Geo-Paleo Blogs from around the World (#8)

Next up on my Geo-Paleo blog list is GeoTripper. A blog that focuses in what I am very interested in and hope to get into someday - Geological Education. And seeing that he has a partial focus on the Western US. I am right at home here (well, for now).

GeoTube Videos - Volcanoes #2 - Fixed

Here is a recent video that I just found showing an underwater volcano eruption near Tonga spilling out into the open ocean. Pretty cool stuff.

This has also been added to my GeoTube channel.

Geological Destinations - Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats

So I did some more restructuring to my webpage (Dinojimcom), but not as major this time. I changed my National Parks page into US Travels. And included a division. Now it is partially National Parks and partially Geological Destinations. For now it is mostly National Parks but as I get more Geological Destinations that will build it up. If a state has both a Geological Destination page and a National Parks page, the direct link from the map will take you to a page with a link to both of those. Check out the new Utah page for an example. Currently there is one Geological Destination in Utah that I added - The Bonneville Salt Flats. Included below are the images of the Salt Flats.

Entrance to the park

Using my GPS to find where we are

The Great Salt Lick

Literally in the middle of nowhere, from behind

Literally in the middle of nowhere, from the right side

Literally in the middle of nowhere, from the left side

And literally in the middle of nowhere, from the front

Forgot my rock hammer to get a sample so I had to use a tire iron to no success.

The great Salt Lake Metaphor Tree, I don't know.

I'm Going to be a DOCTOR!!!!!!!

I just wanted it to be posted that I got into Grad school today at the University of Utah. I'm not sure what program I am going to be studying yet but it will likely be related to paleontology, just not vertebrate paleontology directly. Which I am actually happy about because as I have talked with people I have found out it would definitely be better to have a broader background when applying to jobs and since I wish to be a college proffesor at a small college one day, they are likely not going to want someone entrenched in Vert Paleo.

Happy St Patricks Day

Since I am mostly Irish I figured I would provide a link to the the Yahoo! article explaining some of the Irish myths surrounding St Patrick's Day.

http://events.yahoo.com/stpatricksday/2009/

One is St Patrick was not born in Ireland, which I thought was common knowledge. But an interesting thing that makes sense, although I never thought of it, was that St Patrick never drove the snakes out of Ireland. They were never there in the first place. Evolutionarily speaking this makes perfect sense, but again I had never thought of it before. The other stuff is pretty interesting as well and you should take a gander at it.

Teaching Geology through Literature - Walden

I have been wanting to include a new section to my website and I finally got around to doing it. I call it Geology through Literature (see the nifty logo I made :-)). I also grouped this with my Geological Movies section under Geological Education. Well the first one I made up was for Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

Using Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Science is not a new invention. People have been performing science for many thousands of years. Often they build on research of those before them and sometimes they start from scratch. The purpose of this project is to use a scientific study from the 19th century to produce a current contour map of lake depth.

The study being described is in Walden by Henry David Thoreau, written before 1854. The book is typically considered “philosophical” literature but in this case he performs the basis of science. He identified a problem, determined how to solve the problem, and then executed the research.

His Problem
Often people would describe the depth of Walden Pond as bottomless. He wished to prove them wrong and determine the actual depth.

His Method
To determine the actual depth of the lake he used the simple method of a rock and string.

His Solution
That’s where you come in.

Project Directions

1. Read the “The Pond in winter” chapter of Walden by Thoreau.
2. Write down all important sentences and phrases that have to do with the depth and shape of the pond.
3. Summarize these into only the important points (like the location and depth of the deepest point.
4. Use one of the outlines of Walden Pond provided to start and outline the important features (deepest point, sand bars, etc.) in pencil.
5. Make a contour depth map with 20ft contours. The shore of the lake will be your 0 contour (provided). Then erase all of the mistakes and non-important items on the map so you just have a finalized contour map left.

You can also get a zip file with a complete set of directions as well as a step by step solution over at my site - DinoJim.com/GeologyThroughLiterature.htm. And remember if you enjoy this, let me know. And Cite - Don't Steal.

Bye Buddy, We'll Miss You

With us 2/11/07 - 3/5/09

This is for my Buddy Aikman. Although a real pain in the ass when we first got him, he turned into my buddy. We'll miss you buddy. You can rest in peace now.

100 Greatest Books #82 - Our Town

Next up on my reading of the top 100 books is Our Town by Thorton Wilder. You can find this book on the Sybervision Book List.

This play makes a whole lot more sense if you read the preface to it, in addition to reading/ watching it. From the outside it appears to be a play about a normal American family but if you read the preface you would know that it is more than that. The family is meant to be timeless. A thing that was not known around Wilder's time. All the concurrent plays were grounded in a specific time whereas Wilder removed all props and set pieces to give the play a timeless quality. A play about any town in America. A play about any family, and although it still feels a little dated, it actually has remained quite timeless. The plot was fairly simple, about a family growing up, loving, and dying, in a small American town. And it was easy to follow, although there is that feeling that your missing something when you finish reading it. I'm still not quite sure what that was but I did enjoy it.

New Title and Description

So I changed the title of my blog from "Dino Jim's Vent" to be "Dino Jim's Musing". One reason is because it sounds more intellectual and a second because I don't really vent over many things and more muse over topics. Also I have been wanting to expand my geological education materials including the geological movie reviews which I am going to be soon updating and posting here as well as on my website. And I am currently in the works of adding a new page. A "Geology Through Literature" page that will take some of the 100 Greatest Novels that I have been reading and using them to learn geology. Several of the novels have some variety of geoscience in them and I thought this a good way to kind of merge the 2 genres.

Geo-Paleo Blogs from around the World (#7)

Next up on my list of Geo-Paleo Blogs from around the World is Stories in Stone. Which is a blog about a subject that I am very interested in. Building stones and how they relate to the project they were used in, like the marble in the Lincoln Memorial. So a recommended read if you are into this sort of thing. it has been added to my blogrole on the side.

2009 Personal Goals - March Update

Ok, so it has been 2 months since I set my goals (only one since I posted them online) and here is an update. You can see the goals in the left hand column.

1. Finish the first draft of my fiction novel. Nothing more completed

2. Drop my weight to 167lbs. I weighed myself this morning and I am at 175.2

3. Pay off all my credit cards. One of the 5 cards is payed off and about to be closed.

Other achievements of note are that I finished building the main parts of the bar and started to stain it. All I have left to add are the shelves and the trim once it has been stained and finished.

100 Greatest Books #81 - Peer Gynt

Next up on my reading of the 306 of the top 100 books is Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen. You can find this book on the Sybervision Book List

This was a play about a boy/man who started out running away from his troubles and inventing imaginary worlds from which to escape into. Although not the greatest of plays I have ever read, nor would I even include it on this list personally, it was not terrible. The moral of the story was a little late in coming but it came and the story felt rushed at points and dragged on at others but it may have been the translation I was using. The translator tried too hard to modernize the story and made it feel severely out of place at times. Not bad but definitely not great.

Geology Fact of the Week

And we're back again. The Geoact for this week is:

And again you can check out all of my Geoacts at my Webpage: Dinojim.com/geoacts.htm.