I boycott surveys

I don't think I'm the only person in the world that hates surveys. I know I've been tagged by Jules to complete her survey, I just can't bring myself to. If I had been tagged with some non-survey action, I'd be game. Between my caffeine withdrawal headache and my hellish morning commute through 2 separate highway accidents involving 5 cars and 2 closed lanes, my brain is fried.

I never was a big fan of surveys. It finally came to a real dislike last year when I was dating this nutter butter who would rather complete daily (!!!) lengthy surveys on myspace then maintain email contact. It was like pulling teeth with him to get an email conversation going. He seemed fine in person and on the phone, but considering he was an english lit major, it surprised me that his email skills were so poor. Plus he revealed some not so flattering bits of information on those surveys. Needless to say he was soon kicked to the curb and his nutter butterness was later confirmed by a independent non-romantic outsider.

Plus this whole tagging reminds me of an unpleasant email chain action that I also boycott. I'm talking about those "Hey girlfriend, I love you like a sister. You are such a good friend" email chains that asks you to email it to your closest 6 friends. Funny thing is that those nauseating emails tend to come from friends who are not real friends at all....they just enough names to fill their email chain quota.

Just born

I thought I've seen the smallest of the smallest turtlelets. I stand corrected. These babies were less than one day old and just barely larger than a penny. Their shells were still soft! Total cute overload! My co-worker lives near a large pond and had seen turtles lay eggs on his lawn. So he dug them up and put them in a tank. After a month, they finally hatched. So far four have hatched. He has more eggs and there are more nests in his lawn. It is so tempting to adopt these babies but I feel bad. They should be in the wild doing turtle fun things...not stuck in a tank with one lousy rock, heat lamp, and eating turtle pellets. When they were brought into the office, they were left right next to my desk. A lot of work time was wasted by me staring at them and or holding them. Each time they would roll accidentally on their backs, I would have to help them. Some would just give up once on their backs and stop flailing their legs. So sad.

We made them a little pond out of the bottom of a paper cup. We even gave them a ramp to get out of the pool. Each time they would doze off, I'd panic and think they were dead. So I'd give them a nudge and look for signs of life. Lots of napping went on and lots of mini heart attacks were had.

Here's are the happy four and the remains of one of their eggs.

Guns and sunflowers, perfect together

Field work has still been relatively slow and uneventful. I guess it's the late summer doldrums. I'm really looking forward to the leaf color change. But in the meantime I see that tickseed sunflowers are in full bloom. They were the highlight of my short walk through my local wetland this weekend. It's so dry and everything just aches for some rain. It has that sort of rotten smell in the air from lack of rain. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll get some tomorrow.


In other news, the office witnessed some drama this past week. A violent crime happened during the day within spitting distance of the office. Not one was killed but it scary enough considering it's a relatively quiet area. I mean people leave their car doors unlocked in our parking lot so it's a relatively safe area. Then I read in the paper that some guy shot his girlfriend and then himself at a nearby upscale mall. There's a lot of weird crime going around in NJ lately.

Dear Carhartt and rubber boot makers

Doing field work, I've put together a uniform that I wear during almost every field outing. When I first started, I used old pants for field work but I quickly learned they were no match against thorns . So they were all tossed and replaced with Carhartt pants that are tough on thorns. Problem is that it is real tough to find my petite size Carhartt pants. I now wear a large boy size but the fit is horrible. If they accidentally go in the dryer and shrink, I have capris. Don't even talk about the rise and all over too wide legs. They are so wide in the legs that they always catch on barbed wire fences and rub on top of my knee boots. So I have holes were ticks can come in and I have to toss them. Patching doesn't work well.

I was psyched recently to find they are now making ladies Carhartts. Of course they are not as thick and durable as the mens/boys. What gives! Do the thorns magically part when they see a lady? Of course not. But I just saw on the web that they make a version that may be tough enough but I'm scared that these pants will overcompensate size wise and make them super hour glass shaped. Nevermind that the boy's pants are significantly cheaper than mens/ladies even when comparablly sized. Then there's the rubber knee boot situation. Again ladies rubber boots are not as tall as mens. I'm sad to report that the water does not recede when it sees a lady. I have to cross the same stream as the guys. So I have to wear a size 5 mens boots. Real tough to find and I usually only can get the real cheap ones. The ones that make you freeze in the winter and no matter how many insoles you put in, your feet still ache. With my tender lady feet, I also have to wear some big fluffy socks or I get blisters within 30 minutes. Real nice and hot in the summer! I see my male coworkers with their padded and insulated boots and it makes me sad. And the place I buy my boots has discontinued my cheapo tall boots. I bought the last 2 pairs they had in my size. I will likely have to mix and match old ones once these guys are worn and have holes. You probably wonder if I buy those designer flowered rubber boots that have become popular? Well no. I really wouldn't be able to hide/blend into the woods with those on. Plus those boots are not as tall as the work ones.

I think autumn is officially here. Just heard some honking geese fly by. I guess the migration has begun.

Don't try this at home kids

It was destined to be just another office day until this little bat was found on the side of our building. I guess the landscapers scared it up and it forced to take flight. Little cutie was full of jaw dropping batty poses. The handler has her rabies shots so she can safely handle this little boy. Yes. She determined that it's a little boy brown bat.

A few years ago I found a presumable little brown bat right outside my front door (see awful pic below). I guess it got confused when it flew into the front enclosure and thought it was day thanks to all the lights. I poked it a few times and it opened its tiny mouth in annoyance. It eventually flew away.

Snake-lets

The excitement at the office this week was the hatching of some snakes. My coworker found some black racer snake eggs a couple weeks ago and passed them out to various people to hatch. Everyone's eggs hatched and someone brought theirs in for everyone to see. Now this species of snake is notorious for its nasty attitude and willingness to attack. Even the young will agressively strike even though they are the size of a jumbo pencil. One of these snakes did attack a coworker soon after it hatched, but both snakes have mellowed. I held both of them and they were very friendly....not biting. When these guys mature, they'll turn a solid black color and will be very long and fast....hence their name black racer. I'm not sure what will happen with these two. The keeper is afraid to handle them and she even freaked a bit just by touching them. But I think she and her son have already become quite attached. Gotta love their big puppy dog eyes.

This is what they will look like when grown.

When's the sun coming back?

I'm sure most of you encountered the brutal rain storm last friday. I had the joy of driving towards it on my commute home. Lots of lighting strikes nearby. Close enough for me to scurry past the metal overhanging signs on the highway as we crept along. This was the view through my windshield with the wipers going on the highest setting. I swear I had better visibility with no wipers on a normal rain storm. The weirdest thing is that while all this was going on I could see the sun peeking through one small hole in the clouds. See my horrible pic below.

Needless to say that I haven't had any field work all this week. I won't get out tomorrow either. I'm in the office writing big reports and today I helped lead the discussion about the new regulation proposals.

With all this rain, I'm wondering if this is what life in Seattle must be like.