summer

Its been an interesting summer for me.   My normal practice is to find a job with a schedule and take the "clock in, clock out"  approach.  This summer was different.  This time I merely hired myself out to people to complete certain projects and worked on these jobs at my own pace.  Granted, many of those who hired me were employers from previous summers, but I was my own man.
When you are your own man you find out how little you actually know.
An owner of a large barn wanted some help repairing the century-old building.  Snow had knocked the roof down and damaged the floor beneath.   The floor also had some rotten boards in need of replacement. The owner,  Reed von Gal,  had experience as a carpenter, electrician, plumber,  and welder.   He was a man who recognized a good worker.  So there I was,  trying to patch holes and replace rotten boards by myself.  My saw buzzed, my hammer hammered,  and my neck got sunburnt.  My accomplishments were about equal to those of an old basset hound on a sultry summer afternoon.  Help was needed.  So I called my friend Marcel.  "When do you need me?" Marcel asked.  "When can you get here?"  I said.  I ignored the project for two weeks waiting for Marcel.  Fortunately,  Reed took a business trip and did not watch his floor continue to molder away.  When Marcel arrived,  we went to the job as early as possible.  He strapped on his tool belt and went right to work.  Since it would allow me to at least look the part of a carpenter,  I  borrowed a tool belt and strapped it on as well.  It was on the loose side,  So while Marcel started repairing a floor,  my main task was trying to keep my tool belt around my waist.  Eventually,  Marcel realized that I was more useful as dead weight than anything else.  "Stand here," he said,  "and hold this board down."   That's when Reed decided to reappear.  He saw Marcel working while I stood still with my hands on my hips.  My daily wage no doubt ran through his head.  He told me to get back to work.  I pulled my tool belt back up and said that I would.   At the end of the day  Marcel appeared to me to have repaired five hundred square feet of floor.  I had nailed down a few sorry planks.  My ego was down on the floor, along with my tool belt, which had managed to slip off again. 
After a few days, Marcel had to return home, and I was left to continue to as best I could.  Well, Reed needed to come on up and help,  but when the dust settled,  there was a new floor in the old barn.  The completion came with quite a sense of relief.  Long days in the middle of July have a certain intensity anyway,  and my lack of experience had been just about as showcased as possible.  My main accomplishment was keeping my toolbelt around my waist,  by hanging it on gloves tucked into my belt and employing a walking gait normally reserved for runway models.  Fortunately, Reed had his head down most of the time.  He also hosted a barn dance a couple of weeks later.  No one fell through the floor, so  my assumption is that my work is no threat to humanity.
Later Marcel called me.  "What are you doing for a job this fall?" he asked.  I told him that I had no idea.  "Why don't you come work with the me?" he continued.  "I don't know,"  I said.  "Will I have to wear a toolbelt?"

Hey everybody,

 I enjoyed the comment on my vampire piece by fellow blogger Calliope.  Enjoy.

[Regarding vampires' teeth, see below ] That is a very likely solution to this quandary. However, you should also consider the possibility that blood is a very base fluid that would not counter act the acidity of saliva, (which I think vampires would produce because as humans they would have produced it, though I doubt that the need any help digesting)and therefore the acid in the saliva would rot their teeth, so any teeth that we would see would be dentures, and of course those can come in any shape and length.

More later,

I woke up the other day wondering why vampires in movies sometimes have longer teeth, sometimes shorter.    Consider, the Cullen clan from the Twilight saga have fangs that are barely longer than normal human teeth,  whereas the blood-suckers from the Underworld movies have really long canines.  Other movies continue the trend. The original Dracula?  Long fangs.  Dark Shadows?  Medium fangs. There seems to be no standard length for vampires.  Even within the movies there is variation.  In Underworld,  the lead character's rival has significantly longer teeth than she does.  There must be some explanation.  Now all these vampires share the same diet, and, considering the whiteness of the teeth, all attend to oral hygiene.  So what is the difference?  Genetics doesn't seem to offer much of a lead;  how do vampire genes even get passed along?  By bites?  Then I thought maybe there was some sort of baby-teeth/ adult-teeth thing going on,  but we never see them trying to wriggle out a loose tooth, hoping the tooth fairy will visit their coffin.  The answer did not occur to me until I saw a friend's pet gerbil.  These pets, along with many other mammals, constantly gnaw to keep their continuously-growing teeth from getting too long.  This must be the explanation for vampires.  Those canines of theirs must be constantly getting longer, and different movies catch them in various stages of growth.  Having an all-liquid diet, the vampires must be chewing on wood when humans aren't around.  This explains why so many vampires live in the forest.  It also makes sense that humans are always killing vampires with wooden stakes: there must be dozens of sharpened sticks lying about.  And perhaps that's why vampires leaves their coffins; they've chewed a hole right through it and need to find a new one.

Day 4

The continuing, and now ending, account of the Ruta de Maya race.

I lost a bet on the above sentence.  After we got back from the Ruta de Maya, I was sitting at my desk arguing about it with my teammate, Lucia.    "Jonathan," she said,  "You acted as if you had a lot more canoeing experience than you did before the start of the race, and I just think you should admit that. "
This was an accurate charge,  but I decided a counter-allegation would be better than admitting the truth.
"Well, Miss Lucia,"  I shot back,  "someone had to steer the canoe while you were busy rolling up your sleeves."  Lucia had incurred my wrath during the trip by stopping paddling to ensure that her arms tanned evenly.  "Someone had to make sure we finished the Ruta la Maya,"  I continued.
This small slip in my novice Spanish was not missed by Lucia:  "Its not Ruta la Maya, Jonathan,"  she said,  "Its Ruta de Maya."
Here I should have just admitted my mistake to her; she knows more Spanish than I do.  But sometimes I just have to be right, even when I'm wrong.
"No," I said, "Its Ruta la Maya."  The argument immediately started going back and forth, because if Lucia and I agree on one thing,  its that we like to disagree.  The debate culminated in a bet that whoever was wrong had to buy the other yogurt, which is a real treat for a volunteer on a stipend.  A quick Google search revealed my error.  "There, you see?" Lucia said, pointing at the screen,  "Now you owe me yogurt."  Although there is no arguing with Google, I continued my grousing.  But defeat was inevitable, as my opponent did not fail to point out.
It was several weeks before I had any money to make good.  Again we were sitting at our desks, and I grouchingly drew the money from my wallet and tossed it to her.  "What's this for?" she said.  "For the yogurt," I grumbled.
"No, you can't just give me money, you have to go buy it yourself and give it to me."
"Lucia, just take the money!"
This was something new to argue about.

day 3

The continuing account of the Ruta Maya race:  day three.

Day three was unquestionably the hardest day for me.  After 20+ hours in a canoe together,  little things that normally don't annoy you suddenly take on a level of aggravation normally associated with clouds of black flies or colic-afflicted infants.  Its like being that infamous fourth day that guests are still at your house.  The novelty is starting to wear off, and you've noticed that they take the last cup of coffee without making more.  Anyway, the same thing happens in a canoe, but a lot sooner because you share a physical space approximately the size of an oven.  Of course, the biggest offense in such a situation is any action that prevents you from paddling.  Snack breaks,  refilling a water bottle, or quickly adjusting one's seat is tolerated, but viewed with distaste.  Anything else is grounds for being thrown overboard. Luckily for me, I was sitting in the back of the boat, so no one noticed when I took my hat off to tan my head evenly (who wants a huge tan line across their forehead?) or when I snuck an extra snack.  Fortunately,  Christian charity prevailed and we made to the end of the paddling day without ever repurposing our paddles as clubs.   But that was where the trip got tough.  Previously,  the crews had been camping on open fields, where we had plenty of room.  Now, we were ensconced on about two and half acres between the river and the access road to a nearby village.  The scene was a zoo.  Total strangers pitched their tents, and their laundry, right on top of each other.  We had to clear several people off the truck so we could get our equipment inside.  The smell of marijuana drifted across the whole campsite, but no one, certainly not the detail of law enforcement on hand, seemed to take notice.  As I may have mentioned,  the Ruta Maya is not only a river challenge, but a four day national party.  So the music was blasted, along with a few of the people.  In all this, we had to try make a camp and get dried out before turning in.   The Rutat Maya was three-quarters done, but it was far from over.

the crews

Here are some shots of us at the end of the race!

day 2

There was something extra special about rounding a bend and seeing the finish line of a day's leg of the race.  Even though it was not the end of the whole thing,  there was something rewarding about finishing for the day.  That was why we were so excited when we say a huge rope with  banners stretched across the entire river after eight hours of paddling on day two.  The crowd on the side of river were cheering and waving, the sky was blue, the sun was warm upon the water, and life seemed pretty good.  I turned the canoe from the middle of the river toward the shore.  But something was funny,  there was only one other canoe resting on the bank.  We had rowed hard, but there were over 50 boats, by virtue of athletic crew or better design,  that had simply outpaced us that day.  Then I noticed that the crowd didn't seem... big enough.  My turn had brought us closer to the shore, and now we could here the "fans" more distinctly.  They were shouting for us to keep going.  Cries of "keep is up!" and "you're almost there" drifted across the water.  Turns out that the people of this particular Creole village had simply strung their own line across the water.  Who knows why?  Decoration for their party?  A big practical joke?  A cruel tease?  I'm sorry, but after hours of paddling,  "You're almost there!"  almost always sounds like,  "You have a ways to go!"  which is not encouraging by any means.  We didn't want to almost be there, we wanted to be there.  Until I was there, I didn't want to hear how much farther I had to go. As for the banner-bedecked  rope on the water, that bordered on paddler abuse.
That leads me to another factor about the fans on the side of the river.  While most were generally encouraging, a few were not above lying to your face.  They would tell you how the finish line was close,  even tell you how bends in the river lay between you and your destination.  These bits of information were always wrong.  The raced finished not "four bends" away, but sixteen,  but who's counting?  It was true that it was only "half an hour and your done,"  but only if you counted that half hour ten miles after you spoke to the person.  I admit I may have called these people some names after their advice proved false.
At any rate,  day 2 did finally end, and not terribly long after we mistakenly thought it would.  Ironically, the actual finish line was less gaudy then the faux one, with no flags or banners.   It goes to show that things are not always what they appear.  As for our appearance, it was beginning to deteriorate.  But more one that next time.