The last frontier and how not to hunt ptarmagan but at least we had some fun

Well back to more alaska stories. Tuesday went pretty well also, went to lunch with lisa at sea galley. The highlight of the day though was the ATS party at snowgoose. They had free food and beverages from 530-930. It was very exciting. We met up with silvy, bret, and dom who got there about the same time we did, so we had a good time. Once it started getting dark we took off and went to flat top to look down on the city. It was freezing cold and raining, but still pretty fun. Wensday was pretty uneventful also, went to lunch with jackie, lisa, and maria, then went back to the conference to watch ryans presentation. That pretty much wrapped up the conference. There was a fairwell banquet which wasnt too impressive, but o well. The house (and our hotel room, we basicly just relocated the house to alaska for the week) went to party with stevens point for a while then called it a night and went back to the hotel. Thursday we went ptarmagan hunting. We didnt really know where to look since all the people we taked to with fws and akfg dont hunt until later in the season. But we wandered around for a while then shot at rocks on the other side of this stream. I even got maria to shoot the .22, she had way to much fun with that. Afterwards we went up the road a bit further to where it was snowing. Stephen had never seen it snow so he was going crazy and the rest of us had fun laughing at him. Then back to the hotel to pack. Turned out the sul ross guys missed their flight so maria and I went to rumrunners and met up with ryan, eric, and ashely until lisa came and picked us up and took ryan and eric to the airport. Friday the rest of TAMU came up to girdwood and the 5 of us plus john and dom went to whitter and walked part of the portage pass trail. It was pretty cool looking down into whitter and the sound on one side and to the glaicer on the other. We took pepper with us and she was pretty tired by the time we were done. Saturday maria and I went back to the sound to go fishing with lisa and john. We limited out in about 2hrs, so definatly a successful trip. Back to girdwood, grabbed pizza from chair 5, packed up our gear and took down my malaise trap, then back to anchorage to catch our flight. Slept most of the way down and got to dfw without any major issues. Baggage claim was amusing since annalise called to see when we were leaving anchorage while I was looking for our bags in dfw. While on the phone with her, mom walked next to me and had no idea i was there. Now if i was my dog dex she would have picked him out right away, all us kids have come to the realization we rank below the dog in my moms opinon. Kinda sad when shes trying to send eddie back to college station with me and keep the dog. All in all a very productive trip to AK, had a good time seeing it a bit differently than normal, but itll be nice to be back up there in the summer. It was wierd seeing it dark up there, I think i saw dark when i was really young, since i went up at the end of august when i was 8 or so. The leaves were also changing, never seen fall for real anywhere.

We are the Champions of the World (or at least North America)

Well lets start by saying quiz bowl went well. It was single elimination and we hadnt played most of the teams there so it was a bit different than normal. The 1st bonus question was right up my alley- 3 falconidae without falcon in the name and name a character. well we had to challenge it since they didnt want to accept eureasian hobby, but they figured it out that it qualified. Another personal favorite question was "who is president of the wildlife society"? Annaliese buzzed in and said dr. orgeon. The moderator said no, its bob brown. Bob stood up in the back of the room and announced they had sworn john oregon in at 11am that morning so we were right and they were wrong. We played 4 rounds- 1 close and 3 not so much. My favorite score was 164 to 0 in the 3rd round. It was so pretty. After it was over dr. brown and slack took us out to dinner. If we won 1-3 we got to eat like him (nice food) and if we came in bottom 3 we had to feed him like we ate (taco bell). so we went to rumrunners but they wouldnt let maria in (who was our alternate and gets her name everwhere just like us, and actually could have gone in and done perfectly well, she new more than some of the other teams did) so we went to the brewhouse. The food was excellent. After that we went back to the hotel and crashed.

Monday was poster day. Maria and mine posters both went very well. Other than that we just hung around the convention center, drove around anchorage a bit, and visited the vendors. I got some cool books and random free stuff. I love free stuff. I even got a key chain tire pressure gage. How cool is that?