Recent Exposures

Well, this week I started my summer job working for GSY-USA
installing portable magnetotelluric stations throughout the Pacific Northwest
as part of the EarthScope Array project. I was rented a very expensive U-Haul to get up to home base in Yakima,
Washington where I met up with my crew. Jennifer, Chris, Trey, &
Dimitri. It’s a sweet deal. I get paid
very well and I get $325 a week per diem that I can use (or save for a MacBook
Pro) as I wish. We also get to drive
around in two brand new rental trucks – a dodge ram and a Ford 150.

The first day I went with Chris and his nephew Dimitri to
the hills below Mt. Ranier
to install a portable MT array. It wasn’t very hard work and we
were done in
under 4 hours. There were cows all
around us and cowboys out practicing how to rope them in the fields. Small pines grew out of the stumps of ancient
old growth trees that had been cut down years before. The drive back was long due to construction
on the mountain road every 5 miles.  I guess the biggest part of the job will be
the extensive driving all over the state to get to all of the sites.

Let me explain briefly what I am doing. Each array consists of 100m dipoles in the
North-South, East-West Direction which measure electrical currents within the
earth created by the interaction of the earth’s ionosphere with solar energy (solar
flares etc). Those charges in the
atmosphere induces an electric field within the earth. This is the electric field we measure and it
is altered by interactions with the moon on a daily basis and the sun on a
yearly basis. By looking at the electric
currents in the earth we can look deep into the structure of the earth down to
about 14km which is the crust/mantle boundary. Earthscope is setting up these stations every 70km across the nation
(over 1500). Along with MT studies
seismic stations are also set up along with heat flow measurements and
satellite ground movement measurements. Earthscope is the largest and broadest geological study in history and
it will provide us with amazing imagery of what lies beneath the United
States. I’m very excited to be a part of
it.

On Wednesday Jen and I worked together to take down several
sites slightly east of
Yakima. It was
very easy and we were able to take down each site in about 2 hours. At one of the sites we saw a pack of male elk
with huge racks running off over the hill. I also found out that
short socks and boots with shorts on don’t work in
that kind of grass! On the way home we
passed by miles and miles of hops crops. Apparently, Yakima is one of the world’s largest producers of hops for
beer. Last year a fire in one of the
warehouses destroyed so much hops that it upset the world’s beer market! That afternoon I had some time to go for a
drive up to Yakima Canyon where I drove a very drunk couple back up the road to
their truck after they floated down the very cool looking river. I also saw some wakeboarding boats slicing

down the river… Very jealous. I had
bought a watermelon at fruit
stand… dumb. How the hell was I going to eat a giant watermelon in one night? Well, I did, with some help from my
co-workers, but I definitely think I had watermelon poisoning the next morning
and I believe I pee’d about 10 times!  Check out what the prairie grass did to my socks! 

On Thursday Jen and I headed East with all our gear to
service a few stations. We
ended up off
roading pretty hard at one site through some puddles nearly 2 feet deep next
corn crops. We drove over grasses that
were higher than the front of the truck and couldn’t see anything a few
times. Then, after finishing the site,
we were flying through puddles and I almost ran over a duck! There were also large prairie fires raging in
the distance. We ended up picking up
professor from Yakima named Kevin who was sent by NSF to check to make sure we
were working correctly. He was a nice
guy and I heard we’ll see him again soon. We ended up staying at a skeevy motel in a small town with pretty crappy
wi-fi that didn’t work. I bought a 4
foot long beef stick at the gas station along with some campbells chunky soup
for dinner…. Always trying to save a buck.

Friday we headed out to pull out a few sites with amazing
views of farmland and
rolling hills. We got done early so we headed to Moses
Lake, WA and hit up the sand dunes by the lake for some swimming to cool
off. After relaxing on the beach for a
while and cooling off in the wonderful water we headed to check out the new
Simpsons movie. I thought it was pretty
good and well overdue after 20 years of being on tv.  Jen was still working on the giant zucchini
given to her by the nice
farmer we met the night before with Kevin working on a
site on his property.  We then decided to drive West towards our next
sites. Passing by George, WA we
stopped
to see the huge natural amphitheatre over the Columbia River but were greeted
by a massive religious music festival and decided it
wasn’t worth fighting with
the crowd. We stopped briefly for some
great pictures of the Columbia River and of Wild Horses Monument up on the hill
before continuing on to Ellensburg. We
ended up sharing a double room by necessity because every motel in 50 miles was
booked.

Saturday we serviced a couple more sites and stayed in Idaho
at a pretty nice Best Western near the boarder. The first had great views of Mt. Stewart (part of the
cascades) and the
second was out in grassland that stretched for miles. Somehow our truck ended up with a very small
tire leak that we eventually need to fix.

Sunday we drove out to several sites in Eastern Washington
and filled up the back of the truck with a total of 4 transportable arrays now
and a ton of conduit tubing that
looks like it’s going to fly out the back on
every turn we take. Got a great picture
of red-tailed hawk today.

So far the job has been a blast with a lot driving but I
have a great time with Jen. She’s easy
to get along with and as long as we keep her fed she
always seems to be in a
great mood J. I call her Indiana Jen because of the funny
archeological type outfits she wears for fieldwork. She loves her job. Tonight we are heading towards Seattle. We’ll see what adventures next week brings!

Today I drove out through Bend to Devil’s lake near Mt.
Bachelor to start my climb up South Sister in the beautiful Sisters
Wilderness. The weather had been cloudy
and rainy all week so I was hesitant about going but it is the last free day I
have for about 2 months due to the GSY-USA consulting job I have taken for the
rest of the summer.

I got
to the mountain around 11am and started hiking up the beautiful trail. In under a mile I found myself in open
meadows with wildflowers everywhere and alpine lakes all around. It was absolutely beautiful . In the distance I could see Broken Top
and
behind me loomed Mt. Bachelor with streaks of snow still left on it from the
ski season. As I scrambled up the
footing became very loose, almost to point of sandy. It was all light weight ground up pumice left
over from previous eruptions ages ago. I
crossed
several snow fields left over from the winter on the way up. Finally I got up to an alpine lake and
followed a ridge above a glacier up to the summit bowl. It was amazing slowly climbing above the
height of jagged Broken top. Looking up
at the mountain you could see snow fields, glaciers, and various colored
volcanic rocks from yellow to orange to dark red.

When I
got to the top I was pretty tired and feeling the altitude because I
had
climbed to over 5,000 feet to get to 10,000 in just over 3 hours. It was beautiful out – 70 degrees, a little
breezy and sunny with a few clouds. On
the way up through the pulverized lava rock I could see and smell sulfur coming
out small vents in the side of the mountain which along with the salts in the
area had attracted millions of butterflies. They were literally crossing my path in a clouds of wings. Look closely at the picture to see
them. At the top I had to walk around
the rim of
the caldera to get to the true summit. The caldera was filled with snow and a small
glacial lake lay in the middle of it. At
the summit there were even more butterflies! The views from the summit were amazing. Middle Sister, North Sister, Three Fingered Jack, the side of Jefferson
were all to the north while Broken top,
Bachelor, and Crater Lake lay off in
the distance to the south. The
colors of
the rocks at the top were amazing. I
stopped for a good hour to enjoy the views, take pictures, and scarf down the
Tupperware container of leftover bbq wings from the night before (one of the
best lunches I’ve had at the top of a mountain). After
hanging out and playing with some dogs
that made it to the summit I climbed down to the top of the glacier where I had
seen two guys go down on their butts in goretex pants
earlier. I took a deep breath thinking it was stupid
and then jumped into their ass-tracks and skied down their tracks standing up
keeping my balance with my
ski poles. Other than falling once briefly on my butt I made it all the way down
the face of the glacier standing up in my leather Asolo boots much to the
amazement of several parties below who thought I was nuts and told me so J. From there I could see the valley below and
where a
large lava field had sprouted from
the earth hundreds of years
ago. It was an easy decent from there
and before I headed home I took a couple minutes to soak my sore feet in an ice
cold stream at the base of the mountain. 12 miles in 7 very wonderful, beautiful, relaxing hours on my
birthday. Definitely one of my favorite
hikes.

Last night Jason and I headed down to Squirrels to meet up
with Kristin and Chris Holm for a few drinks for my birthday. Anna and all her new friends showed up later
in the evening. Chris had a lot on his
mind that I’m sure he felt good about getting off his chest with me. I won’t discuss it here but the poor guy is
going through a really tough time. After
a funny convo about Harry Potter thankfully getting killed off we all went
upstairs to chat and play pool.  I also won’t go on about what I saw happen
upstairs between friends of mine. It doesn’t
effect me at all but I don’t like seeing my friends get hurt by the
thoughtlessness of my other friends and I ended up losing a lot of respect for
certain people that night. I ended up taking off from the bar around 1am because I had to get
up for my South Sister climb the next day.

Last night was Greg Wilson’s qualifying exam party. I’m not sure why it was his because Bart also
took his along with several others. In
any case the party was a
dress-up party at Anna’s new place so everyone,
including the
guys, had to wear dresses. Tiffany came by my place early in the night and left me with what I
would consider her hottest outfit – a long dress and cute brown halter
top. I also insisted on wearing her
cowboy hat for the party along with a $5 pair of gold aviator sunglasses I
picked up in NYC with Adrian last week. I was told I was the best looking man-girl there. Oddly, with everyone in dresses it turned out
to be the most testosterone-filled party I’d ever been to. There was a rock hang-board bolted above the
kitchen door and soon a contest broke out of who could do the most
pull-ups. Anna of course was rocking it
out. With everyone in dresses Anna was
the most manly looking person in jeans and white top. I told her she needed to
put on a dress and
she eventually did. Later the party
progressed to the deck
out back and a game of “hit the nail into the log” or
something broke out… again… testosterone. There was two home-brewed kegs and punch which were fantastic. I took over control of the music with my
ipod as usual and small dance party broke out in the living room for a
while.  It was a great party. I didn’t drink too much and ended up getting
a ride home with Brendan. Anna living
with 5 guys worries me….

I just got back from a wonderful trip home to see everyone
that I care about. I was expecting to
travel home for less than a week but the only days that I could use my frequent
flyer miles with United was from the 6^th of July through the 18^th
so I had a very big vacation home for the summer. I parked my truck in downtown Portland to
save money on the parking garage for the week and half and thankfully when I
got back it wasn’t broken into… might have to do that trick again.

I got
home the morning of the 7^th after a redeye flight across the country
through San Francisco and Dulles, Washington. My beautiful girlfriend Emily picked me up at the airport just before
Noon and we headed to Jon Hughes’ camp on Glen Lake for a day of wakeboarding
and partying with him, Jacquelin, Logan, Megan Jones, and
Jacquie (soon to be
Jacquie Jones). Jon had to go home for
some family stuff until around 1 so Emily and I headed to my parents to say hi
for a little while before heading back to Jon’s camp. We ended up getting several great runs on the
lake despite some wind at first. Emily
had been out a few times already with some friends from work and she had
improved incredibly. I’ve always been a
little jealous of Logan having a beautiful girlfriend like Jacquie who can also
rip on a wakeboard and other sports. Although this was only Emily’s 4^th time ever on a wakeboard I
feel like she has almost caught up to Jacquie’s abilities already. I was amazed. She is so athletic! My run was
ok, but at nearly 28 I decided it was time for me to stop trying to do misty
flips when I don’t even know how to pop off the wake properly for big
air! That night Megan, Jon, Emily and I bought a
bunch of food at the store and had a BBQ at his camp. We played cards and got pretty drunk. It was a great day. In the morning we woke up to Logan pounding
on the door of the bedroom (thankfully this summer Emily and I locked the
door). We hit up wakeboarding a few more
times and then Jon had to take off back to Boston so Emily and I left for her
place in Saratoga. That night she and I
took her car to the Glen Drive in to watch Transformers (kick ass movie) and
the Silver Surfer (sucked). It was fun
to be able to go to a drive in again…

Mon,
Tues, and Wednesday I spent the day at my parents and the nights with
Emily. We went out to dinner at the
sushi restaurant on Phila street and we got a
giant $45 “Lovers Boat” of sushi
which we shared. It was the first time
Sushi ever filled me up. Emily had
ordered it recently…. ;).

On
Wednesday I was able to visit my ex-girlfriend Kim Tyrer and her handsome
little boy Ethan. She and her husband
Jeremy have a beautiful home behind East Field in Glens Falls and she is
actually pregnant with a little baby girl. She seemed to be very happy with where she is in life and she misses
Jeremy who is away in Iraq in the military. Thankfully he ranked high enough that he won’t be placed in any very
dangerous areas. Evan pulled out every
one of his toys to show me and at a little over a year old he is starting to
talk pretty well. She looked great and
it was really nice to see her so happy.

Thursday
night I ended up going down to Albany to visit my buddy Kenny Wilhelm. Emily was traveling for work and he had the
night off so the two of us decided to head out to the bar that he worked at for
some cheap drinks. Before we left I was
introduced to the Wii and Guitar Hero as well which I really enjoyed. If I had some extra money I might even be
tempted to get the Wii. Kenny proceeded
to get me annihilated drunk at his bar that evening. Thankfully two of my drinks got knocked out
of my hands or I never would have been able to keep up with him. I don’t remember any of the night after
getting in the cab to go back to Kenny’s apartment. In the morning I woke up and headed back to
my parents forgetting the case for my video camera at Kenny’s… oh well. It was a good time with a good friend who I
haven’t seen since he drove out to Oregon with me last fall.

Friday afternoon I picked up a rental car and drove down to
Tarrytown to a beautiful restaurant called “Harvest on the Hudson” for the
wedding rehearsal dinner of my best friend Lindsay Sorter from my undergrad
years at Bowdoin College. We haven’t
really been in contact much over the years because she and I had let our
friendship progress to something more our Junior year and I had hurt her pretty
badly emotionally… To my surprise
several weeks before the wedding I got an email from her saying how much she
missed our friendship and how much she wanted me to be at the wedding. I’ve always considered her one of my closest
friends in life and the time when we were friends and living together at
Bowdoin are times I’ll never forget. Of
the 3 friends weddings I had this summer I decided that hers was the most
important for me to attend. I pretty
much had set the two of them up together anyways. She had liked Ryan but was too nervous to act
on it so at a party at Pine Street at Bowdoin I walked up to him and told him
to go over and ask her out because she had a crush on him… he did and the rest
is history. I was the only one invited
to the rehearsal dinner not in the wedding and that was very special to me. Lindsay sat next to me at the table and we
did as much catching up as possible. It
was a delicious dinner and I liked catching up with Jessie Poulin who sat on
the other side of me as well. It was nice that even after years of separation
I was able to sit between two of my closest friends from Bowdoin.

That night I left the dinner to go hang out with my old
buddy Adrian in Tarrytown. He was so
wasted when I met him at the bar that I and his friend barely got him
home. He wasn’t making any sense. In the morning he was fine and we headed to
NYC to Central Park to check it out. I
tried to call my buddy Matt Jones but was unable to connect with him in time in
the city. Central park was beautiful but
even in the park I found there were way too many people for my liking.

After changing at Adrians I headed off to the Tarrytown
House where the wedding was at 7pm. I
met up with Shawn and his new Melissa. Shawn looked great after all these years and is back in graduate school
as I am. The wedding only took 20
minutes and I was able to get the vows on video tape for Lindsay and Ryan as
well as their first dance. After the
wedding there were cocktails and munchies including scampi, chicken and pasta
etc. I thought that the food was the
dinner after the wedding and got a couple plates until Shawn told me that there
was still a full dinner ahead. Needless
to say I was absolutely stuffed by the end of the evening. I actually asked the waiter to “just stop bringing me food because I’m a
grad student and will eat anything put in front of me”. Everyone had a great time and it was

wonderful to see Lindsay so happy and dancing with everyone. I briefly danced with Lindsay during “Baby
got back” but nothing else because it was her day with Ryan and I didn’t want
my past with her to upset Ryan at all. I
was already getting odd looks from his father to begin with, especially since
she sat next to me at the rehearsal dinner and then at breakfast the morning
after the wedding… I know that Lindsay’s
love for Ryan is true and they will be happy together but I’m pretty sure that
her and I had more wild adventures together at Bowdoin then she’s had with
Ryan. But the best part of that is that
they now have their entire lives together to make their own adventures and
write their own stories. That night I
crashed with Jessie in her room for the night (who is also happily engaged… I’m
I the only one left?).

After a
quick breakfast with everyone in the morning I said my goodbye’s and headed to
Greenwhich, CT to see my beautiful daughter Ellie. This is only the 2^nd time that
I’ve gotten to visit her and she has grown so much. She is starting to say
some words including
“hi”, “da-da”, and “ma-ma”. She is so
cute when she looks into your eyes and talks baby talk with a look on her face
expecting you to understand what she is saying. I got to meet Nicolette’s boyfriend Clay whom she has been dating since
September. He is a great guy and
wonderful with Ellie and I’m really happy to know that Ellie is growing up with
a father figure in her life. I think
Clay liked me and I really hope that she keeps him around because he is a great
person. We took Ellie for a walk and out
to dinner before putting her to bed. I
bought her a baby drum set because she is beginning to crawl and likes to beat
her hands on
things and grunt (cutest thing ever to watch). I slept overnight there and got to drop her
off at daycare the next morning with Nicolette and meet her caretakers during
the day. They seemed like very caring
women. It was hard to leave my baby girl
again. I can’t wait until she can
communicate back with me. She holds my
heart.

I got
back to upstate NY Monday afternoon and after talking with my dad about all the
events of his life (while recording it) I got to see Emily again for a couple
nights before heading back to Portland, OR on Wednesday afternoon. It was a great trip home and the best part of
it is that Emily and I decided that we weren’t going to let distance kill
us. We had broken up in April because of
the distance and the fact that I’ll be in graduate school for a very long time
but when I came home it was just as intense, if not more, than when she came
out to Oregon to visit me.  We decided
that we are going to work very hard
at finding something for her out in Corvallis so that we can be together. She loved it when she came out to visit and
I’m sure that she would get along well with everyone that I know. I think it would be great opportunity for her
to broaden her horizons as well. I’ve
always felt that the best things in life are those worth fighting for so I’m
going to do my best to find her something. I’ve also made a big move for someone before and I fully realize how huge
of life changing decision it is so she will have my full love and support
throughout it. I hope that it will work
out because I can definitely see myself growing old with her in my arms.

Yesterday Jason, Chris Holm, Urva,
Niloo, Karen, Mac, Brendan and Tory floated down the Willamette River into town
for the 4^th of July. Everyone
met at my
place around 1pm and proceeded with the long process of blowing up
all the inflatable tubes in our living room while having a few beers. We loaded up all the tubes in my truck and
headed several miles out of town. After
shuttling the vehicles we jumped into the river around 2pm for the 2 hour slow
float into town. Some of us were in
inflatable donuts, Jason and I were in small inflatable boats, the girls were
in pool floaties, and Brendan & Mac were the lovely couple on a giant King
Size
inflatable mattress! Depending on
the current and where we were we all floated down the river at different
rates. I tied the suitcase
of beer we
had to my raft and let it float in the cool water to stay cold while randomly
tossing cans to everyone as they were requested. It was a great river float and many of us
were plenty drunk after the ride. Nobody
will forget Mac’s stagefright peeing off the side of the mattress for nearly a
quarter of the trip!

After the float everyone went home to change
and shower before heading over to Kristin Splinter’s apartment for the annual 4^th
of July BBQ there. All the summer
undergrad students went and I’m pretty sure that all the graduate students
still here for the summer went as well. There was plenty of food to go around and everyone had a terrific
time. At the end everyone walked
downtown or to the top of Winiger to watch the local fireworks. I went home to chat with Jason and ended up
walking downtown with him and McKenzie to see the (incredibly weak) fireworks
show. It ended up being the first 4^th
of July in 3 years that I haven’t been either pulled over or arrested by the
cops (see post of last 4^th of July)!

This weekend I headed to Bend with Chris Holm, Tiffany Gregg and Brent for some mountain biking on the dry east side of the Sisters Range of the Cascades.  Weather for Corvallis looked shitty so we decided to over the Cascades where the clouds can’t reach.  We ended up staying overnight in a "Day-Use" parking area of one of the
Cascade lakes (I think "Flagstaff" was the one).  On the way to Bend Chris and I stopped in at REI for some maps and for me to quickly try on a pair of Asolo boots I’d like to purchase soon for my CTD hike in August.  We then got some dinner at a Red Robbin (gotta love that fried egg on top of the burger). 
    I bought some wood and we stopped at safeway for some booze and snacks for biking the next day.  We had a great fire going by 10:30pm and after drinking the 6-pack I was out by about 1am.  I apparently had a dream about Fragle Rock because I mentioned it in my sleep along with Gonzo… what was I thinkin’..?   
    In the morning we got up to learn we would have to wait 3 more hours as Brent’s friend Dan and his girlfriend Lori drove up from Salem so we could shuttle cars to the
end of the very long downhill ride.  While Chris and Brent shuttled cars Tiffany and I waited in a snow-park parking lot underneath Mt. Bachelor in the sun.  We met some nice old folks collecting butterflies in a nearby field and it brought back memories of my youth (minus all the wrinkles). 
    When they all returned and we started the ride it was a great day.  We got a little lost at first but then we found our way.  For the most part the ride was downhill but on the flat sections I found I was no match for the group of professional bikers  My usual method of standing up out of my seat to peddle up hills using my climbing legs failed because of all the loose sand and dust on the trail providing no grip without weight (sitting down) on the back tire.  On the downhills I kept up just fine but felt a little wobbly (hopefully from my lack of clipless pedals and not my head trauma).  Our trip down lasted 4 hours and was about 24 miles long of sick downhill single track. 
We went through one section named "whoops" because it was just mounds of dirt pilled up for tricks and stuff.  At the end parking lot was also a freeride trail with double-ups and everything that I got to check out while they shuttled the cars again.
    It was a beautiful day in the sun with good people and I can’t wait to head back to that area to explore all the other trails.  Tiffany and Chris are always a riot to hang out with.  And as you can see from the last photo… we all got pretty dirty…