An Excuse

I have been seriously slacking on my postings! But I have a pretty good excuse...I think anyway. I have been in the field for the last two weeks...and am on my way to my third. While it's true my job site happens to be in Napa Valley the fact that I am on my third week out is...tiring. I get up at 5:30 to make sure I have all my stuff together, all my gear charged, all my appropriate clothing, sunscreen etc. I get out to the site, and spend from seven to four "inspecting" a landslide repair. In the morning it's great. It's foggy and cool. Sometimes it get's misty. There is no one at the winery except for the people who work there. When the excavator and dozer are getting greased up for the day it so peaceful. I've seen a flock (?) of wild turkeys, jack rabbits, phesants, even a white heron (to which some tourist later screamed with camera in hand "Look! It's a wild herring! It's a wild herring!") It's better for photos when the sun comes out (as it always does around noon), but to work in, and for personal....enjoyment, I will always love Napa most in the early morning I think.
And I have even been privelaged enough to have all my meals paid for by my work. I went out to a different restaurant every night last week! My best night was at this awesome Tapas place when mom came up. My second best was a spinach salad I got that I will write about later. But you want to know something? I imagine most people wouldn't know this (I didn't until I lived through it). Eating out 3 meals a day for a couple weeks makes you sick. As impossible as it may sound, I am so tired of eating out, I don't even know what to do. And it's not like I am paying for it, but it's just too much. I am litteraly free to eat wherever I want in Napa, and I can't imagine anouther mouthfull...at least until Wednesday:)
Anyway, getting back to my original point, I have been pretty occupied. Not a lot of down time, and even when I have it, I am a little worried about what will happen tomorrow, so I haven't had much chance to ponder anything useful or interesting. I've been reading a bit, but when I get to the hotel at night all I feel like doing is eating, taking a shower and going to bed. And thats on a good night when I don't have to anticipate a huge arguement with the contractor like I am going to have tomorrow...*sigh* it's always contractors vs. engineers, and I am always in the middle!

Geology: My Way

This is a self portrait I took a while back to document my take on being a geologist. Being in a field traditionally occupied by men, I often find it funny that I get the feeling that I should act more "manly" even though that has nothing to do with how well I perform my job. It's expected that I be tough, and capable of handling myself on a construction site (and I am). But when I paint my nails, or wear my Tiffany's jewlery people don't know quite what to do with me. This was my attempt to preserve for posterity my personal view of myself as a geologist: certainly not afraid to get dirty, but not afraid to wear a dress to work either:)

This was taken at our lab where I was pounding out soil samples to get a compaction curve for a job I was working on.

Happy Game Day!

You all may be thinking that I forgot that today was the first day of the season. The Packers season I mean. Well, I didn't. Me and the BF put our jerseys on and headed to the bar...in hopes that they'd be playing the Green Bay/ Cleveland game...apparently no one carries it here on the west coast. So what did we do in this time of crisis? I have been updating my iPhone every 5 minutes, and we watched a classic Packers game, Green Bay VS Seattle, Jan 7th 2008. Where R. Grant had a horrible start (like today) but then got 3 touchdowns for a final score of 42 to 20. It was an amazing game!
We might not have seen the game tonight, but the green and gold is definitely in the air. And we are ready for the Pack to make the legendary run for the Super Bowl. Go Pack Go!
As a side note, I start out every day of Packers football with a "Happy game day." to whoever is around when I wake up:)

Next of Kin

I read a really interesting book a couple of weeks back called Next of Kin by Rodger Fouts. He is the man that taught the chimpanzee Lucy (previous post) sign language.
It's a fantastic story, and all true which makes it even better!He spent his entire career studying chimps, and even sacrificed personal opportunity for the sake of one chimpanzee named Washoe. Washoe was the first chimp to live with the Temerlin's (the same husband and wife who would later bring home Lucy). And that is where the story begins. The book is as much an autobiography of the author as it is about chimpanzees, and as I read on I came to see how it couldn't have been written in any other way. Washoe was not an "experiment" to Fouts the way Lucy was to the Timerlins (no matter what they said afterward). Washoe was a part of his life, in the same way his family and friends were. And that was the way he told it. I found that to be the most interesting part of the story. It's like Marley and Me, but with chimpanzees. She (Washoe was a girl, named after the county in Nevada where she was raised as a child) was raised in captivity, but had such a wonderful (in my opinion) life because of the respect Roger had for her. It's incredible to read about her, and the book spans most of her life. It's surprising to see how she changed and grew as she became an adult. It was strikingly similar to us humans. When she was young she always got into trouble. She tried to bend rules and push limits. But when she got older and she became more responsible, and more thoughtful. She took it upon herself to care for those around her.
A couple parts of the book that I found especially unbelievable were when one of the women who worked with Washoe became pregnant, and then had a miscarriage. When she explained to Washoe that the baby was dead, Washoe signed "CRY, CRY" because she too had experienced the loss of a baby. Or another instance where Roger was asked by a TV station, and Hugh Downs, to visit a chip named Booee that had been one of his "students" years before. After not having seen Roger in over a decade, and after being infected with hepatitis C, and confined to 5x5x5 metal cage with no blankets or toys for 13 years, Booee responded to Roger by signing "ME BOOEE. GIVE ME FOOD ROGER."
It was so..inspiring and so sad at the same time. Not for Washoe, but for a lot of chimps that fell through the cracks along the way.
I hope this inspires all of you to learn about our closest relatives, and to appreciate the price they have paid at our expense. I am no animal activist...or at least I don't think I am, but in this instance I feel very strongly that we need to understand the level of awareness and consciousness that chimpanzees possess. They aren't just "animals". At least not any more than we are.

Artesa Winery

I spent last week working on a landslide repair at a winery in Napa Valley CA! Here are a few pictures of the site...

Slothfulness

I will try not to do this too often, but this I Can Has Cheeseburger picture was just too cute (and funny) not to post. Please check out the rest of their website for more adorable and hilarious pictures (mostly of cats)!

Burdock Root

Burdock is the most "exotic" root I have tried so far, meaning I don't know of anyone who has ever eaten it. It's the root of a thistle. You know, the normal kind that has green bulb and purple flower at the top. It's sometimes called a "Sticky Bob" in Europe...ha ha...and it was the inspiration behind George de Mestrels invention of Velcro. It's supposedly pretty good at removing toxins from your blood, and helps you go pee.

Burdock
It's a long spindly root that is about the width of a small carrot, and about 6-8" long. The skin is dark brown to almost black and rough (and mine was covered in dirt still!). Appearance wise it was pretty gross looking. The cashier, after asking what the hell they were, picked them up carefully between his thumb and fore finger and tossed them in my bag like they were a dirty diaper. Anyway. Once I got them home I scrubbed them down (which does very little for their appearance), and got to peeling them. They are white on the inside. Well, they are white for about 4.7 seconds until they react with the air and turn a dull dirty yellow color (like a potato or apple but much faster). Once again, not very appealing to look at. They are kind of fibrous, and don't smell like anything. By the time you peel them and cut off the ends there isn't a whole lot of root left. I julienned them and added some carrots and made a veggie stir fry out of them.
I don't know if it's considered cheating that my recipe involved cooking them in soy sauce. But that's what I did. After cutting everything up I mixed about a tablespoon of sugar into a little less than half a cup of soy sauce until it dissolved. Then I poured it over the burdock and carrots, added a few sesame seeds and cooked in a pan for about 20 minutes on medium heat.

Conclusion
It turned out pretty good. Mostly the it tasted like soy sauce, but when I compared it to the carrots that were mixed in, I actually liked the burdock more. It held it's "crunchiness" better than the carrots did too, although it was much uglier in appearance.
While the amount of washing, peeling, and slicing was a bit more than I usually prefer I think the biggest downfall for me was it's appearance, before and after. It just didn't look appetizing at any stage. My one word description of it would be "dirty".
The flavor was good in an underwhelming sort of way. Much milder than the carrot actually. It was like the flavor of celery in a tougher more fibrous vegetable. I did enjoy the crunchy texture it provided in my stir fry. In fact that may be one of my favorite things about it.
Over all, I'd say on the hand full of occasions a year that I make stir fry, I will probably take the time to add this to it. Texturally I think it would be a great addition. But as for making it just for a normal dinner as a side dish I think I will pass. Over all I give Burdock 2.5 out of 4 stars.