A Bit of Rick-Type Trivia

Ever wonder how far we are from you? Or you from us? Here are a few tid-bits I looked up to feed my need for odd info:

These are distances from Sitka "as the raven flies"... not driving...

Logan 1480

Long Beach 1800

North Carolina 2960

Seattle 865

Minnesota 1940

Memphis 2580

East Tennessee 2760

Idaho Falls 1380

Maryland 2835

Fun and "Bad" Habits

Samantha seems to enjoy herself on her dad's lap.  Mike looks forward to holding his little girl when he gets home from work.  He has treated my daughter well, so I shouldn't expect my granddaughter to be any different.

However, Samantha likes to watch the TV...must be the movement of the image... so Anneka set her up with a couple of props while she indulged.(no infant consumed any carbonated cola substance in this picture)

Don't Kill Anna the Lawyer!!

I don’t know what a lawyer is called in German, but Anna would be a good representative. She has worked with the Mock-Trial team this year and went to the State competition last weekend in Anchorage where they took 3^rd place. Anna is on the team with another of the exchange students… Fernando, who is from Chile.

In Mock-Trial the teams have a “case”. Piles of evidence and participant descriptions are included. Anna was on the “prosecution” team and presented the "opening statement". They learn the proper way to present opening/closing statements, how to question a witness, cross-examine, when to object, what not to say, etc. Some of the team plays the defendant or the other witnesses. Anna has had fun doing this and it has given her the chance to see how the American court system compares with the German. She also received 3 different nominations for “best lawyer” during the competition.

Cold and Snow

February has been unusually cold for Sitka.  It got down to the single digits for several nights... the record low ever in Sitka is zero.  We woke up one morning to find the cove behind the house frozen over.  This is a direct link to the ocean and there was NO water moving.  We average only 20" of snow a year and just in a week we had over 3 FEET.  The cold started first and our small lake in town was nice and frozen.  the even put a set of flood lights in to allow for night skating.  Then the snow hit... the ice was covered with all this snow.  People were now x-country skiing and driving their ATV with snow plows on the ice to move enough snow to play hockey or skate.  Someone even plowed a long path for people to walk around the lake.  Several of the side roads got so narrow that they became one lane.  

Monday the 5th we took a short hike up to a little lake.  The snow on the trees was incredible and again the iced lake had all that snow on it

 D'Artagnan had a great time running out on the "lake".  He loves to chase rock that we throw into the water, but now...no rocks.  He also like to go after snowballs.  

So I'd thow snowballs and he try to find them.  As 

today(15th) we are almost clear of snow after a week of rain and warmer temps...more normal.  The big weekend snow found Meg, Charles, and Anna in Haines where the temps were below 0 and the wind chills 25-30 below.  This weekend Anna is in Anchorage being cold again.

Jazz Fest and "Nat King" Charles

The first weekend in February is the Sitka Jazz Festival. This was our 3rd one. It is a mix of local and regional middle and high schools groups with professional talent from around the world. Southeast Alaska has a great tradition of jazz. Even in these small schools there is enough talent for groups that are better than I ever heard in Utah or California. The professionals do workshops with the students in things like improv, techniques, composition. This year we had school groups from Anchorage and Juneau, as well as few more I can't remember.

Sitka had 3 bands and one vocal group. This included 2 the middle school jazz bands. The high school vocal jazz is where Charles performs. He has discovered the joy of singing and this semester is also in the regular choir. Meg could not squeeze vocal jazz into her schedule this year although she sang with them last year.

The professionals included a trumpet player from the northwest(the down south one), a sax player from New Orleans, a jazz

trio whose pianist is from Israel, and a jazz vocalist from the San Fransico area. All were awes. They not only performed by themselves, but with each other and with the school bands.

Charles got to do a duet with vocal jazz during the Nat King Cole standard "Unforgetable". So not only is he a first year singer, but he has the guts to be in the limelight. A cool kid.

Since Meg didn't get to sing, she helped with the video crew, running one of the cameras. It was a lot of standing, but she had a good time, learned some stuff, and used her creative eye to give us some really cool shots of the performers.