Maybe I'll do some blogging again?

Happy incipient New Year, all, if anyone is going to read this .

I'm leaving for Canada first thing Sunday morning, and will be flying up to my site on Thursday.

I've signed a confidentiality agreement for the company I'm going to be working for, so maybe blogging isn't such a good idea after all.

But it's good to check in here.

Let's see - new years resolutions? I'm not really the type, but maybe I'll try one? Meet S-H? Not that I'll keep it...

Book

So. I haven't been posting much, whatwithall the lack of home internets and school and things.

But on Friday I went to a bookstore to see the booktour presentation of this book, written by sort of old friends/acquaintances of mine. They go on a ridiculous road trip and get a book deal out of it. Anyway. I didn't buy the current ASS book club book whilst there. I may be dropping the ball on this go-round.

Felted slippers.

My first attempt at felting something. Slippers. They looked really bad before felting, but I think the felting improved them a lot. The shape.

I don't feel as though they shrank that much. I might have to do it again. For now, though, they'll dry. I'm ordering soles to sew on to make them more durable.

How you know I don't regularly drive a car in & out of the garage...

Oh crap.

So Monday was the first day of school. I didn't have to be up until 1pm, so I wasn't in a terrible rush. Up at 6am because my body said so, and I immediately went outside to water the lawn and promptly locked myself out. So, change of plans, I walked to my parents' house at 6am to get a spare key, arriving approx. 6.45.

Didn't know which ones were mine, had to wake up my mom, call my dad who'd already left, had a fight with him because he was being insane, walked back and got back into my house. Threw me out of my loop for my morning routine, but no harm done. I mentally moved up one the list of things to do 'get a new set of keys cut and hide them outside somewhere' which has been on the list a long time.

Fast Forward to Friday. E (not *that* E) convinces me at the last minute to go to a concert I'd been on the fence about for awhile. Had a good time. But exhausted this morning. Maybe I'll try to sleep more.

Anyway, because of logistics I end up taking E's car back to my house, to be returned later today. Get to my house maybe 1.30 am. Look for my keys. Can't find them. Crap.

So I came to my parents' house and quietly let myself in and slept on the couch.

Will thoroughly check my bag sometime this morning, but am mentally putting together a list of places they could've been left at school. Best hope is my locker. Worst hope is despair.

And the spare set is locked in my house right now as they never got returned to the folks. And obviously that is missing things like the key to the office, which I was planning to use today to go down and do some work. And one particular key to one door in my house.

I imagine locksmiths are super pricy. I hope I don't have to find out. Crap.

I'll be away for awhile.

Wedding out of town this weekend. I should be back on the internets Tuesday. Ta.

Some pictures of Montana

N has most of them on his camera, I only took a few on mine. Missing: such things as hiking and roof construction.

Eating dinner.


My birthday cake (with a clementine face)


After an afternoon storm.


Dinner another night. BBQ next to the river.


Doing work while the afternoon storms roll in...

Not having internet at the house is going to get to be a pain in the butt.

But I think I'm going to try it for awhile, anyway.

My routine usually involves reading news in the mornings, listening to my bluegrass radio program Saturday mornings from MN, being able to reply to emails, browse the interwebs, read DB, read the usually-*very*-naughty webcomic that posts Sundays, etc.

And I'm a little frustrated not being able to do these things.

I've been looking into my options, though, and everything seems more expensive than it should and I don't really want another monthly expense because I can be... frugal sometimes.

So I'm going to give this no-internet at home thing a try.

I've always got it at the office, and in two weeks I'll have it at school, and if I ever really need it there's always the parental residence or a coffee shop or something.

I'm definitely going to go through a fair bit of withdrawal. And there's no TV in the home. I'm going to be cut off.

But I'll give it a trial, anyway, and see how it goes. Besides, after this semester of school I'll most likely be up in Canada for another few months at the beginning of next year, so if I do end up needing interwebs at home it can probably wait 'til next spring.

But I'm definitely going to be having SH anxiety crises. Missing DB. Wondering if she's posted, what she's said, wanting to comment, etc. I was pretty bad up in Montana too.

But all the same, getting away from being connected is always good. This is probably how addicted some people are to FB. I'm not on FB.

Oops.

So, aside from the missing internets at my house, here's my other annoyance upon returning home.

So, a few months ago I bought 25 lbs of quinoa from Amazon, as they had the best price. Well, I signed up for this service that would ship me the same thing every three months and got a discount for signing up for the recurring shipping thing.

Well, they got me.

Because while I was in Montana, they sent me the email warning me that they were sending another shipment any day now and if I didn't want the other one I better act fast... and I didn't see the email until I also saw the one saying it'd shipped. And I haven't eaten much of my quinoa this summer. So now I'll have almost 50 lbs. And it'll last me a long, long time.

Sigh.

I was going to eat it eventually, so not a huge deal. But that's a lot of quinoa...

And now I better cancel that Amazon recurring shipment thing, as I forgot last go-round. Sigh.

Possibly a long post.

Ok team. Lots to report on. I'm back in Denver.

1st off. Horror of horrors. The neighbors whose unsecured internet I've used for the last year secured it over the weekend. I came to my parents' house tonight to catch up on internet things since I've had no access while I was in Montana. Looks like the end of this gravy train and I'm going to have to get myself an internet service. Not happy about any of this. I'm searching around to see what my best options are going to be, and I don't seem to be happy about any of my choices. Grrr.

So. Trip recap. I wrote some things of varying length each day, and will paste and see how it looks.

10pm July 31, even though I won't get to post this for a few days. Everyone's retiring for the evening, but I hear M over in the next room dabbling on the guitar. I'm stuffed, but figured I'd write a bit before bed.

Got here yesterday. Hadn't seen N or M or N's dad, S, for quite some time. Missed N&M's wedding in the Netherlands last September, felt bad about that, and haven't really spoken to them much in the past year. So it's good I came up here.

Was here at the ranch with them for a bit almost exactly four years ago, but I forgot how awesome it is.

Right outside of Roscoe, with the main part of the ranch right on the E. Rosebud River and about 1/2 sq. mi. in all. Amazing views from right at the bottom of the Beartooth Mntns.

N's dad, S, discovered the place years ago when he was dating a girl from the area (whose family has a much, much, much bigger ranch). I guess they were engaged before he broke it off. But still sort of moved to the area. Must've been hard for her to have her ex-financee having bought a ranch right down the hill from her place...

The three kids recently partitioned it, a bit, but that doesn't really seem to matter.

S's sister lives here year-round and has for decades and runs a pottery studio. Makes some pretty cool stuff. I bought a few pieces earlier today.

But N&M&S are mostly working on raising the roof of the green cabin, about 14 ft wide & 85 ft long, right next to the river, that S's dad got in the property partition amongst the three siblings.

So we worked on it a bit yesterday but are taking the weekend off but will be back at it Monday.

Rain on and off this afternoon, little thunderstorms rolling through, and then just before I came to bed we were out on the deck in this awesome lightning storm, with bolts lighting up the mountains every so often. An awesome evening. Nice and cool.
Going to bed now, though. But we've seen the black bears and the wild turkey families and lots of deer and went to the Wild Animal Refuge in Red Lodge today and saw a bunch of animals who'd been injured early in life and then saved and brought to the refuge to be cared for.

Had a really nice bbq tonight with everyone out on the river. Tons of food.


August 1. Went on a long hike today. Back to work on the roof in the morning. I didn't go as far as everyone else because I was a worried about my knee after what happened last week on Longs. Which did in fact give me some troubles again, but not as bad as last week.

I just foraged a late dinner - 10pm - and have retired to bed. N&M&S are still having a dinner of sorts. I'm also some gridding some geology isopachs. Not too much else for now. Maybe I'll get some hiking pictures up, although I think they're all on N's camera. Also right as we were getting back to the house we saw a barn owl fly up and land on the telephone pole. Pretty cool.


August 2. Happy birthday to me. M baked some of Grandmaman Guisan's gateaux au chocolate. Overflowed a little into the oven even though there's not much flour in them (mostly chocolate) and I just burned my forearm slightly while cleaning the bottom of the oven. Good day of roof building. Slow progress, but wasn't too hot.
Sad I'm going home tomorrow. Would like to stay out here weeks longer. M is badly mosquito bitten after yesterday. I've got a few. S's oars from his rowing days at Oxford in the early 60's are up with some pictures. Pretty amusing.

Everyone's going on rural vacation.

Off to a fairly remote Montana ranch in the morning to hang out with some friends who live in the Netherlands. Back late Tuesday, so a short trip.

But it'll be really good to see the friends and get away and spend my birthday up there. Doesn't sounds like they've got any internets these days.

In fact, I sent my friend an email with my flight info days ago and he called just a few minutes ago to check in and see if I was coming and saying he hadn't gotten the email. Good thing he called, otherwise I would've been stranded at the airport up there come morning. I'd actually called him about 15 minutes before he called me, but I think I called his Skype-US-number-for-US-people-to-call-while-he's-in-the-Netherlands number. And if he has no internets, he won't be getting the message. I'd tried to call his dad's cell, but I don't think they have reception.

As for me, I'm sitting annoyedly at the office waiting for the project to copy onto the flash drive so I can take it with me. I'd asked J to start copying it over before he left so I wouldn't have to sit here for an hour (I was at the other office today), but he didn't. So I would've enjoyed being home by now but instead I'm sitting here copying the project. And I'm annoyed.

and here we go.

Long post ahead.

S left town. R&L left town. T left town. K is staying for another week and a half. She thinks an extended period of time under her parents' roof could drive her nuts though.

Friday T'n'K'n'myself went to hike Longs Peak. Tons of people on the trail. I warned them beforehand that I was a bit out of shape. Turns out I was right. My knee coming down was unhappy in a way that my knee has never been unhappy before. It wasn't fun. Almost locking up. Or locking up. But then we ended up at the Southern Sun for dinner, which is a five minute walk from where I used to live and a really fun place. T had wanted to go, and he definitely approved.

Ended up going back to their place that night because we live on opposite sides of town, and we wanted to just get to bed after a long day. When I went to bed I thought we were just going to brunch to play games - K REALLY likes playing games; it's sort of a disease - but when I woke up the plans had changed and after picking up E we went up to Cheyenne for the first day of the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo. Weren't sure we were going to get tickets, but K scored some while the rest of us waited in line.

There was all the usual - I say usual but I don't have a whole lot of rodeo experience - rodeo stuff like bull riding and bronco riding and cow wrestling and tying and stuff. K had really wanted mutton busting, which I hadn't heard of. I guess it's where they put helmets on little kids and have them try to ride sheep the way the adults ride bulls and broncos and stuff. Apparently, it's pretty funny. But there wasn't any mutton busting.

Instead, the highlight of the day turned out to be this ridiculous event called wild horse racing. Teams of three guys, maybe twenty teams total. Each given a completely wild horse, never ridden, really really having no desire to be ridden.

Teams have to get a saddle on the horse and one of them has to do a full lap around the track.

Chaos. Absolute chaos. Horses breaking free and running around, lots of bucking, etc. But the best was when one horse pretty much broke free started sprinting around the track, but one poor dude managed to hold onto the rope and got dragged, face down in the dirt behind a wild horse at a dead sprint, probably 1/4 of the way around the track before it occurred to him to let go. I can't imagine how much dust he ate. My lord. But it was awesome.

Had Indian food on the way back down with the team, which was fun. It was right below the place I'd taken my old housemate to get her wisdom teeth out last year. She was *so* drugged and *so* out of it when I took her home and had to take care of her. Pretty hilarious.

Tonight loom girl is playing a concert. So, a bunch of years ago I did this thing for a year and afterwards everyone else who'd done this thing met up to talk about it at this conference. And there was a girl there who had the most amazing energy and aura about her and I basically fell in love with her instantaneously. And all growing up as a kid in my parents' basement my mom had had this giant, basically room-sized loom that she pretty much hadn't used since I had been conceived. And for various reasons it occurred to me that this girl was the person to whom the loom should be given, who would appreciate it and put it to good use, and I ran back to my room and called my mom on my phone and told her she was going to give her loom to this girl. And my mom wasn't convinced, but I put them in touch but eventually my mother did and this father of an ex of loom girl's disassembled it from the basement and packed it up in his pickup truck and drove it across the country.

Anyway, turns out loom girl isn't using the loom so much right now because she's playing in this band that's doing pretty good for itself and is on tour in my town TONIGHT. So I'm going. And it'll be really good to see her and really fun. Sadly, she currently dates the main boy in the band, after whom it's named. But I've really only spent, like, thirty hours with her in my life. But she's awesome. Awesome.

And tonight she's playing a concert with her band here in town. Yay loom girl.

But a fun couple of days. Aside from the soreness, which was causing my to do some silly hobbling yesterday at the rodeo.

I just made a little burp!

I don't know where it came from. I think I've only burped, just now included, maybe 2 or 3 times in my post-baby, conscious life. This was a very rare and bizarre occurrence. Crazy.

For a long time, I didn't think it was physically possible for me to do so. But a little one just popped out!

Damnit.

So. There's the unsecured wireless network in my neighborhood (somewhere) that I've been stealing my internet from for lo this past year. Sometimes it isn't reliable, I realize, but I love it anyway, and it does the job.

Yesterday morning it was working normally like it always does. About mid-morning, I twice got one of those 'ip conflict - another device on the network has been assigned the same ip address' errors that sometimes pop up. Never had one on this network before. I put the computer away to do some other things and take a nap, etc, and then later I came back.

And that's when the problems started.

Now, every time I go to connect to the wireless network, i see the little 'radar' icon with the yellow shifting dot as normal for Windows. And then - as it has 'connected' to the wireless network, the computer freezes.

More frozen than you could imagine.

I must've restarted the computer a dozen times yesterday and twice this morning, without fail, the computer freezes as soon as it connects to the other network. which I just don't get. Sure, it could not connect or something, but what would be making it freeze?

Anyway. I hope I manage to get this sorted because I really don't want to have to pay for the internets.

I just renewed my driver's license online!

My birthday is coming up too, and my license (not that I really drive these days much at all) was about to expire after five years. I went online to see where I should go to renew it, but instead I discovered that I was able to do it online. Pretty cool.

All up in my business.

And I'm not happy with it. So the backyard grows like gangbusters, as the lady I bought the house from last summer described it. And that's really cool. And things were growing like gangbusters this summer, and everything was lovely. But recently, everything's been falling over. And I'd been thinking to myself that everything had grown so big that it was falling over under its own weight. And partially, that's what was happening. But not entirely.

This evening, I took a closer look at the goings on. And I'm not happy. There's this vine, and it's wrapped itself tightly around virtually all of my flowers, and is more or less suffocating them, and they're all collapsing under the weight of these vines that are climbing the flowers to get to the sunlight.

And I had hoped to be a laissez faire gardener. But I see that it's no longer a possibility. But now, in a way, it's too late. Because of the trauma that I have to induce on my flowers to get rid of this damn vine. And you have no idea how much of it I pulled out. It just kept coming and coming, and I'm sure there's a ton more. It's taking over everything. It's getting all up in my business. And I'm pissed. And I've let my lovely flowers down.

It got dark tonight. I'll go back soon and keep going. But I don't know how I can really beat this stuff. It's insidious. I have a feeling this this will be my own personal never-ending war on (flower) terrorism hell.

In other news, I randomly stumbled upon this earlier in the night. I really really wasn't looking for anything of the sort. Popped up on a Google search for something else entirely. But totally hot.

Ok, so maybe the world isn't ending.

But not up to my high standards, either. To my credit, though, it's the first thing I've actually completed using the Magic Loop technique, so I suppose it's ok that I wasn't 100% on top of it, but I'm still not fully pleased. The lass is also quite small, so I was trying to guess an appropriate size for her. We'll see if it works.





England, 2006.

Band coming Saturday!

I'm rather excited. The Two Man Gentlemen Band will be in town. They're a lot of fun. They sing funny songs, often naughty.

I'm FREAKING OUT.

Knitting.

Yarn emergency. I've got knots in my balls of yarn like you couldn't believe, and it's driving me insane. Insane.

I'm freaking out. I'm going to go get some dinner. And I've asked my mom to come over and save me. Not that she can. I think I'm doomed right now. It's a bad scene over here. Yarn emergency. Gak!

It rained.

(Written last night, not posted due to lack of internets)

Still raining. Lots of rain tonight.

Sadly, I doubt it can ever rain enough to keep the yahoos from setting off fireworks. I really don't like fireworks, never have. Except for one night, new year's ever 2003/04, but that's another story. But for the most part, I hate fireworks. And I hate that it's every Americans god-given right to set off fireworks if she wants, and that a lot of people enjoy it and like making loud bangs that bother me.

In other news, washed my bedding today but didn't bother to take the other clothes off the laundry line in the basement and draped sheets and such on top. Call it laziness, if you like. Unsurprisingly, things aren't quite dry by bedtime. So things'll be slightly damp until my body heat dries them up. Not having a dryer, it's always a race to get things washed and dried all in one day, when it comes to bedding. But not clearing the laundry lines doesn't help the cause...

Great weather forecast for the 4th...

Tonight: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm before 10pm, then a slight chance of showers. Some storms could be severe, with large hail, damaging winds, and heavy rain. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 54. North northwest wind between 5 and 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.


Actually, that's good for me. Turns out I'm awful at keeping a lawn green. I'm really bad. The rest of the garden looks fine, if overgrown. But I'm terrible at the lawn. Maybe I need a new sprinkler. It's also the water conservationist in me, who isn't willing to water enough for it to be happy. But geez.

Not much to say.

E left last night.

Caught a few drinks with him after work before he went to the airport.

He never made it to my house as he had a migraine Tuesday, so we took Tuesday off from hanging out.

But he won a bunch of stuff at the conference, which is cool.

And maybe I was just seeing your email on his phone?

My neighborhood may improve.

So, my city councilwoman included this blurb in her e-newsletter today:

On East Colfax, the prevalent prostitution & street crime along the corridor has been reduced to the point where development would and IS coming! The first major development
to occur east of Monaco Parkway since the motel era will break ground this August.

That's pretty much my neighborhood. And while it may take awhile, redevelopment is certainly overdue and will be pretty cool, I hope, when all is said and done.

Damnit, postal service!

So I took the opportunity this morning, since I'm not going down the office until later, to go over to the post office and see why I haven't been getting mail people have been sending me, which has been more than a bit frustrating.

I didn't get the whole story, because I just walked over and didn't bring anything with me and the lady wanted to see my ID to protect my privacy, which I appreciate, but I think I've pieced enough of what happened together to do my CSI and know the story.

So. During my Canadian stints this year I set up this temporary mail forwarding thing online. And you say online WHAT DAY YOU WANT YOUR NORMAL SERVICE TO RESUME. And I was temporarily forwarding things to my parents (who live in the same zip code I do, I wasn't making this complicated on these people...).

Anyway, what I suspect happened is that the little yellow sticker that says 'temporarily forward A's mail' never got taken down when it was supposed to. Apparently my regular mail carrier has been out sick for awhile (a long while, I guess). And I spoke to the temporary carrier who'd been carrying around a little green card in his bag that said 'forward A's mail, don't deliver it to him'.

But the part of the story I didn't get a good answer to is where my mail is. Because nothing HAS been forwarding to my parents, probably because it wasn't supposed to. They couldn't give me a good answer to that question.

So my mail is lost in mail purgatory because someone forgot to take down a little yellow sticker when they were supposed to. Arg.

But where it went is a mystery.

This includes a credit card reward thingy. And I already called the CC company once to say that it never arrived. They're not going to like it when I call back a second time to say it never arrived. They're going to think I'm scamming them out of CC rewards. But I'm not. The damn PO lost them all.

Night with E.

So I met E downtown and we walked over to this jazz club where we watched this group play, one of the dudes I'd met at that housewarming a few weeks back. Three friend met us there, one of whom E has acquired an instant crush on, as I suspected he would. She's a main friend in town and I've always had to fight back my crush on her because she's totally adorable.

I think I'll have her'n'E over for dinner Monday or Tuesday night.

Then we split up and I took E on a decently long walking tour of downtown Denver, as it was a lovely evening for walking. Conveniently, his hotel is *right* next to my office - they have adjacent corners of a block, and I had to drop something off there tonight so he got the two-minute tour of the office (it's just one room, the office)...

Fun!

E may or may not be coming to town early next week for a conference and may or may not be wanting to hang out in the evenings.

And ants?

And just tonight I've had a few ants crawling around on the main cushy chair I use in the summer time. I don't know why they're in here. There's almost absolutely no food in the house.

And the moths are still bothering me. Boo.

Lost mail?

I'm quite concerned that I'm not reliably getting my mail. There are a few specific pieces of mail that I have definitely not received in the past month that I was expecting. One of which was scanned and emailed to me today after it was returned undeliverable - despite being correctly addressed.

I just emailed the postal service. No idea whether they're able to solve problems like this. But something is wrong.

Which is weird. Usually, amazingly, the postal service just... works.

But I'm annoyed.

This is the Squirrel Hunters...

I just discovered that my local squirrels have just discovered that chewing up my hammock is a fun new game. I'm not pleased about this.

I was always impressed watching the pair of them run helical squirrels up and down the trunks of my blue spruces from which the hammock is suspended. Impressed that they would ignore the hammock and continue about their business. I was always afraid this day would come, and it has.

I just watched one of them get down onto the hammock, take it in its mouth, and jump up and down on the hammock whilst biting the hammock.

Also, two or three of the main cords that attach to the hammock have been chewed through, and are no longer serving to keep the hammock suspended. They may be repairable.

But upon googling squirrel repellent and the like, I came across one website that says that while many sites may sell things to repel squirrels, nothing really works.

So I'm in trouble. I don't want to have to take my hammock inside and out whenever I want to use it - I want it to be able to just be out there. But now that the squirrels have discovered it, I don't think that there's any way to stop them.

How're the insects after the weekend?

Anyway. Title of the post (I'd originally given it a different title, but this is more appropriate). There's a classic fiddle tune by John Hartford which he'd kick off by droning 'This is the squirrel hunters...' in that gravelly voice of his. Recently learned that that line was so poignant that some new bluegrass band has named itself This Is the Squirrel Hunters. Good name. Anyway, upon learning that that band (not very good, but oh well) had named itself after the song, I went to look up what squirrel hunters are. Pretty interesting.

My friend J suggested I get a pellet gun to scare the squirrels. I don't think that's a good idea. I enjoy them spending time in the yard. Except for the hammock.

But then I could become a squirrel hunter.

Lots of rain.

Precip map for prior 24 hours.

News article.

I have a housewarming party to go to plus a baseball game with my dad, and the World Cup game right now...

Don't sleep in your exterminating fumes. Let it air out a few days.

Moths in the bathroom! (snakes on a plane?)

So, this morning I woke up to find a miller moth in the toilet bowl. Flushed him. Then, when I in the shower gettin' good and lathered up a moth flies in and starts banging around the shower curtains and freaking out because he's all trapped in a freaking torrent of water. So I spray him to the bottom of the tub and try to spray him down the drain, but my showerhead doesn't go at any angle so I can only blast him so far. And he keeps tenaciously trying to walk up the tub towards my feet, which I really don't like the idea of. Eventually, he gets flipped over onto his back and slides right down the drain and I envision him falling all the way into the sewer and being gone forever.

I try to recapture my shower mojo and finish up. A minute or two later, monster moth comes crawling back out of the drain - I guess he must've grabbed onto something on his way down like they do in the movies when they go over a cliff or off a building or something.

So I just turn off the shower, dry off, and get him with some balled up toilet paper and throw him in toilet too.

What a way to start off my day.

In other news, those of us who might spend part of our time exploring for oil may've made a major find yesterday. Which is pretty exciting.

I guess I'm a bit slow on the uptake sometimes...

So I came home yesterday afternoon and couldn't connect to the unsecured wireless in my neighborhood, and then I when I went to the fridge for some water the light wasn't coming on in the fridge and I thought to myself that I had to change it.

Then I walked over to the cheap Mexican food place five minutes from my house - I *love* hole-in-the-wall'ish Mexican food. I only went to this place for the first time last week, and I'm ashamed that it took me ten months of living here to make it over there. But now that I've been, it's dangerous for me to have in the neighborhood, but I love my house about a billion times more now - anyway, on my way to the restaurant a bunch of streetlights were out, and then when I got there the power was out inside, and I *finally* connected the dots between the wireless and the fridge and everything else. But it really hadn't occurred to me at home that the power might've been off.

Anyway, this morning I wake up to find this missed call - from 1.16am. I suppose it's nice that they called with an update, but really, 1.16am? The call goes to my cell phone because I don't have a landline, and I keep my cellphone on vibrate and it was in a different room and it totally didn't bother me, but it probably woke a lot of folks up for no good reason. Plus, I'm testing out embedding of voicemails.



And the power was already back on by that time anyway, so no bid deal as I see it. Article in the local paper about the substation that blew. First really hot day of the summer yesterday, so maybe people went a bit nuts on the power.

I think I'm going to have to furnish my basement better so make it more comfortably livable so that I can hang out down there in the cool while the rest of the house is warm and I don't have to run any AC.

In other news (post getting to be longish, impressed if you've read this far), I picked up a new part-time summer job yesterday. I'm a bit surprised at myself, but I'll be doing about 15 hrs/wk at a water law firm. I sort of thought I'd go to law school on and off for a few years and never do anything related to all that, but sometimes I surprise even myself. But they readily admit that water lawyers dress like slobs and there are a bunch of geological maps up on the walls and it's pretty unstructured, so I guess this is as good a fit as I'm going to find as far as me giving the whole working law world a whirl.

Takes time away from my geology, but I'll get my geology done in time.

Watch out!

Not that you live 'round here, but those skunks by your place probably shouldn't be trusted either...

Way past bedtime.

But quickly. Had a quick trip up to Canada and back last week. Wasn't entirely happy to do it, but probably for the best.

Friend over for dinner tonight. Nice summer evening. Not too hot. Enjoy the backyard, etc. She hung out in the hammock whilst I cooked and then we ate outside. A good time of year.

And my neighbors had a party this evening too, so I spent some time there which is why it's now past my bedtime. They run a comedy club and a bunch of people there were colleagues, which is a bit intimidating to sit around a table with a bunch of people who get paid to be funny for a living...

It's that time of year again...

Miller moths in Colorado. Obnoxious beasts. Found one on top of my laptop the other morning (currently trapped under a plastic tub thingy, waiting for it to die) and another was buzzing around my sliding glass door a few moments ago. Just googled them before composed this post and read this site, which was insanely educational as I never really knew anything about them before aside from the fact that they've been a bothersome nuisance my entire life. But it's a Colorado thing.

How many posts am I going to make today?

Ok. So. The will-be groom at this LA wedding called just now to check on my RSVP status. I hadn't even looked at the reply-by date on the invite because I figured it was not-yet, but I guess it was early and I missed it.

He's giving me a week to decide. He also gave me a rundown of college people they invited, and I'm pretty much not friendly with any of them. Which is discouraging. But I knew that was going to be the case because I didn't really hang out in their circle so much.

And then he asked me to look up this other dude who lives in Denver in the phonebook to see if I could find him because he'd sort of gotten lost. And I asked whether he'd tried the Google, and I googled this chap and it turns out this guy they're inviting to their wedding had a wikipedia page which informs me that '[i]n 2001, he was named one of the 50 most eligible bachelors by People Magazine,' among other things. Which I found a bit shocking and cool. And then I found a webpage for his place of work and they're open 24 hours a day and I called and he still works there and I got an email address that I passed onto the incipient groom.

But, since I would basically not have any friends worth visiting at this wedding (and really, most of the point of a wedding isn't about the people getting married but instead about all the invitees getting to see one another) and don't have too many other people in LA these days, I think the ability to get a discounted S-H tour might be a potential scale-tipper. So was that an honest offer? And how discounted are we talking here, anyway?

I don't think this blog is searchable...

But I have to be careful. So my friends named yesterday's baby .a.l.i.v.i.a., I guess .o.l.i.v.i.a. with an 'a'. Which is think is slightly weird, but I'll go with it. But whenever I see the name, the first thing that pops into my head - even though there's no 'n' - is Alvin & the Chipmunks...

You ask, I blog

Well, I've now added a couch to my little house. It's good that the space isn't empty anymore.

My mother considers the shades on the window frumpy and thinks I need to get blinds instead. Now that the couch is in, these things can move forward, perhaps.




And a few not-great pictures from outside. Flowers have made a run for it in the last few days (and yes, I need to get something to cut grass along edges...)




And the rhubarb is growing like gangbusters (there was a fence with my neighbors until I was away over the weekend and they decided to replace it, which is proving to be a bigger job than they anticipated...)

...

So, in the past month two of my closest friends from growing up have sired children, one just a few hours ago. I'm not entirely happy about this turn of events. People are starting to move onto this next 'family' phase of life, and I'm just not anywhere near that. Not that I have to be, but it's a bit terrifying that close friends are now fathers and mothers. Sure, most of my friends are married at this point, but for the most part I was really proud of them all for waiting before the whole baby thing. I guess that time has now ended. It's just really weird.

In other news, since my main reader was excited for me before, the couch I bought back a few months ago will be delivered tomorrow. Once it's in I'll have a better sense for the house's continued furnishing.

And do I make it to LA in July for a wedding? I'm debating, but right now it seems unlikely...

Reverse-colored skunk?

So I'm in Princeton with my friends M & R. We went for a walk in the neighborhood after dinner and I saw this animal creeping next to the house. It was black & white and looked sort of skunklike, but with reversed colors from a normal skunk. And it was strange and we stalked it for awhile and I pulled aside an old lady speed walking in the neighborhood and asked her what she thought it was, and she freaked out and thought it was some frazy animal. She thought it swam and called it a nutria, but upon looking this up at home later nutrias don't look like that.

Anyway. Googling reverse colored skunk or some variation seems to indicate that they exist, and I think that's what we saw. It was definitely moving like a skunk.

Anyway, it was fun to watch for awhile. Eventually it ran across the street.

Long-overdue trip.

So it appears that Jetblue is doing a one-day-only sale for unbooked seats on its flights leaving Tuesday and Wednesday. So I just booked a flight from CO to NY for $20.70, with tax, leaving on a red-eye Tuesday night.

Going to make a long overdue trip to see my grandmothers, and some other geographically-proximal friends. No return flight yet books, but that'll probably be on Sunday. And I have some credit to use up on another airline, so all things told this trip will be very cheap.

Unfortunately, I'll have to see my crazy aunt, which pretty much ruins the trip before it even starts, but my grandmothers aren't getting any younger and I'll survive the aunt, although it won't be pleasant.

24 hours free.

So I made it out to where I needed to be despite the weather. Ridiculous amounts of snow here the past few days. The road was a sheet of solid ice and drifting snow pretty much the whole way. Probably better that I came up today, though, because I'm sure that the road is quieter on the weekend, so I just plodded my way along.

Whereas I was doing exploration stuff this winter, I'm doing commercial production stuff for the rest of the work I do this year. Which I haven't done much of the last few years because I've been in school stateside (registered yesterday for autumn classes) and the economy last year. So each of the jobs I'm doing is high-profile and has a budget of over a million bucks. So I've got one of the more regular fellows shadowing and supporting me this next week just to make sure I remember what I'm doing out here and am comfortable with everything (little doubt I will be, but the asset group needs to be comfortable with who's out here). So I'm working nights the whole time I'm out these next few months, so I have about 24 hours before the fun starts.

Just my luck.

So the short version is that there's a crazy spring blizzard storm that's been wreaking havoc with all sorts of my plans the past 24 hours and I yet again find myself in a hotel room in Lac La Biche. We'll see how the roads are tomorrow. Sigh. Some of the plans involved a girl...

Back to Canada in the morning.

For a little over a month. I'm glad the roller skating is going so well.

New CD

Just like to mention that I received my pre-ordered copy of Memories of John, which I've been looking forward to for months. I'm a gigantic John Hartford fan. I haven't listened straight through yet but have been skipping around listening to different tracks of interest. I sort of doubt any of this blog's readers are gigantic Hartford fans, but if you are, I recommend the cd.

Ho hum.

So there are zombies a foot in LA. It has come to this, it seems.

Not much here. I took a nap this afternoon but turned on the ringer to my phone (rare) because I was expecting a call and instead ended up getting a call from my cousin, which I sent to voicemail, in which he discussed having heard on the radio that he'd heard how tall a trillion dollars in stacked $100 bills would be and couldn't believe it. I wasn't happy to have been woken up about that message.

Then I woke up and had an email from the person whose call I was expecting saying that he'd phone tomorrow. Boo.

I went couch shopping with my father this weekend. I bought a couch. It was expensive. Also a lot bigger than I had in mind originally. But it was really the only one I liked. It won't arrive until June. But I think I'm actually going to try to get the place furnished a bit and feel a bit more like a house. SM, who may or may not be friendly with E, loves doing such things and has drawn up a plan for how to decorate, she just hasn't shown it to me yet.

In other news, it's almost time to register for fall classes. So I'm figuring out what to take. I'm also petitioning to be allowed to take a course in another department that would be a really good course for me to take but has absolutely no legit connection to what I purportedly study. I think they might let me do it, which would be nice, but if they followed their own rules they really shouldn't allow it...

What happened?

So, as my loyal readers know, I recently went to Canada for a few months. I got back a little over a week ago and have been settling back into life in these parts. My schedule is pretty open these days, but I have tons to do nonetheless. No shortage of things to keep me busy.

Right now I have mushroom risotto on the stove for dinner and some dough rising to bake some bread, so I'll probably be running back and forth to the kitchen while I'm writing this post.

No. Back now. Risotto with me, bread in oven. I was supposed to split the dough into two loaves but didn't bother so I might go back in half an hour and have monster loaf on my hands overflowing into my oven. That would be cool.

Anyway. Did a bunch of yardwork this morning cutting back all the old dead plants from last year and getting ready to grow new ones. Things look a lot better now, and spring is virtually upon us. This'll be my first spring in the house after having bought the house last summer and I'm a bit worried I trimmed some things I shouldn't have, but it'll be ok in the end, I'm sure. The previous owner had the place landscaped really nicely and for my neighbors' sake I hope I don't manage to ruin it all in one fell swoop, but I won't be around a whole lot this spring and summer so the possibility exists...

Anyway. Reason for this post is that I have a new neighbor, so to speak. Right next to the bus stop that I disembark at when I come back from downtown is a brand new medical marijuana shop. Somehow I missed the fact that this was going to be happening, but apparently they've sprung up ALL OVER either just Denver or all of Colorado. One of which being no more than two blocks from my house. What happened? It's a bit odd. And right around the corner from the store is this house that has signs up saying that I can get an examination, presumably for a prescription, from the house. It's a bit fishy, methinks.

But I didn't even realize that this was going to be happening and I come home and they're all over the place. Bizarre.

Culture.

I think that there's been a Jane Austen theme on and off, what with the P&P&Zombies book I mentioned to you, etc. So tomorrow I'm going to see this with SM, who may or may not be friends with E, and her hubby. Musicals really aren't my thing, but they already had tickets and I DO like Jane Austen, so why not? We'll see how it goes.

Crazy day.

So. I'm back in civilization. Left winter project site at 2.30am yesterday - the rig was leaving at 3am and given the already-poor condition of the roads, I didn't want to be leaving after it.

This got me back to Calgary by about 3.30 in the afternoon, which had the added advantage of allowing me to drop off my computer for repair. (Did I mention it stopped working a few days ago?) I have it back now, less than 24 hours later, fixed. Which is a relief. And free, still being under warranty.

Anyway. First thing this morning I was planning to hang out around Calgary for about a week before going to do this other job. About 8.30am I speak to the ops geologist about coming in to meet with her today, and she tells me that they've decided to do the well without a geologist. Fine. So I book a flight back to Colorado for Sunday. I then proceed into downtown to have lunch with the geologists I worked with this winter. S offers me more work starting Tuesday. I go back to where I'm staying after lunch and cancel the flight I'd booked that morning. S calls about 5 minutes later to cancel me for the more work I'd just canceled my flight for. I have to book a second flight back to Colorado.

Argh. Lost two jobs in a matter of hours. Booking and canceling flights left and right. Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. Bizarre day. But that's the way it works sometimes.

So I'm going home Sunday. The end.

I should be back by mid-April at the latest for more work, possibly sooner. But I did plenty of work this winter so really don't need to work any more. For the year, really, but it does sound like I'll be pretty busy through the summer...

Momento of a good winter.

Found this hanging on my car today after the USA-Canada hockey game last night. I lost the case of beer I'd won earlier in the Olympics.

Someone took a fair amount of time making the sign. But you'll notice that fairly ironically 'Canada' is actually spelled incorrectly. Which I found amusing. Turns out the Hutterite driller was the guy who'd made the sign, which probably excuses a spelling mistake as bad as that, even, given his upbringing. I think that after I pointed the mistake out generally to everyone that he was pretty embarrassed, and before he left his shift he'd taken it down and put it in the crew truck and was going to throw it out. I got him to give it back because I still like the sign and it's a momento of a good winter.

I leave my winter projects tomorrow, probably, and then have about a week off before this other job that'll be the last before mid-April, probably. So I'll be heading back to Colorado in a few weeks.

You're bored.

I'm not really sure I have much to contribute right now. Just found out some other friends are pregnant. My goodness.

One of the medics at my winter projects seems pretty nice. The company man on my rig is trying to set me up with her. Apparently she would let me be her house husband, which would be fabulous. Becoming a house husband might be one of my ultimate goals in life. We'll see if I pull it off. To try and convince her of my house husband bonafides I just knit her some mittens. Not that I'm seriously interested, but it gave me something to work on the last few days. Not my best work, but they're not bad either. I should go deliver them to her right now.

She related an anecdote of life in the oil patch to us the other day that speaks to me a fair bit and relates back to our discussion of balance in life and not working too much all the time, etc. She said she'd heard from someone else out there that life in the oil patch is a lifestyle, not a life. That makes a lot of sense.

Got to watch a good bit of Olympic curling today whilst knitting. Knitting and curling is a good combo. Canadians made it to the gold medal games for both men and women.

Blarg.

So another day of no sleep. Almost 24 hours with just an hour or so. More to come.

But winter looked to be winding down, a bit early. A few days ago it looked like this was my last job - that I'd be heading out Tuesday, probably. Now there's an attempt being made to add a few holes to the site I'm at now, and if not I have another job for this company at a different location that I'll go to right away. And then another job for another company that was orignally supposed to get going March 1 but is looking more like March 10 right now. And I'll head south after that, probably.

So Team USA played Team Canada in Olympic hockey tonight. I don't much care about hockey, but since all the Canadians do I bet the company man I'm working with a case of beer on the game, in good natured fun. And Team USA prevailed!!! Gave all the guys out here a hard time about it. Obviously not going to be collecting/drinking my beer at work (no drugs or alcohol anywhere near here), but I'll enjoy it somewhere once I get out of here.

Cover blown.

I don't know what I'm posting this link here. But there you go. You win. But you hear that? Everyone's favorite anonymous blog commenter. Everyone's. And perhaps not so anonymous.

Farewell, Cali.

Well. Brief trip just about at an end. Leaving on an 8.30am flight back to the Great White North.

Nothing terribly exciting to report. Just got to see and hang out with a lot of friends, which had been my intention. Was very nice.

Got to eat some pretty decent Mexican food.

Helped one friend try to make a dent in cleaning up his completely repulsively filthy apartment. Not too much to say he's been living in squalor. With the pungent smell of the rat the he'll be incipiently feeding his boa constrictor. On the flip side of that, spent a night in the immaculate $1.1 million house some other friends just bought - no idea where the money for that came from.

Bought some other friends three-year-delinquent wedding gifts. Has been a monkey on my back this whole time. Glad I've got that taken care of. In turn I got to drink a lot of two-year-old apple-cherry cider they'd made. Apparently it was awful a few years ago, but some time in the bottle helped it along and it's actually quite tasty now. I had my fair share yesterday.

And got to spend a little time earlier today with another friend and her two young children. I'd had a crush on her back in the day, her being wonderful. But the kiddos were great.

Missed a few friends I would've liked to have seen, but so be it.

All in all, a good trip.

Can't Wait.

Guess who's not going to get any sleep tonight? Fabulous. Can't wait. Good times. I've only been up since 5am...

And three's a crowd.

Let's just say the past day or so has been very frustrating...

Glacial, baby.

So normally when you drill a well you drill through all the surface sediments and down into bedrock, where you'll place your surface casing. Then you'll drill out the main hole with a smaller bit size.

To change things up a bit, they wanted to core part of the surface glacial till, and our first attempt failed. After they got the bit out of the hole, we figured out why. You'll get boulders and such in the glacial till pretty often, and our bit ran into one that was the perfect size to plug it up...

Requests fulfilled.

Possibly my one and only reader asked for more pictures. A friend recently asked for pictures of my 'interior shots of my personal dwelling'. So I took a few for him, and have them on hand to share now. So my home is one half of a shack that sits maybe 20 yards from the rig. And this is what it mostly looks like inside. Small, but fully functional. And easily able to be picked up by a truck and moved to a new location every few days.

Guide to Canadian Slang, pt. 1

Gong show. One of my favorite Canadian terms. Basically describes what going on at work right now, but what's new?

Blarg.

So. Awhile since the last post here and even longer since I had anything of substance to say. Last night - all night - was my first day of real work this winter - I've done a fair amount of sitting around waiting for work up until now.

Didn't go great. Not badly. But not great. If we drill too deep, there's a $50k fine, and one thing I'm out here to do is to prevent that. So when I see signs that it's time to stop, I stop. Better safe than sorry, y'know. But sometimes geology is complicated and not helpful, and it was last night.

So I saw my indications that it was time to stop drilling even though in my heart I didn't think it really was. But better safe than sorry. So it would've been nice to drill a few meters deeper, but no real harm done that we didn't. And I would make the same decision again based on what I was seeing.

But it costs a lot of money to drill these holes, and I'd like to be making perfect decisions. But I did the right thing stopping when I did, and I'm not second guessing myself. And I'm standing by my actions. I just wish I could make perfect decisions all the time and not have information out there that indicates I should do something when ideally I wouldn't.

That and I didn't sleep all night; got a few hours earlier this morning, but I'm still not feeling too hot right now. I'll have time in the next few days to catch up.

That and my communications out here have been awful. Usually the satellite internet is great, but I think there are way more rigs out working right now than they'd planned on, and conswquently there's nowhere near enough bandwidth. It's been painful. Worse than the worst dial-up connection you can remember. Hopefully will improve in the next few weeks, but we'll see.

Good luck with the move.

No real topic.

But I figure I should write something. In a hotel. Was in Calgary over the weekend but then sent back out into the field today. Long day of driving, and a few more hours tomorrow and I'll be out at my site for the winter. Rig will move in tomorrow as well.

My father reports that aside from the remaining water in my toilet bowl having frozen that the house is fine, if cold.

Got the last of my grades from this past semester posted today. Good semester. One class wasn't ideal, but overall I'm satisfied, and I'm happy to have many months off before going back.

What I do at work.

One of my few (I'm not really going to tell friends about this blog despite S-H's urging) readers asked about my job.

So. Here are some things I do:

a) I look at (and describe) a lot of dirt through a microscope.
b) I am 'the eyes in the field' for the geologists back in the city.
c) I communicate between the very different worlds of office guys and field roughnecks - there's some skill in being able to communicate and translate between these different worlds.
d) I oversee coring and wireline logging operations - I make sure cores get marked up correctly and that idiot Canadian oilfield men don't mess things up, because cores lose meaning if you don't know what depth they've come from.

And other stuff.

My winter projects are nice, though, because I don't really have that much to do. Often I'll only do something like three or four hours of work every three days. I may have slightly more to do this winter, but it should still be pretty relaxed. So I have time to myself to do all the things I mentioned in the first post. Which is nice.

It's a pretty good gig, all around.

Annoyances.

So. I finally realized that I had comments to moderate. A few days late. Sorry about that. I probably can set it up so I get emailed when that happens. I'll look into it.

So I've been around Calgary the last few days, and a few things have been mildly irritating.

1) Last night. I went to get a new cell phone. Back in the day when I used to spend more time in Canada than I do now I used a *totally* old-school analog bag phone. Imagine the very first car phones in a leather carrying sack. Huge. But analog service had better coverage than digital. For when you were in the boondocks and not a city. But they finally got rid of the analog service which means every place that needs to be - even remote ones - are supposed to be pretty well covered by digital.

So since I'm only going to be here a few months I went with a pay-as-you-go phone, the sort of thing I used to have when I lived in England. Anyway. I bought it in the store, no problem, and I had no problem paying with my Canadian credit card with a US billing address.

Brought it home to activate and - trouble. Got on the phone with the company and had a really nice gal help me through with a whole host of problems that probably don't happen to most people. Then came my ability to recharge my credit. As I'll be in the middle of nowhere I can't just get a top-up card at a 7-11 and need to be able to do it online. So I tried to pre-approve my credit card. Which didn't work because Canadian credit cards with US billing addresses are confusing to computers - I got rejected with two different cards trying both on the phone and on the internet.

So. I had this guy fill out a form on his end to do a manual credit check. And there was some computer error for the phone guy. And he starts telling me how I need to talk to my band - this is after I'd been on the phone with them for something like an hour and a half. And that made no sense and pissed me off - I mean, the phone company is having an issue filling out a phone company form - me talking to AmEx isn't going to help anyone.

So I spoke to a manager who realized that the employee was speaking foolishness and he filled out the form again and finally got it submitted. So hopefully in a few days my card will be approved for use so that I can recharge my pay-as-you-go credit.

2) So the site I'm working at this winter is remote. And as such, there aren't any normal gas stations to go to to fill up. There's a cardlock run by some company, and I need to get a card to be able to get gas there. So a few weeks ago, while I was still in the US, I spoke to this guy and he emailed me some forms and asked me to email them back, filling them out as completely as possible. Which I did promptly.

I get home from taking my last safety class today and have a voicemail from this company - I call them and it turns out that emailing the forms back wasn't sufficient and that they need a signature to run this credit check.

Right. If they had told me this weeks ago, I would've mailed it to them. He told me just to email it back. Which I did. So I start rushing around - like an hour ago - to find a fax machine and fax in this one form. But their fax machine isn't picking up. So I scanned it and emailed it. And I better be able to pick up my card in two days like I need to.

But the point is a) that he specifically told me I could email it, and b) if I couldn't email it and they needed a signature, they should have told me this weeks ago after receiving my paperwork.

Both issues are hopefully resolved, or will be soon. But they taken up loads of time dealing with the past two days and both things should be non-issues.

But it's nothing like getting one's house robbed, so no big deal in the long run.

Well.

So I suppose I've capitulated. That and it's 6.16am in a hotel room in Great Falls, MT and I don't really need to be on the road for a few hours yet, so why not.

Admittedly, the information flow has been fairly asymmetric, and there has been curiosity expressed about the A commenter. Not that it'll all be alleviated here, but I suppose I'll leave open the possibility. It could be fun.

At any rate, here go secrets, spilling one by one. I occasionally work as an oil geologist in Canada. Out on the rig with the Canadian roughnecks and whathaveyou. I came up and worked for ten days last January, but in general haven't done it in about a year and a half now because of other things going on in my life. But I'm heading up for a few months and am pretty excited about it. Freezing cold temps and Canadian roughneck guys who cuss a lot out in the middle of nowhere. It isn't the perfect job for a lot of people, but surprisingly it's sort of the perfect job for me.

I actually end up having a fair bit of free time in my winter projects, so I'll get to read and knit and snowshoe and do other projects unrelated to the immediate work. I usually have a lot of free time. It's a great job.

So by this afternoon I'll be in Calgary if they let me across the border and give me a new work permit. And I'll be having dinner and staying with SM, who may or may not be friendly with E. And after a few days in Calgary I'll head out to the middle of nowhere for the winter, and home will be a shack next to a drilling rig.

I've always sort of been a letter writer, but don't think I have too much of that on the agenda for this winter, so maybe the 'You win' blog will take the place of that.

So how's that for an information overload from your anonymous commenter?