Sea Lions

I'm not supposed to talk too much about exactly where I am and exactly what I'm doing, so I'll just say that there are more sea lions here than people.

It's rookery season and the pups were playing so far up the beach that I doubt they were much more than 35 yards from the road.

Well, here I am.

For anyone keeping track, I made it to Seattle.  I'll be here for three weeks of paid study and training.  It's free accomodations from here on out, and I live cheaply enough that I shouldn't run out of food-money before the checks start coming in.

If all goes well, it's off to Alaska after that.

Seattle Bound

After a physical, some CPR training, and some particularly absurd Passport shenanigans, I am finally northward bound.

Funny thing about the passport.  I was told I would need a federal ID in order to get inside a Federal building during training so as to get my new other federal ID.  In other words, I needed ID to get ID and a passport was about all that would cover it.

I was told this 3 weeks before I needed the passport.

Now, expidited passport services through the mail are 2 to 4 weeks, so this seemed risky.  Fortunately, there is passport agency building right in San Francisco. 

Unfortunately, they will only print you a passport if you have proof that you plan to leave the country within two weeks.  I called and asked if needing it for a federal job counted as needing it within 2 weeks, but the man on the phone informed me that only works if the job is taking me out of the country.

Two weeks later, and a week before I was supposed to depart, I was seized by the sudden urge to plan a trip to Canada.  So I booked a hotel in Vancouver, printed out the booking as proof of intent to travel, and called to make an appointment with the agency.

Turns out, I nearly missed the window.  I was within the two weeks time for intended travel, but they had no appointments until a week later.  Cutting it close like I always seem to do, I booked the appointment on the first day I could, which was also the last day it would do me any good.

There was some trouble with my booking, some trouble with my payment, and a whole host of other beaurocratic goings on.  After several quick talks with some supervisors and a few instances where they had me take my shoes off to make sure I wasn't dangerous, though, I finally got my passport.

A few hours later, I had to cancel my trip to Canada.  Turns out I can't be in two places at once, and I had booked the trip for the same day my training starts.

At least I can start my new job, though.  Speaking of which, I need to get back on the road.

City Park Plums

Still here, still studying for fisheries, still filling out the ridiculous amount of paperwork it takes to start this job.

But more importantly, I have discovered a plum tree that is big enough to climb:

Still a little bit tart, but I enjoy tart.  In a few days I'll be enjoying sweet.  :)

Alaska Bound.

At this exact moment I'm sitting on a park bench in North Berkeley.  I've just had a late morning coffee, so I'm in particular good spirits.  It's tilting towards noon, and, like always, I'm trying to get a bead on how I got here.

To sum up, I basically left Frederick because the thought of starting over again was a depressing one.

I aimed for San Francisco because of a wayward friend who told me that the work was good and plentiful, even if it meant sleeping rough.

I had a little bit of savings from my time at the brewery even after buying the van and fixing my teeth.

I had a fallback plan. A cousin out in Idaho would have come to find me if the money had run out, and he was fairly sure he could get me a job working the fracking rigs if I wanted it.

Now, I didn't really want to spend my days fracking.  It's a temporary solution to a permanent problem, but it was nice to know I wouldn't end up a beggar.  Still, it would have been an odd place for an environmental student to end up.

All that is no longer a worry, though.  I've officially been offered a spot as a fisheries biologist sailing the Bearing Straight and the Gulf of Alaska. 

It's not going to be easy by any stretch.  I had just enough biology credits to qualify, and I'm going to have to study pretty rigorously to pass the training.

The training is paid, but between renewing my passport, getting a physical, and picking up CPR certification, it's going to get a little bit expensive before I can even report for duty.

I've got a dozen people, though, who will float me a small loan if I need it.  I hate borrowing any money for any reason from anybody, but I should be able to squash my internal anxieties for a few weeks if I know I've the means to pay it off with my first paycheck.

I feel like I can handle the necessary studying.  After my 18-credits-of-Calc-and-physics semester I'm not too frightened by such things.

So begging of August I report to Seattle for training.  And if all goes well, somewhere around early November, I'll be shipping off for the North Pacific.

Mostly Just Pictures

Just a few shots of Wyoming taken from Mike W.'s pickup.  A few are from up above Powder Creek and in the Canyon there.  Also featured is Castle Rocks.

Here's one that Joy and Mike S. Showed me.  It's a pipe that has been encased in 40 years of minerals from a sulphur hot Spring:

And a few more shots of places where the sulfur water has  run nearby:

That's all for the recap for now.  Next post I'll probably be back to talking about where I'm at and where I'm headed next.

Stopping in Wyoming.

After Pittsburgh, my next stop (was actually to swing back to the farm to tie up loose ends and build a garden wall) was to visit the cousins in Wyoming.

Three days travel past the Minnesota hills
by the Mississippi and the great multitude of roadside stands that told me I was in South Dakota, and I made the cousins' place in Worlin.  There was a dusting of snow in the high pass in June up above Powder Creek and the locals told me it was nothing out of the ordinary.

I'm not sure how to express the level of support and encouragement that cousin Mike has always given me, this trip being no exception.  Of the 23 of us cousins, Mike is the oldest.  He and his wife Joy have been battered about a bit these last few years, going from hospital to hospital, and too often funeral to funeral.  They're both in fine health, but there's been a lot of mortal partings in the family the last few years and in Joy's family as well.

They hosted me for a week out that way in some beautiful country.  Joy gave me a tour of the Buffalo shop she's been doing leathwork for:

There were some Buffalo still on their feet as well:

And a raptor on his feet:

This happened too:

But I think it's more fun if I don't explain what was happening that led to so many riderless horses cutting through downtown.

I also got a few grand tours of the locality complete with in depth local histories about the early ranchers, the range wars, family doings from several generations back (involving ne'er-do-wells, train trips and severed heads) and the truth behind BrokeBack Mountain.  (For the record, it's actually BrokeBack Creek).

All this was orchestrated in large part by Joy's father (also named Mike) who is quite an entertaining man, to say the least.

Now if this crowd sounds familiar, it's probably because these are the same fine people I once met traveling by bike in the opposite direction.

Anyway, if you're still reading, you can expect the next post to also be about Wyoming, largely regarding hot springs and grand vistas.

Getting Ahead of Myself

On the way west I stopped to visit these two dogs in Pittsburgh:

I also took the time to see these Buffalo in Wyoming:

The two tiny dogs (Dobby and Chani) have taking ownership of two of my dearest friends from college: Mandrake and The Mint-Knicker.

Mandrake and The Mint-Knicker also have real names, but they can tell you those if they want to, themselves.  I don't know the buffaloes' names but....wait, wait, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

And since I'm getting ahead of myself, I might as well get WAY ahead of myself.  Wyoming, in particular, is going to take a lot of writing and pictures to describe in all its glory, so we'll put that on the back burner just for a minute.

The new news from more current events is that of the several few job offers that came back to me, the one that appeals to me most is working as a fisheries biologist in Alaska.  

So, barring unforeseen circumstances, I'll probably be spending three more weeks of houselessness in sunny San Francisco before it's off to more adventures in the Alaskan Gulf where I will almost certainly be spending most of my time cold, wet, cramped, and smelling like fish.

I am very excited. :)

In the meantime I have to get my passport updated, get a doc to sign off on the fine shape of my physical robustness, and take a few first aid / CPR classes.

Stay tuned for big-fish stories, I guess.

May 2019 into Mid-June

The first stop was the farm in Bedford.  The folks were in the process of renovating one farmhouse that they hadn't sold and trying to move out of the farmhouse they did.

To make a long story a little shorter, I spent about a month and a half variously going through every possession I owned (and good willing about half of it), helping the folks renovate the new house a bit, putting a dozen or so boxes into storage in their new attic (Thanks Mom, I'm  glad I didn't have to get rid of everything :), and in general trying not to let myself lapse into any sort of brooding uncertainty.

Everything I kept:

I also took the time to visit and say goodbye to a lot of old friends, most of whom said that, knowing me, it all seemed to make a kind of sense.

Not to be entirely glum, I also took a solid week to build my mother a stone raised-bed garden to help ease the pain of the gardens she was leaving behind:

It may be hard to make out, but some of those stones are easily hundred pounders.  I wore out two pairs of gloves and a pair of jeans, but I'm really happy with how they fit together.

We filled it up with compost before I left, but she hadn't planted anything yet so I don't have any pictures to share of that.  I should also mention, so as not to embarrass my mother, that the siding was fixed as part of the renovation.  It just hadn't been fixed yet when I took these pictures.

Now it may seem foolish for me to focus so much on a garden wall like this, but for some of us a place feels like home in equal measure to the labors of love we've put into it.  Mom was leaving behind all the gardens and paths and arbors that I, and others, had built for her over 30 years.  I had just finished hollowing out my childhood bedroom in addition to everything else that was shifting around me.  Dad was trying to figure out if he had failed as a farmer or succeeded, and couldn't quite seem to make up his mind.  And to top it off I was headed out for parts unknown, with a poorly outlined plan, and no certainty when I would be back.

Under such emotional circumstances the only real options are to bake something or build something.  So I built this wall so that it would feel more like home to mom, feel more like home to me, and as something of a physical promise that sooner or later I'd be back.  It's important.

Middle of June, the task done, I got into my HHR and left once more. 

April of 2019

I spent the month of April wrapping things up with a few clients, putting most of my obligations to various peoples in Frederick to rest, and packing up my tiny apartment.  Turns out that with the exception of a single desk it all fit in one van load.  It's not a very big van either.  I probably should have made an extra trip (see photo).

I had dropped an old friend off at the airport earlier in January.  She was fleeing Altoona for greener pastures out in San Francisco with not much more than the clothes she was wearing and a couple suitcases.  She had called me a few times since, telling me about how the work was greener though the rent was untenable.

She and I had, on several occasions, both lived a tenuous, often nearly homeless, existence during the recession, however.  Not having a place to live doesn't scare either of us too much these days if there's good work to be had.

I should say, for everyone who doesn't know, that though the economy is doing a hell of a lot better now than then, much of the rust belt of Appalachia still suffers.

So she said a few times that I ought to come out and try my luck.  I told her that I had cheap rent, a new job starting at the college (I was officially a professor for 3 hours and 15 minutes according to my one and only pay stub), and plenty of enjoyable side gigs going.

I told her that if she asked me a year ago, I might have, but things were finally looking solidly positive, and I'd be something of a fool to just drop it all.

When it all more or less dropped me, I figured if I was going somewhere else anyway, it might as well be San Francisco.  Everything had all come apart around about April 1st, so I gave myself that month in Frederick to wrap things up, and, on the morning of April 30th, I left

Four years in Frederick.

So, some backstory.

After the whole show down, knock out, (metaphoric) slugfest between Dad and I over the calf conditions was finally settled, I started making plans to set up better heifer pastures and to get the crop rotations really up to gear.

I started getting the same kind of push back, and it just didn't seem worth another years long fight to change things.  In the time since, it has come to my attention that my father has probably got some acute hoarder tendencies and some undiagnosed anxieties.  It would explain a lot about the things that upset him so.

All that aside, I was offered a pretty good deal on rent down Frederick way, so  I packed up my bags somewhere around about the fall of 2015 and I left. 

Side note: Dad has just retired this past year (Fall of 2018) and I am happy to say that things with the animals never did get so egregious again.  He was also able to clear his debts while only selling what I estimate was about half his assets.  A Farmer of any kind with no debt is something of a rarity these days, do he's doing alright. Says he's probably just going to semi-retire, do some crop farming, and raise some beefers.

Mom kept at her schooling, has got her doctorate now, and has some professorial jobs lined up, so she's doing alright, too.  :-)

As for me, I spent a few years down in Frederick, did some tutoring, worked some odd jobs, and eventually settled in for a little over two years as a Brewer at Flying Dog.

All-in-all, none of the work was bad, but tutoring was often sporadic, and the brewery was pretty up front about there not really being too much room for promotion or advancement.

I was still pretty glad to have the work.  I was able to save up enough to get the cavities in my teeth fixed, and I was able to save up enough to buy a not-so-old vehicle when my old Honda threw itself apart.  Mostly, though, I felt stagnant and frustrated.

Eventually, I managed to luck into some pretty regular tutoring clients, and I had a particularly good break when one of the local community colleges liked my resume enough to offer me a job at a really excellent rate.

So I left the Brewery, got all my paperwork set up to be a professor, committed a little bit more to some of the odd jobs I had going, and took on a few more tutoring clients by word of mouth. 

I started to breathe a little easier.  Money was looking a lot less tight and all my various jobs together were things I really enjoyed.

My lease was up, though, and the people whose upstairs I was renting decided they were getting out of the rental business.  They were more than fair about it, though, and said that they could even give me a good six months, if I needed it, to find a new place.

The very next day, the community college called me and said that they had over-hired and wouldn't need me after all.  Maybe next year, they said.  An hour or two later, I found out that my most reliable and lucrative odd jobs were also unexpectedly going to be drying out in a matter of weeks.

Now none of this was all that great a tragedy.  They probably would have taken me back at the brewery.  I left on good terms.  If I was willing to brave the hell commute down 270 each morning, I probably could have even found some good work down in Silver Springs or DC.  I had time to find a new place to live, too, though I had such a good deal on the rent that I probably wouldn't have found a place that wasn't at least a touch more expensive.

Point is, that what really got to me was the feeling that here I was, four years later, and other than my teeth and my car, I didn't have a lot to show for it.  I was more or less back to square one.  Mind you, I know that's not true.  I also had all the people I had helped, clients or otherwise, but that's not how a mind works.  Not my mind, anyway.

There's almost certainly a depression that runs through the family, though none of us was ever diagnosed.  I've seen how deadly it is when it catches up to a body, and I know what it feels like when it's coming on.

So I opted for a change of scenery.  It keeps away that stagnant feeling, and I had heard that the work was easier to find out on the west coast.

Looks like I might have heard right.  Stay tuned for more later.

Here I go again.

Well.  What can I say.  I'm off doing weird and foolish things again.  I'm in San Francisco, somehow (actually Berkeley, but no one back east knows where Berkeley is).

 

How did I get here?  What am I doing out this way?  Am I safe? Am I warm? Is my belly full?  What happened to the brewery job?  What happened to the job as a professor?  What happened to the Calves?!?!?!

Well.  It's a long story.  But there's enough people wondering what's going on and asking me for updates that I have decided to resurrect the old blog.

I'll be leaving the older entries up with all their anger and naivete and resolution and adventures, but I'll be adding more again as I go.  And what's more I'll be updating a minimum of once per week for the foreseeable future, so that you guys don't have to worry so much.

Firstly, the most important answers: right now I am warm, safe, full, and rested.  I've also had coffee.

I stealth sleep in the back of my HHR panel van (they banished all the RVs from Berkeley).  It's tiny but comfy and I have just enough room to stretch out.  I honestly sleep better there than most of the houses I've slept in.

I eat cheap but good food and supplement it with the plums that are delicious and ripening all over the city.

At least twice a week I make the 20 minute drive out to the ocean for a pleasant dip in the bay followed by a quick shower.

I've learned which places have the clean public restrooms, and I make a point of leaving them cleaner than I find them by way of saying thanks.

I drove cross country (more about that later) and hit the greater Bay area on June the 25th.

Less than two weeks here and I've already gotten callbacks and phone interviews for several jobs I wouldn't mind working.  When I came out this way I didn't have anything more than the say-so of a old friend that, unlike the rust belt of Appalachia, there's work here that pays.  More on that later, too.

Call backs and interviews are all well and good, but we'll see what jobs actually end up on offer.

That's the first and the most important stuff.  I've got a little savings left, and I've got some backup plans.  For now, though, mostly what I have are a lot good wishes, and that heady mix of anxiety and anticipation that seems to suit me.

Stay tuned if you're curious,  and I'll tell you the rest.