pella's first skijor race

dan and sky at the finish. the skijor race was at birch hill today, it is nice to ski with your dog on the world class trails because dogs are not usually allowed here. first was the 9k 1 dog race.

ted and julie finishing neck and neck.getting ready for the relay fun race.

pella pre race, she was pretty scared of all the sled dogs. we did the 3K relay race .here we are finishing the race. pella was pooped and didn't pull that much, which means i am pooped from skiing. it was fun to race and even though we had the slowest leg, my teammates were fast so we still did pretty well.
we then headed to my place for lattes and to watch the GCI North American mushing dog race that goes thru my neighborhood. now those dogs are fast!

we went to visit my brother dave today at his work. he works on these huge aerial cranes, he is coming to get us for a ride.
this about 70ft up. the view was pretty cool, they take them up much higher to see the Western Open over the neighboring Cog Hill golf course.Dave let me handle the controls once we were closer to the ground.

the rest of the family and friends came over today for a little open house get together so i could see everyone during my visit. katie showing me the art of licking frosting off of your mouth.my parents good friends the strubels stopped by. John Strubel is a very successful professional photographer. he gave ben this medium format Mamiya camera! ben is really excited and i thought i would blog a picture of it since he is in Deadhorse. he enjoying the 30 below weather they are having, pretty normal that far north of the arctic circle. here is your camera ben!

Back to Chicago

my ultra hipster cousin steve and mike in Seattle. i had an 8 hour layover on my way to Chicago to see family. from 1am to 7 am we stopped at dick's in the above pic for a burger, went bowling(24 hour bowling) at 5am and stopped by diva espresso. all these stops are near mike and sarah's house in phinney ridge, where all the hipsters live. when these two are not entertaining their cousin dea, they are big air boarders, though mike says he has turned down his jumping a notch. it was great short visit.
now here are two of my three bros. these are the city boys, jeff and tim. they do clean up pretty well though don't they? it is good to be back home in Chicago visiting family for a few days, it will be a short visit also, dialysis was hard to schedule so it took awhile to get here.

ahhh March in Fairbanks

this march weather is nice and warm. it was really windy at Angel Rocks today, the weather said wind chills to 30 below, that wind chill stuff is crap. it was way warmer than actual 30 below temps and we made a day of it.
ed had a dinner and martini night sat. nice and mellow compared to our last martini night, but good company and lots of laughs.
we went on a two hour ski from creamer's. since i can not keep up with these girls, i took caz to skijor the route. pella also had a hard time keeping up, after a big weekend she is limping tonight.

pella and I had a awesome skijor today. an entire 2 miles, way to go pella!
during a work break tonight, we stopped for some gelatto at college pizza. audrey is back in town and of course we have plans to knit. ben however, is out on assignment as they say in the photog biz. how cool is that? ben is going big time.

dialysis

my MWF 6am, 4 hour long, appointment of course is still dialysis. 2 years longer then i would have liked, but that is life. we are now back to ben as a donor and trying an experimental drug that Mayo has available sometime soon. it is very promising and brings down the antibody count so we could possibly proceed with a transplant. this is the machine i am hooked up too. it filters all of my blood and removes the fluid build up and toxins like a kidney but three days a week instead of constantly. the tall skinny tube is the dialyzer and acts as an artificial kidney. it is pretty amazing how well it works in that i can lead a normal life. dialysis has been going smoothly lately and hopefully by this summer we can have a kidney transplant.

Take Five Coffee Lounge

we are having a great Saturday enjoying Fairbanks' new coffee shop in the yoga studios on College. they have great new comfy chairs, very reasonable fresh salad and soup prices and free wi-fi!! finally. they are open from 7am-9pm mon-sat. , if you are in Fairbanks i would check it out. a good alternative to Roaster's food, coffee and wifi. currently they serve north pole coffee, but she said they just opened and are expanding the coffee and food menu.

early morning of the susitna

trevAH on his facebook, we are both checking emails at 1am. dorks. ed, kristen and ann are ready for the big race tomorrow and we are here to cheer them on. 100miles ski, bike or run in the Alaska wilderness. track the race at www.susitna100.com

Yukon Quest 2008

after a big breakfast this morning we walked the frozen slough to the Chena River to see the start of the Yukon Quest sled dog race. in traditional fairbanks style it was 42 below zero(when we started the walk) and everyone was sporting their warmest carharts and bunny boots. there were so many people out even with the cold temps, it was a blast! dan, brian, lisa, dea, ed, julie, chris ,tobin, erin...this is Phil Joy (Kumi's fiance) starting out. of course human and dog exhaled ice fog. check out dan and lisa's video of his start.
when we say Lance in Alaska we are talking about Lance Mackey. He won the Quest last year and the Ididarod, he was the first musher to do so.
another shot before walking to Taco King for a little jackson and his to do list stories and then back to the house.

ice fog

we have had some nice days of ice fog here in Fairbanks. ice fog forms from water vapor exhausted from automobiles, industry and exhaled. it forms at temps colder than 30 below. this is our second day of 50 below temps, with the predicted low tonight of 55 below. the strong inversion with colder temps near the surface traps the ice fog and pollution. this pic is at the IARC, just a few hundred feet and already you can look down on the ice fog.
down in it at the hut.
thanks ed for dinner out in the field. pretty nice to have it delivered! ed's sad face is because he missed ben's show. he was out in the wilderness waiting for friends to bike 60miles in the back country with virtually no trail...
our field campaign (for you Martin) has ended, just in time to tear down in these temps.

we went and watched Julie and Ted ski jor race yesterday. here is julie and caz finishing. it was a cold one, 30 below most of last week, 42 below today and it is supposed to be 50 below tonight! i am still working this semi night shift out at the hut, we will see if it can handle another cold week.
getting ready to race. caz doesn't really need a handler, but just in case i was holding on.

Ben's Gallery Opening

The opening tonight was a success. Ben sold a few prints and two to the Museum of the North, which is huge! What a great surprise. All of our friends were out to support and see the photos, thanks to everyone. It was a great showing. Here are a few more pictures of the evening:





we ended up all meeting out to celebrate at Lavelle's. I did a little video toast. It was a great night! His show stays up at Well Street from now until March 4th.

Ben's Photo Show

Ben's Frist Friday photo show at Well Street Art Gallery. This is one of the many images showing in his "Can't see Denali from here series", the opening is tomorrow from 5-8pm. (minus the big reflection from my flash, the gallery make these for all the artists)
First Friday's are always fun here in Fairbanks, but this time it is Ben's photos. How exciting! We are then headed out for a big dinner, we hope to see you all. I'll post some pics after the show.

family photo, getting out at 30 below, at creamer's field.

Happy Bday Ed!

ed cutting up julie's peanut butter almond chocolate cake!

postponed

Hi All. Well the transplant is postponed again. Thank you to everyone that has written and called, we appreciate the support. We should know something more in a week or two. It was sad news at first, but as always we just keep moving on. We are so lucky to have such a great support community here in Fairbanks and the lower 48. I am grateful to have a donor willing to do this for me!

I am really busy in the field and taking a class this semester and dialysis..I will sleep someday :-)

send off party

we had a send off party last night at Trevor's and it was great to see everyone. i was pretty tired and headed back to work, but we even played a round of baffle gab.
my thoughtful and generous friends, Lisa, Dan and Trevor put these packages together for Patrick and I. tea, yarn, llamas and empanadas (chick cycling South America), games and the OC. good thing I have a portable DVD player so Ben and I can watch on the plane. I will miss my Fairbanks friends in while in MN.
Patrick opening his gifts. Thanks to everyone for coming and we hope to see you all soon! Ben's friends from Barnes also put together a care package, very nice, considering I don't even know them. I bet Ben is a pretty good boss.

snow!

we had such a great snow storm last night. not really great for research at the hut, but great for skiing! it has not snowed this much in one night in years here, we don't get big dumps like CO, but we always have snow because it never melts. it was fun night out at the hut/shed for work. the video has no sound but goes like this:
here is the hut in the snow storm,
here is the met tower and inlet,
looking back at the shed only a few hundred feet away and...
the inside of the hut taking N2O5 measurements at night.
hanging out in the shed, it is not so bad inside.

less than a week until we leave for Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN! Ben will be missing the opening to his first show at Wells Street Gallery on the 1st. We have lots of friends that are going and will take pictures. The Gallery decided to have a closing party also. Feb 29th from 6-8pm, so mark your calendars for that and Ben will be there!

i picked up julie and dan from the airport last week, we caught up with stories from Anarctica and Germany. they moved up the transplant date, so i am leaving jan. 23rd! the actual transplant is jan. 29th. i think everything will be crazy until we leave, trying to be out in the field for work.

science at 40 below

we have been busy this past week moving our hut to our new location. days at 40 below create new challenges working in the field.strong temperature inversions trap all the pollution near the surface. this is on the way down the UAF hill.

happy 35th Ben!

we went with a fun group of friends to Silver Gulch Brewery "the farthest north brewery". look at the crazy face on this guy.
they have all these imported beers, the corsendonk was the guys favorite. thanks everyone for coming out.

Happy 2008!

Martin, Ben and Rebbecca out at Lavelle's Bistro. we had a good night with friends to ring in the new year. It was a fancy smancy night, with some very expensive wine(thanks Russ).

even with great food and all this excitement, i am sorry to say, we didn't make it to midnight!