Since my last entry, I had a streak of good things happen. Which was too good to be true, because promptly a bunch of bizarre and unpleasant things decided to happen. I guess the universe has to balance itself... that, or the gods think it's really funny to mess with me and see how much I can take before I freak out. :P
A neat opportunity for grad students was emailed out to us CSU kiddos and I thought, what the heck, wrote an essay and gave some references and threw it out there. It's called Park Break, and it's a collaborative week long graduate study with the National Park Service the US Geologic Service and the George Wright Society. I applied for the natural disasters study in Mt. Rainier National Park. I didn't hear anything by the time they said they'd notify us, so I figured I didn't get it.
But I did! Woo hoo! It's 5 days all expense paid to study floods and mud slides and volcanos and other natural disasters in Mt. Rainier and now they've included a couple days at Olympic National Park! Very awesome. I do believe I get credit for it also. I ended up having to drop my hardest class (Population Ecology, yuck) to attend but very much worth it. I'll be out the the second week of March. Unfortunately it doesn't really fit with CSU's spring break but my teachers are very excited for me and are allowing me to make up work.
I also had an unresolved dispute between myself and somebody important, and it was official, and I was pretty ticked off about it. The long of the short is that I made my case and guess what, the more important people saw my side and that I was screwed over and well, I got an apology from high up and certain inappropriate claims were thrown out because the other person was out of line and they were disciplined for their mess up and trying to pawn their problems off on me. Ha ha I know that's cryptic but if you know what I'm talking about it makes sense. Justice was served finally!
So while I was smiling and happy and thinking things were super duper, my truck had a freak catastrophic breakdown. It was driving fine and then next thing I know I pull in to get my dog from the kennel and it starts steaming. I turn it off ASAP and wait a while as the coolant comes pouring out of my poor truck. Eventually I open the hood and it took me a minute to realize what was wrong. I mean, something wasn't right... Oh my god there's a big VOID in the middle of the compartment. My plastic fan apparently tore apart with ferocious force, taking out everything in it's path!! Seriously! The fan was gone, the shrouds were gone, some air cleaner box and hoses were shredded and my radiator was jacked! The fan was so forceful that it tore through the insulation that is on the bottom of the hood and put big dents from the inside! It looks like my engine was trying to escape out of my truck! And the paint immediately chipped from the dents, so my hood looks like hell. I was just in shock. I got it towed and at the time they worried that it took out all my belts as well as hoses... looking at over $2,000+ in repairs on a 1992 toyota with 207k miles on it?! What the heck was I gonna do?! I just dropped $900 to get a new clutch but all that money into an old truck?!
There was moments of panic when I wasn't sure if I'd fix it or try to finance a new truck or buy something else used. Somehow my belts got away scott-free and the estimate was "only" around $900. That still sucked but screw it, just fix the darned thing. This happened two Sundays ago and got it back last Wednesday and it's been running like a champ. There I go again jinxing myself I'm sure!
I actually am pretty "lucky" it broke down at the kennel... I was at the kennel because I had been driving back and forth and staying in Breckenridge with Tim's sister and brother in law, who had rented a condo to snowboard for a week. Would've sucked pretty bad if it broke down in the tunnel, or on the big hill on I-70... Pretty scary also to think about what would have happened if I didn't wait to open the hood when it did break, the fan clutch busted and pieces were flying all over the place in there! Could've decapitated me like in some bad movie! Ahh!
And then, in another freaky evil plot from the karma gods against me, my landlord comes up to my place and says, "the new tenant is here can he check out the place"? (I put in my notice despite not having a new place to live; I have about 2 weeks to figure something out, I was sick of getting screwed out of money and paying a LOT of electric when I was gone for 3 weeks out of a month, my place is like 400 sq ft and I pay 1/4 of the electric connected to a big house and a family of 4. NOT fair). The new tenant found the place on craigslist.com and was coming from the Northwest. Oh, he tells me he is working for the park. Neat. I was on my way out the door so I was trying to get my school stuff together and not totally paying attention. Wait, who are you working for? He tells me, fire management. Wait a minute... This dude is the new hazard tree guy. Remember, they axed the west side crew after I went over to Grand Lake and and a horrible summer? Yeah, him and the original crew leader are now pretty much the entire crew. Apparently nobody else is coming back! What does that tell you. 100% turnover for the fire crew 2 years ago; 100% turnover except for the crewleader who pretty much did more than his share of work and finally got promoted on the haz crew this year.
So this dude who got the promotion that, well, there's no way I'd work for that boss again... but my "replacement" essentially found my apartment across the internet and came from Washington to stand in my doorway. I'm so cranky lately that I just think it's a sick mean joke and am not sure what I've done to deserve the mockery. :P I told him, Good luck with that. I didn't tell him to be ready to dish out more money than this place is worth. Karma will probably smack me for that too. Seems like a nice guy though. Think he's buddies with all those fire mgmt guys but who knows.
My good news is that my old boss from the park when I did construction wants me back so I will probably be working on picnic areas and replacing those old wood picnic tables with those 1300 lb concrete monsters, making them look nice. I did want to try to get on the wilderness crew but the job still hasn't flow yet... I also got a few notices I was found to be qualified and am being referred for consideration for jobs in Alaska but no job offers yet. Tim has a pretty good shot at getting a trails job in Denali or Klondike Gold Rush so I put in for jobs there, but who knows. I don't usually post things about us on here but we are at a crossroads and not sure where that's going. Sick of stressing so that's all I'm going to say about that.
I also got an unpaid internship as a wildlife rehabiliation assistant at Greenwood Wildlife Rehab Center, should be fun. I get to feed lots of baby squirrels. ;) If I am lucky I will get to help with some intensive care or real rehab but it all depends on what comes in the door. That starts in mid-March.
My classes are great, getting A's on my tests. Ornithology (birds) is fun, dissecting a pigeon right now. The hard part comes up soon, internal organs and stuff. One class is a wilderness instructor class and in 2 weekends we are going up to Cameron pass, building snow huts and sleeping in them, then practicing avalanche skills. Sounds fun, cold, tiring and useful all at the same time. ;) We watched a pretty crazy, real video of a girl recording her boyfriend skiing, then you hear and see the snow crack and start sliding toward him and then goes right under her feet, you hear her getting tumbled and then you hear nothing. She died. Not sure if they found her boyfriend, there were multiple people in it and some people were found, some were not. Very sobering. Avalanches are scary! Glad I'm not that hardcore, so my mom doesn't have to worry. :)
I did finally start snowboarding again, my left knee still hurts but work through the pain. I might take a telemark lesson at A-Basin this weekend, and I'm supposed to ski in the park with Lindsay. I have a free ticket to the Banff Mountain Film Festival but looks like Tim isn't going anymore so I'm not sure if I'm going. We'll see. I need to find a place to live!
Very excited, my friend Kim will be in town from Portland in March! Yay! Karaoke and jager shots hopefully! I guess her dad is in Telluride for some reason and we might go down there and ski and who knows what else. My friend Matt is in Steamboat but alas this time I won't be able to see him. Bummer. I have SPRING BREAK OFF March 16-20 or something, really wish I could go somewhere warm and tropical with my sisters like last year (sortof) but doubtful.
I have photos on my camera of valentine's day home-made sushi but haven't uploaded them yet. Been "on the plan", as in, I'm working out and trying to get rid of my hibernation winter fat. ;) It's going pretty good! Though I have no idea why I thought it would be a good idea to run around the lake in the horrible Estes wind. It blew my iPod ear buds out of my ears! But I feel like such a cow at the CSU gym with all those 90 lb. 18 year olds! And why are they always TAN! To be young and have a tanning salon membership, those were the days ha ha.
Well Log Dog is snoring next to me on my bed/futon/couch and I should get some sleep. Hopefully won't have any more truck disasters to post the next time I write!
