Law and Order

My day today: At the beginning of training my boss told us there is no wrong decision. After this weekend we learned the only bad decision is the one we made. My boss just came back today cause HE got the weekend and Memorial Day off and we got an earful on wrong decisions we made over the weekend. Then we met with our accounting director and apparently with every shift for the last four days there was something wrong with the deposit bags. Yup, every one of our staff members is making a mistake with our financial transactions one way or another. Good to know since we are handling thousands of dollars each week.

Then we have an Austrian lady who already switched rooms because she plugged her toilet and covered the floor with 3 inches of water. We moved her to a new room and she has now plugged the toilet of the new room. She also has broken two phones and constantly complains thatthe vent makes a noise although it makes a normal vent noise and we can’t fix it. Let's see what else happened to me today. My UAA email account finally got changed. It was "anall1." Yes I was anall1@uaa.alaska.edu. An= staff prefix, all= my initials, and no my password was not probe. Now its just "audrey" which is a little more professional. Someone didn't show up to work yesterday and today I accidental overstaffed us. We stayed an hour and a half into overtime because we were so busy. Oh and we found raw hamburger meat and urine-filled bottles thrown on the roof by the window of the third floor. So how was YOUR day?

We then came home to find some hillbillies decided to throw the contents of their whole house in our dumpsters which prompted the cops to come out. One cop said “at least we didn’t find any dead bodies this time” which I would normally think is a joke, but being Alaska you never know. It looked like a scene out of Law and Order which is the only show that is ever on our TV. Morning, noon, or night we are addicted since it’s the only show the three of us can agree on. The theme song is also my new ring tone replacing Metallica. You can really only scare the crap out of the guests for so long with my previous ringer before it gets old.

We went grocery shopping tonight and if I haven’t gripped about prices yet, here I go. A 2 inch binders cost $13, orange juice $5.50, milk $3.99, small cans of vegetables store brand $1.50, ice cream $6.50, and chicken cost as much as steak and fish. The prices are so high because they ship everything here. Gas is finally busting over $3 here. I don’t want to think what it is in NY. See in Alaska we have the natural resources but we don’t have the refineries so the prices aren’t much lower then in the lower 48.

Yesterday I went for a long walk around University Lake, as I sometimes do. It’s right down the street from where we live. Lots of beautiful trails here. The day before we went to the Sourdough Mining Company; this is a restaurant yet again rustic and decorated with animal heads and a stuffed bear. Normally they have Dusty Sourdough (featured in picture) performing each night but he cancelled the shows for that night. Bummer. Across from the restaurant is the Wildberry Factory. It’s a chocolate factory where you can see how they make their candy from behind plated glass in the large gift shop. When you walk in there is a chocolate waterfall, like in Willy Wonka. Unfortunately like Dusty, it too was not working that evening. But we still could check two more local establishments off our to-see list.

Work It

So how did I end of in Alaska anyway? In December I applied for an ACUHO-I internship. There were about 255 schools and close to 400 applicants. Schools contacted the students they wanted and the University of Alaska picked me.

Because the majority of students move out of housing for the summer, that leaves the residence halls and apartments available to rent to outside people. Conference Services outreaches to individuals and conferences in the area to sell its beds. The apartments go to long-term guests such as visiting professors and interns. The three residence halls are used for all other conferences such as summer baseball leagues, the Special Olympics, and academic workshops.

The two operations interns oversee the prep crew. They are responsible for cleaning each room and making it seem like a hotel room. Katie and I are the hospitality interns. We oversee the hospitality staff who mans the front desks 24/7. Our people take reservations; check guests in and out, handle payment, and all customer service issues.

The first week we were here we were thrown into training. The following week we had to train our staffs. At points it was quite messy and disorganized which made me a little tense. About half of my staff is composed of returning staff members who helped us out a lot during training. I felt like George W Bush. I was responsible for overseeing everyone and yet I am clueless and they are better off governing themselves. But apparently last year’s interns were really clueless and did a bad job. Therefore the staff actually thinks we are doing a great job.

We opened for business on Friday. There were some few minor problems like people checking in days early, prepayments not being shown on the computer, and toilets overflowing. Other than that we are off to a good start.

Since we have been busy this week, we haven’t had any real adventures. We have gone out to eat to several local restaurants, had an ice cream social with our staff, checked out nearby stores, went to the movies, had a BBQ with the RA’s, even went to a drag show, but nothing too crazy. Hopefully once we get everyone gets the hang of things it will free up some more time to explore.

The Landlord

http://funnyordie.com/v1/view_video.php?viewkey=3efbc24c7d2583be6925

If you haven't seen this clip you should. "I wooork too hard, I want four beers!"

Dead Camels Aren’t Much Fun

If you come visit me in Alaska, the zoo is not a place I will be taking you. In fact, if you ever come to Alaska at any time in your life, don’t see the zoo then either. Oh locals rave about the zoo, but these folks are crazy. Just trust me; you will save an hour of your life. The Utica Zoo is 10 times better then this zoo. That should put things into perspective.

So we went to the Alaskan zoo on Saturday. Yeah, it’s not just the Anchorage zoo but the only zoo in Alaska. A little history for a moment: In 1966 there was a contest offering a prize of $3,000 or a baby elephant, added as a joke. Well this dude who won wanted the elephant. The company actually found an abused Asian elephant and shipped Annabelle to the guy who was like “what am I going to do with an elephant?” They kept the elephant at a nearby ranch which had heated stalls. People came to see her, cause how many times doyou see an elephant in Alaska. With Annabelle’s growing popularity in 1968 a zoo formed next to the ranch featuring orphaned, abused, and injured animals. The Jerry Springer Show of wildlife.

Annabelle was really depressed. They had her paint but decided getting another elephant as a companion would help more. So they got Maggie. Then Annabelle died from a foot infection because being locked in a small barn for most of the year didn’t allow her to move enough. Now Maggie was depressed because, dude Elephants aren’t supposed to be in Alaska. They developed a special treadmill to fix this problem but needless to say the elephant doesn’t use it. Poor Maggie keeps falling down and not getting back up, which is bad because if elephants lay down for too long it damages their organs. The zoo calls in the firemen to help lift her up because as Saturday Night Live stated this week, firefighters have so much experience dealing with elephants in Alaska. Maggie has been getting quite the media attention lately because they think she is going to die soon. It hasn’t helped that one of their camels, Knobby, died on Thursday. They got Knobby in March to replace Boris who died this winter. See God put animals in certain places for certain reasons. Camels and Elephants do not belong in Alaska and if Alaskans want to see them bad enough google images, that’s all I got to say.

Being the marks like we are, we totally exploited the animal and wanted to see the dieing elephant. But they closed the exhibit. They also had the brown bear and snow leopard exhibits closed which is the entire top quadrant of the zoo because it was so small. The animals looked very sad and dead-like. They usually had only one of each animal and they kept them in very small cages. We felt bad. The only interesting thing that occurred is that next to the Raven cage was an un-caged Raven and feathers were rustling and beaks were chipping. So the only alive animal at the zoo was one we could have seen from our house. Good to know.

We went to the Moose’s tooth after the zoo to help cheer us up. Very cool atmosphere, very good pizza. Then we went to get supplies for our BBQ. We tried Carrs which was a grocery store inside an enclosed mall. We got salmon for some grilling but the sign said $2$3.99. We thought it was 2-3.99 per lb. It was supposed to be $23 per lb. But the fisherman dude understood our mistake and gave it to us at our original price. Officially the most expensive salmon I’ve ever eaten. But it was so good grilling outside. The apartments around us are filled with interns from outside companies and they got to move in on Saturday. The biggest internship employers are the oil companies so lots of engineers and geologists are around. We invited a few of them up to chill with us before the BBQ. That night the parking lot was full of them playing soccer and throwing freebies. Being rotating Resident Counselors on duty, we have to distance ourselves somewhat from any large gatherings or parties, but I can see us picking up a soccer game or two with them. Perhaps a group night at the Blue Fox?

While checking on the noisy new interns out of our window, we saw a moose walking by. We all ran outside to see it followed by the oil kids. It just stood there eating grass as we all are oohing and ahhing at it while at a 40 foot safety distance. Unfortunately I was the only one with a camera and my camera doesn’t take pictures well at night. But yup real live moose chilling outside my crib. Let that be a lesson to you folks. Don’t spend money at the zoo. Animals will come to you.


(Picture: not at the zoo but at the mall with the grocery store. It's a brown bear caught and stuffed back in the '70's. Probably misleading since Kristen is really only 2 feet tall. )

Everybody Wang Chung Tonight

There is a crazy 50-something year-old man carrying all his possessions with him, trying to stay on campus. He used to be a student years ago but he has long since maxed out his financial aid and is apparently 80 grand in debt. Hence we would not give him on-campus housing. This mad man has been harassing departments over the phone and it is suspected that he is lurking around campus. (I state again, Alaska is the number one state for rape and assault.) We have affectionately named this man “the wanger.”

There are a lot of potential wangers walking around the streets of Alaska. Yes there are a lot of men up here, but like RIT, the odds might be good, but the goods are odd. Well some of the people here are just odd. I need to start leaving my camera in my purse, because on the way to the restaurant last night we drove past this house with antlers and fur all over the roof and lawn. Classy.

We went to dinner at Humpy’s which is dubbed the best brew house in Alaska. Humpy’s was dumpy and crowded but the beer was awesome. I had raspberry wheat, and I also tried some pyramid Apricot. Because the place was so crowded, these old ladies who had spent their retirement check at the bar before we even got there came and sat with us and started talking to us. One was probably mid 50’s, the other late 60’s, and they had a guy with them who was probably 30. Before these cougars could give us any life advice, they left us to go hit on younger men.

Then we dropped off the tempo and walked from our apartment to a nearby local bar, the blue fox. At 10 pm when we left it was just as bright as the afternoon in Boston. We decided to take the short cut though the woods, over the snow mounds and over the beaver-chewed trees. Only Katie fell and got covered in mud, but it was funny cause it wasn’t us.

The Blue Fox is a townie bar and oh did we meet the locals all right. (A lot of potential wangers here.) I blame Holly because she wore bobby pins in her hair which make her both angel-like and a magnet to crazy people. Let’s see there was the drunk guy next to us who swore he owned the place yet paid for all his drinks and didn’t know James Brown was dead; the grandma and grandpa who loved our country music selections, especially me and Kristen’s version of Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy; the cancer-victim who I thought was a guy but name is Eleanor who sang every sad, depressing, song in the book; and then there was the men.

John- probably 40 something year old guy who wore a yellow and blue Hawaiian button shirt with black and red spandex pants, a fanny pack, and a head light like a surgeon or night bike rider would wear. (No I am not making this up.) He had messy long hair and smelled like he hadn’t taken a shower in the past week or two. He was our first admirer. Why, oh because we were singing Karaoke. Holly and I started our troupe off singing George Michael’s Faith. When we came back, Holly met John who kissed and cuddled her hand to his face. Poor Holly kept bumping into him. He sat in the front row and was swinging his arms and cheering us on. He later came to our table and proceeded to tell us which celebrities we looked like.

Mike was a 25 year old skinny white kid who seemed pretty drunk but not too far off from how he probably would have acted sober (a little behind in education, and realizing he isn’t eminem) He also was attracted to Miss Holly. He sat himself down and invested in our conversation. At work we have a code word that we tell our staff to say when they are on the phone with us in front of a difficult customer, “I can’t seem to find the moose file.” This was a lost moose file situation.

Then when Holly went on doing her duet of Meatloaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard light with Jeff, the guy running the Karaoke (the only non-shady person at the bar). During that, a 60 year old man dressed as a cowboy with horrible teeth asked Katie to dance. She, still covered in mud, refused but Kristen obliged and the two went on stage dancing behind Holly. Well apparently Mike thought it was a good idea for him to join them and he started grinding behind Holly on stage and licking her. Holly looked mortified on stage but kept singing. Jean and I were ready to rush to the stage and lay the smack down, but luckily Jeff beat us there and asked the little punk to go away. Yeah we left shortly after that. We walked back to campus at around 2 pm, which was the first time we saw darkness in Alaska. Even then the sky was navy blue and you could see the sun coming up and some daylight in the distance. We locked our doors tight to make sure no wangers or bar men followed us home, then went to bed.

My first few days....

Day 1- Let the traveling begin

I had a 9:15 a.m. flight from Syracuse, NY which is about an hour away from my parent’s house. Of course I was running on Audrey time (late) and got through security as they were starting to board my plane. I had to get my backpack checked because apparently I looked suspicious. My first flight was from Syracuse to Detroit on Northwest. I sat in the second to last row, right on the jet which also blocked my window view. When you combine my claustrophobia with my fear of heights, you can imagine how thrilled I was to be on this little value jet. We landed in Detroit which has a nice airport (surprizing me). The tunnel connecting the terminals has this color changing background set to nature sounds, which was very cool.

Second leg of the flight was fro Detroit to Houston where I was greeted by my Stephen who drove 3 hours from Austin to hang out with me on lay over. He gave me a very cute monkey that I named after him due to their likeness in appearance. (look how mushy mr. tough guy is getting after all these years!) We walked through every nook and cranny of the airport and surprisingly didn’t get any security guards on our tail. After an hour and a few hugs and kisses later, I sadly left my Stevie behind and was on my final flight from Houston to Anchorage.

I arrived in Anchorage at the international airport after my six and a half hour flight. The airport was pretty small and contained a lot of stuffed animals, or at least their heads. I met one of my supervisors and two of the other interns right away, as we journeyed to our apartment.

We are staying in a 3 bedroom townhouse on campus. I room with Kristen from Boston, the operations intern, and Jean from Kentucky, the Reslife intern. Next door to us are Holly and Katie from Buffalo, the other operations and hospitality interns. The apartments are huge. They are filled with not so comfortable dorm furniture, but the necessities such as a tv and a coffee maker. It was also stocked with linens and groceries. After my 14 ½ hours of traveling I finally passed out for the night.

Day 2-

Training began at 8 a.m. We met a lot of higher-up people and were oriented about Alaska and the University. Then we got a tour of campus. The facilities are pretty nice, some rivaling RIT. The library has planted trees, museum-like exhibits, a starbucks, and beautiful views of the mountains. The academic portion of campus is connected by glass walkways called “spines.” While walking in the spine we spotted our first moose. Yup we have moose like crazy up here that come right on campus like deer. But they aren’t as innocent as they seem. Some guy died a few years ago from a moose attack on campus. The mother’s are very protective of their babies. Kind of like the millennial parents of the students we work with.

In the afternoon, we met with Michael from Reslife to go over all the responsibilities of being a Resident Coordinator. In addition to being conference interns we also have to take turns as RC for the residence halls. We learned about all the scary crap that can happen: suicides, alcohol abuse, rape and assault, fires, exc. Yeah and they are putting us in charge of responding to these emergencies. We learned that Alaska is the number one state for rape and assault. Go AK! I guess people just get crazy from the cold and the darkness in the winter.

After training, the five of us interns took out the shared intern car, our 97 ford tempo. This beautiful machine barely got us through our wandering of mid and downtown. Anchorage is kind of dumpy and small. We parked in apparently the ghetto and were walking around, passing by some interesting characters. There are a lot of fur shops here equipped with such great merchandise as a fur jockstrap and a fur bikini. On top of the crazy fur building was this wolf-looking dog that looked like it was going to pounce on us. We ate at Rumrunners and downed a couple of pitchers of Alaskan Pale Ale. It was a bonding experience. It’s good to know that everyone has a dirty mind and is a lush like me!

While passing a “dancing ladies” establishment we passed a giant moose right by the street. He was just chillaxing, eating some grass. Then we made it to Fred Mayer. This store has everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. It’s like a Super Wal-Mart but nicer. You could by anything there from liquor, groceries, guns, tv’s, jewelry, home décor, clothing, party supplies, and a variety of moose turd products. After stumbling around the store in our near drunken state, we made it back to the clown car without getting the groceries we came for but other stuff and headed home for the night. I think this is going to be a very fun and interesting summer with some really great gals.