So, life is moving… kinda. I’ve been sick. This week is the first full week of the teacher program, and I think my body is rejecting the idea of waking up at 6 AM consitantly. One of the site schools starts at 9:30, and that is looking better every day. By the way, research shows that later morning starts with adolecents improve scores and lower bad behavior. Something about not getting enough sleep for your growing body…

Last weekend we had a party, just in time for Fernando (who was visiting) to hang out with my SLC friends.  Fernando was in town for 1/2 week, and it was great.  We even went bar-ing one night, and it was fun for me!  Must be the lack of pressure…

There were a lot of dogs there…

On Tuesday, I saw Tool.  This was my first metal show, and it was cool.  Don’t worry, I’m still punk (in fact, I wore my ‘Not My President’ Shirt today).

Yeah, he was in town today.  He blocked off tons of traffic.  Way to go.  Don’t you have innocent people to be killing or persacuting?

Anyways, Tool was great.  They were practically motionless, and they didn’t need to move at all.  They just had to rock, and boy did they.  I was like, no, no, don’t stop a-rockin’!

The (white) stage was lit by projectors playing strange, trippy… ummm… (for lack of a better term) Toolesque images.  The crowd was really, REALLY into it.  I definately like it.  They closed with my favorite sone, Aenema.

So, this weekend I’ll be in LA.  See ya at the game!  I’ll be tailgating for hours on end.

Next week, I start my first site observations.  Before long, I’ll be in the classroom teaching…

Scary…

Well, I guess it’s not that scary.

Woah.  Definately not that scary.

Sorry for post delay. To update all:

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In my summer classes, I got 4 As and 1 C. The C was in building classroom communities, the week-long class in which I was supposed to encourage passive-aggressive behavior and cop-outs to promote classroom bonding. I hated it, and my grade suffered, but I was still surprised. I emailed the bigot of a teacher we had (she said several times how ‘white teachers’ always act as if she was doing standup on Chappelle Show) and she said:

My comments and the points on the rubric indicate your failure to meet the expected outcomes. Your implementation plan lacks detail, depth, and critical connections to required literature. Your reading critique fails to meet any criteria from three of the four areas – specifically – thoughtfully addressing five key components, thoughtfully addressing challenges with the five key components, and thoughtfully addressing your personal connections with the five key components. I gave you 10 points for structure only because the paper technically met the required criteria.
I have cc’d this message to [name deleted-my cohort leader] as your Cohort Leader – who must be kept aware of all grade issues for the MAT secondary students.

Bitch.



In much better news, Anthony and Armando came out for a visit, and it was fun-tacular.



We went up Big Cottonwood Canyon and checked out Solitude, here’s Hidden Falls on the way.



There’s the lake!





We also checked out Antelope Island SP, which, as you can see, is a beautiful island out on the lake. Geologically it’s famous for Snowball Earth deposits which is fake.



There are also buffalo… more to come.



Much more because next stop: Jellystone. Anthony had to go back but ‘mando and I took the 2-day Sheila tour.





We of course hit the famous spots like the hot springs, The Grand Canyon of The Yellowstone The, and the geysers.


We got Old Faithful near…

…and far.



Don’t you love it when you get the geyser going off in the picture? Of course this was the 47th picture of this spot…



Why would there by columnar jointing in Yellowstone? I don’t get it…




And, just like everywhere else in the country, there just happens to be another world-class National Park on the way home… I guess we’ll stop…



The Tetons are always great… one day, I need to spend more time there then a drive-by.



Call me crazy, but when you can see a dike from 10 miles away (top of mountain), I’d consider it on the big side of the spectrum. This is an Eocene dike in the basement of the Tetons, which is mainly Paleoproterozoic.



We got back just in time to see my aunt, uncle, and cousins on their way back to the bay area. The kids pretty much destroyed the Lego village, but it’s repaired now and will soon be ready for its web expose












One other awesome thing happened… I saw Real Salt Lake lose 2-0 to Real Madrid! I got to see my favorite defender, Roberto Carlos, along with Beckham, Carnevallo (WC MVP), and Van Nistelrooy. Everyone was seeming there to see Bend-it-like. He only played the second half, and as he walked off the field after the game, he applauded to the crown, and the loudest ovation of the whole match was heard. The star of the game was Robihno, that guy was unbelievable. The pics were not great, but you can see the goals here. When the camera pans to the crowd after the pk, you can see Aly and I pretty clearly.

Well, that’s about it. Soon, (well, hopefully) I’ll give an extensive review of the vast music I’ve collected this summer and detail our Lego town.



P.S. All you UCLA geo-nerds (and those who love them) should check out this. It’s funny. It took me a while to figure it out, let’s see how y’all do.

So engaged life has not been that much different. I get to say French words more often, but that’s it. We still love each other more every day, and life is great.

My classes are sucky. Just finnished the worst paper I wrote since AP Government exam in 12th grade. Oh well, in education, they only give Bs to the people that miss half the classes. You have to really fuck up to get a C. And frankly, I could give a damn what my education GPA is. At least it’s over Aug 2nd.

Saw AFI and Warped tour. Both really hot but good. No pics, sorry.

What are you doing for labor day?

Aly and I bought plane tix to LA for new school vs. old school… Utah Utes vs. UCLA Bruins!!! This all happens the day before my birthday, Sept. 2, 2006. If you are interested in sitting w/ my peeps and/or tailgating, let me know ASAP. I am buying tickets by the end of this week. We will be sitting on the shady side. I’ll be in my #26 jersey (DeShawn Foster) and a UU hat.

So, what else is up? I have two new obsessions that have stolen my away from Xanga (sorry all!).

First, is our Lego town. The Legos are so much in my life that my dad mailed my old legos to me so I could play with them. Wow, huh? When the city’s done, I’ll give the complete tour, but here are Aly’s and my castles. Guess who’s is whos.

Tee other thing that is totally taking over my life is Yahoo! Answers. I am on this dozens of times a day. The place I frequent is, of course, the Earth Science & Geology section. It’s a costant battle between us scientists and the anti-Gore global warming nuts (who want the earth to be really old and natural) and the anti- Big bang/evolution ass holes (who want the earth to be 6000 years old). There are some great, genuine questions too. In a little over 2 weeks, I have 88 best answers (38% of answers) and almost 1800 points. So, if you are board or need a lil Christian bashing, hop on and help my cause. Sure it’s kinda pointless and frustrating, but if I can convince just one in between young person to choose a life of science and truth over the bigatry, hatred, and dogmatic world of religion, I’ve done my job.

Guess who’s engaged… Here’s the ring.

The inscription reads:

To my everything  ADP+MDA

One funny story: I told my grandma, and I thought she’d be critical of our engagement since we’ve only gone out for 1.5 years, but she said, “It’s about time… what, haven’t you been sleeping with her for a year now?”

Can your grandmother do that!??!?!

Damn, it’s bean too long. How long? 4 years now on xanga, but I was really refering to the three weeks w/o posting.

Well, that might be because I’ve bean busy. Doing what?



There’s bean the legos. We’ve bean obsessed with legos lately. We’ve decided to build an empire, and I broke down and got what I’ve wanted for at least 20 years: a train set. Train set was equivalent to Lisa’s pony on the Simpsons; the present that’s always wanted but is irrational and never really recieved. It’ll be built soon, and I’ll hapilly give a xanga tour.



I also had to build a religious monument, because the lego people need some reason to hate and fight each other too.



For the Forth, instead of going to my Indpendance Day Eve class, we went up to Bear Lake on the UT/ID boarder with Aly and her sis Liz. It was nice, see for yourself:





See that last thing? The sun? Looks pretty, but it sure packs a punch. All the tubin’ we did left me bitten and burnt to a crisp. It hurts to walk. I’m at home, in pain. Oww.


The only other thing I’ve been doing (besides school and work which are just ehhh right now) is watching our garden grow! We got pumpkins and zuccini (top) and lots and lots of beans and sunflowers (below). They grow up so fast…



Peace and science…

Just a quick update before I continue my decline into the depths of this torturace week-

I am taking a one week seminar class.  That means instead of going to work, I get to sit in class for 11 hours!!!  That’s my regular class from 4:30-7:30 PM preceeded by Building Classtroom Comunities from 8:30-3:30.  Yes, we do get breaks, and a lunch, but I hate it.  Not only does it just drag, but it’s designed for 8 year olds.  Excuse me, I thought I was in a Master’s program.  We have read 4 picturebooks (!) in three days.  That’s a dangorously high rate of 1.33 Pb/d.  And now, I get to write up two papers this weekend for my other classes.  When’s a guy supposed to watch world cup?

I do have one cool thing to show from my cool Science Teaching Issues class… we were talking about issues with cell phones, so our prof told us all to call someone and ask their thoughts on the usage of cell phones in the classroom.

So we all did.  It was ridiculous but funny.  Nothing like 10 simultanious cell phone conversations…

Now that’s a cool class…Gee whiz, look how important they are, their lifes must rule!

I’m still alive…barely.

I am not going to talk about it here, but let’s just say if you work at a publically traded company, don’t talk about work outside of work. Period.

The good news at work is Aly and I just finnished our first site’s data entry. The last line was 6500 in the spreadsheet. 6500!!! And each line of data was around 5 numbers. That’s somewhere over 30,000 entries. One area down, and at least, those areas are smaller. Plus, our error analysis has gone down, now only 0.22% error! Microsoft’s professional guidelines are 0.5% error. Of couse, my number is more like 0.31% and Aly is 0.18%, but that’s beside the point.

On to brighter things…

Here are some of the important women in my life. On the left is Perla, Aly’s friend who has become one of our best mutual friends. On the right is Susan, Aly’s mom, who is easily one of the best mom’s ever. These three are really close and it’s awesome.

Perla is a fireman/mechanic in the Navy. She had a week of leave, so we hung out a lot. Here is our big party night, the guy is Perla’s friend Jeff.

Pearl’s night was… well… drunk. Or she just had a speach impeadiment, a stomach virus, and an inner ear infection all at one.

We had a lot of fun together. She bought a new MacBook with my convincing, we went shopping, watched movies, and had a blast.

The last day she was here with us, we went out to a big brunch with lots of Aly’s family and friends. This is when Susan told us she’s moving to Jerome, AZ. We are still a little shocked, but she is doing what she wants, and that’s what matters.

And Aly just got a very sexy new punk dew. Rock on!

One last thing… I had a class project in my Teaching Issues in Science to look up the official position on evolution on a religion of my choosing. So, due to certain South Parks lately, I picked scientology. All I know stems from this Wikipedia link. Check it out, it’s a laugh riot. It’s quasi-science, which in a covert way, is even more dangerous than anti-science. Basically it is based on the book “A History of Man” by, who else, L. Ron. He basically says clams are very important link to evolution, which is why strict Scientologists are sometimes made fun of as “Clam heads”. Since I needed more answers, I filled out a form on the official website to get answers. This was the reply:

Dear Matt,
Basically, Scientology has not objection to teaching science or evolution in schools. Sciences explain what they explain. However, some schools use evolution to discredit the existence of a Supreme Being or God. Scientology would say that evolution doesn’t prove that there is no such thing as a Supreme Being. In fact, evolution and the existence of a Supreme Being go hand in hand. Many schools say that evolution is strictly materialistic, in that it is all genetics and adaptation. This might be true, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some spiritual forces causing those changes and creating an improved genetic line.
Does that answer your question?

And now, the scary post-script:

Let me know if you have any other questions. Also, where do you live (city, state)? Have you read any Scientology books?

Sincerely,
[edit]

Scary. Scary. Scary.

Here’s a story about a friend of mine, Joey-Jo-Jo Shabadu… I mean Mateo. Mateo had never driven before, but the last month he lived in his home state, he decided to get his learer’s permit. Mateo certainly needed that permit because when he moved to a new state to go to grad school, he was immediately assigned to TA the field methods class. So Mateo basically learned how to drive with a 15 passenger van, to the ‘delight’ of his students.

Mateo then decided enough was enough, and he went down to the DMV to get a real licence. He went with his friend, who needed to change his out-of-state licence to an in-state licence. So, as the stood in line, his friend went first, showed the other-state’s licence, and got the form for change over. When Mateo got to the same person, he handed his ID card first, and the teller, without actually looking at it, handed the same form to Mateo. She apparently did nopt notice the big IDENTIFICATION CARD title on the card. Mateo then filled out the form, and got a licence-no questions asked.

When Mateo moved to a third state, he trasfered that one over, and he just recieved his new licence, thus completeing the scam. It was dumb luck, but Mateo is still proud.

I’m sorry in the delay of this post. I was up until 2 AM Wed night grading papers, and I still have to re-go-over-them, at the prof’s request. Just one more thing I have to do this weekend. So, now, before move pics, here is the U-trip (that’s U for 238U and 235U, not UofU) to Moab!



With me was Aly and Steph.



Of course, when you driving down, why not stop at the local national park? Here’s Balenced Rock at Arches NP.



And we were required by law to stop at our state landmark. I wonder what people use for a landmark in Kansas or Delaware…



We camped down south of Moab, close to the Uranium mines, but not that close. I mean, were crazy, not crazy. This was the cool rock behind us. The first night, it howeled and rained, and we hardly slept.



The next morning, we went to the Mi Vida mine with fellow U-mineral hound Carl and Mel. This was a very profitable mine in the moddle part of the 20th century, and most of the U here was weapons-grade, though Homer could’ve used some too…



They had fancy geiger-counter-like devices to find the minerals.



Just so you know, U minerals form on redox boundaries, like where this red (oxidized) and green (reduced) layers interfinger.



It was an awesome trip, and we all saw some cool things, like dewatering structures.

NEXT: The move-in!

I’m so busy right now, I shouldn’t even be doing this. But, since big things are upcoming, I had to get this out of the way.

This weekend: trip to Moab, UT to visit the famous Uranium mines!

Tuesday: day trip to Bingham Cu+Mo+Au+U+etc… mine, net worth $750,000,000,000.00 (that’s more than the combined history of Utah’s state budget)!

Next weekend: Move in with Aly!

April 29-30: NFL Draft!

Speaking of mining, Aly and I just got jobs! It’s with a mining company, Palladon Iron (of Palladon Ventures). It will be mostly data compolation at first, with field work in the future. There’s a Iron mine near Ceder City, UT and a copper prospect near Milford, UT. And, we’ll be getting $16.50/hr. Not bad, eh? It may only last through the summer, but who knows…



Last weekend, Aly, Steph, some other friends, and I went to Antelope Island, a state park on an island in the great salt lake. That’s downtown SLC in the background. It an awesome place to go, this time of year. I can be very infested with bugs once the weather warms.



It’s quite a pretty place.



The main reason we wanted to go was to get the fat dogs and the fat (us) out and about to get some fresh air and exercise. Hogan (R) tried to drink the salt water, but failed, but tried again and again.



Look at those cute hikers! And check out the cool Liz-homemade volcano shirt!



We had tried to break Dot into her coller and leash. Not much luck, so we let her go collerless and leashless.



Of course, it wouldn’t be a trip without some drama. When we got there, Steph was trying to get the dogs out of the back of the car, but they were not happy or cooperative. So, as she went around to go at the from a different angle, the dogs had stepped on the “lock door” button, and locked themselves in the car. Uh oh. So, after trying to get the dogs to hit the button again, we called AAA. They said 30 minutes. 90 minutes later, just before we were going to break the window and save the hot, thirsty dogs, they came.

This reminds me of another story. Less than 36 hours later, I was at work, in the athletic tutoring study lab. Well, 4 football lineman decided it was too taxing to take the 1 flight of stairs down, and got in the elevator. This elevator is normally only used by the injured on crutches, but these guys take it all the time. They overloaded it and broke it, and a service guy didn’t come for 45 minnutes. The whole time, they laughed, yelled, pounded on the walls, and hit the loud alarm bell, totally disrupting any studying in the study hall. Of course, most people had trouble concentrating because they were laughing so hard at the situation.

OK, I need to get back to work. I have to grade 16 field reports in 1 week. I’ve done 1.75 so far. Bummer.

One more thing, today’s Cool GeoPic® (Edit: not to be confused w/roddy’s cutie)



Here’s some gold ore. Notice the cubic-shaped hole in this rock. This was pyrite, and the deposition of pyrite coincided with gold. Later alteration disolved the pyrite and left the small gold inclusions behind.