Time for some postins
I don't know what causes me to fall off the LJ wagon, but I don't like it. Time to climb back on!
Let's see if I can summarize the most interesting things that have happened to me in a while...well, firstly, I was a model for mouser_nerdboy's Flickr group a few weeks ago, and it was surprisingly fun/hard work! A lot of the photographers in the group are professionals, and the final images really show that. They ended up using my gold pants!!
When I came home from that, I discovered a disgusting bloody feathery mess in my kitchen. Clearly, my cats had brought in a bird, but I couldn't find any body. I found that vaguely disturbing, but decided not to worry about. I checked my email, and got a glass of water. As I was lifting up my head to take a sip, I noticed....that there was a live dove perched silently above my sink. How did I not notice that? After some internet searching, I found a name and number of a person who did wildlife rehab for birds. It turns out that this is just a really nice lady who loves birds and cares for them out of the goodness of her heart. I went to her house, which is truly the House of Birds. There had to have been at least 50 birds of all kinds, both inside and outside! And some of them were giant parrots that were really, really excited to see me. They went nuts when I showed up. The lady took the bird and worked on the wound right then and there--she had all kinds of equipment right there in her kitchen, as well as bird medications of all kinds. She said that the wound didn't look like it came from a cat, so it may have been that my fatty cats were only able to catch it because it was already hurt.
I stayed and visited with this lady for two hours. I think I want to send her a present or something. People like that restore my faith in humanity.
This past weekend, mouser_nerdboy and I climbed Humphreys Peak in AZ, the highest point in that state at 12,637'. It was an absolutely gorgeous, amazing hike! No part of the trail was very steep (although it's long), and most of it goes through a beautiful, lush forest that makes you think you're in CO and not AZ right outside of Flagstaff.
I was wearing a new pair of boots, which rubbed a bunch of skin off the back of my heels, but other than that it was a wonderful hike. Afterward, we went into Flagstaff and found a great sushi restaurant, where we stuffed ourselves silly and I had a beer that seemed at the time like the best beer ever made.
On the drive back to Albuquerque, mouser_nerdboy kindly reminded me that we were relatively close to the Grand Canyon Deer Farm, which we had visited several years before. This is a sweet petting zoo with deer you can feed and hug! At least, you can hug them as you're feeding them (they don't like hugs, apparently). I love this place soooo much! Even though I was really tired from all the hiking and eating, I perked right up when I saw the deer. There are some hilarious pictures of the deer eating my shirt when I didn't feed them fast enough. Oh deer, you are not too bright.
In between Flagstaff and Winslow is a huge stretch of absolutely nothing. We were driving along in light traffic when suddenly everyone came to a complete stop. We had no idea what was going on, but as we inched forward we could see cars stopped on the other side of the road. As we got closer, I started to have a really bad feeling about what had happened...all signs pointed to some terrible accident that had just occurred, so recently that no emergency responders were there yet. Unfortunately it became clear that this is exactly what had happened when we passed through the bottleneck. There were two smashed motorcycles, one on either side of the highway (as in, one in each direction of traffic). A crowd of people surrounded a man lying in the middle of the road, his head and face covered in blood and at least one shoe missing. There was another man lying in the grassy median strip not moving at all, and no one was tending to him. There were no helmets anywhere that I could see. It was absolutely horrible. The closest towns were at least 40 minutes drive. It's times like these that I wish I had some skills other than geology :(
Now I'm back in Albuquerque, trying to get my house ready for a visitor and also get my equipment in order for my upcoming fieldwork in UT. This week, my friend/collaborator will be arriving this Thursday to do some work on stats. We are going to try to apply some specific statistical techniques to her data, and if it works we may write a paper about it. In two weeks, I'll be going back to my UT field site to collect more samples. I can't for the life of me find my rock hammer, which admittedly was falling to pieces anyway, so I went ahead and bought myself a shiny new one with a leather handle, along with a fancy holster:
The leather handle is a bit more expensive, but it is really pretty! So I decided to go for it :) To be fair, it was only $5 more.
Tonight I think I will cook myself some tofu, open some white wine, and watch the movie Milk, after which I shall retire to bed early. Yay!
Let's see if I can summarize the most interesting things that have happened to me in a while...well, firstly, I was a model for mouser_nerdboy's Flickr group a few weeks ago, and it was surprisingly fun/hard work! A lot of the photographers in the group are professionals, and the final images really show that. They ended up using my gold pants!!
When I came home from that, I discovered a disgusting bloody feathery mess in my kitchen. Clearly, my cats had brought in a bird, but I couldn't find any body. I found that vaguely disturbing, but decided not to worry about. I checked my email, and got a glass of water. As I was lifting up my head to take a sip, I noticed....that there was a live dove perched silently above my sink. How did I not notice that? After some internet searching, I found a name and number of a person who did wildlife rehab for birds. It turns out that this is just a really nice lady who loves birds and cares for them out of the goodness of her heart. I went to her house, which is truly the House of Birds. There had to have been at least 50 birds of all kinds, both inside and outside! And some of them were giant parrots that were really, really excited to see me. They went nuts when I showed up. The lady took the bird and worked on the wound right then and there--she had all kinds of equipment right there in her kitchen, as well as bird medications of all kinds. She said that the wound didn't look like it came from a cat, so it may have been that my fatty cats were only able to catch it because it was already hurt.
I stayed and visited with this lady for two hours. I think I want to send her a present or something. People like that restore my faith in humanity.
This past weekend, mouser_nerdboy and I climbed Humphreys Peak in AZ, the highest point in that state at 12,637'. It was an absolutely gorgeous, amazing hike! No part of the trail was very steep (although it's long), and most of it goes through a beautiful, lush forest that makes you think you're in CO and not AZ right outside of Flagstaff.
I was wearing a new pair of boots, which rubbed a bunch of skin off the back of my heels, but other than that it was a wonderful hike. Afterward, we went into Flagstaff and found a great sushi restaurant, where we stuffed ourselves silly and I had a beer that seemed at the time like the best beer ever made.
On the drive back to Albuquerque, mouser_nerdboy kindly reminded me that we were relatively close to the Grand Canyon Deer Farm, which we had visited several years before. This is a sweet petting zoo with deer you can feed and hug! At least, you can hug them as you're feeding them (they don't like hugs, apparently). I love this place soooo much! Even though I was really tired from all the hiking and eating, I perked right up when I saw the deer. There are some hilarious pictures of the deer eating my shirt when I didn't feed them fast enough. Oh deer, you are not too bright.
In between Flagstaff and Winslow is a huge stretch of absolutely nothing. We were driving along in light traffic when suddenly everyone came to a complete stop. We had no idea what was going on, but as we inched forward we could see cars stopped on the other side of the road. As we got closer, I started to have a really bad feeling about what had happened...all signs pointed to some terrible accident that had just occurred, so recently that no emergency responders were there yet. Unfortunately it became clear that this is exactly what had happened when we passed through the bottleneck. There were two smashed motorcycles, one on either side of the highway (as in, one in each direction of traffic). A crowd of people surrounded a man lying in the middle of the road, his head and face covered in blood and at least one shoe missing. There was another man lying in the grassy median strip not moving at all, and no one was tending to him. There were no helmets anywhere that I could see. It was absolutely horrible. The closest towns were at least 40 minutes drive. It's times like these that I wish I had some skills other than geology :(
Now I'm back in Albuquerque, trying to get my house ready for a visitor and also get my equipment in order for my upcoming fieldwork in UT. This week, my friend/collaborator will be arriving this Thursday to do some work on stats. We are going to try to apply some specific statistical techniques to her data, and if it works we may write a paper about it. In two weeks, I'll be going back to my UT field site to collect more samples. I can't for the life of me find my rock hammer, which admittedly was falling to pieces anyway, so I went ahead and bought myself a shiny new one with a leather handle, along with a fancy holster:
The leather handle is a bit more expensive, but it is really pretty! So I decided to go for it :) To be fair, it was only $5 more.
Tonight I think I will cook myself some tofu, open some white wine, and watch the movie Milk, after which I shall retire to bed early. Yay!