The Saga of the Field Pants

Post number 2!! I totally got this.

Work and extra-curriculars have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks, but last weekend I got a couple of boxes re-packed, and I've started ordering some of the equipment I need for the field. Also, Dad made a nice particle-board floor for the trunk of my Forester. Its original floor was a casualty of freezing temperatures, dogs, and thawing temperatures. It'll be a lot easier to pack now that there's a flat surface.

Progress of Big Things:
  1. Saving money: still on-target.
  2a. Find field gear in the garage: a little started, haven't found anything yet. Most of what I need is likely in the VERY back of the garage.
  2b. Buy field gear: in-progress.
    - Field pants: 3 failures, 1 success. Details to follow.
    - Cool, long-sleeved undershirts for bugs: success. Need a couple more.
    - Fanny pack: found a 'tactical' one that looks super cool and has a lot of pockets. You almost forget that it's a fanny pack. If I hear ANY snickers, my retribution will be swift and dire.
    - Adirondack birds field guide: received. It ended up being one of those old-school ones with mostly words, and like 20 pages of 'plates' in the middle for photographs. Not as useful as I was hoping. Mom has lots, may just borrow.
    - Head lamp, pocket knife, and additional undershirts: ordered.
  3. Wrap up work stuff: in-progress.
    - Staff meeting this weekend, working on finishing up curriculum projects.
  4. Housing: in-progress.
    - Still talking to the guy about a room, slowly acquiring details. Still looks promising.
  5. Travel logistics: started.
    - Realized that I have several free Hotels.com nights stored up from all of my work travel recently. May not need to go the AirBnB route after all. While $40/night is pretty cheap, $0 is even cheaper.
  6. Box up life: started.
    - Found: winter & cold weather gear. Separated out into My Car For Field, Dad's Car For School, and Probably Won't Need.
    - Also started a box for field gear that I'm ordering. Attempting to keep everything as organized as possible.
    - Bought more colored construction paper. Color-coding the boxes worked well during the apartment move, so I'll do it again. Also have 3 colors of GIANT Sharpies for labeling, for the three categories of my worldly possessions (see above).

Now. The Saga of the Field Pants.

Based on the size guides, these sorts of pants are sized 2-4 sizes larger than jeans or slacks (because the whole premise of women's clothing sizes is We Can Do Whatever The F We Want, Standardization Is For Pussies, And If We Can Keep Women Feeling Off-Balance And Bad About Themselves At The Same Time, That's Just A Bonus), which means I need the 'extended sizes' and can only buy these pants in certain brands. The 'normal' brands like Columbia, North Face, Royal Robbins, etc. won't work. So, I ordered pants from a website that sells uniform clothes and gear for military, police, firefighters, and EMT's, who have similar requirements in pants to field biologists.

Attempt #1: Ordered a preliminary pair just to see. 65% cotton, 35% polyester. Not sure what fabric my old field pants were, so I'm just shooting in the dark. Received them, they are a pretty heavy canvas-type fabric, which is not what I need for warm weather. Possibly for early in the spring though, I'll definitely revisit that for next May. HOWEVER. Not for July. And, despite being called 'women's' pants, they were cut much closer to the unisex and men's pants that I've had a couple of times in the past: waaaay to much room in the front, and not nearly enough room in the back. Also, the legs were the same width at the ankle as they were at the thigh. With the heavy fabric, I felt like I had a circus tent attached to each leg. NOPE.

Attempt #2: Dickies. Inexpensive, lots of inseam choices, lots of colors, lots of sizes. Also the cotton/polyester blend, which I now know won't work for summer, but still. General fit: not bad, actually seem to be cut for a woman. Length: 30" inseam too long, need 28" if possible. Number of pockets: INSUFFICIENT. NOPE.

Attempt #3: Another website for military/police/fire/EMT uniforms. Same brand as one I'd seen on website #1, but different available styles. One labeled 'light-weight', 100% nylon. Haven't tried this yet, ordered 2 slightly different styles. Received one. Fabric: SUCCESS!! Exactly what I used to have and what I need. Light-weight, quick-dry, breathable, rip-stop, stain-resistant. Fit: decent. Length: they came 'unhemmed', which is like 36" or something ridiculous. Will have to take them to get hacked off. Number of pockets: acceptable. These are keepers. Based on this, the second pair is a similar style, same brand and size, so I'm optimistic.

That's all for now!

Third Time's the Charm

I'm attempting this whole blog thing again. I know. I'm dubious too. However, my Bander and Barista blog worked pretty well for the 'Bander' part, when I had things to talk about besides "I went to work and served coffee to some people." Likewise with my High-Functioning Bio-Nerd blog: "I went to work and did GIS things" just wasn't exciting enough to write about on any sort of regular basis.

So what's changed? I'm so glad you asked.

In mid-March, right before my birthday, I was accepted into the graduate program at Indiana State University as a Masters student and TA in the Biology department. I will be working on a project dealing with White-Throated Sparrows of the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York (ecology, genetics, evolution, behavior, biogeography, or some combination thereof), the specifics of which have not yet been ironed out. After several weeks of high-anxiety financial acrobatics, I have accepted the offer, notified my current employer, and decided on a start date. My advisor wants me to get in at least some field work this coming summer, before classes start, to get familiar with the study area and the lab's protocols. This means that I will be leaving my current job on June 15, driving up to New York, and starting field work around June 19. Now that the decisions and dates are final, I can start making plans, which has lowered my anxiety levels a little.

This means that I have essentially 2 months to wrap up my life here in Houston, save a TON of money to help get me through the (very very lean) next 2 years, and figure out logistics for a cross-country move.

So far, nothing has gone catastrophically wrong (as I knock on every wooden surface in the room).

Big Things that need to happen before June 15:
  0. Make a to-do list.
  1. Save a ton of money.
  2a. Find field gear in the garage.
  2b. Buy whatever field gear I don't have or isn't functional anymore.
  3. Wrap up work projects and document EVERYTHING.
  4. Arrange for housing in Terre Haute, if possible.
  5. Figure out travel logistics from Houston to Cranberry Lake, NY.
  6a. Box up whatever will fit in my car after field gear.
  6b. Box up whatever will fit in Dad's car for him to bring to me in August.

Progress on Big Things:
  0. Make a to-do list: DONE (preliminary)
  1. Saving money: on-target
  2a. Find field gear in the garage: not started
  2b. Buy field gear: in-progress.
      - Brother got me nice new rain boots for my birthday!
      - Mom gave me money for field pants. Ordered pair #1.
  3. Wrap up work stuff: not started
      - Just told my coworkers today. Staff meeting scheduled later in the month.
  4. Arrange for housing: in-progress
      - Talking to a guy about a room in a house. Slowly acquiring details. Looks promising.
  5. Travel logistics: started
      - Worked out approximate route and day break-down, looking into AirBnB prices in stopover cities.
  6. Box up life: not started

You now know as much as I know.

Also, the family-friendly-ness of my language and my stress/anxiety levels are inversely correlated. This means that, for the next 2 years, my ratio of swear words to normal words will likely be quite high. Swearing has been linked to intelligence in multiple studies though, so SorryNotSorry.