Attack of the Killer Slinkys

Before everyone thinks I never say good things about techs, let me say this: without two spectacular techs, I wouldn’t have survived my first field season on this project. These techs were completely invested in the study and helped me problem solve virtually every day. I am especially grateful for one of these techs because he has suffered through the years with me. The other was a little brighter. He moved on to bigger and better pastures.

But let’s face it. Telling sappy stories about good techs isn’t nearly as fun as snark...so back to it!

This next blog is hard for me, because it forces me to admit I don’t know everything. I work with a lot of different personalities. One personality (who I only work with on occasion) has a VERY dry sense of humor. Unless you know him well, which I don’t, you can’t tell if he’s joking. So when he asked me if I knew how to properly roll barbed-wire, I snorted and said, “Who doesn’t,” thinking he was joking. I mean, how hard can rolling barbed-wire be?

The next the day, three of my four techs and I rolled hundreds and hundreds of feet of barbed-wire. Little did I know, there is a right way to roll barbed-wire…and many wrong ways. Two of my techs knew how to roll barbed-wire. They also knew my other tech and I did NOT, but instead of saying anything, they watched us roll hundreds of feet improperly.

I still had no idea there was a right way and a wrong way to roll the wire until we unrolled it. Turns out, if the wire unrolls in a neat and controlled manner, you did it right. If it springs at your face like a giant killer Slinky trying to scratch out your eyeballs with its barbs, you did it wrong.

Needless to say, we spent many weeks dodging life-sized barbed Slinkys. The two wonderful techs that didn’t think to point out our error before we rolled hundreds of feet of wire incorrectly?

They didn’t last long.

TSWB

The Gnome was NOT the sharpest tool in the shed:

This is a short and sweet lesson about your State Fish and Wildlife Agency.

For those of you who are unaware, your state Fish and Wildlife Agency (or whatever it calls itself) has Law Enforcement Officers. To those of us in the business they’re known as L-E-Os or LEOs. LEOs do as their name suggests. They enforce laws. So it’s NOT advisable to scream by a LEO—who is doing 60 in a 55—virtually blowing off its doors, 'cause he or she is gonna pull you over (and wonder if you’re drunk or stupid). It’s also NOT advisable to fish without a license when you work for the agency that enforces fishing and hunting laws. ‘Cause that’s gonna get you fined…then fired.