A Little Obsession Can Go A Long Way

A little obsession is a good thing. Right? When I find something I like, which isn’t often, I obsess over it. It’s all I'll listen to, or watch, or read about for an undetermined duration. Until I work it out of my system or I've absorbed all that I can. These certain obsessions tend to happen at particular times in my life when they are actually desperately needed. And mostly unbeknownst to me that I needed them in the first place.

A few examples:

Taft. I had a very real mental breakdown which I’ve written about before HERE and HERE and had I been a violent person, I would have punched holes in my hotel walls. I needed to break something. And the physical pain involved in punching walls sounded very appealing. So did screaming. But I didn’t. I kind of needed my hands to function. Music, and three particular songs, pumped extremely loud into my earbuds on an endless loop was my only outlet that seemed to work or I was willing to do and not incur damage fees or get kicked out of the hotel and loose my job. I completely scared my parents, and they drove down the next day to see me. I still like those three songs, however they now always remind me of that place and time in my life. I'm not haunted by it and it doesn't shut me down. In fact, I look back on it with pride. I survived. I came out of that experience a stronger and wiser person.

Chester Bennington's death. After Chester died, which I also wrote about HERE, I watched every single LPTV episode (that's Linkin Park TV for those not in the know), music videos, and making of videos they had ever produced, interviews, and performances. The sudden death of Chester was a wake up call that I hadn’t realized I needed, and how far down into the hole of depression I had fallen. I would listen to their music, every album, on a loop for weeks. I needed to understand, absorb, and mourn. His death and my obsession of everything LP helped me dig out (not completely) to a much safer state of mind.

Finding Killjoys. This I haven't written about. Killjoys is a Science Fiction TV show made and filmed in Canada that airs on SyFy here in the U.S. I discovered the show when the third season was about to air. So I immediately binged the first two seasons. Then I bought the first two seasons on itunes. After the third season aired, I then bought it as well. Then I started to collect the music from the show. I had downloaded so much Killjoys stuff from itunes in the span of a few weeks that my credit union thought my card was stolen and put a hold on it. Whoops. No, just me obsessing over something again. I need access back please. I don't know why, but watching the show and listening to the music just makes me happy. I made a Killjoys playlist. The music is all over the place. Pop, rock, techno, dance, folk, instrumental, indie galore. I found some really interesting and amazing artists through the experience. Season four is airing now (Summer 2018). Season five will be the last, which has been already planned and set in stone. So hopefully it won't end on an excruciating cliff hanger like so many SciFi shows have ended before.

Lastly, Thirty Seconds to Mars. I've known about them since their inception, but like many of their early critics, I sort of wrote them off. I only had one of their songs in my itunes. However, I have since come to my senses. The last three weeks have been nothing but Thirty Seconds to Mars being pumped happily into my ear holes. I've been watching Jared Leto movies, interviews, videos, and documentaries. Whatever your thoughts are, that guy is freakishly talented. And all things Church of Mars. If you're a fan (or should I say Echelon), you get it. If not, it sort of looks like a cult from the outside. Anyway what has the current obsession with 30STM done? It’s realizing that if I want to realize my dreams, ambitions, and aspirations I have to make the effort and get up off my ass and do something about them. Whether that’s loosing all this weight I gained, or doing good work at work, or putting effort into my creative work. The only thing stopping me is me. I put these limitations on myself and I have to remove them. That it's okay to be obsessive. It's okay to dream. It's okay to dream big. And it's okay to just go for it. Complete Liberation. So get up off your ass, work hard, and turn those dreams into reality.





Sidenote: I find it interesting that I tend to like bands that have very strong critics. People either love them or hate them. It was true for Linkin Park, and still is for Thirty Seconds to Mars. To me, both had/have interesting and positive things to say and were/are innovators and not scared to explore new things and experiment. The critics and nay-sayers be damned.

So all that is to say, a little obsession is good for the mind, body, and soul. So let your freak flag fly. Take pride and ownership of your obsessions. Just don't get arrested.

By God, it's a fountain!

Long long ago (back in 2009, the year I went mental and other things happened) in the far distant smelly tar lands (Taft, California) *shutters* some of my crew members came across something that they thought I would like. At the time I was telling them of the adventures I was having fixing my house and landscaping my backyard. I was collecting rocks for a pond that my sister was constructing while I was out doing field work. Now there aren't many rocks in Taft. There's a lot of sand, and sticky stinky sand, but not a lot of rocks... that I'd be willing to display anyway in my glorious and wondrous backyard. HA! I did procure a coyote skull and a sheep skull however, and several other crew members took home some animal bones as well. We had a lovely cat skull sitting on the dashboard for a few weeks. It was adorable until you looked in its dead empty eye sockets and your soul turned black with despair.

Anyway, I'm getting distracted. At the end of the day when we would all meet up again, they said, "hey, we found something you may want". So off we went to find the GPS coordinate they logged. Low and behold they had found a stash of transmission tower ceramic insulators. These weren't your cute aqua glass insulators that people spend $50 bucks a pop at overpriced antique stores. No sir. This was an intact 40-50 pound ceramic insulator. And I thought it was beautiful. I thanked the crew members who found it and thought of me. We heaved it into the back of the SUV, and off we tootled. My first thought was to get it home and turn it into a fountain.

Well it made it home and sat in my backyard for years. It was a stand for tomato plants for a few years. It also held strawberry plants when we rebuilt the main vegetable garden beds. But finally after years of neglect and wishing it was still hanging off a steel transmission line in the dessert, it has become a fountain!

One of my nephews drilled the hole needed to run the rubber tube, and my sister one day took our old pond apart (we never took the time to maintain it) and replaced said pond (mosquito breeding ground) with our new fountain. TA DA!!

isn't it just the cutest thing ever?

and it works!!

Got Cocci?

Coccidioidomycosis aka Valley Fever, California Fever, Desert Rheumatism, or San Joaquin Valley Fever is a fungal disease endemic to Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and northern Mexico. The fungus resides in the soil, it develops as a mold and breaks off into airborne spores when the ground is disturbed. Infection is caused by inhaling the particles. It is not transmitted from person to person. The infection however leaves the person with a specific immunity to re-infection. (why some archaeological company’s only hire crew who have had it.)

The spores can be easily inhaled without the person knowing. It arrives in the alveoli (the branches in your lungs) and then enlarge and internal septations develop. This structure is called spherule. The septations develop to form endospores. The spherules rupture and release the endospores. Nodules can form in the lungs surrounding these spherules. When they rupture, they release the endospores into the bronchus, forming thin-walled cavities. These cavities can result in symptoms like chest pain, hemoptysis (coughing up blood), and persistent cough.

Other more common symptoms include flu-like symptoms such as fever, cough, headache, rash, myalgia (muscle pain), and arthralgia (joint pain). Some people fail to recover and develop chronic pulmonary infection or widespread disseminated infection (affecting meninges [membranes that cover the nervous system], soft tissues, joints, and bone). Those with HIV can develop severe pulmonary disease.

The majority of people that have this, have had it since childhood. They don’t even know it. They get it as children and the parents see it as just another flu. This is especially true for those who were raised or live in the Central Valley of California, and those who have immigrated here legally or otherwise from Mexico.

Now that I have scared you to death, I have this lovely fungus among-us. I, along with several others were excavating in the deadly heatwave of the summer of 2006 just east of Bakersfield. I say deadly heatwave because some old people had died, and many a cows. I didn’t notice anything at the time. It takes a while to incubate, so to speak.

The following week we were to go up to the sierra’s to survey and record/update some sites, and a large sawmill site. The day we were to leave I woke up early with chest pains. I sat up and saw stars. I sat there and thought, “I’m having a heart attack”. I walked, slowly to my parents room and said, “I have chest pains, I think I’m having a heart attack.” They didn’t have the response I thought they’d have. My dad said, “are you dizzy, light headed?”, I said, “yes”. He said, “you probably have that bad flu thing with the inner ear thing. I had that last week.”

I turned around and went back to bed. “I guess I’m not having a heart attack”. I called the office and told them that I wasn’t feeling well and that I’d try and come out the following day. I drove out the next day, I still felt pretty bad. Still had the chest pains, and was getting weak. Day, three, started work with the crew out at the sawmill. I was tasked with documenting a trash deposit. I sat down on a tree stump and didn’t get up for two hours. I knew something was up. I was lethargic all that day and “out of it”. That night I got a fever. I still had the fever the next morning, and was even weaker. I walked out to the truck, and told my boss I now had a fever and said I should probably go home, so that I don’t infect everyone.

I rested up a bit, and then drove home. I didn’t leave my house for two weeks. I found out later that the day I left, the others started getting symptoms. In fact the day after, someone else went home. And by the end of the rotation, they were taking two hour naps under trees. After about 5 days or so, my chest pains went away. My other symptoms were fever, headache, cough, and muscle and joint weakness. I was out of work for about a month and it took about a year to get my lungs back to health. For many years, I had a hard time breathing at higher altitudes (above 7000 feet).

I never got tested. By the time everyone who got infected figured out what to test for, my symptoms were over. My boss got misdiagnosed with pneumonia and was eventually hospitalized for several days. She ended up taking anti-fungal medication for over a year to get rid of the spores in her lungs. She was out of work for over 4 months! Another comrade got chest x-rays taken and can see the scaring and nodules (looks like smokers lung). Another comrade had a cough for almost a year due to his complications with diabetes. We all inhaled the same spores but we all had a variety of different symptoms. I didn’t really know what Valley Fever was until we all came down with it.

For years after, I blamed my heavy breathing at high altitudes and when climbing/hiking up mountains on Valley Fever. And for awhile it was true. But now that I am in decent shape, I know that after the first couple years after infection, my heavy breathing was because I was out of shape. My lungs are now as strong as they ever were prior to infection. I still have nodules and probably scars, but they are healthy and strong now. The last time I was above 6000 feet, my lungs were fine, it was my legs that were sore. I had never fully recovered until now. Just like you can train your lungs to hold your breath for minutes, you can train them to better use oxygen. I figured they would recuperate on their own, and they did, but I had to train and exercise a lot to get them to be strong and function optimally.

So when I mentioned in my second post about Taft that some of my minions thought they had Valley Fever because they had heat rash, and I dismissed it? Now you know why I thought they were full of shit and overreacting. If your only symptom is a rash, count yourself lucky.

The second level of hell

I’ve realized that I have mentioned my time in Taft back when I was an archaeologist several times on the blog but only wrote about it once. Was it really that bad? Yes and no. Obviously I survived the experience. A lot of things were going on at the time, some I saw then, and others only after it was all over. I notice that while looking for pictures for this post I didn't take many pictures. So the ones here give you an idea of the landscape and terrain but not really.

As the months went by (I spent a little over 6 months out there) and my brain started turning to mush I turned to music to sooth me. At the end of the day (for my crew) I would drop them off at the hotel and then turn around and go back out to the, for lack of a better term, field headquarters. I would have to return the gps units, talk with the biologists, discuss tomorrows plans with the various leaders (client, BLM, Oil Companies, geo crew leaders, etc), tell the geeks what we need on the gps units, what they could delete, what they can’t delete and find out the next morning that it was deleted anyway, many many things. After doing this I would then get back into the truck and drive back to the hotel to organize what we had done that day and get ready for the next, or back into the field to clean something up (a forgotten utm point, picture, etc). I would blast three songs on a loop. I wouldn’t play these with the crews, this was just for me time in the smelly, sweaty, sunblock and dust stained truck.

The songs were: click to listen
Welcome Home by Coheed and Cambria

Hear Me Out by Frou Frou

The Day the World Went Away by Nine Inch Nails

You could probably make an interesting case for my state of mind with these three songs at the time. But we’re not, that would be scary. There was a point where I had a melt down that scared my parents to the point of them driving all the way down to see me the next day. That night the only thing I could do to stop myself from screaming and punching holes in the hotel walls was putting my earbuds in and cranking the volume so high that it drowned out all other noises for hours. Plus if I had put holes in the walls, it would have only increased the number of cockroaches.

What compounded my mental state was that my physical body was also taking a beating. It was hot. The heat cracked our windshield one day. When it was 110 outside, the ground was perhaps 125-130. The rubber soles on my boots would start to get soft and almost squishy. We all suffered from heat rash. Several of my crew members had convinced themselves that they had Valley Fever. I let them have their fantasy. But perhaps should have smacked them upside the head instead when the debacle of insurance claims got denied by our company when their test results came back negative. I had heat rash so bad on my feet that the hair on my toes stopped growing due to scabbing. It has since starting growing again, thank you very much. It was like having a permanent 3rd degree sunburn on your feet and having to strap them into boots everyday was, well, painful. I was suffering from exhaustion, not enough sleep, and poor diet. Only two restaurants had decent food and the grocery store didn’t have very good looking “fresh” food. Most of what I ate was highly processed. My digestive system by the end was shot. I think I had the shits for 2 months straight. Try taking a dump in a place where the only cover is a 2 foot high salt brush shrub, and then repeating that every day. And then the Most Embarrassing Moment Ever happened. One particular day I didn’t quite make it to a bush. I flagged over a crew member, handed her the gps unit and told her to tell everyone to head for the truck and I’d meet them there. She knew what happened, but didn’t say anything. While they were in the truck with the air conditioner on, I stripped, cleaned, and buried, and went commando the rest of the day. I think they all figured it out, but to their credit never said a word... at least not that I heard. This is also when I started my weight gain. One would think that walking in the heat all day would make you loose weight, but I started gaining and didn’t stop gaining till a year later.

I hid all of this from my crew. A leader needs to present oneself as in control, strong. Apparently my acting skills are superb. I even fooled myself.

This didn’t just happen to me. I had a co-captain. We had an overlapping schedule so that there was a crew in the field every day. On our 10-day rotations (10 days on, 4 days off) we would see each other on 2 of those days. The first day of my rotation was the last day of his and vis a versa. And we didn’t really have 4 days off because the last day was spent driving back to the cockroach hotel. But I digress. I mention him because he suffered all of this himself. Maybe not the poop thing, and where his heat rash was, I do not really want to know. But at the end of the field work we were both shot. Done. Over cooked. I think I mentioned in the other post about Taft that at one point or another, both of us had mentioned to each other that we had seriously contemplated leaving one day and just not come back, even leaving archaeology all together.

I went to New Zealand by myself for a month and he went to England with his girlfriend for a week or two. The poor girl hadn’t really seen him for 7 months! It was so bad we had to leave the continent!

Was it really that bad? Well, I never want to experience that again. But I did survive it. I did learn a lot about myself and my limits (physical and mental). It was perhaps something I needed to experience. Had I not, would I have gone to New Zealand? Would my experience there been the same? Although, I still would have made an ass of myself. I’m good at that.

I don't know, and I don't care

I still have a job. I just don’t know if I want it. The Santa Cruz branch of the company (where I work) will be closing its doors permanently at the end of September. The company will also be closing our Chico branch as well. The company wants to keep the three of us supervisors from the Santa Cruz branch. However, we will be working out of the Lancaster branch. If you have ever been to Lancaster, you know it is not a very fun place. It’s better than Taft, but still miserable. We will be what our client calls “lead monitors”. We will work 6 days a week up to 11 hours a day and basically be on-call, 24-7. It will not be a fun experience, very high stress and frustrating, and an all around logistical nightmare. I’m painting a very lovely image aren’t I? Now, if this project is running at full steam then the three of us who used to work in Santa Cruz will be fully employed round the clock. However, this is not the case right now. There will be times when nothing is going on… and then what? I stick my thumb up my butt and wonder why someone thought it was a good idea to create a drug that rots your teeth? The “boss man” said when this particular project is not running full steam ahead, or we don’t need to be on the ground down yonder, we can work from home… but then he can’t guarantee us work. But this is archaeology and CRM where there really is no job security ever, and we are at the whim of the people, government agencies, and corporations that hire us. There never was job security, I just got lazy and didn’t think this would happen.

So the elephant in the room is this: Do I continue on here and basically relocate to Lancaster and go prematurely grey? Or do I start looking for another job in Archaeology? Or, do I look for another job elsewhere?

I’ll say one thing: I won’t miss the hour commute it takes just to get to the office in the morning. I will miss my co-workers though. How many of you can say that you would actually enjoy hanging out with your co-workers outside of work, or understand each others humor? I consider these people my friends.

I used to like this company. I was proud to work here. I was proud of the products we produced and the quality of our work. Now I feel like a pawn being carelessly strewn around the chessboard with no regard to my feelings, worth, or well-being. I almost threw in the towel today and walked away. But my co-worker who is also getting tossed about said not to make any rush or rash decisions, that we needed to let this stew a bit. It’s still fresh… it needs to fester first, I suppose.

So, I know now that I will quit. I just haven’t decided when. I feel like I need to have at least some semblance of a plan first, perhaps another job lined up so that I’m not without. Then again, I am a saver, and have been since I was a kid and my older siblings would borrow money from me. I can survive and still pay my mortgage and expenses for about 4 months with no income. And because the “boss man” won’t just lay me off, I do not qualify for unemployment.

I’m angry. I’ve given this company 5 years of my life and even caught a deadly fungus that has permanently scared my lungs for life while working for them. I’ve done great things for them, and they don’t see it! They never do. It has happened time and again, that they loose great employees because they don’t treat us right. They push, they shove, they take take take. I had a hellish year last year and ended up taking a long vacation this past December. The job was better at first when I came back. We do this job because we love archaeology. It’s not for the glamor, fame, or money because those things don’t exists in this field. But it wasn’t fun anymore. I’ve become very bitter, battered, bruised, and burnt out.

Kia ora, and perhaps it is time for this *koru to unfurl.



*Koru is a Maori word, which is a new unfurling fern frond and symbolizes new life, growth, strength and peace.

Oh the wonders of Summer

The months have been flying by it seems. It’s almost August and I have yet to complete my farmer tan and uber freckle. April and May were spent in the office for the most part producing the report that I did all that field work for in Taft last year *shudders*. Mind you this was only the draft report. We now have to wait for responses from the client and the governing agency which is the Bureau of Land Management. It ended up being over 8,000 pages long with over 570 archaeological sites, 270 of which were newly identified by us. However most of those “sites” are quite boring, having to do with the oil industry. The client (who will remain nameless) were complaining about all the stuff we were finding. My answer is this: Well, if you had only picked up after yourselves to begin with, we wouldn’t be here right now spending all your precious money. I didn’t dare say that though. But it is true. Leaving a trail of trash and oozing contaminated soils seems to be a theme in the oil industry. These archaeological sites are trash dumps and left over debris from oil workers and abandoned wells dating back to the late 19th century. If these people had, I don’t know, thrown their used sardine tins in the trash instead of out in the field, well then, a dump of tin cans in the middle of an oil field in the middle of a desert would be non-existent. Unfortunately, it seems that everyone dumps their garbage out there. I do not understand the logic of loading up your pick-up truck full of couches, baby toys, and used car parts and driving it miles and miles and miles only to dump it illegally on public lands (lands we tax payers pay to keep public) when the city dump is only 2 miles outside of town and has FREE dump days! While I’m on the subject, I also hate people who throw their trash into the back of their trucks and then proceed to drive down the freeway oblivious to the fact that their trash is now hitting my windshield. Those people have no right to complain about how “dirty” our highways are.
I spent a few months (January, February and March) down in Lancaster and Los Angeles doing survey work. Now I am working on that same project, only doing the anal OCD nightmare of the “records search”. And I volunteered for this! All of the California Archaeological Sites and other related reports and data (such as the National Historical Landmarks, buildings, places, maps, land grants, etc) are housed in 12 Information Centers spread across the state. A regular Joe Shmoe cannot walk into one and look at stuff. Well you can walk into one, but they will politely kick you back out. There are also “info centers” at each U.S. Forest run by the USDA (so that’s Tahoe National Forest, Sierra National Forest, etc) Some of these are quite large and are broken up into districts. And guess what, that’s right, each district has its own “info center”. Basically any governing agency that owns and manages land… and sea in California will have such a place. Whether they keep it current is another story. All that said, I get to go to 3 of the State run Info centers, the Angeles National Forest, and the clients very own house to do the records search I am tasked with. That means I will be going to Bakersfield, Fullerton, Rosemead, San Bernardino, and the 4 districts making up the Angeles National Forest (three of which are Saugus, San Fernando, and Glendora). Road trip!! I’m actually glad I get to do this, because I have the chance to really organize and streamline this huge project. And I mean huge. This is 11 transmission lines (steal towers) running from the Tehachapi Mountains down into LA and over to San Bernardino. That’s about… eh… 300+ square miles as the crow flies. On the ground, on foot, it is over ……… a lot.

First fieldtrip of 2010

Winter in the high desert is actually quite nice. I'm in Lancaster which is considered in the high Mojave Desert. Joshua Tree's, greasewood, cholla, buckwheat, and creasote abound. The snakes are still underground hibernating so you don't have to worry about venom bites. The fiddleneck and other pokey sharp plants are not so pokey and sharp yet. The grasses are turning green and aren't tall past your knees yet. The poppies aren't out yet so there aren't a lot of stupid tourists around stomping on them all. It is very cold in the mornings and evenings, but it is almost t-shirt weather by noon after you have been walking for a few miles.

I'm here in the desert working on what we call a Road Story Survey. Basically we are walking already existing roads or new proposed roads to be built to access transmission towers that are or will soon be built. This is not my project, which means I am not in charge. I like it. I'm acting more like a field crew chief rather than a supervisor. It is a nice change. I don't have to worry about the money, or plan out the days, who's going where, which vehicles, do we have enough vehicles, so-and-so needs this, so-and-so needs that. No running around like a chicken with it's head chopped off. This job is actually enjoyable for the most part. We were staying in what most people would consider a crappy hotel the first 4 nights, but after being in Taft for 6.5 months where the best hotel had a cockroach problem and a recovering meth addict for a hotel manager, a crappy yet clean hotel is quite nice. I think my standards have been severely lowered. I'm just happy to have clean sheets without unknown stains and cig. burns.


One unfamiliar with the desert may think that there is not a whole lot to see out here and think that people way back when would not chose to live in a place like this. But in reality, even though this is a very harsh environment, life abounds. And in this particular area, not to long ago there was plenty of water. It was only when us genius Californians decided to farm the heck out of the area did the water table drop so far that now it is almost impossible to drill a well deep enough to find water, hence now getting water for agriculture via the California Aqueduct. Human occupation of the area reaches as far back as some of the very first (what we call) paleo-indians. Meaning soon after the little ice-age 15,000-20,000 years ago, people were able to migrate here. That is freakin' old! And just to add icing to this black dirt cake, under this human occupation are fossils from when us primates weren't even primates yet(I'm talking millions upon millions of years old)! How cool is that?

It looks as though I may be spending quite a bit of time down here and farther south into the land known as Los Angeles for much of this year. And although the archaeology is interesting and that I actually enjoy the desert, I don't want to be down here all the time. I would like to actually spend time living in my house and not just visiting it on occasion a few times a month.

Romancing the Nomad

Nomad–noun
1. a member of a people or tribe that has no permanent abode but moves about from place to place, usually seasonally and often following a traditional route or circuit according to the state of the pasturage or food supply.
2. any wanderer; itinerant.


I’ve always been romanced by the nomadic life, yet I don’t live it nor do I want to. But I find it fascinating. I’ve met quite a few people who do live it in one way or another. I’m not talking about the more traditional sense of the word like the people of Mongolia or the Eurasian steppes. But those living here and there in the more industrial world. Many of them are in the same field as myself. They move from company to company, job to job. Many do not have a home or apartment and live basically on the job and in their vehicle, or couch surf with friends and relatives. They travel all over the U.S. and some travel the world. The other nomads I’ve met are people like the guides I had in New Zealand. They have lived in more countries than I have even visited, done more different jobs than I can count, work a job long enough to save money to go travel somewhere. And even though they may have a home base, they are never there for very long. I'm not making this sound very appealing, am I? It's an adventure.

In a way, I am envious. There is a sense of freedom that the life of a nomad has that someone like myself does not. They meet all sorts of interesting people, see amazing country, see and do things that I never will. I can’t even imagine the knowledge they gain and have. They live in the here and now. It seems care-free. Living in the moment. And although that excites me, it also frightens me. Perhaps it has been ingrained into my very being that only I am responsible for myself and my own well-being when I am old and can no longer work. Save save save because the government will not be able to support you. Save save save because you don’t have a spouse or children to take care of you. Save save save because you may loose that 401k. You get the idea. I’m always thinking about the future. What will I do five years from now when my sister and I sell the house? Will I have enough money to buy a place for myself? Will I be on my own? What about when I can no longer physically do the job I have now? I don’t have a back-up plan. What about when I’m 80 years old and can’t live on my own? Who will take care of me? And quite frankly, I’m scared to death about getting old and dying.

My brain is always pushing itself out to the future, trying to prepare me for what lies ahead. And this causes anxiety. But the future is not written. I worry and fret and put money away for an unknown life that may or may not need anything.

One could argue that I am a part-time nomad. 50% of the year, I am away from home traveling for work. Although six and a half months in Taft is not my idea of a nomadic lifestyle. But I do tend to travel to places in California, that many regular joe folk don't get to. My path is usually pretty set though. I get my assignment, I go do the job, and I come back. I always come back. But because it is my job, I don't really have much choice in where I get sent, and it is limited to central and southern California. See the six and a half months in Taft reference. The nomad however can pick and choose where to go, what to do.

Now I know I'm making this very simple. It's the "idea" of the nomad remember? So although the nomad gets my blood pumping and makes me giddy, I will not quit my job to walk the Pacific Crest Trail or take a road trip on Route 66 and stop at every weird sign, object, art, or motel. But those are things I would like to do. I think the nomads are a dying breed. Most are all very young, in their 20's, and are still able to rely on their parents for support (money and room and board). They will only be nomads for a short time and then will "grow up" and get steady jobs with retirement plans and medical benefits. Others are getting on in years and worry about what will become of themselves. One of my NZ guides said that while he enjoys what he does, he cannot physically do the job for very much longer and is uncertain about what the next stage of life and employment will be.

I cannot and don't want to be a 100% nomad, but a 50% one is okay. I am in a hotel room in the desert writing this, so that counts. But even this gets old after a time. And living with one would be just fine because I'm gone half the time anyway, so that there isn't time to get seriously annoyed by their strange habits and tics. Or by the time either gets a stick up their rear, one or both are packing and heading out for work out in the world. Sounds great to me.

Well, I am not all that happy about how this entry ended up. It didn't come out the way I had wanted, but I want it out of the draft box so I can move on to all the other junk in my head needing release.

Taft: the "other" hell

Once again it has been a long time and once again I apologize. Instead of writing Part 3 of the what I really do trilogy, I will instead give you a brief update on what I am doing now. And let me tell you, it has started me thinking about my job and do I really want to keep doing it.

For the past three months I have been here. (the project is done for now... it ended up being almost 7 months) The Navel Petroleum Reserve of Elk Hills, outside the city of Taft. For those of you who know California, it is even grosser than the armpit (Bakersfield) which is about 45 minutes northeast. I, along with my co-supervisor with our crew of minions, have been surveying out here in the hills (which can be like scaling a cliff), the flats (which look flat and easy but aren't - stupid drainage's), amongst the deranged cows, deranged locals, weird guys from Texas, 114 degree heat (it cracked our windshield), toxic and lethal gasses (hello hydrogen sulfate), and some other things I won't mention. It's a good thing I never really wanted to have any children because after this job and the who knows what I have been exposed to, if I did have a kid it would probably come out with three arms, one leg, half an eye, and be a total Debbie Downer.

Let me see if I can sum up the project in as few of words as possible. It is a 3D seismic project which means these doofus Texan's are basically "taking a picture" of the underlying strata (earth) to find more oil. To do that they lay out what are called geophones which pick up the vibrations from the vibe trucks (which are really really really big tonka trucks with huge "pads" that when placed on the ground can shake your intestines right out of you. When they are not allowed to use the vibe trucks (steep or unstable terrain, biologists spotted endangered species, or us archaeologists found yet another brick ruble pile from 1929) they use drills and stick dynamite in a hole and blow it up... well, not up but down. It's very comforting hearing a boom boom boom off in the distance. So anyway, we walk the "trails" the trucks will be driving, and the geophone lines, and source lines (which are the lines the vibe trucks will shake or blow up). We walk and walk and walk. To date we have located over 500 archaeological sites. Now don't get your panties in a knot. Most of these sites are associated with the production of oil and oil like products. People started drilling here in the early 1900's (anyone see that Daniel Day-Lewis movie called "There Will Be Blood"?? It was based on the first oilers in Taft). So we find glass bottle fragments (most of the whole bottles have been looted), tobacco tins, lots of beer, dishware. Basically there are two types of sites: domestic refuse and remnants of abandoned oil wells and there associated out buildings (sumps, furnaces, broilers, etc.) Sometimes it is interesting, like finding medicine bottles for hemorrhoids. But it also gets pretty drab after the two hundredth brick scatter.

So i'm not sure what is keeping me sane.... maybe i'm not. The environment is very unforgiving. It is desolate, dusty, toxic, and at times smells like a rotten egg threw-up in a sewage pond. The pay sucks (don't get compensated for overtime because i'm salary, not compensated for the drive to and from my house to Taft which is a 4 hour drive each way. I think I should get something for having to drive past Harris Ranch), the best hotel in Taft has a cockroach problem and a semi-creepy manager and horrible internet, the rental car place doesn't know squat when I tell them a minivan will not work for me, what part of 4-wheel drive do you not understand, and I could go on.

But what I realized on my way home today was this; i'm isolated and alone. I'm surrounded by people all day and I have to interact all day, but i'm alone. I'm in charge and I have to act like i'm in charge which means I cannot ever be just one of the crew. I'm with them, but not one of them. Does that make any sense? And what is freaking me out is that everyone knows my name and who I am, but I don't know their name or what they do half the time. With the seismic crew alone there are over 70 people.

I don't like being in charge and responsible for all these people (I have 4 crew members and that will grow to 7 on Tuesday). Unfortunately I do ok at it, and therefore get more stuff to do and more people to manage. So i'm isolated. I'm also isolated from the world around me. I'm only home 7 days out of the month (you have no idea how much a person can miss the simplest of things like your own bed sheets), and it's not like I can go take a class at the community college or a gym class or book club, or god forbid try and schedule a doctor's appointment when there is only 2 days in the month you're available.

*I wrote this while in Taft in month 3. We were there for 7 months. My co-supervisor and I really did almost go insane. Both of us contemplated (seriously) quitting right then and there. We had to deal with cranky crew (mostly they kicked-ass), very stupid clients, extremely long hours 10-12 hour days, micro organisms, rashes, aches, pains, and all around misery.

*as a result of this project (it is still ongoing, but most of the field work is done) I will be leaving for a month to New Zealand. I will be away from the job for over a month, since it also over laps with the christmas holidays. Hopefully the time away from the job will help give a better perspective on my life and my job (do I really want to do this job questions). And if i don't want to continue, what do I want to do? My hope is that I will come back happy with clean lungs and a new appreciation of well, everything.