When it's Springtime in Alaska... it's 40 below.

(It's not really that cold, but that's a common expression around here, and lyrics to an old song...)

Well, it's been more than a month since I wrote anything here. Spring has come to Nome, kind of. It was 26*F today, but 17 yesterday. It is still snowing and the Bering Sea is still covered with ice.

The sun came up at 6:33 this morning. It will go down at 11:29. So we're getting about 17 hours of daylight, and the summer solstice is still almost two months away...

Temperatures were above freezing for a couple of days because of cloud cover during a really stormy weekend, so that actually cleared snow from parts of the street and revealed pot holes and puddles. Most of the streets are dirt, but it's not really dirt even. It's more like walking on a thick, muddy sponge. I hadn't really seen the ground since October.

They call it "break-up" when the snow and ice melts for spring. I'm not sure how long it lasts, but so far it is worse than winter -- more wet and less consistent. I miss walking on solid, even dirt.

I see in the national news every day that gasoline prices are reaching record highs across the nation -- up around $4/gallon in some places. It has been twice that high in the villages in Alaska for years. I guess somehow Alaska doesn't count as part of the nation when they talk about statistics and rising costs. Milk here is around $6/gallon, and has been since I got here in September. When we hear the Lower-48 lament on ABC National Radio News it is kind of funny, and kind of insulting.

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In other news, I got a part-time job at the Nome Youth Facility -- it's the juvenile detention center in town. So I start on-the-job training this weekend.

At KNOM we have a call-in show on Thursday called Sounding Board. We take turns choosing a topic and hosting the show. It is on a 7-second delay in case a caller slanders anyone. I hosted the show last week. The subject was Bypass Mail -- one of those peculiar things we have in Alaska -- where mail carriers can fly mail straight from sender to recipient, bypassing the post office. Anyway, they're thinking about changing some mail hubs, which could change who gets money for shipments, and some people are up-in-arms. We got a caller from St. George. It is an island WAY down south, about 700 miles.

That's like someone in Seattle listening to a radio station in Sacramento, California.

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A couple of recent news headlines from around Alaska:

"Without Running Water, Illness Rates Soar, CDC Finds"
(A lot of villages lack running water and sewer. The study says, basically, if you don't wash, you get sick... thanks for the tip CDC. I can see why they pay you guys so much)

"Avalanche knocks out hydro power"
(Juneau -- Alaska's capitol city -- lost all it's hydro power and is on back-up diesel generators. Repairs will take at least three months. It's causing all sorts of environmental issues, and the rate is going from 12 to 56 cents per kilowatt-hour. Electricity use has already dropped 30 percent. Just shows how much power we probably use when we don't have to...)

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Our neighbor, Sarah Hanson, had her CD release over the weekend. You can find her songs on iTunes. She was born in Nome, went to WWU, lived in Fairbanks, and is back in Nome. Really good stuff. One of my roommates also has a song on the CD, and opened for Sarah on Sunday.

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I took part in a short story writing contest on Saturday. They e-mail contestants the story theme or idea on Saturday morning, and writers have until Sunday morning to submit a story, so naturally it wasn't my best work ever.


Well that's about all I have for now. Sorry it has been so long since I wrote last.

Take care and God bless,
Jacob