huntsmith2002's blog: "Young Explorer"

If someone is kind enough to pass this along to you, then this will most likely be my last comminique with you. I want you to know that I wish you had given me some chance to know you better. You have seen my passionate streak, but I wish you had seen the rest of my personality as well. I am a good and decent man and friend. Please forgive my obsession with you of late. I just got carried away when you shut off comminication without word or warning. It troubled and hurt me greatly. Take care of yourself and know that I wont bother you again. I wish you well.

Every six months or so my team is asked to brief the soldiers we serve on the programs that are in our charge. For the most part, it is pretty routine. We get up there and talk about the tests that have been run and the results that we have been seeing and what our expectations are for the next six months. Its all very routine, but every now and then we get some character sitting in the back row who has to flex his pride muscles and make the interns on our team look stupid. Such was the case a few months back. Two young ladies on my team were discussing a new non-lethal (rubber bullet) program that was under development. The guy in the back decided to ask the girls if they had been shot by the product. When they said no, he sneered at them and advised them to take one for the team as soon as possible. As the discussion went on, he kept pushing them, saying that before he was allowed to carry a tazer he had to have been shot by a tazer. He told them that before he was allowed to use tear gas he had to have been gassed himself. The girls were very flustered and frankly so was I. So then I asked him, did you have to get shot before theyd let you carry your pistol? He sat down for the rest of the meeting.

There is nothing quite like a trip home, especially for a child in a foreign land. We had been living in the orient for about a year, when my father decided that we all needed a break from the land of the not quite right. I know that sounds harsh, but we never knew from day to day what new oddity was going to enter our lives. I will save those tales for another time. Our trip home began with a wait. We went to the airbase. We put our name on the list, and we waited and waited and waited and waited. You may be waiting to hear why we waited so long. It came down to what it often does. Money. If we could find a plane that had empty floor space, then we could fly across the pacific for $10 a person. Needless to say this was a considerable discount from our other options and would enable us to stretch our vacation dollars quite a bit farther. After a few days, we finally managed to catch a plane that had some extra space. The seats were less than comfortable, but for a ten year old, it was a dream flight. I was going home. I was going to see my grand parents. Our flight was not a direct one. We hopped to a near by island where we spent the night. Our flight was to leave at 4 am, so my folks thought there was little point to getting a hotel. We knew there was a Mickey Dee's that had opened downtown, and we hadn't had a Big Mac in a year, so the golden arches were a golden treat. We took a taxi downtown, got three fries, three cokes, and three burgers. It cost over forty bucks and didn't taste right. After gorging ourselves on semi-American junk food, we went back to the airport where our 4am flight turned to 6 then 7 then finally 10 am. Still, we were going home. The flight across the Pacific was uneventful. They gave us a box lunch/dinner. The plane dripped on us, as it was not really designed for passengers. We landed next in Alaska where we spent the night in Anchorage. It is a beautiful area. The sun never quite went all the way down that night. TV was American, but slightly different than the continental US. What I remember more than the TV and the perpetual sun was the price of the burgers. $11. My parents weren't thrilled with that, but these were better than the previous ones. There isn't much more to tell on this end of the trip. It was the flipside that got more interesting. We were supposed to be stateside for a month, but my dad got called back, so we had to go "home" early. His job demanded that we return, so cargo rack travel was not an option. We had to take a real flight. Cross-Pacific travel is never easy. It is a long and usually boring flight with many passengers smoking and blowing smoke rings on the airline stewardesses, even as they tell them that the no smoking light is on. This particular flight was a bit more exciting from my perspective. I had a window seat, and was not real thrilled to begin with. I remember going to sleep and then waking up a couple of hours into an 11-hour flight. As my eyes opened, I looked out and saw smoke pouring from the tip of the wing. Now I wasn't very old, but I was smart enough to know that smoke coming out of your wing was a bad thing, especially when you are over the pacific somewhere. I very calmly turned to my Mom and said: "our wing is on fire." She said, "no dear, don't worry they are just dumping the fuel." Now initially my mind said, "oh ok" as the repercussions of no fuel, big plane, pacific ocean bounced around in my head. A passenger was blowing smoke rings again. The truth of the matter is that we had a navigation issue, so they dumped the fuel to land once again in Anchorage. To make things more exciting, they gave us an armed escort on the way down. To this day, I am not quite sure why we had that fighter on our wing. Anyway, we landed, but were not allowed to exit the plane while they fixed the problem. You see we had exited US Airspace, so we would have had to go through customs again, and for the hour it took to repair the plane, it just wasn't worth it. So, they fixed the plane, and we flew home a few weeks early, on the course another fateful plane took. You see, a short time later, the Russians shot down another bird bound for the same place we were heading. It was enough to make one think, even if one is a child.

I was living about a hundred miles from my grandparents and parents. I was still in school, but on my own and going through the finances of a typical twenty something. (i.e. always broke, but having plenty for that latest and greatest computer which sets on concrete block furniture.) Anyway, I had found time to go down and visit my family, so off I went. Laundry in hand. Ok, the last part isn't true. It was in a garbage bag, which was clean. As I rolled into the little town that was the suburb of the raging metropolis of (20,000 + three or four cats per house) where my parents lived. I realized I needed gas. Home is nice, but it is good to be able to get away. I pulled into a gas station, and as I was filling up I saw that a new car warsh errr car wash had opened next door. It was very shiny. very clean. and very new. My little car was um not. The previous winter I had decided to take a can of spray paint to cover up the little scratches. I thought it was a good idea at the time. Anyway, from the dirt of the road and the dirt of my life, it was in desparate need of a good wash. Thankfully, they were on special. What more could you want? I finished gassing up my car, and then pulled next door. I drove up, punched in this sixteen zillon long code number from the gas station, and looked at the clean gentle slope that led to the entrance of the wash. A nice clean sign blinked "Pull Forward" The sign said that the car had an undercarriage wash. I know my car needed it. So, I started to creep forward to make sure that it did a good job. "Pull Forward" Pulling forward does not mean stopping. I sort of goofed on that. You see I went over the first little bump at the enetrance to the car wash, and this geyser started shooting up under my car. When I say a geyser, I mean a geyser. The pressure was incredible. My car of course sputtered and died on top of the geyser. Old Faithful had met its namesake. So what do you do. The car of course wouldn't start. The inside of my engine compartment was being flooded. The geyser wasn't stopping, and I wasn't sure what to do. I got out and watched the river flow from my car and pushed it forward off of Old Faithful. "Pull Forward" Once I cleared the sensor, the gusher stopped. I got in my car and sat. Sat waiting for the river to dry up and my car to take pity on my stupidity. After about fifteen minutes, the car started. I looked ahead and, yep, the sign was flashing "Pull Forward" So what do you do? The sides of my car were still dirty, and although the insides of my tires were squeaky clean, I didn't think my parents would be impressed. So, I pulled forward. The sign finally switched to "Wash", and this hose on a wand started circling my car sudzing it up. I sat in my car and picked up the book I had started to read fifteen minutes prior. It was a good book. The wand kept racing around my car. I think it was chapter 3 when I realized that the wand was still running in suds mode around my car. Now what was I going to do. The entire bay was filling with suds. This wand was going round and round and round my car. I thought briefly about trying to gun the engine between passes and race out of the bay, and that seemed like a better idea than abandoning the car to the squeaky clean wash. I started to back up and then the wash sign changed. "Rinse" What did I have to lose? I went back to my book, as the wand switched modes once more. It went around for a long time, but finally seemed to be getting tired of changing my car's paint color. When it stopped. It stopped right smack dab in front of my car. As if daring me. The sign blinked. "Pull Forward" I backed out.

I had been offered a job in NYC, and had moved there with little to no planning. The consequence of that was I had to live in a motel until I found an apartment. My company had agreed to pay my moving expenses up until I had arrived in the area. Once I got there, I knew my living expenses were my bill, and that I had to be somewhat cheap. My first paycheck was a long time away. I rolled into the area, just before dark. I saw a sign for a very small hotel with a blue sign. This was my last night on some one else's bill. The bulletin board read "Trucker's welcome. Affordable rates." Sounded good, and I figured if it was good enough for a trucker it was good enough for me. I parked went inside, and told the Indian gentlemen behind the counter that I wanted a room. He looked me up and down and then said in very broken English "You Want Yes" I said yes. I ask him if he took travelers checks. He got this weird look on his face, and went into the back room. Out of nowhere. A very young twenty something girl walks into the office. I hadn't heard a car pull up. The next thing I know this girl is bad mouthing the owner something fierce, like she had been working with him for months. I was polite and chatted with her and yes flirted a bit. She then left suddenly, and I was a bit confused. The owner reappeared, and said. "You Want Yes" I said yes. I wanted a room for the night. The reality of the situation had not yet dawned on me, as to what was happening. It didn't dawn, until I told the owner that I needed a receipt and he got this weird weird weird look on his face. It was then that I saw the sign for hourly rates. They seemed a bit high. I still needed a room, and he had already took my traveler's checks, so I said "I want a room to sleep in for the night, and I will need a receipt." He gave me my key and said something about special room service in the morning. "You Want Yes" I wanted yes, but no. I was sure that the special room service had its own price. One that I wasn't prepared to pay, and was sure that the expense wasn't appropriate to list on my travel voucher. I slept that night with a chair under the door knob and a glass of water on the night stand. It wasn't for drinking. You should have seen some of the characters in the rooms. At first light, I left. It was a mighty short night. The next hotel I stayed in had been something else before. It was owned by another Indian gentlemen. He had knocked out and changed the interior of a big warehouse into a series of little rooms. It seemed clean, but the television was older than the invention of radio and the mattress was incredibly lumpy. I looked underneath the mattress and saw a half empty bottle of vodka and an alcoholic anonymous book. There was something amusing about that. Anyway, I turned on the tv (no remote) and was greeted by the sharp pungent smell of ozone. I needed a shower and a good night's sleep.I figured the shower would wait until morning. Nothing was on tv anyway. The next morning I got up, turned on the tv, and took a shower. As I came out of the so called shower (one line that had been tapped twenty time probably from the lack of pressure). I smelled smoke and heard snap, crackle, pop. It wasn't breakfast. Flames were coming from the top of the tv. I yanked the plug from the wall, got dressed, and went to tell the owner of the hotel. The owner's wife was there. She was also Indian, and her english was worse than her husbands. I told her that the television in my room had decided to become a furnace. She didn't get it. She said her son would fix. I came back later that day and she came out to meet me. She said... All fixed. No problem. happen all time. just dont run tv and shower.

I had been living overseas in asia for about a third of my life. That included all four years of high school. Yes, it was an American High School, but it was still far from what the typical midwest, never been out of the county, much less the state, farmbelt graduate had experienced. I went from a high school in a city of about 8 million people and an apartment complex of a hundred and some odd nationalities to a midwest farming college with a population of less than 10,000 (if that). It was home though. My grandparents were near, and my earliest memories were of that campus. They may seem a bit strange, but it is true. Now I have always had strange and/or odd friends. I think it is due to the fact that I consider myself strange and/or odd. Maybe, I just think strange / odd is interesting. Regardless, it took me less than a week to hook up with another odd bunch. Besides me, there was the genius, the hillbilly, the boy scout, and a farm boy who reminded us all of Fred Flintstone. There were others of course, but those were the main players. This story is primarily about the Mr. Flintstone. The second day I knew him. Mr. Flintstone had to run home to pick something up from his farm. I don't recall what it was. What I do recall was thinking that we were going a couple of miles out of town and ended up going about forty. His truck was pure red neck. Imagine that you had five trucks on your lawn that dated back to the forties. Now imagine that you took the worst features from each and cobbled it together with bailing wire, duct tape, and chewing gum. That would be superior to this monstrosity. I liked the truck, but it roared like a beast, and we called it such. I think I intimidated Mr. Flintstone. He wanted to impress me. As a result, in this before seat belt monstrocity, we flew down the road leaving a whirlwind of dust behind us. Country roads are nice and flat, but there are little things like rail road tracks that aren't meant to be taken at warp speed. This dinosaur of a truck actually pulled a dukes of hazard and I felt air underneath the wheels of the beast as we cleared the ramp that went over the tracks. We pulled into town, and stopped at a filling station because the beast was making a very strange noise. Some bailing wire around the muffler and a conversation with a founding father (aka sheriff) later, we were once again on the road to his farm. The place was a pit, and it became clear why my new friend had never mastered hygiene. His father was of the same generation as my great grandfather, and was basically immobile. He constantly harassed my friend, but it was clear that it was because he cared for him, and that was his way. Anyway, we did a couple of chores, and looked it, before starting on our way back home. We never made it. About midway back, the speedometer starting dancing from left to right in a wild fashion. We were just about to stop and check the duct tape, when Mr. Flintstone decided that a tractor travelling America's biways ahead of him was a threat to his masculinity. He gunned the beast to go around him and we went into the ditch. I remember being fascinated by this tire that I could see bouncing across the field beside us. It didnt register until after I was done holding on for my life that that was our tire. The tire had ripped clean off of the frame, and we had made an impression on the highway about an 1/8 of a mile long. We were in the middle of nowhere. Now, something else needs to be said here. The country is sparesly populated. There just arent very many houses, and the locales are very friendly to those they know and very suspicious of outsiders. Remember, we had been doing chores, and looked like vagabonds. We were also about midway between his home and mine. No one really knew us here. Houses were about 1/2 mile apart. The nearest house was of course one of the biggest in the area. No doubt it belonged to some rich doctor who decided that the country was the perfect place to retire. I can understand this as there is a definite charm about having a place where no one tells you that you can't paint your house x y or z color because it will bring down your property value. However, the area of which I am speaking has urban legends of its own of mafia connections, and some of them are probably true. The midwest is not known for italian cooking except in one particular locale which is literally littered with italian restaurants. Anyway, me and grimy flintstone, truckless, walked up to this very fancy house. I know we looked like death warmed over, but the look on this old womans face was priceless. In a place where everyone invites you in, she threw a cordless phone out to us from within a chained doorway. I guess we made lots of impressions that day, and Mr. Flintstone made quite an impression on me.

I had been utilizing my college degree to the fullest at a local print shop, when I was informed that I had to take some vacation time in the next month, or lose what I had accumulated for the year. Furthermore, I had been told that the only week that it would be approved was next week, even though I had two weeks built up. Thanking my boss immensely for this revelation of extreme importance, I then set about to plan my great escape. Unfortunately, my next pay period wasn't until after I was supposed to be back, therefore my options were limited. I really didn't want to go very far anyway. I just didn't feel like a lot of driving. Therefore, I decided the perfect fit was camping in Arkansas. I drove down to my parents who were thrilled that I was taking some time off. I didn't inform them of the motivations that I had for this impromptu vacation. I just said I wanted to go camping. My father has always loved camping, and he knew that I shared his explorer gene. He then proceeded to load up my little bitty car with can goods of every shape, size, and expiration date. If it sounded bad, he gave it to me. I got spam, canned enchiladas, corned beef, mixed vegetables, and of course the ever popular mystery cans with no label. He loaded up my car. He did throw a tent in and a bit of other stuff, but the shrapnel in the box was the contribution, I remember most. I decided that the trip down would be more interesting, if I took back roads. Taking the back roads in Arkansas is an adventure in itself. I must say that Arkansas is one of the most beautiful states I have ever seen. I love the mountains, and the springs, and the old houses. It is a poor state, but one I like none the less. Just call me hick. As I drove down a barren stretch of highway, I somehow got behind one of the many log trucks that populate the roads of Arkansas like stars on a clear winter's night. This particular one must have thought my drive was too uneventful, because it decided to throw off one of its tires, as we were going up a rather steep hill. Now, a lot of people would have panicked at that point, but the sad truth is that that was the third such piece of flying debris to be launched at my car and my head in the last year. I treated much as most would a slow moving car, I passed it and moved on. I must admit that looking back on that day I should have stopped and offered the guy a hand, but I didn't. I was tired and this was a fairly typical occurrence for truckers. Anyway, I haven't told you yet where I was going. In the United States there is only one place that is government sanctioned where you can go and dig for diamonds. It is called, appropriately enough, the crater of diamonds. Now, people have found diamonds there. In fact the largest diamond ever discovered in the United States was found there. The diamond bearing soil goes down about a hundred yards in this three foot ball field by three foot ball field area. Every year, people find a handful of diamonds there. Most of them aren't worth much, but people find them. The place has been surveyed by a geological team several times, but in each instance, they have determined that the diamonds found there are just slightly to sparse to fund a mining operation. The bottom line is that the state makes more money on camping permits and shovels than it would on the tax revenue of a mine there. I got to the crater of diamonds in the early evening. I bought a pass for two nights. I went and set up camp and just as I was getting ready to load up the inside of the tent I noticed the big spider. Now, I don't mind spiders, but this thing was HUGE, and it was sitting right on my tent flap. I needed to go into town anyway to call Mom. She asked that I call her, and the phone at the camp site would accept my money, but would not register that money had actually been accepted. Therefore, I drove into town for a harpoon to kill spiders and to find a phone. The only place open was a small convenience store with a pay phone on the outside. A lady was screaming at the phone, when I pulled up. She wasn't talking in it. She was screaming at it, while it was still hung up. I decided to give her a little time. The convenience store clerk sold me a gallon sized container of insta-spider kill. I asked for a roll of quarters and he went nope I asked for change for the pay phone and he went nope.. I asked for a calling card, like the one he had advertised on a sign prominently displayed on the window. Yep, you guessed it. NOPE.. Finally, I decided to buy bubble gum. 1 piece at a time, at three cents a pop. I paid for each piece with a different dollar bill. He wasn't happy with me, but by that time I understood why the lady was screaming at the phone. Oh, the cops came by and picked her up. I didn't ask. Anyway, the phone didn't work, so I ended up driving around till I found another one. When I got back to my camp site, I took out the bug spray and poured it down the sides of the tent. I then circled the tent like the wagons of the old west did. It seemed to work, at least the spiders stayed inside with me. The next morning was very hot. I got up early and went to the nice bath house they had at the place. Of course, I had to share the stall with a spider the size of my towel, but the water was hot at least. I went down to the park and paid my $4 admission and then, of course, had to spend $20 on a shovel for half a day. I laughed and asked the girl how much they took in in a day, and she went you don't want to know. The rules of the park were simple. You could dig, as deep a hole as you wanted, but before you left, You had to fill it in completely. (This was how they prevented people from large scale excavations that could cave in on them. I dug for awhile, but the day was so hot and dry, that I ended up quitting and went back to my camp site for a nap. I finally woke up in mid afternoon, and went back to the field and just walked around. I didn't find any diamonds that day, but I did get some nifty looking rocks that I gave to my brother. When I came out of the field, it had just started to rain. I had driven to the other side of the field this time, so I had my car. Of course, I had a flat tire. Of course, my can of fix a flat had a broken nozzle, of course my tire iron was no where to be found. I dimly remembered lending it to someone who had lost theres and dimly remember asking specifically for it back, but well, a memory of an event does little good sometimes. Anyway, I had to walk to the shovel lady and sweet talked her into helping me with my flat tire. She laughed at me and was going to give me a hand, until she realized it was raining. At that point, she gave me her can of fix a flat. I drove back to the city and got a new tire iron wrench at a gas station, and bought a new tire. I then went back to my camp site where thankfully it had stopped raining. I was glad too because I was starving for some of that spam. I gathered up some wood and made a little fire to cook my dinner on. It was just a small thing, but it was large enough for the park ranger to come by and scream at me. It seems that we were under a drought condition and that no fires were allowed except in cases of spider invasion. Ok, I made that last part up, but the ranger did make me put my fire out. At least, I got the baked beans heated up. After dinner, it started to rain again, and I was exhausted from all the digging, so I called it an early night. Well, I thought I did. Sometime in the middle of the night, the storm returned with a vengeance. It was bright enough that I could see the spiders inside my tent. It was bright enough that I could read. After I woke up enough to realize that reading in a tent by lightning light while surrounded by trees was a bad thing, I decided to go down to the bath house and see if there was a tornado warning or anything. I got up and started to walk down that way. There were two men in another campsite. They had this bonfire going that was at least 15 feet tall. I mean it was big. I guess the spiders had invaded after all. I walked over to the two men and managed to get a hi out of my mouth before the murderous glare in the man's eyes caused me to turn around and leave. I don't know if he was upset about a spider or what, but I decided that the lightning illuminated tent was a safer environment than making small talk with this man obsessed with fires and storms. The next day I got up and left. I still had a few days left on my vacation, so I took a different set of back roads home. I had decided to see Little Rock, and should have stopped and saw an old friend of mine, but instead just saw how close the red light district movie theatre was to where Bill Clinton lived. I got a kick out of that. I didn't spend much time there and wanted to go canoeing, but we were in a drought and the water level was way too low. I decided instead to stop at a local commercial cave and take a tour. There were several caves in the area where I was. I hear that half of Our Kansas, better known as Arkansas, is undermined with these caves. I've always liked them and have done some real spelunking, but then I just wanted to do a tourist thing. The place I finally stopped at offered two caves for the price of one. It was one of the last tours of the day, and the tour group had already gone through one of the caves, so I started with the second, older one. The group was small, but there was a geologist in the group, and I was a scientist who had at one time worked for a geological survey and attended a mining school, so I knew enough about caves to be dangerous. The guide was all of 16-17, female, and very cute. We intimidated the hell out of her, as me and the other guy were making wise ass remarks the whole time. Once the other cave was done, everyone else left and it was just me with the jail bait. She was nervous, so I told her I was just having fun, and just give me the same tour as she had done countless times before. She didn't. She took me into the cave and told me that they had just discovered this cave last year and had just opened it this year. (Remember, this was in someone's back yard. This was not a professional group selling cave tours.) As we walked into the cave, she told me how proud she was to have changed one of the light bulbs in the new chamber, she then grabbed my hand and led me off of what seemed to be the main trail. This was probably a bad idea, but jail bait or not, I didn't mind her touching my hand. Anyway, she took me into a little tunnel. Flipped on a light switch and then put my hand on the wall. I felt it moving. I felt water flowing. She told me to look up. As I looked up, I saw the bent stalagmites and stalactites and she asked me how high I thought it was in this chamber. It went up a good four or five or six stories, but it was hard to tell from the lights. What creeped me out was the water flowing through the rock wall on the other side of my hand. I knew there was a drought, but I couldn't help wonder how those stalagmites had been bent, and all in one direction. There isn't much more to tell. I talked to the girl and later the owner about the cave and other caves in the area, and then drove the rest of the way back to my parents house. At least there weren't any spiders there.

When I was working for the survey, I was gone to the field for weeks at a time. That plus a steady girl friend meant that I was away more than I was home. Well, time changes all things, and at some point I found myself actually living in the house where I paid rent every month. A broken heart will do that to you. Anyway, it had been raining constantly, so we were home for the duration. It was then that I really began to notice a few of my room mates bad habits. For one, he like to leave the garage door open. I didn't mind this, except that I kept a lot of my stuff in the garage and from time to time a possum took up residence among the boxes. Now, I don't know if you know much about possums, but they are mean. The first time it happened I tried to prod one out with a broom stick. I don't know what I expected, but when the thing leaped at me with claws and teeth extended. I was the one who ran out of the garage. At that point I had decided he could keep my stereo and favorite chair. My room mate was younger than me and was in his early twenties. I had just passed the quarter century mark, and was once again going through one of those vain I am dying tomorrow phases. In this case, my hair was beginning to thin a bit on top. Now my room mate was already basically bald, and he took great comfort in the fact that my scalp was following suit. Of course, I made the mistake of asking him about my growing cue baldness. He said yep. Its all falling out. Of course I panicked. I never have been one to dwell on my appearance, but my hair has always been my achilles heel. I loved the fact that I have thick hair. It is part of who I am, and I was losing it. Yes, I panicked a bit. I drove like a mad man to Wally World and started throwing stuff in the cart. Rogaine, new shampoo, etc... All in all I had about fifty dollars worth of stuff in my cart. i finally realized how silly I was being when I was looking specifically at hair vitamins. I ended up putting most of it back and when the stress of my life came down. Mysteriously, my hair came back. My room mate was not happy. It was due primarily to our low water pressure. The rain stopped, and once again I was off to who knows where. Rain in the midwest is followed by drought. Hot dry drought. I came home after several weeks and my long sloped drive way was wet. In fact, water was running down the street. I caught my room mate on the way out and asked him about it, and he went yep, there's water on the street. He was never much of a conversationist. He did say that it was a spring. A spring flowing out of our driveway. Right... I didnt really want to have a monstrous water bill, so I called up the land lord who told me that it was a seasonal spring. Right... I called up the city. They said it was a seasonal spring. Now, if nough people tell you the same thing you should believe them right? Well, I didn't. I drove back to wally world and bought a chlorine test kit for fish tanks. There was no chlorine in the water flowing out. Good right? Then how come I still didnt have much water pressure. I was concerned until our water bill showed up and it was the same as always. I thought it was a done deal, and then the city tore up our yard and driveway. It seems that the tree in our yard had liked the spring and had sent out roots in all directions. Roots that had affected the water main enough to make people complain. They tore up everythiing, and when they fixed it, they repaved our driveway. My spring was now under concrete, and our water pressure came back.

I found myself working for a seismic exploration team in the early 1990's. They had hired me to back up their data from paper, 8-track tape, 9mm dat, floppy disks and everything else on CD-ROM. It was a good gig, and they liked my work, so they made me permanent. During the winter, I worked went to school and worked with their computer engineer on various small projects. Not the least of which was organizing the data I had backed up the summer before. Somehow, names like trip 1 or spot by fence were not meaningful enough for the team. It paid my bills, and I liked the people, but when we went out to the field, it took me away for weeks at a time. This was not exactly healthy for my social life, and was part of the reason that things eventually went sour with my girl friend of the time. In anycase, this story is not about her, or about the survey. It is about faultlines and underground mountains. The survey was hired by various organizations, government agencies, and private individuals to make underground maps. They did this in a manner analogous to sonar. Well, thats not exactly right, but it is close. The survey would lay out a line of cable that 'geophones' every forty feet or so. These geophones were basically microphones and would listen to the vibrations or the sounds of the ground under them. They were like bits on this screen. They gave part of the picture of the ground under them. The survey would then thump ground with some sort of noise maker and record what the geophones received. Ok enough boring stuff. They put a condom on the end of a 50 cal rifle and shot the ground and listened to the echoes. enuff said. They also had a vibrator, which was a big vehicle designed to shake the ground, for the same purpose. It had a female operator who received no end of comments, but she gave as well as she got. Anyway, that is what the survey did. They made maps. People paid them to: look and see if companies were contaminating underground water reserviors, to look for oil and other mineral deposits, to measure fault lines, to look for underground caves, and to develop the technology for things like detecting mines in a mine field. It was neat stuff. We talked about getting shirts that said we walked the Kansas mountains, but never did on my watch. The field trips were exhausting. You moved cable and planted geophones all day. We had ATV's which were designed to help us in this task, but since science is never fully funded these machines were custom built in the shop and only half safe. On one expedition, we drove for a day, and then stopped for the night before getting up at dawn. We then got up at dawn drove to the site, got out, started planting geophones in the rain, waited for the rain to stop (a real problem for geological sound based map making) and when everything was calm discovered that the seismograph was busted. We packed up, drove back (it was cheaper), fixed the seismograph the next day, drove back to the site, planted the geophones again and discovered, they were still dead. So yes, we did it all again. On the third trip, something else broke. Our fearless leader took the keyboard in front of him and chucked it accross a farmer's field hitting and startling some nearby hogs. His face was that of a mad man. We packed up and drove the whole way back without saying a word. It was one of those eerie moments. We finally got everything working and started testing. It was like a 100. We were all napping when we could and were on the edge of exhaustion. I was one of the first to fall. During the day I helped the crew. At night, I backed up the data from the seismograph hard drives. I had to empty them to make them available for the next day. At dawn, it started all over again. About the third week, I was on one of those modified ATV's and was going a little faster than I should have been. My mission at the moment was to pick up the flags that were used to mark where the cable and geophones were. We had just completed a line, and were moving on to the next site. Anyway, I was humming along when I saw in my rear view mirror, a bundle of flags. I stopped, threw it into reverse, and zoomed back to pick them up. I turned the wheel as I went, and yes flipped. Big Time. I remember thinking that the ground was a long way away, as I was thrown about fifteen feet. I went into a roll when I hit (which amazed me because my martial arts training was long before) and came up sort of confused and stunned. I remember looking at the bent remains of the ATV. I remember saying on my walkie talkie. The good news is "I'm alright. The bad news is the ATV isnt." I had to go get stitches for the little piece of muscle that stuck out of my palm. That hurt worse than anything. I then wanted to go back to work. They wouldnt let me. I was confined to the hotel room for three days. On their web page, someone took a picture of the ATV. The caption read: We're like the mail service. Nothing stops us. He walked away and came back for more.

Starting a new job is always stressful. Starting your dream job is no exception. I had just taken a new job in a new state. It was a huge switch for me. I went from working with my hands and body to working with my mind. In effect, I was starting over. It was a do-over. Something I really needed. What passed for my office was what most people would have called: Dilbertville, Cube Central, or a Rat Maze. I had walls, but could hear everything around me. The day prior, the folks on the other side of the wall had seen my 7-11 Mug. My 1.5 liter mug. It was perfect for when I was moving 24/7. However, for someone who sits on their rear all day, it was less than a recipe for the perfect bod. I had been thinking about cutting back when I overheard the conversation in the next aisle. "Coke causes cancer.... yada yada yada." Basically, they were saying I was going to drop dead before I got my first check. Well, I didn't buy it. I had been drinking this stuff for years, but my weight was beginning to creep up, and I knew that I wasn't going to be getting any exercise here, so I figured I should dump my bod and dump my Dr pepper addiction. Now, I don't believe in diets. I believe in moderation, exercise, eating healthy, and acceptance. All of our bodies are tuned differently. Some of us will never have that perfect Hollywood bod until they figure out how to reprogram our genes, but you know what? Who cares. Life is short. Do what you can, but accept that you are who you are. I went to a whole in the wall snack bar for lunch. They specialized in hot dog type fair, but made a mean taco salad with hot sauce that would melt steel. On this particular day, I got a hot dog. Yes, I know, I did say something about eating healthy right? Shussh. Well, I got a cup of ice from a hotel style ice machine, and on top of the machine was an old pitcher filled with "water". It smelled a little strange, but this whole place was a bit strange and I had heard rumors about the quality of the water, so I only thought twice on the matter. I got my dog. Joked with the owner and stepped outside where I took a big drink. It wasn't water. It had a metallic taste. It was BLEACH. I went back inside with the strangest taste in my mouth. I told the owner that his water had gone bad. What else do you say? Water? he replied. Yeah, the Water in the pitcher. The look of horror told me more than the words that followed. That's to sanitize the scoop. Its Bleach. He then told me that if I died not to tell anybody. I was in a state of shock. What do you say to something like that? Confused and dumbfounded I went back to my desk where I began to see stars. Of course no one was around. It was lunch time, but I decided that dying in Dilbert land without anyone knowing was stupid. No one was around. No one but the head of the building. The guy who hired me. The guy who had known me all of two weeks, if that. Great. How do you tell your new boss something like this. I was feeling light headed and my head hurt, so I decided that I didn't have time to surgar coat it. I told him straight out. I drank bleach. The look on his face was as priceless as the one that had been on mine just a bit earlier. What I wouldn't have given to know what thoughts followed that look. Anyway, I hastily explained the situation and he told me to go to the local hospital. I went in and there was a line. The lady came over with a clip board and told me to fill out the form. It asked me why I was there. I wrote: "drank bleach." The look on her face was equally priceless. I went straight in. The nurse went and found the doctor. Then she looked for the number to poison control. Of course, she couldnt find it. When she did, she got their answering machine. "We're sorry. We can not take your call right now. Leave a message and we'll get back to you between the hours of 5 and 9." I had a message for them at the time, but it isnt repeatable as I am trying to keep this clean. Obviously, I am alive to write this. and I was told later that this happens all the time. To tottlers