Blatant Obfuscation

I have done it. I need not do it again. It was a long long day, and there is nothing anybody can do or say that will cause me to want to return to the summit of the mountain.
I mean I cover all of the basis for the climb. Technically my friend Nels was the one who planned it all out. It was a matter of hiking up one side and then returning down the other side. So early Saturday morning we travelled north and met some other friends. After some car shuffling [we left a vehicle at the down side] we went to the Apsen Grove trail head and started to ascend at 7:20 am.
In the group of 6 going up, I knew 3 of the people. I hiked near the lead of the group which meant that setting a decent pace I was with Javier, one of the new faces, for the hike. We got 30 minutes into the ascent and discovered that the other 4 were no longer right behind us, so we waited and let them catch up. It was going to be a long day. You could just tell it.
Once we met back up, Javier and myself decided to just go and hope they kept up. We had a steady pace going for the next two hours until we hit what I am told was "the Lake". Looking up from the nice clear waters you could see the summit. The rescue people stationed at the lake said it was to be another 2 hours to the summit. So Javier and I waited for about an hour at the Lake for the group to catch up.
With no sign of them, we continued to the saddle and summit. We crossed a decent ice field heading to the saddle. I found a nice flat rock large enough for me to lay down on and took a nice longer break. It was long. It was really really long. I got down enjoying the cool breeze and continued slowly [the ice made it interesting] towards the saddle. The last 100 yards contained a nasty verticle spot where every 10 feet or so you had to stop and regain your balance.
We hit the saddle about noon time, and there took a nice long break. It was lunch time and I snack on energy bars. There Javier and I waited for a good half an hour before beginning the last leg to the summit. It was fun. Long hard and hot, but the end result was cool, sitting on top of the summit and looking over Utah Valley.
After a while we headed back down the path to the saddle. [I was informed at the bottom of the Timponeke trail that you could slide down the glacier] and from there down the other trail. What took a good 5 and half hours to climb took a good 4 and half hours to hike down. Each point along the way was long and hard.
On the way up Javier and I ended up meeting up with a new friend Matt who had been left behind by his group and so we three had bonded over loosing our respective groups. On the way to the saddle from the summit, we ran into Nels and he spouted something about "a lazy day". Matt Javier and I headed to the saddle and continued down the trail [Timponeke] to where was planned to head home. It was a long long hike.
We got to the parking lot about 5 ish. Here is where the split second decission comes into play. We realized that Nels and the other 3 in the group were kind of slow. Javier and I had a choose of waiting like true friends for them or getting an early ride south with Matt. We choose the latter option. I wasnt gonna wait for the next hour to two hours for them to get down the mountian.
From the day, I got too much sun, sore muscles, and a desire never ever to return to the summit of TImp.

Posted by James at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night, after owning the game for over 6 weeks, I finally beat the DS game 'New Super Mario Brothers'. Okay I didn't play each of the levels. I took many short cuts in doing it, but I won. I beat the damn game. Now I can go back and do everything else to get all of the accomplishments that are to be done along the way.

Posted by James at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I like fireworks, I like anything that makes a loud pop or bang, and gets people wondering what you are playing with. Last night was no exception. I used the holiday as an excuse to play with explosing tubes of cardboard. That is in essence what a firework ends up being. It is a container of some sort [tubes mainly] containing a certain combination of exposive powder and desired effect in it. For me the simple black cats are powder and nothing more.
What differs fireworks from other explosives is normally the powder used. I know from experience watching people make firepowrks that gun-powder is a 'cheap' alternative, but to get the best brightest and quickest explosion, the use of flash powder is required. I won't detail contents or how to make it, needless to say, it is less complicated than gun powder and does a hell of a job.
So last night, Leroy and I set out to find something to use in addition to my firecrackers. We ended up with tanks and screaming fountains. I had some good ground flowers [they spin changing from red to yellow to green] that popped at the end that were a hoot to watch.
Needless to say, the tanks were quickly augmented with the firecrackers and ground flowers for a more explosive finish. It became an all out contest to see who could be the most destructive or leave the least amount of a tank standing. I dont think anyone won, but it was fun trying.
I did try to hurt myself a couple of times. The first time I was just throwing crackers, just to have the bangs, when one slipped out of my fingers and landed on the ground at my feet. [I was sitting down]. I am told my expression was priceless, but all I know is that my foot went to cover the cracker in time as it popped. I wish I could say that was the only one that was like that. The second one went off in my hands. I had a match lit, and one of the guys playing went to light his cracker, and I didnt notcie that somewhere in there mine had been lit. By the time I went to chunk it, it exploded as my fingers were releasing. It wasnt the first time I have had a firecracker explode in my hands, but it still was a shock or at least startled me.
Finally the last stupid moment of the night came as I lit 3 crackers off at once and threw them. One went2 feet and dropped to the ground. In all of this I was sitting and didnt have oppurtunity to run. So I did what made sense to me, I placed my foot over it and shielded myself the best I could from the explosion.
Oh what fun. And from it all I haven't learned my lesson I think. I still have 2 days of being able to explode things, and I think I just might do that. All it takes is any old excuse.

Posted by James at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I feel that the first job experience is always the best one, or at least the most memorable. It was for me at least. I turned 16, and shortly thereafter, I had my first real job experience working for my Young Men's Leader, Hyrum Johnson. I did have some lawn mowing jobs prior to getting this job, but this was the first 40 hour a week summer job that I could just die for.
It was a good experience [I ended up working for him on repeated occasions.] But that first summer I was introduced into the scientific world and governmental jobs. Hyrum worked at a USDA ARS Research Station there in Temple, where I had grown up. Hyrum's pet project was Climate Change, that meant study and work in CO2 effects on plants and a couple other interesting little projects.
My first summer, between my sophmore and junior years of high school, was spent picking roots and other biological materials out of soil core samples and prepping those sample for analysis. It was a long and tediuos job, but something that I found enjoyable. To give me a break from that job, I was assigned to enter articles and other scientific literature into a big database Hyrum maintained. It was his library of sorts.
One of those days, I ended up asking a question that I learned was a hot-button topic for Hyrum : Climate Change. I was young foolish and ignorant to a lot of things in the scientific world. It was one of those things that the media reported something one way and I took it as the way it was.
Remembering Hyrum's long talk on the subject, he quickly showed why we couldn't accept current findings on the subject as conclusive, as they either were limited in scope or not based on scientific methods. He then showed me research he had done over the last 30 years of his life and why he felt that what people refered to as Global Warming was more a natural cycle of the earth.
To be honest, I was overwhelmed at this, but more so I was interested in why he felt the way that he did, he had based this on data and other evidence he had collected over time and was pretty sure of his findings. For me, it was enough to get me hooked on research. I found the field most interesting, because it was more than the scientific method taught in school, it dealt with conclusions and checking if those conclusions did make sense to the real world.
I came back and worked for Hyrum the next summer and the summer after that. By the end of the third summer I just kind of continued to work for him for the next year, all the while doing little assignments that helped in the research process. I ended up working with a technican, Ron, on an outdoor 'tunnel' that dealt with CO2 concentration levels that changed over each section. It started at a super-ambiant level (550ppm) that was the projected level of atmospheric CO2 in 50 years or so and decreased over the length of the tunnel to current levels and then even farther to sub-ambiant levels (200ppm) that were what existed prior to the industrial revolution or so. I helped a lot on that project, but I did spend a lot of time wiring or helping wire things and maintaining the system.
All the while I would avoid extended conversations with Hyrum about Global Warming or Climate Change, only for the reason that those conversations were never short.
I left that job in August of 2000 to serve a mission, I never thought I would return and work there again, but as life would have it, I returned to work and attend classes upon returning home from Germany starting in January 2002 until I left there for other oppurtunities [the plan was to be a bum, I ended up coming to BYU]. All the while I began to learn more about Global Change theory and how the Scientific Community researches and studies it.
I have told this all in an attempt to give some background to why I am opinionated when it comes to the subject. I have read the research and learned the facts, and I am to the point of saying, yes we as a society of humans have an effect on the climate, but the extent of that effect or the magnitude of the change has yet to be determined or properly meassured. We can only guess at it, and even then there is no real level of certainty to it.
This past week or so I was assailed by people telling me how accurate and thought provoking Al Gore's movie was. They started telling what they took from the movie, being that CO2 is bad, and we are to blame for natural disasters, etc. I feel no need to watch the show, or at least pay to watch it, so I am not sure that is what the movie is saying, but to have repeated people come away from it saying the same thing, I have felt that politics are trying to direct scientific findings.
I came accross this article on the subject on the Drudge Report and found that it was the first article [editorial] on the subject that addressed the issue well, and even brought in enough of the reasoning why scientist say man has influenced the change seen, but that we aren't sure to the extent of it.
There are some other cool arguments I have heard or seen presented on that the observed increase of CO2 is not necessarily a bad thing. I find this topic to be an interesting thing, as the more people debate it or challenge it, the more we find out what we dont know.

Posted by James at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)