A New Record!

I haven't blogged in almost two months. It's a new record! It makes me think of this, from one of my favorite bloggers, Dan Bergstein:

"[I'm] going to start a blog called "Sorry I Haven't Updated in a While" and it will only feature articles apologizing for not updating more often. Sample: Sorry I haven't updated the blog in a while, but a spider hopped into my mouth, laid eggs, and now I'm pregnant with spiders."

Meanwhile, I've been back at ISU for a month now. This has been/will be a busy semester. I'm focusing on my music minor, which I've just started. That means music theory, which I haven't studied since high school... ten years ago! Music theory. Aural skills (sight singing and dictation, both of which I've been doing on my own for forever so it's easy). Trombone lessons with Dr. Brooks (I'm playing the bass Trombone this semester, and it is so much fun!). Mr. York coerced me to join the marching band by telling me there was a $400 scholarship (there was). So far there are a lot of sentences in this post that end with a statement in parentheses (like this one). In addition to marching band, I'm in the symphonic band, both jazz bands, and a brass ensemble (that's five total ensembles). Busy times! I also have a couple geology projects I'm trying to get done, but time and computer access has been an issue.

That's what's up in brief... enjoy this photo of my now eight-month-old beard!

Dentists, Mechanics, and Lawyers, Oh, My!

Before I let another month go by too lazy to post anything, I should at least give a quick update. I intend for this blog to be a place for me to voice my opinion on topics I enjoy discussing, such as movies, music, books, politics, etc., and a place to share photos and accounts of places I've been and would like to be. This is not one of those blogs where I share my deep feelings and personal issues with the world in a desperate show for attention. However, giving the big picture of what's going on now and then is worthwhile, since the three or four people who follow this blog are friends and family (then again, that means you guys already know all you need to know and more, at least in theory...), and a lot has happened, so here goes.

First, to get the biggest and worst of the news out of the way. Most of my friends are aware of this but it seems a few aren't. I regret to say that after exactly five years and one week having been married to Kathryn Matthews, I am now divorced. Yep. To quote the narrator of Fight Club, "I suppose these things happen." Those who need to know details already know them, and they don't go here. Suffice it to say she's back in Missouri living with her family, and this is a good thing that had been coming for a few years now, and we're both moving on.

Next, as an unforeseen consequence of the aforementioned divorce, the all-knowing, all-wise and benevolent administrators of Brigham Young University - Idaho (most of you know how I feel about that place, and there's more to come...) felt that they were better qualified as my ecclesiastical and spiritual leaders than my own bishop, and decided that with one semester left before receiving my B.S. in geology, I'd best continue somewhere else. Even though this was a poorly made and inappropriate decision on their part (I even had Dr. Dan Moore, my department chair, fighting for me to stay at BYU-Idaho; there really are a lot of good people there, and most of them are in the geology department), this has also proven to be a good thing overall, and not just because now I get to grow out my beard again.

I am now attending Idaho State University in Pocatello, have made several good new friends, and am in an environment that feels much more comfortable to me. It's proven to be a difficult transition back to the single life, I couldn't have asked for better help making the change. I found an amazing apartment in Pocatello, a mile from campus and very affordable, and four of the funnest roommates I've ever had. Additionally, since I need a certain number of resident credits before I can claim my degree from ISU, that means my education is delayed a couple semesters at least. That sounds horrible at first, but it's really great.

Two of my biggest complaints about BYU-Idaho involve their approach to putting students "first" by rushing them through the system so fast it's amazing you can learn anything there. Semesters are crammed into about twelve weeks, making a full 14-credit (as opposed to the traditional 12) load feel closer to 20 credits, resulting in fast burnout of students and a faculty nearing the point of rebellion (they don't even get a semester off!). The other is that they limit the total number of credits you can take to 140, meaning there's no opportunity to broaden your horizons by taking interesting classes unrelated to your major to help become a more balanced person. I suppose they consider education to be a nonrenewable resource, not to be squandered?

Now that I have no choice, I have a perfect opportunity to take classes I could never have fit into my schedule at BYU-Idaho, and have decided to minor in music. There are really only two things that make me feel truly content in life: the view from the top of a mountain after a long hike or from the highway during a long drive, and when I am performing music. This makes a geology major and music minor the perfect mix for me. I've already begun working on a project I've wanted to do for a very long time, which is to make brass arrangements of songs by Björk and other artists I admire. I'll post recordings when I manage to make good ones!

Now that I am single again, I've also finally been able to pay more attention to things that had largely been ignored due to financial situations and the difficulties in resolving those between a married couple. My Jeep is finally getting the attention it needs to stay functional and hopefully not fail catastrophically like it did last year. Also, while we'd been waiting years and years hoping to be able to afford visits to the dentist for major work, now my parents have been generous enough to pay for my teeth to get a major workover. To quote Scott Lewis (dentist I recommend in Rexburg), I had "a mess in there". Not anymore... over this past three months I had a standing 1pm appointment every Monday, and the major stuff has been taken care of. This includes finally having my nightmare wisdom teeth removed last Thursday (oh, right, there were a few non-Monday visits, too). To put it mildly, I feel like a krillion bucks (and my parents have that much less money!).

Finally, the last bit. Last Friday I moved to Boise for the summer. I got an internship working for the Forest Service making maps of environmental road hazards, and I start tomorrow. For the first week I get to camp and receive field training, then it'll be office work with ArcGIS. I also just found out that my good friend Scott Bergendorf, who was at field camp with me last summer, will be one of the field crews reporting to me, which will be cool. I spent most of yesterday just driving around Boise, and maybe it was the weather affecting me (it was raining and sleeting and snowing, and mid 30s, awesome weather!), but so far I love Boise. I need to buy a new camera, so I can take pictures. The drive from Rexburg to Boise couldn't have been timed better, as I got a perfect mix of storms and low-angle light to show off the mountains spectacularly, and I got to see Craters of the Moon for the first time. It was enough to remind me why I am a geologist.

Okay, enough of this! That's the update. I've got movies to review, concerts to talk about (I got to see Muse last month!), politics to discuss. I'll get to it!

Another Semester Done

As I've somewhat vaguely alluded to by the title of this post, I just finished another semester. Academically it was one of the easiest semesters I've had, but overall one of the most difficult and stressful ever (there may or may not be more on that at a future date). A few things of note, I picked up a new musical instrument this semester and performed my first concert (with the BYU-Idaho Symphony Band) on the euphonium, which looks you can see on the left (also, I may do more with pictures than center them from now on, who knows!). "Euphonium" is from Greek, meaning "good sound", which it certainly has, but Trombone is still more fun and no matter how many instruments I learn I will always be first and foremost a Trombone player. Also, Trombone is the only instrument that gets to be capitalized like a proper noun. The concert was fun, and I got to play some of the most challenging music I've ever played on an instrument I've now only played for a semester (though to be fair, I knew the fingerings from a summer with a drum and bugle corps back in 2000, right out of high school, but that's all the experience I brought into this). Next semester, hopefully, I will be in both the symphony orchestra and band on campus.

Also of note, I am now a semester behind posting field camp stuff! I need to get on that, since I've finished my compilation of all 17 students worth of mapping. The geology is suspect, but it's fun to see it all come together, and I'll post it when I get to it. I also plan to post a very cool physics project I did with a couple other geology students for the most useless physics lab class ever.

And now a bit of bragging... my science writing class turned out great this semester, and I got perfect scores on not just one, but two major assignments, both of which the professor plans to use as student examples for future semesters. Part of that may well be that I chose a unique topic, with which you may be familiar if you follow this blogs: "They" want to take away your hot dogs!

Remember, I had an interesting "debate" with another geology student over this supposed conspiracy theory. Well, I did some research, found quite a few sources, and decided to use it as the topic for my persuasive policy paper. Our professor had us actually address our paper to a real policymaker and send it to them, so my letter (which you can download here) has been mailed to the Secretary of Agriculture, and I fully expect not to hear back. But if I do, you'll be sure to read about it here!

That was one perfect score. The other was our "web writing revision", for which we were to take our persuasive paper and adapt it for online consumption, since that's where most reading happens these days. So guess what? I've got another blog now! Unlike this blog, which receives regular, I mean sporadic, updates, this blog is basically "finished". I may add a news link section, but if you want to see a perfect scoring website based on hot dogs and featuring Adam Sandler and Chris Farley at the end, check out Death and Hot Dogs. The name is a play on the two certainties in life: death and taxes. I wanted to call it "Keep Your Hands Off My Wiener!", but decided a bit more professional a title would be better in this case.

Anyway... that's my update for now. One quick note to anyone attending or planning to attend BYU-Idaho: TAKE AS MANY RELIGION CLASSES AS YOU CAN FROM RANDY HAYES! After many semesters of frustration with religion classes I'm required to take but do nothing for me, my last one finally is a winner. Aside from my geology professors, Bro. Hayes is hands-down the best teacher I've ever had, and there wasn't a single day I attended his class that I didn't hear something I needed to hear. His ability to fit the Old Testament into the big picture of history is amazing, and the guy is absolutely hilarious. From three years of dreading another hour wasted in a useless religion class, from the first day my religion class became my number one favorite class of the semester. Just in case I haven't made it clear: Take your religion classes from Randy Hayes whenever possible!

That is all.

Bilgeous Bogwallow

Just a quick post to prove this blog is still alive. I am very busy with school, and since I am a glutton for punishment I decided it would be a good idea to volunteer to compile all the field camp maps into one map to present at the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous.

This year I am taking second semester chemistry, Applied GIS, Old Testament, a physics lab that is insultingly dull (think sixth grade physics) and a technical writing class as well as participating in the Trombone master class again. This semester will either force me to learn to manage my time efficiently or kill me. Or both.

I may post more on some classes later if there is anything worth posting, but for now I will just share an assignment from my technical writing class. Today in class we split into groups to practice writing effective paragraph transitions. To do this, Professor Williams had each group take a paragraph he'd written that began a ridiculously silly story and each member of the group was to come up with a paragraph, in turn, that continued the story. I typed it all up as we went. The next step was to improve the transitions between paragraphs, the challenge being that each paragraph had a different author. Our final result was more ridiculous than even I could have predicted. It is bad. Hilariously bad. Maybe you won't think so, but I think so. I actually contributed two paragraphs to the story. Here it is in its entirety, with the first paragraph being provided by Professor Williams, and my two paragraphs in orange:

Bilgeous Bogwallow was a very pretty little girl with an unfortunate name. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bogwallow, felt there was something poetic about the way it sounded when spoken aloud, which is why they settled on “Bilgeous” in the first place. “It trips nicely off the tongue,” her father said when Bilgeous first started to complain. “No Bogwallow could ask for better.” Bilgeous, who had endured an endless stream of taunting and ridicule since the day she entered kindergarten, couldn’t have disagreed more. One afternoon, as a crowd of third-graders chanting “Bilgeous Bogwallow boils bunions” pelted her with clumps of dirt and grass, Bilgeous decided that it was time for a change.

Bilgeous’ face flushed red with hatred as the chants grew louder. Bilgeous decided she didn’t like the way Jimmy looked. She thought Jimmy looked like a frog, and to the children’s surprise, he began to grow green. It started with his hair and spread down his face. Warts sprung up all over his skin.

As his dramatic transformation drew to a close, the crowd began to realize what had happened, and came out of their stunned silence. “She turned him into a newt!” Cried a student. Before long the other children had tackled Bilgeous to the ground, and were yelling accusations of witchcraft and devilry, attracting the attention of a nearby teacher, who came over to see what the ruckus was about. The teacher could not have known what she was in for.

To the surprise of everyone, Harry Potter came flying in on his Nimbus 2000 and turned the boy back to a normal boy. He told Bilgeous that she shouldn’t use magic in such a way. Then Harry told Bilgeous that she should come to Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn true magic. From nowhere, Draco Malfoy appeared and returned Jimmy to his newtish form, prompting a duel between Harry and Draco over Bilgeous and Jimmy.

Dumbledore appeared with a loud crack, broke up the fight, and confiscated Draco’s and Malfoy’s powers for having used them inappropriately. He then called everyone’s parents and told them of this dreadful event. Then Dumbledore changed Bilgeous’ name to Minerva McGonnagal, so she would never be made fun of again.

Unexpectedly, Minerva decided with her newfound powers Bilgeous was a fine name after all, and hurled a powerful curse at the school which promptly disappeared, leaving nothing but a crater. From then on, Bilgeous was known as a hero for ending the tyranny of school forever!

So there you have it. Yes, most of the characters from Harry Potter make appearances. No, this does not fit the Harry Potter canon, nor is it endorsed in any way by J.K. Rowling. I hope you enjoyed it, and if you didn't, well, you read it, you can't unread it!

A Photo from Field Camp

One more week of field camp! I am currently sitting in the computer lab making a preliminary map of my assigned area, and took some time to stitch a panorama of one of the coolest geologic views I have ever seen. On Friday, my friend Sally and I hiked up the northwest ridge of Goddard Canyon in the Beaverhead Mountains of Idaho with Dr. Little, which was a rare opportunity since the entrance to this canyon is on private property and we were lucky enough to get in contact with the owner of the farm and get permission to drive his road. Even the professors hadn't gotten to hike this ridge before, and when we got to the top and looked northwest into the next canyon over we got an incredible view of some intensely folded layers of rock, and we think we may well have discovered a new thrust fault no one has ever mapped before! While it's likely that only my fellow geologists will appreciate what all this means, I think everyone can appreciate this view (right-click to get the full-sized version in a new window):

There is more coming, once this class is over in a week and a half and I have more time!

Independence Day 2009

Well, it's been a month since I've posted here, and lots has happened, but I've been way too busy to post about it. I've had a post half-written about beards for a few weeks now, but no time to finish it. There's more to say about my internship, and pictures of Pennsylvania to post, several movies and some books to review, lots of political goings-on I want to opine about, and many general updates to... update. Also, I'm nearly done with field camp, and that means I have several hundred photos to go through so I can post the best ones here. I am so super behind! This will all come soon. This post is mostly to say it's coming soon, and to say something quick about one of my favorite holidays.

I've decided Independence Day is much more fun when your country isn't in the process of being taken over by a tyrant. I'm looking forward to a new Independence Day, when America wakes up and realizes that when the President can fire the CEO of a major corporation just because, we are not living in a free country any more. When Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of government our founding fathers had managed to set up, his reply was "A Republic, if you can keep it." We kept it for over 200 years, but we are selling it now for corporate bailouts, "free" health care, and to shrink our carbon footprint to solve a problem that doesn't exist. While much of Europe is shifting toward more conservative government, America is quickly becoming one of the most socialist nations in the world. Independence Day is much more enjoyable when you don't have to be afraid of your government, or when the head of your government at least has a single shred of pride in his own country instead of aggressively touring the world and apologizing for our greatness. It makes me sick.

On a brighter note, while I couldn't afford any fireworks myself on account of all my money is gone because of cars trouble, Kate and I managed to meet up with some old friends and watch the fireworks show in Idaho Falls this year, which is so much better than the show in Rexburg. That was fun. Also, the Mustangs flew overhead during Rexburg's lame parade, so I got to see them again.

Okay, now back to packing for field camp. Two weeks left!

Change of Pace

In my last post I said I'd been a lazy blogger; I should have waited until this post to say that! It's been a long time since I've let this much time pass between posts, and it's not for a lack of things to write about. I think while school was in session it was easier to write, because taking a few minutes aside from homework to think about something else and post it here was a good way to reboot my brain. Now, aside from the week I spent in New Orleans (I'll post a trip report, I promise!), I've spent the time cleaning the apartment, reading books I didn't have time for during the semester, and playing Civilization IV and WarCraft III, which I really didn't have time for with all my homework. So instead of thinking "I need a break, I'll post a rant about Twilight or global warming, then I can look at this homework with a fresh perspective," I'm thinking "I should post pictures from my New Orleans trip to my blog, but I'm in the middle of conquering China!" Therefore no posts for a week.

Christmas was cool, but really didn't feel like Christmas this year. Kate and I didn't even do our usual tradition of watching The Nightmare Before Christmas, which we do every year. Also, there was no money, so other than a splurge for ourselves the only gift we bought anyone was the latest Enya CD for my mom, who is a big fan. We plan to make up for it with extra good birthday presents, though, since the financial outlook for the future is potentially good, especially if the price of oil goes back up (and if Obama doesn't screw us over by attacking the oil industry too aggressively). Since it wouldn't be available long, even though we really couldn't afford it Kate and I bought ourselves the special edition of Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the profits for which went to a charity:

Cool, huh?

New Year's Eve was fun. It's a tradition in my family to get together and play Axis & Allies all night. It's kind of like Risk, Chess and Monopoly all rolled into one; you play as either the Allied or Axis powers of World War II, and try to conquer the world. My dad always wins. I'm pretty sure he has weighted dice....

The fun and games are over for now, though (hence the change of pace). Now I need to pack my things. Early tomorrow morning I am leaving to drive 1300 miles to Edmund, Oklahoma, to start an internship with GeoSearch Logging. They will train me there, then send me where oil wells are being drilled, probably in the Pennsylvania/New York area. Basically, as they drill the hole, I will get to look at the chunks of rock coming up and say "yep, that's a sandstone. That's a limestone. That's a different limestone. Oh, there's natural gas in that one!" and they pay me $150/day to do this. It should be fun, though Kate's not happy that I'll be gone for four or five months. I start January 6th, and will work at least through April if not May, and come back for Field Camp in June, which is the last geology class I need for my major. It's all G.E. and GIS classes after that, with one or two more extra geology classes thrown in for fun.

Okay, now on to packing!

School is Out!

I made it through this semester.... barely! I finished Intro to GIS okay. I did alright with Structural Geology. Stratigraphy/Sedimentology finished me. But it's all good now!

Thursday night was the annual geology faculty Christmas dinner, and I was asked to put together a music program for it. My brother and I both play the Trombone, and my dad does, too, though he hasn't for about 25 years or so. So I put together a short, simple Christmas program consisting of mostly Trombone trios: Personent Hodie, The Coventry Carol, Bogoro Ditse Devo (a Russian song by Rachmaninov), What's This? (from The Nightmare Before Christmas, the best musical ever, I played this as a Trombone solo) and finally O Come, O Come Immanuel. It was a lot of fun, and turned out really well. Also there was good free food.

Another highlight of the semester was at the end of my GIS class, when the end result of a particular map project turned out rather interesting. Our last lab was to complete some of the official "training modules," essentially tutorials, on the official website of ESRI, the company that makes ArcGIS. The final map we had to put together in the first module was of drainage patterns in south Florida Bay. I'm posting the resulting image below. It's nothing bad, just the southern tip of Florida and the Keys, with a border showing the limits of water drainage; but I'm posting a very tiny thumbnail because it grosses some people out apparently. I don't know why. Right-click on it and open in a new window if you want to see the interestingness of this map.

This next week will be a lot of fun. Early tomorrow morning I am flying down to New Orleans with my geology friends Tyson, Dan (from Canadia, we call him Canadidan), Clint and Annelise. Shell Oil is hosting a week-long Drilling and Production Camp, which is basically a more detailed, expanded version of the short course they taught at the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous last September. The event should be a lot of fun as well as informative, plus I've never been that far south before. I'm looking forward to seeing New Orleans, and hopefully I'll get to eat something interesting, like alligator, while I'm there. I'll try to take lots of pictures.

Meanwhile, I've been "tagged" by Rebekah, so I'm going to fill out one of those surveys. I'm not going to tag anyone else, though. Here it is:

Four jobs I have had:

1. Teacher's Assistant at BYU-Idaho

2. Assistant Manager at Gandolfo's Deli in Rexburg, ID

3. Bookseller at Barnes & Noble in Springfield, MO

4. Stockroom guy at Target in Orem, UT

Four movies I have seen more than once:

1. Children of Men

2. Fight Club

3. Serenity

4. Back to the Future

Four places I have lived:

1. Boulder, Colorado

2. Rolla, Missouri

3. Springfield, Missouri

4. Rexburg, Idaho

Four TV shows I watch:

1. The Office

2. The Venture Bros.

3. Metalocalypse

4. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Four favorite places I have been:

1. Smithsonian Air & Space museum in Washington, DC

2. Yellowstone National Park

3. Boulder, Colorado

4. Dan's Bake Sale. Yep, I was there. Heard Rush Limbaugh speak and everything.

Four of my favorite foods:

1. Steak

2. Pizza

3. Macaroni & Cheese

4. Chili

Four places I would like to visit

1. Iceland.  Duh.

2. The Alps

3. New Zealand

4. Alaska

Four things I am looking forward to in the coming year:

1. My internship with GeoSearch Logging (not logging trees, logging wells looking for oil).

2. Field Camp.

3. Possibly graduating at the end of the year.

4. The next Harry Potter movie, the one that was supposed to come out this year but Twilight did instead.

Historical Geology Field Trip

The past few days I had the opportunity to go on a field trip with Dr. Gahn's Historical Geology class. This was especially cool since I've been on this field trip before as a student, and this time I got to repeat the experience as a teacher's assistant. A quick note about the class, it is essentially a history class that applies geological principles and covers 4.6 billion years of history. In fact, Dr. Gahn makes his class worth 4.6 billion points, meaning each of his four tests is worth about 1,000,000,000 points. Since most of Earth's history is recorded through sedimentary rocks and fossils, the highlight of this field trip was to dig for real fossils in southern Utah.

The first stop on the trip was a behind-the-scenes tour of the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point near Salt Lake City, which has the largest collection of mounted dinosaur skeletons in the world. Sadly, they don't have the Dracorex Hogwartsia; that one is in the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. They also make fun claymation movies for kids, which apparently involves eight hours of work to produce about six seconds of film. Anyway, here are pictures:

A mural on the outside of the museum building.

Two small complete dinosaurs not yet on display.

Dr. Gahn talking to one of the museum workers.

 

Dinosaur bones being recovered from rock.

A recovered skeleton mounted with the rock.

And in the museum itself:

Crinoids.

A big fish above a rock full of Dactylioceras Ammonoids.

Utahraptor. The real velociraptor is only three feet tall, but they made it bigger just for the movie Jurassic Park. Right after they made Jurassic Park, they discovered Utahraptor, which was exactly the size of the raptors in the movie. Also, it was recently discovered that velociraptor had feathers; not for flying, but probably for insulation or maybe to help maneuver when running.

Bugs in amber!

Triceratops has always been one of my favorites.

I forget what these guys are called, but anything that fights by ramming stuff with its head is cool.

This guy is a small Tyrannosaur.

A huge prehistoric sea turtle.

I really like this fish. I have one that isn't nearly so nice, but it's cool because my fish bloated in the sun and exploded in a big mess before being fossilized. There are scales all over.

Help me!

That night we camped at the sand dunes at Little Sahara in Millard County, Utah. Local schools were out, so there were a lot of noisy people camping and riding their dune buggies and four-wheelers up and down the dunes all night. It was loud, but I got this cool picture:

The next morning we went to study the sand dunes, and I discovered that if you dig a bit, the sand will flow and form canyons that look quite a bit like Bryce Canyon:

Then the highlight of the trip: digging for trilobites at U-Dig Trilobite Quarry near Delta, Utah.

Trilobites are ancient marine ancestors to modern crustaceans and insects. There are other things in these rocks, but trilobites are the most common and cool. I don't have photos of the ones I found yet, but these three are the common trilobites found in this quarry:

Elrathia kingi

Asaphiscus wheeleri

Peronopsis interstricta (much larger than life)

On the way to the next stop I completely shredded a tire:

We changed the tire and looked at contact metamorphism at Fossil Mountain:

Fossil Mountain

Nice sunset view from Fossil Mountain

The next and final day we hiked partway up a canyon on Fossil Mountain, looking for fossils and following rock units.

We found a Bull Snake and took pictures, then later a rattlesnake and stayed away.

Trace fossils (burrows)

A spectacular angular unconformity.

Dr. Gahn lecturing.

The last stop was a playa lake in Utah, where we looked at algae similar to the algae that formed ancient mounds and converted Earth's atmosphere to one we can breathe. 

Scenic photo of the playa lake.

Mud cracks.

Playing in the mud, digging up algal mats.

Look what I found!

Impressions left by ice crystals.

Then it was an eight hour drive back to Rexburg, and now I'm behinder than ever on homework....

But the good news is that I get to go see Apocalyptica live tonight!

ArcGIS + Windows = One hour of work takes ten.

That's my current Facebook status. While I wait for a simple task (aligning two small maps) to finish (67% after sixteen minutes), here's a funny dialogue box I recently encountered:

Does that make sense to anyone? Oh, yes, this is in this computer lab.

(Update: The process in question took 22 minutes and 44 seconds to complete.)