A very long day

It was beautiful day yesterday and the Geology of Kern County class went on a field trip to collect some neat rocks, see some pretty views, check out some awesome geologic structures.



Here I am sitting on a giant blob of magnetite on top of a mountain. Yup, it's allllllll magnetite.


And then we got back to the school, and had to zip into action to get ready on the float for the homecoming game that evening... a very loooooooong day!

Homecoming 2008

This year the homecoming theme was "Red Carpet Renegades" - which I guess meant "Hollywood" (our mascot is the Renegade).

The new Geology Club felt that participation in homecoming by building a float would be a great way to try to win some prize money. I agreed, and we won "Best in Spirit" (partly because I think we were the only ones to use the entirety of the theme - both Hollywood AND Bakersfield College)! Our float was built entirely out of recycled materials (we had no budget) - and our message was:

Our idea was to build Grauman's Chinese Theater, we used tin cans for the roof shingles, cardboard for mostly everything else and built a turbine out of water bottles in the Hollywood Hills. The palm tree was build out of cardboard and green plastic bottles and bags. In addition, the Hollywood starlets wore dresses they made out of plastic bags and magazines, and the paparazzi wore ties made of the same materials.


The Engineers Club waited more or less to the last minute this year, and for some reason were fixated on building a Gladiator-themed float...

The Agriculture Club had a very clever play on Hollywood with their "Hoggywood" float, and won a prize also.

The Intercultural Students played off the theme by doing "Around the World in 80 Days", but they waited to late, and their backdrop that showed the theme didn't get completed.
Now the Geology Club has some money in the bank to do something with! Woohoo for prize money!

A day in the life...

(The "Golden Chariot")

Today I headed up to Red Rock Canyon to join LA County paleontologists on a prospecting journey and pick their brains for Kern County geology/paleontology info. It was great! Of course I found far more granite in a "granite-free" zone than bone fragments. I guess feldspars just jump out at me more.

Lignite layers in a wash (big wash walls!!!) containing itty bitty lake fossils, walls are undergoing biological weathering.

Rodent bitey marks on a bone fragment (see the little parallel grooves near the top of the bone shard?)

Angular unconformity and a hoodoo waiting to happen. Tilted layers of sands and ash, capped with nearly horizontal limestone.

Gnatalie = a dinosaur WHEEE!

Yeah! Here I was hoping for a Nobel Prize to help me with getting my green card papers, but surely having a dinosaur named after me is just as good, right?

The timing really couldn't be any better for this Utah find.

Experience?

To limit my "rant" on the US voting situation this fall, there is one particular anti-Obama argument that is really irking me. That is "he lacks experience".

I have two thoughts that I would like to address this with:

1. If you look at the combo Prez/VP "teams" that will be in competition this November, there is no doubt in my mind that the Obama team has more cumulative "experience" than just about anyone paired with Palin, be they the experienced McCain or otherwise.
2. If no one gave anyone with potential who was lacking in experience a chance, then where would we be? How does one get experience? When you graduate and look for a great job in your field, do you not want your hard work, ideas, enthusiasm and motivation to be recognized and for your dream employer to give you a chance? My current employer hired me on virtually no experience, and (not to sound egotistical) in under 4 years I've made a noticeable impact here. I would hope that those who judge Obama's lack of experience do so with an open mind and their own futures in mind, and not simply the blind regurgitation of the grey-haired "good ol' boys" that seem to always be running the show.
   

Overkill

Yes, this massive trailer is carrying ONLY a dresser. Yes, that dresser should easily fit inside the hummer that is pulling it. That hummer with flames painted on the side.

And yes, I took this photo with my cell phone while driving (I figured it was worth it).

Grrr. Arrrgh. (that's dino sounds to you)