Alaska is always a couple years behind the rest of the nation, and the recession is finally hitting us:  hard.  I was laid off from my job of 5 1/2 years in August and am on my last week completing a project for another firm.  My friend Robyn and her wife are being laid off from their jobs as journeyman carpenters w/ one of Alaska's largest contractors for the first time in ten years.  Alaska is a prevailing wage state, which is one of the reasons I live here, but that is now hurting us.  Lower 48 contractors are underbidding locals right and left.  I applied for work at Red Dog Mine along w/ 400 other land surveyors, and did not get an interview.  So, it looks like I am moving to Kazakhstan.  Temporarily (I think) to train in their surveyors on Leica brand instrumentation and translate old USSR coordinate systems into real world UTM.  My only hope is that I get the job.