I'm off to Field Camp soon. Wish me luck! Also, wish Kelly luck with her job in Kingman.

I'm gonna be heading up to Field Camp tomorrow. Don't know what to expect. I don't really know any of the students except for the bad one's. But I'll be back this weekend for the Dresden Dolls show.

w.bloggar

Because I'm sick of logging into the blogger website, I'm trying out a new blogging software program. Aside from the misspelled name, w.bloggar is a pretty good program. I can edit or delete old posts, and I can even edit the template (which is a total pain on the website). Hello is another good program for uploading pictures for your blog.

In other news, I had the weirdest dream last night. I dreamed that my family and I moved to a small town in North Dakota. I was freaked out. Then I saw a cute French Bulldog puppy, but then I realized it was an ugly frenchy/golden retriever mix. The rest of the puppies were revoltingly ugly.

I promised details and I haven't delivered on that yet. I don't really have time to write about everything--it was such an action-packed week--but I'll summarize the highlights.

Friday - begin the all-night drive at 3 in the afternoon
Saturday - have been driving for 12 hours, through New Mexico in the pitch black night; Kelly finally takes over at 4AM in Colorado Springs; reach Grand Forks by 7PM; have an awesome burger at The Blue Moose as a reward.
Sunday - family stuff; Taco John's is awesome!
Monday - more family stuff; found a bunch of woods ticks around Devil's Lake that we find on ourselves for days to come; make it to Minot
Tuesday - visit awesome mineral collection in Parshall, ND; pissed that so many unique specimens have been ground into polished spheres; visit both North and South Units of Teddy Roosevelt National Park; see lignite in place for the first time; tons of buffalo; stay in Medora, the North Dakota equivalent of Tombstone
Wednesday - visit Devil's Tower; see a bunch of active coal mines along the highway; stay in Cheyenne
Thursday - go to Sierra Trading Post store in Cheyenne; eat lunch at Casa Bonita in downtown Denver, as featured in a South Park episode; can't believe that place actually exists; enjoy awesome mountain views along I-70; reach Moab, but can't find an empty campsite or motel room; end up in a handicapped room at fourth hotel checked; Kelly totally pissed at me
Friday - see Valley of the Gods and Goosenecks of the San Juan River; drive home

Kelly and I are back from vacation. More details later... 

Kelly and I are heading off for North Dakota today. I'll drive the first shift, after Kelly gets off work at noon. We'll probably begin driving between 2-3 PM. Hopefully, I can make it to Colorado by 2AM.

Here's something that's both scary and cool. ZabaSearch.com. There seems to be some problems with accuracy, however. It says I was born in September 1974 (not true) and that I lived in Phoenix (not true). It also says my parents were born in 1981 and 1957. How can my dad be younger than me? And I can't even find myself under "De Gregorio" (I have to search without the space, even though that is technically incorrect). But the bigger question is if I should be relieved that it doesn't know the real information about me?

So many things have been happening recently, it's hard to keep up. The important point is that many events are conspiring to keep Kelly and I from going to North Dakota next week. From my potential trip to Australia, to Kelly's tiny fender bender, to unnamed family issues, to thinking about home buying, and many more, it's definitely been stressfull. And the main issue is being able to afford it. With the high price of gas, food, and hotels, a road trip to ND and back will run somewhere around $1000. But we'll figure it out somehow.

I had a great weekend with Kelly. We went up to Strawberry and hiked down to Fossil Springs with the fam. Ed was so sore afterwards. He looks like such a tough doggy, but he's so pitiful and wimpy sometimes it's funny. The rest of the family tried out the new tent trailer nearby. We found a great camping spot among the junipers just off the forest road to Fossil Springs. Kelly and I got to stay at the awsome Windmill Inn in Strawberry. One of the best things about this weekend was that the weather was awesome, but there was still nobody around because it's not "the season" yet.

In other news, I think I'll try submitting my paper one last time (after revision, of course). Tom thinks American Mineralogist letters may be a good bet. I hope so.

So Geology decided not to publish my paper. What the fuck? It's really discouraging that I can't get anything published, and yet I'm being invited to a special workshop in Australia? So is my research worth anything or not?

I'm back and I'm tired. I'm incapable of laughter right now. If I see or hear something funny, my throat makes a strange noise that is somewhere between a cough and a laugh, which then devolves into a paroxysm of coughing. So when I say I was coughing all the way through the last weeks episode of The Office, you can't tell whether I was really sick or it was totally hilarious.

Brookhaven Report #3:
Man, I'm exhausted. I've been working long days, and I've been sick, and it's finally over. I used up all my beamtime, and hopefully my data will be useful. Today I spent on the FTIR beamline looking at some of my samples, and realized that one of them was actually a piece of skin (or something like that)! I actually think I embedded it in sulfur with my sample because there are a number of equally-sized pieces of the same material all over that particular sample. Fortunately, I did get one spectrum of real sample, so it wasn't a complete waste of time, but it's very disconcerting when you fuck up something like that. (No wonder the spectrum of it looked so weird!). Today was also the first day when I didn't feel sick, which pisses me off because for the past three days when I was breaking my back collecting important data I was forcing myself to work when all I wanted to do was crawl in bed because I couldn't replace the lost beamtime. And today all I had to do was watch George collect infrared spectra of my samples.

But the important thing is that I'm done, and now tomorrow I can go home and see Kelly, who I love and miss so much. And eat Jamba Juice for a week (Long Island food is horrible!).

Brookhaven Report #2:

Things are busy here, and pretty exhausting. Not in the sense of lugging heavy weights around all day, but in the sense of staring at a computer screen for 16 hrs a day.

I got my ID badge alright, so everything is good on the security end. My laptop even connects to the internet right when I plug it in (which doesn't normally happen here--I'll have to enable some proxy server or script or something). Unfortunately, I feel a little under the weather. It's just a runny nose and a cough (the dry eyes are from staring at computer monitors all day). It could turn out just to be allergies, but I won't know that until I come back to AZ, and I've never had an allergic reaction like this before. Anyway, it's a bit miserable physically, and I have to get research accomplished even though all I want to do is crawl up in bed and rest.

Everybody should be thinking happy thoughts about Kelly, too. She's working nights all week, which is very commendable for a morning person like her.

I'm here, reporting live from Brookhaven. Man, it's been a crazy couple of days.

I thought I was screwed Sunday night because I spent alot of time playing with Kelly out in the sun, but by the evening I was shivering even though my body temp was high. I didn't think I was sick, because I didn't feel sick. I just had a fever. It was probably just heat stroke or something like that, but it passed sometime in the night and I woke up Monday totally dehydrated. My biggest fear, of course, was getting sick the day before I had to leave for New York, so I was glad I didn't have the flu or West Nile or anything like that. I just made sure to drink lots of water on Monday and not stress myself.

Things were going well after that. I finished all my preparations at ASU and then went home to do laundry. I had a nice evening with Kelly, and I even finished Out so I could discuss the weird ending with Kelly. I was relaxed and slept well, so I wasn't really all that tired at 4AM. My flights went smoothly (very unusual).

But then, as I was first heading out to Long Island from La Guardia in my rental car, I realized what was wrong (there's always something, isn't there?). I had forgotten my ID badge. I can't get onsite without one, and even if I got a temporary one, I wouldn't be able to get into the synchrotron (it doubles as a keycard). So I stressed out a bit as I slowly made my way east through the traffic until I realized that this probably happens alot, so there must be concessions. I did get a temporary pass, and I can probably get access to the NSLS tomorrow morning. Worst case scenario, I have to wait until my real badge arrives via FedEx tomorrow (thank you so very much, Mike Kraft).

Now, since I'm exhausted from a full day of travelling, I'm going to try to relax and get some sleep.

Sample prep is going well. From my initial ten samples, five managed to make it through the microtomy process. From those five I made 19 TEM sections which are on the dryer right now. Tomorrow I'll look at them to see which of them contain actual tiny rock fragments.

I watched Pamela Anderson's new show "Stacked" on the DVR this morning. It pretty much sucked, which was expected. But I'm a sucker for her for some reason. I admit, I watched VIP when it was on. But that show was all about hot girls in cool, cute outfits kicking ass, and I'm a fan of that. It wasn't about acting or plot at all. But Stacked has a plot, and not a very good one at that. It's probably destined for the cancelled bin, but I may watch another episode or two just for Pam.

I forgot to mention that Tegan and Sara played a short set at the MU yesterday. I think they had a show last night. Anyway, their new single "Walking with a Ghost" is one of the catchiest songs I've heard all year. Y'all need to download it if you can. By the way, the second catchiest song this year is "The Suggestion Box" by Aqueduct.

Not much has been going on lately. I've been busy with sample prep for the synchrotron next week. It's pretty repetitive. I started with ten samples and I'm down to six, a few of which should be done tomorrow. There's a lot of fine handiwork that must be done with special tiny tools, so it's easy to destroy the sample. I start out with more than I need, because I only need to end up with 2-3 TEM-ready sections.

To anyone who'll be in Tucson next week. My brother's film "Live In" is showing at the Arizona International Film Festival. I plan on going to the screening this Saturday afternoon.

I had a great weekend with Kelly. She's back from Ajo now, so it was nice and relaxing. It's really nice to have her back.

I got my GSRP grant renewal today. I get paid for another year now.

I found out why my office is so friggin' cold. The lab next door has the temperature sensor for the A/C. Unfortunately, it is right next to a broken fume hood that is blowing in air from outside constantly. That causes the temperature sensor to think it's hot all the time, so the A/C is on non-stop. There was a guy working on it late this afternoon, so maybe it will be fixed by tomorrow, but who knows.

Hitachi makes hard drives (among other things), and they've recently announced a new idea for storing more data on the same size disks. They've also created a Schoolhouse Rocks-type animation to explain the concept. Bliss!

It's so fucking cold in my office right now. I can't stand it. I'm all tense and curled up in front of my laptop right now, and I can't concentrate on anything. The building is supposed to have wireless right now, so maybe I should go get a wireless card so I can get some work done.

Ajo Update #2
Kelly is doing well. They are on the final stages of the well installation. Actually, I think they finished yesterday. Unfortunately Kelly has to stick around for the pump installation and final testing. So it will be at least another week, but it shouldn't be more than two. It was great seeing Kelly again. Last weekend we had some arguments but this weekend it was all disgusting lovey-dovey stuff. I'll spare you-all the gory details. By the way, Kelly strongly recommends a book called "Out" by Natsuo Kirino. I drove around Ajo mostly on Saturday while Kelly was working. I even snuck into the mine site an collected from the tailings pile (There are plenty of places to do this because the mine is so huge). I also drove around the nearby backcountry and found some placer mines. Also, I practiced drifting a little bit. There was a very wide stretch of straight, level, gravel road, so I lined up along on side, accelerated to about 25 mph or so, and then pulled the hand brake while turning the wheel. I was actually able to spin the car 180 degrees!

I was actually gonna post all this yesterday, but there was a big power outage at ASU yesterday afternoon. All of physical sciences was out of power, and maybe most of ASU. Then when the power came on, weird things started happening. The H-wing fire alarm went off, cancelling the chemistry seminar I was going to attend. And some people got stuck in the elevator in F-wing. The internet seemed to work, but I couldn't check email or connect to blogger.com.

Ever since the ASU physics department installed a pendulum wave set in F-wing, I've had a small part of my brain devoted to figuring out how it worked. The critical piece of information that eluded me was the function that determined the length of each pendulum. I could model the motion of a set of pendulums in a Java applet rather easily, but I couldn't get them to create the patters that the physical pendulum set could. I finally looked up a paper on the phenomenon and found the formula to tune the lengths, and I completed my applet.

I should also mention that I first found out about letterboxing and geocaching Friday morning, the day I was supposed to drive down to Ajo, from Wil Wheaton's website.

I just got back from Ajo visiting Kelly this weekend. I drove down Friday afternoon. It's actually quite a nice drive. The mountain ranges are really beautiful. We stayed in a little cabin at the motel. On Saturday, Kelly had to work, so I drove 30 miles south to Organ Pipe Cactus NM. That place is really cool. The Ajo mountains there are tilted fault blocks of a rhyolite and tuff sequence, kind of like the hills along the Vulture Mine Road west of Wickenburg (for those of you who were in Steve Reynold's Advanced Field Geology class). I hiked up the Bull Pasture/Estes Wash loop, and I swear when I reached the Bull Pasture, I just wanted to take off into the mountains. They're really cool. I wish I didn't forget my camera, but I'm sure I'll be back. There were a lot of wildflowers in bloom because of all the rain we had this winter. There were other plants that were just getting ready to bloom, so April will be a beautiful month. I even saw a stubby little cactus with a huge purple flower on top!

I also found the mystery letterbox. Letterboxing and Geocaching are two nationwide treasure-hunting games that are slowely gaining popularity. Geocaching is the more popular of the two, probably due to it's use of GPS to locate the cache. A geocache is simply a (hopefully) airtight plastic or metal canister filled with a logbook and a few trinkets. The GPS coordinates of the location of the cache are then posted to the website. People use their GPS to find the hidden cache, take one of the trinkets, and leave one of their own. It's kind of a fun group activity, and it gives people a reason to go out and appreciate the outdoors. Letterboxing is a more British approach to treasure-hunting. A letterbox contains a logbook and a rubber stamp, sometimes hand carved from an eraser. The finder of the letterbox has their own stamp to put into the logbook, and usually records the letterbox stamp in their own notebook. The main difference between letterboxing and geocaching is that only clues are given to the location of the letterbox, not GPS coordinates. This adds a bit of sleuthing to the fun, and it's a good feeling when you confirm that you've figured out the puzzle. The letterbox in Organ Pipe is a mystery letterbox in the sense that the nearest city is not given, but I guess that secret's out in the open now. Not that it was really hard to figure that part out anyway. It was still fun poring over the park map trying to figure out where it was. I'm not interesting in the stamping part of the hobby. I just liked figuring out the clues. Kelly thinks both letterboxing and geocaching are totally gay, but I can't help it when there's a fun puzzle to solve.

Kelly and I both took the day off yesterday to spend some quality time with each other. It was great. Today she took off for Ajo again, while I have to organize everything from my trip to Houston and start planning for my trip to New York next month.

I'm back from the conference now. The weather in Houston was pretty good. Usually it's really humid, but it wasn't this week. Everybody said my talk went well. I'm pretty satisfied by how everything went. But I'm definitely tired of going to talks all day and drinking all night.

It was great to see Kelly yesterday. I met her in Gila Bend because all of the Spring Breakers had filled up the Ajo motels on their way to Rocky Point. We just cuddled for most of the time. I had to go back to Phoenix today and get ready to leave for Houston tomorrow, but she got to see play with the dog this afternoon when her brother, Jace, and his wife, Tabby, came down to visit.

I'm stressing out over my talk at LPSC. It's this Tuesday, and I gave a shitty practice version yesterday. Today I just took the day off to chill and get a haircut. Things are so busy with LPSC coming up, plus I have to go visit Kelly in Ajo on Friday.

Kelly is in Ajo because a guy in the Tucson office decided to leave that assignment, so Kelly had to step in. Now this guy is leaving Clear Creek, and Kelly is the top choice for his replacement. If she accepts the position, she would move down to Tucson. On the one hand, this job would be great for her career because it's a step up in the company, but on the other hand it is a step back for our relationship, and it would be a hit on both our finances. For me, I'd have one less roommate to share the bills, and I'd probably have to give up my DVR and digital cable. For Kelly, she's still trying to pay off credit card bills, and she just got rid of a lot of furniture and stuff to move in with me. For selfish reasons, I want her to stay in Phoenix, but the decision is ultimately up to her.

On Saturday my roommate Clint and I went to the local indian casino. I spent $30 playing video poker. Oh well, what else can one expect from a casino?

Kelly is doing well in Ajo.

Thank goodness it's Friday! I'm going to leave ASU early and take a nap. I haven't been sleeping well because of my cold, so I'm just going to veg out and rest this weekend. I don't want to be sick or have any afteraffects by the time LPSC comes around.

Kelly left for her job in Ajo this morning. I miss her already. She was a little worried about being by herself, but I know she'll be okay. She's never had to go out of town for a job like this before.

I'm sick today. I was sick yesterday too. It sucks because I'm trying to put together my talk for LPSC, which I will be practicing on Tuesday, and it's difficult to concentrate. Kelly makes me feel better, though. She is supposed to go to Ajo this weekend to work on a job. I'm not sure how long she'll be gone, but I'll be in Houston before she gets back. I miss her already.

So this woman named Raffaela De Gregorio has emailed me a couple times. She's a nursing student in La Jolla, CA, and she wanted to know where I was from. That's a pretty vague question from a stranger over the internet, so I gave her an equally vague answer. Her email didn't seem like spam or a con, so I thought it was OK to reply as long as I don't give out any important information. Apparently, her father is from Naples and she is a first generation American, which is kinda cool. That's about all I know for now.

World Jump Day - July 20, 2006
If 600 million people all jump at the same time at the particular moment the Earth moves into a "fragile" position in its orbit, the orbit can change such that global warming will decrease. Is this scientifically possible, or just popular myth?

Ninjas are awesome!

What a great President's Day Weekend! It rained alot on Friday and Saturday, so we took Ed out to the flooded green belt to run around. He had a blast splashing around in the puddles. He got absolutely filthy from digging muddy holes, so he got a bath afterwards.

Yesterday, Kelly, Kelly's Dad, Ed and I hiked up to Quartz Peak in the Sierre Estrellas just southwest of Phoenix. It's only a 3 mile hike, but the elevation increases 3000 ft in that distance. Quartz Peak is a pegmatite vein with huge tourmalines, micas, and some garnets. We brought back a bunch of samples, including a huge piece of white quartz with giant tourmalines in it. My back was so sore, but we soaked in the hot tub for a little bit at Kelly's house, so I'm not so sore today.

Kelly and I had a great Valentine's Day on Monday. We went to Veggie Kabob. For some strange reason, we had forgotten how awesome the food is there. Yummy!

This morning I finished a new Java program. FileCombine solves a time-consuming problem I have when analyzing EELS data. In order to mess around with the data in Excel, I have to import every spectrum individually as a two-column text file and then copy and paste into the final worksheet. That can take a while if I have a dozen spectra or so. So I wrote FileCombine to take those individual text files and combine them into a multi-column, tab-delineated text file. Then I only have to import one file into Excel. It works with any text file, too, not just two column text. To run the program, open the command prompt and go to the directory where FileCombine.class is. Type java FileCombine, and assuming you have Java installed on your computer, you should the file chooser popup. Select the directory of your text files, and the program will ask which text files to include. Then you get another popup to choose the destination file. That's it. I like to create shortcuts with the Java command on the desktop or Start menu so I can just double click to start the program.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Kelly and I went to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show again today with her sister-in-law, Tabitha. It was pretty cool to go again and see how much prices dropped from two weeks ago or how selection has changed in that time. I found a huge piece of vanadanite in one vendor's bargain bin for only $1. That piece would normally be between $40-$60 because there are a bunch of huge gemmy crystals on it, so I snapped it up quick. I also found a nice piece of vesuvianite in matrix for $10 and a framed slab of marble or something for $20.

Yesterday I noticed that a Java applet that a wrote a while ago wasn't loading in Internet Explorer. I spent alot of time yesterday and all of this morning working on the problem. The frustrating thing was that it would load on some computers, like my home computer, but not on my laptop at ASU. Both computers were using the same version of IE and Java, so it had to be an issue with browser settings. I played with every thinkable security and advanced setting. The one thing I noticed was that my browser was using a Microsoft Java plugin regardless of whether I had the official Java plugin from Sun or not. This Microsoft plugin is obsolete, but I couldn't figure out a way to uninstall it. Somehow, reinstalling the Sun Java plugin got rid of the Microsoft Java plugin, so now everything works fine and I can stop worrying about it.

Now I just have to fix all the other computers that won't load the applet.

Man! I've already fallen off the blogwagon. Time to get back on. All I have is a couple of news notes:

• Hope everybody had a decent Super Bowl Sunday. Kelly was off living it up with drillers while I was winning $30 from her dad.
  
• I got my LOTR box in the mail last week, so now I have something to put my special edition box sets into!
  
• In the beginning of GTA: San Andreas, your character becomes involved in gang warfare. I've been taking over territory for a few weeks now, and I only have one tiny area left. I can't get enemy gang members to spawn there because my territory surrounds it, so only my gang members spawn.
  
• The Onion AV club is starting to do video game reviews, but guess who they got to do it. Wil Wheaton! That's right, the punk ass kid from Star Trek: The Next Generation!
  
• Do you think you're a loser? You'll feel better once you check out these people!

Last night I dreamed about a new cool reality show. It's either called "Manhunt" or "The Chase". There are eight regular people on two teams: The Fugitives and the Bounty Hunters. The fugitives are given food and supplies to survive for two weeks in the wilderness and a few hours head start. The bounty hunters have unlimited supplies that they don't have to carry themselves, and their goal is to find and return the fugitives to the home base. Now here's where the money comes in. Each fugitive returned to base is progressively worth more.

1st fugitive = $100
2nd fugitive = $500
3rd fugitive = $1000
4th fugitive = $5000
5th fugitive = $10000
6th fugitive = $25000
7th fugitive = $50000
8th fugitive = $100000

The bounty hunters only have two weeks to catch the fugitives, and only the hunters who return to base with a fugitive will get the money. The further the game goes on, the longer it takes to return a fugitive to base and return to find and catch more fugitives, but they're worth more money. But why even be a fugitive? Any free fugitive after two weeks gets $100000! That's a big incentive, but difficult to actually accomplish.

In my dream, I imagined the first season of this show. All the fugitives but two were caught during the first day, mainly because there were a series of deep ravines and rivers to cross. Some of the hunters decided to share some of the bounties, so only one hunter decided to skip the easy money and go for the big payoff ($150000 for two bounties). But the fugitives decided to work together and headed for the mountains. It took about a week for the hunter to track and find them in a meadow high up in a pine forest. By that time the two fugitives were tired, cold, and hungry from the pursuit (they were running or hiking hard for most of the day). They didn't resist, and the hunter took both of them in at the same time, but they barely made it back to base before the two weeks were up. No fugitives earned money that time, but one of them would have if they had split up in the mountains.

This show would only have to pay between $191600 and $800000 per season, and most likely a lower number. There are no props and sets, so the only production cost would be filming, which would probably be mostly hand camera and helicoptor shots.

Maybe it's a stupid idea, but I sure as hell would watch it.

Here's some mineral pics:

pyrrhotite


sphalerite


ruby


emerald

I wanted to take some pictures of the cool minerals Kelly and I got in Tucson, but most of them came out fuzzy (I'm not good with cameras). Here's a pic of amazonite.

Our water heater burst yesterday. The apartment manager noticed water flowing and pooling up in the driveway, so they shut off the water and replaced the water heater. Luckily, downhill is away from the building, so nothing got ruined, although all of Kelly's rock samples in the laundry room got soaked and smell something awful now. There's also a thin layer of sediment in our carport. It's just another member of the Hermanson Formation, an accumulation of work-related mud and dust that forms wherever Kelly goes. You can always tell where Kelly has parked her car by the mud that builds up in that space!

I've finished and submitted by last proposal. Now I have to just wait until April or so to see if I'll be getting any money for next year.

I took a month off from blogging. Most of my time was split between Kelly, GTA:San Andreas, and writing proposals. But I have more time now, so I'll try to be good about posting, especially so I don't have to hear Kelly nagging me about it. :)

Kelly and I went down to Tucson on Saturday to visit Beth and the Gem and Mineral Show. It was pretty awesome, and we found some great deals! I bought some sphalerite and pyrrhotite and a ruby for myself. Kelly and I shared on a cool emerald. I bought Kelly some blue chalcedony, a purple tourmaline, and a mystery valentine's day gift, and she bought me a huge amazonite with little schorls on top. Beth gave me some apophyllite, and her dad gave me a huge shark's tooth. It was a blast.

Where do you fit in the heirarchy?

I survived another wave of holidays unscathed. It was pretty laid back, though. I made a couple pies for the first time in my life. Apple-blackberry and peach-raspberry. Everybody said they were delicous. I'm actually thinking of making some more vegetarian lasagna. That's really good too. I don't really like cooking, but I enjoy making something that takes more time and skill so that I feel like I've accomplished something great when I'm done.

Check out my AGU poster!

And we're baaaaack! (Kelly hates that joke)

AGU was fun, but it got exhausting near the end of the week. Luckily, my poster session and the talks I wanted to see were all Monday and Tuesday. The poster session went well. I talked to more people than usual and got a lot of support for my results. It's weird, though. Whenever I talk about fossils in the Apex chert, I get hammered with questions, but whenever I talk about abiotic carbon in the Apex chert, I get a pat on the back. Since my research isn't really conclusive either way, I feel like I have to tell people what they want to hear rather than what I really think.

I got to see my friend William on Wednesday. He goes to Stanford, but he lives in San Francisco. We did a lot of things, but one thing we did was go to the Giant Robot store (GRSF) in the Haight. It was cool!

Thursday and Friday I only had to visit my friends posters, so I shopped those days. I went to the FCUK store and bought an expensive blazer 'cause I didn't have one. I also went to chinatown and bought some nice wooden stands for minerals. You know, the little round ones with little legs.

Since I was so exhausted from the conference, I just lounged around Saturday and Sunday. Besides, I had a whole bunch of shows to watch on the DVR, including the Apprentice finale (Suck it, Jennifer!)

My flight for San Francisco leaves tomorrow. I'll be at AGU all week. I'm gonna miss Kelly. I love that girl so much.

I just finished and turned in my GLG598 paper. I wrote up my experiment looking for C, N, S, and P using the SIMS at ASU. I found all of those elements, which is awesome 'cuz I wasn't expecting to find anything, so I concluded that the carbonaceous material in the Apex chert is biogenic, which suggests that the 3.5 Ga microbe-looking features are real microfossils. I came in early to ASU today so I could finish my paper by the 3PM due data, but now that my paper is turned in, I'm going to fuck off the rest of the day!

You Are the Investigator

5 You're independent - and a logical analytical thinker. You love learning and ideas... and know things no one else does. Bored by small talk, you refuse to participate in boring conversations. You are open minded. A visionary. You understand the world and may change it.

What number are you?

We now have Cox digital cable and a DVR! I never have to worry about missing my stories...er, I mean shows.

Yay! I finished my AGU poster! On time, too. It'll be printed tonight. Ah! Now I can enjoy my weekend.

Today must be the day for secret messages.

Kelly likes to stick her wet hair to the walls of the shower. It annoys me to no end. I hate getting in there and seeing a squiggly black line on the wall. But today the hairs were positioned to spell out "I [heart] U". How sweet. That girl knows just how to annoy me and be adorable at the same time.

Then some prick wrote "GO WASH ME" on my car. I just had it washed yesterday! It's not my fault they were busy and so there are some waterspots on my car. At least they got all the birdshit off.

I guess I haven't blogged in a while. Thanksgiving weekend was fun. I had Tofurkey with Kelly while everybody else had turkey. Kelly's been moving in, which is kinda cool. It makes me feel very close to her. We even ran together. I know I said I'd never run again, but I feel like I need some cardio exercise. Weightlifting is fun but it won't keep me from getting a gut. Maybe I'm just afraid of becoming one of the people on the Biggest Loser. We were supposed to run again tonight, but it was too damn cold and we were both starving after work.

You are 47% Libra

How much do you match your zodiac sign?

I feel like shit today. I'm getting over my cold this weekend, but I didn't get alot of sleep last night. I'm also really sore everywhere. I guess those stressfull dreams I had made me tense up while I was sleeping. I'm also starting to stress out about AGU in three weeks. I've started preparing my poster and everything early, so there shouldn't be any problem getting it all done in time, but I still worry about it. And the rain doesn't do anything for my mood either.

So I'll make myself some tea and relax with some data processing before class this afternoon, and try to recover.

If you are interested in independent films, my brother has finished his and it will be available on DVD soon. It's called Live-In and it's about a "run-away [who] becomes the new caretaker for a dying child, but uncovers that this disfunctional family has a secret." I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure it's good.

Kelly started her night shifts tonight. She leaves at 8:30 PM and gets back at 11 AM. So I thought to myself, "hey, I can go out with Clint this weekend." Nope. He went to bed early tonight because he's going to Flagstaff early tomorrow. And staying the night. I still wanted to do something instead of sitting in my apartment watching TV, so I went to the indian casino. It was fucking packed! Luckily, I found a vacant video poker machine, so I sat down and started playing. About a half hour in I hit four Aces. That was my lucky break for the night, so I cashed out ($104) and left. I started with $20, so my net profit was $84. Not bad for the second time in my life I've played in a casino.

I think video poker is one of the best ways to make money in a casino, if you play properly. It's one of the few games, besides blackjack, where you get to make choices that actually increase your odds. Here are my guidelines for walking away with profit from video poker:

1. Play the $1 machines. I get too nervous on the $2 and $5 machines, and winnings on the $.25 and $.50 machines seem too small. The $1 machines make your winnings seem worth the time invested.

2. Only $20 seed money. If you lose it all, you're done for the night.

3. If you hit a big jackpot, walk away immediately. You might be able to hit another, but the chances of that are slim in my opinion. Besides, a jackpot is a happy event to quit playing on. Better to wonder with a bunch of money than to know that you lost all that money.

4. If you don't hit a big jackpot, play until you double your money ($40). I think this is a good benchmark. Cash out, but if you're not ready to quit yet, use half of that as original seed money. Keep the other half of the money in your pocket.

5. Play conservatively. Big jackpots are tempting, but trying to make them will run you out of money really quickly. If you do this, you will increase your money gradually. For example, keep a pair of dueces, which isn't worth anything, but you might get another one, which is worth $3. Only take risks when you have a sure thing. For example, if you have a pair of aces and a pair of jacks, which is worth $1, get rid of the jacks and keep the pair of aces, which is also worth $1, because you might get the other two aces (like I did).

Sorry for not blogging recently, but I've been really productive at ASU lately. I've made a list of things to do before AGU, and it feels good to start checking things off that list. Plus, I'm almost finished revising my paper for Geology. I can't wait till that goddamn thing is published and done with.

Here's a funny take on the recent election...Fuck the South!

I finished making travel plans for AGU in December. I managed to get on the same flight as Beth back to Phoenix. I even got the seat right next to her! All it cost me was an extra $120, but I get reimbursed for that, so it's ok. I thought about using my frequent flyer miles, but that is one of the blackout days. Besides, I should keep saving my frequent flyer miles for Kelly and my trip to Europe. I only need 50,000 for one round trip ticket, and I've got 42,000.

I'm back now from the synchrotron in New York. I had more fun this time because I got to be by myself. Saturday was kindof a training day on the x-ray microscope, but Sunday I got to do everything on my own. I finished up everything Monday morning, but my flight didn't leave until the afternoon, so I got to drive around Long Island a bit. First I went to the huge Tanger Outlet Center near Riverhead. Then I drove back to JFK airport along the barrier islands, stopping at the famous Jones Beach. I'm also in the middle of reading the Godfather, so it's cool to drive through Long Beach, where the Corleone compound was. Sonny Corleone was killed on the Jones Beach Causeway in the book. I could tell that some of the movie was actually filmed on Long Island.

I guess the giant douche won...or was it the turd sandwich?

I voted today. My choices for president were Bush, Kerry, and Micheal Badnarik (the libertarian candidate). I don't respect Bush, and the libertarians scare me (they want to get rid of all government welfare, including research funding), so I voted for Kerry. However, for any of the other races, I voted for libertarians whenever possible. Even though I don't agree with their politics, I do think they are more likely to be free thinkers than republicans and democrats. They don't really have a party line to follow, so they have to figure out things for themselves. Also, they take government a step back and ask, "Is this what the government SHOULD be doing?" I like that question. So I'll vote for libertarian candidates for local and state elections, but never for president.

Let me just say how stupid this whole Ugg fashion craze is. My whole family had pairs of bona fide Uggs when I was in second grade, way before they Paris Hilton bought a pair, way back when they were just a small company making shearling slippers and boots. They were very comfortable and warm, great for wearing in the house during the winter in Oregon when the heat wasn't working. Now they're just a fashion statement. The fact that girls are wearing them in Arizona is laughable, because I know how warm they can get.

The phrase "no taxation without representation" popped into my mind today, and I started thinking about the reverse, "no representation without taxation". What if you had to be a registered voter to pay taxes? In other words, if you gave up your voting rights, you wouldn't have to pay taxes! How would the US change if it adopted this kind of policy? If the filthy rich gave up their voting rights in order to keep their gross income, they could still affect politics by donations. But if all the upper and middle classes gave up their voting rights, could the lower classes gain political power? Of course, if that happened, taxes would be sky high.

I think that John Mayer is to me as Sheryl Crow is to Kelly. He's totally copying me. Look at the cover of his new album.

I turned 26 today. Yay me! Actually, nothing special happens at 26, so it seems like any other day. Except tonight I get yummy Italian food from Molise.

Kelly gave me some awesome cologne.

Happy Birthday, Kelly!!!

Think how lucky one has to be to capture this sort of thing on film...

There's a funny parody of Bush and Kerry on JibJab.com. Click on the "This Land" link to watch it.

I took the day off yesterday in order to avoid all the craziness going on at ASU for the presidential debates. It seems like that was a good idea. I was also sulking a bit. You see, I found out on Tuesday that my Science paper was rejected. It got three OK reviews and one really bad review--"You shouldn't be practicing science" bad. You can probably guess how all that made me feel. But I'm better now, and I have some ideas on how to make the paper better for submission in another journal.

I watched the third-party presidential debate at Cornell. They were replaying it on C-SPAN this weekend. It was interesting to hear these guys who have no chance in hell of becoming president. Nader wasn't there, but they had guys from the Constitution Party, the Green Party, the Socialist Party, and the Libertarian Party. The Constitution Party guy would answer all the questions with, "The government does not have the constitutional right". The Socialist Party guy was an old curmudgeon who kept talking about the party's history. The Green and Libertarian Party guys were interesting.

If you're looking for a cool chill-out CD, try Sonido Uzumaki. It's a compilation of songs for an art show that's only available from the Music Related label. Check out a sample mix here.

Hey, check me out looking like a dork on Tom Sharp's new research website.

Yikes! I just saw Beth's evil twin! I had to look twice to make sure Beth hadn't snuck back to AZ to escape the apocalyptic horrors of Washington. But sadly, no, it was just her evil twin. I wonder what my evil twin is up to these days? I wonder if he graduated from Northwestern?

The word of the day is kakistocracy.

I saw a funny sign at the Kerry booth today:


PRACTICE
ABSTINANCE
in 2004
NO BUSH! NO DICK!

Kelly and I watched the first presidential debate last night. Kerry came off looking pretty good, in my opinion. He stood up straight and was very clear and direct. Bush was slouching the whole time, and he kept rambling and looking at the audience like "Come on. I know what I'm doing, so just let me do it" with that stupid smirk on his face. The big difference I see between the two is that Kerry wants to get the hell out of Iraq as soon as possible, and Bush wants to stay there. Bush kept saying that we have to stay until the job is done, or else the terrorists win. Iraq can't be won. You can't kill all the terrorists. We just need to make sure Iraq can stand on it's own and then get out of there. It's not our country, so we shouldn't try to turn it into another USA. It just won't happen. Let Iraq manage Iraq, not Halliburton.

Sorry for getting so political. I'll try not to let it happen again...until next Friday.

Ouch! I cut myself with a razorblade today. I make epoxy mounts in these tiny plastic molds, and you need to cut them open to get the mount out of them. Needless to say, I slipped. You can barely see it, but it's about 1-2 mm deep. You can see it when you pull the skin apart, but that makes it bleed more. I'm gonna go find a band-aid now.

So Kelly and I went to the dollar store tonight. It's called "Everything's a Dollar". There are signs everywhere in the store saying "Really, everything's a dollar!". So anyway, there was this big fat white guy behind me in line at the register. He was standing right behind me, and he was chewing gum with his mouth open. I could even smell the flavor of the gum (mint). He was buying a mop, which he would stick right next to me. This guy was really annoying, and I had to try hard not to turn and say something rude to him. But here's the kicker. When I finished checking out, the dumbass immediately put his mop on the counter and asked, "How much is this?"...IT'S A FUCKING DOLLAR, DUMBASS!!! That's why they call it a dollar store!

I just want to remember some recent funny Strong Bad emails from Homestar Runner.

• Stupid Stuff
  
• Replacement

Post a comment with your favorites!

I'm nervous now. My Science paper got sent out for peer review. This means that the editor thought it was "Science-worthy". They could still reject my paper if the reviewers hate it, so that's what I'm worried about. I don't know how long that will take. But if they do like it, then I'll have a paper in Science! But I can't let myself get excited yet.

Here's the website of the co-creator of Uglydolls.

Joe and I are organizing mock orals for people this year, but people are slackers. Orals start soon, and so far 1 person has done mocks, 2 people haven't told us when they want to do mocks, 1 person just decided to do mocks, and 1 person decided to take their chances. I wanted to get these things all organized last week, and now I have to worry about last minute preparations. Why can't people just get their shit together? Mocks take 3-4 hours each, so I'm giving up alot of my time to do this.

This is what happens when an ocean oil-drilling platform gets moved 70 miles by a hurricane.

I just saw a talk by Paul Knauth that I call "How many planetary scientists can I piss off?" It was pretty funny. People were actually angry at him. And of course Knauth can be very patronizing when he wants to be.

His talk was about the claim of standing water on Mars. This deposit has cross beds, iron spherules, mineral casts, salts and jarosite. The Mars rover people interpres these as ripple marks, iron concretions, gypsum casts, and evaporites (respectively), leading them to conclude there was a lake on Mars. Knauth says all of these observations can be explained by a base surge deposit from and impact. Base surges can be cross beds and lapilli, which can be later oxidized to hematite. Because Mars has subsurface ice and brine, that is the source of the gypsum and salts. The jarosite formed later, like in iron mine tailings in Arizona.

So, I've worked 26 hours this week and it's only Tuesday. It sounds like a crazy schedule - but I love it! I've been out in Buckeye for the last two days performing aquifer tests and collecting zonal samples and documenting water levels. It's been fun and everybody that I've met on the drilling side of well construction has been nice. They like geologists but hate engineers! *snicker snicker* And they tell the funniest stories. I love my job! :cD

Through neglect or on purpose, Kelly's brother and dad let Ed chew up Kelly's favorite cap. It hurts me too, because Kelly wore that hat alot when we were falling in love. She's wearing that hat in the first picture I took of her.

When I was a kid, I would do things for fun or to be funny that would end up wrecking something. When somebody else got upset or angry over it, I would realize that the piece of crap that I ruined had sentimental value for someone else. This taught me (over many years) to only be reckless with my own things. If I ever saw the dog chewing something that I knew wasn't his toy, I would take it away from him. Only assholes don't think about how other people feel about their belongings.

Kelly often says I'm an asshole for being careless or doing something stupid. I always tell her that's not being an asshole. If I did something that I knew would make her upset, then I'd be an asshole. That's what Jace and Dean did with Kelly's hat.

Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Japanese energy drink commercial. (requires QuickTime)

Kelly and I went camping in the Chiricahua Mountains this holiday weekend. It is one of the coolest places in Arizona! We went to the National Monument there and also found a shitload of galena at an abandoned mine! Ask me about it and I'll tell you how to find it.

I'm feeling better now. I don't feel sick anymore, but I still have some residuals. My throat is phlegmmy and my nose is bone dry. But I'll survive. And I get to go camping this weekend with Kelly! Yay!

I finally submitted my paper to Science! If they hate it, I'll find out in about two weeks. I'm a little nervous about it.

Aaaahh. Reminding me why I'm in grad school.

Here are a couple of movies my brother sent me of people who weren't quite good enough to get into the Olympics...

• Javelin
  
• Pommelhorse
  
• Uneven Bars
  
• Balance Beam
  

I'm feeling a bit under the weather today. My throat tickles and my head is cloudy. I'm not sick yet, but I could be by tomorrow. Hopefully not, since I need to start writing an AGU abstract this week, and I want to go camping this weekend.