Aye yie yie

Oh man oh man its been a crazy last week: Just about everything has happened from having to push Adan's car around the Zocalo (town center) cause it broke down to drilling faster and deeper than i ever have to having the engine break, to lightening storms, tacos, purging, sunburns, more tacos, a good amount more purging, early mornings, 500% humidity, some kick ass boots, a bit of spanish here and there and in general just wearing myself down and beating myself up. I've lost weight even though i eat as much as i possibly can, such as 10 tacos for dinner tongiht, 3 sandwhiches for lunch, a massive bowl of cereal, a banana and a snickers all for the day. Anyways, here's some pictures. I'm working on getting a quick video up.

The rains start everyday at 3pm sharp, there's a lot of lightening which means we have to stop working (holding 30 foot metal rods in a storm es no bueno). Meaning we have to get up early to put in a full day of work, so i present to you the sunrise shot outside the front door of my house, 6:00am, the mountian in the back is the volcano that i work on the flanks of

On the drive up the mtn we get a view (occasionally) of the 5th largest mountain in North America

I got new boots while down here, Winter Camo - check that shit out, if i were climbing the mountain in the last picture you wouldn't see half my legs

we decided that a picture to start every morning was necessary for good measure. Adan and I are both very sick of work (pinche trabajo) and this is what gets us excited after the hour and a half of boring 4x4 driving which is then followed by the hour hike into the site. Los dos amigo son muy fuertes

Can't really complaine all that much when this is my office though

A little west coast love for all my west coast homies out there. KB for life!

Wait for it, waaaaait for it....ok there it is, another day of work

We went to the beach and i decided i wanted some sun so i didn't put on sun screen, i was stupid, my new name became "el hombre con boltas blancas y piel de rojo" the man with white boots and red skin


This is my view from the sofa that i'm sitting on as i type this...

Rio Xico - this is a sweet river foro boating from what i hear (obviously not this section)

The gorge below the falls


I grew up in a place with no lizards so they utterly facinate me. They're so damn fast.

Walking into the drill site, this is what i walk through. The corn in the field is used to make tortillas. When we stay at the Casita (cabinita) (see photos below) we eat at Leonedes house where we eat tortillias from last seasons crop - its pretty amazing to see how these people live.

Buena Vida

They tell me i'm drilling 7000ft up on the side of a 13,000 foot volcano but i wouldn't know, all i've seen is clouds and rain - stupid cloud forest. This is the Cabanita that i stay at every other night. It's an interesting place

Adan's favorite two sayings are "Get the fuck up" and "Shut the fuck up" followed usually by lots of laughing. I brought a bottle f tequilla up for the night - here we are in the middle of the explanation of "drunk blanket" i dont think he ever really understoon me, but eh, buena vida!

This is the Cabanita on tequilla

Meh-he-co

It took 15 hours to get here, but this is my new room for the next couple of weeks

Not sure where to start...the significant amount of gas that seems to be bellowing out of my ass seems like a fare contender but so does the Ass (burro) which carried in some my supplies to the research site today. I expected a shit show - granted i'm only sitting at day 1.5 at the moment - but so far this "thing" (i label it a thing at the moment because i have no idea if i'm on an adventure, a research trip, a mis-adventure, an epic, a classic, a mission or just hanging out in Mexico with some newly formed Mexican cohorts) but regardless of what i call it, so far its been smoother than a babies butt slicked up with bacon grease. I was sure as shit something was going to go wrong when the FAA bag-checker at PDXdropped one of my two 95lb bags on his foot, swore like a bitch in heat and then proceeded to kick the bag repeatedly with me watching in full sight. But really, no, nothing has happened yet, and take it all into consideration: I'mflying solo to Mexico city with 300 pounds of drilling equipment including 2 very used, dirty, oily, gassy lawn mower engines and a bag full of 8 foot long metal poles, i have to manage to convince Alaskan Airlines that its not overweight or over sized, convince FAA that the engines wont spontaneously combust at 37,000ft and then convince Mexican immigration that this gringo isn't part of the underground used lawnmower black market and that all this shit I'm schlepping in with me isn't worth a penny over $300 - look, its a used fucking lawnmower and some metal pipes- my chapstick is worth nearly as much as these things (this was my plan of action if they questioned my legitimacy, and of course it was all going to be in Spanish - which i'm not very good at))))). Truth be told my plan of action started when i sat down with Steph just before i left. Not only did i get a laundry list of Spanish swears to yell when things were breaking on my drill, but (on the next page of my note pad) i also got a list of key words i may need to use (read: point at on my note pad) with the immigration officers to convince them that everything was completely legit and that they should let me into their completely legit swine flu ridden, non-corrupt, smelling of candy and roses beautiful country.

Beautiful Country indeed, this is my new work site

The pile of shit being moved from Oregon to Mexico

So as you may have already guessed, it all went off with out a hitch. I put one foot on the other side of customs and i already had 2 friends waiting for me (in the form of other grad students, one of which is from Mexico city). They whisped me away, sat me on a bus, got me 6 hours of the city, had people to pick us up at the bus stop and before i new it i was sitting in a colonial open-air veranda style house practicing my Spanish with my new two "assistants" for the next 2 weeks - and then we went out and had dinner and drank some beers. Crazy.

Found her, this little cutey is my new drilling protege

I'm having the time of my life though, this place is hilarious - my assistants are really just other students who happen to be Mexican, damn funny, good at carrying shit and who thought it was hilarious when they brought me to the supermarket and the first thing i did was pick out a bottle of tequila. Tomorrow the 3 of us are spending the night in a rustic (our greatest amenity is a lone light bulb powered by a battery) cabin on the side of a volcano in a cloud forest and i sure as hell dont plan on doing it sober - i mean honestly guys, does the opportunity get any better than this? We've got our own lemon tree in the house for god sake, each lemon screams to me "yo quiero tequila"

I've used/learned more spanish in the last 36 hours than i probably did in the 4 weeks i spent hear on our boating trip just over a year ago. Granted that'swhat happens when you're surrounded by your friends who all speak the language better than you and you just sit back and let them do the work, but regardless its been great. They're just as bad at English as i am at Spanish but once we realized we were all equally eager to practice our pathetic language skills on the other person our anxieties about saying something stupid or not knowing how to say something melted right away - granted telling them i have 4 wives and i dont drink water, but rather beer for all of my meals, has helped keep things light, but the truth is i haven't gotten such a kick out of something recently as i have the joy of being able to make someone laugh from saying something in their own mother tongue. If any of you know Spanish out there and try to speak it to me i will still just stare back at you blankly.

Leon (his real name is much longer and i cant remember it but its like leonalentamente) lives right on the edge of the research site and takes care of the place and also let us use his donkey

So I've written all of this without telling you much of what has actually happened - thatsbecause nothing really has happened yet. We went out to the research site today, brought all of the equipment out, set up the platform and then went home - batta bing, batta boom.

Like they always say, flaunt it if you've got it: Leon flaunting his Ass

I'm spending the next 2 days up at the site though and have been practicing my swear words with Adan y Sergio, things are sure to spice up a bit - and if not on the drilling scene then I'm sure my bowels will spread some loving at some point - oh man did i forget how good the juice is down here!