Post numero UNO - so THIS is a blog...

Never done this before, but I hope it becomes a recurrence, as my future geographic location may be of some hindrance to the occurrences I am used to for seeing my family, friends and colleagues in New England.   

So, here I am typing away at 8 minutes into the eighth hour of the 8th day of February 2008.

As some of you may (or may not) have heard, I am moving to Anchorage, Alaska.  

Alaska: 

49th state of the United States, roughly 20% the size of the United States at 663,267 square miles, population ranked 47th in the United States at 626,932 (for those mathematically inclined that is roughly 1.09 people per square mile), has more coastline than all of the other states combined, and is 4,586.42 miles from Washington Street, Whitman, Massachusetts.

i.e. it's a long way from home.

And I'm going to be very lonely. So that means that all of you have a cheap vacation opportunity in beautiful, scenic and culturally diverse Alaska....

Allow me to explain my reason for moving to Anchorage...  So there's this station, called KTUU (www.ktuu.com). It's award-winning up the whazoo. It was the NPPA's 2005 Small Market Station of the Year - that's a big deal, not to mention they've won the Murrow Award for excellence in journalism (that's pretty much the pulitzer prize for broadcast journalism). Anyways, I met their Director of Photogaphy, Scott Jensen, at a conference in 2006. I was lucky enough to connect with him when he critiqued some of my work from the Red Sox at that conference. Over the past year and a half Scott has periodically kept me updated with photographer positions opening up at KTUU. Fast-forward to four and a half weeks ago... Scott emails me to let me know that a position has become available at the station, and after many, many hours of spending too much time inside Carolyn's mind, and after many thought provoking conversations with my family...and a couple of convincing emails from Scott, I decided this was the creme de la creme of possible opportunities that could have possibly come my way. An award-winning staff of co-workers, the opportunity to finally work in broadcast journalism, to be a daily storyteller, to experience life outside of Massachusetts (very far outside Massachusetts, in fact, closer to Russia than to the United States), and just the adventure of the "wild" Alaska - "The Last Frontier".

So here I sit in my hotel room in Anchorage, Alaska, still feeling the slight stings of jet lag. It is currently 12:50am EST...it's 9pm Alaska time....yes, Alaska has it's own timezone...

So if you happen to read this blog before I have the opportunity to tell you in-person of this new chapter of my life, I apologize.  I hope to see most of you before I shove-off for Southcentral Alaska, which will be sometime within the next two weeks.

I have never been known for my writing capabilities, hence my behind-the-camera tv and video work, no reporter jobs for this gal. I'm sure that a lot of you will not understand the reasons I've explained for me wanting to make such a major move.  If I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to further explain my decisions to you in person, I would love to do so. I really do have a convincing explanation that is better described in the spoken word.

Adios Pantalones,

Carolyn

P.S. NO - this is not the after effects of watching "Into the Wild" with Jeff and Sean several months ago....nice try, though.

Temperature update: it is currently 6 degrees F in Anchorage (feels like -7F).

Alaska trivia: Juneau, the capital of Alaska has no roads connecting itself to the North American highway system.