Thanks

Howdy all,

Thanksgiving is next week, and I'll be spending it in Nome. I'll be giving thanks for all of your prayers and to God for bringing me here to the "envy of the third world" to work at possibly the best small organization on the planet.

It's been a while since my last real blog entry. Nome has suffered two residential fires in the last few weeks. One killed a man, and another (Wednesday night) only injured someone. The fatal fire was started by kids playing with a lighter. The other was a candle left burning.

I was in Unalakleet last week, as my video post indicated. I covered an elementary and junior high wrestling tournament and cheerleading contest. As I mentioned in one of my live reports by telephone, standing 12 feet away from 100 elementary and junior high cheerleaders is quite an experience. Physically, I can only describe it as feeling like someone is yelling at you, all day long. Pretty exhausting. But they have great pizza in Unalakleet. Only about 700 people, but better pizza than La Fiama in B'ham. No joke.

"Into the Wild" is coming to Nome this week. So I'm planning on seeing that this weekend. The movie last weekend was "30 days of night." It's set in Barrow, which is way up north (by that I mean, yes, even farther than I am right now). That movie was a joke. No joke.

In other news: I'm famous! Almost. Okay, so really I'm just featured briefly in our newsletter, The Nome Static, for November:

http://www.knom.org/static/507/index.html

Long-time KNOM-er Tom Busch tells me I'm the 295th KNOM volunteer since the station began broadcasting in 1971. He also says that with only a few exceptions, his life has been enriched by each and every volunteer in those 36 years.

I highly recommend applying to volunteer here if you're not sure what you should be doing. Especially if you're interested in one or more of the following: journalism, communications, music, helping people, traveling, Alaska, cold weather, learning new things or seeing new places. If you have a good heart, this is the place for you. Apply and see what happens. I'm telling you.

The artificial harbor is frozen over and the Nome Nugget has pictures of people fishing through the ice. The whole Bering Sea will be ice soon.

I stopped by the Nome Outfitters store today and talked to the guy there about rifles and hunting. He gave me a hunting regulations pamphlet and recommended I take my .410 outside of town where there are ptarmigan and rabbits to be had this time of year. A non-resident hunting license is about 20 bucks for small game. I might just do that if they ever get in a new shipment of .410 shot.

.22 long rifle ammo is about $3.60 per box of 50, and the price is set to go up in the next few weeks. Last time I shopped in WA, it was $0.88.

The sun rose at 10:34 am, set at 4:58 pm. That's six hours and 24 minutes of daylight, a loss of six minutes 21 seconds from yesterday. Nome's RECORD high on November 15 was 36 degrees in 2000, record low was -15 in 1975.

Take care, stay warm and God bless,
Jacob