Swiftly

This weekend went pretty fast! I was supposed to go hiking with a group on Saturday, but decided I should stay home and work on job applications, which I did. I got three of them done, and found a couple more to apply for. One that I did submit an app for is with the National Park Service, in town (I am lucky that so many agencies have a presence here) for a term (so up to four years, kind of like a contract position, except it's with the feds) position as a Writer/Editor. Again, they wanted someone who could take scientific information and make sure non-science stakeholders understood it.  It'd be what I'm making now, and I'd take it in a heartbeat.

The application process for these fed jobs largely consist of submitting a resume and then ranking where I am in terms of experience for about 25 statements that have to do with qualifications for the job (all the answers are the same, ranging from "I don't have any experience in this" to "I am considered an expert in this"). If one can judge by the number of questions answered that say "I've done this as a regular part of a job", I'm well-qualified. The position is open for two weeks, so we'll see what happens. No guarantees that this job isn't already taken by a preferred candidate.

But Sunday Sal and I did go hiking, got a pretty early start, and had a nice six mile hike on a trail called Hewlett Gulch. Above is Sal on the hot part, and then the trail goes back down into the gulch and there are lots of water crossings (which she just loves).

There used to be a couple of homesteads in the area, and near them were these very showy poppies. I'm pretty sure they're not native, but they were quite a nice surprise among the grasses and shrubs.

In other news, last week I reactivated my OKCupid account, under the auspices of copying the profile in case I'd go back on Match again. If you reactivate, the profile is up for at least a week. I wasn't doing much searching, but figured I'd let it ride for a week and then take it down. You know how this is going to go, don't you?

On my witty and charming profile (or the attempt made therein), I mention how writing haiku is one way that I think it'd be clever to communicate. I've had mostly non-responses to this, but occasionally someone sends something that rhymes but isn't a haiku, or just is a few lines of something. But Friday night, I received a real haiku. How fun. We traded a bunch of emails Saturday, and then met for coffee yesterday evening. I like him, and we're planning on getting together again after we're both back from being out of town. He shall be known as BW.

Out of town!! Yes, I'm planning on taking repeating the MN road trip with Mr W and Sally. We'd leave in about a week. Post on that forthcoming. Summer!!