Need to throw a photo someplace

Yep, created this to make fun of someone. No need to explain.

Sometimes you just need to post...

It's been months since I posted anything. Seem this is the summer of my content....for a change I really don't have much to complain about. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty to complain about.

One thing is the stupid-ass new automated machines at the post office. Why can't you buy a single stamp anymore? I went to (ironically) mail in a tax check and just needed one stamp. Couldn't buy it...would have had to buy a booklet since the machine won't do a transaction less than $1 (which on another tangent is only $0.6 Eros). I was too mad to buy the booklet so I kicked the machine until it started beeping and stormed out. Now I need to beg a stamp from my girlfriend. What kind of crap is it that you can't buy just one stamp? Who even uses a stamp anymore...they are stupid. I hate them.

Where was I? Oh yeah - lack of posting. Seem to have covered that now but will post photo of me in a really cool cave. We surveyed about 1500 feet of passage on this trip, approx half of which had never been seen before we visited. Very cool. Was a mess to get there though :)


Language in the video, as you might imagine, was a little coarse so this is the edited version...the actual crawl was about 30 feet of this mess.


We survive :)

The Stuck Truck

This weekend my friend Wells drove his "free" truck off into a stream when he missed the turn at the bottom of Dave C.'s driveway.

Basically, no amount of pulling with a tractor could free it, but as shown in the gallery we managed to get it loose with a come-along.

Good times.

Day of Remembrance

I woke up this morning warm and comfortable next to my girlfriend and my first waking thoughts were looking back at how I had woken up a year before. I wasn't dating at the time so I was alone, and my radio chirped with a weird call requesting ALS for two students found on campus in "cardiac arrest". Something about the dispatcher's voice might have been wrong, but not enough to give me any conscious pause; I looked out the window at grey skys, the wind was howling and snow flurries were blowing horizontally past the window. Instead of going back to sleep I got up and showered, but when I came out I had already forgotten about the wake up call. I was probably five minutes from leaving for work when dispatch came back on requesting all available rescue personnel respond to a shooting on campus. I figured the "cardiac arrests" were a shooting then, but couldn't understand what good we were going to do about an hour later...nevertheless I threw on my jacket that has "rescue" printed across the back, ran out, and of course the reason for the delay is now well known.

Today is a brilliant sunny day, warm, students wandering about with the day off...and as everyone was gathering on the drillfield for the "remembrance" ceremony, the campus looked as much as it ever has like a place where shit like last year just doesn't happen. Knowing it did happen is the hardest part...just one more thing trying to chip at the perception I've always had here that you can leave your car unlocked, front door ajar, and walk alone through the dark on your way home at night. In my opinion, it's a perception worth keeping even though it isn't always true. So for my remembrance of the ones we lost I am going to fight fear by leaving work early and enjoying the day. And maybe propping open any locked doors I happen across.

Bird in the combustor

Yes, this happened two years ago. Whatever. I just found the photo and thought I would share.

David and I had walked out to start some experiments and somehow this bird has flown in thru the exhaust stack and into the test section.

We released it and eventually it was smart enough to fly out through the loading door in the lab.