SEWARD — Mike Stevenson has been fascinated with how things work for his whole life. Even when young, the 19-year-old from Talkeetna would take things apart and put them back together. These days, however, he’s more interested in fixing heavy equipment and big rigs.

“Heavy equipment is fun,” Stevenson said.

The fun of the work — not to mention the job prospects — is part of what draws students from all over to the small city of Seward every year to be part of the welding program at AVTEC, Alaska’s Institute of Technology.

Snow ain’t free. It costs a lot of money to remove and pile up the vast amounts of snow that Mother Nature has blessed (some would say cursed) much of Alaska with this winter.

The state’s and several cities’ snow removal budgets are busted, tallying well above the usual costs set aside to keep up with nature’s weather-related smack downs.

The National Weather Service reports higher than normal snowfall for many areas throughout the state.

Some storms have made national news, like when the snow reached the rooftops in Cordova.

Construction spending for the schools gets another boost this year, and there are several projects to account for it.

The Associated General Contractors of Alaska and Institute of Social and Economic Research forecast that education-related construction spending will get a 15 percent boost over last year to the tune of $408 million.

AGC’s forecast states the increase comes from a $397 million state bond package passed in 2010 in addition to more local school district spending.

ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska’s home construction continues to follow national patterns: first up, then down, now maybe up again.

Alaska’s residential construction rose dramatically between 2000 and 2005, when about 3,000 new single-family homes were built annually in the state. Also during this time period, more than 8.5 million homes went up across the country. Alaska’s numbers dropped along with the rest of the nation’s as early as 2006 and reached a low-point in 2009. Now the decline has stopped and even reversed a small bit.