Quartz & Biotite. Specimen from Bennett Quarry fieldtrip, spring 2005. 

Just heard (from M. Kinsey) that the ghetto wagon is still seen around Boothbay. Aparently Capt. Dan has kept it running. What a fine automobile. :) 

Mom and Dad laughing after mom took several pictures of her teeth (camera was backwards)... Out on the boat, fall in Maine. 

Ditto. 

I'm gonna miss Maine... (at least Maine summers) 

My friend Stu at Motorama (comp in PA). 

Me at Morse Mountain Beach (south of Popham beach), winter 2002? 

The MSU Campus. USGS Aerial Photo. My old stomping grounds... 

Dr. Mylroie on Guam again. Nice machete... 

Teal (my older brother) and the Mylroies on Guam. 

More recent picture of Dr. Mylroie on Guam. From one of his Grad Student's websites... 

High Water. This is the Stillwater River (a branch of the Penobscot) in Orono. Much much higher than usual. The base of those trees is usually 4 or 5 feet above the water level...  

Raging River. The outlet of Messalonskee Lake, just down the hill from where I live in Oakland. This is normally very tame. It's moving fast if you can't tell... 

Dr. Mylroie, infamous beach bum.

I was searching for things about Dr. Mylroie's (my future graduate advisor) research and came across this:
"It's easy to envy a colleague who has made a career out of lounging around tropical beaches. Dr. John Mylroie has done just that--specializing in karst systems and fresh-water lens on carbonate islands. He has published widely on such topics as Hydrodynamic behavior of caves formed in the fresh- water lens of carbonate islands; Geology of the Bahamas; and Water-rock interaction ... Geomorphic perspective and island karst. "
There's also a picture: http://www.karstwaters.org/sinkhole/mylroie.jpg
Here's the Caption: Dr. John Mylroie, Island Karstrunner and infamous racontuer.
Ha, that's great.
For those of you who don't know, his son was my best friend growing up in Mississippi, so I know him already. I always remember him being a total goofball and saying he has the best job in the world. I guess other people think so too. :)
Sounds like this is gonna be fun.

High Water

Well, it's been raining hard here for several days now. Combine that with already somewhat flooded rivers and lakes (from snowmelt), and you've got some minor flooding on your hands. I find it fascinating to look at rivers that are normally pretty tame turn into raging torrents. I took some pictures in a few spots, but nothing really turned out very well. The camera I have must have a slow shutter speed (or whatever the digital equivalent is).
It's also the last day of class today. So, not too much more homework, then 4 finals to take. After that, I plan on taking the back seats out of my car, and cleaning it out real well. Then start packing to take a load down to Mississippi in mid May. I'll probably be doing some more work for Dr. Koons (geophysics professor) in there some time as well.
I'm really wishing the trails would dry out so I can go ride. Road riding is ok, but it's be a lot more fun on an actual road bike, instead of my XC bike... Oh well.
Time to get to class now.

Aplite & Tourmaline. Had a field trip to Bennett Pegmatite Quarry today. I'm really bad with minerals, so I walked around picking up pretty rocks. This caught my eye though. It's a chunk from an aplite dike (basically a vein of really fine grained granite. The black specks are tourmaline. Not sure what else is going on there, but looks like a different aplite came in and scorched this one... who know, I'm no petrologist... 

Last week of school...

Well, like the title says, it's the last week of school. I was very busy all weekend doing typical end-of-semester sort of work. Lots of it. Anywho, my final undergrad semester is almost over. Seems kind of strange. I still have to do field camp before I get a degree though. That shouldn't be a problem though.
I've been hearing lots of interesting things from Dr. Mylroie and his colleague at the University of Guam about fun field work and thesis projects I could do. Hopefully I can somehow work it so Kristen is able to come along. I'm pretty sure I can work something out. It also sounds like we'll have an opportunity to go to San Salvador free or relatively cheap over Christmas break, so who knows... We'll just be island hoppers.
Kristen still hasn't heard from Lehigh of MSU about financial aid, and that's starting to worry her. Me too. Hopefully she'll get plenty of grants for being a smart, beautiful, funny, redhead from Maine. Surely they have scholarships for that sort of thing. :)
Anywho, I've got a bunch of geophysics to do right now so I should get on that. Suppose I should eat lunch at some point too.

Gap to rock. My fat ass struggling to make a 5 foot gap. Pathetic. 

Tableland. Mom on the Table lands of Katahdin...  

SS. Old single-speed Trek Teal built for me. Damn that was a cool bike. Miss it... 

The bike that never was... built this up when I lived in Utah, but never really had a chance to ride it. Scrapped it for parts eventually... still bits of it left... 

Sexxy Lexi. Kristen's Mom's/Partner's Dog. Such a goofy dog... she's acting shy in this picture... :) 

Fresh Grind. Just reground the rim on my trials bike. Helps the brakes lock up better. 

barchan dunes in Saudi Arabia 

My current trials bike, Brisa B26D. Anyone want to buy the frame? 

Assa Abloy (VOR 60) during the last Volvo Ocean Race. I've always liked this picture. They're supposedly doing over 30kts. 

The Mississippi Delta... If you're interested, I can tell you all about how messed up this area is, and how a delta like this wouldn't extend so far without human intervention... 

MSU

:)
Kristen has decided to come with me to MSU. That makes me so happy. :) However, there is one condition, we have to get a puppy dog. That's fine with me. Once we get settled in, we'll look into it. I've got Lars Mylroie looking for apartments and I'm looking as well. I'll be taking a trip down in mid-May to hopefully find a place to live. I'm quite excited.
Mississippi is definitely going to take some getting used to, especially for Kristen. I don't think that we'll stay down there after school is done for both of us, since Maine is our home (for me... only sorta).
I have to get back to class now. Teal, send me some pictures of your bike in progress...

Fastest Monohull

Well, one of the new Volvo 70's (for the upcoming Volvo Ocean Race) beat Mari Cha 4's 24 hour speed record. I think Mari Cha's record was around 525 miles, and the new record is 530.2 miles. Not much of an improvement I suppose, but consider that the boat is half the size of Mari Cha! An average speed of about 22 knots... Wow. And I get excited when we go over 4 kts on my parents' boat...
Picture of Mari-Cha IV: http://www.mari-cha4.com/pub/gallery/transatlantic/finish/images/03_5145D-Mari-ChaIV-01.jpg
Picture of Telefonica/MoviStar (Volvo 70): http://www.sailinganarchy.com/fringe/2005/images/MOVISTar%20record%7E1.jpg

Grad School Decision

Well, I just got done writing Lehigh to tell them I won't be going there after all. Kristen and I were up most of the night discussing this, but mostly discussing our future together (or not). I have been selfish in wanting to go to Mississippi, because it suits my needs and ambitions better, and I didn't consider what she wanted to do first. I should have offered to just go wherever she wanted to go (that'd be Lehigh), but instead I put me first. It's so hard to know what to do. We don't know if we're going to work out, so why should she come to Mississippi (where she'd rather not go), and why should I go to Lehigh (where I'd rather not go). I guess we're both not completely confident enough about the relationship to commit to that sort of thing. I don't know... I'd try to explain, but it's all very personal, and we haven't really got it figured out. How it stands now is I'm going to Mississippi, and she may/may not be coming with me. I feel so selfish about it. I hope it's the right thing to do.
Despite how this all sounds, I'm very excited to go to Mississippi, it's just the possibility of losing her in the process that scares the crap out of me.

Mom and I on Katahdin... June 2002 or 2003?