documentation of valuable things in life

Finally, I am about to submit my first paper after 3 and a half years work. A bit  slow, but that is learning process. I will be a good sedimentologist. Hope it wont get rejected.

I have beening staying here for about half a year. Not many people live in this community, or acutally very few. The front yard is private to us to some degree and the view can be beautiful.  

We stayed at Amerillo for the night. Chris suggested Saltgrass for dinner.  They are known for good steaks. I saw a couple of cowboys in the restaurant, wearing that special hats and boots. The T-bone was really good, may be the best steak I have ever had.

I woke up early in the morning to get ready for leaving for Houston. It was freezing cold outside. However, the sunrise tightly grasps my heart.

Mark took us to the Last Chance Delta where he did his Ph.D. study.  It took a while to hike up there. But he showed us a spectacular compund Valley fill. We took four Gigapan photo panels out of it. I am glad that Mark said he will put us as co-auther for his paper. He also showed us great example of landward pinching out of shoreface deposits which graded into coastal plain lagoonal facies. Three landward stepping shorefaces paraseqeunces indicate stepped transgression. Petroglyphs are interesting and funny, some are hilarious.

The Gigapan turned out working well after solving a couple of problems including shiping it overnight from Houston, buying a tripod in St. George and learning to set the zoom. We took a couple of shots today and finished by 2 p.m. Mark got stuck at Muddy Creek and we had to go and get him. Had second burger at Stands in Hanksville, noticing the Bison sample hanging above the door.

Went to Stands at Hanksville twice today and had twice of their double cheese burger with only one piece of cheese on. Saw the T-shirt many times and it is always funny. Took a picture of it.

I was puting up the sticky reflectors on the outcrop for collecting lidar data. I went up a little further of the valley and put some even on the other side of the gully. I kind of felt tired and sleepy. found a spot under the cliff and put my backpack by the rock and felt asleep. Seems like somebody was calling my name and I woke up. I realized that Bode was yelling my name, I look at the watch. I slept about half an hour and found out later that everbody was looking for me and worried about me. Do not feel guilty but what I did was not very appropriate.

The Gigapan had a problem. It will not decrease the number of pictures that will be taken while we use smaller zooms. I noticed the problem before, but just ignored it. Another stupid thing I did. After checking the menu, I found out the we are supposed to tell the gigapan how much it will take for one photo. Anyway, figured it out. Always learning things in a hard way.

I was out driving around with Bode.  Kind of wanna see the turkeys we saw on our way back from the field. We find the turkey and Bode told me that they were very shy and afriad of people. They were behind the fence, so I did not got close shots. Suprisingly, we spotted an female deer and two small babies. They were not afriad of people. I got as close as 15 meters, they were not scared. Took some very good shots.

Nov. 7th, 2011. It was all white outside, covering with snow when I woke up in the Suite in Torrey, Utah. We decided  still going to check the field, see if there is any field work could be done. Not much snow there because of dropping elevation and higer tempreture. But enough for stopping us working for the day. And we headed back to the hotel. Three wild turkeys were spotted on our way back. Just not in a great mood of appreciating the scene of snowed world here. However, it did made me recalled some childhood memory. Making snow and soil rolls is one of  the most unforgetble things that I have ever done.

I called her again this night. Just can not help it. She post "move on" on her web. I guess she is telling herself and me to move on. 往事不堪回首！

In order to compesate what I did stupid and to live up the kind of appreciation Janok has about me. I made this big decision of finishing three papers by the end of this semester. That is to say, I will have three papers at least the first draft ready to be reviewed in a month. I set the date for seeing Janok is (Dec 16th). Never thought that I would ever do that. But I am pretty happy that I still hold the idea and confidence that I can do whatever if I really want to.

A big mistake today. I will blame myself for making that mistake. Carelessness is a big weakness of mine. The bigger problem is I am not taking action trying to avoid that. So, I was supposed to go back to that office and recheck if everything were loaded and make sure that nothing got left. In that case, the Gigapan would not be lying in the office in Houston while we need it desperately in the field in Utah. I am trying not to blame myself that much. But it is not easy.