New Laptop

Got a new laptop today - Toshiba Satellite 11.6in screen. Awesome little thing. Great battery life too - up to 8.5hrs!

in reference to: Facebook (view on Google Sidewiki)

Metallica Review

So I'm back in England now after 10 months living it up in Arizona and soon I'll post up something of a review of the year but in the mean time, a quick summary of the Metallica concert in Tucson on May 16th. In one word... awesome!

This was my second time seeing Metallica live (the last at Wembley Stadium in July 2007) so the gig had a lot to live up to. Whilst the arena was nothing compared to Wembley stadium (it was essentially just a field with rubbish parking arrangements), the band delivered another brilliant performance resulting in mass anticipation for their new album to be released in September. You can pretty much work out a Metallica concert set list but they threw in a few slightly unexpected surprises with Fuel and Where-ever I may Roam after opening with the classic and atmospheric Ecstasy of Gold and Creeping Death. All the classics followed including Bells, Memory Remains, Unforgiven, Master, Fade to Black and One before the usual awesome ending on Seek and Destroy. Photos will be up somewhere sometime but not exactly sure when.

One more post on this Arizona blog probably at the weekend - a summary and then thats it. Perhaps I'll open another one now I'm back in the UK, we'll see!

Glorious Metallica Send Off

I haven't got time for a full Metallica report right now (probably not until Mon/Tues) but it was an awesome day/night in general and the concert was amazing. Now its time to come home to the mother-land; airport chao's and crying babies on aeroplanes awaits and with not a lot of sleep these last 3 nights, I'm sure a 4th in a Boeing 777 won't make much difference. I land in Heathrow at 10:45am on Sunday UK time (02:45 Arizona) so see you all soon!

Laters!

Crazy Golf, Mild Vinderloo and grades

It's been a funny old week this far. Saturday we went crazy golfing and decided to tackle both the 18 hole and 12 hole course resulting in 30 holes of crazy fun. One of the holes involved hitting the ball steeply uphill but gently enough to get under a wooden barrier at the top. I thought this sounded too much like hard work so decided to chip over the wooden barrier from about 20ft away, in hindsight, probably not a great idea. The resulting shock was as fluky and lucky as they get. The ball flew miles over the barrier, hit something well behind the wooden pergola surrounding the whole, bounced back, flew around the pergola narrowly missing Russ with the camera and landed just off the fairway.

Last night we went out to an Indian and ordered the classic curry's - Korma (Abi), Tikka Masala and Vindaloo (Me and Russ shared). Despite specifically asking for a hot Vindaloo, it didn't really have much of a kick, almost as if my mouth was lined with candle wax beforehand. It tasted nice though!

An finally, grades are coming in thick and fast here in Arizona. I have 4 of my 5 modules back thus far, all of which were A's including Plateaus which I was unsure about. Prof Davis, my active tectonics lecturer, was particularly pleased with how I did in his class. Just one more to go, Structural Geology, which is pretty much a guaranteed A! All is good!

Laters!

Final week

So it's my final week in Arizona, 40 down, 1 to go before flying back to the UK. Jeez, how time has flown!

Last weekend was the first laid-back succession of days in a long time - beers and food round a friends house friday night, crazy golf saturday and tidying/packing on sunday all punctuated by playing guitar to Green Day's live DVD, Bullet in a Bible rather loudly. This week should be equally fun. I have one exam on tuesday in structural geology which should be a breeze and then thats it. Wednesday we may be heading down to Nogales in Mexico for a day just to grab some photos, souvenirs and a legal drink of beer for the first time in 9 1/2 months! Thursday is party day/night and friday is Metallica, all should be good!

As normal, the grades come in from Arizona loads faster than they do in the UK - I already have one module back (A) and should get the rest this week. Kind of puts Leicester to shame really, it takes months there!

In the news today, a M7.8 earthquake hits the South-western Chinese province of Sichuan killing atleast 8500 but the death toll is expected to rise sharply. China has a long history of earthquake activity owing, on a broader scale, to it's unfortunate position between the gravitationally collapsing Tibetan Plateau and the subduction zones of the western Pacific. Some of the largest and deadliest earthquakes ever recorded have been known to strike China killing in excess of 500,000 people. The largest recorded earthquake, however, was a M9.5 shock to hit central Chile in 1960, closely followed by the M9.2 Andaman Islands Earthquake which triggered the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.

S'all for now folks! Laters!

Weird things happen in this town

I thought I was going nuts the other day, well I probably am but this is absurd! Walking towards downtown from my apartment, a motorbike went by with something colourful on the rider's arm. It warrented a second look and indeed the guy was travelling 30-40mph along the road with a parrot on his left arm! So that was weird!

What's more, the weird stories don't stop there! Many of my devoted readers (who-ever you are) may recall me talking about Professor George Davis at some point in the past. Well he had another cracker of a story today. At graduation ceremonies at the UofA, they serve the usual beverages and food since some of them take most of the day. By the time the afternoon arrives, half the audience is drunk and the other half probably bored with the formal speeches etc. Hence, it degrades into chaos. Tortilla's start to enjoy the wonders of flight across the room aimed not only at fellow students but the professors and speakers! And worse of all, no one really seems to care! I'd love for my graduation ceremony to end up in a mass drunken food fight.

This is the last week of classes here in Tucson, infact tomorrow (wednesday) is my last class before dead day (thursday) when i'll probably be working on Utah stuff and exams start friday of which I only have one (next tuesday) before flying back a week Saturday!

In other news, I've finally got some dates and information about my internship this summer with BG group - one of the leading international natural gas production companies. More information soon.

Laters!

T - 2 weeks

Two weeks to go in Arizona and rather than creeping up, the last few weeks are flying by. My knee is now much better after meeting the cacti bush last weekend and even the pool looks tempting for another visit sometime soon. It's now also under 2 weeks until Metallica come to Tucson the day before I fly out. Also lower on the bill for that night is a band called Apocalyptica who, bizarrely, cover most Metallica songs on the Chello! I kid you not and it sounds amazingly good, definately recommend checking them out.

This weeks been busy but pretty decent. My presentation in Structural Geology went well (I got 100%) and amongst the few comments from the instructor was "nice shirt" (a reference to my new "Do something with your life, get me a beer" t-shirt.

On Thursday, speaking to Jon, it struck me that the choice of modules for my 4th year back at Leicester University is, frankly, shocking. The 4th year should be about choosing modules similar to what you want to do as a career or PhD but theres no structural geology/tectonics modules but rather too many palaeontology, palaeobiology and climatic study (so called soft geology) modules for my liking. Infact, the choice is abysmal... so I sent an email to my tutor to see what he recommends.

And finally, some interesting news from Texas. A 21 year old walked into a bank and tried to pay in a fake cheque from his girlfriends mother. Ok, nothing suspicious provoked yet except he decided to write the check for $360,000,000, 000 ($360 billion!!!). He told the police he needed to pay off student debts - that's a lot of student debts! Also from Texas, a thief manage to talk himself out of a jail sentance for forgery by agreeing to pay a $4500 fine. The not-so-intelligent guy paid the fine with a fake cheque and subsequently got sent down for 8 years!

Laters!

Grand Canyon Weekend

Friday afternoon we travelled up to the GC for a weekend of hiking and relaxing combined with camping and drinking around an awesome camp fire. It was dark when we arrived but never mind, a short walk into the woods and I came back with a 12ft dead tree trunk and started a fire (primitive I know!). Alcohol came in the way of American beer, Nick's home brew, cheap wine and the optional rum and coke. Saturday we went on a leisurely hike into the canyon down the Kaibab Trail, about 4 miles and 2000ft ascent to a nice lunch spot half-way to the river. Nice except for the singular cacti bush which, of course, I had to have a disagreement with. Unfortunately the bush won and I end up with several 2 inch cacti needles about 3/4in into my knee. One hit the bone and the other went under the knee cap and pricked a tendant, the latter being the most painful. Still, in my usual enduring way, I got up and hiked back out of the canyon, and everything the following day with little fuss but did have some problems performing simple tasks like bending it to get in the car! As Andy said, "It's going to take more than a couple of little pricks to stop him (me)". Well, he's probably right but man, what an annoying little prick!

Saturday night we out-did ourselves with the fire, this time a 14ft tree trunk (broken into bits of course!) that really pumped out some heat. The beer was finished and a good laugh had by all. Sunday we went hiking around the rim to different vantage points and got some awesome photos, some from slightly dangerous but not completely reckless locations (like one with a 1000ft drop on 3 sides around me and Andy). Travelling back wasn't particularly boring either (except for that drab music just south of Flagstaff when I fell asleep!). I discovered Andy likes Sum 41 which suits me nicely and combined with the awesome stereo in our university Chevrolet Suburban (all of 12.9mpg!) made for an interesting journey. Amongst some random things we saw was a helicopter on a lorry on I10, 3 kids in the open back of a pickup travelling 75mph on I17 and 'that sign' at a service station in Flagstaff. All in all, great weekend, great scenery, great company!

Now its under 3 weeks til home time and things are getting interesting and keeping reasonably busy. In that time I need to fathom some cross-sections through our Utah map - made harder by the lack of knowledge of bed thickness, fault displacement and strike/dips - 3 somewhat crucial components.

S'all for now folks!
Laters

Living for the Weekend

Boy it's been a busy week. It all started Sunday night when I was up til 5am working and trying to sort things out for the F1 in Primary Schools competition. Everyday since has been busy with work but it's paying off and starting to ease up. I got an A in the second of my Active Tectonics papers, this one entitled "A structural and seismological study into the 2003 Bam boxing day earthquake and implications for Tehran". It was more interesting that the title lets on! I also got back my structural geology paper with a 100% best-in-class grade - which with no disrespects, it should be since I know most of the material and like tectonics/structural geology. Tomorrow is my big plateaus presentation - "Collision to Collapse in the Caledonides - Can we see orogenic plateaus in the geological record?". A 1 hour presentation/lecture to a group of talented and very knowledgeable individuals in what is essentially a graduate level class. Hence a lot of prep work has gone into that and I'm confident it will go well.

After a busy week which followed a busy semester and a busy life in general, I'm off to the Grand Canyon this weekend for one last hurrah before flying home in 3 weeks. It promises abit of hiking, relaxing, eating by the campfire and of course, one of the biggest hole-in-the-ground in the world. They'll be plenty of photos which i'll upload when I'm back. Hopefully someone will bring some beer for me!

I also realised this week that I have sub-conciously learned to touch-type, and damn'd quickly too! Reality is I've probably been doing it for ages but noticed it today when I was typing one thing and reading another at the same time.

S'all for now folks, Laters!

"Just fiddling around with rocks"

An article in the Daily Telegraph a few weeks ago caught the eye of my family back home and subsequently got posted out. It's only a small piece and goes as follows:

"Is it a bird, is it a crane... no, but it's possibly a geologist. The students who used to be teased at my school for 'just fidding around with rocks' are the new superheroes of the American job market. It's no longer just oil - soaring prices for copper, silver and gold have made geologists as valuable as, well, gold dust. Geology graduates in the United States are now receiving higher average starting salaries than people with Harvard MBA's. And immigration experts report that is there is any other occupation more guaranteed to speed your entry into America, they have yet to hear of it!"

We are clearly a worthwhile and highly regarded breed. The article didn't elaborate on which occupation's are least likely to guarantee entry in the the US but rumours suggest it may be dietrition or environmental studies.

Lots of work and great ideas

Such are the times when you have quite a lot of work to do but the ideas for new projects and developments are flowing thus adding to the work load. This is one of those times! 4 weeks from home and I thought this would be a nice wind-down time but there's only a few times I can recall being this busy during the course of the last year. However, that's not a bad thing! This week I have a 1 hr lecture to deliver on the Caledonian Orogeny and a orogenic plateau that doesn't really exist any more (that's Friday), I have a presentation on the Hurricane Fault to finalise, Seismic Data Processing hmwk to finish/start along with the class project. Then there's F1 in Primary Schools! Something's invigorated me this week to start thinking seriously about that again after my 8 month sabatical with very little news. During those months, the challenge pops into my head and I note down a few ideas - the list and possibilities have now become quite extensive - least of all rejuvenating the website with Tim, producing a proper demo CD and organising the race-day this June. These are exciting times for the competition and it's encouraging to have the enthusiastic support of a select group of friends back in the UK to carry on developing our brain-child. I'll be setting up this week, guys, an informal email network between us all so we can communicate efficiently as a group.

So indeed it is only 4 weeks 'til i arrive back in the UK. It's corny but there's a countdown timer at the top of my blog. Meh, why not!

And finally, some news from Austria. A thief broke into the headquaters of a leading political party and stole a number of laptops by crawling through a mail-flap! In reporting to the police, a spokesman said the thief must have been pretty small to fit through the 35cm x 35cm hole. That certainly rules out most Americans then! Ha ha, perhaps that's a little unfair - it was quite a small hole! Also briefly some news from Japan. A inter-school baseball match turned into a cricket score farce as one team concede 66 runs in 2 innings! For all those not familiar with baseball, conceeding more than 2 per-innings is considered pretty bad professionally. The coach of the losing team pleaded for the game to be abandoned and eventually the winners were awarded a more respectable 9-0 scoreline.

Laters!

Black out Tucson

Today most of western Tucson suffered a series of power cuts spanning much of the morning and early afternoon. 25,000 homes were cut off (including ours) aswell as the university, frying computer servers, networks and delicate connection nodes across the campus. IT technicians we're literally in tears watching their beloved systems being abused in this way. And the culprit? The usual incompetent digger operator working on the nearby freeway! He'll be sure to get a tongue lashing from his boss!

In other news, scientists in Florida have reconstructed voices of Neanderthal humans from the fossil records! It's true! Aparently they spoke differently to us without some of the basic vowels sounds that make up modern language allowing us, for example, to tell the difference between "beat" and "bit". And from South Africa, 2 19th century Rhino horns stolen from a museum have been deemed "life threateningly dangerous". Museum workers say they thieves have put themselves in a greater danger than that of arrest since the horns are coated in poison! I like this sort of counter-productive assault on criminals. "I've got your Rhino horn!", "You've got arsenic poisoning!"

Now Tucson has seemingly recovered from the black-outs, it's back to working. It's amazing how much you rely on your computer for work and internet for communication, especially when you haven't got it. It was a chance to chill by the pool and read a book though - getting a sun tan at the same time in this glorious weather us Arizonan's are enjoying. Anyway, it's back to work.
Laters!

Poll

Ok, it's been ages since i've put a poll up on my blog - not since I was trying to decide where to go during the Christmas vacation when I completely ignored the overwhelming 2 person vote and went to Peru instead of Alaska. This time it's a very non-serious question about where I should study for my PhD after i graduate next year. Answer honestly but equally, you don't seriously think I'm going to make the choice merely on what you lot think do you?!?!?
You can vote more than once so if you think you've really got a great piece of rock in your back garden then keep voting for it!

Laters!

35 Celsius in April

Not that it's cold now but, next week it's going to warm up abit! Mid 30's all week down here in Tucson hopefully.

Some interesting news came out of London this week. The new sport of Chessboxing - alternating rounds of chess and boxing - is attracting quite a crowd. I guess if you can't beat someone at chess you can just, well, beat them!

Not too much news this end this week. The internet is finally working back in the apartment (someone had just bluntly disconnected us!), the pool is tempting as ever and it's really just countdown time 'til home in 5 weeks. I'm starting to prepare myself for the higher prices back in the UK after 9 months of cheapness. Especially annoying is the fuel prices - over £1 a litre takes the micky. Hence my new car (hopefully a Ford Focus) will probably be converted to LPG or at the very least a diesel. We shall see.

In the mean time, hiking idea's for the summer - I need some! Of course it depends on how much time i've got but trans-Pyrenee's way would be awesome or LEJOG but both are quite long to say the least. Idea's are welcome.

What a boring blog this week! Laters!

Highs and Lows

It's been a funny few days. Yesterday I found out that my GSA research proposal wasn't going to be granted for my work on Mars (although they commented that the project was of interest and the chances of success were high). Such is the process of applying for research money. On the up side, I brought tickets to see Metallica play in Tucson on Friday 16th May, the day before I leave to go home. A chance for some mindless violence that is 'moshing' along with awesome music from one of the greatest live bands.

Speaking of coming home, I've also booked my flight back home since it is only 5 1/2 weeks away. Tucson to London Heathrow via Dallas leaving May 17th arriving May 18th so if your at any of those airports on that weekend, be sure to say hi and help me carry all of my luggage.

Today I've got my fault paper to hand in for structural geology - 7 slightly tedious pages on the Hurricane Fault of south-west Utah. It really is as interesting as it sounds! Any how, it should be a good week. Laters everyone!

Geodaze

So thursday, friday, saturday of last week was the annual Geodaze symposium here at the UofA. The event is organised and ran by graduate students and is seen as a change for all geology students to present their research to win prizes (up to $1000 for best talk!). There's also a party and fieldtrip for good gesture and best of all, its free! So i was there watching the talks, eating and drinking the free refreshments at the party and rocking on the fieldtrip (excuse the pun). This weekend infact has been all in the field. Saturday was the geodaze trip up in the Catalina Mountains with George Davis - good trip, interesting rock, very hot weather. Sunday was the last structural geology fieldtrip towards the Tanque Verde area in a canyon. The scenery was great, great rocks, plenty of climbing to do - all in all a good couple of trips. This week, however, is back to work at uni! 6 weeks til home!

And finally, a story from the US state of Georgia. A classroom full of 9 yr olds are being investigated by police for plotting to tie up and hurt their teacher. The children had brough in a steak knife, handcuffs and electrical tape with a plot to tie up and repeatedly hit the teacher over the head with a paperweight. Aparently the knife was just their to cut the tape!

Laters!

My Chemical Romance in Tucson

So last night MCR came to Tucson on the first night of their sell-out current tour. I'm not a huge fan but Black Parade is such a great album i thought i'd go to check them out. The support acts were kinda rubbish as always but MCR played well, sounding less of an emo band and more punk-rock which was good to hear. I was surprised at the mix of people present aswell - ok, yes there was some emo-skinny kids but also older adults (what the???), normal uni people like me just up for a show and the occasional fat guy just there for the moshing.

They performed all the usual songs from the Black Parade album - Welcome to the Black Parade, Cancer and Famous Last Words were my favourites, and also some older songs, ending with Helena during which the crowd went mental and ended the night nicely. But now its back to work and another busy week at university. However, something a little different this week.

The UofA holds an annual student run symposium in the geoscience department allowing students to present and view other peoples work accompanied by a guest speaker, party and fieldtrip. That runs from Thursday to Saturday so ill be sure to be there.

And finally some quick news from Texas. A woman travelling through Lubbock regional airport was stopped by TSA (the American airport security branch) and ordered to remove her nipple ring before going through the scanner. She's kicked up a big fuss about it and described her emotions as... "I felt surprised, embarrassed, humiliated, scared and angry". Wow!

Running in Motion

Time is flying by! And I'm definately the first to admit it. I'm thinking this week about flights to the UK and trying to work my way through the minefield that is airline pricing. Its only 7 1/2 weeks away and i really need to book something before they go through the roof.
With that in mind, the next 7 weeks or so are going to be busy but fun - the works not particularly hard theres just plenty of it.

Just a short post today unfortunately. I'm off to a post-fieldtrip meeting shortly and will hopefully get a pile of photos from our lecturer so i'll load a few more up in due course. However, a bit of news from India just to brighten everyone's day. A farmer is reporting this week that one of his cows can milk itself! I kid you not, everytime it eats food (morning and evening) it releases up to 8lts of milk. Reuters picked up on the story and described it as "Udderly Amazing"!

Utah Spring Break Fieldtrip

Some people go to Cancun, some to the Bahamas, some to Colorado, most don't remember much about it (Huon know's what i mean!), yes its the spring break time of the year - the infamous week of alcohol, partying and more alcohol for all of America's college students. Instead i was in Utah with 3 other students and Professor George Davis, one of the greatest structural geology and tectonics professors of our time...... and it was awesome!

We travelled up on Saturday last weekend, the journey taking pretty much all day with the usual traffic delays over the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas. The campsite was basic but nice especially when complimented with the amount of food George brought in coolers. Over the following days we took in the stratigraphy and mapped a transition zone in the Hurricane Fault. It's essentially a disperse zone of faulting inbetween 2 big segments of the Hurricane Fault. We must have mapped 50+ faults and the map looks really good. Aside from the mapping we also got a guided tour of the Springdale Landslide (a consequence of the 1992 St George Earthquake), a 3hr tour of the St George Dinosaur tracks with the founding Palaeontologist and visited Zion National Park. A brief selection of photos are in my online albums so check them out.

So now its back to work at the University of Arizona for the final 8 week run to home time in mid-May. There's a heck of a lot to do aswell. A tectonics paper, a plateaus presentation (again!), a fault paper, structural geology labs, possible mid-term exam, final exams, Mars work, Utah fieldtrip write up. The list is long! However, things are looking good. We've (me and Dr Byrne) have hopefully cracked the issue with the Mars radar data so that looks good to be get going soon. We're aiming to write up the Utah work and present it at this years Geological Society of America (GSA) conference in October so all is good. Despite all the work, theres some interesting stuff coming up aswell. My Chemical Romance are playing in Tucson next weekend and the following weekend is the Geodaze symposium and fieldtrip - its all go!
S'all for now guys, laters!

Back from Utah

Yep, back from a great trip to Utah for the last week. Great people, great professor, great scenery, great photos and great geology! Now tired so will post this weekend sometime.

Laters!