Well this seems kind of stupid.....

At the request of several people, who claim that I never write, I have decided to attempt blogging. In all honesty I see this as a fancy My Space page and thus somewhat ridiculous for someone my age to be doing. But hey - this should at least give me something to do in the winter...assuming the frostbite doesn't make it too hard to use my fingers to type!

So here is what you need to know to get caught up this far - I LOVE IT HERE! What is not to love, the weather is nice and cool (Ask me again in 3 months how I feel about that), the wildlife is abundant (In nature and at the local bar) and I spend my days surrounded by some of the leaders in their academic fields (Kind of like the people I used to work with....I guess).

Where to start...where to start...well in the picture at the top of this page you can see my new town - Seward, Alaska. Population 10,540 if you count the bears, moose, eagles, otters and whales. If you just count the people - there are about 2,500 residents. Of course in the summer fishing and tourism season that blossoms to about 5,000 residents and 25,000 Cruise Ship Passengers. I live about 2 blocks from where I work in 'downtown' Seward - all 3 blocks of it. Downtown Seward consists of 4 bars, 2 restaurants, 2 coffee shops, 3 Tourist T-Shirt Traps, 1 bank, the cable office, City Hall and the National Parks service for the most part.

I spend my days at the Alaska SeaLife Center. Here my job is to help facilitate the exchange of information between our Husbandry, Research and Marine Mammal Rescue departments with the rest of the staff and of course the visitors. On any given day I get to hang out with endangered animals, watch cutting edge research take place, herd tourists through our gallery, attempt not to get crapped on by birds in the aviary and lots of other cool stuff. I'll write more about my job later.

In the evenings - I can hike, kayak, hang out and look for bears or enjoy my part time job at Thorn's Showcase Lounge! The Showcase as it is called here is a bar and restaurant right out of 1955 - - Red Leather Chairs, Brass bar accents and Old Jim Beam Bottles decorating the walls...a real class establishment. I waitress - - stop laughing - there a night or two a week. Well, sometimes more if the other staff members have been arrested, are recovering from gun shot wounds or other various ailments or are already too drunk to come to work. I love the stories that come out of this place - more will follow no doubt.

Anyway - I guess that is my life in a nutshell for now. I am hoping that I can update this blog whenever I have a little adventure and that somehow reading of my misfortune and near death exploits makes your day brighter. The next update will come on Monday - if I survive that long. We have a little wilderness camping trip planned - from what I have deduced a boat takes you to a remote location and drops you off. Then they come back 2 days later and if you are still alive, they bring you home.....Nothing can go wrong with this plan!!!