Hood to Coast, Finally…

Posted in Day Trips, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Travel by Marci

I know it’s a little late, but I wanted to post these pictures of Hood to Coast. Paul, Adelaide, and I met Anne at the finish line in Seaside – she is hardcore! The best thing about the event, in my opinion, was looking at all the teams – some had costumes, others had pimped out team vans. Best team name: Bunghole Liquors. Yes, Bunghole Liquors is an actual liquor store on the east coast – go ahead and google them. A bunghole, by the way, is a hole in a barrel of alcohol – not at all what you were thinking (get your mind out of the gutter, man). Anyway, enjoy these belated pictures of the event, and of course, the cutest little badass ever!

One of the Bunghole Liquors vans…

The only bad part of the day was all the sand!

Here comes Anne and her team through the finish line…

And here come the Bunghole Liquors!

27Sep2009

New Digs

Posted in Accomplishments, Career, Friends and Family, Home Life, Me Me Me! by Marci

I know I’ve totally been slacking on my blog. Sorry! But facebook has been getting a lot of my attention – so if you’re on facebook, you can check me out there. I’ll attempt to catch up a little bit now though, for all you non-facebookers…

First off, before I left for Portland, my friends in Carlsbad threw me an AWESOME going away party. Susan hosted and nearly all my friends made it to the party – there was even a Snow White pinata filled with mini-alcohol beverages, courtesy of Michelle and jeep. And the food was awesome! Everyone chipped in to get me a $170 gift card to Powell’s Books, and I gave everyone an appropriate Non-Performance Award.

The next day several folks helped me with loading the truck. At one point they were convinced that not everything would fit and I almost had to rent a trailer, which I was definitely not looking forward to doing. However, everything was jammed in – not a square foot to spare – and only two things didn’t make it: the cat tree was donated to Sparkles (Michelle’s new kitty), and jeep had to bring up my office chair the following week. It always works out in the end, but I’m thinking that my next move will entail a 17′ truck instead of a 14′ truck. At least.

It took two full days of driving, but Mom and I finally got to Portland. My apartment managers are assholes, but I’m trying to forget about that. I got really lucky in finding my apartment – it’s in the Bretnor Building, constructed in 1912, on NW 20th and Lovejoy – right in the heart of all the cool stuff that happens in Portland. 21st and 23rd have a ton of restaurants and shops, and I’m about 6 blocks from the Pearl District. Everything is within walking distance, too – aside from work, I don’t have to drive my car. I’ve walked to Powell’s Books a few times, and even down to the Saturday Market. And now that I have a bike, it will be even easier.

I had to start my new job at the Columbia River Fisheries Program Office the next week – I wish I had some more time off, but dems de breaks. Gots to make money, you know. The new office is nice – lots of native plants around the building, and one entire wall of my office is windows that look out into a virtual jungle of bushes and trees. I’ve been enjoying watching hummingbirds and chickadees – and a towhee – along with bees and other insects buzzing around. My office seems to have quite the spider population in it, but so far it hasn’t been a problem. Once those little guys grow up though…that’s another story…

23Aug2009

Catching Up…

Posted in Career, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Travel, Updates, Vacations by Marci

So…lots of stuff has happened between now and my last post. There’s too much to write about right now, but I will provide you with links to pictures. That’s the good part, anyway, right? The big news is that I recently moved up to Portland, Oregon, where I will be starting a job with the Columbia River Fisheries Program Office in Vancouver, Washington. I guess my official title is Recovery Assessment Program Leader, but basically I’ll be a fish biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It was definitely sad leaving all of my friends behind in Carlsbad, but I’m very happy to be up here in Portland. I found a great apartment in a really cool part of town…the next step is getting a bike! I’ll post some pictures of my place once I get a bit more unpacked.

In the meantime, here are some photos from previous events.

First, in the beginning of July, my friend Michelle came and visited me from Pennsylvania. I hadn’t seen her (or talked with her) since graduating from West Chester University in 1998, but we found each other on facebook. We met up in Old Town San Diego, went to the Wild Animal Park (of course), and cruised around Point Loma and downtown San Diego over the weekend. You can view the photos from her visit here.

Next, at the end of July, I drove north to Blue Lakes (near Ukiah) for a Koski family reunion. I was there for a couple of days and it was really nice to see everyone, especially the next generation of Koski’s. The weather was perfect and it was great connecting with most of my cousins, although three of my blonde beautiful cousins were MIA (you know who you are, H’s!). Check out the photos from the reunion here.

After the reunion I drove up to Eureka to meet my friend Cara. We went to a Roller Derby (go, North Jetty Betty’s!), then went to Arcata to dine on crepes at one of Cara’s favorite restaurants. The crepes were FANTASTIC! Cara works and lives at Redwoods National Park, so the next day we hiked the Damnation Creek trail to the coast where we explored the tidepools. Then, it was time for me to head back south (sigh)…but the photos still linger here.

The only unfortunate part of the trip was that my check engine light went on, and upon taking it to the shop for a diagnosis, I learned that one of the catalytic converters has crapped out on me and it would cost $2000 to fix in California. Fortunately, I’ve moved to Oregon where it may not be illegal to use an after-market catalytic converter so I might not have to junk my car…but like I said, it looks like I’ll be wanting to invest in a bike soon. It won’t work for getting me over to Vancouver every day, but it’s at least a little less pressure on my aging Outback when I need to go out for groceries or local errands!

12May2009

Can You Believe Teddy Will Be 16 Tomorrow?

Posted in Animals, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Non-cats by Marci

Who would have thought – sixteen years old! When I took this dog in, I thought he’d maybe have a couple of years left in him, but he keeps on ticking. He’s doing pretty well – still whiny, loves to eat. I put him on a diet and he lost about five pounds, which I estimate will add at least another year to his life. On second thought, maybe I’d better fatten him back up…oh, I’m sorry, was that mean? Teddy knows I love him, even though sometimes he’s a pain in the ass. Such a geriatric pup…but cute (this picture was taken last year, but it’s the most recent I have, and he looks pretty much the same, except for the full-body mohawk I’ve given him).

Also, a couple weekends ago, Mom, Nik and I went to the Escondido Renaissance Faire. Nik and I dressed up – go ahead and take a look at the pictures (there’s a slide show link at right). Yes, I know I’m a dork.

23Apr2009

Better Late Than Never, Right?

Posted in Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Travel, Vacations by Marci

I know it has been a terribly long time since I’ve posted anything, and I know that most of my posts start off with this slightly guilt-ridden statement. Honestly, I don’t know why you people bother to keep checking my blog, since everything I post is pretty boring anyhow. But today, I have a couple of items to share: first, I’m now blogging on a very nice new computer, an HP 17″ laptop that I’m loving (so far). I had a few issues last weekend, but those problems seem to have resolved themselves…so my new computer appears to be self-healing as well, bonus.

Second, I went on a vacation that I have yet to tell you about. Actually, the pictures from my road trip to Portland (which happened about a month ago, ahem) have been posted to the right for a few weeks now, so I don’t feel too bad about not posting until now. But I’ll give you a brief rundown of my trip:

Saturday – I dropped Teddy Bear at Beth’s house, then started driving north. I had a great drive just being by myself, breaking in my new Garmin nuvi GPS, and catching up on listening to all my podcasts. I arrived at Gramma Koski’s house in Paradise at about 5 in the afternoon. We enjoyed a quiet evening chatting and eating.

Sunday – I spent the day with Gramma, who barely let me go an hour without insisting I eat something. We went to Red Lobster for a late lunch, where I finally got cell phone coverage and a report from Beth indicating that Teddy had been barking until 3 a.m. Sigh.

Monday – I start on the next leg of my trip north, which was quickly and briefly delayed by another call from Beth saying that Teddy Bear peed on her couch the previous night. I called my mom to pick him up and put him in a kennel – dang! But the rest of my drive was good – Mount Shasta was beautiful, and there was snow in the mountains just south of Ashland. I got to Corvallis to stay with my friends Jeremy and Dana and their daughter Autumn just in time to take them out to dinner at a tasty Indian place downtown. Yummy!

Tuesday – Jeremy and Dana took me to breakfast before I drove about an hour and a half north to Portland. By the time I got to my brother’s house, I was certain that I needed to take my car in because of a grinding noise that, I was hoping, would simply require a half-turn of a Phillips head screwdriver and cost me about $5.50 to repair. Anne got a referral for me to Vu’s Car Care, where they diagnosed the sound as coming from my dying transmission, which would take two days to replace and cost $925. This vacation is turning out to be a bit more expensive than I was anticipating! But the yummy pad thai Anne and Paul made for dinner, as well as Adelaide’s shenanigans, almost made up for it.

Wednesday – I woke up from a night of snuggling with a surrogate cat (Bosco) and kicked around the house with Anne and Adelaide. We went to lunch at the Laughing Planet, and surprise surprise, my car repairs were fixed by 6 pm. Yay!

Thursday – Paul, Anne, and I drove up to Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge and hiked up to the top. Adelaide contributed to the serenity of the falls by crying when Paul stopped walking. But the falls were incredible, and we had a nice snack at the restaurant below. That afternoon I stopped by the Portland FWS field office to introduce myself and prove how awkward I am at networking. But I took Anne and Paul out for a Moroccan dinner down town, which was lots of fun (although the belly dancer was rather blonde and caucasian…).

Friday – Me and my newly quiet car began our reluctant journey south towards home. I stopped in Medford to meet up with Jack Williams, who treated me to a burrito for lunch. After that, it was back on the road until I got to Gramma’s. More eating.

Saturday – The end of my vacation was in sight. I spent one last day driving, enjoying the thoughts I had to myself, and my music and podcasts. I was stuck in LA traffic for about an hour, but managed to get home in one piece. Mom picked up Teddy from the kennel for me, so when I got home he was there waiting. Yup, my vacation was definitely over.

1Jan2009

Last Post of 2008! For Real This Time!!!

Posted in Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Travel, Vacations by Marci

Lest you think that 2008 was totally in the toilet (see previous post), I thought I’d share a few more photos with you. I got a really great surprise today when I received a CD in the mail from Cecily (thanks, Cecily!!!), who compiled all the photos she took on our trip to the Chiricahuas over Thanksgiving. I’ll probably try to upload them to a Picasa web album sometime, but here are just a few of the photos that I thought were particularly funny or had incredible scenery. So happy new year, for real this time!

Thanksgiving dinner at a truck stop – bad pizza and rootbeer floats!

So this is what I look like first thing in the morning? I’d just crawled out of the tent after our first night backpacking in the wilderness area; yes, that’s ice in my hair.

One of the many spectacular views of the Chiricahua wilderness; this was just before we somehow managed to get ourselves off-trail. I wish I knew how to use the self-timer on *my* camera!

You can’t see it in the photo (how clever…), but Cecily’s ankle is totally jacked up! At this point, we were enjoying the views at the Chiricahua National Monument, which were accessible a short distance from the car.

1Jan2009

Last Post of 2008!

Posted in Animals, Career, Cats, Complainments, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Non-cats, Updates by Marci

Are you ready for this stupid year to be over? I am. So get the hell out of here, 2008; don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out. I actually can’t believe that 2008 is gone – I remember being a kid and time seemed to goooo bbyyyyyyyy sssssoooooooooooo ssssllllllooooowwwwwwwlllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…and now (that I’ve probably gotten Alzheimer’s as a result of extreme boredom; see previous blog) time sms to go bi 2 qwik. I can’t fathom that I’ve been in Southern California for over four years now – what the hell??? So, for those of you who haven’t been reading my blog (or who have just been reading about the good times), here’s a little recap of my 2008 for you (in no particular order):

Teddy Bear is still alive. Slower, more insane, more needy, more apt to urinate on the carpet, and apparently immortal. I suspect that he is surviving by consuming my soul and happiness.
I spent vast quantities of money to keep Zoe going. She seems to be happy and active.
Related to the above, I pretty much broke even in my attempts to work down my debt. I haven’t really decreased it, but haven’t really added to it either.
I only noticed about half a dozen visits by the cops to my apartment complex. This ‘hood is really cleaning itself up!
My ceiling collapsed zero times.
I failed (yet again) to procure an acceptable boyfriend, as all men in SoCal are either gay, taken, or total assholes.
I developed secret crushes on my cat’s vet and one of the vet techs, at two different offices. Zoe has all the luck! However, there are complications which prevent me from pursuing either of these as potential relationships (see above point).
I watched my arch-nemesis perfect her rimming skills and be rewarded for it with a promotion and office upgrade.
I devised an airtight excuse to visit Las Vegas.
I managed to lose almost 15 lbs, which includes the mole I had removed from my face.
Although, in the past week I probably gained about five of those pounds back (but the mole is still gone, so I’m psyched about that).
I perfected the fine art of applying liquid liner to my upper eyelid, with the results not completely appearing as if I stayed up for three days smoking crack with Amy Winehouse (see new year’s resolution discussion, below). Additionally, my hair finally realized that I mean business when it comes to straightening, armed with a split-end inducing arsenal of flat irons and straightening gels.
My brother spawned, so that alleviates the need for me to breed in order to make a genetic contribution to future generations. Ok, so I realize that it’s my brother’s kid which means that my genes will not be represented as much as if it was my kid, but I don’t have to get pregnant and squeeze a small human out of my vag. So it’s a fair trade-off, I think.
With minimal effort and a little bit of practical application, I vastly improved my nick-name generating and limerick-writing skills (just try me sometime…).

That’s all I can think of for now. Actually, that’s not completely true – I can think of a lot more. But I don’t want to rehash ALL the super fun times I had; I’d like to keep many of those moments private, just for me to own. Anyone have any resolutions? I’m generally against those – “I resolve to lose weight, stop drinking, quell my road rage, kick the crack habit, etc.” But this year I think I’ve come up with a good one – I’m going to stop eating factory farmed meat. I haven’t really eaten red meat in over ten years (with the exception of critters that friends have hunted, or that was raised organic and free range – yeah, buffalo, I’m talking about you), but it will be difficult to cut out the chicken and turkey. I’ll eat it occasionally if I can get the free range variety, and I’ll still eat fish. But I just can’t stomach (literally) anymore the thought of supporting those massive henhouses that cramp chickens in shoebox-sized cages for their entire lives. I think my decision was made when I saw the video of Sarah Palin at the turkey slaughterhouse, with turkeys getting killed right behind her, saying she was having a “great time”. Blech.

Anyway, happy new year, y’all. Have a good one.

8Dec2008

Thanksgiving in the Chiricahuas

Posted in Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Travel, Vacations by Marci

Since I don’t consider Thanksgiving to be one of my favorite holidays, I decided it would be a good time to get out of town for an outdoor mini-adventure. My friend Cecily, from grad school, flew into Phoenix where I drove to pick her up. We had the best Thanksgiving dinner ever – bad pizza and rootbeer floats at a truckstop outside of Tucson. Afterwards, we drove around FOREVER trying to find the Forest Service lands that we were told about so that we could camp for the night – finally, we found the turnoff for French Joe Canyon and set up for the night.

It turns out that our campsite was just next to Karchner Caverns State Park, which we explored the next day. It’s a pretty cool state park – it’s got a good museum and gift shop, although their coffee wasn’t the best. We took a tour of the Rotunda and Throne Rooms, where we saw Kubla Kahn, the biggest column known in the state of Arizona. It was pretty spectacular, although I can’t show you any pictures because there were no cameras allowed. Bummer for you!

After that, we drove east through Willcox, then took a forest service road through the Chiricahuas to the South Fork of the Cave Creek trail, just west of Portal. We hit the trailhead around 2:30, so it was a bit late; just before we got on the trail, a man approached us to tell us to be careful of all the illegal immigrants and drug smugglers coming through the area. Thanks, dude! After about a mile and a half, we turned off the Cave Creek trail and onto the Burro trail, which took us up and to the east. We didn’t get terribly far that first day because we got a late start; also, we needed to take advantage of the first flat spot we found in order to set up a tent. By the way, I need to thank my friend Glen for loaning me a bunch of ultralight equipment which reduced 20 lbs off my pack load. So if you’re in the market for a new pack or tent, go to his website, Gossamer Gear, to check out the goods!

Anyway, it was clear that others had used the same spot we found, since there were water bottles and toilet paper scattered around the perimeter of our site. I cooked up some yummy pad thai and Cecily started a fire to let all the smugglers know that we were there and not to bother us. It was a rather cold night – I didn’t get a lot of sleep because 1) I was listening for drug smugglers emerging from their hiding spots to steal our food (which they didn’t), 2) Cecily snores, and 3) it was freaking cold. We woke up to a sheet of ice on the inside of our tent, frost on our sleeping bags, and I even had frost in my hair! But a hot meal of oatmeal and peanuts and cranberries and tea warmed us up pretty good, at least while we waited for the sun to come out.

We continued on our way, up up and up the trail – and the views just kept getting more and more spectacular. We watched flocks of band-tailed pidgeons fly around below us. There were incredible rock outcrops all over the place. And the sun was out, which was in contrast from the days before. We hit Horseshoe Saddle at around noon, and there was lots of evidence that illegals had been coming through – water bottles, clothes, discarded packs, food containers, and even syringes. And unfortunately, because there was so much activity, a lot of social trails had been created, which were in fact more evident than the official trail we were trying to follow. So, at around 8000 feet, we ended up losing our trail and hiking down several fake-out trails that led us into a steep drainage.

We started bushwhacking our way down the drainage, which we knew would take us back to Cave Creek and the original trail that we were on. In my estimation, given the amount of shit in the drainage, there were approximately 359 bears in the vicinity, in addition to the drug smugglers which were surely hunkered down waiting for nightfall. Cecily and I scaled several bouldered drop-offs with few problems, but our luck didn’t last forever; Cecily fell down a 15-foot rock face and sprained her ankle really badly. But she was hard-core and didn’t cry or anything; we taped her ankle up, loaded her up with ibuprofin, and I gave her my hiking pole to hobble along on. We were only about halfway down the drainage at that point and it was starting to get dark and cold, and there was definitely no place to camp, so we decided to just try and get out that evening. I had to go ahead of Cecily and try to find the best way down the canyon drainage, which still had several rocky drops before we hit Cave Creek around dusk. But we were so happy to hear that running water!

We didn’t find the trail right away and hiked up the opposite side of the creek until I decided we needed to go back down to the creek where we would definitely find the trail at some point. Which we did – Cecily ended up hiking about 3 miles on her bum ankle, but with head-lamps and hiking poles, we made it to the car and set up camp at the Sunny Flat forest service campground. Whew! It was a good thing that Cecily brought some Vicodin with her…

The next morning, we drove back over the mountains to the Chiricahua National Monument, where the medic/ranger wrapped Cecily’s humongously swollen ankle up and provided her with ice packs and an airsplint. We drove through the monument and took in the amazing views at Massai Point. Finally, we drove back through Willcox and into Benson, where we ate a huge dinner at Apple Farm restaurant, one of the best meals I’ve ever had. The mashed potatoes were AWESOME!!! I felt like I was going to have a food baby.

We then drove back to French Joe Canyon and camped at the same spot as our first night – but this time we started a fire (with a little help from a bit of denatured alcohol, thanks) and had smores. Yummy! The following morning, we went back to our Thanksgiving day truckstop and paid $5 each for a shower. This was the first time I’ve ever had a truckstop shower, and it’s not nearly as dirty as it sounds. It was actually quite refreshing – I even managed to comb the emergent dread-locks out of my hair that had started to form during the past few days. Then, it was back to Phoenix to drop Cecily off at the airport, and then back to San Diego.

It was really a fun trip, all minor injuries aside. It was great being outside and getting my mind completely off of work for a few days, although I wish the trip could have been a little longer. I have more pictures that you can view through the slideshow link on the right side of my blog, and Cecily will be sending me her pictures as well, so there will probably be even more photos soon. It was a good Thanksgiving – even if there wasn’t any cranberry sauce involved!

16Nov2008

Guess How Many Green Sea Turtles I Saw?

Posted in Animals, Day Trips, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Non-cats, Travel by Marci

Today was a good day, one of those warm sunny autumn days that people actually come to visit southern California for. My friend Nicole and I headed down to the marina at Chula Vista to join up with a group of sea turtle enthusiasts (which also included my friends Tamara and Kari) and kayak out into the bay in hopes of getting a glimpse at one of the elusive marine reptiles. The San Diego Natural History Museum sponsored the program, so we got to hear a local sea turtle biologist talk about the different local species of turtles and ask a few questions. And lucky for you, I took the risk of bringing my camera along with me in the kayak so that I could snap a few pictures of the turtles we would surely see.

We paddled out of the marina and headed south towards the power plant where the green turtles hang out because they like the warmer effluent water. It was just a little breezy – enough for us to keep cool but not strong enough to make paddling difficult. It was soooo relaxing bobbing around in the waves; I saw an osprey and several flocks of Brandt’s geese, along with lots of other diving sea birds and jumping fish, which I think were mullet.

So while I didn’t see any sea turtles, I still had a good time, except for getting two blisters on my hands where I was holding the paddle. But I didn’t lose my camera, or tip my kayak, or accidentally cause anyone to bail out of their boat. So all in all, I can probably call the morning a success! Here are a few pictures to enjoy – you can see more through the slideshow link to the right.

16Oct2008

Holy "NO MORE" Moley!

Posted in Accomplishments, Friends and Family, Me Me Me! by Marci

Yup, that’s right, I finally got rid of THE mole. You know, the one on the bridge of my nose between my eyes. The one that was growing its own personality. The one that was going to start talking out loud any day. It has been a long time coming, let me tell you – people kept asking me, “when are you going to get rid of that thing?” And I kept putting it off – it’s a part of me, of my face. I didn’t even really notice it on a daily basis, looking in the mirror. BUT, when I saw photographs of myself, my eye would be immediately drawn to IT…so I knew it was time for me and my mole to part ways.It was pretty easy, really – it didn’t hurt at all, and the wound isn’t *that* noticeable (or at least, not as noticeable as an organism the approximate size of an eight-week-old fetus nestled between my eyes would be). And the wound is temporary…AND, my coworkers have been kind enough not to say anything about it.

Whatever…I’m just saying.

Here are pictures of me and Nicole at the Wild Animal Park at Lorikeet Landing last weekend (pre-mole-D-Day). By the way – not too many single guys will attend “A Taste of CRES”, so you can cross that off your list of ways to meet eligible single guys. Again, I’m just saying.