Stop. It's office time.

Lately I've been in the office a lot.
That's surprisingly okay with me.
I've got a lot of stuff to do getting ready for the orientation of the volunteer program I'm working on, so it feels good to be in the office where I can see tangible evidence of my progress.
Such as the Bad A poster I made. It's got swords on it
Additionally, we're subtitling the program A NEW HOPE and we're gonna try to make a star wars replica poster.


Here's a picture of me in my field gear. Another reason why office work isn't so bad



Other things that have been going on?
It's cooling down here, meaning the days are, at most, getting into the mid 80s but the nights are pretty cold. Getting down to the 40s.

I know I know, It snowed 5 inches in B ham last night. SUCKAS

Since October 1 I've had
Dad
Mom, Gram, Sheila, Colleen
Jordan (with Jen and Dom)

Come to visit! It's been magical.

I'm also real sick. I don't know what it is but it's not getting better. Felt really bummed about it today and decided that I'm gonna go to the doctor ASAP even though I don't have health insurance.
Sigh a frenzy of sighs.
I hope I have something diagnosable. I hate being told "well, it doesn't look like there's anything wrong with you..." Hate
That actually doesn't happen very often because I hate going to the doctor when I'm ill. I'd much rather just wait it out but I don't wanna be sick when I go to Argentina in a month

Although, my Dad did have a good point

They've got socialized health care in Argentina

sigh

oh heyyyy

Oh heeeeeeyy blooogggggg.

Sorry I’ve been gone so long

I’VE JUST BEEN DOING AWESOME SHIT

Went to Seattle/OI in August. It rained.

Started ROCK CLIMBING (again, used to do it as a kid)

I’m somewhat terrible at it, (I guess I have fear now?) but I keep getting better and it means I get to lie around in the sun for most of a day which I love

Found Archie some competition. Endotherms are pretty nice

Had(have) a hellish experience with the American healthcare system.

Dad visited

Manning camp!

Turned 22

Mom/gram/aunt/cousin visited

Passed out into an ultimate slumber

Helicopters!

We've been working on this project with a bunch of other agencies,
By we I mean my bosses. Who am I kidding, I AM JUST THE FEET
Anyways
The project is to see if helicopters could be used to spray buffle grass in terrain too remote or too steep for us to work in. We've been setting up these plots for, like, EVER, and on the 18th it finally came to fruition



AWESOME



We were about 100 ft away from the test plots. Test plots! It felt like I was doing science again.
The protocol was beautiful



The helicopters were pretty cool too. I was put in charge of 2 test plots. My boss was one of my underlings. Oh ho ho, I said, let me tell you how I feel about walking in straight lines.

Also this



Then I ate Chinese food and got on an airplane.

GUYS. HELICOPTERS.

Oh ho ho hohohoho

Good week. GOOD WEEK. For a multitude of reasons but one in particular.
It's hot as F out here again BUT, soon I will be back in Seattle/Shoreline for about an hour then go to Orcas to see the Family. If you want to see me while I'm there let me know. I'm keeping it on the down low due to the brevity of my stay so, you all loyal blog readers get first dibs
I'm trying to keep it together but I'm losing control of my limbs

Off Trailing

The best part of this job? We get to go everywhere in the park, not just the trails.This means we get to see a lot of really neat stuff and wayyyyyyy more wildlife than we would probably see. I've been better about bringing my camera into the field.

HERE'S A LOT OF PICTURES

This is the day I was working on a graduate student's tortoise project. I was a little concerned about the physics of tortoises existing in this plot. Behold, this was the line I was walking


Riiiiiight across that cliff face. I was 90% trying not to fall to my death in the wash below and 10% looking for tortoises.

We searched a 200x200m plot of similar terrain and we found 0 tortoises. We did however find one on the way back to the rigs



It looked really sad and didn't have any toes on it's upper right foot. Booooooo000ooo

Check out these sick ass petroglyphs! One of my co-workers is an archeologist. She tells me interesting things about the time period of these, none of which I can recall now.



I did ask her "DO YOU EVER WONDER IF, LIKE, IT WAS JUST ANCIENT PUNK KIDS WHO MADE THESE DRAWINGS?!?"

She said sometimes



This is a picture of two frogs doin' it. They are so losing their college scholarships now. NEXT TIME MAKE BETTER LIFE CHOICES FROGS


Look guys! FERNS. Also, there is some moss in there! ALSO I saw some lichens! (mostly dust lichen but some foliose too!) ALSO ALSO PUFF BALLS. Who remembers my Fun Fungi Fact about puff balls? I ONLY KIND OF DO


Can you deny the cuteness of this pin cushion (genus Mamillaria) cactus? No. You cannot.


Can you deny the awfulness of prickly pear? no. You also cannot. I'm constantly pulling its gloccids out of my extremities. Shame. Face kick.

Check out this cute ass baby tortoise that wanted to hang out with us at our staging area. We made so many high pitched noises, then we hover crafted it to a root which it promptly buried it's face in. More high pitched noises were made.


Views. And this is kinda a wussy one



Guess who came back to our blue tarp burrito the next day. BABY TORTOISE. There he is in the fold of the tarp by the top of the yellow dry bag. We decided that he needed a name if he was gonna keep showing up. I nominated Stanley. We decided on MegaBaby

GUESS WHO ACTUALLY GETS TO WORK WITH HELICOPTERSSZZZZZZZZZZZ NEXT WEEK?
(It's me. I do.)
(I don't get to ride in them though.)
(I'm just ground ops)
(...still bad ass.)

Things I learned today

1. Just because you change the time on your alarm clock doesn't mean you set it.
-Okay I've known this for a while but for some reason my clock didn't go off this morning. I blame technology. And Damn kids.

2. Getting ready for work the night before is beneficial when your wake up call is your carpool arriving

2.5. My carpool is amazing people. Is. Amazing.

3. I can feasibly get ready for work in 2 minutes and a shit ton of adrenaline

4. Wearing my boots without socks doesn't result in blisters but does result in pools of sweat. GORTEX RULZZZZZZzzzz....?

5.When you have to go back to the parking lot to turn off your dome light, don't forget to lock your doors. Nothing bad happened but just a reminder IRENE

6. That sandwich you made on Saturday, took out into the field then didn't eat? Not still good on Monday.

7. A covey of quail wait until the very last second to startle and fly away. Probably out of spite so that I get startled too.

8. Ocotillo is so pretty when it is in leaf. I just want to pet it all the time.

9. Pin cushion cactus. Adorable. I feel bad for whacking it with my hammer on accident a lot.

1o. Question game. Question game FOREVER

11. Buying slurpees and doritos for carpool seems a sufficient apology for being a hot mess in the morning.

12. Put emergency socks in the office. Not on kitchen counter.

13. For having awful luck today, my luck isn't so bad

HERE'S A PICTURE OF A BOBCAT KITTEN I SAW (photo credit, my co worker)

STUFF

Almost posted a sappy thing about my feelings (aside from the sappy thing I wrote for my cousin) but then I thought twice about it. Then I thought, it's not like anyone reads this anyways, then I though but that's how you get dooced. Then I remembered I don't have feelings.

HERE IS A PICTURE OF A RAIN STORM