December Update! I'm Sill Here

Hello everyone! I hope all if well for you! I wish I could update this blog more, but the stresses of school have been too great. Things are going well...but free time is not a luxury I find myself with lately. Here is a little update for those of you who still check in from time to time.

Winter Concerts are next week!!! Jazz band, varsity band, and concert band is playing Tuesday, Dec 8th. This is going to be a little different from the other concerts we have done because it is going to take place at the high school. About two weeks ago, the high school that my students will eventually go to needed to change their concert date to avoid conflict with a large ski event. Due to a very tight schedule and limited options, they changed their concert to the same date and time as my concert. Since Randy Smith is their feeder school...I had multiple families with students at both schools and parents were having to choose which child to watch. That sucked. I decided to fix the situation by combining concerts. This is going to be a great experience for the middle school kids to play in a real auditorium!!! It is turning out to be a LOT of work to set this up...but I know it will be worth it.

The choir and orchestra concert is going to be on Wednesday, Dec 9th at Randy Smith (the same day as my dad's birthday.) All of the groups are sounding REALLY good. I am so proud of them all. I have four orchestra students who have decided to start a string quartet (two violins, a viola, and a cello) and the name they have given themselves may be the cutest thing I have ever heard. The are referencing the Harry Potter books by calling their quartet Lockwood's Army (a spoof on Dumbledor's Army from the books.) When they told me their name, I almost shed a tear...it is SO CUTE!!

That is about it. I wish I could post some photographs, but my camera broke. I am planning on upgrading this Christmas to a REALLY nice one =) I am pretty excited about that. I'll be in MN/WI for a little over a week of the holidays. I am looking forward to the time off and the chance to see friends and family.


Well, I gatta get going. Today is the Randy Smith Christmas party and a fellow teacher and I are making bacon wrapped pretzel sticks. They are AWESOME!!! Take care! I miss you guys down there!

Rock on,
~Mr. Lockwood.

Snow on the Ground 9/26!!

Hello everyone! I hope you are enjoying your fall...I believe mine just ended. I woke up this morning to find a light dusting if snow on the ground. I have some pictures to post of that soon, but first I want to relive the short fall season that I did experience. Theses first few pictures are at the place I probably spent most of my outdoor time at this summer and fall...and that is the Birch Hill Disc Golf Course!!!

The approach on hole 18


The basket on hole 16


The basket on hole 15


The tee box on hole 13


One of the discs that I dyed myself!


Hopefully you can see why I decided to spend so much time frolfing this summer/fall...it is beautiful up there!! Disc golf is free, I get to hang out with friends, and it is something I really enjoy doing (and I'm getting pretty good...I shot a 4 under on 18 the other day.)

The disc golf pictures were taken a few weeks ago. This is what Fairbanks looks like now:

The view looking away from my driveway


My driveway


Chez Bobb


Foot Foot out enjoying the first snow fall of the year!


Ok...That's about all I have for today. I think I am going to go out and grab a quick bite then go to school and get some work done. Take care everyone!!!

Rock on
~Mr. Lockwood

Oh My Goodness Have I Been Busy!!!!!

Hello out there in Bloggingland! I am sorry I have been absent lately, this school year is turning out to be harder than last year! That extra class I am teaching, World Drumming and Music, is turning out to be VERY difficult for me. I am trying very hard to come up with information and activities are that both educational and able to hold interest of 17 non-music students...and it is a challenge. The information given to me to teach the class is no where near enough to fill a whole semester so I am constantly looking elsewhere, usually with no luck. Don't get me wrong, I am still loving teaching here in Fairbanks...it is just a little stressful at the moment. All of my other classes are going VERY well...better than last year, it is just this World Music class.

On to the positive news. Rock-A-Thon is less than a month away. Fort those of you who may be newer to this blog, Rock-A-Thon is a fundraiser that the teacher before the teacher I replaced started and it is genius! Six hours of sitting in rocking chairs with music, food, and video games! Students raise money via pledges (like Read-A-Thons or a charity walk) and it is a GREAT way of raising money for our music department.

Other good news is that the Randy Smith jazz band is playing at our schools 10th year anniversary celebration and the choir is singing the National Anthem. This is a great community outreach opportunity for us. Music is largely appreciated here in Fairbanks and this is a great way for us to share our talents with the community. The jazz band is only one month into the year and is sounding great. The choir is also doing AMAZING!! Every rehearsal they blow me away. I started something new this year with choir, Music Theory Thursdays, and it is going wonderfully. I have a middle school choir accurately counting some pretty complicated rhythms. For those of you who have been in choirs, you may realize that this is a HUGE achievement. Rhythm reading is usually a huge struggle for choirs, not because they are unable to do it, but because I find that it is usually not a priority of choir teachers (this is a general observation and not meant to insult choir teachers....most of them do a wonderful job in teaching very important skills, but unfortunately rhythm reading is rarely in the foreground of the curriculum.) Middle school students in general blow my mind. The things they can learn if you take the time to teach them is unbelievable...like last years concert band creating the three minor scales from major scales...not just playing them, but truly understanding how they are constructed (lowering the third, sixth, and seventh scale degrees and manipulating then further to create the melodic and harmonic minor scales.) My jazz band last year also had a great head start on modal jazz. They knew what the dorian, mixolydian, and phrygian modes were and how they are created!! They lacked the knowledge of when to use them, but just knowing they exist and how to make them is a step in the right direction!!

Ok...I'm out. I have another long week ahead of me. I hope you all are enjoying the last bits of nice weather...I know I am. Even with my huge work load, I try to fit in a few hours a week of outside time while I can. I am sure I will find a routine that works for this year soon enough and I will hopefully be a little more regular with my posts.

Rock on,
~Mr. Lockwood.

I'm Still Here

Holy cow have these last two weeks FLOWN by!?! Students showed up for classes two weeks ago (on the 17th) and it has been a not stop ride of craziness since that Monday. I feel great about what I am doing with my classes and my students seem to be very well behaved and engaged in the activities I have planned, but it has been a LOT of work. I am teaching a new class this year, World Drumming and Music. We focus on West African and Latin American drumming and culture. This is a topic that I have always found interesting, but never studied in great detail, so I am working my tail off trying to keep up with my students who are picking everything up VERY quickly. My other classes are also going very well, but again...lots of work behind it. I was in MN/WI last weekend taking pictures for a good friend's wedding and my sister is getting married next weekend (a week to the day actually...CRAZY) so I am neck deep in photo editing and sub plans since I know I will not be doing any work while I'm in the lower 48. I hope this blog post does not sound like complaining...I truly do LOVE what I am doing. I have been exhausted these last couple weeks, but I have almost ALWAYS had a smile on my face. Teaching music is the greatest experience one can have...not only do I get to spend an entire day engulfed in music, but I get to do so while sharing the love of music with others and hopefully passing my enthusiasm for the aural arts on to the next generation of performers, dancers, singers, and composers.

Ok...well, I am off to school to get some more work done. I just wanted to touch base with all y'all to let you know things are going great up here in the Land of the Midnight Sun (soon to be the Land of the 11:00am - 2:40pm Sun)

Rock on,
~Mr. Lockwood

I LOVE ALASKA!!!!

So, I have been up here in Alaska a little over a year and every now and then I still think to my self: I cannot believe that I live in Alaska. This place is amazing. Take tonight for example...I get to school around 11:00am and get a TON of work done. I wrote lesson plans for the first week of school, I organized my classroom materials, and I put posters up on my walls. After I worked at school, I headed up to Birch Hill and played about 13 holes of disc golf in the pouring rain (fun...but wet), then I went home and made some dinner. After dinner, I went out with some friend (oh yeah...I now have friend my own age up here - I love it) and shot several games of pool. I know I could have done all of this anywhere in the world..but for some reason it feels different being here in Alaska. I don't know if it is the smell in the air, the hills/mountains in the distances, or just knowing that I am in the most amazing state in the union...but something makes everything up here feel significant...like it is the right place to be. I remember going up to the Boundary Waters with my dad as a kid and thinking to my self: I would love to some day live in the middle of the woods, away from all of the city lights and pollution...and here I am...living in a small log cabin in the woods in the middle of Alaska. this is truly a dream come true.

Tomorrow, if the rain stops, I am planning to go up to the disc golf course with the guitar and have a BBQ with friends. It should be a blast. After tomorrow, it is back to teacher mode. Early bed times and 10 hour days await me...but I don't mind because teaching music in Alaska is one of the greatest things to have ever happened to me. The only thing that would make this better is if all my friends and family were up here with me....I know you would all LOVE it here as much as I do.

Ok...I am done with my slightly sentimental rant. I am off to bed. Foot Foot says "Hello" to you all.

Rock on,
~Mr. Lockwood

Up In Smoke

I don't know how much of this news is making it down to the lower 48...but 2.5 million acres of Alaskan forest has burned down so far this year. That is actually not that much when you think about the total amount of forest in this state and is nowhere near our record (6.5 million acres in 2004) but the smoke is getting ridiculous. Forest fires are part of the natural cycle of a forest's life...but the smoke is coming into town and causing some problems. I grabbed a camera and tried to shoot some pictures, but the lighting was pretty bad. The sun is actually setting now, but it is hard to tell how much of our darkness is due to the setting sun or due to the smoke. Here are a few pictures I managed to take:

Downtown Fairbanks:


Another from Downtown Fairbanks:


By Fred Myers:


These next two were taken from my friend's 5th floor apartment:




The smoke looked a lot worse about an hour and a half before I took these pictures, but I did not have my camera with me. If the smoke is as bad tomorrow as it was today, I'll try to take some more shots...the severity of the smoke is easier to see in the day time.

I cannot believe that this time last year I was in the Swamp Donkey with Stephen driving up to my new life in the Land of the Midnight Sun. This last year has flown by! I have learned so much and have experienced a lot of great things. In retrospect, I am still glad I moved up here; 365 days and no regrets. I miss family and friends at times...but modern technology helps keep in touch. I hope everyone out there in blogging land is having a great summer (I may have written that in my last post...but I still mean it.)

Rock on,
~Mr. Lockwood

ASRA ROCKED!!!!

OK, so I realize it has been a VERY long time since I have posted...summer has been crazy =) As most of you know, I went back to MN/WI for a little over two weeks at the beginning of the month and had a blast. I had the opportunity to see a lot of friends I missed on my first trip back last Christmas. As soon as I returned to Alaska, I started teaching at the Alaska Summer Research Academy (a.k.a. ASRA) It was AWESOME!! This camp was fantastic. Kids from all over the country came to spend 12 days in a highly academic but very entertaining summer camp. I am sure most of you remember me talking/blogging about circuit bending; well, that was one of the huge things I co-taught in the module called The Sounds of Science. We had a blast ripping apart old toys and seeing what kind of noises we could create. Here are a few pictures (I blurred out the faces of the students, so that is why some of the pictures may look a little funny.)

One of the students stuffed a speaker and an 1/8" input jack into the pikachu and turned it into the COOLEST ipod player ever!


This was one of my favorite finished toy. The students didn't only get into the technical aspect of circuit bending, but had fun exploring the aesthetic aspect of the hoppy.


Another thing we did in our module was build a PVC marimba (well, technically it was not a marimba since we did not have wooded bars resting over resonators. Instead we hit the actual resonators...much like the Blue Man Group) We used some pretty advanced physics and mathematics to figure out required tube lengths for each desired pitch, then we fine tuned the PVC by ear. Once we finished putting it all together, the kids glued a bunch of stuff to it so it ended up looking awesome! Check it out.





Finally, we took sounds samples of all of the circuit bend toys along with other cool sounds we found (like my arm muscles recorded through an EMG)and mixed them all together into a massive composition. We used some GREAT synthesizers and modulators such as the Korg KP3!! Again..all of the work was done by the students.



Not only was ASRA a place for students to learn through exploration, I had the opportunity to play around with some way cool things...like blowing dry ice through tubes lit by LEDs.
>

I also played with LED lit spinning string. This was a great way to check out nodes and anti-nodes (also, it looked cool.)


The only unfortunate things to have happened during the camp was the amount of forest fire smoke in the air. It was VERY thick at times. I guess this is pretty common for Fairbanks. I guess when you live in a state covered in Boreal Forest (a.k.a Taiga) and you have about 1,000,000 burning acres...some smoke is bound to creep into town. This picture was taken on a pretty bad day...on a scale of 1-10, this was about a 7.


So now that ASRA is over, I have about eight days until I start my second year teaching at Randy Smith. Where did this summer go? I hope everyone out there in Blogging Land is enjoying their summers. I will try to get back into the groove of blogging, so please check back soon.

Rock on!!
~Mr. Lockwood

Summer Is Still Going Well

Imagine that...i am enjoying three months of nothing to do! Next summer will be a different story, with classes to take and other work to do...bur I gave myself this summer totally off as a reward for surviving the first year. This summer had been great! Dad and Sue came up for a while, I have been playing LOTS of disc golf, Mom will be up here in a few days, then I will be in MN/WI for a bit =)

I really do not have too much to update everyone on. I have been doing a lot of relaxing. I have read some great books so far this summer: Water For Elephants, The Kite Runner, Galapagos, A Man Without a Country, (those last two by Vonnegut), Into the Wild, and a bunch of David Sedaris books. It has been kinda cool reading. It is not something I ever found myself doing in my free time...but it had been a great change. I really enjoy not owning a TV.

Well, that is all for summer so far. I have been having a great time getting to know Foot Foot! He had/has a bit of a cold..but it seems to be getting better. I will leave you with a quick shot of Foots that I took a couple of days ago:


Have a wonderful day!!
Rock on
~Mr. Lockwood

Foot Foot is Here!!!

Yesterday I found Foot Foot!! He was living in a home just outside of North Pole, AK (not THE North Pole....the town about 11 miles away from Fairbanks.) You may remember me saying something about wanting a cat. Well, I now have one, and Foot Foot is his name!



Foot Foot (or Foots as I sometimes call him) is such a cool cat! He has the exact personality I wanted in a feline companion. He is VERY laid back, very content just sitting on his mat on the couch or lying by the window looking at the birds and hares. When he feels like it, Foot Foot will come up and sit on my lap for some behind the ear scratching, otherwise he enjoys quiet time. My favorite part is that Foots does not get upset or annoyed when you approach him for petting....I know some cats who would rather be left alone.

Last night, Foots climbed my stairs and slept in the loft with me. A few times while I was already awake (it was ridiculously hot in my cabin last night so I didn't sleep to well...I was up) Foot Foot would climb up on my chest and lay there while I pet him. I have mild cat allergies (well, extreme with some cats...relatively mild with Foot Foot) and I am interested in seeing if they totally go away. I vaguely remember having dog allergies until my family got a dog...then my body got use to it. I am hoping that will happen in this case. In the worse case scenario, my allergies gets the best of me and I need to bring Foot Foot back to the house I got him at. The pet foster home is run by a very kind woman who cares alot about these animals. The lady that runs the pet foster home gives a two week trial to make sure the adopter loves his/her new pet. I do not foresee my allergies being a huge problem, but at least I know there is a loving home he can go back to if this does not work.

I am very happy to have found Foot Foot, or should I say happy Foot Foot found me. It will be nice having someone to talk to at any given time of the day and to have another character in "The Wild Alaskan Life of Bobb and Foot Foot!"

Rock on,
~Mr. Lockwood
(and Foot Foot)

Looking for Foot Foot...

Today, my quest for Foot Foot may be coming to an end. I am very excited. I have dreamed about Foot Foot for months now, waiting patiently until the moment the two of us are united at last...that moment may be right around the corner! At 6:00 pm tonight, I have an important appointment in North Pole, AK regarding the whereabouts of Foot Foot...I will keep you all posted as my search progresses.

Wish me luck!
~Mr. Lockwood



"My pal's name is Foot Foot
He always likes to roam
My pal's name is Foot Foot
I never find him home

I go to his house
Knock at his door
People come out and say
Foot Foot don't live here no more

My pal Foot Foot
Always likes to roam
My pal Foot Foot
Now he has no home

Where will Foot Foot go
What will Foot Foot do
Oh, Foot Foot
I wish I could find you

I've looked here, I've looked there
I've looked everywhere
Oh, Foot Foot
Why can't I find you?

Foot Foot, where can you be?
Foot Foot, why won't you answer me?
Foot Foot, Oh Foot Foot
Wherever you are
I want you to come home with me

I don't have time to roam
I have things to do
I have to go home
Oh, Foot Foot, where are you?

If Foot Foot didn't like to roam so well
He would still have a place to dwell
Foot Foot, please answer me
I know where you are
You're behind that tree

Foot Foot, please come to me
Foot Foot, now that you're here
Won't you come home
Foot Foot, promise me this
That you will never again roam"

Ok...I Guess Bears Are Real!!

Hello everyone! I very recently got back from a week long road trip with my dad and his girlfriend, Sue. It was a blast!! (Warning...LOTS of pictures in this post.) We left Fairbanks and headed for a small mining community called Healy. If anyone has read the book Into the Wild, this was where Chris McCandless followed the Stampede Trail, lived in a bus for a couple of months, and died.


We spent a couple of days in Healy before heading south. We stayed in a very nice Bed & Breakfast with a great view. (I have pictures of the view, but I have not had time to look through them yet. I took over 500 pictures on our trip and I have been prioritizing which pictures get edited by how cool they were....the view was cool, but there were more spectacular things we saw!)

Before we headed south, we took the bus tour at Denali National Park. Denali is a very cool place with wide range of landscapes! This was also the day I was proved wrong...bears do exist. I have pictures, but I will save the bear shots for later...dessert is a great way to end a meal. We saw all of the big animals to see on the bus tour: Moose, Caribou, Bear, a Wolf, and a Lynx (The wolf was quite rare...and I bet most people do not get a chance to see a lynx either)

(I couldn't get a shot of the lynx. They do not like to be seen, so it was camera shy)

Also, we saw a few Willow Ptarmigan, the Alaskan state bird. These birds use camouflage as a self defense strategy, so when approached, instead of flying away, they just sit there and hope you do not see them...well, I saw them.

(I love their feathery feet and the very strange noises they make!)

One more bird shot....a few cool looking ducks!


We were very lucky that Denali was out!! Only about 20-25% of visitors get to see the mountain due to clouds. Denali, also known as Mt. McKinley, is the tallest peak in North America. The native Athabaskans called this mountain Denali, or "The Great One," so that is what I will usually call it, but Denali and Mt McKinley are two names for the same thing. It was not all the way out, but we got a pretty good view of most of the 20,320 ft mountain.


After Denali, we went towards Anchorage. We decided to pull off into a small campground and look around. It was pretty nice, but when we talked to a guy in a camper he said, "I was just down there by the water and saw a couple of grizzly bear cubs, so I backed away slowly before their mom found me." The last thing we wanted to do was set up tent less than 100 yards from a known grizzly bear with cubs...seen less than an hour from when we ourselves were on the very stream the cubs were playing around. We left. We pulled into another campsite not far down the road and found it to be mostly for campers, so we decided to keep on driving. While leaving the moter home campground, we saw a grizzly bear walking across the parking lot! When I woke up that morning I was positive that there were no such thing as bears...I was proven wrong. I went from not believing in bears to believing they are EVERYWHERE!!! We drove for about another hour until we found a very nice campsite. This one was a lot bigger and populated by several families with kids! This was good news for us. I thought to myself: now I do not need to out run a bear, just a few kids with much shorter legs than mine! (I am joking of course, but the kids did make a lot of noise, a good bear repellent in my book.)

After a bear-free sleep, we hit the road. We arrived in Anchorage and decided to keep driving to a small fishing community called Whitter. In order to reach Whitter, you need to drive through a two and a half mile, one lane tunnel, under a mountain. This is one of the longest one lane tunnels in the world and the ONLY one lane, under mountain, tunnel that is shared by a train. Traffic was allowed to leave Whitter on the hour for a 15 min window and then traffic could head towards the sea port on the half hour, again, for a 15 min window. I am assuming that all traffic is held when a train needs to use the tunnel.

These two shots where taken outside of Whitter, before we went through the tunnel.




While in Whitter (I like the sound of that...While in Whitter...it sounds like a book title) we had some dinner and I took some cool shots of boats, there were a lot of boats.





We ended up driving all the way to Seward to camp. We had an AMAZING view from this campsite and stayed up late by a fire to enjoy the view with some wine...a good night!






I woke up early the next morning to shot some close ups of marine life.






After Seward, we started our drive back north to Fairbanks. It was on this drive that we had the amazing opportunity to come across a bear on the side of the road digging up some roots. This is exactly what I wanted...a close up bear encounter from the safety of an idling car. I know I cannot outrun a bear, but I am pretty sure a car can.

BTW...should never try to run away if charged by a bear...you should stand your ground and yell while waving your arms. If it is a brown bear/grizzly bear, he is most likely bluffing when he runs at you...he will stop short and then walk away. If you do think a brown/grizzly bear is going to attack, you should drop down and play dead. Once you are not viewed as a threat, the bear should loose interest. If you are being charged by a black bear, again stand your ground and yell. If the black bear wants to attack, you are encouraged to fight back as fiercely as you can....apparently black bears do not loose interest as fast. I do not know the strategy for Polar bears, but I am guessing it involves NEVER GET CLOSE TO ONE! They will eat you! Polar bears are the largest land carnivore on the planet!

Ok, here they are, the promised bear pictures. I took a LOT!! Here is a small sample of the ones that turned out best.










So there it is...proof that bears are real. Who'd a thunk it? Well, I should get some sleep. It is past 1am here (and it is still light enough to read a book outside) I now have internet at my cabin so I should have no problems updating this blog and responding to comments! I love receiving comments, so don't be shy =)

Rock on
~Mr. Lockwood

Happy Memorial Day

Wow...two blog posts in two days!! Not bad considering I still do not have internet at home...I AM A BLOGGING MACHINE!!! Ok...maybe not.

I woke up this beautiful Memorial Day morning without a single item on the to-do list. I thought to myself, "I think it is a good day to pack up a bag, climb up a bunch of rocks, eat lunch, and come home. And that is exactly what I did. I found an old backpack and started filling it up with water, snacks, and camera gear. I then hopped in the car and started driving to Angel Rocks. If you are an avid reader of this blog you may remember me going to this same location last fall. On my last visit to the rocks, I was a little apprehensive about doing a lot of climbing. I was pretty out of shape then. Now, about 25 pounds thinner and a heck of a lot stronger, I felt much more confident relying on my body to get me around in difficult terrain.

I made it to Angle Rocks around 11:00 am and started straight for the trails. The climb is rough, hot, and steep! I felt great this time around as I approached the first small plateau. At this point in the story I think that pictures will do better than words:

This shot was taken at the first plateau. Those rocks sticking up were my goal. I was going to be on top of everyone of them before I went home.


Me on the first plateau...a couple of nice, young hikers took the shot for me:


I nice view from one of the rocks:


Looking down at the other peaks...I made it to the highest one!!


Me....quite high up at this point! I rested my camera on my pack for this one and used the remote.


Finally, I saw some flowers growing from the side on one if the rocky spires. I was lucky enough to have captured a bee in the shots as well:




While on the rocks, I did just what I set out to do: climb, eat, and leave. On the way down, I ran into a parent of a student. It was a little odd being in a sleeveless shirt and all; exposing my tattoos to the world. It was fine though. I guess the student was up on the rocks ahead, but I seemed to have just missed her.

I got home around 3:30 and took a nice little nap. After I awoke, I edited a few shots, jumped in the car and drove to the University (for the free internet) to share them with you =)

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and I wish you all a great week! My dad and his girlfriend will be up here in about 4 days, so I am excited! I am sure there will be LOTS of pictures after that!

Rock on,
~Mr. Lockwood