Oh the humanity (and the irony)!

Oh the Humanity...

So I've been up in Nebraska with my crew for the last week to assist with some burning that needs to happen on TNC property up here. Yesterday we got just a little bit of fire on the ground, barely getting stuff to burn and for the rest of the trip we've been completely weathered out with either crazy high winds or crazy high or low humidities. We've had a little bit of everything. This morning, however, we woke up with 3 inches of snow on the ground. Eye opening to say the least. I haven't seen snow for 4 years and I don't own a winter coat. Another guy on my crew (from Texas, mind you) has only seen snow once before in his life, back in the mid-80s as a kid. Oy veh! is all I have to say. With the weather no good for burning we have two choices, either hang out and don't get paid or find work to do, so we've been out cutting trail, cleaning up old trail, fixing and constructing fence and as of today, freezing our asses off working (completely unprepared) out in the snow.

Oh the Irony...

Today we spent the day out on the preserve, snow freakin' everywhere, working on cutting down juniper trees. The juniper is a tree formerly planted to provide wind breaks for old homesteads but is now encroaching and taking over the prairie that is one of the most endangered ecosystems that the country has to offer. So the irony...today is Arbor Day and we, The Nature Conservancy, were out cutting down trees. It just brought a smile to my face when someone mentioned it this morning. One of the guys we work with in Texas always just laughs and talks about how insane it is that the home of the Arbor Day Foundation up here in Nebraska is located in an area surrounded by endangered prairie yet they continuously take pride in planting trees all over the darn place, exacerbating the problem of declining habitat. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there. It's odd to be out in the middle of nowhere, with no phone service, etc. but have access to satellite internet.

The preserve has two herds of buffalo grazing on 61,000 acres. They are beautiful to look at and awfully darn tasty too.







And the snow...WTF!

Mmm...pizza.

I haven't had a decent slice of pizza since I moved away from NYC 3 years and 10 months ago (except, of course, for when I've visited NYC since then). I'm sorry, but Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Dominos is to pizza what Taco Bell is to Mexican Food.

I had to call and apologize to a co-worker today because I gave him a lot of crap a few months back when he was telling me that the pizza place in my town's little mall was amazing pizza and that he's never had better. I'm not sure what made me decide to give it a try today, but I did and I'll be damned if it wasn't AMAZING! Not just good for being in a little town or good compared to what I've seen passed off as pizza over the last few years, but just freakin' good!

Tim and Angel...I thought you might also appreciate that as I left the pizza place in the mall and walked to the exit I noticed a "Chinese massage" deal set up in the middle of the atrium. $12 for 12 minutes. I just started laughing and realized there was another story I probably could have included in my 8 random things. Oh, that and throwing out my back doing a Michael Jackson crotchgrablegkickspinmove walking down 168th St.

8 Random Facts...

Ok, so back in August my friend Amie “tagged” me in her blog. As a result of being tagged I was tasked with posting a list of 8 random facts about me on my own blog as well as tagging another individual. I’m sure Amie thinks I dropped the task like a hot rock being that it is now April, but believe it or not, it’s been on the to do list, I’m just a very good procrastinator. She chided me a little, especially after Timmy C. compiled a list of random facts for me and sent them to her, but she let me off the hook without much more harassment. I’ll have to give Tim some credit for suggesting some of these as he literally has a list (written down, no kidding) of stuff like this. He routinely refers to stuff that I have long since forgotten and I was the one involved. That said, here goes…

Before I begin let's review the rules:
1) Post these rules before you give your facts
2) List 8 random facts about yourself
3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) people and list their names, linking to them
4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged

1. By the time I finished 2nd grade I had lived in 6 states (Washington, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Hampshire and Georgia), and since then have lived in 5 more states (Ohio, Kentucky, New York, Florida and Texas).

2. While standing in the green room of New York’s City Hall awaiting the inauguration of Michael Bloomberg as Mayor of NYC I split my pants (wide freakin’ open) while bending over. Bette Midler was standing next to me.

3. I left a job I loved in NYC in order to volunteer with AmeriCorps for a year. Wasn’t quite what I expected, but I did a second year and my experiences completely changed my outlook on what I wanted to do with career and life. Now I set shit on fire for a living.

4. I get paid to set fire. Sometimes I get paid to put it out. Either way, huh…huh…fire.

5. With a bit of force on a door trying to keep it open so another passenger could get on, I once single handedly shut down service on the N/R Subway line in all of Manhattan. If the same thing happened today I would probably be breaking some patriot act law and be tried as a terrorist. At the time I just laughed a little with the only other guy that noticed that what I had done caused the door to come off track and force the train out of service during rush hour.

6. Following a playoff game between the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves I rode the subway home while under my breath whistling the Atlanta Braves’ tomahawk chop chant. The NYC cop I was standing next to in a packed to capacity train leaned over and whispered to me “It’s my job to protect you if you piss off these folks whose Mets just lost, but I won’t be able to control more than a couple of them. You’re on your own with the rest.” I stopped whistling the tomahawk chop chant.

7. I kayaked around the island of Manhattan a bunch of times, but the first time I did it was to accompany a swimmer in the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim (28.5 mile race around the island). While I kayaked around the island he swam around the island, non-stop, without being able to ever touch a boat. My ass was sore after 10 hours in the boat, but he swam the whole thing. I never complained about being tired on another ‘round the island trip.

8. During rehearsals for a concert I helped produce had the privilege of standing in the hallway of a sound studio in conversation with BB King, Eric Clapton and Willie Nelson. I have incredible disdain for celebrity in general, but aside from sitting down on a bar stool between Norm and Cliffy this pretty much did it for me.

I guess in order to make this episode complete I’m supposed to tag someone else. I guess it gotsta be Miss Angel. I’m not good enough at this to make a link, so I’m going to have to break that part of the rules from above.