Wow – More Good News!

Posted in Career, Me Me Me! by Marci

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!!!

1May2007

Holy Guacamole!

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

Did you know that the Avocado Capital of the World is just a few short minutes away, in Fallbrook? Neither did I! But since I love avocados, and Fallbrook happened to be hosting its annual Avocado Festival last weekend, I decided that Mom, Mark and I should go. And I also decided that Mom should drive because her car, more than mine or Mark’s, most resembles an avocado.

Wow – what a scene! It was an avocado mob scene, to be sure. Although it was mostly like a really really really crowded street fair (actually, that’s precisely what it was) – they were anticipating 75,000+ people – there were a few avocado-related booths. They had avocado fudge (!), fresh quacamole (yum!), avocado pottery and crafts, and fried avocado. But mostly it was just your usual street fair fare – snow cones, tee-shirt booths, sausages on sticks. And it was soooooo crowded – parking was slim to none (luckily we didn’t get a ticket or towed for parking on someone’s front lawn), and by the time we made less than one circuit through the street doing the slow-paced street-fair shuffle we were ready to go. But at least I can say that I’ve visited the Avocado Capital of the World! Woo hoo!!!

8Apr2007

First Class Project: A+

Posted in Accomplishments, Entertainment, Hobbies, Me Me Me! by Marci

In light of the fact that I was never going to learn how to sew without some serious help, I decided to sign up for a month’s worth of sewing lessons at Baker’s Sewing Center. Baker’s is located in historic downtown Escondido, and like most businesses there, has been around since about the 1940’s. Mrs. Nancy, my instructor, informed me that the class would be sewing pillow cases during the first two classes, so I headed down to JoAnn’s Fabric and Crafts store to pick out fabric for my first project. I chose a nice yellow cotton with small white flowers that would match a quilted bedspread that I have. Let me say that JoAnn’s is completely mind-boggling – there’s so much, too much really, to choose from. Anyway, by the end of my first class, I had completed one of my pillow cases, and was almost done with the second, which I completed about 15 minutes after I got home that afternoon. Yesterday was our second class, and I sewed up a “decorator” pillow to match the pillow cases that I sewed the week before, complete with an envelope back so that it’s easy to pop a pillow form in and out of. So voila! Here is my completed set – all the yellow items are the ones that I did. By the way – the quilt hanging above my bed was made by my sister Tyleen, who is a quilting genius.

28Mar2007

Finally Finally Finally!

Posted in Accomplishments, Career, Me Me Me! by Marci

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.

25Mar2007

Horkelia, where art thou?

Posted in Career, Me Me Me! by Marci

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”.

23Mar2007

Now THAT’S what I call a Couch!

Posted in Home Life, Me Me Me! by Marci

I recently decided that I need a couch. In Pennsylvania I had a small fold-out couch from Pier 31, which Jesse destroyed in Colorado with his powerful stank-pee (good riddance though – it was really an uncomfortable sofa!). Then, while I lived with Steve, we had this awful plaid couch that smelled like dog butt and was getting torn apart by various animals. When I moved to California, the only thing I had to sit my ass on was an old green armchair that was going to be thrown out by the Fort Collins Mariott. I was so sick of sitting on this uncomfortable old chair that I said “screw it! I don’t care if Teddy is going to stink up a new couch, or Zoe will shred a new couch, or Jesse will pee on a new couch! I want something to stretch out on and lounge around on during my time off in front of the television watching reality tv shows!”.

So, I took a trip to the local Jerome’s Furniture store and ordered a REAL couch. A few hundred dollars worth. Plus a 5-year fabric warranty, which does cover pet pee and doggy drool. I swear it did not look this big in the store, but here it is, in all of its cushioned and pillowed fancy fancy glory! It’s huge! It’s a behemoth! A monster! It takes up my whole living room, but that’s ok, because I’m not going to be in this little apartment forever. It has been almost a week and it has not been smelled up by dog butt, Jesse pee, or marred by Zoe claws. So I’m pretty good so far…knock on wood…

14Mar2007

Fight! Fight!

Posted in Complainments, Home Life, Me Me Me! by Marci

Today I received complete confirmation that I do, in fact, live in the Ghetto with a capital G. At around 6:00 this evening I was sitting in front of the TV chowing down on my KFC, as that’s what people in the ghetto eat, when I heard all this yelling coming from the apartment right next to mine. I turned off the volume to the TV and started paying attention – the yelling increased, and then a woman started screaming her head off. It sounded violent enough (my apartment even shook a couple of times with all the throwing-of-various-heavy-objects that was happening next door) so I called the cops. I took the opportunity to act like real white trash and go out to my balcony and watch the scene. The screaming and yelling continued until six cop cars showed up (what else are the cops going to do on a Tuesday evening?). In about a minute they had four guys in handcuffs and had taser guns pointed at them and everything. The girl that had been screaming kept telling the police “it’s ok – they’re friends and they’re not fighting anymore. They’re just drunk…”, like the cops would go “oh, alright, I guess we can move on then, right boys?”. Anyway, they arrested one guy and he was totally messed up – I think he had been tossed down the concrete stairs because his back was covered in a bloody bruise, and his head had taken a beating too. I don’t know why the other guys weren’t taken in as well – they were bloody messes too, and they were all drunk and gangsta-y. Here’s some photo journalism for you, taken of the parking lot from my apartment. It’s just a few of the cop cars, but you get the idea.

On the plus side, I finally bought a REAL couch! It will be delivered on Saturday. Suede micro-fiber, full sized, overstuffed, with lots of comfy pillows. I hope no one shoots a gun through the wall and hits my new livingroom showpiece with a stray bullet. Good thing I got the 5-year fabric warranty…

15Jan2007

Back to Work Blues

Posted in Career, Complainments, Me Me Me! by Marci

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…)!!!

9Dec2006

I’m on it this year!

Posted in Home Life, Me Me Me! by Marci

One of my favorite things about Christmas is seeing a tree completely loaded with gorgeously wrapped presents underneath. And wow, am I on top of things this year. I’ve finished my holiday shopping! I’ve wrapped everything! I’m mailing stuff out today! There is, however, one problem. You see, all those lovely presents under my little pink tree are for other people. Not one present is for me! So what gives, homies? Where are my presents??? Let’s get with it, people! Time to show me some love…

20Nov2006

Fun Fun Update!

Posted in Complainments, Home Life, Me Me Me! by Marci

I love my life soooo much sometimes. In the past month or so, I’ve shelled out $700 for Teddy’s medical bills, $550 for a new alternator for my car, and now this. Here’s what I came home to on Friday:

Supposedly, the drywall guys will be in Monday to repair the ceiling and wall and paint. Hopefully they can get it done in one day and I’ll be through with this mess!

P.S. – On Saturday, my apartment complex informed me that they’ll be raising my rent $60-$100 per month in February. Can you believe that they have the nerve to raise my rent when my ceiling isn’t even fixed??? They clearly have not seen my needlepoint skills (see several blogs previous). I don’t need to be paying nearly $1000 per month for this ghetto. I think I’ll be outta here in February…