Category Archives: Career

A Rare Peek at Me in My Service Uniform!

Posted in Art, Career, Entertainment, Me Me Me! by

Wow, I almost forgot to post about this – I guess that goes to show how far down blogging has been on my list lately! But I thought you’d enjoy a quick look at me in my VERY UNFLATTERING Fish and Wildlife Service official uniform. I ordered the cargo-style pants, thinking that they’d at least be more stylish than the women’s regular pants that tend to gather up near my boobs and taper towards the ankle. However, I did not realize that the cargo pants are actually made of cardboard. And I checked the label on my shirt – 10% polyester, 90% potato sack burlap. So I was itchy and scratchy and very hot the entire day!

Oh yeah – where was I??? A couple of weeks ago I volunteered to help out with the Junior Duck Stamp contest at the San Diego Zoo. Which was cool, because this is the first year in the 20-some year history that the contest was held outside of Washington D.C. It’s like the regular duck stamp contest, but school kids (hence the Junior designation) submit paintings for the stamp. And I must say, many of the entries (one from each state) were AMAZING. I couldn’t believe that these were done by kids – it almost made me want to paint again! You can read more about the contest and see the winning painting here; the money from purchasing a duck stamp goes to conservation, so pony up, people.

During the contest I got to be a Vanna – that is, I paraded one of the top five finalists in front of the audience and judges. I believe the painting I was holding came in 2nd (probably because of my excellent presentation). But enough talk – we all know that a picture is worth a thousand words!

The judges, reviewing the top 10 entries.

Go Vanna, Go!

These are actual ducks, not a painting, that were clamoring around the polar bear exhibit.

Yeah, I’ve been busy (and tired)

Posted in Animals, Career, Cats, Complainments, Me Me Me!, Updates by

I know, it has been a long time since I’ve updated my blog. But really, it was pretty much just pictures from Jes’ wedding and my trip to San Francisco that I wanted to post. Work has been very busy the last couple of months now that David is back as my supervisor, and when I get home I pretty much just want to chill. But there’s still a couple things going on – the first thing would be my cat, Zoe. She’s 13, and people tell me that’s old for a cat, but I disagree that it’s old for Zoe. But, over the past year I’ve been noticing that she’s been losing some weight – getting very bony and skinny. So last weekend I brought her to the vet – she lost 2 lbs over the past year (which is a lot, considering how tiny she is), so they took some blood to run a full panel, and also took some urine for a urinalysis. Zoe was not happy about it, and enjoyed even less the vet force-feeding her a deworming pill (it took 2 vets about 10 minutes of fighting to get a 6.9 lb cat to eat one pill). The urinalysis showed some blood in her urine, so I have to give her antibiotics twice a day for about two weeks (ask me how much Zoe likes that). The blood could just be an infection, but it could also indicate other problems with the kidneys or bladder. But, her blood panel turned out good, except for her thyroid, which looked borderline high. So, they sent for another test – negative for hyperthyroid. So, last weekend cost me about $350. I went back yesterday with Zoe – they took x-rays and didn’t see anything wrong, except that she has no body fat, which makes her organs difficult to see. But no kidney or bladder stones, or major tumors were evident. The vet suggested another specialized blood test to check for pancreatic function and malabsorption – I’ll get the results back on that this week. It was still too soon to see if she still has blood in her urine because she’s only been on the antibiotics for a week. The bottom line is that I’ve spent almost $600 and I still don’t know what’s wrong with my kitty. She’s acting normal and everything – she may just be getting old. I don’t know, but she’s my buddy and I’m not quite ready to accept that she’s at the age where stuff starts to go wrong.

Speaking of going wrong, oh, Teddy Bear. He really is getting old. A couple of times in the past month, as we’ve been out walking, he’s pulled himself so hard on his leash that he starts choking, falls over, and then has a hard time using his back legs. I don’t know if it’s a seizure or what, but he’s still his normal annoying self, so it’s hard to say. Today I noticed that one of his yucky back teeth is loose – I hope it falls out so that I don’t have to take *him* to the vet again! Last time we went it was also very expensive.

And speaking of expensive, let’s talk about my car. Last Friday I was on my way to work and I decided to stop and grab a sandwich for later. I was gone two minutes, came back to my car, and it wouldn’t start! I called AAA, who came out to tow me to my mechanic, and the car started right up. What’s up with that??? So, I drove it to my mechanic – turns out some dumb sensor in the starter was broken. That set me back about $150, but I guess it could’ve been worse.

Man, at the rate things are going, I’ll never have enough cash for a vacation!

Good things though – I finished the wrap top that I started sewing a few months ago, and made good progress on a skirt. So far, it’s awesome. I’ll probably finish it next year some time. Also, I’m getting back into my digital scrapbooking – I’m a little overwhelmed with Photoshop Elements, but I purchased an instructional CD that focuses on scrapbooking with Elements. It should be very helpful.

That’s it for now – I hope that’s enough. I’ll be in touch!

Fishy in San Francisco

Posted in Career, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Travel by
At the beginning of September, the Fish and Wildlife Service paid me to attend the American Fisheries Society annual meeting in San Francisco. Of course, I was born there and all, and have been to the City many times since then, but I decided it would be a fun trip. So, I whipped up a poster to present some of my graduate work during a poster session and set off. It was a nice week away from the job, but I soon discovered that going away for a week is not necessarily a vacation – you still have to meet your deadlines, so you basically have to bust your ass trying to get stuff done before you leave, and then when you get back you have to bust your ass trying to get to all the stuff you missed while you were gone. It’s not like I actually got to skip any work – it was just crammed in other places! Anyway, the trip to SFO was good – I saw lots of people from Colorado State, and we had a good time eating out and going to socials. Oh yeah – I also went to a few of the scientific talks – they were pretty good, I guess, but not a whole lot of new information, I thought. Want to see some pictures??? Here they are:
I stayed at the Parc 55, right downtown. This was the view from my room on the 21st floor at night.
Monday night was the poster session / social – right in the middle of it, these drums and symbols started banging and a couple of Chinese dragons came around to harass the meeting attendees. It was good fun.
A few of my CSU friends – Jill, Matt, Ayeisha, and me.
Jeremy (right) had a screening of his documentary film, River Webs. It was awesome! Afterwards, a few of us went out to sushi (that’s me on the left, then Owen and Miki, Dr. Fausch from CSU, and Jeremy).
Thursday night was the best social ever – they closed the Hyde Street Pier (near Ghiradelli Square) just for the AFS’ers and gave us access to the National Park’s boats. I declared myself captain of the Balclutha.
We all enjoyed the many buffets throughout the pier (serving fresh tuna, all sorts of salads, soups, fresh vegetables and fruit, and chocolate fondue), as well as the completely open bars that were set up and didn’t stop serving. That’s me above, Andrew, Jill, Matt, and Ayeisha.
The last day I was in the City I walked down to Japantown. I hadn’t been there since I was a little kid, and it had really changed. There was hardly anybody around, and all the shops were totally pricey and upscale – no bargain bins of stilt sandals and tabi sock anywhere! But at least I got a picture of this completely bizarre business sign. Good times!

My trip to … West Virginia?!?

Posted in Career, Me Me Me!, Travel by

Yes, back in May I traveled to Shepherdstown, West Virginia, for a week of government training at NCTC, the National Conservation Training Center. We flew into Baltimore and drove out into the country – Shepherdstown is right across the Potomac River from the historic Antietam battlefield, if that gives you any idea of where I was. The weather was warm and everything was so GREEN, compared to the dry landscape of SoCal. There were deer and cardinals and bluebirds and so many other critters – it made me miss living on the east coast, and reminded me very much of where I grew up in Northern Virginia. NCTC is a fairly isolated campus just for the Fish and Wildlife Service – I took a course titled “Habitat Conservation Planning” which probably sounds more interesting than it actually was. But really, the course was pretty good and I learned a lot that will be helpful to me in my work. Anyway, here are some of the pretty pretty pictures that I took before my camera batteries died and held all my pictures hostage for the past month:


The hills are alive…blah blah blah blah blaah blaaaaah…

Posted in Animals, Career, Me Me Me!, Non-cats by

About once a week I get to leave the dim confines of my office and drive up to Palomar Mountain. I spend the whole day looking for butterflies! Me and the rest of the survey team are specifically searching for an extremely rare endangered butterfly, the Laguna Mountain Skipper. We think their flight season is almost over (sightings have tapered off a bit), but I thought I’d post some pictures of some of the butterflies – and other things – I’ve encountered on the mountain. Enjoy!

Here’s the Laguna Mountain Skipper. It’s about the size of your thumbnail, maybe a little bigger. There’s a look-alike species that is also present, just to try to fool us; but I’ve been scoring 100’s on my LMS tests, so I think I’ve got that problem licked.

See that little white dot on one of the leaflets? That’s a skipper egg. The butterfly will land on horkelia (the host plant pictured here), curl her abdomen around the underside of the leaf, and deposit one egg, maybe another one on a neighboring leaf. They’re kind of hard to find, and each individual lays only maybe 100-200 eggs before dying. Most of the eggs are parasitized by wasps, or grazed by cattle when they eat the plant. It’s tough being a skipper, and I’m surprised any of them make it to adulthood!

This is a funereal duskywing; there were a lot out this week but they moved very fast and were hard to photograph.

Here’s a lupine blue – there were a ton of blues out last time I visited the mountain, and there are a bunch of different types. They are some of my favorites! They’re still relatively small, a bit larger than the skipper (some of them).

This is a Melissa blue, which hasn’t been documented on the mountain until now. I took this picture because I thought the butterfly was really pretty!

This Mylitta crescent is quite a bit bigger than the other butterflies pictured; kind of mid-sized. There are a lot of larger butterflies on the mountain – we’ve seen monarchs, admirals, and swallowtails. This one just happened to stay still long enough for me to get a picture of it!

Sick of butterflies? I came across this Southern Pacific rattlesnake last time I was out in the field. I also saw two green racers, but this rattler let me take several photos of him. Don’t worry – I didn’t almost step on him, and my camera has a very good zoom lens. This guy was easily as big around as my wrist, and I’m not sure how much more of him was in the burrow there. I’m definitely learning to watch where I walk!

I Dreamed It, I Did It!

Posted in Career, Me Me Me! by

For all of you who can’t see my office in person, I have to tell you, my term-to-permanent office makeover turned out FABULOUS! Actually, the office makeover would have happened whether I got permanent status or not, but the timing just coincided. At any rate, I guess I’d been listening to the little Christopher Lowell in my head, who whispered “if you can dream it, you can do it!” over and over. I moved my furniture around to open up my small cube, and brought in a rug and lighting. I’d been using the overhead flourescent lights, but decided that they were making me crazy and I vowed to do something so I wouldn’t have to turn them on ever again – they kept making this constant humming noise, and I had this light-poking stick that I kept shoving at the light to stop the buzz when it got too loud. ANYWAY, take a look at the before and after results and let me know what you think – these images are taken of the same views (match up the posters on the walls for reference):

 
BEFORE: creepy lighting, crowded feeling (also, these pictures were taken during Halloween when I’d decorated the room with fake spider webs).

AFTER: homey feeling, more conducive to sleep than work (everyone is jealous and is asking me to make over their offices, too).

Wow – More Good News!

Posted in Career, Me Me Me! by

A few days ago I received a memo from our head office in Portland re: conversion to career-conditional status. Know what that means? Well, I had no idea either. So I headed over to my helpful HR coordinator, Larry, who explained that this means I am no longer a term employee, but an actual PERMANENT employee with the Service! Woo hoo! So now they can’t just toss me out on my arse for any old reason. This, I think, is good news and will be particularly important when I decide that I want to dye my hair bright purple. The “conditional” part of the status will drop off after my probationary year (during which time there will be no extreme hair dying), and after two years I’ll be fully vested in all my retirement benefits (which have been accumulating this past year anyway). It’s all very confusing, but the main point is that after a year, all bets on the appropriate color of my hair are off.

Coming up next: my fabulous term-to-permanent office makeover!!!

Finally Finally Finally!

Posted in Accomplishments, Career, Me Me Me! by

Well folks, I finally got the official email today: effective April 1, I will be promoted to a GS-11 from a GS-9. It has been a long time coming, let me tell you; when I was first hired, they told me I would get this promotion after three months. Well, that didn’t work out, and neither did a few other things. So, after a year, I’m now a GS-11. But seeing as how it takes effect April 1, it’s probably just a big April Fool’s Day joke and they’re really planning on demoting me to a GS-5. I’ll keep you posted.

Horkelia, where art thou?

Posted in Career, Me Me Me! by
A couple times a year I get to leave the sweet, dry, temperature-controlled confines of my office and head out into the field to help other biologists on monitoring projects. This past week I joined a crew of my fellow desk-jockeys to search for Horkelia clevelandii, the host plant for an endangered butterfly, the Laguna Mountain Skipper. When this project was described to me, I was told that it would be “really mellow, walking around in meadows looking for a little plant”. The name Laguna MOUNTAIN skipper should have tipped me off though – every day we drove up to the top of Palomar Mountain and searched for this small plant in yeah, a couple of meadows, but it seemed like also a lot of brambles and steep forested areas, and bouldered slopes. It was nice though – very pretty out there – aside from being all by myself in mountain lion territory (I carried a knife but I don’t know what good it would’ve done), having a member of our team lock the keys in the car at the end of the day with the clouds rolling in and the temperatures dropping, torrential rains and inpenatrable mist all day on Wednesday, and the pain, my god, the pain. But we had fun, too. We all had radios to keep in contact, and I gave myself the handle of “Dorkelia”. The mist and rain on Wednesday were unbelievably pretty, even if I did have about 20 pounds of equipment strapped to me, a clipboard in one hand, a GPS unit in the other, while trying to scale a 5.10 cliff face. I learned that given a radio, a GPS unit, and a sunny day a person (the same person who locked the keys in the car – who was NOT me) can get lost for two hours. Anyway, here are a few pictures of our adventures – enjoy!

I snapped this picture on the way up to the top of the mountain.

Here’s a nice patch of Horkelia that I found. Most of my sample plots did not have any, but the few patches that I did spot were really dense.

Here’s Kurt, trying to break into our vehicle with a wire hanger. We didn’t have cell phone coverage, but eventually walked to the observatory office and called AAA on my membership. We waited for the tow truck for two hours at the end of a very long, cold day!

Our last day of sampling was pretty easy – I had a couple of points inside of a horse pasture, and luckily none inside of this enclosure. We were warned that the ostrich would rip our guts out if we got too close – note the sign that says “DANGER – do not enter”.

Back to Work Blues

Posted in Career, Complainments, Me Me Me! by

Can my vacation truly be almost over? I was supposed to have like ten days of nothing to do! Now, on day nine, I find myself thinking about work, starting to go over in my mind all the things that will need to be done when I return. That overdue Biological Opinion for the park, the conservation easement review for the development, the amendment request for those grading phases, yada yada yada.It really helped me to have something to work towards – you know, having this cruise – saving vacation time, planning what I would do, looking forward to this vacation. And now that it’s over, I’ve got nothing to look forward to.So Tuesday I’ll be back at work, vacation gone in a flash, another few hundred dollars deeper in debt, all the stress of my job still there. What can I do? Sigh…I guess there’s nothing left I can do but…

…start planning my next vacation (although it seems so far away…)!!!