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.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

hot and sour soup

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

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

Orange peel beef

And the extra mistake, orange peel chicken

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

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

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

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

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


And there were some sweet cliffs up there as well.


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


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

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

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

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