I know what you're thinking.  Isotopes?  Oh blah, this is going to be a science post.  Well... actually not.  I honestly don't know much about isotopes besides what you learn in Chem 101, which is probably bad considering I'm a scientist and all.  But whatever.  Today, I am going to talk about baseball.  Namely, the Albuquerque Isotopes, our minor league baseball team. 

Okay, so I don't really know much more about baseball than I do about elemental isotopes.  But I do know a little bit.  When we were "camping" at Negrito, J liked to watch the Brewers on tv and I'd bother him with about a million questions on everything that was going on.  It helped me to be more interested in the game and gave me something to talk to him about.  He didn't seem to mind, and I can usually tell when someone is a bad mood.

Anyway, I've been to a few Tigers games back in the day and I always found them enjoyable so I thought an Isotopes game would be pretty fun as well.  And it was!  Besides missing some of the beginning of the game to get drinks, not getting a hot dog (a little bummed about that one), and some kids spilling soda all over the floor under where we were sitting, I had an excellent time.  The game was very fast paced, kept my interest, and best of all... we won! 

We had really good seats, right behind home plate, and I even got some decently clear pictures despite my camera lens being (still) covered in cave dust. 

The Isotopes were the blue team and they played Round Rock, Texas, which I believe is somewhere near Austin?  They filmed some movies there, but I can't remember what they are now.

It was a pretty close game all the way through but Albuquerque stepped it up near the end and ended up winning 8-3.  They didn't even finish the last inning, which disappointed me slightly, but there were fireworks at the end so that made up for it. 

So, Camille from Archives of Our Lives made a post about sushi and I was inspired to write my own recent sushi story.  Conveniently enough, Camille also sponsors Saturday Steals, which invites bloggers to write about a recent deal that they came across.  And though I didn't make my own, like she did, my sushi experience still most definitely was a steal.

I've never really been that into sushi.  One day, back in Vegas, I was at Trader Joe's and they had a little sushi four-pack.  I had never had it before and decided to try it.  That was probably my first mistake.  To make my first sushi experience a ready-made packet from Trader Joe's.  It was not good, and I ended up throwing most of it away.

I didn't try sushi again for another several years, until last Thanksgiving when I went to the Chinese Buffet (you know, the one that served chicken feet?) and I liked it way better than the TJ's crap.  I decided that if this weirdo buffet had decent sushi, then an actual sushi place must have some pretty darn good stuff.

I put that on the back burner for a while, and then last weekend I got a flyer in the mail for a place that opened last year, called Sushiya.  There was a menu and a 15% off coupon.  The menu had a variety of items, including sushi and cooked meals, sort of an Asian-fusion type restaurant. Matt and I were feeling adventurous, so we decided to try it.  We went over there and, since it was getting late, decided to order take-out instead of eating in.

Then things started to go wrong.  First, they gave me another person's food, and I would have left with it had another waiter not caught it in time.  A little while later, they came back with presumably the right food, and I went out to meet Matt, who went to Albertson's next door to buy some drinks, and we went home.

When we got home, we started putting the food out on the table and realized that part of our order was missing.  We had ordered orange peel beef and should have gotten two bowls of hot and sour soup but had gotten only one egg drop instead.  Since the place was close to where I live, we packed everything up and drove back.

I'm working on my confidence building in confrontational situations, so I went in alone to talk to them.  I didn't really have to do much, though.  They had realized their mistake and brought out the rest of my food as soon as I walked in.  This time, I took a look at it and saw that they gave us chicken instead of beef.  Thinking about the confidence thing, I decided to tell this to them, and they made me a new one right away, while also letting me keep the chicken one.  I also had to tell them about the soup, and they got that for me as well.  While I was waiting for them to cook the new food, a waiter came out and gave me a $25 gift certificate and apologized again.  It just goes to show you how being polite but assertive can result in good things.  I need to remember that.

Anyway, we ended up with a ton of food.  It was actually kind of ridiculous how much we got.

hot and sour soup

Seafood Tempura (shrimp, salmon, crab, scallops and vegetables in a flour batter)

Sushiya (this is just something random, whatever the sushi chef decides to make at that moment, and it is awesome)

Orange peel beef

And the extra mistake, orange peel chicken

Everything was really good.  We'll definitely be going back, especially since we now have $25 free.  Everyone makes mistakes, and the manner in which they were corrected made all the difference.

I am happy to say I am finished mapping Pitchfork Canyon!  After working with J, I spent two weeks working with Egghead and one working with my boss to finally finish it up and I am done done done done DONE!  So... now I get to start on a new quad.  Woo-hoo.  Hopefully it won't take me another nine weeks to finish.

Time is starting to run together so I'll try to recount what happened the best that I can, but it will most likely end up being just some random stories and pictures.  The two weeks I worked with Egghead went okay.  The first day of the first week he was getting on my nerves like none other.  I woke up in a horrible mood and then he took forever to get ready and was burping and farting super loud all morning.  I could hear it all the way across the camp site.  Gross.  Oh, and one day he didn't shut the bathroom door all the way and I accidentally walked in on him with his shirt off.  I'm just glad he didn't have anything else off, or I may have been traumatized for life.

But I got some good pictures of Elk Mountain.  Better than the ones from from before, because I had a better view.  I honestly can't remember if these were from the first week or the second, but no matter.  It's all the same.

I also took some pictures from the top.  I have no idea what the mountain in the distance is, though.  Something in Collins Park quad, maybe.


And there were some sweet cliffs up there as well.


After that we got hailed on for about an hour and it was a huge bummer.  My butt was cold and our soil pit filled up with water, so I decided to be done for the day.


Since it had rained, the roads were all suuuper muddy, and sometimes trucks do not like muddy roads.  So I learned how to use the winch that day.  I will never call it a stupid winch again.  It's saved me two times already this field season.  Yay winch!

I also got to see Egghead's new apartment, because he doesn't have a car and he can't take all his gear on his bike, so on the way back to the office, we would take a little detour to his place.  The first week, there were about 8 cop cars at a house across the street, and a whole bunch of police all around.  All the neighbors were outside watching so I did too.  Five officers then went into the house with their guns pointed.  The one in the front had a really big gun, that Egghead told me the name of, but I forget now.  And the other ones just had small handgun type things.  I couldn't really see what was going on after that, but I heard someone say that one person was arrested and one ran away.  Then all the cops left and we did, too.

The next week, there was no more police activity, thankfully.  I decided to be nosy and look inside Egghead's apartment.  The whole place is linoleum tile.  Like a classroom or a hospital.  Earlier, he had asked me if I had lain my own carpet in my apartment.  I said no, that I had never heard of an apartment where you had to put in your own carpet.  He called me a spoiled bitch, and I told him he lived in the ghetto.  Because... ummm.... he does.

This past week with my boss was ok, but honestly, I think I'd rather work by myself.  Working with him makes me nervous because I'm constantly thinking I'm going to say or do the wrong thing.  He kept disagreeing with every call that I made, and double checking all my work.  It was annoying, because I don't think he does that with the other employees.   I don't know, though.  I haven't seen any of them in forever.

So, remember a couple posts back when I said I took a trip to this mountain?

No?  That's okay.  I've been somewhat absent from blogland lately.  Not so much by choice as it was being forced to work by my most lovely and wonderful job that helps pay my rent and such.  But I have a long weekend now (yay!) and Matt's off at his friend's house or something so I may blog to my heart's content.

Anyway, if you haven't guessed by now, I went camping on Mount Taylor for the second time.  It's been over a year since we've been there, so we figured it was time (even though I go camping pretty much every week, but fun camping is generally better than work camping).  It's been a while so I don't remember all the details, except that we got there at night and it was really dark and cold so I was grumpy.  But the next morning (or maybe afternoon?) we took a walk to the edge of the mountain and saw this.


Pretty spiffariffic, yes?  I thought so.  At this point, I was busy drinking some beer.  I got this new ginger grapefruit kind and it is amaaaaazing.  We like to say that whenever beer spills, it's Jim Morrison coming to take a sip.  Well, Jimmy (as Egghead would call him), must have been thirsty that day.  He spilled my beer and then he threw my toilet paper roll over a cliff.  It was definitely not me being clumsy.  I am never clumsy.


It was actually a good thing that the T.P. fell down there, because otherwise we would not have found a really cool lava bomb rock.  It was all round and smooth and lava bomb-ish.  I didn't take a picture of it because I have the real thing.... somewhere.

Then I took a bunch of really bad pictures.  I couldn't tell that they were bad at the time because the sun was being weird in my camera and I couldn't see what they looked like.  But now, looking at them, they're bad.  I'll try to find a couple decent ones for you.




There ya go.  Those aren't so bad.  After the view, we went back to camp and made a fire.  Okay, I didn't make the fire, but I took a video of it, because ... why not?

And that is how I will end this post.