Officially an Intern

I officially have an internship. I no longer feel like a lost puppy in a scary world of big dogs, now I have to help my classmates find some. We're kind of on our own out of the WWU Huxley Everett campus, since our program director, and most of the faculty is located out of Port Angeles. There were plenty of internships posted for the Olympic Peninsula, but those of us in Everett, were forced to look on the Bellingham campus postings.

This not only means that we have to compete with students out of the large main campus Huxley College, but we also have to compete against students from UW, Central, Evergreen and other large universities here on the west side. Needless to say, the paid internships have pretty fierce competition, and I wasn't willing to wait around another 3 weeks to see if I got any of those positions. I figured I might as well get a head start on everyone else for unpaid positions, and cold called 8 agencies last Wednesday.

Snohomish County Parks Planning Department was the first to get back to me, with an internship plan included. A day later, the City of Arlington called me back, and wanted to make an internship plan with the Natural Resource department. I took the SnoCo position, because parks are kind of my passion, and they were always so good to me, even as a student volunteer in high school. A lot of projects we started in the mid 90's are full-blown parks, trails and campgrounds now, and it's fascinating to me seeing what they've become after only being involved in the early grunt-work. I still want to talk with the City of Arlington to see if there's an opportunity to work for them one day a week during the next school year so I don't have to wait for internship hours next summer to graduate - we need a minimum of 300 hours.

I'm really excited for the SnoCo position, though. I went into the interview room, expecting a one-on-one with the Planning director, but ended up in an actual meeting with other planners. He brought in Chris, who was the planner I interviewed for a class project last quarter, and two other planners. I was expecting the regular questions, you know, "why do you want to work here, what are your strengths/weaknesses?" etc, but it was actually a brainstorming session to throw projects at me. Towards the end of the meeting, the Parks director walked in, and I got to meet him, too. Then last night, the hubby turned on "Parks and Rec" and I felt like a dork. Whatever, I like my future projects.

Some of my work may end up on the SnoCo website, or at public meetings. I'll get to use ArcGIS, GPS, and AutoCAD, and of course Power Point for presentations. I don't care how dumb Amy Poehler makes Parks staff look, I'm excited. And speaking of excitement, I've got to jet for a day of preparations for Tay's 13 th birthday party tonight. Minute-to-win-it games, possibly the box-in-a-box game, and tons of 12 and 13 year olds at the Darrington Community Center. Jealous much?

Feeling Old and Boring

Life feels as if it is at a standstill around here. Even though there is always laundry or some other chore to do, it has just been us and the pets since the 26th. One benefit of no kids at home for days is the concept of leftovers for dinner. I made a huge Christmas dinner, and even though the chicken was gone that night, we've been pairing the sides with my mom's leftover ham, and have been eating quite well.

To our surprise though, the youngest wanted to come home from his dad's last night, and the step-son called last night wanting to come home today. It's kind of weird, but we've always told them, we're just a phone call away and will always pick you up. I think they are more vocal now that we both recently began defending their right not to go to BioParents houses. It's one thing when they are young kids, but they all have their own lives and friends now that they are older. Both the hubby and I were forced into visitations as teens, so we've begun letting them make their own decisions about them. We still feel they should visit, but if their schedule only allows a day rather than a weekend, well we've decided to be firm and have their backs if needed.

I continued my pattern of watching old movies throughout my Winter Break, with my new Monty Python Holy Trilogy dvd's over the weekend. Since the break I've watched the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still," the original "Taking of Pelham 1,2,3," "Elmer Gentry," and many other oldies including countless Christmas classics like George C. Scott's "A Christmas Carol," "A Christmas Story," and of course "It's a Wonderful Life." I know it sounds boring, but sometimes I'm overwhelmed by all of the special effects, and want a classic story. The hubby also got me the new books from Steven King and Michael Crichton (yes, I know he's dead, tired of hearing about it) for Christmas. I've finally got some decent fiction to read.

I know what you're thinking - nothing about the World Climate Talks in Copenhagen? No, not really. I lost hope in them when we were following the pre-political preparation in class. Our politicians, for some reason think that they can dictate policies to us and the world. But here's a clue - people react best to peer pressure, and if you want to make a real change, you need to start small and work from the bottom up.

World talks will get no where until we can figure things out at home, and that includes your city and county. I have more hope for the Puget Sound Partnership than the Kyoto Protocol. I have some nasty words regarding the new developing country fund, since we need a major infrastucture overhaul at home, but I don't want to sound too cynical. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

I'm not ready for next quarter yet, as the Amazon textbook order will be placed tonight. I feel like I need one more week off, but alas class starts on Monday. I do have a lead on a SnoCo parks internship, though. They are planning on making major changes and restorations at my old stomping ground out at Kayak Point County Park, and the Parks Department is requesting a couple of interns. I would love to work out there again, but I hope they don't get a new entrance sign. That's some great maitenance aid craftsmanship from 1996, I mean the routing and paint job is amazing! Sunshine and I worked for hours on it. :) I'll keep you posted on the new opportunity.

Where All the Grey Hairs Come From

As I'm typing this, I'm watching the Ida/Nor'easter pound the life out of all my favorite Maryland and Deleware Beaches. Some of them are already flooded. I've seen live shots from Virginia Beach, O.C., Rehobeth Beach and Cape May. Fifty years ago there were dunes and tidal marses to absorb these kinds of storm surges. Yesterday, at Nags Head, they were pumping sand during the storm to save an entire barrier island beach and its real estate from washing away. These resort towns need to seriously rethink development.

Life has been running tight lately, but I finally have two big projects under my belt and only 3 more to finish. One of my classmates is in two of my groups, in two different classes, and has been MIA for the last few team meetings and both classes. I'm starting to get nervous, but at least we can cut his content out of our wetland project and still have plenty of data, and I took some of my extra time off of work this week to research his part of our PSP Whidbey Acion Area project. Hopefully, one of my team-mates will be willing to use my notes to write his portion if needed.

Life at home has been busy, too. Tay has become active in her student government and yearbook, and baked goodies for her class fundraiser this week. I had my head buried in my laptop on Wednesday, so she took care of it all by herself. It's cool to watch your kids do responsible things out of choice, and come into their own.

The stepkid, on the other hand, has gone back to lying about homework and blood sugar checks, and had words with his mom last weekend. We're trying to back her up with things, but we have also been dealing with the ridiculous tantrums of, "why won't you drive me to town EVERY DAY so I can see my girlfriend?" The kid thinks he's justified in seeing the girl everyday, because his cousin has spent almost every day of the last 3 years with his girlfriend. However, the Hermit's nephew has also become ineligible for sports his Senior year, and may not graduate on time because of the girl he's been with since fifteen.

After watching that fiasco we decided the responsible, healthy thing to do for our kids, is not to let them spend every minute of every day together with their boyfriend or girlfriend. I'm not sure what's worse, though, the tantrums or the first break-up. Between what my siblings went through with nieces and nephews, to horror stories about my classmates' teenagers, I'm kind of scared.

And speaking of the Hermit, he let Tay cook a vegetarian meal on Monday, and was respectful in an argument I thought he would lose his head in. I was so happy with him. Last night, he even took the step of filling in on an ex-coworkers bowling team while I was at school. I was SO happy he got out of the house to do something fun. Not that Lowe's isn't fun, but it just leads to more work at home.

Tonight we're supposed to get the first snow of the season, along with a big windstorm. The mountains are thick, and white already, so ski season should be good this year. My awesome mom-in-law gave us four pairs of skis, and I've got decent snow gear now, so I really can't wait for winter break to try it all out!

Now that you've heard all my excuses for the last couple of weeks, I will get back to the Green Expressions, I swear. I did finish my report on Geoengineering, but it's so strange and new, I'd like to know more about it before I post anything publicly. Tomorrow I will post information about the danger of global Nitrogen saturation and why using Genetically Modified crops to help solve the situation is a bad solution.

Weeks of Adventure

It has been difficult to post lately due to both computer and time issues. I need to take a day to clean up my hard-drive, but who wants to do that when it's warm and sunny outside? I wanted to post a blog about our Sloan Creek picnic and adventure up FR 49, but the blog was blah without the pictures my computer just couldn't upload.

My sister came to visit us from Maryland a week ago, and I kicked her butt on the Boulder Creek hike, and spent a day on the Pilchuck River with our mom and step-dad. But once again, the computer wouldn't cooperate when it came time to upload the pictures. In fact, today is the first day this week I've had to sit down and start my day slowly. The kids were in the SnoCo Parks Totally Tech camp last week, but the north Everett shuttle was canceled, so we've been driving to McCollum Park in Mill Creek every day this week. They made some cool animated movies and wrote a couple of video games (along with swimming and kayaking).

On Wednesday, we drove up Segelsen Ridge behind us (behind Mt. Higgins), determined to find Higgins Creek. On our way up, I spotted a wild fire on the Southeast ridge of Mt. Higgins and called it in. We've had 4 lightning storms in the last week, and on Thursday had 11 fires in the Darrington area. The fires on Higgins and Jumbo are out, but Gold Mountain and Whitehorse Ridge are still burning, and I'm not sure where the other fires are located.

We found really large fossils at a shale slide on Segelsen Ridge that day, and stopped within a mile of the crystal site we were headed for. The Hermit didn't trust my map skills and didn't want to go down the Forest Road I told him to turn on, so we ended up picking through some dry creekbeds and finding some sparkly sandstone rocks. When we got home, I showed him my map and compared it to his gemstone map, and he was really bummed he didn't listen to me.

So today, I have to go back up the scary road and this time go all the way to Higgins Creek. Actually there are some spectacular views of the river valley and the surrounding peaks, including Whitehorse, and the road is only scary on Segelsen Pass, but scary it is! I have no problem with heights when I'm walking or biking, but on a horse or in a car, it really freaks me out. Lake Cavanaugh Road has nothing on these cliffs. I felt like I was on the Highway of Death in Peru, okay maybe not that bad, but let's just say I had some anxiety issues.

So I'm going to attempt to upload a few pictures for you, and we'll see how it goes:

Mt. Higgins fire 7/29/09

Top of Round Mountain taken from Segelsen Ridge

View of Whitehorse from Segelsen Ridge

What do you know? It worked! I will post pics of the rest of our adventures later.

This is a Vacation?

So a month ago, the hubby asked me to take a four day vacation from work this week for a trip to Spokane. A week ago, he changed his mind. Now I'm at home, "on vacation" and so far, it has been a trip of its own.

Thursday was a crazy day of not enough computer lab time for the class work given in both of my classes. So yesterday, I had to stay after my Geosystems class to finish my ArcGIS Map lab and finish Tuesday's CAD homework. In the middle of my last CAD model, I get a phone call from Tay saying the youngest had called the cops on her while they were home alone, because they were fighting over her new phone. This was the absolute last straw as they had been fighting constantly since she got the phone for her birthday last week.

Luckilly, we live in a small town, and the sheriff balled him out for calling over a sibling fight. He also proceeded to tell him a story about how his sister had broke his nose when they were kids. I will have to drop off some Kettle Chips at the Public Safety Center this week as an apology from us. As for the kids, knowing my daughter probably instigated whatever he did to her phone (as she finally admitted later), we grounded both of them for two weeks. She also lost her brand new phone for a month, and the youngest lost his GoPhone for a month. Bummer Dude, but that's how I play.

I also got some sad news from the local news yesterday that Joe's is going out of business. Does anyone else know how hard it is to find Lady Carharts for women under 5 foot 10?! Not every chic that works outside looks like Brunhilda. Joe's had so many sizes of women's outdoor clothing for work and play, and they offered them at decent prices. Now I'm stuck with trying to find a small size of ugly work clothes at the Co-op, or over-paying exhorbantly at R.E.I., Cabella's or Eddie Bauer.

My 50 Daffodils I planted last fall are all finally blooming today, but it's pouring down rain, and not a good photo opportunity. I'm hoping we get some sunbreaks soon, so I can get a good shot for my Sustainable Design portfolio. For those of you on the East Coast, sunbreaks are Pacific Northwest speak for, "look, the sun came out of the rain clouds for 5 minutes! Quick everyone outside!"

Here's to a better ending for my vacation.

Rock Salt and Under the Influence of Kids

Yeah, I know, that's a weird title, but listen Arlington and Seattle...The Washington State Department of Transportation is using rock salt on all of its highways in the mountains and foothills. If they didn't we would still not be able to get to town without a snowmobile, along with hundreds of other mountain towns throughout the state. When there is that much snow, the rock salt is diluted during the melting process, and you aren't left with so much sand and rocks to scratch your car and chip your windshield. This snow event is rare, and should be handled as an emergency situation, not a wait and see, what will the salmon think committee hearing, morning-after quarterbacking situation.

Okay, now that I got that off of my back, ever notice how your kids influence your life, and in the long-run give you a beneficial change? Okay, well it's not that deep, but my daughter's influence has really paid off lately. She has begged me to get involved in her nature and conservation field trips, along with the science fair committee and the Community Science Night committee last year. All of this involvement, has really paid off. I used to volunteer a lot in high school, and was really sweating the volunteer portions of my scholarship and entrance applications. Then a friend pointed out all that the science help at the school was a form of community service. Duh - enlightenment.

She also convinced me to see the Twilight movie, and out of that, I stopped teasing her about the books and Hot Topic. I admit, it was kind of a cool movie, but wasn't enough to move me to read a teeny-bopper book series. I guess after you read and understand Michael Crichton in the tenth grade, your interest in emotional angst fades away to worrying that a bacteria could really mutate and infect the population rather quickly. Yesterday, she convinced us to go to the mall (my trip to Joe's was voted down) and I hit the Bath and Body Works semi-annual sale. I got about $50 worth of products for less than $20! Thanks kiddo!

School starts tomorrow. Wish me luck!