Drag races; final day of qualifying

Justin and I went out early Saturday afternoon to pick up our tickets and decided to take a walk around inside. Within 5 minutes of walking through the gates, Justin's eagle eye found his brother, Brandon, and niece and nephew, Destiny and Jadon. We hung out with them for the remainder of the day.

Scene from our seats looking toward the starting line.

And then down the strip. Nice view, eh?

This one's for you, Josh! That is Jadon standing there.

Doing a little tailgating until the top fuel races started again. Brandon, Destiny and Justin.

Top fuel UPS dragster.

Leaving Nitro Alley for the evening.

Travel update

Leaving for Las Vegas tomorrow morning. Libby's first drive down south. We and Justin's whole family have tickets to the drag races on Saturday and Sunday. Hopefully I'll be able to post while I'm down there.

...damn federal employees can't stop looking at porn...

Hello to all. My long absence from the blogging world was of no choice of my own. You see, I don't have a computer at home (I'll come back to that) and I spend a small piece of time during the week to update my blog while at work. Recently that privilege was taken from me as very strict internet usage policies were implemented across the Department of the Interior's entirety. This was in response to a few damn federal employees that haven't figured out that streaming video from porn sites while on Uncle Sam's clock is not a good work practice! Others think it is alright to keep up-to-date on their second business of selling merchandise on eBay while at work. Therefore, we all have to suffer by being blocked from all internet sites capital hill thinks are inappropriate. Apparently blogging is included in the list. Somehow I was able to access the log-in site today. :o)

Ok, back to the home computer. A very generous friend at work and her family are looking to get rid of an old (3 years old) computer. I excitely said I could help them dispose of it. So, soon I will have my own home computer that I can blog to my heart's content. Hoping I'll be able to update before I get the home computer/internet set up, but if not....bye bye for now.

Stormy sky, Autumn & Season's first snow

One day last week I got in Libby to leave work in the afternoon and noticed the sky over the mountains on the west side of town. It was a cool day outside, although I never know what it's doing because I have an interior office....grrr.

Don't focus on the foreground...check out the clouds over the mountains.

And the storm produced the season's first snowfall up high. Justin and I were up on Saturday to do some sampling.

Justin extracts the rain water from a collecting jar he has out in the woods near Galena Creek.

Down at lower elevations (Galena Creek, shown here) it still looks like fall. I miss the other colors though. Yellow is pretty much the only fall color you'll see around here unless someone planted a non-native in their yard.

Still decorating

I've lived in my townhouse for almost a year and a half now, yet I'm still trying to put things on the walls. When I first walk into my front door there is a large white wall there that stares me in the face. For quite some time a large bookcase stood there, but when Mom and Dad came out to visit last December, Mom and I did some rearranging, which left me my white wall. So I finally found something I liked. Simple, but artsy.

Here's me trying to hang my new shelves. I do really good with hanging pictures...but when two screws/nails are needed I just can't seem to hang it straight. Justin decided that he should finish hanging the rest of them.

And the final shelves from just outside the front door. Now I just need to find some cool stuff to put in them.

Oh, and my mirror by the door! Now I finally have a place to hang my keys!

Effectively the Ground-Water Specialist

Saturday night, Justin and I attended a retirement party for the guy Don I've been training with for the last 6-8 months. He was the ground-water specialist for the NAWQA unit (NAtional Water Quality Assessment Program). Yesterday was Don's last day...which means today I'm the official NAWQA ground-water specialist...EEK! Here's a picture we of the entire NAWQA unit that we photoshopped a few newer people into. :o)