Some of the prettiest areas I have ever seen in my life are along California’s central coast. There are just so many pristine areas, as well as scenic views. I love driving up the 1/101 freeways on the way up north.

I got to do part of that drive again this week as SCEC hosted a field trip for all of the interns. It was a fun group of people to spend the week with. We started out on Tuesday by doing presentations of our summer research projects. The highlight on Wednesday was a trip to the Hearst Castle (which is just absurd on so many levels!). On Thursday, we visited Parkfield and a new project that is under construction, named the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth. Friday involved a trip to Wallace Creek on the Carrizo Plains and then back home to Southern California.

Also met a lot of interesting people on this trip. Though as luck would have it, we didn’t have a chance to exchange contact info. There are quite a few that I would love to keep in contact with. All of the interns will be getting together at the end of September in Palm Springs, for the annual SCEC meeting though, so that will be a fun chance to see everyone again.

Finally getting a chance to go hiking tomorrow with a few friends. Nothing too rigorous. It will be nice to finally get a chance to do that this summer! Only 2 more weeks of this internship left, and 3 more weeks until I head back up to San Francisco. I am quite excited.

Last interesting bit of info: I was doing a search on google for “Rockbandit” and came across something interesting. I wrote a quick little review after seeing Angie Mattson back in June. Evidentially, my comments are now a testimonial on her reviews page. That is quite flattering. Thanks Angie. 🙂

Alright, gotta get ready for a barbeque tonight with the gang.

This week, all the interns for S.C.E.C. are going on a geology field trip to San Simeon. Along the way, we will be checking out the sights and sounds of the San Andreas Fault, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. Expected to return on Friday night. This will be quite fun. It will also be the first geology trip I’ve ever been on where we stay in hotels! I’m so used to the whole camping thing. I miss it!Tomorrow, I deliver a presentation at USC on what I’ve been working on this summer. It’s roughly a 10 minute talk using Powerpoint. I started working on it yesterday and still have a bit to do. I need to crank out the rest of it tonight, that way I have something to talk about tomorrow. Sadly, the results are lacking. The reflection phases we’re looking for in seismograms are not there. That is a bummer. Despite this though, I have learned so much and it’s definitely been a fascinating summer.

In other news, my braces are now completely off! Oh yes! Pictures will follow soon.

Nic and Kristen’s wedding is in two weeks too. Eek! So much to do before then.

Awesome! The top braces were taken off today, as well as some of the bottom braces. They are leaving some on for another week to get a tooth back into alignment. Then as of next week they will all be removed! The only thing that remains to do is to whiten them a bit and then fix my chipped tooth!

I am so damn happy. 🙂

Drove back to Redlands today since I have an orthodontist appointment tomorrow. I am supposed to get my braces off! I highly doubt that is going to happen though since it seems like there are a few spots that need to line up ever so slightly. We’ll see what they say.

I saw Tsunami Bomb this weekend on Friday and Saturday night. They put on a great show! I ended up bringing my digital camera to the show on Friday and took 127 pictures! I didn’t realize I had taken so many. After sorting through them and removing the out of focus shots and pictures of the back of people’s heads, I uploaded them to the gallery. Check them out!

Some highlights:

And lastly, Em and I after the show:

All in all, it was an awesome experience. As I’ve said on numerous other occasions, they are probably the nicest group of people I’ve ever met. I wish them luck on their upcoming tour. They are great!

Anyway, until next time!

Earlier this week I was at Cal Tech. That was my first time at that campus. That is such an amazing place. Their seismology building is just incredible. The more I think about it, the more I am definitely contemplating doing seismology in grad school. I talked to my research mentor about this today. Here is the catch: Most grad schools want applicants in seismology to come from a geophysics background. Thus far, the schools that I have gone to only offer programs in geology. This means that to stand out about the rank and file of other grad school candidates, I need something more on my plate (besides internships). It looks like I will be minoring in physics afterall!

This is something I’ve always contemplated in the back of my mind, but was never sure if I could do it, or even if I should do it. Now that there is a purpose for it, I’m thinking about it. Looking at the requirements for a minor in physics at SFSU, I will only need 12 more units after this semester! That is a whooping 3 or 4 classes (depending on units). Holy crap! Sign me up. As my sister (a fashion design major) said, “damn, maybe I’ll minor in physics too!” That might push my graduation date back an extra semester, but it is worth it in the long run. I’m willing to greet physics with open arms. Here’s to hoping it’s greeting isn’t a punch to the stomach. 🙂

I put a cheesy video of me touring Michelle and David’s new apartment in the downloads section. Or you can directly download it here. It is a 34 second, 1.2mb download. You’ll need DivX codecs installed on your machine or a DivX Player to see the video. If you already have either, don’t worry!

I registered for classes today too. The schedule for this semester is 15 units (ack!), consisting of:
Sedimentology and Stratigraphy, Mineralogy, Physics 3 and Oceans and Atmospheres. Should be a piece of cake. Righto!

This weekend has two more nights of Tsunami Bomb scheduled. I love seeing that band perform. They have so much energy and are so friendly as well. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be back in town on Sunday night then if people want to do anything. I need to start thinking about stuff for Nic and Kristen’s wedding too. So much to do!

I am back down in Southern California. My sister and I drove back down yesterday, and spent nearly 10 hours on the road as we took the 101 freeway down instead of the 5. Then we made a few scenic detours through LA and showed her my apartment here. (She was less than impressed by it to say the least!)

On Saturday night, I had yet another “Wow, this city is so small!” experience. Back in March, I met this amazingly awesome girl from Berkeley. Just crazy intelligent, great sense of humor, into excellent music and an all around awesome person. We hung out, even had a dinner together. Then never really spoke to each other again. That was kind of a bummer. Evidentially, the power of my dorkiness was too much for her. Hah. In anycase, I saw her at the show last night! I haven’t seen her in 4 months (not to mention that she lives in Berkeley), and I see her at a music club in San Francisco the one day I am up there this whole summer. This city never ceases to amaze me.

The show itself was awesome! One of the best shows I’ve seen Tsunami Bomb play (that was my 9th time seeing them). I guess it was extra special since they were basically on their home turf. Before the show, I was hanging out with some fans I know from their message boards, whom I’ve seen at other shows. Mike, TB’s guitarist (who I bought the guitar from last year), was walking around the sidewalk before the doors opened and saw us. He said hello and remembered every single one of us. It was great getting to talk with him, he is one of the friendliest people I have ever come in contact with. Once we were inside, we chatted about various guitar stuff as well. After the show, we were all back on the sidewalk and got to hangout with the band some more. Em, their singer, stayed until every single person who wanted an autograph was gone. That is so great to see. They are just the raddest group of people.

This weekend made me realize just how much I miss the Bay Area. I’ve been kinda down today now that I’m back down in So Cal. There’s things I love about both parts of the state though. However, I cannot wait to go back up north. Only around 5 more weeks or so to go though.

The one thing that I am kind of saddened for is that I haven’t really had time to enjoy to summer. Basically the weekends are the only time I am free. I’ll have a week and a half between when my internship ends and when school starts, so perhaps I’ll take a mini-vacation sometime then.

Anyway, off to a bonfire with the roommates and their friends! Ta ta.

I arrived at Michelle and David’s new apartment in Berkeley about a half hour ago. Oh man. I am so unbelievably jealous! I thought my place was awesome, their’s just completely blows mine away! (At least I have a rad scenic view!)

Basically, when our parent’s next come up to visit, they are going to have to look at my place first, otherwise they won’t be impressed.

My place: “Oh wow, this is nice.”
Michelle’s: “THIS IS INCREDIBLE!!!!!!”

They won’t have an internet connection until July 15th though. Whatever is one to do? Thanks to the miracles of modern technology (laptop plus this wireless card), I am now borrowing one of their neighbor’s internet connections. 🙂 It’s scary how easy it is to find an unsecured, wireless internet connection almost anywhere now. Though it is also quite convienent.

Anyway, time for bed. It’s nice to be back here in the Bay Area. Even if it’s only for 2 whole days.

Goodnight.

Today I was sitting on a hill near Mulholland Drive, babysitting a radio antenna for an hour or so, while we were testing shooting signals back and forth over a distance of several miles. It’s quite hot and lonely as well. To my surprise, a car pulls off the road and an older man gets out and strolls over to me. Being my good natured self, I think, “Oh! A new friend to talk to and kill some time!”

The conversation goes like this:
Me: “Hello!”
Him: “That looks like an interesting setup you have there.”
Me: “Yes, it’s part of a seismology experiment we’re doing at UCLA.”
Him: “Seismology. That’s nice. Say, I’ll tell you what you should be studying!”
Me: (With baited anticipation) “Hah, what’s that?”
Him: “The power of God, that’s what!”

Err. Excuse me? So here I am, basically in the middle of nowhere, and a crazy person still finds me! To talk to me about the power of his friend evidentially. He talked about things like how he got back from a crusade (which immediately scared me) and it was amazing to see all these kids there experience the “power of the lord.” What was this power?

Him: “Well the Reverend asked if everyone could feel his power, and suddenly, everyone in the room fell over!”

At this point, I pulled our laptop out of the case and started frantically pushing buttons. Unfortunately, there was no magic escape key for him, but I figured if enough interesting windows flashed on the screen, he’d leave me alone! After carrying on for about 10 more minutes over this bizzare event he went to, he finally went on his way. I was saved! Well, maybe not by his standards, but it was good enough for me. 😛

Alright, I was going to go to S.F. on Saturday morning, but I’ve decided on a whim to go now… as in, like 10 minutes. 🙂 So this will give me a little more time to relax and see people, and it will be nice to not drive up one day, only to drive down the next day.

Off I go!

I spent quite a bit of this weekend setting up a new system for web blogs on my site. The system is called WordPress. This should make it about a million times easier to post journals and things on my website.

For those who aren’t familiar with how blogs work, most of them have a simple system to post. Basically, the user opens up a special webpage, types their entry into a text box and clicks “Post!” The website is automatically updated and everything is set. Very simple, quick and easy. However, that isn’t that way I’ve been doing it for the past 9 months I’ve had this. I directly edited my webpage, typing the entry into it, saving the page, then uploading the new page to my server. It was a fairly tedious process. Everytime I wanted to create archive pages, I had to manually create them.

Now with WordPress, I have the amazingly awesome functionality of all these other blogs on the internet! I can simple type my latest entry into a textbox and click post it. The webpage and archives page are all automatically taken care of. I’m quite pleased with this so far actually! The most noticable improvement is the monthly archives list on the left hand side of the screen. Commenting is now also much easier.

Of course importing all my previous blog entries was a huge pain, since I had to import every single one of those by hand, as well as retype all the comments that had been made for previous posts. Anyway, after slaving around, it looks like everything is in working order. If you notice any quirks or problems, feel free to email me.

Anyway, on the way back home to Redlands on Friday night, I was driving in the fast lane, which entails going about 75 miles an hour. All of a sudden, my headlights shine on a medium sized dog that suddenly appears right in the middle of my lane! I screamed and instinctively swerved, flying across two lanes of traffic. That was incredibly frightening. This was still near LA, so the fast lane has absolutely no shoulder. How the dog got there is mind boggling. It’s also scary to think that if there was a car to the left of me, I would have slammed into it, since I just completely jerked the steering wheel without even thinking. Ugh, that could have been disastorous. I really doubt the dog lasted long, since the traffic flow was somewhat heavy. 🙁

This weekend, I hung out with Nate, Nic and Dan for fourth of July celebrations. Nic, Nate and myself went to the University of Redlands to watch the large fireworks show they put on every year. My thinking was fairly clouded though. Here we are celebrating our country and being patriotic while on the other side of the world, people our age are dying in vain, for an unwarranted war. Eh.

After this, Dan and I went to his brother’s house for a party. It was a very cool group of people there. There were some interesting people I got to meet, which is always a great experience. It was nice to hang out with them.

This next week is pretty busy, especially in regards to music. On Wednesday, I am going to try to see Terra Naomi play and on Friday, I definitely want to check out Angie Mattson again too. Such great, talented musicians, who both have amazing voices! It also looks like I’ll be going up to San Francisco for Saturday and Sunday. Before I found out about my internship, I bought a ticket to see Tsunami Bomb up in S.F. Granted, it was only a $9 ticket, but I still want to see them. Plus my trip will serve two purposes, as I’ll be bringing my sister back home for a week as well. It will be nice to visit the city. I already miss it so much. Hopefully there will be enough time to say hi and hang out with some people up there too! (Harmony! :-P) I’ll keep everyone posted.

Well, here is the first test of the new blog system. Let’s cross out fingers. 🙂