TEXAS HAS GOTTA BE AROUND HERE SOMEPLACE...The wheeled contraption shown above was seen last week in Alabama, headed south towards Tuscaloosa on I-59. Contrast the graduate student from the northeast, who packs all of his belongings into a small car for a long-distance move, with the Texan, who apparently needs to supplement their bus with a state-themed trailer while driving around for fun. Anyways, after wintering in the northeast, the good ship Silver Subaru has completed another successful cross-continental voyage. She found port this time in Houston, Texas, where I, the nomadic American bachelor troubadour geologist, now live. I am here to serve my internship with the Oil and Gas industry so that this summer I can return to Montana and live in a tent, working on my Masters project,which I just heard has received full funding from the USGS -- your tax dollars at work! Isn't life amazing?
Highlights of the holiday break since the previous post include more time with family and friends, and especially the opportunity to catch up with some folks I haven't seen in a while all over the northeast. Nothing beats catching up with folks in person -- I only wish I had the time and resources to track more people down!
Before heading south, I made a trip to Boston to connect with some people and get one last whiff of north Atlantic air before going away. On my way I stopped in Williamstown to see friends and family, which is always a treat. The hospitality of my friends everywhere always amazes me, and this trip was no exception! I was well-fed on pancakes and strong coffee and constantly entertained by their tribe of kids, who seriously tested my plastic lightsaber fencing skills. I think if the kids get any bigger we will break the swords. And on the family end, I was able to help my grandparents with getting a lot of the electronics in their house up and running. In return, I received grandma's cooking. Good trade.
WHY CAN'T I MOVE TO DC? I DON'T UNDERSTAND.
As usual I'll have to be satisfied with memories for a while, as I've failed to even get many pictures of the friends I've crossed paths with. There are a couple posted here, and a few more on my picasa page, but that's all I got. I was probably mostly too busy enjoying people's company to think about pictures. And naturally half of the ones I was able to take came out lousy... so I guess it's a good thing we don't need pictures to think of good times and good people, right?
So I moved on from DC to Chapel Hill, North Carolina where another college friend is going to school right now. His lovely wife fed us TVP Chili (which was awesome), and sent us off with pound cake (also amazing), which would sustain us for a thousand miles. We drove that night to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where we stayed in a motel and ate at Chilis, and then the following day through Baton Rouge and on to Houston.
As you approach Houston from the east, you pass a lot of petroleum refining operations. At night they are like brightly lit cities of pipes and tanks, sprawling over the landscape. You can smell them. The refining operation I saw while headed east through Billings was maybe around the size of one of the more modest of those down here, but here there were dozens of them. Perhaps the only thing more brightly lit were the signs advertising casinos: welcome, I suppose, to the Redneck Riviera. Down here, oil is big, big business: the gulf coast refineries are teat that sustains America's ravenous economy.
After arriving in town and settling into my house, I completed some small grant applications and also learned that the big one I had worked with my professor on this fall got funded! This means that I will have a salary this summer, and that I will be able to proceed as planned with my masters thesis project. Very good news, and very encouraging to me as a young scientist. I also started work. I have one day under my belt. It looks like the people I will be working with are great, and the project I am on seems interesting too. I should be learning a lot and having a good time!
ON THE ROAD AGAIN: SADDLING UP ON A CHILLY CHAPEL HILL MORNING
I feel very lucky to have so many good friends. Because people are unique, friendships are unique, and I value each of them. I am also lucky to be able to visit my friends when I travel. But seeing them can certainly be bittersweet for me: it seems it's never for long enough, and there's not much prospect of my living close by to my east coast pals any time soon. People's lives are moving on without me really in them, just as mine moves on with them far away. I guess its a matter of providence, something to be thankful for, when you are able to have a rich and real friendship that grows over time. But I meet new folks and make new friends wherever I go. I have connected with an old friend here in Houston already (over a pile of tasty crawfish, no less), and hope to meet new people soon as well. And I'm able to look forward to returning to Missoula next year, where I know I have great people. Pretty sweet, huh?
Before heading south, I made a trip to Boston to connect with some people and get one last whiff of north Atlantic air before going away. On my way I stopped in Williamstown to see friends and family, which is always a treat. The hospitality of my friends everywhere always amazes me, and this trip was no exception! I was well-fed on pancakes and strong coffee and constantly entertained by their tribe of kids, who seriously tested my plastic lightsaber fencing skills. I think if the kids get any bigger we will break the swords. And on the family end, I was able to help my grandparents with getting a lot of the electronics in their house up and running. In return, I received grandma's cooking. Good trade.
FUNNY FACES MAKE BREAKFAST TASTE BETTER!
In Boston I was lucky enough to stay with a high school buddy and see several friends from college who needed visiting and catching up with. And after getting my whiff of the salty sea air, I began walking the docks back towards the city when my nostrils caught something else -- something pungently sweet and quite familiar, comforting really. I couldn't put my name on it at first but it got my attention so I backtracked, and there it was again. It was pitch -- one of the boats must have had its timbers or its lines sealed up with it. I smiled and remembered how hard it was to get that smell off of me after spending a couple of hours working in the rigging on the Charles W. Morgan back in Mystic.
After returning from Boston I continued to work on writing some small grants and packed up my car before heading south. I was fortunate enough to have a good friend as a copilot for the trip, and our first stop was Mechanicsburg PA where a close college friend of mine lives. The next morning we rolled down to DC, where a small collection of GMS05ers assembled, including my long trail hiking buddy, my New York to Montana copilot from this past summer, and the graceful hostess who fed us all so well back in Burlington. She invited us to a birthday party happening at her house, where we had a great time but found it to be hard work not falling in love with her charming roommates.
WHY CAN'T I MOVE TO DC? I DON'T UNDERSTAND.As usual I'll have to be satisfied with memories for a while, as I've failed to even get many pictures of the friends I've crossed paths with. There are a couple posted here, and a few more on my picasa page, but that's all I got. I was probably mostly too busy enjoying people's company to think about pictures. And naturally half of the ones I was able to take came out lousy... so I guess it's a good thing we don't need pictures to think of good times and good people, right?
So I moved on from DC to Chapel Hill, North Carolina where another college friend is going to school right now. His lovely wife fed us TVP Chili (which was awesome), and sent us off with pound cake (also amazing), which would sustain us for a thousand miles. We drove that night to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where we stayed in a motel and ate at Chilis, and then the following day through Baton Rouge and on to Houston.
As you approach Houston from the east, you pass a lot of petroleum refining operations. At night they are like brightly lit cities of pipes and tanks, sprawling over the landscape. You can smell them. The refining operation I saw while headed east through Billings was maybe around the size of one of the more modest of those down here, but here there were dozens of them. Perhaps the only thing more brightly lit were the signs advertising casinos: welcome, I suppose, to the Redneck Riviera. Down here, oil is big, big business: the gulf coast refineries are teat that sustains America's ravenous economy.
After arriving in town and settling into my house, I completed some small grant applications and also learned that the big one I had worked with my professor on this fall got funded! This means that I will have a salary this summer, and that I will be able to proceed as planned with my masters thesis project. Very good news, and very encouraging to me as a young scientist. I also started work. I have one day under my belt. It looks like the people I will be working with are great, and the project I am on seems interesting too. I should be learning a lot and having a good time!
ON THE ROAD AGAIN: SADDLING UP ON A CHILLY CHAPEL HILL MORNINGI feel very lucky to have so many good friends. Because people are unique, friendships are unique, and I value each of them. I am also lucky to be able to visit my friends when I travel. But seeing them can certainly be bittersweet for me: it seems it's never for long enough, and there's not much prospect of my living close by to my east coast pals any time soon. People's lives are moving on without me really in them, just as mine moves on with them far away. I guess its a matter of providence, something to be thankful for, when you are able to have a rich and real friendship that grows over time. But I meet new folks and make new friends wherever I go. I have connected with an old friend here in Houston already (over a pile of tasty crawfish, no less), and hope to meet new people soon as well. And I'm able to look forward to returning to Missoula next year, where I know I have great people. Pretty sweet, huh?
