Adventures in the Underground

The Garden: The Beginning

2012-05-06T14:23:00.000-07:00

It all started with an onion.

It began sprouting on the kitchen counter, and Matt decided to plant it in the backyard. Then he started thinking about potatoes, green chiles, bell peppers, beans, tomatoes... And that is how the idea of the garden was born.

This all happened about a month ago, and I've been hesitant to post about it up until now, because ... well, you know how these things go. Plans change, people have differences of opinion, etc. etc. But last week, we decided to go for it and really set our plan into motion.

Let's backtrack a little bit, to a time when our little garden was merely a figment of our imaginations. We started with a drawing. In Paint. I thought it was cute, but Matt later decided it was stupid and deleted it, so I won't be showing you that one. Sorry. But don't worry. I have other pictures.

The first actual thing we did to start our garden was install the fencing, to keep the dog out. It's a pretty simple design. A 50 foot roll of fencing attached to steel posts by plastic zip ties. The gate has a strip of wood at the end and is held closed by bungee cords.

Once we had the fence up, we pulled weeds. I'm not sure how necessary this was, given that we would have to till it all later, but we were mainly trying to get rid of all the big stuff and spiky grass seeds that are slowly overtaking the backyard. Plus it was a relaxing way to spend the evening together.

Here's what we pulled up (with shovel for scale)

Now the fence was up and the weeds were gone, but we still hadn't committed to much yet. The soil here is not spectacular for growing a vegetable garden on its own. If I were a better soil scientist, I could explain why, but I'm not. All I knew was we had to make it better somehow, so we began to look at our options.

We are currently at a point where telling more of the story would involve me having to upload more pictures from my camera, which I don't really feel like doing right now, so you'll have to wait until later for part 2.

Update and Stuff

2012-04-28T18:59:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone! Are you still there? I am... I think. Well, physically, maybe not mentally. It has been requested that I write more posts. Blogger went and changed the formatting on me while I was away, it seems. It's kind of annoying.

So, yeah, it's been a while. I got a whole year older since I last posted. Okay, not really a whole year, but I did turn 29. I think most people who read this knew that already, though. My birthday fell on a weekend this year, which was nice. I went out to dinner at Sandiago's, which I'm surprised more people haven't heard of because it's right by the tram... duh. Anyway, it's good, and they have an awesome birthday deal where you get a FREE dinner AND dessert if you bring four people. So I did. The two margaritas might have racked up the bill a bit but, seriously, who can say no to fresh-brought-in-that-day watermelon blended into a frozen margarita-y goodness?

The next day we went to a pool party, and I thought about taking a picture because I very much enjoy taking pictures of pools... but I didn't. Instead, I took one at the Hilton, which I went to this week for an amazing, spectacular Watershed, Air and Soils conference.

it has a fricken water slide!

I went on Wednesday afternoon to hear my cubicle mate Susanna talk about air and dust and stuff. Apparently, she's kind of a big deal. The rest of the afternoon was fire talks, or rather, fire response and remediation talks. My favorite parts were a research presentation by a guy from Idaho, and the drama that occurred on one of the forests last year. Sadly, that probably held my attention better than anything else. I'm a sucker for pain and suffering, when it's not happening to me. But really, everything was pretty interesting. It makes me excited to work on a fire this year. If I ever get my darn red card.

In other news, I went to Silver City again and found a hotel that I like better than my usual Holiday Inn Express. The Econo Lodge. I know, right? It is totally not scary, like I was expecting it to be.

I don't know how to end this so here's a picture of my dog.

How to Build a Fire

2012-03-25T16:16:00.000-07:00

How to Build a Fire is a depressing story by Jack London. I'm not going to talk about that. And I'm not going to talk about how to build a campfire either. I'm going to talk about my firefighter refresher training that I took last Friday.

But... umm, wait a second. Didn't I just take four days of fire training? Oh yes, I did. But boss W said I had to take it, and he's the boss, so there I was taking the same exact dang class watching the same videos that I just saw last month.

There was one part that wasn't in my first class, though, and it was one of the most interesting parts of the whole day. One of the meteorologists in my office recorded a powerpoint presentation on five predictive fire factors, and how each of them played out in 2011, one of the most historic fire seasons in our region. The factors are:

Drought
Fine fuels (small stuff, like grass and forbs and baby trees)
Seasonal temperature and precipitation
Spring and early Summer weather patterns
Monsoons

He then provided a history and showed a map of the occurrence of each of these factors in the winter and spring of 2010-2011. The map showed that all of them lined up pretty much perfectly with each other to create greater than normal fire conditions in 2011. The three big fires of last season, the Wallow, Horseshoe II, and and Las Conchas, were all located exactly in the ring of fire.

Next he went on to discuss the conditions for 2012. So far, this year has been cooler with more precipitation, but we are losing snow pack when we should be gaining it. Additionally, the shift to El Nino occurs this year. Fire conditions are dependent on how fast or slow this shift is.

As for the five factors, this is how they are currently playing out this year:
Drought- still continuous
Fine fuels - a more normal amount with some snow compaction
Seasonal temp/precip - a more rapid shift to El Nino is favorable for reducing fire conditions
Weather pattern - more "normal" than last year
Monsoon - wetter across the west and drier across the east (of our region)

Basically, this means it's still up in the air as to exactly how the fire conditions will be this year, but there are indications that it won't be as bad as last year. I wanted to write about all of this because I think it's really interesting. I like weather and climate stuff a lot. Probably more than mapping and geomorphology, although I still love working with soil and plants. I'll try to make my next post have more pictures and less science.

Cochiti

2012-03-18T14:41:00.000-07:00

Cochiti is our puppy.

We got him in January. Yes, I've wanted a puppy pretty much my whole life (seriously, I dreamed in puppies) and now that I have one, I waited two months to even mention it.

Why, I have no idea. Probably because I'm lazy, and because having a puppy takes away some of my energies (he has enough for all three of us). I've heard people say having a puppy is like having a baby. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that it is definitely not. Not that I have much experience in the baby department, but I think it's a fair assumption.

It is definitely work, though. Especially when your puppy is just a little bit, well... let's call it "special." But he's sweet and he means well. He definitely has a lot of personality. For brevity's sake, I will bullet-point his most interesting and noteworthy characteristics.

From the beginning, his favorite toy has been a plastic flower pot. He loves flailing it around, throwing it in the air, and just generally trying to rip it to shreds.
One day, he had said flower pot on his head and he ran right off the porch because he couldn't see that he was on the edge.
He's a heeler, so he LOVES biting feet. It's pretty much his favorite thing, besides the flower pot.
He goes wild over snow. Just the tiniest little patch, and he's happy happy happy.
At my apartment, he once decided to pee on the sliding glass door. I'm pretty sure he thought he was going outside. At least he tried...
He has a serious underbite and could use some doggie headgear.
The bottom of his paws smell like popcorn.
His poppers STINK!
He has demolished countless small sticks
He mows his food faster than a crocodile in the Nile. And he snaps his jaws like one too.
He sometimes thinks "good boy" means he can immediately start being bad.
He has gained 5 lbs since we got him. We think he might be part German Shepherd.
He is very capable of jumping up on top of the kitchen table.
He is very affectionate and likes to cuddle with us in the morning. He has also decided it's a good idea to put his head on the pillow.
When he dreams, he acts like he is running and makes tiny little barks.
He runs like a madman in the hills. Seeing how much fun he has always puts a smile on my face.

Becoming a Firefighter

2012-03-04T19:37:00.000-08:00

Hello anyone out there who still reads this. It's been a while. February was a ridiculously busy month. I didn't have one weekend off. The first two weekends, I had to drive to Silver City. Yes, I had to drive there and come back... twice. But I didn't mind, because I was doing something I really wanted to do, which was... firefighter training!

Last summer, while I was off breaking the truck, the rest of my crew was in Arizona doing remediation work on the Wallow Fire. I was the only one out of my entire staff (including the students) without fire training and therefore couldn't go along. Needless to say, I felt left out. At the end of the fiscal year, our travel budget was cut (again) and I thought there wouldn't be any extra money for trainings, so I tried not to be too disappointed about another summer of working alone while everyone else went off without me again.

But when I got back from the holiday break, something incredible happened. My boss came by and said, "We have some extra travel money, and W [his boss] wants you take fire training this year, so... find a class." YAY!

It was actually really hard to find a class. I kept getting different information and getting referred to different people. But I finally found one. In Silver City. Over two weekends. Silver City is about 4 and 1/2 hours away, if you take the shortcut. More if you try to go through Hatch and Deming. And even longer if you have to do what I did last year, and go all the way down to Las Cruces. Blah. So it was a long drive and totally killed my weekends but, like I said, I really wanted to do it, so I sucked it up and went.

The weekend of Feb 4 and 5 was the first weekend of the training, and I learned A LOT. There is so much information. We learned all about wildland fire behavior in one day. And then took a test. So in one day, I had already completed 1/4 of the 4-part course. The class was actually pretty big, with about 30-32 people, most of them volunteer firefighters from different departments around Southwest New Mexico. It's weird to see all these middle aged and older people who want to fight fires for no money, when all I really want to do is go around and look at stuff that's already been burned (because I'm a wussie) and get paid for it.

Required reading for firefighters.

Wildland fire behavior reminded me a lot of physical geography, because it deals with how weather affects fire. Wind, thunderstorms, relative humidity, air temperature, etc. I also learned a lot about how the actual fire behaves. It's pretty cool, actually.

And now, because my geology professor once said that drawing pictures helps you learn and remember things, I give you the parts of a fire:

In case you cannot tell from my amazing drawing skills, this is a fire in aerial view

Origin - Every fire has an origin, but it's not always at the lowest point on the fire like I've drawn. There can be other factors, like the tree that initially ignited could have fallen and rolled down the hill, thus bringing the fire down with it.

Head - this is the biggest, scariest part of the fire. It's the place where the fire is spreading the fastest.

Flank - These are basically the sides of the fire that aren't the head. They are the coolest part of the fire (temp-wise), so that's where the firefighters are usually sent first to start containing or controlling the fire. They say go up the right or left flank instead of using directions like North, South, East and West, because it's too hard to tell that kind of thing when there's a fire burning all around you.

Heel - This is the "bottom" of the fire. It has the slowest rate of spread and is opposite the head.

Finger - Extension that is still connected to the main fire

Pocket - Unburned portion between the finger and the main fire. You DON'T want to be there. If the fire jumps across and closes the pocket, you are screwed.

Island - A part inside the fire that isn't burning. It may be a rock outcrop or a lake or a change in fuel type. Just something different that decided not to burn for some reason.

Spot Fire - These happen when a piece of fire (yes I said piece, whatever) is lofted out into the atmosphere and lands on a fuel bed. It's not connected to the main fire.

The entire outer boundary of the fire is called the perimeter and the already burnt middle part is called the black, so I made it black in the picture. Doesn't it totally look like a burnt forest? Yeah, I thought so.

Random Question Games

2012-02-07T17:51:00.000-08:00

I got tagged by Chloe. She is cool, so I will play along.

The Rules:
1. Post the rules
2. Post 11 fun facts about yourself
3. Answer the questions the tagger gave you in their post & then create 11 new questions for the people you tag.
4. Tag 11 people and link them in your post
5. Let them know you've "tagged" them

11 Fun or Random Facts About Me

1. I am allergic to Robitussin.

2. I am currently taking classes on how to be a firefighter.

3. Matt and I recently made a new addition to the family... More on this later.

4. Since I've lived in Albuquerque, I have witnessed more criminal activity and vehicle accidents than any other time in my life.

5. I have not had my wisdom teeth out yet.

6. Matt's family is from Kansas. I have never been there.

7. For my Master's Degree, I basically studied the properties of air bubbles in dirt.

8. I used to sweat a whole bunch when I lived in Vegas, but when I moved to New Mexico, it magically went away.

9. I took ice skating lessons. For kind of a long time, actually. But I could never get the concept of rollerblading. Especially downhill.

10. I probably love chips and salsa more than a normal person should.

11. If I really like a song, I will listen to it over and over, and get sad when it ends. And listen to it again.

Questions from Chloe

1. What is your most embarrassing nickname? In high school, some people called me Maureen the Moron. It made me sad.
2. What makes you anxious or nervous? Haha. Everything. Driving. Getting lost. Not having the right answer. Most social interactions....
3. What is your biggest fear? Hmm... I don't know. I guess I'm afraid of something bad happening to me while I'm in the field by myself. Getting bitten by a snake, getting in a vehicle accident, falling into a hole, a rock falling on my head, falling off a cliff, getting accidentally shot by a hunter, being mauled by a bear. You know, stuff like that.
4. Facebook or Twitter? Facebook. I don't even have a twitter thing.
5. Dogs or cats? Dogs, but I like cats too.
6. What is your favorite recipe? Pretty much any kind of dessert I can bake. I like baking more than cooking, generally.
7. What are your resolutions for 2012? Save money and get out of debt.
8. Books or magazines? Books. Everyone at work says that I'm always reading. I only read at lunch!
9. What is your favorite color? Purple. Obviously.
10. Worst part of the day? The middle of the day, when I'm at work and really bored but I still have hours to go.
11. Favorite part of the day? When I get to go home, play on the computer and eat a snack.

Questions for You
1. What do you like to eat for lunch?
2. What is your favorite part about the place where you live?
3.Your least favorite part?
4. Would you rather clean and fold a large pile of laundry or wash and put away an equally large pile of dishes?
5. Coffee or Tea?
6. What was your coolest injury?
7. Do you have a favorite pair of socks?
8. What food do you despise with a passion?
9. Would you rather camp or stay at a hotel?
10. What movie do you want to watch right now?
11. If someone said, I will give you a million dollars but you have to move to someplace you hate, would you do it?

I hate tagging people, because I'm always nervous that they'll think I'm dumb for tagging them, but I'll do it anyway. I will tag:
Pam
Sam
Rachel
Jessica
Camille
Megan
Wildlife Biologist (I don't know your name :)

Do with that what you will...

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!