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H P Pig Farm Audio Slideshow

Frozen Mountain Adventure

Melissa Windel underestimates the steepness of Lazy Mountain and the icy slope gets the better of her. Despite warm weather at the base, most of the mountain still had several inches of snow.

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Steven Wachter opens a tube cemented into the summit of Lazy Mountain. Included in the tube was a log for all climbers who had reached the top as well as memorial materials of U.S. soldiers from the Matanuska-Susitna valley who had died in the Iraq war.

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Steven Wachter and Melissa Windel reach the summit of Lazy Mountain on April 18. The mountain, located just outside of Palmer is 3720 feet high.

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Spring!

Bike Club member Andrew Manos helps tune a few bikes up as summer approaches. The Bike Club offered free tune-ups out side of the Student Union on both April 15 and 16. 

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Videos

I watched the two videos, Wood Bison Disease Testing from the Anchorage Daily News and a second video from the AP that featured soldiers and 'the things they carried.'

Both videos were different, but incorporated the same things in both of the videos, including stills with audio behind them.

The Bison video had more active events occurring. It showed the bison having blood taken and running around. The AP video had less action. The men interviewed where in a war zone, and most of the time were just sitting and talking about their lucky charms.

The compelling thing about the Bison video was the action of the bison. They story itself was mildly captivating, but if I hadn't seen huge bison running around knocking people over, I really wouldn't care.

But the AP video was intriguing because of it's storytelling. They took very little moments from these soldiers, but told a whole story in 30 seconds. The ones that stood out to me included the man with the teddy bear that was charred when he was hit with by a bomb. He doesn't have to explain much when he shows the charred bear to the camera. That image tells the story by itself. Also the soldier with the tiny, well worn prayer book by his father. He tells us what it means to him, but we really don't have to know. We instead have a black and white photograph of this book, with it's bent pages and worn spine, we know what the little prayer book means to the soldier.

Also, the video incorporates still close up photographs of the soldiers. The photographs are in black and white and capture the sadness that the soldiers lament about in the video.

People

Mary Pearce, Auston Ellis and Hallidie Wilt celebrate the wedding of Rafael Leon and Charlotte DiRamos on Feb. 13. All three were on the track and field team with Rafael in 2005.

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Emotion!

Bride-to-be Christina Flores gets a surprise serenade by a total stranger at the Double Musky Restaurant  just days before her wedding.