Just for the halibut

Bad pun of the year award, I know.  But it's so hard to resist.  Here's what we've been up to.  Genevieve bought 50 pounds of halibut when she was down in Quinhagak, out on the Kanektok river by the coast.  Unfortunately it came in the form of 6 huge frozen chunks.  We had to buy a saw to handle it.  But man is it ever tasty!  And the berry quest continues, of course.  These are from the Gweek River, upriver from us.  We went out with Tom and Firefighter Tunley, who also caught a small  pike on the mission.

Whaler Football

Being a fan of football, I think it's pretty awesome that the northern-most town on the North American continent now has a football team.  The city of Barrow is pouring all kinds of money into the effort, in part hoping that high school football will help combat the school's 50% dropout rate.  Unfortunately, they lost their first game 34-0. Note the dirt field - reminds me of playing Butte.  Opening game, August 19... the weather?  Light snow.

Erik Hill of the Anchorage Daily News took these photos:

Focusing

I sat down to blog, and all that my fingers wanted to type was poopy pants ranting and raving unsuitable to present on a blog. For that reason, I have decided to jump my brain off the negative tracks and force it to think about something positive. Here are the top ten positive things from the last ten days:

1. Working with Regan. Regan, my brother, came out to work in the Bethel office for a week. His absolute love for going to trial, his knowledge and experience, and his high enthusiasm level lifted the entire mood of the Bethel District Attorney's Office.
   
2. Learning a lot about preparing for trial, interviewing witnesses and tracking down the story of an event. The particular issue we are working on is a case where Mr. Mezak of Bethel is charged with beating Mr. Crane in the head with a club. Mr. Crane was medevac'd to Anchorage. Many of the witnesses are very mobile people, so tracking them down for the trial was an adventure in itself. But one thing I learned is that when you put the effort into it, you can make it all come together. Ultimately, the case was continued for a month, but I'm confident that in the end justice will be done.
   
3. I had to delete #3 because on further review it was actually not very positive. I've learned to be more skeptical in dealing with some members of the local Bar.
4. Flying on the Trooper plane (a cessna caravan) to Kalskag and Aniak to serve subpoenas with the State Troopers.
5. Drift net fishing with Tom, Erin, Genevieve and Regan, and taking a walking tour of the fine villages of Napaskiak and Oscarville.
6. Hanging out with Monica Saxena and Natalie Landreth, out here to ensure that Yupik speaking Americans are able to vote meaningfully. They are working to ensure that the Voting Rights Act is complied with. And unfortunately a lot of people don't realize that the majority of the people around these parts primarily speak Yupik. Monica is a friend from law school, and I always knew she'd do amazing things with her career. She is also working on projects in Florida and New Jersey.
7. Receiving a call from the State Troopers about a murder and discussing the case with them.
   
8. Judge Curda's retirement party. A lot of funny stories about Bethel in the 70's were told. We also reminisced about Craig McMahon.
   
9. Rollover training. This is another firefighting thing. We crawled into a metal box, set it on fire, and endured as much heat as we could in our protective gear. My helmet now says REFIGHTER, because the F and the I melted away.
   
10. Picking berries. And eating the extremely tasty food products that Genevieve makes with those berries.
11. Feeling Revel kicking a lot!
    

Catching Up....

We've been less than reliable at regular blogging these days, so here's a catch up blog for the past week or so...

This could be one of those "cute kid" stories that are funny at the time and boring once related, but I also thought it was an interesting cultural observation so I'll risk potential reader boredom in re-telling it to you. The other day I had the opportunity to hang out in the pediatrics waiting room at the hospital for a couple of hours, waiting for a child in our program to be seen by the doctor. In the waiting section is a big mural of a rainbow leading to a pot of gold and a couple of little leprachauns wearing eskimo fur coats. I was thinking it is kind of an odd image for kids in the Delta to relate to, given how entirely unfamiliar they probably are with Irish story tales... but I didn't give it too much thought. Then a 4-year old boy walked in with his father and younger brother. He looked at the mural for a long time with a slightly confused look on his face. Then he lit up and proudly exclaimed, "Dog Food! They're cooking dog food!". His father looked back at him and verified his finding and the little boy just kept repeating, "Dog Food! They're cooking Dog Food". He was so excited that he figured it out. I was laughing, as a child in the lower 48 probably wouldn't see that image and think of dog food, let alone ever think that one would even cook dog food. But up here, people cook dog food every day in big black cauldrons. After a while, the family left and a new family arrived. The new youngster looked up at the mural with another confused look on his face and said, "Daddy...what's that??". His dad took one look at the mural and said, "Look, they're cooking fry bread." The boy's face lit up with understanding and he said, "Oh, Fry Bread! They're cooking fry bread!". Once again pleased at his revelation, the child spent the next 30 minutes repeating, "Fry bread...they're cooking fry bread." Unfortunately, I had to leave, but I do think it would be an interesting cultural experiment to hang out under the rainbow for a day and observe the various reactions!

I spent the next 3 days at a conference in a village called St. Mary's. It is up on the Yukon River and often a site for conferences as it is the only village with any significant lodging or dining possibilities. It has a big old Catholic mission and as an interesting side note, it was the location where fellow Missoulian Mary Kay Kriley spent time as a Jesuit Volunteer about 30 years ago. Anyway, the conference was on infant mental health and wasn't anything too exciting, but here's some pictures of the area. This one is a long range view of the village from a little hill by the mission.



Here's a view of the Andreafsky River below the mission.













My co-worker Minnie brought her 5 month old baby to the conference and he was a big hit!



























Here's the mission building and the dorm lodging...men on the left and ladies on the right....
















In other exciting news, Regan is here from Anchorage for a week. He's helping out at the DA office and getting a nice tour of Bethel. Our first official visitor to Bethel!!! (that's a congratulations to Regan and a guilt trip for all you others!!). Just kidding, Bethel is a tough place to get to, so it will be pretty cool that the state will pay for Regan to come out here every now and then. I think he's enjoying his visit and getting a good taste of life in the Delta! Yesterday we went out on Tom's boat and visited a couple of villages. It was also Saturday market day and a new one for even Dawson and I...the Bethel Fair. Not exactly what you might imagine, but here's a few pictures of the event....



Tom walking past the "Live animals raised in Bethel" exhibit.










One of Bethel's infamous chickens!









Prize winning strawberries and tomatoes (they make up in beauty what they make lack in quantity)









And Hoppy's prize winning cauliflower! (She gave us one that is even bigger than this one, but just not as perfectly round!).






And lest you should think this post will never end.....My favorite exhibit at the Bethel Fair (and one of my favorite things about Bethel in general....funny signs!)





























And....

A HUGE thank you to Rani for sending Regan up with a boat load of babies supplies! I also purchased a crib from another attorney in town, so we went from having zero baby stuff, to a crib with bedding, clothes to fit him from birth until he's a year old, a halloween costume and one of those fancy wipe warmers so that his little bottom won't have to deal with a frigid winter wipe... Thanks Rani and Family!!!

RAIN!!!

Statement as of 4:27 PM ADT on August 18, 2006

... Record rainfall for Bethel...

Overnight showers created a new record rainfall
for Bethel. As of 1000 am 0.71 of an inch of rain
fell at the Airport in Bethel. This shatters the old record
of 0.44 of an inch set in 1996.

Dark

It's finally feasible to go to bed at dusk - 11:30 PM, so that's a nice treat.  You wouldn't believe how old it gets, going to bed in the daylight.  Genevieve is in St. Mary's for a conference for the next three days, and she took her camera.  She also has a funny story about a rainbow mural that she'll hopefully blog about when she gets back.

Me, you'd think I was working at a big law firm.  Workends.  13 hour days.  Jeez.  Who knew that selling out to the man would be so labor intensive?  But it's all in the name of justice, right?  We can't have people running around smacking people in the head with two-by-fours.  Not on work nights.

Random Thoughts

Being a real lawyer is interesting.  Actual knowledge of law and its application to the facts seems to be only a small part of the equation.  Stress management and multi-tasking are huge.

In addition to my own case load, I spent the week covering for one attorney who is out, awaiting the results of his MPRE.  He's in charge of drug and alcohol cases.  It's ironic that just as I found myself presenting drug cases to the grand jury and prosecuting marijuana laws, Half Baked and Super Troopers showed up in my mailbox, courtesy of Netflix queue set up months ago.  By Wednesday, I had 9 cases set for trial, five scheduled to begin this Monday and four the next Monday.  Plus an evidentiary hearing.  I won't lie, I did have a stress level, and I did spend some excessive hours at the office.  But by Friday afternoon, most of the cases resolved.  People pled out on reduced charges.  Now, just a few cases remain, and it will be fun to try them. 

Wow, in searching for a link for Super Troopers, I just learned that rottentomatoes.com puts the first 8-10 minutes of movies on line.  Awesome.  Especially for those of us out here in the boonies.  If you need a couple of laughs, Super Troopers was definitely funnier than I remember.  Here's the beginning.

Congratulations to our friend Nate Wilhite, who has recently left Dallas for a big relocation to our nation's capital.  He's got a few large mountains under his belt and tons of world traveling, and I hope to get him up here some day for an assault on Denali.

In other big work related moves, fellow ski-bum Jake Neal is currently in Korea, cleaning up military bases, eating dogs, and on his days off searching for the elusive and little known Korean surf scene.  Good luck!

Assault in the First Degree

Today I got notice that I'll be doing my first trial, set to begin on August 17. Fortunately, it's nothing major, just a Class A Felony. That's right, an A1 and I don't mean steak sauce. I'm a little bit nervous, but it should be interesting. Plus, I'm only co-counsel, so that takes some of the pressure off. And my fellow counsel has nearly one year of prosecuting under his belt. That's not to say he isn't an excellent attorney and role model.

It kind of illustrates how short-staffed we are out here in the bush. Despite our inexperience, I still like our odds. And at the very least, we can rejoice in the fact that we'll be saving the victim from a few days in heat wave boot camp hell. The victim is in the National Guard, and has been deployed, so he's currently training in hot hot Mississippi before being sent to hot hot Iraq. We offer him some cool respite in the YK Delta, and on top of that, justice.

And who knows, maybe my brother will come out and give us a hand.

Cool adventures

Here's a link fellow Michigander ('06) Chad Doobay's travelblog about his and his girlfriend's exciting multi-continental mission, which includes an internship with JRS in Lusaka, Zambia.

Fireweed Jelly

Genevieve is making fireweed jelly and salmonberry jelly today. 

Fireweed flowers:

Salmonberry:

Genevieve in action.  Yes, the mosquitoes are still around, but fortunately they are getting easier to deal with every day.

There are so many blueberries, the tundra is covered in them.  It is truly amazing.  And it makes for tasty breakfast smoothies.  (And bread, pancakes, sauces, ice cream, salmon marinade, and vinaigrette.)

For example, the following picture is where we were picking.  I'd estimate that at least 75% of the tundra you can see has blueberries growing on it.  You almost feel guilty walking around, because you know you are squishing perfectly tasty blueberries with every step.

As we were picking, Genevieve's totem animal showed up and lazily watched us for a while.  This curious fox stayed within 15 feet of us while we picked.  

Heading back home, across Brown's Slough.

Bethel Nightlife and Shasta Photos

Austin musician Danny Schmidt was in town tonight, dazzling the locals with his skills.  His second trip to Bethel in less than a year.  We love the folk music around these parts.

Jackson sent us a disk full of photos from the Shasta mission.  Here are some of them:

The team, sans Jackson behind the camera, at 4:00 AM at the bunny flat trail head. elevation 6950.  From Left to Right, Daniel, Gilder, Lisa, Mino, Megan, Jake, Kent, Dawson, Jeremy, Carrie.  Incidentally, Jeremy qualified for the US Olympic Bobsled Team.  For reals. 

An inspiring silhouette at daybreak along the trail. 

The roughest slog, up Avalanche Gulch to the Red Banks.  Note the number of people climbing.  With 15,000 annual climbers, it's no wonder they insist on having you pack out your own poo. 

Looking down from the saddle at Red Banks. 

Mino at the summit, 14,162, slightly more than 7 hours after the trip began.

Jackson at the summit, setting Ben free, Lebowski-style.

The team, mid-glissade.

A team photo of us feeling victorious and full of glissade permagrin at Horse Flat Cabin, with Shasta in the background.  Our big slide began at the red banks and lasted until the patch of snow located approximately between my right elbow and Damon Mino's head.