diomede, other

Well, two years is much less time then what I wanted, but so it goes. So it goes. Farewell, Diomede–I’ll miss you. I’ll miss my students. I’ll miss those kiddos. A lot. I’ll miss my coworkers who also are some of my best friends. I’ll miss the store and the summers and the smiles and the friends and the wild experiences and the friday night ball and the birds and the crab and the eskimo food. There are many more things I am thinking and feeling about having to leave Diomede; it all needs time to mull about and settle, though. Right now I’m light and the ‘thinking’ and heavy on the ‘feeling,’ and the feelings are largely composed of sadness and frustration.

One chapter ends, another begins. While I am sad to have to leave the island, I definitely am excited to work in Lake & Pen, and I’m excited about lots of flying, reading, writing, music, and drawing this summer. Well, ok. Realistically, probably only two or three of those things (I tend to say I’m going to do more then I actually do).

Also: an hour before our ride arrived the weather had cleared out enough and I launched my rocket. The cloud ceiling was at maybe 1500-2000, and she punched through it quicker then you can say bub’s your uncle. The sound was truly awesome. Launching big rockets is something I would like to do more often.

Liftoff
Liftoff
Farewell, Diomede
Farewell, Diomede
The crew
The crew
diomede, other

This is what it’s like to fly in to Nome in a Bolkow Bo-105 in the springtime. Moderate breeze, good pilot with a steady hand.

Pardon the two ‘oh I should rotate ninety degrees here’ moments. I thought it’d be cool to be able to see what the pilot was doing better, but when I’m taking video I tend to forget that I can’t just, like, rotate part of the video so that it’s all right side up. I don’t shoot video very often.

Also, this is a pretty good approximation of the view from the back seat:

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diomede, other

She’s finished. Permanent-marker coloring job, parachute and shock cored rigged and attached, motor loaded.

Today (the last day of school!) was rocket day, the kids fired off all of their rockets, I didn’t launch mine though–visibility wasn’t too good, ceiling of maybe 400′. I’m hoping for a clear morning. In the past half hour (it’s 2:30am now) things started to clear up a little bit, so there’s hope!

Also, there are a couple pictures of the fleet of my students. All launches were successful! I have more photos, but they are all of students working on their rockets, so I shouldn’t post them (privacy). I don’t have any photos of the launches, as I was rather busy at the time :)

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diomede, other, stories

More rocket building! She is almost ready to fly. I skipped a step involving putting glue into a spot I firmly believe there is no way to get to without some specialized tool (super narrow and long glue syringe?), which I don’t have. The glue was to firmly connect the fins to the body tube, so I figured I’d just make some mega epoxy filets on the outside. Same thing, right? Actually no, because epoxy is way heavier then CA glue, so she’ll need a CP/CG check once everything else is done. Basically: if the center of gravity (CG) is too far aft (i.e., behind this rockety thing called the “center of pressure,” or CP) the rocket naturally goes into a turn–not a spin, a turn–as soon as it’s in flight. Turning rockets are bad juju. Speak of bad juju, I will add–at risk of jinxing this whole thing–that I am a wee bit worried that the fin mount rings aren’t well-enough secured to the motor tube. If that concern bears fruit (weird way to say it? yup), then the motor and motor tube will blast through the rocket and fly god-knows-where, spinning and turning and corkscrewing at speeds extraordinarily unbecoming for such behavior. Exciting! I believe I will wear scientist goggles and hide behind a piece of plywood for the launch.

:)

Checking the fin mounts for alignment in the body tube
Checking the fin mounts for alignment in the body tube
Fins mounted!
Fins secured!
Final motor mount centering ring epoxied in and fin root filets done. She's close!
Final motor mount centering ring epoxied in, launch lugs mounted, and fin root filets done. She’s close!
Thanks to willis for storing his tripod in my classroom, for without it this selfie would not have been possible!
Thanks to willis for storing his tripod in my classroom, for without it this selfie would not have been possible!
diomede, stories

No, actually, literally, Russian dogs. From the Russian military base across the dateline. They showed up last week and wandered around, staying clear of the village. Then yesterday three of the four took off straight out to the edge of the sea ice, skirted north around the open water and then made tracks straight back to Big Diomede. They left one behind, which was shot late last night.

Seriously, I’m not making this stuff up!

The second photo is a very, very very cropped version of the first.

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diomede, stories

There is a story behind this picture, email/comment for the details. Summary: it was either the best day of my life or the second best day of my life. Jury’s still out. Huge thanks to Ross for the photo!

photo

diomede, other, stories

My science students have been practicing weather observation and some basic forecast. They check out the current barometric pressure and the predicted barometric pressure for the next day and they write a weather forecast.

Yesterday they predicted bad weather today. Right now, it’s foggy, rainy and snowy, windy, and some of the really big waves I can see hitting the south end of big diomede (southerly wind means the big waves hit the south sides of the islands) are crashing well over a hundred feet high.

Success.

diomede, other, photography

Well, I used to think that there was nothing like a great day of teaching to make me feel like a superhero, but alas it has been matched. While cruising over beautiful terrain in a helicopter, it’s easy to forget that I am not superman. And I get to cruise over beautiful terrain in a helicopter to go to the school where I teach. How am I this lucky??

WHOOOOSH-ZOOM-WOW
WHOOOOSH-ZOOOOOM-WHOOOOSH