Be Careful What You Wish For!!!!

In 1999 we were living in Nevada. Working hard for BHP Nevada Mining Co and enjoying life in the high desert country - hiking, hunting, long drives in the desert and doing some quilting when I had a chance. Unfortunately, we were a copper/gold mine and the price of copper was going down, down, down.

It went so low that on June 25, 1999 after trying for a few months to sell the property, BHP made the decision to shut us down. We immediately went into care and maintenance mode. At 6:00 PM, management started calling people to let them know. Graveyard shift was sent home when they showed up at the gates to work.

JW's last day was immediate - June 26th. I had to work until the end of July to get everything in the IT department squared away. Then since we had great severance packages and knew if we went to work immediately Uncle Sam would benefit more than we would, we decided to take advantage of this unexpected opportunity and drive the AlCan highway to Alaska.

I bought the Milepost - a must have guide book for everyone driving the AlCan and we headed north - with no deadlines to have to be anywhere at any particular time. We fell in love with the whole state and decided at that time that we could live in Fairbanks cause it was our kind of place. As a matter of fact, when I coerced JW into going into the quilt shop with me, one of the clerks said. "Where are you from, cause while you are dressed like people who live in Fairbanks, we don't get any men in here." For the next 6 years, JW would not enter another quilt store for any reason (but that's a whole other story).

After returning from Alaska, we spent our days taking early morning hikes and surfing the net to try to find a job. JW decided he wanted to go to Gunsmithing school in Colorado - that would start in Jan 2000. That's all we knew for sure. Then one morning, he came into the kitchen and said, "Do you want to move to Alaska?" I excitedly said "Yes, of course." He replied, "I found you a job." So I applied for an IT position at Fort Knox Gold Mine in Fairbanks, AK and two weeks later they flew us up there to check it out. When I left, they said they would get back to me when they had made a decision.

In late-October, JW went sheep hunting for a week. While he was gone, I called Fort Knox to see what was going on as I hadn't heard back from them. They said they were still trying to make a decision. It had been 4 weeks and since we had to leave Ely by the end of November, we had to make plans. I told them I appreciated their time but I think I needed to withdraw my application because "we" were moving to Colorado.

When JW got back from hunting and I told him that, he said "Their loss is my gain." I said, "What do you mean by that." He replied, "Well, I kind of like having dinner with you at night." So the day after Thanksgiving we loaded the u-haul and headed east to the big city of Denver, CO. Knowing that it was going to only be for 16 months, we knew we could survive.

I took the first job I could find just so we'd have money coming in - "Will work for food". We hated living in the big city and I spent all my spare time looking for some job somewhere but Alaska was my main goal. In September 2000, I flew to Anchorage for a job interview with a company that installs pbx systems. I had been in charge of the pbx at BHP and enjoyed setting up phones and dealing with hardware issues on the pbx. When I went for an interview, they just put me in with the other employees to discuss various things and had me sit in meetings with a software company that they were looking at for a work order system.

Finally in the afternoon, the president of the company was ready to talk to me. He started talking about Anchorage and I had mentioned that someone had told me there are bike trails all around the city. So, immediately, off we went so he could show me all around the city - the best places to live, a look at the grocery store and of course, a look at the bike trails. This was on a Friday and when he took me back to the office, his wife was there and he told me, "We'll have a job offer in the mail to you on Monday."

I spent Saturday driving around a bit including a drive up to Wasilla (guess I should have stopped by to see Sarah Palin ;-) ). Since I knew that I was going to be getting a job offer and probably moving up soon, I arranged to fly home early instead of staying until Monday. Got back to Denver and no job offer came. Talked to the head hunter and he said while they wanted me, they just could not afford me. So guess we're not moving to Alaska, kicked myself a few times for not taking advantage of my trip there to see more than I had.

In 2001 the boy kid got married and we moved to Montana. JW still kept looking at jobs in Alaska. In 2004 (I believe), he flew to Juneau for an interview - no luck there. In 2008, he got laid off from his job at Stillwater Mine due to a management shakeup. The HR manager called him the "sacrificial lamb". He kept appling for jobs in alaska. We didn't want to move so we decided that a camp type job would be the best where he could rotate between being here and working. Finally an old boss of his got a senior position at a mine in Nome. He wanted JW up there immediately so in Oct 2008, he "moved" to Nome.

He had a place of his own up there and I was hoping that during a few of his 6 week rotations in Nome, I could go up there too - I especially wanted to be there in March 2009 for the Iditarod. He didn't make it that long. In Dec 2008, they shut down the mine. They just couldn't get the mill working properly so decided to go into care and maintenance mode until a later date TBD.

He checked out a few other jobs and had offers but we finally just decided "no we aren't moving". As long as I can work and bring in money to pay the bills and eat, he can just be semi-retired and get things done around this place.

Then in January of this year, out of the blue, a recruiter contacted him to see if he was interested in a job in Fairbanks. He decided to follow up on that a bit just to see what it would lead to. Shortly after this, my company decided to "out-source" development to a company in India and I started worrying about my job. When they asked us to go to Fairbanks for an interview, we said "Yes".

They said we'd hear from them the following week but it sounded very promising. We flew home from Alaska and the roller coaster of emotions started. "It's too far from the grandkids." "Yeah, but Nana can work from anywhere so Nana can come back to Middle America every 3 months and will actually spend more time with the grandkids." "What about the horses?" "What about the house?" "What about our beautiful view?" "What about..............