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Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
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4:45 pm - Smashy smashy
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| Saturday, July 11th, 2009
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8:29 am - Carless again.
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Just when you think you're getting ahead, shit happens.
I was in a car accident last night. Minding my own business in the left lane of a major highway (okay, 2 lanes on each side, but it's the only one in these parts). Then I see this big blue pickup truck in the wide grassy median, and thought, "huh, that's weird. Is he trying to make a u-turn? Um, he's going to make a u-turn into me." So I slam on the brakes, thinking I might be able to stop, but I pretty much t-bone him at an angle. Quick inventory check, and I'm okay. Neck hurts, knees bruised, but the car crumpled very well, and I had slowed to probably 30 mph by the impact. My car is so little that the airbag sensor in the bottom of the car wasn't triggered. Then he backs up, and I'm thinking, okay, he's getting out of the traveling lane. And he keeps moving. I'm like, oh no you don't, bastard, and memorized his plates before he fled. Moved my car into the actual pavement u-turn area, then proceeded to have a breakdown. All alone in a crashed car trying to figure out how I'm going to prove that I wasn't at fault. Hysterical and confused. I called Marc, he couldn't understand a word I was saying, and was like, did you call the police? I said no, thinking that I didn't know the number of the police station. Didn't even occur to me that this was a 911-quality emergency, because I wasn't bleeding profusely. A minute or two later, a man stopped and talked to me about what happened, he saw it all and started calming me down. I was sooo confused and a bit hysterical, one of the witnesses was like, "yeah, she just got out of the car and looked so lost, like she didn't know what just happened." Marc was 5 minutes away (we were supposed to meet for dinner and then see a play), and he helped a lot with the calming down.
In the end, there were half a dozen witnesses, one even followed the truck when he fled. Unfortunately, the truck had the wrong tags and was most likely stolen, and the driver abandoned it and ran away on foot. I went to the hospital in the ambulance, got x-rays for my neck, sat for a while, my entire family showed up, eventually I was pronounced fine, given some prescriptions for neck strain, and sent home.
Now in the market for another car. Hoping the uninsured driver insurance will cover the cost of the Accent and I'll get it in a reasonable amount of time (cue high-pitched voice and tears when talking to the insurance company), because I really don't have the expendable income to buy another car outright.
Pictures will be posted later.
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| Monday, June 8th, 2009
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10:35 pm
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Wow, long time no update.
Um. So. I suck at bleaching hair. Marc now has a buzz cut. He still looks hot, though. :)
EDIT: Love, I am so harassing you if you accidentally spell my name with two "l"s one day. :P
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| Monday, May 18th, 2009
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7:12 pm
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| Friday, May 15th, 2009
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4:36 pm - A bad day in the field is better than a good day in the office.
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| Sunday, April 12th, 2009
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9:04 am
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I'm going to be an aunt!!!
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| Friday, April 10th, 2009
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9:18 pm
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These past couple weeks have been crazy. Busy with work, cars breaking (but being fixed!), more work (but the one watershed is completely done and all the info sent to the county!), grumpiness (ARGH PMS), video games that keep killing me. Poor Marc, he was a little scared when I was raging at the most recent game (Infinite Undiscovery); but I didn't actually throw the controller into the tv. Just...near it.
Also, today? Not fun. There was a blood drive at work, which was cool until I got sick. My body went into a bit of shock from the drop in blood pressure and sugar levels. Kinda crazy going from a bit chilly to OMG HOT covered in sweat soaking clothes to freezing in 90 minutes. But! I didn't vomit or pass out, through force of will.
The scariest/creepiest/worst thing about the whole ordeal was when the nurse asked me what my name was when I was still very much in shock. It took me a good 15, 20 seconds to remember it. I literally asked myself, "What is my name?" Crazy, that we're so fragile and can lose our memories, thoughts, whole self-identity with just one illness or accident.
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| Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
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10:19 am - Time for a Loki Blot.
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Yesterday: The Terrasync program that is the main and only field program we use mysteriously disappeared from one of the GPS units that we lent to a group on the eastern shore. On the day we happened to go there to train them on the data extraction and manipulation. I was able to move their raw field data files from that unit to my desktop to our GPS unit so we could extract them. The .exe program is still on the GPS unit, but I have no idea how to access it.
Today: The network folder that we store all of our finished and near-finished data on is gone. Completely. Probably not completely, because it was used by a number of people in the watershed unit, but I can't find it in any other reasonably named folder. Which is very much an issue today, because we're in the office specifically to go over and polish the finished "rough draft" of the Piscataway watershed before handing it over to the county. That draft happens to be entirely on the shared folder. (I have all the unfinished data on my desktop, but that's missing at least a week's worth of smoothing.) Needless to say, there's not much to do at work without that folder.
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| Saturday, March 28th, 2009
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11:16 pm
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I am now the proud owner of Brunhilde, a 2002 silver Hyundai Accent with 80,000 miles on it. Just needs a battery, inspections and tags and we're good to go. And I stayed within my budget, and might have a little left over to upgrade the stereo and buy some more jewelry put the rest towards student loans.
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| Sunday, March 15th, 2009
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6:34 pm
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Marc is bottling his first batch of mead. He says it's like 15% alcohol, yum. Unfortunately, it will still be another long while before it's drinkable. :(
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| Saturday, February 21st, 2009
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10:03 am - Sick, grar.
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So, Dad had a pretty bad cold and Marc had a stomach virus/food poisoning/flu (we're not sure which) thing at the beginning of the week. Both missed three days of work. Now, come the weekend, guess what? That's right, I have a cold and a stomach virus/flu. Mmm...pink NyQuil vomit....
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| Thursday, February 12th, 2009
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8:28 pm - Moving Marc in.
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So, Marc is officially moving in at the end of the month. He's been practically living here for the past four months, staying over here at least four, usually five nights a week. Dad's fine with him moving in, he's actually looking forward to having male help around the house for renovations! So my job for the past few days and in the next few weeks will be paring down and getting my old crap out to make room for his stuff. I've already donated nearly 60 books (the so-so ones) to the library, and the closet full of crap is now four trashcans full of crap. It was very interesting sifting through all that stuff. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) fervorvex, love, you're dating one of the biggest geeks ever. You know when boys were collecting baseball cards, and girls were collecting make-up and accessories? I was collecting Jurassic Park toys and Star Trek cards. I found my giant stuffed Velociraptor that I got from my fifth grade teacher for filling up 20 pages of 25 "good work" stickers.
Of course, I also found my parents' (huge) collection of smut. Much more graphic magazines than the Playboys that I knew Dad had. And Mom's "romance" books (at least, I think they're Mom's). With titles like Lustopia and Down on the Boy. In their daughter's closet, in the space under the stairs that was blocked by one of her toy chests. Really? I mean, really??
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| Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
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5:52 pm - This must be what Heaven smells like.
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Marc's first batch of mead is fermenting in my closet. The entire basement smells like maple syrup, yum!
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| Thursday, February 5th, 2009
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5:44 pm
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I have wheels! A 1997 Ford Explorer, dark red, tinted windows, and automatic everything. It need new ball bearings on the left front wheel, new tires, a tune up, and a stereo, but otherwise it's in good condition. Of course, the fuel mileage sucks at 14 mpg; I'm so used to getting more than 30 from the neon cause it was basically an engine with seats and wheels. Not too bad, though, because I don't have to travel a lot to the field sites for work.
I'm also taking a hard look at my finances. I haven't done a very good job of saving money over the past 18 months. Trying to cut out a lot of my extraneous purchases and start paying down my student loans. My tax return will help, but I'll still owe quite a bit. I also need to get a new (for me) car too; the Explorer is a loaner from Mom until I (with George's help) can find a decent car at an auction (apparently they sell for about half of what the dealers ask). I'd like to start investing some money later this year, to start my retirement fund.
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| Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
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8:21 pm
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Weird mood swings today. I hope it's just cause of the weather, car-related stress, and not exercising for a week. Blah.
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7:59 am
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Mmmm...it's morning, and I'm trying to decide if I want to go in to work today. The state has announced liberal leave, and my boss wouldn't mind if I took the day off, but I'm not sure how it would work with pay and me being a contractor. I feel a bit guilty, though. I didn't go in yesterday, because I'm still driving Dad's car and a Thunderbird is not a safe snow vehicle, at all. I slid and fishtailed three times just in getting out of the neighborhood. And I was out last tuesday because my car died (15 minutes from Annapolis!) and I needed to fix it. Generally, transportation issues aren't acceptable reasons to miss work; but then, it's the first time I've called out since I started in September.
I think I'm just a little uncomfortable with the idea of taking leave in general. For the past two years I've been a teaching assistant, where you don't miss work unless you're dying, and even then you need to arrange for a substitute. Before that, the substitute teaching, where I signed up for my own hours; the temporary lab job that I was at for 3 months and was trying to impress them to hire me permanently; and the gig with Jim and Roni, where new hires couldn't take paid leave for 6 months. Also, my boss is very lenient; he's bitter and jaded about the state hiring policies, has a dedicated fund for my salary, and doesn't agree with the idea of contractual employees not getting paid time off, so he gives us holidays and stuff under the table. Not having any rules for what I am and am not allowed to do makes me uncomfortable.
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| Monday, January 26th, 2009
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6:34 pm - Call me Master.
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** Degree Information **
GRADUATE SCHOOL
Master of Science
- Without Thesis
Awarded 12/20/08
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOP & CONSERV BIOL
Grad Cumulative Credit: 41.00
Grad Cumulative GPA : 3.975
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| Saturday, January 24th, 2009
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9:37 am - Car! aka: look how much I've learned about engines!
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Worst part about the job? We can't go out in the field by ourselves, which is just plain common sense, and I'm not knocking it. However, the past two days were beautiful and warm, but I was stuck in the office because my coworker's in France for a wedding. I'm making a pout-y face.
The timing belt on my car broke on tuesday, stranding me on the side of the road 15 minutes from work. Step-dad George came to pick me up with his roll-back (luckily he had the day off for the inauguration), and then his roll-back stopped working. We had to wait for Mom to get tools, parts, and fluid cleaning stuff and rescue us. The fuel pump was frozen, so it was back on the road in 20 minutes, and I finally got away from that place 3 hours after my car died.
Back at George's shop, we try to get to the timing belt. Didn't have the proper special tool to remove a pulley, and had to wait until he borrowed one from a friend. Wednesday, we get the rest of the parts off, and found out that the timing belt tensioner had stopped working; it was stuck, which is why the timing belt broke. We replaced the timing belt, and tried to start the car. There was much clunking. It was an interference engine, meaning that the pistons overlap the valves; when everything is timed correctly, it's okay. However, when the timing is off, the pistons break the valves, and the engine is dead.
So I'm going back over there to see if we can get an old Explorer on the road for the time being, and then I'll decide what to do about a new car.
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| Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
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5:47 pm
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Tiamat has passed on to the great highway in the sky. Thanks for everything, old girl.
current mood:  sad
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| Friday, January 16th, 2009
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4:32 pm - Look, it's an update!
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Work is great. Our field sites are at most 30 minutes away from home, rather than the hour or so drive to the Annapolis office, and I'm getting compensated for commute time. My boss is great, too; he's the type of boss that wants results and completed projects, rather than filling up the work-day. I have officially fallen in the stream four times.
Yes, I am walking the streams in this weather. It's not that bad, we just bundle up and we don't stay out for as long as usual. We're more at risk of slipping and breaking bones than frostbite and hypothermia. Pretty much any slope becomes treacherous when it's icy. Also, the soles of our wading boots are felt, so they absorb water and almost immediately freeze, no traction at all. Honestly, it's makes it kinda fun, since it's a challenge and makes the days different. But my coworker and I agree that spending a few hours outside is better than sitting in front of a computer all day. One of the greatest things about the job is that we never know what we're going to find, or how many fences we get to scramble around. Our work skirts around trespassing laws; as long as there isn't a sign, we walk on private property. We've actually only gotten yelled at once by a homeowner for trespassing, one towing threat for parking on a private drive (we're much more careful about that now :). We do get people asking questions about twice a week, but most don't mind once we explain that we're professional hippies.
The weather also makes coming home and warming up that much more enjoyable. I spent the rest of today sitting in bed with my cats, reading a book and drinking tea.
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