Sunday, March 25, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
HELLOOO FOLKS......
Yes it's been awhile since our last update. You'll be glad to know that Lee's eye is all healed up with no lasting marks of any kind. It's been a long and busy month here in Alaska. In my last post I remarked how well things were going and then life hit us smack in the forehead again BAM!
Bret came home from his usual 2 week hitch on the slope and was laid off the very next day. I guess he was one of the lucky 300 hundred people that Schlumberger decided to let go due to "falling commodity prices". So we stressed all weekend and got up bright and early on Monday to tackle the not so fun task of job hunting. By 10:00am that very same morning he was hired by Nabor's (not sure of the spelling) Drilling. Isn't the oil business weird???? He had a weeks worth of training and then another couple of weeks waiting for work to start up on the slope. It had been shut down due to cold. Last Friday he flew back up and is working on a "tower" called NorthStar that is actually situated 7 miles off coast in the Arctic Ocean. It's on a man made island and of course this time of year it's completely iced in, so they travel back and forth to the rig by bus. In the summer I guess they either travel by hovercraft or helicoptier. The biggest threat up there are the ever present polar bears, who whole heartedly believe humans to be as good of food as any. Laugh my ass off! So the camp is surrounded by sensors that go off if a polar bear trips it....at that point everyone is to be inside....not that I think they spend a whole lot of time outside anyways.
So in his first week up there, he has yet to see a polar bear, but reports that there are a ton of arctic fox, which are fun to watch. He says he likes this crew better than the one he was with previously so that's a good thing. He has also managed to get himself promoted from roustabout to floorhand....so he's moving up and influencing people. His hours are alot nicer too, he works noon to midnight for his whole 2 week hitch. At the last job he worked one week nights and then switched and had to do one week of days, which was hard on his body. So keep your fingers crossed for him!
Lee is on spring break right now. His grandma Susan and Mom flew to Seattle and the three of them I'm sure are painting the town Red! He left last Friday and will be back on Saturday, I'm glad they get to spend that time together, I'm sure they're having a blast. I'll have Lee update you all when he gets home.
For the past month and a half Lee has been learning to snowboard at the Hilltop ski hill here in Anchorage. So far he seems to really like it and is already planning his trip to the XGames! He's stuck it out on some coooold days (we're having the coldest march on record), and his teachers report that he is picking it up quickly....he's a natural snowboard bunny I guess. The nice thing is that the hill is only 5 min from our house, so we drop him off for lessons and then he boards with his friends afterwards...he just calls when he's done, usually cuz he's too cold and we're up the hill to get him. All in all it's turned out to be a great activity for him.
Things at the NICU have been crazy as ever, we seem to be hovering at the 40 mark (census wise that is) which is really taxing our resources, because our capacity is only 35. This week was particularly hard as we lost a baby that had been with us for over 4 months, and it was quite unexpected. When I dealt with the loss of adult patients it was usually because they were dying of old age, or had done something stupid to cause their own ill-fate, But babies are a whole different ballgame and I'm struggling with this particular loss.....I am very much looking forward to my prospects of working for Operational Excellence.
Speaking of which I've completed 2 weeks out of my 3 week greenbelt class and have a project well underway. I've also had the priviledge of sitting in on some high level projects that were being presented/reported out on to administration. While the prospect of doing this on my own is more than a little intimidating, I'm pretty confident that it is something that I can do and be pretty good at....so keep those happy thoughts coming our way.....
Like I said it's been a cold March, but today it got all the way up into the high 30's which is just about 1-2 degrees celsius. It's sad when 30 seems like a heat wave. ha ha ha There's still about a foot of snow on the ground but the streets are all dry. The bonus is that we are gaining about 7-8min a day of sunlight, which makes a pretty huge difference over a weeks time. We are well over 12hours of light a day now, which just makes things sooooo beautiful. Won't be long until we're out fishing for salmon....or maybe we'll get lucky this summer and be able to go fish for Halibut the big fish! Bigger than Lee even.
I'll try to write more often, but I've been busy with work and my project. Things should start slowing down a little bit now that I'm over the really labor intensive part of my project.
I hope all is well with you! please write comments, but don't forget to tell us who you are!
love you all as big as the world!
Bret-Jan-Lee
Yes it's been awhile since our last update. You'll be glad to know that Lee's eye is all healed up with no lasting marks of any kind. It's been a long and busy month here in Alaska. In my last post I remarked how well things were going and then life hit us smack in the forehead again BAM!
Bret came home from his usual 2 week hitch on the slope and was laid off the very next day. I guess he was one of the lucky 300 hundred people that Schlumberger decided to let go due to "falling commodity prices". So we stressed all weekend and got up bright and early on Monday to tackle the not so fun task of job hunting. By 10:00am that very same morning he was hired by Nabor's (not sure of the spelling) Drilling. Isn't the oil business weird???? He had a weeks worth of training and then another couple of weeks waiting for work to start up on the slope. It had been shut down due to cold. Last Friday he flew back up and is working on a "tower" called NorthStar that is actually situated 7 miles off coast in the Arctic Ocean. It's on a man made island and of course this time of year it's completely iced in, so they travel back and forth to the rig by bus. In the summer I guess they either travel by hovercraft or helicoptier. The biggest threat up there are the ever present polar bears, who whole heartedly believe humans to be as good of food as any. Laugh my ass off! So the camp is surrounded by sensors that go off if a polar bear trips it....at that point everyone is to be inside....not that I think they spend a whole lot of time outside anyways.
So in his first week up there, he has yet to see a polar bear, but reports that there are a ton of arctic fox, which are fun to watch. He says he likes this crew better than the one he was with previously so that's a good thing. He has also managed to get himself promoted from roustabout to floorhand....so he's moving up and influencing people. His hours are alot nicer too, he works noon to midnight for his whole 2 week hitch. At the last job he worked one week nights and then switched and had to do one week of days, which was hard on his body. So keep your fingers crossed for him!
Lee is on spring break right now. His grandma Susan and Mom flew to Seattle and the three of them I'm sure are painting the town Red! He left last Friday and will be back on Saturday, I'm glad they get to spend that time together, I'm sure they're having a blast. I'll have Lee update you all when he gets home.
For the past month and a half Lee has been learning to snowboard at the Hilltop ski hill here in Anchorage. So far he seems to really like it and is already planning his trip to the XGames! He's stuck it out on some coooold days (we're having the coldest march on record), and his teachers report that he is picking it up quickly....he's a natural snowboard bunny I guess. The nice thing is that the hill is only 5 min from our house, so we drop him off for lessons and then he boards with his friends afterwards...he just calls when he's done, usually cuz he's too cold and we're up the hill to get him. All in all it's turned out to be a great activity for him.
Things at the NICU have been crazy as ever, we seem to be hovering at the 40 mark (census wise that is) which is really taxing our resources, because our capacity is only 35. This week was particularly hard as we lost a baby that had been with us for over 4 months, and it was quite unexpected. When I dealt with the loss of adult patients it was usually because they were dying of old age, or had done something stupid to cause their own ill-fate, But babies are a whole different ballgame and I'm struggling with this particular loss.....I am very much looking forward to my prospects of working for Operational Excellence.
Speaking of which I've completed 2 weeks out of my 3 week greenbelt class and have a project well underway. I've also had the priviledge of sitting in on some high level projects that were being presented/reported out on to administration. While the prospect of doing this on my own is more than a little intimidating, I'm pretty confident that it is something that I can do and be pretty good at....so keep those happy thoughts coming our way.....
Like I said it's been a cold March, but today it got all the way up into the high 30's which is just about 1-2 degrees celsius. It's sad when 30 seems like a heat wave. ha ha ha There's still about a foot of snow on the ground but the streets are all dry. The bonus is that we are gaining about 7-8min a day of sunlight, which makes a pretty huge difference over a weeks time. We are well over 12hours of light a day now, which just makes things sooooo beautiful. Won't be long until we're out fishing for salmon....or maybe we'll get lucky this summer and be able to go fish for Halibut the big fish! Bigger than Lee even.
I'll try to write more often, but I've been busy with work and my project. Things should start slowing down a little bit now that I'm over the really labor intensive part of my project.
I hope all is well with you! please write comments, but don't forget to tell us who you are!
love you all as big as the world!
Bret-Jan-Lee
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