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Friday, November 27th, 2009
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8:56 am - So Nice.
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I am so happy with this hotel.
I tell the server when I sit down that I have food allergies, and can't have gluten or soy, and she goes and checks the carton that the cream came in to see if it has mono- or diglycerides, and then starts to tell me what on the menu is not gluten-free, that isn't obvious (like the sausage).
I ordered an omelette, and she offered me gluten-free blueberry bread, and asked if I could eat their potato side. I asked if the potatoes were seasoned, and she said just with salt and pepper, so I said they sounded lovely. She went to place my order, but a minute later came back and told me that the potatoes weren't safe, but they had hash browns, which were, and would I like those.
Everything was good. Everything was safe.
It was so nice to not feel like a freak, to be able to eat food that tasted good, and to not be paranoid about my food.
I contrast this with the Sheraton in Anchorage, where they begrudgingly fed me an overcooked, unseasoned slab of steak, and some overcooked steamed vegetables for every meal (after everyone else had eaten), except when they incorrectly told me that I could eat what they were serving everyone else.
Yeah. I am SO happy with this hotel.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
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7:40 pm - Companies I Dislike, Companies I Like
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Alaska Digitel Sucks. Therefore, I do not have a cell phone for this trip.
Despite having paid through the end of August, and theoretically having 90 days in which to buy time again, they terminated my account on the 3rd of November. Because they suck, even though they haven't given away the number to someone else, they are unable to reactivate the old number, I would have to go to their physical office and have them give me a new number. Since they don't exist outside of Alaska, I can't do that.
I am considering the possibility of a GCI phone. It would work in Kotlik. This is both good and bad. I think the cheapest plan is $99/mo. If I find that is true, I will not get one. If I can get one for under $40/mo, I may.
I am also considering trying to pick up a tracfone for travel purposes. I'll look into it.
On the other hand!
The DoubleTree hotel does NOT suck! They are AWESOME!
I called after I made my reservations online to ask if their restaurant could accommodate my food allergies. Not only did they say they could, but they weren't at all thrown by the question, and they said they'd note it in my file.
I was all excited about this, and looking forward to my stay, but I lamented to friends that I wouldn't be able to eat the amazing cookies that they hand out when you check into the hotel. Only. When I got here and checked in, the nice lady behind the counter said, "There are some gluten-free cookies upstairs for you." And I sort of boggled and she said, "I just brought them up a little while ago." And I thanked her profusely - not just for the cookies, but for knowing that I needed gluten-free. She seemed sort of amused by my gratitude and noted that it was in my file.
When I went upstairs, I found a plate cookies with a note declaring them to be gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free cookies. And there was a glass of milk, carefully nestled in a tub of ice.
These people make me VERY happy.
Not only that, but the cookies are good! (Not as good as their regular ones, but darned good.)
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, November 19th, 2009
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1:51 pm - Quick!
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I can go to Orycon if I leave here Tuesday morning and arrive in Portland Tuesday night.
I'll miss four days of work, altogether, Tuesday/Wednesday and Monday/Tuesday.
Poll #1487739 Orycon, Quick!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11Should I go?
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
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8:54 am - Decisions!
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A friend just reminded me that Orycon exists, and that it's coming up, and that it's over Thanksgiving weekend, and thus in the realm of possibility that I could go. And then, I could easily be in Anchorage on the 30th and 1st and see Kit! But! But! But! Travel = Ick! And money. And soon! And planning.
So! Help!
Poll #1487214
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12Should I go to Orycon?
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, November 5th, 2009
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8:17 am - BLARG!
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| Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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1:22 pm - Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
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So. You may have seen the ads for Tonka Trucks which tell you what a wonderful toy it is for your little boy. This makes my head explode, so I decided to write them. Here's the exchange.
Me:
I would like to register my extreme displeasure with your recent advertising campaign for Chuck & Friends.
To advertise the toy as "for boys" only reinforces artificial gender roles and suggests that children should not be allowed to express curiosity or interest in a full range of experiences.
I strongly encourage you to change your voiceover from "boys" to "children", and to perhaps film a girl playing with the truck, as well.
Them:
Hi Aberdeen,
Thank you so much for your recent inquiry about our marketing strategy on Tonka. As the mother of a 3 and a half year old girl, I can certainly understand the fun and wonder when a little girl or little boy breaks "stereotype" and plays with non-traditional toys. My daughter is totally into Spiderman, and I LOVE IT!
As a family organization we are committed to finding exciting and appropriate play experiences for boys and girls of all ages, and if you log on to our website at www.hasbrotoyshop.com , I am sure you will find many toys that are both gender neutral as well as gender specific.
The gender specific toys help to build confidence and create wonderful bonding experiences amongst both parents of same sex children and amongst the children who they relate with most.
Specifically on Tonka, there are essentially two reasons why we choose to market Tonka to boys. In all of our research, the overwhelming majority of Tonka interest is with little boys. Further, we have scores of research that tell us about the psychological differences between boys and girls and how they play. In fact, there is some recent research that explains how this can actually be traced back to the actual biology and chemistry in the brain. This research proves to us that while there will be girls who defy these studies, the marketing is best targeted to boys and moms of little boys.
Thank again for your concern and interest, and I hope this letter helps to shed some light on our marketing strategy.
My Very Best,
Angie Salem
Director of Marketing, Tonka brand
Hasbro, Inc.
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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10:43 am - YAY!
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| Saturday, August 8th, 2009
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10:13 am - Aaaaah.
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Our New Teacher Inservice is being held at the Sheraton in Anchorage. The Sheraton is quite possibly the most expensive hotel in Anchorage. Maybe not, but it's darned close. As hotels go, the room is fine, they make you pay for your internet and your parking, and the restaurants are expensive. But it's clean and in generally good condition, which is better than a lot of the hotels here. And it's tall and downtown. (Personally, I prefer midtown, but I'm apparently strange.)
It also has a Spa. This one is called The Ice Spa (which is a deceptive name, because it's not at all cold!). I decided that I really really deserved to be treated to a massage after all the painting and moving and stressing I did, this summer, so I looked at their menu and picked the Lomi Lomi (a Hawaiian style massage that uses long strokes and is supposed to promote balance between the physical, mental, and spiritual). I also decided to add a 'Tranquil Soak' in their 'infinity tub'.
I think I will add a massage of some sort at this Spa to all of my Anchorage trips. It was rather amazing.
First, they lead you into the locker room, which is plush and warm and soft, and they give you a robe (which is plush and warm and soft). Wearing nothing but the robe, you then head for the lounge to wait. There you are offered fresh fruit, hot tea, juice, and lemony water, and one of any number of comfortable chairs or divans. Through the wall of windows, you can see the mountains, or you can watch the fire dance among the stones in the glassed in fireplace. Soft music plays with nature sounds interspersed, but it actually serves the purpose of being soothing.
After not too long, the masseur comes to lead you to your room. (Because I had the soak as part of my session, I had a big room right off the lounge, looking over the mountains.) The shades are drawn and the lights are dimmed, and the same music plays here as in the lounge. The masseur demonstrates the workings on the tub, and shows you where to place your robe if you want it to be warmed, and where to place it if you do not. He checks for your preferences about the room temperature and the table temperature, and then leaves so that you can get onto the bed.
He finishes filling the tub just as he's completing the massage and then covers you in warmed blankets while he goes to fetch a glass of lemony water. Then he leaves again, promising to knock on the door when you have about five minutes. But, he notes, there's no rush.
The infinity tub is about 5 feet long, 2 feet wide, and at least 18 inches deep. When I sat up, the water was just below my shoulders. It also continues to run. There's a drain that runs all the way around the main part of the tub, between the tub and the marble counter it's set into. And the water stays on. So the tub stays full to the very top the whole time, and you can adjust the temperature, so the water stays perfect the whole time. I had a 25 minute soak. I probably would have been good with 15 or 20, but I got out for a few minutes and just sat on the marble counter and watched the clouds move across the mountains.
There are two heated bathsheets waiting for you when you leave the tub, and the robe you wore coming in.
After, you are welcomed back into the lounge where there is more fruit and juice or tea or water, and you can stay as long as you like. I stayed a little, to drink some more water. (I suspect I was a little overheated.) Then back into the locker room, where there is a steam shower (which I did not use, but may, next time).
The whole thing was quite decadent, and exactly what I needed.
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
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4:25 pm - Tired!
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(Some people are apparently less stressed by this move than I am.)
(Also! For those curious, I leave for Anchorage tomorrow at 9ish and return a week from Friday in the afternoon.)
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Monday, August 3rd, 2009
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1:41 am - HIDE!
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| Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
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11:13 pm - Before I throw them away -
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Does anyone have any interest in the VHS tapes of various TV? I've got Buffy, Angel (sometimes on the same tape), Roar, Wolf Lake, Babylon 5... possibly some other random things.
If you want any one of those, I'll send you all the tapes of that show that I have, and try to limit as well as possible to just that.
I warn, however, that I am going by the label, because I no longer own a VCR, and I wasn't always particularly good about labeling.
I also have a bunch of X-Files and almost every single Highlander and Raven ever (I seem to be missing one tape from the first season). Those are actually official, instead of taped from TV.
Anything unclaimed on Thursday goes to the dump, 'cause I'm more limited in storage space in the house I'm moving into, and keeping things I can't use seems a little silly.
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, July 12th, 2009
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2:44 pm - Adventures in Boating - More Detail
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The call with the invite came at 2:00, and I guilted myself into accepting. It's not that I didn't want to go. I wanted to have gone, I just didn't want to leave the house, for a variety of reasons, some good, and some less so. But I'd already turned down an invitation, and I didn't want to turn down two in a row.
( Read more... )
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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1:02 pm - Map of Kotlik - Point Romanoff
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2:37 am - Adventures in Boating - Brief Form
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Fox Prints
Fox
Bear Scat
Bear (WAAAAAAAAY over /there/)
Flock of Cranes
Pair of Ducks
Flock of maybe cranes
Mammoth tooth
Mammoth tusk
Mosquitos
Greens that you eat
Greens that you steam
Greens that you can boil, or eat with seal oil
Greens that boil for broth for when you have a bad cold (Not Ayuk)
Two 9 year old boys
One 13 year old girl
Two 12 year old girls
One 11 year old girl
Three adults
One Boat
Swimming/wading in the creek
Drying by the fire
Dry Fish (salmon)
Mantaq
Dry Fish (pike)
Marshmallows
Not many salmonberry flowers
Sunburn
Windburn
Low Tide
Soaked to the bone, hip deep - boat moving
Sunset, Moonrise
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Saturday, June 20th, 2009
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11:47 pm - Doot Dee Doot.
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I didn't really fall of the face of the planet. Honest. And, thanks to those of you who got back to me about summer school food ideas.
Sadly. There will be no summer school. Or. There will probably be a thing where some kids hang out with some adults and do some learning sort of accidentally... And not in any way referred to as school, or anything like that. The district says we can't use the building, and while the city has offered the use of the hall, it's looking like the organizational nightmare is just not going to be worthwhile.
So! Thanks for the offers, but.
On the bright side! I am developing a plan, and once I manage to find the teacher... who lives... next door to me... (That really shouldn't be so hard as it seems to be.) I'm going to work out how to implement Plan 2!
Plan 2 goes like this:
We gather some kids and some materials and we go do a sort of Thoreau-like session. In which all you need is a log to sit on. (Okay. Not a log... maybe a pallet left out by the old airport.) As I build it in my head, it's starting to excite me. We'll see if I can get the other teachers excited, and if we can get the kids excited and make it work.
My plan is based loosely on the Math in a Cultural Context materials. They have a 2nd grade statistics unit on Egg Hunting, a unit on Berry Picking, and a 6th grade Geometry unit on building a fishrack. And. It dawns on me. These are /all/ SUMMER activities. And the math in each of them can be extended beyond the grade levels they're intended for. So. If I can find that next-door teacher (who has the materials), and we can plan a little... I think this could be really exciting.
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(9 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, May 1st, 2009
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10:34 pm - Summer What?
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So. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the district has decided not to have summer school, this year.
Some of us (meaning pretty much the entire village of Kotlik) feel rather strongly that summer school is important. It's not usually long - just two or three weeks, but it makes a difference in information retention for the 60% of our kids who attend.
Well. A few of us have decided to offer summer school anyway. We haven't settled on dates, but we're going to do pretty much what we would have, otherwise.
Elementary kids will have summer school from 9 - 12 and then have lunch, and HS kids will have lunch at 12:30, and then have summer school from 1 - 4.
This means... we need to serve lunch. Now, we can do that relatively cheaply (peanut butter and jelly, tuna, soups etc), but not, ya know, for free.
So. If you know people who might want to donate either food (non-perishable sorts of lunch foods for kids/teens), or money toward the purchase of foods, you can email me at aberdeen at livejournal dot com.
I'll post more when we have dates and know whether we're doing two weeks or three, and like that.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, April 17th, 2009
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9:57 am - Happy GenColson Day!
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| Sunday, March 15th, 2009
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10:25 am - Today:
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1) Walk
2) Shower
3) Breakfast
4) Revise Inservice Agenda for DO people
5) Homework
6) Start next week's homework
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, March 8th, 2009
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6:08 pm - More Snow.
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It's all well and good when snow comes in under the crack in the door.
But what about when it comes in through the wall?
I'll post pictures when I can get to school, but as the front door is snowed closed, and I'm too lazy to climb over the four feet clinging to the back door, it'll have to wait.
Let me just say - There should not be a pile of snow a foot deep between my freezer and my kitchen door.
Ya know how, every year, people say: We've never had a storm like this before! And the actual records show that they just have poor memories? I don't think that's the case, this time. At the very least, I'm fairly certain that I've never had a year where I've had piles of snow /inside/ my house.
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, March 6th, 2009
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5:32 pm - ...
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Today is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
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