Hellooooo, Anchorage!

Hey everybody!

I'm super excited to announce that I made it to Alaska safe, sound and ON TIME!! No missed flights (not an option-- the flight I was on was the ONLY one going that day, eek!!) and I've spent the day in Anchorage running errands and eating delicious (and free) pizza with my awesome professors, Dr. VanEynde and Dr. Tynes. Both are delightful, happy people, and I'm very excited about what's to come for the rest of the week. Since I was the first student to arrive, I kind of have an advantage: I was told a few minutes ago that since I helped my profs with their shopping and planning, that they would help me out on my leadership day. It's not cheating, but there are some planning things that I won't really be able to do ahead of time-- like finding where to buy sack lunches in Seward. The internet here is spotty and my cell phone coverage is worse, but as long as I'm in Anchorage, I can text and email (some).

Anchorage is beautiful!!! There are flowers blooming everywhere, and it's overcast, but not too dark. In fact, the lighting is what we photographers consider to be the best conditions-- it's what we call "shadowless light." Oh- and for those of you who are burning up in Texas-- It's 58 degrees here. :) Navigating this town is a little tricky, but we've had fun making lots of U-turns. It's kind of like one big Alaskan roller coaster with Dr. Tynes at the helm! We had lunch at a place called Moose Tooth Pizza-- which, as it turns out, has the highest volume pizza sales in North America! It's named after a mountain next to Mt. McKinley (the tallest in North America) and they have 13 different home-brew beers. They also had homemade soda on tap! Oh-- and the pizza was phenomenal. I'm goingto have to take a food-coma-nap here in a litle bit, but first, I must finish my homework and email it to my profs. (I hope they send alright, I was having trouble with getting very simple attachment-free messages to send this morning.)

Alright, well, I'll try to post in the morning, but it sounds like we're going to be pretty busy. Below is the week's itinerary:

Saturday, July 25 – Anchorage & travel to Seward

Anchorage Street Fair

Travel to Seward; visit Exit Glacier

Overnight in Seward

• Sunday, July 26 – Seward and travel to Ninilchik

Group A; Deep sea fishing, Resurrection Bay for Halibut and Sockeye Salmon

Group B: Hike through Seward, visit Alaska Sea Life Center

Travel to home base in Ninilchik

• Monday, July 27 – Ninilchik

Purchase needed supplies

Class related activities

• Tuesday, July 28 – Anchor Point or Kenai River

Group A: Halibut fishing on Cook Inlet from Anchor Point (reserved for six persons)

Group B: Red Salmon wade fishing on the Kenai River

• Wednesday, July 29 –, Homer and Halibut Cove

Tour Russian village (Nikolaevsk)

Visit Norman Lowell Gallery

Travel to Homer

Boat trip across Kachemak Bay

Lunch and tour Halibut Cove

Return to Ninilchik

• Thursday, July 30 – Hike to Crescent Lake

Travel to Quartz Creek Trailhead

6.4 mile hike to Crescent Lake

Picnic lunch

6.4 mile hike return

Return to Ninilchik

Preparation for departure to Anchorage on Friday

• Friday, July 31 – Travel to Anchorage and departure

Travel from Ninilchik to Anchorage

Plan to depart Anchorage Airport after 2 p.m.

(Cold storage available at airport)

highlight of THE YEAR

me: woah woah woah
Mark: hahahahahaha
me: i just did my budget for the year and figured out how much money i'm going to have in SAVINGS at the end of the year
guess guess guess
Mark: ummmm 50 bucks?
me: try 15,000
i love myself.
hahah
Mark: holy balls
thats awesome
me: I KNOW
Mark: i are jealous
me: haha

Art Contest Entry!

grrr...so i couldn't imbed the pretty little image from brickfish's website, but here's the URL:

http://www.brickfish.com/Pages/PhotosAlbums/PhotoView.aspx?picid=502410_37724933&=fastart3_PPIMEMAIL&isep=1&pbapi=689614&pbvi=19799423



my drawing needs to get lots of traffic and votes in order to win the $500 scholarship. so go vote!

love,

-brynn

kitty lost, kitty found!!

yesterday, my productivity was deteriorating so much that my boss basically ordered me to go take a nap. when he came to check on me and make sure that i didn't feel like i got "sent to my room" he found me crying, having just got off the phone with cody to tell him that ouizie was missing. my boss and i talked and came up with a compromise that included me working remotely from st. louis to make any forms or fliers needed by the team in neosho, and also being allowed the time to go look for ouizie.

last night, i got to st. louis about midnight, and as soon as my ride drove away after dropping me off at home (because i forgot my car keys in the 15 minutes i had to pack for the weekend), ouizie started crying for me. i couldn't figure out where it was coming from because it was so loud, it was bouncing off the houses, so i started calling out her name, and it was back and forth until i saw her on the sidewalk running toward me. she found me. her agoraphobia seemed to have been completely wiped away, as she roamed the porch freely while i waited for my roommate to bring me spare key to the house. ouizie almost seemed to be in guard dog mode as she sat out on the front edge of the porch watching cars go by. she also seemed to have found herself a boyfriend, whom she stared at with body language that looked like she was ready to elope with the other cat... but she stayed by my side, purring and snuggling and peeking in the glass of the front door, wanting to get inside and roaming the porch playing guard kitty.

today is the first day since sunday that i have been allowed to sleep more than about 4 or 5 hours. it feels good. :)

tornado #2 -- no-show for neosho

hey guys-
just wanted to let you know that the tornado warnings and watches and severe weather reports all turned out to be not applicable with regard to the county my team is in right now.

As some of you may already be aware, the city of Neosho, in Newton county, Missouri, was hit by an F-4 tornado on Saturday and devastated a couple hundred homeonwers, including many uninsured occupants of modular homes. The death toll for Newton county alone is at 15, including a local firefighter. Yesterday, while we had teams in the field trying to tarp as many roofs as possible before a second band of storms swept through town, we were also keeping tabs on some severe weather forecasts calling for baseball sized hail, thunderstorms, and winds upwards of 70 miles per hour. When it came time for the storms to hit, though, they just sort of magically broke up and migrated to other places on either side of Newton county's lines. The larger band of storms turned south at the last minute and hit Arkansas, and the smaller, second storm cells broke up and scattered across the counties to the north of us.

So thanks for all your prayers, because, apparently, they worked!!

more evidence of the awesomeness that is "logistics"

My friend, Kara, was starting the decent of her caffeine high and wrote the following in response to the assignment of thanking corporate givers. enjoy :)

These businesses and people rock. They should get a piece of recycled paper that says THANKS A BUNCH FOLKS! Or maybe YOU RULE! Or quite possibly a little ditty (about Jack and Diane...no, sorry i get side tracked sometimes) or poem that goes something like this: ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE, YOU HELPED US, WE LOVE YOU...maybe not use love, like would be slightly more appropriate. If we told them we loved them they might get emotionally attached and then follow us around like lost puppy dogs and sit by the phone waiting for us to call. Basically putting their lives on hold, which could lead to lost jobs, living in their parents basement and eating cold french cut green beans right out of the can. Gross. And if they lost their jobs we wouldn't have people to bug for free stuff. Bogus.

Lowes

Wal-Mart

The Copy Center

The guy that saved Jeremy K's ass

Tim Raymer-MDC

behold: the awesomeness that is my job.

why, yes. while running logistics in response to a tornado, i do get to boss around the next tornado coming in with a megaphone called "street thunder." heeellll yesssss.