30th Anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens
I meant to post about this last week, but forgot... My dad emailed me a link to some pictures today that reminded me, and I have to share! The eruption of Mt. St. Helens was 30 years ago on May 18th and I've been thinking about it a lot. Here is a great repository of some pictures of the eruption and its aftermath. The intensity of the eruption and the resulting damage (mostly ash and mega mudflows from all the melting glaciers) are amazing.
I was too little to remember the eruption itself (about 1.5 years old), but there were several follow-on eruptions that summer and my parents have a story about being on a camping trip in Eastern Washington during one of the smaller eruptions -- apparently I was entranced with the falling ash and thought it was snow. :) The last time I visited Mt. St. Helens was around 1998 after I'd taken an environmental geology course in college and became obsessed with wanting to know more about volcanoes... So I visited the blast zone and it was clearly still a blast zone -- there were still huge stretches where the trees were flattened like toothpicks. (Also: I highly recommend a visit to anyone interested. Kick ass visitor centers with info on the eruption and the recovery.) It's so weird to me to think that a mountain my parents grew up seeing suddenly blew its top off and looks the way *I* know it to be now: short and with a lopsided crater (lopsided due to the lateral blast -- the mountain exploded up and to the side). My parents had both climbed Mt. St. Helens when it was about 2,000 feet taller than it is today...
Anyway, check out those pictures -- they're impressive.
I MISS MY MOUNTAINS. :(
Oh, and I need to post about Lost. Count me in the camp of people who were disappointed with the final episode. I know it wasn't actually all just a dream or purgatory, but the ending felt a little too close to that for me to be satisfied. Plus, they clearly introduced way too many plot threads and characters and didn't properly plan out how to resolve it all. I'm grateful we did get a resolution of sorts for the main characters -- the ones we actually care about and watch the show for -- but I'm pretty annoyed at their story-telling process. I get it that they were probably just making weird stuff up in the beginning, but once they negotiated that end-date for the series with the network and could work backwards to wrap everything up properly, they should have been more careful. JKR had a zillion plot threads and characters, too, but I think she did a good job at tying up the loose ends.
I think I'm also a little cranky because for the last season Lost was starting to feel like homework for me, not a TV show I enjoy. I had to scramble to get caught up on episodes before Sunday night, but I was motivated by not wanting anyone to ruin the ending for me more than wanting to enjoy my last hours with the series. For the last 5 or 6 episodes when people were switching allegiances every 5 seconds, I was just annoyed. And I was not digging the effort I had to put into keeping track of everything. They had four different AUs going over this series: present time on the island, the flashbacks, the flashforwards (I liked that; clever idea), then the flash sideways. By the time the flash sideways things came along -- AFTER the actual island was jumping around in time -- I had had enough. Because not only do you have all these different AUs to keep track of, there are zillions of characters constantly shifting allegiances in each time/universe. ARGH. I like shows that make me think, but not to the point that I get a headache. I also like ANSWERS, and yeah I know I'm lame like that but there it is.
A few other random observations. I liked the Sun and Jin reveal best -- when they started speaking English at the hospital. :) And I shipped Sawyer and Kate so I was a little disappointed that the show seemed to have Kate and Jack end up together, but I loved the Sawyer and Juliet reunion, which made me think maybe I actually do like Sawyer and Juliet as a couple better... Who knows and who cares since the show is over now? ;) I'm bummed we didn't get more Desmond and Penny together, but at least we did get some Desmond. I'm not sure how I feel about Hurley having to hang out with Ben on the island for however long they lived. I think I'd have liked a nicer ending for Hurley. I loved the line where Bernard and Rose were like, "We try not to get involved in all that drama..." ls;dkfjsl;dfjk I know and I love you guys for it. ;)
Did that last plane of people actually make it off the island, or did they crash? How did CJ get to be the keeper of the island -- where did she come from? Was that all meant to be pre-historic mythology or something? (I watched the last several episodes and the finale all at once, so this is all blurring in my head.) Were certain former Island folk not in the church just because the actors' schedules didn't work out, or for some actual story reason? (Mr. Eko, for example.) Will I ever watch re-runs or buy the DVDs? Probably not. I think I'll look back on the show with fondness and my irritation at the final season will fade. They did a lot of things REALLY well over the last six years, so I shouldn't be too harsh.
I was too little to remember the eruption itself (about 1.5 years old), but there were several follow-on eruptions that summer and my parents have a story about being on a camping trip in Eastern Washington during one of the smaller eruptions -- apparently I was entranced with the falling ash and thought it was snow. :) The last time I visited Mt. St. Helens was around 1998 after I'd taken an environmental geology course in college and became obsessed with wanting to know more about volcanoes... So I visited the blast zone and it was clearly still a blast zone -- there were still huge stretches where the trees were flattened like toothpicks. (Also: I highly recommend a visit to anyone interested. Kick ass visitor centers with info on the eruption and the recovery.) It's so weird to me to think that a mountain my parents grew up seeing suddenly blew its top off and looks the way *I* know it to be now: short and with a lopsided crater (lopsided due to the lateral blast -- the mountain exploded up and to the side). My parents had both climbed Mt. St. Helens when it was about 2,000 feet taller than it is today...
Anyway, check out those pictures -- they're impressive.
I MISS MY MOUNTAINS. :(
Oh, and I need to post about Lost. Count me in the camp of people who were disappointed with the final episode. I know it wasn't actually all just a dream or purgatory, but the ending felt a little too close to that for me to be satisfied. Plus, they clearly introduced way too many plot threads and characters and didn't properly plan out how to resolve it all. I'm grateful we did get a resolution of sorts for the main characters -- the ones we actually care about and watch the show for -- but I'm pretty annoyed at their story-telling process. I get it that they were probably just making weird stuff up in the beginning, but once they negotiated that end-date for the series with the network and could work backwards to wrap everything up properly, they should have been more careful. JKR had a zillion plot threads and characters, too, but I think she did a good job at tying up the loose ends.
I think I'm also a little cranky because for the last season Lost was starting to feel like homework for me, not a TV show I enjoy. I had to scramble to get caught up on episodes before Sunday night, but I was motivated by not wanting anyone to ruin the ending for me more than wanting to enjoy my last hours with the series. For the last 5 or 6 episodes when people were switching allegiances every 5 seconds, I was just annoyed. And I was not digging the effort I had to put into keeping track of everything. They had four different AUs going over this series: present time on the island, the flashbacks, the flashforwards (I liked that; clever idea), then the flash sideways. By the time the flash sideways things came along -- AFTER the actual island was jumping around in time -- I had had enough. Because not only do you have all these different AUs to keep track of, there are zillions of characters constantly shifting allegiances in each time/universe. ARGH. I like shows that make me think, but not to the point that I get a headache. I also like ANSWERS, and yeah I know I'm lame like that but there it is.
A few other random observations. I liked the Sun and Jin reveal best -- when they started speaking English at the hospital. :) And I shipped Sawyer and Kate so I was a little disappointed that the show seemed to have Kate and Jack end up together, but I loved the Sawyer and Juliet reunion, which made me think maybe I actually do like Sawyer and Juliet as a couple better... Who knows and who cares since the show is over now? ;) I'm bummed we didn't get more Desmond and Penny together, but at least we did get some Desmond. I'm not sure how I feel about Hurley having to hang out with Ben on the island for however long they lived. I think I'd have liked a nicer ending for Hurley. I loved the line where Bernard and Rose were like, "We try not to get involved in all that drama..." ls;dkfjsl;dfjk I know and I love you guys for it. ;)
Did that last plane of people actually make it off the island, or did they crash? How did CJ get to be the keeper of the island -- where did she come from? Was that all meant to be pre-historic mythology or something? (I watched the last several episodes and the finale all at once, so this is all blurring in my head.) Were certain former Island folk not in the church just because the actors' schedules didn't work out, or for some actual story reason? (Mr. Eko, for example.) Will I ever watch re-runs or buy the DVDs? Probably not. I think I'll look back on the show with fondness and my irritation at the final season will fade. They did a lot of things REALLY well over the last six years, so I shouldn't be too harsh.