I am a statistic… laid off. I thought this little photo review might be a good way to remember all that happened with my time at the state.
My plan is: send out feeler letters for teaching jobs in private/charter schools this month, follow ups in April, all the while look for regular geology jobs. Wish me luck!
So, this, in theory, should be quite the bad xmas season. Why?
1) About two weeks ago, Carl got in an accident. I was turning left from Hansen Ave. (little side street in the upper right) onto 300 West, going north. There was a long line of cars waiting at the light, but they had left a space for me to drive through. As I did, another car was driving down the middle lane (bypassing the line of cars) to turn left, hit me, and I got the ticket and blame. The other car stated that they entered the middle lane legally, even thought that is physically impossible, as you can see in the picture above. Oh well, that’s my first ticket.
2) I have 6 days (two weeks) of work left until I am laid off.
3) On Tuesday, I somehow threw out my back, so I’m in a lot of pain. With all my medical issues (I take 4 Rx and 2 over the counter drugs daily), being uninsured scares me.
But, I am actually very happy. Things have never been better, really.
1) I’ve got some great new music. Most of all, is this: Arthur Miles. I saw some Tuvan throat singers (they are called Alash) at a Bela Fleck concert that Shawn’s dad took us to. I got reintroduced to this (from my second Mongolian trip) and got re-excited about it. Somehow, I stumbled upon Arthur Miles, a 1920s era cowboy singer (think Jimmie Rodgers, the yodeling breakman famous for “In the Jailhouse Now” from Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?) that for some unknown reason (in fact, very little is known about him at all), knew how to throat sing. It is the craziest shit I’ve heard in forever… you gotta hear it!
2) Shawn and I are doing great, and I get to meet her sister for the first time tonight!
3) After hanging with Shawn’s little brother, I broke out the LEGO bricks again, and that always makes me happy… If you are not friends with me on Facebook, you should be, just so you can all the LEGO friends I’ve made. You can see it here as well.
4) SFW IV in Utah? Arches/Canyonlands in the spring, anyone?
So, things might be blue, but blue is my favorite color…
I have now gone to Snake Valley for the last time for the state. Last week, I did my final transducer run with Stefan. In exactly one month, I will be leaving my cube for last time, destined for the unemployment line. But, gotta show of some of the greatness of the West Desert one more time. The best part about the December run is the sunsets and sunrises you are forced to see.
This is the worst part. Please note that this is a maximum temperature, attached to a warm building in a warm human-use area. Our instruments read -16C, and the closest weather station read -4F and -3F Thursday and Friday.
The cold did do something cool at Gandy Salt Marsh. Look at this pic carefully. You can see layers or sheets of ice on top of other ice… very strange… any ideas as to why this happens?
We saw this… not as cool, and probably harmless, but we didn’t touch it with a bombing range and mining so close…
I thought it was pretty cool that one of the sites has turned into a frat pad…. their were empty beer cans and condoms lying on the ground…. WOW….
Had to have one more “Matt Special” at the Border Inn (which has a facebook now, by the way). This is a big salad with lemon caesar dressing, and a chicken quesadilla jammed with mushrooms, minced garlic, grilled onions, and tomatoes, laced with sour cream. Mmmmmm…
So, a bitter (cold) and sweet trip. I will be back as a tourist sooner than later…
What a thanksgiving!
This year, Shawn and I took the trip to Southern Oregon.
We flew in and out of Portland, for cheaper tix but mainly to visit Jason and Johnny, friends of Shawn. Here are Jason and Shawn at my new favorite food shack in the Portland Industrial district:
Waffle Tacos.
That’s right, I said Waffle Tacos. You take a soft waffle, and put yummy inside. I had the maple sausage and cheddar (L), Jason had the Pumpkin and whipped cream (C), and Shawn had the THB – Turkey, havarti, and bacon.
Portland is an interesting town. I was jubilant to see the inspiration that Matt Groening had when he lived here, and all the important names that come from landmarks. Above is Sideshow Bob’s last name.
Jason lived right off the Rev’s street.
There is no Dolf street, unfortunately.
In the area, there are numbered streets going one way, and names in alphabetical order going the other way, okaly doakaly?
Didn’t see any diamonds here.
This is the high school that Matt went to, and is loosely the design of Springfield Elementary School.
On a sidewalk around the school, with no signage or anything, you might be lucky enough to find this.
After one night in Springfield, I mean, Portland, we drove to Ashland to hang with my family. My cousins were very happy to meet me and Shawn. In fact, everyone liked Shawn (unlike the ex, which I have slowly learned over the years).
We had to play Legos, right?
After a very tasty Thanksgiving dinner, Shawn and I stayed at our friend’s B&B, the Apothecary Inn. Check out the olde-style door key, and the Quartz keychain!
It’s a farm-style B&B, but it is still very fancy.
They had all kinds of animals, including Llamas, alpacas, goats, donkeys, and chickens.
Here are the very wooly and strange-looking angora goats.
My favorite animal is Curious George, a llama. He is a little too friendly, especially for a llama. According to Jillian and Ryan, he’ll tackle you to love you.
The chickens had lots of crazy feather patterns.
And I had forgotten how creepy goat eyes are.
The B&B was in Jacksonville, an old mining town that is now a tourism center. It was pretty!
My favorite part was this Sequoia, planted in 1862 by Peter Britt, one of the makers of the town. It is now over 200 feet tall.
All in all, it was another great trip, and I was sad to see it over and sad that I am back at work. Tomorrow, I take my last ever trip to the field; my official date in which I am laid off is January 7th.
P.S. EPIC comb-over on the plane.
P.P.S. Shawn gave me crabs.
And then, I gave them to Carl. After all, he does have giant crabs. The crab on the left is from Baltimore, the one on the right is from Seattle.
This past weekend, I got to do something that I’ve always wanted to do: Check out the smurf turf in action.
Luckily, Shawn has family in Boise (her cousin), so we got to see her, her husband, their kid, and their Chihuahuas.
Saturday morning, we got to tailgate and see the Broncos take on the Vandals (maybe the best mascot name ever).
The tailgate was COLD. It had snowed the night before, and I was quite bundled up.
So was Andrew!
The game was pretty cool, even though it was a blowout. The crowd was good, but no Knoxville.
All in all, it was a great experience, and I hope to go up to Boise more often. I also might see BSU again; they play in Logan on Saturday!
Or is it geopetal?
So, I’m all moved in… today is not great, because Shawn’s out of town (in the dirty dirty) for business. But, I move on.
My Wikipedia fetish is only growing. I am now up to 24 pages created, 27 images uploaded (like the geopetal fossil above), and over 500 total edits. You should check out my (funny) user page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Qfl247. I am especially proud of this table I made on the Bedform page:
| Flow Regime | Bedform | Preservation Potential | Identification Tips |
| Lower | |||
| Lower plane bed | High | Flat laminae, almost lack of current | |
| Ripple marks | High | Small, cm-scale undulations | |
| Sand waves | Medium to low | Rare, longer wavelength than ripples | |
| Dunes/Megaripples | Low | Large, meter-scale ripples | |
| Upper | |||
| Upper plane bed | High | Flat laminae, +/- aligned grains (parting lineations) | |
| Antidunes | Low | Water in phase with bedform, low angle, subtle laminae | |
| Pool and chute | Very low | Mostly erosional features |
Speaking of geopetal, what does that word mean to you? I am locked in a debate over this word, because some people think it means “Pertaining to any rock feature, e.g. cross-bedding, that indicates the relation of a top to bottom at the time of formation of the rock.” (Bates and Jackson, 1984, Dictionary of Geological Terms, 3rd ed., Prepared by the American Geological Institue) and the UK definition of it is only the bubble fill of a vesicle or fossil, they use the term “Way Up Structure” for all paleo-up indicators, which I have never heard. Any of you? Anyways, Wikipedia has the UK def but not even a reference to the US def. I am working on this.
So, that’s my life right now… might do a music swap party tonight, so I have that to look forward to, besides adding more to Wikipedia, like the Hanksite crystal above.
P.S. I’ve been watching the original series of Star Trek for the first time. I expected it to be cheesy and predictable, but I am actually very happy with it… much better than I thought.
Not a lot going on… but great things to come, including my first visit of Lulu in months and a trip to Portland/Crater Lake/Grandma’s.
This is what is going on: I am moving! Shawn and I are taking the next step to see how much we really do love each other, and I am going to save some $$$ and move in with her and her roommate Alex (who owns the house). Did I mention it is fall?
I am also going to have new pets: Cats!
This is Mae… she’s the playful and rough one of the group.
This is Missy… she’s the kind yet devious one.
This is Cloud… the… uhhh… pretty (dumb) one.
You may be saying, “Matt, are you not allergic to cats? Is it soon to be moving in with your girlfriend?”
Nation’s Girlfriends Unveil New Economic Plan: ‘Let’s Move In Together’
My answer to that is, we are basically living together now (see above), and my allergies are OK… not great, but OK. So, I can do it.
One of the best things is shopping and rearranging (Both of which I secretly like to do when moving). Yesterday I bought a nice display case for my rock collection (cat protected!), and it looks quite nice. In case some of you have not seen my (museum quality) rock collection, here’s a glimpse:
Here are my minerals. In the back is a huge piece of Lepidolite.
My igneous rocks, with Mongolian nick-nacks. The grey rock, front and center, is a month younger than me (from Mt. St. Helens eruption of October 1980).
My sedimentary rocks, with fossils. My awesome crinoid is bottom left.
My metamorphic/altered rocks, including a mafic dike in a felsic rock and a pillow basalt from a ophiolite zone in Mongolia and a piece of the fault that threatens my life right now, the Wasatch, in the back.
Pretty cool, huh? The only specimens I can’t find are my awesome slickenside from Orocopia and my giant Sphene from just outside Yosemite. So, if any of you wanna see it in person, let me know.
I am such a nerd.
Lately, I’ve decided to abandon my quest on Yahoo! Answers (for the most part), because democratic learning is hard. Instead, I have converted my online nerdishness to Wikipedia. Refernces are great.
Click here to see my user page. I spent some time on it, and added lots of hilarity if you mouse around. On that page, you can see how I’ve now created many pages, including QFL diagrams, Gazzi-Dickinson point-counting method, Lithic Fragments, and Durell Price, among others.
The most important page I made was Dollaseite-(Ce), the mineral named after our beloved Wayne Dollase from UCLA. Not only did I make the page, but I now have a piece!!! I went online, found a guy out of the Netherlands that had a (small) piece, and bought it. Only 30 Euros (about $44 bucks), so not too bad considering it is only known from Sweden. Why doesn’t the ESS depertment have a big chunck of this on display, showing off to the world the WE (UCLA) have a prof who has a mineral named after him?!?!?!?!?
I did recently go on a Snake Valley trip, where I talked about our project with many folks from all backgrounds, including SNWA people.
Strangly, the highlight of the trip was a cement plant that I crossed a hundred times on the way to Snake Valley. It was amazing… this pic came out cool because of the aresol limestone that was in this room… you can only slightly see the giant pulversizing cylander.
Last night, Shawn and I saw David Cross! Very funny…
Not much else going on… looking forward to the weather changing! Yesturday’s high: 89 F, low: 50 F, hot. Tomorrow’s high: 47 F, low: 31 F, chance of snow overnight. Crazy, no? That must be the biggest change in weather since the hall or records mysteriously blew away…
What a trip.
Fernando and I took a trip to Tennessee to see our precious UCLA Bruins play the University of Tennessee Volenteers. They even gave us a True Blue car!
The first evening (Friday), after meeting in the airport, was spent walking the sights in Nashville. In the background is the Titan’s stadium.
The evening was slightly dampened (pun intended) by torrential rain… it was insane. Even the locals said this was a lot of rain.
Here’s the video diary of the night.
On Saturday, we drove the 2.5 hours to Knoxville and Neyland Stadium.
On the drive, we saw many a Vol fan.
But we also saw this: a state of TN license plate with a U of Alabama logo on it…. wtf?
Knoxville is a very nice town, but there is one thing about it that is unmistakable…
The wigsphere, I mean, Sunsphere!
Right away, Fernando and I knew we had seen this thing before. It turns out that in an episode of the Simpsons, the one where Bart gets a fake ID and takes Milhouse, Nelson, and Martin on a road trip, they go to Knoxville to see the World’s Fair, only to find out that it happened before they were born. I never thought, in my wildest dreams, that it was a real thing.
Two quick stories that intertwined: Fernando left the tix in the hotel in Nashville, so while we waited in line to ask, whimsically, if we could get a replacement, we met Kyle and Alan. They came to Knoxville with a backpack and nothing else, and needed to ask about getting their bags into Neyland. We offered to hold their bags in our car, and when the cop wouldn’t even let them past him, we just had to talk to the UCLA ticket person. It was actually much, much easier than we thought, and it allowed us to help a fellow Bruin or two! After a quick jaunt to the car, we were ready for the game!
The stadium (102k in attendance) and the atmosphere was unreal. The crowd was super loud, in sync, and smart. The band was great (even with 100 Rocky Tops), and even played our fight song in the opening!
The lines that were drawn in the crowd were sharp!
If you did not see the game, it was quite dramatic. Crazy turnovers and penalties, goal-line stands, and back and forth all game. UCLA won and played better, I think most Vol fans would admit that, and in fact, did. the fans, before and after, were incredibly nice and polite. They would call us over just to talk and bs. I can only hope that all fans would act like that, though I know they would not.
After the game, we were pumped! I can honestly say, however, that the fans made it such an experience that would’ve liked the game regardless of outcome.
After the game, we hit the town to cheer on the Buckeyes. So, they just passed a state law saying that you are allowed to bring in a handgun to a bar if 1) the bar does NOT post a sign forbidding it 2) you declare it 3) you do not drink. Gotta love gun nuts, or else they will shoot you.
This is the random car of women that stopped and had to thank us for beating the Vols. It was… yeah…
Sunday morning was great… ate the best meal of the trip at Bar-B-Cuties (that’s a lot of sauses) and went to Ruby Tuesdays to watch football and the crazy end of the Bungles vs. Donkey game.
Fern and I parted ways at the airport, and things were fine… until my first flight was delayed, I missed my connection in Houston (last flight of day), and had to sleep at Terminal 39C in the Bush airport. Yuck. It really, really, sucked. Got to the SLC 13 hours late.
I was a little sheepish about this trip initially, but now, I want this to be a tradition. Who’s up for Austin in 2010?
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