Saguaro National Park

In the latest series of day trips around Southern Arizona; me, my housemates and a couple of Swiss friends went on an challenging bike ride to a local National Park, strewn with cacti (Saguaro's mainly). Situated some 17 miles from home, at the foot of the Rincon mountains, the national park is a haven for scrambling up rocks, wildlife, cacti and awesome vista's over the Tucson basin below. The ride there wasnt too bad despite most of it being uphill. We stopped once or twice, most convieniently outside a huge guitar shop on Broadway Boulevard where much time was spent in shear awe at the guitars, amps, effects pedals and other accessories. I could have spent thousands in that shop if it wasnt for the issue of carrying it back on the aeroplane. I will be going back at some point for a guitar strap and maybe an effects pedal before i leave.

Once there, we cycled around the park's tourist road for abit before locking up and walking up a trail towards Tanque Verde Ridge. The views from the ridge were extraodinary. Mountains rose all around the Tucson basin, some of which must have been close to the border with Mexico. On descending from our view point back to the trail, we suffered from the "attack of the cacti" with 4 out of the 5 of us getting pricked in someway. I got a giant ball of spines wedged into my left calf muscle, Abi got the same into her hand, Hannes into his ankle and Russ into his leg. Only Julien (one of our Swiss friends) survived the assault but the day wasnt out before he had his fair share of pain.

Coming back home should have been easy, it was nearly all downhill but the wind had something to say about that. Instead of rolling nicely downhill, picking up speed like in some 1940's film, we were actually slowing down! It was insanely hard and absolutely knackering. I now really don't like biking in the wind! And the incident with Julien - a crappy woman driver took out the front wheel on his bike as he was waiting to cross at a road junction. No-one injured and the bike wasnt really damaged (i dont know or care about the car) but i gather she was quite shocked by the incident.

Once home, i changed and jumped in the pool which was a mistake. Somewhat ironically, the pool is insanely cold (i swear someone puts ice into it!) so despite being hot and sweaty all day, i rushed to have a hot shower at the end of it. So that was my interesting day this week, today (Sunday) ive got homework to do and just relaxing abit.

PHOTOS are up on the blog at long long last (thanks to Tim for his help - timnutt.blogspot.com). Go to the top right of the screen and select a folder. There was a photo from yesterday of me hugging a cactus, fortunately ive not put it on here but i understand it can be found on facebook if so desired along with one of me entitled 'American Idiot'. Check them out.

Laters

There's salt in Utah!

UPDATE: More great lines from Mihai (see right)

Well der! It is the home of the famous Salt Lake (and its City) and the Bonneville Salt Flats where Richard Green made himself famous with Thrust SSC but now its also the location of my mini-research project im doing with my Exploration Seismology lecturer. Weve got some awesome data off a well known oil company so its now my task to process, analyse and interpret it ahead of the Geology Departments critically acclaimed annual Geodaze Symposium in the spring where my poster and presentation will be assessed for much coverted prizes.

Also this semester ive got a small side project with the Planetary Team, using some ground penetrating radar data from the Mars Recconnaissance Orbiter to produce a 3 dimensional model of a section of the Northern Polar Ice Cap with a view to find potentional carbon dioxide bearing rocks to help explain the presence of liquid water in Mars' ancient history. Both project involve using Promax, GIS and Kingdom software (all industry standard packages)!

So, boring stuff over (just thought it was worth a mention - im quite pleased at getting them going). Aside from that, this week's been nothing special (hence the lack of blogging!) - people don't want to read a load of crap when they could be spending their time on the internet much more effectively (Tim!).

The odd news this week involves geology (slightly!) - copper! The price of which has inflated somewhat recent thats its reported a 2p coin is worth more in copper than its face value. Anyway, a desperate thief in Germany recently tried to steal LIVE copper electrical wiring from a sub-station. He subsequently got shocked with 10,000 volts and died. Police can only identify him by his fingerprints since his hand was severed from his body during the shock. The rest of his body was completely unrecognisable! Theres a lesson to learn there - if your going to steal some copper either do it from a local DIY store or cut the power first!

Rock climbing and diamondbacks

What a weekend! Friday night i went rock climbing with SESS (the geology club here at the UA), returning Saturday evening tired, very dirty but exhilarated from hanging off the side of a massive cliff all day.

Friday night we camped out in a dry river bed mostly on a diet of flame roasted marshmellows and cookies warmed on the fire. This was followed by some late night arsing around and playing with fire (not a great idea i know, you get soot all over the place not to mention burning yourself!). The following morning we packed up camp and walked about a mile to a deep canyon locally known as "Prison Camp" (it used to be a WW2 prison when the US held the Japanese). The expert guys set up a few routes (or 'Rowts' as the American's say!) and we took to them at our leisure. Since this was my first time climbing - ever - i was quite chuffed at getting up several different climbs graded '7's whatever that means. Why can't they just have easy, medium, hard and suicidal?

On a side note, i saw my first rattlesnake in the USA. One of my American mates went reptile hunting and came across lots of lizards, frogs that can climb better than i can and a beautiful diamondback rattler.

So that was my weekend, im now left with just one piece of homework which is proving pretty hard and another week of classes out here at the UA, my 7th this semester! Unfortunately theres no funny news today, Reuters appear to give themselves the weekend off despite any big-breaking news. Besides, im still astonished that England beat the Aussie's in the Rugby World Cup - on current form, we didnt deserve to win but once again Johnny Wilkinson proves to be a thorn in Australia's game plan. Will we beat France in the semi's??? I'll be surprised and very impressed if we do!

Promax on pro-plus

Nearly, very nearly finished yet another Geochemistry homework! They come thick and fast and i understand theres another one being dished out tomorrow! Well, it'll have to wait because im going climbing in the mountains Friday night with the SESS club (Geology club at the UA). Its cheap (infact virtually free except hiring shoes and tent) and should be good fun! The place were going is called "Prison Camp" - im not sure if thats an omen but im told to expect a hard days work with painful fingers afterwards (you can probably tell i havent rally been outdoor climbing before!).

Today was fun Fun FUN! I spent all morning puzzling over geochemistry (with some success!) and all afternoon working on Promax - a seismic modelling and computation program with a prehistoric interface for modern tasks. It takes an age to process seismic shot records as their all run off a local network server so the imp in the corner checking the baseball results is slowing the progress of your "exploding interface correction run"!

BTW - ive added more great one-liners in the Ducea Randomness section. Mihai Ducea is our regional tectonics lecturer and he's uniquely class in being really quite clever but not liking teaching (he works at a university!) He tell's it like it is and has a real dislike for geophysists who "cant really tell me anything" and rarely "have a purpose in the world!"

Any how, my housemate informs me Arizona Diamondbacks (the state baseball team) are playing in the post-season something or other which i couldn't give a damn about. Tbh, ive got to finish this geochem and then play my guitar (yeah, ive got to do that!).

Incidentally, as a passing comment - following Mahmood Arhmadinnerjacketrentalshop's visit to Columbia University in New York state last week, the Iranian's have returned and invited George Bush to Tehran. I dare say he won't be accepting! Meanwhile in Bejjing, a bank is offering a tempting free gift with all loans - a 20 pack of condoms!

Water holes and reservations

FINALLY on saturday we got the internet into our apartment! A suspiciously casual workman from Cox Communications came and wired us up without me needing to sign anything. Infact, they havent even got my card details to pay for it yet - i really should sort that out. And now with the internet, i spent the latter part of the morning watching the simpson's movie and directly following episode. There absolutely class! If you haven't already, go and see them immediately!

Sunday was relatively mild at 33 - 35 celcius so i jumped at the opportunity of going hiking up a local canyon! Except the buses were all wrong so i ended up walking for 2 hrs along Oracle road just to get there! Still, it was worth it! Pima canyon trail is a classic desert path surrounded by massive cacti towering over rocky shrubland which was teaming with wildlife - lizards, scorpions and a whole lotta spiders including the red-backed 'Black Widow', the venom of which is not normally fatal but will do a lot of harm and your gonna need help! Ironically, southern Arizona has something of an abundance of black widow's!

Anyway, i really need to cut this blog short today - ive got some seismology work to finish off and geochemistry to puzzle over. I'll add something later or tomorrow maybe. I won't leave you without some amusing news, this time from London and Berlin.
London: This years entries for the turner art prize have been unveiled and i must say, the artists have outdone themselves! My vote is on the 'pickled cow' exhibit containing, well, a pickled cow! (If you don't believe me (which you probably dont!), check this out: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL0190054520071001)
Berlin: A man was arrested for trying to sell over a million stollen screws at a Berlin market! Police nailed him!