Let's Talk Turkey

Every year, in my post Thanksgiving, indigestion riddled, bleary-eyed traveling daze I swear off Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, as soon as early November arrives my mouth starts watering for pie, stuffing, potatoes, and turkey. This year I trekked up to Northern Idaho to spend the holiday with friends (I mean, after all who knows potatoes better than Idahoans?). Plus, there had been talk of Huckleberry pie and that could not be passed up.

 Calling in a favor, I borrowed a friends Passat TDI for the trip. As you can tell from the pictures I took the scenic (and overly slow) route.

It was a nice car and the 42mpg didn't hurt, but sweet and crunchy crackers the keyless system was FANTASTIC! I usually am not an avid new car proponent, but if it means I get one of those keyless systems I may have to convert.

 Idaho was great apart from the lack of sunlight and the pervading dampness. It was in the mid 30's to low 40's during the day and I was freezing. The food (and potatoes) did not disappoint though. For the trip home I used leftovers to make thanksgiving hoagies. They turned out pretty good, but after 900 miles and my fourth hoagy I was a little tired of them. Of course no trip to Idaho would be complete without a trip to my favorite bookstore. 

My goddaughter's birthday was the Saturday after Thanksgiving and after opening each package she would respond with "I always wanted a_____" even if she didn't quite know what it was. So, that was my holiday. All goals were met - ate too much, traveled too far, laughed too much, slept too much. I hope all of you had a good Thanksgiving too!

Say What?

So, dealing with some businesses and having my own LLC I end up having a fair amount of interaction with this guy's office:

Meet Ross Miller, Nevada's Secretary of State. What appears to simply be a mild mannered professional politician...  or so I thought.

Apparently Nevada's Secretary of State was also recently involved in this:

And he won.

Yeah, my secretary of state can armbar your secretary of state (incidentally, that is what was on the t-shirts they were handing out at the match).

Happy Nevada Day!

My poor attempt at Halloween decorations.

No Excuse

 We've had our first snow, Nevada Day (observed) has come and gone, and I've tossed no fewer than TWO scorpions out of my garage. It's been a busy coupe of months. As I'm looking at these pictures that I'm about to post I can see that the lens on my camera phone really needs to be cleaned. Oh well, you'll get the idea.

Here's the house I'm living in currently. No grass, no problem. The scorpions that seem to find their way into the garage as the weather gets colder ARE a problem. I don't seem to notice them until I'm standing right next to them. They like to hang around the door where I stand looking for the light switch. Not cool.

 

Here's the view out my living room window at our first snow storm of the season. All the snow that fell is gone and now we'll probably have decent weather until Christmas. Here's hoping anyway.

I've still been driving all over Nevada. Road construction season is pretty much over, but now ranchers are moving cattle so I've come across a couple of cow road blocks. The picture at the top of this post is of a sign that hangs int he Esmeralda County Courthouse (where I've been doing work recently).

All minor catastrophes aside, things are going great. More updates soon.

Great Movie

It may come as no surprise to some of you, but I loved this.

Late Summer Doings

 Wow, where did August go?! A lot has gone on in the last few weeks. I was on the pit crew for a team doing the Vegas to Reno off-road races. The picture below is at the staging area at the start. We are dead center and are surrounded by Robby Gordon's 25 chase trucks. The other pictures is of our car waiting in the line-up to start. (We are the red bug and the thumb in the picture is mine)

The car ended up munching an engine bearing and only making it 200 miles into the race. Oh well.

For work I've been traveling all over the state. I've been on a 24/7 shift drilling a water well for the city of Pahrump.

I've also been inspecting the wrap-up portion of a tank project in the previously mentioned metropolis of Manhattan.

I know you always wanted to know what a water tank looks like on the inside. 

I've also been to Tonopah, Goldfield, Eureka, and other places I can't remember. All of this traveling went well until coming home from Pahrump on Thursday when the Jeep quit suddenly leaving me on the side of the road about 35 miles North of Las Vegas. I began poking around the engine bay only to discover that some mice had decided to strip the insulation off all of the wires going to the coil packs and use them to make a nest. This let the wires eventually short out and leave me stranded. The day ended with me spending 3 hours in a tow truck and getting to Ely around 10:30pm. Mice have officially made the list. Chrysler's choice of using a cheese based insulation on their wiring doesn't help and so they are on the list too.

In other news: I finally moved into the company house. Having my own space is nice, but it has reconfirmed my suspicions that a single person does not need 1500 SF of house. The plus side is that I do have extra room so anyone who wants to come and visit is welcome (because when I finally move into my 500 SF miner's cabin anyone who comes to visit is sleeping on the couch or in a tent in the yard). The days having been getting cooler, the August monsoons have left the countryside green, and fall (i.e. pumpkin flavored everything and Nevada Day) is right around the corner. I can't wait!

God Speed, Neil.