Seven weeks down.......

It's crazy to think that I've been in New York now for seven weeks, heading on eight. It has flown by. There are many ways to describe the experience I've been having here. Adventurous, stressful, annoying, magical, humorous, and educational. To say a few. I've had my ups and downs in the lab, but really what can I expect after not being in a lab since the beginning of 2009. Overall it has been great. I am learning new things and thinking out of the box to try to solve my lab dilemmas. One thing that is probably a little different then other jobs, is that the people I work with are not only my co-workers, but my friends. We do everything together, seriously! We are at work together for eight hours, ride the shuttle to and from work, go the gym together, eat dinner together, travel together, help dye each others hair and a plethora of other things. Of course this isn't all the time, some of us have taken trips without one another, or a smaller group of us has gone somewhere together. Let me tell you it is difficult traveling in a pack of nine as opposed to a pack of three. I've made some great friends here out of this group of nine, which is good considering they could be and possibly are a few of the people I will eventually deploy with.
To name a few, Emily, she is a great girl from Pittsburgh and we actually have a ton in common, even though there is a ten year age difference! She is probably the person I am closest with here. Jennifer (Jen), was the girl I came in with down in Atlanta. Also an awesome girl, with the greatest southern accent and sayings (she is from Mississippi). Dominique (another Cali girl), is also great, she is super fun and is always willing to hang out. Missy, she was a new comer to the group, but is a riot. She has experience and we go to her for a lot of questions. Misty is our newest arrival and in fact has been here now for two weeks. She is originally from Florida and seems like a nice girl. Now for the boys......Mario (Texas) , he is so funny. He appears as this very quiet, shy guy, but once you get to know him, he is such a smack talker. He is extremely nice and was the one who I was commuting to work with while my car was getting a new bumper. Thomas (Minnesota), is the little brother I never had. We act like siblings, constantly fighting and picking on each other. Finally, Walter. Not sure how to describe him. He is the oldest in the bunch and comes from an academic background.
Well that's the group in a nutshell, I figured I would introduce you all to them, so you have an idea of who I am talking about in future posts.

Trip to New York

So we decided to head down to New York City last weekend. A total of seven of us went, five of us took the train down on Saturday and two went down by bus on Friday.
I was with the train group and we had to pretty much get up at the crack of dawn to catch the train, which we than literally had to run to catch. Always an adventure!
We arrived at Penn Station at around 9:30, where I was meeting my good friend Allie. Allie currently lives in Ohio and her husband is in New York until the end of January. I was Allie's lacrosse coach at Davis and because we were the same age, we hit it off instantly. I left the group and was set to meet up with them sometime later that day. Allie, Aaron and I headed off to their apartment near Columbus Circle. We hung there for a while, then headed in through the mall which had a Dali inspired exhibit. I am a huge fan and was super excited. I had been just been to a recent exhibit in Atlanta and loved it.
After the jaunt through the mall we ended up at Central Park. This park is AWESOME. First off it's giant and you can walk forever and it feels like you are in another place. We stopped at all the major spots and enjoyed a nice stroll through the park. It was actually a very nice day! People keep asking me what I did in NYC, and really not much. It was mellow and nice to hang out with Allie and Aaron. We did go through the largest cathedral in the city, where outside was this crazy statue, telling the story of good vs evil. I also saw the RESTAURANT from Seinfeld, who knew it was called Tom's Restaurant! After that, we headed to a bar to watch the Ohio State game. After the game was over, I headed to meet the group at the hotel to check in. We decided to shove five people into one room and it worked!
We were planning on going out on the town and headed to grab some street food, then take the subway to Greenwich Village. First stop was the Village Tavern. It was okay, didn't have that great of ambiance but Thomas had been to a place called the Slaughtered Lamb, http://slaughteredlambpub.com/. We headed down to the dungeon as there was a table for the five of us. We were just enjoying our drinks, when I caught the conversation at the table next to us. The waitress was challenging the patrons to a drinking contest and apparently if they lost, she got to spank them. Now, I was a little surprised at this, but was like, hey cool job, you get to spank your patrons and drink with them! Well, she got one of their belts, had them bend over the chair and man, she went after it. I saw those guys flinch. She did not hold anything back, and my guess is that the next day they probably couldn't sit down! It was very interesting.
Well, after than bar, we headed to another bar, which wasn't as exciting by any means. It was already two and we were pretty much done, so we searched for the subway back to Time's Square. Of course we had to stop out for a post drinking snack and made it back to the hotel at around 4.
The next day we headed back to the park as the group hadn't been there yet...so it was another good day at the park. It was a bit colder, but still nice out. After the park, it was time to catch the bus back to Albany.....only to return another day!

Life in a hotel

It's been a while since I've blogged and wanted to give an update on my last couple of months.

First, I actually enjoyed living in the ATL and was sad to go. For the first couple of weeks, work consisted of mostly online training modules required by the Army, such as Risk Management Assessment, Fire Extinguisher Training, Drug Prevention, etc. Pretty boring and really not enough to fill two months of work. Every two weeks we would get a new group of people into s our office, which was really a trailer, not anything fancy and I basically thought of us (EFD) as the red headed step child of the FAD. Oh, yeah, if you didn't know the Army is full of acronyms, so if you don't know what it is, don't hesitate to ask. I will supply a list one of these days. Some easy ones to remember....


USACIL-United States of America Criminal Investigation Laboratory


So after finally feeling more comfortable with Atlanta, it was time to leave for our 20 weeks of training in Albany, NY. Basically each unit, DNA, Fingerprints and Firearms all went to training academy's all over, we were the lucky ones that get to be up north for winter. If you didn't know, I currently call the Holiday Inn my home. It's not ideal, but it's okay.

There are eight of us here right now and we have a pretty great group of people. I better like them, cause not only am I spending the next five months with them, but I will be spending eight months with a few of them when we are in the big sand box.

School, is school. The first week, aka hell week, was indeed that. Basically they take a semester's worth of info, from genetics to laboratory safety and shove it into a week. At the end of the week there is an exam. At first we were told that in order to pass each module we needed to have a 90%, thank goodness that was lowered to 80%, which took some pressure off. We are now doing serology stuff, which is much more exciting.

Haven't done or seen too much, but we are planning some great trips. First stop is the NYC next weekend........

Living in the ATL

Alright, so I finally arrived in Atlanta on Sept 9th!! Whoppee. I got the keys to my place and absolutely loved it. The only thing that sucks is that it's street parking only. I live in this great area, called Virgina Highlands. It is a very walkable area, which I love. I live close to a great park with amazing running trails. I can walk to a plethora of bars, restaurants and coffee shops. It is a great location. I am not that far from midtown, only about two miles, which with Atlanta traffic, it takes about 10-15 minutes to get there.

Well my first couple of days were busy getting settled, now I really didn't have too much stuff, just the stuff that i had in my car, so of course Target and Ikea were and are, my best friends. It was a Saturday afternoon and I hadn't talked to an actual human being, other than the phone, in quite some time. I decided it was time to get out and explore my new home. So, that day, happened to be Georgia and Georgia Tech playing football....well, on my journey I discovered a great play, Taco Mac, where I went to enjoy some human interaction and drink a couple of beers. I sat at the bar and met a very nice lady, Karen, we enjoyed some great conversation and she thought I was 24!!!! Whooppee!!! I wish??? Anyway, I stayed for the two Georgia games, but was planning on heading back home (why, it's not like I had t.v. or anything there) to finish getting settled. When in walks two gentlemen, they sit next to Karen, introductions are made and well, Notre Dame was playing.....so I stayed. We all then started chatting and having a great time. These were some really cool guys, and honestly, I was just excited to be an extrovert once again. I am not going to lie, I was pretty attracted to one guy, and was flirting like crazy with him. I ended up going to dinner with them and headed back to the Taco mac to watch some more college football. He turned out to be staying in town for a couple of days and asked if I knew who the Pixies were, I did, even though I've only heard a few of their songs. He was planning on seeing them and asked if I wanted to attend....why not! So I hung out with him until he had to head back to Florida where he lives, boo.

Well also during this time, I was starting my new job for USACIL. The first day, I then learned, i was headed to Albany, NY for five months in November....wow, I wish they would have told me this. Like usual I roll with the punches. In my in-processing, i met a cool girl, Jen, from Mississippi, she is also a DNA person working for EFD. We decide it's best if we stick together. The first couple of days is just in processing, before we head to our new home. Basically, portable trailers.....
Here, we met the rest of our team. All great people, that I will be spending the next year with!

Journey cross country II

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Ok, so after Zion, I headed out to Bryce National Park. These two park are very different. Zion has deep canyons, where as Bryce has protruding hoodoos, these amazing things that pop out of the landscape. It is absolutely beautiful and like nothing I've ever experienced before. I wish I had more time there, but I only spent an actual day in the park. I did do some hikes and saw the majority of the major sites. Walking amongst the hoodoos was probably the highlight of the trip here, they are crazy cool.
It was a great place, that I will be visiting again soon......
Alright so after, Bryce, I drove another 5 hours to see Arches national park. This park, unlike the previous two, is really geared towards driving. Of course there are hikes that you can do to see the arches, but most of them consist of maybe a half mile or mile. There were some longer hikes that I took, but missed the hike that required advance reservation. Plus it was over a hundred that day. At this point I was pretty lonely and ready for some sort of human/t.v. interaction. So I did the whole park and then thought I would stay in the town nearby, but it was labor day weekend and everything was booked. I headed towards Colorado. I finally sucked it up and decided to stay in a hotel. Now don't get my wrong the first couple of days of my trip were great. However, next time I decided to drive cross country, I will be taking a companion of some sorts. Driving for five or six hours everyday by yourself really gets old! Hey, you live and you learn. So, the next couple of days, there was a lot of miles put on little miss Lola. Oh, and another reason why I would want a companion, is because someone else is likely, to say, hey let's stop at this random location! When you are by yourself, it's just not as fun. So the next few days are blah, driving, more driving and more driving, and really besides the St. Louis arch, nothing exciting happened.

Journey cross country

OK, this has been a long time coming......

I first have to say that my last couple of weeks in Sacramento were awesome, so thank you for everyone adding to that experience.

Sept 1st, I began my journey. Kevin so graciously made me dinner on Tuesday night and sent me on my way Wednesday morning. I still had a couple of things to pack and clean before I left, but made it out of the house and on the road by 9:30. I was heading to Lake Mead, right outside of Vegas as my first stop. Now going down the 99, is not very interesting. Overall it was a pretty uneventful drive. I somehow made it to Lake Mead and it was freaking 90 at 9:00 at night. There was no one at the camp ground and it was a little eerie and it was so hot I barely slept.

Sept 2nd.
Today I was headed to Zion National Park, it's about a four hour + drive from Lake Mead. Also it's not a very exciting one, however once you get out of Vegas, the speed limit is 75, so that made up for it. There wasn't a ton to see along the way, and again it was hot. Once you get out of St. George, you begin to see all the canyons and when you make the turn onto the road for Zion, it's pretty amazing as is entering the park itself. I got there around one and again was camping, this time it was for two nights. Amy had given me some good hikes that I should check out around the park, because there are a ton and time was limited. She told me about the slot canyons or the Narrows as they call them, where you hike in the the Virgin river through the canyon. I rented some shoes and a walking stick and grabbed the shuttle. It's pretty cool because they have a free shuttle that hits all the major spots in the park. So off I went into the Narrows. The hike begins with a paved path for about a mile along the river. Once you come to the end, is where the real hiking begins. As you get deeper into the Narrows, there are far fewer people. It was nice because the water felt good and it was surrounded by the canyons where the sun couldn't reach. I hiked about a total of two miles or so in and then headed back. Overall it was a good day.

Sept 3: I had another day in Zion, so I wanted to take advantage of another great hike to Angel's Landing. It was suppose to be another hot day, over 100, so I wanted to get an early start. This isn't a long hike, only 5 miles round trip, 2.5 up and 2.5 back. However, the first 2.5 are pretty much all uphill and a ton of switchbacks. Also there is a point at when you get close to the top, where you can continue to the landing or stay put. Basically you are hiking on a very narrow area, with cliffs on either side of you and only a chain to hold onto. When I got to that spot I met a couple of girls from L.A. and we trekked up to the landing. It was pretty amazing because it gives you a 360 view of Zion. We stayed up there for a bit and then headed back down the mountain. I went back to camp and then did another hike to the Emerald Pools. There are three pools in the canyons to hike to. They really aren't green or anything, but pretty cool because they are just small pools in the middle of these canyons. I ended my day, by treating myself to a delicious dinner of pasta and a local beer.