There was another 172, a 207, Maule and Aviat A-1B docked along the shore, plus this Piper PA-18 belonging to the State Troopers or Fish & Game, looking just awesome in HDR with such intense blues:

I’d set up a function key on my EOS 50D to allow the AEB switching to be easily able to shoot more than 3 bracketed exposures, so these photos and others on Flickr were from a 1EV 5 exposure sequence in Photomatix. This gave a much more even tone and less graininess which I experienced doing a 3 exposure sequence last week with the abandoned Army truck and burned down house. There’s definitely some great uses out here to capture the range of tones, especially blue skies. I can imagine in the winter time especially there could be some fantastic opportunities at sunrise and sunset!

Being around whilst people in the parade were getting ready gave the opportunity to get Iditarod 2009 musher Harry Alexie to pose in a dog-sled cart:

I pretty ran the length of the parade route, meaning I got to a bunch of shots from different parts around town which although tiring, was actually pretty good fun. No-one seemed to mind the idiot sitting the middle of the road whilst a dog team or truck was coming right towards me. Which was nice. Here is the well adorned Girl Scouts float:

At the carnival itself, the were some fun little market stalls set up, food vendors, raffle tickets for sale, etc. I managed to find a fun shot of Brian Kay adorned in the stars and stripes:

One more photograph I made mainly for the newspaper was of a couple of elders enjoying the festivities going on around them:

All in all, I was really happy with how the day turned out. I filled an 8Gb CF card in like 3 hours with 360+ RAW photos and then spent pretty much all Sunday processing them to get them in to the paper for the the 8.30a.m Monday deadline. But, they ran 6 photos in full color which was cool. More photos from the day are detailed in this flickr set. I’d then ended up spending the rest of the 4th out on the river with Jeff, so was a great day!

Which means I have a DMV title for a boat trailer, but technically no car to haul it!

Am working on that part But, am planning on leaving it down at the boat harbor once I get my harbor permit tomorrow. Is weird to think I have a snowmobile and a boat as my methods of transport. Can’t wait to get out on Saturday and take it out for a spin!

There must be a fantastic story about this old army truck. I will try to pick people’s brains tomorrow on it!

Right next to this location, there’s also a burned out house just sitting having never been cleaned up. Again, would like to find out a little more about it. I can only hope everyone got out safely. This is still my biggest fear with living out here:

These HDR images were created using the awesome Photomatix software, which I realized very quickly, and with HDR in general, not just this piece of software, requires a good number of images to work with. The Canon EOS 50D by default only does 3 auto bracketed shots at up to +/- 2 stops exposure. I have found a good tutorial to quickly adjust this to 9 to 12 shots which I hope will reduce the graininess present by a lack of range in the tonal adjustment processing. 5 to 9 images seems to be a good standard for creating HDR images. The tripod and balllhead were awesome in setting these up, with ballhead so much easier to quickly and precisely line up what you wanted, and the quick release plate meaning I could also easily move to somewhere else lining up shots.

I’m looking forward to experimenting more. I know with the right conditions or filters, I may seemingly be able to achieve results close to these, but even photographs I made at what I would consider the right settings and looked very respectable pale alongside an HDR composed shot now. Check out the large resolution versions on flickr to see what I mean It works really well, and just the effect I was hoping I’d be able to achieve.

And we may not have KFC in Bethel, however there was a QFC at one point:

But, the important thing was getting another front page photograph on the Tundra Drums of my shot of Joseph repairing his salmon nets:

Very happy I have a few extra photos on flickr I got from Friday night which were fun. Tonight I had some friends over for poker which then moved on to Rock Band which was great fun too!

In 10 minutes I was able to promote a replicated LUN on our off-site DR SAN, rescan for volumes on our off-site DR ESX host, and then add the VM to the inventory and power it up. Given our replication scheduling and speeds, I should be able to bring online a fully-functional VM in a state no more than 2 hours behind what the production server was. I’ll take that Finishing off the documentation for the infrastructure and can move on to other areas, such as migrating more of our physical servers in to the environment - I’ve already decommissioned 7, and currently running 17 production and 5 dev VM’s.

Today I bought the bullet and plumped for OS X and iLife updates, taking my MacBook from OS X 10.4 to 10.5 and iLife ‘06 to ‘09. Was literally 3 years ago last week I got the little guy, and I have to say, after a 2Gb RAM upgrade pretty much right away for under $80 and then a hard drive replacement, also around $80, after 18 months of abuse (literally - more than a dozen major airline flights, bush airlines, and 2 month road trip!), it’s been flawless and still powers everything I need without leaving me wanting. It’s probably the most impressive piece of computer equipment I’ve ever bought (I would say electronics in general, bit I do love my Canon EOS 50D!). Given I’ve seen hundreds of new machines passing through the office and workshops this past week for imaging and inventory, I know what the current crop of MacBooks run at, and for general day to use, this 3 year old baby is holding it’s own still!

I did head out to Pinky’s Park on Tuesday to watch a little softball:

Four night’s a week there’s a fairly informal league for teams to play in which was good fun:

Wednesday night I then took a ride down to the river to check out the boats moving in + out from people fishing. The last week or two there has been a good run of salmon, with fish drying all over town outside houses:

I also met a cool old local called Joseph that I watched repairing his salmon nets with the traditional tools:

He let me hang around a good 10 minutes or so watching and making some photographs, with one his dogs also keeping watch on the proceedings in case anything good happened:

On Friday, Jeff had Dennis and I round for a roast dinner. I got to play with my new Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens which I have fallen in love with! This is Dennis playing barman and making sure not a drop of tequila was spilled:

And then the chef himself taking a break after dinner to drink + chat:

I submitted a few photos in to the Tundra Drums after they got in touch asking for some possible photos to run in next week’s edition. Hopefully they like some of them and they get printed. Large sized photos of these ones here are on my flickr account.

Dog sitting has not been particularly easy at times either, even Nikko is starting to tire of the little monster that is Suka. This Nikko earlier today whilst Suka was distracted elsewhere:

And the other monster trying to big scary guard dog at the window as a plastic bag blows by:

This past week I also got cell phone through GCI. When I figured out I can pay the same amount per month for a cell phone with 800 anytime minutes plus unlimited evening and weekends as I do for a fixed landline, it made more sense to switch, especially given how little I actually use my landline as I’m usually out elsewhere anyways. Feels a little weird having a cellphone again and be sending text messages, just sucks to not have data service out here for mobile internet or MMS. As with everything out here, it will slowly arrive, and service/quality has been better than expected actually. Just need to get an iPhone working now…

The last couple of weeks have slowly been easing up at work with the bulk of the teachers and associated staff winding down. I am feeling kinda like a lost puppy with so many of my play buddies gone though now! I have the last of the VMware SAN replication to do this week with a consultant on-site Tuesday + Wednesday to move our second Equallogic unit off site. I already moved an ESX host to our off site location which works nicely given we have a 100Mb fiber line out there too.

I have a couple of website projects lined up, and a few photography projects to think about over the summer. Nice to have contacts now Some of those could turn out to be quite fun and a good experience. I scanned in 4 rolls of 35mm film the last couple of days too which gives me plenty of post-production work to do this week whilst hanging out here with the dogs. There’s a right mix of photos from the last few months, so will post some when I’m happy with the results.

But, it all actually went fairly smoothly. I built up a template for Win 2k3 Enterprise with the base config and software, then deployed to 4 new virtual machines. One of these is running Oracle for the backend database, two are running the PowerSchool application node, with one being designated for general staff + parent logins, and the other for teachers and grading, and a final server dedicated to serving images, scripting and PHP reports. I have also snap-shot’d the database VM and one of the application nodes to be used for testing reports and in training sessions. Add in the new SIF ZIS which will be being deployed by the state over the summer, and that gives 7 virtual servers for PowerSchool, a far cry from the reliance and strain on a single physical server.

I’m really happy with how the migration went, as it really showed the power our VMware environment provides in terms of flexibility and resources. It also takes a huge weight off my shoulders, as we’ve never been able to successfully recover from a simulated failure using the backups due to the complexity of the integration between components, so with using straight vRanger Pro snapshots of the entire virtual machines, I can recover in minutes. I can also easily duplicate entire servers for testing updates, new releases (such as the upcoming PowerSchool 6), or for training purposes. Given PowerSchool is such a core system alongside FileMaker, both of which now run in our VMware environment, my management work load and stress levels should hopefully ease up considerably!

We still have a little work to do tomorrow - I’d like to automate a snapshot of the Oracle VM to a test VM that can be used by staff for building reports or whatever, though due to the way the database is tied in to the host IP, will need a little scripting. I’d also like to duplicate one of the application nodes and set it aside for testing the upgrade to PowerSchool 6. Is all positive stuff though, and giving me a lot of confidence in systems moving forward.

Very, very cool! I wasn’t expecting to get a front page photo published Really cheered me up. I got home, left if for a while, then actually sat down to read the paper, and then flipped open a two-page feature like page 6 which had another 4 of my photos, one whole page just of mine:

And the second page had one of mine in the bottom right too. Cool State of Alaska provided photo of the guy wading through with a kid on his back from a Yukon village:

Overall, a pretty cool issue! Very happy to have so many photos printed, think it’s actually all 5 that I submitted to them. Am quite proud to have so many published, and especially since they all look like they should be there too! I pretty much set out that night to make a certain set of photographs after Beth suggested what to look for with regards to what would work well in a photo feature, and managed to pull if off better than I hoped for.

To make things even sweeter, ’tis a 3-day weekend!

Not quite as impressive as some of the aquariums I’ve had in the past, but it fills a nice little corner of my desk and adds a little interest too.

After loading up the boat with more boxes and playing around with the kids in the sunshine for a little, we then pushed out and headed back out along the slough:

We made the most of the sunshine and blue skies, as by the time we got back to Bethel it was starting to rain. Thankfully we got the boat unloaded and then back out the truck in my house before it got too heavy. This was mid way up the Kuskokwim to Bethel:

Captain Macy decided to take the helm for a while too (though Erin was still at the wheel…):

Really is one spoilt puppy

Was a fun evening though, nice to get out on a boat down the river for a little bit. The pizza + beer when we got back was a nice way to round off the night too!

18 Apple Remote Desktop connections plus a Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection I had to quickly work on one chain of our site servers. As Ted pointed out - a computer can multi-task, but can Iain? Will be glad when it’s the weekend and the schools have all broken up so it will quiet down for the summer.

Last Thursday I headed out for drinks with a friend which became early morning walking home with the sun still up. That was just weird. Friday night we then celebrated Jamie being crowned intercontinental teacher of the year (well, teacher of the year at ME, but Jeff + I didn’t think that sounded quite as grand), that rolled on til gone 2a.m. Normally, such a finishing time would be respectable, however when you are then woken up less than hour in to bed by firefighters coming in your house and up the stairs telling you to get out, it does not bode well. My neighbour had a small fire in the chimney flue which was cause for concern with smouldering roof timbers, and my side of the duplex being the only way way in to the attic. Cue fire hoses dragged up the stairs, through my bedroom, and getting to sit in a fire truck and look at the purty buttons and dials. At 4a.m after drinking a tad, this was the best I could figure with the camera:

I finally got back in the house around 5a.m, but then had to be up at 7a.m to get out to the airport to head to Anchorage for the weekend. When you’re boarding the plane and the stewardness says “don’t worry, sir, there’ll be coffee shortly” you know you look rough So, I made a sensible choice of not renting a car and called Beth for a ride. I spent the day with her and Loren before heading out for a meal at Orso and some drinks, before the draw of Chuck E Cheese won us over and we went to play skeeball. Quite surreal, but incredibly good fun. I won a bunch of coupons so traded them in for activity books and stickers which the guys in the office didn’t seem impressed with…

After poker til 3a.m which gave me a few of those green beer vouchers, Sunday was a lazy day with shopping, a barbecue with Beth + Loren’s friends, then off to the hockey game to see the Aces play in the conference final (which they ended up taking 4-0 a couple of days ago and now go to the Kelly Cup!). Tim Miller and a friend met up with us, and was a great game with plenty of fights. More poker ensued until the early hours of Monday morning, and then a quick medical appointment on Monday before heading back to Bethel. Where I needed a canoe to get home:

There was a waist-deep water down 6th avenue which was bizarre, especially since it ended up all clearing away within a couple of days. But, was fun whilst it lasted. Got some awesome photos too, some of which I’m hoping get printed in the Tundra Drums, such as Katrina Dominic rescuing Spencer:

I spent Monday night at a friends to let the water recede a little, then Tuesday evening went out canoeing around the slough with Sarah which was good fun. Figured since I could just about walk home with water boots on, was a good sign. Wednesday all hell broke seemed to break loose, but stayed remarkably together. I had a lot of stuff hit me at once I wasn’t quite sure how to deal with, but getting out the office with Dennis for lunch helped diffuse things to the point I can smile about it now. Opened my eyes up a lot and made me appreciate those I have around me. Feel like I’ve become a lot closer to some people as result of the trust and friendship they’ve shown.

Thursday night brought guy’s night at Ted B’s, so I snagged a ride to ACE to pick up a couple of cases of IPA to donate and save on a cab ride! It was a good warm up for last night, since my house was picked to host happy hour, which was really good. Was so nice to be able to have all my best friends round, plowing through case after case of beer, and munching on pizza. We also found the buzzer on the dryer, when bumped in to, is a perfect signal for everyone to take a drink! I also managed to get Bethany and Brent to don a Sunderland shirt to start the Bethel branch of the the Sunderland AFC Supporters Association. Honestly, I don’t think they had a clue what they were wearing:

Outside, a highschool graduation was quietly going on (seriously, they were all very well behaved) with a bonfire as the focal point. By 1.30a.m, we were like moths to a light bulb and being drawn in. For what it’s worth, wearing a cap on backwards does not let you blend in. Even as the youngest of our mob, I felt old! But, we had a good few minutes hanging out before deciding we needed another drink and some snacks and retreated back home.

By 3a.m I made it to bed, and then got to deal with the clear-up this morning, generally involving an insane amount of empty bottles + cans! Good times though. Thinking a barbecue is in order next weekend. Anyways, my plan is to leave the house as little as possible this weekend and spend as much time on the couch as I can.

Yesterday was just beautiful weather (well, for May 2nd in Bethel!) at 60F, so I decided to walk up to Suzi’s house for the K300 volunteers party so I could play with my new camera. Those unacquainted with Bethel will not realize the hike it is out past Larson Sub! Starting out, the river itself is still pretty frozen solid, with a little standing water seemingly flowing on top of the ice on the far bank:

Elsewhere in town, fire truck #1 was outside the fire station in the sunshine:

The visitor center and museum for the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge was also enjoying the warmer weather and big, blue skies:

Coming up on Larson sub, which is way the heck out of town, you got a good overview on how spread out in general Bethel is. This small size doesn’t show the detail, but pretty much everything along the horizon is houses, stretching from Tundra Ridge on the left through the center of town and out to Blueberry on the right:

On the final climb up to Suzi’s, I came across a stack of abandoned vehicles. This is definitely tripod territory for some HDR shots in the future!

So, I decided I hate the Tokina 12-24mm F4 DX lens It’s fantastic - I love how crisp the photos stay, even handheld at 12mm. This is certainly a lens that will deliver some awesome results with the Manfrotto triopd + ballhead!

The K300 volunteers party was thrown to thank all those that helped put on the K300 races, and the great weather meant everyone was enjoying themselves lying around in the sun. A huge sled packed with snow and beer helped, as did the big grill! Games, music and dancing rounded things off. I’m not one to post photos of random people on here, the K300 site can carry those, but Suzi did steal my camera (that’s trust right there!) and grab some photos worth sharing, first of me and Casie:

The Sunderland shirt was down to the fact no-one would realize how well we’ve been playing lately Anyways, here’s another with Angie and Erin:

I then got bored with trying to smile for the camera! But, it was a good afternoon/evening. After wandering home gone 1.30a.m, I then didn’t appreciate Jeff waking me up at 9.30a.m asking if I wanted to go for a walk later But, after lunch we headed out for a ‘little stroll across the tundra’:

Yeah right. Only in Alaska could you have been going from thigh-deep snow to knee-deep water in a couple of steps whilst wearing a short-sleeve shirt… But, I did get to fire off a few clips with a .22 semi-automatic pistol:

The ear plugs were mainly for this beast of a .44 Magnum, which although ridiculously good fun to shoot, scared the crap out of me with it’s recoil!

After making it back to dry land, it had filled in 2-3 hours on a Sunday afternoon, so we rewarded ourselves with a beer. Nothing like shooting guns to build up a thirst. I’ll put up some of these photos on Flickr in higher resolution, and I love my new Canon EOS 50D! Some of the photos from the K300 party were awesome with having the full control of a DSLR, and I’m very excited for what else I can produce with it once I get used to all the features, especially next winter with all the sled dogs.

A very short, sub-10 minute flight brought us in to the Atmautluak, a pretty small village west of Bethel:

There was quite a bit more snow down than around Bethel, was quite weird. At least the airline agent took the X-serve on a sled to the school whilst we took the 10 minute or so walk there, as I did not fancy carrying a 50lbs server box through the snow! There are signs of melting though, and these dogs are soon going to be swimming if they’re not moved to slightly higher ground:

After some minor networking issues, we brought their new server online without too many problems, got it replicating back to the district office in Bethel and then began migrating some of their staff. We managed to get a good half a dozen staff running against the new server which was most of their teaching staff and our goal. Even more surprisingly, Yute were seemingly on time to pick us up at 4.30p.m, so we grabbed a ride out to the airport. It’s a tough life sometimes working in Alaska - this was Ted + I in the back of a sled whilst Brent clung on to the snowmobile (the sled was a lot safer!):

On the plane, a rather curious navigation device that managed to maintain it’s position throughout the flight back to Bethel:

But, at least we were back in Bethel by 5p.m, a good end to the day. Good ol’ Yute Air finally managed to redeem themselves though - a couple of boxes we were bringing back for the media center never made if off the plane (even though we were the only passengers on it, the pilot helped us load them on, and in fact, had to move one of the boxes to get our bags off in Bethel…) and instead went completely the opposite direction down to Eek and Quinhagak That’s our last Open Directory deployment for the school year though, we’ve now got four deployed outside the district office, and a good spread of users running off them. Will give us some valuable testing before rolling out more users across those sites after the summer and then deploying the technology to more sites across the district.

Guess what I got in the mail today ? This was with the Tokina 12-24mm F4 DX on the front of my new Canon EOS 50D. It has been a day of silly photos, I admit, but I’m more than a little tired from the weekend. If I have the energy in the next couple of days to start lugging all this gear round town I might make some photos with it once I’ve figured out all the little buttons, knobs, and doodahs.