Tarantula!

Please don't confuse my action for decision

After much deliberation and hesitation, I have accepted a permanent position for the USGS here in fabulous Las Vegas, NV. They are offering me a raise (more money than I've ever made before), a dependable income, and very valuable experience (lots of projects and some more responsibility) at a fairly prestigious institution. The commitment is scary and I would prefer a different biome but in the end I do enjoy my work and the prospect of not having work at all was too scary. It has significant implications but I think it will be good for me.

The idea of living in Las Vegas is really more strange than actually living here. It's an "honest city not pretending to be anything but what it is." There is always something happening and good food of every nationality, many places are open 24hrs. I've become something of a vampire here; avoiding sunlight, staying out late, sucking blood and what not. The weather is becoming more tolerable as we approach winter. It's in the 70's and 80's now but after July and August even temperatures around 105 seem cool. I have a cheap apartment in a good location, right on UNLV campus. It's not the Bellagio but it's close, literally 4 Las Vegas blocks. I still drive to work but on the weekends I can bike to anything I need. I plan on getting a smaller car for trips to the mountains though. Some of my liberal and conservative habits have changed along with ideas and ideals.

So anyway, that's life. Not always what you expect but generally good.

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, Trash it, change it, melt-upgrade it

I purchased a new computer this week and since it's 113°F outside I've been spending the days with it in Panera under the a/c. My old computer had become so unreliable I didn't want to do any work on it. At least that was my, I think justifiable, excuse. Everything was broken on it. I'll try not to spill coffee on this one. It feels good to have a dvd burner that I can back up my data on. Also, half the weight and a smaller size mean fewer bruised thumbs from picking up the computer with one hand.

It's been sometime since my last post. I'm still in Las Vegas, still working in the Mojave. One of my life goals since high school has always been to become an itinerant biologist and it's something I've spent 10 years in college to become. It's still a goal for me but the allure of a dependable income is hard to resist. Being out of school and with no serious notions of returning I am now faced with the necessity of creating an enjoyable career and lifestyle for myself in an economically sustainable way. So I've decided to stay on at USGS until the end of September to make a bit more money in a position I enjoy. Unfortunately, I seem to be increasing my spending lately so I'm going to have to get serious about my budget and stick to it to get my credit cards paid off. Once those cards are taken care of and I have some money cashed away I will feel at liberty to quit my job and move on to the next place.

Small living.

One big expense I am anticipating soon is an apartment. During the week I have and expansive desert floor and infinite ceilings but on the weekends I've been living in a mobile 32 square feet with 4 foot ceilings. Since I spend most of my time in the field sleeping under the stars, I felt it was unnecessary to depart with $500/month for a weekend shower. But with the extreme heat advisories lasting until midnight recently, I am beginning to seriously reconsider this position. I feel like a vampire here sometimes as I watch the sun creeping into my shade and I inch back to avoid frying alive. Hard plastics melt, fruit rots in a matter of hours, and trim is falling off of my truck.

It's been almost a year now since I had a permanent residence of my own. I've learned a lot from the experience. For example, I can shower with between two and three gallons of water. I've also learned that there are lots of other people that live in their cars. I'm still sleeping on the same full sized bed I was when I had an apartment and even when I had an apartment I didn't like spending time there so my life isn't that much different. My most missed conveniences are a private bathroom and kitchen.

Gandhi said "Live simply so that others may simply live." I try. I've been wondering if I would leave less of a footprint by not living in an apartment or by not driving. I think it's a toss up economically as well. Certain things just cost more if you can't purchase them in bulk. I'm considering joining the Small House Society. I believe I have an "unconventional spirit coupled with down-to-earth practicality". In contrast, the scale of things here in Vegas is ridiculous.

Other thoughts.

I had lost 25 pounds since moving to Nevada and reached an acceptable 159#, that was until Fourth of July BBQ and mild beverage consumption. The fireworks on the strip were disappointing but the Bellagio had an impressive water show with patriotic music. Work is still good. We've complete perennial surveys for burned habitat. Plant identification is sometimes frustrating. Soon we will be working on tortoises. Vegas will effect me much more than California did. I may need to wander.


Favorites of the moment;
casino: Mandala Bay
internet access point: Panera
internet tool: del.ic.ious
books: The Sun Also Rises, Religions of the World series by Chelsea House publishers
word: ridiculous
bands: Sexy Champions; Project Jenny, Project Jan; The Broken Remotes; Apes and Androids
Unexpected favorite drug of the moment: jäger and coke
plant: YUSH - Yucca shadigera
technical advancement: a/c
experience: Unexpectedly running into someone I know in town. Even better because I only know three people here.


P.S. -- Personal notes to distant friends:

• Thanks to Mandy for posting the picture of us at graduation.
• Sorry to Jeff, I am no longer planning to be in Colorado in August, maybe October.
• Thanks for the comment Melinda. I'm not sure I'll ever have an affection for the desert the way a native would.
• Chels, We will talk again someday, I promise.

Work and Travels

I am finding it difficult to keep regular updates. My excuses are a sporadic schedule, travel, and a lack of discipline. But this weekend I get a five day weekend so I can't use those excuses. Today I am in Desert Hot Springs, CA visiting Ceri and pretty much being lazy, surfing the Internet.

Tacos y Más Tacos

Mexico was big fun. It was basically a taco run. I ate eleven tacos of five varieties at five different taco stands. So good.

Our trip took us down the 15 from Las Vegas to Tijuana, and then down Baja 1 to Ensenada where we stayed Friday night. We got a hotel at La Mision where for $40 we got two rooms and cable TV. We wasted an hour and a half on Los Simpsons and half of a Futurama. In Spanish Futurama was funnier. After some tacos we spent some time at the Jazz Cafe. I liked the dark, blotchy colors, the split levels, and the windows. The webpage is not the great.

Saturday we drove to San Felipe for más tacos and Cinco de Mayo. Cinco de Mayo was not celebrated. Instead, the prominent celebration was the Oscar de la Joya vs Merriweather fight. After tacos we walked on the beach and drew pictures in the sand. Anine wanted to see the fight so we walked around looking for a bar. We settled on a place with outside dining and view of the TVs. However, we were distracted by the night life and ended up watching very little of the fight.

Although there were quite a few tents set up on the beach in San Felipe, it was far too populated at midnight to expect to sleep without interruption so we drove north for a few miles until we found a campground on the beach. We made a fire and told a mix of true and untrue stories to each other.

Solvang

The next weekend was a trip to Solvang, CA for the Wine Country half marathon. I didn't run but Ceri and three of her family members did. The night before the run we ate at Pea Soup Anderson's. I had the bottomless bowl of pea soup which filled me after a single bowl. While the others ran I walked around Solvang looking for a coffee shop to buy a pastry and coffee. The locals hadn't heard that a half-marathon was scheduled for the weekend but luckily I was able to find a single coffee shop open next to the Hans Christian Anderson museum. Overheard conversation included a description of a firehouse BBQ where "Uncle Eddie", as in Eddie Van Halen, had sold a guitar for $12,000 to benefit the fire department. On Sunday, Chris purchased a motorcycle in Santa Barbara. Now I am contemplating taking a motorcycle safety class and getting my license.

Mojave Field Work

Work has been going well. We finished the annuals surveys two weeks ago and have been working on road restoration projects. These involve running a tape measure down a trail that had been restored by various treatments and counting all perennial plants that fall in the path. Specifically, we are looking for seedlings but these rare. Ideally there will be more in the treated areas than the untreated areas, indicating that the restoration is working. I'm not sure how the different treatments will compare but it seems like the best thing is just to keep the vehicles off the trail.

After 8 weeks working for USGS I am almost half way through my appointment. Hiking all week, sleeping under the stars, and generally being away from society has been good for my mental and physical health. I like the people I work with and I learn new things about the desert and desert plants every day. I have also lost nearly 20 pounds since starting work here. The heat hasn't been a problem with the highest temperature experienced so far at just 100 degrees. I drank 7 liters of water and gatoraide that day. The temperature drops to 50's and 60's fairly quickly after nightfall. During hot days we set up a tarp off the truck and break from noon to 3pm. Generally we read, write in our journals, eat and play games during this time.


I think it's funny that this truck has about 1500 miles on it and have already destroyed one running board.

Ok, I'm tired of being on the computer so I'm gonna quit writing. You will notice that I have posted some links to my galleries on the right. In keeping with my sporadic nature I have them spread out over three google accounts. Someday I plan to consolidate them into a single account.

Hola todos,

Sorry for not posting last weekend. I went climbing at Red Rocks instead.

This weekend is Cinco de Mayo so I'm going to Baja with two of my workmates.

Hasta luego y Feliz Cinco de Mayo!



PS. Thanks for the dedication Jeff. I did read your post.

Mojave Week 3

This week had it's ups and downs. I started Monday morning by being 40 minutes late to work. I still don't remember being told to be at work at 7. The hours were long and the weather variable.

Mojave Desert Week 3 Gallery

The first site we visited on Monday was in Meadow Valley. We were greeted to the site, and throughout the next two days, with slightly terrifying sonic booms made by planes that could vanish in front of your eyes. They stop flying at night, thankfully, and the only sounds are the wind and distant howls of coyotes.


This glutenous and slothful bumble bee was rolling around on his back in an opuntia flower and loving it.


On the way to our second site we saw a new development under construction at Coyote Springs. Although there are no houses built yet the golf course looked to be finished and the deep green of the grass stood out against the beige and tan everything else. They left one natural rock with some yucca on it for the entrance to the development. It was completely surreal and a perversity of nature.

Nevershine is at the end of the road in Parachant NM and is the most remote site we are working at for this project. It gets it's name from the layer of black basaltic rock on the cliff in this picture. I am thankful that I get to see places like this for work since I am not likely to go there on my own.







Here is an example of a quadrat. They are assigned randomly within the plot. Once my GPS shows that I have reached the correct coordinates I set the lower left corner at my toe and direct it towards the north. You might be able to see that all of the plants in the smaller rectangle have been plucked. The plants are identified, separated, and placed into bags labelled native, native seeded, and non-native. My impression is that most of the plants go into the non-native bag. The work is monotonous most of the time but there is excitement when a new plant is found and identified.



The two plants in this picture are both Bromus madritensis. Most of the plants look like the one on the right and are only a couple of hairs. This makes them difficult to see against the ground as well as hard to identify and to pick up. I often use a flat rock as a tool in excavating.


I also find joy in discovering insect constructions and little jewels of eggs; pearl, amber and gold spheres stuck to the undersides of leaves.












I learned last weekend that in addition to our regular pay, which is decent but I have enough debt to feel guilty spending any money at all, we get a per diem of $20 for the "inconvenience" of staying in the field. This news has made me happy all week. As I had been eating for about $35 per week I decided to spend a little more and venture a bit away from canned food. And why not spend that money on good food? On Thursday I made a wonderful meal of prepackaged gnocci and pesto with ciabatta and Vina Salamanca. It was delicious.




Friday had the worst weather with intermittent rain and temperatures around 50 degrees. I was wet and cold and my figures were like blocks. On the weekends I had been staying at Lake Mead and taking showers with my solar shower. This works ok, but the water only gets warm if you leave it in the sun for about 3 hours. This weekend I decided to join the YMCA. The hot shower and sauna are totally worth the $10 per week, and having spent only about half of my per diem on food I am not feeling guilty for this pleasure.

No Fixed Address

Greetings from the Mojave,



I've been working for DOI-USGS-BRD-WERC-LVFS (That's a lot of letters) for two weeks now and I think I should probably give you an update before I head out again tomorrow for another week.






The first day I, and two others, had orientation and paper work, mostly paperwork, a trip to the police station for fingerprints, and a lot of racking my brain after my external memory (computer) crashed on me. The hardest part was that we needed a continuous history of employment, education and habitation, all with references for the past 5 years. No small feet for a bunch of vagabonds with no fixed address. They asked for a lot of names so don't be too surprised if an officer comes to your door and asks if you know who I am.



My first trip into the field involved me and my boss, Sara, driving around Grand Canyon-Parachant National Monument checking rain gauges. I'm told this is some of the most sparsely populated country in the lower 48. Although it is a National Monument the springs are still privately owned by families that have lived there for maybe centuries. At one point we passed the Whitney's homestead (of Mount Whitney fame) and Sara mentioned an episode when one of the sons offered to trade a much needed tire for one of female USGS employees. People who live in the desert are there for a reason, basically that they don't mesh well with society. After two days we had driven about 180 miles at about 30 miles per hour and hiked over 50 km.




The entire last week was spent at Coyote Springs located between the Las Vegas and Arrow Valley ranges on Hwy 93. The four of us have been picking annuals for most of the daylight hours. This involves splitting the plots up into an equal number of quadrats then heading off into different directions with our radios and GPS and sometimes not seeing each other again for the rest of the day. A quadrat is 1 square meter which we determine by laying a set of one meter dowels connected at the ends on the ground. Within this square we must identify every annual present and in the lower left corner we must pluck every annual in a .1 square meter area. I'll take a picture of it this week for illustration and describe it more fully next weekend.


The weather has been pleasantly cool, actually cold at times. The lowest temperature I recorded was 46 degrees in the middle of the night. From Tuesday to Friday it was cold and windy often with partial cloud cover. I forgot to put sunscreen on one day now have a strange tan line similar to black paws on a white kitten. Although at the time it was hard to tell how much was dirt and how much was sun. This desert is hard on equipment too. I popped my therm-a-rest Wednesday night but used it again on Thursday night anyway. I'm also expecting to need new pants and possibly shoes by the end of the summer.


We don't stay up too long in the evenings. If there is still daylight we play hackysack or Kongki Noli. Then we eat, write in our field books, and read. This week I intend compose text that I will transcribe here.


In short, work is pretty great. I am happy to be doing biology work and I am getting paid to be outside. You can look forward to weekly updates from me from now on.


Have a good week all.

Bryant

A Thinking Blog

Think

First of all, I want to thank Mandy for nominating my blog for a Thinking Blogger award. Also, happy birthday. Mandy is a very prolific writer, which does not dilute the overall intelligence of her writing at all. Her posts often motivate my mental matrix in ways in which it wouldn't otherwise get exercise.

Here's how the thinking blogger meme works:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to five blogs that make you think.
   
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
   
3. Optional: Proudly display the Thinking Blogger Award with a link to the post that you wrote (available in silver or gold version).

So I will nominate:

1. Jeff - For years I enjoyed reading Jeff's mass emails. Then blogs appeared and now the rest of the world is invited to read what Jeff has to say. He often posts about Christian responsibilities, the environment, justice and poverty.
2. Daniel - A litterateur as well as a connoisseur of food and drink.
3. Melinda - Thinking about Africa.
4. Scott - Generally insightful and observant commentary on life.
5. Egle - because her blog is in Spanish and reading that takes thinking... So I haven't actually read that much of it.

---

In other news

Yesterday was a net zero profit day for me at work. I only made two deliveries. The first one had the wrong address on it and while I was figuring out the correct address, by the help of a professor of medicine in the Mayo Building, I got a parking ticket for $36. So I was a half our late delivering the food and got no tip. Five hours later I've made enough in my hourly wages to pay for my ticket and I make my second delivery for a $2.80 tip. An additional two hours of work increases my income by $14 which I promptly turn over to the cinema.

The good news is that I quit working for Milio's today.

Ceri and I watched Inland Empire at the Oak Street Cinema. It was pretty good. I liked it better then Twin Peaks.


What else?

I'm headed to Vegas for the summer. I'm leaving Minneapolis on the 28th and arriving in Vegas on the 1st of April. You can see my planned route here.

I'm planning to stop in Lincoln Thursday evening. Lincoln may be the closest to home as anywhere and I'm interested to see how it has changed. I haven't been there since I left for California 3 years ago. I wonder if they demolished the apartment Karen and I lived in on 19th st. The City owned the building by the time we moved out and, knowing that they were just going to tear it down, we through a party and painted the walls.

Graffiti Party 2003

What is my summer job?

After not finding much in the way of field biology in Minnesota, I started applying to jobs I found on list serves that paid well. One of them liked my resume and interview and offered me a job. It's for the US Geological Survey - Western Ecological Research Center http://www.werc.usgs.gov/ . There are two basic projects that I am helping on. WERC is looking at the effects of alien (non-native, invasive) grasses and at the effects of off-road vehicle trails in the Mojave Desert. Both are basically interested in restoration of the desert after disturbance.

I'm excited about this because it's 80% field work and 20% greenhouse. It's also for the USGS which will be good for getting more jobs at the USGS.

California Deserts

 

Steve Jobs introduces the iRack

More snow

It's snowing again. We are supposed to get another foot or so tomorrow.

That is my mom's canoe ulocked to the cloths line. I forgot the paddles and life jackets so it may as well be under snow.

Ceri is trying to move her car to the other side of the road without removing the snow from the windows.


I could be shoveling tomorrow for $15/hr but I am going to work at Milio's for $7 because they will give me hours beyond tomorrow.


Tomorrow I'm going to have to take an order over the phone. I'm a little anxious about that. But if I'm luck enough to be making deliveries I won't have to take orders.

Working at Milio's isn't too bad. Everyone I've met is nice so that is something it has going for it. I guess I was a bit more lucky than Wendy with my crew. I made a run with another delivery drive today, to see how it is done, and we had a good conversation about our respective degrees. He has an anthropology degree and is applying to grad school. He was interested in species concepts and in my research so that was cool. The manager I worked with today was a biology major until she started having kids. I guess her little boy wants to be an ornithologist when he grows up.

Today I joined the prestigious ranks of the aging, over-educated delivery drivers. If you have a hankering for a sandwich, and you live in dinky town, just give me a call. Yes it is depressing. Especially since it won't pay enough to cover my bills, let alone pay down my enormous credit card and school loan debt, or even allow me to get my own apartment. It does have the potential to fit into my portfolio career as the semi-stable 15-20 hour per week position. Needless to say, I continue the job search. I still have hopes of finding a summer field position, even though I've been turned down at every consulting firm I know of in the Twin Cities Metro so far. Sometimes I think I made a mistake in going to grad school and other times I think I am just going to have to get my PhD. At least I get a free sandwich at the end of each shift. I hope they are good sandwiches.

Now that I've run it out I guess I can let you in on the latest in Internet sitcoms. Now that it is so last week, and I've out grown it before it became really popular, I can let you in. The Burg is a hipster indie tv serious about five friends from Williamsburg that listen to emo and go to bars named after what they used to be to drink PBR in a can because it's ironic and funny.

















I think it's hilarious. I've seen all the episodes now and am eagerly anticipating episode 11. You can watch them in any order but it's best if you start at the beginning.

Backyard Bird Count

This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count.



I rode my bike to the an island where I was watching robins the other day. I didn't see any robins there today though, just two cardinals and two chickadees.

Riding over snow with slicks is not as hard as riding through sand.

I tried to digiscope a downy wookpecker but just missed her. She's in the top right corner of the image.

A cardinal is taking some of my offering of 3 week old bread heels.

More Frozen Goodness

The warm weather this weekend brought lots of people out to recreate on Lake Calhoun.

Fishermen, people walking their dogs, cross country skiiers doing laps on the lake, and a hockey game at one end of the lake.

Lake Calhoun

Never saw a frozen waterfall

It warmed up to 8 degrees today so we decided to go for a stroll in the park.

























I guess Ceri never thought about frozen waterfalls despite her preoccupation with the weather. This was her first.















Minnehaha Falls after two weeks of highs ranging from 20-45 degrees below freezing.










The blue just isn't the same on the computer screen.









It was actually pretty cold out so we took some pictures and then warmed up with some coffee.