10/19/05 – A big cold prickly to Sonya Hansen for leaving without painting the paddle rack. I hate to sling mud at my child bride when she is not around, but I am compelled to use her as an example in an attempt to dissuade future crew members from leaving the fall crew with extra little jobs that they were assigned during the summer. Painting the paddle rack sounds like a fairly benign job, but as the photos below demonstrate it is a pretty heinous undertaking. Sonya received 15 credits (10 to 15 hours worth of work) to paint the paddle rack, but the majority of the rack remained unpainted for most of the summer, and before we knew it Sonya was off to college studying to become the next Jane Goodall.*
As you may have guessed the paddle rack remained unpainted. I contacted Madagascar’s embassy in Washington to request that they hold Sonya’s visa until she has returned to Sawbill and completed the paddle rack, but the woman I talked with seemed very confused by my request, and said that they were unable to help. Sonya plans to spend next semester in Madagascar studying lemurs, and I thought that stopping her visa would be a good way to get her attention. However, since Madagascar’s government was unwilling to cooperate we were forced to reassign the job of painting the paddle rack to Alison.
Yesterday Alison got all suited up and ready to paint. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate, and shortly after she began painting it started pouring. Today’s forecast looks more favorable, and sources tell me that Alison plans to resume painting shortly. Will Alison finish the paddle rack before she leaves? Well, it is hard to say, but hopefully a little voice in the back of her head is saying,” if you don’t finish the paddle rack your work record will be tarnished forever on the Sawbill newsletter.”
In all fairness, I should also mention that Pat Nash should hang his head in shame for stashing a dirty cookkit in the dome and leaving without cleaning it. Pat, your cookkit was found and Jeff Green is going to wash it for you. I think you owe him a nice pint of homebrewed beer for his efforts, but you can negotiate the terms with him later.
*Sonya and Pat are good employees, and we miss them very much. Hopefully they will see the humor in this entry.