Rachel Dunn's Geology

Man From Snowy River!!

2008-12-05T08:48:00.000-08:00

We worked on ArcGIS yet again today. Due to the fact that the next few days are class presentations, so I believe this is the last day of it. I am going to see how the ArcGIS assignment goes though.
As for the question of the day what is the last movie I saw? Man From Snowy River, pretty much the best movie ever because pretty much nothing is better than Australian cowboys from the Blue Mountains named Jim. Yep It is amazing!

Vesuvianite - Ca10(MgFe)2Al4(SiO4)5(Si2O7)2(OH)4 - tetragonal

2008-12-03T09:50:00.000-08:00

As the weeks left until the end of the semester dwindle, the work load just keeps getting heavier. With a plethora of papers, exams, and other intensive assignments, the question of what will be the toughest thing for me to do in the next two weeks is an extremely difficult one to answer. So rather than drowning on about assignments, in short I will say the hardest thing will be simply to survive and finish everything. I am already so behind. At least today was rather entertaining in Geo Communications 230. We went on a field trip to a lamp post outside to work with GPS. Unfortunately they didn't work and we ran out of time. I won't complain about that to much though, at least it got my mind off my mineralogy exam that's later today. Which is my next greatest obstacle to complete.

The return of ArcGIS

2008-12-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving break ends, students flock back to Brigham Young University, but only a select few can understand the terror that awaited a small band of Geology students, ArcGIS. Okay, so I'm exaggerating a bit, but It is a stark reminder that I'm back at school. I really need to catch up though.
My favorite website is... umm... well... my email??

ArcGIS. Will I ever understand

2008-11-25T08:35:00.000-08:00

Today I picked up a few things in class. I keep getting behind though. Why must if be so complex??
ArcGIS is... not very enjoyable. Adam asks what is enjoyable? That it is almost Thanksgiving break! I am going home! I'm going to eat and play basketball. It will be amazing.

Christmas already??

2008-11-21T09:50:00.000-08:00

We worked on ArcGIS. I have no comments on the subject.

The question for the day is when I begin listening to Christmas Music. I do not begin until after Thanksgiving

To read a book

2008-11-20T14:06:00.000-08:00

We worked with GIS. It is the most confusing program ever. I don"t even understand what we're doing.

A good book I've read recently is... well I haven't been able to read a book of choice... I know sad.
I've been so busy. I am working on reading Guns, Germs, and Steel though.

EMMM! Food

2008-11-17T08:44:00.000-08:00

ArcGIS is an interesting tool to say the least. It takes so many step to even get a map on it. We'll see how that goes. I was just trying to keep with it, so I didn't have any time to come up with questions.
As for my random class question, I have two very favorite places to eat. They are both back home. They are the White House and Primo Burgers. The White House is this little shack like joint where you can find the BEST banana splits and corn dogs, and you can just start talking to the most random people. Primo Burgers gets my vote just because of the amazing Gyros! Honorable mentions go to The Thai Cafe and Famous Dave's.

Joke Time

2008-11-14T09:51:00.000-08:00

Since Emily's taking my nun joke, I got this one off a Laffy Taffy wrapper!
What washes up on small beaches? A Microwave!!

The Power of a Point

2008-11-12T08:46:00.000-08:00

We went over powerpoint today. I've used powerpoint since middle school so I was a little bored. It was bad because my mind kept wondering, see I'm sad because my roommate is leaving today and she's going back to Japan. I'm going to miss her.
I digress, back to powerpoint. On Jessica's powerpoint she had lots of good illustrations, but she said "and" a lot.

2008-11-10T08:47:00.000-08:00

In class today we went over the poster that is due in a few weeks. It was in illustrator, so it was pretty basic. The best thing about class today was the new schedule. Yay Nicole.
I haven't really had a favorite class. I just like most of them.

Home

2008-11-05T08:49:00.000-08:00

I have always lived in Lancaster

Freebee

2008-11-04T14:30:00.000-08:00

So Illustrator is pretty cool... you can ...uh... illustrate things on it. We get to work some more with it on Wednesday. I don't have any issues with it. As for my freebee response, random true story, I'm competing in dancesport next week, luckly I'm not very good so I don't have to much to worry about, but it still makes me nervous.

2008-10-31T09:45:00.001-07:00

We worked with illustrator today. It was good. I think I would prefer making things in photoshop though. I was a bit slow today.
As for the class question, my favorite Halloween costume was... oh, the time I was a cannibal. It was really creepy!

FUTURE!!!!

2008-10-27T08:48:00.001-07:00

Today we worked with Illustrator! What I enjoyed the most was during Nicole's power point, when we were critical analyzing different scientific figures. I loved it! It was also very informative. There wasn't anything I didn't understand.
As for the question of the day, if I knew anything from the future... actually I don't want to know anything from the future. I'm happy how I am, each day a mystery!

Clone

2008-10-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

In class today, we played with the clone tool in Adobe Photoshop CS3. I erased any signs of civilization in Nicole's Italy picture. It was nice and easy, I think I will using that tool more often now.
In response to today's class question on superstition, when I was little I was believed that if I went to the kitchen to get food in the middle of the night, coyotes would be in there making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and they would eat me. Another Superstition I've had since I was a little girl (and still have) is that if I go towards the lights in the desert in the middle of the night, the drug dealers will see me seeing them burying the dead bodies, and they will kill me. However the superstition that I follow the best is too always let people know how much I care about them when they leave, just in case something terrible happens to them, so they will know I love them.
For mini-assignment number 4 I merged and adjusted the photos using transparency, levels, and exposure. I replaced the sky using the quick select and gradient tools, blurred the skyline, and finally used the clone tool to soften the mist rising from the falls.

Merge and play!

2008-10-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

We worked with making panoramas today. We learned how to change the photo size, match them, and create a new skyline. It wasn't very difficult, I understood it pretty well. Yep I am a sports fan!! I love BYU sports especially. Basketball is my favorite, and I can not wait for it to start!! Theres a pep-rally this weekend, we'll see if I go!

For my scan assignment I took a scanned photo of some Joshua trees, use the dodge and burn tools, adjusted the contrast and levels, and applied a slight Gaussian blur.

Favorite Fall Activity

2008-10-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

We played with doctoring up scanned photos and textbooks pages. We worked with the burn/ dodge tool and the Gaussian blur. I understand it pretty well. My favorite fall activity, hmm let me think about that... see we didn't really have fall where I come from. In my desert, the summers are hot and dry, and the winters are cold and dry, there is no fall and a very very short spring, so this whole new fall thing is very new to me. OH OH I know! Playing commando at night!!!

My Best Date Ever!!!

2008-10-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

Today In class we made a magazine cover. I liked it! I had trouble keeping up though, it went pretty fast. Below I have two photographs that were corrected using the ruler tool for crookedness. I then cropped it, adjusted levels, brightness, and in the arch iceberg - the water color. Now for my best date, it would probably be a triple date I went on with some of my best friends; Matt, Chris, and Chandler. I told my friend Matt that I had always wanted to go paint balling. A few months later Chris asked me to go as his date. The three of them had saved up money, gotten Matt's huge van, rented a ton of guns, and filled the back of the van with ammo. Matt and Chandler had dates as well. We headed deep into the desert to play among piles of tires. After hours of non-stop play we still had left over paint balls so a few of us jumped in the van while the rest stood outside and shot at the van as we weaved in and out between the piles of tires. It was so much fun. Then we went and had a night barbeque and went swimming. It was the night that Matt and Chris created the game "I caught myself a Rachel" which they have played in every swimming pool since. After cleaning up the van and ourselves we drove back home! It was a blast! Then again I had some of the coolest company in the world too. I guess that's why we're best friends!

Worst Injury

2008-10-15T08:51:00.000-07:00

We worked with Adobe photoshop some more. Below I have two photos with complementary colors, overlayed, and cropped. My worst Injury isn't very exciting. I don't really have one main one. I've gotten stiches, sliced open my foot, my scar story, severely burnt my hand when I was younger, gotten multiple jambed fingers - sometimes the same finger multiple times. Thing like that, nothing to special.

There is a season...

2008-10-13T08:52:00.001-07:00

Today we played with over laying photos with Adobe photoshop. I'm not quite sure how to make the top layers transparent. My Favorite all time season is Summer! It's warm, the sun soaks your skin. It's beautiful, the beach, the swimming pool, blue sky's, perfect 100 degree weather! Then the wind bring in the cool evening, just perfect for dive-in movies and jacuzzi parties. Ah... the glory of summer!

Fabio!!!

2008-10-10T08:42:00.000-07:00

Today we reviewed for our exam next week. I wish we could do the test on a computer and see what I'm doing instead of on paper. Since the whole class is on computers it would be a lot easier. My favorite pet right now is my kitty Fabio! He has long golden blond hair and purrs so loud! He's adorable.

Excel

2008-10-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

We worked with charts, sums, and averages on excel today. I was confused on how to place boxes on the charts to outline data. My dream high adventure, if money was not an issue, would be to climb as many active Volcanoes as possible!

All the difference

2008-10-06T08:51:00.000-07:00

We learned about entering formulas in excel. On the craters excersize the greatest difference was sample 36 with a difference of 8,592.8 m. My favorite breakfast food is breakfast burritos!! :)

Instramental Education

2008-10-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

I have used excel before, so that wasn't very difficult. The cover letter took me a little while to understand what exactly was going on. In elementary and middle school I played the trumpet and dabbled with the sousaphone. I enjoy pretending to know how to play the didgeridoo, at least I can get the sound to resinate well. I used to be able to play the piano... lost that one... mostly. Thus far, the instrament I have wanted to learn the most I have never even touched... The bag-pipes - I hear first I should learn the recorder first - maybe next semester.

It's all relative

2008-10-01T08:50:00.001-07:00

Today we played with Adobe! It was actually fun but I kept getting distracted. Almost everything I learned today was really interesting and new. My most eccentric relatives... hmm I tell you after class, I've got to run.

worst movie

2008-09-29T08:56:00.001-07:00

I personally enjoy poorly made movies for the pure comedy of it so I don't think I can really pick one. Today we learned about editing papers on word 2007. It was rather interesting.

Proposal

2008-09-26T18:26:00.000-07:00

Today we continued working on our proposals. The following is a excerpt from my proposal;

VOLCANOES!!!

2008-09-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was a little girl I have had an infatuation with volcanoes. When I was five I was watching a documentary on Volcanoes. I loved documentaries, yes I was a very weird young child, but when you are an only child who grows up in an adult world, things are different. Anyways as I stared at the red hot lava spewing from the volcanoes, it was so pretty, so much fire. I knew that when I grew up I wanted to be a volcanologist. Everyone laughed and told me that I would change my mind soon enough. Well I haven't. Which is why I am now in 230 learning to make a website and online portfolio. The pathway to my dreams.

Do the Mashed Potato!

2008-09-22T08:46:00.001-07:00

My favorite food is hands down mashed potatoes. Potatoes are the best. I could live off them. Today's biggest accomplishment so far id that I learned how to log onto my website! I'm still a little confused as what to do with it though, but I'm sure I can figure it out soon enough.

Pitchforks my dear!

2008-09-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

Today we learned about end note, a program to reference our bibliographies, I think it would have been very entertaining if it had worked. Refworks worked though. I learned... um... That if you could be a color, what color would you be? Is a girly question. If I could be any tool I would be a pitch fork because I LOVE pitchforks! I mean they're like big forks, hence the name. On a summers morning there is absolutly nothing better to gather tumbleweeds and get them into a fire than a pitchfork. It glides so gracefully in through the gaps of branches and moves with such ease, it is the hidden gem of all tools. Deadly but simple. An old tool that is still wildly used, and the plus side is, if I ever needed to join an angry mob... my weapon of choice - the pitchfork!!

Sweet dreams

2008-09-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

Today we learned about writing proposals. We learned how not only is it a way to get funds, but it is also a public statement of our intended research. We learned the most affect way to write it. My largest obsticule in understanding today was that I have a dreadful head cold, so much of today's class I just couldn't concentrate and kept almost falling asleep. Well since I've already had both my dream vacations...my new dream vacation would probably be to Alaska or the north pole!

"What makes you different..."

2008-09-12T08:44:00.001-07:00

Today in geological communications I learned about different resources we had to investigate companies that we planned to interview with (i.e. the companies annual report and fact book). The issue that is most difficult for me is thinking of a way to "differentiate" myself from all the other applicants. What makes me unique is my multi-octave, high-pitched, repetitive (as Doc. Morris says " calling the chipmunks") sneeze.

Uh... prank?

2008-09-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

Today we learned about creating a resume. One thing I learned is that your resume should never be more than two pages long. I'm not really having a hard time understanding anything, I just hate making resumes. I always have to ask myself what to include and what not to include. One experience I know I would never share on a resume is the day I went Emo. It's a really long story, someday I may give you the long version, but in short I wore all black, never smiled, glared at everyone like they could die from my stare. I wouldn't do my work and made everyone feel uncomfortable. It was beautiful. In short I convinced the counselors, my fellow students, and the teachers that I had gone off the deep end and that they were all going to die any second. Even my goth friends were begging me to smile. It went off so well, that night when I went home I had received multiple messages on myspace from people saying they were praying for me and that what ever was happening to me, this was not the way to react. The next day the counselors gathered to make sure I was "ok" (they had come to my last class the day I went emo and observed me). It was amazing and has been well remembered by my friends.

If you read about my class I'll tell you about my coolest scar!!

2008-09-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

Well today is my first official blog for class. We learned about Microsoft Word 2007. This may sound crazy, but I actually enjoyed it. I wouldn't necessarily say I experienced an "Ah-ha" moment, but I did get really excited when I discovered how easily I could write X squared on Word - I would demonstrate it right now, but sadly it's not as easy as it is on word. I didn't really get confused on anything, which is good (and rare). Now to the part you have been so patiently waiting for: my amazing scar story. Now I have many scars. Scars from burning my hands, scars from falls, scars from stiches, but the story I am going to tell you today is the scar I received falling as I crawled out of a jacuzzi! It was over four years ago, I was at a family reunion in Idaho. All of the cousins were playing in the pool and jacuzzi, having a blast of a time. We were all racing, throwing Frisbees, playing Marco polo, and occasionally almost drowning a fellow cousin (granted not all these were occurring simultaneously). Somehow we had managed to survive the whole afternoon without a single injury, any of you who may be asking why I choose the word somehow obviously have never been to a Grigg family reunion. I digress. We had finished our play for the day and as I stepped out of the jacuzzi I stepped onto the cover of the filter which then promptly collapsed from underneath me, plummeting my leg into the unknown abyss below. Shocked more than frightened I pulled my leg back up only to find that it had been brutally attacked by a U.P.O. (Unidentified Puncturing Object). I watched as blood and some white tissue looking material gushed from the centimeter wide circular hole in my leg. I was fascinated. Simply content with staring at my leg, and trying to figure out the contents that where coming from it, it never occurred to me that maybe I should try to stop the bleeding. Luckily the other people around had a little more sense and ran to grab towels. After staining three towels with blood from my legs, I was finally assisted to my room. The bleeding calmed, but didn't stop. The next day the reunion ended and I rode back home. luckily I never got bored that whole ride home, because I could keep my self preoccupied with redressing and bandaging my wounds whenever I felt like it. It kept bleeding slightly for about three days, mainly clogged by the white tissue. It was quite the experience. It hurt all time for a while, but now it only hurts occasionally. Yep. :)
~rad

Assignment #1 - Setup

2008-09-03T16:17:00.000-07:00

Up until today I have somehow avoided setting up a blog. I am notoriously know as a dreadful speller (and would normally rather not have any possible mistakes posted online), however, since for Geology 230 I am required to set up a blog and use it, I have no other choice than to resign to creating one. In a way this is an experiment. To see if I can handle writing a blog, and if you, my dear reader, can possibly enjoy my rambling interpretations of my encounters with Geological Communications 230.
Yours Truly