May 13, 2009

• Will he ever stop talking?

  Whew. A crazy bit of time lately.

  First off, the infamous Rollover incident was appealed. After giving a detailed power point, pleading my case, showing beyond a shadow of a doubt that the tire, not anything else, caused the accident. After an hour of testimony (w/ Q&A) and and hour of deliberation, I lost 4-3. I heard that the main reasons I lost were 1) I did not check the spare tire pressure before I left (Are you kidding me? There is no one that ever, EVER does this) and 2) I had cruise control set, even though it was set BELOW the speed limit on a good dirt road. I can not imagine an independent panel finding me negligent. And I want the MythBusters to check the cruise control scientifically; at the very least, I was never trained to drive any differently with the state, let alone any training regarding dirt roads or cruise control, so how can I be at fault?

  As a ‘reward’ for my appeal, (well, I can not prove these things are related, but within 30 minutes of my verdict,) my driving privileges were revoked indefinitely. So, I am officially looking for a new job. SLC prospects are pretty good, thankfully. Also thankfully is my (relatively, I think) secure spot with my current job, but I hope to leave before I can find out if I can drive again.

  Last weekend, I had to be in Fish Springs, and I was not even allowed to drive MY OWN TRUCK. I had to get a coworker to drive me out there (Thanks Rebecca!). This is one of those ‘gov gone wild’ stories: She gets paid for hours of unnecessary work, wasting the tax payer’s money, to drive me to work on roads and conditions that she is less trained and less familiar with then I am. Great…

  The weekend itself was great! I taught 2 three hour field trip classes, and got a lot of good feedback, as we checked out the Ordovician transgressive sequence of the Eureka-Ely Springs (including trace fossils and a cool slickenside) and some Provo Level (lake Bonneville) Tufa deposits.

  

  The trip ended with some unexpected herpetology… I felt so bad because I told Rebecca ‘there’s no snakes out here’ so many times because of her fear of them. This was the first (live) rattler I’ve seen in my two years with the survey.

  The first three days of this week were taken up by Rocky Mt section GSA, highlighted by the talk by yours truly. It was my first ever talk at GSA, and it went better than I thought it would. At least no produce was thrown on stage and no one found out that I’m not really a hydrologist. The one question I got was from the yBu group that does not like the main interbasin flow idea, but instead of asking me questions on that, they asked me, “Did the fact that the drawdown from the aquifer test had such a long time interval of recovery surprise you?” Uhhh… yes?

  

  The best slide was this above, with the caption, “Snake Valley Traffic Jam.” Well, I know you must first be asking about the swag, but this was a small meeting, so I only got a few pens and stickers. The best stickers I got were “Warning: Geologist at Work” and “Don’t Worry, I’m a Geologist” stickers in spanish. But, I did not leave empty handed…

  

  If you had “5 lbs of cookies” in the Matt’s GSA Swag office pool, then collect your winnings.

  All in all, a busy but good few days. Now, I just hope to rest my voice, do something fun this weekend, and lay low.

  • 9:46 pm
  • 7 Comments