because we were going to her parent's place where we were going to hang out for the day. But first we stopped at the fish and game and I got my fishing license, $165 for an out of state resident, and $60 for an Alaskan resident. After that we contiuned on our way to Etta's parent's house. We made one more stop on the way though, we stopped to get some groceries for Etta's parents. Then we were back on the road for Etta's parent's house.
We got there just in time for lunch, we brought in the groceries and then sat down for lunch, Etta's parents had some other guys over who where helping Etta's dad bulid a barn or something, I forget; so we exchanged some witty conversation over lunch. They asked me questions about Poland and stuff, and I answered them.
Our plans for the day were disturbed when Etta got a call from Rick telling her that the fishing was really slow and he wanted to take the weekend off so she needed to come and pick him up. So then we drove all the way down to Whitter where Rick was fishing. So that was about a 3 hour drive. There is an interesting tunnel there right outside Whitter, it is a 2.5 mile one lane tunnel, so in order to allow two way traffic they have to take turns going through it. Ever hour on the hour they let traffic through to Whittier, and every hour on the half hour, they let traffic through going from Whittier. It's a pretty interesting tunnel, tall enough for people with big boats on trailers to go through, but only wide enough for one lane of traffic. It's a pretty big deal to time your trip just right so that you hit the tunnel at the right time.
Well anyway we got in there and picked up Rick and he wanted to drive back all the way to Ninilchik to his cabin to stay for the weekend. Weekend, meaning Saturday, because it was already well into the evening on Friday, and we were going to be coming back on Sunday. So we drove all the way back where we just came from and a little more. Through the tunnel and over the hills, we drove, late into the night, well not really late, we arrived on location, Rick's cabin, at about 9 p.m. and got ready for bed and hopped it.
Rick's cabin certainly isn't anything fancy, it has one big room and in the back it has a small back room where the shower is, there isn't any door between the too, so you just have to trust that no one will walk around the corner while you are showering. A curtain would make it feel a lot more private. And by the way, just because there is a shower does not mean that there is running water. There is running water, but you have to run and get it. It's a stream about a mile away. So there is a nice outhouse about 50 feet away from the house in the bush. Nice for keeping the smell out of the cabin, but not so nice for when you get up in the night and have to go.
June 7th:
Well, this was a long day.
We got up at 6 or so, and had breakfast of English muffins, oatmeal, and salmon. The oatmeal was eat-able (able to be eaten), the English muffins were excellent, and the salmon was, well... I couldn't really make up my mind, at first I thought that it was really good, but as the day progressed I kept tasting that salmon, and I couldn't decide. I didn't even have to burp to taste it, I was just going along and then I'd all of a sudden taste it. It was very strange. Evenutally I decided that I'd better like it because I was going to be getting a lot of it this summer.
Rick wanted to work on his boat, fix some things and stuff, so we left soon after breakfast, and went over to his boat in the dry dock. I grabbed a pair of coveralls and got busy changing the oil in the engines. Pump, pump, pump, out with the old oil. Walk, walk, walk, to the oil dump. Pour, pour, pour; pour the oil into the dump. All 12 gallons of it; 12 gallons is a lot of oil. It took a long time to pump all the oil out, and it got pretty hot down there under the deck with the engines where I was working. But it wasn't too bad, it was actually kind of fun.
After taking out the old oil I changed the oil filters for the engines, and when I was doing that, evidently the o-ring on one of the filters came out of place, so when it was screwed all the way in it didn't make a tight seal. I didn't realize that until later after Rick warmed up the engines and then when down to look at them afterwards. Because the gasket hadn't sealed, oil was spewed all over the engine room, and the thing about oil is that it doesn't evaporate like water does; if you spill a little oil, it'll still be there a week later, unlike water which would have dried up by then. So anyway, I had to clean it all up using the vacuum and paper towels. I vacuumed up the puddles , but had to wipe every thing else down with paper towels, so it took some time to do, and it got pretty stuffy down there, and I got tired from having to squat down all the time, because under the deck where the engines are, the ceiling is only about 4 feet high. I did finally get it all cleaned up though, and it wasn't quite as bad as it first appeared to be. Because of how the o-ring was pinched, it only sprayed in about a 90ยบ arc, so instead of spraying all 4 sections, it only got 2 of them. Even so it took a long time because, I had to really scrub hard to get the oil out.
Rick went out and got some pizza for us for lunch; it was pretty good, they aren't as stingy with the toppings as they are in Poland. In Poland often times they put as few toppings as they can get away with.
After lunch we continued to work, doing a lot of various things, I drilled some holes, helped Rick with some wiring, we put in some depth finders, I swabbed the beck. :P At the end, Rick was running out of things for me to do, most of the stuff left were things that he needed to do himself.
We finished up at a little after midnight, and we didn't even have to use any lights to see, because the sun was still shining. It's still pretty strange to be, but I'm getting used to it.
I have more written on paper that I haven't transfered to the computer, and I am I behind because things are really busy and stuff, so that's why I'm not up to date with things.
Bare with me, I'll get to it eventually. :)
Fierce Fisherman,
Timothy
So this is my modified journal for you guys, to keep you all updated with my progress.
I'm sure that there are mistakes and problems in the writing, but I don't have the time to correct them. I am sorry, but that's the best that I can do for now. :)
I hope that you aren't too bored reading it. :P
I'm also sorry, that I can't post any pictures yet. :(
June 5th:
Well the first day of my trip, I was up until about 1:45 the night before, doing some packing and straightening up, but I was able to get it all done and have everything nice and pretty neat, so I knew that I wasn't leaving behind a big mess.
Mom, Aunt Rachael, and I left for the airport at around 7:20 A.M. The drive was pretty good, but it did get a little crowded there when we got near the airport. We got there on time though, we went it and got my bagged checked. That morning before we left and had checked in via the internet, and had printed out my boarding passes too. So it was really easy going, all I had to do was scan my boarding pass and then give my bag to the man who was checking the bags, and that was it. After that process the twins and I parted. I went on to continue through the airport routine, and they were going to "hit up" some of the Publixs that were nearby. After that I know not whither they whenist, but I, I alone went on, to brave the fierce and mighty terrors of the... "AirPort." Da da da dum...
Yeah, yeah, over-dramatizing much, I know. Well started walking to my gate, on the way I walked through security, and I didn't even beep. Which is strange, because normally I always beep. But I guess taking off just about everything: camera, wallet, phone, belt, watch, flashlight, and shoes; helps. Back at the house I had taken off my knife and leatherman, so that they wouldn't get confiscated, and I don't want them taken away from me because I like them. : )
I got to my gate and sat there for a while, well not a long while because right away I started to write my letter to BJ, requesting that I might work security. Somehow I don't think that it was very convincing. Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained. I wasn't able to finish it there, which was a shame because at the Tampa airport they have free wireless internet, so if I had finished it there I could have sent it right away, but since I didn't I wasn't able to sent it until later that night
We boarded the aircraft. I had seat 24F, which was a window seat, I was happy enough with that, I can lean against the window when I want to sleep.
The flight went well, but when I came out my overall impression with American Airlines was that they were cheap. No meal was served, but you could buy some sandwiches or snacks, and they didn't supply headphones as standard, but you could buy a pair from them for $2, which isn't a lot but it's the thought of the matter. Every other airline that I've flone with supply headphones as standard, if they have some sort of entertainment.
Well anyway it was a good enough fligtht, what really surprised me was that I wasn't constantly yawning like I normally do. And I think that was a first for me, every time that I can remember flying I've had to yawn constantly. So anyway I thought that that was interesting.
Well anyway I landed in Dallas, and I had a 3:45 hour layover so I had to find something to do. Well I had a plan that I wanted to execute; it started with finding something to eat, so I looked around and I found two places that I liked, TGIF and McDonald's. It was a really had decision but I ended up going with McDonald's. I got a double quarter pounder with cheese meal, and it was tasty, yum, yum. The next step was to find a power outlet. So I scoured the walls looking for a power outlet, I found one, but kept looking because ideally I wanted one close to a seat, and I found one, looking across the way at a waiting area, I noticed a small something on the wall about a foot off the ground, and so I walked over a sure enough it was a power outlet. "Perfect", I though to myself. So I sat down and claimed my prize spot. Plugged my computer in and launched it up, I had downloaded a movie called "War games" a couple days ago. Well I'll tell you how I decided on that movie. On Tuesday Peter was watching a movie, and it seemed interesting, but I wasn't able to watch it because I had some packing to do and some other things to do, and it was called War Games. And since I wanted to see how it turned out and knowing that I had some extra time at Dallas I decided to download it, and watch it in the Airport. So, anyway I watched it, and I'm glad that I had downloaded it because it cut down my wait by a lot.
I got on my plane to Anchorage. Again I got the feeling that American Airlines was being cheap, because even though it was over a 6 hour flight a meal wasn't supplied, you had to buy something if you wanted to eat. I mean come on, it's a 6 and a half hour flight, from 3:45 p.m. to 7:25 p.m. (3 hour time difference between Dallas and Anchorage.) it's a long flight and prime time for dinner, I think that they should have supplied a meal, but that's my opinion. And you had to buy the headphones again, and they didn't even have LCD screens that folded down from the ceiling, they had the old analog style, and most of them were discolored. So anyway, it got me from point A to point B, but I wasn't impressed with what they had to offer.
I landed in Anchorage a little late, and they it took forever to get my bag. I waited about 40 minutes for my bag, they were being really slow. Not just my bag other people were waiting for their bags too. But while I was standing there Etta (Rick's wife) came up to me and asked if I was Tim, and I said "no" just to see what she would say. :P Ok, so I didn't really, I said yes, and so she pointed out the truck and then said she had to wait by it other wise they'd tow it away. And we didn't want that, so she went out a waited a just stayed there and waited. Waiting for my bag. It did eventually get there, but I was getting pretty worried that it wouldn't get there, but it did, finally.
When I got my bag, I hoped in the truck and we drove off to where we were staying. Rick just went out on a 72 hour opening, and he would be on the water until Sunday, so that's when we were planning on going down and meeting him.
We got to where we were staying, at around 9:00 p.m. The sun was still shining. It was Etta's Aunt and Uncle's house so we went through the introductions, and they got me a room and I dropped my stuff off. We had a desert type thing, and then I asked if they had any internet there that I could use to send an E-mail or something. And thankfully they did. It was a DSL line so I just unplugged the cable from their computer and plugged it in my computer. So I was able to send an E-mail back to Florida, which was good that I was able to do that, because I haven't had internet since I left that house the next morning. (As of Sunday the 8th.)
I took a shower and then took some pictures out my window. It was 11 p.m. and the sun still hadn't set.
June 6th:
I got up a couple minutes before 6 and was the last person up. We ate breakfast and then Etta and I left because we were going to her parent's place where we were going to hang out for the day. But first we stopped at the fish and game and I got my fishing license, $165 for an out of state resident, and $60 for an Alaskan resident. After that we contiuned on our way to Etta's parent's house. We made one more stop on the way though, we stopped to get some groceries for Etta's parents. Then we were back on the road for Etta's parent's house.
We got there just in time for lunch, we brought in the groceries and then sat down for lunch, Etta's parents had some other guys over who where helping Etta's dad bulid a barn or something, I forget; so we exchanged some witty conversation over lunch. They asked me questions about Poland and stuff, and I answered them.
Our plans for the day were disturbed when Etta got a call from Rick telling her that the fishing was really slow and he wanted to take the weekend off so she needed to come and pick him up. So then we drove all the way down to Whitter where Rick was fishing. So that was about a 3 hour drive. There is an interesting tunnel there right outside Whitter, it is a 2.5 mile one lane tunnel, so in order to allow two way traffic they have to take turns going through it. Ever hour on the hour they let traffic through to Whittier, and every hour on the half hour, they let traffic through going from Whittier. It's a pretty interesting tunnel, tall enough for people with big boats on trailers to go through, but only wide enough for one lane of traffic. It's a pretty big deal to time your trip just right so that you hit the tunnel at the right time.
Well anyway we got in there and picked up Rick and he wanted to drive back all the way to Ninilchik to his cabin to stay for the weekend. Weekend, meaning Saturday, because it was already well into the evening on Friday, and we were going to be coming back on Sunday. So we drove all the way back where we just came from and a little more. Through the tunnel and over the hills, we drove, late into the night, well not really late, we arrived on location, Rick's cabin, at about 9 p.m. and got ready for bed and hopped it.
Rick's cabin certainly isn't anything fancy, it has one big room and in the back it has a small back room where the shower is, there isn't any door between the too, so you just have to trust that no one will walk around the corner while you are showering. A curtain would make it feel a lot more private. And by the way, just because there is a shower does not mean that there is running water. There is running water, but you have to run and get it. It's a stream about a mile away. So there is a nice outhouse about 50 feet away from the house in the bush. Nice for keeping the smell out of the cabin, but not so nice for when you get up in the night and have to go.
June 7th:
Well, this was a long day.
We got up at 6 or so, and had breakfast of English muffins, oatmeal, and salmon. The oatmeal was eat-able (able to be eaten), the English muffins were excellent, and the salmon was, well... I couldn't really make up my mind, at first I thought that it was really good, but as the day progressed I kept tasting that salmon, and I couldn't decide. I didn't even have to burp to taste it, I was just going along and then I'd all of a sudden taste it. It was very strange. Evenutally I decided that I'd better like it because I was going to be getting a lot of it this summer.
Rick wanted to work on his boat, fix some things and stuff, so we left soon after breakfast, and went over to his boat in the dry dock. I grabbed a pair of coveralls and got busy changing the oil in the engines. Pump, pump, pump, out with the old oil. Walk, walk, walk, to the oil dump. Pour, pour, pour; pour the oil into the dump. All 12 gallons of it; 12 gallons is a lot of oil. It took a long time to pump all the oil out, and it got pretty hot down there under the deck with the engines where I was working. But it wasn't too bad, it was actually kind of fun.
After taking out the old oil I changed the oil filters for the engines, and when I was doing that, evidently the o-ring on one of the filters came out of place, so when it was screwed all the way in it didn't make a tight seal. I didn't realize that until later after Rick warmed up the engines and then when down to look at them afterwards. Because the gasket hadn't sealed, oil was spewed all over the engine room, and the thing about oil is that it doesn't evaporate like water does; if you spill a little oil, it'll still be there a week later, unlike water which would have dried up by then. So anyway, I had to clean it all up using the vacuum and paper towels. I vacuumed up the puddles , but had to wipe every thing else down with paper towels, so it took some time to do, and it got pretty stuffy down there, and I got tired from having to squat down all the time, because under the deck where the engines are, the ceiling is only about 4 feet high. I did finally get it all cleaned up though, and it wasn't quite as bad as it first appeared to be. Because of how the o-ring was pinched, it only sprayed in about a 90ยบ arc, so instead of spraying all 4 sections, it only got 2 of them. Even so it took a long time because, I had to really scrub hard to get the oil out.
Rick went out and got some pizza for us for lunch; it was pretty good, they aren't as stingy with the toppings as they are in Poland. In Poland often times they put as few toppings as they can get away with.
After lunch we continued to work, doing a lot of various things, I drilled some holes, helped Rick with some wiring, we put in some depth finders, I swabbed the beck. :P At the end, Rick was running out of things for me to do, most of the stuff left were things that he needed to do himself.
We finished up at a little after midnight, and we didn't even have to use any lights to see, because the sun was still shining. It's still pretty strange to be, but I'm getting used to it.
I have more written on paper that I haven't transfered to the computer, and I am I behind because things are really busy and stuff, so that's why I'm not up to date with things.
Bare with me, I'll get to it eventually. :)
Fierce Fisherman,
Timothy
Thursday, April 24, 2008
New stickers.
Ever since I learned how to solve a Rubik's cube, I've been scrambling and unscrambling our cube that we have. All that twisting and turning puts wear and tear on the cube. Although probably not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about cubes wearing out, the stickers are usually the first things to go. (At least for Rubik's brand Rubik's cubes, other cubes may break apart before the stickers fall off.) And my cube was no exception. My stickers had been slowly wearing out. Slowly but surely, the stickers were losing their "stickiness", and their corners were starting to peel, slowly but surely they were falling off, one by one.
Here is what my cube looked like with the stickers coming off. (As you can see, I used it a lot. :) )
I could solve it, but I had to stop and think what color "this" black square is suppose to be, and what color "that" one is suppose to be. So I could do it, but not very quietly.
Every week I attend a Rubik's cube "club" you might call it. Back in November or so the teacher guy said that he could get some new stickers for me. Unfortunately where he gets them was out of stock and he didn't know when it would have them again. Surprisingly enough, they aren't a high demand item. With no other option, I had to keep using the cube that I had.
Another month or so passed and with it came Christmas, and with Christmas came a new Rubik's cube for me. :D It was just a cheap cube though, it was very stiff, meaning that it didn't turn very easily, and it would pop quite a lot if I wasn't very careful with it. A pop, is when one or more of the little pieces pop out. I was able to relive a some of the stiffness with a quick shot of WD40 to the cube's inner workings. It was better, but still must stiffer than my other cube.
I couldn't go as fast I wanted to go; if I didn't line the rows up perfectly when making a turn, or if I went too fast then it would do this:
Not pretty. The cube didn't always pop to that extreme, most of time only 2 or 3 pieces would come flying out. The bad part was that this would happen about every other time I would solve the cube. Even when I was careful. It was pretty frustrating to have to find the pieces that came out, and to have to put the back in, so eventually I took the cube apart and tightened up the springs that hold it all together, making the cube noticeably stiffer, but at least it didn't fly apart as often anymore. After a couple of hundred turns and a couple dozen sprays of WD40, it was turning more smoothly again, not as smoothly as it was, but better none the less.
As time passed the store finally got the stickers back in stock and I received my stickers. :D
I put them on my old cube as soon as I got home, and they looked nice.
And after all of the stickers were on:
It looks and feels very nice, it's so much nicer to go back to using this cube, it turns so smoothly and the only pops that I've had, have only involved one piece, and it didn't fly out, it just came out of position, and all I had to do was pop it back in. So much better.
A couple of days later I videoed this:
My average seems to be at, or right below 1 minute, so my usual times are around 50-70 seconds. So, low 40's is quite good for me. I'm quite happy with how far I've gotten since I started "speed cubing" about 6 months ago. :)
Cheers
Here is what my cube looked like with the stickers coming off. (As you can see, I used it a lot. :) )
I could solve it, but I had to stop and think what color "this" black square is suppose to be, and what color "that" one is suppose to be. So I could do it, but not very quietly.
Every week I attend a Rubik's cube "club" you might call it. Back in November or so the teacher guy said that he could get some new stickers for me. Unfortunately where he gets them was out of stock and he didn't know when it would have them again. Surprisingly enough, they aren't a high demand item. With no other option, I had to keep using the cube that I had.
Another month or so passed and with it came Christmas, and with Christmas came a new Rubik's cube for me. :D It was just a cheap cube though, it was very stiff, meaning that it didn't turn very easily, and it would pop quite a lot if I wasn't very careful with it. A pop, is when one or more of the little pieces pop out. I was able to relive a some of the stiffness with a quick shot of WD40 to the cube's inner workings. It was better, but still must stiffer than my other cube.
I couldn't go as fast I wanted to go; if I didn't line the rows up perfectly when making a turn, or if I went too fast then it would do this:
Not pretty. The cube didn't always pop to that extreme, most of time only 2 or 3 pieces would come flying out. The bad part was that this would happen about every other time I would solve the cube. Even when I was careful. It was pretty frustrating to have to find the pieces that came out, and to have to put the back in, so eventually I took the cube apart and tightened up the springs that hold it all together, making the cube noticeably stiffer, but at least it didn't fly apart as often anymore. After a couple of hundred turns and a couple dozen sprays of WD40, it was turning more smoothly again, not as smoothly as it was, but better none the less.
As time passed the store finally got the stickers back in stock and I received my stickers. :D
I put them on my old cube as soon as I got home, and they looked nice.
And after all of the stickers were on:
It looks and feels very nice, it's so much nicer to go back to using this cube, it turns so smoothly and the only pops that I've had, have only involved one piece, and it didn't fly out, it just came out of position, and all I had to do was pop it back in. So much better.
A couple of days later I videoed this:
My average seems to be at, or right below 1 minute, so my usual times are around 50-70 seconds. So, low 40's is quite good for me. I'm quite happy with how far I've gotten since I started "speed cubing" about 6 months ago. :)
Cheers
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