Cool! Tomorrow, a friend is taking me to her gym to go rock climbing tomorrow evening. That’s something I’ve never done before, though I’ve thought it was definitely interesting. One of the first times I ever saw people doing that in person was during a geology trip to Devil’s Punchbowl in Southern California. It was pretty rad to see people scaling these vertical rock walls. Anyway, I’m looking forward to it! Perhaps this will be a new hobby to take up? Perhaps it will also help me conquer a slight fear of heights that I have. I’ll have to report on how it goes tomorrow evening.

A local online newspaper/magazine up here wrote one of the best article’s I’ve yet seen on this subject, documenting the potential earthquake dangers in the Bay Area. It’s five pages long. I got through the first page and thought it was interesting, so I emailed a link to my mom and my sister. Then I kept reading. Big mistake! I’ve managed to scare both my sister and mom out of their minds. Anyway, the article paints a pretty bleak picture for this area. It scares the crap out of me too, maybe that’s why I’m so interested in studying earthquakes however.

I’m also entering the research I did this summer for SCEC into an undergraduate research competition that is being held throughout all the CSUs. I submit a summary of the research on Monday. If they like it, I’ll have a chance to present it, along with other students at our school in two weeks. The top candidates in each category go on to represent SF State. So if all goes well, I’ll potentially have the chance to represent my school in Sacramento at the end of April! So I’ll probably spend the majority of this weekend writing my summary and preparing a presentation just in case!

Two weeks of school down! Of course I missed most of this week due to having a cold. That was a great experience and I ended up missing a lot of important classes. Hopefully this means that I won’t have to deal with being sick again for the rest of the semester and it is out of the way now. One can only hope at least.

It seems like I’ve been getting sick a lot more often since I’ve moved up here. I feel like it might have something to do with taking public transit. It seems like a lame excuse, but then again, being in close contact with all sorts of people who cough, sneeze and touch the hand bars, I think I’m exposed to quite a bit more up here. I rarely remember to wash my hands when I get off the bus or train too. Perhaps that is something I should be more vigilant about. Of course now I sound like one of those people obsessed with too many germs around.

Ah hah! Just found this little tidbit on a health website: Experts agree that scrubbing your hands is the first line of defense against bacteria and other germs that can cause colds, the flu, skin problems and more serious illnesses.

In other news: Judging by the past two weeks, school is going to be pretty intense. Part of me feels like I am already behind in work! Nonetheless, I just need to struggle on through it. I’m also applying for another summer internship in Southern California that sounds absolutely awesome. I’m crossing my fingers that I get it. The office is located in Riverside, so I can live with my parents for the summer and sublet my room up here. Anyway, I’m mailing everything out early next week. I’ll be anxious to hear from them.

In random news: Michelle and I randomly stumbled across a Mediterranean food place that makes these AMAZING falafels. I went back earlier this week and after paying, I noticed he gave me back too much change (3 cents instead of 2 cents). Since I was just out the door, I returned, handed him the penny and said, “You gave me 1 cent extra.” He laughed and then offered me praise! “Wow, that speaks a lot about you! You are a good person!” That definitely made my day. Of course I don’t think anyone else I passed on the street cared too much as I strutted by and said, “Hey! I am a good person. Ohhh yeah!”

On Friday, we had a themed party at our place, entitled a “P-Party.” The objective was to dress up as something that started with the letter “P”. We had physicians, people in pajamas, potheads (wearing a pot on their head), pilots, proctologists, purgatory, pirates, punks and even “peace.”

I decided to be slightly different and dress up as a phone! I spent a few hours on Friday making my costume. However, in a fit of absent-mindedness, I ironed the #3 on backwards! I didn’t realize it until after everything was already put together. Oh yes, that was awesome. I received quite a few compliments for it too! Of course the interesting placement of the zero was a unique conversation starter (and even lead to some interesting pickup lines).

Anyway, here’s to hoping I’ll get better in the next few days! It’ll definitely be nice to get out of the house, especially since the weather has been BEAUTIFUL.

School starts… erm, today! However, in a twist of amazing luck, my first class isn’t until 12PM. That means I can get some definite sleeping in time! Last week, I didn’t feel as though I was mentally prepared for this semester. After this weekend though, I think I’m ready to take it on. Before I explain, let’s talk about the events leading up to this weekend.

Last Sunday, I wanted to get out of the house, so I decided to go for a run. I haven’t done that in awhile, but it also served as a good chance to gauge my ankle. I ended up running two miles and my ankle didn’t bother me a bit! This is very good news and made me quite happy.

On Wednesday night, I decided to go play volleyball at the YMCA near downtown San Francisco. After not playing for nearly 3 months, it was nice to be on the court again. I think I did pretty well. I even recognized some people from the Berkeley YMCA when I played there. There were a few times when I was hitting the ball and landing that my ankle felt slightly sore, but it held up fine!

Finally, this weekend was the ultimate test. As many know, I’ve been wanting to do something before school starts. It seems like it has become somewhat of a tradition. A good way to clear my head and do some adventurous stuff before focusing on academics again. Initially, I planned a camping trip this weekend. As more and more people decided not to go, or weren’t able to go (and it eventually came down to just a girl I know and me going), we decided to scale it back to a one day trip so it wouldn’t be too ackward. So yesterday rolls around and things don’t work out for us to go. That’s fine! Life gives you lemons and you make lemonade (or something)! So I decide to throw a bunch of gear into my car on a whim and drive! I was dead set on going on an adventure before school starts, so I wasn’t going to let a lack of company stop me.

I drove two and a half hours down to Pinnacles National Monument. I’ve never been there before, but heard quite a bit about it from geology classes and friends. That place is AWESOME. I hiked a total of 15 miles over two days (and have a blister the size of a small country on my right foot to show for it). I definitely want to go back with some friends. The campsite was cool and the park itself was gorgeous.

They even have some caves there that I decided to explore!

I took quite a few pictures and put them up in my photo gallery:
My camping trip to Pinnacles National Monument.

Alright, in school related news, my schedule this semester looks like the following:
Engineering Geology
Petrology
Quaternary Geology
Volcanology

Yes! 4 geology classes. HOWEVER, I think I may try the “no-social life” approach that I almost perfected last semester by adding a fifth geology class on top of it: Geologic Mapping. Yes, I took that damn class at Cal State San Bernardino, but since you can’t be a geologist unless you have an ego, it is recommended I take this class since it supposedly teaches us more than the class I previously took.

Benefits:
1.) Theoretically, I can graduate THIS FALL. Realistically, the only thing left for me to work on in Spring of 2006 would be my senior thesis. Since I will be 24, I won’t be covered under my parent’s health insurance plan anymore, so it doesn’t matter whether I’m a full time student or not.

2.) My potential New Zealand trip in January/Febraury of 2006 may conflict with a class. If I get this out of the way… nothing to worry about conflicting! This means that after my fieldwork in New Zealand is wrapped up, I can spend an extra week or two to hang around and check out the scenery. That would be two whole months in New Zealand. NICE.

Drawbacks:
1.) 5 geology classes that ALL have field trips. That means I will basically have ZERO free weekends. That will also mean I can’t get a real job in order to pay bills (though I will be getting an AWESOME stipend next month for my help with the SF-ROCKS project).

2.) I want to go to grad school at Berkeley bad. Will I be able to focus with 5 classes and be able to pull off at least a 3.5 GPA (or more realistically, at least maintain a 3.0)?

3.) If I want to graduate by fall, that means I’ll have to be working on my senior thesis WHILE completing both Physics III, Chemistry II and one other crappy GE class in the fall. Unless… I can talk to an advisor and start working on my thesis over the summer?

Maybe I’ll go to all the classes this week and see what the work load is.

I’m back up north and ready to start school. Well, I shouldn’t say ready to start school though. However, there is still one week of winter break left before classes start.

My close friends from Southern California departed on Sunday night. It was a blast having them up here. There’s something about having your close friends from far away coming to visit you that is just awesome. We explored some new parts of the city that I haven’t spent much time in since I’ve moved up here. Those were some fun adventures.

I was able to check out some new music this week, courtesy of one of my geology friends, Peter. His uncle was playing a show at a small cafe. Definitely cool! It’s always inspiring to see musicians play in small intimate locations like that. Maybe one day, when I have free time…

In other random news, I applied for a position with the California Geological Survey. I should find out whether I get the job or not this week. I’m crossing my fingers. It sounds like it will be a fun job.

I’m hoping to do something this weekend before school starts. Basically one last hurrah before it’s time to get serious again. I’m thinking of a small little camping or hiking trip. Still some more planning to do. At the moment, Point Lobos or Pinnacles are looking like likely places.

Lastly, I’ve added some random pictures in the friends section of my gallery pages. A group pic from New Year’s Eve at Nic’s, and a few group pics from last weekend, as well as a few more random pics thrown in for good measure.

In 24 hours, I should be on the road and heading back towards home. The original plan was to have Dan and Nic ride with me and we would drive up to San Luis Obispo to meet up with Nate. We’d hang out in town for a bit, grab a bite to eat and then sleep. Then on Thursday, we’d all carpool up to San Francisco. This way would be nice since we’d break the trip up into 2 four hour segments. Thanks to the crazy storms of the past week, we may have to change up our plans. Highway 101 is closed thanks to landslides, so this eliminates a direct route to San Luis Obispo. Unless it’s cleared up by tomorrow, we may just have to push on towards S.F. and meet Nate up there on Thursday or Friday at my place. Ultimately, we’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings. It’s quite possible that they’ll have the 101 opened up by tomorrow evening since the storms are over.

This weekend, I spent some time hanging out with Brandee, a friend from USC that I made this summer during the internship for SCEC. For my birthday, she decided to take me to see a psychic. That was a fun/interesting experience. After driving around for a bit, we selected a psychic who was located about 3 blocks from where I used to live this summer. We walked in, told her what we wanted (a palm reading) and that was it. She went to work!

So what does my future hold? I will live to the ripe age of 82. I will not die from sickness or tragedy, just of old age. I’ll have 2 children, 1 female and 1 male. I’ll be married between the ages of 26 and 27. That was the general fluffy stuff in my opinion. Then she decided to delve into my past:

Lately, I’ve been seeking out too much advice from others and I need to just go with my gut feeling. (Interesting… I have been asking everyone and their mother about how I should plan this next semester after the hell I went through last semester. But then again, this seems like a general line you can feed to anyone)

I am disappointed with how I did in school recently. And I am not focusing on school as much as I should be. ( Okay, this is totally true. But then again, we’re right across the street from UCLA, it’s obvious I’m a college student. Most college students are striving to do better.)

She said that I went through some very difficult times two years ago. (This was downright wacky and scary. Exactly two years ago, I was in a relationship with someone that I thought was one of the most amazing people I had ever met that was is the midst of crashing into the ground. This was particularly difficult for me to deal with). But she says 2004 was better (she was right) and 2005 is going to be fantastic.

And lastly, apparently there is a girl in my life that I care for very much but she doesn’t necessarily feel the same way about me. (Err, I dunno about this. There are a lot of people I care about, so I can’t really think of who it would be). But she said to “give it time and things will change”. Of course she said this right in front of Brandee. By our body language, it’s obvious we aren’t dating, so maybe she was taking a stab in the dark? I’m not sure. Besides, that would violate my strict policy of not dating anyone from USC. 😛

We hung out at the Getty Center for a bit and then went to go to Dave and Buster’s. I started feeling naceous for some reason and had Brandee drive my car. Then I proceeded to spew my brains out all over the sidewalk on a few occassions. Oh yes. That was classy. It was nice of the psychic to tell me that I was going to be sick too! Oh right, she didn’t. 🙁

Evidentially I caught a nice flu bug that both my mom and dad were having at the exact same time. I was eventually able to drive the hour and a half from Brandee’s house back to my parent’s house (thankfully without having to empty the contents of my stomach). The rest of Saturday night/Sunday was a disaster in terms of this flu. Thankfully I am over it now though! I totally owe Brandee for driving us back to her place and putting up with all of that. She is the only person I know who has gotten a cheesy little Saturn to peel out. Hah!

Anyway, the next time I post, I should be back in the Bay Area!

It was exactly a year ago that I made the decision to move to San Francisco. I find it hard to believe how fast the time has flown by. A lot has happened since then. I feel like I’ve grown up quite a bit since I moved away and started living on my own, and have become quite a bit more responsible as well. Awesome changes all around. I think I have an interesting note I wrote down in a journal back in January of 2004 that pondered where I would be a year from now. I’ll have to dig it up when I return to S.F. in two weeks and post it. It’ll be an interesting comparison.

And where will I be in January of 2006? I’m going to New Zealand! (Still not official yet, but I am going to try to do everything in my power to go there). Where there’s a will, there’s a way!

Also, I think that I’ve finally conquered my irrational fear of roller coasters! I went to Magic Mountain yesterday with some friends and we went on nearly all of the rides! I had a blast and definitely wouldn’t mind going back again. Towards the end of the night, we all started feeling queezy though (of course most of that might be attributed to our New Year’s Party the night before). Regardless, it was a good time.

Anyway, changing to a more somber subject, it is amazing to see the amount of support people are showing for victims of the tsunamis. Right now, people have donated nearly 12.5 million to the Red Cross through Amazon.com’s donation system. The Red Cross alone is reporting nearly $48 million dollars in donations, which is incredible. Millions more have been donated to other organizations as well.

Regarding the tsunamis, my website apparently has a high Google ranking for anything relating to tsunamis. However, this is attributed to the fact that I have quite a few posts and photo galleries on this website dedicated to Tsunami Bomb, one of my favorite bands. In the last few days, my website has gotten over 400 hits from people searching Google and other search engines for tsunami related information. As a consequence of this, the search engines take them to my Tsunami Bomb photo galleries!

I know for a fact this isn’t what a lot of these people care to see. So to help facilitate the spreading of information, I coded up an interesting script that runs on all pages of the website. Basically, it uses PHP and it detects if the referring URL contains the words “tsunami” and “bomb.” If so, then the script doesn’t do anything, taking the user directly to the photo galleries, which is most likely what they want to see. However, if it detects the word “tsunami” but WITHOUT the word “bomb”, the script then intercepts the incoming visitor and redirects them to a special page I setup with information on the tsunami. You can view that page here.

I have to say, I absolutely LOVE using PHP for web design stuff. It is quite powerful and you can do some awesome things with it.

Anyway, for those interested (or for future hits from Google that are searching for how to do PHP redirects) I’ll post the code below for your own use.

I’m sure most people have heard about the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck yesterday in the Indian Ocean. Upwards of 12,000 dead at the moment, mainly from tsunamis. I’ve been reading news reports throughout the day and this is only getting worse. I donated some money to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, who are appealing for roughly 6.5 million dollars to assist victims of the earthquake. Definitely donate if you get a chance.

Second order of news relates to the asteroid 2004 MN4 that was discovered this summer. Based on observations carried out over the past 6 months, astronomers concluded that there was a small probability of impact with Earth when it passed by in 2029. Initially estimates placed this at a 1/233 chance of happening. Further observations on Thursday required astronomers to revise their estimates to a 1/63 chance of impact and observations on Friday brought that number down to a 1/45 chance! That is still a 98% probability of it completely missing earth, but is still “low” enough to warrant quite a bit of interest. It will be interesting to see what further observations conclude in the next week.

However, using the Earth Impact Effects Calculator that was created by researchers at the University of Arizona, one can plug in some info based on what we know about this asteroid. While this asteroid is dangerous on a regional scale, it isn’t big enough to create global extinctions. That is somewhat reasssuring, though if 2004 MN4 were to hit, it would still leave a crater nearly 3 miles in diameter.

Third order of news: I saw The Phantom of the Opera tonight with my sister, aunt, cousin and my parents. While I haven’t seen the play yet (due to circumstances not working out every time it’s in town), I decided to go anyway! The movie was absolutely phenomenal! At the moment, it probably ranks as one of my favorite movies of all time. If you have any interest in the musical, check this thing out.

Lastly, in a bit of a geek fest earlier today (and taking time out from reading earthquake news), I coded up a neat little search page with the help of this website. I also added a search box. This allows you to search for any sort of subject matter in my blog and it will bring up a list of all posts that contain that word or phrase. Pretty nifty in my opinion. For example: How many posts do I talk about guitars? 🙂 Just a small example of what’s possible.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great weekend whether they celebrate Christmas or not. It was definitely great to see a lot of family that I haven’t seen in awhile. Plus… my reunion with pumpkin pie!

Papers turned in! That means that this semester is officially over.

Now it’s time to begin packing in earnest. It looks like I’ll be able to leave tonight at some point.

Point Lobos State Reserve – Wave hitting rocks at Whaler’s Cove. Dec. 18, 2004.

So allow me to setup this story:

Because of busting my ankle a few months ago, I missed an important field trip for one of my classes. My professor believed it was prudent that I should go and make it up. The free time I would have to make it up before I planned to head home was this weekend. The location? Point Lobos State Reserve, just south of Monterey, which is roughly 2 hours away.

I tell my roommate Bre about this last week and she tells me about a friend of hers that lives in Monterey. She said she’d go down with me on Friday night, and we could stay at her friend’s place. Excellent! That means I get to wake up on Saturday, drive about 15 minutes to check out all the geology I need to see and head home!

It turns out, the last substantial meal I had eaten was right before we left our house to drive down there. Once in Monterey, we went out for a few drinks with some of her friends and then came home. At about 9AM on Saturday, I woke up, packed everything up and hit the road! Bre was going to hitch a ride back with her friend that afternoon. That worked out fine, since I don’t think she’d want to tag along while I looked at rocks for a few hours.

I did notice that I was quite hungry and figured I’d just grab a bite to eat at some food place on the way there. The problem was that I didn’t find any food places! Oh well. Time for some geology! After spending roughly 3 and a half hours there (Beautiful place! More on that later!), I decided to head back towards San Francisco. The only problem? How do I get home? I didn’t feel like spending the whole day driving up highway 1, which winds all over the place. So I took the first major highway I saw that headed east. I figured it would eventually have to cross the 101. Besides, I’ve never been to Salinas, time to check it out! (Unbeknownst to me at the time, Highway 101 crosses right through Salinas. Score!)

The whole time I’m driving, I start to realize just how hunry I am. It’s now about 3pm, and I hadn’t eaten anything in nearly 15 hours! Some of you might be wondering how I’m still alive by this point.

I started thinking about my favorite place to eat in the world: In ‘N Out! Unfortunately, the closest one I was aware of was in San Francisco. No problem! I’d just hold out for another 2 hours or so and eat there. It would be like a celebration of sorts!

Finally, the highway I am taking winds through Salinas. I was passing all sorts of fast food restaraunts, but nothing tickled my fancy. It was all about In ‘N Out. I briefly wondered if Salinas had an In ‘N Out, but figured that they were way to cool for this city. Driving a little further, I came upon a sign that pointed to an entrance for highway 101! Excellent! I figured that I should get gas before I leave though.

As I am filling the car up with gas, I take a second to lean back, relax and take in the scenery. I look up to find that right across the street, there was an In ‘N Out burger! I nearly came to tears! It was like it was meant to be. It is for that reason alone that I now know for a fact that God exists. Oh yes!

Anyway, Point Lobos was a pretty awesome place. While hiking on a trail and looking down at my map, I turn a corner to stumble across a young deer munching on some grass. That was pretty awesome to see. I had passed up some parents hiking with their kids a few minutes earlier. So I just sat down and waited for them to catch up, that way they could see the deer as well. I have to say that definitely made my day! Awesome.

I have one last thing to do for school before I can head home. We collected 36 minerals this semester in out mineralogy class, and we have to write out some detailed information on each mineral that we collected. Not too difficult, but quite time consuming. As soon as that is done, I plan to drive back down to Southern California. The current plan looks like I may be driving down sometime tomorrow evening/night. Depending on how I feel though, I might delay it one more day and drive down on Tuesday morning.

I’m coming back up around January 13th I believe (I was leaning towards the 10th, but it looks like I have an orthodontist appointment to do on the 12th. Doh!). School doesn’t start for us until January 31, so that leaves a whole lot of time to do something. I was personally contemplating a road trip to check out Crater Lake (if we can get up there? It might involve snow showing… hmm) and then perhaps driving up into southern Washington to check out Mt. Saint Helens! Yes, a road trip of geology/volcanology. It really will depend on weather conditions though. Evidentially, my friend Phil was having a similiar plan for a road trip in January and wants to drive up to Seattle! We will definitely have to collaborate.

Anyway, time to go write up a few more minerals before going to bed. All most there, I just need to sprint to the finish!

2 more weeks of school left, 1 of which is finals. However, I only have 2 finals in 1 class (mineralogy), so that eliminates a lot of stress. This is a good thing since this stress is again added back because this next week is another insane week! It’s pointless to even describe it at this point. But I’ve lived through the rest of this semester, no reason why I won’t live through this one…

In other interesting news, I found out something extraordinarily funny and somewhat depressing at the same time. For example, navigate to Google and enter the following phrase: horrible faces. Then notice the first link. Click on it if you wish, for it takes you to a rather unflattering picture of my sister and I! It’s actually pretty funny that we’re ranked number 1 on Google for such a generic term. Who knows how long that will work for, since they update their index fairly often. For posterity:

Anyway, it looks like I have a whole weekend of writing papers and studying ahead of me (and I’m not even procrastinating!)