Adventures in the Underground

Food Pictures

2012-01-31T20:13:00.000-08:00

Over the holidays, I took lots of pictures of food. And I'm hungry right now while waiting for dinner to be finished (spaghetti squash! yum!) so I am obviously thinking about delicious food and wanting to look at pictures of it. You can too! Isn't that lucky?

Christmas dinner. My plate would have been more full if I hadn't already eaten a million snacks.

My brother made cake for dessert and it was not very good, but my aunt made my favorite cupcakes and they were spectacular.

This is a sandwich from Zingerman's (local restaurant in Ann Arbor). It had green chile on it, but the spiciest part was the dang mustard. I seriously could feel it burning in my nose. Ahh, the pain!

My brother and I went to a restaurant in East Lansing and he said I needed to get this soup because it was the best soup ever. It's white chicken chili, I think.

I have traveled to many different restaurants in search of the best Philly. (It's not in Philadelphia)

My mom made these for breakfast one day.....mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

My mom also made these, from some kit she bought on sale. She kept calling them whoopie cushions. (we also drank a lot of tea while I was there)

Hot Dogs and Latkes

2012-01-26T19:39:00.000-08:00

While I was back in Michigan, I went to my dad's temple for a latke dinner. My dad is Jewish, if you didn't know that, so we also celebrate Jewish holidays (such as Hanukkah). My dad's men's group was hosting the dinner, so I was already familiar with the side dishes -- cole slaw and homemade applesauce -- before the dinner even happened.

Also included in the dinner were latkes, of course, and hot dogs. It was actually pretty good.


And a pickle. Jewish people loooove their pickles.

After the dinner was over, the rabbi tried to convince us to stay for the service and menorah lighting. He said they lit about 50 menorahs at once. But my mom and I had plans to go out for dessert instead.

Anyone who says they do not like dessert is in denial

At home, we celebrated Hanukkah by lighting our own menorah.

We also have a sticky window menorah, which I had the duty of "lighting."

I wanted to get the reflection of the Christmas tree lights in for the double holiday effect

I'm not gonna lie, part of the fun of Hanukkah is seeing what kind of presents we get. It's usually some cheap thing my mom found on sale the year before, but it's amusing to see what she comes up with. I'm not going to post everything I got for each of the 8 days, because my mom enjoys giving us underwear in hopes that we'll throw our old ones away. Haha. But here's a few things.

Matt actually used this oven mitt today

Adventure Time! (if you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up)

wool socks are the best field socks

Phoenix: Back to the Hotel

2012-01-23T20:50:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of catching up with things, I will now post about my trip to Phoenix. Did I mention I went to Phoenix? Well, I did.

I went for some soil meeting thingy-majobber. Basically, we went to tell another agency(ies) how our methods are way more awesome than theirs. Okay, not really (well, not totally, anyway). I went because I wanted to know how the other agencies worked. Because things vary from one place to another, whether it is in a different region or a different agency, and I generally get a very biased version of how things are "supposed" to be done. I won't get into the details of Ecological Site Descriptions, because that would be boring, but that's pretty much the gist of why I was there.

But if we really want to be honest, then I went because I wanted to stay at my favorite hotel in Phoenix, The Embassy Suites. I attempted to make a video blog, all travel channel style, the last time I was there. Unfortunately, my camera and I are not that awesome, so this time you are just getting pictures.

Since the last time I was in Phoenix, some hotel policies have changed. The first one, although it didn't directly affect me, was somewhat unpleasant. They now charge $5 to park in their lot. Lame.

The second change, however, was much better. The last time I was there, we were given tickets that allowed us to have 3 free (alcoholic) drinks per night. This time, happy hour lasted several hours each evening, during which time you could have as many free drinks, and snacks, as you wanted. That was pretty darn cool. Except for that for my first drink, I wanted Jack and Coke, but all they had was... bourbon? It was not delicious. I decided to stick with the old standby, vodka and cranberry, for the rest of the night.

But you want to look at pictures, I'm sure... so, here are some pictures.

Dining Room

Living Room

Kitchen. The water from the sink tasted weird. Like mold.

Bedroom

Cool fountain outside the lobby

The best hot tub ever

Meet Old Smoky

2012-01-18T21:31:00.000-08:00

Old Smoky lives in the apartment downstairs and kiddie corner from mine. He is old, and he smokes cigarettes. Hence, Old Smoky. He likes to sit in his gray computer desk chair, which is outside on his patio, and smoke his Camels or Marlboro Reds, or whatever the heck it is he smokes. During these times, he enjoys "trapping" innocent passerby into long, drawn out conversations about a set variety of topics he enjoys. I will get into more about those topics in later posts. There are some large shrubs in front of his apartment, so we don't always see him right away, and sometimes he surprises us. We'll be heading towards the stairs up to my apartment, and will hear:

Old Smoky has a deep voice. It sort of sounds like the guy who does the voice-overs for Dodge Ram commercials. So, picture that voice in your mind as you read the above greeting. When you hear it, you know what is going to happen next. Well, YOU don't. Not yet, anyway. But I do, and over the course of this series of posts, I will introduce you to the man that is Old Smoky.

Disasters in Sledding

2012-01-15T13:47:00.000-08:00

As usual, I'm ridiculously behind on posting. So I'm catching up. Last month, we went sledding. It was an interesting adventure. Let's have a look into the past, shall we?

We decided to use inner tubes to sled with. So we went to the store and looked for some. But all they had were ones for water. But we thought, 'what the heck!' and got them anyway. This will be important later in the story.

After we finished blowing up the inner tubes and getting all our snow gear, we (finally) headed off to the mountains. It had snowed a crap-ton up there and it was cold, really really cold. Like 15 degrees (F not C -- which are both bogus units of measure by the way, but that is neither here nor there).

We found a good parking spot and hiked a little way in to find a good little section of an awesome hill for sledding. Matt went down first, and he went down FAST. I started to get a little bit nervous. Especially since some jerkface was sitting at the bottom of the hill with his dogs, and would not move. But I decided to face my fear, and started down the hill.

That's one of us at the top of the hill (probably Matt)

Everything was going decently well... that is, until I got to the bottom and my inner tube scraped over a rock we hadn't noticed before. And immediately deflated. True story. This is the problem with floaty inner tubes. Not exactly the best ever for sledding down rocky mountain slopes.

At least I got a good workout walking back up the hill

We had to take turns after that. The idiot was still there with his dogs. So when I went down I screamed the whole way to get the dumbass to move, but he never did. That F-er. My third attempt was the best one, and amazingly enough, that's the one when we got video.

After that, I was like "oh yeah, I am totally awesome at this!" and went down again. Only to freak out right at the end and plant my feet, resulting in me flipping over, flying in the air, and face planting right in the snow. It hurt. And it was cold.

And since 2011 was the year of technical difficulties, I should mention that my camera didn't like the cold either. Ever since, the digital screen has decided to stop working. I can still take pictures through the little view finder window thingy, but it may be time to consider a newer model. I mean, my phone camera takes better pictures than my actual camera. But it can still take some pretty good ones.

What Birds Like to Do on Vacation

2011-12-22T16:06:00.000-08:00

A while back, I went to Socorro to see some migratory birds. Migratory birds love Socorro. There is so much to do, like eat at the crappy Mexican restaurant and shop at WalMart. Who wouldn't want to go there?

Okay, Okay, I guess they don't really like to go to Socorro, but they do like to go to Bosque del Apache, which is near Socorro. It's one of their favorite vacation spots. They go there every year, and have been going for a very very long time.

It's quite the journey. In case you were wondering, this is the route they take, according to the International Crane Foundation.

So, what better for a bunch of silly humans to do than go bother them by taking about a million pictures while they're just trying to relax and enjoy their time in sunny New Mexico?

Seriously, they are just trying to eat lunch.

Sometimes, they like to take a little walk down the road.

Or meet up with their friends at the pool.

Poor duck. He feels left out.

And end the day with a sunset flight.

Then settle in to enjoy the view.

A Christmas Post to Liven Things Up Around Here

2011-12-19T15:17:00.000-08:00

It's seriously been forever since I posted anything. I have so much to tell you but it involves looking for and adding in pictures and I've been rather lazy about that. I got into Ann Arbor last night and will be here for the next 2 weeks, so expect to be hearing some more from me now that I have a break from the all-consuming work. I hope to make a "real" post soon, but this seemed like a good fill-in post for now.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I think wrapping paper makes gifts look prettier and more exciting but gift bags are easier. I'll probably wrap this time, though, because what else do I have to do?

2. Real tree or Artificial? It's fun to look for a real tree but lately I've been feeling sorry for cutting down the trees. I haven't been in years, though, and I just have a tiny fake one at my place because a big one wouldn't fit.

3. When do you put up the tree? Pretty much whenever I get around to it. This year I set it up last week.

4. When do you take the tree down? Same as above. I like to leave it up for a while though, so that I get to look at it while I'm actually at home.

5. Do you like eggnog? Umm... it's ok. I haven't had it in a really long time. I know I don't necessarily dislike it, but it's not my favorite either.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I really do not remember what gifts I received as a child. Is that bad?

7. Do you have a nativity scene? My parents do. It's kind of a random mismatch of actual Nativity scene and plastic animal figurines. I used to pretend they were in an elaborate song and dance number. But that was a long time ago. Like... last year. (Just kidding. Or maybe not?)

8. Hardest person to buy for? It's sometimes hard to come up with ideas for my parents but I actually came up with a pretty good idea this year, I think.

9. Easiest person to buy for? My brother, for sure.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? I like to send them in the mail. It's more personal that way, especially since I don't send them to many people and I can write an individual message for each person.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Probably some white elephant gift. The one I got this year was a plastic mug that smelled like mothballs.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Muppets Christmas (the one where they go to Fozzy's mom's house and visit Fraggle Rock and Miss Piggy gets caught in a snowstorm and the turkey tries to get the chef to cook Big Bird. It's highly amusing) And Santa Bear.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Depending on how much time I have, I usually don't start shopping until I get back to Ann Arbor, unless I want to get location-specific gifts.

14. Ever recycled a Christmas present? We have a maroon box that has "What do sweatshirts and peanut butter have in common?" written on it. We've recycled that box so many years that no one remembers the answer to the question. It's somewhat frustrating.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? I don't know... green beans? cranberry jello? cheesy potatoes? Everything is good.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? I like the colorful ones. They are pretty.

17. Favorite Christmas song? Oh I don't know. There's a Frank Sinatra song called Mrs. Santa Claus that I like quite a lot but I haven't been listening to a lot of Christmas music yet this year so it's hard to remember them all.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? I go "home" to my parents' house. Maybe in the future I will do something different but that will be decided later.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Yes, because of the Rudolph song (which my Jewish grandmother loved, by the way) and The Night Before Christmas story.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? I made a Star of David out of construction paper and glitter when I was five. It is still our tree topper to this day.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? My brother, sister and I exchange our gifts on Christmas Eve and we open the ones from our parents on Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Ridiculous holiday shoppers (seriously, this old woman at the mall today... oh my gosh), Christmas commercials, jacked up holiday prices and pushy up selling salespeople.

23. Favorite ornament, theme, or color? No theme. We just put up what we have. I guess the theme would be... eclectic?

24. What do you want for Christmas this year? I mostly want a new purse and camera but I kind of want to pick them out myself, so really... just money.

Last Weeks At Negrito

2011-11-30T20:17:00.000-08:00

I spent my last couple field weeks alone at Negrito. There were a few people there, besides me. But mostly I was just by myself. It was not my favorite, but I lived through it. I missed my field buddies. (Yes, I will include both of them) Whether it was out digging holes or back at camp, we always had a good time together. That's something I've rarely experienced in my 3 and 1/2 years here. The nice thing is that J still works in our office while he goes to school, so I see him a couple days a week. It's nice having at least one person who I can talk to at work. The office is more highly populated than the forest, but it can still be lonely at times. I like being back. I like being able to work 8 hour days and then go home and relax. But I miss the quiet stillness in the air, and the stars at night. I wish you could see them. So many, so bright, so unlike anything in the city. It's like living in two different worlds.

No Crying At Air Shows

2011-11-25T10:14:00.000-08:00

I have a boyfriend who likes airplanes. He knows how to fly them. He knows how to build them. He knows about pretty much every airline and airport in the world. He can tell you the history of every fighter aircraft since World War II. Sometimes... it drives me crazy. But other times, it's pretty darn cool.

Even though it's not my first choice for a hobby, it's been interesting getting to see and learn about all the different kinds of planes out there. And recently, we got the opportunity to see a bunch of them in action at an air show hosted by Albuquerque's very own Kirtland Airforce Base.

When we arrived, the first thing I noticed were all the attractive military men in uniform. What girl doesn't like that? They were very efficient, directing us which way to go to get on the bus, giving us the rules and return procedures, etc. Before getting in, they had to wave metal detector wands over us (which I didn't mind one bit... hot uniformed guys, remember?) and there were also law enforcement dogs at the entrance. We were admiring one of them when they told us that there would be a demonstration with the dogs in a few minutes.

Let me tell you, these dogs are talented. It was pretty impressive, the things they could do. One thing I was not impressed with was my camera's video feature. For some reason, it can't handle bright lights very well and everything ends up washed out, but I did manage to get this one of a super awesome dog jumping into a truck.

After the dogs, the air show activities began with a demonstration by the 58th Special Operations Wing. First, the Osprey came out. And I have no idea why I don't have a picture of it, because it is awesome. It's like this weird combination of an airplane and a helicopter. One time, I saw one flying over the Gila, and I was like WTF is that??? Anyway, back to the air show. The next thing that happened was these guys

dropped out of this plane, the C-130.

Then, there was a Black Hawk that came and picked the guys up when they were done with their "mission," or whatever. I don't really remember all the details. We went to this kind of a while ago. Here's the Black Hawk.

The next event of the show was a fly-by of a pretty darn cool plane called the B-1. For all of these planes, it was really hard to take a picture because the sun was blaring in my face and these guys were going by suuuuper fast. Here's the closest one I could get.

But, honestly, what is the B-1 without the incredible, spaceship-esque B-2? Again, the picture really does not do it justice.

There were also a variety of static ground displays. This is the giant C-17.

And if you don't believe me when I say how big it is, this is what it looks like on the inside.

I also took a picture of this B-52, mainly because I like butterflies.

The grand finale, and probably one of the coolest parts of the show, featured these guys.

The Thunderbirds. The pilots of these planes are incredibly talented. It takes a lot of training and skill just to make a plane take off, fly in a straight line, and land. Which makes the stunts that these planes can do pretty amazing.

P.S. I got the title for this post while we were walking around looking at the static displays. A man said it to his kid. I thought that was pretty awesome.

P.P.S. And this whole event -- totally free. Yep.

Because I Feel Like It

2011-11-15T20:12:00.000-08:00

And I'm a copy-cat.

What if I were to get pregnant? Ohhh....hmm.... well, my mom would be upset and my employer would probably also not be too happy. Pregnancy and baby and my job do not mix.

What if I could have any job in the world? I've talked about wanting to do research, and that would make me really happy. But if I could do anything I'd want to work for a magazine or some other form of print media, writing and editing and page layout. Maybe taking pictures. I think it would be fun and I'd be really good at it.

What if I had a day to myself? I would spend the entire day at the mall, shopping and eating Dairy Queen. Oh, yes I would!

What if I could get married all over again? I have not been married, so I am not sure. Although my friend who recently got married told me that I should just elope because having a wedding is STRESSFUL. Haha.

What if I could live anywhere in the U.S.? I'm not sure. I like New Mexico. It's not my favorite place ever (not gonna lie) but it has some cool aspects to it. I miss Michigan but I don't think I'd move back. Same with Vegas. Maybe Colorado? I really don't know. NOT Alabama.

What if I were to have more children? MORE children??? See question #1.

What if I could have any talent in the world? I would like to have really good ideas on a more frequent basis, and to be able to express those ideas coherently. This is difficult!

What if you met me in real life? You might not like me. The way I write in the blog is pretty much my personality, I think. But I'm pretty shy/socially awkward, and sometimes I think I come across as weird or mean, even though that is not my intention at all.

What if I went back to school? If I could, I would. School is my favorite. I miss it.

What if money weren't an object? I'd buy a house, travel, and write books

What if I could meet one celebrity? Oh, I don't know. Most celebrities are pretty dumb. If I met one, I'd get my brother to go up to them and say, "you're dumb!" and run away.

What if I could only shop at one store for the rest of my life? Sunflower. It has food and important hygiene items. It doesn't have clothes, but I could buy some canvas bags and make clothes out of them, I suppose.

What if I could choose an animal/pet? I would get a black pug. They are expensive but so cute and sweet!

What if I could go on a trip right now? I would go to the beach. I'm not sure which beach. A really awesome, warm one with not a lot of people.

What if I had to choose between a house cleaner and a professional chef? Definitely a house cleaner. Can I have one?

What if I had the option to get plastic surgery? No. People who have had plastic surgery look all fake and weird.

Weird Animals, And the Bad Mood Week

2011-11-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure this is where I last left off in my field adventure tales. I had finished up the rowdy party week with the firefighters and then spent the next week camping in a random spot (closer to my mapping area) with my boss.

Okay, this might have not actually happened during this particular week, but I remember it happened on a Monday, and I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned it yet. I saw a strange animal in the woods. It sort of looked like a badger, or maybe a wolverine. It had light brown fur with a narrow dark stripe on its forehead. Four short-ish legs and a kind of round body. I tried to take a picture of it but I was afraid it would attack me with its ferocious sharp teeth (which it may or may not have had) and didn't get too close. This is all I could get.

There it is, right there, inside of the red circle

The more I think about this, the more I'm pretty sure this didn't happen during that week, but whatever. On Tuesday, I worked by myself. My boss decided we would get stuff done faster if we split up and worked in separate areas. Ok, sure, that's fine. So I went off to my little area for the day.

On my drive over to where I wanted to work, I had to go up and down three hills that I called the "evil, hell hills." The worst part about them was the way that they were positioned made it hard to tell where the road went after the hill. On one of them, I had to turn around a sharp corner, go down into a ditch and then back up a steep slope. This particular day, I happened to arrive at just the right time for the sun to be positioned right above the hill in such a way that I could not see a darn thing. I had no idea where the road went, and if I went too far off the path, I would either end up in a deep rut or off the side on a steep, tree filled slope. I ended up having to stop and get out twice just to see where I was going. It was super stressful. I spent the rest of the drive shaking because I was so upset about it.

I had to stop about 1.5 km away from where I wanted to go, and walk in the rest of the way. I have a hard time navigating. Have I mentioned that before? Probably. So, most of the time, I use the GPS to help me. But the GPS was being bad that day. It led me all over the place and I never seemed to get closer. I was getting so angry that I started yelling at everything. I yelled at my backpack for not zipping when I put my sweater in. I might have yelled the f-word into the sky when I found out I forgot to take a waypoint for the truck, even though J reminded me I should always take a truck waypoint. "Always, always, always, " he said. Nevertheless, I was very grumpy. Arrrrrggghh.

I finally found two spots I wanted to dig holes, and then called it a day. I figured out my way back by following a drainage to the road and then walking up the road back to the truck. It wasn't really that hard but I like knowing where I'm going a little bit more than I did that day. Perhaps I need to improve my navigational skills.

The next day, my boss and I worked together. I was still grumpy plus I had cramps so I was definitely not in a mood for a lot of hiking and digging, but what can you do? I had to dig with the heavy Montana sharpshooter instead of my wimpy girly wooden sharpshooter that was shortened specifically for me (or so I heard). It was no fun.

The camp site itself was pretty decent, as campsites go. It was really cold that week, so nighttime was not super awesome, but it could have been worse, I suppose. That was the week my tent zipper started ripping open and my headlamp started not working. But it was the week before my sleeping bag zipper started being a jerkface. So, not everything was bad. Yay!

Balloons Are Even Better at Night

2011-11-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

Something I've always wanted to see at the Balloon Fiesta, but never have, is the night glow. Until this year. And it was awesome-tastic.

Yes, that is Spider Pig

This was when they all lit up at once. So cool!

This is Halloween

2011-10-31T20:55:00.000-07:00

My mom thought it was an angry bird.

iHeart balloons

2011-10-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I'm relaxing listening to Oasis on my newly re-downloaded iTunes. It only took me forever to get around to installing it again. But now that my field season is over -- did I mention that it was over? It ended rather abruptly and unexpectedly, but yes, it's done -- I am finding that it's not as hard to be productive as I thought it would be. I mean, yeah, it's still hard to want to do laundry and clean the apartment, and getting used to being in the office again is kind of making my brain explode but it's happening.

I want to get this thing up to date, so here's some pictures of balloons from Fiesta 2011.


dawn patrol

it snowed in the mountains that morning

the all blacks rugby team, for new zealand : )

fractal balloon

navy seal skydivers

There are actually a lot more but I'm going to split it up here. Part 2 to come later.

Alone in the Woods Week 2: The Firefighter's Party

2011-10-22T17:43:00.000-07:00

After the truck was fixed (I use the term "fixed" here loosely, but we will get to that later) I returned to Negrito for another two weeks of working by myself. Fortunately, this time, I didn't have to camp by myself. Quite the contrary. In the past, there were either a handful of Negrito firefighters or a group of traveling firefighters from another place. This time, since it was the final week of the fire season, the entire Gila Hotshot crew was there for their last days before they went home. So they spent their nights that week partying it up. And I joined in on the festivities.

On Wednesday night, their last night, they had a huge barbecue grill set up to cook burgers. I had brought my own food, but they let me cook it on their grill, which was cool. They also had a ton of other food to go along with it, which they said I could have as well. It was sort of a weird combo of stuff. Like they had mashed potatoes and pinto beans, along with the burgers. But it was pretty good. They also had two kegs full of Blue Moon.

A little while later, the ranger from Reserve (and my previous disaster story, along with the guy whose house we camped at) showed up. He asked where my boss was and seemed surprised that I was there by myself. I've gotten that reaction several times since I started working alone.

After everyone got their food, they all went inside to watch a slide show that one of the firefighters made. Their crew leader told them that it was going to be at least 25 minutes, so they'd each better get two beers to get them through it. I thought that was funny.

This is where all the drunks, I mean, firefighters, watched their crazy video

I wasn't going to watch the video because I'm not a firefighter, but I think they felt bad for me, being out there all by myself, so they invited me to come in and watch it with them. It was actually a pretty good video. Mostly a picture slide show showing all the different fires that went on this year. And there were a lot. It was interesting seeing pictures of all the fires that I'd been hearing about all summer. There was also some video of the airplanes dropping water and the pink flame retardant stuff, which was cool.

After the movie, I went to take a shower and when I came back everyone was completely trashed. They were all extra friendly and called me the "soil girl." Most of the firefighters were guys, but there were still two girls left on base (there had been a couple more before that) so I talked to each of them for a little while. One of them lives in Reserve and had been working at The Rode Inn Motel when it burned down. I had already met the other girl a while back when I was still working with J. She admitted to me that she had been hitting on him and she felt embarrassed about it the next day. I told her not to worry; he was probably flattered.

As the night progressed, many games of beer pong were played, people got rowdy, and one guy set his pants on fire. As for me, one of the older guys kept trying to get me to take him back to my tent. He asked me questions about what it looked like and said that he hadn't seen one like that before and he'd better go see it. So eventually I just had to sneak away into the darkness and hope that he wouldn't notice where I went.

That's all I really have to say about that week's events. Tonight I'm feeling sad because I found out a friend of mine from grad school died in a car accident last week. I knew his girlfriend too, briefly, when she lived here in Albuquerque. I can only imagine how she is feeling right now.

You know it's Friday when...

2011-10-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

1. Something popular that I can't stand/just don't "get" is twitter. yes, it's still dumb.

2. Something unpopular that I secretly love is hair scrunchies. they say no one ever wears them anymore but they're the only hair tie that doesn't get tangled up in my sulfide bonds (aka curls).

3. When I've had a bad day I eat chips and salsa and watch mindless tv .

4. I'd prefer weekends to working any day.

5. Something that makes me nervous is a lot of things, mainly packing for camping trips at the moment. small talk. and money, to an extent.

6. Something worth fighting for is success. I don't do this very well, but it's worth it and I want to do better.

7. When people think of me, I hope they think "she is really nice and fun! I want to hang out with her." .

Return to Loco Mountain

2011-10-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

It was late when I got back on Friday and no one was in the office. I wrote an email to my boss updating him about the week and told him about the truck. Then I went home. On Monday, I talked to him about it some more and he told me to take it to the shop. One of my favorite jobs at work is taking the vehicles to the repair shop. For one thing, it gets me out of the office for a while, and I also really like chatting with the owner/manager, who is a friendly old Czechoslovakian man. Sometimes I'm not sure what he's saying because of the accent but I enjoy talking to him nonetheless. Anyway, he told me that the fuel injector was leaking (For about 2 weeks, I thought he had said ejector until I told J about it, and he was like, no... you're wrong). Sooo... the truck was broken and I wouldn't be able to go to the field. Well, not alone anyway.

It was decided that my boss and I would go to the field together and work on his mapping. The campsite he chose was in my old quad from last year, so it felt a little like deja vu. I'd been back on those trails with my old nemesis... ahem, I mean, co-worker, many times.

And I could see the hill where my boss and I dug out my field review site that we never went back to. I wonder if it's still there. I hope no little woodland animals fell in it and died. That would be sad.

It also has cool looking fog

It ended up being rainy and really muddy that week, so the first day my boss spent a really long time walking down the road to see if it was drivable while I stood around and enjoyed the sunshine. Nice. When he came back, he told me it was too muddy and that we would be going to my quad instead. Also very nice.

The drive was a lot longer than if we'd been staying at Negrito (which we could have because the firefighters were back) but whatever. We listened to a lot of Rush Limbaugh. Yeah....

My boss spent a bunch of time looking around for a "perfect" spot to dig a site. I still don't like doing site descriptions because they take forever and there's a bunch of stupid crap to do with them, like counting sticks. Yes, we count every single frickin stick. I like coring trees, though. It's sort of relaxing. Unless the corer gets stuck in the tree, then it's a pain.

We ended up spending the next two days digging and describing two sites and then went home a day early because of the rain and mud. It was late when we got home on that Wednesday night, but I couldn't really complain. I was a home a whole day early!

Matt was over at a friend's house so I went over to meet him, hung out for a while, went home, and slept in my own bed. Lovely!

Alone in the Woods: Week 1

2011-10-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

As of today, I have spent a total of three weeks working alone in the field. The first week... well, it sucked. I hated working alone with a vengeance after that. Since then, I still don't love it, but it did get a little better. And I'll tell you why. But let's start from the beginning, shall we?

Here is a picture I took of a fuzzy caterpillar that week. It doesn't have much to do with anything but I will keep it here for symbolic purposes.

My first week by myself started on a Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. First of all, I hate starting field weeks on Tuesday because that means I have to stay until Friday, which is a huge bummer. My boss decided to take leave and stay in the office that week (lazy!) so he wouldn't be even close to where I was, which he normally would be if he were working on his own mapping. Therefore, I would be alone, and naturally, thought I would probably get attacked by a bear and die.

When I got to Negrito, the gate was locked and no one was there. I had been warned this might happen, and remembered to bring my forest key with me to unlock the gate. However, my forest key was not actually my forest key, as I would later find out. But I didn't know that at the time, so I was like, WTF? And ended up having to camp on some stupid hill outside of the base. I put my tent up in the trees so it would be harder for random hunters to see me from the road but I had to park far away, where it was flat and not rocky so every time I was in my tent and needed something from the truck (or vice-versa) it was a trek to get there. That was annoying thing number 1.

I couldn't drive into Negrito but I could walk into it, so the first thing I tried was getting into the kitchen/mess hall. But it was locked and my "forest key" didn't work on that either. Sadly. But no matter, I had my camp stove and could cook dinner on that. Wellll....no. For some reason, I could not get that thing to work. I filled it up with gas and pumped it a bunch of times but it was no use. The pump handle thing kept locking and therefore gas was not releasing from the container into the stove and it would not light. I had chips and salsa for dinner that night. That was annoying thing number 2.

Later that evening, while I was in my tent, I came up with a brilliant idea. Tomorrow, I would build a fire using the Negrito fire pit and cook my dinner on there. Yes! I was a genius! The next night, after work, I gathered all my cooking materials and hiked up to the base to begin making my fire. At this point, it was still raining pretty regularly during the day so all my potential fuel was wet. It took a while, but I was persistent, and eventually burned enough pine needles to get the firewood dried out enough to create fire.

Ta-da! Small, but fire nonetheless

The second dilemma was finding a method with which to cook my dinner over the fire. Lucky for me, the Hotshots left a grill sitting outside on the ground. I propped it up with two rocks on either side of the fire and was able to cook my sausages. Hooray!

The nights were strange that week. It was weird being alone and I had lots of odd dreams. One night I dreamed that there was a coyote outside my tent and I was trying to get up and move so I could defend myself, but I couldn't. Then I dreamed that a snake was crawling underneath my tent, and I could feel it moving. Another night I dreamed about contra dancing.

Since I'm done with Pitchfork Canyon, I'm now working on the quad next door, and it's a farther drive. It takes about an hour just to get from one end to the other. By Wednesday or Thursday, I realized that the gas in the truck was getting really low and I started to get nervous. I really really did not want to run out of gas out there. I'd already had enough vehicle issues this summer and didn't want to have to call for help again. That was annoying thing number 3.

Finally, Friday came and I could go home. I was sooo happy. Usually, we're supposed to do a little work on our last morning and then go home. So I was a good little employee and dug one hole in a drainage full of Apache Plumes. Then I began the drive back to Albuquerque. I knew it would be a while before I made it to a town and a gas station so I didn't turn on the air conditioning, didn't listen to the radio and prayed that my gas wouldn't run out before I got there. It got really low, the truck dinged at me, but I made it. I was relieved. But as soon as I got on the paved road, the truck started making a weird noise. It sounded like creaking plastic coming from somewhere underneath the gas and brake pedals. Weird, right? I had no idea what it was and couldn't really do much about it at the time except keep going and hope nothing bad happened. Lucky for me, the noise seemed to stop for a while until I was almost back to the office and then I knew I would be okay. For that day, anyway.

But I didn't care. I would figure it out later. I was home.

I was going to do this yesterday

2011-09-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

But I got distracted by life. So, here is fill in the blank Friday, on a Saturday. I have much more to say about camping and other things that have been going on but I think I need to do some weekend things right now. Plus, I am hungry!

1. The best thing I did all week was party with the Gila Hotshots on their last night of the fire season.

2. Warm, sunny afternoons make me super happy.

3. Pets are lovely. I want a little doggie so bad!

4. I'm not sure what is the best thing about my life.

5. With the cooler weather I am looking forward to being done with field season, drinking tea, being at home, sleeping in my own bed, not being stressed about camping, holidays.

6. Something that's on my "wish list" right now is a new purse and the new Red Hot Chili Peppers CD.

7. This weekend I am going to do something fun. State Fair or Cliff's amusement park, hopefully!

Isotopes

2011-09-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

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.

Saturday Steals: Apparently I Like Sushi Now

2011-09-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

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 fee t?) 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.

Pitchfork Canyon Update

2011-09-05T20:46:00.000-07:00

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.

Mount Taylor, Take Two

2011-09-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

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.

The Last Good Week

2011-08-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's already been three weeks since this happened. Maybe time is going by faster than I thought it would. Honestly, I thought that after I stopped working with my most awesome field buddy, that the rest of the season would drag and drag. It seems like a long time, though, since last November, when I ended the 2010 season and couldn't even stand the thought of going back out again. I thought it was going to be terrible. And well, the first week was pretty darn crappy, but then J started coming out with me and I thought, "Wow, this totally doesn't suck." But alas, he has to go back to school and get married and all that crap, so no more good field season for me, I guess. But it was good while it lasted. The past two weeks I worked with Egghead, and it was not so bad. I had someone to dig holes for me and someone to talk incessantly to when I was feeling bored. Next week, I'll be working alone. But camping with my boss. So we'll see how that goes...

But anyway, catching up, here's what went on in the field those few weeks ago.

Like I said before, we didn't camp at Negrito. Instead, we went off on a random road somewhere and found a spot to set up camp. J put up the tarp and set up our little area underneath, with the table and stove and everything. It was a pretty nice setup.

One reason we got this spot was because of this cool flat(ish) rock, which J liked to sit on until he said it hurt his back. Should've gotten the camp chair. Anyway, it was still cool looking. And we were finally allowed to have fire, so we did.

The mountain in the background is Elk Mountain and we spent a fair amount of time traversing around on there throughout the week.

Here's a view from up there, kinda sorta near the top.

And since we were up there trundling, I got a picture of another different view the next day.

That was our last full day in the field and we got 5 holes described that day. One of them, I even dug myself. I don't really expect to get that many next week. I made a goal of six for the whole week, since I'll have to do everything myself, and things will go a lot slower. But if I can get those done, that will be the end of that quad, and I'll only have one more to go before I'm done with field work! Hooray!

Sandia Crest

2011-08-20T16:33:00.000-07:00

As usual, I'm way behind on my posting. So we're going to go back in time, to two weekends ago, when Matt and I went to the Sandia Crest. I had never been there before, can you believe it? I've been up on the tram twice but I never took the Crest trail. So that is what we did. This time, we drove up. This involves going around through Tijeras (which means scissors, if you're curious : ) and up the East side of the mountain. It's a really pretty drive going up, and when you get to the top, the view is incredible.

Later, we went to the East side of the mountain and took in the forest views, including one of my favorite trees, corkbark fir, which actually does have squishy corky bark.

We spent the evening looking at the sunset, and getting a preview of where we would be spending the next weekend.

Can you guess where we went? I'll give you a hint. It's that mountain waaay off in the distance. I'll tell you more about that later.

Trundling

2011-08-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

Because we can.

P.S. I don't know what's up with the weird lighting. My camera is old. Sorry.

Negrito Fire Station

2011-08-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

For the past several weeks, I have been staying at the Negrito Work Station while I do my mapping. The firefighters stay there when they're not off, you know, fighting fires. They have barracks that they stay in but we just sort of set up our tents somewhere and call it good. However, we have access to everything else. We're not staying at Negrito next week, though, because it's more convenient to go somewhere else. I may or may not go back later by myself (next week is J's last week before school starts and I am sad : ( but in the meantime I thought I'd show you some crappy blurry pictures I took of Negrito, so you'll see what it was like to stay there.

Ok, so first of all, they have bathrooms with flush toilets, sinks with running water, and showers. This, to me, is pretty darn fancy. Last year, at Ben Lilly, we had some latrine type toilets that I thought were nice compared to the behind the tree pee that I normally did. But these... they flush! And oh my gosh, showers... I've taken one every week and it is super amazing being able to get clean after working with dirt all day, especially now that monsoon season is kicking in and everything is all wet and muddy.

This is the kitchen and mess hall where we often cooked and ate dinner. Other times, we've just used our own camp stove and sat on the back of the truck but when it's raining, it's nice to have a place to go inside and eat. Plus, they have a tv. That's pretty awesome. I should have taken a picture of the mess hall with the tv in it but I didn't because J was in there watching baseball and I got nervous he would think I was weird for taking all these stupid pictures. But I did take a picture of the entryway.

And the kitchen.

The only thing I didn't really like about it in here was that it smelled kind of weird. Oh, and the rat poops. But the firefighters clean it all the time so it wasn't really that gross.

I guess that's it for now. I'll try to take some pictures of our camping spot next week to show you as well. I can't believe it's August already. The summer is going by too fast, and I still have so much more field work to go. I'm starting to dread it again. At least I'll have one more good week.

My Weekend Buddy

2011-07-30T10:33:00.000-07:00

I have a house guest this weekend. His name is Boris.


Oh my gosh! Cute!

His full name is something complicated and Russian because his owner really likes Russian authors. And I do too, and am part Russian, but I still can't remember the name. Haha. I'm watching him for my co-worker while he is in Las Vegas for a wedding. I'm jealous. Have I mentioned how much I love Vegas? Oh yes, yes I have.

Anyway, I've decided pugs are awesome. They're affectionate, loyal, smart, well behaved and have the cutest little bark ever. They are the perfect apartment dog. I want one.

Right now he's sleeping on the couch and it's super adorable. I may never give him back... : )

Bear Week

2011-07-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

Now that we're finally getting some rain, the Sandias were open last weekend so we decided to take full advantage of some hiking in the mountains. We ended up going on an easy trail because I'm lazy from always hiking during the week. It's really pretty, though. It's a nature walk type thing in Cienega Canyon. Cienega means "wet meadow," or so the sign said.

I like this picture because it's pretty and you can't tell how bad I look because I'm all shadowy

We had a nice time just hanging out and finally it was time to go, so we decided to loop back around the other side of the trail to go back. While we were walking, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something moving in the trees above us. Upon closer inspection, I realized what it was...

"Oh my gosh, it's a bear!" I said.

Matt didn't believe me at first, but I pointed it out to him, and there was no doubt about it. That bear was staring right at us. We started walking away slowly, still looking at him, but he didn't really seem to care. He just made his way down the hill and into the meadow. I was so surprised, I didn't think to take a picture right away. So all I got was his butt as he went past us.


Can you see him?

The next day, I headed down to the field with my two travel companions (the boss needed some time alone, apparently, so I got two helpers : ) We had to do a transect this week, which is just ten holes in a row across the same polygon, or similar area, so I got to go ahead of the boys and flag out the spots where they would dig. While I was off by myself, I kept hearing strange noises. Rustling, some high pitched squeaks, stuff like that. At first I thought it was the guys whistling for me but they weren't that close by. I just happened to look up at the exact time that .... you guessed it... another bear was standing in the woods looking back at me. I yelled at him, and he just kept staring, so I decided to blow my "rape whistle," as J calls it, and that scared him off.

After that, I didn't want to stay by myself any longer so I went quickly back to the place where I left the guys and told them about the bear. They said I probably saw him because I was alone and not making too much noise. I said it would be crazy if I saw another bear the next day. That would be impossible, right?

Actually, no, not so impossible.

The next day, I was alone again because I had to finish flagging and describing the opposite end of the transect. The guys took the GPS so I was on my own trying to remember where I put the flags. I found the first few pretty easily but the one on the end was over on the other side of a little hill and I couldn't find it. I was looking all over the place and getting really frustrated when I heard a noise. I looked up and saw yet another bear (or maybe the same one?) running down the hill toward me. This time, I was startled and afraid. More so than I had been the day before. But when the bear saw me, he stopped, and I yelled at him and he ran away. At that point, I gave up on looking for the last hole and decided to head back to the truck.

The guys showed up a little bit after I did and I said "I saw another bear." They thought I was joking, but I was totally 100% serious, of course. They were both really tired from digging but it was only 4:30 so I wanted to describe another hole. At first, they were pretty cranky about it, which made me feel bad, because I thought they were mad at me. So I was pouting a little bit and J told me to cheer up, so maybe they weren't that mad.

For the rest of the week, we pretty much just stuck together so that none of us would have trouble finding the rest of the holes. And we didn't see any more bears.

The only other thing that happened this week, was Egghead and I ran into a rancher and somehow he got started on the topic of wolves. There's a program within my organization that tries to keep the wolves from going extinct, and ranchers HATE it. "It's a terrrrible program, just terrible" he said to us. Egghead asked him what, specifically, he didn't like about the program, and the rancher said, "They sneak in, and they eat yer cattle." No joke, dude. But the program doesn't do that. The wolves do. But when I'm out there, I try not to get into any arguments. Not worth it. So we went home, and I was glad for it. It was a long week.

The 180

2011-07-23T12:59:00.000-07:00

Last week, J and I left our dear friend Egghead behind and headed to the field without him. It was a super good week and I enjoyed myself quite a lot. It's so nice working with someone I actually get along with. I do hope the feeling is mutual. At times, I feel like the annoying little sister, or like that 12 year old girl riding around with John Milner in "American Graffiti." But I try to keep my annoying-ness to a minimum.

We saw some different animals this week, including a couple coyotes, wild turkeys and a horny toad. One day, we were pretending that we were on a safari and kind of got distracted/lost. Oops.


Horny toad waaa (that's what Matt and I call a baby : )

pink soil (made from weathered rhyolite)

Cute little drainage basin and awesome background scenery

Back in the office on Friday, I talked to my boss about my work, and he didn't really have much nice to say about it. I'm trying not to let it get to me, though. I know the work I did, and the effort I put into it. I just have to realize that that's the way he is and I'll most likely never hear a compliment from him. It's hard, though. Next week, I'll do it all over again, and hopefully the negative comments will at least diminish.

Pink Fluff

2011-07-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

This was the best week I've had in the field in a long time. My new field buddy and I work together awesomely well. And we have fun too. It's great. I haven't enjoyed field work this much since the VCNP two years ago. This makes me happy.

Here's some pictures I took.

Calming Things

2011-07-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, after 3 weeks of sitting in my cubicle, I will go back to the forest. Getting there is always a process. A long, drawn out, stressful process. Field work is not all fun time in the woods. There is constant planning and preparation and perseverance even when things suck and you want to go home really bad. But if you can get through that, there are rewards.

Like the ever changing New Mexico sunset.

And watching the moon cycle through its phases of light and dark.

I like this picture. The way it captures two points of light, the fire and the moon, linked together in the darkness.

And, if you're lucky, the sound of a stream running by on a sunny afternoon.

So tomorrow, I may be stressed, but tonight I am feeling calm.

The Last 6 months

2011-07-02T14:30:00.000-07:00

Stuff has been so crazy around here that I haven't been able to post about everything I've been meaning to so far this year. Instead of making a separate post about everything, which I'm definitely too lazy to do, I'll just catch up with some of my pictures I took from the last 6 months. That way I can also finally clear out my camera card for some new pictures. Multitasking!

We took Matt's dogs to the hills. Here's Star looking cute.

Matt got three different Lufthansa airplanes, which he lined up together. His sister just flew on Lufthansa airlines to Germany, not any of these particular ones though. An A340-600.

My friend Erica came to visit and we hiked to the snowy Travertine Falls.

I went on an adventure to Silver City and took the scenic route back, through the overpass.

We took a trip to one of my favorite rest stops in New Mexico, Garden of the gods and goddesses.

We brought some friends along on a trip to the Mountains.

And went camping by a stream.

So, as the fires continue to burn around the state (albeit more under control, now) and I continue to deal with the stresses of daily life, I will remember these times and look forward to new adventures and many more photographs to come.

Something Good

2011-06-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

Whenever my mom asks my grandma, who has alzheimers, what she wants to eat, she answers "Something good." In a way, that helps me to remember there are good things even when everything seems bad. So today, I'm posting a few pictures of our campsite to remind myself that there is something good that comes out of going to the field, even with all the other crap that goes on.

We camped at the Negrito Fire Base. It's a pretty nice place, with flush toilets, showers, and a functioning kitchen. Probably the fanciest place I've camped in for work so far.

Here's where I set up camp. I love camping in the Ponderosa Forest best. It's so pretty.

One night, there was a really pretty sunset. Sorry it's kinda fuzzy. I'm not the best photographer in the world.

That same night, the full moon glowed orange, because of all the smoke in the air. I wish this picture could do it justice. It was really cool looking.

The Return of Fail Torta

2011-06-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

Flying Taco's less fortunate cousin.

It's a Long Story...

2011-06-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

I've said that several times already this week. As I mentioned previously, this was my first week in the field, and well... it bombed. Badly. I've had three mini-lectures already and I'm sure there's more to come. I feel like the guy in Office Space who has waaay too many bosses and all my TPS reports got accidentally flushed down the toilet and dragged out again in a wet, soggy heap. But the thing is, it wasn't me who flushed them. It was the stupid intern, even after I told him not to. This is all metaphorical, by the way. In case you didn't figure that out already. Anyway, like I said, it's a long story. One that I may have to dust off the old fail blog to write. We shall see. But to make the long story short, suffice it to say I will be back in civilization for at least the next two weeks. That should give me some time to tell you everything.

It's coming...

2011-06-09T21:16:00.000-07:00

My field season officially starts next week. ummm... yay. So much stuff has been going on lately and I feel very scatterbrained and disorganized and completely not ready to be out in the woods for all of eternity (aka this summer).

So, what's been going on?

First of all, if you haven't heard already, there are some massive fires going on in Arizona right now and the smoke is blowing all the way to Iowa. It's been smoky here, particularly at night, for oh... about a week and a half, I suppose. My line of work is directly involved with fighting forest fires, keeping them under control, and monitoring afterward. This is not my job, in particular, most likely because my boss thinks I would die if I even got near a fire. Probably right. Anyway, the fire has been growing but the smoke seems to be dying down for the moment. So maybe it's getting better. I really should know more about this than I do. But I've been distracted.

Before I can go out to the field, I have to finish entering a crapload of data, and I'm not done yet. That's why I'm getting out so late this year. I don't exactly understand the reasoning behind needing it done now, but whatever. But next week, my boss and the rest of my crew are going out on fire duty. So I have to take the student intern to the field so he has something to do. That means I have to be ready with my maps. Oh and on top of that we're getting new carpet in our office so I have to take everything out of my cubicle and put it in boxes. Soo exciting. Plus I have to order a new tent pole and buy some other camping supplies. Today I was measuring the tent pole, and a lady came by and was like "what the heck" and I said "I'm measuring this tent pole to see how long it is." Duh.

So that's what's happening at work. But it isn't all that's happening. Last week, someone in stupid Detroit stole my credit card number and was using it to buy McDonalds and 7-11, and other crap like that. So I had to dispute it and get a new card. I was cleared of all charges and got my new card today.

But that still isn't all. Just when I thought things might be getting better, some idiots decided it would be a good idea to fight while driving down the highway and smack into my car. Yeah, not the best idea, especially if you're a felon with no insurance and no driver's license. Geniuses, I tell you. Albuquerque is frickin full of them. Anyway, I didn't file a police report because he would just run, go to jail, etc., which wouldn't really help me. And I'm not sure what kind of insurance claim I can make against an uninsured motorist. So now I'm stuck with a scraped up car (it looks a lot better than I thought it would based on how hard it felt when it hit) and a criminal's "promise" to pay me back. Lucky me.

So... that's why I'm not excited to go to the field.

A Saturday Wedding

2011-05-29T12:01:00.000-07:00

I went to a wedding yesterday. It was for two of Matt's friends. He actually knew both of them separately before they met. Funny, huh? Anyway, they had their wedding at Hotel Albuquerque, which we missed because we're slowpokes (and who knew some weddings only lasted 30 minutes? Catholic weddings seem to last about 30 years... haha)

Anyway, the reception was in the building right next door to the hotel, so we hung out in Old Town while we waited for the party to start. I've been to Old Town a few times before but we ended up finding some places that neither of us had explored before. We also went to see the "Adult Room" at The Candy Lady, full of penis shaped lollipops and other naughty goodies. And the rattlesnake museum. We didn't pay to get into the actual museum part but we wandered around the gift shop and watched a turtle mow down on a piece of lettuce. It was so cute!

The reception was held at Casa Esencia, which is basically a large renovated old house. I only had my phone with me, so I didn't take many pictures. (I wouldn't be able to get the pics off my phone right away anyway) So I took some from their facebook page, Tee hee.

This is the main dance room where the bride and groom were introduced, where they cut the cake, made speeches and played dance music. Fancy, huh?

The whole place was like a traveling buffet, with different foods in each room. The newly married couple are vegans, so I wasn't sure what to expect food-wise, but it was all really good! I especially loved the butternut squash soup. This room had a chips and salsa bar. The piano wasn't there, though.

The groom is the singer in a cover band, so he serenaded his wife with a few songs out here in this courtyard. One song she had requested was "New Age Girl." It brought back memories of being in middle school, hanging out in my friend's basement listening to that song. Haha.

And of course, what is a wedding without a bar? The first $1000 in drinks were free. I managed to get one free drink before they reached the cutoff point. I chose my old standby, vodka and cranberry, with Ketel One vodka. Not too shabby!

We spent a good majority of our time in this courtyard. It was a lovely, warm evening and the landscaping was just beautiful. What an awesome place for a wedding reception!

Blue Photo Contest

2011-05-22T11:22:00.000-07:00

This is a picture I took of my sister and her friend at our cottage on Portage Lake in Michigan.

I'm participating in the photo contest sponsored by Bella Skye Photography. The theme is blue.

Buckman Cave

2011-05-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to remember when I went to Buckman Cave. Let's see... I didn't go rappelling at Ship Rock, which was a bummer, but it hailed, so it's ok... That was one week. Then it snowed and our next trip was cancelled. That was another week. Then I gave a speech about it at Toastmasters. That may have been a few weeks after. Or one week after. So, if two trains are travelling at a rate of.... Oh, who am I kidding? I have no idea. It's been a while. But I have pictures to prove that I was there. So it did happen. At some point.

To get into the cave, we had to climb over basalt rocks

and through a narrow passageway

to get to the cave entrance.

After looking at the following pictures, I realized that a lot of them look the same as my previous pictures of Alabaster Cave. Even though they're completely different caves with completely different rock types. However, my camera doesn't understand that. It says, "It's dark in here! I was built in 2004! I don't know how to do this!" And it makes everything look the same.

The rocks really weren't that light colored

I don't remember where we were at this point in the above picture, but this random person's butt gives you an idea of the kind of passageways we had to finagle ourselves through. My teacher said that all the soft parts in our body are basically the consistency of jell-o and can be squeezed through many small spaces. This is an interesting concept. Not extremely comforting when your organs feel like they're smashing against your ribs, but I guess it works.

This was a pretty cool part. We had to start up at the top where Red Shirt is standing and then get down to the bottom where White Helmet is. It's higher than it looks. But if you shimmy down through a hole and around the back of those rocks, you can climb down and get to the bottom.

After getting down, there was a spacious passageway

that led to... the end of the cave?


So... now what?

Well, yeah, it's the end. You have to turn around. And climb back up the crazy tall narrow passageway you just went down. That is, if you want to get back out.

But we didn't get out. Not yet. It may have been the end of the cave, but it wasn't the end of our journey. There were a few more obstacles to get through before emerging from the depths of Buckman Cave...

How I Became a Geologist

2011-05-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

When did you decide to pursue this course of study? Was it something you've been interested in from childhood? Did you love playing in the dirt as a kid? If you weren't pursuing this course of study what would be your second choice? (from Carma)

How/why did you chose geology over english/writing? (from Pam)

As you can infer from the second question, geology was not my first choice. It wasn't really even my second choice. Not from the beginning, anyway. In fact, I was completely uninterested in science. I went to college planning to major in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. I wanted to be a journalist. I joined the newspaper staff my freshman year in college and became a paid staff writer very early on. I was Arts Editor for two years and Editor-in-Chief my senior year. I liked the writing, page layout and the people I worked with (most of them, anyway). But by that time, my desire for a career in journalism was slipping, for a variety of reasons. Looking back, I'm not sure I should have dismissed it so quickly. But I did. And I gave it all up to pursue a completely new field that had never even phased me before.

This is where I spent a large majority of my senior year. Murray (the skeleton) and I had some good times together.

I first became interested in geology when I took a required science course called The Planet Earth. In the beginning, I HATED it. It's not a good idea to begin an intro geology laboratory with topographic maps. HUGE turn off. There are some complicated concepts that go along with them and when I taught my own students during grad school, they despised it as well. But after that first day, the labs got better and I enjoyed the lecture topics as well. On my first test, I got one of the highest grades in the class. Then, for an English class, I had to write a paper on a controversial topic, and we had to interview an expert on that topic. We had just been discussing creation vs. evolution in geology, so that was on my mind. I asked my professor if I could interview him. It was a bit of an awkward interview, which I later found out was due to the quirks in that particular professor's personality. But while we were talking, he asked me what I thought about getting a major in geology? My first thought was 'Ummm....what? No way. I'm not a scientist.' But I couldn't get it out of my head.

After that, it was really just a progressive decision that happened over time. I felt much more comfortable and at home in the geology department than the English department. I got to look at rocks and go on field trips. I liked the people better. When I got stressed about the newspaper, I'd go work in the geology lab. But one main determining factor happened during my sophomore year. The career counseling center called me up and basically forced me into doing their "sophomore spotlight" career thing. So I went and the whole time the girl talked about how I could work at a publishing house. It was just "blah blah blah publishing house." And that sounded really boring to me. (this seems funny now, considering...) I thought if that was what I was destined to do with an English degree, then I didn't want to do it.

That same year, I declared a minor in geology. (I still wasn't totally committed to the degree yet) I talked to the department chairperson at the time about what classes I should take and I signed up for them. One class I took was a field course over spring break. We went to Arizona, and it was amazing. I learned so much. It was sometime during that trip that I could no longer imagine my life without geology as a part of it.

In Arizona, we played hackey sack while our professor was falling off a cliff in the background.

Soon after that, I talked to my professor (the same one I interviewed my freshman year) and he said, "You know, if you just take these few more classes next year, you could get a major." I had never thought of that. I wanted to do it, but I needed some more confirmation. So I did what I thought was best. I called my mom.

To answer the question "Did you love playing in the dirt as a kid?" Yes, in fact, I did love playing in the dirt as a kid. I LOVED the sandbox. We didn't have a liner on the bottom so we could dig all the way down into the soil, which was all clay-ey. I thought that was totally awesome. I also loved picking up rocks. I'd forgotten about it, but I had a huge collection in the garage. So when I told my mom I wanted to major in geology, she was not surprised at all, and told me to go for it if that was what I wanted. That was all I needed, and so, at the end of my junior year, I declared a major in geology.

In the end, I graduated with a double major in English and geology. So I suppose I could still be a writer if I wanted, but like I said, I can't imagine life without geology. At the same time, I can't imagine a life without writing either. Blogging helps with that, but I'm realizing that I want writing to be part of my professional life as well. I feel like my current position does not showcase my natural talents as much as I'd like it to. This is part of the reason why I want to do research. A big part of research is writing and publishing papers, which I would be good at. My thesis committee in grad school complimented me on how well written my thesis was. So I know I can write about scientific topics. Maybe I could be a science writer. But I also want to do at least some of the science myself.

Overall, I'm happy that I was introduced to geology in college. If it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't have had many of the experiences and met many of the people that I have. I learned a lot about science and also about myself during that time. I hope that this next chapter of my life will build on those experiences to give me all that I hope for in my life and my career. We'll have to see what happens.

Science-ish Questions

2011-05-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to questions part two! These are mainly related to science/field work. Things like that. With some other stuff thrown in for fun.

When you take samples of soil from a given area, how many do you take? (From cgbookcat)
Generally, the only time we collect samples is when we dig out a site. This is different from our normal everyday mapping, which are just "observations," or small holes that we dig to get a basic idea of what we're looking at. Site descriptions are done in much more detail and the holes are bigger, so we can see better and describe it in more depth. Each person on the crew does about 3-4 of these per year. We take one set of samples at each site, which are collected in special cardboard boxes with separate partitions for each horizon. These are kept on hand in our office mainly for reference purposes, so that we can run color and pH tests. For pH, I use indicators. Various indicators are mixed with the soil, and then drained. The color that comes out in the liquid indicate what the pH of the soil is. This can be done at the office and don't require a lab. Honestly, I prefer a pH meter. It's much more straightforward (if it's not broken), but unfortunately we don't have one of those.

Do you do cores so you can see layers?
We do not take core samples and the main reason for that is the soil here is much too rocky. I've used an auger before, in training. They're really nice and way easier than digging a 100 cm soil pit, but it just doesn't work in this climate and soil type. The best place to use them is in the Midwest where there is a lot of agricultural land, glacial till, stuff like that.

What kinds of tests get run on them?
There are a variety of tests that we can run on soil samples, for various purposes. If we just need to do basic property tests, like I described above, we use the box samples. If we need to do more complex tests, they get sent out to a lab. For this, we'll collect a larger sample, like in a ziploc bag or something. Examples of tests that would be run are calcium carbonate equivalent and cation exchange capacity, which basically tell you how much carbonate or clay-type molecules are in a sample. We can also get a more accurate percentage on particle size using the hydrometer or pipette method (which I have learned about a little but it's been a while). However, sending samples to the lab is extra time and money that we don't particularly want to spend, so it doesn't happen too often.

How much analysis can easily be done from the site, and what proportion of them need to be brought back for lab tests?
Most analysis is done directly from the site. We analyze physical soil properties and plant characteristics right there in the field. This gets documented and we use that documentation and its interpretations to make our maps. We use lab data mainly to confirm soil taxonomy, which often requires things like a specific particle size ratio or a percentage of a certain mineral or something like that. A lot of times we can just infer a lot of it from previous data or other information that we've been given, and the lab data is more of just a back-up.

What kinds of stuff are you looking for?
What we do is called Terrestrial Ecological Unit Inventory, or TEUI. The name, Inventory, says a lot about what we do. It is mainly about collecting data and creating a map from it. We look for patterns in the landscape, vegetation and soil type within a certain geology or parent material so that when we make our maps, we have some consistency in our data and how our maps come together. The final product is entered into a database so that land managers, researchers and other staff can look at our data and use it as necessary.

First question: What is an ANZAC? :) (from off-black)
Oh oh, I know this one! ANZAC is Australia New Zealand Army Corps. Yep, I'm so smart. Haha. Thanks for the info. Americans seem very hesitant to teach much more than American history. I learned that in England when some little kids were spewing off a bunch of info about the Iron Age and I had no idea what they were talking about. You learn something new every day.

Just kidding, actual question: Weirdest/most unusual thing you have had to do in the field?
Hmmm... the weirdest thing? I think I've been doing this so long, nothing really seems weird and unusual anymore. I asked Matt if he remembered me telling him about anything and he said, "tell them about the poop sack." Which doesn't even have to do with field work. It's for caving. You're not supposed to go number 1 or 2 in a cave, because people crawl around in there and that would be gross. So you bring ziploc bags, and go in them. You can also use a "pee bottle" or a bag that holds a material that will convert your pee into a weird gel-like substance. The poop bag is also called a burrito bag, in case you were wondering about that. I guess, in general, using nature as facilities was one of the main things I had to get used to when I started doing regular field work. But it's just one of those things you have to do, you know? There's even a plant called mullein, aka Indian toilet paper, that you can use for such occasions, but apparently it will give you a rash if you use it too much. Sorry if that's TMI, but you asked ; )

If, after this, you're like totally WTF, well... I was too at one point. Until I became a geologist. I will explain how that happened in the next Q&A post.

The Empty Briefcase

2011-05-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday morning, I drove to work, as usual. When I arrived at the entrance to the parking lot at 7:30, I discovered I couldn't get in because it was being completely blocked by three cop cars.

Hmmmm.... I thought to myself. What is up with that? And how the heck do I get into the parking lot?

I had no choice but to continue past our parking lot and go around the block. Fortunately, one of the security guards was standing outside at the corner telling people where to go. He said if I went around and took the (creepy) back alley way, I could get into the lot. So, I went around the block, but being my usual self, I completely missed my turn to and had to go back around again. Awesome.

I'm not sure how I feel about that back alley. It's right by a furniture warehouse and what I assume to be a parole or probation office. Something like that. There are always shady people walking back there, coming out from doing who knows what behind the dumpster. And there are always shoes. Before I moved to Albuquerque, I watched an episode of Extreme Home Makeover that was based here, and they said shoes were an indication of where and what type of drugs were being sold. Nice. One day, I saw a pair of black dress shoes hanging from a wire and three more pairs of black shoes lined up in a row on the ground underneath it. I didn't stick around to see if any drugs would be dealt.

Anyway, off that tangent and back to my story... Fifteen minutes after I first arrived, I finally made it to the parking lot gates, where I was told to sit in my car and wait for the all clear. However, no one else was sitting in their cars, so I went to the closest group of people standing around to find out what was up.

They told me that a "mysterious package" had been left outside the building and the bomb squad was bringing dogs and whatever else a bomb squad brings. We waited outside for an hour for them to show up and x-ray the "package," which I later found out was a briefcase someone had left somewhere outside on the south end of the building.

Finally, I got sick of waiting and went to get some coffee. This turned out to be a bad idea, because I had coffee jitters for the rest of the day. This is why I don't normally drink the stuff. Or at least not that much of it.

During the time I was gone, the bomb squad had given the all clear and everyone had been allowed back into the building.

The next day, I went to happy hour with some coworkers at a very cool but unfortunately pricey rooftop bar where I was informed that the briefcase had been empty. I have no idea why someone would have left an empty briefcase. Perhaps it was left there on purpose to freak people out. Or maybe someone just got a new briefcase, emptied out their old one and forgot about it? Who knows. Maybe no one ever will.

100

2011-05-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

Wow, lots of questions! That's cool. Thanks, everyone! As it is, I'm splitting it up into several different posts. This one will be more general questions and the next will be more science related questions. Then I will write a post about why I became a geologist.

Have you ever been abroad? Where? (from Chloe)
I have been abroad. I've been to England for a class in college. At my school, everyone had to take a senior seminar. Basically a culminating course usually having to do with some sort of religious aspect. I decided to take my senior seminar abroad. It was called "The Sacred and the Profane" and focused on the relationship between traditional English church and folk music. We went to London, Cambridge, Stratford, Dover... (I'm totally forgetting all the places we went) I even got a semi-private tour of some Napoleonic caves/forts built into the Dover cliffs. All of it was amazing, but my absolute favorite place we went was Cambridge. I loved the college town atmosphere, the farmers market, the buildings, the fact that everyone rode bikes (except for the presence and subsequent arrest of a guy who went around stabbing people on bikes while we were there). It was the coolest place. If I were to go back to anywhere in England, it would be there.


in the tunnels

Cambridge market

Why do you blog?
I started keeping a blog in college, as a way to just release my emotions or whatever out into the world. I liked writing and it seemed like a good outlet for me. Blogging wasn't really social back then. It was more just writing and putting it out there. Then, I got LJ to communicate with a few college friends and kept that through grad school. It wasn't until I moved onto wordpress that I actively started reading other blogs and writing in mine more regularly. Now, I blog because it's fun and I like reading about what other people have to say on various topics. It's entertaining.

What is your favorite hobby?
Ummm... I'd have to say blogging. It's the only thing I do on a regular enough basis. Although I also enjoy scrapbooking and yoga, and I'd do a lot more kayaking and rappelling if I had the time/water/money.

Tell us about one of your happiest memories/moments.
Some of my happiest memories are of Las Vegas. My field trip to California, a boat trip on my 24th birthday, Cinco de Mayo... I could go on forever on how much I love and adore Vegas. But I think my happiest, proudest moment was the day of my thesis defense when everything I'd worked for just came together perfectly and I was finally able to share it. And afterward, when my advisor told me I gave a "kickass" presentation. I was so proud of myself to have accomplished something so big. The day I handed in the final copy of my thesis and walked away with a Master's Degree was pretty great too.

What are your plans for the next 5 years? (from Chloe) What do you hope for in the next ten years? (from Rachel)
Well, there are some things that I want to do within the next 5-10 years. I want to go back to school to get a PhD so that I can fulfill my ultimate goal of having a research position. I want to collect data, and work in a lab and do analyses and write papers and go to scientific meetings. I'm currently tossing around ideas of what I'd want to get my doctorate in. I've thought about paleontology/paleoclimate, or just climate studies in general. I think it would be fun to work in a museum for a while. Or in a national research lab. However, I'm not sure this will ever happen since I have this full time job now and I'm not exactly in a position to leave it, and that bums me out a little.

Favorite movie? (From Wildology)
Oh, I can't just pick one favorite movie. So here are my top five as per Facebook.
Little Miss Sunshine - makes me laugh/cry every time
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson, Vegas, and Johnny Depp... what else could I possibly want?
Frequency - it's just cool
Amelie - made me want to learn French
Finding Nemo - I like the ocean

1 embarrassing/funny moment/memory?
Ok, this one is kinda bad... So, one day in high school I was walking into the building and the girl who drove my carpool told me I had blood stains on the back of my pants. I didn't really know what else to do except untuck my shirt to cover it up. (We had a dress code that required us to tuck our shirts in) I got away with it for my first class, but while I was waiting in the hall to get into my second class, the assistant principal noticed and asked me why my shirt wasn't tucked in. So I'm in his office, explaining to him that the reason I'm not following dress code is because I got my period and it's leaking so I wanted to cover it up. Suuuuper awkward. All he could say was "ummmm.... ok, well don't do it again..." and send me on my way. I don't think I got in trouble after that. Even when I was late for school three times and walked around without a hall pass. I was such a rebel.

Miracle Whip or Mayo?
Hmmmmm... they're both pretty gross. Miracle Whip, I guess. But only a little. A very, very thin layer on a sandwich.

If you could click your fingers and be anywhere, doing anything - what would you choose? (from Rachel)
What I'd really like is to have several months of free time to just travel, with no worries about money or time commitments. If I had that kind of time, I'd go to Europe -- Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium... I'd stay in hostels and walk or take public transportation everywhere. I would keep an actual paper journal and write in it every day. Maybe I'd write a book and become famous like Eat Pray Love. Haha. I'd probably do some blogging too. And I would take a lot of pictures.

That's it for today. I'll be back later with questions part two.

99 Red Balloons

2011-04-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

GUESS WHAT. This is my 99th post! Wow. It took me over a year to write 99 posts. Oh well. Anyway, I was thinking, for my 100th post, it would be cool to do a Q&A type thing. So, would you be the most awesome comment-ers ever and send me some questions? They don't have to be about me or this blog. (although I suppose that would be the obvious choice?) They can be about science or something else, if you want. Nothing bad, though, or I will delete it, and I'm pretty reasonable on the idea of what "bad" is, so... And if I don't know the answer, I will look it up. I will totally Wikipedia that shit. Kidding. I have way better sources than Wikipedia.

In other news, I was supposed to go rappelling at Battleship Rock today, but due to unforeseen circumstances, I was not able to do that. And I am kinda bummed about it. I also remembered I still haven't posted about Buckman Cave yet, so I will do that soon. Maybe in the post after next. Or if I don't get any questions, I will just brush this under the rug and pretend it never happened. And we will go to Buckman Cave a little early.

That's it. The weekend's over. Back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Birthday Astrology

2011-04-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, I turn 28. That seems old. A couple weeks ago, I was like, I might as well be 28 now. Heck, I might as well be 30. But no, that would not be a good idea. I need these two years to sort some things out before I'm ready to be 30.

So what better way to know what to do with my life than look to the stars? When I tell people when my birthday is, they always ask if I'm an Aries or a Taurus. Usually I go with Taurus, but in reality I think I'm a cusp. Basically, that means I'm conflicted. I'm not sure how much I believe in all that astrology mumbo jumbo, but it's cool to be both a fire and earth sign. It makes me think of Captain Planet. Do you remember that show? I loved it. Naturally. I always thought the guy with the Heart powers got gypped. Haha. Heart. Lame. I'm Earth and Fire, bee-otch!

I don't know what else to say. I have some caving pictures from last weekend but I'll post those later. Tomorrow I have to work so it won't be a very exciting birthday but after work I'm going to see a slideshow about bats and I'm going to try to come up with something extra fun for the weekend.

And that's about it.

Fill in the Blank Friday

2011-04-15T15:31:00.000-07:00

It is Friday and my mind feels blank. Work took away all my brain cells. Haha. Do you ever come home from work and think, what the heck did I accomplish today? I do. Is that bad? Anyway, since I'm blank I thought maybe I'd fill in some blanks. Since it's fill in the blank Friday and all.

1. My favorite daily responsibility is, umm... going home from work?

2. My least favorite daily responsibility is, waking up to go to work, and making my lunch in the morning. I know I should make it the night before, it would save so much time, but I never do.

3. My favorite cuisine to eat when going out is pretty much anything. I love going out to eat. Really trying to cut back, though. I've been doing really good for the past few weeks!

4. My favorite cuisine to prepare at home is Something easy to make. And risotto. Which is not easy to make but it is awesome.

5. Andy Warhol said that everyone is famous for 15 minutes. My claim to fame is I've published two scientific papers in journals. Maybe about 3 people have read them... Oh, and I write this blog, which about 3 people read as well... ok, maybe more like 7.

6. If I could have 3 wishes I would wish for something that makes me excited to wake up every morning, motivation and peace of mind

7. My biggest pet peeve is people who don't pay attention or forget things I tell them, and hyper idiotic drivers

Box Canyon

2011-04-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my caving class went to Box Canyon in Socorro. We were practicing our rappelling skills and learning how to climb a little as well.

The original plan was to rappel off a short cliff for a while and then move on to the big 120 foot cliff when we were ready. Unfortunately, we never made it to the big cliff because these goons hogged it for the whole day.

When we arrived at about noon, they were already there and set up, so we couldn't exactly kick them out. That would be rude. They started off rappelling and then moved on to something a little different. Somehow, they rigged it up so one rope was attached to the right side of the cliff and the other rope was attached to a person. The person would start from the far end, unclip the second rope and swing back and forth, doing flips in the air and whatnot. They seemed to know what they were doing, but the stupidest part was none of them wore helmets. It was a really windy day and winds can go through that canyon super fast. I would've been afraid of slamming my head into the rocks.

Meanwhile, we all did three rappels off this cliff here.

About 40 feet

Setting up a rappel is complicated business. First you have to make your anchors, which involves tying a bunch of knots that I always forget how to tie. Then, you tie your very expensive climbing/caving rope (also with special knots) to the anchors, hook up the rope to your harness, make a backup safety, and slide back. Seems like a lot of work for less than a minute of rappelling, but it's really fun. I get nervous every time I do it, though! Haha!

After we finished rappelling, we tried our hand at climbing for a while. It's hard! I've only climbed once before, in grad school, and it was in a gym, which is way easier. I got stuck for a while but my teacher helped me out by telling me where to put my feet and I finally made it up almost to the top. Then it started getting a little difficult and I got to rappel down, which goes a lot faster and is a ton more fun when someone else is controlling the rope.

I've pretty much designated myself the class photographer, so I spent my downtime taking pictures of other people climbing.

This is how it's done

At first, I wasn't sure I wanted to go on this field trip, because of the wind, but I ended up having a lot of fun, and it makes me want to go back to try the big cliff sometime. There's also some cool looking little caves that I'd like to explore as well.

Alabaster Cave

2011-04-05T22:51:00.000-07:00

It wouldn't be Adventures in the Underground without me posting about my first caving trip. On Sunday I went with my caving class to Alabaster Cave, between San Ysidro and Cuba, NM. It was cool! Our teacher told us it was a training cave, meaning that if you can get through this one, you are ready to go on to even bigger and better cave adventures.

Just to give a little background, alabaster is a type of a rock called gypsum, or CaSO4-2H2O for you chemistry-minded types. It forms by evaporation of salts from water, also known as a chemical sedimentary rock. I was first introduced to gypsum in college when I went to a mine for my intro geology class. I remember liking it so much, I even made up a poem about it.

Oh gypsum you're the one
in many different states you come
coarse, satin, alabaster
you are much better than plain old plaster

(which is funny because you can totally make plaster out of gypsum)

We arrived at the cave site at about noon, got a little introduction/safety briefing, and then were told to squeeze through the tiniest hole to get into the cave. When our teacher first pointed out the entrance, I thought "yeah, right, buddy." But it wasn't so bad once I got down in there and actually saw that I could do it.

We wiggled through a crazy narrow passageway into a large "room" that easily fit all six of us on the trip.

We continued to make our way through short passages, like this one, that required crawling and sliding on our stomachs to get through.

This is where equipment like knee and elbow pads become essential. And even with them, my knees were still incredibly bruised, and my arm and leg muscles still very sore.

In the cave were some pretty cool things. We were told that we may run into some wildlife, mainly of the bug variety, but we were definitely not expecting this.

Bats don't typically live in this type of cave. I can't remember why now. Sorry. Probably because it's too shallow or warm or something. It was awesome, though.

We each took turns leading the way. When it was my turn to lead, I had to lead us toward the light, which would be our exit. And when I got there, it looked like this.

I thought it was cool looking with the light coming in through the small passageways, but that also meant we would have to once again squeeze through to get out. For this particular tunnel, we sent the smallest kid in first and we had to take off our helmets to be able to make it through, while pushing our backpacks in front of us.

Even though that was our exit, it wasn't the end of the trip. First, we wanted to go see the water. The way to get there was to go past the entrance, down through a narrow passageway and into a really cool tunnel, which we entered here.

The way in was either to crawl behind the weird sticking up rock or to climb above it. I chose the easy road and took the low tunnel, which was pretty neat, and led me to this.

A warning? Maybe. But not too long after that, we found the water, which led to yet another exit.

Murky and stagnant, this water was around 35 degrees and went up to above chest height before leading out through the cave exit. The crazy boys in the group decided to go out through that way, while the girls, choosing not to get wet and even more gross, decided to backtrack to the original exit.

After attempting to remember which path we had taken to get there (which was difficult), we finally made it back to the exit, and outside into the sunlight.

See that teeny little hole? Yep, that's what we crawled out of. Pretty wild, huh?

The one thing I could have used, but forgot, was a dust mask. Gypsum is very soft and erodes easily (hence the cave being formed) so it was really sandy and dusty in there, and at times I even picked it up with my camera.

Breathing in gypsum dust is not that awesome for you and when I blew my nose it came out looking all gross. I didn't take a picture of that (you're welcome). Luckily, I had a bandanna that I tied over my mouth and nose, which I'm telling myself helped a little bit.

All in all, it was a good trip. Next stop: my old stomping ground, Socorro!

Dinner at Home

2011-03-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

I've been trying this new thing lately, called making dinner at home. It's a good idea! I can't believe I used to hate going out to eat. I seriously thought I would die. That was a weird phase in my life. Now I'm making up for it, I suppose. But perhaps a bit too much. Hence the making food at home. Matt does some cooking too. Here's what he made the other night.

Looks good, huh? The sweet potatoes were awesome. It's just chopped up potatoes (I think they're technically yams, actually) and onions with chili powder and olive oil baked for about an hour and 10 minutes. So yummy.

Last night I was invited over to his parents' house for dinner and tonight we were lazy and had frozen pizza (because I had class and got home super late) but we didn't go out and the pizza was on sale for $4, so that's pretty good. I spiffed it up with pico de gallo and spinach.

Tomorrow I have caving class, which also goes late, so I'm trying to figure out how that will work. My plan was wild rice stuffed pork chops and asparagus, so I'm hoping I can convince my chef to make it for me. Tee hee!

I really want to make healthy dinners at home every night and work out on a regular basis. I just have so much stuff going on all the time and it's hard. Like tonight, after work, school and groceries, I was home for the night by about 8:30. That's pretty typical. Maybe I'm trying to do too much?

And it continues...

2011-03-25T22:24:00.000-07:00

16. a picture from the best day of your life


My 23rd Birthday... Not sure if it was the best day of my life but it was a good one.

17. a picture that always makes you laugh

18. a picture of your spare time

obviously, I am an artist in my spare time. couldn't you tell?

19. a photo from a great night

this photo is of the bellagio ceiling, taken on my last night in vegas. not really a great night in itself but there are memories from that night, and others, that I will keep forever

20. a picture of the people who are closest to you

21. a picture of someone you always have a good time with

22. a picture of your parents when they were your age

ok, so obviously this is not my parents at my age. and my mom is not in it. it's old, though. my sister looks like she's in about 8th grade.

23. a picture from last summer

24. a photo of your closest friend of the opposite sex (not significant other)

my brother's shorts are my closest friend

25. a picture of you on a favorite vacation

Houston was not really my favorite vacation. I just like this picture.

26. a picture of an accomplishment

I hiked 9 miles to get to that. YEAH I DID!

27. a picture of your closest friend

28. random pictures from a photobooth

I wish I still had my actual photobooth pictures where my brother, cousin and i were in spaghetti. But this will do.

29. a photo that makes you smile

I'm from Oklahoma, bitches! We ride bulls! Oh wait, I'm getting my bullriding stories mixed up...

30. someone you will never let go of

this dude. yep... definitely hangin onto him. just like my former boyfriend the billboard lawyer in vegas.

30 pics, it's what all the cool kids are doing

2011-03-24T22:26:00.000-07:00

1. someone you spend a lot of time with

This is my favorite picture of him

2. a picture of you

the stratosphere

3. a random pic of you and your sig other


same people as above. hmm...

4. a picture of something that makes you happy

5. an old picture of you

6. a picture of your siblings


this one makes me laugh

7. a picture you never posted on your blog before


SNOOOOPS!

8. a picture of a person you miss

my buddy TT : (

9. a picture of people who know you now and then

10. a picture of your favorite place

garden of the gods and goddesses

11. a person you can tell everything to

that's my sister, in case you were wondering

12. a picture of your everyday life

13. a picture from a place you love


i love vegas!

14. a picture that reminds you of great times

the night of my thesis defense. ahh, those were the days.

15. a picture of one of your favorite foods

bobcat bite, the best burger in the country

I'm getting sick of this so I'll post the second half later. Good night.

Tacos

2011-03-23T22:20:00.000-07:00

What I made for dinner.

This sufficiently satisfies my cheese craving, but the milkshakes have yet to be made. Not tomorrow, because I start my new class. (I'm going caving!) But perhaps Friday.

My Sister and I decided my Deadly Sin would be Wrath

2011-03-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

It's my favorite time of month! I always look forward to it with such anticipation. (Actually, I kind of do. You know... just to be sure.) I always know when it's coming because my left knee hurts and I feel uncomfortable in my own skin for a couple days before hand.

All I wanted today was to get through my speech without feeling like I was going to die a slow, horrible death by cramps. Oh, did I not tell you? I joined Toastmasters at work. It's actually kind of nice. I get to not work for an hour every week, and get paid for it. And I made my first speech today. It went really well, and no, I did not have cramps. Yet. Those came later. So I'm pretty happy about it. Oddly enough, I'm a pretty decent public speaker, despite everything else. Perhaps the public speaking part of the brain is different from the small talk/trying to make conversation part?

I started feeling grumpy this afternoon. On the way home from work, there's a left turn that absolutely needs the green arrow. I don't even know why they have just the plain green light because a steady stream of cars comes from the other direction at all hours of the day. So the light turned green and I totally couldn't go but some jackhammer decided to start honking his horn at me anyway. But it's either that or try to get through the street that goes from 3 lanes to one in about 50 yards, where absolutely no one will let you in. Oh, and there's usually some bum with a sign asking for money there, too.

I'm at Matt's house now. I was starting to get pissed because he didn't answer the door soon enough. Ha, it's that bad. I feel ok physically right now. Not awesome, but not as bad I have been in the past. I feel as though I am oversharing quite a bit today. But it seems like a lot of people are. Maybe it's something in the air.

One thing I know is I'm craving cheese. Like, I really want some, bad. I also want a milkshake.

New Links

2011-03-20T20:37:00.000-07:00

I decided to make some new picture links. There's one for my "About Me" type profile and there's another one called "The Soil Adventure Mobile" which links to all my outdoorsy posts. I liked the links at the top, but the pictures are fun. Maybe I'll put them in both places. Would that be redundant? It was pretty easy to do. Getting my layout to be 3 columns instead of two... well, that is another story. HTML is tricky!

Weekends go by too fast.

Just Passing Through

2011-03-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

I don't like to talk a lot about faith and religion, mainly because it is not very strong for me, but a recent post by another blogger has prompted me to start thinking about these things again. Her post was on God and anxiety. For as long as I can remember, I've had a problem with anxiety, and it's been a huge struggle throughout my life. In response to her post, I wrote a comment saying that I felt like if God really wanted to help me do my best, why would he give me these fears?

Her response came down to trust. That we will have fears and doubts, and we can choose to trust God to help us with them, or we cannot.

In grad school, I had two good friends with opposing views on faith. One was an atheist and the other was a Christian. Whenever I think about my own faith I begin to feel the doubt of my atheist friend, who couldn't see how God, if he existed, would cause so much suffering to people. But I can't help coming back to the memory of sitting with my other friend in her kitchen on one of my last nights in Vegas, and what she told me. She said, I believe in God because I couldn't have done this alone. And for some reason, those words fill me with hope.

In the midst of recent events, maybe it's time to take a step back, look at the bigger picture, and trust that I'm not doing this alone, and that things will work out the way they're supposed to, if I allow it.

I really love this song. It has such a good message. I'm not quite at the point in my journey where I can say I truly live for something bigger than this. Maybe I never will be, but it's something to strive for.

Warm, sunny days...

2011-03-11T17:02:00.000-08:00

Are the days when I most miss Vegas, because they remind me of the way I felt when I was there. These were the kind of days that were perfect for leaving early and heading to the bar, where the spring air wafted in and the cigarette smoke stuck to my clothes. Where we fell into easy conversation and I was genuinely happy to be with the group of people who were there. Where life was easy and free.

Now, as the days get warmer and the sun stays longer in the sky, those feelings of contented happiness have come back to life. Field season doesn't seem so bad anymore as I imagine warm, calm weekends back on my patio, swimming in the pool, and maybe even going to a bar or two. Spring makes me feel light.

What?

2011-03-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

Why is the bandwidth exceeded? It's written all across the top of my page. Does that show up for everyone or just me? I would check it on my computer at work, but I gave up all blog-related things at work for Lent. I mean, they can check my work computer and find out what I do all day if they really wanted to, so I probably shouldn't be on it anyway. So here's some incentive, right? When I was in college, I gave up internet computer games, like text twist and bejeweled and some other weird games, for Lent, and I haven't played one since then. I just didn't find it interesting after I had given it up. I think I will still find blogging interesting when I'm done (obviously I will still be blogging), but I'm training myself to not want to look at it at work. I don't need to get in trouble for something dumb like that.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, the bandwidth. It's probably my new layout. And I really like this one, too. Darn.

Oh guess what, I found my aerial photos, if anyone cares. My boss accidentally put them with his stuff and forgot about them. I snooped around in is cubicle and found them. Heeheee.

Is it just me, or did this week go by really fast? I'm not complaining but it just seems like Monday was not that long ago, when I was watching all those Bachelor bizzos talking about their drama, and Matt kept changing the channel so he could watch Scarface. I watched the end where he has a huge pile of coke and goes crazy shooting everyone and then some dude shoots him in the back and he falls in the pool in a pile of blood. Good times.

New Stuff

2011-03-09T18:52:00.000-08:00

The stress is reducing slowly but surely. My computer is fixed! I have a brand new hard drive and everything works perfectly! And I didn't have to get a whole new computer. I'm so happy about that.

I also want to show you my new ottoman. It's the coolest!

The tops are reversible so that they can either be seat cushions or wooden table tops. Plus, there's tons of storage space inside, and it's real leather. I love it.

Lately

2011-03-04T17:13:00.000-08:00

Sorry my last posts were a bit of a downer. I'm in a sort of better mood now. I'm kind of nervous because I lost a whole stack of aerial photos. Absolutely no clue where they are. Hopefully they're in my apartment somewhere...

I've been busy doing a lot of stuff lately. Last weekend, my parents came to visit. It was fun. We went to see the Petroglyphs and to the Balloon Museum. My dad took some pictures but he has them on his phone which means I will likely never see them. He doesn't really understand the phone picture to computer image relationship. Oh well. My mom made some really good tilapia, which was on sale for $2.97/lb. That's a pretty fantastic deal. Matt came over and we watched Family Guy. My mom thought the talking baby and dog were weird. Haha. She also cleaned out my refrigerator, took out the garbage and dusted everything.

On Tuesday morning I drove them to the airport and life returned to normal. I went to work. Not extremely noteworthy. I took a quiz at school and got my midterm. It's midterm already. That means it's getting closer to field season. Hmmm... Still not sure how I feel about that. I think the thing is that I used to like summer a lot because it felt free, but now it doesn't feel that way. It sort of feels less free, if that makes sense. But I like that I get to be outside.

This weekend will be pretty busy too, but I think it will be good. I'm picking up my new ottoman, which my parents bought me as an early birthday present. It's really cool. I'm excited. I'll probably go to the bank to cash some checks. Always a good thing. And I'm pretty sure my computer will finally get fixed this weekend. Hooray Hooray. Plus Matt's sister will be in town and that is always fun. Good things. Thinking good thoughts.

MIA

2011-02-23T20:15:00.000-08:00

It seems like forever since I've written anything in here. I'm having a hard time focusing. Since I came back to town and started up work again in January, this year has been the most stressful year in a long time, possibly ever. I don't know. Everything keeps going wrong. The past few weeks I've felt like I was drowning. I think it might calm down soon but who knows? All I know is I'm not ready for field work. I'm actually kind of not looking forward to it. I went to dinner with some coworkers tonight. A bunch of them are in town for a computer training that we're having this week. Matt is home with bad allergies, and I am sad for him. I hope he feels better soon. His birthday is coming up.

Silver City

2011-02-11T18:37:00.000-08:00

I'm in a grumpy mood right now and am starting to think about all the things I don't like about my life, past and present. So I'm just going to vent for a while about the crappy parts of my trip to Silver City.

At the end of last year, my boss decided I should go to Silver City every month to meet with my coworkers down there. This annoyed me. How come I have to go down there and they don't ever have to come up here? That's what I thought. It's not entirely true, because they do have to come up here in two weeks. Not to meet with me, though. We're all having a training that they have to go to. I'm just a secondary thought. So I didn't go last month because I had other stuff to do but I went this week.

On the way down, I went through Hatch (famous for green chile growing) to avoid the snow in the mountains. From Hatch, I was going to go to Deming but there was a grass fire and the road was closed. So I had to go all the way down to Las Cruces and then back to Deming that way. After I got to Deming, it took another hour to get to Silver. So I was on the road for over 6 hours. It was really great. Lots of fun.

Luckily, there was a still a little bit of light left by the time I got to my hotel, and it wasn't cold, so I walked to Wendy's to get a salad for dinner. My hotel was nice, but the whirlpool that I had been looking forward to was broken. Very disappointing.

That night, I took out my contacts and there was a huge rip down the middle of the right one. And I, being a genius, did not bring an extra pair or my glasses. I had a really hard time seeing the next two days and I was really nervous about being able to get back to Albuquerque.

On Wednesday, one of my coworkers suggested I call my eye doctor to give me my prescription, and then I could pick it up at Wal-Mart. But my stupid eye doctor would not give me my prescription because it had been over a year since my last eye appointment. I begged with them, trying to explain my situation to make it seem as pitiful as possible. But no luck. They would not give in.

I decided to schedule an appointment with the Wal-Mart eye doctor. Lucky for me, she was in the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Unlucky for me, the first open appointment was February 28. That just would not do. I told the receptionist it had to be tomorrow or nothing. She said there might be a cancellation. And sure enough, there was. By 6pm the next day, I had a new prescription, and more importantly, a new pair of contacts. So at least one good thing happened to me.

Honestly, my whole trip wasn't that bad. I had some good food, went out for drinks, and I really think we got a lot accomplished while I was down there. Sometimes I think I'd enjoy my job more and have a better social life if I was down in Silver City. But on the other hand, I'd be in Silver City.

I just wish some people would realize how inconsiderate they are being. I know that's random, but it's what I'm thinking about right now.

day twenty-one: a photo of your favorite place to eat

2011-02-06T19:20:00.000-08:00

One of the best things about Albuquerque is that it has a very diverse range of food types and restaurants. In other ways, it can become a challenge to decide where to eat. Matt and I often resort to listing them, "Okay, do you want Mexican, Italian, Asian, American, Mediterranean....?" And so forth. But since I don't have all the time and space in the world to list all of our favorite restaurants, I am limiting it to our top 3 Mexican/New Mexican places, which we recently decided upon one day. So without further ado...

Number 3

The main reason we like Monroe's is because it has a beautiful patio with a fountain and birds fluttering around here and there, so we usually go when the weather is warmer. Their food is good, but there isn't that one thing on the menu that really makes it stand out from other Mexican restaurants. One thing I really like is that they have rotating specials, but they don't post them to their website so it's always a gamble as to what they are, although they're usually good. The service is kind of interesting. Waiters aren't assigned to a specific table; instead, they all go around finding out who needs refills, their check, etc. It's a pretty good system because it means there's usually someone around to help you. The owner is sometimes around as well. He's really friendly and it's easy to tell he really cares about his restaurant. During busy times, you can often find him out in the parking lot directing traffic. He's cool. The service is usually pretty consistent, especially when he's around, but sometimes it's slacking a little. If you order Mexican food (they have some other things too), you get complimentary chips and salsa. It's usually freshly made, but occasionally we've gotten cold chips and salsa that's close to going bad. Altogether, though, it's pretty good. Oh, and there's also a fish tank that we like to look at after we pay our bill. It's always fun to see if there are any new babies swimming around.

Number 2

We had a tie for second runner up, the first is La Salita

La Salita is actually more New Mexican than Mexican. Everything is always covered with cheese and it always tastes good. We've ordered in and to-go and it is consistently good quality. Everything on the menu is great, but the two things that stand out most to me are their tacos and chile rellenos. The taco meat is seasoned perfectly to give it a distinct flavor, the taco shells are always fresh and crispy, and it's covered in delicious shredded cheddar cheese. MMMMM!!! So good. The rellenos are authentic New Mexican style and they're the best of their kind that I've had. The batter is perfectly crispy and the cheese is oozy gooey goodness. They also give out complimentary chips and salsa. Their salsa is served warm and is a mixture of their signature red and green chiles. This is probably the place we go most often, since it's the closest to where we live. The manager knows our names. Haha.

The second, second runner up is Los Cuates

Of all the places mentioned so far, Los Cuates has the best green chile, hands down. What makes it so good is that it is roasted instead of steamed. It tastes the best this way and is classic New Mexico. Roasting green chiles is one of the best smells ever. Their carne adovada is also really good because it is served in chunks rather than shredded, which is how La Salita does it. (However, their tacos have nothing on La Salita) They are also the only place I know to get a really good Navajo Taco. The service is pretty spotty, and it takes a long time to get refills, boxes, and the check. The last couple times I went there, I was with Matt and his sister and they put us on a high top table, which is small and doesn't have much room for three people to spread out. It's also a little cold in there. But we really like the food, which is enough incentive for us to keep coming back.

Number 1

And the winner is....

This place is a-maz-ing. The food is a little different from the previous places, since it's more of a Mexican grill style than it is New Mexican. On their menu is items like steak served with poblano mashed potatoes and calabacitas, a variety of fish (including my favorite, mahi mahi) and chicken dishes. They have an excellent chile relleno made with a poblano pepper rather than a green chile. And they make their own margaritas. Oh my gosh. So good. We've only had poor service once or twice, and in those cases I blamed the waiter and not the restaurant. As you can see, they have a patio with a western view overlooking the city and extending all the way to Mount Taylor. They're located right next to the mountains and the building is attached to the tram, which takes you to the top of the mountain. It's a bit pricier than the other restaurants I've mentioned, but honestly, not by that much, and it is so worth it.

And that's it! My top three (well, four) Mexican restaurants in Albuquerque (actually, more like in all of New Mexico, because once you get out of Albuquerque, it kind of goes downhill... sorry other NM cities, but it's true). If you managed to get through all my ramblings, now you know where to go if you are ever to visit our lovely city. And if you got hungry and gave up halfway through reading this, well, I don't blame you.

Snow Day

2011-02-01T17:51:00.000-08:00

The snow arrived in Albuquerque around 4pm last evening. I got out of school, made a quick run to the grocery store, and hid in my apartment for the rest of the night, in hopes of a snow day sleep-in the next morning.

No such luck. The weather hotline informed me that there would be no closures or delays, (but drive carefully!) so I gave myself some extra time and headed out into the snowy world. It took about 45 minutes to get to work. It usually takes 25. Not horrible, but still. When I arrived at 7:45 am, hardly anyone was there. My boss was, though. He's always such a go-getter.

I spent the morning un-installing ArcGIS 9.2 and all its extensions in preparation for installation of ArcGIS 9.3 so that I can actually use the new O Drive (see earlier post for that info). Apparently, an old PLTS extension compatibility problem was causing all the to-do with that issue. I'm not even really sure what PLTS does, though I feel like I should know (?) Anyway, so, I'm in the middle of un-installing crap when the office manager comes by and says the office closed at 11. It was 11:30 at that point and I couldn't really stop what I was doing so I stayed there until noon to finish up, then went home (or to Matt's house, rather, because it was closer and he had food).

I don't really understand the point. What exactly was accomplished by having people come in for 3 hours and then letting them go back out into the snowy madness. I could have woken up late, brewed some tea, and baked blueberry muffins all day. But no. I am living the American dream.

Granted, we don't have A LOT of snow. But we have enough wind and ice to cause some damage. And man, is it COLD!

Hooray For Friday!

2011-01-28T17:48:00.000-08:00

The broken crap theme of 2011 continues. My computer is still not working but I have located the recovery disks (yay! thanks to cleaning out my closet) and can now attempt to fix it.

At work, we are transferring all our shared drives over to one single drive called the O drive, powered by Oracle. Coincidentally, I am learning all about Oracle in school, where I'm taking Database Design. I liken Oracle to ESRI in terms of propaganda and cornering the market, but they work well enough (although I still curse Jack Dangermond from time to time). Anyway, guess whose computer the new drive does not work on? Yep. Apparently, some other program I have and the new program do not like each other and it was messing up my desktop and some internet things. A tech guy came and tried to help me but all that ended up happening was him uninstalling the program and telling me that I'd have to access the drive through the internet server instead. Not a huge deal, just annoying.

On Tuesday or Wednesday, I was sitting on the couch and noticed that the clock on my cable box was turned off. Thinking that was odd, I tried turning it on, and hey, guess what! That doesn't work either. I called Comcast and they will be arriving with a new box on Sunday.

Whenever I close my eyes, all I see is my map that I've been working on for the past week. I am so sick of that map. I want to punch it in the face. And I only have to do like 6 more. Ugh. Friday could not have come any sooner.

I should probably talk about something more upbeat. Um, two weekends ago, my friend Erica came to visit. It was fun. Today she posted a picture of us hiking in the mountains by Travertine Falls. So I am stealing it.

And there ya have it. I hope you all have a good weekend. I am looking forward to some nice weather. At least I don't have a million tons of snow, like some people do : )

day nineteen: a photo of an animal you’d love to keep as a pet

2011-01-23T16:32:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd start this up again. And yes, I am most definitely going out of order and skipping things, but, eh... I feel like it.

There are two supercool animals I would love to have as pets. They are:

1) The miniature giraffe from the DirecTV commercial

2) A really sweet, really expensive ($35,950) cat, called the Ashera

It's hypoallergenic

But seriously, the pet I most want, and have always wanted, is a dog. I want to rescue one and give it a good home. I think I could be a really good dog owner. I would be really motivated to go out hiking if I had a dog. I wish I could have one now, but with my schedule it just wouldn't work. Someday, though...

Getting a Little and Giving Back

2011-01-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how to manage my finances and invest my money in a beneficial and meaningful way. While I was going through my mail this morning, I found that I had received a few things that made me begin to consider these options a little more. First of all, I got my income tax forms. Exciting. It's interesting to see the difference between how much money I "made" and how much I actually got to keep. Next, I got two letters from two wildlife foundations asking me for money. One is the National Wildlife Foundation, which I have given to in the past, and the other was the World Wildlife Foundation. I'm considering giving to one of them, since I do like animals a lot (I mean, who doesn't?) and I got really upset the other night watching a show about two moose babies whose mother got shot and there was no place to put them so they had to be killed. Matt turned it off before they got to that part though. He's nice like that. And also? Donations = tax deductible. I don't know how much it really amounts to in the end, but it would be an interesting experiment. I should just ask my dad.

Ok, so far, I've gotten stuff telling me how much money I make and how much I give to the government and some places asking me to give them money. Wouldn't it be nice if someone gave me some money in the mail? Well, the stars must have been aligned correctly today, because this was the next thing I opened.

yup.

Now, let's backtrack a little bit to last summer, when I received a mysterious survey in the mail with two crisp dollar bills inside. The letter attached said, "Here, have $2, and if you fill out this survey you will get $10." At first I thought, yeah, right. I didn't even think the money was real at first, so I asked Matt to check. After it was confirmed that the money was, in fact, real, I decided, what the heck? I'll give it a shot. They said it would be about 6 months, so of course I had forgotten all about it until just now. But they kept their promise and I now have $10. Woo-hoo!

So now that I am super rich (haha) I really do want to give back. I'm thinking I'll go with one wildlife foundation and one nature-type foundation. So who should I give to? The Nation or the World? The world is a big place and can use help from everyone, for sure, but there's a lot going on right here at home too. I'm also seriously considering donating a case of food to our local food bank, maybe a couple times a year. It's a better alternative to giving those bums at the intersection a dollar toward their beer/drug fund. These are things I need to consider, along with some other investments I need to make (again, need to ask my dad) and just keeping better track of my day to day spending, which I will start doing once my computer gets fixed and I can make myself a little spreadsheet. This year will be the year I stop just spending money, and actually figure out what I do with it.

Oh yeah, and I'm participating in Saturday Steals. You should too!

Technical Difficulties and Dogs

2011-01-08T18:58:00.000-08:00

Hello there. I'm back. Did you miss me? I've been having issues with my computer and haven't been able to go online or open any files or do anything, really. It's very sad. The worst part about it is my computer isn't even that old. I got it a year ago for Christmas and the warranty just expired. Actually, that is the saddest part. Stupid one year warranty. Right now I'm at Matt's house and we're running diagnostics on it to give some info to HP, and even that is causing some trouble. That has been our project for this weekend so far.

Last weekend, I arrived back in Albuquerque and began to deal with my other problem. The day before I left for Michigan, my car battery died. I didn't have time to do much about it at that point, so I put it off until I got back. There was a lot of corrosion so at first we thought that might be the problem. We took out the battery and cleaned the terminals with water, baking soda and a toothbrush. I was the flashlight holder. We also took the battery in to be tested, and the voltage looked good. So we put the battery in and it still didn't start, so it was back to AutoZone. They are super helpful there. I've been there for other problems and they are honest and never try to scam you into buying things you don't need. We tested the battery again, and in this case, decided that I did need a new battery because the charge was low. We installed the new battery and the car started up right away. Yay! The entire process took about 4 hours.

So far, 2011 has been the year of technical difficulties.

On a happier note, today was a really nice day so we decided to take Matt's dogs for a walk in the foothills. They loved it! Star was super excited, as you can see here.

At first, they had lots of energy and took off ahead of us up the trail, chasing rabbits and bicyclists and rolling around in the little patches of snow.

Toby mostly just wanted to eat the snow.

After a while, though, they began to get tired out so we finished our loop around the trail and headed home where both dogs proceeded to pass out on their "beds." They had a fun day!

Christmas Stuff

2010-12-28T14:20:00.000-08:00

Well, I've had a lovely afternoon. I finally went to see Harry Potter, and it was amazing. I've heard people complain that "they're in the woods the whole time! It's so boring!" First of all, they're in the woods the whole time in the book, so it's not like they can change that. Secondly, they didn't exactly spend a whole bunch of time just sitting around in the woods. There was lots of other stuff going on. The scenery was beautiful, the story moved along at a nice pace, and it was just awesome. I really liked how they did the story of the three brothers. Very simple and tasteful. And of course, I could not ignore the geology. In one scene they were sitting on some limestone cliffs, but the tops of them sort of looked like stromatolites. I thought that was cool.

Anyhoo...I haven't written about Christmas yet. We usually have it at our house but my grandpa wanted to have it at his house this year, so I wasn't sure what it would be like. But it actually turned out really well. My mom brought along our usual games that we play, and we had lots of fun with that.

These are our two games, all set up. Guess the number of candies in the jars and the wine tasting contest. We started out with the candy game, each using our own "scientific" methods of quantification.

The wine game also utilized our top analytical skills.

I actually guessed a lot of them right this year. The only ones I got mixed up were the Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. I really should have been able to tell the difference, because I generally like the Cab a lot better, but I guess this was just a really good Merlot... or something. All I know is that the wine began disappearing out of the bottles rather quickly after the contest was over, and my cousin was extra giddy when we went upstairs for our gift exchange.

The Cheerios were for the dog

This year, we decided that we didn't want to spend much, but we still wanted to do something. So we ended up giving each other $5 gifts. Most of these were wine and chocolate. I got my person a 1.5 liter bottle of wine for $4.50. Not sure how high quality of wine that is but it's what she wanted. My brother gave me a Swiss chocolate bar and a little assortment of chocolates.

We also spent a considerable amount of time eating food. The main courses were chicken noodle soup and ham sandwiches. We had enough soup to supply a small soup kitchen.

It was really good, though. My mom makes the best soup. We spent the rest of the night watching Harry Potter 5 (we watched the last two in preparation for today) and then went home.

Sometimes, it's hard to see the effects of change and of people getting older. It has happened in our family and it will continue to happen. But it's nice to know that I have these people in my life and have been able to experience so many Christmases with them. I have been blessed with many good things.

Cat & Mouse

2010-12-24T18:37:00.000-08:00

Since I haven't had much time to post since I've been back in Michigan, here's Jazmine playing catch with her mice.

And what the heck, here's a picture of my sister and I with the same exact presents. Vera Bradley wallets from each other and Kohl's gift cards from my brother.

Merry Christmas!

day sixteen: things you crave a lot

2010-12-16T19:44:00.000-08:00

This is probably supposed to be about food/drink, so I will say that I crave one thing in particular and that is this:

Mountain Dew. (Or soda in general) I was first introduced to this carbonated wonder back in grad school. A few days out of the week, my friends Nate and TT and I would each get a bottle for some socialization time and an afternoon pick-me-up. If one person was not there, we would spill out a little bit for them, kind of like with a 40. (Actually, now that I think about it, I probably should have done that with the 40 I drank. Might have lessened the effects...Ahh, never again. Anyway!) It has been very difficult for me to kick this afternoon habit, especially since we have like 3 soda machines downstairs. Very, very difficult.

I honestly cannot think of a particular food that I crave. I like everything. I asked Matt and he said, "Uhhhh... Mexican? I don't know." Mexican is actually what I was thinking of but I want to put that in a different post.

A couple times a year, what I really crave is to get on an airplane and get out of here. Lucky for me, this is happening next week! Dear snowy Michigan, I will see you soon!

Las Cruces

2010-12-13T17:56:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I went to Las Cruces for Matt's sister's graduation. The first thing I noticed about Las Cruces was that it was WARM. Probably about 70 degrees. Oh, it was so nice! I mean, even these guys can grow there.

Ahh. It was like being back in Vegas. Except without the Vegas part. After the graduation ceremony, we took about a million pictures (I think all dads are alike in that respect) and then went to lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. I thought it was pretty good. Not the best Mexican food I've had, but not bad either.

At Sharon's apartment, I got a pretty good view of the Organ Mountains. They're basically the same as the Sandias and Manzanos in terms of geology type and formation, except they're younger, giving them their characteristic jagged look, like organ pipes.

Sorry it's a bit fuzzy. I was experimenting with the zoom, and my picture taking skills are crappy. But you get the point. And they're pink! They stop being pink a lot faster than the Sandias during the sunset. The sun isn't the same in Las Cruces as it is in Albuquerque. It just feels different. I like it.

We didn't have a ton of time to spend exploring the city, but I'd like to get back there soon and see some more of what it's like. Hopefully this sign is not an indication, though.

Hamburgers, breakfast, Mexican food... and donuts. The recipe for success, right there.

day fourteen: plans/dreams/goals you have

2010-12-08T17:13:00.000-08:00

The past two days, I took a break from my normal job and went to NEPA training. In case you're wondering, NEPA stands for National Environmental Policy Act. Before this training, I knew absolutely nothing about it except for the vague idea that it was this terribly boring thing that some people in my office had to do all day.

The way it began was interesting to say the least. Since the training was in a different building, on Monday, I checked the schedule to see what time the class started on Tuesday. It said it would begin at 10:30 and end at 6:30. That seemed like a weird schedule but I figured they had their reasons. I spent Tuesday morning at my office and left for the training around 10. When I arrived at about 10:15, I thought I was early, but everyone was already in the conference room and the class had started. What the heck?

One of my co-workers from Silver City was also at the training, so I talked to him about what happened at lunch. He said he would've thought the same thing as me except another co-worker had told him that the time listed on the schedule was in New York time, and therefore two hours earlier than here. Awesome. This kind of thing seems to happen to me a lot. Somehow everyone else figures stuff like that out and I am totally clueless. Why is that? I'm going to make it my goal to figure it out and try to make it not happen anymore.

Anyway, back to the training... while parts of it were admittedly dull, I can't help but liking the idea of NEPA just a little. One thing I really like about it is that it involves writing. I like writing and I think I'm good at it. But I never do any writing for my job. Ever. I don't think I'd like my job to solely be devoted to NEPA, but I think it would be interesting to get in on a project, and maybe it will help me figure out where I want to ultimately take my career. I do have a tiny little sparkle of a goal in mind, but I'm not exactly ready to share it with the internet yet. I want it to feel closer to real first. Hopefully it will happen someday.

And just for fun, some other goals:

I want to travel to lots of different places around the world, learn French, have a house with lots of windows, a big kitchen and a backyard, throw a really great party, lose 20lbs., go dancing, make my favorite chocolate chip cupcakes, do the laundry.

Holidays

2010-12-06T18:51:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas

Happy Hanukkah

day eleven: put your iPod on shuffle: first 10 songs that play

2010-12-01T17:25:00.000-08:00

See? I told you I'd get back to it. I didn't do this one the other day because I was at Matt's house and didn't have access to my music. I'm going to start off by admitting I'm not terribly familiar with all of my music, because Matt gave me a whole bunch fairly recently, which I just put on shuffle when I drove down to the Gila without really looking at the titles or anything. So, let's see, first ten songs...

Gator Bay - Monte la Rue, from The End of the Rainbow Album. I don't think I've listened to this one before. It's super chill and laid back.

Jade (Original Mix) - Jens Buchert, from Time Beyond. This one has a cool, trippy outer space-like sound. I like Jens Buchert a lot. He's right on par with Charles Afton.

Audiobox (Original) - Jens Buchert, from Trilobyte EP. Hey, another one by Jens Buchert! Apparently I have a lot of his music. But anyway... I like that the album is called Trilobyte, nice play on words there.

Bee (Sunflower Mix) - Lemongrass, from Fleur Solaire. This one is nice and peppy and has a girl singing about honey.

In The Mirror (Original Mix) - Jens Buchert, from Cafe Solaire. Wow, another Jens Buchert. Who would have guessed? My iTunes likes him today, apparently. It's kinda dub-steppy, I think. Or is it drum & bass?

Drink More Tea (Herbal Mix) - Slack Baba, from Psymeditation 2. Haha, clever title! See, I really don't know any of the names for these songs.

Peaceful Life - Clelia Felix, from Cafe Brazillia: The Cream of Latino Lounge. Fancy!

Kinda Going Crazy - Groove Matter, from Jazzelicious Presents. Oh, I have actually heard this song before several times. I like it. It has a cool jazz feel with a chick saying she's "kinda going crazy" in a sexy voice.

Inbetween Your Choice (Original Mix) - 16B, How to Live For 100 Years. This is one of my favorite types of this kind of music. Because it starts out with a simple pattern and then keeps layering in more and more parts to add to the whole.

Bossa Del Nueva (Original Mix) - Jens Buchert, Fruit Machine. Ok, Ok, another Jens Buchert. But this is probably my favorite of his albums. Or at least the one I listen to the most.

Organic Walk - Greg Long, from South Beach: Lincoln Road. I really like this one. It has a nice, sunny feel to it. Like walking on a beach. Good job with matching the title to the music, Greg Long!

I honestly do have other music besides this electronic stuff, but my iTunes just didn't want to play it today. Also, this genre greatly outnumbers the rest because I haven't transferred all my other music onto this computer yet. I know, I've had a year, right!?

day thirteen: someone you would want to switch lives with for one day + why

2010-11-29T18:30:00.000-08:00

A while back, I watched a really cool documentary about caves. The story followed the travels of two women, a biologist and a professional caver, to three different caves around the world. It was incredible. From belaying in the Grand Canyon to spelunking in South America. I have always loved caves, well, ever since my 8th grade class trip to Washington DC and our little side trip to the Luray Caverns in Virginia. Or maybe it was the iron ore mine on our family vacation to the U.P. back in elementary school. In any case, I like them a lot, and I envied these two women who are able to spend their careers exploring their depths. So when I saw that the community college I (sometimes) attend was offering an Introduction to Caving course, I signed up for it. I have until tomorrow to make a final decision and pay for my classes (I'm also taking Database Design and SQL). Should I do it? Should I do it?

But really, I'd switch lives with anyone who gets to do cool stuff for a living. Like Mike Rowe.

He gets to meet new people and try out a different job every day. Admittedly, some of them aren't so pleasant, but I'd just pick a day he was doing a fun job (like ping pong fireball shooting!) to switch with him. Plus, he's cool. Ok, maybe I just want to meet him. He should do my job for a day!

Or I'd totally switch with any research scientist who has ever been featured on NOVA. Not that I necessarily want to be on NOVA. I just want to try doing their jobs.

So, basically, I'd trade my science nerd job for another, different science nerd job.

day twelve: a photo of something you ate today.

2010-11-26T15:37:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed that I skipped a couple of days. (You may also have noticed that I don't post every day, either) But I have my reasons for skipping these particular days (10& 11) from the 30-day blogging list. But never fear! I will come back to them. If I don't forget. I probably won't but it may take a while to get back to it.

Anyway, the main reason I wanted to write about this particular prompt today is because we have just encountered a holiday that revolves mostly around eating food. I could talk about what I ate today, which was: ghoulash that tastes better than my mom's (sorry Mom, but it does), Texas toast, a slice of leftover pizza with pepperoni and pineapple, a piece of amazing chocolate cake (made by me!) with rainbow chip frosting, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. But what I really want to talk about is the most unique Thanksgiving dinner I ever had.

So we ended up going to a Chinese restaurant. A buffet, actually. It was one we hadn't been to before, and I was just a tiny bit nervous about it, but it was actually really good. We walked in and there were about five rows of buffet trays, including stuff for the teppan grill.

I decided that I was going to be a bit adventurous and try some things I had never had before. Besides the usual chicken and noodle dishes, I tried bok choy

(which I didn't really like)

and tuna sushi rolls

(which I actually did like).

But there was one thing I could not bring myself to eat, and it was this:

Yes, those are chicken feet. They had them in two different varieties. Plain, like in the picture above, and in some sort of sauce to make it taste better and help you forget that you are, in fact, eating chicken feet. The waitress insisted that they were good, but umm... yeah, they're chicken feet.

For dessert I had something that was essentially tiramisu (but they called it something else), a scoop of chocolate pudding and chocolate and strawberry ice cream (my plan to eat healthier is going well so far, as you can see). And of course, fortune cookies. My fortune was just a statement. It said something like, "You enjoy having a good time." The best was Matt's. It said, "For better luck, you have to wait until Spring." Ha ha!

The whole thing was definitely an experience. If anything, I can now say that I had Chinese for Thanksgiving dinner.