Wonderful

Did a totally new area on Sunday, which of course means a new one of these blog post thingys.

Got shifted to anteater this week, which actually means capybara, llama, tortoises, rheas, flamingos, andean bears, and anteaters.  It was cool to see all of these new animals and all the different night houses that they have. Everything is more or less the same, cleaning and hosing out the houses, feeding the animals either in the back or out on exhibit, cleaning the yard, trying to do some training if there's time.  The one new thing that I did was clean the anteater pool, which was kind of gross because they only poop in the pool.  But those kinds of animals and night houses are what I imagined the entire zoo was like, not just that area.  So I hope I get to be on that area more this semester to get some more experience with those kinds of things.  Pretty sure I've done everything except polar bear/lion and macaques/mandrills at this point, and with lots of things changing at the zoo maybe I'll get to, maybe not.

Also found out that two apprenticeship spots open in September, so I'll have to find something to do this summer, although there is a thing in Boston that I'm going to apply for I think.  It seems like the perfect thing that I would need, and it's only from the end of May through September, so it works out perfectly.

Since my last post, the whole world now knows where Tucson is on a map, and I've seen every president I've ever voted for in person (one), and both for bad reasons.  But Rep. Giffords is making huge progress, and the whole tone of this community has changed, and I'm kind of glad to say that I've lived here for 3 and a half years now.  Just sitting here watching the news on January 8th was one of the most surreal things I've ever experienced.  Things kept happening and changing (CNN had Giffords dead for half an hour), and the nation was focused on this town that most of the country probably doesn't even know exists.  Then President Obama showed up, and I waited in line outside McKale all afternoon to see him speak, and to see all of that political power, all sitting together on the floor that the basketball team made famous.  It was crazy.

Four months til graduation! :)

How can you smile with all those tears in your eyes, and tell me everything is wonderful now?

Boys of Summer

I haven't been on here all summer, and I'm not really sure why, so here's a quick recap.

The two muntjacs, the male rhino, and the old zebra mare all died this summer.  Easily four of my favorite animals at the zoo, so that was kind of rough.  The rhino may have been the worst though because I had to clean up after the destruction that happened to the yard after his passing.  I got to work with two new keepers, so hopefully that helps me out when I'm looking to get into the zoo business for real.  Otherwise, I just did pretty much the usual hoofstock stuff all summer at Reid Park.

I went to Florida for a week.  Two best days were the day we went to Animal Kingdom, and the day we went to Daytona for the NNS race.  Daytona International is just an incredible place to go, and on a race weekend, it was absolutely ridiculous.  A little disappointing still that Cup qualifying was rained out that day, but Junior winning the race in the Wrangler car definitely made up for it.

I got named drum captain of the drumline this year.  It feels good, but it was really stressful for a while, but now it's starting to be ok, and doing the little extra things is actually kind of nice because my class load is really light this semester.  I also became the marching percussion instructor at Desert View High School in Tucson.  That'll give me something else to do and will definitely fill up my Tuesday and Thursday nights.

And, last but certainly not least, the Padres still have the best record in the NL :) The Angels might be awful this year, but the Padres have made up for it.

So maybe I'll start doing this more, even though I'm not sure if I'll be at the zoo this semester, but drumline will probably be able to fill this up fairly easily, and baseball of course.

Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach.  I fell it in the air, summer's out of reach

Collide

It's weird how songs on the radio on my way home match up with what happens that day

Today was somewhat different than normal.  Starting out with getting all the feed, but the rhinos needed more than normal because they have more medicine now.  We went and fed them first and then fed ostrich and zebra. After feeding them and watching the foal for a little bit, I went out in the zebra exhibit and started cleaning while Susie went and fed gazelle and corey busters.

After cleaning zebra, I started cleaning rhino while she went and put Konan (the male zebra) and the ostriches out on exhibit.  After we were done cleaning rhino, we put them out with gazelle and the corey busters.  We actually had all the animals out around 9 today, pretty sure that was a first.

Once everyone was out on exhibit, we cleaned up all the barn areas, just like normal, except when we were done cleaning up the rhino back area, we went and got the giant ball that's been being passed around the zoo since today was the rhino's turn.  So we walked through the zoo, fed the giant crane in the rhino yard, and went over to lion to get the ball.  Once we had the ball, I rolled it through the zoo, trying not to run over any little kids with it, which was kind of difficult.  That ball is huge and heavy.

We dropped the ball off by the rhino barn, put food out for the tortoises, and went to clean up the zebra barns.  This took a little longer than normal because of moving around the baby and mom, so we didn't finish before it was time to put the giant ball in the rhino yard.

This was a big snooze.  The rhinos didn't even care, and I got to fill out an entire page of info that said pretty much that.  But I didn't have to spend that time sweeping up zebra poop, so I guess it's ok.  Plus while I was watching the rhino, the polar bear was pacing in his area that's right next to there, so I really watched the polar bear for most of the time.  And I got to hang out with the other keepers for a couple minutes, so that's always fun.  After I finished the evaluation of the ball usage, I went to the rhino barn to help finish up cleaning in there.  This didn't take very long, so I still had some time before the big intern meeting, so I got baby zebra watching duty for about half an hour.  This is just sitting in a chair and staring at the baby zebra to see if he poops, pees, runs or nurses, so luckily it wasn't for too much longer than half an hour even though I love that little guy.

And then came the intern meeting.  It was nice to see Sarah since I hadn't seen her since orientation and she's like the only one I really talk to, so I had a friend again :) The one girl that wasn't at orientation was there, and she looked and sounded like she knew way more about animals than I could even imagine at this point.  We all talked about different ideas, and this is when I realized I got hosed with my placement.  I never really leave the little corner of the zoo I'm in, and I'm really only out on grounds once a week while everyone else is out twice.  So I now like this opportunity, but now I know it could be so much more than what it is.  So that's slightly disappointing.  And I need some help coming up with an idea for hoofstock enrichment, so if you have any ideas shoot them my way....PLEASE!

After our meeting we went to the back area of polar bear, so I got to see one of the polar bears up close and personal, and he did a couple of commands for us, so that was pretty neat.

I somehow find that you and I collide

I Gotta Feelin

Yep, back to song names as titles for these ;)

Sooooo, Saturdays at the zoo are way cooler than Tuesdays.  Today started off exactly like last week, except way less intimidating.  I kind of had an idea of what I was doing, and I knew where I was going.  Started off with my keeper telling me to find some extra rubber boots that were big enough for me because the entire zoo was a swamp after all the rain that we had this week.  So I found some, luckily, and then we were off to start the day.  She had to go check on the tortoises to make sure they weren't too wet, so I mixed the vitamins and medicine into the rhino and zebra food while she did that, and then we loaded up the cart with all the other food and we were off.

First up is the rhinos.  I took their two food containers in and she brought the grain and pellets.  I fed the male one first since he was already in the barn and Susie started cleaning out his eye while the female came in and then I fed her.  Feeding them this week was way faster than last week, and of course, got some petting in while I could.

The next animals that get food are the ostriches and the zebras.  Ostriches are weird.  They just look and act dumb.  The entire back area was puddles from all the rain, so the animals weren't really moving around too much.  After the ostriches got their food the zebras got theirs, all in their separate areas, and the really old female getting a different diet from the other two.  The pregnant zebra looked fatter this week compared to last week, so that baby is coming and it's coming quick! So excited for when that actually happens.

Next thing on the to do list is to clean out the zebra/ostrich exhibit.  I started this while Susie went and fed the gazelle and carnivore birds (I always forget what they're actually called).  Cleaning exhibits is interesting when there are lakes in the middle of them.  Everything looks so much more disgusting.  Some of the wooden border decorations had fallen off too, so there was a couple gaps in the fence today.  After this we cleaned out the rhino exhibit.  That was even more disgusting.  The only place they poop in the exhibit was covered by water, so all their poop was underwater and we had to kind of muck it out.  But it turned out to be alright cuz we didn't have to get all of it.

This next part was the highlight of the day.  We left the big cart over between the rhinos and zebras, got in a fresh cart and went over to the elephant area! I didn't know I was allowed to even go anywhere near that area, but my keeper and the other one that was on elephants today let me in, so of course I went in.  To get to the place where they clean the elephants' feet, you have to go through the night barn and out to the kind of quarantine area, where they more the elephants into this little barred off cage where the gates are automatic and open and close to move the elephant through and keep them still while the keepers are doing stuff.  Kind of like an airlock I guess.  The two keepers told me exactly where they wanted me to stand as they brought the first of the two out, the Asian elephant.  This one is shorter but thicker than the African elephant, and apparently meaner because they wanted me to stand as still as possible, and my keeper Susie can't touch him because he doesn't like her very much, but she could use this whistle that they use to tell the elephant when it can put its feet back down when they're done cleaning it.  When he was done, they let him out into the exhibit and brought the taller African elephant out.  She's apparently nicer, so they were both doing stuff and then when they started doing her back feet they brought me around and let me touch her feet and scrape off some of the sand.  That was awesome.  I touched an elephant's foot!  And then, if that wasn't enough, they did some kind of tail training and wanted me to be an extra person to touch it for the elephant's training.  So I touched its tail too! Its tail hairs are really hard, kind of like a wire brush thing.  It was incredible to do that though.

When we went back to the main hoofstock area, we took the tortoises their food and then cleaned out the rhino, gazelle and that bird yards.  Then Susie had to go back and do other stuff with the elephants, so I started cleaning the zebra area while she was doing that, and then when she came back she bleached the girl zebra barn (girl zebras poop in their barn but the guy zebra doesn't, guys are obviously cleaner).  When we were done cleaning out the zebra area, she put the females out on exhibit and brought the male back in and that was the end of my day.

So, obviously, the most exciting part was the elephant part.  Hopefully that happens more often than not haha.  I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it and hopefully next week we'll get everything done even faster.

I know that we'll have a ball if we get down go out and just lose it all

First Kitchen Day

Today was my second day at the zoo, the first one with my other keeper, Stacey.  She only works in the kitchen so that's where I stayed all day.

The day started off with her telling me to just stay out of the way and watch til all the keepers had their food and were out of the way, so that's exactly what I did, while eating a cookie that one of the docents brought.  When that was over, she finally acknowledged my existence and showed me around the kitchen and the warehouse area.  Then she gave me a fatty binder with the diet of every animal in the zoo listed inside of it.  She told me to read all of it, so I did.  It took about 45 minutes along with some other distractions including talking to the community service lady who also works in the kitchen.

After I was done reading, Stacey told me to make all of the tortoise diets, so I did.  A lot of salad and fruits and vegetables, and now I know the difference between a zucchini and a cucumber (I think). Seriously, they look way too alike to be completely different things.  After I was done making the different diets and putting them in the right refrigerators, the weekly delivery of mealworms came in, so I had to help put them in containers for the rest of the week.

When the worms were put away we cleaned up the kitchen and that was pretty much it for the day.  Vet visits are on Tuesdays and Fridays, so hopefully I'll get to be around those more often than standing in the kitchen and making tortoise diets...but it's easy work and for credit. And it's still working at a zoo, so it's not bad, just not as exciting as petting rhinos and getting chased by giant meat eating birds.

I can't walk and I can't talk anymore since you, walked out the door

My First Day!!

So, this is easily the best thing that I've ever done.  I may have found my true calling in life this morning. :)

When I got there, it was a little strange because I was early and apparently not very many zookeepers get there early on a Saturday.  One of the older ones kind of introduced me to most of them, and then eventually Susie, my Saturday keeper, showed up.  Right away we gathered up all the food as she was explaining to me that they basically feed all the hooved animals a horse's diet.  We then started loading up our cart with all the food that we were going to need for the morning.

We went to the rhinos first.  It was awesome when she started tapping on their fence with a wrench and they came from their house to their different stalls to eat.  As she was treating one of their eyes, she told me to just stand there and pet it while she took care of everything.  Coolest thing ever!  I just stood there petting a rhino for a solid ten minutes, and it wouldn't be the last time!

After that we drove over to the ostriches and zebras and fed them.  The ostriches are kind of crazy, and the zebras are pretty funny.  One of the zebras is pregnant, and she's having the baby in the next month or two, so I'll get to experience that too! After feeding them we went into their exhibit and cleaned it out and fed the different birds that are in there.  When we left there, Susie told me she was going to go get something and sent me back into the exhibit by myself to go retrieve an ostrich egg that they had found.  So that was the first thing I did at the zoo by myself, and apparently it's the weirdest looking ostrich egg that they've ever seen.  So that's kinda fun.  Then we went back to the barn area and let the ostriches and zebras out into their area.

The next thing we did was check the temperature of the tortoises.  They were warm, so we opened up their house to the outside world, and let them cool down for about an hour before putting them out for the public to see.  After that we cleaned out the rhino/gazelle exhibit area and then let them out into their exhibit just as people were starting to show up.  When the rhino was leaving he stuck his head through the fence so I could pet him again. :)

When everything was out in their exhibits and everything was going well, we started cleaning out their night areas, gazelle first, then the rhinos.  When we were just about done cleaning the rhino barn, it was time to give the rhino his daily foot check up.  So I got to watch that happen, and stand there and pet the rhino the whole time so he would stay put and be happy.  That was the last time I'd see Bobo today (he's my new best friend).

The rest of the day was spent sweeping and raking the zebra/ostrich night area.  If you painted a horse with black and white stripes, it would be the same thing as a zebra.  Manure's the same, hay's the same.  Kind of ridiculous.

All in all, today was awesome!  Learned so much about the zoo and the different animals.  I'll probably forget some of it before next Saturday when I'm in hoofstock again, but that's ok.  I can already tell this will be the most incredible thing I've ever done.

Mr Jones and me, tell each other fairy tales

Holiday Bowl Trip

Since I start working at the zoo for real Sunday afternoon, this will probably be the last post that has to do with something other than that, but what an awesome trip San Diego was. Let's just go through it day by day here.

Sunday the 27th: Got back at about 1 in the morning from the Coyotes game the night before. Woke up feeling sick to my stomach. But, I got everything packed and loaded up, bought a sandwich at Circle K, and went to the stadium to load the truck and stuff. Found out when I got there that our rookie bottom bass drummer couldn't find his uniform in his house, so he had to check out one that was three sizes too big haha. Before we got on the buses Scott called us over and told us we were getting sweet free shirts. So that was exciting.

On the way there, I got to sit by myself since there were a lot of people just meeting us in San Diego, so sleeping was a lot easier. Listened to Coldplay the entire way, non stop. I know, it's sort of ridiculous, but they're so awesome. When we got to the hotel, everyone had a different idea of what we were supposed to do, so it took a lot longer than it should have to get to the room, but once that was settled we dropped everything off and went downstairs for pizza/football watching. That night we wandered around Gaslamp and did magic tricks with a mime in front of Ghiradelli's. And I made the mime talk to me, so that was the victory for the night...

Monday the 28th: Quick breakfast and then off to the naval base. We were ultra late in getting there so we didn't have any time to warm up before the first time playing on drums in two weeks, but it still went pretty well. This is where we got to see the Nebraska mascot for the first time, which is a moment I will never forget. That thing is ridiculous. Also saw Ndamukong Suh walk onto the boat while we were playing. First time I saw him in person too. We didn't get to go on the boat, but it was still a good time, and definitely the best parade rout ever...out onto a pier.

Then came rehearsal. It was long, it got cold towards the end, and my knee stopped working towards the end, so it was painful. After rehearsal, we had the band banquet, which was long, hot and painful. The drumline wore tacky christmas sweaters though, so that made it better. But the main downer at that thing was that the montage video from the entire year didn't have the drumline in it at all, so that was really disappointing. The banquet went so late there was no time to go do anything afterwards, so we sat in the hotel and stared at what we thought was some dude not moving in the tower across from us for like an hour and a half, and one person named all the cleaning people. It was fun and ridiculous. Turns out it was a mannequin since it was still there the next morning. Oh well...totally worth it.

Tuesday the 29th: The first thing we did was the convention center, where we warmed up in a spot with the best warmup view ever, and we saw the high school band representing Nebraska for the first time. Also saw Suh at this too, so that was twice before the game even started, which was exciting for me. After playing all kinds of tunes, we left and headed for Sea World. That was awesome. There were way more people watching us play than I would have imagined, and everything sounded good. It was a really great time there. Then we got some free time there until some of us had to leave for a pep band gig. Did all the stuff I did there in the summer basically, except I saw Shamu this time, which is always a great time.

After Sea World, a small drumline had to do a pep band gig, and I was a part of that small drumline. We went to the Hyatt where the teams were staying, and they kicked us out early because we were so loud. This gave us extra free time for the rest of the night. We went to a restaurant called Ponchos de Charly, and our server was Don Octavio, so you can imagine how awesome that dinner was. Then we just wandered around Gaslamp some more, found an awesome candy store, and I had the greatest shake of my life at Ghiradelli's. We went back to the hotel kind of early because the next day was going to be ridiculously long.

Wednesday the 30th (Game day): Woke up bright and early to go to the Holiday Bowl Parade. Best. Parade. Ever. So many balloons, so many high schools, it was great. And we warmed up facing the ocean again, which I want to do every time we warmup now. We played Vader for the Star Wars people, so that was kind of funny, and we played Band Yell with Ironwood Ridge High, and that was really loud. The parade was great, so many people the entire route, and then we went to Broadway Pier for a "Battle of the Bands", where SE Lincoln High played Nebraska's fight songs, and we played everything. Then we walked probably 20 miles (that's what it felt like) to Seaport Village, where we had an awesome catered mexican food lunch. Just sat there and stared out into the bay. It was sort of cold, but not too bad. Then we went to the stadium.

It started raining when we got there. We unloaded everything and headed out to play at three tailgates. It was kind of a mist the entire tailgating time, so it actually felt pretty good. After making a complete lap around the stadium, we went into the tunnel where we stood for at least half an hour with IRHS and SELHS. There were lots of shoes hanging from the piping above us, so that was kind of odd. We finally went out onto the field to do pregame, and it was awesome. Qualcomm doesn't hold very many people, but it feels a lot bigger than Arizona Stadium or Sun Devil Stadium. It stopped raining for pregame and the first half, but started again at halftime. During pregame there were parachuters that landed on the field. That was amazing. And then we went up into our ridiculously great seats. Right on the field, lots of room. So much better than a home game or at ASU, or even Vegas. The game itself was horrendous. We never really stood a chance, but we still had an awesome time in the stands. Halftime was the greatest halftime show of all time. We played part 1, then a montage of music with the high school bands and fireworks everywhere, the drumline even danced to Love Shack.

It was great.

After the game everyone was really hungry, so a group of us went to TGI Fridays. It took a long time to get food, but when you're with fun people it really doesn't matter that much. After eating we just went back to the hotel since it was after midnight by then.

Thursday the 31st: Just got up, packed, loaded the buses and left. We stopped in Yuma for lunch, but ended up having to unload the equipment truck because it broke down just as we got there. That was the only exciting part of the trip back, mostly because I slept the whole way from Yuma to Marana listening to Five for Fighting. After we got back to Tucson I cleaned up my house and then went over to the staff's house for midnight, where I got the year off to a good start with friends. It hasn't stayed that great, but hopefully it will turn around soon.

So that was the best band trip ever. So much fun the entire time. Truly incredible. I hope we go back again next year. That's up to Foles and crew I guess.

Oh I, I just died in your arms tonight

Walkin on sunshine

Finals are here, Christmas is soon, and bowl trip is right after that. I mostly just wanted to post a new blog so I could put off doing more o chem for now.

I wouldn't say anything too exciting has happened this week. Mostly just happy I don't live in Flagstaff and have to deal with all the snow. Today was 60 here in the great city of Tucson. That's awesome! I wish it was like that every day.

Classes are over, so that's fun. Went to a women's basketball game last night against New Mexico. Let's just say that rooting for New Mexico like Roy did would have definitely been a lot more fun. And just like Andre said during the game, could we seriously not be going to either tourney? Doesn't look great right now....

I'm gonna go back to that endless pit of ochem and ecology notes now, I'll come out tomorrow night, but that's probably it. Hopefully the Icecats keep on their winning ways and crush the 9th ranked Scum Devils tomorrow night. And please let band rehearsal not be freezing cold Monday night and the meeting short enough so I can actually study for a little bit that night for my most important final the next morning....

And Don't it Feel Good?