My last oil change was at Jiffy Lube.  I paid over $100 for their "signature service" and in return received "free" coupons for a bunch of crappy deals I never even used.  This time, I tried a different approach.  I got Matt's dad to do it. 

I had actually been planning on doing this for quite some time now (as in, 2000 miles ago) but just never got around to it because I'm out of town, like, every day.  So finally, yesterday, Matt went to his volunteer thing that he does every other Saturday, and I went to his house to visit his dad.

It's kind of weird going to your boyfriend's house when he is not there or coming with you over there.  Just sort of like, hey, I know he's not home, but ummm... can I get an oil change?  Luckily, his dad agreed.  He actually kind of owes me because I bought him about $50 worth of dried cranberries one time that he hasn't completely paid me back for yet. 

We went over to Auto Zone where they were having a really good deal on Valvoline oil.  $15.99 for 5 liters and a filter.  While I was there, I learned that once you use synthetic oil on your car, you can't go back to the regular kind after that.  So I went with the regular kind, to support my poor friends in the oil industry I suppose.  Ha ha. 

The oil change would have went smoothly except for one minor detail.  About a month ago, in a moment of pure genius, I accidentally kicked the hood release so now it doesn't really work anymore.  We spent a while trying to pry the hood open manually with dowels and screw drivers and things of that nature, but it wasn't really working.  Finally we ended up doing something Matt had suggested in the first place, which was to pull on the cable with pliers.  I tried to suggest this to his dad, but I didn't really understand what cable Matt had meant, and I kind of still don't.  But anyway, it worked, and it was super easy to change after that.  I could probably even do it myself after a couple times of them telling me what to do. 

During this process, I learned a couple things.  1) Plastic produce bags are an incredible invention that serve many purposes, including using them to unscrew the oil nut and filter so you don't get dirty oil all over yourself.  And 2) Jiffy Lube screwed both of these things on only finger tight, so that they could have just fallen off at any moment.  Awesome. 

All in all, it worked out well.  So I guess the moral of the story is, don't pay $100 for something that your boyfriend's dad will do for free.

Blue corn nachos with lamb steak sauteed in onions, rosemary and basil in garlic olive oil, topped with cheddar, fresh sliced jalapeno, and fire-roasted black bean salsa



Beef flank pinwheel with provolone and spinach

Despite the car crappiness, I did have a very nice holiday weekend.  Neither Matt nor I had ever been to Mount Taylor, so we weren't sure what to expect.  It's a volcano, so I was thinking steep-y steep with pine trees and stuff like that, which it did have.  But I wasn't expecting this at all.

This is the beautiful meadow where we had our campsite.  I loved it.  And there were quite a few more just like it.  We spent part of the last day scoping out other places we could camp next time.

Camping is not much without a campfire.  Even though I've been camping like a hundred times thanks to my job, and I know how to collect wood and build campfires just fine, I was not very much involved in these activities much beyond digging out the fire pit and putting rocks around it.  When camping with your significant other and his friends, it is important to remember that fire building is an important demonstration of male-ness that you probably should just avoid being involved in. 

So I took pictures.

I can't believe it's been since May 20 since I posted anything.  I feel as though I have been perpetually out of town.  I should be out of town this week.  I was going to go to Silver City for horse training but it was canceled because of a fire or something.  Since I was planning on doing that, everyone else decided to go work in Glenwood, which is about 2 hours away from everything I'm mapping, so it would be pointless for me to go meet up with them, considering the drive from here is like 5 hours.  So I'm staying.  It's kind of nice to not have to go anywhere for once but I'm nervous that it's already June (!!!!) and I haven't started on anything yet.

I figured out that I am allowed to go work on my own for a little while on Mondays if that's how it works out.  But it has to be something close to town and the main road, because apparently I am a terrible driver and have a bad sense of direction.  Really, who knew? 

Anyway, so this weekend Matt and I went camping on Mt Taylor, which is in Grants about an hour away from here.  I had fun for the most part, minus a few crappy things.

On Friday night, I spent the night at his house because it would be easier for us to leave from there together on Saturday morning.  I parked my car, which we were taking because it is bigger and has all-wheel drive, in the street so that his parents could get out easier in the morning (they were going to Kansas).  At about 3:45 am, we woke up to loud noises outside and a car driving away very fast.  Matt had a bad feeling so he went outside to investigate.  He came back to report that someone had been throwing rocks at cars, and that mine had gotten hit.  The rock hit the back driver's side door just below the window, scratching the paint and punching a quarter-sized hole in the fiberglass.  Considering it barely missed the window, I was very lucky in that sense. 

Matt's neighbors down the street, a very nice Vietnamese family, were not so lucky.  The entire back window had been smashed out.  We talked to them in the morning and the man asked us to call the police for him, probably because he was embarrassed by his English skills, which were good enough, just hard to understand, especially on the phone.  When the police officer showed up, we told them about the neighbors and pointed out the car to him, but he pretty much ignored that and just took down our information.  I guess everyone has to file a separate report, which I think is stupid, but what can you do?

This morning I filed a claim with my insurance company, so it looks like I will be getting the exact same door fixed that was just finished being fixed like 2 months ago.  That's awesome.  Plus I also somehow broke the hood release, all my doors are squeaking for some reason, and the tires are out of alignment.  This is looking to be a spectacular fun-filled week of car fixing appointments, or at least making appointments.

I left work early today because of cramps.  Is that bad?

 **UPDATED with new disgusting and gross pics!**

Well, my friends, the time has come once again to dig out the hiking boots and goofy hat, the maps and GPS devices, the coolers and sunscreen.  Yes, it is field season!

It's a little strange going back because stupid little memories keep coming back to me, like when other drivers wave at me when we pass each other, instead of cutting me off, honking their horn and yelling obscenities like they do here in Burque.  Or how steep things look on the map is not nearly as steep as they are in real life.  I don't have to climb up my map for three hours.  The forest doesn't actually have polygon lines for me to follow.  And in real life, I can't see over the trees.  It's a shame, really.

But I'm getting used to it again.  I'm getting used to staying at my favorite hotel in Reserve.  Having a beer at Uncle Bill's and meeting people I would never have met otherwise.  This week, I met members of several different fire crews on the forest, all from different walks of life.  Some local, some from farther away.

It's really a lovely town...

The first person I met was in town for something called PSD training.  What is PSD training, you ask?  It is where they learn how to shoot ping pong balls of fire out of a helicopter.  Yes.  Ping pong balls.  That are ON FIRE.  No lie.

Unfortunately, the fire crews didn't stay very long but I had some interesting times of my own.  Our first day out in the field, we kept coming across little white grubs buried in the soil.  They were pretty gross looking but we just shoveled them to the side and kept going.  Then, when I went to describe the pit, I stabbed my knife into a spot and ended up stabbing one of the little grubbies.  It fell to the bottom and a whole bunch of white goo was all over the place.  On my knife, the soil sample.  Disgusting.  When I looked back down at the grub, I saw that he (she? it?) had molted out of the gooey skin and was now crawling around in the pit.  So, at least it was still alive.  That's a good thing... I guess.

This is not a grub, but it is a weird gross bug

On our next pit, I used my most hated tool, the Montana Sharpshooter.  It's basically a shovel all made out of metal that has a long narrow blade used for chopping up the soil.  I drew a picture of one on a napkin for Matt on our first date.  Classy, huh?  Anyway, I hate using it mainly because it is hard work, and I am a weakling.  I also hate it because of blisters.  I got five on one hand just from digging half a pit.  And one of them opened up so it was hurty and I couldn't use the sharpshooter anymore.



Other things happened during my first field week, but I think I embarrassed myself enough already.  Suffice it to say the forest is a big place and I am just a tiny speck within its wide expanses.  (Also see above about how maps are not actual forests)  So that's it.

One day, I left work early and the next morning I returned to find a message on my answering machine.  Thinking it was someone from work, since work people are the only people who call me on my work phone, or so one would think.  It was the car rental place.  They said the insurance company had refused an extension on the payment and I owed them $360.  Ummm... what?  I just talked to the insurance guy and he said it would be extended.

So I called the insurance guy again and he said oh, no it's okay.  It's been extended through the following week.  We're just waiting on the collision center to explain why they kept your car over the weekend.  I said that's fine, but let him know that the rental place is going to close my account that evening and could he please get it taken care of before then.  He seemed to think that was ok so I hung up. 

After work I decided to call the rental place to see what had happened since I talked to the insurance guy.  The woman I talked to said nothing had been approved except for one extension that lasted through Friday of the first week, and I would be responsible for everything else.  That meant an entire week and two weekends.  Not cool.

I called the insurance guy back saying I was getting conflicting stories about the rental payments and wanted to know what was going on.  He started in with some crap about "Oh, I know it's not your fault that the collision center kept your car over the weekend but they can't explain why they did it so we can't approve it."

Ignoring the fact that this is completely stupid, I just said, well the lady at the rental place told me you wouldn't even approve the second week of repairs, so fix that first.  He said that's supposed to be approved so maybe he should just call her and explain.  OH YES!  Now THAT is an idea!  Why didn't I think of that before?  (At this point, I should probably let you know that the rental place and the insurance company had only been corresponding by email; no one actually talked to another person on the phone)

Well, apparently the guy called and worked something out because I haven't heard a thing about it since then.

Part 1
Part 2

On Monday, I still hadn't heard from the collision center, so I called them around 10 am.  My car was finished.  Apparently, I was on the guy's "to call" list, he just hadn't gotten around to it yet.  Ok, whatever.  I went over to look at it after work that day and it looked good, so I headed over to the rental place to return the nissan.

Before I dropped it off, I had to get some gas.  I was worried about bringing it back not completely full but since it wasn't that way when I got it, I decided I would try it and see what happened.  Nissan tanks must be really small, or maybe I'm just used to my Saturn and the enormous Suburban tank that takes 10 years to fill.  It was almost empty so I decided to put in 5 gallons and see how much it filled.  That filled it to 3/4 of the tank.  I decided that was enough and went to the rental place.

Turns out I had nothing to worry about.  The guy looked at the mileage and stuff before we went into the office, and when we were in there, he asked me how full the tank was when I got it.  I said half full, and he said ok.  No problem.  Yay!

Then he drove me back to the car shop and I picked up my clunky Saturn and went home.

As for the payment on the rental car, I had called the insurance company earlier that day and the guy told me that the three day thing was just a formality and he had extended the rental period and gotten a bill for 100% of the cost.  I left the rental place with the assurance that "no news was good news" in terms of me having to pay for anything.

A few days later, I got news.

Continued from here

So on Monday, the insurance company calls me to say that they've been over to assess the damage to my car, it should be fixed in three days, and the collision center will be in contact with me. 

Three days go by.  No contact from the shop.  I figure, oh well, it's just taking them a little longer.  When I still have not heard from anyone by Friday afternoon, I start to wonder what's up but I'm still not super worried about it.

Then, on Saturday morning, I check my email and there's a message from the insurance company with a link to all my documents.  I read through the first one, which is basically an itemized receipt for work done.  It really seems to me that they did a lot more "assessment" than necessary for nothing more than an obvious scratch n' dent, and the entire bill is a pretty ridiculous amount of money for something that seems so small and easy to fix.  But I don't care, I'm not paying for it. 

I open up the next document.  It's about the rental car.  The basic gist of it is, "Oh, and by the way, we're only paying for three days of your rental."

WHAT?