Our Flatulent Earth

It seems the more there is to blog about the less time there is to blog it!

This week, for the first time ever, I got to go to Yellowstone National Park. My sister-in-law was in town, so she, my wife and I all went together, and it was extra awesome. We took the long way, and drove east then turned north to go through Grand Teton National Park first. For those of you who don't speak french, "Grand Teton" means "Big Boobies." Here are the Tetons:

That's the view a bit east of Rexburg. This picture isn't from my trip, there was too much haze for a picture this good, but this is my favorite picture of the Boo... the Tetons, taken by my dad a couple years ago. Here they are from the other side:

We stopped for lunch at a place on the north side of Jackson Lake, then went on to Yellowstone.

The first thing we saw at Yellowstone was Old Faithful. You can't go to Yellowstone and skip Old Faithful, it's too much an icon! I'm glad we did it first, though, because it wasn't the coolest thing there, though it is very cool. We waited 30 minutes before we got to see it erupt, while a busload of high school (or junior high? I'm getting too old to tell the difference) kids chatted about nothing, with occasional hilarious comments on the geyser. For example, there were a few girls discussing the sonic booms you hear when the water travels to the surface. I really hope they didn't get that idea from their teacher, but it's entirely possible. Before the main event, Old faithful gives a few little sputters:

And of course it steams the whole time. The whole crowd gets excited at each sputter (the crowd is a small part of why Old Faithful isn't the coolest thing at Yellowstone), and then becomes anxious again as the high school guys speculate that maybe Old Faithful has given its last eruption and we all missed it. But then it went, and it was very impressive:

The eruption we saw was relatively small and short, but definitely worth the wait. Next time I'll skip it, though, in favor of other things, and see Old Faithful again when I have kids old enough to appreciate it.

Of course there wasn't enough time to see everything, so we picked a couple geyser basins and gave ourself enough time to see Mammoth Hot Springs before the day was over. Here are some pictures I took at Black Sand Basin:

Spouter Geyser

Cliff Geyser

Opalescent Pool

Emarald Pool

Sunset Lake

The stream here is called Iron Creek. All the white stuff is calcite deposited by the geysers, just like white spots left on the faucet as the water dries from your sink. The black is calcite with iron in it, which turns orange as it rusts:

Next we went to Midway Geyser Basin. At this point my wife and her sister decided they were tired and would admire the geysers from a distance, so I hiked the loop trail myself and took lots of pictures:

Hot geyser runoff into Iron Creek.

Excelsior Geyser, once the largest geyser in the world until its final eruptions in the '80s. Now it's a very productive hot spring.

Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest hot spring in Yellowstone and third largest in the world.

Turquoise Pool

Grand Prismatic Spring overflows at a regular, constant rate, building small calcite terraces:

Most of the geysers smell like rotten eggs, due to hydrogen sulfide gas that is released with the eruptions. Apparently Mother Earth has rotten egg farts.

My favorite, though, was Mammoth Hot Springs. These hot springs have deposited huge amounts of calcite, in many colors (though mostly white). This, to me, was the most impressive thing we saw on the trip (of course the women enjoyed the view from the top, while I hiked to the bottom, snapping pictures, then back up):

I seem to have a thing for pictures of dead trees:

And the coolest part of the coolest part is Orange Spring Mound:

Between attractions we saw a cool waterfall on Iron Creek:

And of course wildlife, though not as much as we'd hoped. We saw a bison right near the road, but not blocking it (not a good spot for a picture, though). Of course we saw elk, too, and my wife took a distance shot of a bison with some elk (this is extreme zoom, so slightly grainy):

There was also a moose, but unfortunately no bear, but we saw a Russian midget working in a gift shop, which partly makes up for it.

Speaking of Russians, the languages I heard spoken by tourists included Chinese or Japanese (I think both), German, Russian, Spanish, french (yech), and I think Greek. Oh, yeah, someone was speaking English, too.

It was an extremely fun trip; if you haven't been to Yellowstone I highly recommend it. Be sure to give yourself all day to see as much as possible, and check out the website to get an idea of which stops you want to make before you go. I definitely plan to go again in a few years.

Ok, nerd time. The term "geyser" comes from an erupting hot spring in Iceland called Geysir, which is the world's oldest known geyser. Geysir got its name from the Icelandic word "gjósa," which means "to gush." Sorry, I couldn't resist sharing this, since it's a connection to Iceland.

Villains

Dr. Horrible is now only available on iTunes. It's only $3.99, though, so not bad. There are better villains than Dr. Horrible, though.

I watched The Dark Knight last night. I don't know why I should even talk about it, since everyone's going to see it anyway, but I can't resist. There's something about superhero movie sequels that defy the tradition of sequels not being as good as the original. Until Spiderman 2 my favorite superhero movie was X-Men 2, and now I think it's this Batman sequel. I never really could get into the cartoony, over-the-top silly older Batman movies, no matter who played Batman, and I really appreciate the attempt at realism this new re-imagining of the franchise has made.

First, the good.  Heath Ledger is amazing. All I'd seen him in before was The Brothers Grimm (very cool, Matt Damon is in it, too), and A Knight's Tale, neither of which were really roles to stretch an actor. Now, posthumously he has become one of my favorite actors, for stealing the show from Batman as a villain I'd always thought was really ridiculous. He makes it completely believable. I've never been fond of the Batman villains, but they made a convincing Scarecrow in Batman Begins and now an amazing Joker (but my favorite villain is still Magneto from the two good X-Men movies). I also hate the whole overdone killer clown gimmick, and movies that have senseless mind-game violence like Saw. But.... The Dark Knight has a killer clown villain who loves senseless mind-game violence for the purpose of brining about anarchy, and they did it right and it was awesome.

I honestly thought the movie was over at one point, having done a very good job with every stage of a typical hero/villain storyline in about 90 minutes. The movie could have ended there and already been one of the best superhero movies, but there's another hour after that, and I was hoping for still another hour after that! It kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat; I've seen very few movies that have kept my attention so completely. I could fill pages and pages with praise for this movie, but it would get old. It's not enough to beat my Children of Men/Serenity/Fight Club three-way tie for favorite movie, but everyone should see this movie.

It wasn't perfect, though. The gadgetry was a bit excessive, though no where near as silly as in the old Batman movies, and it didn't detract from the story, not even the impossible bat-cycle and cell-phone sonar thing. I don't like Rachel Dawes (I can't stand Katie Holmes at all, and Maggie Gyllenhaal can't act either). Harvey Dent was way too perfect in the beginning, and the movie was far too heavy with the foreshadowing. His transformation was a bit hasty, though not even in the same league of ridiculousness as the stupid way Anakin Skywalker's turn to the dark side was mishandled by that idiot George Lucas (sorry, that was off-topic, I know). The most distracting thing, though, was the stupid CGI Two-Face... face. It didn't look close to realistic, and was just lame. A make-up job would have been much cheaper, and more realistic, and less irritating. All is forgiven, though, since the movie was easily amazing enough to more than make up for these weaknesses. Go see it!

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Rexburg lameness strikes again.  I really want to see The Dark Knight, but the past couple nights Kate has worked nights, and Rexburg's awesome theater doesn't have showings later than 10pm, so I have to wait until Monday.  And I really need to see a good movie, since I've been on a losing streak for choosing movies.  Here are some examples of movies I've seen recently that I don't recommend:

No Country for Old Men.  A friend of mine recommended this one, and it had Tommy-Lee Jones and promised a "chain reaction of violence," so I thought it would be fun.  The opening has a very good monologue by Jones about how crime has changed since the old west days, with the drug running and automatic weapons, and wondering how the old timers would cope with crime today.  As he speaks, there are very nice shots of Texas, and you see the villain of the movie arrested.  Then the movie starts, the villain gets away and starts killing people. Meanwhile, the protagonist comes across a botched drug deal and takes off with a suitcase full of money.  After a very promising beginning, the villain starts spewing nonsense that's supposed to be profound, and in the end kills the protagonist, maybe kills (I don't know and I watched the whole movie!) the protagonist's wife, and makes a clean break.  Then Jones as the sheriff ends the movie by telling about a weird dream he had with his dad in it, and that's it.  All the movie's emotional depth is in the opening monologue.

Dan in Real Life got this comment from Orson Scott Card: "You won't see a better comedy this year."  So I watched it, and while I was definitely impressed by the acting (especially Steve Carell), the movie was boring.  The mishaps in Dan's life were laid on a bit too thickly, I thought, and I didn't care about the other characters, even the girl he likes then finds out is his brother's girlfriend.  I did think the scenes that were just Dan and his daughters were well done, even though it was obvious from the beginning what would come of his forbidding his oldest daughter from driving and the next one from dating; though when those set-ups come back to bite him, it worked pretty well. Taken as a whole, though, it was a boring movie.  Maybe Card liked it because he has kids that age.  I don't, but that shouldn't matter.

Juno was even boringer.  I wasn't interested until I read a review on a blog that made it sound interesting.  Basically the reviewer had all the same reasons I did for not wanting to watch it, then watched it anyway and liked it.  So I watched it, and it was very boring.  Basically, a girl gets pregnant by a guy that she likes, but for no reason I can understand (other than being lab partners and the sex part, she hardly talks to the guy, and they don't make a believable couple at all), and decides to give it up for adoption. She picks a weird couple (he seems normal but turns out to be a jerk, while she's completely psycho controlling weird), and there's drama.  Boring drama.  The main chick was cool, though.

I don't recommend any of those movies, and I'm on the fence about The Spiderwick Chronicles.  This one could have been really good, and it was fun, but it isn't memorable at all.  There's good acting, very good special effects, but it doesn't really offer anything new to the kids' fantasy genre, or fantasy at all.  If you want to see a fun, unique fantasy movie, watch Stardust instead, or Prince Caspian.  This one's entertaining, at least.

I did see something cool and bizarre today, though.

My friend Julie recommended Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I had never even heard of it, even though it was made by Joss Whedon, creator of the best sci-fi TV show ever, Firefly, and one of my top-three favorite movies, Serenity, which is based on Firefly.  It's about a wannabe supervillain, and his video blog. It's in the incompetent superhero/villain sub-genre, along the lines of Mystery Men and The Venture Bros., with the added bonus of being a musical as well.  It's very low budget, extremely silly, and it has Nathan Fillion and the guy that played Doogie Howser, if any of you remember that show (I never watched it myself).  It is very weird, and doesn't even compare to the awesomeness of Firefly and Serenity, but I recommend it.

You can watch it here or download it from the iTunes Store.

Dead Heroes and Exercise

Tony Snow's funeral was today, which is very sad. Most of you reading probably don't follow politics as much as I do, so in case you don't know, Tony Snow was a conservative journalist who was a frequent guest host on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, and served for awhile as Bush's press secretary. Since conservatism has basically died in the Republican party, it's very sad to lose a real conservative, especially one so optimistic as Tony Snow. This guy was always smiling, and the press hated him because he didn't let them get away with anything. President Bush said "He had the sometimes challenging distinction of working for two presidents named Bush. As a speechwriter in my dad's administration, Tony tried to translate the president's policies into English. As a spokesman in my administration, Tony tried to translate my English into English.”  Too true.

It seems a lot of my heroes have died this year.  William F. Buckley, another great conservative (he founded the conservative magazine "National Review"), Charlton Heston, George Carlin and Gordon B. Hinckley all died this year.  It's a good thing Rush Limbaugh just extended his radio contract through 2016, we need more strong voices like his.

Sorry, I don't mean to be depressing, I'll talk about something else now.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Summer Semester, which means I have one more year until Field Camp, and probably one more semester after that before I graduate with my geology B.S. degree (hehe, I can't say B.S. degree without laughing).  What I've done on my research project so far this summer has made me realize just how out of shape I am, which is bad news if I'm looking forward to six weeks of hiking next year.  So, I'm cutting back a bit on Pepsi (not quitting, never that!), and since it's way too hot to walk (I know it'll be hot next summer, too) Kate and I have decided it's time to take advantage of the gym in the apartment complex.

I've made two observations: First, they don't make a treadmill long enough for my stride, and no matter how far forward I am I end up knocking my feet on the back of the thing (but at least there's air conditioning in there).  Second, the trick to the weight-lifting machines is to use them with just a little bit of weight, but before you leave set all the pins so that the next person to use the machine thinks "wow, whoever used this last is, like, super strong!"

If you get a beer belly from drinking too much beer, how do you get a pot belly?  However it happens, hopefully mine will go away.

More Fun with Geology Students

This morning the Geology 102 Lab classes were reviewing for their final test, which involves reading maps and naming features from aerial photographs.  I honestly cannot emphasize enough how easy this class is, and this test in particular.  That said, it's mind-boggling to see how much difficulty the people who will teach our kids someday have with this class. As a followup to a previous post, I'd like to share a couple funny (to me) things that were said while reviewing.

The best was when they were asked to identify a braided stream:

The reason it's called braided is because it (somewhat) resembles a braid in someone's hair.  They did what they always do:  call out every term in their notes until they got the right one by process of elimination.  When that didn't work this time, we gave them the hint "It's something you do with your hair." Immediately guesses started flying:  "Blow dry?" "Curl?" "Shampoo?" "Perm?" "Brush?" and a dozen others.  If someone puts "Blow-dried Stream" on the test, I'm tempted to give them half credit (not that it'll help them, the average score is about 50%).

A runner-up moment happened as we reviewed Kettle Lakes, which are lakes formed as glaciers retreat (I don't know where the name comes from). Once again, no one could think of the term, so they were given the hint "it's named for something your grandmother puts on the stove to boil water." Naturally, they guessed "teapot lake."  (As a side note, it is always difficult to convince these people that a retreating glacier does not flow uphill, merely melts faster than it flows!)

Since the class I TA is so small, I sit right with the students.  This is fortunate, since as we reviewed caves and were talking about sinkholes, I turned my head and watched a girl make a note of "sea coals."  She'd been to every class, but as with most of the students it was as if the first time they'd heard any of the terms was in the review.

There were more, but not as funny as these; and besides, you, my vast audience of readers, probably doesn't find this nearly as funny as I do. Anyway, after class ended, all the students were more interested in finding out what score they need on this test to pass the class (not get a good grade, just pass) than in actually putting forth effort to study.  I remember doing that in high school.  People should be beyond that in college, especially if their plans are to teach elementary school someday.

If you made it through that, here's a little bonus:  A minor victory for Wal-Mart and a recommendation.  Kate and I love cinnamon rolls, but are usually too lazy to make them homemade, so we always get the Great Value brand that come in the little cardboard tube.  Last time we were there, they were out, so we decided to spend a little extra for the good stuff, and bought Pillsbury.  Maybe I'm just used to the Wal-Mart brand, but after just a couple bites Kate and I both agreed that while the Pillsbury rolls are good, the Great Value ones are better by quite a lot.  Plus, they're significantly cheaper (but I didn't write down the prices, sorry), and the icing comes in a squeeze pouch, which is much easier than the Pillsbury icing, which requires a knife. To sum up:

Great Value cinnamon rolls > Pillsbury cinnamon rolls.  Ha!

New Computer Lab Awesomeness. Also, Sarcasm.

I meant to post this a week ago, but I'm very lazy.  Every Tuesday this semester I work in the geology computer lab in the Romney building at BYU-Idaho.  Three weeks ago today, I helped install new computers.  The recent appearance of several new iMacs in the library gave me a spark of hope that we'd get iMacs here, but it was never that likely and it didn't happen.  But any upgrade from the crappy computers we had before is good, right?  Until last Tuesday, two weeks after installing the new computers, this is what the lab looked like:

Out of the fifteen new computers, three were dead for two weeks (bad hard drives, I think).  That's a 20% failure rate.  Fortunately, we have a highly competent IT department here at BYU-Idaho. Here's an example of their amazing ability to think things through:

The old computers were HPs, and they fit in these small metal cubby-like boxes attached underneath the table.  The newer, faster Dells come in much bigger boxes (why anyone still makes such a bulky computer I don't understand), that don't fit in the metal cubbies.  Being very concerned that the computers might get kicked over if they weren't secure, the IT guys didn't want to set them on the floor.  So naturally they stuffed them in the cubbies:

Notice it's not even sitting in the box, but the top is scraping.

This was done before I got there to help; I just set up the monitors and broke down the boxes.  I would not have participated in this  Once all the hardware was set up, they started setting up the software, only to find out they'd done something wrong on all fifteen computers and they couldn't fix it using the network.  So they pulled each computer out of the metal cubbyhole, scratching them up even more and even popping apart pieces of the flimsy plastic box these things are made in.  They had to take each one to be "re-imaged," whatever that means.  So it was three days before any of them was working at all.

So all is well now.  Except it isn't, because they installed a virus (Windows) as an operating system, so things are as lame as before, just on a bigger, better screen.  The bright spot in all this is that I don't have to bother with Vista yet.  I was worried, since they came with Vista, but then they down(?)graded to XP.  XP or Vista, Macs ironically still run either one faster than anyone else.  Even the laptops.

But these new computers are at least as irritating as the old ones, and they have a new problem that happens every time anyone tries to use Google Earth.  It's especially bad since so many Geology 102 Lab students have to come in and do their assignments with Google Earth.  In theory, you should just be able to go into BlackBoard (I refuse to call it I-Learn), find the right .kmz file for the assignment, click on it and choose "Open." That used to open the file in Google Earth.  Now you get this message:

If you hit "OK" you get this message:
Then this message:
Tell me, Bill Gates, why your amazing operating system wants me to install Google Earth when it's already installed on the machine?  Or is it just trying to install the .kmz file?  Why can't it do that, then?

So you have to go back to BlackBoard and click "Save" this time, putting the file on the desktop.  Double-clicking on the file to open it gives the exact same three messages.  To get it to work, you have to open Google Earth and then open the file from within Google Earth.  But every time you open Google Earth, this message comes up:
Followed by this subtly different message:
Followed by this message that tells you about the previous two messages:
But then Google Earth opens anyway, with no problems other than the time I opened it and Earth wasn't there.  So why give the messages in the first place?  Why can't I just open the file and Google Earth pops up?  It really makes me appreciate my Mac.

Windows isn't the only problem on these machines, though.  The IT guys were polite enough to think that since Firefox is so superior to Internet Explorer that they would force us all to use Firefox.  There were three Firefox logos on the Desktop.  Notice the one that says Internet Explorer under it:

The Internet Explorer shortcut with the Firefox logo opens.... Firefox.  Internet Explorer isn't in the Start menu either.  You have to do a search for it, or try to find it on the C drive.  I'm all for options; if someone thinks Firefox is the best browser, I think they should have the option to use it.  But if they can use Firefox, why can't I use Safari?  I don't understand what's so cool about Firefox.  Internet Explorer doesn't bother me, but I prefer Safari, and I'd like the option to use an Apple product rather than a Microsoft one (not being Microsoft is the only advantage I see to Firefox).

Well, at least the monitors are nice; 22-inches I think.  Of course, iMacs wouldn't have cost much more if any, would last longer before needing to be replaced, would run Windows just fine if not better, plus there wouldn't have been the issue of the metal cubbyholes, since the whole computer fits neatly inside the monitor.  Also, there would be fewer cables to trip on, and without the cubbyholes, we could fit five more computers in there, one on each row.

Bonus points to whomever can tell me what's odd about this picture.

Overall, it's probably a good upgrade anyway.  The monitors are twice as big as the old ones, and while these new computers don't do anything any faster than the old ones yet, we'll see if there's a notable performance increase this Fall when I learn GIS. Of course, I'll have to rely on other people's opinions, since I never used GIS on the old ones.

I'm done ranting now.