I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

I have gray hairs.

Yeah, it's a bummer.  But the real kicker?  I've had them since I was sixteen.  SIX.TEEN.  I remember because I first noticed them on a trip to my grandparents' house with my family.  I was the last one to get out of the minivan and was shutting the door when I caught a glimpse of myself in the window.  Two long gray strands were hanging down from the side of my head.  What the....????

I quickly yanked them out, and dismissed it as a fluke.

It wasn't.  They just kept multiplying and multiplying.  And I just kept pulling them out, but it was getting to a point when I could never get them all.  I know there's some saying that if you pull one out, two more will grow in.  Is that true?  I don't know.  I'm not a scientist (oh, wait, I AM, nevermind...but not that KIND of scientist) but I think it has something to do with using up pigment/color.  Mine is just running out sooner than expected.  Kind of like the time they ran out of roast beef at Arby's.  Observe...

Supply and Demand!  Apparently my hair does not understand economics.  But neither do I, so I guess I can't blame it.

Lucky for me (I guess), my hair is super thick and I have a lot of it, so it was easy enough to hide at first.  But it did eventually get to a point when people started to notice.  Crap-tastic.

Sometimes when we're just sitting around hanging out or whatever, Matt pulls them out for me.  After about 10, 12 or 15, he gets frustrated and stops.  Because there's a lot.

So, why don't I just dye it?  I bought a box when I lived in Vegas and then freaked out and let it sit under my bathroom sink until I moved out, then I threw it away.  I bought another one here that I think is still sitting under the sink, if I haven't thrown away already.  I think the main reason is that a lot of my hair is still brown, and it just seems like a waste of my natural color to put fake crap over it.  I just haven't been able to bring myself to do anything remotely close to changing my hair color.  In any way.  Ever.

But that might be about to change...

 *UPDATE* I just went to the office to get a new card and the lady said I had to pay $5 to replace it.  What???  But since I didn't have exact change she just gave it to me for free.  Something seems odd about that, but... ummm, cool?

There are a lot of times when I do something that I know make people think I'm a jerk/don't like them/am just plain weird/etc.  But something in my silly little brain keeps freaking out and doing the same thing over and over again.

And then when I see someone else doing the same thing, I'm like WTF?  And then I remember I do the exact same darn thing all the time.

A while ago, my apartment switched the laundry room over from quarters to cards.  This sucks for a few reasons, including

1) The cards must be loaded with cash.  The cash machine is in the back room of the office, which can only be entered by the apartment staff.  The office is closed on Sundays.  So people like me who work all week and then space out about adding money to the card until doing their laundry on Sunday?  Kinda screwed.  I posted about a time that this happened before and my subsequent trip to the laundromat on my old blog.  For those who weren't reading it at the time, let me sum it up for you:  Mierda.

2) They recently raised the price from 75 cents to a dollar.  For no reason.  Just 'hey, guess what, we're raising the price.  Too bad for you!'

3) My laundry card is becoming demagnetized.  This happens to me all the time.  In college, I went through so many key cards to my dorm room for no other reason than they simply stopped working.  It was a huge pain in the ass to be standing at the damn door trying to get in for up to 20-30 minutes until one of my roommates showed up.  It's like I radiate a magnetic force or something.

This is what happened to me with the laundry machines this weekend.  And guess what, it's Sunday, so office =  no open.

I got all my laundry into the machines, put in the detergent, all that stuff, and then I put my card in to the card reader, which says: Error Error Error.  Over and over again.  Frustrating.  To make matters worse, two other people came in while I was doing this, so I just stood there looking like a dumbass putting the card in a million times trying to get it to work.  I knew they saw me.  I knew they probably realized it wasn't working, and I was getting frustrated.  But they just carried on without even acknowledging the fact that I even existed.

It's not that I necessarily wanted them to offer me their card or anything, but just saying something like... hey, your card isn't working?  that's a bummer.  Anything to make me feel less stupid about standing in front of the machine like a fool.  But they didn't say anything.  And I didn't either.

I do this all the time.  I see people that I could say hello to, have a conversation with, help out...and completely ignore them because I'd rather not deal with it.  These are the times when I really realize how the way I am affects me in a negative way.  Stupid little everyday things that most people wouldn't think twice about.  Things I try not to deal with because hiding and forgetting about it is a lot easier.  I really do wish things were different.  Maybe it's finally time to make a real change.  It's scary, though.

What I really wanted to show you today is just a little glimpse into what this town is actually like.  Because, umm, yeah, it's great.

While I was there, I had the opportunity to visit the local museum.  It is run by a very nice, but very clueless old couple.  Also, the old man has crazy eyes, for sure.  The size of the museum is actually pretty impressive considering the size of the town itself.  It has something like nine rooms.  Some of the stuff was pretty cool, but as I moved through the museum, I started to notice little things.

I'm jumping back on the bandwagon.  The Spin Cycle topic this week is Valentine's Day.  Instead of talking about my relationship or my Valentine's Day plans and all that blah blah, I decided to express my feelings through song.

So... I'm going to sing for you!

Just kidding.  Because I'm pretty sure that would be classified as some sort of torture, and because this is pretty much the best song ever, I decided to leave it up to the experts.

 

(By the way, I am totally STOKED that the Chili Peppers are back at it again and curious to find out what this new guitarist is like.  He's no John Frusciante, but I hear he's pretty darn close)

So, I said I was going to write about my experience in para-arch training sometime this week, and... it's still this week, so I win!

Let me tell you, it wasn't as cool as it was last time.  Actually, it was kinda cold.  We didn't even go the last day because of the rain.  Apparently rain and very expensive metal detectors don't mix.  Which means I'm going back to finish up one day in March.  I don't really mind, because it's better than the office, for sure, but it is a two hour drive.  For one day of training.  Pointless?  Maybe.

Anyway, it was pretty interesting.  We learned quite a bit about the Apaches, which we didn't focus on so much in the Arizona training.  The Apaches are a little tricky to study because they're mostly nomadic and don't leave a lot of evidence of their lifestyles behind.  They also used metal a lot.  In fact, they used to cut up telegraph wires to make bracelets, which they used as money.  Five would get you a horse, and seven would get you a wife.  (All the women in the room were thrilled by this fact)

Enter metal detectors.  The archaeologist on the Black Range is actually an expert in metal detector use and has even written a manual on the use of metal detectors in archaeology for some of the companies.  On Wednesday, we got to try them out for ourselves.  We went to a fight scene that occurred between an Apache leader, Victorio, and a group of Indian scouts.  We were looking for bullet casings used in the fight.  I worked in a group with two other soil scientists who I map with during the field season.  As a group, we found a rusty tin can, a smashed modern bullet, and half of a horseshoe.

Using the metal detector was ok.  It was the wrong length for my arm, and it was pretty heavy and awkward to carry while climbing up a rocky cliff.  Oh, and after a while, the batteries went dead, so we carried it up there for nothing.

Climbing up the cliff was a bit difficult because it was highly infested with prickly pear cactus.  I was walking around up there and my leg really hurt, so I rolled up my pants, and there was a large spike lodged into my thigh.  Cactus needles are really fun to take out of your skin because they like to stay stuck in there when you try to pull them out.

But going up there was worth it, for a couple reasons.  For one thing, there was a whole bunch of bullet casings at the top, which was cool.  But what I really thought was interesting was all the fossils.  The whole slope was made up of fossiliferous limestone.  It was really cool.  I would have taken a picture for you, except I was somehow incapable of carrying a camera and a metal detector at the same time.  So you'll just have to take my word for it.

I do have some pictures, but they don't have much to do with the topic of this post, so I will save them for another day.

Most of you probably know about the recent movie, Land of the Lost, with Will Ferrell.  Back in the 90's, this was one of my favorite Saturday morning television shows.  I even memorized the whole dang theme song and can still sing it to this day.



Pretty cheesy, right?  Yeah, that's what I thought until I saw the theme song for the 1974 version.  I've never seen it before today, just heard about the earlier show, so I thought I'd check it out.



Oh my gosh.  Seriously?  The earthquake cracks me up.  And the dinosaur.  Ohhh, the dinosaur!  Yes!  It is awesome!  And then the end when the kids are talking to the monkey-type thing.  Creepy!

So why am I showing you all this stuff?  Because this week, the archaeologizing continues!  You are excited.  You know it.  Stay tuned.