Getting my science on

There is a reason that I am an editor who studied linguistics. My mind isn't as well tuned to science.

However, even though I don't have a scientific brain, I still find science incredibly interesting. In another life, I could be a scientist. I got to experience the wonders of science this week.

Astronomy
More than six years ago, I had an astronomy class at BYU, and our professor told us about an upcoming eclipse in the United States that would be passing through Idaho in 2017. "You should really make an effort to see it," she told us.

Well, for several years I had some misconceptions about the eclipse. I thought it would be in December, rather than August, and I thought it would be farther north in Idaho. I was looking forward to a visit to my old mission stomping grounds. (See, I had only been home a little over a year, and it took me forever to get out of that awkward "I want to go back!" stage.) But the actual path of the eclipse made the commute a little easier, and I'm so glad it was in August rather than December, because there was plenty of light for traveling and no inclement weather.

Anyway, as the eclipse loomed nearer, I realized I had to get serious about making plans, as hotels and campsites were getting booked. I wanted to see where else was in the path of totality, and I noticed that it went directly over Lander, Wyoming. Perfect! My uncle lives in Lander!

So I took my childhood friend David with me to spend the night at my uncle's house. I didn't realize until later that the GPS I was using refuses to go on freeways (yes, we've checked the settings), so it took us on back highways the entire time. Oh well, it was a lovely drive, and traffic was no problem whatsoever. The next morning, we decided to drive someplace where totality would last longer, since Lander was on the edge of totality. So we went to the "town" of Crowheart, Wyoming, and parked along the side of the road.

There were lots of other people parked on shoulders, pull-outs, and rest areas. We got there in time for the beginning of the eclipse. I saw partial eclipses in 2012 and 2014, so I was familiar with what to expect with that. 2012 was pretty well publicized, but 2014 was not, and no one ever told me about the crescents in the tree shadows, which everyone seemed excited about this time around.

We noticed it getting dimmer and cooler while we sat in our folding chairs waiting for totality. And then it came! It looked like twilight, but it was 11:30 a.m.

I could see a few stars and I think Venus, though I didn't learn it was Venus till later. 

Picture courtesy of KSL Weather Facebook page. This is one of the most accurate pictures I've seen of what I saw.

I only had my phone to try to take pictures, but no picture, not even the professional ones, is like seeing the real thing. There's just something about seeing this white, glowing ring in the sky, with the gases coming off the sun. For those of you who stayed home and just saw partiality--sorry, but you're doing it wrong.

And soon thereafter, the eclipse was ending. I think I briefly saw Baily's beads, which is when the sun peeks through the moon's peaks and you see little spots of lights on the edge. But it was so brief that I'm not certain. And then I could no longer look at the sun without the eclipse glasses. I was surprised at how quickly the temperature rose and the sky got lighter once totality was over.

We waited a bit to see more of partiality and then we headed home. Lander, Wyoming, was packed on the way out; we went about ten miles in one hour. But then it got better, and it was smooth sailing almost all the way home.

Entomology

My mom signed up for a weekly box of fresh produce, and this week I took one of the peaches in my lunch. I noticed that it had a hole in the top near the stem, but I had a few bites before I looked closely in the hole.

 I expected there to be a moth in there, but as I looked closely, I realized, those are earwig pincers!

 There were actually two live earwigs in it, though one of them was more active than the other. It began running all over the table in the break room, and I tried to get it on the paper towel for when I threw the peach away, but I couldn't. So I ultimately smashed it. And as I watched it instantly stop with its fluids spilling out, I felt sad and guilty. The other one was still alive in the peach when I threw it away.

Geology

Actually, I kind of am a geologist, since I minored in it. Four years ago, I took a field studies class, Geology 210, and our first week we made a geologic map of Albion Basin in Little Cottonwood Canyon. This week I figured that the class would be back in session. What if I went up to Albion Basin and saw if I ran (literally) into them? So I made plans to go up there to change things up and try running on a new trail for once. Well, that morning I researched it and found out that the class had changed, so there wouldn't be anyone there. I was more disappointed than I expected. But since I had made the plans to do so, I figured it would still be a fun experience.

I decided to go up to Cecret Lake, because that seemed like the most likely place where I would know where to go. Four years ago, I didn't even know trail running was a thing, so I thought it would be fun to run this time. I'm certainly in better shape now than I was then.

Most of the trail runs through the Tintic Quartzite from the Cambrian Period, about 500 million years ago, when Utah was on the edge of the continent. I was happy to see glacial striations, which is when rocks trapped underneath a glacier carve scratches into the bedrock. These striations, of course, are very recent, geologically speaking.

 As I got up to Cecret Lake, I was able to find the outcrop of the Mineral Fork Tillite, near where my mapping group ate lunch one day. The Mineral Fork Tillite is a Precambrian glacial deposit, dating back to when the earth was an icehouse, around 700 million years ago.

The Mineral Fork Tillite is the dark band in the center of the picture. A fault thrust it on top of Tintic Quartzite, when it should be below it.

 There was a moose on the opposite shore of Cecret Lake, which was both cool and disconcerting.

 I tried to retrace my steps from four years ago and find the trails we took. My "run" was very slow, in part because I kept getting confused. I ended up going up a steep hill to a ridge for skiers. I've never been skiing, so I could only imagine what it looked like covered with snow.

 I returned to Cecret Lake, and I noticed some pebbles in the quartzite, and then I stumbled across the contact between the quartzite and the tillite.

Tan/gray Tintic Quartzite on the left, brown Mineral Fork Tillite on the right.

 I got closer to finding the old path I took, but I still couldn't find it. Part of it was that I didn't want to get close to the moose, and part of it was that I didn't want to get lost, by myself, on a mountain, in the evening. I heard a chirp, and I looked down and saw a pika! It kept picking plants with its mouth and running off with them sticking out. It was adorable. Only a kitten or a two-year-old could be more adorable.

As I was making my way back down, I realized, "Wait a second. This is igneous rock! This is a dike," an instance of a small line of magma intruding in the rock. I was glad that after four years, I was able to notice it.

I was surprised how close people got to the moose.

I was a little disappointed I couldn't find all of the trail I took four years ago. And I was only on one side of the basin, so I didn't get to see any of the Ophir Shale, Maxfield Limestone, or Mississippian-age limestone. Oh well. Even though I ate peanut butter Clif Bars and listened to Lady Gaga's "Applause" that night for memory's sake, you really can't re-create a bygone era.

An unusual Saturday

I have to keep this somewhat short because I have to be ready for my road trip to see the eclipse. I am nervous, because I have never personally driven that far.

It was a rather uneventful week, just enjoying August.

Saturday, I had a few interesting experiences.

First, my biological great uncle came for a visit. We had never met him before. See, my biological grandfather was a terrible person and therefore isn't my real grandfather. My mom reached out to this uncle, who happened to be in town on his way to view the eclipse, so he visited. He's kind of a hippie type (I know this because he's vegan) who dresses like a geologist. But he's not a geologist but an astronomer, and he talks and talks about it. He's a nice guy, but I didn't really feel a connection. The concept of family transcends DNA. I could feel a connection if we knew him better, but initially, it isn't there.

(Did you see that article about the two men who were switched at birth but just found out? DNA breakthroughs are unraveling family secrets. But in the case of this uncle, it wasn't a secret. We just never bothered or had a need to meet him.)

Then I headed to Provo to the MTC open house. One of the new buildings is right along the eastern end of University Parkway, and I used to run right by there. It's weird to have the buildings changed. I knew my way around Provo, having lived there for four+ years, so it was all familiar and brought back memories. One of the new buildings had a yellow color scheme, which won't take long to be very dated. I love color, but will it last?

The beginning of the tour was through the MTC cafeteria, where all the missionaries were getting their lunches. I felt like we were tourists at a zoo: "These are the missionaries in captivity, consuming a diet of chocolate milk and whatever else they desire." Most of the buildings are named after people, and I know the stories behind a lot of the people, but when I was in the MTC, I had never heard of most of them.

It was a little weird to reminisce on my brief three weeks there nearly ten years ago (!). I could remember standing in one of the halls and having another missionary offer me some Rudolph-shaped cookie/pretzel things, as it was December. In the MTC, I thought, "I'm a missionary for real now! This is awesome!" But it was such a tiny part of my mission that I hardly consider it a part of it at all. My MTC companion and I were about as polar opposite as you can get. I think we were both completely inexperienced, and that heightened the tensions of working with different people.

After I came home, I went to BYU and searched for jobs. This was during the Great Recession, so try as I might, I couldn't get a job. In desperation, I applied at the MTC and had a teaching interview, where you teach a lesson to the interviewers. Mine went horrible. I came home from that appointment just in agony over how poorly I had done and how awkward I was. Even my roommate detected my distress. It was a traumatic experience. There were three levels of recommendation: recommended, recommended only if needed, and not recommended. I was shocked when I was in the middle category, because I was certain I would be not recommended. In hindsight, I don't regret not getting that job. That was the last time I was actually on the MTC grounds. (I used to run and drive past it all the time, of course.)

Once I actually hit my ten-year mark later this year, I'm toying with the idea of republishing and annotating my mission emails on my memory blog (which is mostly dead now). It would be interesting to reflect on how my viewpoints and priorities have changed over a decade. But there are some practical considerations I would have to deal with (for example, publishing people's names), so it's just an idea at this point. I'm not committed.

Wild thimbleberries

Even though I twisted my ankle on the Fourth of July, I have recovered enough to resume my trail running. I also got some ankle exercises from a sports medicine doctor, so I've been doing some of those, although I don't have time to do as much as I should. The exercises mainly consist of standing on one foot and jumping and hopping. (That's an ambiguous sentence, but the different interpretations are still correct.)

Anyway, I was able to spend five days on trails this week, although only four of them were for running.

On Tuesday, I saw my first-ever tarantula while running on the Wild Rose Trail, and I wouldn't have noticed it if a slow biking kid ahead of me hadn't pointed it out. But I didn't have my phone with me to take a picture.

On Wednesday, I saw illuminated virga from the top of the Woodbriar Trail.

Thursday was a rather uneventful run on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, though I think I might have seen a tarantula hawk, which are terrifying.

On Friday, I was on a group picnic in Adams Canyon in Layton. I had seen the canyon's big waterfall in October, but it turns out there's a lower waterfall as well, which we visited.

We found a little place to sit down for a picnic dinner. Suddenly this giant black dog comes and walks right through our picnic, eating people's sandwiches before they knew what was happening. The owner came along and seemed surprised and only half apologetic, even as he let his dog keep roaming among us and eating our food. He had a European accent, but wouldn't that behavior be unacceptable anywhere? The dog was friendly, but not well trained.

Ugh. This is why I do not like dogs. I like dogs on an individual basis, and there are some dogs where I think, "If all dogs were like that one, I would like dogs." But there are so many irresponsible dog owners, and yet everyone thinks they are a good dog owner. "My dog isn't one of those poorly trained pooches. My dog isn't mean. It's those other dogs." And it's especially aggravating when I'm out trail running and people have their dogs off leash, and they come up and start sniffing me, or even jumping up on me. See, I'm afraid of dogs. Always have been. So it fills me with a certain sense of dread when a dog comes up to me, especially if they've gotten ahead of their owner and I can't see them. I have yet to be attacked, but I still worry. Even if they don't bite, it's annoying when I have to slow down and walk around them because they get in my way.

The absolute worst is when people don't clean up after their dogs. I'm constantly amazed at how many people don't. I can understand not wanting to carry around a warm, squishy bag in your pocket, but that's what you sign up for when you get a dog. If you can't clean up after your dog, you shouldn't own one. Period. If you don't clean up after your dog, you are a jerk.

On Saturday, my default weekend trails had a race going on, so I wasn't going to compete with them. I had to go to Target, so I thought I would try out Centerville Canyon.

It was not a good trail for running. The first .75 miles were very steep and not shady, and large portions--probably a majority--of the trail were rocky or otherwise unsuitable for running.

There were several well constructed bridges across the streams.

Some of the plants showed hints of what's to come!

 I think it was about a mile up where there was a clearing with this chain swing. I did get on it, but it was difficult (and I am not a short guy), and there was no one to push me, and simply pumping my legs (like on a playground swing) didn't work. So I was underwhelmed there.

Richardson's geranium is one of the few wildflowers in bloom right now.

 I passed some thimbleberry plants. I was quite excited to see them, as some of them were ripe. Thimbleberries are very similar to raspberries. My first one was pleasant and tasty. My second one was dried out and was not good; I had to spit it out. I was feeling guilty for eating them and not leaving as many for other hikers. But when I realized that lots of them were dried out and not so edible, I didn't feel as guilty, since they were just going to go to waste, apparently. (Except they weren't really going to waste, because it's a forest and more would grow from the seeds.) I ate five or six on my run.

More signs of what's to come!

 All along the trail were markers at mile and half-mile marks, which had been someone's Eagle project. At about 2.3 or 2.4 miles, there was a random brown post with a flag sticker on it. It didn't match the mile markers, and it didn't say anything, so I wondered what it was there for. I went past it, and the trail just disappeared. I figured it must have marked the end of the trail. I turned around, but I was really confused. Why did the trail just go up there and disappear? It didn't lead to anything, whereas most trails lead to something, either a landmark or a summit.

As I was walking back down (see, it was too overgrown and rocky to run), I heard some people talking. But I was confused, because I heard them down by the stream, whereas the trail was ahead of me. What were people doing over there? And then I looked over, and through the trees I faintly saw a waterfall! I didn't know it was there, and I had completely passed it on the way up! So I went down and looked at it.

I had read that there were two trailheads to go up the canyon, North Deuel Creek and South Deuel Creek. I had started at the north trailhead, so I thought I would try the south one on the way back. I took a fork that seemed like it might be the south one, but then I thought it seemed familiar, like I had just been on it. But ultimately I did find myself on an unfamiliar trail and exited at the south trailhead. So I don't know where the trail split, but it did somewhere.

The south trail had this random old pipe running along the trail.

I found this trail to be between Bountiful's Holbrook Canyon and Layton's Adams Canyon, both geographically and scenically. I wasn't too impressed at first, because it wasn't good running terrain or that different from some of the other nearby canyons, and the beginning of the trail was steep and exposed. But the thimbleberries and the surprise waterfall redeemed it.

July catch-up

July was a very busy month, with my nephews visiting, the Fourth of July, my cat dying, and my trip to New York. Now that it's August, I want to catch up on some of the thoughts I had during July but wasn't able to blog about earlier.

Calories
July 18 marked the last day of a year of counting calories. Last summer, I gained three pounds on vacation, and I realized my eating habits weren't sustainable, so I began to track calories on my Fitbit app. At first, I thought I could do it indefinitely, but by January, I was tired of it, so I decided to make it an even year. During the year, I only went over my calorie budget on two days, my birthday and Thanksgiving (and Thanksgiving was deliberate). There was only one day, June 30, when I did not count them at all. The Fitbit app has it so you can set a target weight, and you can either set a calorie deficit or set calories to maintain your weight. I did some of both. I did manage to lose between thirteen and fifteen pounds during that year, though the first three pounds were ones I had gained during that vacation, so I might not have kept them on anyway.

Anyway, I found it a great, easy way to lose weight. It literally has never been easier to count calories, because the app allows you to search foods, and if the exact food (name brand) isn't in there, it has lots of estimates of calories. However, I recognize that everyone has their own method; I always hear, "I lost [amount] pounds on this vegetarian/vegan/sugar-free/gluten-free/juice/low-carb diet, so you should try it." I think you will lose weight anytime you are conscious about what you are eating, regardless of what diet it is. For simply counting calories, I could eat whatever I wanted, as long as I was in calorie range. And the Fitbit app gives you the option of having more calories the more you exercise, so it was a great incentive to exercise more. If I ran six miles or more, I usually had unlimited calories. (I've heard that the more you exercise, the less accurate the calorie count is, but I still acted like it was accurate.) There were some times, though, I had to do some late-night frantic exercising to stay in my calorie budget.

Though my calorie-counting has ended, I hope it will continue to benefit me, as I have learned various things about portion size and kinds of food. Here are some of the things I learned:

• I used to pack two sandwiches in my lunch. That was great six years ago when I had a job where I was on my feet. But now I sit at a desk all day, and I only need to pack one sandwich (with a few snack-y items).
• Vegetables have almost no calories. With dill pickles, the nutrition facts literally say zero calories (this is not the case with sweet pickles). Fruits have more calories, but still not a ton. Avocados are the exception; they are loaded with calories.
• Butter and oils are the most calorie dense foods.
• French fries and potato chips are generally not worth the calories. I like them, but not that much. I plan to quit, or severely limit, getting French fries when I go out to eat. (The exception is Chick-fil-A waffle fries. Those are worth it.) But this is just as well; usually when I go to places that serve fries, it's because they have seasonal shakes (pumpkin, eggnog, peppermint, shamrock), so I certainly don't need the extra food anyway.
• I was shocked at the calorie counts of Oreos and Cheesecake Factory. Two Oreos (which, let's be honest, are never enough) have 140 calories, which is more than a banana. Depending on the flavor, a piece of Cheesecake Factory cheesecake has more than 1,000 calories!

Facebook
Over the last few years, I feel like Facebook has gotten continually worse. They used to have an "unsubscribe from comments and likes" feature, but then they got rid of it, and now I see all sorts of posts from people and pages I don't care about, just because my friends liked them. It's infuriating. Things got awful when they invented the "share" button, which is the darling of old ladies who don't do Pinterest but should. At least they gave me the unsubscribe feature. But in the last few weeks, they have been showing me posts from pages and people where I am 100 percent certain that I unsubscribed from them. If there is no longer a way for me to choose what I see, what's the point of being on there? I will only look at a few posts at a time now, instead of trying to see all the posts like I used to. Ultimately, though, this will be a good thing, because I think Facebook is the only thing I do where I feel like I've wasted time.

I'd like to punch Mark Zuckerberg in the face for all these obnoxious changes, but I think he'll get what's coming to him regardless. As Facebook continues to deteriorate, its users will abandon it, and it will become the next MySpace.

(I don't want to join another social media site, like Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat, because that would be another thing to suck away my time; though I have considered starting an account for my pumpkinundation roundup rather than continuing it on this blog.)

Pioneer Day
For 2017, I made a bucket list of items I wanted to accomplish for each holiday, including Pioneer Day. When my mom told me that our trip to New York was planned for Pioneer Day, I was very disappointed. I really missed out on it this year, since they don't celebrate it in New York. This was only the third year I have formally celebrated it, and I wasn't even here for it!

I only had three items on the list. One was to light fireworks. I was able to light them a few days after Independence Day, so that counted for the Pioneer Day season. Another item was to attend a parade. Fortunately for me, Draper had its Draper Days parade the week before Pioneer Day, so I was able to attend it. It wasn't very pioneer-y, but they had plenty of saltwater taffy, which I consider a Pioneer Day candy. The third item was to attend a Utah historic place, so I went to the Bountiful Historic Museum. But they were in the process of moving, so it was a mess. I wasn't in town for the opening of their new museum.

I have a few other thoughts about Pioneer Day, though maybe I've talked about them before. Some non-Mormons feel like it's a Mormon holiday rather than a Utah holiday. Is there reason for them to feel this way? I'm afraid there is. When your stake float includes blue-bound Book of Mormons, black missionary name tags, or temples from the Pacific, that is a religious theme that has nothing to do with the pioneers. Of course people will feel alienated! You should stick to things that are actually about Utah's history, not just about the religion of most of Utah's citizens.

That said, though, there are some people who think it shouldn't be a holiday because the pioneers were Mormons. That somehow that automatically makes it a religious holiday that shouldn't be public. Well, like it or not, the history of Utah is tied to Mormon pioneers. You take them out and you have almost no history or state. I've thought about defending the holiday to such persons, but then I realized that they are just bigots who aren't worth my time or consideration. I should leave them to wallow in their own negativity.

Reunion
The same day I went to the Draper Days parade, I also had a ten-year high school reunion. While some people drove up from all over the state, and at least one person came in from Texas, it was less than two miles from my house. Even though it was a really hot day, I rode my bike to the park where it was. When I got there and was locking it up, there was a kid, probably between nine and eleven, with a bike who started talking to me about mine, how we had similarly colored bikes. He asked me how many gears it had and asked if I could jump it down stairs. (I can barely ride it!) Soon I realized that I was in the wrong part of the park, so I told the kid that I had to go ride to someplace else to find the people I was meeting. He asked if he could follow me. I said he could if he wanted, but I didn't know how long I would be biking. I very quickly found my reunion, and he seemed disappointed when I told him that was where I was stopping. It was really random.

Anyway, it was interesting to see the different people from ten years ago. Many of them did not recognize me, since I'm 60-80 pounds lighter than I was in high school. Many of them have multiple children; I think one was pregnant with her fifth. Here I am forever alone. But I would rather be single than have the nasty divorces many of them have had.

I remember being sad to think about high school ending, but I don't know why, because I wasn't particularly happy then. I was always so bogged down in homework that it was a good thing I didn't have any friends. I was internally emo and wanted to be a vampire. In 2011, I remember marveling at my four-year anniversary. But now that it's been ten years, it's not really a big deal. I've moved on from that time of my life.