Skiing freshies in October!

What better way to celebrate the 200th post to this blog than with the inagrual appearance of video... vidoeo of skiing fresh pow pow yesterday up at Hatcher Pass!

A few days with the padres

My parents came to visit a couple weeks ago. The last time I saw them was during Christmas, when we were together in Argentina! It was really great to have them up here, and let them experience the beauty of Alaska in the fall. We drove up to Talkeetna for a night and spent the remaining few days chillin' in Anchorage. Below my mom and dad are waiting for dinner to finish while hanging out in the my (and Joshua's) new casita.

"What do you do?"

I've often wondered why people ask "What do you do?" when they really mean “What is your job or profession?”

I’ve also wondered why people don’t ask, in a literal sense, “What do you do?”

If they did, I would answer: I travel the world and meet people of all walks of life. Every morning I wake up excited to smell the aroma of fresh coffee while reading the newspaper. I write as if it were the oxygen I need to breathe. I run, inhaling deeply the oxygen I do need to breathe. I ski. I laugh. I learn.

Yet, it may only be close friends and devoted blog readers who know this about me. I certainly don’t mention it in the cover letters for job applications that supposedly serve as an introduction. Nor do I use it in my reply to the many acquaintances who inquire about what I’m doing…. with a tone of “you graduated, you had your once-in-a-lifetime (ha!) fun of tromping around the world, now what job is it that I can define you by.”

This past month… missing conspicuously out of this blog… has been spent coming to a compromise between the realities of “normal” life and the free-spirited nature I’ve nurtured during the last several months.

In the end, this compromise reads: “A source of income to meet financial obligations is necessary, but being defined by that source of income is not. The excitement I feel about my new job is wonderful, but happiness is not dependent on being in one particular place or situation. A little focus now will reap many rewards later.”

BTW, the new job is at KTUU Channel 2 News!! I get to be an oh-so-auspicious-sounding “Associate Producer”… or, in my terms, I get to be in a news room learning from amazing people about the role and potential of the media in our local community aka world!!