Day 3 - I'm behind. But getting there.
Juggling projects is difficult. Then writing on LJ to top it off. So sometimes it's a bit late.
1. Normal work. I'm working on stream permanence in the upper Colorado. To explain, streams have three categories, perennial, intermittent and ephemeral (all the time, most of the time, when there is rain). Currently the United States' grand database of streams in the western US were put on maps from 1890-1980s (and beyond). However, no one bothered to create a symbol for an ephemeral stream. As such they were all listed as intermittent. If you were to model water availability using this data you would find that Nevada and New Mexico were the wettest states in the Union. If you haven't been to either of those places wet is not the first word I'd use to describe them. In comes me and BLM who is willing to fund the project. With a really basic process modelling I've improved things so dramatically it's silly.
Have changes been made at the national level: no. That's annoying. 6 months, a solid amount of data, headaches, a lot of computer hours and roughly $50000 of (what I assume is) tax payer money to cover my salary and overhead costs. And I get stuck in a bureaucratic log jam. Thanks guys.
2. Upper Tigris area cartography. This is fun work. I love doing cartography, I love working with archaeological data. But it's difficult to find the time and resources. No frustration here except with myself. Still, it's extra money for doing cool stuff.
3. Thesis. I finished, I defended. It goes for final reading. I get an email about a week ago saying a committee member couldn't find some of the revisions she suggested. Fine, I can take a look at them, leave it in my box since she have everything on hard copy and I've killed two trees printing the damned thing. Nothing after that. I stopped by the office, nothing. Email, nothing. I continue to go about my life. Slightly bitter at this point I just need to go through the motions to get the expensive piece of paper at the end.
Beyond that, I spent the evening sending Kerbals into orbit. The girl sleeps because she gets up at 5:00am and I patently don't. Best nights I sleep 7 hours between 11am-8am. Missing my bike for the evening, because when you feel a twinge of knee pain you give up for a couple days. I'm obligated to race in Baker City, OR at the end of the month. I'd at least like to have a decent show of it. Which means making up for a lot of lost time of Feburary-April.
Beyond even that I'm working on making a list of things I want a livejournal entry about. There are things, but I'm always in the mindset of citing the source, I don't have to do that here, which is strange, because I write so much for work using scientific communication writing it becomes second nature to back up an argument. Here, it's assumed to be my opinion. Which is I guess a difficult thing to do these days.
So I'm making a list of topics I read about, form opinions about and think they might be a good LJ read for you people out there. When all else fails they act as writing prompts.
1. Normal work. I'm working on stream permanence in the upper Colorado. To explain, streams have three categories, perennial, intermittent and ephemeral (all the time, most of the time, when there is rain). Currently the United States' grand database of streams in the western US were put on maps from 1890-1980s (and beyond). However, no one bothered to create a symbol for an ephemeral stream. As such they were all listed as intermittent. If you were to model water availability using this data you would find that Nevada and New Mexico were the wettest states in the Union. If you haven't been to either of those places wet is not the first word I'd use to describe them. In comes me and BLM who is willing to fund the project. With a really basic process modelling I've improved things so dramatically it's silly.
Have changes been made at the national level: no. That's annoying. 6 months, a solid amount of data, headaches, a lot of computer hours and roughly $50000 of (what I assume is) tax payer money to cover my salary and overhead costs. And I get stuck in a bureaucratic log jam. Thanks guys.
2. Upper Tigris area cartography. This is fun work. I love doing cartography, I love working with archaeological data. But it's difficult to find the time and resources. No frustration here except with myself. Still, it's extra money for doing cool stuff.
3. Thesis. I finished, I defended. It goes for final reading. I get an email about a week ago saying a committee member couldn't find some of the revisions she suggested. Fine, I can take a look at them, leave it in my box since she have everything on hard copy and I've killed two trees printing the damned thing. Nothing after that. I stopped by the office, nothing. Email, nothing. I continue to go about my life. Slightly bitter at this point I just need to go through the motions to get the expensive piece of paper at the end.
Beyond that, I spent the evening sending Kerbals into orbit. The girl sleeps because she gets up at 5:00am and I patently don't. Best nights I sleep 7 hours between 11am-8am. Missing my bike for the evening, because when you feel a twinge of knee pain you give up for a couple days. I'm obligated to race in Baker City, OR at the end of the month. I'd at least like to have a decent show of it. Which means making up for a lot of lost time of Feburary-April.
Beyond even that I'm working on making a list of things I want a livejournal entry about. There are things, but I'm always in the mindset of citing the source, I don't have to do that here, which is strange, because I write so much for work using scientific communication writing it becomes second nature to back up an argument. Here, it's assumed to be my opinion. Which is I guess a difficult thing to do these days.
So I'm making a list of topics I read about, form opinions about and think they might be a good LJ read for you people out there. When all else fails they act as writing prompts.