I know, I know

It's been nearly a month since I last blogged. In my defense, life got a bit crazy. We still don't have internet at my house and by the time I'm done working for the day, the last thing I think about is hanging out for an extra 10 minutes and writing a blog. Sometimes I can take a break in the middle of work and write a little something, but these last couple of weeks have been very busy with work things. Today is a bit slow, but I anticipate it will pick up again here soon.

I had the oppotunity to be in the field 3 days last week! Tuesday and Wednesday 3 of us went to a site where there had been a dry cleaning machine which had leeched chemicals into the ground which are now in the groundwater there under the facility. About a year ago, they installed 1-2 inch wells which we use to pump water from 30 feet down to the surface so we can sample it and find out how much of the chemical is really in the groundwater and how fast the environment is recovering. It was really quite interesting. Thursday I was out at an asphalt refinery doing an asbestos survey. They have an area of their facility that they need to take out and a lot of the pipes are covered in asbestos insulation. The asbestos will need to be removed before the pipes are removed, so our job was to take samples of some of the insulation so that we can send it to the lab and they will tell us whether it is actually asbestos or not. Then we can figure out how much asbestos they have there and get a cost estimate to remove it. The process is kind-of interesting, but I got bored really fast looking at the same pipes and counting and trying to figure out how much asbestos there really was. Not to mention the place was covered in tar and I got it on my clothes and my shoes. Our supervisor stepped right in a tar pool and gave a whole new meaning to the story of brer rabbit and the briar patch!! I think I'd take a briar patch over a tar baby any day!

I was supposed to go to Texas this last weekend for Memorial Day, but it fell apart at the last minute. Joe and had already taken the time off work so we decided just to spend time together. On Saturday we went white water rafting down the Ocoee River in Tennessee. We left at 5:30 am on Saturday and arrived just before 8. We got all registered and left on the bus around 9am. We went down both the upper Ocoee, which includes the Olympic kayaking course, and the lower Ocoee which is a little bit tamer. I managed to stay in the boat the whole time although I nearly fell out on the first major rapid. We had a pretty big guy named Larry in our boat. I would wager he weighs about 350 pounds. He fell in twice; the first time his 13-year old son went overboard with him. Of course we snatched the son up easily enough, but his dad was a much more difficult rescue!! There was another man sitting in front of me and both he and Joe were pulling and pulling on Larry trying to get him back in the boat. It was a little bit scary, but after the first two times, nobody fell out It was intense, but it was a lot of fun.

On Memorial Day we went over to Stone Mountain park. We bought some food, stuffed it into a cooler and arrived there a little after 1:30. We set out blankets and played frisbee and other games until 9pm when the laser lights and fireworks show finally started. I had never been to a laser show before. It was pretty cool.

Well that's it for now. I can' believe it's the last day of May! Time is just flying by so fast! *Sigh*