My year in Alaska

In January of 2004 I flew up to Anchorage. It was 74 degrees when I left New Orleans and 4 degrees when I landed in Alaska. As I walked across the snow covered, outdoor parking lot looking for my rental car I thought, "I'm freezing my ass off!" Then I remembered that I'd unbuttoned my jeans on the plane and forgotten to re-button them. They had slid down as I lugged baggage, walking across the lot. I really was freezing my ass off. Welcome to Alaska.

My background is in health care management; mostly fraud protection for government health care programs. I'd gone to Alaska to build fraud protection for the Alaska Medicaid program. It took a year and I managed heavy duty, industrial strength sightseeing. Its hard to grasp just how vast Alaska is. Everything is on an enormous scale. Look at the skyline picture. I climbed glaciers, rode in a small sail boat into a pod of killer whales, stood next to a landslide and watched the coffee on my desk spill from the vibrations from an earthquake. I chartered a small airplane and flew up over and around Mt McKinley (the largest mountain in North America). Along the way, I met some wonderful people - particularly the Wiggin family. The place is breathtakingly beautiful and majestic but I was glad to leave. Growing up in New Orleans will just ruin you for any respectable town.

I've attached a couple of pictures from my year in Alaska.