¡Gabz!

I don't know if this is a thing for a lot of people, but I have caught myself on this a few times over. Many times, like many of us, I am doom-scrolling the Twitterverse. And every once in a while (or almost every time these days) I will come across something that will enrage me, something that just makes me mad and I pull up my phone or my browser and write something about whatever is that I found. 

I am almost positive we all have been there. It's this impulse to put out there our thoughts in whichever matter or thing without even considering if it's worth our sanity or peace of mind. Or even just replying to someone in a sort of snarky or negative way, just because whatever that said,  triggered us somehow.

That did happen, ish, to me today. I saw an article and I got enraged, I quoted the article with a simple comment and pushed it to my Micro.blog for it to spread not only to my blog but my social media.  

This happened after I read this tweet by Jack and even retweeted it.

  I don't care what you're mad at. I want to hear what you're happy about  

I was like, "what just did, what you just posted, and the way you reacted, goes against the same tweet you just agreed on".  I immediately realized what I had done and deleted it from my posts.

This is not the reason I blog for. I don't blog to let the world what I am mad about or what I disagree about, my blog is supposed to be a happy space, my happy space. To talk about the things that make me happy, to tell stories, and promote what brings me joy.

I guess many times over, I have lost sight of that and it has become easier these days. 

It's being hard.

This post, is a reminder, a reminder of why I blog, why I share what I share. I don't want to write about what I hate, what I dislike, or hot-takes and opinions. I just want to tell stories, journal, and share the things I like.

This was a longass month! Well, more like 10 days. First, my trip to Naples, Florida for grow-out evaluations then immediately after, headed to Skokie, Illinois for the AOSA/SCST Annual meeting. Sunday, I took my so dreaded exam, which, unfortunately, and not to my surprise, did not pass.

Numerous interesting talks and information about the seed industry, new connections, and “friends”. Overall, a good experience. But right by last Tuesday, I was so ready to go home. It had already been a long time away, and it gets old and exhausting pretty quickly.

Today is the last day of conferences, most people are either flying or driving back home. Some of us don’t fly out until tomorrow.

Again, it has been a good experience, next year’s conference is in Canada 🍁. As an associate member of the Society of Commercial Seed Technologists, it is important for me in my career development, to partake in these events. That being said, I will not, if at all possible, combine two trips into one.

And just like that, it’s done. I am finally done with it. No more exam’s related stress, well, now I’ll be anxiously waiting for the results but that’s the least of my worries — now.

Four different tests, four different subjects. Molecular, Genetic Purity, herbicide assays, and AP/LLP testing. I feel like two out of the four I did pretty well, the other two, well I had some troubles.

Although, I was surprised at how much I knew and was able to complete by just real work experience. Studying also helped a lot, obviously. About three hours total, for all four. I should find out about the results for user 22002 sometime this week. My hopes of passing are slim but there’s a chance.

Worst case scenario, I know what to concentrate on or tackle more in my next round.

Now if you’d excuse me, I need a beer and lunch.

Well, this is it, I’m in Skokie, Illinois. Tomorrow’s the day, the day I have been dreading, the RGT exam.

I am not going to lie, I don’t want to do it, I don’t think I am prepared enough. I feel in my heart that I’m going to fail. There’s a little bit of pressure about me passing this exam on the first try. And because of that expectation, I fear that if I do fail, I’m going to disappoint a lot of people, not just me.

I’m also a little spent, I just want to go home.

Funny story

This morning, I woke up, showered, and got dressed, as you do, ready to go out and about in the field. When something strange happened. I got to my rental car, turn it on, and then the sound…

My brand new Mitsubishi Outlander Sport rental sounded like a mustang!!! Super-loud exhaust! A loud broken one. I’ve heard this before, and it clicked in my mind but I didn’t want to accept what was happening. I knew something was “broken” or, missing.

Immediately I called the car rental company and they patched me to this nice lady on the phone. After explaining what had happened she says.

“Sir, you have been a victim of a stolen catalytic converter”

I was baffled, that did confirm what I thought it was but not that it was actually stolen. Stolen, overnight, right at the hotel’s parking lot. Apparently, this is a thing, people do steal, these parts, they, apparently, get a good deal of money for them, precious metals.

So, they exchanged my vehicle but not before I had to drive it all the way to my closest car rental location. It was like driving an old broken Cadillac all over town. So much fun.

I’ve got two more nights down here in Naples fkn Florida, and there’s a tropical storm watch!

Good times, good times.

It is somewhat baffling to me that about two weeks ago, I was in a very nice chill not-so humid place, with lots and lots of pine trees and Deer crossings signs. Now, I find myself in a hot, hot place, extremely humid, and lots of diverse vegetation but mostly palm trees. And rather than Deer crossing signs, Panther’s crossing signs. And you could add alligators and who knows what. No alligators crossing signs, though.

It seems to me like Florida is USA’s mini Australia.

For the past few months, it has been a real struggle to get a good-night sleep. Way too many things roaming and hunting my thoughts. I get at best, 5 to 6 hours of sleep, according to my super-secret sleeping tracking application. With the exception of the few nights that we spent at the Oregon Coast, that was a good distraction. Plus, I would spent most of those afternoons sipping on delicious beer so that always help, el-oh-el. 

I am hoping that, once the day of my upcoming test – which is the bulk of my stress – passes, I will be able to mentally relax a little bit, hopefully.

On September 11th, 2019 we had a field trip to the local urgent care with Marley, the one closest to our house. It was a stressful experience, especially for mom, and a terrifying one for Marley. Still to this day, every time she gets, an ouchie, her first question is, is it bleeding?

Yesterday, unfortunately, it was Luna's turn. As much as we tell them to not run around the house, and to pay attention to their surroundings and where they are going, well you know where this is heading.

Both are running, Marley turns around, Lunas is running behind her, Marley doesn't notice Luna, rams her, Luna hits the Kitchen Playset, and both start crying.

Luna is holding her side of the head, I check, and she's got a scratch right above her left eyebrow and it is swollen. We assess, did not look too bad but enough for concern. Once the bleeding was contained, we decided it was best to take it, just in case she needed 'a special band-aid'. This time though, rather than the 'regular' Urgent Care, Annie, in all her wisdom, suggested the pediatric one. It was much further but a much safer bet.

At this point, Luna was, surprisingly calm. She even liked the idea of going to see the doctor. We get to the Urgent Care, checked in, and patiently waited. A few minutes later a nurse lady comes out, takes Luna's temperature, weighs her, and checks her pulse, finally we proceeded to the examination room. On the way to the room, she gets offered a toy. What? Cool! The Nurse explains what is that they are about to do, and gets offered a popsicle.

All this time, Luna has been super-complaisant and not even a single sign of fear. The nurse applies some anesthetic to her wound and put on a clean band-aid. Whilst we wait for the anesthetic to do its thing, she gets offered to watch cartoons, on an iPad.

And here we are, Luna is chilling on her medical bed, watching cartoons whilst sucking on a popsicle. Then a second nurse comes in, "Hello, my name is Allison, we are just going to put some special glue on your ouchie and be done". Luna didn't even emote, her eyes fixed on the iPad (whilst still sucking on the popsicle). Allison turns around and looks at me. "Do I know you, did you use to work at Simplot, with my brother Wes?" And then it clicked! Allison, my friend and co-worker's sister which I haven't seen either of them in a few years now. That was a nice surprise indeed, wasn't expecting that for sure.

Short story long, Luna got all patched up, no traumatic experience, and guess what? She got more candy, and the nurse comes in with a handful of lollipops. Luna starts debating which one to pick when the nurse goes, "grab them all, they're all for you". What? 

Man, we adults get treated like animals.

After what it felt like an eternity driving, we finally made back to the 208s. We had a great time at the Oregon coast celebrating Annie’s and her mom’s birthday. I feel like I’ve drunk Oregon dried of beer (😅). There was so much goodness to try!

Furthermore, our thanks to Jason and Valerie for receiving us at their house. A quick but very enjoyable stop for some bagels 🥯 and mimosas 🍹 before continuing our travels through the wild roads of the pacific northwest until our final destination, the Idahos.

More about the whole adventure later, too tired to post a proper post about the entire trip in detail. But good memories have been made.

Until then, stay classy, you all.

Me: Marley! Rice, potatoes, or pasta?

Marley: Pasta!

Me: Okay! What piece of chicken?

Mar: How about cow?

Me: Well, I don’t like to defrost cow in the microwave, so let’s put it out for tomorrow.

Mar: What type of chicken do we have?

Me: We’ve got tenders and thighs.

Mar: Chicken thighs. I’ve never had tights before.

Me: Of course you have. I make them all the time on the grill.

Mar: On the grill? I love it, you make the best grilled everything.

There you have it, peoples. 😂🥷😎

Okay, it is supposed to be spring. You know, flowers and trees blooming, birds chirping, some may say even love is in the air, etc. Although the weather has shown me that this is totally bullshit, however, every once in a while, we do have some nice days, ish. I guess at this point I'll take what I can get. Like Saturday morning, it wasn't particularly nice, not too warm but sunny, enough to finally, do some yard work.

I get my mowing attire (sunglasses included), get the mower out (still gas like an animal, apologies) and my super-not-fancy electric weedwhacker. I always like to start with the weedwhacker, trim the edges, around the curvings and all. Once that part was done, I go to my mower and check the gas level, I also check the engine oil, and all looks fine, time to mow.

Except, for the fact that the pull line snapped! 

Well, that's relatively easy, all I need to do is buy a new line and replace it. Right? A quick stop to my local Low's, and about 5.00 USD later I have a new line. Go home, and installed the line, and it is not retracting. Why, why is not retracting? Well, after further investigation and some frustration, it turned out that the little peace that would hold the coil in place for the rotor to retract also snapped.

So, bout 35.00 USD later and the magic of internet search, I am getting the whole new top assembly. And now I will have a spare pull line.

Also, I gotta add, even if I were successful in replacing the line with no other issues, by the time I got back from Low's and installed the new pull line, the sun was gone and we had a storm. And the rest of this week doesn't look very promising either so who knows when I'll get my yard done for sure, laugh-out-loud.