Okay, one more...

So now I'm home in Oklahoma. My time here will be spent doing grad school apps and hopefully GRE prep and some exercise. I went running yesterday and felt slow, though my time wasn't too bad. I'm sore today though, but maybe I'll go play some basketball.

Speaking of Grad School, odds are I will be in one of the following places for the next 6 years of my life starting in the fall:
Corvallis, OR: Oregon State
Eugene, OR: U of Oregon
Seattle, WA: U of Washington
Fairbanks, AK: U of Alaska
Kingston, RI: Rhode Island Grad School of Oceanography
Flagstaff, AZ: Northern Arizona
Madison, WI: U of Wisconsin
and maybe one of these:
Tampa, FL: South Florida
Albuquerque, NM: U of New Mexico

Yup, now back to watching football.

Ski Tahoe.. sort of

After the conference ended my dad flew in and we drove to Kings Beach for 4 days of skiing at Lake Tahoe. Or least that was plan, the weather didn't really cooperate. For our first day at Squaw Valley there were effectively 2 lifts open with a couple trails each on about a 12 inch base. Fortunately the stuff that was open was pretty interesting, with lots of slaloming through small tree and rocks sticking up through the snow. I practiced jumping 3 to 5 ft. cliffs and learned that's its not smart to follow the Squaw Freestyle Team when they ski off into the trees. I ended up getting cliffed out and had to hike back uphill for a bit.

The second day was at Alpine Meadows, which is right next to Squaw, and we luckily had about 8 inches of new snow. That gave us one pretty nice powder run before it all got skiied out. The rest of that run didn't go all that great for me. I got one of my poles stuck in a tree and snapped it in half, and then also ended up stuck in a creek for about 5 minutes. The rest of day went better. Or, since that's not saying much, the rest of the day went well.

The third day was at Heavenly, and it reminded me of eastern skiing. Heavenly was much more restrictive in opening their terrain, so while there was enough cover on some trails for them to be open at Squaw, the ski patrol at Heavenly had pulled 130 tickets in one day off of people poaching closed trails. So the only trails open where groomers on man-made snow. Quite a few lifts were open, but each lift only had one trail open, and it was really crowded. And windy. And icy. The views were nice though, and there was one steep trail open, which was fun to ski. For me at least, it was decidedly not fun for the person I saw fall about 2000 feet down the slope because it was so icy he couldn't stop.

Fed up with the lack of open terrain and wanting to give our poor ripped-up skis a break, we went snowshoeing on the 4th day. I knew a place near Emerald Bay where I had been on the stretch, and it was very scenic and snowy, definitely a nice change of pace.

On the trip home we stopped in San Fran for a while to eat and Christmas shop in the Ghiradeli square/Fisherman's warf area, so I finally got to see the golden gate bridge.

Highlight of the trip home: Winning $20 in a slot machine at the Las Vegas airport.
Lowlight of the trip home: Not getting home until 3:30am! That sucked.

AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco

The conference was definitely a very cool experience. I spent most of my time perusing the Volcanology posters, and I think I learned a lot. I also managed to talk to numerous potential grad school advisors from different schools. A postdoc at the menlo park USGS office (and a member of the Volcano Hazrds Team, my dream job), took me under her wing and introduced me to every prominent volcanologist she could find. It was awesome. Have you ever seen that documentary about the geologists who go to the Phillipenes and predict the Pinatubo eruption in 1991? No? Well fine, but I met those guys, including the current director of the National Volcanic Disaster Assistance team. How cool of a job title is that? I think I may have gushed a little bit to this guy though, saying how that sounded a group of super heroes or something, you know, like... Volcano Team! Assemble! ha ha... yeah, that led to an awkward silence.

I also hung out with some Dartmouth people, ate Chipotle for lunch, and presented a poster of my REU research. My poster presentation went well, it wasn't well attended, but I was able to answer the questions a couple people asked me, and no one questioned my intelligence, so I walked away happy. In addition, thanks to the expo of geology related stuff going on during the conference, I now have lots of useless, cool-looking free stuff, including a foam rock I can throw at people.

Finally, I have continued to notice in cities that as bluetooth technology gets better and smaller it gets harder and harder to tell whether the person waving their arms wildly and yelling on a street corner is crazy or a stock broker.

So about the Black Hole

that was the last 4 months or so with out posts. That would be REU work picking up, a nomadic month of August, and fall term at Dartmouth. All went well.

Speaking of the REU though, I am currently in San Francisco at the Annual Americal Geophysical Union Conference to present my results. This would be a lot more exciting if my results were: "Dominica's gonna explode!" as opposed to "inconclusive", which is the truth. Oh well, my poster is pretty at least. Tomorrow will be my first day to tour the poster sessions and see if I can't introduce myself to any potential grad school advisors. More on how that goes in the next couple of days.

So, a couple highlights from today:
-Emily having to drive 3 loops around the Logan Airport departure terminals because America West wasn't a listed airline and we had to keep asking where it was
-Me failing at gambling in the Las Vegas airport because even the nickle slots didn't accept coins. Who lays down even a buck to play nickle slots when you're on an hour layover?
-Me, in the thralls of starvation, buying a $12 sandwich in the San Fran airport as I was walking to get my bags.

As for the future of this blog, I hope to update every week or so, now more with rants and random things that happen as opposed to what I'm up to, since most of the people who might read this will likely be seeing me regularilly and therefore will know what I'm up to. So, look forward to such things as: the hotornot.com experiement write-up, me bitching about the club sports system at Dartmouth, me skiing Tahoe, a rant on injuries in ultimate, and other random stuff likely related to ultimate or skiing.

An injury haiku

Played soccer barefoot
Tried to emulate Zidane
Tore off calus. Damn

and you thought your night was bad...

Time: 1:20am
Place: Northwest Quad Dorm
WTF!: Fire alarm
Right as I was about to turn off my computer and go to sleep the fire alarm goes off. Then it stopped, and then it went off again. I exchanged a few confused looks with other people in the hallway before we decided we should go outside. I threw on some clothes and proceeded to stand outside for 15 minutes or so before we were given the all clear to return to our rooms. The fire alarm had simply malfunctioned.

Time: 1:45am
Place: Northwest Quad Dorm
WTF!: Fire alarm %$!!!$#%*$# again!
This time it sounded more serious and didn't shut off. Figuring we'd be told immeditated to return to our rooms, I left the building wearing only shorts. Once we had gathered outside, we were told the fire alarm was broken, that a mechanic was on the way to fix it, and that we would have to stay outside until it was fixed. At least it was a warm night.

Time: 2:45am
Place: Northwest Quad Lawn
WTF!: Thunderstorm
I had been outside an hour, laying on the grass and intermittently talking and sitting in enraged silence with the other geology REU students. This entire time I had been watching lighting and darker sky move slowly towards it. At this time, with maybe 200 people outside, the storm hit with pouring rain and winds that pushed it horizontal under the overhanging roof we were hinding under.

Time: 3:15
Place: Northwest Quad Dorm Lounge
WTF!: Hard as concrete carpeted floor
Clay, Shannon, and I had gone into another dorm around 3am and were attempting to sleep on the floor in a bightly lit room when we got the call finally that we were allowed back into our rooms 90 minutes after being evacuated. They hadn't fixed the fire alarm though, but rather had decided that someone at the front desk had to push the reset button on the alarm system every 10 minutes to keep the alarm from continuously going off.

Time: 3:30
Place: Northwest Quad Dorm
I finally drifted off to sleep for a nice 5 hour respite before waking up to go to work.

Fayetteville Summer League

After the pretty good competition at pick up and the tournament over the weekend, I have to admit I came away from my first summer league games a bit frustrated. There were a lot of people new to playing organized ultimate, so actually playing an offensive set was not really possible. I am also probably the most solid handler on the team. I say solid as opposed to best, because there are people who make better dump cuts, or have better throws, but I think I have the best combo of throws, cuts, knowledge, and a holster on hucks. Our team also has 12 guys and we were playing 4/3 coed at times tonight, so playing time was sparse. In our 11-9 second game win, I think I played maybe 6 points. My highlights included a sweet 50 yard backhand huck for a score and a sky catch for a score. Lowlights included some pretty lazy defense and a couple rather sloppy low release backhands that I made very hard for the receiver to catch (one was caught, the other was dropped).

So, the question is what can I get out of this? Since our team is full of cutters, I have resigned myself to handling for the team, so I'll be working on that, noteably trying to make the offense run through me and then having consistent throws, smart successful hucks, and no turnovers. Handling was even frustrating tonight though as the inexperience players would make horizontal cuts in front of the disc and then clear out right next to the handlers, so at times we had five people behind the disc, making it kind of hard to get open for dumps. Hopefully that'll improve as our team learns the game more. As for now I still have pick up on Thursday and Sunday and practice with an open team on Wednesday to work on my cutting.

The Sticky Fingers Classic

I got to play in an ultimate tournament this weekend which was a ton of fun. Originally I was going to pick up with a team based out of wichita, but they ended up having enough guys, so I picked up with a local group of University of Arkansas students and recent alumni. I had met some of them on Thursday at pick up, so it was slightly less awkward. Like most college ultimate players, they were a fun bunch. They were also very tall, which was also very fun. I'm not used to playing with people who are 6'5', so it was nice to be able to have that huck and hope option that tended to work more often than not.

Our first game was against another local team who's members continued to show up in various states of sobriety throughout the game. We went up on them big quickly, and I came out strong as well, throwing 3 scores and catching 2 in the game. However, the other teams studs showed up in the second half and before getting drunk, brought them back and they ended up winning on universe point 13-12. Our next game followed pretty much the same pattern, we went up big early, decided we didn't need to play anymore, the other team caught up, but this time we got our shit together and pulled off the win. Also in this game I tried to do a layout greatest and failed, succeeding only in landing on a pile of rocks and brusing a bone in my thumb, my kneecap, and taking a chunk out of the skin on my knee.

Our third game was against tourney favorites and actual coed team, Ups. Since they're trying to make nationals, they're pretty good, though were having a fun time and drinking beers as well. We tried to keep it close with hucks to our tall guys, but lost 13-8 or so. The fourth game we decided to take seriously since we wanted to finish the day 2-2. We were so serious about it we split up into O and D lines. I got some entertainment from this as without telling them anything about how I play, just from watching me they had me playing as an offensive mid cutter (the exact same position I play for Dartmouth). The game was tight. We went up a couple breaks, but then they broke us back to take the lead. That sparked us again as we finished the game on a run and won by 2 or so in hard cap.

That ended day 1. I thought I had played pretty well, especially since my bruised knee had been slowing me down most of the day. My cutting was good, I didn't have any drops, and I had maybe 2 throwing errors. I was really tired though, and that showed on defense at times as I'd get lazy. I need to work my endurance (as I've already said) so that I have the energy to continuous play good D as opposed to just in spurts. The party that night was at the apparently infamous Karl Doege's house. Good beer and the usual antics (wrestling, fireworks, really really drunk older people, and hook ups) were on tap. I ran into a couple OU guys I know and talked to them for a while.

The way the 6 team round robin format worked out, we had to play the same team (the team I was originally going to pick up on) twice to open up play on Sunday. One for our last pool play game and again since we were both gauranteed to be the 2 or 3 seeds in a 4 team playoff. The other team had been about as drunk as mine the night before, so we decided to just play one half of our first game to warm up. We won that 7-3. The next game was serious and they went up on us 6-2 before we brought it back to tie it at 10s for universe point. This point was my signature play of the weekend, as I came from no where in the endzone to catch a stall 9 desperation hammer that was thrown to space. I then preceeded to kick spike the disc.

Unfortunately though, that win sent us to the finals which was occuring at the same time as the world cup final. To cheers of "World Cup!" our motivation to win or even try in this came quickly evaporated and we lost again to Ups 13-6 or so. I then rushed to watch the Azzuri win the world cup, which was awesome.

As for my play on the weekend... I thought it was decent. Good considering I hadn't played since Class Wars in early June. I was tired though on Sunday, more tired than I think I should've been even though we only had 8 guys (tourney was 4/3 coed) and was 90 degrees and humid. I'm also realy sore today and my hamstrings are making me dread even the smallest flights of stairs. Still, I threw maybe 5 scores on the weeked and probably caught 6. I had a couple completed hucks, and a couple other attempts that were decent but just not quite on the money. I didn't have any drops, but did have a few throws in my direction I feel I could've put more effort into to try to get as opposed to watching my guy D it. My cutting was also pretty good, though it suffered from me being tired and our offense being a clogged disaster at times. Defense always needs work, and specifically I need to work on pulling the trigger to layout and playing a full point at 100% intensity. The good thing is that I have at least 4 summer league games to work on all this stuff, so we'll see how it goes.

Summer Workout Program

As I have learned previously, trying to maintain a rigorous schedule of training while seperated from the Dartmouth Ultimate Team, at least for me, not only sucks, but just isn't possible. My motivation admitedly is a little lacking. Therefore my plans to stay in shape this summer shouldn't really be looked at as a workout program but rather as a "workout program". My two main goals are to improve endurance and improve my throws, so priority number one is to play as much ultimate as possible. So far so good on that one, as I've found outlets for ultimate 4 nights a week while I'm in Fayetteville and 3 nights a week for when I'm home in Norman. On the other nights I may try to go for longish runs to get my endurance back. That'll pretty much be it until school starts back up. I may try to do some of the ultimate workout depending on how competitive I get with Emily who is currently on week 4. I can't have her outrunning me....

I've been at the University of Arkansas for two days now, and both days I've managed to go out and exercise a bit. Yesterday I ran to the park where pick up is and did 15 5/10's in between practicing hucking. The 5/10's felt good, the hucks did not. Forehands especially need work. The run home was uphill in the evening heat and was rather excruitiating and very slow. I'm blaming the 5 pounds of camelback I was carrying and assuming that if I run unhindered I'll be fine- or at least that's my story. As I was returning to the dorm I ran into the rest of the REU group and went with them to the gym where I did some rock climbing, which was fun. There's a sweet overhang problem there that I am determined to send before the end of the summer. After climbing I did some crunches. All in all like 3 hours of exercise, I was pretty tired.

So today was my first time to go to pick up ultimate. It was a lot fun and it was great to be out playing again after a month off. Considering the month off I think I played rather well, though it's hard to guage given the lax atmosphere of pick up ultimate. I had a pretty sweet layout catch and some good sky D's, plus some solid continuation throws and cuts. Of note were two drops on difficult, but easily catchable throws, so as always after a while off, I need to get my hands back as they are probably my greatest asset. I had two forehand huck attempts as well, and while one was completed, they both sucked. So reclaiming the long throws will be the immediate goal.

I get to play in a tournament this weekend on a shortsided team, so hopefully I'll have lots of opportunity to work on stuff as as well as run a lot and improve my fitness. Should be a lot of fun.

Metaphysical Question of the Day

Pre-Script: Since I leave Dominica today, the use of this blog as a means to relate my travels ends, at least until I do more traveling. However, I plan to keep updating the blog mostly with things I find funny, interesting, or about ultimate. So, if that interests you, please keeping checking back. If you're only interested in hearing about what I'm doing in paradise... yeah, I'm leaving. Sorry.

Back to the point at hand: Having some downtime this morning while the others are getting money in Roseau, I have decided to entertain myself, and hopefully others, by relating a couple IM gems I've had recently. The first is dealing with stereotypes of Wellesley girls. I had just established with Emily that Shannon and Jesse thought Wellesley girls were either elitist lesbians or sluts who stole MIT men. Emily, while not agreeing, certainly undertood where the girls were coming from, and then commented to me that it's funny Wellesley girls get labled both as lesbians and man-stealers. To quote myself:
Me: That is funny Wellesley has both those lables
Me: What would be funnier was if it was the elitist lesbians who were stealing the men.
Me: Though that brings up the question of what use the men would be to the lesbians?
Me: Perhaps as ottomans....

So, MIT guys, watch out, you might end up as an ottoman.

and the other: Last night I was again throwing ideas out to Emily about things we can do together in August...
Me: Climb Mt. Washington
Me: Go see Junior Worlds in Boston
Me: Visit Fishie
Emily: She won't be there
Me: Won't be where? We'll go to where Fishie is.
Me: How can Fishie not be where Fishie is?

Indeed. That's an interesting question. Is it actually possible to not be where one is? In my upcoming two day absense from the internet, I leave you all to ponder that.

Time Spent as the 3rd Wheel

Tonight is our last night in Dominica [tear]. Currently we are spending it packing as opposed to raging. As our month in paradise comes to a close, it's interesting to reflect on the changes in group dynamic that have occured. A few days before we flew here, we had never met each other and aside from meager attempts at small talk were very quiet. It took island life and having nothing to do in the evenings but talk (and a certain amount of Caribbean rum) to really loosen us up. The first couple weeks when Henry and Glen were here we generally hung out and talked after dinner every night. We got to know each other and made fun of the lame Texas A&M people. Stories were told. Fun was had.

The addition of the CSUSB people and the departure of Glen added another wrinkle. Glen's consistent Gin and Tonic induced post dinner chill sessions were gone, replaced at times by harder drinking and at other times by awkward silence as we all stared at computer screens. Occasionally a CSUSB girl would drop by and talk for a bit, but generally the group of us gave off too cliquish a feel for her to stay apparently.

Anytime a group is together for a while I feel they tend to slowly divide into smaller circles. With 6 people that's not really possible, though I've noticed we've tended to spend more time alone. I tend to be on my computer, crusing World Cup or Ultimate Frisbee news and talking to Emily. Matt tends to talk to his girlfriend on the phone, go to bed early, and play computer games. Shannon I think hangs out either in the general area with me and a couple others or with the girls from the other group. Clay has been reading a lot and going to bed early. Richard and Katelyn are hooking up now, which while great for them, has put a damper on hanging out, as they are constantly trying to be alone and everyone else gets this unwelcomed or 3rd wheel feeling. None moreso than me I think, as I usually stay up the latest after them because I'm talking online. I can definitely tell that around 11 or so, they're just waiting for me to leave. So I can tell that after this long in a place with nothing to do in the evening that we're wearing on each other, which is really to be expected.

What happens when we get back to Arkansas will be interesting. I don't really know how much longer the Richard/Katelyn thing will play out. Richard and Matt will be home essentially. I will be close to home and playing ultimate 3 times a week with Fayetteville people. Shannon and Clay will still be thousands of miles from home in a strange area. I think that we'll continue the trend of having more individual time, but there will be more do to, so we'll notice it less, and then enjoy the time spent as a group hanging out more. We shall see.

Boomer Sooner

Today was our last day of field work. All of our sites are picked up and we have collected all the data we came here to get. Given all the technology and lack thereof we were working with on the island, we had surprising few set backs. As our work winds down, we've been tagging along with other REU group here as they drive around and do 'real geology'- as in look at outcrops and test the water at hot springs. We've seen a ton of hot springs all over the island, culminating in seeing the biggest one, the Boiling Lake, on Wednesday. It's not quite Yellowstone, but then at Yellowstone you're not allowed to walk anywhere you want and put your hand in a sulfur vent to see if it's hot (it was). The end of our boiling lake also included an awesome swim during a pouring rain in a 10 foot wide, 50 foot deep gorge which had about the cleanest water I've ever seen. Photos of all that are up on facebook.

A funny reoccuring theme in my life recently has been people proving stereotypes right. Like hearing the Wellesley girl sterotype from Shannon and Jesse (the MIT girl) and relaying it to my girlfriend, expecting her to defend her school, only to have her go, 'eh, they're pretty much right on'. I've always been careful about not falling victim to believing them, but then again, I'm also gullible, so I tend to lose that battle. There are of course, those instances though where I'm like, well, I suppose that label exists for a reason. One of those instances was after the boiling lake hike. Starting up the trail as we were ending our hike around 3pm was a large group of people, several wearing OU plastic ponchos, who turned out to be OU alums. Among them were a couple teenage girls wearing skirts and flip flops, an older couple in collered shirts and white shoes, and a five year old. I naturally stopped one of them, a middle-aged dude, to introduce myself as being from Norman. We had a short conversation which ended with me asking if they were going to see the gorge, about 5 minutes up the trail. He responded they were probably going to go up to see Boiling Lake. Boiling lake was 3 hours one way up a muddy, very steep trail. No friggin way. None of them was carrying water. As I walked away shaking my head I passed one of them walking with his head down going "we're gonna get soaked, oh man, we're gonna be soaked.... look at them [seeing us, fresh out of swimming in the gorge], they're soaked..." and an older woman taking about a minute to go 10 feet because she was trying not to step in any puddles and get her white sandles wet.

Gees, way to prove every stereotype about my home state true. Oklahoma, I salute you.

65% Fun, 35% Terrifying

I went snorkling today.

Those of you who don't understand the significance of that don't understand my pathological fear of deep/open water. I really can't explain it, I yawn through airplane turbulance, traverse steep scree slopes without a care, but get me out of sight of land or in sight of coral reefs, I freak the shit out. I am basically the world's biggest landlubber, even if I'm in a plane, if I can't see land I start panicing and thinking we're going to drown at sea. When I fly overseas I leave my window shut. Along with never going on a cruise, that seems to solve the problem.

Coral Reefs are another thing. They're full of things that I can't see that can bite and/or sting me. Cliffs? Whatever, I can control whether or not I fall. Put me in a place where I just have to hope unknown things don't attack me? Yeah, to say I get nervous is an understatement. My fear of reefs stems back to an unfortunate trigger fish/panic attack incident in Hawaii in 7th grade. I haven't snorkled since, until today.

As the post title indicates, I mostly enjoyed it. When I was able to borrow goggles I wasn't too afraid because I could see everything and make sure nothing was attacking me. I even dove deep and swam in 5 foot wide cracks about 10 feet down to get a better immersion experience. I saw all the corals I've seen in aquariums my entire life, along with cuttlefish, a seasnake, an eel, tons of fish, crabs, and underwater hot springs. It was really really cool.

Unfortunately, when I had to give up the goggles, I knew all those things were there, but couldn't see them. I could only assume they would immediately try to attack me. This led to some freaking out as I was afraid to put my feet down on any rocks and am not a good enough swimmer to tread water endlessly. Minor panic attack insued before I sucked it up, opened my eyes underwater and endured the salt sting long enough to scout out a good landing zone. This process would be repeated everytime a wave knocked me off my perch, and everytime I was able to obtain and subsequently had to give back goggles.

All in all, it was a cool experience and I'm looking forward to next time when I have the foresight to obtain goggles of my own.

It's a Small World

When you're driving all over an island that is only 290 square miles and populated by only 80,000 people or so, you're bound to start seeing the same people over again. After nearly 20 days on Dominica, the whole country is beginning to feel like a small town. Every time we drive through Roseau we see the same set of bums, usually in the same palces, and we have even taken to giving them names. The Wall-Walker, The Clapper, Flap Man, the one-armed man, and Moses Patrickson seem to be a majority of Roseau's homeless population. Recently I've also been seeing two mormon missionaries every day. We're also seeing the same cars again and again on the same roads. We know because of the names on the windshields. Tiger Boy, Centipede, Blue Within the Law, King of D Jungle, and The Original Shadow Warrior are among our favorites. People are beginning to know us too. When we tell people we're geologists, most already seem to know we're from Arkansas and are studying the volcano with GPS. Word apparently travels fast here.

In other news:
-Glen left the island today. Leaving us in the trusy hands of Richard, the masters student. He then promptly gave us the majority of the next 3 days off, telling us to go hiking or tag along with the other group of people here
-Speaking of the other group of people here, the other group of people are here. They're the other half of the REU and are based out of Cal State San Bernadino. They seem alirght, especially the prof, but I'm glad I'm in the Arkansas group. The new people seem to be a mix of extremes. There's one girl who grew up in urban New Orleans, one who is California Valley Girl, one who is a sterotypical MIT sorrity girl (she was running laps around a tree in the courtyard today for exercise), and the guys are both non-traditional undergrads in their late 20's.
-There were two 4.0 earthquakes in the northern part of the island on Monday. We couldn't feel them from where we were, and they're unlikely related to a volcano possibly acting up, but it's still cool to get a physical reminder that this place is active.
-I returned to the creek of my previous adventure and walked back to the waterfall yesterday. It was so much nicer since the water was clear and two feet lower. I didn't have that feeling of impending death hanging over me and I was actually able to enjoy the scenery a bit, as well as shake my head in disbelief when I looked up at the slope we had climbed up earlier in the week.

T is for Tourist

We've been here two weeks now, and for that two weeks I spent a decent amount of my time wondering what would happen if we ever got caught in one of the trenches on the side of the road. Today I discovered the answer: one hell of an impressive flat tire. Richard swerved to avoid an unyielding sedan, put the front left tire in the ditch, and I watched as it almost istantly deflated. It was no problem to change the flat though, as no less than 6 Dominicans stopped and helped us put the spare tire on. Richard, Katelyn, and I pretty much just watched them do it.

Before today we had two straight days of heavy rain. Probably another 10 inches or so. Due to the threat of landslides on the roads and that none of our sites needed to be moved, we were stuck at the Springfield Plantation both days except for a short trip to Roseau on Sunday to watch the world cup for a few hours. That didn't stop us from having adventures at all, as Richard, Katelyn, and I decided to walk upsteam in the flood-stage creek near here yesterday to look for waterfalls. We found one, but it also meant we couldn't go upstream anymore, so we ended up climbing out of the creek up a steep mud-soaked "angle of repose" as Richard put it. I led, clinging to rotten bamboo stalks and digging my hands into the dirt and hauling Katelyn up at times with a spare leg. It was fun, plus, since we weren't driving, I needed my daily dose of feeling like I was about to die.

So today was our first day back in the field checking up on sites. After the first site checked out fine, Richard said "wow, we're on schedule... this is when things start to go wrong." Indeed. Five minutes later... encounter with a ditch... flat tire. Tuesdays here are also cruise ship days, when a cruise ship pulls into Roseau and floods the island, including our home at Springfield Plantation, with tourists. I kind of feel bad for them, they don't really get to see the island at all, just all the crowds and tourist trinkets for sale that their presense creates. I also don't like them much, as they're all here currently, and we're all used to a certain amount of solitude. (I do realize that I am being a huge snob)

The Rain Is Back

Last night and into today another tropical system came through and dumped about 7 inches of rain on us, swelling all the rivers and cancelling our planned slog up Morne Diablotins. I was told this at 6:30 or so, and promptly went back to sleep thinking "our activity of the day was just cancelled, I can sleep in". What I should've though was that "people are going to be up extra early and wanting to get going on other stuff". Needless to say I got woken up at 8 and was told peple were sitting in the trucks waiting for me. Oops.

Our first stop on our days work was to take down a site on a high ridge. Right as we're approaching the ridge it starts raining. I put on my rainjacket. Five minutes later when we reach the site it's the most torrentially downpoor I've ever seen. All the neighboring ridges were obscure by sheets of rain being pushed horizontally across the sky in visible waves. In thirty seconds of this I was just as soaked I as would've had I just jumped in the ocean. Even my goretex boots somehow managed to fill completely with water. Then there was a flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder. My Oklahoma roots kicked in and I realized I was standing on an exposed ridge next to a metal tripod. I told the two others with me I was not working like this and returned to the truck. They realized my logic and followed me, leaving the site to be taken down later in the day.

Needless to say all the rain made driving even more death defying as in addition to crazy drivers we had to deal with small landslides blocking half the road and creeks overflowing across the pavement. Lots of the vehicles here also have names written across their windshields, which at times can be pretty funny. I've seen "Why Me? Lord", "Mr. Cool", "Davey", "Righteous", "2 Legit 2 Quit", and "Batman". I've also decided that driving here directly applies to Murphey's Law. The worst possible vehicle to come around a corner will always come around a blind corner at breakneck speed at the least opportune moment. So far the worst vehicle award goes to a cement truck. That one almost threw us off a cliff. Otherwise today we just almost died a few times, mainly by sedans going 60 and not yeilding right of way on one lane bridges. People here are nuts.

ScudBucket?

So we're at dinner tonight and the conversation is flowing from pets, to pet dying, to my homicidal lizard, to Richard's horse dying, to horses in general, to movies with horses in them, when Richard comes up with a gem:
Richard: "oh, yeah, and was that movie with the horse, um, what's his name...um scudbucket?
[pause]
Me: You mean Seabiscuit?
Richard: Yeah, Seabicuit. Not scudbucket
Me: Wow.

Dinner here has consistently been amazing. Our meals are cooked by the Springfield Plantation people, and while the food is predictable, it's always good and consists of a meat, starchy thing, beans, salad, and amazing desert. The only miss item so far has been a gray rectangle of starch something that we have so far only been able to describe as 'bean loaf'. Before arriving, I was told I needed to eat the local delicacy 'mountain chicken', which is actually a chicken-sized frog. However, it was apparently such a delicacy that the frog is now endangered. I have to say that's a cultural experience I am glad to be missing. The most exotic thing I've eaten here so far is Goat. I'm not really a huge fan I have to say, but it beat the 'bean loaf' vegetarian option kaitlyn is always eating.

The livestock is also all over the place here. Cows, goats, donkeys, and chickens all graze along the side of the road as we speed by. Some aren't on leashes and we have to dodge them as we drive into town. On the back roads we sometimes have to get out and herd the goats off the road or pull on their leashes to get them out of the truck's way. The baby goats are really cute though... and delicious.

I can see clearly now the rain is gone...

We had our first clear day today. It was amazing. Both Morne Trois Pitones and Morne Diablotins, the highest two volcanoes on the islad, were free of clouds and perfectly visible. They are amazing mountains and look like what you'd draw when you were little and drawing a volcano- incredible steep sides convered in lush jungle. All that's missing is the eruption column coming out of the crater. We get to climb Morne Diablotins on Saturday too. I'm looking forward to it because it'll be the first time I climb the highest point in a country. We're also hauling up over 100 pounds of GPS to try to set up a site on the summit, so it should be interesting. If we succeed, it also means we get to climb it again to take the stuff down next week. The hike up Morne Trois Pitones is apparently only a couple hours, so hopefully I'll get to do that too.

The people here are amzing so generous and nice. Most of our GPS sites are on private land, and we've just been driving up and setting up our equipment no problem. Occasionally the land owner will come up and ask what we're doing, but once we tell them we're geologists and are studying the volcano, they're glad to have us there. I guess they appreciate the possibility of at least being warned about when a burning cloud of ash is about to destroy their house. The only run-in that has drawn some concern is with Manuel, a tall, ripped, farmer dude carying a macete who yelled at us "what are you going on my land!" as we were setting up a site. We thought we had explained everything, but then yesterday we found the site had been knocked over. Who knows...

We have tried to return the locals generosity by continuing to pick up as many hitchhikers as possible, today serving as a school bus essentially for the town of Portsmouth. I think we had 8 kids in the back of the truck at one point. We also tried to give a ride to a farmer who didn't need one, so Richard (driving) pretended he had stopped to ask what the farmer what he was carrying. It was a green kind of spherical, kind of really dented looking mini soccer ball sized fruit thing with little soft spikes sticking out of the skin. The farmer said the name, explained how to eat it, and then just gave it us. He probably could've sold it for a few bucks, but he just gave it us. Since I couldn't understand the name, I have since dubbed it spikey fruit, and will be eating it soon. This country is awesome.

Behold GoreTex Man!

Covered from head to foot in polysynthetic fiber, neither rain, nor snow, nor swimming pools can penetrate his impermeable outer layer! He is GoreTex man!

So. Yeah. A tropical depression hit the island today and it's been non stop rain all day. I've never seen is come down so hard for so long. No thunder or lightning, just heavy heavy rain. Until today it hadn't rained all that much. We'd have occasionaly 5 minute downpours, but that would usualy be followed by 2 hours of sun until enough evaporation had occured to fuel another downpour. The oddest thing is that half the time when it's raining there is mostly blue sky. It's like it's so humid here rain just spontaneously forms above our heads.

We've been here a week now. All of our GPS receivers are up and running at their second location, and we've done some scouting for new sites. In a couple days we will again be changing locations. Until then it's long days in the trucks trying to find suitable bedrock outcrops for new sites.

Some notes from the first week:
-After a bad experience with 50% alcohol by volume 'Rhum' from Guadalupe (it tasted like liquid pain) I have found good Dominican Rum. Everyone at Dartmouth is invited to a 'drink Brett's foreign alcohol' party at 17 school in late September.
-I am now in possesion of a card that gives me permission to drive in Dominica. Now all I need to do is learn how to drive a stick shift. These people have no clue what they're getting into.
-Like most Dominicans, we have begun picking up hitchhikers whenever we see them. Generally they're prety cool people who just don't have cars and hang out in the bed of the trucks as we swerve our way across the island. Yesterday one of them when we dropped off came around to Glen, who was driving and introduced himself:
Hitchhiker: Yo, thank you for giving me a ride, my name is ____, but just call me Solidarity...
Glen: Solidarity? Cool..
Solidarity: yah mon, one love, peace.
And he walked off. So awesome.
-We tried to watch the world cup yesterday at a hotel in Roseau, but they had forgotten to tape the game when it was on live. They didn't really appologize, but rather shrugged it off in a 'shit happens' kind of way. I was annoyed. Apparently I'm not laid back enough to be in the Caribbean.
-A group of 19 Texas A&M students was here and left yesterday. They were here on summer school and were quite studious. We managed to heckle them a lot for being lame and not hanging out and drinking with us. Their last night was crazy though as 3 weeks of pent up alcohol abstinence was released and they raged until 2 or 3 in the morning. I was they finally cut loose because they drank the bottle of 'Rhum' that I didn't know how to get rid of because I sure as hell wasn't drinking that shit.
-Tomorrow our TA Henry leaves so that he can go to a conference. In another 10 days or so Glen is leaving too, meaning Richard will be in charge. Should be good times. On the 19th Dr. Alan Smith arrives with his REU group from Cal State San Bernadino. I'm looking forward to it because Dr. Smith will be giving lectures about all the pyroclastic deposits, which will be cool to know, plus useful for my hopeful senior thesis.
-Today was essentially a rainout. Tomorrow we are again scouting for new locations. The day after that we repeat the cycle of changing receiver locations for two days.

A Night in Roseau

Last night we decided to have a night out on the town and go to a disco in Roseau. We never got to the dancing part however, because things didn't really get starting until 2:30 or so, when we had to leave in order to get up at 7am today for a long day of field work. The only other time I've seen things starting that late was in Rome. We got into town around 11pm and went to a jazz club where we were the only customers. I tried the odd local cocktail of coconut water and vodka while listening to the bar tender and a friend play the hell out of a piano and trumpet. They were seriously good, if they were in the U.S. they'd be getting paid to play at places.

From there we migrated to the party location, which at 12:30am was dead. No music, no people, nothing. At this time all 8 of us were all there, and we continued our rounds of mixed drinks and beers. More people began to show up and the music started, and Henry, Glen, and Matt left. This left myself, Clay, Richard, Shannon, and Kaitlyn, the 5 night owls/drinkers/partiers/young 'uns of the group. We upped it with some shots and more beers, but eventually sleep and the upcoming day of hard work won out and we headed back probably just as they party was getting started.

This trip is the first time in my life the color of my skin has made me a minority, and it was never more apparent here. We were the only white people there, had claimed a corner of the patio to ourselves, and the locals were giving us a wide berth aside from the occasional reefer or drunk who would stumble over, try to hit on the girls, get shot down, and then leave. The night did however lead to some interesting quotes, whic are as follows:

Clay: (to Henry who was holding a camera) Now Henry, I don't want any drunk pictures of myself after this night...
Henry: That's okay, I won't be drinking

Clay: (listening to the live band play a reggae song) Is this Bob Marley?
Henry: No, he's deceased

Brian the Dominican Stoner: mumble mumble mumble
Richard: (smoking Brian's joint) What?
Brian: [first introduces himself to the two girls, noticably passing over Clay and myself] So, do you have boyfriends?
Girls: [silence]
Brian: Hey, do you guys have any cocaine?
Richard: No
Brian: You don't? [walks away mubling] whitey don't have no crack... [mumble]
Glen: Hmm, that went well.

Outside the Bubble

Ah, the glories of an off day. I got to sleep in (8am!), mess around on facebook for a while (photos from Dominica are up on my profile), write blog entires, and soon we'll be off to go check out a local swimming hole, go shopping in Roseau, and learn to drive a standard transmission. We may even have time to go to a local bar and watch some World Cup action. Tonight could be interesting as well, we're going to a disco party which starts at midnight. I'll likely be kicking myself Sunday morning when we have to get up at 7am to go set up/take down more GPS sites.

This summer is my first time in two years outside of the Dartmouth bubble. Yeah, I've been off campus a couple times, but always with Dartmouth groups. Not since freshman summer have I been the only Dartmouth person around. It's interesting. Mainly it has hardened by belief that every Dartmouth student is ecentric and crazy. It's odd that no one automatically laughs and/or understands whenever I saw "pwned" or "I'm the juggernaught, bitch!" (the got a couple weird looks) or Yidit or blitz or rosham. And that's not even attempting to bring ultimate into conversation, which requires a whole other list of vocabulary words. I find it odd that while I normally consider myself quiet and reserved, in this group I'm the outgoing, funny one with consistently the best stories and conversation skills. I won't class clown because I'm not that funny and our TA does a pretty good job of that one himself. I think this says tons about the Dartmouth experience and how it allows everyone there to really go out and have a spectacular time at college, both educationally and socially. I've realized it's a place where every student can be themselves without concern of what others think about them. Plus, at least in my case, this environment also builds up a self-confidence that enables the students to continue to be who they are when they leave the bubble. This is what I was hoping to find at college, and I'm glad I was able to find it; and I'm glad to hopefully be spreading the reputation that Dartmouth guys (and gals) are pretty sweet dudes... who like to hang out. See, there's another one no one here gets.

Who? What?

Seeing as how I'm essentially telling the story of my Volcanology REU here, I may as well introduce who the 8 of us are and what we're doing on a small carribean island. The REU is based out of the University of Arkansas, and so 4 of the 8 are from there:
Glen- The professor in charge. Cool guy, typical geology prof, like gin and tonics, lived in Puerto Rico for 10 years, knew a kid I made friends with at the National Geography Bee in 1999.
Henry- Ph.D. grad student, long hair, kind of looks like a pirate, especially when weilding a macete. Is pretty much in charge of the project- knows where all the sites are, knows how the equipment works, etc.
Richard- Masters grad student. Cool guy. Likes partying/chilling, a field geologist who takes the time to looks at rocks with me while others are setting up GPS units. Got hit up for $40 worth of whiskey in San Juan
Matt-UArk undergrad honors student. Actually a physics major here to work with the GPS equipment. Not that interested in rocks. A bit nerdier than the others, always carries a pencil in his ear (he took a shower and put the pencil back behind his ear before leaving the bathroom), doesn't laugh at my jokes (not to say that he should be).
The other 4 are all undergrads at different places:
Shannon (Mt. Holyoak) - Plays field hockey, has more of an engineering interest and did a weather-related REU last summer
Kaitlyn (Michigan Tech)- The only non rising senior among us (she's an '09). Also leans more engineering. Pretty cool person, plays ultimate when she can, though it's kind of difficult at a school that's 75% guys and is under snow most of the year (M. Tech is in the upper peninsula).
Clay (SUNY Genso)- The person I've gotten along with best so far. Cool guy, yeah, I get along with him.
And then there's me, the late arrival from Dartmouth. (hi!).

So that's the group. What we're here doing is GPS geodosy. What that menas is that we set up highly accurate (fractions of mm's) GPS units all over the island, and then compare their position to the positions recorded at the same site in previous years, and see if the site moved. This allows us to hopefully locate and track rising magma in the volcanic system beneath the island because rising magma will actually push up the overlying crust, deforming it a few mm's, which is enough for our GPS units to see. The project is still young though, so a lot of our time will be spent finding and setting up new sites for future research groups to use. Should be a cool project to work on. Basically it means all our time on the island is spent outside hiking around and setting up sites.

A Night in San Juan

Before arriving in Dominica we had to stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico. With no field work to do yet, we were able to have a night on the town courtosy of NSF. Our program director, who had lived for 10 years in Puerto Rico, took us to the old part of town to a restaurant he described as 'the hot spot to be' -The Parrot Club. Since it was Monday night it wasn't took crowded and the 8 of us enjoyed an amazing meal. I had some kind of chicken kabob BBQ rice&beans thing that was incredible. It took me forever to eat it because I kept stopping to tell everyone else how good it was. Best part of the meal though was trying different cocktails, making sure I stayed a half-step behind our increasingly giddy program director. I enjoyed a margharita, mohito, and rum & coke, all exceptional. The other students did the same.

After a brief walk around old San Juan to see the fort and city walls, we returned to the hotel where our professor, one TA, and one student went to bed. The remaining 5 of us went out to meet a friend of one girls in the program. We met a mexican restaurant/bar which featured a live band playing bad 80's rock covers that would randomly take 15 minutes breaks during which loud base-heavy rap music was played. Both girls go to Mount Holyoak, which I found interesting as I have a Wellesley girlfriend, so we bonded over this rather random not so much of a commonality. Our conversations involved me feeling awkward in all-girl dining halls, what I feel is the overuse of the posessive term 'boy' by Wellesley girls, and the different reputations of the remaining all-female seven sisters schools. I learned that Smithies are either 'preppy' or 'lezzie' (or both actually, it was loud at the bar so I couldn't really hear), Mount Holyoak are the partiers and Wellesley girls were either bitches or too good for the other two schools (or both). I didn't really protest as I didn't want to argue with people I barely knew, plus I could understand their side and found it funny. The girl's friend was is San Juan to see her boyfriend, who had actually broken up with her 2 weeks prior, leaving her with a plane ticket and really nothing else to do, so she came anyway and seemed to be enjoying herself; she introduces us to 3 Puerto Rican guys during the course of a couple hours; an obvious symptom of what I have come to describe as the all-girls school student "ooh! boys!" syndrome.

The shock of the night came when we received our bill. Somehow 5 of us had managed to accumulate a $120 tab with any of us getting drunk except one girl who's an '09 and really skinny so doesn't really count. My bill for 3 beers was about 12, which I expected and the other assortment of mixed drinks were overpriced, but expected. The kicker, which sadly fell entirely on our TA Richard, was Whiskey. While rum is very cheap in the Carribean, apparently whiskey is not. Richard's whiskey and coke, follwed by a doulble whiskey and coke, followed by a round of whiskey shots he ordered us all set him back roughly $60. Poor guy, he never saw it coming. It probably didn't help that I was pointing and laughing at him at the time.

Dominica

So I now find myself on a small, volcanic carribean island of about 290 square miles. It is pronounced, as I found out today, with the second 'i' stressed so as to sound different from the Dominican Republic. The island has already impressed me. The topography is very steep, with the roads winding precariously close to 300 foot plus cliffs. The highest points on the island are over 4,000 feet, and as far as I could tell, there is not a gradual slope to be found.

My tropical adventure began before the plane even landed. As we dropped below the clouds Dominica and its steep sea cliffs surged into view. The plane continued it's approach slightly inland, and right when the treetops on the ridges seemed about to touch the landing gear and I though we were about to land, the plane banked steeply to the left and dove into a valley, the floor and sides no more than 200 feet away on any side. After customs and immigration, it was time to drive across the island to our home for the next month, the Springfield Plantation, a science research station a few miles uphill from Roseau, the capital.

First off, Dominicans drive on the wrong, or British side of the road, and the very sinuous roads are barely two carwidths wide at any point and are borded by 2 foot deep ditches to help runoff from the common torrential downpours. This makes driving here (or even riding shotty, as I did) a rather adrenaline-inducing, white knuckle affair. I'm glad our rental trucks are stick shifts so that there is no chance of me every being forced to drive here.

The Spring Plantation is pretty sparce in relative to our hotel in San Juan last night, but will make a good home base for the 4 weeks we are here. There is wireless everywhere, great food, and a bar, so my basics needs are accounted for.

Tomorrow is our first day in the field and my first attempt to deal with trifecta of bugs, humidity, and thick jungle vegetation.

Introduction

So, why the hell am I doing this? I don't know really, possibly an urge to keep from writing mass emails to friends whenever I'm away for a while, possibly to keep friends with whom I never email up to date, possibly just a medium where I can record the random thoughts that pop into my head, though more likely this is simply a whim that sounded like a good idea at 1am the morning before I catch a flight to Puerto Rico.

Later posts, and by later I may mean 10 minutes or 10 days depending on my mood, will provide details of what's going around me along with some deeper or hopefully entraining thoughts. But for now I'll let this post's only purpose be to explain the name: Flying Piece of Schist.

Simply really, I gather that's what I'd get if I was to combine the two biggest time consumers in my life: geology and ultimate frisbee. Which I have to admit, wouldn't be a good conbination, you can't play ultimate with a rock (well, technically you could, but I'm not that much of a masochist) and throwing a chunk of metamorphosed ocean sediment certainly won't help me understnad it better (in most cases). So there you have it. It's make no sense, but at least it's more entertaining than "Brett Carr's blog".

Kind of like this post.