Lane 86

asahi-savory savior

hey all,

even though no work was accomplished today, this second day in taipei, it's not at all a loss. brian and i met up with shao-yi (one of yue-gau's students) at noon to go for lunch. afterward we wandered the campus here a little bit. after that, brian and i took off on our own to explore a bit, working our way north from ntu up to the chiang-kai-sheck memorial and the 2-28 peace park. after hitting the park we wandered over to the taipei central station and caught the mrt red/green line metro back to ntu. i make it sound like this all took 20 minutes, but in truth this was about a 5 hour ordeal... and i am thoroughly pooped. tonight, after getting my blanket and pillow from "my dorm" (a place i am desperately attempting to extricate myself from) and returning to the office here, i spent a while online checking out the taipei-craigslist postings for sublets. i found one that looks particularly enticing, and emailed those folks right away. hopefully that pans out soon and i wont need to spend too many more nights here on the floor of the office... an alternative which believe it or not is infinitely more appealing to me that spending any more time at all in the dorm. last night in fact, i went to this dorm with illusions of deep-sleep in my head. i laid down in the bed (literally a 20"wide bamboo mat... quite a harsh difference from my premium name-brand queen-size-pillow-top mattress at home) to find that i touched the ends of the bed (two walls) with my head and feet simultaneously. a mere two hours later, my roomate showed up and proceeded to clickety-click-click check email, surf the web and play video-games on his computer until finally, around 4 am, i got up and left. i cited "jet-lag" as the reason i was wide awake, and stated i was going to the office to get some work done. instead, i went to the office and passed out on the couch... though a couple hours later i woke up freezing my ass off because i was just wearing my leather jacket, and there's no central heat in this building... which as a side note is about as well sealed against the elements as an open-sided straw hut.

ok.


with that off my chest, im confident that i'll be able to find a perfectly agreeable place to live for several months very soon, and that should utterly change my outlook on life here. in the meantime, im late to meet up with brian to find a bar to pass some time on this lovely (raining, cold, wet and windy) evening... hence the asahi reference.

till the next time...
~t

back in taipei

sigh

jet lag is a bitch, especially when the weather is gray and wet and everybody around you seems a little too busy to deal with you. apparently this is finals week for the national taiwan university, and so far today has been sitting around our interim office amidst a pile of luggage. brian and i went to starbucks earlier in an attempt to stay conscious, but without any real input from our peers here, today has been more or less a total loss. true, it's only 1pm while im writing this (10pm denver-time), but it doesn't look like the rest of the day will be much different than the morning. an even stream of caffeine seems to have no effect either.

so, my first post upon arrival here in taipei is a little bit of a downer, but i have plenty of confidence that with a little more sleep and perhaps some sunshine tomorrow, things will start to look up.

~t

safe and sound

albeit half an hour later (thanks to the fact that silvermine subs is open 'till 3am) i am home. safe and sound... well... relatively sound. 'night yall, and happy new year!!

~t

new years....

this is perhaps the single most drunken post ever, under the blogger.com domain. i am currently sitting at "mercator" which is the best computer in the colorado geology structural lab, writing this post. it is exactly 2am, and i am happy to admit tonight has been a blast. since i am still three or four blocks away from home, i'll try to post once i arrive safe and sound. new years was great!! fireworks were fun, champaign was great, and i'm sure that once i get home my bed will feel awesome!!!

till then,

~t

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

tonight i have plans to drink the better part of a bottle of veuve clicquot ponsardin brut and set off explosives. well, not actually explosives, but fireworks anyway. left-overs from new hampshire. live free or die!

plans for tonight are fairly free-form... go to someones house, maybe go downtown, then crack the bottle of french brut and light the fuses! i may even bring my camera 'round with me tonight and take some snaps of the action. either way, i'll post at some point tomorrow.

till then,
~t

ouchie ouchie ouchie

heh.

so, here in boulder there is an interesting phenomenon that occurs when high pressure systems move in over the mountains. the jet-stream basically gets pushed right down to the ground surface, creating extreme winds that blow out of the mountains. today we are experiencing just that, with a sustained wind speed of 45 miles per hour, gusting to over 70 miles per hour. i live about one and a half miles, downhill and due east, from the geology department. on days like this, i take the bus into work, but bring my bike with me on the rack they supply on the front of the bus. getting home is a breeze. today was no different, until i hit a bump at over 30mph at precisely the same instant a strong cross-gust caught me off-guard. excuse the profanity here, but i think it is well deserved... i promptly ate shit. before i knew it, i was sliding down the sidewalk (at least it wasn't the road) a lot faster than i would have liked. i destroyed my jacket, ripped the sweatshirt i had underneath it, blew out the side of my full-finger gloves (again, thank god for those) and tore a chunk of leather out of my shoe. unfortunately, when one eats shit in the particular manner that i did (prone and spread-eagle) most normal jackets ride up just far enough to expose the tender skin covering a persons hip-bones. luckily for me, all that skin was removed when i crashed, so i don't have to worry about it any more. unluckily for me, the nerve endings that were exposed are still there... and they are not happy about that at all. hopefully the picture i'm about to post here will not be removed by blogger.com. squeamish people should probably not look. this is perhaps the best patch of road-rash i have ever had, so naturally i want to share it with all of you.

enjoy!!





















~t

bond.... james bond

hiyall,

i'm sitting here on my couch watching the "oo8 days of oo7" james bond marathon on spike tv, slugging grey goose martinis (shaken, not stirred... of course) on this tuesday night, the 27th of december. the particular episode that's on now is moonraker... perhaps the single most sci-fi influenced bond movie ever. though it came out 11 years after kubrick's classic, 2001, a space odyssey, it shares some traits in common, including a few musical nods to the theme of 2001 here and there. there are also nods to spielberg's sci-fi classic, "close encounters of the third kind", also via musical cues. (while i'm thinking of it, the name "spielberg" according to babelfish.com means 'play-mountain', but through my extremely limited understanding of german, it sounds more like, "mountain of crap"). other than that, not much is new. last night i went to the mountain sun brewery with greg, where we had plans to meet up with kelly and a couple of her friends. well, kelly and friends decided to bail, so greg and i were left with the responsibility (if you can call it that) of finishing off the pitcher and three pints we had ordered in anticipation of three additional souls showing up (it was happy hour). to add to the chore (i say chore like it's a bad thing) of finishing this sublime brew 'solos', we had made the decision to order a pitcher of the brewery's "java porter". now... a pitcher of porter is intimidating enough, with its strongly toasted-malt flavour and bitter finish. add to that the fact that the mountain sun adds about 8 oz's of brewed coffee to each pint of java porter and you end up with a strong caffeine buzz mixed with the effects of drinking a pitcher of beer... resulting in a stomach-ache, hangover, and insomnia all at once. awesome!

anyway... today was a recovery day, catching up on lost sleep from last night. in my caffeine fueled insomnia i was extra aware of my impending departure from the u.s., and ultra aware of all the work i have left to do before i leave. certainly not the best way to relax when you're trying to fall asleep.

.......
............
..................


sudden thought, after paying attention to james bond here... apparently all spies, no matter what their nationality, are sex-crazed egomaniacs. not only that, but (fortuituously for the spies) every member of the opposite sex they encounter seem to also be complete nymphos.

so with that deep thought, i leave you, my faithful blog-readers... and bid you good night. by the way, i'm totally going to quit grad-school and join the cia.

~t

xmas eve...

ha! i just checked my mail and voila! ... my entry visa for taiwan has arrived. i was just talking to my friend leah on i.m. about it, and i was saying how it was coming down to the wire, well now i have my visa in-hand, and have nothing to worry about. awesome! this is a great x-mas present. i also got a couple of cards today which is great. i was wandering around the campus today, it was deserted. utterly silent. beautiful day, peaceful to walk around, but just slightly erie since this campus is seemingly never quiet. other than walking around today, i didn't really do anything. i really have just been sleeping for the last couple of days and it's great. i think i'll sleep tomorrow too, unless i decide to motivate and go xc-skiinig up at eldora. that actually sounds like fun so i may go do that. merry christmas to all my friends and family... i hope you're all doing well this night.


~t

squirrels

heyall,

today's been absolutely great so far! got up at about 8, slightly more than slightly hung-over from pasta dinner at my italian friends' house, which of course included more than a few bottles of red wine last night. after banging around a bit, and consuming about a liter of water, i left the house to pick up greg to go ice climbing in boulder canyon. met up with tim and his friend (and stella the dog) at the crag. started out leading a fun w.i.4-ish climb, then free-soloed a cruisable w.i.2 pitch (well... i put in one screw for my mom's sake... hope you appreciate that mom!). after that it was time to get lunch at the mtn sun brew pub (and a pint, of course). ...then home to clean up and ride my bike into the office to play with data and procrastinate by writing this post. although the title of this post has nothing to do with pasta or ice or beer, it does have to do with the picture i snapped yesterday while walking across campus to get my daily dose of caffeine. these fuzzy buggers are all over the place here.


~t

axial surfaces

hey everyone... another quick update: im finally (!) done with my exams and now have some time to really get down to brass tacks. im busily mapping out axial surfaces on some of our taiwanese data and making some cool pictures in the process. unfortunately i cant post them here... for reasons of security, blah blah blah. i think thats mostly bs, but its what i keep getting told by the folks in charge of the data. beyond that im really (really really) glad classes are done. its interesting to realize im really back in school, but at the same time thats an odd thought because im about to take off for four months to do research. go figure. im really looking forward to the summer and next fall, because i can continue to find new people and places here in colorado. in truth im really looking forward to the next five years, because i know (as much as one can) that ill be staying in one town and doing one job, instead of moving all over hell and creation every 9-12 months like i have for the last five years.

anyway, ill be adding another post sooner than later, maybe even with some pics. till then...

~t

tuesday after wust

hello hello,

pic is of the sunset the other day... high cold clouds being lit from behind... looked like towering flames across the sky.

today is tuesday... the tuesday after wust, or western us tectonics for anyone who doesn't know my internal acronym system. after the written final for that class took place on friday, i spent the entire weekend in a state of mental stupor. wandering aimlessly, acting impulsively, and generally not paying attention to anything. i also slept a lot, also whenever i felt like it, and that was great. i think my sleep-debt is finally paid-off.

this week will be mostly just getting paperwork for taiwan finished... i just got my tickets: officially the 4th of january through the 5th of may. i will submit my visa application either this afternoon, or tomorrow morning. my contract for independant study will also be submitted tomorrow. i need to get my phone signed up for international service. need to get a sublet set up if possible. etc, etc.

today also marks the first real snow we've had in boulder this year. there's about an inch on the ground now, and it's really cold out (10F) and windy. yesterday we suffered through 60mph winds all day, and today the cold has settled in. i had the brilliant idea of going fly fishing on saturday, which was foolish considering the creeks are all pretty much frozen solid in the mountains. i guess the season has passed. too cold to bike, too frozen to fish, not enough snow to xc-ski, and i still don't have a board to go ride at one of the ski resorts here. oh well, soon enough i'll be back in tropical taiwan, and thoughts of snow will be put aside.

not much else going on this week... it's agu (american geophysical union) week, the huge conference for earth scientists in san fran... this just means that the majority of the students and faculty in my department are gone this week.... pretty quiet here... maybe a little too quiet....

~t

stupid stupid stupid!!

guess what i just did... today was my entry interview with the geology department to see whether or not i was even worthy of pursuing work that will eventually lead to my comps and then my phd. i totally spaced the time that the meeting started, and ended up being about 15 minutes late. doh, and double doh! besides starting the interview completely out of breath from running accross campus, things settled into the swing pretty well. after a while, the interviewers all stopped asking me the normal questions and just sort of started with the more interesting ones. in the end they all said i did great, and they were all impressed... just not with my ability to show up on time.

anyway, looks like i really will be here for the next 5 years or so. sweet! hopefully next time (for comps) i actually remember to come to the meeting early.

~t

strong-coffee!!

here i am, sitting at my desk at 10pm on a sunday night. i just brewed myself possibly the strongest cup of coffee i've ever had, and i'm getting ready to spend however much time it takes to grapple with a presentation on critical wedge kinematics and the structural response of a sub-critical orogenic wedge. then it's onto another presentation on plate flexure in the western taiwan basin. in the eternal words of the prophets ren and stimpy: happy happy, joy joy!

ok/ so an hour has lapsed since i began writing this. a phone conversation with a friend of mine revealed she crashed her honda vfr (a crotch-rocket for those of you who don't know) this weekend when she was run off the road by some yahoo, then managed to spend a few hours strapped to a back-board while emt's tried to give her an i.v.

in short, i am still the master of procrastination. i finished my coffee though, and am thoroughly buzzed from the half-pound of coffee grounds i used to brew the single 10 oz cup... so staying up to finish the presentations shouldn't be a problem. not much else on my mind right now... this coming week is going to be hectic to say the least. i actually dreamt about elastic plate flexure last night. hopefully i can do better than that tonight.

'lizabeth - this is for you:

mountains

hello again...

it's tuesday today, thursday on the academic schedule, and I'm finally finding time to sit and read some papers on taiwan. this morning i'm working on one titled, "origin of the west taiwan basin by orogenic loading and flexure of a rifted continental margin" (a.t.lin and a.b.watts)... sounds fascinating, i know.

this past sunday was spent climbing thatchtop mountain in the rmnp, with tim bartholomaus. long story short, our guide book was incorrect and we ended up scratching our way up a gully that was lacking any real amount of snow or ice. mostly we used placements in frozen moss and scree and a whole lot of finesse to find our way up the mountain. in the end though, we ran out of time and rapped off the way we came up, slinging a manky block of rock on a ridgeline, and then another boulder which was actually worth using. all in all we had a good time, and made it home safe and sound. i'll attach a couple of pics here. the weather was perfect and conditions generally great, just not in our little gully. ah well, now we know where the real climb is, and next time we'll be able to actually get up the stupid thing.


me just hanging out at the high point of our progess


tim standing in front of the would-be finish of the climb...

~t

beer luck madness

hey all,

the beer-luck went off without a hitch last night... a bunch of people came and everyone enjoyed a fairly large selection of cool brews. as far as i can tell, everyone had a good time (some more than others), and the damage to the apartment is minimal. im still a little fuzzy, but amazingly un-hung-over today. mostly im just watching some tv, and checking email today... i seem to be lacking the mental clarity necessary for witty banter or long recounting of stories. in lieu of those things, i offer the following images.

~t

destroyed

..................

...............duh.


I feel completely dead now. im absolutely exhausted from spending the majority of the night plugging through mechanics computations by hand. like an idiot i put off finishing an assignment until the last minute and that last minute ended up taking several hours. its finally cold now in colorado... the rockies have been getting dumped on and my first ice climb of the year is scheduled for this sunday. im supposed to go up notchtop mountain with tim which, if it works out (snow, conditions etc) could be awesome. in the meantime, there is a beer-luck which needs some last minute (sensing a trend here?) tending to before friday night. i need to sleep.

..........

................ s l ee e ep.....

~t

quickie

just a quick post this morning... finally getting back into the swing of normal life back in co. i've been sleeping an inordinate amount the last couple of days. the fall is going very fast. it's chilly this morning... about 35 degrees here. it's really nice though, walking around with cold ears and chilly hands feels great after a few days in 95 degrees. although i love visiting tropical places, i don't think i could ever live between the 35th parallels.

off to class now. double cortado coffee in hand. (geomechanics, yay!)

~t

taipei at night

more posting from taipei tonight... listening to progressive trance on my ipod, sitting in my hotel room after a walk around the neighborhood. i found a good bookstore here and spent 1600nt (bout 50 bucks) on books, including a detailed atlas of taiwan, and some gifts for friends and family. also spent a good amount of the time taking pictures while dodging the onslaught of scooters which are omnipresent here in taipei. living here will be a trip, but as ive said for years, i look forward to living in a big city. it might take a little extra effort to find all the cool places here, but i got a good feeling from the city tonight. i leave first thing tomorrow morning for denver and am really looking forward to getting back. still have to finish classes and catch up on all the stuff ive let slide over the course of my visit here. allright... i need to pack some of my stuff up now, so ill sign off here in a few minutes, but i want to post some of the cooler pics from tonight to give you guys a sense of what its like.






~t

chillin in taipei

hey all... just sitting here, its thursday night and i just got back from almost a week traveling around the island of taiwan. im in taipei now at ntu, the main university in the country, finally clean, comfortable, and slightly more mentally present. after the last several days, ive been feeling a little overloaded and on the verge of academic aneurysm. so much info in so little time and constantly surrounded by these professors and researchers who live this stuff... constantly pouring out more knowledge than i can handle. after a point i just reach the nod-and-smile threshold.

talking over the logistics of doing field work here, its becoming more evident that the summer is the worst possible time for that. it now looks like i will come back this january as planned, but then just stay here for the spring semester to do work during the best part of the year. its a little bit of a pain in the ass, because ill need to find someone to sublet my place sooner than i thought, ill have to rush to prepare and generally this requires me to go nuts for the next couple of months, but i think its worth it to beat the heat, and get a real jump on my research. i think a solid 4 months or so here would be worth about two field seasons, and the thought of spending the entire spring (and coldest part of the year in colorado) here in subtropical taiwan, bouncing between the beautiful puli basin and metropolitan taipei is not bad at all.

anyway, i think ill head to bed now.. i have a few meetings tomorrow and need to get up early. i will leave yall with a picture of one of the scenes from my recent trip, looking north along the east coast of the island into the west pacific ocean. i cant believe how cool it is that im doing research in this place.

~t