Skip to main content

Eh doesn't afraid of anything.

I was walking back to my dorm late last night after seeing Star Trek again. Campus was quiet and empty. As expected for that hour, I guess. I walked slowly and thought about things. A fat cat walked out of the bushes and waddled toward me. I stopped and knelt down, reaching out with my hand. "Hey kitty," I said. "What's up?" The cat sniffed the air and stepped into the light. "Come here, buddy. I won't hurt you."

It was not a cat. It was a raccoon.

"Oh God!" I yelled, jumping to my feet. It hissed at me and waddled back in the direction it had come from. I continued to shoo it away. When it disappeared back into the bushes I started down the sidewalk again.

Things are never really what you expect. That was the point of that experience, I guess. A minor consequence for a "leap before you look" attitude. Things never happen the way you think they will in your head, assuming you tried to think that far forward. Situations never pan out the way you want and surprises never end up quite right. Life is not a television show, it's not a comic book, and it definitely is not a great fantasy. Which is okay.

Where's the fun in perfection?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I'm a geologist, not an alcoholic.

I thought I had seen people drink before. Hell, I thought that I had drank before. But, clearly, I thought wrong on both of those counts. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a reason to justify all of the drinking that transpired down there last week. There was no rhyme or reason to it, it just was. Field work just makes a man thirsty. Taking this class was easily one of the best things I've ever done. We worked hard every day out in the field. Wake up at 7, leave the beach house by 8, hit the water by 9. My first three field days were in service on the R/V Acadiana , a 58 foot vessel that towed the CHIRP fish , the air gun, and the streamer to measure all the seismic data--looking at the subsurface of the seafloor we drove over. My second ship was the R/V Itasca using the multibeam , sidescan , and grab sampler --getting seafloor surface bathymetry. They were long, exhausting days and we returned to the docks around 6 or 7 every evening. And then, drinking. So much ...

Finger pointing good.

When I was on the boat doing science at Galveston, I saw a lot of dolphins. It was a significant experience for me because I have never actually seen a wild dolphin in real life before. It was sort of a dream come true. And in the middle of the shipping channel, no less. They really are amazing animals. It really kills me to realize I'll probably never see dolphins in Galveston again because of what happened to the Gulf. What is happening to the Gulf. It really is a tragedy. On a much lighter note, I started this Insanity workout program and it was so intense that I threw up before I finished the first workout. That is a good sign, I think. It is certainly an incentive to complete the entire thing. Anything that makes you feel that bad so quickly must be good for you.

The goodest, even.

A couple of days ago, as I was leaving the research campus with my friend to go home, a woman approached me with her bike. "Excuse me," she said. "By any chance, are you headed that way?" She pointed off in the general direction that was the only way to leave campus. "Why yes." I said. "If it's not too much to ask," she started. "Because my bicycle has a flat tire--" "Sure." I said. "We can fit your bike in here, too." And with that, we drove a Belgian woman home. She told us about her family back in Belgium and how we have a better education system here and we're more bike friendly than Europe and how she misses her family and Skypes with them in the evenings. We dropped her off and continued on our original route. Later, as I entered the final stretch of my homeward journey, I saw a large something in the road. As I got closer, I realized it was a large turtle. I quickly pulled off into the should...