I noticed this car in the parking lot of the motel we are working out of. I thought it was a pretty cool license plate, mainly since it is sort of a nickname of mine.. but yeah.. I thought it was pretty cool.

How time passes...

So, how do you notice time passing? Is it by the calendar? Or how often you have to cut your nails or hair, etc? While in the field it is sometimes hard to judge how time passes. I often forget what day it is, which is pretty bad. While in town it is easy since I'm constantly looking forward to the weekend and bike rides. But here in South Carolina, I don't really have anything to look forward to. But lately I've been noticing a nice little, sort of disgusting, way to help judge time. Along the route that I come to the hotel that I "work" out of, there is a dead possum. It has been there for awhile, but everyday it is slightly more decayed. And I have a theory that I'm going to be here as long as this poor little creature is decaying by the side of the road. But when I see that the little guy has completely disappeared, then it will be time to go home. Sort of morbid, but it makes sense to me.

Alright, Joey, I've got my HL2 here, and I am going to install it in just a few minutes. Aren't you excited? I sure am.

Later

Insert clever title here.

I feel sort of bad. Most of my friends (well mainly just Liz that I've noticed lately) have been posting these massive blogs which are well written, clever, and insightful. I feel that I should follow suit or something, but at the moment I'm not feeling clever or insightful, nor am I very good at writting, so perhaps a massive blog will follow.

I went out and dd some soil sampling yesterday afternoon. It was intereting process, walking around this park, looking at trees that I can't determine if they are dead or not. I think the guy was just sort of wacky, since one tree would be fine, then the next would be sort of brown. Doesn't seem like Cl2 would really do that, but you know, I'm not a hortaculturalist or anything. But whatever, I got some dirt in bottles and it is going to a lab as we speak. I know we are going to find anything showing that chlorine is in the soil, and I doubt it is causing the trees to become slightly brown, but whatever. Life goes on.

Haven't installed HL2 yet, I know Joey, I'm sorry. But eventually I'll get it all installed and start killing some aliens. Ant lions will be my minions and I'll have rule over all the earth! Well, maybe I'm building it up too much, but I've got high hopes. On the box I believe it says "best game ever," and boxes never lie. But I'll install it up here in a few days and I'll kick some City 17 ass, or whatever it is.

Trying to keep this blog rolling. For some reason my hotel seems to enjoy canceling my little electronic keycards every few days. I don't know why they would do such a thing, especially last night when I was sort of tired, cold, and didn't want to deal with any shit. But instead, when I got to my room my card no longer worked. I don't understand, I've requested the room, given them my credit information, just let me stay in my damn room. I could understand kicking someone out of their room by say, taking all of his possesions out of the room, but they leave my shit in there. So what is the freaking point. This time I asked they don't cancel my card and just let me live at the hotel in peace, but I doubt it'll happen. I would hope that after staying in a hotel for 3 weeks or so they would just give me the benefit of the doubt and maybe believe that I know what I'm doing. I hate going to the desk and having the lady say, are you sure you want to book the room for another week? Come on bitch, I don't want to be in your damn hotel, despite its cute single servings of soap and shampoo (which I am given new ones every day, so I have around 20 bottles of shampoo stashed in the drawers of my room) just know that I have to stay and will be gone the second I get a chance. Perhaps I'll steal all the pillowcases or something.

Speaking of pillowcases. I've had to do laundry while I've been out here in SC (unlike some people who I work with who still haven't done any laundry) but anyways, when i say "do laundry" I mean drop it off at the front desk of the Holiday Inn and have them do it for me. So I've never had a little bag in my room in which I could place my clothes in, so I've just started using pillowcases from the room. Now you'd think that they would realize this, but instead, when I send my dirty clothes in a pillow case, it comes back washed, and neatly folded with the rest of my clothes. Hmm, well I guess that is kind of cool, but I always seem to not notice it, and put it in with my pile of shirts. So some mornings when I don't turn on the light and grab a shirt I end up with my head in a pillow case. Yeah, I'm sure that makes some of you laugh, but you wouldn't laugh if you started to freak out that your head had gotten really big at night and could no longer fit through the neck-hole of your t-shirts. I felt like George Costanza or something.

Alright, I think this blog is sufficently massive enough, poorly written, and lacking any redeeming qualities, cleverness, and humour. So with that I'm going to sign off. Lunch is calling my name.

Later

Running

So I went for a little run last night. I think it worked out to be 8 miles or so. Which is pretty good I believe, I think my run time was around 1 hour, which puts my splits around 7'30" a mile, which isn't bad. I was just cruising for most of it, so I'm pleased with my room. It is always strange running in a town that you aren't used to, running without ID, there is always the chance that something could happen. I'm not really worried about riding or running when I'm home since I know the area and feel confident my friends would know where to look for me should something happen to me, but last night I could have been hit by a car and never been found. I don't really like to think about it, but it is always sort of there in the back of my head.

So yeah, it was a good run, I'm sort of sore, which is freaking awesome. Work is going to be really slow today and tomorrow. I've picked up Half-Life 2 and plan to get involved with it maybe this afternoon or evening. I'm really looking forward to it. I wish I was going to play it on a top of the line machine, but this ol' clunker will have to do I guess.

Alright, I'm outta here..

Later

Still here..

Just found out that I'll probably be in lovely South Carolina for a little bit longer. Just going to be helping out doing home sampling and car clearing. Fun stuff. Could be worse I guess. There is a nice gym here that I'm enjoying and hopefully I'll be able to get some nice running in.

I don't know what I did to bring the wrath of Lacy, but whatever it was, I'm sort of scared of her. Hopefully she won't be reading this. Cause this will probably just piss her off more. Anyways, Haz-cat 2 was taken by a sub-contractor, who might be moving to Little Rock at some point, so I'm might be seeing her again. Cute little kitty.

Anyways, thanks for all the posts, but I have to get and do some more data crap, then lunch, then probably houses. Fun times.

Later all.

Apologies

I'm sorry about not posting more, and pretty much ignoring all of you in my life at the moment. Work has been really busy, and I've not had time to really respond to e-mails or posts or anything. I don't have internet during the day, so I have just a few minutes in the evenings before I pass out from exhaustion, like I'm about to do now.

So I'm going to bail, just wanted to let people know what was going on here in S.C. Oh, and thanks for the variety of pointless comments on my last post, I was really excited, but then realized Joey and Amanda were just being crazy.

Later all.

Here is a picture of the cat, which has been aptly named hazcat-2 (there exists another cat which was already named hazcat) but this one is much more badass. Hazcat came by around dinner time last night, and Haz-2 totally showed it who was boss. Oh yeah, that laptop you can see, Haz-2 totally ripped off some keys, this cat ROCKS! I think around 8 people have already said they are going to take it home with them. I hope the owner doesn't mind. Alright, back to work.

HazCats

Here in South Carolina, down by the site, we have acquired a few friends. 98 77777777777xddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd87xd One of which is a very affectinate cat which doesn't really have a name, but likes to walk over my keyboard as I'm typing. That is what the long string \]of=2q43 symbols is from, the cat walking over my keyboard. I have a really good picture, which I'll post later when I get a chance.

Things on site are pretty calm at the moment. Lots of community sampling to clear evacuation zones, but other than that, not much going on. Data entry like a mother, but it isn't so bad.

Other than that, just working like sure the cat doesn't wreak any of our equipment.

Alright, back to work...
Latert5yw3vbeg0-

South Carolina

Getting sent out to South Carolina this evening. Sort of looking forward to it, traveling again (which is always fun I guess.) Honestly I was hoping to get some down time so I could finish moving into my new apartment but there exists no rest for the weary. I guess this also means no climbing with the lovely ladies which grace the Little Rock area (yes, I'm talking about Liz and Shawn.) Anyways, I need to go pack and get ready to go. Take it easy everyone, I'll try to post more when I get there.

Later

Back Home

Back home in Arkansas. Still debating if it is better to be back, or merely better than sitting around in California doing nothing. I guess I am glad to be back, though I could have definetely used another week of doing nothing but reading and slacking off. Geez, it felt like I was in college again.

Anyways, Joey, I'm sorry I didn't get to see you again, but we'll organize something and make it out to AZ at some point in the near future. Glad you liked the t-shirts; I saw the "furry's" one and had to get it for you.

Anyways, I'm going to bail, time to find something to do at work. I'm sort of ticked since there were some interesting things that happened while I was away. Oh well, life goes on.

Later

Trip almost over

Vacation is over tomorrow and I'll be flying back into town. Time to get back to the whole hussle and bustle of life. The week of doing nothing but eating and relaxing, reading and video games is just about up. Fantastic. I guess it was fun while it lasted, but I feel that I need to get back to it all. Not having exercised in the last week has been killing me. Time to hit it hard, the new year is upon us.

Alright, not much else to say, nothing has really happened. Got to spend some quality time with my friends, not as much as I'd have liked, but that is how things go. All in all it was good to get away, but it is time to get back.

Later

California

Ahh, traveling is so much more rewarding when it is done for pleasure rather than work. Work travel is fun and all, but there is just something nice about knowing that when you get off the plane you aren't going to have to immediately do something. More relaxing that way.

The flights were pretty nice, I slept the entire way on both flights. Little did I know that my flight saturday morning was at 7:15 rather than the previously assumed time of 10:30. So I got roughly 1 hour of sleep and am still attempting to catch up on the whole rest thing. Taking naps on couches that I took naps on for years when I was younger has been a wonderful experience.

I'm hoping to get over the mountains and make it to Reno on tuesday, but the weather here has been crazy. While in Arkansas while planning this trip (ok, the time it took me to by the tickets on Southwest.com, but still, let us call it "planning") I had merely assumed that I would be able to get over the pass at anytime I want. Apparentely the winter has been unusually harsh here on the west coast, and there has been up to 10 feet of snow in the mountains, in the last week alone. Damn. That is a lot of white stuff. But the weather is supposed to abate sometime early this week and I should be able to get over and see my friends. I'm really looking forward to that.

Sacramento is sort of boring. I don't really know anyone in this city, and have just been reading. Not saying that I'm not enjoying the reading, but I've determined that I can't read for more than say, 6 hours in a day, and when I'm not reading I like to be doing something. I didn't bring my running shoes or anything, so I've been watching TV and napping. There is no cable here, so channel surfing consists of 15 seconds of actual surfing, and a lot of time determining which of the 4 options that you have is the best. Eventually I get tired of this and attempt to read, get fed up with that, and just decide to stretch out on a couch and pass out for a few hours.

I've been reading, and just finished minutes ago, Neil Gaiman's American Gods. It is a very good book, much different than his Neverwhere which I finished earlier this week. I'm going to probably knock of Good Omens tomorrow, so basically what I'm saying, if you want a good, interesting, engaging book to read, I'd suggest anything by Neil Gaiman. Props go to both Joey and Carter for suggesting him to me, though Joey suggested his graphic novels which I have yet to read, and Carter lent me Neverwhere, just to keep things straight. Though I'm sure Joey would enjoy his non-graphic works if he has not already read them.

Anyways, I think I'm going to go to bed now. Don't want to start a new book in a half-catatonic state like I am in now. Damn you Liz for having awesome friends who kept me up to the wee hours of the morning on Saturday.

Later