It's been a long, long weekend. I am only slightly sunburned, but my brain has melted. Have some photos:
Core photos:
Orchard Core
Almond Core
These are the two cores that were the final project for the facies analysis class I took last semester. Lots of pretty sands and muds.
Snowmastadons - these are pictures I took of some of the fossils recovered in Snowmass. I had the privilege of seeing them while I was at the Bighorn Basin Coring Project meeting at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The pictures really don't do these amazing remains justice. For more information, please see the Snowmastodon Project at DMNS. There are a lot of absolutely amazing pictures of the dig site and more fossils there.
The Amazing Kung Fu Adventure in Moab - the Shaolin Hung Mei Kung Fu School went to Moab this Memorial Day weekend to perform at the Moab Arts Festival. While we were there, we spent a few hours at Arches, and I got some beautiful pictures. I love Moab so much.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Magnetic Bacteria Fiesta on the Proto-Potomac
I met with my advisor last week, and she asked me to do some background research for her on a couple of papers she's working on. So I spent the last week-ish doing a lot of searching across the internets for papers, and then reading of papers. Considering how I feel about reading most papers, this was no small task. My schedule pretty much ran like this:
Wake up
Read papers until brain melts
Lunch break
Read more papers until hysterical giggling starts
Afternoon walk
Read papers because we live in a godless universe of pain
Mike gets home, incoherent gibbering commences
But I got this round done, and my advisor is pleased with my results so WOOOOOO GO ME. And here's a tip for my fellow newb grad students - get yourself a copy of the John Williams Superman theme song. Play it while you're writing, and then it feels like not only are you doing science, you're SAVING THE GODDAMN WORLD OH YEAH.
So anyway, I wanted to share with you all my favorite paper I read over this last week:
An Appalachian Amazon? Magnetofossil evidence for the development of a tropical river-like system in the mid-Atlantic United States during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (Kopp et al 2009)
I don't think you'll be able to read the entire paper without an AGU membership (or without using a university library computer), but if you can give it a read. It's a fun, fun, fun, and cool paper. The summary goes like this:
1) At the PETM in the Salisbury Embayment (which runs from northern Virginia to southern New Jersey on the Atlantic sheld) there's a clay layer called the Marlboro, which is "...the thickest single-domain magnetite-dominated sedimentary unit yet reported in the literature."
2) The magnetite is all from magnetofossils produced by bacteria and other organisms that need crystals of magnetite for their own nefarious purposes.
3) The conditions necessary for that kind of bacterial block party are pretty specific, since it's got to be conducive to the little critters being able to live and make their magnetite.
4) Hey, in modern day, the best example of these conditions are tropical river shelves, like the Amazon shelf. So what if the Potomac during the PETM was like that?
Of course, there's a lot of really fascinating detail from the paper that I'm leaving out. But even just the concepts are awesome and interesting.
Wake up
Read papers until brain melts
Lunch break
Read more papers until hysterical giggling starts
Afternoon walk
Read papers because we live in a godless universe of pain
Mike gets home, incoherent gibbering commences
But I got this round done, and my advisor is pleased with my results so WOOOOOO GO ME. And here's a tip for my fellow newb grad students - get yourself a copy of the John Williams Superman theme song. Play it while you're writing, and then it feels like not only are you doing science, you're SAVING THE GODDAMN WORLD OH YEAH.
So anyway, I wanted to share with you all my favorite paper I read over this last week:
An Appalachian Amazon? Magnetofossil evidence for the development of a tropical river-like system in the mid-Atlantic United States during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (Kopp et al 2009)
I don't think you'll be able to read the entire paper without an AGU membership (or without using a university library computer), but if you can give it a read. It's a fun, fun, fun, and cool paper. The summary goes like this:
1) At the PETM in the Salisbury Embayment (which runs from northern Virginia to southern New Jersey on the Atlantic sheld) there's a clay layer called the Marlboro, which is "...the thickest single-domain magnetite-dominated sedimentary unit yet reported in the literature."
2) The magnetite is all from magnetofossils produced by bacteria and other organisms that need crystals of magnetite for their own nefarious purposes.
3) The conditions necessary for that kind of bacterial block party are pretty specific, since it's got to be conducive to the little critters being able to live and make their magnetite.
4) Hey, in modern day, the best example of these conditions are tropical river shelves, like the Amazon shelf. So what if the Potomac during the PETM was like that?
Of course, there's a lot of really fascinating detail from the paper that I'm leaving out. But even just the concepts are awesome and interesting.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Slow Motion Landslide
This is just awesome:
The flow looks like it's really cooking along... until people make an appearance in the video and you see just how much it's been sped up. The flow is actually moving at around 50 cm per hour, which to us fast-living humans makes it practically solid ground.
More info over at the AGU Landslide Blog.
And I totally agree with the first commenter over at the post. This thing needs some Benny Hill music, starting right when the first person pops into the frame. WIN.
The flow looks like it's really cooking along... until people make an appearance in the video and you see just how much it's been sped up. The flow is actually moving at around 50 cm per hour, which to us fast-living humans makes it practically solid ground.
More info over at the AGU Landslide Blog.
And I totally agree with the first commenter over at the post. This thing needs some Benny Hill music, starting right when the first person pops into the frame. WIN.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Spec Tech Article Online
When I first joined the SFWA, I admitted on their forums that I'm a geology sort of person. This eventually led me to being contacted by the wonderful lady that runs the Clarion Foundation Blog and offered the chance to write the occasional bit about geology. My first piece is now up over there:
The Making of Mountains
It's a basic overview of the tectonic processes that are involved in creating most mountain ranges - and what those mountain ranges generally look like on maps. Which I hope will be helpful for people who are worldbuilding.
Not that I'm implying anyone making a map for a fantasy world is at all interested in realism, or ought to be. If your mountains are that way because the god that created the world wanted them there, good for you.
But I'll admit, there's been a time or two where I've looked at a map for a fantasy world and giggled - I'm looking at you, Mr. Tolkien. Which is silly, I know, since this is fantasy. But what can you do, I guess we each have a little item or two that just destroys the suspension of disbelief. It's the same reason I can't look at maps from WoW without snickering - I could practically write a book about how silly they are.
The Making of Mountains
It's a basic overview of the tectonic processes that are involved in creating most mountain ranges - and what those mountain ranges generally look like on maps. Which I hope will be helpful for people who are worldbuilding.
Not that I'm implying anyone making a map for a fantasy world is at all interested in realism, or ought to be. If your mountains are that way because the god that created the world wanted them there, good for you.
But I'll admit, there's been a time or two where I've looked at a map for a fantasy world and giggled - I'm looking at you, Mr. Tolkien. Which is silly, I know, since this is fantasy. But what can you do, I guess we each have a little item or two that just destroys the suspension of disbelief. It's the same reason I can't look at maps from WoW without snickering - I could practically write a book about how silly they are.
Monday, May 09, 2011
And Then There Was This Skepticamp Thing
Which I really should have posted about before I went in to full-on Loki fangirling mode yesterday, but what can I say. I must be true to my inner fangirl.
Skepticamp Colorado (the sixth?) happened on Saturday, and I made certain to be there from the start. The event was at CU again, though this time we used one of the business school buildings, which I've never been in before. It was nice, and new, and there were pop machines that took credit cards, which I've never seen before.
The event was a lot of fun, as usual. The individual talks that stand out most in my mind were:
- Kim Saviano on the science of intersex. In her presentation she said that she has a blog, but I haven't been able to find it and can't remember the exact title - so if you recall or have the link, please let me know. Anyway, this was a very interesting talk and definitely a new topic for our Skepticamps, and Kim got some extremely good audience response. She made a lot of good points and had a lot of good, basic information in her presentation, but her point that struck me the most was: "We're all assigned a gender at birth."
- Karen Stollznow on Braco the Gazer was just a lot of fun. I'd only heard of this joker in passing (since he was mentioned in a meetup), but the more Karen talked about him, the more absolutely ridiculous it got. Braco supposedly heals people with the power of his gaze, which amounts to him standing on stage and blankly staring at adoring crowds for minutes on end. It's hilarious, and also a bit scary because people really do buy this, and he seemed to be making a tidy living. Braco (pronounced more like "Bratzo") also is now the default toast for the Denver skeptics. Blame Rich Orman, because it really is his fault.
- Bryan and Baxter from Rocky Mountain Paranormal were absolutely hilarious, as always. I'm not going to say too much about their presentation since they will hopefully be releasing some awesome video in relation to it soon, but it did involve Joe Anderson with a pornstache at one point. And Rich Orman. And Froot Loops. And that's all you get for now.
- DR. Stuart Robbins did an overview of physics for skeptics, which was useful - particularly since he tried to explain some basics of quantum mechanics. And I just love Stuart to bits anyway.
- And Shawn Yasutake finally did a presentation! Yay Shawn! He did a slide show about his trip to a low-budget Creation Museum in California, which was another funny but also sad thing to see. My favorite bit from his presentation was the museum sign that claims thermodynamics is God's punishment on the world for sin. I swear I'm not making that up!
This year's event was smaller than last year's, I think - we were all just in one room for the day. I think that was nice, though, since it meant not having to choose between speakers. I also noticed that this was definitely the most argumentative year yet, mostly with the audience going back and forth with speakers about either logical fallacies, or the definition of energy. This occasionally caused some audience squirming, but I think the interaction is also sort of the point... if it can be conducted in a less squirm-inducing way. Though Joe, monkey suit and all, did his best to keep things from becoming completely derailed. But being able to address disagreements directly is valuable, since it's too easy to get into a lecture mode where you just sort of absorb what you're told by a speaker, whether it's right or not.
I didn't speak this year, mostly because I just wasn't motivated enough to get my shit together in time. I will be signing up for sure next year, since I'm going to want to do an awesome "What I did over my summer vacation" slide show about the BBCP and paleoclimate change. So we'll see how huge of a presentation that ends up being. And if I get to pick a fight with anyone in the audience when the time comes.
Can't wait for next year!
Skepticamp Colorado (the sixth?) happened on Saturday, and I made certain to be there from the start. The event was at CU again, though this time we used one of the business school buildings, which I've never been in before. It was nice, and new, and there were pop machines that took credit cards, which I've never seen before.
The event was a lot of fun, as usual. The individual talks that stand out most in my mind were:
- Kim Saviano on the science of intersex. In her presentation she said that she has a blog, but I haven't been able to find it and can't remember the exact title - so if you recall or have the link, please let me know. Anyway, this was a very interesting talk and definitely a new topic for our Skepticamps, and Kim got some extremely good audience response. She made a lot of good points and had a lot of good, basic information in her presentation, but her point that struck me the most was: "We're all assigned a gender at birth."
- Karen Stollznow on Braco the Gazer was just a lot of fun. I'd only heard of this joker in passing (since he was mentioned in a meetup), but the more Karen talked about him, the more absolutely ridiculous it got. Braco supposedly heals people with the power of his gaze, which amounts to him standing on stage and blankly staring at adoring crowds for minutes on end. It's hilarious, and also a bit scary because people really do buy this, and he seemed to be making a tidy living. Braco (pronounced more like "Bratzo") also is now the default toast for the Denver skeptics. Blame Rich Orman, because it really is his fault.
- Bryan and Baxter from Rocky Mountain Paranormal were absolutely hilarious, as always. I'm not going to say too much about their presentation since they will hopefully be releasing some awesome video in relation to it soon, but it did involve Joe Anderson with a pornstache at one point. And Rich Orman. And Froot Loops. And that's all you get for now.
- DR. Stuart Robbins did an overview of physics for skeptics, which was useful - particularly since he tried to explain some basics of quantum mechanics. And I just love Stuart to bits anyway.
- And Shawn Yasutake finally did a presentation! Yay Shawn! He did a slide show about his trip to a low-budget Creation Museum in California, which was another funny but also sad thing to see. My favorite bit from his presentation was the museum sign that claims thermodynamics is God's punishment on the world for sin. I swear I'm not making that up!
This year's event was smaller than last year's, I think - we were all just in one room for the day. I think that was nice, though, since it meant not having to choose between speakers. I also noticed that this was definitely the most argumentative year yet, mostly with the audience going back and forth with speakers about either logical fallacies, or the definition of energy. This occasionally caused some audience squirming, but I think the interaction is also sort of the point... if it can be conducted in a less squirm-inducing way. Though Joe, monkey suit and all, did his best to keep things from becoming completely derailed. But being able to address disagreements directly is valuable, since it's too easy to get into a lecture mode where you just sort of absorb what you're told by a speaker, whether it's right or not.
I didn't speak this year, mostly because I just wasn't motivated enough to get my shit together in time. I will be signing up for sure next year, since I'm going to want to do an awesome "What I did over my summer vacation" slide show about the BBCP and paleoclimate change. So we'll see how huge of a presentation that ends up being. And if I get to pick a fight with anyone in the audience when the time comes.
Can't wait for next year!
Sunday, May 08, 2011
Thor Loki Makes Me Go Squee
I liked the hell out of Thor; it's a fun movie, and I hope I'll get to see it again while it's still in theaters. Watch out, mateys, THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD!
SPOILERS
I liked Thor as a character well enough, and I appreciated that his major arc was realizing that he was kind of a dick and getting over himself. But it actually surprised me a lot that my favorite character out of that movie was Loki. I'm used to feeling fairly meh about comic book villains, but Loki felt like he had a lot of complexity to him.
And I swear, it's not just because I've got a cat named Loki too.
Tom Hiddleston does an amazing job with the character. Loki's constantly broody and thinky and plotty, and is obviously the smartest guy around, but at the same time just gets screwed again and again by his own issues. I've now read a couple of interviews with Mr. Hiddleston where he says Loki just really needs a lot of prozac and a lot of therapy. I'd definitely add a lot of hugs in there too, because damn I ended up feeling really bad for the guy for most of the movie. Yes, a lot of the bad stuff is his own fault for being all plotty and wanting to cause trouble, but the whole bit where he finds out he's actually just a runty frost giant that Odin adopted... yeah, man needed a hug right then. It's really not the sort of thing that you want to discover on your own.
I really see his major head-explodey moment there as the reason Loki just goes off the rails and crosses from being a crafty trouble-maker to an actual bad guy. I've read a bit of summary from the comics now, but the way it was really presented in the movie was:
a) Odin really does seem earnest that he loves both Thor and Loki equally.
b) Loki seems just as genuinely convinced that Odin can't possibly love him that much. And there's a certain logic too it even if you just look at the movie and nothing else... considering how everyone in Asgard seems to feel about the frost giants, it's probably hard to imagine daddy genuinely loving you at all if you're actually one of them.
c) Thor is the default good son, even though he starts off as kind of a douchebag.
d) And Loki is actually right when he points out that Douchebag!Thor would be a horrible king that Asgard needed "saving" from. Though at that point, you can't quite be sure if he says that because he really means it, because he's trying to convince himself that he's got a noble reason for doing what he's doing, or if he's once again just really trying to fuck with people.
So of course it's all wonderfully angsty, and that rolls into a lot of anger and that weird sort of love/hate that only siblings can manage to have for each other in these sorts of stories. The final epic fight that Loki has with Thor was definitely Loki trying to prove something to someone, but there are just so many ways that it could be read. If nothing else, I really wonder about Loki deciding to destroy the frost giants, as if that sort of over the top gesture would somehow make him not one of them by showing that damnit, he hated frost giants more than any other Asgardian possibly could.
Now, from the comic summaries I've read, it sounds like Thor really was the golden boy that daddy loved best, and that even if no one necessarily knew what Loki was, he also lacked the sheer physical presence in the form of enormous muscles that residents of Asgard seem to prize. But to be honest, I actually prefer the movie take from the standpoint of character complexity; it's more interesting if dad really does love his sons equally, I think.
I am definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY looking forward to seeing Loki in the Avengers movie. If nothing else, I cannot wait to see what Joss Whedon does with him in the script, since Joss is the absolute king of the the complex and interesting evil-but-not-really-just-needs-a-hug villain. And from the little stinger that comes after the credits on Thor, Loki seems set to be prominent in the next film. Though considering that Thor also left the title character stranded in Asgard, I'll be interested to see how the Avengers actually all manage to get together to begin with.
/SPOILERS
Wonderful stuff. Makes me wish I still wrote fanfic, to be honest.
Off the topic of my new fan obsession, Heimdall was amazing as well. Even without taking in to account that casting Idris Elba pissed off the white supremacists to no end (WIN!) he did a really good performance as an immensely intimidating and exceptionally patient god. I loved it.
SPOILERS
I liked Thor as a character well enough, and I appreciated that his major arc was realizing that he was kind of a dick and getting over himself. But it actually surprised me a lot that my favorite character out of that movie was Loki. I'm used to feeling fairly meh about comic book villains, but Loki felt like he had a lot of complexity to him.
And I swear, it's not just because I've got a cat named Loki too.
Tom Hiddleston does an amazing job with the character. Loki's constantly broody and thinky and plotty, and is obviously the smartest guy around, but at the same time just gets screwed again and again by his own issues. I've now read a couple of interviews with Mr. Hiddleston where he says Loki just really needs a lot of prozac and a lot of therapy. I'd definitely add a lot of hugs in there too, because damn I ended up feeling really bad for the guy for most of the movie. Yes, a lot of the bad stuff is his own fault for being all plotty and wanting to cause trouble, but the whole bit where he finds out he's actually just a runty frost giant that Odin adopted... yeah, man needed a hug right then. It's really not the sort of thing that you want to discover on your own.
I really see his major head-explodey moment there as the reason Loki just goes off the rails and crosses from being a crafty trouble-maker to an actual bad guy. I've read a bit of summary from the comics now, but the way it was really presented in the movie was:
a) Odin really does seem earnest that he loves both Thor and Loki equally.
b) Loki seems just as genuinely convinced that Odin can't possibly love him that much. And there's a certain logic too it even if you just look at the movie and nothing else... considering how everyone in Asgard seems to feel about the frost giants, it's probably hard to imagine daddy genuinely loving you at all if you're actually one of them.
c) Thor is the default good son, even though he starts off as kind of a douchebag.
d) And Loki is actually right when he points out that Douchebag!Thor would be a horrible king that Asgard needed "saving" from. Though at that point, you can't quite be sure if he says that because he really means it, because he's trying to convince himself that he's got a noble reason for doing what he's doing, or if he's once again just really trying to fuck with people.
So of course it's all wonderfully angsty, and that rolls into a lot of anger and that weird sort of love/hate that only siblings can manage to have for each other in these sorts of stories. The final epic fight that Loki has with Thor was definitely Loki trying to prove something to someone, but there are just so many ways that it could be read. If nothing else, I really wonder about Loki deciding to destroy the frost giants, as if that sort of over the top gesture would somehow make him not one of them by showing that damnit, he hated frost giants more than any other Asgardian possibly could.
Now, from the comic summaries I've read, it sounds like Thor really was the golden boy that daddy loved best, and that even if no one necessarily knew what Loki was, he also lacked the sheer physical presence in the form of enormous muscles that residents of Asgard seem to prize. But to be honest, I actually prefer the movie take from the standpoint of character complexity; it's more interesting if dad really does love his sons equally, I think.
I am definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY looking forward to seeing Loki in the Avengers movie. If nothing else, I cannot wait to see what Joss Whedon does with him in the script, since Joss is the absolute king of the the complex and interesting evil-but-not-really-just-needs-a-hug villain. And from the little stinger that comes after the credits on Thor, Loki seems set to be prominent in the next film. Though considering that Thor also left the title character stranded in Asgard, I'll be interested to see how the Avengers actually all manage to get together to begin with.
/SPOILERS
Wonderful stuff. Makes me wish I still wrote fanfic, to be honest.
Off the topic of my new fan obsession, Heimdall was amazing as well. Even without taking in to account that casting Idris Elba pissed off the white supremacists to no end (WIN!) he did a really good performance as an immensely intimidating and exceptionally patient god. I loved it.
Friday, May 06, 2011
The Epic of Honda Buying
I will not be melodramatic about this. I'm not going to claim that I'd rather go to the dentist and have a cavity filled than buy a car, because we all know that would be an enormous lie. But it's a close thing.
I spent the last day and a half trapped in a car dealership, trying to buy a new car. I have noticed that, of all the major purchases I've made in my adult life, cars are by far the ones that take the longest and are the most painful. Buying a fricking house didn't cause this much drama in my life.
I hadn't actually expected to buy a new car this week. We were planning to start shopping today, actually, and just take our time with it. Our old car was starting to have some serious transmission problems, but I figured we could nurse it along for another couple of weeks without too much difficulty. However, my dad started looking around for cars in advance (I think he was way more excited about shopping for a car than I was, which... well, that's not hard to do, really) and discovered that right now, trying to find a used Honda in the northern metro area is no easy task. According to the dealer, it's apparently a combination of the gas prices and a lack of new Hondas coming in from Japan, so the used cars are getting snapped up almost as fast as they're coming in. So my dad did find two used cars at Go Honda, and I went to look at them on Wednesday. They were both good, so I figured I might as well get Mike to try them out since getting a car earlier than expected wasn't going to hurt anything.
The drama started when I decided that I wanted to have my mechanic look at the car we wanted before I was willing to throw down the money. Our actual salesman, a guy named Brandon, didn't seem to have a problem with it, and even joked about putting the car in a remote corner of the lot so no one would see it until I picked it up the next morning. I think he believed me when I said that I'd made an appointment with my mechanic and would be back for sure. But his boss was not so convinced, and the hard sell started.
Seriously, I could just buy the car and then have my mechanic look at it and return it if something was wrong. And it was a Honda certified used car so it was insulting that I didn't trust that. And they take the three day return policy very seriously. And you know that Hondas are hard to find right now, so someone might just buy it out from under us. And they only had four new Hondas left so what did I think would happen if those got bought - the used ones wouldn't last long after. (Seriously dude, how many fucking cars do you sell on a Wednesday night?)
It felt like most of the pressure focused right on me, maybe because he sensed that Mike was an impenetrable wall of Britishness that wasn't going to take any crap. It got to the point that I literally said, "You both have to go. I want to talk to my husband. Leave." And then as soon as they left, we ran for it.
If I hadn't really wanted that car, I wouldn't have come back. It pissed me off that much. I have no idea why this is acceptable behavior to anyone... all I can guess is that it works sometimes. But no wonder buying a car is one of the most horrific purchasing experiences ever.
Anyway, I did go back the next day, and took the car to my mechanic. After having it for several hours, Dale called me back up and asked, "Is this car supposed to be Honda certified used? Because if so, there are some problems..." He found three things on the 150-point checklist that shouldn't have been checked off - the battery, the brake pads, and the air filters. But he said that if those things got fixed, the car was very worth buying and would last us for years and years.
So, armed with a yellow piece of paper that said the dealership was trying to pull a fast one on us, I went to the dealer, with my dad to watch my back. I plunked the piece of paper down and said I'd love to buy the car, but these things had to be addressed first or no deal.
Our salesman scurried to the back room with the paper, and chaos ensued. Another salesman came out with him and seemed pretty ticked off - he made some pretty unkind comments about our mechanic, then dragged us downstairs so we could look at the car and see for ourselves that Dale was totally lying. I let my dad take the lead, since when it comes to cars, someone could point at a random part and inform me that it's actually alien technology from Area 51 and I'd be able to do nothing but nod wisely in agreement.
So their mechanic pulled the front wheel off and pointed out the brake pad, saying that it looked fine. My dad asked for a ruler, since he wasn't just going to take someone's word for it. Which meant that they had to disassemble the brake and actually pull the pads out so they could measure them with a caliper... and the caliper said that the brake pads were only 4mm thick, which is quite a difference from the 7mm they claimed.
At this point, the sales guy that dragged us down there looked like he'd pooped in his drawers a little. Another mechanic tested the battery and said it was fine, but then I asked him to check the air filter since he was in the engine anyway. The filter was black, and his response was, "Yeah... that's kind of dirty."
Score one for my mechanic. Two, actually.
They shooed us back to the showroom then, and made a copy of the paper. The supervisor of the mechanics apparently wanted it so that he could go have a chat with his guys. Possibly with a sock full of pennies in hand, though that's only speculation.
After that, it was just waiting and paperwork and more waiting and more waiting and then I pointed out they had to give me two master keys and a valet key, since that was required if the car was Honda certified too. And then more waiting while that got taken care of.
Despite the fact that I did little but sit in the showroom and feel intensely bored, I was stressed and exhausted by the end. It was like I put in eight hours of work at the damn dealership and then paid them a giant wad of cash at the end of it.
I hate shopping for cars. But look, it's so shiny!
I think the moral of this story is, though, make sure your mechanic looks over a used car before you buy it. And don't let them push you.
I spent the last day and a half trapped in a car dealership, trying to buy a new car. I have noticed that, of all the major purchases I've made in my adult life, cars are by far the ones that take the longest and are the most painful. Buying a fricking house didn't cause this much drama in my life.
I hadn't actually expected to buy a new car this week. We were planning to start shopping today, actually, and just take our time with it. Our old car was starting to have some serious transmission problems, but I figured we could nurse it along for another couple of weeks without too much difficulty. However, my dad started looking around for cars in advance (I think he was way more excited about shopping for a car than I was, which... well, that's not hard to do, really) and discovered that right now, trying to find a used Honda in the northern metro area is no easy task. According to the dealer, it's apparently a combination of the gas prices and a lack of new Hondas coming in from Japan, so the used cars are getting snapped up almost as fast as they're coming in. So my dad did find two used cars at Go Honda, and I went to look at them on Wednesday. They were both good, so I figured I might as well get Mike to try them out since getting a car earlier than expected wasn't going to hurt anything.
The drama started when I decided that I wanted to have my mechanic look at the car we wanted before I was willing to throw down the money. Our actual salesman, a guy named Brandon, didn't seem to have a problem with it, and even joked about putting the car in a remote corner of the lot so no one would see it until I picked it up the next morning. I think he believed me when I said that I'd made an appointment with my mechanic and would be back for sure. But his boss was not so convinced, and the hard sell started.
Seriously, I could just buy the car and then have my mechanic look at it and return it if something was wrong. And it was a Honda certified used car so it was insulting that I didn't trust that. And they take the three day return policy very seriously. And you know that Hondas are hard to find right now, so someone might just buy it out from under us. And they only had four new Hondas left so what did I think would happen if those got bought - the used ones wouldn't last long after. (Seriously dude, how many fucking cars do you sell on a Wednesday night?)
It felt like most of the pressure focused right on me, maybe because he sensed that Mike was an impenetrable wall of Britishness that wasn't going to take any crap. It got to the point that I literally said, "You both have to go. I want to talk to my husband. Leave." And then as soon as they left, we ran for it.
If I hadn't really wanted that car, I wouldn't have come back. It pissed me off that much. I have no idea why this is acceptable behavior to anyone... all I can guess is that it works sometimes. But no wonder buying a car is one of the most horrific purchasing experiences ever.
Anyway, I did go back the next day, and took the car to my mechanic. After having it for several hours, Dale called me back up and asked, "Is this car supposed to be Honda certified used? Because if so, there are some problems..." He found three things on the 150-point checklist that shouldn't have been checked off - the battery, the brake pads, and the air filters. But he said that if those things got fixed, the car was very worth buying and would last us for years and years.
So, armed with a yellow piece of paper that said the dealership was trying to pull a fast one on us, I went to the dealer, with my dad to watch my back. I plunked the piece of paper down and said I'd love to buy the car, but these things had to be addressed first or no deal.
Our salesman scurried to the back room with the paper, and chaos ensued. Another salesman came out with him and seemed pretty ticked off - he made some pretty unkind comments about our mechanic, then dragged us downstairs so we could look at the car and see for ourselves that Dale was totally lying. I let my dad take the lead, since when it comes to cars, someone could point at a random part and inform me that it's actually alien technology from Area 51 and I'd be able to do nothing but nod wisely in agreement.
So their mechanic pulled the front wheel off and pointed out the brake pad, saying that it looked fine. My dad asked for a ruler, since he wasn't just going to take someone's word for it. Which meant that they had to disassemble the brake and actually pull the pads out so they could measure them with a caliper... and the caliper said that the brake pads were only 4mm thick, which is quite a difference from the 7mm they claimed.
At this point, the sales guy that dragged us down there looked like he'd pooped in his drawers a little. Another mechanic tested the battery and said it was fine, but then I asked him to check the air filter since he was in the engine anyway. The filter was black, and his response was, "Yeah... that's kind of dirty."
Score one for my mechanic. Two, actually.
They shooed us back to the showroom then, and made a copy of the paper. The supervisor of the mechanics apparently wanted it so that he could go have a chat with his guys. Possibly with a sock full of pennies in hand, though that's only speculation.
After that, it was just waiting and paperwork and more waiting and more waiting and then I pointed out they had to give me two master keys and a valet key, since that was required if the car was Honda certified too. And then more waiting while that got taken care of.
Despite the fact that I did little but sit in the showroom and feel intensely bored, I was stressed and exhausted by the end. It was like I put in eight hours of work at the damn dealership and then paid them a giant wad of cash at the end of it.
I hate shopping for cars. But look, it's so shiny!
I think the moral of this story is, though, make sure your mechanic looks over a used car before you buy it. And don't let them push you.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
School's Out All Summer!!!!
DONE WITH GRADING DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, other than the grading, I had way more fun teaching this semester than I did last semester. Probably because I like sed/strat WAY more than I ever liked mineralogy. Hopefully everyone had a reasonable amount of fun with it. Though the one problem with teaching a class that I really enjoyed when I was an undergrad is that I wanted all of my students to just love it as much as I did... and of course, that's not going to happen. Some geologists are sedimentary people, some just aren't.
I'm already working to improve the assignments and materials for next semester, since no matter what I'll be teaching this lab at least once more. One of the harder things I'm trying to do is develop a grading rubric for one of the major projects, since I think that'll help me grade, and also help the students figure out exactly what I'll be expecting from them. I ended up using the rubric for grading this semester, but only as a very fuzzy guideline where I erred on the side of being nice. It seemed to work out mostly, but I've got to do some fine-tuning before next spring. Which really means doing it some time this week, before all the motivation gets sucked out of me.
One thing that's really starting to drive me nuts is just how many points get lost over students just not reading the directions, or not answering the actual question that's asked, or things like that. And I always feel just a little guilty, taking points off if something is done in pencil instead of pen, but then again, damnit, I said on multiple occasions that it needed to be done on pen.
Though I feel less guilty for deducting points for the assignment being handwritten instead of typed. My eye strain on all the terrible handwriting makes me feel much, much less charitable.
But anyway. That's pretty much done with teacher stuff for the semester. Grades have been sent off to my advisor, and all that's left is a bit of cleanup. I think I did pretty well for my first semester on this class - next spring ought to be even better!
And many thanks to Loki, who helped me in this time of great stress by laying on top of the papers and refusing to be moved.
Also, my friend David seems to have a blog now: Unintelligently Designed, which wins for its name if nothing else.
So, other than the grading, I had way more fun teaching this semester than I did last semester. Probably because I like sed/strat WAY more than I ever liked mineralogy. Hopefully everyone had a reasonable amount of fun with it. Though the one problem with teaching a class that I really enjoyed when I was an undergrad is that I wanted all of my students to just love it as much as I did... and of course, that's not going to happen. Some geologists are sedimentary people, some just aren't.
I'm already working to improve the assignments and materials for next semester, since no matter what I'll be teaching this lab at least once more. One of the harder things I'm trying to do is develop a grading rubric for one of the major projects, since I think that'll help me grade, and also help the students figure out exactly what I'll be expecting from them. I ended up using the rubric for grading this semester, but only as a very fuzzy guideline where I erred on the side of being nice. It seemed to work out mostly, but I've got to do some fine-tuning before next spring. Which really means doing it some time this week, before all the motivation gets sucked out of me.
One thing that's really starting to drive me nuts is just how many points get lost over students just not reading the directions, or not answering the actual question that's asked, or things like that. And I always feel just a little guilty, taking points off if something is done in pencil instead of pen, but then again, damnit, I said on multiple occasions that it needed to be done on pen.
Though I feel less guilty for deducting points for the assignment being handwritten instead of typed. My eye strain on all the terrible handwriting makes me feel much, much less charitable.
But anyway. That's pretty much done with teacher stuff for the semester. Grades have been sent off to my advisor, and all that's left is a bit of cleanup. I think I did pretty well for my first semester on this class - next spring ought to be even better!
And many thanks to Loki, who helped me in this time of great stress by laying on top of the papers and refusing to be moved.
Also, my friend David seems to have a blog now: Unintelligently Designed, which wins for its name if nothing else.
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