If I’m going crazy, at least I won’t hurt anyone!

So, I don’t think I mentioned this before, but I moved!  Well, I’m not 100% in the new place, but I still have a few days to get it done.

I’ve never ever lived by myself.  I never even had my own room until I was 21, but now I have my own place.  The only problem is I now only have me to blame for a mess and only have me to entertain myself… scary… I am not an easy person to live with, but hopefully I can get over that.



So, this is my place.  A nice, highly collapsible in even a minor earthquake, basement apartment in the heart of downtown The SLC.  It’s literally a stone’s throw from the Delta Center and other things, like the Salt Palace convention center.  For instance, if terrorists decided to suicide bomb (Joseph forbid) the main/first mo temple, I might die in the reverberations, or at least I’d have to evacuate.  It’s a quiet, nice, but strangely scary hood.  Or at least, scary in the fundamentalist-dogma sort-of-way.




It has two rooms, a living/kitchen room and a bedroom.  I really like it so far.  My only complaints are 1) upstairs controls the thermostat and likes it warm 2) Comcast sucks, compared to DirecTV, anyways.  I get the west feed, so that means 12AM Daily Show, 1AM Adult Swim shows like Metalocalypse 3) Only WiFi so far.  My 7-year-old swivel-screen iMac is pre-802.11 b or g.

Other than moving, I’ve mainly been working.  I just got back from a 13 day stint, again, and on my few free days, they need me in the office.  We completed another main phase, and now we are going to start a series of shallow wells designed to monitor ag production.  I worked a half day today, and I still have 105 hours this two-week pay period.  Hello comp!



There has been one hobby I have started up after a decade.  I might have mentioned that my last time at my Dad’s house, I found my old Magic The Gathering cards after many years.  Well, I’ve been playing and playing, and buying new cards.  Now I’m hooked again.  You all always knew I was a nerd, but, this might be too far…

So, if you need my new contact info, let me know.

Quick post:

My Dolphins drafted well, I hope. We concentrated on both DL and OL, which always is undervalued. I just have faith in the Tuna, because he has done well in the past. He took a poor Dallas team and drafted a vast majority of the 13 pro bowlers they had last year. Dolphins can trust Tuna, right? Right?

Back to the field Monday.

I did two REALLY stupid things which have gotten me down. 1. I had my 1/2 year old camera in my pocket, leaned on something, and broke the LCD screen, rendering it almost useless. 2. In a recent effort to clean up my computer, I deleted a bunch of old files I thought were duplicates…. oops, they were not. Now I have lost hundreds of my older songs from my playlist, many of which were obtained very legally in the Dykstra-Napster hay-day. It will take me months to fix this problem, and some songs may be lost forever.

One quick and funny story, which no names to protect those involved: Since we’ve been drilling for 3/4 of a year now, the locals all know us (The drillers and the geologists) very well. Some of us know them better than others. One in particular has been dating a local for some time now. Well, one day the drillers were talking about the lady he was dating and kept referring to her as ’4.5.’ I had no idea what that meant. Her looks? I didn’t think she was below average. Her height? Well, she is short. I finally had to ask. Well, it turns out he had been married 4 times before, and he refered to each ex as a number, even when he talked to them directly. Over the phone, apparently, you’d hear, “Number three, how’s it goin’?” Anyways, he had been seriously dating this local, so she was nicknamed 4.5. It moved to 4.95 after he spent time with her family over the winter break. Gotta love digital nomenclature.

Well, it’s been about 2 months.  I’m not better.  I feel terrible, and I am not improving.  Well, the only thing that I am thankful for is Snake Valley; drilling is ramping up just in time to get my mind off of other things, at least somewhat.

Speaking of work, I am shipping off early, so this will be quick.  I was out for a (personal record) 13 days, who knows how long I’ll be out this time.  Here’s you update:

We started drilling like last year: in snow.  The weather’s better now, for now.

We fished out an old pump out of an old supply well.  Here’s Matt with his trophy.

I actually got to operate a backhoe.  Well, not control it, but I got to tell it where to dig.  This is our discharge pit for our future aquifer test (possibly to be done in July).

This is my ‘office’.  And I thought my cubicle was small!

I went to Cedar recently, and I discovered Lulu kinda likes her new brother Spud.  Lulu is my love.  She is the last sliver of my former life, and every moment with her is precious.  I miss her every day, but I miss what she represents, a shared life between Aly and I, even more.  She’s my Jub-jub.

Andrew, Jeff, and I all (well, mainly them) built a dog run.  I get the call tonight to see if they made a day without escaping. We’ll see, but Spud is certainly small and he loves to wiggle.  [Update-they stayed!]

So, that’s all for now.  Off to work tomorrow morning.  And much like my site teacher always said, “Can’t complain… no one will listen.”  Well, you all will.

P.S. Any chance you get to listen to or watch Metalocalypse and Dethklok is well worth it.  I’m no metal head, and I can’t get enough of the show or the music.

Just got back from a great trip to Zaca Lake, CA. Firstly, though, I went to St. George.

I went down to St. George to the Utah Water User Association meeting. While there, I got to see a little bit of the sunset in Snow Canyon State Park. It was an awesome place, and only 5 minutes from downtown St. George. We gave a talk on our field area, which attracted a lot of attention. Snake Valley is really big, and I don’t mean area (though it is big in that way too).

On the way back, my boss and I stopped by Kolob Canon (Zion NP), which is magnificent. This is 10 miles from I-15, but you can’t hardly see it from the road due to another mountain blocking the view.

When I got back to the SLC, I pretty much went to the airport and flew to Santa Barbara (thanks Sheila) for Super Fantastic Weekend I: The Erie Depths of Zaca Lake. The main point of all this was for us to get together like we did on countless days in the field in ugrad at UCLA. These are basically the same group of people that got me to start this blog and keep me updating. It also helped that Pat’s birthday was the 17th and Sheila wanted to cheer me up. The players:

Sheila, Kelly, Pat/Meghan hybrid, Chris, and Andy.

Once in SB, I saw a certain someone I had heard much about, but never seen in person.

Patch. Look at that face! Nothing like playing with big jowls.

After a lazy day (Thursday), Kelly, Pat, and Meghan showed up. Friday, we went to Zaca Lake.

Zaca Lake is a small intermountain lake NW of Santa Barbara. We came here because:

1. We wanted to ‘camp’, but not actually camp with a 5 month old, to be as close to old times as possible.
2. We needed a place between SF and LA, since people were coming from both places.
3. Sheila went here on a field trip and liked it
4. The website of the Zaca Lake Retreat said, among other things: “The Creature From the Black Lagoon was filmed at Zaca Lake.” Since this is a famous movie, we were intrigued. Andy brought the movie, and we watched it.

Unless there are mangroves that we missed as we explored the lake, there is no way this was filmed in any great proportion at or around Zaca Lake. The only possibility would be some (not all) underwater shots were at the lake, but that brings up a few problems: Where did the tropical fish and sharks come from (we only saw catfish) and Why would they drive all the way to this lake for those shots when there has to be a closer, better access lake to Hollywood?

As far as the movie, very cheesy, very camp. If you like those, check it out, we all did. It was actually quite funny. Andy put our two favorite scenes on his blog, both great watches. Even though he monster moves so slow in the movie, the girl still falls down in panic at the sight of it. They could’ve at least broken her heel or something. The girl, in general, was not even allowed to breathe in the movie. Every man kept on asking her to rest. Ahh, they just don’t make sexism like they used to. The movie is surprisingly geology-involved. They said Devonian like 12 times, and were very concerned with collecting samples. And this line will prove my point:

“This land looks just as it did at the start of life, 150 million years ago, in the Devonian period.”

Classic. The creature was kinda creepy, especially when it breathed on land, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

Even though the movie is not from there, the monster still had its place…

Our cabin was old and strange, like in some creepy horror movie. All the doors in the cabin were slotted, giving minimal privacy.

We decided that by Friday night, we had enough of the outdoors and we went to a bar to watch the UCLA humiliate u$c. It was so typical; a bunch of young, diverse, hip UCLA kids watching, drinking bear, and having fun sitting next to a bunch of wine-drinking, uptight, old white $c people. Can’t make that stuff up. As you can see, Meghan really liked the beer float.

We did a little hiking, but the weather was dark and gloomy. Our main walk Saturday was interrupted by the weather.

Here’s a pic of Chris showing me a pic of me taking a pic of him taking a pic of me. If he posts this pic on his xanga, the world might explode.

I wanted to take a pic of this cool structure (thrust fault-propagation fold or chevron fold, my guess) but the monster sent frozen spirit orbs to attack us.

Seriously folks, it hailed. It hailed for about 5 hours, which is about 4 hours 50 minutes longer than the previous longest continuous hail I had ever been in. The last 15 minutes was actually snow. Crazy. This kinda stopped our barbecue plans, so we oven baked our big saturday feast of tri-tip. It wound up being about 1/4″ when it ended, and it was all melted by morning. All part of the monster’s master plan.

That night, we celebrated Pat’s bday 2 days early with cupcakes.

After exploring the lake, we realized something. There were monsters at the lake… but perhaps, they were us…

Well, if you saw glowing baby stripes, moms eating babies, and fire conjurers, you’d be scared too.

Thanks everyone! I really loved and needed this trip, you made my month!

P.S. Thanks to Andy and Sheila for pics!

P.P.S. In a completely unrelated matter, I got to 1000 best answers on Yahoo! Answers!

The Pilot Range, near Wendover, NV/UT

First things first: Fantasy Tourney Pick ‘em. ID=27767
http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/

My weekend is started due to extra working earlier, so I might as well update. So, the first part of this week was spent doing some field work with Mike Enright. He’s a really great guy that I’d work for in a second, but I got plenty of work left for the state. Most of the time was spent sampling wells (mainly on farms), a program that they do yearly as part of NWIS.

We did see some animals:

A rare fox, that was acting strangely. Hopefully it was just stalking something and not sick. They need predators out there like $c needs sanctions for illegal recruiting practices. The farmers hunt coyote like they are pests, then they complain that the rabbit infestation is so bad that they can’t protect their hay. You can’t have it both ways.

Some wild turkeys. I still like Ben Franklin’s idea of this being our national bird. Practical and tasty!

Not wild, but this calf is minutes old, born just before we got there. It could barely stand! If cows weren’t such disgusting things, I would think this is cute.

We did wells in my usual area of Snake Valley, but we drove north and I saw some things for the first time that were gorgeous: The Pilot Range (top of blog) and the Deep Creek Mountains (above). They are both very cool, and I’d love to see more of them. The Deep Creeks are shaped like a letter ‘J’, which I find unusual, especially in the Basin and Range, along strike of a detachment fault. Not really sure why. The Pilots are infamous as one of the bad decisions for the Donner Party. After taking losses crossing the Great Salt Lake Desert, they camped at Pilot Peak (the pointy one) as part of the ‘Hastings Cutoff’ “shortcut”, which was not that short. This left them weakened and desperate, which partly lead to their… um… well, if you don’t know their story, look it up, but not before or immediately after eating.

So, that night, we stayed at the Wendover Peppermill, which was quite posh but cheap. If you don’t know what Wendover is, think: LA-LV, SF-Reno, SLC-Wendover. In other words, closest gambling, so swanky and epileptic-y. I did my first serious gambling that night. I put $5 on Keno and lost in 2 seconds. We then went to the Blackjack tables and I put in $20, then another $20 after the first $20 was gone. I was down to less than $10, but got back up to ~$75, then decided to quit even at $45.50 (plus I tipped the dealer $5). I even split (on 10s, won both, then 8s, lost both) and doubled-down (2/4 success rate). It was fun.

In other news:

I always think I am working hard, but fearing that I am not working hard enough. You tend to get some praise, but it doesn’t stem the tide of my fear of being fired for gross incompetence. I guess that’s just how I do things. Well, this might help: a team incentive award for my two bosses and myself, for all the work we’ve done in Snake Valley. I, of course, was not there to accept the award, but that is kind of fitting, since I got it for field work. THe extra $$$ will be spent on XM Satellite Radio. Might as well make my job easier!

Not great. Things are not better. I am sans purpose right now, and my only thing I have going for me is I have started field work. But I can’t complain.

Dot (Lulu’s sister), who some of you know, died in an asphyxiation accident last week. She was only 2, and she will be missed. Andrew (Aly’s brother) has infamous luck, and this is the latest blow to him. Thankfully, he is persevering.

My plan for this past weekend was to go out and do something, since previously I had gone to one movie and that’s it since you know when. I wanted to visit Andrew and my lil’ googie. The events that went down before made the visit even more important. I have gotten only praise from Aly’s siblings who have all said that I am a friend and family regardless. That certainly makes me happy. On this trip, I also got to see Liz, Aly’s sister, and her man Kyle. Liz and I had some great, deep conversations which were very helpful. I basically did not let Lulu leave my side, because I love her so and I miss her, and every moment is precious.

One of the fun things we did was play an old family game of mine: log joust. You take two stumps, and you play hand-to-hand combat like on American Gladiators. This is a simple, but immensely fun game. Strength is not you greatest asset; balance, reach, and counter-strategy are king. The one modification to the game was the playing of it indoors. That’s the power of Alcohol for you.

As you can see, Lulu certainly was interested.

At work last week, we started our check up of last year’s wells, among other things. The most interesting thing we did was bail water out of a old oil well. The water level was 200′, and it was muddy and nasty. I don’t recommend it, though the area is great.

Tomorrow, it’s back to the field, this time with the USGS. Next week, I go to St. George for a conference, and LA for fun, then by the 24th, we should be back into a drilling schedule. There was I time when I was ready to quit this job because I was spending too much time at home. Now I say, bring it on.

Let me answer your first question: I’ve been better.

My room is bare… many of the decorations and furniture are gone, Mallytown is in boxes, and my (new) bed is not nearly as comfortable even considering the extra room.

That new bed…

I was driving down 7th east, a very busy and large street in the SLC, on my way home from the mattress store. At the spot where the the road turns right before 48th south, my boxspring fell of my truck, nearly smashing into the van behind me. Luckily, no one got in a reck, though two lanes of traffic were blocked (this was about 6pm-rush hour). I couldn’t pull over at the spot where this all happened, so I went to the nearest right-turn lane and parked there and ran back to the spot. By the time I got to the spot, a nice family had pulled it off the road into the ditch at the side. This was then my cue to drag the boxspring the 1/4 mile back to my truck. The recent snowstorm which made my fingers and shoes cold fortunately helped the gliding of the mattress down the side of the road. About 100 feet from my truck, a nice dude stopped and helpped me pull the rest and put it on my truck. How I would have lifted this Queen boxspring on my camper shell without him I have no idea. He even helped with rope for a bit. I got it re-tied, then drove the rest of the way very slow and careful. After leaving work at 4:30, I didn’t get home until 7:15. That sucked, but it’s kinda funny now.

That’s how I spent my Valentine’s.

To address the 600-lb gorilla:

Aly, to use a phrase, got cold feet. The funny thing is, I kinda agree with her, though I would not have taken the same actions. Have no doubt that I was and am very hurt by all this; my recollection puts the tears shed over this the first in about 15 years. There have been times when I should have cried, when I even wanted to cry, but couldn’t. This has emotionally stripped me bare, because I not only lost my fiancé, but I lost my best friend. I sit at home, and I don’t know what to say, I just kinda sit there. I have roommates, but Aly was my mirror for everything, and now, I have no one to fill that void.

I met Aly when she was 18, and we started going out just before her 19th birthday. Though I am 5.5 years older than her, I was actually less advanced in the relationship realm. She just needed to live her life before spending the rest of it with me. Neither of us have sown our wild oats, and it got to her. I just suppressed these thoughts, but Aly could no longer. At this point, we are free agents. Neither of us are looking forward to it, but it might make our relationship stronger one day. We’ll play the field, probably realize that we let one get away, and in X years after Y relationships (where X, Y ≥1, Y>X, Yaly>Ymatt), we might just start over, though we are not counting on it; just expecting it. We work so well I feel it is meant to be, and I don’t think time can change that.

We are only talking via email, and only wishing each other well. It is probably better that we don’t see each other.

So, ladies, I am here and ready! Well, certainly not ready as of now, but I am here. Does that count for something? Great, here we go again with the ‘scene.’ That is one of the worst things about all this. I’m not nearly as socially un-awkward as I think I am.

I do miss her, though every day has been better and less depressing, excluding Valentine’s day.

I’ll also miss her family. I may still see some of them here and there, but hanging with them was always great. The holidays will be hard.

And, of course, I’ll really miss Lulu.

Aly left me.

If you recieved a wedding invitation, it’s off.

I might explain later, but as of now, I can’t talk about it.

Now, a super wednesday semi-diurnal rant! This one’s highly political and offensive and is not intended for anyone…

#1 – Hill-dog

This’ll be quick, well, not really: the more I think about it, the more I HEART Obama and am reluctant to vote Hillary. I would certainly vote for her over Romney or Huckabee. McCain, who I was pulling for in 2000 and would’ve had my vote over Gore, might get my vote over Hillary; this fact scares me. I really feel we need a Democrat in the white house, and I am afraid that Hillary’s nomination would put a lot of folks like me over to the dark side. Some reasons for this:

-McCain’s history of bipartisanship deals, which would attract independents like me.
-Hillary’s unique ability, by her fault or not, to be very divisive and unite the religious conservatives against her.
-Her claim of universal health care, when several experts have said the number of people insured under both will be very similar.
-Her inability to answer many things straight, the ‘definition of is’ factor. On the war, she can not admit it was a mistake to authorize force. Can’t you say you were wrong and we can move on? Instead she gives a long winded explanation, which leads to ‘I trusted Bush not to use it.’ Maybe I’m wrong, but one of the biggest problems with the current administration is their inability to admit mistakes and have any accountability. Do we need more of this?
-I liked Bill, but the thought of him having power again scares me in a constitutional sense.
-Her constant claims of “ready on day 1.” Guess what: Obama has four (4) more years of experience as an elected official. FOUR YEARS!!! He was a state senator for 8 years before going to the US Senate. So, where is this extra experience? Was it the 8 years you were in the white house? I don’t think that helps, it certainly didn’t help dubya. He had lots of time IN the white house too. So, if anyone is ‘ready on day one,’ it is Obama more than Hillary.

A fellow Xangan has a great list here.

I like Obama more because:
-Emphasis on early childhood education, the easiest and most effective method for improving our schools.
-Constant attacks on lobbyists and what they stand for. Campaign finance reform has been my #1 issue in politics since 2000 (another reason McCain looks good to me).
-Hope. Sure, it’s idealistic, non-specific, and emotional, but that is exactly what we need, as a country, right now. He is such a demanding and powerful speaker, his actions and voice will be the motivation which can do so much unseen and unmeasured good. Hillary is not known to inspire because of her personality, more because of her chromosome makeup. Obama has a similar characteristic, but his charisma can inspire so much more. I’d rather reach for greatness than settle for less because of fear or apathy.
-The republicans have no idea how to beat him, the Clinton plan is tried and true.

I am seriously, very seriously, considering giving a few bucks to the Obama campaign, even though I can’t really afford it, even though car insurance is due in 5 days, he inspires me that much, and I think his potential for good is that high.

#2
Utarded

Mitt Romney got 90% of the republican vote in Utah. This just proves what so many believe, that Utahans are the stupidest, strangest, most reclusive people in the nation. 90% is unfathomable. You could poll people and ask “Do you like puppies?” and you wouldn’t get 90%. Hugo Chavez doesn’t get those numbers from his own state-run polling. Are Utahans that sheepish? Are they that dogmatic? I love this state, and I love living here, but it’s things like this which make me want to run far, far away.

The media in political coverage has often broken down constituencies by race, gender, and religion, and while doing this, have mildly insinuated that the group in question (i.e. women for Hillary, evangelicals for Huckabee, aged for McCain, African-Americans for Obama) are somewhat stupid or bigoted for the way the vote breaks down. What does that say about Mormons then? I looked all over the internet, and I could not find any data on this, but here is my little thought experiment:

62% of Utah is LDS
99% are Republican, I’m guessing, and would be or associate with ‘evangelical’ by most definitions.
Romney got 90%, Huckabee got 1% (Huckabee does have a history with LDS) of the ‘evangelical’ vote.

That means Romney got 90x the votes of Huckabee. Why? Is it his pro-gay rights, pro-abortion, and throwing money-around stance? Is it because his literally is the Republican John Kerry (though Bush got 3x the vote of Kerry in 2004)? What could it be? Is it ONLY religion? How sad and embarrassing.

Update: He’s out, not sure what to think. The Rush’s of the world will be fuming over picking between 1. the guy who works will liberals (how terrible) and is reasonable 2. the guy we like except he wants to help the poor (like jebus would).

P.S. I listen to NPR now.  I am so old.

P.P.S. My main political show is Countdown with Keith Olberman.  It is informatiove, fair (though, like MediaMatters.org, looking at the faults of the right), and really funny.

Every once and a while I have a vision which makes me do something creative.  The most infamous one of these is a dream I had in which I was doing the dishes at my dad’s house while playing a new version of the game Risk.  In my dream, instead of everyone getting 35 men and speading them out to each country you own, you place the symbol (dude, horse, cannon) on that country, and you begin the game by moving your forces together.

I like Risk, but I have always hated the begining.  Everyone knows where you’re gonna go, what you’re gonna defend, etc.  This version makes the game faster (as you lose men consolidateing) and more open because there are no predetermined paths.  We have played it, and it is better, to me.  Try it some time.

My latest vision is I wanted to make a music genre quiz.  I know, strangte, but, I am strange.  I really think that what you listen to tells a lot about who you are.  So yesturday, I looked online for a quiz, and was dissapointed by all of them.  They had very leading questions like, “What are your favorite clothes? A. Flanel and ripped jeans B. Bling C. Tye-dye Tshirt…”  I hate this.  Wow, I wonder if I pick “Bling”, which music could that be for?  It’s stupid.  So I made my own.

Which musical genre fits you?

Please take it, I’m still tweaking it so it works better.  Let me know what you get or how I can make it better.

 

Update: I am updating the quiz all the time… please take it again to see what you get again!