(See the next (early April 2006) Homepage Writings/Rants HERE)
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Friday March 31st, 2006
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Damn, is that really the last time I updated this (down below)? Sorry about that. Been busy.
I traveled on an aeroplane to the land of New Jersey. When I arrived I started working in a laboratory of a mad scientist and we have some exciting new data. He wants me to write it up soon. Maybe I will. Read some of my adventures so far...
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Sunday March 19th, 2006
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Ok, so I had two things to say, but in between me opening the html code program and actually writing it down, I went over to my kitchen and started painting. Another whale. Also, I need to get a painting done for Neil and the Gimp wants one and Evan does too. Fun, I'm glad to give these paintings out for the bare minimum currency reimbursal. Weird sentence.
So, I wanted to point your web browser to this guy Brandon Bird's webpage. His paintings have an unholy fascination with celebrity, which I don't really care about, but this one painting caught my eye and I will show it right now:
Click on it if you can't see it.
It's called, "Bad Day on the High Sea" and it is glorious. I love the T. Rex's involvement. And the lightning. Sweet. I may get one of these prints for my office.
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Oh, my other thing was to show you some burning hot action photos of Mr. Scott Soens. Taken by (Scott, tell me his name again) down in the Southern Hemisphere's famed Superbank.
See other photos of Scott surfing (as well as other good peeps I call my friends) here.
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Saturday March 18th, 2006
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Damn, well, the prafterdotcom staff has been reprimanded. I see what has happened and I'm not happy... you see, at the bottom of this page is a link to old rantings. However, this link hasn't been updated, so it jumps from Feb. 17th to sometime in December--skipping two whole pages of rants! I know you were upset, you wanted to relive the feeling when you first read about the Haddonfield-7 Mile Island connection or you wanted to see my "Love Animals, Don't Eat Them" photo. I think this problem resulted from a few too many late-night green tea ragers. It won't happen again.
Unless it does.
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In other news, the John DiGenni has been painting pretty pictures and I'm happy to see someone else adopting this new hobby. That's all it is. A hobby.
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One more stunning, newsbreaking tidbit involve... oh forget it. I'm lame and I'm sorry you almost had to read that. I know you just want to see photos and such, so let me put some up.
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Thursday March 16th, 2006
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Well, I haven't updated this in some time because I've been working on the website for my lab--trying to get a webcam working.
I also have to give another talk today (I know, what?), but this time it's for prospective Scripps students and the organizers told me to, "make it fun".
Two things that led me to write right now, the news talking about Bu$h's job approval saying it's due to Iraq... where've they been just this past year? Morons.
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Saturday March 11th, 2006
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Sorry to all the prafterdotcom fans--it's been a hard week for the prafterdotcom staff.
Among other things, I had to present a paper at our weekly paleoclimate seminars (at SIO of course) and I take those seriously. Ever since I gave a practice talk for my thesis proposal and everyone fell asleep, I've tried to give talks that are as concise as possible. And when they're still boring, I spice it up if I can. So, that went well I thought and then I had to pick forams for all these new sediment samples I received, try to put a webcam up for our lab, and I overhauled the Charles Lab website (check it out here).
I have a bunch of photos from Brooke's trip to PR, here are some more:
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Man, there is some rain coming down out here and I like it. Last night though...
I was driving north on the I-5, about 1am. The Minus the Bear show had just ended and it was raining and cold (below 50 F!, maybe 40 F!). I got the Ipod cranking out some MTB (I couldn't get enough) and I'm passing slow-moving cars. I start to pass this car and.... I'm floating. Not totally unusual for someone who likes the water, but a little uncomfortable when you're in a car. My car is great on gas because it's a 4 cylinder and it's very light. Unfortunately, hydroplaning isn't totally unheard of. This was a big one though, a couple seconds or so--I don't think these southern California highways take into account sudden precipitation. As you can see (since you are reading my writing) I made it. Today, I'm reading papers, painting some (I need to get Neil his painting), etc. This morning when I couldn't go back to sleep when Brooke left for work, I watched this great movie, Howl's Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki. A really imaginative animated film, go rent it. I may buy it.
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(The Real) Tuesday March 7th, 2006
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Oh, what? What just happened??? For about 2 minutes I thought that today was Wednesday... because I called yesterday's post "Tuesday"... and because my computer says today is Wednesday. I was sitting here, thinking, "damn, I had to meet with the electronics guy on Monday... wasn't that yesterday? Damn, what happened to Tuesday? That means I have to give this talk on the South American monsoon over the past 130,000 years tomorrow! Luckily, I got it done already, but I wasn't ready to present it. Damn, where did I go on Tuesday if today's Wednesday."
The problem was that somehow my computer say it's Wednesday and my watch (which had the date on it) broke while I was in Hawaii. Brooke must have changed the date on my computer to mess with me...
Oh, I just figured it out. I was using the computer calendar to plan my trip to NJ from the 28th to the 11th and I must have clicked on the 28th.
I have some photos for you, wait a second...
I should make a page for all these photos, but it's late right now, so here are just a couple:
Brooke in Puerto Rico 
Tom and Lorraine in Puerto Rico 
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Tuesday March 7th, 2006
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So, it's getting harder to be outraged.
I read these webpages that discuss politics, you know, to keep up with things. I've read this one piece of information several times before I realized its importance. I guess that's because I'm not surprised--this was to be expected:
Pay too much and you could raise the alarm By BOB KERR And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable. |
I am surprised that this isn't all over the major news, but then again, if I wasn't outraged (at first), how can I expect the mainstream media to be?
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Sunday March 3rd, 2006
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Some ruminations from the webmaster at prafterdotcom...
Nothin' like sleeping in your own bed, in your own (rented) house. A few nights ago I was in Hawaii (O'ahu) where I slept in many different beds in many different houses... sometimes with different people. Let me just say this, if you stay at the Backpacker's Inn on the North Shore, beware of room D and be prepared to sleep next to whoever you're travelling with (in my case, Leonel Romero).
So, I was sent to Hawaii to address the oceanography community on my thesis project. My "talk" as it were, was not until the 4th day of the Ocean Sciences conference, which allowed me several days to prepare myself, but did not allow me to partake in the merry-making events my compatriots partook themselves... that's hard to write that way. I think I'll stop right now and go back to my semi-literate vernacular.
To spell it all out for you, I gave a talk entitled, "Tropical Pacific Nutrient Dynamics of the Past 150 thousand years" and I think it went well. At least that's what important people like Lihini Aluwihare, JJ Becker, Drew Lucas, Roman De Jesus, and Roberta Hansmann told me. They might have just been saying that to be friendly, but I think it did go well and I'm glad that it's over. Now there will no longer be a "first talk" for me.
We stayed in a nice condo overlooking "Old Man's" (I think) at Waikiki during the conference.
After the conference was over Roman and I went to Kaiser's to get some fun waves thanks to a freakish mid-winter south swell. Roman and company were planning on flying to Kaui the next day, but I only had a few days so later that night, Leonel and I drove up to the Country to try some of this surfing-thing that goes on up there. However, there were no rooms available, so we tried our emergency back-up lodging... let's just say that just because you go to school with someone, fly on the airplane next to them, and have dinner with them (all without issue) doesn't mean that they will let you sleep on their floor. Hey, it'll all come around to them eventually (if anything is fair)...
We ended up staying for two nights on the East Side with a former Scripps grad. student named Matt Craig and a current SIO grad. student named Drew Lucas. The East Side is nice, real nice.
The people are nice too.
We ended up surfing the south shore a couple times, some body surfing at Makapuu, then a north swell arrived our last few days and we surfed at Laniakea. My last day Jordan picked me up and drove me to Town and that night I stayed with the Terrells (Jake with Adah, Mary [she wouldn't let me take a picture], and Eli), which was a good time. Now, I'm going to school because it's already 9am and I need to pick forams!!!!
(sorry for the really lame photo selection--I just haven't been carrying the camera around like I used to)
(See the next (early April 2006) Homepage Writings/Rants HERE)
