Friday Joke - Bible bashing

Being in the Land of the Large always gives me a strong urge to bash the bible... so here we go!

Have a nice weekend

The Flying Cowboy of Canyonlands

Some years ago I participated in making a one hour documentary about the geology of the Book Cliffs in Utah for the BBC. Part of the footage was shot from a plane. To get this footage we simply went to the local airport (Price) and hired a pilot for an hour. This is not as unusual as it sounds, there is normally some crop duster, who makes a living out of private charters, although not normally for filming.

A small, elder guy, in jeans and a check shirt hobbled out, jumped into the plane and flew us up along the cliffs for an hour. The camera man who also had a pilot licence and about 50 hours of flying time kept bleating about protocol and procedure, he was clearly not a happy man. The pilot looked non-plussed by his jittery passenger.

When we landed he asked me if I was happy with his flying and I said yes, no problems. Then he took me to his trailer at the back of the airport and showed me a video cassette entitled "Arch Enemy". He asked me if I had ever seen it and I had to admit I hadn't.

So he gave it to me with a smile and said "well enjoy".

Seems that we had just been flown by Tim Martin - the Flying Cowboy of Canyonlands. Back in the days when you could do cool stuff without everyone bitching and moaning about HSE, he was a stunt pilot and his speciality was flying through the arches in Arches National Park.

Here is a taster on youtube - the guy is a legend

Obama gives in to the loony right - America is toast

So a minority group of gun totting, christian fundamentalists have hijacked America's democracy and held the country and indeed the World's economy to ransom. It's very depressing.

There is an interesting article in yesterday's Guardian highlighting that the vast majority of the Tea Party voters will not benefit in an any way from all the tax and spending cuts. Only the ultra-rich will. This is why they fund these campaigns. So the propoganda machine that is Fox news somehow manages to convince a bunch of very stupid people that "Christian values" mean not helping the sick and the poor but supporting the ultra-rich. If it wasn't so scary it would be funny.

Read the article and also take a look at these graphs below which come from an independant, bipartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (courtesy of Roy Fitz).

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Utah 2011

Just back from a flying visit to Utah - busy times!
Three days on the student field course, followed by two days with Christian and Oliver in the Wastach and Beckwith Plateaus. We were also joined by Ivar and Anja from Oslo for a day. This was followed by a day around Moab with students and then down to Cainville, which is possibly the most remote place (habitated) that I have visited in Utah. Great geology but a very odd feel to the place. Rather enjoyed it.
After two days laser scanning there it was back up to the Book Cliffs for a final field day before driving back to Salt Lake City.

In Salt Lake I caught up with Lance, an old river running buddy who I havn't seen for 15 years - time flys. Then did some obligatory shopping before flying back to Norway in time for May 17th.

Was good to back back in Utah, even if it was rushed and busy.

Also confirmed my previous suspicions that Delta Airlines is truly awful! Note to self "just because they are in an alliance with KLM doesn't mean that the staff are not exteremely rude, the planes are not crappy and falling apart and that you will have a pleasant trip". 

Will post more about trip and upload some picks some time soon.

Friday Joke

The following are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place. Courtesy of Angharad.
______________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?___________________________________________


ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
____________________________________________


ATTORNEY: Now doctor, "isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?"
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
____________________________________

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's twenty, much like your IQ.
___________________________________________


ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?

WITNESS: Are you shitting me?
_________________________________________


ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid
____________________________________________


ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
____________________________________________


ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
____________________________________________


ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about 20, medium height, and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
_____________________________________


ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
_________________________________________


ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK?
What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
_________________________________________


ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And, Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No ..
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

The "land of the large" at its best

Just in case you had forgotten how good America is at being a parody of itself, the Wednesday movie is here to remind you

Firstly with the Sarah Palin battle hymn - no its not a joke, it has transended crap so much that it has become art!

Then at a time when Jared Loughner, a total pyscho from Arizona does what saviour Sarah instructed him to do and pulls a gun and kills 6 people in a mall including a young girl, sales of the same gun rocket by 60% and the idiots from the NRA are recording total crap like this. And there is literally thousands more videos like it - you couldn't make it up!

Meanwhile a TV show about teenagers humping, drinking and smoking pot is described as "the most dangerous program ever!" slightly missing the point that nobody ever died from watching TV, but approximatly 9000 of them get killed by guns every year in the US.

As Gareth said "ban a TV show but don't dare suggest that we ban guns"

Marvellous

Wikileaks

Julian Assange is a hero for a modern generation.

He has taken on the hypocrisy and lies of the World's most formidable superpower using nothing but the power of the internet and his own gall.

When we look at the latest batch of leaks is there really anything to be surprised about? Some faceless American diplomat thinks Putin and his cronies are gangster. Prince Andrew believes that the people who protest about Britain’s diabolical arms trade are low life lefties - so what? Ghadafi is a psycho; Brown is a loser, for christ sake it isn't rocket science.

But what wikileaks has done before this is important, if less well publicized. They have made government at least in part accountable for it’s actions. They highlighted the horrors that are being perpetrated by our governments in Iraq and Afghanistan and I for one think that the truth should be told. I am paying for these aresholes and I have a right to know what they are doing.

Most comical and scary is the reaction of the nut house that is the American right, Palin, Beck, Gingirch et al raving about how he is a war criminal. Huckerby actually wants Assange executed. This is fuckin scary! What ever happened to free speech and the first amendment? I guess it only applies if you are saying what the government wants you to say. These people who supposedly promote extreme freedom can somehow justify wanting to silence a journalist who disagrees with them and provides evidence that they are in fact a bunch of murdering, lieing, low life scum. And the democrats aren’t much better. Less than a year ago Obama and Hilary Clinton were both quoted as stressing how important the internet and free speech are and criticizing its censorship in places like China before trying to do exactly that when they are in the firing line. These people are a disgrace to humanity and to the USA.

And so the monster has woken up with a bad head and its lumbering after him. First it trode on those that supplied him services, Amazon, Paypal, the Swiss bank etc. buckled easily. Then it came up with some trumped up charges in Sweden. Can it really be so blatant and forth right? Evidently so. The situation is as compelling as watching a real life Jason Borne movie and you really don't know how it will unfold and what is coming next.

Julian Assange is the bravest person I have seen in a long time. I wish I had his courage and conviction. Sure he has his insurance policies with stuff spread around all over the World and sure it isn't just him , its thousands of faceless people operating hundreds of remote servers. But still his life is genuinely on the line here and he is facing the monster down. What a man!

This is new territory, the anarchy of the internet against the establishment. The World watches to see what happens next.

The USA, an entire country with ADHD

"An inability to stay focused on a task and boisterous childish behaviour are symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder or ADHD. The American midterm elections have just proved that it is possible for a large portion of a population to collectively suffer from such a diesese.

Two years ago the US population finally realised that the republicans and their lame duck leadership which started a barbaric and immoral war and then bankrupt the country and almost the World by their reckless deregulation of the financial sector, simply had to go. And they got rid of them in style electing an educated, thoughtful and considerate leader instead of a bunch of redneck cowboys and a mad bitch from Alaska.

Then two years down the line, because everything wasn't fixed immediately, like a spoilt petulant child they suddenly changed tack and voted en mess to bring the loony bus back into town, but this time the people on the bus are bigger badder and way more madder than the previous bunch.

Statistics in the paper quoted that 80% of Americans were pissed off that the economic recovery was a bit slow, well hello, it took them 8 years and two wars to fuck it up, do you really think it could be fixed immediately?

Well actually no, they don't, because 75% of them don't blame Obama and the current administration for the mess...

So they don't blame them but they are going to punish them anyway hmm that's logical.

If the country wasn't so powerful and influential in World politics it would be funny.

If the American states were countries

The USA is an aglomeration of states which have fairly distinct cultures and indentities. If they were broken up into countries how would they fare?
One way to look at this is to consider their GDP, which has been done in this map where the individual states are replaced by countries with similiar GDP.

California is the largest (similiar to France, #8 in the World)

Wyoming is the poorest and compares to Uzbekistan (#101 in the World)

My adopted home of Norway is the same as #28 Minnesota

The UK is #7 in the World and marginally bigger than California

Interestingly the GDP of the whole of Europe is almost idenitical to the USA ($13.7 vs $13.2 billion).

The map is from the excellent StrangeMaps and can be found here.

Wednesday Movie

Insightful news story on Americans and exercise here
Not suprisingly youtube is full of further evidence, so click here to get started and just watch what ever else takes your fancy from the links bar

Pretty good English for a Russian

It's 1994 and I am doing fieldwork in Utah. Based out of the town of Green River, population 973, famous for water melons, uranium mining and being home to a cold war missile base. It’s a one street town which is 70 miles from any other town, in any direction. It has some plus points, there is Ray’s Tavern a truck stop and a few ok diners. It sits in front of the Book Cliffs and as such is a gateway to some of the best geology in the World and it is my home from 3 months.

Its hard to believe but this is in the days before the internet, mobile phones or email. To communicate with the folks back home you wrote letters (how quaint) and every couple of days you went to the Post Office and collected your mail that was sent “general delivery”.

So one day I walk into the post office and see the smiling old lady. I buy some stamps and hand her my cards before asking for my mail.

Out of the blue she asks “Is the Ukraine still apart of Russia?”
Now that’s a curved ball question! But this is the time of the break up of the Soviet Union, so I figure that maybe she doesn’t know who else to ask.
I reply “Yes, I believe it is”
“You speak pretty good English for a Russian”
Getting more random by the minute...
“I am not Russian” I reply
“Oh” She looks confused but not put off she comes back with “Well you sure send a lot of cards and letters to Russia”
At this point I am totally lost and trying to work out if some cold war task force is going to appear and arrest me.
“I have no idea what you are talking about” I reply
“Look!” She exclaims. “All these cards going to the Ukraine”
She points at the UK at the bottom of the address and all is clear…
“No, that’s UK - United Kingdom, Britain, England…”
“Nope its definitely Ukraine” she insists and I give up arguing.

I leave hoping that a) the person in the main sorting office is more geographically aware and b) she didn’t see fit to add “raine” to all my UKs so a confused postman in the Ukraine is looking for a town called Llanwrst.

Are you a Nazi drug-addict terrorist?

The I94 is the form that visitors to the US have to fill in to get through the social assault course that is US immigration. This is has got to be the most poorly thought out form on the planet yet it is filled in by 14 thousand people everyday.

So to be specific, what is wrong with it?

1. The boxes are confusingly laid out, especially when you start it’s very easy to write in the wrong ones. You may scoff I have seen lots of people do it, especially when you are tired and jet lagged.
2. All this bullshit about the address where you are staying on the first night. Holiday Inn, Downtown, Noweheresville. And to make things worse you can’t normally fit in a full address anyway. The box is too small.
3. Then it asks you for your visa number . Doh – this is a visa waiver form, if I had a visa I’d be filling out the white not the green one. Yes it is that fundamentally flawed!
4. The box for email address is only 15 characters, that’s too short for virtually any email address I have ever seen and certainly any of the 4 I have, which means you need to write outside the box, then they get mad, so you make up an email address that is shorter.
5. You have to fill out your name, birthday and nationality three times, four if you count the costumes form which everyone else seems to manage to include in their immigration form (e.g, Canada)
6. Then you have to fill the freaking thing in, even if you are just in transit to another country.
7. And they get stroppy when you don’t have an address for the first night – I AM IN TRANSIT, passing through, I am not here tonight! Its not that fuckin complicated!
8. Then the ask you loads of inane questions like “are you a terrorist?” or “are you a druggy?” and the best “are you a nazi war criminal?” How many would be drug smuggling terrorist Nazis do you think got caught out by that? “Damn I almost made it and then those questions caught me out, again”.
9. WTF is "moral turpitude?"
10. Then and this is the one that really pisses me off, they staple that bit into your passport. That’s vandalism, that passport has to last me 10 years – stop punching holes into it!



America your form is shit – sort it out

Friday Joke - Its a funny old world

So after Thanksgiving, a trip to the gym...

Lots of work and not a lot else at the moment, which make the joke even more appropriate...
Weather is shitte anyway. Have a good weekend

Get your hands up

Roy and I are in driving along highway 6 in front of the Book Cliffs in Utah. This is classic cowboy country, a long straight road across the badlands with huge continuous cliffs on the left and in the distance redrock desert on the right. It’s been a long day in the field and there is a cold beer waiting in Green River. The road is pretty empty so I am doing a healthy 85 mph.

The Book Cliffs and Highway 6 - never meant for 60 mph

Suddenly I realize that one of the cars just about to pass going in the other direction has a rack of blue and red lights on the top. Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks!

So I say to Roy, we are about to get pulled over, stay cool, we’ll get a ticket and be on our way. Just don’t get out the car, don’t make any sudden moves and make sure he can see your hands. As I say this, I look in the mirror and see the blues light up and the sheriff does a u-turn.

So I pull over before he is even behind me and put my hands on the wheel in plain view. Roy raises his in a stance of surrender, I am not sure if he is scared or being ironic but I think its kind off funny so I do the same…

The plod approaches, moving along the side of the car cautiously. This is with good reason, too many of Utah’s finest have been shot by crazy people out on these open roads.

When he reaches the open window he immediately asks “Why the hands up? You got a concealed weapon license I don’t know about?”
“No officer” I reply, in earnest, “we are British and we heard that if we got pulled over then we should show our hands or risk being shot”.

He visibly relaxes and apparently thinks this is the funniest thing he has heard today. He takes my license to check it out and then comes back with a big smile on his face.
“Since you guys aren’t from around here I am gonna let you off with a warning”
“Thank you officer, we’ll be more careful in future”

Nice one!

Two days later, early morning we have hooked up with Chris, Atle and Helen and we are all heading south from Green River to Moab for a five day raft trip. We are all pretty excited; I am doing my predictable 85 mph when we pass a policeman. Bugger!

So I pull over and say “get your hands up everyone, now!”

Roy gets it straight away, the others comply but a bit more hesitantly.
The police man approaches and fortunately it’s a different one and this is a different county. Again he asks why our hands are up and again I say the same thing. Helen, who is rather striking and has a pretty plumy English accent at the best of times, hams it up and says
“We’d rather not get shot officer”

He looks less than impressed but goes off and 10 minutes later comes back, telling us he is going to let us off. We thank him profusely and drive away slowly.

Nice one!

Maybe this is the solution to all those speeding tickets? The question is, how far could you push it?

Two years later Atle and I bottled out of trying it again and took the ticket. That time it was at 3 am and we had been out sampling sandstone in Arches with a large drill which was in the back of the car. We were also half cut and didn't want to try and explain what we were doing, but that's another story…

What do they do all day?

Very cool interactive graphic from the NY Times which shows what a "typical american" is doing at anytime during the day. Can also be investigated for different groups picking catagories in the top corner - cool in a nerdy kind of way that appeals to me. Click on the picture to go to the interactive site.
















Some wierd stuff

Only 20% of 15-24 year olds seem to be in school during the day

Only 30% of people are watching TV at 8pm - thought it would have been way more

The whole thing looks like some basin modelling cross section, but that could just be because I am geology obsessed



From Gordon via facebook

Another great day with KLM

Sunday was heading to the land of the large with my favorite airline. Left Bergen fine and met Aris in Skipole. Then things started to go downhill.

The Houston flight was cancelled, no explanation just a 737 full of angry business class people all waving gold and platinium cards talking loadly at their travel agents down the phone will arguing with the people at the check in desk.

We managed to get booked on to a flight for Monday but it was very interesting to watch the fairly blatant way that the airline lie. They are pathalogical liers. We are sat there talking to a nice smiling lady who tells us that there is no way we can travel today and no direct flights tomorrow. She says all this whilst pointing at the computer and looking apologetic. Later we talk to people behind us in the queue who got put directly on early morning direct flights. I understand that they had more expensive tickets than us, I just wish the airline would be open and honest. Why can't they just say"you have a cheap ticket and your at the bottom of the shit heap, loser!"

But the exercise is not without some entertainment as the large, heavily tattoed Brit replies to request of "is there anywhere else you would like to go near Houston?" With "yes the Bahahmas would be nice!" To which the KLM woman loses the plot totally!

So then they send us to a hotel and we have to wait over an hour for a shuttle bus. We keep calling the bus and the hotel keeps saying "10 minutes!". When they eventually arrive and take us to the hotel we are told to stay outside for "10 minutes" because there is a fire alarm.

One hour later we are still outside and the alarm turns into a real fire, so they open the bar and start dishing out free beer.

Start chatting to a few folks, everyone on the way to Houston is in the oil field. Large tatooed guy turns out to be a "security expert" who clears land mines. He keeps us going with a plethora of funny stories and amusing observations, such as asking for a smoking room and being told they were all non-smoking. Apart from the ones that are on fire, he quips!

Another hour later and we eventually get to check in.

I head up to Den Hag to meet up with Pete and Caroline who I havn't seen in years. We go for a curry and a few beers and catch up.

Another great KLM cock-up but at least it had its funny moments.

Satellite Radio - Scientific endeavour at it's best

A couple of the cars that I rented in the US this time came with satellite radio. 240 channels of pretty much everything you can imagine, most of it totally shitte.

So we listened to various rock and alternative music stations before getting bored of that. Then tuned in to Patriot Radio to listen to right wing idiots eschew their views on guns and how Obama is the anti-christ. Over on Fox News and various other "news" channels the views were pretty much the same. Interesting insight into the cretinously stupid, which got even better on the Christian stations. "Experts" arguing if the second coming and Revelations had already happened during the reign of Nero bla bla bla ... as if it wasn't all a fairy tale anyway.

But the best of the bunch was Playboy Radio, where hick white trash men call up an attractive sounding woman for "advice". Goes something like...

Bunny "Hi Brad from Kansas, how can I help you?"

Brad "er hi Bunny, lurve ur show. I got just one question..."

Bunny "well thanks Brad, glad to have you on, what's your question?"

Brad "Er I wanna stick a dildo up my wife's butt..."

Bunny, totally unphased, "wow that's really cool, you and your wife are experimenting like that"

Brad " Yeah but what colour should it be?"

Bunny " Well I prefer blue, but it's really up to you guys. What colour is your bedroom?"

Brad "Er that's a bit complicated cos my Wife lives with her boyfriend some of the time"

Bunny "Well that's cool..."

And so on....

Fantastic! The scientific endeavour involved in placing those satellites in space was obviously so worthwhile...

Field Season...

It's been a busy month...


One of my favorite places on earth, the Book Cliffs from the Beckwith Plataeu

Flew out to Utah at the end of April and joined a Nautilus field course to the Book Cliffs, the idea was that I would contribute and see what they did with a view to running it. This was attractive from my side because I haven't been on a course or trip since 2002 that I wasn't running - you learn more when you are not talking! Turned out to be an interesting experience for a variety or reasons. Firstly it was an excellent course with two good guys running it. I had seen most of the outcrops before but a new perspective is always good. It was also very interesting to be on a trip which was mainly English speaking. Made me realise how much I had been missing out on during the last 6 years when I normally just tune out. The trip started in Grand Junction and then headed to Green River, followed by Moab. Had a couple of good nights in the Rio including some fairly random karaoke.

Nautilus folk in the field describe Coal Canyon

From there I drove to GJ and then flew to Salt Lake and meet up with Tore. We drove down to Price and spent a couple of days in the field. He's really keen and it was great spending time in the field with him. We traced the Lower Ferron unit from the subsurface into the outcrop and realised that the existing lithostrat is a pile of poo! Not bad for your first three days in the field.
A moody sky above the Lower Ferron

Drove back to Salt Lake and meet up with the UiB fieldtrip. Big contrast to the previous trip in that it was largely in Norwegian and that it was comprised primarily of blonde girls. You win some you lose some! I only stayed with the trip for a few days but it was fun, nice bunch of students and they worked hard - at least while I was there.

A field trip or a Miss Norway contest?

Left them to meet Simon and Toby back in Green River and we went scanning with the HyperSpectral Scanner. This is a new technique that we have been pioneering. We have had it working in Spain and now wanted to collect some more datesets. We collected a shed load of data from a variety of spots around Price Green River and Moab. Met up with the field course and finished the oil game for them. The oil game started as a geology exercise with the students in teams trying to find oil in a certain area. Despite being fairly simple it produces some very realistic and competitive scenario's. Ironically, it was supposed to be about geology but the commercial aspects have taken over. Depressingly like real life!

Take one scanner into the field? Not us!

After that I headed back into the field with Andreas (new PhD) Siri and an Iranian girl called Rozita. We spent a couple of days scanning shoreface systems for Rozita and logging sections with Andreas and Siri, including a long day high up in Woodside Canyon which involved crossing a 50 degree scree slope with a 100m drop - Hmm safety in the field? I must be getting old because this stuff never bothered me before. Good times even if Rozitas lack of English and lack of geology were a bit of a challenge.

The World famous Ray's Tavern in Green River

Always good to be in the field in Utah. Nice to catch up with all the people in Price and Green River, many of whom remember me from one year to the next. Moab is a fun town but less personal as there are some many visitors each year. We spent a lot of time in Rays Tavern which is always full of geologists, caught up with a lot of people I haven't seen for a while. We also took breakfast everyday in the Green River Coffee Shop which is a converted gas station serving excellent coffee to aging hippies and river rats.

A rather fearless antelop (not Elk! - thanks Roy) looks on while Toby tries to explain to Siri why he is scanning his suitcase

After a week of ground based work the helimap guys from Switzerland turned up and the logistics got complicated. Co-ordinating 5 students, helimap, a chopper and fuel truck, the weather, optimal light on the cliffs, GPS coverage, places to land and take off and, myself is a challenge. Resorted to the trusty "MS paper-napkin" and sorted the whole think out over breakfast in Ricardo's diner.

A helicopter, fuel truck and Simon with the Book Cliffs in the background

Despite my detailed planning (or lack of) everything went well. riding the helicopter was just amazing, not much else to say really - it was fantastic to fly over the Book Cliffs. The pilot was awesome and Julian and Sam worked like crazy to make the system work. Haven't seen the final result yet but the initial ones look amazing.

The Cliffs look different from up here

Bagged a lift in the copter back to SLC - fantastic flight back across the Wasatch Mountains into the Salt Lake Valley. Then spent a couple of days at the core store with Tore finishing up with the project it had all started with. Flying home tomorrow.

The trip in numbers...
2000 miles driven - getting very bored of driving Green River to Price
36 Days worked straight
18 Days in the field
15 The number of years since I first came to Utah
14 Nights in Rays Tavern, Green River
10 Days teaching
9 Hyper spectral data sets collected
7 Cars rented - with zero incidents (that is a first!)
6 New lidar datasets
5 Research students supervised
4 Sessions spent guiding the heli mapping
3 different helidar datasets
2 Field trips ran
1 Very expensive road bike purchased
0 Days off! When work is this much fun who needs holiday?

Back to Bergen Tomorrow - looking forward to getting back for summer in Norway

Technowank...

In the beginning we used a notebook, a photocopied base map, a compass and a pencil to do fieldwork. In 1994 I was given a GPS to use, it was the size of a brick and after it repeatedly placed me several hundred meters away from where I knew I was on the map, I gave up on it.

In 1996 I was in Nambia with Nige Mountney and, due to the total lack of maps we used a GPS, which by this time was only the size of a beer bottle. These were actually useful! In 1998/9 we started our first reservoir modelling of outcrop projects. These were in Patagonia and in Utah. In Patagonia a man from Statoil appeared with a crate of boxes, cables and antennas and then wandered about the field looking like a spaceman. In Utah we tried to use a total station to shot points on bed boundaries. In both cases the technowank failed to produce anything useful, but reservoir models got built anyway.

At this point it was realised that you could not just borrow or hire the gear and head to the field. So the next project I was involved with in South Africa we got so heavy duty help and proper training. The Nomad project involved lots of dGPS rovering which meant a couple of guys wandering around the field with GPS receivers. It was hard work (for them) but produced some great data, a lot of blisters and some very fractious incidents.

Once I moved to Norway my budget was somewhat curtailed so we went low tech. Data was collected with a hand held GPS, a digital camera and a florescent ball on a string. It was low tech but it worked and we got 3 masters students and a couple of papers out of it. At the same time I started working with some photo-realistic data collected for Norsk Hydro by the University of Texas. A couple of masters students later I realised that this was the way forward but unfortunately certain very short and angry individuals in the cornershop decided that they didn't like me, so it was time to build my own virtual outcrop system.

So I went and got a very large grant, bought a ground based laser scanner (lidar), the first of its kind in Europe, and found Simon. Now we are getting hi-tech and we had someone who knew what he was doing. Progress! The scanner sends out a laser beam that calculates the position of a point. It does that 10000 times a second and collects a couple of million points, marries them with digital photos and produces a Virtual Outcrop - like google earth but with cm precision!

Several groups got into Lidar at the same time but we focused on doing our own thing and working our methods for data collection, processing and utilization. A couple of PhDs and several publications down the line we branched out in to the hyper spectral scanner to see if we could marry space remote sensing technology with ground based lidar. If I had realised how hard it was going to be I would probably not have bothered trying - but ignorance is bliss! Fortunately we drafted in Toby ze German who is nothing if not tenacious. So now we can map the geology in 3D and remotely map the mineralogy (as long as its sunny).

All working well but a bit slow and cumbersome. So we found some Swiss guys who had put a similar lidar system together with the gyroscopic inertial navigation system from a cruise missile and produce a scanner that could be used from the side of a helicopter. They were using it for mapping rock fall hazards and power lines So we got another big grant and hooked up with them to collect a series of geological datasets.

And that is where we are today - a guy dressed as a ninja, hanging from the side of a helicopter collecting data at a rate of 10 km per hour and producing huge virtual outcrops. Its getting close to the ultimate in technowank and its the future of field work.

Five years ago we were dangling fluorescent balls over cliffs and taking pictures with a digi camera! Things move fast - what's next?

Panties on a bull; tales from the Rodeo

In Utah having just attended/helped to run, an excellent field course. Then spent 3 days in the field with Tore (new student) who has taken to things like the proverbial duck. It's great to see the place through fresh eyes, really reminds me of when I was first out here back in the early 90's.

On that note here is a tale from back in 1995 which I wrote a while ago. I will write more about this field season when I get a few spare moments. In the meantime back to 1995 and the Price Rodeo...

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So its back in 1995, I have been working in Utah for the three months, doing field work, camping out and generally enjoying the summer. It’s my second field season and things on the fun front have got a whole lot better since I met two, unrelated people, Lance and Andy.

Lance is a Marxist academic who works summers as a river guide whilst completing PhD on Henry Thorue. Lance introduced me to the guys at Crate which, in addition to giving me fun people to party with in Green River also got me on great trips on all of the big rivers in the western US, including the Colorado in Grand Canyon. Andy is a mormon local from Price who I met in Pizza hut when I couldn’t pay a bill. Andy is a climber and all round great guy. He is one of those people who makes things happen and in Andy’s case they are usually dangerous and very funny at the same time. In the words of one of his brothers “when we go on Andy’s adventures we have a whole lot of fun, somebody always get hurt but we have fun”.

So I had known Andy for a couple of months, we had climbed some sandstone cracks, camped in the desert, thrashed his truck and generally had a fun summer. It was now about two weeks before I was due to leave and he comes up to me one day and says
“Wanna go in the Rodeo?”
This doesn’t sound too bright, “What do I have to do, ride a bull?” Says me, knowing this is not going to be a good idea but also knowing that I will probably say yes.
“Nope its called steer dressing, you just gotta stick some panties on a small bull”
Why, seems an obvious question that didn’t actually come out at the time.
“It’s the competition for all the non-pros that want to participate rather than just watch the rodeo” he continues. “It will be fun…”

He goes on to explain that you have 8 or 10 teams of 3 people in the ring, the steers are released and you have to wrestle it to the ground and stick some panties on its back legs. How hard can it be? So I agree.

A few days later and the Rodeo is in town. I meet up with Andy and he introduces me to Sven – a monster of a Swede who is on a one year exchange at the college. Looking at this guy I figure the cow will just lie down and submit? I begin to feel more positive about the whole thing and we discuss some tactics. Andy will get it around the neck, I’ll rubgy tackle the back legs and Sven will knock it over and put the pants on. How hard can it be?

So the show starts up. We try not to laugh at the sincerity with which the Americans clutch their hearts at the anthem, the brits are simply too cynical for such nonsense. Then we watch various Rodeo stuff which is pretty entertaining and try not to think too hard about what is coming. After a couple of hours they announce the steer dressing and we head towards the ring. Andy disappears for a moment and then comes back to say that he has had a chat with the organizer and arranged for us to have the most psycho bull. “Why” does cross my mind this time.

So we stand in the ring with all the other teams, milling about. Then we are directed to the gates and I look at our steer, it does look slightly mad as it slowly and methodically butts it’s head against the steel gate. It also looks kinda big. Hmm maybe this wasn’t such a bright idea?

Then before there is any chance to think twice, a buzzer sounds and all hell breaks loose. The gate opens and I think, “in for a penny…” and lurch at the steers back legs whilst Andy grabs its neck. The steer promptly takes off around the ring with both of us hanging on, we collide with another, equally out of control team and I get trampled all over and let go. By the time I stand up, our bull is on the other side of the ring with Andy still attached to its neck. I can see it’s getting tired so I jump up and run across, put my shoulder down and hit its back legs hard in a rugby tackle. Nothing happens and I bounce off! So I get up, abandon the rugby tactics and just grab the back leg furthest away from me and pull until the steer goes over.

I am suddenly aware that the crowd is going wild; we are the first team to have our bull on the floor despite all the bad technique. So we are both lying on top of it and we look at Sven, who despite his size hasn’t really done anything yet. He has the panties and he is trying to decide which way around they should go. Above all the noise I am just screaming at him “put the fuckin pants on the bull, just do it” while the unfortunate animal is thrashing about beneath us.

While Sven continues to consider the panties and look at them from various direction, inside and out, somebody else gets there bull to the ground and does the business. We come a rather surprising, but also a bit disappointing, second. We let the steer up and it bounds away kicking its back legs and shredding the panties.

Everyone is cheering and laugh and then just staring at me… I am aware that my t-shirt is shredded and there are some fairly big rake marks across my chest, but they seem more interested in my face. Somebody says that I need to go and see the rodeo nurse and I am pointed towards a caravan with a big red cross on the side. The nurse checks me over and there seems to be equal concern about the sight from my large bruised and blood shot eye and whether I have broken any ribs. I am so hyped on the adrenaline that I can’t feel anything, at least until the nurse pokes my ribs. It hurts but apparently not enough to impress the nurse who has seen it all before and after a quick sight test I am dispatched with a clean, if slightly battered, bill of health. Back at the stands some local guys seem highly amused by the dumb foreigner and several offer to take me bull riding. I decline I have had enough of cows for this month.

That night we camp in Panther Canyon and the beer and banter flow around the camp fire. This is field work in Utah at it’s best, good friends and good times. Next day I have to drive to Wyoming for a conference while the Gary, Jo and Keith head to the Grand Canyon.

Twelve hours in the car and things are stiffening up and starting to ache. I arrive that evening and am greeted by Roy, who being Glaswegian and seeing my black eye assumes I must have been fighting. I lift my shirt and show him all the bruises on my chest while telling my tale. He is obviously amused.

Sometime later a very senior and very straight, east-coast academic asks Roy who I was and how I got the bruises. Roy just says “och that’s John, he was trying to pout some panties on a bull…”
After a long, considered pause the Professor replies,
“hmmm panties on a bull. That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!”

I had to agree…