It's hard to find pierogis here.

I'm seriously considering a second term in AmeriCorps. Part of me may be thinking "oohhh... don't have to worry about real jobs for another whole year!" But most of me is thinking about how much the experience could do for me.

If I did another term in the AmeriCorps Watershed Stewards Project, I would absolutely want to stay in the Bay area. I really don't want to go through another big move - making friends can be a pain, especially when you're broke as a joke. If I were to look for a real job, though, I'd prefer to look in, again, the Bay area or back in Chicago. I have friends in both places (I feel like I'm actually now starting to really develop more than superficial friendships here, and it would be annoying and difficult to just drop those), I know Chicago and I'm getting to know Marin and SF.

Basically, that boils it down to another year at SPAWN (which I love, and is perfect) or at IFR, the Institute for Fisheries Resources. IFR is a non-profit in San Francisco that is entirely entrenched in policy. Little to no outreach or field work. I'm really interested in finding out if I am interested in policy. Did that make sense?

I think policy is neat and I'd like to learn more about it. But I don't know if I'm really interested in policy for a career. I took the LSAT a couple years ago; obviously I've had some interest in environmental law at one time or another.

So, yeah, I've been considering IFR. This past wednesday I visited the AmeriCorps WSP interns there to check it out, see what they did, where they worked, etc. None of their mentors were there, unfortunately, so I did not meet anyone except the part time accountant. (I stopped and ate pastry at the Headlands on the way, that was fantastic).

We went to a salmon fisheries meeting with the department of fish and game (DFG). Mainly, the point of the meeting was for DFG to present last year's catch numbers to salmon fishermen, suggest ideas for next year, and get public comment and input from the fishermen so that they could better make up the allowed catch etc for this upcoming season. Tensions were high. CRAZY high. Commercial fishermen were pissed off about last season and this season, in part because last year, after all these meetings and an eventual DFG decision, at the 11th hour the governor-appointed commission decided to scrap the whole season. So their anger, paranoia, and distrust in the government has a very clear foundation.

Luckily, not all IFR days are spent at meetings that stressful or annoying (a lot of people being mad), because if it were, I'd say "HELL NO" to policy. I'm still undecided, though definitely more interested.

--------------------------

In other news... I leave for Arizona on Wednesday! I'm going to Cubs' Spring Training! (and I'm going to see Kerry and Vince!)

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Real updates coming soon!

As promised:

Photos from Alcatraz! Just as a heads up, they give you a free audio tour, so some of the pictures show people with headphones on. The pictures show Heidi (my field partner), James (her friend from St. Louis), and a very dork-tastic Me.

James and Heidi on the Larkspur Ferry (to San Francisco).

It rained and misted almost all day.

San Quentin: maximum security prison, right here in San Rafael!

....maybe Heidi's future home? No, just kidding.
She's totally straight.

Just in case there weren't tickets left for Alcatraz,
I took a picture from the Larkspur Ferry.

Prisoner intake! (bye Heidi)

James takes a shower. Like, a jailhouse shower.

At a cellular level.
haha.



Heidi examines her future home. I mean, a jail cell.

Recreation yard! Where you can do ... things.



The view from the rec yard - the Golden Gate
bridge is in the background.



I look too happy to be in jail.



Heidi looks a little mad. More appropriate
for her future home... I mean, jail.

View of the city from Alcatraz.

I like that you can see the roads.

Chatting on the phone with one of my jailhouse visitors.

A certain cell block name bears a resemblance
to a certain Chicago street.

I have no clever commentary for this picture.

They paint black where the knives are supposed
to go so it's easy to tell if one is missing.
They went missing anyway.

Guard apartments? I think... I can't really remember.



The windiest road ever... but really far away.
We stumbled upon this view on accident while
walking to Chinatown from the Alcatraz ferry.

Heidi and James on the ferry back to Larkspur
(and the rest of the North Bay).

Angel and... idiot*?

The End.

*He's not really an idiot

I'll try to make this short. (yeah, right)

1. Heidi's friend from St. Louis came to visit this weekend and it rained, a lot, while he was here. Nonetheless, on Saturday we took the ferry into San Francisco and then went to Alcatraz. Pictures to be uploaded soon! It was pretty awesome - the ferry to the park* is expensive, but there's no actual entrance fee for the park. A audio tour is also free, which is totally useful and amazing.

And then we had a delicious lunch in Chinatown. Pictures not coming soon, because I didn't take any.

After spending the day in the rain, we ended up soaked, taking the ferry back to the North Bay.

I HATE THE FERRY. Well, hate might be a strong word. I'm not a big fan of boat rides. If I'm not distracted by conversation and exploration I start to feel queasy. The ride to Alcatraz was really choppy and uncomfortable. We got off and the ramp up to the ground was really shaky too. After finally reaching solid ground I had to hang on to Heidi for a bit to regain my stomach.

2. Yesterday and today (and tomorrow) we worked on this new restoration site on the golf course. It's along the creek and the golfers have to hit their ball OVER the creek - meaning, while we're working there, that we have to hope and pray they don't hit us. Actually we wear hard hats, start early in the morning, and when we see a golfer get ready to t-off at that spot we go a little downstream in the healthy riparian zone (ie, tall plants, willows, trees, etc).

We're planting willows, juncus, and hazelnut tomorrow if I can fit them in my car. Essentially we're trying to recreate a riparian zone so the creek doesn't get so skanky there and golfers stop trying to rescue their balls from in the creek. Endangered salmon and threatened trout spawn there, dudes!

Yesterday I managed to smack my hand with a metal mallet once, with a rubber mallet twice, drop the rubber mallet in the creek, slip in the mud, bend a piece of rebar (long metal pole), and cut my hand. K L U T Z.

Today I realized that the smell I always associated with freshwater mussels & sampling with Bob and the Illinois DNR is really just wet neoprene. Wet the day before and not yet dried. IE it's river funk. Ahh waders. (Neoprene is what my waders were made of with the IDNR and what the bootie part of my current waders are made of - if I get a picture of them I'll upload it).

3. Last but certainly not least. My external hard drive died yesterday. All my tv shows, music, photos, and work files. Thankfully, one of SPAWN's volunteer naturalists works for Driver Savers, a data recovery service based in Marin, and will recover my data free of charge - I only need to pay for the medium they put it on (DVDs, a new hard drive, whatever). I think I'll need a new hard drive. Thank god for savings/Goodbye savings (well, not all of it - not delving into car insurance $$ or AZ $$).

4. Finally, I'm importing this blog to both Facebook and LiveJournal (on a separate feed for LiveJournal). So you can read it there if you forget to come over here... in fact, maybe you're reading it over there right now...

Photos soon, I promise.

*National Park, mind you.

Obama '08!

Those are Barack Obama '08 stickers that I've circled on that car. I actually followed him a little out of my way in order to get this picture with my camera phone. Of course, that would explain the size and quality of the picture.

I want those stickers.

some photos

From the Marin Headlands. It looks so much bigger when you're there.

Heidi and I got a little goofy after an hour and a half of teaching
1st and 2nd graders the water cycle.

We lost.

How sad is that? The Chicago Bears lost the super bowl today.

Heidi and I had a superbowl party at her place. About an hour before I was supposed to get to her place, she texted me to let me know she was at urgent care because of an allergic reaction to something. Shit, yo. Talk about awful - she just got over a steroid run due to a crazy allergy attack (BTW, the kitten in the house I live with just had a problem getting up a table and it was really funny), ANYWAY. When I got to Heidi's, she still wasn't back. Her roommate let me in.

Shit, yo. (can you tell that's the theme? and that's the "funny/hip" phrase I'm all about currently?)

Shortly after calling her, her roommate left and two of my friends arrived. Not really early, except for the Heidi-missing factor... and if they hadn't arrived then and kept me company while I made food in an apartment I'd never been in (her roommate also left, by the way), I probably would've been freaking out a little bit. As it was, I was totally high on the holy shit i'm a hostess in another person's house thing and it was stressing me out but less than it could've.

Heidi didn't actually get back until after the game started and everyone who was going to arrive had arrived. Then we made beer brats, and they were awesome. And then the Bears lost, and it was not so awesome. I mean, shit, yo.

California is so much warmer than Illinois

I like jobs where we get to go to National Parks for work. Thursday we went to Muir Woods (old growth redwoods) to check out their native plant nursery, on which we're modeling our own. We drove back over Mt. Tamalpais (the North side marks our watershed's boundary), which is pretty high. We got to stop and check out the view before the sun went down, and spot a bobcat. The view was so beautiful: the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco, the lights from the east bay, and even the Golden Gate bridge peaking out from behind a hill.

I went into San Francisco Friday to see Of Montreal - it's really not that far from me, as long as the traffic is light. I left my friend's at 2:25 AM and got $8 of gas, got home, brushed my teeth, took out my contacts, and was in bed by 3:28 AM. So I shouldn't be so "ughh.... don't want to go so far..." because it's not that far. The only killer part is the $5 toll southbound on the Golden Gate. Parking is also killer, being my archnemesis, but I lucked out Friday night. I spent 30 minutes searching, gave up and parked in a hotel garage, but the attendant wasn't around when I left and the gate was open. So I just kept going.

Today I went to the Marin headlands. Remember that hill the Golden Gate bridge was peaking
out from? Right, that's it. I saw the postcard image of SF and the Golden Gate. It was pretty goddamned gorgeous.

I felt like such a wimp when I complained about the wind and had to add a sweatshirt. I talked to my mom this morning and their furnace can't even keep up with the cold from the wind there.