georion23

someday i'll do better than posting to this thing once a month. in the meantime, check out georion365, where i'm posting a picture a day. most of the time.

anyway, classes started at rice. going well so far. i'm taking trace elements/isotope geochemistry, global tectonics, and two seminars, as well as attended two reading groups and group meeting every week. so i'm busy. schedule here. and i'm working on two projects, one collaborating with al and anne down at nasa. fun stuff. i'll be presenting a talk at the lpi workshop on water in planetary basalts in november and a poster at agu in san fransisco in december. have my preliminary exam in january. presenting a talk to the rice earth science dept in february. will be presenting something at lpsc in march about this nasa project i'm working on. lots to do. but it's good. i'm liking the way things work here a lot better. it's a much better fit.

emily, christi, and johnny got scuba certified over labor day weekend in nacogdoches, and i got four more dives under my belt. i hadn't gotten to dive since may 2005 so it was great to get wet. last weekend emily and i went up to dallas for regan's wedding, which was fun except for the 9 hour of driving in one day, with helping brian move to his new place the next day. i finally got some sleep this weekend so i've recovered. i'll have separate posts for pictures soon.

next weekend i'll be heading to austin for sara's birthday. and then the following weekend is the new grad field trip to galveston. should be good fun.

a few minor things have happened in the last few weeks. i flew to austin for christi and johnny's wedding and played photographer. i had fun and they got a bunch of pictures they liked, so it all worked out nicely. flew back to tempe. emily came to visit and we drove to moab, utah, where we spent my 25th birthday. when did i get so old? a quarter of a century. craziness.

anyway, the last however-many posts were pictures from that trip. we started out by doing the 8ish-hour drive to moab, stopping along the way to take lots of photos. the next day we headed out to arches national park, where i finally got to see delicate arch. after arches, we attempted going on the la sal loop and then the gold basin trail to get up into the la sal mountains. there were some horses by the road, and the baby horse had a two-toned black and white tail. so cute. anyway, there was so much mud and snow that the trail was pretty much impassable so we didn't even get halfway up the mountain (12,000 ft). however, we did see plenty of snow, mountains, and aspen trees. we came down out of the mountains and took some pictures of moab at night. the next day, we took some pictures around moab and some of the colorado river before heading out of town. the drive back took considerably longer because we stopped at natural bridges national monument and drove the long way through monument valley, catching the sunset. we took a few pictures of the highway, stars, and silhouette of monument valley against the darkening sky before driving the long road back to tempe. 1200 miles in three days. fun stuff.

a couple days later, my parents arrived in tempe for my graduation. i now hold a masters degree in geological sciences from arizona state university. woo. the ceremony was at 8am. whoever decided to hold commencement at that wretched hour needs to be hit over the head with something heavy. ugh. mom, dad, matthew, emily, and zack all got up nice and early with me to attend. they yelled, "YAR!!!" like pirates when i went across the stage. so fun. we went to the botanical gardens after eating at olive garden to take silly pictures. some day those will be posted. that evening, i had a bunch of my friends over and we grilled fajita meat and veggies and had a good old time. the next morning, we got up bright and early and trekked up to the grand canyon. stayed in flagstaff that night and went to meteor crater and painted desert/petrified desert the next day. caught a couple very nice sunsets. irritated my dad by rolling down the window every few minutes to take pictures while he was driving. they'll get put up at some point, too.

parents left the next day and emily left the day after that. i spent the next five days packing. then movers took away most of my stuff to austin, and the next two days were spent finishing packing and cleaning my house (we're getting our full deposit back! woo! though half of it will go towards our final electric bill. ugh...) while sleeping in thijs and beck's graciously-offered guest bedroom with my poor, extremely freaked out cat. they're wonderful people. we swam in their awesome pool and played catch with my underwater torpedo. it was really hard to leave them, especially beck. but, they're going to try to come to houston in the fall. i left at about 11:30pm and drove all night and all day. i stopped to take pictures of some gorgeous texas wildflowers, only to find there were butterflies, too. i'll get those up at some point. got to drive through some crazy hard rain and sit in rush hour traffic. went to dinner (bbq!) with sara and emily before seeing pirates of the caribbean 3 at 10:30. even managed to stay awake somehow. i've spent the last week or so running errands, spending time with friends and family, grilling (hot dogs and corn on memorial day and steaks tonight), and generally enjoying being back in texas, back in "my home country," as kirsten put it. it is nice to be back where things make sense.

emily and i are going to houston this weekend. staying with christi and johnny. looking for apartments for the fall, and christi mentioned some phototreking adventure. should be a good time. i just need to unload the rest of my stuff from my car. and get a new swimsuit that actually fits so we can take advantage of their pool. i'm getting a haircut (finally!) tomorrow. speaking of, i need to get to bed so i'll actually get up for the appointment. goodnight!

oh, one more thing. GO SPURS!!!

woo! my friends christi and johnny (below) are getting married in austin in a couple of weeks. they've hired me to be the photographer so they're paying for my flight to austin! i'm so excited. i've never shot a wedding before. it should be fun. i'm a little nervous but i think it'll be great. they're getting married at chapel dulcinea, which looks gorgeous. and, since i'll be in town, sara, emily, and i are going to the midnight opening show of spider-man 3. yay! and i'll get some chuy's mexican food and county line bbq. yum.




also, the abstract for my thesis was emailed out today. seems this whole defense thing is actually going to happen. exciting. the abstract can be read and admired by all ( here )