I Did Freeze

yeah, i'll say that field work in the fall is definitely a BAD idea. i'll be glad when it's over. i wasn't alone in my suffering, though. rochelle valiantly stood by me... and we both bitched about it a lot. it was SO freakin' cold. it was the kind of cold where i stepped into the water and it immediately made my feet hurt. when rochelle and i were marking seagrass shoots so i can go back later and see how much they grew, my fingers went numb. it was horrible. oh, and sampling two experiments in one day is also a VERY BAD idea. we quite literally finished by the headlights of the suburban. and the park service guys so did not come kick us out when the park closed at sunset. so we finished processing the last sample in the bug-infested dark. i bought rochelle dinner that night. it was so awful, she deserved something good for helping me.

the day we left port st. joe was really pleasant, though. we slept in a little (well, we got to wake up after the sun was up, so it was an improvement), hung out on the balcony of our hotel room watching a swarm of seagulls and pelicans diving for fish (it was like an episode of Blue Planet, i swear), and then drove all the way back down hwy 98 to pensacola. once we arrived in pcola, i swung by the hangar and picked up my pretty, pretty ice pilots tickets. i squealed with excitement when i discovered the 'bring a friend' coupons. i was planning on bringing some friends at some point, and now i can bring them for free. then we stopped by cordova mall so rochelle could get her ring cleaned, and after that we continued our journey back to DISL, where we unloaded and cleaned out the suburban. then we headed back to mobile, and it was only 5 pm when i got home. it was pretty sweet.

i'm super excited about tonight. you know, the ice pilots' home opener. i was delighted to see that bridgeport finally assigned us a defenseman and that adam tichauer was waived. not that i have anything personal against adam tichauer, i've just always been pissed that half of this season's defense was here last year during The Worst Year Ever. somebody had to go.

i was also delighted last night by the flyers' game against atlanta. they actually managed to avoid looking horrible and pathetic for john stevens' NHL head coaching debut... and they won in a shootout. who would have thought that atlanta putting in a cold goaltender for the shootout would be a bad idea? i was so surprised to see kari lehtonen in the shootout when hedberg had played the whole game. it worked out well for the flyers, though, and they scored their second win of the season. man, that sounds sad.

anyway, i'm looking forward to tonight and to an ECHL season that will (hopefully) wipe the last one from memory.

LET'S GO PILOTS!