Several people are talking about field vehicles and I guess I'm lucky but I've never had to rent a field vehicle. (I do have a story about that for later.) I work for the State and we have our own vehicles, mostly trucks and SUVs, which while low mpg, they do meet all the general field vehicle requirements. (Can I get a pencil/map/GPS/field book holder, too?)
Picking up core requires (sometimes extensive) driving on bad lease roads and carrying several hundred feet of boxed, 2-inch core in the bed - this limits our choices to 4WD full-sized trucks; even then some of the hills were iffy, also you don't jack-rabbit off from a stop. Luckily the truck that could haul the most also had an extended cab because all three of us rode to lunch in one truck. (We're State employees, we're taking our lunch break!) For looking at actual outcrops, we use one of the SUVs - space for people in relative comfort, room for samples, good clearance so we don't have to worry about what's on the shoulder, etc. The mappers tend to be pickier and a little possessive about the trucks. (Big Blue is Ed's truck, the red one with the ugly camper shell was Dorothy's...)
Most of the field work I've done since working here was at our "old test site", a short way down a decent lease road, where anything except the mini-van or Crown Vic would do. (Actually, no one really wants to drive the Crown Vic or mini-van on the highway either. We also have the "mail van" that's rather scary but it still makes to the PO.) Our new test site (where we might actually get to put some CO2 in the ground!) is really close to the highway and on a great lease road - I could drive my brother's Mustang up there, but we haven't brought in drilling and work-over rigs yet. The agency's vehicles get well used, a lot. High mileage is the rule, but for the most part they are well cared for but where I worked right after college we had a couple of real doozies.
The worst vehicle I think I have ever driven was a Dogde dually with possessed alignment. This truck would pull to one side long enough for you to start to get used to it and then it would switch, suddenly, to pulling to the other side. Or the amount/strength of the pull would change. It was exhausting to drive. One time couple of the guys were driving back to the hotel after doing a tank tightness test (well after midnight) and were pulled over for weaving. They hadn't had a drop of alcohol, they were just to tired to fight the steering wheel. There was also an old Explorer that'd shake your fillings out above 50 miles/hour; that one was loads of fun to ride in to Montgomery. At that job there was a definite hierarchy of vehicle allocation: owners - new(every few years) SUV (for work and personal use); engineers going to meeting - newish SUV/truck; survey crews - slightly older SUV/newish trucks; environmental division - a couple of trucks that wouldn't be replaced until they wouldn't tow the grout machine; geologic division (both of us) - whatever was left or POV. A couple times I was very thankful for my station wagon had front-wheel drive.
The University's vans were another set interesting field vehicles. Apparently years ago my Alma mater rented the vans in New Mexico and everybody just met in Albuquerque for field camp. Then the rental companies figured out what they were doing with the vans and stopped giving them the corporate rate. After that they started using the university's vans but the motor-pool people had already figured out not to give the Geology department nice vans because we'd get them all muddy. When I was at field camp both vans had a crack in the windshield, top to bottom. The whole set of vans purchased one year had the windshields badly seated and they all had cracks. I can assure you there was no way you could rev the engine up enough to warp the frame (like in drag racing); seriously, a semi passed us one day, going up hill - can you say under-powered? (Still better than under-braked.) On a southern Appalachian field trip we had a pair of under braked vans - wouldn't erring on the side of over-powered brakes be preferable to possibly under-braked? - We only had to take one brake-cooling break, thanks good route planning and 1st gear.
The only rental car/ field experience I had was near Denver. My advisor and I were there for a class and had a free day, so we went out driving. "Unimproved road" means something different in Colorado than it means in Alabama. In AL it, generally, means county maintained dirt; I think in CO means any track one could conceivably drive some sort of land vehicle over. We started on a paved road which became dirt which became a jeep track which started to look a lot like the photos Silver Fox posted. We decided after a short distance that perhaps we didn't want to have to walk back to civilization and turned around. My advisor told me a story about a field trip where they'd reserved high-clearance 4-wheel drive vehicles and were given sedans. IIRC, he told me they returned 3 and drew a map to the 4th.
Showing posts with label meme. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meme. Show all posts
04 June 2009
26 March 2009
Field Gear
I don't have a picture handy of what I look like in my field gear so I'll follow Geotripper's (et al.) lead and just describe it. What I wear/carry in the field varies a lot, depending on what I'm doing but somethings remain the same.
Hair: Somewhat unkempt. Now that it is short, it's just under a hat (baseball or straw) or tied back with a kerchief. When it was longer it was pulled back one way or another and under a hat. At field camp it would start out a down in back, then in a pony tail, then braided by the 3rd day without washing.
Sunburned Peeling Nose: Sure hope not. That's what the hat and sunscreen are for.
Beard: Can't seem to grow one, which is just as well because waxing ain't cheap.
The Ever-Present T-shirt and Logo: Depending on the weather and location the T-shirt would be sleeveless and covered with a long-sleeved light weight shirt (the better to keep off bugs, sun, and prickers) or long-sleeved and under a sweater or, rarely, a flannel shirt. Every once in a while I do wear just a t-shirt by itself. Most of my long- and short- sleeved tees have logos/slogans on them the tank tops don't. Favorites LS tees are the volunteer fire department and crab trap clean up (OK they are about the only LS tees I have); I don't have favorite SS tees too many choices. The GSA one is OK. The big seal on the back and dark green color make it a bit warm in the summer, besides it disappeared after the second time I wore it.
Belt and Buckle: Pants fit o.k. but I need something to hang my Brunton on. I have a big tool belt that I wore over my pants at field camp with a hammer holster and field pack; I don't usually wear that anymore because I'm never that far from the car.
Deep Pockets: (not in the legal sense; geologists are often poor) Keys (if I'm driving), inhaler (if I remember to get it out of my purse), cell phone (if I remember...), and occasional small sample may be in my pockets. Other stuff (water bottle, camera, Brunton, purse, tape, extra padlock, colored pencils,...) are in my backpack and/or camera bag. I usually carry my field book and a pen in my hand or shove it in the back of my pants when I need both hands. This habit has lead to my field book almost disappearing completely in one day when I wore slightly loose pants.
Assorted Scars and Bandages: Actually I can't think of a scar that is geology related.
Rock Hammer: for specimen collecting, fighting off deer flies, self-defense, installing Li-Cor collars, beating stupid computers senseless, etc.
Muscular, tanned legs: Tanned? My legs are always covered with pants. I don't like bites, sunburns, thorn pricks, or random scrapes when they are easily avoided. Therefore they are about as far from 'tanned' as possible. (And I come from northern European stock, too.) Muscular? I don't know about that.
Shoelaces:I still have the original laces that came with the boots. Guess I'm lucky or sit in my office too much.
Cool Socks! And not just for field work.
Boots: for traction on rocks, mud, and snow (hah! like anyone in Alabama would go out in the field in snow). I have two pair. My favorite are a pair I got from LL Bean 11 years ago (obviously I sit in my office too much). I also have a pair of Timberlands I bought a few years ago in an emergency (packed for a society field trip the night before, taught the next day, and ten halfway to the hotel I realized the only shoes I had were the flats I was wearing.). I need to get some steel toed boots but keep putting it off because I can think of other things to spend my money on.
Ironclad Bladders: (not pictured) I usually don't have to go far to the field but bathroom are not terribly close to the research site so this is useful. (Go before leaving the office, at lunch, and upon return). I knew all those long car trips would come in handy one day.
Brunton Compass: to determine strike and dip, fault orientations, and locating next collar location (if we ever get the access agreements signed). We also use GPS receivers to get exact locations.
Eyes: Full of wisdom...yeah that's it. And behind glasses. I love my Transitions.
Brain: (not pictured) Dehydrated, half-baked, freeze-dried, but enjoying every minute.
Other stuffs: There's a lot of things that are task specific, but some common things not covered above are: safety vest during hunting season, bags (sample, grocery, Ziploc), extra sharpies, work gloves, rain-gear (when the weatherman says maybe), survey tape, bug spray, sunscreen, measuring tape, hand lens (around the neck), WD-40, large pocket knife.
I'm either lucky or unlucky in that I spend most of my time in an office. (And most of the "rocks" I look at in a well log.) When I do go in the field it's usually only for a day or two at a time and come home every night. I can usually find decent food nearby (especially if I'm out with my boss for whom this is a necessity). Since I've been at the Survey most of my field time has been spent of two particular projects. For one I and two co-workers were out collecting cores which had been drilled by a local mining company. For the other, I and a grad student were, and will be again soon, going out every week and getting soil CO2 flux measurements (this is why I have a spare padlock and WD-40 in my bag). For those days in the field, gear was fairly light. I get to do some 'regular' fieldwork, like last Friday (when I didn't take my camera, damn it.) when more of stuff is needed.
Hair: Somewhat unkempt. Now that it is short, it's just under a hat (baseball or straw) or tied back with a kerchief. When it was longer it was pulled back one way or another and under a hat. At field camp it would start out a down in back, then in a pony tail, then braided by the 3rd day without washing.
Sunburned Peeling Nose: Sure hope not. That's what the hat and sunscreen are for.
Beard: Can't seem to grow one, which is just as well because waxing ain't cheap.
The Ever-Present T-shirt and Logo: Depending on the weather and location the T-shirt would be sleeveless and covered with a long-sleeved light weight shirt (the better to keep off bugs, sun, and prickers) or long-sleeved and under a sweater or, rarely, a flannel shirt. Every once in a while I do wear just a t-shirt by itself. Most of my long- and short- sleeved tees have logos/slogans on them the tank tops don't. Favorites LS tees are the volunteer fire department and crab trap clean up (OK they are about the only LS tees I have); I don't have favorite SS tees too many choices. The GSA one is OK. The big seal on the back and dark green color make it a bit warm in the summer, besides it disappeared after the second time I wore it.
Belt and Buckle: Pants fit o.k. but I need something to hang my Brunton on. I have a big tool belt that I wore over my pants at field camp with a hammer holster and field pack; I don't usually wear that anymore because I'm never that far from the car.
Deep Pockets: (not in the legal sense; geologists are often poor) Keys (if I'm driving), inhaler (if I remember to get it out of my purse), cell phone (if I remember...), and occasional small sample may be in my pockets. Other stuff (water bottle, camera, Brunton, purse, tape, extra padlock, colored pencils,...) are in my backpack and/or camera bag. I usually carry my field book and a pen in my hand or shove it in the back of my pants when I need both hands. This habit has lead to my field book almost disappearing completely in one day when I wore slightly loose pants.
Assorted Scars and Bandages: Actually I can't think of a scar that is geology related.
Rock Hammer: for specimen collecting, fighting off deer flies, self-defense, installing Li-Cor collars, beating stupid computers senseless, etc.
Muscular, tanned legs: Tanned? My legs are always covered with pants. I don't like bites, sunburns, thorn pricks, or random scrapes when they are easily avoided. Therefore they are about as far from 'tanned' as possible. (And I come from northern European stock, too.) Muscular? I don't know about that.
Shoelaces:I still have the original laces that came with the boots. Guess I'm lucky or sit in my office too much.
Cool Socks! And not just for field work.
Boots: for traction on rocks, mud, and snow (hah! like anyone in Alabama would go out in the field in snow). I have two pair. My favorite are a pair I got from LL Bean 11 years ago (obviously I sit in my office too much). I also have a pair of Timberlands I bought a few years ago in an emergency (packed for a society field trip the night before, taught the next day, and ten halfway to the hotel I realized the only shoes I had were the flats I was wearing.). I need to get some steel toed boots but keep putting it off because I can think of other things to spend my money on.
Ironclad Bladders: (not pictured) I usually don't have to go far to the field but bathroom are not terribly close to the research site so this is useful. (Go before leaving the office, at lunch, and upon return). I knew all those long car trips would come in handy one day.
Brunton Compass: to determine strike and dip, fault orientations, and locating next collar location (if we ever get the access agreements signed). We also use GPS receivers to get exact locations.
Eyes: Full of wisdom...yeah that's it. And behind glasses. I love my Transitions.
Brain: (not pictured) Dehydrated, half-baked, freeze-dried, but enjoying every minute.
Other stuffs: There's a lot of things that are task specific, but some common things not covered above are: safety vest during hunting season, bags (sample, grocery, Ziploc), extra sharpies, work gloves, rain-gear (when the weatherman says maybe), survey tape, bug spray, sunscreen, measuring tape, hand lens (around the neck), WD-40, large pocket knife.
I'm either lucky or unlucky in that I spend most of my time in an office. (And most of the "rocks" I look at in a well log.) When I do go in the field it's usually only for a day or two at a time and come home every night. I can usually find decent food nearby (especially if I'm out with my boss for whom this is a necessity). Since I've been at the Survey most of my field time has been spent of two particular projects. For one I and two co-workers were out collecting cores which had been drilled by a local mining company. For the other, I and a grad student were, and will be again soon, going out every week and getting soil CO2 flux measurements (this is why I have a spare padlock and WD-40 in my bag). For those days in the field, gear was fairly light. I get to do some 'regular' fieldwork, like last Friday (when I didn't take my camera, damn it.) when more of stuff is needed.
19 February 2009
Lies, all of it damn lies
Well only 1, actually. Well, once Honu-Girl and Sarah did it I had to join in the fun.
Guess which is the lie:
#1. I read Clan of the Cave Bear in the 6th grade.
#2. I own two books with the same name as me and I loved both of them.
#3. I'm not fond of Victorian novels but love what the BBC does with them.
#4. I love Kurt Vonnegut books.
Guess which is the lie:
#1. I read Clan of the Cave Bear in the 6th grade.
#2. I own two books with the same name as me and I loved both of them.
#3. I'm not fond of Victorian novels but love what the BBC does with them.
#4. I love Kurt Vonnegut books.
05 February 2009
Tallest Peak
Callan has a list of the tallest points in each state. I won't list them all because I've only topped one:
We are standing on the tallest rock at the top of Mount Cheaha. Nettie went up in the observation tower (and took a couple pictures), Honey and I had to stay below.
I can safely say this is on the easier peaks to climb since the road is less than 100 feet from the tower with parking. Some of the trials in the park are not so easy.
(more photos of the camping trip here)
I can safely say this is on the easier peaks to climb since the road is less than 100 feet from the tower with parking. Some of the trials in the park are not so easy.
(more photos of the camping trip here)
28 January 2009
Six Isn't Bad.
Silver Fox tagged me so here it is: The 25 most visited places in the US. (I've been to the bolded ones).
1. Times Square, New York City, NY - 35 million
2. The Las Vegas Strip, Las Vegas, NV - 31 million
3. National Mall and Memorial Parks, Washington DC - 24 million
4. Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, MA
5. Disney World's Magic Kingdom, Lake Buena Vista, FL - 17.1 million
6. Disneyland Park, Anaheim, CA - 14.9 million
7. Fisherman's Wharf/Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, CA - 14 million
8. Niagara Falls, NY - 12 million
9. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN/NC - 9.4 million
10 Navy Pier, Chicago, IL - 8.6 million
11. Lake Mead National Recreation Area, AZ/NV - 7.6 million
12. Universal Studios/ Islands of Adventure, Orlando, FL - 6.2 million
13. SeaWorld Florida, Orlando, FL - 6 million
14. San Antonio River Walk, TX - 5.1 million
15. Temple Square, Salt Lake City, UT - 5 million
16. Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, PA/NJ - 4.8 million
17. Universal Studios Hollywood, CA - 4.7 million
18. Metropolitan Museum, New York City, NY - 4.5 million
18. Waikiki Beach, Oahu, HI - 4.5 million
20. Grand Canyon, AZ - 4.41 million
21. Busch Gardens Africa, Tampa Bay, FL - 4.4 million
22. Cape Cod National Seashore, MA - 4.35 million
23. Sea World San Diego, CA - 4.26 million
24. American Museum of Natural History, New York City, NY - 4 million
25. Atlantic City Boardwalk, NJ - 4 million
Six out of 25 for sure. I've been to the DC a LOT, the Smokies several times (including a very rainy camping trip), went to Cape Cod NS last summer and the Grand Canyon when I was 6, Disney World (3 times!); Universal Studios was part of a band/orchestra trip to Orlando. The two New York museums, I'm not sure of. Is the Met the spiral? If so we walked in, saw how expensive it was and left. I just can't remember if we went to AMNH on that trip or not. I'm fairly sure didn't go to Time Square. I think I went to Sea World when my family went to Disney World but I'm not sure, it was 2/3 of a life ago. I was outside Temple Square once, but it was Sunday and church was letting out; I thought it might be rude to go be a tourist right then. I didn't get another chance to wander in SLC that week.
I've been to Las Vegas, NM (cute little town, btw) but not THE Las Vegas. Haven't been to Lake Mead, but we did Lake Powell on the Great West Trip. I'm not sure I've ever set foot in Delaware and the only parts of New Jersey I've been in were stops on the turnpike and Weehawken (where we stayed on our NYC trip). I've been to Chicago several times but no Navy Pier. I've never seen the Pacific, something I hope to rectify one day.
I could go on and on about which of these I want to visit and which I couldn't care less about but I should do some work before lunch.;)
1. Times Square, New York City, NY - 35 million
2. The Las Vegas Strip, Las Vegas, NV - 31 million
3. National Mall and Memorial Parks, Washington DC - 24 million
4. Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, MA
5. Disney World's Magic Kingdom, Lake Buena Vista, FL - 17.1 million
6. Disneyland Park, Anaheim, CA - 14.9 million
7. Fisherman's Wharf/Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, CA - 14 million
8. Niagara Falls, NY - 12 million
9. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN/NC - 9.4 million
10 Navy Pier, Chicago, IL - 8.6 million
11. Lake Mead National Recreation Area, AZ/NV - 7.6 million
12. Universal Studios/ Islands of Adventure, Orlando, FL - 6.2 million
13. SeaWorld Florida, Orlando, FL - 6 million
14. San Antonio River Walk, TX - 5.1 million
15. Temple Square, Salt Lake City, UT - 5 million
16. Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, PA/NJ - 4.8 million
17. Universal Studios Hollywood, CA - 4.7 million
18. Metropolitan Museum, New York City, NY - 4.5 million
18. Waikiki Beach, Oahu, HI - 4.5 million
20. Grand Canyon, AZ - 4.41 million
21. Busch Gardens Africa, Tampa Bay, FL - 4.4 million
22. Cape Cod National Seashore, MA - 4.35 million
23. Sea World San Diego, CA - 4.26 million
24. American Museum of Natural History, New York City, NY - 4 million
25. Atlantic City Boardwalk, NJ - 4 million
Six out of 25 for sure. I've been to the DC a LOT, the Smokies several times (including a very rainy camping trip), went to Cape Cod NS last summer and the Grand Canyon when I was 6, Disney World (3 times!); Universal Studios was part of a band/orchestra trip to Orlando. The two New York museums, I'm not sure of. Is the Met the spiral? If so we walked in, saw how expensive it was and left. I just can't remember if we went to AMNH on that trip or not. I'm fairly sure didn't go to Time Square. I think I went to Sea World when my family went to Disney World but I'm not sure, it was 2/3 of a life ago. I was outside Temple Square once, but it was Sunday and church was letting out; I thought it might be rude to go be a tourist right then. I didn't get another chance to wander in SLC that week.
I've been to Las Vegas, NM (cute little town, btw) but not THE Las Vegas. Haven't been to Lake Mead, but we did Lake Powell on the Great West Trip. I'm not sure I've ever set foot in Delaware and the only parts of New Jersey I've been in were stops on the turnpike and Weehawken (where we stayed on our NYC trip). I've been to Chicago several times but no Navy Pier. I've never seen the Pacific, something I hope to rectify one day.
I could go on and on about which of these I want to visit and which I couldn't care less about but I should do some work before lunch.;)
09 January 2009
Where I've been
These are all the states I've visited.
visited 27 states (54%)
These are all the states I've been in (as best I can tell):
visited 33 states (66%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or try another Douwe Osinga project
Apparently I've been avoiding Kentuck. I may get to add Oregon this year, if I can come up with a paper/poster. I'm not going to do a countries I've visited map because it would be embarrassing (US, Canada, England (ok, Heathrow Airport), and Scotland).
visited 27 states (54%)
These are all the states I've been in (as best I can tell):
visited 33 states (66%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or try another Douwe Osinga project
Apparently I've been avoiding Kentuck. I may get to add Oregon this year, if I can come up with a paper/poster. I'm not going to do a countries I've visited map because it would be embarrassing (US, Canada, England (ok, Heathrow Airport), and Scotland).
18 December 2008
What haven't I done?
Lots.
A meme zinging around the geoblogosphere asks "what have you seen?" (I've bolded all the I've done/seen.)
1. See an erupting volcano
2. See a glacier
3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland
4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta.
5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage
6. Explore a limestone cave. Try Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, or the caves of Kentucky or TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia)
7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile.
8. Explore a subsurface mine.
9. See an ophiolite, such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (if on a budget, try the Coast Ranges or Klamath Mountains of California).
10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger (there's some anorthosite in southern California too).
11. A slot canyon. Many of these amazing canyons are less than 3 feet wide and over 100 feet deep. They reside on the Colorado Plateau. Among the best are Antelope Canyon, Brimstone Canyon, Spooky Gulch and the Round Valley Draw.
12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere. [hand sample only]
13. An exfoliation dome, such as those in the Sierra Nevada.
14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland.
15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate.
16. A gingko tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic. [near my office, god the fruit stinks]
17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (Glacier National Park is a great place to see fossil stromatolites, while Shark Bay in Australia is the place to see living ones)
18. A field of glacial erratics
19. A caldera
20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high [Great Sand Dune National Park]
21. A fjord
22. A recently formed fault scarp
23. A megabreccia
24. An actively accreting river delta
25. A natural bridge
26. A large sinkhole [Lake Jackson, Florala, Alabama - largest sinkhole in the state]
27. A glacial outwash plain
28. A sea stack
29. A house-sized glacial erratic
30. An underground lake or river
31. The continental divide
32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals [got a set one time as a present]
33. Petrified trees
34. Lava tubes
35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back. [haven't been to the bottom]
36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible
37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world.
38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m)
39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale.
40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe. [samples only]
41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania,
42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth's fresh water.
43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high
44. Devil's Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing.
45. The Alps.
46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley - 11,330 feet below.
47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art
48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.
49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.
50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders.
51. Shiprock, New Mexico, to see a large volcanic neck
52. Land's End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist.
53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.
54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism.
55. The Giant's Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows.
56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa.
57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border, to see the classic "horn".
58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain
59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington
60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton (the "father" of modern geology) observed the classic unconformity
61. The moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley
62. Yosemite Valley
63. Landscape Arch (or Delicate Arch) in Utah [maybe, but I'm not sure]
64. The Burgess Shale in British Columbia [samples only]
65. The Channeled Scablands of central Washington
66. Bryce Canyon
67. Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone
68. Monument Valley [again, I don't remember everywhere we went that summer]
69. The San Andreas fault
70. The dinosaur footprints in La Rioja, Spain
71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands
72. The Pyrennees Mountains
73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand
74. Denali (an orogeny in progress)
75. A catastrophic mass wasting event
76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park
77. The black sand beaches in Hawaii (or the green sand-olivine beaches)
78. Barton Springs in Texas
79. Hells Canyon in Idaho
80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado
81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia
82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0.[only a 3.5]
83. Find dinosaur footprints in situ
84. Find a trilobite (or a dinosaur bone or any other fossil)
85. Find gold, however small the flake
86. Find a meteorite fragment
87. Experience a volcanic ashfall
88. Experience a sandstorm
89. See a tsunami
90. Witness a total solar eclipse
91. Witness a tornado firsthand. [thank God, no]
92. Witness a meteor storm, a term used to describe a particularly intense (1000+ per minute) meteor shower
93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope.
94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights.
95. View a great naked-eye comet, an opportunity which occurs only a few times per century
96. See a lunar eclipse
97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope
98. Experience a hurricane
99. See noctilucent clouds
100. See the green flash
Apparently there were some complaints that it is US-centric so Callan Bently wrote up a slightly different one:
Specific places
A meme zinging around the geoblogosphere asks "what have you seen?" (I've bolded all the I've done/seen.)
1. See an erupting volcano
2. See a glacier
3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland
4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta.
5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage
6. Explore a limestone cave. Try Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park, or the caves of Kentucky or TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia)
7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile.
8. Explore a subsurface mine.
9. See an ophiolite, such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (if on a budget, try the Coast Ranges or Klamath Mountains of California).
10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger (there's some anorthosite in southern California too).
11. A slot canyon. Many of these amazing canyons are less than 3 feet wide and over 100 feet deep. They reside on the Colorado Plateau. Among the best are Antelope Canyon, Brimstone Canyon, Spooky Gulch and the Round Valley Draw.
12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere. [hand sample only]
13. An exfoliation dome, such as those in the Sierra Nevada.
14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland.
15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate.
16. A gingko tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic. [near my office, god the fruit stinks]
17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (Glacier National Park is a great place to see fossil stromatolites, while Shark Bay in Australia is the place to see living ones)
18. A field of glacial erratics
19. A caldera
20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high [Great Sand Dune National Park]
21. A fjord
22. A recently formed fault scarp
23. A megabreccia
24. An actively accreting river delta
25. A natural bridge
26. A large sinkhole [Lake Jackson, Florala, Alabama - largest sinkhole in the state]
27. A glacial outwash plain
28. A sea stack
29. A house-sized glacial erratic
30. An underground lake or river
31. The continental divide
32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals [got a set one time as a present]
33. Petrified trees
34. Lava tubes
35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back. [haven't been to the bottom]
36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible
37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world.
38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m)
39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale.
40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe. [samples only]
41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania,
42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth's fresh water.
43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high
44. Devil's Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing.
45. The Alps.
46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley - 11,330 feet below.
47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art
48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.
49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.
50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders.
51. Shiprock, New Mexico, to see a large volcanic neck
52. Land's End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist.
53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.
54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism.
55. The Giant's Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows.
56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa.
57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border, to see the classic "horn".
58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain
59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington
60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton (the "father" of modern geology) observed the classic unconformity
61. The moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley
62. Yosemite Valley
63. Landscape Arch (or Delicate Arch) in Utah [maybe, but I'm not sure]
64. The Burgess Shale in British Columbia [samples only]
65. The Channeled Scablands of central Washington
66. Bryce Canyon
67. Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone
68. Monument Valley [again, I don't remember everywhere we went that summer]
69. The San Andreas fault
70. The dinosaur footprints in La Rioja, Spain
71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands
72. The Pyrennees Mountains
73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand
74. Denali (an orogeny in progress)
75. A catastrophic mass wasting event
76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park
77. The black sand beaches in Hawaii (or the green sand-olivine beaches)
78. Barton Springs in Texas
79. Hells Canyon in Idaho
80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado
81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia
82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0.[only a 3.5]
83. Find dinosaur footprints in situ
84. Find a trilobite (or a dinosaur bone or any other fossil)
85. Find gold, however small the flake
86. Find a meteorite fragment
87. Experience a volcanic ashfall
88. Experience a sandstorm
89. See a tsunami
90. Witness a total solar eclipse
91. Witness a tornado firsthand. [thank God, no]
92. Witness a meteor storm, a term used to describe a particularly intense (1000+ per minute) meteor shower
93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope.
94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights.
95. View a great naked-eye comet, an opportunity which occurs only a few times per century
96. See a lunar eclipse
97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope
98. Experience a hurricane
99. See noctilucent clouds
100. See the green flash
Apparently there were some complaints that it is US-centric so Callan Bently wrote up a slightly different one:
Specific places
- Visit the Chalk (England, France, Ireland...) [I've seen the Selma chalk]
- Visit Iceland
- Visit Mt. Fuji, Japan
- Visit Great Barrier Reef, Australia
- Visit the Himalayas (Kashmir?)
- the Tibetan Plateau
- Visit the Gobi Desert
- Visit the Sahara Desert
- Visit the Sonoran Desert (for the saguaros)
- Visit the Atacama Desert
- Visit the Rub' al Khali (Empty Quarter)
- Visit Beijing or Shanghai (for the perspective on what really dirty air looks like)
- Visit the big island of Hawai'i
- Visit Yellowstone
- Visit the Galapagos Islands
- Visit Madagascar (for the lemurs)
- Visit Patagonia
- Visit the Andes
- Visit the Alps
- Visit the Canadian Rockies
- Visit Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska (and/or neighboring Kluane National Park in the Yukon Territory)
- Visit Denali, Alaska
- Visit the Aleutian Islands
- Visit Chimborazo, Ecuador (furthest point from the center of the Earth, due to the equatorial bulge)
- Visit Antarctica
- Visit the Siberian Traps
- Visit the Deccan Traps
- Visit the Columbia River flood basalt province
- Visit Sumatra/Krakatau/Java, Indonesia
- Visit the South Island of New Zealand
- Visit the Appalachians
- Visit the Dead Sea
- Visit the Giant's Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
- Visit the Great Rift Valley of East Africa
- Visit the Nile River
- Visit the Mississippi River
- Visit the Amazon River
- Visit the Grand Canyon
- Visit the Owens Valley, California (or anywhere in the Basin & Range, but the Owens Valley is pretty darned special, and geologically diverse)
- Visit Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada (walk on the "Moho")
- Visit Siccar Point, Scotland (for the unconformity)
- Visit Gibraltar, "UK"
- Visit Vesuvius, Pompei, and the Pompei-to-be, Naples
- Visit Uluru (Ayers Rock), Australia
- Visit the Moon
- A tectonic triple junction (Mendocino, CA is an example, or northern Burma, or Panama)
- Tower karst (Guilin, China, or southwestern Thailand are examples)
- A regional flood
- A flash flood
- Ediacaran fauna fossils in situ (possibilities include the type locality of the Ediacaran Hills in Australia, or Charnwood Forest in England, the White Sea region in Russia, or maybe the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland)
- Vertebrate fossils in situ
- Visiting a laggerstatten site (Burgess Shale, Chenjiang, Sirius Passet, Solnhofen?)
- An alpine glacier
- A continental glacier (ice cap or ice sheet)
- A kimberlite pipe (preferably with diamonds, and good luck with that) [in Arkansas]
- A coral atoll (take your pick)
- A meteor impact crater (not a buried one, either)
- A big river delta (Mississippi, Ganges, Nile, or any of the dozens of others)
- Barrier islands (Padre Island, Texas, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina come to mind, but I'm sure there are others on other continents)
- A craton (Canadian shield, Kaapvaal, North China, etc. etc. etc.)
- A big estuary (Cook Inlet, Chesapeake Bay, Bay of Fundy: all North American examples. Give me some others)
- See some karst.
- Kayak (or other boat) through a fjord.
- See a dropstone.
- See an ophiolite.
- Visit a major stike-slip fault (San Andreas in USA/Mexico, or North Anatolian in Turkey, or Tan Lo (sp?) in China)
- Visit a nappe or thrust sheet (Glarus Thrust in the Alps, Chief Mountain/Glacier NP in Montana, Blue Ridge in Virginia/North Carolina)
- Visit a really big cave (Mammoth, Lechugilla, or some other that I don't know about on another continent)
- A world-class natural history museum (London Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History all come to mind.)
- Meeting of a classic scientific society (Royal Society, Explorers Club, Cosmos Club...)
- Do some original research.
- Present your research at a meeting of other scientists.
- Publish your research in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
- Visit an original copy of "map that changed the world" (William Smith's geologic map of England, Wales, and part of Scotland)
- Experience a big earthquake (greater than 5.0 sounds like as good a cut-off as any)
- Experience a volcano erupting something other than gases (lava, pyroclastics)
- Go ice fishing (or just out onto a frozen lake/pond/sea/ocean and ponder the improbable nature of ice and how it freezes from the top down, preserving the living things underneath, like fish. Without this odd property, it would be tough to maintain life in our high-latitude/elevation lakes/etc. through the winter months.)
- Compare and contrast El Nino and La Nina.
- Go on an oceanographic research cruise for more than two weeks at sea.
- Experience a hurricane/typhoon/cyclone (preferably with surviving it as a caveat)
24 July 2008
Top 100?
This list, via Chad, is the "Top 100 books" from the NEA/The Big Read (although I can't find the list on the site). Apparently most Americans have only read 6 of these. I find it a very odd list. There are a number of children's books. Just about all of Jane Austen's works, listed separately, but Shakespeare gets only two? (one being "complete works of") The Da Vinci Code? No Faulkner, Bradbury, or Vonnegut?
Here's my list. (Bolded titles are the books I've read; books in italics are ones I've seen movie adaptations for; an asterisk is for books I started and didn't finish; a caret for the books I intend to read):
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (most of it)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte*
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (book 1)^
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller*^
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh^
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini^
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell^
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley^
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov^
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
A few comments on the my list - I devoured Da Vinci Code but don't think it belongs on a list of great or must read books. I've read some Waugh and Dostoyevsky, just not the titles listed here. I've tried to read Victorian novels and find them deadly dull, but I love the movie adaptations (and Masterpiece Theater just did the complete Jane Austen this spring) so I've seen the Austen and Bronte sisters' works on the small screen but have no intention of reading them. I'm not a huge fan of Dickens but have read a few and generally like the movies. The NPR station in DC played the BBC radio (I think) production of Hitchhiker's Guide when I was a kid; I loved listening to it as much as I enjoyed reading it. I haven't seen the whole movie adaptation yet, I'm a little afraid to. I've not read the entire works of Shakespeare but have read (and studied) four or five plays. I'm not much of a play reader, I don't sink into the story the same way I do with a book. Wuthering Heights is the only book I was suppose to read but didn't finish. It was assigned as summer reading for rising 12th graders which, because of our move, I didn't learn about until 4 days before school started. It is, I believe, the only thing I ever bought Cliff Notes for. So I've read 24 of them, then again I've never claimed I had good taste in books.
What, dear reader, do you think of the list?
Here's my list. (Bolded titles are the books I've read; books in italics are ones I've seen movie adaptations for; an asterisk is for books I started and didn't finish; a caret for the books I intend to read):
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (most of it)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte*
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (book 1)^
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller*^
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh^
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini^
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell^
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley^
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov^
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
A few comments on the my list - I devoured Da Vinci Code but don't think it belongs on a list of great or must read books. I've read some Waugh and Dostoyevsky, just not the titles listed here. I've tried to read Victorian novels and find them deadly dull, but I love the movie adaptations (and Masterpiece Theater just did the complete Jane Austen this spring) so I've seen the Austen and Bronte sisters' works on the small screen but have no intention of reading them. I'm not a huge fan of Dickens but have read a few and generally like the movies. The NPR station in DC played the BBC radio (I think) production of Hitchhiker's Guide when I was a kid; I loved listening to it as much as I enjoyed reading it. I haven't seen the whole movie adaptation yet, I'm a little afraid to. I've not read the entire works of Shakespeare but have read (and studied) four or five plays. I'm not much of a play reader, I don't sink into the story the same way I do with a book. Wuthering Heights is the only book I was suppose to read but didn't finish. It was assigned as summer reading for rising 12th graders which, because of our move, I didn't learn about until 4 days before school started. It is, I believe, the only thing I ever bought Cliff Notes for. So I've read 24 of them, then again I've never claimed I had good taste in books.
What, dear reader, do you think of the list?
30 June 2008
Disqualified?
"Teardrops will kiss the Morning Dew" (Allison Krauss), "Fly Away" (Sugarland), "Boat Drinks" (Jimmy Buffett), another Allison Krauss, a Kelly Clarkson, then "Long After I'm Gone" by Claire Lynch....
Chad (who got the idea from Matt Yglesias) thinks it be harder to find an non-disqualifying song on his iPod. But apparently my music tastes are very conventional and fairly safe. But then I don't have much music on my work computer and don't own an iPod or other portable electronic music device. (I know, I'm living in the dark ages. I bought a portable CD player and non-earbud headphones for the big trip)
Jimmy Buffett might be a problem but as long as no scans the list far enough to hit on the Instant Karma tracks (various artists covering those hippy Brit's music to benefit Amnesty International is definitely an disqualifier) I might be ok. I usually don't rip cds to my work computer so the risk is limited. If you started shuffling though the CDs I bring back and forth the risk of a DQ would increase - world music (including Cuban music), classical (elitist), musicals (pretty much any track off Rent would do it). On the other hand my somewhat limited classic rock and country stuff and extensive bluegrass selection might be pluses - particularly since there is a relatively high percentage of gospel/spirituals in the bluegrass. My 'Gospel?' CD might get me in trouble though.
How would you do?
Chad (who got the idea from Matt Yglesias) thinks it be harder to find an non-disqualifying song on his iPod. But apparently my music tastes are very conventional and fairly safe. But then I don't have much music on my work computer and don't own an iPod or other portable electronic music device. (I know, I'm living in the dark ages. I bought a portable CD player and non-earbud headphones for the big trip)
Jimmy Buffett might be a problem but as long as no scans the list far enough to hit on the Instant Karma tracks (various artists covering those hippy Brit's music to benefit Amnesty International is definitely an disqualifier) I might be ok. I usually don't rip cds to my work computer so the risk is limited. If you started shuffling though the CDs I bring back and forth the risk of a DQ would increase - world music (including Cuban music), classical (elitist), musicals (pretty much any track off Rent would do it). On the other hand my somewhat limited classic rock and country stuff and extensive bluegrass selection might be pluses - particularly since there is a relatively high percentage of gospel/spirituals in the bluegrass. My 'Gospel?' CD might get me in trouble though.
How would you do?
26 February 2008
Three sentences
...from page 123 of the book closest to you. Chad has a post about this meme, so I thought what the hell. And then "what is the closest book to me?"
The closest book was a field trip guide but it only has 98 pages. So next (excluding a catalog) gets you:
Sorry, it's the PETRA manual. We're in Chapter 5, Cross Section Module. Fascinating, I know. The section might be somewhat useful since it actually tells you how to do something.
The next closest book is, I think, Applied Geophysics, second edition, by Telford, Geldart, and Sheriff. Magnetic Methods, Field examples, page 213:
The closest book was a field trip guide but it only has 98 pages. So next (excluding a catalog) gets you:
To change the color to red, click the "Style" Tab and click the red cell of the "Color" palette. The green box will change to red. The small yellow box following the letters GR indicates the track position.
Sorry, it's the PETRA manual. We're in Chapter 5, Cross Section Module. Fascinating, I know. The section might be somewhat useful since it actually tells you how to do something.
The next closest book is, I think, Applied Geophysics, second edition, by Telford, Geldart, and Sheriff. Magnetic Methods, Field examples, page 213:
The minimum of E may be found by the method of Gauss, least squares, steepest descent, or other techniques. Here it was found by a combination of Marquart and Powell algorithms (McGarth and Hood, 1973). [see §2.7.9 for similar gravity procedure.]Applied Geophysics is shelved with Principles of Sedimentology and Stratigraphy (Boggs), 3-D Structural Geology (Groshong), a binder of a draft of the book Structural Styles, Validation, and Prediction (Groshong) with homework assignments from the class in there, and a draft copy of 3-D Structural Geology in a binder with my homework assignments from the book/course.
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