Take Everything

Greg Laswell, why are you so cool?

Greg Laswell "Take Everything" from Vanguard Records on Vimeo.

Salton

I took a field trip yesterday for the first time since going to see "King Lear" during senior year of high school. My seismology class headed out east of San Diego to check out some of the major faults, including a trace of the San Andreas, as well as some other cool geologic / seismological features. I'll do my best to recollect what we saw and its importance below, via pictures, of course.

Surface trace of the Elsinore Fault just northeast of Julian, CA, as it follows the creek in the bottom of the valley (not shown) as well as the linear "shoulders" in the hillside (center of photo).

Looking out over the Salton Trough near Borrego Springs.

Coyote Mountain and the Santa Rosas. Coyote has one trace of the San Jacinto fault along its western (facing) edge, while another trace abuts the western edge of the Sta. Rosas.

Fresh Imperial Valley grapefruits.

Trace of a splinter of the the San Jacinto along the west face of Coyote Mtn.

Evidence for 1 to 2 km of offset along the right splinter of the San Jacinto just east of Borrego Springs: an alluvial fan that has been shifted northwest (Pacific plate motion) in the last 1 to 2 million years. The Google Earth view (33.314965181082314, -116.2075424194336) is much better.

Looking southeast along the same offset.

The old shoreline of a full Salton Sea is about 12 m above sea level, right at the base of these hills.

The view of the Salton Sea from Travertine Rock is actually quite nice until you think about how polluted the water actually is.

Travertine-coated rock, meaning this used to be underwater during a previously-full version of the Salton Sea. The migrating delta of the Colorado River tends to fill - and then eventually empty - the entire trough once every 500 years or so.

Orocopia schist outcropping in Box Canyon, northeast of Mecca (CA). These rocks are important because they represent a major tie point to similar features in the San Bernadinos, giving good evidence for the estimated +/- 315 km of offset on the San Andreas in the last 10 million years or so.

Surface trace of the San Andreas in the Mecca Hills, near the mouth of Painted Canyon, represented by large mounds of fault gouge.

Looking roughly southward from the mouth of Painted Canyon toward the Salton Sea.

Close-up of fault gouge along the San Andreas. SO COOL.

Pretty much standing on top of the San Andreas fault, if not slightly to the east. Hello, North American continental plate!

Major folding due to transpression along this part of the San Andreas.

Checking out some of the distortion due to transpression in the kinks of the fault.

The mouth of the Painted Canyon. It was pushing 100F at this point. Something about mad dogs and Englishmen...

The canyon was actually very pretty and I'd love to go back sometime during October through March.

Lots of folded gneiss in the canyon.

Looking up and out.

Our farthest point in the hike. Just above the ladders traversing the dry falls was a huge swarm of bees.

Checking out some mud pots at the south end of the Salton Sea, a hot spot which acts as a young spreading axis between the Imperial and San Andreas fault systems (I think).

Little baby mud volcanoes.

Caught this one in action! Apparently they're much more impressive during the wet season in wintertime.

Big ol' mud pot. Sounds like the makings of a spa.

Surface trace of an old rupture along the Superstition Hills part of the Imperial Fault - this was really cool!

Not a bad culmination to a long day of driving and sight-seeing.

Sunset over the desert before heading back west to the coast.

Codex

CODEX RADIOHEAD from Milo Tucker on Vimeo.

Cookies

I tried out this recipe today for corn flake cookies and I think they turned out great so, here's to sharing the sweet-tooth love.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup vegetable oil (I substituted corn oil)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup crushed corn flakes
• 1 cup chopped nuts (I substituted the nuts with mini chocolate chips!)
• 1 cup quick-cooking oatmeal
• 4 cups flour (slightly less for chewier cookies)
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325F.
2. Cream butter, sugars, vanilla, and egg.
3. Add oil.
4. Mix in dry ingredients.
5. Place dough by heaping spoonfuls on to ungreased pan.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
7. Cool on pan for a minute or two, then transfer to a rack to cool.

[source]

These cookies are great because the cake part is soft and moist but the corn flakes stay crunchy even after cooking. The texture gradient is nice, plus the oats and brown sugar give them some really good flavor.

Bon appetit!

Renewal

It took a lot of energy to keep this thing going, once upon a time, with regular narratives providing updates about my life. That kind of writing style wears on you, having to recap days, weeks, months of goings-on, and for what real benefit? I found that the narrative wasn't enough on its own, since it was really just a framework for all the emotions that trickled in between without actually exposing those feelings. So I stopped writing for a number of reasons: it was too much work, not gratifying in the way I'd hoped, and seemingly unimportant to fit detailing the day-to-day into the day-to-day.

This is me saying that I'm not going to pick back up where I left off.

I'd rather use this space for the things that I find more important than the daily narrative, the things that make me think, laugh, cry, or just help me through. So, that being said, you might get a picture, a YouTube video, or a news article. Who knows what I'll find, but it's sure to be important to me if it ends up here.

I came here wanting to post a list of songs I've thrown together as a good playlist for catharsis at the end of a long day. They're mostly on the sad to somber side of things but I'm unapologetic for keeping practiced in feeling a range of emotions.

• "To Be the One" - Idaho
• "Black River" - Amos Lee
• "What If You" - Joshua Radin
• "Codex" - Radiohead
• "The Shadowlands" - Ryan Adams
• "King of the Earth" - John Ondrasik
• "Coffee and Cigarettes" - Augustana
• "The Maker Makes" - Rufus Wainwright
• "re: Stacks" - Bon Iver
• "Indiana" - Jon McLaughlin
• "Broken Bones" - Aqualung

Summer Review

It has come to my attention that I could stand to provide some updates as to the last few months of my life. Thanks to the University of California's quarter system there are still more or less three weeks of summer remaining, but realistically it is starting to wind down, and quickly.

Spring quarter relented and finally ended sometime in early June. The details are fuzzy, which I blame on a lack of sleep at the time, though I remember how great it felt to finish up what was likely the toughest quarter of my graduate career. Shortly after classes ended I managed to sneak away to North Carolina for two weeks at home. Time was spent watching World Cup matches, going to lunch at Times and VDH, celebrating birthdays at home and at the Brewpub, trading Silly Bandz, relaxing with family and friends, and sweating - this San Diegan had a tough time adjusting to 95F+ and super-humid on a daily basis. It was a fantastic and well-earned trip, having not been home since late December of 2009.

Back in San Diego at the end of June I found myself preparing to teach twenty-two high school kids from all across the Golden State about earthquake engineering. The COSMOS program (California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science), four weeks of interactive lectures, demonstrations, activities, and field trips relating to seismology and structural engineering, afforded me the opportunity to hone my teaching skills with a different age group.

Before COSMOS started in early July, however, two great weekends were had both in and out of San Diego. The first, celebrating Independence Day, consisted of a fantastic lunch with Scott, Brittany, and others, then a tie-dye party and catching the fireworks at the Cove. The second was a whirlwind trip to the Grand (Man) Canyon with Mike, Jon L., Jon S., and Justin during which we hiked to the bottom and back up in about 30 hours. Both weekends were fantastic and I feel lucky to have had the privilege to spend them with great friends.

COSMOS came and went quite quickly, kept me constantly busy for four weeks, but proved to be a great experience combining teaching, working with younger students, and applying engineering principles to an up-and-coming generation of bright young minds. I took on a small research project with Professor José Restrepo that will be wrapping up soon, working on some analysis of ground motion records taken during the magnitude-8.8 earthquake in Chile that occurred last spring. It's been interesting and gratifying work, especially given that Prof. Restrepo is well-connected in Chile and his work has led to important updates in their design and building codes.

Did I mention yet that I finally went to Disneyland? No? Well, I did! Cat and Mike took me for the day one weekend during COSMOS and we had a blast! I also joined a yoga studio group with them and have immensely enjoyed learning and growing in practice. CorePower Yoga is a vinyasa-style, heated, power yoga, yielding a great (and sweaty) workout that is generally the most enjoyable hour of my day. My flexibility has increased dramatically and the classes have proven to be effective stress-relief mechanisms. It has also afforded me the opportunity to meet and hang out with a great new group of friends that I hope will continue to grow.

Since late July I've said goodbye to three of my favorite people here, wishing Jon L., Mike, and Cat well as they've ventured off to graduate programs at American U., Willamette U., and Gonzaga U. I miss them all dearly but will get to see each of them in the coming days and months; Jon is meeting me in Raleigh next weekend to hang out! While it's been hard dealing with their departures, I've also had the great enjoyment of getting to know three new roommates Mindy (only here a few more days), Kate, and Alan (the latter two with whom I'll be living for the next year). Many fun adventures have been had already, including receiving massive quantities of peaches at the La Jolla farmers' market, Wal-Mart and 99 Ranch shopping trips, exploring the Del Mar dog and Black's beaches, dance parties, plus many an afternoon simply relaxing at Windansea.

Eliza visited for a week, during which we checked out the Wild Animal Park, Coronado, the Cabrillo Monument, and Mt. Soledad, among other places. Between her visit and the present I've had the pleasure of putting together information for my Change of Status petition at UCSD, in other words, as many documents as possible showing my resident status for tuition purposes. Through the process I've obtained a CA driver license and registration which have proven to be both exciting and expensive.

For now I find myself laying low and looking forward, in a weird way, for the quarter to begin in a few weeks. Thriftiness is the name of the game when technically unemployed for a month and a half, so there have been lots of PB&J lunches, pasta dinners, and time spent outside in the sun for want of free entertainment. As mentioned, I'm headed home this upcoming Thursday to spend a long weekend taking in some time at home including, most excitingly, sharing an NC State football game with Jon and all of my old Quad friends.

That PB&J sounds good about now. I'm off for lunch and to help Scott and Brittany move into their new place - that's all for now!

Free Diving

This is pretty insane.



I finished my last final today but I have an enormous project report due in Seismic Design in about 48 hours plus a take-home portion of my Stability final due Friday afternoon. Almost home...