After...oh....FOREVER of not blogging, I decided it was time for a comeback tour. Not sure how long I will hold out, but we'll see. Kind of a quick synopsis of the last however many months and months I haven't blogged as well as what's kept me so busy as to not be blogging...
Got married...kinda a HUGE time consuming venture
Went on a honeymoon to the US Virgin Islands...friggin amazing!
Been working like a crazy man
Still have no free weekends, always on the go somewhere, typically for family stuff...oi
When I have a free second to catch my breath I typically use it to do so, not blog
Anyways, work is good, the new wife is good, life in general is good and I'm pretty damn happy about it all. I doubt any of my old friends check this anymore seeing how I kinda dropped from the lime light, but definately hit me up with a comment if you do find yourself stumbling across this! Alright, well off to the train station to pick up Kristin...run run run, that's all I do!
Sorry all for being a HUGE slacker and not taking the time to get on and at the LEAST type a sentence or two so you'd know I was still alive. Things have been rather hectic in the life of Nick. Wedding stuff is getting squared away left and right, we got our cake picked out (only $500...CHRIST IT'S FLOUR AND SUGAR!)...got our transportation to the reception squared away (oh yea, a $500 limbusine...basically a charter bus that's been pimped out to the max...sa-weet!)...got invitations stuffed, blah blah blah...the list goes on. Work has been pretty hectic as well, there is just tons and tons going on with it. I can't even begin to tell you how busy it is there, but lets just say that I am officially booked into mid september already...every day, all day. It's nice to be busy though, never a dull moment!!! Anyways, that's about all I got for now since I have to put some clothes on and get ready to drive to central IL for work since God hates me and made it rain almost 3 inches last night where I was planning on doing a stream survey today...kinda hard to do a stream survey when it's a RAGING RIVER! *sigh*
Imagine if you will, laying down to sleep at night...a swift breeze rattles the leaves of a tree just outside your bedroom window. Lying there in the darkness sliding back and forth between dreams and reality, nuzzled inbetween your bedsheets, you smell sewage. Thick and viscous it clings to the air like fog on a cold dark night. It's not hell you're in, but apartment 108 in building number 12. Oh yes, sewage in the apartment, it's a wonderful little aminity that wasn't listed alongside "tennis court, free heat, pools, workout center, etc." So we're moving this weekend on Saturday. Just across the pond, to a different apartment complex under the same ownership. On the plus side, our new place is going to be REDICULOUSLY nicer than our current residence. So basically dealing with lots of crazyness and having no free time has hindered my updating process on here, but I'll try to be better about letting you all know the 411 on my life these days! Gotta run!
I guess it was time...it had been so long already and it was bound to happen anyways. Sheer dumb luck was the culprit and my knuckles the unsuspecting victim. Excuse me, victims. Seered by the flame, my knuckle hair trimmed by the fire, I sat there grilling on the most perfect summer day. Grilling out is by definition the gauge of a man, it's a life long quest in which we, as men, better one singular skill. Becoming a grillmaster is not simply a title that is given without cause or prevocation, but a significant turning point in which a man becomes more than a man, when we as men graduate past the pursuit of perfection and transcend unto the next level. At the top of the pyramid lies a select few, time tested, mouth approved. Dawning nothing more than an apron and a spatula we find our place in battle, unequivically placed in front of a grill, waiting for when the time is right to strike. Guided only by sheer wit and instinct, we grill. We grill not for fun or for recreation, but to maintain the lineage of men before us who have passed down to us the responsibility to grill...the responsibility to be men.
Before moving here to take this job I currently have, I would say that most would rate me at somewhere near an alcoholic. I was not an alcoholic, however I was a benge drinking college-aged young pup. In my prime I could drink a fifth of vodka or pound a case in an evenings time...or as occasion called, two and a half hours. Now-a-days however, I must admit that the tolerance I had spent so many countless nights/mornings working on building up is slowly but surely disappearing. Last night some friends came over and we sat up playing a game of asshole, and granted I was pounding down bass, but after six games or so I was starting to feel a buzz. WTF is that? I'm certainly getting old. Tomorrow is Monday....back to the grind. Being a responsible adult is a pain!
I truly wish I had a picture to post on here of this past Saturdays events, but alas all I have is a nice little aerial photograph which is nothing to write home about. This past Saturday my firm sponsored the annual Salt Creek Cleanup day. Me and a bunch of people from our office showed up to help pick up trash, etc. in order to help protect and enhance the Salt Creek cooridor. We picked up a lot of trash, but our main objective for the day was to work on a log jam which was holding up the stream. We didn't make much headway on the log jam, but you should see all the crazy ass trash floating around. Lets just say used hypodermic needles, rakes, propane cylinders, tires, more styrofoam than you can even imagine and all sorts of insane odds and ends that you have to stop and think..."how in the hell did this get here?" Oh, did I mention that during all this I was precariously perched atop this pile of logs, thick rubber waders on, baking in the 95 degree sun with a deep hole of water underneath me? Yea...it was terribly fun.
I don't know if many of you have had the distinct pleasure of meeting a cicada, or a trillion cicadas, but let me tell you that it is certainly an experience which is nothing less than unforgettable! Today had to have been the worst day in-so-far as cicadas are concerned. The site we were working on doing a wetland delineation at was swarming with locusts. There were so many and they were so loud that my ears rang for the whole afternoon. It was like I had been to a rock concert it was THAT loud! The video I attached doesn't even do them justice. Worse yet is that there is just so many that they are literally impossible to avoid, they're flying into you, they're all around you, and no matter where you look you see some...up, down, left, right...they're there! Truly an amazing bug that is only found in North America, and even more amazing is the fact that they live for 17 years, the majority of which is spent underground in waiting. How they all know to come out at the same time is a crazy mystery, but despite they're uglyness and horendous noise, I tend to like the little buggers.
To me, the pool is the ultimate embodyment of summer. Since I was young I've made countless pilgrimages to the pool, it was almost a right-of-passage. You'd get on your bike and you'd ride to the rotary pool, the only public pool in town and do your best to make it to "the deep end." Now-a-days, it's more of an escape from the heat and chance to lounge that keeps me coming back time and time again...and the chance to sneak a peek at hotties in bikinis is certainly a given on the "reasons to go" list!! Alright, so anyways, I'm down at the pool the other day and there is not a single white person to be seen. Not that I'm racist, but I come from an area of the world where there is ONLY caucasians. I've not been predisposed to other cultures, etc....so needless to say I wasn't going to be mingling. Besides, it's a little hard to mingle when you can't understand a word that's being spoken, nor speak in the language being spoken. In my short jaunt to the pool though, a little boy decided to pee from the edge of the pool into the water, his parents all the while letting this happen, and then not disciplining him afterwards. Then I'm pretty sure some young middle school aged boy in front of us was masterbating with help from the water jet along the side of the pool. Yeaaaaaa....sooo...ummm...that was interesting. Two good reasons not to be jumping in anytime in the near future. We soooooo need to move to a nicer part of suburbia.
The weekend is officially here, and let me just say that it's about friggin time! The week actually went by really quickly, and I only have work to thank for that as it's been getting crazy busy there and working to keep your head above water seems to make the days go by quick! My buddy Brian who helped in getting me the job I have is quitting to take a job down in Springfield, IL. His last day is this coming Thursday, and I'm sad to see him go...not only just because that's one less person I know up here to hang out with, but work is going to be that much crazier in his absense.
Me and Kristin decided to go to the pool for the first time this year. I think we could have waited another week or two to go...that water was so cold my nipples could have certainly cut through some glass. Tomorrow is me and Brians man day...deer brats on the grill, gin and tonics (tanqueray of course), cigars possibly?, and then we're headed up to Elmhurst for Elmfest since we have a buddy working the beer tent. Hopefully that translates into free beer for us! I'm sure I have tons of other useless blabber I could add in, but it's midnight and I'm getting tired. Leave me some comments already people! Do I even have people still? I dunno...haha...well if you stumble in here, just know I used to be popular! lol
SA-Weet! Today is Friday, and the week is almost over! Today is going to be pretty monotonous I think, maybe not so much monotonous as just plain out mundane. I'm dressing up today for work. Friday is the "casual" day, but nobody ever gets to see me look nice, since I'm always out in the field, and hence wearing field clothes, so today I'm gonna look schnazzy! Work is really starting to pick up, and now one of our people is leaving, which makes it all the more daunting to think that the workload that four of us "wetland biologists" could barely carry now is on the shoulders of three...AND we're getting busier by the day! Too much to do, way too little time! Speaking of which, my morning is draining away and I still need to get ready, pack my lunch and a thousand other things...oi...it begins, the hurried shuffle of getting out the door and to work. I'm not sure it's a "rat race" but it sure is a hectic scramble!
Me...I'm just your average in that not so average sorta way outgoing, spontaneous, all around fun sorta guy. I love to go out and have a good time and typically don't shy away from much. I recently became an engaged man and took on my first "real" job...all sorts of crazyness lies ahead!
