What DK said to me today

Or rather yesterday:

I had my work physical and said something to him like "yep, had my work physical today..."

he proceeded to tell me that he had blood in his stool once and that he had to have a colonoscopy.

Yeah, just like that, out of the blue:

"Hey, good coffee this morning!"

"You know I had to take a shit in a toilet and then put it on a stick so they could analyze it!"

So I Have a New JOB!

Its awesome. So far its really great, people in general are cool, the work is fun, the location is outstanding, the money is great, and the amount of travel I'll have to do is minimal.

One thing thats a little shitty is that the guy who called me and asked me if I wanted this job is one of the most repugnant shitheaded losers on the planet. he's so bad, that he's the reason, or rather one of the reasons, I started this blog to begin with.

I worked with him once on a project in wyoming and he's seriously fucking crazy...and he hasn't changed at all, for some examples check this out.

When I interviewed here I was like "shit this job is awesome...but I might turn it down simply so I don't have to work with DK". In the end, I ended up taking the job with the hope that I wouldn't really have to work with him. and indeed, I think I can minimize the time I have to interact with him.

I think what I'll do is start a recurring blog post: Crazy shit DK has said to me today.

So there's that little black mark, but overall, the other people here are awesome, there's even a guy here who likes to ride motorcycles. Awesome.

Why does mass transit have to suck?

Who's planning mass transit routes?

Here's the thing: On most days I can walk as fast as the bus will take me to work. Let me repeat that: I can WALK as fast as the standard city bus route in Denver.

Granted I ride a neighborhood route, and a lot of the other routes are slightly faster, but not much.

It takes me about 35 minutes to walk home from work (thats uphill most of the way), and the bus...depending on the stops takes about 25-30 minutes. I would be willing to bet you that the RTD route 28B spends as much time sitting at the curb with its engine idling as it does actually moving.

There are at least 12 stops that my bus will make to get from my house to where I get off the bus. 12 stops in 2.3 miles. 12 FUCKING STOPS IN 2.3 MILES!!! That means on average, there is a fucking stop ever 1,000 feet or so. There are 3 stops between lowell blvd and federal, very close to where I live, I can literally walk from one to the next in probably less than a minute. There is no fucking need to have that many stops.

I get on the bus in the morning because I'm a lazy bastard, and by the time I need to get off, I'm LIVID trying to figure out who in their right mind would waste their life on a fucking bus like this. I don't even BOTHER trying to get on a bus in the afternoon, I can walk 2.3 miles.

its INSANITY.


Will someone please PLEASE redo the mass transit system in denver?

Oh and this morning on the bus, I saw 4 fucking North Face windbreakers. If you own one of these, you are an idiot. plain and simple. You are slightly stupider than the person sitting next to you.

Its been 2 months

Since I posted my Challenge....no takers yet.

Srsly people, the money is still out there...still waiting for your "proof"

Expelled!

So there's this new creationist movie out there that's been getting all the hype in the science blogs. Its called "expelled" and its this pathetic documentary that is starring Ben Stein...that guy who's entire career is punctuated by a 35 second role in Ferris Bueller's Day off.

Expelled

I'm not linking to their actual website because FUCK the makers of expelled, including Ben Stein.

There's lots of great blogs/Science websites/Rational people that have blogged about how unbelievably stupid the movie is. if you want, you can google search the movie.

Also, Dr. PZ Myers...I have OBEYED.

So...

I'm driving along sheridan blvd. tonight with the wife after a successful jaunt to the local Target.

there's some guy in a Silver Range rover next to me with his girlfriend.

She gives me the finger for some reason that I really don't understand, and the guy says "come on bitch"...

The light turns green, so I speed up to try and avoid them, they speed up too and get next to us shouting gangsterisms like "c'mon bitch, lets go, c'mon fucker, Bring it, etc..."

so I say to the wife, call the police, his license plate is from colorado and is: 959-PSD. she does.

the guy realizes what we're doing and then takes a hard left, and his girlfriend throws a bottle at our car which breaks and nearly hits me on the side of the head since my window was down.

WTF?

UGH!!!!

So I'm out here working on a field job. Like most people I'm a creature of habit....in the morning, I drink some coffee, and before I leave the hotel I refill my coffee cup with the lobby coffee and put the coffee in the console of the truck we're driving.

I'll sip that coffee part of the morning, but mainly at about 12:00 to 1:00 pm, I'll swill that shit...even if its cold. It has the right amount of caffiene to keep me going for the day.

well.

My coworker smokes. its pretty shitty. but. I go to take my daily early-afternoon sip of cold coffee, I get two full gulps in, when I realize that it tastes like a fucking ashtray. My coworker was putting his cigarette butts into my fucking daily coffee.

needless to say I spent the majority of my afternoon chewing gum like Jim Carry in "ace ventura pet detective" when he realizes that einhorn is finkle.

THe wife even called me after work and I was laying on the hotel bed with the lights off just thinking "ok, seriously, if I just puke now, get it out, I'll feel better" I was seriously contemplating sticking the finger down my throat to rid myself of the fucking poison SHIT that was infesting my stomach and small intestine.

instead, I went to a bar and had a navaho taco and a few pale ale micro brews. which, in the end was a little better than puking.

but still.

srsly people, lets fucking quit fucking with people's fucking coffee.

Friday geology pic(s) - TDrilling the San Juan

I haven't blogged about geology for a bit, but I'm out here in Durango, CO on a project and the San Juan Mountains look gorgeous, the basin is full of terrific outcrops, and the weather is so perfect that I'm really itching to get out, hike, look around, and think about ROCKS again.

Unfortunately out here I'm chained to these drilling sites and sampling ROCKS...I haven't really had a chance to play around out here.

Here's my sweet cell phone picture of myself standing around on the drill pad out here:



Yes, that is a big ass fucking rig that at the time the picture was taken, was drilling through some coal seams in the Dakota formation, probably at around 4,000 ft below the ground surface. Geologically its kinda boring, but check this out:

they do "green" drilling, which means that all the drilling chemicals from the mud pits to fracure fluids are all contained in tanks (back in the day, drill rigs would just dig a big-ass unlined trench in the ground and put it all in there, where it would leak into ground and surface water)...the only "waste" this rig generates is drilling cuttings that come out looking like baby-poop (if babies ate sand-rich shale and coal). all the waste water generated is recycled through the system, and is eventually pumped back down the borehole where its pretty much inaccessable to anything.

If you had to develop a natural gas field, this company is doing some of the most environmentally responsible work I've ever seen.

I don't work for that company, I work for a company that is testing the cuttings to ensure that they are indeed environmentally responsible.

A Firestorm to PURIFY!!!

Earth Crisis is playing a reunion show tonight in Denver. I'm not going. There's a few reasons for this:

1. I've seen Earth Crisis twice already, the last time resulted in a very sore neck and an extremely bloody nose as a result of someone kicking me in the face. I've also seen all of the other bands on the bill with them: Terror, Shai Hulud, Down to Nothing, and Sworn Enemy.

2. I just haven't been into hardcore music much lately. not sure why, but I really am just not all that interested in going to shows. I came home today, took the dog for a walk, and then thought "I'd rather just sit here at home and have a drink and watch reruns of seinfeld with the wife while the dog chews a bone on the floor."

how un-hardcore is that?!

RIP Gygax////

Gary Gygax died.

damn.

What are my friends all up to?

I've been out on field jobs for too long now and I feel colossally out of touch with everyone I've ever known....well not quite everyone, but mainly friends and stuff.

sucks.

Anyway, I'm getting ready to head back home again and I'd like to get back in contact with everyone.

If you want to hang out with me or maybe catch up on life, gimme a holler!

Holla, Holla, Holla!!!

Its been 10 years!

so...I know its ridiculous, but as of today I have either been dating and/or married to my wife for 10 years: Mrs. Karen.

10 years. can you believe it?

Here's how it went down 10 years ago today:

I was working with my wife at this oil and gas company. She was the secretary-type working at this glass-topped desk right next to the elevators at Aspect Management - a small oil and gas company in the paramount building in Denver. I was this loser who just graduated from college who used to get off the elevators every day and see her and think "damn dude, that chick is HAWT!" I'd talk to a few of the people that worked with her. I stood around the copy machine and the fax machine alot.
As previously blogged, I was a penniless twit who was living in a homeless shelter.

About 3653 days ago I said "hey, want to go to the art museum this weekend? its free or something...?"

She agreed.

I met her at about 2 pm or so on 16th street in denver. I walked down there, she took the bus from her suburban apartment. I'm pretty sure I met her outside the walgreen's.

the whole scene almost went exactly like Dave Chapelle's First date from half baked...I didn't have shit for money, so we went to the free-day at the art museum. There was some nude photography exhibit, and I purposefully stood next to the pictures of naked people saying things like "uhh...so, what do you think of president clinton?" She gave her opinions freely, talked nicely, and was pretty formal.

About 2 hours later I didn't know what to do, so we decided to take a cab back to her place (as I currently did not have a place), and ordered a pizza and watched the Sound of Music. A cab? pizza? musicals?

Seriously. How's that for infatuation? I was so into this girl that on the first date I think I actually said something like "Julie Andrew's Musicals from the 1960's? I LOVE THOSE!"

We proceeded to watch the sound of music and eat pizza until both of us fell asleep, I woke up on her floor the next morning with the worst back-ache I've ever had. She asked me if I wanted a ride home, and I said "OK", and I had her drop me off near the Perkins restuarant on East colfax avenue. It was one of the best "dates" I ever had.... even though I was left standing on a street corner on one of the most urban corners in Denver.

I didn't even get to kiss her until a week later or so when we were downtown in Denver hanging out again. I have to convince her that I had this pressing issue at my work and I had to, HAD TO, go there, and she had to come to so that I could get her alone and kiss her.

ridiculous. here it is though: I still love her as much as I did the day I saw her. ....wait...nah, fuck that shit, I love her more today than I ever have. and I'm in Sacramento, at an airport, getting ready to get on a plane home.

All can think of is getting on that couch, sitting next to her with the dog, the cat nearby, s'awesome.

She's my best friend. thats it. thats all you really need to know.

Hikin' Around New Almaden!

Its been quite awhile since I posted anything closely related to geology on this blog. Honestly, in the last few months I haven't really been thinking about it. Snow is covering alot of the good geology in denver, and out here in Sacramento there's not much to look at.

A few times during my stay out here I was staring at the cutbanks of the American river just HOPING that there might be something exposed thats interesting. The best you can get from that though is thinking about the pre-levee flood cycles recorded in the not-quite-lithified beds. oh well.

So I went to New Almaden County Park this last weekend. New Almaden was a town located near a few small Mercury mines that were established in the early-to-mid 1800's and produced a shit-load of Mercury right up until nearly the 1970's. They Mainly mined out a mineral Called Cinnabar, which tastes great and when powdered can be heated up, releasing a wonderful sinus-clearing vapor. (ha...actually its a mercury sulfide mineral that if handled incorrectly might either 1. cause you permanent brain damage, or 2. kill you).

The miners used to crush down the cinnebar, heat it to about 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, at which point sulphur and mercury gas were given off. The Mercury gas was funneled off into condensers and then bottled to make bomb fuses and rectal thermometers. The Sulfur gas was released to the atmosphere to cause acid rain for the people residing just east of the smelter.


This is the remains of the Mercury Condensor at the New Almaden Mine area. the big horizontal pipe was used to funnel off the mercury into the condensers. Its also an awesome location to spray-paint the name of your up-coming San Jose straightedge hardcore band for all to see.

The mine area is also a stone-throw next to Loma Prieta, the mountain whose name was used to name the 1989 San Francisco earthquake that delayed consumption of beer and dry roasted peanuts during the World Series. The Epicenter of that earthquake is located fairly close to the park, but I didn't go see it.

Like so many mines in colorado, the hey-day for this mine area appears to have been in the later part of the 19th century. New Almaden also happens to be the setting of the first portions of the book "Angle of Repose" by Wallace Stegner. Which, interestingly enough is not mentioned at the actual New Almaden country park...not a singlereference to Stegener's book, despite his romantic and vivid description of Lyman Ward's Grandmother's experience of it.

Anyhow. The park was awesome, it was about 65 degrees and sunny when I was there, and the trails are ridiculously well maintained. The mine ruins are constrained to a few busted old non-descript buildings, an Eagle-Scout-project-created Historic Trail map, and a few rapidly fading descriptive plaques. I rolled around there for the better part of a day, at one point I forgot to pay attention to the trail maps and ended up walking 4 miles out of the way down the wooded hill trail.


"What the hell? where's the trail? I can't believe I got lost in a county park trail...considering how much boasting and arrogance I express when pressed on my ability to use a topographic map and brunton compass!"


I kinda wish I had more time there, and that I had prepared for the geology more...there was some great exposures and the cenozoic history of the mountains is complex..something that requires a little more involvement to understand and appreciate than staring at the mineralized joints and rocks at the county park and going "damn, I wish I knew more about this."

Anyway...I have to get ready to go work now.....


Some of the old, twisted trunks of Cypress trees and the trail. the crappy pictures are a result of using my camera phone and not a sweet real camera. sorry.

No, Actually it DOESN"T work,!

I'd like to tackle a bit of bullshit that I'm tird of hearing about on jobs.

The Divining rod. I know what your thinking..."Joe, no one takes that shit seriously anyway" and you'll think I'm creating a controversy that doesn't really exist...

But, I shit you not, there are currently at least 3 people in my office that "believe" this shit works.

shit.

As a professional geologist, we do a lot of invasive work in the earth: trenching, drilling, excavator work etc... and Utility locates are actually pretty critical to alot of jobs. I've been on rigs that have hit utilities, and it tends to make everyone nervous - (is that just an old concrete storm sewer, or a high pressure gas line?)

Anyhow.

I've talked with a few people who swear, that no matter what, they ALWAYS can find utilities using divining rods.

But I've taken a dramatic stance on them: if anyone pulls divining rods out on a job I'm on, they are immediately off the project. I do that for 2 main reasons:

1. if a client comes by and sees us standing around with divining rods trying to find where we will be digging, what will they think?

2. We are supposed to be fucking professionals whose job it is to use SCIENCE to find what's in the earth.

Most recently, I've been working in Sacramento on a field job doing geophysics: using a method that is commonly used to find buried utilities in abandoned industrial areas, or on military bases, or whatever. I'm out here working with a Geophysicist, he's 37 years old, has an MS degree in geophysics, and does UXO removal for a living.

He Believes that the use of Divining rods works. He is also a dumbshit.

SO I ask him:

1. If they work, why have you never included them in any job you've done?

2. if they work, why not use them rather than pay for real geophysical equipment? A bent coathanger is alot cheaper than the $40,000 resisitivity system we are currently using.

3. why haven't you patented this new technology? if there really aren't any studies out there, but you know it works, why not write that article demonstrating their use? you'd be famous! you'd also be Rich for developing a technology that industry could certainly benefit from.

4. and i tell him, "if you pull those divining rods out on this job, I'll have you off this project tomorrow..."

naturally he got all pissed and provided the following arguments to me:

1. Despite the fact that there is not a SINGLE reference in a peer reviewed journal to the successful deployment of divining rods, he "knows" they work.

(I actually contacted my Brother-in-law Scott, a graduate student in physics, to search some journal databases and he found no positive papers that reference the sucessful use of divining rods, for ANY purpose. I couldn't find anything on google scholar either...and a general google search only revealed a "straight dope" article talking about how it doesn't work.

2. He personally knew This guy who lived in Hawaii who could locate buried utilities or metal 80% of the time. This is quite possibly the most juvenille and stupid argument for anything I've ever heard.

3. like the hypothesis of Plate tectonics as proposed by wegner lacked sufficient data to support it when it was proposed. Divining Rods also work, they just lack supporting data. Actually its nothing like that, because even plate tectonics was used to explain existing observational data (fossils, stratigraphy, and continental geometry)...thats how science works.

4. I just haven't tried to to it myself and therefore I don't know that it can work. Oh believe me, I can make that thing work 100% of the time over areas where I know there are utilities, and I"m not going to spend my time trying to find unmarked utilities.

Normally, I'd let this shit slide and just shrug it off, but this is a guy whose ONLY job in life is to Find buried items using geophysical methods.

I finally had to end the argument. I bet him, and I'm extending that bet to ANyone:

if you can show me that this method works: peer reviewed journal, or even a technical article from a private industry that can demonstrate a positive correlation between divining rods the location of buried utilities, water, or ore bodies, I'll pay you $100. No grey literature will be accepted, and full datasets must be available for scrutiny.

I don't even want to hear shit like "I know this guy really good at it" or "dude...seriously, shit works."

there you have it, its on the internet now, I can't retract it. Don't worry, I have the $100, and I have paypal....so if you can show me the science, I'll show you the money.

until then, Piss off with your folklore and quackery. yeah, I said "quackery". ass.

Steamboat Memories...

Here's a youtube video I uploaded commemorating our recent Steamboat trip:

Live- Blogging the Superbowl

I'll be live-blogging the play-by-play action from the awesome superbowl today from 3 pm to whenever its over, can't wait for those sweet commercials....


...wait a minute....nah, fuck that shit, I'll be watching old Warren Miller Video's on ESPN classic and getting drunk on coors light and gentleman jack bourbon.


Old School OP snowboarding, ha, 1,000 times better than the superbowl this year.

YES!


Glen Fucking Plake!

Live for nothin', or Die for somethin'

I few years ago, I actually read the David Morrell novel "First Blood" after seeing the movie play on TBS or some other shit basic cable station. I thought the novel was terrible. Though I did like the whole Idea of Rambo dying at the end....oh shit, did I just ruin the book for you? ha.

Tonight I saw RAMBO, the new movie. I won't ruin the whole movie for you, but suffice it to say, the plot is even more ludicrous than you think. Its a pure blood-fest; so gory and violent at times its almost laughable. its also really loud.

its cliche, ridiculously violent, intellectually vacuous, and ultimately pointless....but but but, there's this awesome scene where rambo kills EVERYTHING with a huge machine gun! YAHOO!

Here's the last thing I'll mention: If I'm 85 years old, or however old stylvester stallone is, and I still have forearms that look like bridge cables, I will definately make insanely violent movies that showcase my own bad-assed-ness.

New Year, New Ideas

I plan to destroy my lack of blog posts with updates of devastating awesomeness coming this weekend and beyond.


Of Note:

I'm back in Sacramento
I'm bored
Sufficient interesting shit has happened that warrants internet sharing
I've got to get going or I'll be late for work
I still like geology
I've consumed sushi in the last 24 hours

Here's a sweet picture of my friend Tony Shreddin' Chute #3in christmas bowl At steamboat, colorado (taken by me last weekend):

ok...its official, I've been in Sacramento WAAAAY

Too long.

I gotta go home.

Here's what I did this sunday:

I woke up, had great plans to hang out at a coffee shop, as previously mentioned. But alas, the place was too cold so I went back to my hotel, and figured I'd go see a movie.

Beowulf in 3-D was playing at the local Imax theater, so I thought "oh awesome, I'll go check that out".

Here's a picture of me in the hotel room with a positive attitude, confident and optimistic about my potential afternoon:



So I go to downtown Sacramento, and I find this weird Chicano gathering in which there are a bunch of people on horses, and the HORSES are dancing, while the people just sit on them. the event was entirely in Espaniola and therefore I have no idea what it was all about.

Here's a crappy picture of that:



So I find the IMAX theater, and buy my ticket. Unfortunately, I had about 1 hour to kill before the show, so I walked down the street and got a beer at a sports bar and watched the rest of the Steelers/Patriots football game on the TV. What I didn't realize, until I had 2 beers there, was that I was drinking their "winter pale ale".

After drinking one and ordering the other, I asked "hey, how much alcohol is in this anyway?" the bartender said "Oh man, its like 8.9% (almost double what most beers are)...isn't that SICK"

so...needless to say, I finished my beer and went to the movie. and about half way through the movie, I took this picture:



WTF?!?!?!!?!?!?!

I gotta go home.

To all who know and understand: BEWARE

The paradigm shift is coming.

enjoy the holidays while you can, because come Jan 1st...life comes crashing like a one hundred car pile-up on a sacramento freeway.

01/01/08 we destroy the machines that are trying to kill us. we break free of the beast. we are legion, we are violence incarnate. let the round ups begin.

Hey...Kevin Seconds owns a coffee shop

In Sacramento.

The Singer for the AWESOME punk band 7 Seconds has a coffee shop here in Sacramento. I think I'll go there and write up my Accretionary Wedge Blog post tomorrow....I'll also be listening to "Soulforce Revolution" the entire time.

Check out this sweet picture of me from High School:



Braces, stone-washed jeans, and 7-seconds "4 am in texas" tshirt. circa 1989






Edit: I'm at the coffee shop today (Sunday December 9th) and unfortunately its cold as LIFE in this motherfucker. no hardcore music playing, not even a TRACE of a Sham 69 cd...and I'm freezing. I don't know how long I can hold out...