The Everyday Happenings of Grum

2007 Recap, 2008 Forecast

2008-01-14T21:53:00.001-07:00

Been a long long while since I posted. Much has occurred. First some notes.

This journal was, of course, originally intended as a frequent update on my life for my friends scattered all over the country, and particularly those left in Fredericton after I moved to Calgary. This task has largely been superseded by Facebook, also known as the devil. But it is mighty fun. Don't step in the privacy violations. Anyway, that's the main reason for the neglect.

Reason two is simply that I had a very full field season over the summer, and had too much to write about at any one time. Of course, after that, the amount of stuff to write about simply increased and increased, and as we near the time (April) by which I wish to have the thesis complete, the time I had to blog decreased continually.

The main reason I'm blogging right now is because I saw Mike Morrison's blog, wanted to comment, and thought "well if I do that then he might just mosey on over here and see what a sorry state this blog is in." So here's an update. It's mostly a list, because I have about 6 other things I should be doing. Let's begin.

Events since last blog post:

Went home in May and surprised sis for birthday. Good times.
Had a long productive summer field season in Mica Creek. Also went with my supervisor to Trail (again) to look at stuff not too far from the field school area (previous post). See Facebook for some field photos, although last summers' aren't as spectacular as those from 2006.
End Aug and early Sept I moved apartments. The new place is awesome. Haven't spent much time there lately, for reasons that will become clear below.
Late Sept I bought a car. 2003 Subaru Forester, 65,000 km on it, awd, manual, brilliant. Got it through a dealership and they provided a crazy good warranty. Photos on Facebook.
Sunk, who doesn't check this blog and refuses to succumb to the inevitability that is Facebook, came to visit in early Oct. Great times.
Hosted the Dept of Geoscience Grad Student Society Hallowe'en party. It was not at all nerdy. I met Amy there.
Spent most of my time between then and Christmas with Amy.
Went home for the break, saw friends and family. Went with family to the Caribbean on (another) cruise. This one was eastern Caribbean. See Facebook for the photos.

Since I've returned I've arranged a PhD project, submitted an abstract to a conference, and am now working on doctoral scholarships. And spent a lot of time with Amy. Next on the list is creating my map, finishing structural and metamorphic analyses, and building a poster for the aforementioned conference. I have to have that stuff done by late Feb when I present. Meanwhile, I lose a week and a half starting this Thursday when Steve arrives and we go on a ski tour through the Rockies. Mum and Laura then come to visit. Oh God there's no freakin time!!!!

The extended forecast calls for my MSc thesis to be complete by the end of this term, then I write a paper on it and do reading and preparations for my PhD project early in the summer, then run and collect some samples to work on for the PhD through next year in August. The PhD officially starts in September. Projected completion date: August 2012. Supervisor is a new guy here at the department who is great! Really cool project too; I can't wait to get going on it.

Perhaps, someday, I'll post again. Maybe at that point the thesis will be done. Dear future self who has his thesis done: you lucky, lucky, lucky bastard.

back from fieldschool

2007-05-08T09:57:00.000-06:00

A while since I've done funny news stories. Thus the next couple of posts may or may not be unbelievably funny."Here is how to safely shoot a fellow officer in the head."

I wonder why...

Microphones in the eyes... that's an understandable photographic error, but how is that photo then selected for use?!

Yeah I had something like that; an 18-wheeler crushed my feet and my right earlobe fell off.

Fieldschool was a good time, with some neat rocks and beautiful scenery. I surprised myself by not being totally inept at teaching students field techniques and concepts, despite than most of them were older than me and many had more field experience, albeit in the oil/gas industry, not hardrock (why are the undergrads at this university so old??).

Today they're working on their reports and good maps, and I'm around to help out. On Saturday I'm going home to surprise my sister for her birthday (I'm fairly certain she doesn't read this because she doesn't remember I even maintain a blog, let alone where it is). Also I'll be home for Mother's Day, which I'm sure Mum appreciates.

Remember a few months ago when some US defence contractors up here in Canada reported being spied on by Canadian coins that commemorate our war dead with the red poppy quarter? Well they thought the red poppy in the centre was some sort of nanotechnology espionage device, and that these quarters were being 'planted' on them by spies (eg in the cupholder of a rental car, or, as I prefer to think they believed, by the evil cold-hearted commie scum working at Timmy's). Anyway they've admitted it was all an incredibly silly mistake, and just reading the cbc article was enough to make me laugh.

Come on, America! Why would we want to spy on you guys? We're pretty much the best of friends, compared to most neighbouring countries, and we share much of our technology and military systems anyway. If for some reason we did want to spy on US military contractors, we would not use something so stupid as coins, since coins flow in and out of peoples' hands all the time. No we'd just head on down over the border and take a look around, because we look and (if we remember to say 'huh' instead of 'eh') sound just like Americans. And if our accents are a bit more than they're used to, we say we're from Maine. Or possibly Alaska.

I finally capitulated to the nagging alert window and updated my version of itunes, and for the hell of it, skimmed through the EULA. Look at section 15. How could itunes possibly be used for such things? Does it count if you have it playing in the background as you're working on such a project? Are Lockheed-Martin workiers exempt? I understand it's just a general-issue apple product EULA, but still, I think it's amusing.

A new contest, to be properly propounded next time: Come up with a word for the opposite of "dense", including opposites for "density" and "denser" etc. It bothers me that such a word doesn't exist. Maybe I'll come up with some more things that I think need words for next time.

Cheers.

life update

2007-05-02T23:39:00.000-06:00

"Day's touchdown victory dance led him to runway 36L, where he was finally taken out by flight 354 from Edmonton."

Been a while since I just said what's going on in my life, and after all, that's what this blog thing originally was; a way of friends from back home keeping up to date with me, since we're all scattered across the country.

The last post with any sort of me-update was back in March. Since then I've gone skiing a lot, zapped a lot of rock samples with electrons, marked a lot of exams, helped people move apartments, done taxes, and (excitingly) worked out that I can afford that Mazda that I so desperately crave in December, all being well. I'm not sure if I'll actually get it at that point. It really depends on the likeliness that on any given weekend someone with a car will be going skiing, and may be willing to take me.

I was very very stupid with my skiing this year, going out 17 times total (for 19 days of skiing), mostly at Sunshine, with a couple of trips to Louise, one to Kicking Horse, and two to Fernie. I would have easily paid off a Sunshine pass, and I paid way more in rentals than I would have had I just bought some decent skis at the beginning of the season. I plan to avoid the same mistake next season.

I'm also (90% sure) moving into a new apartment with a couple of friends who play musical instruments, sometime in June. This necessitates acquiring some decent keyboard equipment so we can jam. Not only that, but the place (which I haven't seen yet) is apparently amazing. It will be nice to have a place I could actually have some people over, rather than just a place with not even a table, which has never felt like anything more than a temporary residence. In fairness, though, the location of my current place is nigh unbeatable.

Right now I'm in Trail, BC, TAing a fourth-year field school in igneous and metamorphic geology. I've never been to southern BC before, and this area in particular is quite beautiful. The weather isn't cooperating, unfortunately, with rain every day since we arrived in town. We're mapping what essentially amounts to three plutons (intrusions of magma which cooled deep underground, now exposed at the surface thanks to erosion), over hills with excellent exposure (i.e. a high percentage of the ground surface is bedrock, rather than vegetation or loose rocks). Unfortunately the rain makes the hills a bit dangerous in places, but once it really starts coming down we call it a day anyway. If it were my own camp/research, we'd still work, just avoid the very steepest stuff.

That's another thing I've been planning for: the upcoming field season. I'm really looking forward to this summer, and I know what I want to pin down, tie up, and leave out. My supervisor is coming into the field with me for at least a week, which is nice as I only got one day last year! My main objective is to learn as much as I can about transposition (extreme shearing, in simple terms), and how to identify it, so I can decide whether this effect is widespread or localised in my field area. Previous literature suggests that primary sedimentary structures (layering, grading, etc) can be identified, but frankly, last summer, I found none that were unequivocal. I was, of course, drawing on my experience from the heavily transposed Monashee Complex rocks I worked on before, which are directly south of me about 70 km. Therefore, I've been inadvertently trained to look for (and see) structures associated with strong shearing, rather than sedimentary structures in well cooked-up rocks, which may not have been sheared so much (although I certainly still think they've been exceedingly buggered up). A problem is that the geology between my area and the Monashee Complex is not strongly nailed down. There may be no real stratigraphic discontinuity between the regions, meaning my rocks are a part of the Complex. I need to order some PhD theses from this 70 km stretch to see what may be going on.

Sorry for the geo-ranting. It's just my nature.

Someday, when I'm feeling brave, I'll put up some more funny pictures. I haven't done that in ages.

Cheers all.

nuclear waste management

2007-04-01T13:36:00.000-06:00

This comes to mind every time I hear debate about nuclear and toxic waste disposal. The general public is uninformed and politicians are lax to go near such a nasty issue.

There are currently forty thousand tons of used nuclear fuel sitting in shielding pools and concrete canisters in Canada (20 million rods weighing 20 kilos each). It is still emitting heat and dangerous radiation. While it is possible to reprocess this material by enrichment and reuse it in reactors, it is not currently cost effective to do so (and we’d still have waste in the end anyway). We have an obligation to make this material safe for future generations, and the safest way to do this is through Deep Geological Disposal. This involves finding a highly stable location underground with no interaction with groundwater systems. Batholiths (large bodies of magma that cooled deep in the crust) are the ideal setting, since they often have negligible porosity or permeability, and are inherently very tough rock.

The estimated cost of burying Canada’s nuclear waste in batholiths in the shield is between 9 and 13 billion dollars over the next century, for the waste currently awaiting disposal and the waste that will likely be generated in future.

We have in this country the most attractive setting imaginable for toxic and nuclear waste disposal. The Canadian Shield, centred around the Hudson Bay, is a thick volume of buoyant (relative to the mantle) crystalline (igneous and metamorphic, i.e. tough) old crustal rock, rife with batholiths.

It is well understood how to sequester material in deep facilities. You line the walls with sheet metal, then concrete, then bentonite or another clay to ensure an impermeable boundary even in the unlikely event that one of the rare but powerful intra-cratonic earthquakes causes a shift or breach in the facility.

It would be an expensive but relatively simple matter to tunnel a kilometre down into a huge intrusive, build a large containment facility, and stuff our waste down there, at the aforementioned cost. But why stop there? We could drastically offset that cost, and even profit from the endeavour, if we were to dispose of the waste from other countries in our stable shield rocks as well. If we charged the US and Mexico to dispose of their wastes we would soon cover the construction of the storage facilities and then begin earning a profit. There’s also the added benefits of our much more stable rock being used for North American waste disposal, reducing the risk of environmental damage across the continent.

There is controversy in the US regarding Yucca Mountain, their Department of Energy’s favoured disposal site. While the geology may be sound, there is little doubt in my mind that deep storage in shield rocks is inherently safer over the extreme long term. We don’t have to gauge the US over waste storage; they would be responsible for transportation, but if we charged, say, $350,000 CAD a ton, we would cover the expense of burying our own waste when we buried about the same amount of theirs.

It’s not a matter of raking in cash, in my mind it’s a matter of human safety over the next few thousand years. Toxic waste management should be borderless, not an “us or them” issue, as in “why should we deal with the US’s waste?”, since the answer is “because we have the more stable rock”.

I don’t think that the concept of safety over the next million years is particularly relevant. If humans are still around even in a thousand years, it would be surprising; we’re getting very good at developing ways of killing ourselves, or we will have raped the planet and escaped to somewhere else. If we are around, think of the technologies we’d have for dealing with the material. The only case I can envision in which safety for ten thousand years is important is if there’s some apocalypse and we’re thrown back to the stone age, with no knowledge of the waste’s existence or dangers.

I would suggest that we take the whole world’s waste, but I think the environmental risk associated with shipping millions of tons of nuclear waste across the ocean is unacceptable. Each continent has one or more ancient cratons, so to avoid trans-oceanic shipping humanity should probably just construct similar sites in stable cratonic rocks on each continent.

http://www.nwmo.ca/Default.aspx?DN=1487,20,1,Documents
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionE.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Platforms%2C_Shields_and_Cratons

amusing questions thing

2007-03-20T23:03:00.000-06:00

This was going around facebook, and in answering it I went a different route; one that didn't involve an angsty description of my life (by answering truthfully). Feel free to repost, if you're feeling angsty, or if you realise you can do a much better job of being funny than me.

1. The phone rings. Who do you want it to be?
The UN, agreeing to my outrageous terms.

2. When shopping at the grocery store, do you return your cart?
No, that's what loyal minions in colour-coded jumpsuits are for.

3. In a social setting, are you more of a talker or a listener?
I give orders, they are followed, and the world trembles in fear.

5. Do You Play Sudoku?
Yes, with remote explosives and the pen-detonator from "Goldeneye".

6. If abandoned alone in the wilderness, would you survive?
Yes. The question is, would the wilderness?

8. Did you ever go to camp as a kid?
Never, I always dressed conservatively. And you misspelled "too".

9. What was your favorite game as a kid?
Pooh sticks with dynamite.

10. If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he/she was married, would you?
My evil plans leave no time for such frivolities.

12. Could you date someone with different religious beliefs than you?
I could, but they'd end up in the pirahna tank if it became an issue.

13. Do you like to pursue or be pursued?
Oh I don't know which I love more... the thrill of chasing down some wretched snitch, or the thrill of escaping from hapless law enforcement agencies. I suppose they're both made more fun by the fact that I'm rather well armed and funded, and not above sacrificing hordes of underlings.

14. Use three words to describe you at the moment?
Incomparably superior human.

15. Do any songs make you cry?
The Bond theme used to, but not since I realised that stupid 00-agents play it on speakers every time as they approach, making them easy to get.

16. Are you continuing your education?
No need, since I already know everything.

18. If your house was on fire, what would be the first thing you grabbed?
A weapon, since I'd assume it was another SAS attack.

19. How often do you read books?
Never, I already have them all memorized.

20. Do you think more about the past, present or future?
The past is irrelevant, the present I already knew would happen, only the future is interesting.

22.What color are your eyes?
Mauve.

23. How tall are you?
two foot six, and tall with it.

24. Where is your dream house located?
In orbit, so I can observe all my territory.

27. Have you ever taken pictures in a photo booth?
Of every FBI agent who enters one.

28. When was the last time you were at Olive Garden?
I took my Director of Counter-intelligence there last week to explain in detail how his predecessor failed and was dealt with.

29. Why are tons of questions missing?
Classified.

30. Where was the furthest place you traveled today?
Svalbard, to destroy the new global seed-storage facility. Don't want any resistance movement to have access to a food source.

32. Do you like mustard?
Only in gas form.

33. Do you prefer to sleep or eat?
I require neither.

34. Do you look like your mom or dad?
I have neither.

35. How long does it take you in the shower?
28.62 seconds.

37. What movie do you want to see right now?
The next Bond movie, to see his plans.

39. What did you do for New Year's?
Dealt with underlings who wanted the day off, and oversaw completion of silo 4-B.

40. Do you think The Grudge was scary?
Who do you think that boy grew up to be?

42. Do you own a camera phone?
No, I communicate using telepathy.

44. Was your mom a cheerleader?
See above.

45. What's the last letter of your middle name?
'?'

47. How many hours of sleep do you get a night?
See above.

48. Do you like care bears?
I fought and destroyed them at the battle of Proxima Centauri. No-Heart continues to evade me.

49. What do you buy at the movies?
The theatre.

50. Do you know how to play poker?
How do you think I got so rich?

51.Do you wear your seatbelt?
Without fail.

52. What do you wear to sleep?
Recall how I do not require sleep.

53. Anything big ever happen in your hometown?
No, but pay attention on June 17th 2014.

54. How many meals do you eat a day?
See above.

55. Is your tongue pierced?
Daily.

56. Do you always read Facebook notes?
Telepathically.

58. Do you like funny or serious people better?
My army's motto is "Comedians Cause Casualties".

59. Ever been to L.A.?
Facility YH-15 is there, so once or twice a year.

60. Did you eat a cookie today?
No, again see above.

61. Do you use cuss words in other languages in the appropriate situations?
I do not require 'cuss words'.

62. Do you have a crush?
Yes, a few times a year; it's such a terrifying way to intimidate the remaining underlings.

63. Do you hate chocolate?
With a vehement passion.

64. What do you and your parents fight about the most?
See above.

65. Are you a gullible person?
I cannot be convinced of anything.

66. Do you need a boyfriend/girlfriend to be happy?
I require no happiness.

67. If you could have any job (assuming you have the skills) what would it be?
Supreme Emperor of Earth. And words like "if", "could", and "assuming" are unnecessary at this point.

68. Are you easy to get along with?
It is possible, although unlikely, that you'd survive an encounter with me.

69. What is your favorite time of day?
7am, when the previous day's captured secret agents are brought before me.

70. What should you be doing right now?
Preparing the serum for interrogation subject Gamma-8.

musical snobbery

2007-03-12T00:11:00.000-06:00

This post wasn't supposed to be so long (this is a trend of the last few posts, possibly because of the greater time intervals between them). Whether you decide to read the entire snobbish mess is completely up to you, I make no apologies for length or content.

I realised a couple of things recently. One is that skiing is a decent metaphor for life: you have to be trying hard enough to fall fairly often if you want to learn anything, and confidence is everything. In both life and skiing, even feigning confidence can be enough to get through the steep bits. You might still crash and burn, or possibly die, but if you don't it's good fun.

The other thing I realised is that my complete disinterest in the lyrics of songs (with one or two exceptions) means that it can give people completely the wrong impression of me when I say what songs I like. I realised this when I was chatting with my officemate the other day about music. To my surprise she enjoys Slipknot and other metal artists (my itunes library is 90% metal); so I mentioned that I think their best song is "Metabolic," and she gave me a funny look and asked me what I thought of the lyrics. I had no idea what they were (for one thing they're all shouted/screamed) but it turns out it's pretty weird.

The first time I hear any song I really concentrate to hear the intervals and the timing, and I visualise playing it on a keyboard. If I like what I hear, I often go and do just that. It's actually really annoying that I can't just enjoy the music unless I have deciphered its structure and understand how it works. But sometimes music is way too complex for that, which is why I don't listen to classical or jazz very much, despite that I really enjoy such stuff. I also don't bother with pop, light rock, and other radio music, because the chords are all EABA and it's musically uninteresting. I feel that lyrics get in the way, unless they're sung and form an important melody or harmony line, but in that case they could just be 'aahs'.

So the stuff I most enjoy has unique chord usage, with complex timing. Here's a couple of examples of the power chords from stuff I'm listening to as I type this (click for bigger):

The main riff from "Decline" by Biohazard (M=120):
For some reason Musictime messed up the tie lines, but nevermind. This repeats 8 times.

Now the riff I enjoy from Metabolic, this also repeats 8 times (M=100):

Next a part of the song "Cleansed by Silence" by Ion Dissonance (a band from Montreal). They only play the riff twice, with shouting over the first time, and nothing (much better) over the second, I've written both out here. Musictime won't let me make that one 16th note bar any shorter (I probably should have made it two bars per line instead of three to spread out the notes more). There are more ways to write this than 5/4, 4/4, 1/16, but I think this way captures the feel most effectively. The fact that they tack on that extra 16th gives the riff a very stulted feel, but I like it. I've cut this section out and repeated it using "Audacity" to show how it would be if they did it more than once. The file is on putfile (link below - be warned it has a rather violent/loud style, but the lyrics aren't vulgar, just unintelligible).
Click here for my Cleansed by Silence chop-job

The Biohazard and Slipknot songs aren't actually in D, but in my mind I see everything in D because I don't have perfect pitch (doesn't matter so long as all the intervals (ratios) between notes are the same). Most of my own music is also in D (but can usually be transposed if people I'm jamming with would prefer another key).

You can see from that that I am a fan of very offbeat timing, often in unusual time signatures. I enjoy it in metal because chords can be chucked out with such disdain or irreverence, and I like to think of it as throwing it in the face of all the boring uninspired four-beat-four-chord bands out there. Chances are that offends just about everybody, because that sort of music is the most popular. However, remember I am talking about the timing and the chords, not lyrics or the general feel of a song. I have no concept of poetry, and don't even think Tool lyrics are interesting. But I love Tool; they are masters of 5/4, and use chord sequences like few others.

I also like chords and chord progressions that are unique. My 'favourite chord' is root + fifth + major second + major third + diminished fifth + major seventh. Here it is in G.I like this sound because few use it. Korn actually have some very interesting progressions and make good use of diminished fifth chords, particularly if the root (G, above) is the minor second of the key the piece is in (in this example resolve it to an F-sharp major, although that will be a lot prettier than anything by Korn). The diminished fifth is also called the tritone, and in the 1700s and 1800s the sound was called "diabolus in musica" (the devil in music) since it can sound dark and evil (my example there shows how this does not have to be so) so it's used by metal bands a lot. Slayer even named an album Diabolus in Musica, but few people get the reference. And yes, they make a lot of use of the tritone, but usually without the major third or the seventh, giving it a darker, dissonant sound.

Just for reference, my favourite classical piece is "Neptune" from the planets (Holst). It still sends shivers up my spine at one point (powerful chord with Ab+G+B+E). Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring, The Sacrifice" is good too.

So yeah, I am an incorrigible music snob. But if any of this strikes a chord with you (clang!), we should chat. And possibly jam.

dreams, scary and hilarious.

2007-03-09T00:25:00.000-07:00

Hoi hoi, lowly mortals!

First I want to say to Michelle that I specifically said I felt conspicuously young, not that they seemed old to me. It's a maturity thing, rather than an age thing. But I will say that my comment about Calgary being cultureless is more to do with the lack of atmosphere around the city than a lack of culturally exciting events. Obviously there's more happening here, event-wise, but I'm talking more about the feel of the place. This city is composed primarily of highways and stripmalls. You (Michelle) are living in the core of Kensington; perhaps the most interesting place (atmospherically) to be in all the city. Maybe I'm confusing atmosphere with the feeling of community in Fton.

And yes, Shaggz, I am the lead vocalist for the pseudoband "Warthog". It goes well with both my position as "frontman", and with the fact that I can't sing.

It's been an interesting week, with the parents and sister visiting. We went skiing at Fernie, which was amazing on Saturday, and short-lived on Sunday as the soft/heavy melting snow is the likely cause for Mum's torn ACL. She may have to have reconstructive surgery, and cannot walk without a brace, or even drive. It's so ironic since she's by far the most cautious skier I know, yet also very experienced and skilled. Here I am throwing myself off near cliffs, and she messed up her leg avoiding a tumbling snowboarder on a green run. Mum has had no pain at all associated with this injury, however, which is really weird. She just cannot put any weight at all on her leg (it gives way immediately).

Since they left it's been a week of telecommuting, with all that implies. So now that I'm caught up on Top Gear, Lost, House, and My Name is Earl for the last couple of weeks, I can really get my head down and do some work tomorrow (Friday). Except that a birthday party I'm supposed to get trashed at starts at 2pm. I guess I won't go until 6 or 7 though; I enjoy playing catch-up.

Did I ever relate the tale of the dream I had five years ago that is still crystal clear in my memory? When I tell most people about it they joke (or do they?) that I should seek professional help. It was the summer I was in the field with Paul McNeill, and while in that remote desolate camp under the Saturday Glacier I had the most incredible, bizarre, and terrifying dreams of my life. The one in particular began simply enough: we were preparing to go into the field and needed some empty boxes/crates to put stuff in. Our search began at a hospital (obviously). Entry to the hospital was by a 45-degree glass elevator, not unlike the funicular in Québec City, however it went down from street level to the entrace, which would have been the second basement level.

Inside, the windowless concrete hallways were painted nursing-home green, and all the staff were (literally) faceless, 8 feet tall, and very menacing, wearing green hospital smocks. I entered a room to search it for boxes to steal. The room was a cube about six or seven metres to a side. It was unfinished concrete except for green padding covering the walls to about halfway up. There was no furniture, but there was a clock high on the wall, ticking backwards. There was one occupant. He was of indeterminate age and extremely frail, in a white hospital gown and with shaven head, he was huddled in the corner of this empty space, staring at nothing. With complete horror I realised that this was a hospital for the terminally ill, and the clock ticked backwards showing exactly how much time he had left. He was kept in this empty concrete cell (for that is what it was) by the enforcers, the cell was padded so he couldn't try to hurt himself by running into the walls, and worst of all, the only object in the room - the dreadful clock - was well out of reach so it couldn't be disabled.

Paul had found some first aid boxes and tipped out their contents so we could use them. We walked past the ghastly faceless enforcers, who only realised what we had done as we reached the elevator. They ran towards us as I hammered on the 'door close' button. It closed just in time, of course.

The next night, as I slept, we returned to that hospital for the medical supplies Paul had ditched, making this the only repeat dream I've ever had. Again we made it to the elevator just in time, but this time it stopped halfway up the track and started to go back down. Paul smashed a window (remember it was glass) and ran up the track and I followed. At the top was a decidedly more down-to-earth (and anti-climactic, in a way) scene, as two or three dozen cops demanded from behind their flashing cars, with guns drawn, that we lie down etc.

It ended there, but it's the cell that stays with me... and particularly that clock. No nightmare before or since has been so terrifying, even the one when I was five when my family was turned into skittles by a horrible machine. There are a hundred ways to analyse it if you're into dream interpretation, which I am not. I think it's about my own fear of death, which is something I never think about. However, it's hard to see what each element symbolises; the clock is clearly the countdown to the inevitable... what made it so frightening was that it actually knew the moment, and was unstoppably counting down to it. Am I the frail lonely patient, trapped in the cell with that clock? Who are the faceless enforcers? I'm thinking that the plot of 'me and Paul trying to prepare the field' is not relevant to the deeper meaning, since that's exactly what we'd been doing for the days before we flew in. But then again, what do I know.

I routinely get vivid dreams, often very plot-driven adventures, and usually involving protagonists and antagonists, the latter are generally frustratingly impossible to overcome. I only have one experience with dream interpretation. Once a lady from the church of a girl I dated tried to interpret some of my dreams as "God dreams". I did not relate the above dream, but a comical one I had had the previous night, which was Star Wars based and involved me flying around a city with kilometre-height buildings suspended in the sky, on a flying bicycle. I went down to a lower level for lunch, and while I ate Luke Skywalker stole my bike and flew away upwards. I found an elevator to follow him up, and saw a hovering platform full of stormtroopers. I slaughtered them all of them mercilessly with some sort of blaster gun (I left that bit out of my description to this woman) and got on the platform. Then Luke showed up on my bike to congratulate me on taking out the stormtroopers. Without a word I shoved him off the platform for stealing my bike. He fell several kilometres to his death. Bastard.

Anyway she apparently did not know much about Star Wars because she decided that Luke represented the devil, the bike represented Jesus, and the city represented Heaven. I neglected to ask what it meant that Satan was riding Jesus around Heaven. I personally believe that my life over the preceeding days, which involved getting my bike seat stolen, and playing a lot of Jedi Knight II, was the real inspiration for the dream. I also believe that the dream was inherently hilarious. All I know for certain is that it felt really good to shove that annoying whining pansy off that platform to a horrible death.

I haven't had any memorable ones lately, fieldwork often triggers them, though. We'll see in the summer.

Cheers for now.

return from absentia

2007-02-21T02:54:00.000-07:00

I categorically refuse to apologise for not blogging for 36 days. The simple truth is that I've lacked motivation, and there's like four people who read this. I'm interested to see how long it takes for someone to notice I've posted. However, it doesn't count if you have the e-mail notification on.

There isn't a whole lot of news... Trailer Park Boys Live was totally awesome (photo), I went skiing a couple of times (including Fernie, which is amazing even by these standards), finished the course I was taking (last one I have to take - ever, if I don't need any for a PhD), some partying, and a trip to Edmonton.

I'm a huge fan of Ricky's various shirts and I wish they'd been selling them at the merchandise desk. However, they only had Helix and Swollen Members apparel (they played a set each). It was a varied enough selection of acts to bring out a very diverse crowd, although most were there for TPB. They did a Green Bastard sketch and a Conky sketch and sang Liquor and Whores, and it was terrific.

There was a geology party a couple of weekends ago called "Rock for the Gallagher", which required us to dress as rock stars. Four of us, pre-drinking at one fellow's place, realised we looked like a band, and so formed "Warthog" (named for the beer we were drinking at the time).

Click for big.
L-R:
Graham - lead vocals, keys
Gareth - drums
Joel - guitars, keys
Chris - Bass

Note 1: we have no instruments or music, and only Joel and I have ever had lessons on anything, both on keys. Mostly we're just an image.

Note 2: I'm also the front man, since I look slightly different and have spiked hair.

Note 3: Look closely at the book on the table and you can see that we're frauds.

Note 4: Chris, Joel, and I represent 60% of the U of C hardrock geologists. Missing from that set would be Erik (mentioned below) and David. That's five out of 145. Most of the rest are geophysicists/oil&gas, with a few (including Gareth) geochemists, hydrogeologists, and environmental types. There are some structural-geophys types that get close to hardrock, I guess. We have no volcanologists, although the new prof arriving next Sept to replace my supervisor (who's retiring) is one, so he may bring in more hardrock types.

The Edmonton trip this last weekend was for a conference focussed on Cordilleran geology in Canada (the rocks of the mountain ranges in AB, YK, and mostly BC. It was an extremely interesting conference, as was the partying in town. For instance, in trying to walk home on Whyte Ave on Saturday night, Erik (a friend, fellow grad student, and Frederictonian) witnessed a brutal beating and was the only one of several dozen onlookers who tried to help the unconscious man lying facedown in a mud puddle. His drunkenness brought out his bravery and he dispelled the attackers and shouted at the inactive bystanders to call 911. Someone did, and after the ambulance arrived Erik left the scene. Not 10 minutes down the street he saw pretty much the exact same thing going on. He cabbed the rest of the way.

I had a more tame time, cabbing right from the bar we were at (which was deserted as they were showing the Flames game on all TVs). On the Friday I went to a U of A geology student party, which was much more along the lines of the parties we had back at UNB. I swear there's only like 15 or 20 of the U of C grads that will do anything, and even then only half of them will party/drink like I'm used to. And they're mostly Easterners! (Mind you, who isn't out here.)

Calgary is the white-collar city: the oil execs, the geologists, the company headquarters, and most of the money is here, making it a rather boring and cultureless city at times. Edmonton is the blue-collar city, closer to the actual tarsands: the machinists, engineers, fitters, rig workers, and general grunt workers are there, making it a more - colourful town. It's like Fton vs St John. Obviously I'm generalizing, there's U of A and the seat of the provincial government there as well, but the Edmonton economy is dominated by the oil work.

Nevertheless, I had a great time and it was particularly good to see Andy and Paul from UNB, I'm only sorry I didn't get to see Katherine or Leanne, who both live there.

Well it's 3:32 am and I'm going to bed. My jobs for tomorrow include setting up a squash game and finding someone who isn't already at the hills to drive me out to ski this week (it's our break week, referred to officially as "reading week" but popularly as "ski week"). Joel's at Kicking Horse (in Golden) with some of the highest vertical in North America on Thursday/Friday, so I'd like to get there for that. I also have to clean the apartment this week since some of the family are coming to visit in the NB march break and I don't want them to know I live like a pig.

busy weekend

2007-01-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

Between Thursday and Monday, I did the following:

Saw a comet (photo further down)
Fed a hare living under my deck (photo further down)
Went to a very good talk by Andrew Hynes, a prof from McGill who I could have worked with instead of coming here
Met Stephane Dion
Took someone on a date
Went skiing at Sunshine (without hitting a squirrel)
Watched all of the second season of The Sopranos in what free time I had

And the coming weekend looks busy too, since I'm going to see Trailer Park Boys live, and I have to do a lot of schoolwork.

As usual with photos, click for big.

Comet McNaught, from between the 9th and 10th floors of the Earth Sciences building. It's the light thing in the sky with a tail, in case you couldn't tell.

The new roommate. However, I haven't seen it around since Friday. I decided to name it Jonnie Tight-lips, due to watching too much Sopranos and Simpsons, and because it's not particularly conversational.

The view from my office on Friday. As with the other shots I've trimmed this down from my camera's 6 mpixel 1.334 ratio, just so that it uploads faster, and to remove irrelevant stuff. I use Irfanview to do this, cause it's simple and quick.

Time to prepare for my lab at 5pm.

more of grum's daily doldrums

2007-01-11T15:02:00.000-07:00

A family photo from England: The Complete Spray Family (Grandad and his two sons' families). From left to right, by lateral position of centre of head: cousin Michael, Grandad, me, Dad, Mum, bro James, sis Laura, aunt Hillary, bro Adam, cousin Richard, uncle Alan.

Apparently there's some ancient poem with the line "God preserve us from the Sprays" in it, a reference to my family's heritage as wreckers on the southeast coast of England and opposing shores of France. Google can't find it. A thousand points* if you can find it for me. I'll frame it and put it up somewhere to remind me to try and live up to my ancestors' reputation. Ironically on my mother's side I'm related to a Welsh prince "Llywelyn" (not sure if it was Llywelyn the Great or Llywelyn the Last).

Spent yesterday doing nothing useful at all. I meant to "telecommute", i.e. do work at home, to avoid the myriad sick people at the office (Erik got a particularly nasty flu, possibly Norwalk), but of course ended up spending the whole day watching Sopranos and old Top Gear episodes, and playing Age of Empires. I didn't shower or get dressed, or stray any farther from my room than the bathroom. I am only here today because these are my office hours for my lab section of GLGY 443: Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology.

Despite that I am quite familiar with the material of this class (as opposed to optical crystallography last term), it will be far more work because we mark the labs (we didn't in crystal). Since I understand it fairly well, I'll be much more effective as a teacher, which benefits everyone.

For me, this material is one of the reasons I got into geology; I like to understand things, especially important things, like the Earth. It's my rather direct way of finding answers to the big questions like "why are we here". Igneous and metamorphic rocks hold the clues to the most ancient history of our planet. Like how the earliest continental crust was generated. Understanding our planet, and indeed other planets (real and theoretical), holds great interest for me. Sedimentary rocks are also very important, but if you want to study older rocks, there's a good chance they've been metamorphosed at some point, and are, ipso facto, metamorphic rocks and no longer considered sedimentary rocks (not that the rocks care how we classify them). I wouldn't mind studying tectonism on other planets, but the chance to do fieldwork (the other reason I'm doing this stuff) is limited to comparative work (since I can't just hop in a truck and go to Mars to get some samples).

Essentially I'm a historian for pre-pre-pre-pre-history. The rock I work on was cooked up around 95 million years ago, but was deposited between 750 and 600 million years ago. As such, I do not search for proto-humans, or even any fossils at all. The life explosion started at around 550. When dinosaurs traipsed about on top of my field area, the rocks that are currently at the surface were more than 25 km deep below their feet.

Possibly more family photos to come, if they don't try to lynch me for not having their permission to put their pictures on the net.

At least one of the local hares has decided to live under my deck. Possibly because yesterday I threw a bunch of old mini-carrots dated December 12 into the yard for them (yes, I care about nature). They weren't off, just really dry and tasteless. Anyway they were apparently well received.

Actually it's all part of my new plan to acquire a pet "fell beast" (one of those flying beasts with exruciating screams that the Nazgul ride in Lord of the Rings). First I attract the hares with carrots. Then the hares attract coyotes, the coyotes attract bears, the bears attract animal control, and animal control officers will hopefully attract a hungry beast. I'll train it to sit in the tree in the yard, eating unsuspecting locals and screaming over the neighbourhood. I would enjoy flying around town on it, attacking the police helicopters and generally scaring the hell out of everybody.

I just found, under some papers, a bag of m&ms that I bought a few hours ago and totally forgot about. It's little surprises like this that make life so great.

Join us next time for the story of the Comet McNaught, of which I might have just obtained two good photos. Probably not as good as the ones from south of Red Deer (only an hour or so away) in that link, but we'll see.

*points not valid for exchange or purchase of any goods or services.

2007-01-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

Back from the Old Country, where all six of us (nuclear family) were from the 25th to the 3rd. It was very hectic, each day rushing off to see members of Dad's or Mum's family, sometimes both. I saw relatives I hadn't seen in 12 years or more, and in other cases met relatives I'd never met before, so it was a really interesting trip. We stayed with Mum's twin sister (not identical) and her two children, in a village of 2,700 called Tarporley. It's 10-20 minutes east of Chester, a city of 80,000 situated about 45 minutes southwest from Manchester.

On the eve of the 31st, we all played various family games until midnight, when we went out to watch the fireworks. Tarporley put on a show as good as or better than Fredericton's typical Canada Day display, but the thing is, every town, village, city, and even individuals had displays, which meant that in a country as densely populated as Britain, the view from anywhere decently high up (as we sortof were) was unbelievable. We stood and watched over the Cheshire Plain as for half an hour, the horizon was continually lit, over all compass points, by blips of light and colourful bursts. The sound drifting to us over the plain was a continual rumbling, like distant artillery fire. Next time I'm there at New Year's, with this in mind, I'll be heading to a real high point, like local Beeston Castle, which is up on a high hill overlooking the plain. On the drive to meet cousins on my Dad's side the next morning, we saw a lot of colourful bits of plastic from exploded fireworks, and paid serious attention to the possibility for unexploded ordnance to be lying around.

Sadly no photos of this incredible display, but I will post some more shots of English countryside later.

I have no New Year's resolutions, it's not something I do. With a memory like mine, I cannot remember them unless written down somewhere, and then I'd lose the paper. Or forget to check the file if it was on this thing. This therefore becomes extremely ironic, because one of the things I want to improve about myself most is my memory. However, my main resolution was formed many years ago and hasn't been well adhered to at all: to stop leaving stuff until the last minute and then doing a rush job and handing it in late. I can still do a fine job at the last minute, but the lack of room for error is problematic. Basically I have a problem with time management, which I'm working to fix. I'm pretty happy with myself besides that. I would like to be fit for more than the field season, but I'm not completely out of shape even after two weeks of pub lunches and restaurant dinners and a complete lack of exercise besides hide and seek with my young cousins.

More to come later, when the Clavinova in the next room has stopped calling to me to go play.

skiing at Lake Louise

2006-12-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

What is it with me and analgesics? They either act instantly (implying a serious placebo effect) or take ages. Example, you demand? Today. Just now, in fact. I'm not sure why (since I slept 9 hrs Monday night and 10 hrs last night), but when I got to work/school this morning at about 10:30, I developed an increasingly nasty headache behind my eyes. For me headaches usually occur like this when I'm low on sleep. Anyway, in agony, I stumbled to the convenience store on the ground floor of the CS building along a glass corridor from Earth Sciences. They had Advil; good enough. Two tablets washed down with OJ and water, and still the nastiness persisted; bad enough that it prevented me from thinking, even enough to play hearts. Somehow I passed the time opening and closing windows on my desktop until just ten minutes ago (almost a full hour after taking the tablets)... when the pain disappeared. It was instantaneous and actually shocking; any explanation for this, bio people? It was good timing as I was toying with the idea of defying their "two pills per 4 hrs" dosage recommendation, on the basis that I have more body mass than most. Yay for inhibiting the COX-1 enzyme, depite how long it took.

In other news, I went skiing again yesterday. This time we went to Lake Louise, where because it was Tuesday it was pretty empty. As expected many of the runs were very icy due to the windswept nature of this ski hill, but we mostly stayed on the better protected hills. My rentals were, as with a week ago at Sunshine, fantastic. My thighs hurt from supporting all my weight plus g-forces while carving those turns so nicely. I am also improving my mogul-handling techniques, depending how steep the incline is. I had one absolutely spectacular wipe out, described in the following diagram (click).
Apologies for illegible handwriting. Loads of respect if you can decipher all of it.

I was tricked because the first time I went down that run I went over one of these drifts and only the lip part was soft; perhaps it had begun life as a mogul because it was mostly solid. However, this was clearly not the case with all of the drifts. I was only slightly injured because of the way my right wrist was bent due to the ski pole not wanting to plunge into the snow so eagerly (the left one went in at a better angle). It was surprising to find myself unexpectedly near-horizontal while in the air, but it was also rather comical.

At lunch my rental skis (although strangely not the poles) were taken from the rack by someone, understandable since all the rentals were the same. Even more strange was that they didn't leave a pair of skis with the same size-setting on the bindings (there was a pair there but they were too small for my boots). Since we were at a lodge on the other side of the mountain I had to take the lifts back to the main lodge to get replacements (free of charge). Luckily when we went back to check the same rack later that day, whoever it was had realised their error and put them back. The dude at the lodge agreed to return them for me. If they hadn't been returned, I'd have been on the line for roughly $300-400. As I said, they were nice skis.

On a sidenote, it is difficult to get off a ski lift with only ski boots, but I managed it without falling over. I still looked like an idiot: have you ever tried to run in ski boots?

Unlike last time, I did not collide with any wildlife. I did get some nice pictures of mountains I don't know the names of. They're up above somewhere in case you somehow subconsciously screened them out. Now go look and be jealous. There are more reasons to come to Calgary than the nuts economy.

another pointless all-nighter

2006-12-18T04:10:00.000-07:00

It's 4:10 am and my accomplishments tonight (since 8 pm Sunday) amount to printing three pieces of paper (the content was already done) and extending (by a few cm) a couple of straight lines representing UTM grid kilometres on my base map, all while listening to the latest "Lost" podcast. It was tough, I needed a ruler. I just finished a four hour session of playing the original 1991 DOS game "A10 Tank Killer". Prior to this orgy of tank destruction I had watched a bunch of Malcolm in the Middle and Sopranos (downloaded Friday). Now I ask myself, what better way to continue to avoid doing any work than making a blog entry? None, of course; besides, I'm way overdue.

It has been 7 days of complete slack now, apart from making those kilometre lines and printing out the coordinates of each station from last summer (now I must put them on the map). Usually I would have posted a couple of contests or perhaps just some amusing photos either from my vast repository or pilfered from the net. However, my motivation is lacking somewhat. I don't know what it is, but it seems that many blogs are cooling down, are being updated less and less frequently. Is it a decline in general interest? Is this trend more global than just among my friends? I doubt it. You start scanning around the blogosphere (I abhor that word but for lack of a better one must use it) and find that blogging is on the increase everywhere. So why are the friends I'm thinking of, and myself, gradually abandoning our weblogs? Maybe it was cool at the time, and now a passing fad? Or perhaps just some sort of welcome distraction that is losing its appeal (as almost all distractions do)? I don't know. I will continue to post, probably on a weekly sort of basis (a far cry from the 10-20 times a month last winter/spring). Also I looked back at those old posts, and is it just me or are they way more amusing than this drivel I'm composing right now? This train of thought has amounted to nothing useful, although I don't think I'll delete it.

I got caught up with events in the blogoverse (any better?) this week, as I said, and saw this most excellent blog. I went the whole hog and watched the youtube video (audio only, it's on putfile as well). Here's the upshot if you're too lazy to go and read the first post on that blog: Dude uses cell networks for data transfer, was going to Canada, wanted to know Verizon's rates for data transfers in Canada. So he does what any reasonable person does, and calls them up to ask. He is quoted "point zero zero two cents per kilobyte" and, knowing this sounded low, asked for a note to that effect to be made in his account. He was charged $0.002 per kb, and had a bill of about $79 from the trip. He expected $0.79, based on the quoted rate, and then proceeded to have hours of conversations with various managers at Verizon call-centres, none of whom could understand the different between 0.002 cents and 0.002 dollars. It's funny at first, then gets more disturbing as person after person (and possibly entire rooms full of people: in one call the girl gets him to hold while she asks around) fail to get it, despite admirably patient hours of explanation. Anyway it's brought up this whole issue of poor math instruction in the states, although it's likely that the people who've held call-centre jobs long enough to become senior managers don't have a lot of other career options. Anyway, the funniest thing to come out of this is this picture from this website (click for big).
If you remember math from first and second years, you might notice that it's all just 0.002.

WHAT NOW, BITCHES?

Hah that still gets me! Next post I'll have some other amusing pics from around the web.

I'm going home on Thursday, my flights aren't actually as complicated as I'd thought (I only change at Regina and Toronto), and I get in earlier than I'd thought as well (8pm instead of 10). Since getting this laptop flying has become way more fun than before; watching TV and movies helps me forget about the horrendous lack of legroom and the inevitable cramps and bruised knees. I just wish that people on 1 hour midday hops would refrain from reclining their seat, or at least do it gently so I get enough time to rescue my screen from being crushed between the underside of the tray and my legs. I swear that on every single flight I've been on (5 days of travel) since my first-class return from europe last year, the old person in front of me has reclined their seat for the whole flight, regardless of the time of day. I don't do that. I'm considerate.

I actually feel a touch of guilt when I recline my chair. Think about it: here in Canada we have loads of space, and individuals' personal space can be fairly large. In a plane it's already reduced to a woefully minimal space. You have to wage intense battles of wits against sweaty overweight guys for your armrest, and you don't even own the space 10cm under your ass - that belongs to the bags or feet of the person behind you (sometimes even your window-side armrest belongs to their now unclad and reeking foot). So reclining your chair is a sudden and blatant encroachment on the personal space of the person behind you (although if their foot's on your armrest your best bet is to try and sever some tendons by reclining). Assuming it isn't some sort of intentional retaliatory strike, you must consider that by reclining you're removing a sizeable chunk of their already tiny space volume. On night flights it's usually fine because everyone puts their chair back (except the poor bastard in the last row against the bulkhead) but if it's a day flight, it's possible that the person behind you can't recline to reclaim their space because of the terrible ergonomic situation they'd be in for watching illegally acquired tv shows (i.e. ME). So Dear T.S. Bundy*, I know you'll be sitting in front of me, so if you must recline, please give me some warning so my incomprehensible new-fangled adding machine isn't damaged. Thank you.

I did enjoy ranting on like that for so long. Tedious though it may be to you, just think that it's all for a good cause. I've wasted nearly another hour writing this pathetic blog entry. And now I suppose I should actually do some work - I'm supposed to present my summer's worth of fieldwork accomplishments to my supervisor today, so it would be nice if I actually knew what I've done. Well, I do know, but I want it to look at least somewhat organised. Hence fixing up the base map and stuff.

See you in Fredericton (those who'll be there); give me a call at home (or the cell, but that'll still be long distance) on Friday, preferably not the morning. Who's up for market Saturday?

Cheers, minions.

* I bet only Joe gets that.

slacking, drinking, skiing, Bond, and squirrels.

2006-12-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

Hello, vast readership of approximately three.

My term is complete! I took my 30 minute oral exam and proudly handed in my paper (18 days late, a new personal best) on Friday. Celebration began immediately, as I went to the grad lounge to pre-drink before the departmental Christmas party booze-up, which was excellent. I had about a dozen beers over the evening, and failed to drink enough water that night. I was drunk enough to forget if I made a complete ass of myself (which is likely), which is fine by me: I don't even want to know. The hangover on Saturday was not quite bad enough to prevent me from joining friends going to Sunshine Village for skiing, but was bad enough that I had to insist that Jason pull over and stop as quickly as he could at one point on the drive there. Powerade at lunchtime saved the day.

The skiing was fantastic. The mountain was virtually empty, the snow was 'decent' quality (counts as excellent quality back east) and the weatherwas perfect. It was between 0 and +5 or so all day, glorious! Plus the mountainous view is more impressive at Sunshine than any other ski hill I have ever been to; and the light through the thin clouds was incredible. I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera. I had rental skis which were virtually untouched because they replace them all at the beginning of each season, and were terrific. They carved like you wouldn't believe and I was amazed every time at their ability to turn sharply.

The most unexpected part of the day was on the last run, the ski-out to the parking lot, when against all odds I struck a small squirrel. The crazy creature basically fell down a tree on the right and bolted across the thin trail. It was most of the way across then doubled back. It would have made it back again too, but when almost off the trail it doubled back again. It froze just in front of me, then doubled back again, right into my left ski. I lifted it quickly but the impact was distinctly audible. Either not seriously injured or on adrenaline, it ran off in the other direction across the trail and into the woods, cutting across the woman behind me. She and I looked at each other, absolutely shocked. We were both lost for words. As I waited for my friends on the next rise I wondered if it was some sort of omen. Don't we have a deal with the squirrels?

Next day I got a much needed haircut and then went for roast-beef dinner with a (now graduated) doctoral student of my father's. There were five people there and the meal was excellent, although I felt conspicuously young by at least 10 years.

Then yesterday (Monday) I went to see Casino Royale. It is excellent, I've read the book (it's the first one Fleming wrote) and the film sticks fairly well to the plot in the book, with changes made to reflect that the Cold War is over. Craig's Bond fits much better with Fleming's decription of how he should look and behave than any prior Bond: much more cold, serious, and gritty than the suave pun-spewing Bonds of earlier films. He's like Timothy Dalton, although I wasn't a fan of Dalton.

They've rebooted the series (it's Bond's first mission as a double-O agent); and they're starting over with modern film technology and a revised concept of who Bond is and how he operates. It is actually rather refreshing, and it all seemed believable and tangible so long as you understand the departure from continuity in the series. I can't say I'm going to miss the cartoonish exploits of some prior Bond films, as I always found the more reasonable plots more entertaining (eg Goldfinger, Octopussy).

I think Craig works well as Bond, although his flappy ears are at times amusing to behold. He's also the most athletic Bond since Connery (although they didn't "show off" Connery like they have done with Craig; it's not obvious in those early films how built Connery was, he was in contention for Mr. Universe in 1953). I think I miss the flippancy and wit shown by the Bonds of Connery, Moore, and Brosnan, but regardless I think this is the best Bond since Goldeneye, and very possibly better.

The car (2007 Aston Martin DBS) is utterly amazing, and they do feature an iconic DB5 as well. But in a nice departure from the recent films, there are no missiles, machineguns, mortars, or howitzers in the car. Nor does it go invisible, although with no Q we don't get a rundown on the gadgetry, we only see the medkit including a portable defibrillator. The sound of the DBS engine was like hearing God himself. I can't wait till the Top Gear guys get their hands on one!

A couple of weeks here to organise my desk, book my probe time next term, and select what parts of what thin sections to zap with electrons. Home on the 21st (evening), but leaving for England on Christmas day (~9 pm from Halifax) and not back until the 3rd. Then I return to cowtown on the 7th. Hopefully this will be enough time to meet up with most of you at some point. Book now to avoid the rush!

worst possible date

2006-11-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine was recently on a bad date. This is dedicated to her.

Humourous Ways to Completely Ruin a Date (guy's perspective).**

In the Car

Obviously, when picking her up, stay in the car and honk obnoxiously. This demonstrates to her and whoever else lives with her (roommates, parents, etc) what kind of a man you are. When she gets in and says 'hey', don't even respond.

In the car play loud angry music at a painful volume. Shout above the music about your car and sound system. Drive very poorly, paying little attention to the road (and even less to her) and swearing at everyone else on the road as you cut them off. For best results, roll down the window and holler obscenities when they honk at you. Squeal your tires often.

Your destination should be cheap but a step up from fast food. This allows for more time to ramble on about yourself and your car while waiting for your meals. Park in a handicapped spot, hang a handicapped sign from the rearview if you like. The point is to show you're an ass. Park so your door is closest to the restaurant door, and just get out and walk straight in without even looking at her. If she hasn't closed her door by the time you hit your remote lock get annoyed (it's best to do this deliberately). If you don't have a remote key, get out quickly and stand waiting to lock it as she gets out. Tap impatiently with something as you wait.

Dinner

Be rude to the employees who greet you and take your order. Snicker as they leave, and be sure to mock any speech impediment or other handicap. Joke that hopefully you took their parking spot. Use this as a jumping board to get back onto the topic of your car.

Before the food arrives, sit half-sideways with one leg out into the aisle. Give people dirty looks when they trip on it. As you ramble on about yourself and your car, be sure to keep your eyes glued to her chest. Ignore her comments, and if she tries to steer the conversation away from you, casually dismiss whatever she's yapping about and leap back onto the topics dearest to your heart.

Order a meal at least 5 times as big as you can eat. Force yourself to eat half of that, and leave the rest (be sure to have picked at everything). Then ask "are you going to finish that?" whether she is still eating or not. Talk loudly and with your mouth full, and make some effort to spit food onto her and her plate. Conversation should again revolve around you and your car. If talking about your car isn't your thing, talk about your other awesome possessions. But remember, we're trying to look pathetic: insecure doesn't go far enough.

Make up as many anecdotes as you can. These should be clearly false, and should focus on your terrific capacity for drinking, and your prolific sexual exploits (it's best if you can combine the two). Provide embarrassingly nauseating detail (but don't get embarrassed yourself). Your car should be a recurring character in these stories. Other subjects may include your complete lack of sympathy for mistreated animals, or your personal thoughts on the effectiveness of medieval torture and execution practices. Again, link the subjects if you can.

When the main part of the meal is over, order a large "dessert-for-two." Offer her none and greedily hog the whole thing. Eat about a third of it, but make enough of a mess for the rest to be inedible. Ask for it all on one bill.

Obviously you are not going to pay for her meal, and if all goes according to plan, you aren't going to pay for yours either. Leave the bill on the table. If the waiter put it near to you, subtly push it towards her. With luck she'll eventually be forced to pick up the bill just to get out of there. Use this extra time to continue to expound about yourself. Mention your car frequently. Mock the food quality of the restaurant loudly and with comments like "man, those meatballs had the texture of cockroaches!" or "the beer was the only decent part of this meal. Fuck I love bud." If she demands that you at least pay for your part, say you forgot your wallet.

At the Movies

If she's still around, or if you're starting here, here's how to ruin the movie for her.

First, order massive amounts of popcorn and two drinks, to imply that you're buying for her too. Hoard it all throughout the movie and do everything possible to prevent her from getting any. Get annoyed and tell her to go buy her own if she succeeds. If you told her you forgot your wallet to make her pay for dinner, use it now to pay for your snacks. Otherwise you can ask to borrow some cash for food (if she refuses, get it anyway to show that you did have enough cash anyway).

Before you get there, research the movie online and memorize the plot. Give away the plot loudly during the movie; however, you must make it appear that she is quietly telling you these things: "So you're saying that the killer is Mary, not Mr. Perkins?" This effectively gets the whole theatre pissed off at her as well as at you.

In addition, talk loudly about things unrelated to the movie, such as your car. Especially if you see a car on the screen. Make a loud and thorough comparative analysis, concluding that they should have used your car instead.*

The Drive Home

Observe the same guidelines for driving as above. However, on the way to drop her off at home pull into some empty parking lot (or better yet a known car-sex location) as if you expect sex. This would be the only time you pay any attention to her, but it must be slimy and lascivious. Completely fail to understand that she's not interested, but you should get confused, not angry. If you apologise and try to reconcile for this (and succeed) it makes the next part much more funny (despite how unnatural it may seem to 'apologise' for anything).

When dropping her off back home, drop her at the end of her street or court, citing your gas budget. Demand gas money. Alternatively, stating that it's to "keep the mileage down" is even more effective, implying that you don't think she's worth another 3 tenths of a km on your odometer. Urge her to "hurry up while there's nobody behind us," regardless of the likelihood that another car will appear.

Another way to do it, if you're really feeling up to the challenge, would be to actually abandon her somewhere to find her own way home. Do tell her you're going, though. Then when she asks how she's supposed to get home, say "Yeah it was alright. I'll call you." then leave.

In Conclusion

The absolute key things to remember are:

Never compliment her, unless it's subtly insulting, or outright sarcastic.
Never get pulled into an actual conversation. Be sure to talk about things she doesn't know much about.
Never hold a door for her, or do anything remotely chivalrous.
Never make excuses for yourself. You know you're the perfect man and she's lucky to have this shot at a night of hot sex and car talk.
Always be insulting, degrading, disgusting, and rude. Crush her spirit so yours seems all the greater.

Will it work in reverse?
Generally guys are so happy to be on a date in the first place and also (certainly in my case) so unobservant that for this to work in reverse, the signals would have to be far more blatant. Like throwing a drink all over him and kicking him in unhappy places, then stabbing him with a dessert fork, wrapping him in plastic, and throwing him in a dumpster. For me, this might imply that she isn't entirely enthralled by the prospect of more dates.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you discuss your car.

Do not talk about safety features, except to mock them or describe how you plan to rip them out to save weight.
Never mention practicality.
Frequently talk about how you plan to mod it. Your plans for purple fluorescent lights underneath, once you get the cash, are sure to make her want you.
Invent ridiculous drag-racing episodes with vastly superior cars, all of which you have won.
Your car should be a '93 Taurus, or perhaps a k-car. Describe it's beauty nonetheless; try to make the contrast with how little you've complimented hers painfully obvious.

*I cannot be held responsible if you get lynched.
**I cannot be held responsible if you are splashed with a beverage, kicked in the nuts, stabbed, wrapped in plastic, and thrown in a dumpster.

I cannot tear my eyes away

2006-11-16T17:02:00.000-07:00

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD

must... resist... ...close window.... ....mouse... too... heavy.... ...alt+F4.... ...ahhh thank god.

I've been overwhelmed by a veritable torrent of no response to the last post. In case you find those too difficult, here are a couple more options, also featuring Blair. You can still caption the others.

contest results, Blair contest, other fascinating things

2006-11-10T22:13:00.000-07:00

This is gonna be a hell of a long post. This is because I have lots to mention, and it's all you'll have from me for at least another week, since this is such a busy time right now. Since I know few of you have attention spans long enough to read it all in one go, I'll spread the stuff of least general interest out to force you to at least skim it. However, do bear in mind that I wouldn't be "publishing" it here if I didn't think you'd find it at least somewhat scintillating. Also you could just read it in installments, to tide you over until next time.

First the good news: apparently Bush's grip on the US and its policy is loosening. As you know the Republicans lost control of both houses to the Democrats this week, and also Rumsfeld is stepping down. I thought I'd take this opportunity to say goodbye to him.

Dear Mr. Rumsfeld,
I see that you are stepping down. I for one am disappointed, but only because this means I won't be able to marvel anymore at how immensely evil you appear on TV. I always half expected you to pull out a Nalgene bottle full of crude, or perhaps goat's blood, and start chugging during a press conference.
Likely, you aren't actually an evil person, and I paid little attention to what you actually did while you were around, but your appearance, at least, gives me ideas for Hallowe'en costumes. That and the fact that you held a position of obscene and ungodly power over the world while looking like that.
Toodles! G.

For some reason I keep having intensely vivid and physically realistic dreams about driving very powerful cars with standard transmissions. Last night it was a bright yellow amalgamation of a Ford GT40 (the old one) and a Ferrari F40. The point was that I wasn't racing or anything, just trying to drive it normally to the racetrack in Geary from home in Fredericton. The engine was deafeningly loud and high pitched, and generated so much torque that it was almost impossible to keep the rear wheels from spinning every time I touched the pedal, no matter what gear I was in. I don't know why I've been having these dreams just recently, as opposed to all my life, but I hope it continues, and that I get retro-paid for all the car dreams I should have been having for the last 22 years.

Today this caught my interest, and had me in stitches for literally several seconds. It's a book (album insert for a band?) with French phonetic translations of English nursery rhymes. For instance the name of it: Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames (literally: Words of Hours: Pods, Oars), can be roughly pronounced "Mother Goose Rhymes." As a more full example, try saying this, the phonetic translation of Hickory Dickory Dock:

Et qui rit des curés d’Oc?
De Meuse raines, houp! de cloques.
De quelles loques ce turque coin.
Et ne d’ânes ni rennes,
Écuries des curés d’Oc.

I took the French phonetic versions and ran them through some online translators, and got some great lyrical poetry, such as the following from parts of the French phonetic translation of "Monday's Child is full of grace":

Beg for this shawl and this iron with the buttocks.

is this demarcating two clog-makers?

And this fascinating translation of "Mary had a little lamb":

myraids avoid blades,
and harm smooth fires.
Where sat and ring high.
In the trough, debts annoint town hall,
two blue blades of Iago.

Hickory Dickory Dock is also quite hilarious:

And who laughs at the priests of Oc?
From Meuse groove, houp! blisters.
Of who wrecks this Turkish corner.
And of neither donkeys nor reindeers,
Stables of the priests of Oc.

Funnily enough it's all far superior to any of the lyrics I've ever come up with for my own tunes. Also it should be abundantly clear that I took way more than a 'few seconds' to amuse myself with this. Anything (especially blogging) to avoid doing actual work.

Thanks to advice and files from Joe, I've been listening to the Now Show, a BBC radio 4 comedy show, sorta like 22 minutes. It's hilarious, including jokes like "what do you get if you cross an NHS manager with a pig? Nothing, there are some things even a pig won't do." (from a monologue mocking the National Health Service, the UK equivalent of our Healthcare system) and, from the same monologue, quoting graffiti on the wall of a men's room stall in the Department of Health "There are a thousand people who work in this building, and at this precise moment you're the only one who knows what he's doing." That absolutely kills me... I'm tempted to graffiti it in a bathroom in the teaching hospital on campus.

Anyway these guys made a mock 'synopsis' of Lord of the Rings, skipping some 'twiddly bits'. I've added a few appropriate links (most for non-Brits, some for fun). It's spoken in a highly derisive tone:
Scene: Tubby Hill. Offensive leprechaun midget gives face-like-a-slapped-arse midget a little ring that he nicked off a mentalist in a cave. Slapped-face-Elijah-Wooden takes ring to elves, all of whom look suspiciously like former members of Status Quo. More midgets, dwarves, and people with longer names than Welsh railway stations decide to take ring via longest most mental route, back to ringmaker's at hot mountain, and throw it away. Or possibly exchange it, if they can find the receipt. On the way pissed-wizard fights with camp dracula wizard, loses, then fights acid-jazz hero breathing fire, loses again and falls down a hole; Sean Bean gets shot four times before he finally stops milking it and dies; and the ring is taken off by slappy-faced big-eyed midget Frodo Baggins and his idiot friend, Middle Earth's answer to Forrest Gump. Brief irritating pause of two years, and then finally throws the ring in the hot mountain by mistake.

On a sidenote, how does one pronounce "Glyndyfrdwy"? Depending on which faction of syntax fanatics you adhere to, there are no vowels. And how do you pronounce the "frdw" part without inadvertently inserting your own vowels? In Welsh, any time you see two L's together (eg Llangollen, Llwyngwril), it's pronounced as a hacking sound, as though you were assembling a mass of phlegm at the back of your mouth, in readiness for the rest of the name to cause you to disperse it liberally onto your interlocutor. It seems to me that most Welsh names and words are created by doing an impersonation of grinding the gears of a car, then attempting to transcribe your sound effects; or perhaps by dragging an enraged, chained goblin through a knee-deep pool of boiling oil in a trench lined with shards of glass, and then writing down his blubbering curses and shrieks. Of course Glyndyfrdwy is as nothing compared to that long one, in which there are four l's in a row at one point. Note that the incredibly long one was made up just to surpass Llanfair-(etc).

On to some rather frightening global warming stuff. Today in my 707 grad class we had a quaternary geologist, who gave us an introduction to late glacial activity around the Calgary area, and ended the class with some quite shocking material related to climate change. Recent research into ice cores in Greenland and the Antarctic has shown strong evidence that very rapid climate change has occurred in the past, with sudden spikes into very cold temperatures during interglacials (warm periods) and spikes into temperatures like today in the middle of very cold periods (these spikes are superimposed on the 50-100 thousand year glacial-interglacial cycles). For instance, the latest such spike (called the Younger Dryas) occurred about 11,500 years ago, as temperatures were well on their way to recovery from the Wisconsinan glacial period (last major ice age). According to oxygen isotopes in the ice cores (it's reliable), there were dramatic temperature plunges from nice and warm (like the present), to 2/3rds of the way to a full-on glaciation in less than ten years. Possibly as little as 3. And they're not entirely sure what sets these things off. Frankly this makes the frenzy about 6 degrees and a metre rise in sea levels over the next 90 years rather pointless. There is no way that current infrastructure could handle this sort of climate shift. It's thought that these shifts are caused by massive changes to the thermohaline cirulation in the oceans (currents), which distribute warmth around the world. Some of the "alarmist camp" (as the prof referred to them) have claimed that this could be caused by the destabilisation of the environment, say, by the influx of billions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere per year, though this hasn't been shown.

In case you were wondering, the movie The Day After Tomorrow was partially based on the earlier stages of this work, although the two week change is just a touch faster than the predicted rate. Oh, and a normal transition from interglacial to glacial takes many tens of thousands of years, and (ignoring anthropogenic influences) isn't projected to start naturally for another 8 to 20 thousand years.

Anyway I could ramble on and on about climate change. I'll just say this: I don't believe there's enough data to form strong opinions one way or another, plus there are more worrying things around, which we can actually help to fix. The main one is pollution; of air, rivers, lakes, and groundwater. This we can change, and the conservatives' "clean air" plan actually addresses this instead of placing so much emphasis on climate change. Therefore I support it in principle, but it's useless, because it's (a) not aggressive enough and (b) won't pass anyway.

Okay that's enough soapboxing for today. It's time for Contest Results!

Joe wins; any comparison of Harper to a freeloading hitchhiker is excellent. But I gotta apologize to Jenn and Shannon, as it occured to me that since Joe and I have a similar sense of humour I'm inclined to find his suggestions more amusing. But you have to admit he is very witty. I would have suggested "Hey Stevie-boy, I heard you guys have some oil! So where can we park our tanker trucks?" "Parking lot of the Fort McMurray Walmart, but first just dump your nuclear waste in Ontario somewhere."

And now the New Contest!!! This time, and next time, it's the antics of British PM Tony Blair. Three shots to mock, including the one up top that got your attention.Mock away. Just so you know, parallels have been drawn between Blair and our own Harper, as the puppets of a certain Texan and his (collapsing it seems) regime. Also "Number Ten" is 10 Downing Street, residence of Brit PM. Just like 24 Sussex Drive here.

That's all folks.

new contest and headlines.

2006-11-02T12:59:00.000-07:00

It's been longer than usual. To make up for it this is an interesting one. First headlines.

So apparently even the sand people are getting desperate for cash these days.

Here's the new contest. Caption away.

Not too much else to say, so I'll summarize the normal drivel that everyone loves. I have a lot of work to do, and have a slight cold. The weather here is cold and snowy. Now I am going in to the uni to send off some more samples to be made into probe sections. I am truly very excited about the ones I've already got back, there are fantastic microstructures and some strange minerals I haven't been able to identify yet.

super excitement, including contest results and technoscience.

2006-10-23T12:08:00.000-06:00

I said I was excited about Tintin, well that's nothing compared to my excitement regarding this. Yes, as you may have seen in the news last Friday, they've developed a device that hides objects from microwaves, and this is expandable to the whole EM spectrum, including visible light. In other words, within a couple of decades we may have true 'cloaking' devices. Remember all those pranks you wanted to pull as a kid, if you were invisible? The time has come. As Shaggz said, even if we're old men by the time it's commercially available, we'll go to school invisible and empty trash cans over teachers' heads.

In other exciting news, they're getting closer to a viable space tether every year. There's an "X-prize" for tether technology. At present the biggest obstacles are the high tensile strength required of tether material, and in how you power an elevator (since hundreds of thousands of km of electrical wires are going to add prohibitive weight to the system). It is the cheapest conceivable way to get things into orbit.

Another neat scientific advancement is this nano-gel they've developed that stops bleeding near-instantly. Could cut surgery times in half. It's neat to see this sort of advancement taking place, and to think we might one day tell our grandchildren that we grew up in a world without cloaking devices, space tethers, or nano-gel. And whatever else gets invented between now and then.

Anyway, here's what you really read this for. Photo contest results!! We had Harper musing about something that makes him smile, and good ol' Stockwell being an idiot, as usual. Like that time he arrived at a press conference in a wetsuit, on a jetski. How can you vote for such a man?!

I personally would have suggested:
harper: "I bet I could save a lot of cash by switching to Geico."
day: "Day's touchdown victory dance led him to runway 36L, where he was finally taken out by flight 354 from Edmonton."

However, I'm inelegible.

For the Harper one, I like how he's kinda having a "Stephen" moment up there. To me it looks like he's gazing into space absent mindedly. You may disagree, but it's my contest. And with that in mind, Shannon wins, Sarah second. I prefer to think he's not mentally capable of orchestrating the demise of the premier of NL, even if it's as simple as "Hello, my personal elite guard? Go eliminate Mr. Williams". Shannon's comment for "Klein pic 1" a few contests ago would work equally well, I think.

For the Day one, Shaggz wins. Although I like Jenn's and Sarah's, which are on the same theme, so you two tie for second. While it is funny to think of him as a whiny little boy, him being ejected for showboating is even better.

Okay a post full of links, with no photos and few jokes. So we'll end with:
Q: Why don't blind people skydive?
A: It scares the heck out of the dog.

what's new in my world

2006-10-20T12:49:00.000-06:00

Not much is new, really. Except that I am currently more excited about a download than I have ever been, except maybe for the Top Gear episode in which they reviewed the Mazdaspeed 6... I am downloading the complete Tintin TV series!!! It was on CTV (or sthg) like ten years ago, produced by Nelvana. I loved Tintin as a kid... I hope this series lives up to my memory!

Don't forget to do the caption thing for the photos from the previous post!

end of no-internet hiatus

2006-10-17T09:27:00.000-06:00

It's amazing how having no internet at home for a week, combined with being sick and not getting in to the office much, and a lack of cable tv, put me straight back to the dark ages. Except for having light, thanks to electricity. And of course video games, which I don't believe the young knaves of yore grew up with. Anyway on with the photo caption contest thingy.I know I said I'd get away from political ones but it's just so easy to find photos of politicians looking like douchebags.

Submit to either photo and as often as you like. The Harper one in particular has huge potential, I think. Click for ever-so-slightly bigger.

I'm known (or if not, I'm about to be) for having vivid and often disturbing dreams, in colour, which I sometimes remember with great detail. They sometimes have very complete and even somewhat logical plots. Since moving to Calgary, however, there have been few to none of these memorable ones; even in the field this summer, which is when I had the most bizarre and shocking dream of my life four years ago. Anyway, for the last four nights or so I've had crazy vivid dreams every night, breaking the drought. In one, a picnic with my family (nuclear and extended) was interrupted by bandits wielding machetes, evoking violently strong emotions of fear and rage which I had never felt. When they kidnapped my cousin Hannah, I went on a rather horrendously gruesome rampage through bazaars and rooftops, from Italy through the middle-east and to sub-Himalayan jungles to rescue her. Another one was simply a fantastic continuous mad nighttime drive through empty Calgary streets in a Mazdaspeed 6.

Historically I get such dreams when sleeping in unfamiliar surroundings, but now I really don't know anymore. They seem to come in waves.

Warning: car rant imminent. To avoid skip this next paragraph.

On that car... it's perfect. Sometime I'll get around to writing the bloody auto blog and it'll be the first entry. All the reviews I read, even negative ones, make me want it more. My subconscious memory of the feel of it during the test drive back in August was damn near perfect in that dream. For the price, there's really none to match it. It's got my needs covered: power, braking, handling, all wheel drive, manual transmission, and subtlety (extremely important). It's even practical, as comfortable 5-seater with lots of trunk space. It hugely outperforms similarly priced "badge" cars (BMWs, Mercs), but if you're the kind of person who wants to own a "BMW," rather than a necessarily good vehicle, go nuts and get a 325xi for the same money. You'll get 26% less power (218 bhp instead of 274) and only rear wheel drive (arguably the better setup on a track, but we live in Canada). Drilled aluminium pedals, terrific short-throw 6-speed manual 'box, an in-dash 6-cd changer with 6.1 Bose sound system, and fully Japanese build quality (i.e. no Ford meddling with this car). Only gripes: must use premium fuel, and interior noise is fairly high at highway speeds, especially in the back seats. The onramp from the overpass just south of the co-op northbound onto the vanier was particularly memorable... entered it in 2nd at about 20, and rowed through the gears. At merge time we were doing 160 in 5th, and acceleration was still impressive. I'm gonna take another test drive of it here in Calgary. At some point.

I am now extremely hungry, and must go home. Good day, loyal minions.

good times

2006-10-08T09:38:00.000-06:00

Saw the Trailer Park Boys movie on Friday night. It was, as expected, hilarious. I haven't decided yet if it was more like one long episode or one short season, but either way it was terrific. I recommend you see it, if you are even remotely a TPB fan.

Then Saturday. Saturday night is usually seen as a night to go to bars/clubs, worry about your appearance, and try to pick up by dancing badly to intolerably loud pounding beats. Despite the possibility, however slim, of successfully picking up, this is not my favourite scene, since I don't like to be in the same place as all the insecure posers who are attempting to woo the ditzy 17 year olds populating the premises. Last night, however, was a different sort of Saturday night. A true "man's night". There were only four of us, but there was also, in no particular order:
1) Beer, and other "drinks of a refreshing nature"
2) Cigars
3) Poker
4) Hockey
5) $60 worth of KFC Chicken

You cannot go wrong with that much chicken.

I'm in facebook now, with a nice display of photos from the Monashees over two summers of digital photography there. Funny how people here and there from my past and present found me within one day of signing up, on a Saturday.

Today I went golfing for the first time ever. I'd been to a driving range once before, when I was about 12, and was probably worse today. I had a couple of decent shots towards the end, when I started to understand that swinging harder generally causes crappy shots, and also that I was lifting back when I swung. Also I only lost 4 balls over 9 holes, so that was good (my excuse: leaves are everywhere and it was easy to lose 'em).

I can totally see how it's addictive, and even feel a little tempted to head to a driving range to practice the swing. The other guys weren't too much better than me, so it wasn't terrible. Will, ostensibly the best of us, hit a house. I hit four trees, chopping branches off three of them. Andrew lost more balls than me. Rich had a pretty good day, with few major catastrophes, but Will still won in the end. I didn't keep score, being around 7 or 8 hits a hole.

In other news, down in the States they're in mid-term elections and things are getting a bit, errr, heated. This TV ad is for Republican candidate Vernon Robinson, and is not intended as a joke. Frankly it's disturbing.

Photo contest returns next time, I promise.

what tune is this?

2006-10-05T11:43:00.000-06:00

Results of last Caption Contest:

Anonymous wins, as the only entry. He/she may pick up his/her prize of $678,000 at my office anytime within the next two hours, so long as they have two valid pieces of identification.

I'm not doing a contest this time, as I don't have the time to go looking for a good picture. But I have a question for all: who is this by (click for bigger)?
I guess you need some musical background to play it. I suspect it's smashing pumpkins. It's that kind of style anyway. That part is for E guitar and bass together, bass an octave lower. Don't forget the Bb. I wrote it in D because that's the key I can do perfect pitch in without thinking about it. To do other keys, I write based in D and then transpose, although I can generally do any key so long as the chords aren't too complicated.

If you know it let me know. If you can tell me, and if the song is the one I am thinking of, you'll get a prize. Much like the one anonymous now has 1hr 50 minutes left to pick up, only the negative reciprocal of it.

In auto blog news, I'm still gradually building the glossary. It's turned into a mammoth task. I've also found that much of what I want to say is already in Wikipedia, although often missing some stuff or outright incorrect. I might just write up the first couple of posts anyway, although I don't think I'll have much of a readership. If you want to review a car, any car, I can put your review up on the blog.

Cheers.

people like bandwagons

2006-09-29T16:21:00.000-06:00

In this issue: besides me acting like this is a newsletter or magazine: contest results, a new contest, I'm no longer a geologist, and a brief bit about bandwagons. It's amusing, you'll like it.

Contest results:
A strong showing from all this time, probably inspired by my provision of many photos to play with. Joe submitted this to me via e-mail:
I especially like how Martin's forehead is cracking open. And he's like "what the hell, guys?"

I should have said that you're all more than welcome to alter the photos with photoshop, or just with 'paint' as Joe has done. Very nice.

Anyway the winners for each photo. Every winner was a unanimous agreement, i.e. all of me agreed with myself.

Shannon wins the Martin/Lord/Other Guy shot, cause it really does look like a standoff between Martin and the Other Guy, with Lord as a kindof onlooker. Joe gets lots of merit for effort, and Steve's "inner mind" battle of Lord's is very good... especially the last line "Yessir, I will do that".

First Klien pic; I gotta say Shannon again wins with "since when did they start putting girls in these podiums?", although Steve's first suggestion is a close second, as "You know, I could really eat a banana right about know...." is about the extent of Klien's thought processes.

Second Klein pic win goes to Steve with "There's life outside Alberta??????", but Shannon gets points for noticing that he does indeed resemble R. Dangerfield in that pic.

Nobody commented on the last one, but I'd like to suggest that Steve's second suggestion for Klein pic 2 works equally well if not better in the last one (i.e. no equalization payments).

New Contest:
Here are the new contest pics. They are not political this time, and are inherently amusing to begin with. Note they share a theme.

I am no longer a Geologist:
The department is looking at changing its name from "Geology and Geophysics" to the less cumbersome "Geosciences". I for one am fully in support of this, and will start referring to myself as a "geoscientist" rather than a "geologist" from now on. Despite that the term makes me sounds more like a pale-faced snivelling lab-rat than the strapping, rugged, burly mountaineer that I totally perceive myself to be, the term does make me sound more like an actual scientist and less like I just have a collection of assorted pebbles from ditches.

I also like it because it's vague enough to make me sound like an expert scientist in any field beginning with "geo-". This includes geology, geophysics, geochemistry, geography, geomorphology, geodesy, geolocation, geometry, and geopolitics. Therefore I can now speak with authority about such wideranging topics as oil and gas production, environmental issues, roadbuilding and other construction, map making, GPS systems, archipelagos, Mayan culture, Pythagoras, and UN "imperialism" as viewed by particular countries, in addition to the stuff I actually know a bit about.

Bandwagons:
A note on my global-warming rant from Wednesday... I find this quote from Nietzsche to be particularly applicable: "men believe in the truth of all that is seen to be strongly believed in." In other words, people like bandwagons. If lots and lots of people believe something, they must have a good reason, right? Therefore I personally won't bother to look for reasons or evidence for my believing it too. And if anyone questions me I'll give them dirty looks and no research money.

"I'm not loquacious - I'm articulate!" "Yeah, like a lorry."
-Porridge

Things that annoy me.

2006-09-26T12:16:00.000-06:00

This post is rather angry at times. There's more things I could mention, but the list goes on. I've been bombarded recently by too much stuff by ignorant, insecure people about equally ignorant, insecure people. There's also some more lighthearted ones in there.

The Two-Moron Principle adopted by most radio pop music programmes. Instead of employing one moronic DJ per show as in the past, they now give us two in a moronic crosstalk act. (Also the music content of such radio programmes.)

Frivolous artwork by self-important, talentless half-wits, erroneously touted as "unique" or "revolutionary" by pompous idiots (ostensibly "critics"). This applies as much to music, theatre, and film work as it does to painting, sculpture, etc.
(sketch by banksy, who has some amazing artwork on his website)

"Celebrity" chefs who invent perversely inedible dishes such as escargot pie and haddock-flavoured ice cream – and then charge gullible customers an additional fortune for having their plates dotted with spots of foam.

Houses with paranoid security lights that switch themselves on accusingly as you pass their front gates.

Newspaper or website writers who talk about their "mailbag".

PA announcements about delayed/cancelled flights that apologise for any inconvenience they "may" have caused.

The way police officers and chiefs always look and sound like idiots by trying to use big professional words in TV interviews.

Characters in Victorian TV/movie dramas who, when elated, punch the air and go "Yesssss!".

Guys in rusty '88 Supras or Trans Ams projecting a thudding beat from a sound system with more power than the engine.

Reality TV.

Shallow materialistic celebrities, and the desire most youth have to emulate them.

False experts who sound intelligent, but in reality are armed only with thesauruses and strong opinions. People who spout so knowingly about global warming exemplify the group. At least read the fucking literature before attempting to pass yourself off as an expert.

Speaking of which, the entire global warming panic. If you're on this bandwagon, open your mind and read some actual research (request it and I'll compile a comprehensive list of references). If you're helping to push the wagon, take a hard look at why, at who you're really supporting. Environmental interest groups are big money. Whether you realise it or not, you are using scare tactics to support a frenzy with little serious scientific backing, and it's frankly dangerous to society (for historical precedent, read about eugenics before WW2). The media, politicians, environmental groups, activists, and general public (for allowing ourselves to be swept along) alike are all to blame. See above for ways to remedy a lack of comprehension of environmental science and how it's in its infancy.

I guess it comes down to me being annoyed by shallow, materialistic, irrational, intolerant, stupid, change-fearing, money-grubbing, insecure people in general. Good God.

Thats the rant. Back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow (or Friday). Including a new awesome photo contest and results from the last one. You'll love it.

tales of treachery, evil, and deceit

2006-09-21T13:22:00.000-06:00

Joe wins again, and again its by default, but also because what he submitted is very funny. If it sucked I would have awarded him the loss and myself the win for outwitting you all with that photo. The device is some sort of solar powered thing; I should have put "click to enlarge" on the picture. I thought something along the lines of "Harper and security experts discuss how to diffuse a solar powered bomb planted by environmental extremists" could work. Or perhaps, noting the expression of the man standing at left, "Suddenly, Jim noticed the red digital timer counting backwards from 10 on the rather strange gift from the Liberals."

Anyway, here's the next one.
Click for big this time. I like the potential in this one.

I'm trying to get more bizarre photos that we can all have more fun with; these political ones are becoming uninteresting. To spice things up here's a couple of King Klein, premier of this insanely rich province for 13 years (it's easy to get re-elected in a time of great prosperity), who is now resigning to pursue other pursuits.
He's so photogenic. Submit captions for any or all photos.

On to the other topic of today's post... bitter hatred and warring between floor factions in the Earth Sciences building. There is one bathroom per sex per floor in this building, all situated directly across from the elevators and stairs. I'm on the 5th floor. So earlier this afternoon I went to use the bathroom, which is the sovereign territory of those most brave of 5th floor patriots. Now here's the way things went down, and pay attention cause the timing is critical. I relieve myself, flush, and head over to the sinks to wash my hands. I rinse off the soap, and head towards the paper towel dispenser. Before I reach it another guy enters the room and heads, initially, in my direction (I only hear him). I press the lever a couple of times and find that, as per the norm, there is no towel in the dispenser. There never is, I dunno why they even have them. They should dispense with them. Anyway, there's always a large roll sitting on a shelf by the door, at the other end of the bathroom, for us to use when there's nothing in the dispenser. So I turn around to go get some. As I do I catch a split second, a single frame, if you will, of buddy departing with the entire roll in hand, and then the door shuts. I paused, slightly baffled, then pursued this thief, enraged. As I exited the bathroom, drying my hands on my jeans and looking around angrily, I saw the doors close on one elevator and the door to the stairs close, at the same time. I rushed to the door to the stairs, but it was not the same person. Foiled!! To date, the mysterious paper towel snatcher from floors unknown has yet to be caught.

What gets me is that he knew to grab the stuff by the door because he saw and heard that there was none in the dispenser because I was there finding out for us both... and decided to screw me royally, along with the next people who wash their hands before checking for towel. It was blatant and offensive, and he's VERY lucky he escaped. The beatings would have been severe. The man is described as caucasian, about 6'1, large-ish, with a black leather jacket and blue jeans, and black hair, possibly with gel in it. Probably a treacherous geographer from the 3rd or 4th floor realm.

We'll send them a few faxes decrying this act and rubbishing their field of study. Memorize a few capital cities and learn a bit of surficial geology and you're a geographer. bah.

Let's get more than one person to suggest a caption this time. You all have senses of humour and wit... get cracking!

Thus ends post.

results of contest and new contest

2006-09-18T19:46:00.000-06:00

[comment with your suggested caption please]

Greetings all, i.e. Joe and Shaggz. (related news: readership way down in September)

Not much to say this week, except that my Calgary friends and I have agreed that we are sick and tired of none of us having any link to a group of women we can socialise with. It is rather annoying, since we're all fed up with being single, although I know that the bachelor life would appeal to me again, if I was to become non-single. The grass on the other side of the fence is always greener, I guess.

Anyway photo captioning contest results. I probaby should have posted this last week as I'm certain that nobody in the world ever could come up with a caption to beat Joe's first suggestion, with regards to this picture (see last week's post). It's perfect. Joe does, of course win by default, since he's the only entrant (his entry frightened off other potential entrants, and frankly make my suggestions seem stupid). So I award victory to Hoph. Your parade through the streets of New York is postponed indefinitely due to an inexplicable lack of interest, and of course fire regulations (all that confetti that wouldn't be thrown for you would pose a fire hazard sitting in warehouses in bundles). You win a free hug, redeemable whenever I'm not around. More importantly you win bragging rights re your wittiness. But every week you must fight to retain those rights!

On to this week's photo that so desperately needs a caption (see above, in case somehow you missed it). It's very tempting to enter myself, but I must refrain from doing so, cause I may inadvertently come up with something good, unlikely though it is.

Have at it.

photo caption contest

2006-09-11T11:58:00.000-06:00

the auto blog is up but I'm not giving out the address yet because the template is nothing like what I want it to be. The only post is an intro. I guess if you're really curious you could access it through my profile.

It was my birthday yesterday, and it was a relaxing day. The guys were thoroughly hungover from their camping trip, so were not up for partying. So instead we saw Crank. If you like the mindless action/violence genre, this is absolutely excellent. And in places totally hilarious. It's deliberately ridiculous at times, but that doesn't detract from the movie, on the contrary it's perfect. It's the same guy as the transporter movies (which I now have to watch) and from Snatch.

I have a class at two... it's glgy 707 for new grads: geology of western canada. Apparently it's very interesting, and it will be nice to meet some of the new grad students. So I gotta go to the bookstore for a clipboard and some looseleaf... very "back to school" of me.

By popular request (of Léon), I'm trying to come up with a new contest. It occurred to me that it could be a seinfeld-esque contest, but frankly I don't want to know about those things.

So instead we could have a photo captioning contest. This shot of Harper is rather good... points for wittiness and originality. I've decided to make this a regular feature of the blog, generally I'll use politicians, but any bizarre photo I come across could do. Feel free to send me ones (or links to ones) you feel could be fun.
Suggested caption to get you going:
Stephen Harper seeks US president George Bush, with whom he is playing a game of 'hide and go seek'.

or perhaps simply:
"Harper looks forward."

Results whenever I feel we've had as much response as we're going to get.

back to blog life

2006-09-08T16:27:00.000-06:00

hoi hoi lowly mortals.

I have returned! Triumphant and glorious and honourable it is. The flights were fine, this time there weren't 18 screaming babies in the seats around me, just one girl behind me who had altitude sickness, but mercifully she refrained from projectile vomiting over the seat and onto my laptop. In fact she wasn't sick at all.

Also, for the first time ever I was able to see, by craning my neck to look rearwards out of the window, the contrail forming from the engine exhaust gases. This was because for the first time I was towards the back of a plane and we were heading towards the setting sun (which illuminated the contrail). It was basically an orange-tinted wisp of cloud, but very thin and moving backwards at tremendous speed.

Anyway I've been screwed over by the fees office... thankfully the department financial secretary is great and helped to sort things out, but I still had to go to the fees office, on the friday of the weekend before classes begin, to pay the $70 I owed. It was a nasty lineup but I just took a number (why doesn't UNB use that system?) and went back an hour later. Then a half hour after that. Then finally I had to wait another 45 minutes for it to go from number 332 to 335. So all in all not a productive afternoon.

But on to far more interesting topics, like my grand plans for the web. I plan to shock and amaze all with my forthcoming NEW BLOG (and subsidiary glossary blog like Thérèse has). Many of you will not give a tinker's cuss about the new blog, but never fear, grumball will still exist and be my main life-update one (and posting place for amusing pictures, and for whatever else I feel like, as usual). The new one will be updated less frequently but it will take some time to construct the glossary anyway. It's really very simple: this is going to be about cars. In particular, cars that I plan to test drive this fall, and perhaps news about cars that are soon to be unleashed upon the market. The posts may get technical, hence the need for a glossary, but I'll be sure to write in such a way that any barely-literate person could understand it. eg: "car go fast". Perhaps that'll be the title of the first post, which does indeed reflect my opinion of the vehicle I tested in freddytown two weeks ago. I'll be trying to show as objectively as possible the benefits vs cost of each car. I'm toying with the idea of a rating system that works by judging the features of the car versus the cost.

At present I have no intention of acquiring a car for myself. Just testing a bunch of awesome ones for fun.

Anyway I'll be continuing to check up on the blogs of y'all, so long as they're not just blogs of yore.

ochotona princeps

2006-08-17T15:40:00.000-06:00

This is the American Pika (picture is mine (and cropped), taken about five days ago on the ridge north of Soards Creek, BC). It's a lagomorph (rabbit family) that looks like a hamster, and goes "EEEEP!!" rather loudly. They are absolutely hilarious. There were about five in and around the loose rock piles of our last camp kitchen area. They spend the 2.5 summer months collecting grass and essentially curing it into straw by leaving it in a pile in the sun for a day. They then store it all deep in their burrows in the rock falls, and eat it over the winter (surprisingly they don't hibernate). They are amusing because they'll steal each others' piles of grass, and chase each other around, making loud insistent "eeeeep!" sounds.

It turns the quiet mountainside into quite a vibrant community, when there are also the whistling marmots, the screaming birds of prey, the rockfall-causing goats, the chattering ptarmigans, the squeaking ground squirrels, and the cluster of sparrow-like birds that bombed us with rocks.

One particular pika, over the course of a few nights, shredded the spongy foam of my sandals (as they sat in the vestibule of the tent, a few centimetres from my head), presumably for nest insulation material. It also left a lot of little shits on my "doorstep" for me to find each morning as I pulled my boots on. Bastard. I chased it whenever I saw it. It would run under a rock, then as soon as my back was turned it would run out and "eeep" at me. Such insolence. They'd make an amusing pet though, if you could get them to scare the shit out of your guests by "eeping" loudly at them when they least expect it. Your average run-of-the-mill pet hamster, gerbil, rabbit, or rat will not do that.

Any pet with the ability to surprise or shock people is good in my book. So the monkey that dances for you then steals your wallet, parrot that asks for a cracker then tells you to fuck off, or small fake hamster that can ruin your eardrums are all good. Marmots are loud fuckers too, but they're groundhog sized and so not as easy to keep as a pet. They have a shrill whistle that they give when they sense danger, or wish to chat with other marmots (or people pretending to be marmots). It is possible to have a good solid back-and-forth conversation with a marmot for several minutes before one of you gets tired of it.

You can see my video of Matt Callaghan of Arrow Helicopters landing the A-Star helicopter C-FKHG, directly beside me on the mountain, by clicking right about here. Or here. Or even here. But never here. Oh and it appears that google video has ruined the video quality. Bugger.

He always lands directly beside us and our gear, which is mildly distressing if you're not used to it. It's actually much safer that way than him being several metres away, where we'd be in danger of being chopped up if the wind suddenly caught the machine and tipped it sideways. Plus it's faster to load the copter if he's just right there. That's why pilots who aren't comfortable landing right beside us are not preferable. As an aside, it is rather difficult to hold the camera steady when you can't see due to the wind blast, and it's not a video camera by design (i.e. no picture stabilization technology or anything).

bye for now. Some interesting field stories to come, probably. Most interesting how we both escaped a very near call with a falling stone, moving so fast it was invisible. Probably chucked at us by the fucking birds.

update with photos

2006-08-06T15:54:00.000-06:00

I've left my bloody camera battery charger somewhere, and you can't charge the camera batteries by putting them in the camera and plugging it in. Doesn't work. Thus I'll probably have to buy a new charger, and another backup battery. It's gonna be at least a hundred bucks. Anyway for the last camp we had, I had to use the old "mercury cyberpix" camera that is three yrs old. It's not bad; it gets the job done (500 pics from summer '04 in the Monashees, 2075 pics from Europe summer '05). Here's a few of the nice pics it took for me over the six days.

This is Mica Creek (to right) and the Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH) "Monashees" heli-skiing and heli-hiking lodge (to the left). They're the ones we're in contact with every night at 7pm when we're in the field. Note how Mica Creek is rather small. Again: no groceries, no beer store, only a few houses and a lodge for hydro workers from the dam. It has lost it's classification as a village, and is not a proper community anymore. It was only a village when there were thousands there to build the dam in the late 60s - early 70s. There was everything a normal town would have, including a school.

Ten points and a degree in structural geology if you can describe the prominent feature in the above picture.

The lake, from the kitchen.

The lake, from the other side looking back towards the kitchen and tent (I don't think either are visible). The lake was warm enough to swim in, but we never did because we got mostly crap weather after the first two days.

The Mica Dam, with the Columbia Reach of Kinbasket Lake. Kinbasket is huge; it's mostly responsible for generating the crap weather we get. The dam is also huge; when finished in '73 it was the largest earth-filled dam in the world. It's not wide (as you can see) but it is very long (parallel to river direction). The slopes on the headwater and tailwater sides are very low angle, and at its base it's sthg like 5 km long. It also rises well above the headwater level, so that large waves won't wash over it (a real concern with a lake this big). Phil Simony, one of my supervisors, recounted how it took about five years to fill the headpond, during which time he was frantically rushing around in it, trying to map the available outcrops before they were flooded.

And lastly the tent, with the small pond nearby. This was on the morning of the heli pickup. I was expecting the copter in about 5 minutes. 7.5 hrs later they actually showed up. We passed the time by killing annoying insects, eating chocolate, throwing rocks at water and at other rocks, and finally by damming the pond by the kitchen until the flow was diverted elsewhere. I was rather pleased with our engineering feat.

Back in F'ton on the 23rd, there until the 7th or sthg. Hope to see as many of y'all as possible.

more headlines

2006-07-24T12:14:00.000-06:00

Hey yo. Big troubles getting into another fly camp; tons of fires around (weather hot and breezy), and then last night a massive electrical storm passed through due to the intense heat and humidity in the Okanagan. All the pilots are rushing about trying to insert crews and observe fires and carry buckets. Anyway, so we're debating what to do right now. This afternoon for the hell of it we may go whitewater rafting.

Anyway here's some headlines. I love the absurdity of the first one.
"firm trying to be more customer friendly" - perhaps you shouldn't sit there with a massive machine gun turret pointing at whoever's sitting across from you...

that's just cruel.
hmmm... "a guy named 'Beast'". Yeah, sounds trustworthy.

This explains a lot about mucky's.

That's it for now.

is anyone reading this anymore?

back for a day or two

2006-07-18T11:56:00.000-06:00

thoughts go to shannon and family.

camp was good, except for losing two full days and about three half-days to rain (out of a full 11 work days). We're doing a short truck camp now, back on Sunday, then off on a week-long fly camp. Saw some pretty crazy rocks and minerals... found 10 cm + kyanites at one locality, 2-3 cm euhedral garnets at another. The scenery was pretty good too.This was the view as I brushed my teeth one morning.

Things are working out great with Cory (field assistant, or "monkey" if you like), as most of you know my memory is pretty useless, and luckily he's good at remembering stuff that I frequently forget. He's also learning quickly how to identify folds, get measurements, and obtain tricky samples.

Let me know about your summers.

over the hills and a long way off

2006-07-05T12:19:00.001-06:00

we fly sometime shortly after two pm (3 hrs). Still gotta buy our food for 12 days, but the list is made up and ready. Be in the field camp until the 17th. Lots of pretty pictures likely to come, as a result! Camp coordinates (NEMR, NAD83): 0384500, 5769300.

Cheers, and be safe... you people insisting on living among the dangers of human civilisation. I swear if there's some global disaster we're the most likely to survive.

PS Strip mining prevents forest fires.

over the hills and a long way off

2006-07-05T12:19:00.000-06:00

back in cowtown

2006-06-28T20:47:00.001-06:00

Got back last night around 3:30 am. Very very busy today, and will be tomorrow. Here's why I'm in town:

1) Process some samples (this avoids the mad fall rush when the sedimentologists bring in 1500 samples each and need thin sections)
2) Get more maps
3) Give my supervisors more than $3000 in receipts so I can get the money back and placate the good folks at VISA. (1663.70 in camping/field gear, 846.99 in food, 199.50 in lodgings (motel/campsite when in Revelstoke), and $300.16 in maps/airphotos).
4) Replace broken compasses
5) Acquire more stuff (inclinometer, altimeter, ice axe for Cory)
6) Write up a ridiculous time-wasting "occupational health and safety" report for the nervous office types and their lawyers, detailing our summer schedule (I'll make it up), daily workloads, our safety equipment, and a list of potential risks and how we plan to mitigate them. Obviously I'll flood the list with highly improbable risks in an annoying yet amusing attempt to comment on the ridiculousness of this exercise.

Our safety is and has always been paramount, and myself and my field assistant know exactly what to do in any situation. We have a nightly radio check-in with the summer caretaker at the CMH heli-skiing lodge, we have emergency radio frequencies for the operators at the Mica Dam, we have flares, thermal blankets, bear spray, rain coats, a serious mountain tent, at least 3 days of extra food every camp, extra gas, tons of bug stuff, gallons of sunscreen, and (soon) a shotgun. We carry rope, layers of warm clothes, lighters and matches, flashlights, ice axes, compasses, maps, and unreal numbers of granola and energy bars. We're more safe up there than the bloody idiots making us write this stuff up who drive a car in town every day.

Anyway, I'll write a detailed section on our contingency plan in case we run into Taliban. Steve very correctly pointed out that they hide in the mountains, and Osama may very well be up there (they've looked just about everywhere else). Obviously the plan will not involve calling up the US because they'd come in and bomb the friendly-fuck out of me and Cory, and Osama will probably get away.

Here's a nice pretty picture of the Soards Creek valley, where it hasn't been exploited by the logging companies. (Click on the photo... or perhaps even here for proper size.)
It certainly looks beautiful. It's just my little region of hellish mosquito-infested bog to map. Well okay... we won't be mapping in the valley at all. Little to no outcrop and terribly poor access... fighting through head high devil's club plants is slow, painful, pointless work. In that link note the poisonous nature of the nasty spines. My hands got a painful rash, but it's going away (next time will wear gloves).

In this shot Cory (my field assistant) is in thick ferns. I don't have a photo of the equally thick and deep devil's club. This is just to illustrate that what looks like a pretty open clear area compared to the deep forest is definitely not easy going. Half the time you can't see where your feet are going... not good when the ground has boulders and loose branches/trunks all over it.

Okay... that's enough. Unless I post tomorrow, or the day after, there will be nothing for a couple of weeks (unless no helicopters are available).

Cheers.

field report

2006-06-22T13:07:00.000-06:00

Camp 1 has been a success. We've had four days looking at rocks that I find utterly baffling. But that's the point; understanding begins with confusion. To compensate for my lack of comprehension, I've sampled just about everything in sight. It's going to be a long winter of looking at this stuff.

The weather's been highly erratic. It showers every day, but we also get a lot of nice sun. We hiked up into alpine on Sunday, through a burn above a logged area. The logging roads are brilliant; only built within the last couple of years, so they haven't had time to wash out, and they're not in use except for us and stoned tree planters. The only problem is that they're not on any maps (except Google Earth). They'll probably be on the airphotos I've ordered (more than $200 worth) since they were flown last summer.

We've seen a few black bear, no grizzlies. There's a young one we've seen twice at the same location on the highway from Revelstoke to Mica Creek, and from high up on a logging road on the mountain above our campsite, we saw two bear walking away from our camp. Thoughts of "Oh shit, they'll have wrecked the kitchen, and will be back for more" went through our heads as we quickly drove down to camp... but they hadn't touched a thing. In fact their tracks didn't even go into the kitchen area. If they smelled our food, the smell of humans was a stronger deterrent. And we did stink. Anyway we drove along the road honking and yelling to drive them away and reinforce their fear of us. Didn't see hide nor hair of them again.

Day before yesterday, at around 4:30 pm, we were working our way down a long roadcut beside a logging road, and just as we found the coolest thing I'd seen all camp, it started to pour. The rain ruined the outcrop, making photos useless. We planned to go back to it yesterday morning on the way back to town, but it was raining again. Anyway, we'll get to see it tomorrow if the weather holds. For geologists: it's a boudin of amphibolite, which has been refolded within a larger boudin of psammite. Amazing structure. I'll post a photo when I get back to town.

We're just going back to the field for another four day camp today, and then back in Revelstoke
on Monday, to pick up Dr. Phil Simony (my second supervisor) who wants to have a good day of fieldwork with us on Tuesday. That night we'll drive all the way back to Calgary, because I have to fill out three bloody hours worth of OH&S paperwork, a protocol the university has just decided to enforce for field groups (apparently there's been some sort of incident with another grad student this summer, but I have no idea who or what happened).

Okay, that's all for now. I don't know how much longer we'll be able to sit in the Best Western parking lot stealing their wireless internet.

Cheers!

back for two days

2006-06-14T17:11:00.000-06:00

So it's been an interesting couple of days. As the only person allowed to drive the rental truck, I had to: drive to Revelstoke on Monday, drive up to Mica Creek on Tuesday morning, around all the logging roads, and then back that evening (7 am to 7 pm almost completely behind the wheel), and then drive back to Calgary today. The highway stuff isn't so bad cause the truck has cruise, but the logging roads are tough and slow. My right calf muscle aches from pressing the pedals. Possibly I never got the seat adjusted properly.

Anyway the trip was great. I got to see my field area and now I'm really excited to get back there and get to work! The logistics problems kinda suck (it's a 2 hr drive from Revelstoke up to Mica, and there's no grocery or hardware store in Mica), but we'll work it out. Some excellent news is that there is wireless internet service (but no cell service) in Mica Creek, and although it's a secure network we should be able to get a password from the people up there (they're really friendly).

The logging roads are better than I'd expected, and we should be able to get a lot of work done from there. I already saw an awesome place where we can camp and then hike a short distance up the hill into alpine terrain with tons of rock exposure!

The truck is an F150 supercrew. It's absolutely huge. And when I say huge, I mean sitting in the driver's seat I can see over the roof of a Hummer. The truck is significantly taller than me. It's also very heavy, unfortunately (5577 lbs, or 2530 kg), which means that the brakes take a beating on the logging roads, and also that the 300 hp engine feels weak. However the truck does perform well on the logging roads, and it's very stable on the highway. It is not fuel efficient; on the highway we made 16.3 mpg, and I was light footed. It sucks for driving through downtown Calgary at rush hour, as I just found out. I'd rather have something smaller with a standard transmission. Like a Toyota Tacoma.

Here's pictures. This is from the highway between Revelstoke and Mica Creek, early yesterday morning.
This one shows the up-close power of the "macro" mode for rock photos (better resolution than the naked eye).
Mica Creek village is in the distance to the left of the truck (just right of the tree). Current population: ~30. Permanent population: 5. I'll get a shot of the truck with something for scale at some point.
I'll post photos frequently this summer. Do you wish you were a geologist yet? You probably will by August.

I'm done gloating now.

solitaire, creation pseudoscience, and wikipedia

2006-06-09T23:36:00.000-06:00

How irritating. This has never happened to me before (click to enlarge):
Even those of you who are unfamiliar with Spider Solitaire may still see the problem. You must have a card in each free slot in order to deal another batch of cards (in order to progress). Until now I thought the program had a built-in device to ensure that you always have at least ten cards left (before this I never had fewer than a dozen, usually about two dozen). The program has failed me though, and allowed me to complete a set of cards that leaves me with insufficient cards to place one in each free slot. Thus the game cannot allow me to continue. I thought, when I noticed this, that the game would allow me to deal more cards anyway, but it doesn't. Infuriating because it spoilt my (until this point) perfect 15 for 15 wins on easiest. On medium (two suits) I'm 12 and 5, and I've never been able to do it on hardest (four suits).

On a related note, my thrilling Friday night includes listening to Radiohead and various classical stuff while playing Spider Solitaire, Hearts, Freecell, and Minesweeper; and listening to very heavy metal while playing Critical Mass. I'm borrowing the idea of the US military that playing heavy/loud music while in combat is good for encouraging the troops. I'm doing better than I've ever done before in this game.

- four hours pass -

Wow. I just got totally sidetracked and spend four hours cruising Wikipedia. I do this regularly. Today I was reading and following links related to "Creation Science", and in particular "Flood Geology", a fascinating attempt to ascribe all observable geological features to the Great Flood. Marine fossils at mountaintops were first dealt with by Flood Geology. This was one of the very first geological theories, postulated in the early 1800s, but rejected by its own staunchest proponents (notably Adam Sedgwick, in 1833) when they found the overwhelming body of evidence does not support a cataclysmic flood, but rather time (on the order of millions of years) to form the features we can see. However, Flood Geology has seen recent revival among creationists, particularly the "young-Earth creationists", who try desperately to get everything to fit into accordance with an Earth history of 6000 years or so.

I'm sure I'll post again someday on the futility of debating creationists on their philosophy, I run into their work every now and again when searching the web for geological papers and stuff. Heated arguments between creationists and mainstream scientists are ongoing in forums the web over, and I was strongly tempted to post on a couple of them myself. However, it would be pointless. The standpoints from which the sides approach the debate are too different for any argument by one group to sway or convince any member of the other, instead strong arguments frequently generate anger and/or derision, and flaming.

I feel no hostility to creationists, they pose little threat to society and certainly none to science, although sometimes their tactics are irritating (selectively choosing data, even falsifying it, but only a few creationists actually do such things), and the possibility of teaching creationism in schools in the states is worrying. However, I found examining their rebuttals to commonly accepted geological theories quite inspiring! I like how they're questioning the norm, and I enjoy using the knowledge I have (still very limited) to try and challenge their interpretations. But only for myself. To actually argue with them, or collaborate with other mainstream geologists to do so, would be like trying to convince an anvil it is in fact a windchime: an impossible waste of time. You cannot ever successfully debate against faith.

Who am I to talk about wasting time...

Recent (within last month) Wikipedia research has included:

A lot of metallurgy, especially early methods of mining, refining, and alloying metals,
Histories of small and/or remote islands (eg. Kergeluen, Easter),
The war in Iraq,
More World War II history (the Brits in Africa),
Aircraft Engine technology,
Internal Combustion Engine technology,
More interstellar travel technology (inspired by watching tons of Voyager),
The plausibility of Star Trek and/or Star Wars type technologies in the future,
The waning "Trek vs Wars" debates about physics, weapons output, and scientific viability of technology, and
A fascinating look at how the most basic concepts and emotions are described by this encyclopedia (eg beauty, love, truth etc.).

Future topics for study include some of the physics I gave up when I switched into pure geology (gravitation, string theory) as well as some computer-related stuff to deepen my understanding of how this black plastic rectangle actually works. Also I want to learn more about "space tethers", since all that stands in the way of building one is the development of a strong enough fibre for the cable (carbon nanotubules present the most promising area for development).

This has been a long post, and it's a little thin on the amusing stuff I usually try to throw in to keep you motivated to read and return. If you got this far well done. Here's a quote from an angered scientist on a science v creationism forum: "Creationism is related to science in much the same way a meat grinder is related to a cow." I probably won't have cause to post again until I return from the three day scouting trip on Wednesday (things are boring as hell here right now, and I should have insisted more strongly on leaving 10 days ago).

Cheers.

no go on the truck borrow

2006-06-06T22:18:00.000-06:00

What a deal! This takes graverobbing to a whole new level...

Unfortunately my field assistant's father wanted payment for the use of his truck for a week, and to set that up through Ed's research account and with the university would have been something of a nightmare. Plus I got the distinct impression in talking to Ed that he wasn't going to happily fork over the cash for a trip that wouldn't actually get to my field area. Understandable. So we go first thing Monday.

My harddrives are full, again. I burned tons of stuff to dvds when I was back home, but I've acquired too much stuff since then. If you want a list of what I have send me an e-mail or catch me online, but I warn you - anything you request you likely won't receive until the fall when I've got some free time to burn and mail you stuff.

I'm listening to my new favourite song, Ritual by Meshuggah. They make excellent use of the root - minor second chords, which can be both hauntingly beautiful and forcefully heavy. I like using the minor second whenever I can, because with it the root note makes a major seventh, the root's minor third makes a major second, and the root's fifth makes a diminished fifth. Put another way, let's say we're in E minor (for guitarists' sake). Imagine the E minor chord: E, G, B (G-sharp would make it E major). If we then make a chord based on E's minor second (F natural); so with the F-C power chord in the base, then add the E chord on top, it can be made to sound fantastic. For best effect go F-C-G-E-B (base to treble). By adding the A we can give it a sense (minor/major). It would be best to add the A directly after the G thus: F-C-G-A-E-B.

Hah I wrote this as I'd play it on keys, guitarists like hoph will be annoyed. But it still has a nice resolution to E-B-E-G-F# (the E minor add nine chord). You could throw in a D# before the F# and you have something like the Bond chord (at the end of the theme).

Chords containing diminished fifths (also called the tritone) are my favourite. I've written whole songs based around the sound. It is complex and unresolved, can create a very eerie sense. The songs I've written are not particularly good, because they severely overuse the tritone, and it wears out the fascination. I am trying to incorporate the sound more subtly, but I find it difficult. Mostly because I enjoy the exercise of exploiting the tritone to the max.

I said way the hell back when I started this thing that I'd talk about music and my own interpretations of it. My way of understanding and contemplating chords is not exactly what they teach in musical theory, but it's close. The same chord structure (intervals between notes) creates the same effect in any key, hence actual note names are not necessary to write a whole song. It is entirely possible to write a song by only specifying the intervals involved. Although if the performer chooses a key too low or high the sound may be ruined. For instance my favourite chord:
Root, fifth, octave+major second, octave+major third, octave+major seventh, 2 octaves+diminished fifth (F-C-G-A-E-B above is this structure if you only go up from one note to the next). I do not have "perfect pitch", or the ability to know exactly what note is what when I hear them, or to be able to hum a "C" if asked to (I might get close). I work almost exclusively with intervals, when writing or hearing tunes.

Enough rambling about this. I'm done.

Cheers all.

annoyance

2006-06-03T13:23:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I posted.... not much has happened this week, except I've been rather busy finalizing plans for the field. Then on Wednesday my supervisor tells me he's not ready to go until the 12th. Luckily for me my field assistant can borrow his dad's truck. I won't go on logging roads in someone else's vehicle, but we can go to Revelstoke, do some hiking, and look at the local rocks.

Here's the main reason you always check my site: the amusing pictures from the net!
He's the coolest teacher ever. No wait... dumbest. Why the hell wouldn't you have it disarmed?!
A classic headline. So's this next one:
And then there's...

I know what they mean, but it's impossible not to picture a number of gorillas in suits taking turns at a microphone. But then of course just hurling bananas at the audience.

Anyway that's all for now. I'll post an update on the field situation later. Time to go hiking to test out and break in the new boots.

Cheers me 'earties!

let's go shoot some guns...

2006-05-28T16:17:00.000-06:00

I just got back from doing the "Canadian Firearms Safety Course" and can (once my licence arrives) legally store, transport, and handle non-restricted firearms (shotguns and rifles; handguns are restricted and howitzers are sadly "prohibited"). And discharge them, but only in designated areas, obviously.

The guys running the course, although friendly and effective instructors, were frighteningly hardcore. Like ex-Navy SEALs, SWAT members, and generally the kind of people who teach police and military personnel themselves how to use firearms*. But they weren't as scary as some of the other students. Who seemed altogether way too eager to get their hands on fully automatic assault rifles. Or the guy who failed the written part... It seems that some people just shouldn't ever handle a firearm. Yort** comes to mind. Anyway the test was designed by someone in Ottawa, so that any human being with more than 18 brain cells, a vague grasp of the English language, and a understanding of the idea that "guns are dangerous and the government wants you to handle them safely" can pass. Sort of like the "pleasure craft operator's licence" that I got three years ago. In a rather thoughtless manner, the lead instructor marked all the tests at the table directly in front of me and Erik, facing us, making it almost impossible not to notice the score of every person in the class. Almost all were high 90s (need 80 to pass).

However one test was singularly terrible. A mark around 50 was given. This test was intensely basic common-sense stuff. Like "firearms should be removed from potentially violent situations: true or false". You could pass this thing without the 6 bloody hours of course-time. To get it wrong implies that you have no sense of right and wrong, and may be a crazed automaton. The even more frightening thing is that he just had to take it again, orally, and was (from what I could tell) basically walked through it by the instructors (clearly it's in their interests to have a very low fail-rate). During the lunch break, the same guy warned me to watch out for badgers in the mountains. He insisted they were seriously dangerous, and dismissed the dangers of wolves, black bear, mountain lions, wolverines, and grizzlies. He was deadly serious about it, citing tales of badgers fighting bears and winning.

Anyway. I am not a fan of guns at all. I feel that that kind of power is in general more than any person should have. Especially those who are perhaps slightly - unstable. However, in the interest of protection from the hordes of marauding badgers, I'll take the shotgun.

I'm not some misty-eyed dreamer who just wants peace for all and for guns to go away. I take a more logical approach to my somewhat anti-gun stance... mostly I'm in favour of removing handguns from our society (since it's rather difficult to conceal a shotgun or rifle on your person), but it has to start with the illegal trafficking. To outlaw handguns would ensure that the people who get them are those who should least have them. It would be good if the police could use something just as quick-acting but non-lethal, but no such device exists (and the deterrent of death is important, makes the police fearsome). Hunting weapons are okay with me... while I don't condone hunting unless you're actually planning to eat the animal, I do feel a sense of self-preservation and won't mind having a shotgun this summer.

Anyway, since there's no way the police could ever shut down all the gun trafficking, things should stay as they are for now. And I don't want to say "more money for police" to shut down the trafficking. I've never had a bad experience with police, but it does seem to me that so often the wrong sort of person becomes a cop.

A perhaps controversial post. Speak your minds.

PS In a somewhat disconcerting turn of events there was NO firing of guns involved in getting this licence. That's like awarding someone their class 5 driver's licence after doing just the written test. Although that analogy doesn't entirely work because cars kill more than twice as many people per year in this country as guns (2752 car deaths vs 1125 gun deaths). Of gun deaths in our country, 81% are suicides, and the rest are homicides (12%) and accidental (7%). Actually there are more than twice as many cars in Canada than guns, so maybe the analogy does work (25 million cars, 11 million guns).

*I can honestly say that not one of the instructors used the word "gun" at any point, that I heard. It was always "firearm", which they pronounced "fyram" or "frarm".
**Name withheld to protect identity.

2006-05-26T16:45:00.000-06:00

Two funny pics today since there wasn't one yesterday.
Done and done. Sounds kinda like an ad for an action movie doesn't it?
"Fasten your safety belt... remove your dentures... prepare yourself for the wildest ride of this June..."
I'm a huge fan of anything that's been deep-fried in diesel. Also known as "fuel-oil flambé".

As I mentioned yesterday, I like my new boots. Tell me if you think they have any beauty (be it functional or aesthetic).

No more today because I feel very tired, which makes no sense because I slept for 10 hours last night.

footwear collection, thoughts on beauty, and tactical training.

2006-05-25T22:59:00.000-06:00

I swear all my footwear is entirely functional; I only have 8 pairs here. Sandals, flip-flops, court shoes, winter-type sneakers, good shoes, winter boots, backup hiking boots, and new hiking boots. The 9 pairs (sandals, winter boots, court shoes, sneakers, winter-type sneakers, work boots, beat-up sneakers (for lawnmowing), and two pairs of flip-flops) back home in Fredericton surely don't count.

I don't spend time thinking of shoes, nor do I gasp in amazement when I see a pair of shoes. I buy what I feel I need. But all this has raised some philosophical thoughts in my mind. I know many people buy shoes simply because they find them aesthetically pleasing (absolutely nothing wrong with that); I don't feel like that about any shoes I've bought, but I do see beauty in their functionality. Especially with my new utterly awesome hiking boots. I appreciate most of my shoes' ability to do what they're designed for effectively. Functional beauty and aesthetic beauty are not exclusive from one other. For example finely tuned exotic sports cars are often both gut-wrenchingly gorgeous and more literally gut-wrenchingly good at their abc's*.

I have no idea what I've been rambling about or what the point is.

I biked 14 km this evening to pick up my firearms safety manual; Erik found a place offering the non-restricted firearms safety course over one day. Prior to this it seemed we'd be unarmed since I couldn't find a course offered in time. But while I was away, he found this one-day course at the "International Tactical Training Academy". So I am to receive "tactical training", which will (I assume) enable me to replace people like Worf and Tuvok as a Tactical Officer. The course is all day. I guess we go over the safety and then practice firing some weapons. Maybe there'll be paintball. Anyway the upshot is that we be packin' heat this summer.

This has been another weird and disjointed post from grum. We now return to your regularly scheduled doldrums. Oh but comment first. I like comments.

* accelerating, braking, and cornering

two things

2006-05-24T12:19:00.000-06:00

I believe what is meant by this is that the machine will match your white fridge and dishwasher. However I prefer to think of a large device for crushing people like Kevin Federline.

On a second and absolutely hilarious note check out this ad by NZ vodka maker "42 Below". They have a cool website too.

I know my public... you're jaded and impatient and you want a very short post that makes you laugh. Like today's. Nevertheless I like writing loquacious rambling incoherent rubbish that may contain some subtle witticisms and hopefully a lot of big words. Today there's no time; I have to go meet my ex-roommate at a c-train station 40 minutes away because he stole my shoes when he left.

Cheers, all.

Friday night at the Snooty Fox

2006-05-23T18:57:00.000-06:00

As promised here are some wicked photos from my last night with some F'ton friends 4 days ago. This was a great test of the new camera, which performed brilliantly (note detail on fiver below). Some shots are blurred due to me not taking them. In fairness, Joe was able to produce some non-blurry ones too.

First: Me as the devil, or some sort of cyborg. I know this red-eye joke is long dead, but never in my entire life have I ever seen it like this (it's dark in the bar so pupils are large). My haircut is currently stupid because I'm going to grow it out over this summer. The transition phase is the worst part. Also I'm not going to shave, and right now my facial hair is also stupid. It will improve.

Next: Witness the Hotness. In particular of Shannon and Sarah. Also notice Joe's cold steel-blue eyes, and how they are almost exactly the same colour as his shirt. Joe, do you choose your clothing to match your eyes? Do you have a "hitman" alter-ego? L-R: Steve ("Shaggz" now with short hair but name has stuck), Shannon, Sarah (as of this evening my "fiancé"), Joe ("Hophus", or just "Hoph"), and Dan.

Next: The happy couple. Note: I'm only in it for the free trips (she's a qualified pilot).

Next: Shaggz and Shannon. I have no idea why his expression is like that. Perhaps he's laughing but very sleepy. Maybe he's on drugs, or perhaps the one or two beer he's had have had a rather unexpectedly sudden effect.
Next: Sarah, Hoph, and Dan. Dan may or may not be hooting. I have no idea whether Joe ever finished that sandwich.

Next: I have the camera soft-case on my right ear. It is possible Shannon is attempting to remove it with her teeth, or just extremely shocked by its presence. My expression may call into question the depth of my commitment to Sarah. A collection of trilobites is visible.

Next: It is possible that Sarah's level of commitment is also questionable. Note Hoph is doing a Groucho Marx thing. You should all rent "Duck Soup" if you've never seen it.

Last: The five dollar bill mentioned up top there. This was taken on the table there, with the "macro" mode on. This is why I got the camera. Think of the rock shots - I won't need a bloody microscope!
Note: Shannon, Sarah, and Dan: you need good nicknames. Other than "perv", despite that that moniker certainly applies; it would be confusing because it can apply to anybody.

Anyway it was great to hang out with all of you guys... Cheers for now!

amusing 24 hours

2006-05-21T21:46:00.000-06:00

I locked myself out of my room again. It was terrific; I stepped out of my bedroom for a shower, and pulled the door shut behind me. I hadn't realised the lock was on. I got out of the shower and found that everything - phone, keys, clothes - was locked in my room. My roommate has moved out, too. Thankfully I was able to borrow one of the girls' phones and call the landlord... who wasn't home. So I got to spend three hours watching the hockey game in a towel. Actually that's pretty much what my evening was going to be anyway.

Well no, that's a lie. During the 3.5 hour process of getting from the airport to my apartment last night, I apparently befriended some dude who I helped to get from the airport to centre street since he had no idea how to do it with the Calgary Transit. He called this afternoon inviting me over to watch tv and eat pizza, etc. I was thinking of having an "accident" in the shower and breaking an arm or something to get out of it, but watching the game in a towel has been far less painful.

The city was really weird last night. Here's a rundown of 9 pm to 12:30 am in Calgary, grum's perspective:

9:00 - stepped into baggage claim area at Calgary Intl., called home to inform Mum.
9:15 - got my one checked suitcase (heavy) and together with my bookbag (rather heavy) and carry-on case (very heavy), headed for the bus stop.
9:20 - Arrived at bus stop, found confused looking guy scrutinizing illegible bus chart.
9:45 - Bus arrived, driver told everyone the LRT system is in disarray.
10:20 - Bus reached Whitehorn c-train station.
10:40 - Train arrived and waited ~5 min before getting going.
10:50 - Train stopped after just two stations and we had to switch over to a train on the other side of the track.
11:10 - Got to stampede station and train stopped. Me and my new best friend ever started walking west towards centre street, and parted ways there.
11:20 - I continued with my unwheeled heavy, rather heavy, and very heavy articles for 6.5 long, sweaty, shoulder-killing blocks, unaware of the free buses linking the two ends of downtown in the stead of the trains. During this trek I observed three different SUV-style limos (hummer, excursion, and escalade based), and several huge swarms of crotch-rocket motorcycle gangs (or possibly the same one several times).
11:45 - I then saw the title on a bus: "free 7th ave shuttle" and hopped on.
11:46 - A highly ironic 100 m later the bus dropped me at the 7th street c-train station. I got on a waiting train bound for the northwest.
12:00 - Train left the station.
12:20 - Train got to Brentwood station (uninteruppted service for northwest I guess).
12:30 - I got home, with no strength left in my arms (barely able to form fists) and serious blisters.

I'm fine today except for horribly pulled muscles between the shoulders and neck. Plus my arm muscles are comically huge.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm so opposed to hanging out with this dude from yesterday... but I am fairly sure why. I have lots of male friends here, but almost no female friends, and frankly I'm getting annoyed with this situation. Even if things never go anywhere, flirting and joking around is fun. Anyway I don't feel I need any more male friends. Moreover, this guy is nothing like me. He works at telus selling phones, and has no plans to change that, ever. The guy has no aspirations, except buying a Civic in Manitoba for $1400 and selling it to "rich idiots" here for $4000. Wow it's not often I'm such a fuckin snob.

I figure if I can avoid the guy for the next ten days our friendship will wane over the summer. Unless "being apart makes the heart grow fonder" applies to male friendships, in which case I'll have to resort to the blessed relief afforded by the field shotgun.

This was just on the tv 2 seconds ago: Ed the Sock is addressing a guy who's just been given the underwear of three pornstars.
Ed: "So I see you've been given three thongs there."
Guy: "Can I sell them on e-bay?"
Ed: "No, I want to use them to make soup."

Another post tomorrow... selected photos from last Friday at Snooty's, with my fiancé. Cheers all.

In F'ton

2006-05-14T19:46:00.000-06:00

I have to move the laptop directly beside the wireless router to get any signal, so I haven't blogged since I left Calgary. It's awesome in F'ton right now. The weather is terrific, Shaggz happened to take this week to come home too, and it's been great to see old friends. Drinks have yet to be arranged with most; people were unready for my surprise visit. Mom was totally shocked! Thanks to Dad for picking me up from the airport in Monkeytown and pretending to be in meetings all day!

Unfortunately I have done none of the planning I was hoping to do from here; I really must call BC Hydro tomorrow and ask them if they'll let us live in one of their places in Mica Creek, or at least use a shed or sthg for storage. At least I will have ten days when I get back to Calgary. That's a decent amount of time.

Must arrange for more drinks with more friends.

Cheers mates!

wow.

2006-05-08T00:22:00.000-06:00

Actually "overwhelming" is probably an excellent term to use in this situation.

I am no expert on women and what to get them for valentines day... but I'm quite sure "arranging their funeral", whatever you take that to mean, isn't a good idea.

Sure these things need to be arranged... but not for valentines, surely. Ladies what do you think?

On another amusing note, I just saw Mission Impossible III. It was worth the $8.25 for 2 hrs of mindless violence. Cool special effects, typical complicated plot, lots of guns, planes, stuff blowing up, explosive charges in peoples' brains, action-movie-style romance, and of course masks. Acting not included. Seriously, that department was disbanded and most of the people went to special effects and plot complicatedness.

So all in all a highly forgettable movie, but yet enjoyable while you're watching it. At least, to me.

The best point, if I am to pick one, was the music. Some of the suspense chords were ingenious and I'd like to hear them again to pick them apart and understand them. It's tough to get the first time through.

Okay cheerio for now. And to those I e-mailed... this site is monitored by more people than you think. Please... think of your poor appendages when you make whatever comments you make.

the summer now begins

2006-05-05T16:57:00.000-06:00

My breakfast consisted of five strips of bacon, two easy-over eggs, a banana, a glass of milk and some toast with marmite. No pancakes though. I guess I'm not getting the nutrition I need.

I am now done for the term. I presented my 701 presentation this afternoon, was grilled a bit by my profs, and am now home, about to go get some Wendy's for dinner. I can now truly move into "summer" mode; there is much prep work to do over the next few weeks. Unfortunately my intent to leave in the middle of this month will not come to fruition. Ed's away from Monday until the 17th, and Phil's away from the 12th to the 24th. So we've booked the truck for June 1st, and will depart then instead. The intervening time will not be a vacation for grum, though. Oh no. I'll complain about it later; for now I'm just too happy to be done and free for the weekend!

Regarding the presentation... it went well, I thought, but was not easy to prepare. Imagine the following: You are to prepare a presentation. The subject is the geology of a certain area, and your information is to be gleaned from as many different sources as possible. The presentation is to be 15 minutes long, and (here's the kicker)... you are presenting to the two men who have contributed the most of anyone in the world to the literature you have been researching.

How do you present to an audience like that?!! The figures I used had been drawn by them... the data I used had either been written or reviewed by them... frankly I felt a little silly and totally intimidated. I guess the problem stemmed from my impression that the person doing a presentation generally knows a little bit more about it than at least some part of his/her audience. The discussion following my weak little spiel was long and actually extremely interesting... as they pointed out mistakes I'd made, but primarily lectured me on the detailed stuff I'd missed. In my defence you get no impression, from reading papers, of the behind-the-scenes scientific debates between authors, the different schools of thought, or the problems people don't know how to address (because if they don't understand something, they won't write about it because they don't like admitting that they don't understand). So my profs enlightened me. I got no impression of their impression of my talk. Actually I know my talk wasn't great; I put most of the effort into the paper, which they had at this point only had time to skim (seeing as I only gave it to them this morning).

Anyway I suggest you try lecturing the experts on something you don't fully understand sometime. It's a highly embarrassing faux-pas to discover you're doing so, accidentally, in a social context... its even more fun to deliberately do so in an academic context, for marks.

If there's even one person there who doesn't know the stuff it's okay... because you can be hugely general and "dumbed down" for them, giving large amounts of general background information to run down the clock in the guise of "scientific accessibility". And you can get away with giving no specifics because surely the experts present understand you're just trying to help the rest to understand the subject. At least you can fool yourself into thinking so.

Executive summary: It wasn't easy, or particularly fun. But I do feel confident that the paper is good, at least in terms of grammar and spelling and my use of good terms that make it sound like I know the score.

The score: Mica Creek 1, Grum 0. Now awaiting the results of round 2: reviews of my paper.
The final round is the mark for the course... and whether I feel it's decent.

Since Ed's away for the next 2 weeks I won't see the results of round 2 until then.

Okay bye for now... I'll soon post one of my nice sunset photos from my office window from the evening of the all-nighter on Wednesday night.

scam of sorts

2006-05-02T11:52:00.000-06:00

Hey yo

For some odd reason the internet (or just Blogger) is really slow right now. It's likely the university; this system isn't the most tyre-smokin fast that there ever was. Anyway this means I can't post a funny photo for today. The "upload photos" box won't open.

Regardless, on to the topic of this post... a subtle scam at Bestbuy. There's a promotion on right now, that's been on for a couple of weeks and has another week to go, where they give you a free HP colour printer ($130 value) when you buy a digital camera. I wasn't aware of this deal when I bought my camera yesterday afternoon, however they kindly pointed it out to me. Obviously I was delighted; the only extra expense was the $8.50 Alberta tax on printer cartridges, but I think you get that back if you dispose of them properly. Oh, and of course, printer companies don't provide any connector cables with printers anymore (lazy bastards). Only the power cords. So you have to buy one, and at Bestbuy they only had one type for USB... a normal USB 2.0 compatible cable with GOLD PLATED connectors. It cost $35 plus tax. I know... $43.50 for a $130 printer still isn't a bad deal, but it's still annoying when you weren't planning on getting one in the first place. So I didn't get the connector. Instead I swung by the dollar store today and got one for $2.00.

Okay this story sounds lame and whiny now. In my mind it was way better.

But really... who has ever lost data during a UNB transfer? I never have ("transfer reliability" was their reason for the gold plating). And I've certainly never felt that the superior conductivity of gold plating will help to make my data transfers more reliable. After all it's only a plating... the rest of the conductive material is still the stainless steel and copper and whatever else they use. And the cable is not the limiting factor in the speed of a USB data transfer. It's typically the speed of the device you're connecting to your computer (printer, camera, ipod, etc) that dictates the overall transfer speed.

Okay enough complaining. But if anyone can provide a convincing explanation why we need gold plated USB cables please do so.

Now time to research and write a paper that "may be too thick to fit in the mailbox" of my emeritus supervisor. Oh yeah... and it has to be written by Thursday, so I can present and defend on Friday. Oh and I also have to find two reviewers in addition to my two supervisors.

Fun times begin right now.

Cheers, mates!

Grum general update

2006-05-01T20:08:00.000-06:00

Some while ago I posted an image of a clipping, also from a police plotter, stating that there was a report of a "swanson chicken pot pie running east on Clay street". I suspect the chicken escaped from the pie and is now "at large". We'll keep you informed as this breaking story continues to break.

On a sidenote, recently I've noticed several incidents of people misusing "break" and "brake". Get it straight: to decelerate a vehicle is to brake (v). The device in a vehicle that decelerates it and/or keeps it stopped is called the brake (n). A brake (n) is also a device for crushing flax or hemp to separate the fibres. It's also a name for a type of harrow in farming. Any other time you want to use a word that sounds the same, use "break". I am a little obsessive about grammar and spelling. Feel free to mock any errors I make. Especially with witty reinterpretations of my intended meaning, with a total disregard for the principle of communicative charity. Joe.

Anway news from grum... I'm loading up on technology for the field; a new digital camera with fantastic closeup focussing for rock photos (it came with a free $130 printer through a bestbuy promotion I didn't even know about until I was paying for the camera), a (refurbished) ipaq for ebooks and papers in acrobat form, an extra battery for the lappy, soon an extra camera battery, memory chips (ipaq and camera), and of course the power systems for the field. Ed thinks just the motomaster battery on a full charge should be able to charge everything over a two week camp... but when you calculate the number of watt-hours needed and the number a battery will provide, we do need a bit of supplementary power. Items that need charging (decreasing order of importance): 2-way Radio, camera (two if my field assistant also has the built in rechargeable battery), GPS, satphone (don't know if we'll have one yet), laptop, ipaq, ipod (two if field asst also has one), and various rechargeable AAA and AA batteries for other appliances eg shortwave radio (but I could just get disposable ones and not worry about that drain on electricity). My flashlight is hand-charged. If only I could get more person-powered chargers (eg exercise bike)... my field assistant would really earn his keep that way. When we're with the truck it'll be no problem, we just have to make sure we don't drain the truck battery charging everything...

My bike is in terrific condition - better than new. I got high quality parts for the entire transmission instead of the quick-to-wear rubbish that came with the bike. The reason the bike is fairly cheap to buy is that Trek spent most of the money on the awesome frame (it's the same one used on their top-of-the-line bikes) and skimped on the rest. Anyway the bike feels fantastic now... shifting is quick and smooth, and it generally oozes long-term reliability.

ouch!

2006-04-30T23:04:00.000-06:00

Someone deserves an egging. Or perhaps a more distinctly Canadian attack... I call upon the mightiness of the Chicken Cannon. It should be filled with timmy's coffee, maple syrup, a beaver, and several ravenous grizzly bears.

PS It can't be a typo... it's spelled properly and capitalized. If you're more outraged than amused, or just want to know why, send email to cbicsmd@yahoo.com (I suspect that's it).

pros and cons

2006-04-29T13:33:00.000-06:00

Things that are good right now:
-My bike has been fixed and should be ready in about an hour.
-The next episode of Top Gear starts in 1 week, 23 hours, and 22 minutes.
-The weather is nice (overcast but good and warm).
-My field season begins soon.
-I will soon be done everything for this term of school.

Things that are not good right now:
-My bike won't be ready for at least another hour.
-The next episode of Top Gear doesn't start for another 1 week, 23 hours, and 22 minutes.
-The weather could be nicer (not overcast).
-My field season has not begun.
-I am not finished yet for the school term.

Being the incurable optimist that I am, the pros definitely outweigh the cons here.

I've realised recently that I'm an optimist to an extreme. Not in how I think things will turn out (eg. experiments, hockey games), but in how I perceive people and situations. It's not a conscious thing, I dunno why it is. Whenever I meet any person I immediately find the things about them that are positive, and generally ignore the rest (unless it's criminal or sthg). This inherently gives me deep respect for every person I meet (regardless of age, social status, etc), which is difficult to deal with at times (there are a few exceptions). This has got me labelled naïve, or a suck up. That I am a suck up is not correct. I treat everyone with this same deep respect, profs and classmates alike, and my enthusiasm for what I study leads me to converse with profs about it, which has been interpreted incorrectly (it was hilarious in field school since most ppl seemed to understand that, and everyone got a label from this particular character). Regarding naïveness... sure I was. And to some degree still am and will always be, but not as much as it may seem to some. However, I'm not stupid; I am aware of much. It's not correct to confuse optimism for naïvety and pessimism/cynicism for realism/experience. Anyway I think I may be all together too nice.

However in this case, the pros definitely outweight the cons; I'm always happy because I find the guilded linings to the worst situations. My satisfaction with life is through the roof. And nobody can complain about me being "too nice" without sounding petty.

So I'm not gonna change. I don't even think I could if I wanted to. I like being happy and enthusiastic; although I'm running out of words to convey my enthusiasm (awesome, fantastic, terrific, brilliant, excellent, sweet.... errrrrr... suggestions?)

Well this is an uncharacteristically deep post. Especially compared to the last few.

To quote The Cheat: meh.

more hilarity from planet earth

2006-04-28T21:11:00.000-06:00

The more I look at that expression, the funnier it gets...

I wish I even had the ability to pull a face like that. I guess it's sort of an embarrassed "oops", but I suspect it's more of an "oops I got caught" than an "oops I stole a gun".

Google Image Survey

2006-04-26T13:38:00.000-06:00

As promised, here's my copying of shannon's blog thing.

Answer the questions with images from google.

Your Name (check one at far left):

The age you will be on your next birthday:

The place where you live:

Your favourite colour:

The place you want to go on vacation:

Your favourite drink:

Your favourite animal: (it's the predator, not the snack)

Your friend's nickname:

The name of your pet:

Your bad habit:

Evening post

2006-04-25T20:47:00.000-06:00

My god do I ever hate shopping. Even for such things as power tools and field equipment. And Canadian Tire sucks at having anyone around to help you. If you embark on a quest to find staff, and do eventually find them, they have no fucking clue about anything.

Tomorrow, after returning an $85 car adapter for my laptop (I found a $29 150W converter that turns the car outlet into an AC 120V plug, which is more useful and not a ripoff), I'll post a similar thing to what shannon's got here.

Almost time for "House." Does anyone else watch that?

Kudos to these dudes

2006-04-25T15:20:00.000-06:00

It's good to see some guys taking pride in their accomplishment. I don't know whether this is exactly the sort of accomplishment to be terrifically proud of... but still.

How the hell did they manage it, anyway? Roll it down the side of the quarry?

Good job boys.

I want that.

2006-04-24T14:03:00.000-06:00

I guess I'd need a car first.

Had a terrific weekend of invigilating and then marking the GLGY313 final. If everyone did this sort of thing for their weekend, there'd be no wars, or murders, or pain... just 6.5 billion suicides. It sucks that much. I also spent a lot of time dispelling the dementia bought on by my all nighter, i.e. sleeping and watching downloaded Simpsons, Voyager, and MXC episodes. Ahh bliss.

Now to do grocery shopping and swing by the post office for a package I ordered. Details to come.

Cheers, all!

Now sleep-free for 30 hours and counting...

2006-04-21T13:13:00.000-06:00

Click for something that affirms what we always knew but didn't have the proof to justify mocking half a country over. aww hell we never needed justification. let alone proof. But here it is nonetheless.

I plan to stay awake until this evening.. so in the end around 36 straight hours. It doesn't compare to the thesis weekend, but it's up there. I guess the big difference is that I have to get up early to invigilate an exam tomorrow. I have to be back here at 7:30. You'd think a straight day and a half working here at the school would pay off some measure of debt to the gods.

But no. They're such a vindictive lot.

You know... that's a tempting offer.

2006-04-20T10:49:00.000-06:00

(click for fully legible)

I think I will. I'm sure the GLGY 313 students would enjoy knowing that as I mark their finals next week.

2006-04-19T16:00:00.000-06:00

Indeed.

I haven't posted in some time. While I could easily use the excuse that "I've been ridiculously busy," I would, of course, be lying. It's true I've had (and still have) horrific amounts of work to do, but I prefer to ignore it until I develop sufficient fear to actually do something. Which should be kicking in in about an hour, since this massive project is due Friday and I haven't started.

Anyway, I categorically refuse to offer any explanation for why I haven't posted in nearly a week.

Ahhhhh... on to writing a paper. No wait... I think I'll play a little "critical mass" first. Just to get in the right mindset for writing a paper. I find that firing missiles at enemy ships in 2D (but with cool illumination effects) gives me the drive I need to conquer my projects. Or fire missiles at them.

What utter bullshit. Spock's comment is disconcertingly apt.

to: complaints department, universe administration.

2006-04-14T20:01:00.000-06:00

Dear sir/madam/alien:

I wish to lodge a complain in the strongest possible terms regarding the intolerable treatment of myself over the last four or five Earth-days, by life in general. There is no particular sentient being to which my pains can be attributed or upon whom my vengeance can be exacted. I therefore demand compensation from the universe in general.

I demand no vast sums of resources or capital, but rather that: my right wrist, knuckles, and knee stop hurting, my bike be fixed before I go 600 km away for 4 months, my dinner cook itself, my two papers write themselves, and my ability to sleep be returned to me. Also I would like to regain the time lost today marking lab-midterms for nine straight hours (hence the damage to my right hand), preferably by having time slow down for the Earth hours of 12:00 am to 10:00 am tomorrow, April 15, 2006, to allow me to regain some of the countless lost hours of sleep from the last week.

Thank you and for fuck's sake hurry up.

Grumball.

P.S. If you feel like writing a master's thesis in metamorphic petrology, I could really use one on the metamorphism and structure of the Soards Creek area, BC.

Builder's chat-up lines

2006-04-12T11:29:00.000-06:00

For those of you completely incapable of linguistic extrapolation and in addition totally devoid of experience with British english, a "chat-up line" is a pick-up line. Now that my cruel and dismissive attack on my subjects is out of the way, here are a few chat-up lines that could be used by someone who works in the building trade, transcribed from my cd of the BBC's hilarious impromptu comedy radio show "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue."

"I don't just lay bricks you know..."

"I hope you don't mind a bit of banging..."

"If you're looking for someone who can be in and out within three weeks then I'm your man."

"D'you want to get felt laid down in the loft?"

"D'you want to find out why they call me "enormous bill"?... cause it'll be twice the size of your estimate..."

"You won't know I'm here."

and lastly...
"dear oh dear who put this in?"

And here's one of my favourite MXC contributions to the comedic arts, from the competition between the "porn industry" and "construction workers." The game is "dash to death" where the contestants run across an obstacle course set above muddy water. As usual Vic and Kenny are commentating.

Vic: "Here's Mike Sauszol, he's a sheet rocker moonlighting as a sink caulker.."
[Sauszol begins his run]
Kenny: "Sink caulker? So he likes doin' chicks in boats?
Vic: "errr, I wouldn't know, Kenny"
Kenny: "So, what's he do with his caulk?"
Vic: "He puts it in the crack."
Kenny: "Oh, so he's in porn then."
Vic: "Kenny! Listen! He's in construction!"
Kenny [confused]: "But.. k, err.. you say he sticks his caulk in the crack..."
Vic (under Kenny's line): "that's right"
Kenny [frustrated]: "...but he's in construction. I thought you said he was a sheep stalker!!!"
Vic: "I said 'a sheet rocker'! Plus, I was talking about caulking compound!"
Kenny [incredulous]: "He built a place to do this?!!"
Vic [frustrated]: "Caulking! It's used to fill cracks!!"
Kenny: "Am I missing something here?
Vic: "Well thanks to you, Kenny, we've pretty much missed the entire run..."

There are other, possibly better ones, but I watched that episode last night. I plan to transcribe more hilarity from both ISIHAC and MXC in future. There are a few "gardener's chat-up lines" and "musician's chat-up lines" so stay tuned.

You have my permission to go. Cheers!

2006-04-10T10:50:00.000-06:00

This is part of why 30.6% of Americans are obese. They eat donut sandwiches. Mind you that does sound pretty freakin' tasty...

I busted my bike yesterday in the park, well just the transmission system. I was most of the way through the park, about 5 km from home, when the bottom bracket went. That's the bearing system that supports the main crankset axle. It started creaking as I was climbing the hill (a long and arduous process) and finally, as I was trying to race across the dips and hills of the glacial deposits up top, the bearings disintegrated. I know this because the axle suddenly lost all solidity and wobbled inward on my downward pedal with my right foot, causing my foot to snap off the pedal and onto the ground, with a lot of force behind it. This resulted in a twisted knee. It's not too bad, I don't limp or anything, I just really feel it going up or down stairs. The worst part was, of course, getting home. My bike was immediately turned into a rather large and expensive scooter, with decent brakes and front shocks. I had to walk it up the hills, and scoot along straights (right foot on left pedal, push with left foot). This was not made any easier by the dislocated crankset axle, causing the pedals to be ridiculously wobbly. Thankfully much of the trip was down the hill, for which I could simply sit on the bike normally and coast. My complete inventory of tools for fixing my bike is:
1 Mole Wrench (aka Vice Grips for you non-Brits)
1 Set of 20 Alan keys (aka Hex Wrenches for the same)
1 Multi-bit Screwdriver (not useful for bike repairs)

I do not have the necessary equipment for removing pedals or extracting and replacing the bottom bracket, thus I must hence (scoot) to the nearest bike shop. To be done tomorrow. It's not a big deal, I was planning to replace some other transmission components anyway (the main cog rings have seriously worn teeth, and it needs a new chain), and some of the cables.

Okay, now that you're all up to date on Grum's bike, you can go back to whatever else it is (if anything) that you find remotely as interesting.

Cheers!

best suggestions of lost things and other stuff

2006-04-07T11:59:00.000-06:00

The best suggestions were brain cells and sanity, which are often related. Thus I declare trek and Sarah to be the winners. However everyone made excellent suggestions; keys and cellphone are annoying as hell to lose but at least replaceable. Such things are not the end of the world.

I was, however, disappointed that we didn't get any crackpot theories about the nature of the ether itself. For shame. I personally picture it as a sort of parallel universe, or better yet a "subuniverse" of this one. It would be an infinite white space, possibly foggy so you can't see very far. Breathable air and a ground surface with Earth-like gravity and physical laws. However all entirely white everywhere, providing no reference points at all. But then if you walked around you'd start to find things in the fog. Like socks, keys, brain cells, and the sanity of stressed out people. Sound wouldn't travel past your visibility range. I dunno why, it's just the way it would be. There would probably be a large population of sock gremlins, hanging out by portals that lead into dryers. Obviously these portals only open when the dryer is running, that's why we never see them. I'm convinced that the portals would be kinda glowing green and misty, bobbing in the air and possibly emitting a low humming sound.

Here's some more real headlines that crack me up:

I love the "smile of the week". I'd be smiling if I was going to buy some sheep. And regarding the one about breathing being good for you... why is it only "most" doctors?
The last one's a survey of Americans... the question starts "Now that Iraq has..." (then continues as you can see). That answer is simply fantastic.

one of the best e-mails I ever got:

2006-04-05T13:27:00.000-06:00

Hello Grum,

I haven't heard from you in ages! This can only mean one of two things. Either things are going so well that you have no need of my digital companionship; or, and I think more likely, one morning, just before you could put on your shoes, you were kidnapped by overweight, radical Iranian nationalists and flown to South America on a pedal plane, where you were suddenly attacked by an indigenous tribe of cavemen wielding crossbows, forcing you to crash-land in a crocodile infested river where your overweight captors were devoured. Using a combination of luck and a piece of the wreckage, you were able to skin a nearby crocodile and fashion it into a handy pair of shoes which you used to walk out of the jungle and into the dessert--a large bowl of ice cream that completely ruined your left shoe. And so, you had to hop the rest of the way to the Pacific Ocean, where you were hired as a circus freak for having such a muscular right leg.

The circus travelled to Europe and made its way through several countries that were still vying for EU status, with the result that the circus was poorly attended as everyone was too busy trying to look as sophisticated as the English. This meant that you had to go without food for several days, and soon both your legs were the same size again. As you did not want to lose your position as circus freak, you fashioned some elbow spikes out of some soap, but due to a terrible pun you were arrested as an ivory trader.

While in jail you met a strange old man who claimed to know the ways of the force, but he turned out to be nothing more than a poorly-spoken physicist. Nevertheless, he was able to help you escape by tunnelling under the walls. Due to a miscalculation of standard deviation, you surfaced inside a magnificent movable pyramid that was abandoned by the Egyptians soon after chariots were invented.

I suspect that you are now driving the pyramid back toward Calgary, and are endeavouring to install a powerful Wi-Fi antenna in the pyramid in order to contact me before you arrive. It's obvious to me that your lack of communication thus far is simply due to the difficulty of placing your large rod in an Egyptian beauty while travelling at speed.

Cheers,

Joe

----------------------------------

Thanks Joe... the physicist is working on a supercharger for the pyramid's V8, and Egyptian Beauty is proving very receptive.

random and new contest

2006-03-30T18:35:00.000-07:00

My obscenely powerful laptop confuses my supervisor with its speed.

It's a long and boring story, but it was kinda funny at the time. Everything worked out in the end. Oh and he gave me a laser printer for free, although the connector cord was somehow lost in transit so I've e-mailed lexmark to ask them for one. This is really ridiculous... I had to pick the printer up, move it about 15 paces from his office to mine next door, then go back for the power and USB connection cords. The USB connector was not there. We both looked everywhere, several times, to no avail. I surmise that it has vanished into the ether, along with my "the matrix" soundtrack and collection of metal pen tops, and many other things over the years. It may be for the best since the cable was frayed and looked like it wouldn't last much longer anyway.

I bought a USB flash key today... 2Gb for $130. It's freakin' tiny. I'm comparing it to a piece of "trident" chewing gum... it's the same length, about 1.5 times wider, and 1.5 times thicker. And that's with the protective "skins" and the cap on. Good thing it comes with a lanyard. No, I don't wear it around my neck as a fashion statement. Although since it's the peak of the tech, I'd surely be the most stylish of the geeks if I did.

There's lots to post about today. I got a hilarious e-mail from Joe that I'll share with you all soon. But I'll allow a day for the complex yet subtle nuances of this post to sink in first.

It has occurred to me that a good new contest would be the following:
What's the most annoying thing you ever lost. It could be annoying because it was of great value (monetary or emotional), or because you had it two seconds before and it vanished, as my printer's USB cable did, into the ether.

Socks are prime media for entering the ether (and are the only known objects to occasionally return from their adventures), I think the heat and whirling action of a dryer is particularly effective at attracting the holes in our universe that allow access to the ether. But the holes are only big enough for socks in this environment (think of the bubbles in a blender full of water; the blender cavitates the water and makes lots of bubbles, but they are small and fleeting). Other suggestions or theories that you've come up with regarding the ether and access to it are welcome. Or choose from this selection of rather star trek-ish suggestions, compiled by me with great scientific rigour, i.e. off the top of my head: Wormholes, mini black holes, galactic-fabric discontinua, temporal flux (a favourite), subspace rifts, or eddies in the space-time continuum (yes, but how did he get in there?...). Oh and I suppose the book and concept of "The Borrowers" can explain this, but that's hardly science. Jenn's suggestion some weeks ago of "sock gremlins" (was that it?) is certainly worthy of note. Perhaps these gremlins dwell in the ether. Maybe Eddie himself is a gremlin.

Thus Ends Transmission.

PS "Galactic Fabric Discontinua" would be a fantastic band name.

2006-03-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

Greetings loyal subjects.

I apologise that you haven't had a note from your king in some time, but I've been very very busy. Taxes, nserc forms, becoming a member of APEGGA, looking for apartments, dealing with course stuff, preparing for labs, reading, writing letters, meetings, and particularly geothermobarometry have been taking up my life this week.

And I still haven't sent Joe his birthday present. I'm really sorry Joe, I swear it'll be with you soon!!!

APEGGA is the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists, and Geophysicists of Alberta. I was not really interested in becoming a member at first, but then I saw that it allows me to stick the letters P.Geo ("professional geologist") after my title and degree, and more importantly I may get a sweet deal on car insurance as a member, to the effect that owning a car might just be a possibility. I just need to fill out an application form and stuff, and then apply to a certain insurance company that has this deal with APEGGA. In any case I wouldn't get a vehicle until after the field season.

The weather has been awesome here for the last five days or so. 6-8 degrees every day and sunny. The rabbits are out again, in force. I saw four last night near my house, and they're starting to develop brown colour on their backs. That or they'd been rolling in all the mud. Biking on Sunday was ridiculous... I went into the park for the first time (on bike), and spent three hours fighting through the most horrendous sticky mud ever. It was so sticky that it increased the diameter of my tyres by several centimetres, such that it was being peeled off by the forks and the frame, and the brakes. This stickiness also stopped it from flicking up at my coat, so my coat is still clean. My pants, socks, and shoes are not, but they're all old and I don't care. It took half an hour to clean the bike when I got home.

My tellular cellaphone stopped working for no readily apparent reason on Saturday afternoon. I'd been speaking on it that morning and it hadn't left my desk. It's fine in all respects except that it gets no reception. I took it with me biking, in case a tower was down or something, but from the top of the hill with a panoramic view of the city there was still no signal. Took it back to the store Monday night. The surly clerk threw it into a bag to send it off for fixing, and gave me a crap replacement. It's bulky, heavy, low tech, and has no scheduler (I may be screwed). I'm liable for a totally mind bogglingly ridiculous $400 if I lose or break it. It's not worth a tenth of that. What a fucking scam. Ten days I'm stuck with it at least. So it's staying at home. I'm not bringing it out with me at that alleged value.

BAH! enough ranting/complaining. Good day to you my people.

Friday fun

2006-03-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

It's Friday and that's awesome. I have a meeting with a supervisor at three (15 min from now) and I'll be heading to the grad lounge at 5 for beer and dinner, and beer. I decided not to replace my blogger photo with the one from the previous post because I look like I'm about to murder you all, and also because the photo needs to be much much smaller for blogger to allow it, and I'm a lazy lazy man.

Please take five minutes of your day to laugh and relieve tension. Here's a python sketch I'd never seen/read before to help you. God it's funny.

In brilliant awesome news I got my nserc grant and will likely get a nicer apartment for next year. No car though, I did some math and discovered many things to convince me it's not worth it. Even considering the fact that a car would be more to me than just transportation.

Time to roll the rim...

Damn. Only one win so far this season: a donut.

I have discovered the terrific joys of "three cheeses" pasta.. you know it's like pasta containing cheese. Chiefly my love of these things stems from how much they facilitate laziness, here are the instructions:
1) Obtain pot.
2) Obtain water, place in pot.
3) Place pot on stove ring, apply maximum power.
4) When water boiling, place pasta in pot.
5) Wait 5 minutes or so... or whenever they taste right.
6) Eat like a starved madman.

You may well say that these instructions are very similar to your regular pasta cooking instructions, but yet... out of the same amount of work you get a full meal, not just part of one.

These are almost as easy as the canned stews and soups I so enjoy. Perhaps soon I'll combine the two meals into one awesome feast, at little expense of my valuable slacking time.

Should be 6 degrees and sunny tomorrow. This calls for biking.

Cheers mates!

2006-03-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

I republished my entire blog and now I can see it all again. Although apparently none of you had any trouble with it. Weird.

Finally, the results of the parental advice suggestions:

Best one ever: "Don't be freeze until you see penguins." (translated from Spanish)
Although she didn't credit herself I believe it's Tobin. So congratulations!
Runner up: "Never pee on an electric fence."
From Jenn. This is of PARAMOUNT importance, especially to us guys. Thank you Jenn, I will never be able to look at an innocuous wire fence the same way again.

Took this picture of me recently to replace my current one for the blog. In order to get it online I'm just gonna post it here. I'm not a fan of "hello" or whatever. The "camera in the mirror" style is Travis'. I may replace it though, because I look absolutely furious about something. And I've had a haircut.

This weekend rocked; we went drinking for Patty's day, and last night went to see V for Vendetta. Please see it, it was awesome. Then we can discuss Orwellian control structures and governance, and how best to avoid them as a society. Hugo Weaving is brilliant.

Cheers mates!

Strangeness

2006-03-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

For some reason I am still forbidden to view my blog. Why does the system hate me? Thus I'm still unable to review the suggestions from the parental advice thing... forgive me please!

I just watched the Swedish rally from last month, downloaded through bittorrent, of course. It was terrific, with some incredible driving and an awesome race for third between an Italian and a Swede (fighting for his first podium finish ever, and on home turf too). It was a rally through snow and ice, and saw a fair few wrecks and rolls, but as usual nobody was injured. It's always hilarious, though, when on the onboard camera they bleep out the swearing in languages I've hardly ever heard spoken, like Finnish.

[Car heading for bend at high speed.]
Navigator: "Haank eratlooonefsn, derrrptnoorkt..."
[Car enters bend too fast, the tail catches the snowbank during the slide and spins the nose in, the car flips onto it's roof, breaking all the windows, and slides through the deep snow. The navigator is almost buried, upside down, in snow that flies in.]
Navigator: "ka-funmkee stoghllllenna torrristooonten!"
Driver [fiddling with fuel cut-off]: "BLEEP!!! Herrasuuma flornsch!!! BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!"

Then I tried to watch the Bahrain Grand Prix race, also downloaded last night. Unfortuately the version I acquired is not the typical production with the british announcers which is at the very least understandable, if not always the most scintillating reporting. No, I somehow got a version in portuguese, which I cannot understand a word of. I catch a driver's name every now and again but I have to rely on the ticker/pop-up info, which is in english (must piss of the portuguese viewers), to understand who's in what position or who just spun off. After about five minutes it had pissed me off enough that I just skipped to the end and watched the last lap. The Honda team is my favourite, even though they probaby won't win this year. They have Button, the young skilled Brit, and Barichello, talented but generally always overshadowed by Schumacher during his last seasons with Ferrari. On Sunday he didn't do well, finishing 15th. Button was fourth. Kimi Raikkonen was third, Schuey was 2nd, and Alonso won it.

Anyway, my 20-ish knights are seeking those that would lock me out of viewing my site, and will commit horrible deeds against them unless they unblock it. In more reasonable parts of my mind... it has occurred to me that if I get 403'ed, it's very likely that you all do as well. Therefore, at the moment, this post is pointless.

meuh.

Midday blog thing

2006-03-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

And hence, the King opened a new Firefox window with ctrl+n, and he did indeed access his bookmarks, for to click upon "The Everyday Happenings of Grum", such that he might review the parental advice suggestions from his loyal subjects. However, all was lost, as the site spake the fateful words "down for maintenance". He considered the possibility of seeking out those perpetrators who were thus responsible, whence he decided to send instead a score of his most highly trained knights to deal swift justice. In the meanwhile, he was still able to enter new blog entries, and did thus, with intent to log his glorious exploits for all the interweb to observe.

And hence it was.

For details read previous. To save time read this one.

2006-03-13T22:05:00.000-07:00

The famous "Via Appia" was of course known in the army as the "Appia Pipe."

If you get that joke, let me know. I bet none of you will.

In other news, the previous post was way too long. Here's a nice short recap:

I got drunk on Friday night at several venues.
I went skiing on Sunday at the most awesome ski hill ever.
Today I used the electron microprobe.
Plus other rubbish about auto racing games.

As a followup: NFS Most Wanted sucks for physics model. As such I bought the xbox (no, not the 360), with Forza motorsport, and a wheel. I'd rather have material goods than a slightly higher number in TD bank's computers.

Cheers mates!

Awesome Weekend

2006-03-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

Hello friends... sorry, again, about the lack of posting.

First, there was nothing. Then there was beer. And then Grum chugged that beer within 4 seconds, in honour of Andrew's and Joe's birthdays. Although Joe wasn't there.

I only did this once on Friday, but I still drank a hell of a lot. It started after "FATS" (Friday Afternoon Talk Series), which was a really good talk about the Permian-Triassic extinction (the largest known, during which 95% of species became extinct). We (about a dozen grads) went to the Grad Lounge for drinks and dinner at about 5:30, and it was good fun. At 6:30-ish I left to grab a quick shower at home and change, and then headed downtown to an Irish pub called "McCools", where Andrew (geo buddy from UNB days, whose birthday we were celebrating), Will (friend of his), and a friend of their's Leslie had been eating. After a couple of pints we headed to Rich's house (another new friend) for more beer, and drinking games, at which I had my boddington's (which is great stuff), and Andrew got really hammered on gin and tonics. Then we went down the street with a bunch of the other people who were at Rich's place, to a bar called [something beginning with 'T']-house. I want to say "Taphouse" but that's not it. Anyway, there I showed off my chugging talent, and everyone got thoroughly loaded. Andrew and Will especially, possibly since they had both recently split with their girlfriends. After leaving that place we went over the street to another bar called Molly Malone's, where we soon got kicked out because Will was mindlessly (but still deliberately) pushing glasses off the edge of the table and smashing them. He wasn't angry or anything, it just seemed like an interesting thing to do at the time... Being a good friend I helped Andrew home, and slept on his spare bed since the buses and c-train were no longer running, and I had no cash for a taxi. Saturday I wasn't too hungover (I was able to eat and keep down a huge greasy breakfast, which is unusual for me), but still tired and basically out of commission for the rest of the day. I watched bond movies on my computer (note: Timothy Dalton sucks as bond... he's too angry, not suave enough). I went to Will's place at about ten that night with all my skiing stuff, as we planned to leave at 6:30 for a ski hill 2.5 hrs drive to the south, called Castle Mountain.

The drive was clear, the day was beautiful. I have never seen snow like that back east.... even right after a serious snowfall. The problem back east is that the mountains aren't as tall or as steep, and they groom everything. This was the proper skiing through untouched snow... and I can honestly tell you it's very hard work. It puts a lot of strain on your legs, ankles, and back because you have to force yourself to turn in the deep soft snow. But it was the most awesome skiing I've ever done. Being unused to it I fell several times, but never badly since it's so soft. But the steepness meant that skis could fall down the hill a long way, despite their 'brakes'. For true powder skiing I need to get to one of these hills first thing in the morning after a big snowfall. Also I need my own skis, since the rentals were complete rubbish. They were heavy yet flappy, and the bindings were rubbish. Plus the edges were far from sharp, and they seriously needed waxing. The lack of speed didn't bother me so much, but the lack of good edges was quite concerning at times (eg when I failed to turn properly on the steepest slope I have ever skied, bar none). This, and their refusal to put the bindings any tighter than level 6, combined with my lack of experience with this stuff to cause my many falls.

Regardless it was an awesome day and I was super tired by the end of it. I slept solidly for like 11 hours last night. Pictures may be to come, but I fear my camera was (again) in the wrong focus mode for most of the day. I've done this way too many times. Another particularly bad time was the day shaggz and I went biking in Tuscany. I lost like 15 pics of tuscan countryside.

Was on the probe this morning, looking at muscovite. It took three hours to properly calibrate the machine, and pick our points to run. Then we found out that it was likely (due to very high Na in the muscovite) that the mineral was altered and would be useless for geothermobarometry.

Bah! Oh well. I have grand plans to purchase an xbox tonight, but I may chicken out at the last minute, when standing before it in best buy. They have a pretty good deal on the old ones; $200 gets you the machine, 2 controllers, and 2 games. One of which may be Forza Motorsport, which is presently my motivation for getting the system. I've tried out demos of most racing games available for pc, and the best physics models still can't reach the level of Forza. One more to try later today before going out is Need for Speed Most Wanted. I tried it in a game store a few weeks back but found the simulation totally unrealistic. With any luck there are different levels of driving realism (I found this to be the case in a rally game I got in January).

Sorry about the long post. I will endeavour to get back into the habit of writing more often, that way I can keep the length down.

Cheers!

Piracy is good

2006-03-05T15:18:00.000-07:00

Hi all! This be just a quick scratch in the ship's log 'afore I go cycling through the snow.

I do a hell of a lot of downloading of stuff these days. Illegally, of course. It now seems that the MPAA is suing search engines that provide links to bittorrent files (not the actual files themselves). And consequently there's been a lot of internet chatter about it. A comment in the isohunt forums made a rather apt analogy; it's like you're asked directions to the bank by someone, that person then goes and robs the bank, and you are arrested as an accessory. Although I suppose they will argue that a) you are aware they will rob it, and b) you are sending millions of people to do it every day. However, other good points have been made, such as the fact that just because a file says it is a particular movie/tv show, that in no way means that it is what it claims to be. There are innumerable false files out there that could actually contain perfectly legal content, and also files that could appear to contain non-copyrighted content that actually are pirated movies. The contention then, of course, is that in order to know for sure, someone has to download every single file to see whether it is illegal or not. Of course this is ridiculous, considering the millions of files available (a few dozen terabytes of data).

Anyway, instead of fighting the trend towards rapid direct distribution of audiovisual media, the industry should embrace it, as it is the new wave. If you want to hear an Australian professor's opinion, which I think is very sound, read this article. He basically presents a viable economic model for the new distribution system that keeps everyone happy and doesn't require that anybody sues anybody or even go out of business.

You can also download a video recording of the lecture, through bittorrent of course.

Cheers!

Ceilidh

2006-03-04T14:53:00.000-07:00

I went to the geology dept Robbie Burns day Ceilidh last night (yes yes yes a month late). It was great fun with lots of scotch, scottish dancing, and of course haggis. There was a live celtic band playing (who have been doing the geol dept ceilidh for 15 years running) and a piper too. Basically I was there to finally meet some people, since it was the first social event for the department since I got here. Thus I didn't drink much. The event was an hour's walk away; luckily I got a drive home. I hadn't meant to walk the whole way, but while I was walking not one single bus with a number that could get me there appeared. Probably because it was snowing heavily so they were all behind schedule. Made the walk quite nice though.

I'm out of food basics again, like beer. Also milk, bread, margarine, cereal, and eggs. So I'm going to the co-op cause I really want some toast right now. Might go biking out in the direction of the Irish Cultural centre just to explore those neighbourhoods. There's so much suburbia out here it's ridiculous. The entire walk last night was suburbia. Every time I've gone biking I just can't seem to get away from it! Except for the three shopping centres and the university, and the corner stores, this whole NW region of Calgary seems to be suburbia. It's huge. Basically the city can be divided into three parts; the commercial district downtown, the industrial district to the east (south of the airport), and everything else, which is suburbia with the occasional mall/shopping centre, university, or park. Oh yeah there's also the native reserve in the southwest, but it's only partly within the city limits. I suppose most cities are gonna be like this, but here I just find it amazing how there's so much housing (that all looks exactly the same) for middle class types.

I watched the simpsons episode where they move to Globex Corporation's Cypress Creek perfect town just now... it's possibly the best one ever. Hank Scorpio is a brilliant character, and I think that the perspective on the typical "bond villan" is absolute genius.

Enough for now. Cheerio mates!

meuh

2006-03-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

I've become such a blog slacker. I guess probably because it takes three extra clicks to get to the "create post" page to create new words, rather than the one it takes to get to the blog page to read my old words which are, of course, sheer literary brilliance. But seriously, I haven't had much to write about. And now I could spend ages telling you all gleefully about my new clothes in great detail, my trip to the music store (I left empty handed, unless you count the $4500 I saved by restraining myself from getting the keyboard setup I want), or TAing yesterday, but I won't because you won't find it interesting and I don't want to bother.

I must apologise to those I usually chat with in the early (for me) evenings. Since the Bond series download finished on wednesday I've been doing the same thing every evening; I get in around 6 or 7, make dinner, and eat it while watching a bond movie, and maybe an episode or two of simps. Thus it's usually 9 or 10 by the time I'm free to chat... and you've all gone to bed. So for the last week or so I've been incommunicado with ma peeps from the East side.

Haven't been able to bike much because as soon as I put my bike back together the weather decided to remember about Calgary being in a fairly northern climate... and has dumped about 40 cm of snow over the last week. I went biking several times anyway, but the salt will damage the bike so I'm going to limit my cycling acitivities until it's not so snowy/slushy.

I've realised that my rip to wrench exit signs off the ceiling has nothing to do with my mood at the time; I can be quite happy and relaxed, and still I'll see one and feel compelled to wrench it down. I guess I just know that whatever the situation it would be a very satisfying thing to do.

Someday I'll do it for real.

Tonight is Robbie Burns night for the geo dept. Yeah we're late but who cares. $2 single malts, haggis, and all sorts of scottish-type things.

Soon I'll post the results of the somewhat lacklustre parental advice contest.

Cheers mates!

Semi-drunken rambings

2006-02-26T01:12:00.000-07:00

Had a few drinks and played some sorta low-key drinking game with a bunch of guys (and one girl) tonight. It was good fun. We also had family guy, then Dane Cook playing in the background. Who is this Cook dude? Is he like the newest fad since the one featuring Chuck Norris that lasted ~2 weeks starting about 3.5 weeks ago? He is a pretty hilarious comedian (Cook, not Norris) and what makes him different from your standard funnyguy is his total out-there-ness. I am aware that's not a word, but I've had enough ale to not care enough to bother straining to find the right adjective... Anyway he made an amusing analogy, which he described as perfect, for being single. He says its like there's this big party, and like everyone cool is there, and it's totally awesome, but you weren't invited. And you only find out about it when you walk past the place, in the rain. And you kinda look in the window, and see everyone partying, and you're like, "man, I wish I was in there right now." But then one day you're actually in the party and it's like "jesus christ where's my jacket. I've had enough of this party; I've been here six years and I want to find a new party to go to..."

Well I've never dated anyone for six years, but I get the point. So ironic. I don't know how poignant the analogy is... but the first half is fairly applicable, at least.

I finally finished (yesterday afternoon) downloading the file I started in mid-January... every single James Bond movie. So these last two days have been kinda Bond crazy for me. I've watched six movies. And I have this awesome suspense music from the last one (You Only Live Twice) stuck in my head. It's not musically related to the Bond theme at all, but it's a fantastic set of four base chords upon which is built an incredible driving suspense theme for the movie. It starts out so subtly... gradually builds.... until eventually the whole orchestra is belting out these thrilling chords as the Spectre spacecraft slowly engulfs the american Jupiter orbiter...

Incidentally this is the one from which the Austin Powers series takes the image of Dr. Evil (even with a cat), the hollowed out volcano, the legions of guards in colour-coded suits, and the concept of the villain pointlessly keeping Bond alive for far too long while he keeps causing trouble. And of course a rather unnecessarily complicated scheme to get the US and Russia to have a nuclear war, in the aftermath of which he would step in and take control of the world.

Like there'd be anything left to control.

Bah! Enough semi-drunken rambling.

G

PS here's the chord progression:
A- (fifth)
F+ (minor third)
Bb- (major sixth) (and since minor, has minor root's raised leading note as it's minor third; very good suspense sound)
D- (root)
Played with a relatively big orchestra... and very well orchestrated. Vibes play all of each chord in two quick arpeggios for each bar... and flutes trill the seventh-eighth or eighth-second on each one... the buildup is sooo good! John Barry wrote the music... he did much of the early bond music. We may think of the sounds as cheesy, but really some of the chords and sounds are amazing... and sometimes beyond their time (I haven't heard such complex music in any other movies - even LoTR! However Howard Shore creates such a great depth of atmosphere with the LoTR music that I find it to be much more effective).

Lots of cool stuff!!!

2006-02-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

Okay so another drought of a few days. Sorry grumfans, but I was very busy, and then our internet was down all day yesterday. Few things are more annoying. But all is well as I have shopped today and am now enjoying fresh grapes!

I may or may not have said several posts ago (I refuse to take the time to check) that when Laura comes over she's bringing a fieldbook in which I wrote a load of band names while bored at the dam this fall. Well here's the cream of the crop (in my opinion):
Moot Point
Nosejob
Nine O'clock Noose
Partial Deterrent
Tritium Clan*
Dancing Minions
Perverted Glory
Parsec*
Derailer
Finite State Automaton*
Silent City*
Jagged Hats
Calorimetry Bomb
Acid Basin
* = ones I really like
"Tritium Clan" is my personal favourite. It's pretty much meaningless, but I love the way it sounds.

I would now like to reiterate, with no small degree of amazement, what the folks who run homestarrunner.com point out (very briefly) in the most recent strongbad e-mail: the remarkable similarity between Strong Sad's face and the Manicouagan impact crater in Quebec. It's quite impressive, really. Around the central uplift of the crater is a deep valley, which Hydro-Quebec flooded in the 60s (this ring is not at the edge of the crater, actually it's only about a third of the way from the centre to the rim). It even looks like he's crying! I just noticed that Wikipedia's blurb on Manicouagan also notes the similarity between the crater and Strong Sad. Maybe this was noticed long ago and I just never heard about it until now, or Wikipedia was already updated, which is just as likely.

I bought tools yesterday; a set of hex (alan) keys, a screwdriver set, vice grips, and a bike lock and pump. No power tools to grunt about though. The reason, of course, is that my bike is here!!! It just needs some reassembling and stuff, and should be good to go. And yes, if I get it ready within the next hour or two I will be taking it out for a spin. And probably a good crash since we did get 20 cm of snow yesterday. I am unafraid.

Until next time (if I survive testing my bike), cheers mates!

Back after hiatus

2006-02-19T17:15:00.000-07:00

Greetings my desperate fans.

Sorry about the hiatus, but I honestly had nothing to write about until Friday, but I've been away since then. I picked up the car at noon, and Laura (sister for those of you ignorant enough not to know) up at the airport at about 9:30 pm. We left early for the mountains. Yesterday we walked across the frozen Lake Louise, walked around and shopped in Banff, and went to the Banff hotsprings. We stayed at the Banff Centre Hotel. This morning we went skiing at Sunshine Mountain, which was awesome, and we got terrific photos from the top (see below). Tonight we're going to tour about downtown Calgary. More later, my loyal subjects!

I hate mondays

2006-02-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

Have you ever looked at an "exit" sign, hanging placidly from the office-type tiles in a hallway, and felt the most tremendous urge to clamp your hands onto it and wrench it from the ceiling?

Today was one of those days.

PS No "exit" signs were harmed during the making of this blog.

PPS Don't forget to suggest parental advice; see previous entry for contest details and eligibility.

Drumroll please...

2006-02-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

It's the moment you've all been waiting for! The biggest moment in popular culture since reptiles in Mexico briefly wondered what the hell an enormous burning rock was doing in the sky...
It's the results of the band name suggestions contest!

Here are the top two suggestions (my opinion) from each suggester, in no particular order:

Jenn:
No Fly Zone
Apathy Inc

Shannon:
Male Answer Syndrome
Alpha Geek

Steve:
The Elastic Band (couldn't find it on the web anywhere)
K-Rhyme

Thérèse:
Look Underneath the Mob
Falter

There can only be one... it has been a hard choice...
It's K-Rhyme!!!!!

I just think it's fantastic how it's pronounced "crime", and I absolutely cannot believe that there isn't a rapper or rap group with that name. It's perfect. I had to dissociate myself from the fact that I definitely wouldn't enjoy the music... the name is terrific!

Second Place:
Apathy Inc.

I really like this suggestion... however I trawled the web and unfortunately it is used. Actually so is No Fly Zone, Falter, and a few of the other suggestions that I didn't pick, namely:
Pint
Spontaneous Combustion
Mothers of Invention

So congratulations to Steve for winning. There is no prize for the win, other than you have my full support for the use of this band name, by you or someone else. For what that's worth. Actually you know it wouldn't be a bad idea to somehow copyright that name... it's too good. Then the self-important rapper you describe would have to pay you royalties for the use of the name. Not bad eh?

New contest: Best piece of motherly/fatherly advice ever given to you. Points for originality, depth of truth, or amusement value. I'll start with a father's most important piece of advice to his son possible:
Never pee into the wind.

So true.

Your turn!

ho hum...

2006-02-08T16:38:00.000-07:00

I am blogging because I am supposed to be working, preparing for tomorrow's optics lab. I didn't sleep well last night. In fact I hardly slept at all; my thoughts are a turmoil. At about 4 am I typed up three and a half pages of thoughts to clear my head of them, and it sorta worked. I got to sleep by about 6 o'clock and slept fitfully through my alarm at 7:30. Damn. Oh well I didn't have a meeting or anything, just a lot to do today, which I am now avoiding very effectively.

Before more mountain pics I will provide another bunch of hilarious headlines from the Tonight Show. Although I will pique your curiosity with a list of mountains I have pictures of and have climbed, starting with most recent:
07/2005, Ben Nevis, Scotland, 4409 ft
07/2005, Scafell Pike, England, 3208 ft
07/2005, Mount Snowdon, Wales, 3560 ft
12/2004, Mount Carleton, NB, 2690 ft (snowshoed)
06/2004, Cranberry Mountain, BC, 9423 ft (*from base camp at ~7000)
07/2004, Unnamed sub-peak of Cranberry, BC, 7691 ft (base camp at ~6500)
Note: I have climbed others but have no digital photos to show for it. Also the last two may well be climbed from camps near the peaks but there are no paths on these ones, and they are covered in ice, snow, and rather steep ledges.

Now the headlines you've been waiting for:

Way to go Thérèse!

2006-02-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

Therese climbed a mountain. I'm sure that's more than you did this winter. Well, it's certainly more than I did. Although I suppose I could concede that you may each have had your own individual personalised mountains to summit, in some metaphorical sense. But I haven't.

Thérèse... what mountain was it?!! At first I thought Carelton, or Katahdin, but I don't recognise the scenery. Wow it looks awesome!

I had the good fortune to go on a trip to Carleton, organised by Matt Hadley, at Christmastime 2004; we lived in quinzees (essentially snow forts) and snowshoed everywhere (there was a lot of snow at that time). Those who were on that trip or have done a Hadley trip at some point will remember the times fondly. Here's some photos.

This is me by the Disused Mount Carelton Firehouse.

Quinzees are strong! We are all on top of one here. Back row L to R: Adam Hadley, Troy Yeomans, Me, Louise, Kathryn. Middle: Alex's sister (sorry name escapes me), Matt Hadley. Sitting: Alex Whaley, Pete. Photo taken by Nesha Trenholm. Missing: Ben.

It took me, Troy, and Alex jumping on it before someone punched through.

It had snowed quite a lot while we were there, and on the hike out on the third day the sun was shining on the fresh snow in the trees. It was all very nice. We bushwhacked a hell of a distance (I can't remember the number, but it was a whole afternoon's hiking) to and from the campsite, which was interesting in the snow-filled deep woods.

I now challenge each of you to procure photos from mountains/hills/speed bumps you may have climbed. Except Thérèse, she's done her bit already. I may post photos of some of the other peaks I've reached... but that's for some other time.

Don't forget to suggest band names!

You have my permission to go now. Good day to you.

hungover

2006-02-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

I am indeed. It's not fun. With me, as many of you know, a hangover can take me out of commission for a whole day. This case is no different. However on a positive note I have finally managed to eat something without messily rejecting it, which is a good thing. My friend Andrew from UNB geol is living and working here now, and another geo-buddy from UNB, Ryan Barr, who works at a drill site 4 hrs north, is in town for the weekend. Thus it was reunion/drinking time. They were impressed by my ability to chug a pint of beer in 3.8 sec (or whatever it is, ask Joe), and thus bought me three pints at the bar to watch me do it. They weren't being malicious, it's just that it was attracting a good kind of attention. I remember little from there. I know I spent two hours hugging the toilet at the house of a friend of Andrew's, and slept on the floor there. I have no idea how much I had exactly... 5 or 6 at the house we started at, then probably four pints at the bar. They had some amusing comments today when I woke up, too. Firstly that I have two levels: zero and fucked. And secondly that I'm like superman and beer is my kryptonite; I have this amazing power (to chug it really fast) but then it utterly destroys me. And on this occasion I was totally decimated.

I had to get home from the house which was downtown, so I walked to the c-train station. I got to the first station out of the city centre and had to get off. The motion was making me feel very sick, and there are not even any garbage cans on the train. Where the hell would I go?! So I walked most of the way home, which took about 1.5 hrs because I went so slowly. Worst walk ever. I got home and slept for four hours, which was excellent.

I do this all the time; get seriously wrecked even though I know it ruins me the next day. Everybody does it; we assess the situation at the time (when we're not in the best form to assess anything really) and decide "yeah one more's not gonna hurt", but if we say that about every drink, it becomes problematic. Still, it was a great night, lots of fun, and would I do it again? Of course, every bit of it.

Here is a brilliant animation with a very catchy tune. I suppose Joe should get credit for pointing it out to me in an e-mail, but as I visit that site regularly to check for new clips, I would have found it on my own, plus I'm the one providing you with a handy link. Therefore I will take the credit on Joe's behalf. You can also click here, here, or perhaps here.

Post band name suggestions below please! (see previous entry)

Good night to you all, loyal minions.

annoying people, being annoyed, and a contest

2006-02-03T17:14:00.000-07:00

So I've been a total ass without realising it. I've been running my bittorrent downloads almost 24/7 recently, because they've been rather slow (averaging a total download speed of like 20-30 kbps). The reason for this, I discovered, is that Shaw Cable limits your connection speed if you're using any p2p filesharing programs. The thing is, it doesn't just limit your connection to the p2p network. No, it drastically slows your entire internet connection. So basically everyone in the house has been wondering why the internet has been so slow this last week... well now we know. And as a true gentleman, I told everybody it was my fault and I will from now on only run my downloads between 4 am and about 1 pm, when usage is at its minimum. In truth only Alex my roommate was getting really screwed as he does a lot of online gaming and kept getting server timeouts late at night. Bloody Shaw. We were supposed to switch to an even higher speed connection with a local company called "cybersurf", but they sucked ass because the hookup instructions were incomprehensible and they never sent anyone around to help out. A shame because they're the fastest available in Calgary right now.

Let me tell you something that annoys me. People mixing up "effect" and "affect" in scientific textbooks. I bought this massive metamorphic petrology textbook for like $150, and in the first three pages of the first chapter I had found three grammatical errors. One of which was an effect/affect mixup. IT'S INCREDIBLY SIMPLE!!!!! AN EFFECT AFFECTS SOMETHING!!!!! This annoys me almost as much as getting caught behind someone doing 50 in the Lincoln Road 70 zone between Dunn's Crossing and Wilsey Road used to. If I'm paying that much, the editor should at least be able to read and correct the first chapter. I dread to think how many errors may exist in the whole book.

To change the tone of this post and hopefully provide some amusement for all, here's a small contest. Everyone is to think of a band name that you think is good, maybe lots. Points are for depth of meaning, wittiness, and making me laugh. Ill start with one which has been a personal favourite since I took Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology in third year:

Metamorphic Sole - It refers to the highly sheared underside of an ophiolite (a large slab of oceanic crust and mantle, thrust onto land by tectonic forces). I just like how metamorphic = change of shape, and sole sounds like soul, only not the music genre please. Very deep. Feel free to suggest the kind of music they play too; Metamorphic Soul would probably play some sort of relaxing electronica, or intellectual rock, like a perfect circle only less pretentious.

Puns get more points. I used to have a whole slew of good ones (actually they're in my field book from the mactaquac dam job). If I remember them I'll put them in later posts. This contest will be open for a while. So anytime you get a great band name in your head, just post a comment here and I'll periodically rate them. Obviously you can rate them too.

And if you read this and don't post anything, I'll hunt you down and force you to eat your favourite stuffed animal. I don't care if you don't think you can come up with anything, use your imagination! Combine random words like "synchronous" and "bloodbath" and... hey that's actually pretty good. You see we have no standards here. Here's a selection of crap off the top of my head:

Attack of the Stapler
Thermal City
Automatic Sideboard
Shocktrooper
Rumplestiltskin
Esoteric Fetidity
Fibrous Flux

You see, it's easy. And there's way better ones than that to be suggested. Of those I suppose I like the first and last ones the best. The last one only a few will get, or at least know the origins of. I have digs.

K it was long and disjointed, but it's over now. Do your thing.

Revolutions within grum's mind, and Ranier Wolfcastle.

2006-02-01T20:59:00.000-07:00

To my complete horror I've started to become bored with the whole concept of video games, and I think I've worked out what's going on. When I have any work to do at all, video games have typically been a terrific escape. Now that I have nothing to do, ironically, my gaming motivation is weakened. It's catch-22! When I want to play games I haven't got as much time to waste, and when I do have the time I don't feel like playing! Actually that's not strictly accurate because I spend the time anyway, when I have work to do. In fact I make more progress in a video game around exam times than any other times. Suddenly I look forward to gaming when I'm supposed to be studying more than anything. Oh sure I'm playing games now, I've got loads, but I have lost the motivation to really progress, to get really far in challenging bits, in a lot of games. In fact I bought Knights of the Old Republic II (I loved the first one so much) like two weeks ago, and actually haven't even opened the box.

Ok enough mourning the loss of my gaming motivation. I'm sure it's temporary, and will return when the workload increases. Here's some of my favourite memories of Ranier Wolfcastle (please remember the accent. except in the first one where he's a kid):

[singing to oscar meyer tune] "My bratwurst has a first name, it's f-r-i-t-c, my bratwurst has a second name, it's s-c-h-n-a-c-k-e-n-b-f-e-f-f-e-r-h-a-u-s-e-n-..." fade out

[stand up comedy]
"Have you eva noticed how men always put the toilet seat up?... That is joke."
random: YOU SUCK MCBANE!!!
[Wolfcastle goes insane and attacks the audience with heavy weaponry]

James Lipton: Welcome back to Inside the Actor's studio. We've met Rainer Wolfcastle. Now, can we meet...McBain?
Ranier:Let me get into character. (concentrates, but when he speaks, he doesn't look or speak differently) Okay, I'm McBain. (audience applauds and Rainer pulls out two handguns) All right, Mendoza! I'll give you the Maxwell circuit if you put down my daughter!
Lipton:Very nice. (Ranier shoots him twice) It's a pleasure...to eat your lead... good sir.

Ok I'm done for today.

All work and no play makes grum a dull boy

2006-02-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

Well that title is highly accurate and totally irrelevant; I have become the laziest person in history. Oh I was told it would happen. The first bit of a masters' is generally easy apparently, as we don't have to be done for 2 years. In my case (as indeed it is for many geologists), all I have to do basically this term is read a lot of papers on rocks near my field area, and prepare for a field season. Part 1 is sorta underway, part 2 is 50% complete. By that I mean I've found a field assistant, and all I have to do now is plan the whole summer. Jeez I'm pretty much 99% complete, surely... why the hell am I bothering to even get up today?

And that's kinda the point I've been getting at. Since my last post I have done sweet FA. Slept in till 1 every day, spent my time playing games and watching my downloaded movies and tv shows. I went for a couple of walks because I felt I do need to exercise before all my muscles atrophy and I become unable to open the fridge or even lift a spoon to my lips. Dying that way is, I have decided, the worst possible way to die. Starvation when the food is that close... aaaaargh!

But nevertheless, the slack continues. Give a slacker free reign and nothing to do, and he'll find ways to take slack to a whole new level. This includes spending all day in the dressing gown, not even bothering to cook (and I mean even so much as heating a canned stew), and staying up till 4 or 5 am trying to understand some of the more complicated points of the web (wtf is an NNTP server and how do I find the one provided by my ISP?). Also my room is a horrendous mess. It's full of things like empty toaster boxes and plastic bags, and there are two empty juice cartons sitting beside me. My toaster is full of beer caps. I don't know how they got in there, I haven't had a beer since Monday and I made lots of toast yesterday, at which time there were no beer caps in there. I guess they fell off this desk edge into it. Oh yes and my toaster is indeed in by room on the floor by the desk, because I am lazy and I want to make toast (and butter and eat it) while at the computer. No I can't take two minutes of my otherwise empty day and go to the kitchen to make the toast. My time is important people!!! Sunk has always said how I manage to slack to a ridiculous degree and yet somehow excel, and here there isn't even anything to excel at. Maybe TAing counts.

They say sloth is the mother of invention but I haven't invented anything yet. Maybe I need to give it a bit more time.

Can't today, the reason I'm up 6 hours earlier than usual is that my supervisor is going to teach me how to use an electron microprobe, a device with which I am already quite familiar. Later on we'll be looking at an X-ray Diffractometer, and that will be more useful as I've never even seen one before. These are both devices that cost $25 an hour to use and render the optical microscope obsolete. However, I must still teach the intricacies of its operation to my students.

So after my two learning sessions that last from 9 to 10 and then from 11 to 12 am, I'll be so tired I'll need to come back here and watch more tv shows. Maybe I'll post again. The only reason I haven't been posting is because truly nothing has happened. Some movies gradually came in on Azureus. Oh yeah, and yesterday I changed which port it uses in hopes of getting a faster connection speed, which didn't work. A truly thrilling lifestyle then.

It'll be better when I get to where I'm meant to be... only three months or so to go!

Cheers mates!

Life update and Goon Show

2006-01-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

---------- pre post ----------
Ok before I get on with the post I gotta tell you about this that I just found this while surfing around. It's hilarious and very fun. GO HERE GO HERE GO HERE!!!

---------- actual post ----------
Wow I haven't posted since Tuesday. This is the longest drought ever. I haven't had much to say really. I been out drinking at a place downtown where I joined a club called the "around the world in 80 beers club". What you do is within 1 year you have to drink one of each of their 80 beers from around the world, and you get prizes along the way. By the end if you do it, you have earned several free appetizers, some wings, a nice beer mug, and a place of honour on a wall plaque along with fellow world beer afficionados.

I helped out with overseeing and then marking a small quiz on Wednesday. It was clearly brutal for some in the class. And why don't people understand that a to draw and label a section through a crystal does not involve drawing a 3D representation of the crystal, or drawing the stereonet, or writing down what you think it would look like, or drawing 16 different diagrams one of which you hope is the right one. No, the whole question was answerable with three lines and a four numbers, drawn in the right places. TAing was much better this week thank god. We were using the microscopes and for the first time I felt I actually knew what I was talking about.

Here's some goon show hilarity for your enjoyment:

This scene is set is in the jungles of Malaysia, where 10,000 british troops have landed, and are bivouacked for the night. Their mission is to make it to Kuala Lumpur where a prototype British rocket has landed. The rocket is designed to deliver tea to British soldiers in battle, the idea being that this will make them virtually invincible. A pair of Russian spies are among them, planning to sabotage the rocket (it's called a jet-propelled guided NAAFI, the NAAFI is a real Brit organisation founded during WWII to supply tea and crumpets etc. to troops). One of them, Moriarty, approaches the tent of the leader of these troops, Major Bloodnok, who is highly unscrupulous. The conversation is carried out very fast, with few pauses, which makes it very funny.

Moriarty: psst! Psssst! Major Bloodnok!
Bloodnok: Oh-hoh! Don't come in my tent yet please just a moment.... [quietly] good night darling I'll see you later. [aloud] Ahem now, errm, come in!
Moriarty: Thank you. Now, Major Bloodnok?
Bloodnok: A civilian! How dare you enter my tent, sir!
Moriarty: But it's the only way I could get in!
Bloodnok: For all you know I might have had some ladies in here! Get out!
Moriarty: Be quiet or I'll tell them who sold those three cardboard tanks!
Bloodnok: What?!! It's all lies! In any case they never paid me! Do you know what happened to me last night?
Moriarty: No?!
Bloodnok: Thank heavens for that. Now then, state your business, sir.
Moriarty: Tomorrow we reach the only jet-propelled guided NAAFI in the world. It must be destroyed!
Bloodnok: What?!! Are you a spy?!!
Moriarty: Yes.
Bloodnok: Then why are you covered in mints?
Moriarty (shouting): I'm a mint spy! [mince pie is a british xmas food]
Bloodnok: Merry Christmas!
Moriarty: I don't wish to know that! Merry Christmas to you too. Now, would you be willing to sabotage this secret, guided NAAFI?
Bloodnok: I'll have you know that I am a patriotic English gentleman, sir!!
Moriarty: And what does that mean?
Bloodnok: It means I'll only do it for money.
Moriarty: Very well. Here is a carbon copy of an imitation hundred-pound note.
Bloodnok: Wait a moment! How do I know this carbon copy isn't a forgeon?!
Moriarty: Look! Look here, here is a life-sized oil painting of me robbing a bank with it!
Bloodnok: But it shows you clean shaven!
Moriarty: I was wearing an invisible beard!
Bloodnok (exclaims): Great malleable lumps of steaming thung!
Moriarty: I apologise.
Bloodnok: You Chinese think of everything!
Moriarty: But I'm not Chinese!
Bloodnok: Then you must have forgotten something. Give me the money.
[cash register cha-ching]
Bloodnok: Ohhh that tune how it haunts me.

That's all for today. Except that in order to prevent you all rupturing something with suspense, I will tell you that the sabotage is prevented, but the guided NAAFI ends up in Aldershot.

I'll write again when I have something more amusing to tell you.

Cheers!

2006-01-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

Not happy about election. Maybe now would be the time to go see Harper at his campaign headquarters, the morning after. Probably could get some nasty passed-out drunk or hangover pictures. Those would look good on the cover of the Globe. National Post wouldn't publish them. But before he takes charge and we are plunged into a dark age of decay, I will do what three of my friends have done (here, here, and here) and make a Valentine checklist. See how eligible you may or may not be with this list!

(250 pts) Gin-yew-aaane livin' breathin' female!

(10) not put off by my youth. It doesn't mean I'm not mature or experienced in life.

(10) doesn't smoke

(10) not a picky eater

(15) geologist
(10) other scientist
(5) not in science but has at least an interest in science

(10) intelligent

(10) generally happy, optimistic

(5) like hiking

(5) like camping

(5) like travel

(10) like to combine all three

(5) not vegetarian

(10) sing/play a musical instrument

(5) willing to try new things (foods, activities)

(5) tall but not taller than me

(5) like to read books

(10) not tee-totaler (anti-alcohol)

(10) does not keep a rat/dog in her purse, or have any compulsion to do so.

(5) not addicted to shopping or the mall

(5) Does not agree with me on every issue

(10) natural redhead
(5) natural brunnette

(15) find Monty Python hilarious

(10) know what you want to do with your life

(5) truly excited by the prospect of a long trip by bike/kayak/foot

(5) not put off by my addiction to loud angry music

(5) know what a Bugatti Veyron is, and what makes it special. OR know the difference between inline, boxer, V, and flat engine layouts. 5 bonus points if you know both.

(5) willing to listen (or at least suppress rage) while I talk on and on about that kind of crap

(10) Not overly religious (i.e. not out to convert me)

(10) capable of slacking without fretting about stuff that needs to get done

(10) capable of effectively communicating wants/needs in straightforward english

(5) not put off by my terrible memory

(10) not overly concerned with money, i.e. is not prerequisite to happiness, or measurement of success.

That's it. Not too bad eh? If you like, post a comment with your score out of 500 (credit for this system goes to Travis).

Cheers!

Election Day and Other Rabbits

2006-01-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

Hey Canadian friends of voting age! Its election day and time to decide which group of corrupt, lying, immoral, conniving, childish, insidious, theiving bastards is going to run our country for a bit, so get out and vote for the ones you like best where ever you are! I know many of you think there is no point, and there isn't, but do it just the same, if only to shut up the old people who complain about us lackadaisical young people.

Polls yesterday were:
NDP: 18%
LIB: 27%
CON: 37%

hmmmm.

Being better than all of you I already voted, because that's what they do for better people. An immaculate Jeeves comes around to your place with a golden ballot (that's worth 1,000 regular ballots) on a solid silver platter, and you sign it with a pen made of uranium-238 and filled with mercury (you don't want to steal that one, and not just because it's rather heavy).

So what is it that makes Canada such a wonderful democracy? Well the only difference between our current state and a despotic single party rule system is the fact that we have, in genuine existence, the Conservatives and the NDP. Nevertheless we only usually vote for the Liberals anyway, so understandably they've become a bit used to it. This time it appears to be different, though. Finally the Canadian public looks like they have decided they're fed up with corruption in the obese Liberals, and may vote them out.

Trouble is the only other option that isn't generally derided as a wasted vote is the Conservatives. They have the platform that meshes the least successfully with my own well constructed view of how the universe (or at least the country) should be run. To be honest none of the big parties meet my demanding requirements. But the NDP is closest (they appear to at least somewhat care about the environment, which as my degree has taught me is rapidly going to shit). But since they are seen as a wasted vote, they are a wasted vote. Poor Layton during the debates, trying to appeal to people "please, we're not idiots, we could do this, give us a chance...". More spending with no tax increase while maintaining a balanced budget? That leaves the budget surplus for more spending and that's it. They're dreamers, but so are the other parties and I prefer the NDP dream.

The party platforms each have their good points, and the conservatives will probably do good things for our economy (which is pretty good already), but wave goodbye to that marijuana decriminalisation bill, and same sex marriage may be revoked, and we may even start to get those "darwinism vs creationism" issues like they have in the states (sorry it's "creation science", and if there was ever a more stretched definition of the word "science" I never saw it). Harper appeared and spoke at an anti gay-marriage rally on parliament hill last year. This really bothered me; that's not your forum for complaint, Mr. Harper. I also get the distinct impression that his idea of contributing to the environment is passing wind.

And let's look at the candidates: Martin looks like he and his party have been at the trough for too long (he sometimes looks like an overweight chipmunk), Harper always looks like he's sneering (he reminds me of a weasel), and only Layton actually looks like he cares. He probably doesn't give a rat's ass but what's important is that it appears that he does.

I suppose since he's just a C-train and bus ride away, I could go and party with Harper like he's an old friend I've always supported... then get roaring drunk and spend the night trying to jump between him and tv cameras. Or holding up Communist Party of Canada signs in the background whenever he's on camera.

I think that the best idea is if whoever gets in with a minority government makes as big a hash of it as they possibly can for one year, then a non confidence vote can get us an election in which there is a more clear choice... and we can make a firm decision.

I've complained a lot in this post about our own brand of government, but to be honest I don't think too much will change for me whoever gets in. Canada is an amazing country to live in and I count myself extremely lucky to live here now. It can always be improved and we should never stop striving to improve it, but they don't vote us the best place to live in the world for nothing.

And the other rabbit in the post (hahaha sounds like a Monty Python sketch... "Excuse me I'd like to mail this rabbit-shaped parcel to Leicester") is the one living near me. I saw it on Friday night while I was returning from the store; a white (cat, I thought) ran across the road down the street from me and almost got nailed by a pickup turning onto the street, the driver of which was trying his/her best to kick the tail out with the throttle (and frankly not doing a very good job). Then last night while returning from the co-op I saw it again. It was in the band of park-like tree-lined-grassland-with-path that runs behind the co-op and other stores of the Brentwood Centre. Again I thought "Oh, a white cat." but then it approached me and I saw that it was more of a loping style of movement, so for a second I thought it was an injured cat and maybe dodging in front of sketchy drivers had caught up with it. Then of course I saw the ears and all was clear. It was one big rabbit (big as a large cat). It wasn't afraid of me, it passed within three metres at a casual lope, and then I crouched down, held out my hand, and tried to get its attention. It stopped, and looked sideways at me. It's expression was clear: "what the hell is this idiot thinking? Does he really believe a bunch of clicking sounds and a clearly empty upturned palm are going to make me want to be his best friend? Loser." And off it loped into the night.

So there's a rabbit with an attitude in my neighborhood, and it scares me. It's big and hides well in the snow, and if it's not afraid of skill-less loonys attempting to powerslide half-tons, what chance do I have?!

Suggestions please.

Cheers.

Geology parties are always fun

2006-01-22T16:32:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all!

Went to a geo grad party last night. It was great we drank lots of beer and tequila and somehow I wasn't hung over. The Calgary transit system is not bad either, it was pretty easy to look up what bus to take from what C-train station to get there, I just wish the buses ran after midnight. The C-train does, but the last bus I needed to get was at 00:01, kinda early. We played darts on the brand new dartboard in the newly refinished basement, and put several lovely little holes in the newly painted wall. I, thankfully, was not one of those that hit the wall. No I just broke two brand new darts. Seriously... threw them at the board, hit near to the bullseye both times, and the tips broke because I hit the metal band around the outer bullseye.

Shoot! I just realised I've missed the ultimate frisbee game I said I'd go to last night. Oh well it wasn't clear which team I'd play for or anything, and I suspect most of them will have forgotten anyway. But dammit I would really have enjoyed that!

Nothing else to say today... soon a template change for the blog... I want one of my own pics to be the background for the title etc. (eg shot above... one of the best of my 2000+ europe pics, this one's from the Isle of Mull in Scotland.)

Cheers!

Second post today.... I got tagged (by jenn)

2006-01-21T01:48:00.000-07:00

Don't forget to read my first post today, below. It's a few moments' laugh.

Four Jobs You've Had In Your Life:
1. Paper Boy, the Daily Gleaner, Fredericton
2. Research Assistant, Structural Geology, UNB (field assistant, twice)
3. Research Assistant, Geophysics, UNB
4. Geologist, TerrAtlantic Engineering Ltd.

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over Again:
1. The Matrix (first one only)
2. Gladiator
3. Lord of the Rings Series
4. Star Wars series

Four Places You've Lived:
1. Cambridge, England (1.5 yrs)
2. Fredericton, NB (~19 yrs)
3. Ormskirk, England (1 yr)
4. Calgary, AB (since Jan 4, 2006)

Four TV Shows You Love to Watch:
1. Top Gear
2. MXC
3. Simpsons
4. CSI (original Las Vegas series)

Four Places You've Been on Vacation:
1. Isle of Mull, Scotland
2. Santorini, Greece
3. Old Man River, Belize
4. Ste. Sauveur, Quebec

Four Blogs You Visit Daily:
1. Artificialexistence
2. Jennsrandomcity
3. Shoeism
4. Chocoholicdreams

Four of Your Favourite Foods
1. Steak
2. Indian stuff
3. Fish Pie
4. Ruffles All-Dressed Chips

Four Places You'd Rather Be:
1. Mountains
2. River kayaking
3. Field Mapping, anywhere
4. Kicking my friends' arses at Smash Bros

Four Vehicles You've Owned:
(not at financial stage of car ownership, cars were my parents')
1. 2001 Toyota Rav4, standard. So fun, so great in the snow, I love it. 2.0L I4 vvt-i.
2. 2001 Honda Odyssey. Amazing sounding v6 3.0L vtec. (btw in the last 15 yrs Honda has made over 17 million vtec engines. Not one of them has gone wrong.)
3. 1995 Ford Windstar. Crap mechanically, but nicely done inside and comfy. 3.6L V6 (most wasteful and least powerful engine of all, way to go Ford)
4. 1989 Chevy Blazer (fullsize one). Crap inside, but amazing as a field vehicle. 5.7L v8.

Four People to be Tagged:
(I think most of those I know have already been hit....)
1. Sarah
2. Tobin
3. Shannon (if Jenn hasn't already got to her)
4. Joe (make a blog you stressed out madman!)

Headlines

2006-01-21T01:17:00.000-07:00

Hello my puppets.... ahem, ummm, friends.

There are no subliminal messages in my blog, I swear. Meanwhile on another pertinent issue, here is a bunch of brilliant and real headlines featured on the Tonight Show.... you can find them all and more here. It's a terrific waste-of-time site. Here's a few favourites.

This says it all.

2006-01-19T22:10:00.000-07:00

So 40% is a majority now eh? This gives the election a new twist.

The series is over. I promise that for now it will be relatively brief posts only. No more long anecdotes about almost dying in the mountains.

I got a cellphone. Most of you got the e-mail I'm sure. It's fairly expensive but not too bad considering it makes a regular phone plan superfluous.

TAing sucked today. Again I had no clue. There was one problem in particular that pissed me off. The text book and all websites (eg) say that a "zone axis" is a line in 3D to which a set of planes (crystal faces) are parallel. However, if you look on that website, there are three red faces in the second example there, and if you think about it there is no line that is parallel to all three. And the third, fouth, and fifth examples there all have faces that are clearly parallel to a vertical line, but are apparently in different zones. It's not the just website; the text and class notes say the exact same thing. Maybe they're using a new definition for "parallel" which means "not parallel".

I love the Top Gear tv show... I'm trying to download lots of them, but they're big and slow to download. Those guys are freaking hilarious. They argue about every car they show, making it really good for showing pros and cons of everything. They have their own test track and an anonymous test driver (ex racer) called "The Stig" who sets fast standard times with every car they review. This is a brilliant idea, and they have all the cars' lap times on a giant list on the wall. They also have ridiculous races like Ferarri vs Fighter Jet and Citroen vs pigeon. Please take a few minutes to watch this clip (80 mb wmv)... it is great and the car is insane! I want one so much! I have a few full shows and the brit humour is brilliant.

Ok I'm bloody tired and now going to beddy beddy beddy bedfordshire.

Grum's Stories of the Field Part 4 (Final)

2006-01-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

Greetings good subjects.

I spent most of today interviewing potential field assistants and drooling over the new Mazdaspeed 6, an all-wheel-drive, 275 bhp, turbocharged, re-suspensioned improvement on the original Mazda 6 (which was already a powerful, smooth handling car). The Mazdaspeed 6 comes close to challenging the niche of the Subaru WRX STi; it may be 25 bhp down on the scooby, but it's also like $15,000 CAD cheaper, and (although this is largely subjective) I think it looks better. Bose sound system too.

Field assistants are hard to choose. Do you go with the guy with lots of climbing and hiking experience but almost no geology, or the guy who's in third year and does really well in class but has little mountain experience? There are in betweens too, but at least everybody seems really easy to get along with (which is really the most important issue here).

Ok time for the final and most harrowing episode of near-death mountain experiences: The Fall.

It was the second helicopter camp of summer 2004. On about the third day we hiked from camp along the side of the mountain, in the direction of a sub-peak of Cranberry Mountain (see above photo). We walked around the back of the peak (out of view of the photo) and then came back along the same way (along the snow above and to the left of the words "fall location"). Andy continued along above the snow at "fall location" on a dangerous ledge which we'd already walked along once, to see the rocks on it again. I decided to use the lower snow as a 'highway' to get back to camp faster and start dinner (and avoid the danger, ironically). So I climbed down to the beginning of the snow, and casually stepped out onto the steep slope, heel first, so as to dig in and not slide down. The photo is looking to the West, and since the mountainside is quite steep the sun goes off the snow there at about 2 in the afternoon. By 4:30 the snow has hardened to an icy hardpack and my foot went straight out from under me, catching me totally by surprise.

I immediately realised the danger, and attempted a "self-arrest" manoeuver. This involves jamming the blunt end of the ice axe head under your shoulder, and pressing the sharp serrated end into the snow with your body weight, while gripping the axe on the top with your hand. The snow was hard enough that the axe jumped out when I tried to do this, flipping me onto my back. The shotgun (last resort bear protection) was strapped to my pack with the barrel down, meaning that as soon as I landed on my back the barrel dug into the snow and flipped me completely over, through upright, very fast (due to the already high speed) and I landed hard on my stomach facing downhill. What I saw is burned into my mind forever. At the end of the rapidly ending snow slope was about 10 metres of sharp boulders, still very steep, followed by a cliff. At this point I'm pretty sure my eyes bugged out of their sockets like Wile E Coyote's when he notices that he's walked off a ledge into thin air. My response was instinctive; I needed to stop, now! I dug my fingers and the toes of my boots into the snow with all my body weight. The fingers were more effective at slowing me and so I rotated around to be facing uphill again, this was better, apart from the fact that I was still gaining speed and now I couldn't see how far it was to the edge. The ice axe was still strapped to my wrist and desperately I grabbed for it. I tried twice to dig it in with my right arm, with no luck. In a last ditch, all or nothing, do or die effort, I grabbed the long end of it with both hands (this required releasing the only effective brakes I had going) and hauled it high over my head. I shut my eyes and swung with all my might (difficult when prone and going fast over bumpy ice) and slammed the sharp end into the snow, hoping beyond hope that it stayed in. It held. It was effective at slowing me. Without opening my eyes I reached up with my right hand and clamped it over the top of the axe, pulling my body over it and adding all my weight to the pursuit of wonderful wonderful friction...

The noise and flying snow stopped, quite suddenly. I opened my eyes to confirm it. Yes I was stopped. I checked my footing. I was on the sharp boulders with my feet and knees. I rolled into a sitting position and unbuckled my pack. My hands, face, and stomach were raw and scratched by the hardpack (sliding down had pulled my coat and shirt up). My hat was 100 metres up where the slide had started. My pant legs and shirt were packed with icy snow that had been forced into them by the speed. The ice axe was stuck deep in the snow at the end of a long gauge etched into the icy slope. I kissed it; no shame in that, it saved my life. Had I taken fractionally longer to get the ice axe embedded in the snow, I would have been screwed; one more metre and the axe would have hit the boulders, and become useless. They were steep and I would have bounced over them and off the edge. I can't actually tell you how long it lasted, since it seemed to take about ten hours. But my best estimation is at most 20 seconds.

It took me 10 minutes to collect myself. I couldn't bring myself to cut steps and climb the slope to get my hat. I just headed for camp, now intimately aware of the snow conditions and able to react appropriately. I checked snow conditions on slopes every time I stepped onto them thereafter.

That's it, that's the closest I ever came to being dead. I arrived back at camp and Andy was already there cooking dinner. He saw my beaten, snowy, cold appearance and his wise words were: "Mountain one, Graham zero." It was funny.

But I can honestly tell you that no steak ever tasted so damn good as the one that confirms that you are still alive.

Grum's Stories of the Field Part 3

2006-01-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

My apologies to those who fainted while holding their breath waiting for this entry to be posted. And if you hit your head when you fell, then that's really too bad.

I'm probably going to get a cell phone. Unfortunately all the cell companies are money-grubbing bastards with weak mountain coverage and very simple plans which happen to have more fine print than the National Library and Archives of Canada when viewed from 35,000 ft.

Well on with this next episode, The Sky is Falling.

Ok well it wasn't the sky but actually even more frighteningly, the mountain. Or at least bits of it. It was summer 2004, the second time I was a Monashee Mountains field assistant. We had had a very long, very hard day, with some very precarious ledge walking involved (see above pic #1 with my route in red, click for bigger image). This was by far the most dangerous and longest ledge walk ever. It was about 500 m of crampon-less and rope-less scrambling and with a near vertical drop up to a quarter of a vertical kilometre on the right. The grass, where there was grass, was slippy and sloped towards the edge. This induced some totally gut wrenching slip moments, but was generally safe since I had my ice axe hooked deep into any hold it could find. I owe it my life. The danger was not here, though. No it was further on (see pic #2).

In this pic it's the end of the day and we walked in this direction (away from my location) on the scree (loose boulders) under that peak on the left there. The peak is a long way away, meaning that the vertical cliff, looming over the scree, that forms the side of the peak is very very big. We need to climb over it to get back to camp (which is almost directly on the other side of that peak). We eventually found a good safe route further down the hill that is hidden from view in that pic, but not before disaster almost struck.

So we're walking on the scree (which is inherently unstable), and Andy is just a few metres from the cliff face (looking for a way up), while I'm a couple of dozen out finding safer more compacted scree boulders to walk on. We hear a familiar and in this case particularly horrible sound from high above: a sharp, almost hollow crack. The unmistakeable sound of a large falling boulder hitting solid rock. We look up, and it is for a moment still invisible, but then I see it first. It's like slow motion; this (full) backpack sized boulder comes spinning out from up high on the cliff, and at a glance it's headed straight for Andy. I shout, he sees, he jumps, leaving his ice axe where he was standing. He lands awkwardly in the scree, on his backpack and arm, and slides with a small rockfall for a short distance. The boulder lands exactly where he had been standing, and smashes his ice axe to aluminium smithereens. Luckily it did not roll down the hill on top of him, but just pushed some smaller boulders down to where he was scrabbling to get out of their way.

He stood up, his eyes wide, and stared at his hand, on which the little finger was askew. "Ahh! I dislocated my little finger!" he said. He popped it back in. "Ahh!!! I popped it back in!!" he said, apparently quite surprised by this. Then we got the hell out of there, staying well away from the actual face for as long as possible. The climb up was bloody hard for Andy once we found our faulted scree to climb, since he had a busted ice axe and dislocated pinky finger. He made a small splint once we got back to camp and was ok though. Thankfully it was our second last day of fieldwork.

The moral of the story is to be bloody careful when hanging about under cliffs; even if there's nobody up there to be pushing rocks down at you, they can still fall on their own. Actually I have seen, through binoculars, a mountain billy-goat walk up to a large boulder teetering on an edge, put his horns against it, push it over, and lean way out to watch it bounce down the mountain. No joke. Why they do this, what possible benefit it could have for their survival (other than it is fun to watch), completely eludes me.

Next time the last and most horrid episode of my stories of the field series. This was the closest I ever came to dying, or at least serious injury. Don't miss it.

Cheers.

Grum's Stories of the Field Part 2

2006-01-16T22:56:00.000-07:00

So hello again grumfans.

Yes I am posting twice today because I am bored.

Joe has pms. Well he calls it "perfect man syndrome", but I prefer to just call it pms without further explanation. We were discussing what women want in a perfect man. I suggested that he should be able to chop wood and raise cattle. Joe suggested it was raising wood and chopping cattle. I agreed. We then agreed that women have no idea what they want and that our many skills of chopping and raising both cattle and wood are wasted on them. The truth is women are crazy and we'll never understand them. Mind you so is Joe, but he's the happy kind of madman, who gets far more delight out of chopping cattle than he probably should. Go Joe! Oh yeah he also helped me park the rav in the garage sideways some months ago, see above. Yes we managed 360 degrees. Its a small (and wonderfully fun) car, and a big garage.

Ok time for the second harrowing episode of grum's tales of near death in the field. This time: Overloaded helicopter versus Downdrafts by a ridge.

Ok so this was, again, the first of the two seasons i was a field assistant. The guys had sent me back to Revelstoke early with approximately 300 kg of rocks, to save on helicopter space for when they were extracted three days later. So it was me, Matt the pilot, five or six buckets full of rock samples, food and propane for the girls from Carelton University, and my personal gear in the Bell 206 Jetranger. The plan was to drop off the food and propane to the ladies at their camp, before heading home. They were camped on the lee face of a ridge on Mount Thor, about 30 km south of Revelstoke. For those unfamiliar with a 206, they are small and cannot carry much weight. For those unfamiliar with helicopters in general, they are flimsy and lightweight, and easily pushed about by the wind. So Matt was clearly unhappy about 300kg of extra mass to begin with (every single time he's extracted us he eyes the buckets of rocks critically). So we approach their camp, and just as we get below the top of the ridge and are preparing to set down, I sense the subtlest of sways in the copter, nothing that alarms me. I am busy watching the girls waving at us. I completely failed to notice that we had been shoved towards the ground by a serious downdraft whipping over the ridgetop, a situation which Matt cannot remedy by trying to rise due to the extra mass. To my great surprise he suddenly jammed the stick into his left thigh and the copter fell, sideways, across the ridge. We levelled out and (with no embellishment at all) he put the body of the copter between two trees as the rotors went over their tops. This clued me in to how much altitude we had lost so suddenly. I looked at Matt. He apologised over the headphones and explained what happened in a commendably calm voice. He was quite clearly sweating. We landed further downhill away from the dangerous ridgetop and the girls, who'd had a perfect view of all of it (including the sudden drop which I had not noticed), came over to check we were ok.

I didn't clue in until well after we had reached Revelstoke and I'd got back to our house of lodging how close we had come to smashing the fragile aluminium aircraft all over Mount Thor.

All's well that ends in the well. Or something.

Don't miss tomorrow's thrilling installment, when we almost get killed by falling boulders at the end of a long hard day. To prevent stress in this stress-filled world, which inevitably causes irritability, hernias, drinking, and finally death from cirrhosis of the liver, I can let you know that nobody is killed, and in fact the only injury suffered is a dislocated pinky finger, which was soon fixed (with shock and awe). To maintain some sense of suspense, the details of exactly whose pinky finger becomes dislocated will remain a mystery. It is thought that this is a safe level of stress.

Cheers y'all.

Grum's Stories of the Field Part 1

2006-01-16T12:43:00.000-07:00

So I was, again, wrong about the syncopation in the Meshuggah song. I spent about 45 minutes analysing various bits of it last night (yes I am insane) and in this section it is in fact the somewhat simpler 4/3 timing (and this time I'm certain). However the three that I suggested are very close together actually. Using common denominators, we get that 4/3 = 160/120, 7/5 = 168/120, and 11/8 = 165/120. I can play it now, thank god. It was really bothering me. I also deciphered a (weak) pattern in a part that sounds entirely random, which was very satisfying. It really bothers me when I don't understand things, and once I do I tend not to forget the understanding... I think this is why I can slack and yet still do ok. I guess that's what my memory is good for, 'cause it's good for little else!

I thought I'd begin a three or four part series today, entitled Grum's Stories of the Field. There are three or four near-death experiences to mention, and while most of you have heard them it has come to my attention that there are those of you that haven't. The first story is the bear attack. If you have heard this story ad nauseum don't blame me if you read it and are bored.

Paul McNeill, for whom I had been hired as the field assistant for the summer, had had to rush home for two weeks as his wife's grandmother had passed away. This left me doing very little in Revelstoke. To occupy me and get some use out of me, Paul Williams (the venerable professor) took me as his field assistant into the fly camp (camp accessed by helicopter) of Stefan Kruse and his field assistant Alice Gillam. There we had a smashing time, meeting a lot of interesting wildlife, like "Penelope", the cute woodrat living in the boulders by the kitchen, who ate beans right out of Stef's hand and was generally unafraid of us. One day we hiked far to the west, all four of us. We didn't bother to bring the shotgun as there were four of us, and there has been no documented bear attack on a group of four or more people. On the way back, however, Stef and I got a bit ahead of Paul and Alice (maybe a minute or so). I was about 5 paces behind him; we were walking along the flank of a mountain, on a relatively steep snow slope. The peak was up to our right, and to our left was a low ridge obscuring our view down the hillside. The ridge ended fairly abruptly and beyond it the view was unobstructed. As Stef passed the end of the ridge he suddenly stumbled backwards up the hill grabbing at his hip (where his bear spray and bear banger were in a holster). I was confused, thinking he had just stumbled, and said "what... what's up?" Two paces later I came into view of downhill, and what I saw caused immediate instinctive reactions within me. A large grizzly bear was running, shockingly fast, up the slope towards us. On another ridge well below her were two large cubs, probably yearlings. Her teeth were bared and she was "huffing" loudly in that way that grizzlies do, to so effectively demonstrate that they are angry, as she pounded up the hill. I took all this in at a glance and without thinking took less than two seconds to unholster, bring out to the front, and pop the safety off my bear spray (my practised record was about 5 seconds). I also feebly raised my aluminium ice axe, ready for some desperate self defence. But by the time I had looked back up from my bear spray, she had turned tail. I saw her disappear over the lower ridge and the cubs followed. At this moment Stef finally managed to get his bear banger to fire, and the firework ascended over where the bear had been, exploding with a deafening bang. Finally he found words and screamed at the others "BEAR, BEAR!!!!!!". I stood, still ready for a fight, shaking a bit. Paul and Alice ran up and after assuring themselves that we hadn't been mauled, examined the tracks (very briefly) before leading us back to camp, as a close group this time. Where she had turned around she had slid more than two metres uphill, indicating a pretty significant speed (but Stef and I knew that already). We figure that she thought "two guys is too many" once I came into view, or maybe it was my red hair. Needless to say we took the shotgun every day thereafter. There's an experience people rarely feel these days, though: the feeling of being the prey, that there is a creature there who can easily kill you, and wants to, and you are almost powerless to stop it. Few events can give you adrenaline like that.

Wow that's a long blog. Sorry to those of you who had better things to do but were riveted and couldn't stop reading. This is the official, unabridged, unembellished version. Oh except for the estimated weight of the bear. That has to increase every time the story is told. By now I'm up to about 1400 lbs. Actually she was estimated by Paul Williams (who's done a lot of tracking) to be between 500 and 800 lbs. That's a lot of angry mammal. Undisputed kings and queens of the mountains I say. I love bears, and feel no resentment or anything, it's their home really, not ours.

Cheers mates!