Ok, we'll try to wrap this AAPG meeting up quickly so we can adjourn to the bar across the street and discuss business...
Oops, sorry, wrong one...
Well, I am 36, and was born in south east Texas. After a very unremarkable childhood as a juvenile delinquent, I decided to actually try to do
something other than spend the next night in jail.
So I went to college. After muddling around for a year, not knowing what the hell I really wanted to do with my life, and realizing very quickly that
I was flunking out of the School of Engineering, I kinda fell into the Geosciences Department. (I have noticed that those who end up as geologists
almost without fail NEVER set out to be a geologists... We are a very select group made up of refugees from other disciplines, mainly engineering and
biology.)
I did like the geosciences field though. We got to spend almost as much time in the field as in the classroom, and I have always loved the outdoors.
There were other reasons too: Geology was the one science with the least amount of math (dont go getting bright ideas though, geophysics and
structural geology, just to name a few, can be mind manglers.) The professors, on the whole seemed to be a lot more down to earth, without all the
office politics that I found to pervade the rest of the university. For that matter, I liked the idea of working with rocks simply because rocks dont
argue with you, dont insult you, and dont play politics or mind games. (Please understand, I was a nieve and stupid college kid when I was making
these assumptions, and didnt stop to consider that the companies invovled with the rocks would be VERY full of politics).
Also, the fact that we had a weekly beer bash for the geo dept didnt hurt my interest in the least!
After college, I had the delusion that I would bounce right into a petroleum geologist position (with a fresh Bachelors, yeah) and make millions.
Thats when reality set in, and I learned that they may talk to me with a Masters for an entry level position, and only if I was interested in going to
Cairo.
So I bounced around a bit, seeing what I could do. I have spent a bit of time doing some seismic reflection surveys (hey, get to play with explosives,
that was fun!) some mud logging, a little offshore work, some geological resource surveys. Then I spent a couple years doing geotechnical work, before
getting sucked into the world of environmental geology consulting.
I did learn a lot in consulting, and made some decent money... and learned also that in the consulting world you have no friends, and everyone is
expendable. All I can say is layoffs are a b*tch.
Then I blundered into a government position doing environmental geology. In my situation, I was blessed with being able to inherit practically an
entire department and tailor it to taking care of all the myriad environmental nightmares that can arise in a good sized population center.
Above and beyond that, I love the outdoors, travelling, hunting, animals, BBQing, shooting, history, various conspiracy theory, and of course the
opposite sex
As per my profile, I am a general pain in the a$$ (well, have to be good at something, dont I?)
Ummm, William, you dont have to comment on that remark
If you have any questions, please ask.