Sunday, May 25, 2014

Yellow rocks

This will have to be a short blog, as I'm using my phone. But I've never missed a Sunday in three years.

I'm on a family vacation without my immediate family in Yellowstone, the greatest of the national parks. If you like wildlife, you get it. If you like scenic vistas, you get it. If you like hydrothermal features, you get it. (If you like sedimentary rocks, you're mostly out of luck.) We have seen rhyolite, tuff, basalt columns, travertine, fumaroles, geysers, mud pots, hot springs, buffalo, elk, black bears, a grizzly bear, a snake, otters, a coyote, meandering streams, braided streams, oxbow lakes, waterfalls, and more.

We have taken to calling buffalo cactuses, because I made fun of people who stopped to see them, saying that stopping in Yellowstone to see buffalo is like stopping in the desert to see cactuses.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

#ProvoRocks part 2

On Monday night, I had one of the best runs I've ever had. It was about 50 degrees, which is really about the perfect running temperature. I seriously don't understand how people can handle, and even choose, running in 90 degrees during the day in the summer. When it's 50 degrees, you don't have to wear gloves or jackets or anything, yet you're not burning. When it's 50 degrees, I feel like I could keep running forever.
Anyway, during this perfect running weather, I decided to run up to Rock Canyon. I have run near it several times, but on this occasion I decided to go a shorter way that would give me more time to actually go on in the canyon itself. I hadn't been there since my Geology 111 field trip two years ago. And it was wonderful. As I ascended up the canyon, I was able to look up the rocks and remember the things I learned in Geology 111 and 210: "That brown stuff is Mineral Fork Tillite, deposited by a glacier 600 or 700 million years ago before Rodinia broke up! Wow, I never realized how huge the Cambrian Tintic Quartzite is! There's the Maxfield Limestone--the Ophir Shale must be there somewhere, but I don't see it."

On my return, I went on a small portion of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail where I have been accustomed to going. A cyclist was coming in the opposite direction, and as he passed he said, "Beautiful night, eh?" It truly was wonderful. I finished my hour of running, but I felt like I could have kept going indefinitely. As I was walking home, I passed a guy with a really bushy beard. At first I thought he was clearing his throat, but then I realized he was saying "How's it going?" He had a really raspy voice. It was just a night where everyone was happy. Everything was awesome. Then some of us in my ward went to see The Lego Movie at the dollar theater. It was funny, because it was the day after Mother's Day, and the day after Mother's Day two years ago, some of us went to the dollar theater. Except on that occasion we had the theater all to ourselves, and this time the theater was packed.

I had two partial runs during the week, and people weren't as happy, but I did meet a little kid who was really excited to show me the pinecone he had collected.

Then I returned to Rock Canyon both on Friday and Saturday. On Friday, I had turned around once I was in Rock Canyon and was going to return the way I had come. But as I looked back down on the city lights, I decided I didn't want to go back quite yet, so I decided to look around just for a minute in Rock Canyon. I saw a little path but didn't think much of it, because there were lots of those. But I noticed there was a sign up the path. I had to know what it said, so up I went. I thought it would be one of those "Do Not Break the Rules" signs, but instead it said, "This section of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail has been adopted by BYU Geology Club." Although I never was in the Geology Club, as a BYU alumnus and a geology minor I had to keep going on this trail. (It's a good thing I wasn't a geology major, because most geology majors were either awkward nerds or sinful hippies. I'm not that awkward, and I never sin.) I had often wondered where the Shoreline Trail met up with the little section of it that I've been running. Now, I'm not sure if I will return to this part of the trail. I did get to see a beautiful sunset. But the trail at some times was very narrow, and most of it was quite steep. At one point I saw a limestone boulder lying directly in the trail, and I could see the beginning of a new trail around it. That made me surmise that that boulder had probably fallen in the last year or two--which is a bit unnerving, knowing that a boulder could smash you at any moment. I was a little worried on this trail, as it was getting dark, and it was very steep. But I did see two rabbits, and wildlife is always a bonus.

My Saturday jaunt up to Rock Canyon wasn't as exciting, and it was around 70 degrees, which isn't as good for running as 50. Running up there twice in a row was harder than I thought. I was really sore afterwards. And I realized something I kind of already knew: I don't think I ever want to run a marathon. Other people like that, and hooray for them, but after the run, I realized that just doesn't sound fun to me. My Rock Canyon adventures have required running uphill for half an hour at varying grades of steepness, and I'm not sure how often I care to do that.

As I was almost home last night, I realized that a black, flying, potentially stingful insect was following me. So I ran a little bit to get it away from me. But it was still following me. So then I started running faster, and it was still following me! Then I turned the corner, thinking it might keep going straight, but no--it turned the corner too, and it even turned again when I went into my parking lot! But I lost it when I went into my stairwell. Thank goodness. That was probably the fastest I'd run all week.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Love and Remodeling at Home

I went home this weekend for Mother's Day.

But it wasn't a weekend entirely full of relaxation, because I had to do a lot of moving furniture. Moving furniture isn't so bad when you have nifty little sliders you can put under the legs of the furniture, but it's still a hassle moving couches through tight spaces.

You see, my parents decided to spend a lot of money to do some remodeling of our house. They installed new floors in the basement, completely changed the walls and ceiling in the family room, and replaced the brick fireplace that extended to the ceiling with a marble tile one.

And since most of those things had been in the house since we moved into the house in 1991, that ends a lot of my childhood. (As if being in my mid-twenties wasn't enough.)

Gone are the three lights in the family room ceiling that you could dim for sleepovers.

Gone is the fake wood paneling.
And gone is the little door that contained only the water valves, but I would imagine it went somewhere special. (Maybe even to a different world, but maybe that was only Coraline.)

Gone is the scratchy wallpaper that one of our kittens once used to climb vertically up the wall.

Gone is the gray carpet with no padding underneath in the family room and the tan carpet in the downstairs bedroom-turned-office-turned-theater-room.

Gone is the blue swirly wallpaper downstairs. Apparently this wallpaper covered up a pornographic wallpaper that had been there when we moved in, which I never saw until I saw the more decent parts when they tore things down.
Gone is the word "chores" written in pencil on the wall.

Gone are the flimsy ceiling tiles that sustained water damage and had multiple holes in them from exercise equipment and from tall cousins' heads.

Gone is the carpet from which I almost got out all the blood from my mom's Valentine's Day disaster.

Gone is the brick fireplace on which I strung lights for all holidays, on which we placed our witch and skeleton every Halloween, on which we stacked our Christmas stockings vertically, and on which, as a kindergartener, I staged some self-written leprechaun "plays."
(We will still have the hearth, although it will be marble, so there's still room for the witch and skeleton and, more importantly, leprechaun plays.)

And yet, with all these changes, there are even more to come!

There are very few things still in the house that are the same as they were in my earliest memories from the early 90s:

The yellow shag carpet in the upstairs bedroom is the same.

I think the kitchen pantry still has the yellow linoleum, which as a little kid I imagined was butterscotch (to go with our chocolate-lake brown carpet).

The bedrooms still have the same closet doors.

We have the same bathtub and showers, although everything surrounding the bathtub is different.

The hot-tub-room-turned-storage-room still has picturesque wallpaper, but you can hardly see it now.

The sunroom is mostly unchanged, except for a few broken windows that have been replaced.
Most of the outside stuff is the same--the railroad ties; the rock walls, seats, and steps; the rock path (which has been lengthened); the slide platform (which I actually remember being put up and/or painted, although it has had a few different paint jobs); the brick things lining the little garden by the front door. We still have the apricot, crabapple, inedible apple, plum, scrub oak, birch, chokecherry, and grape trees. (OK, OK, grapes don't grow on trees, but you wouldn't know that with the way they grow on the plum tree.)

I can be too sentimental.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

#ProvoRocks

Well, it was my first week working full time.

And it's nice working from home. I don't have to worry about getting up in time to get dressed. I like to get started in the morning, but if I sleep a little late, I can even get a large bowl and eat breakfast while I start working, since my work mostly consists of reading through things and checking for errors.

But after eight hours (with an hour break), I am a little sick of sitting in my chair. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed working. It's easy, but I feel like it's meaningful, and it's the best paying job I've ever had. And it's only an internship! A while ago I got an email from the editing department advertising an internship with Deseret Book. My internship pays more than twice as much as Deseret Book.

This is the very first spring term in which I haven't done classes. I have to figure out what to do, now that I don't have anything looming over me that I need to get done. Last summer I didn't take classes, but even then I knew I needed to prepare for Geology 210. Now I'm completely off the hook. So I've decided that at least once a day, I need to interact with other humans outside of my apartment. Spring generally seems to be the best time to do that, anyway.

On Friday, the Rooftop Concert Series started again. And while I didn't like the concert atmospheres for Andy Grammer, Mideau (even though I loved the music), and Harry and the Potters, I love the atmosphere of the Rooftop series--probably because it's outside. And this time I went with some friends, unlike last August and September. We could see the Angel Moroni on the new Provo Temple, and I wondered if future Rooftop Concerts will interfere with the quietude of the temple. They have three bands each time. The first was called Strange Family, a rather slow rock band. I found them a bit boring. The second was a folk group called the National Parks. I liked them enough to buy their CD, and they were my favorite group, but it's hard to go wrong with folk. Then the headline group was called Desert Noises. I think there's "they're good for a local band" and then there's good. Desert Noises was just good for a local band; I don't think I'd otherwise listen to them. The National Parks was better than that.

The Rooftop Concerts have had some really big musicians. I think even Neon Trees played there in the past. This week I learned that their drummer, Elaine Bradley, joined the ranks of Brandon Flowers in having an "I'm a Mormon" video.


At the Rooftop Concert, Provo was giving out free t-shirts with anthropomorphic animals on them, provided you "liked" their Facebook page. I got a shirt with a cowboy bull on it (because they were running low when I got one). They were promoting a new campaign called #ProvoRocks. After my Structure of English class a year ago, I've become accustomed to analyzing different meanings for things. "Provo rocks" could be interpreted as a sentence meaning "Provo is great." It could be a sentence referring to the rock music played at Rooftop Concerts. And it could be a noun phrase, referring to the rocks of Provo--made more significant by the fact that Provo just bought Rock Canyon--a place I have only been to for geology field trips but a place I should go to more often.

If I were to guess, I would say that I will be gone from Provo come fall. I don't know, but that's my guess. Provo really is a great city. I will miss it.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

The Mark Melville Quote Blog

In person, I am a quiet, boring, awkward guy. But I like to think that in writing, I can be hilarious, and I would like to think that on my blog I have said some brilliant things. So, in honor of three years of this blog, I give you some of my best lines--either funny or not--based on feedback I've gotten and based on my own opinions. These go from most recent to oldest.

"I used to have an analogy that a shiny, red ornament would work on a pine tree but not on a black, dead, ugly Halloween tree. I used to say that I was a Halloween tree and therefore I couldn't have Christmas ornaments (normal things). I don't think that anymore." From The BYU Era

"You want them to let you live as you want. Be courteous enough to allow them the same thing." From Why boycotting Mozilla was a bad idea

"I think that banjos can fix all of life's problems. If we sent a banjo to North Korea, they would say sorry and start playing nice." From Blatant snobbery

"There are all sorts of dumb parents who have no idea how to raise children. I don't know how to raise children either, but I'm sure I would do a better job than they do. These parents tend to be parents precisely because they are dumb. They love their kids, but they seem to love them in a way that aunts and uncles should love them, not the way parents should love them. They seem to have other relatives do most of the child rearing. And their kids have picked up or will pick up all the life-destroying habits of their dumb parents. I am a virgin, and their teenage kids are not. It doesn't seem fair that a responsible almost-college-grad like me doesn't have kids, when these morons are out there procreating all they want." From Geriatrics

"And I have to agree with the lady on one thing. I also am surprised Alex Boye's video went viral. But that's because I find him vastly overrated." From  Umm...What?: A response to Frozen advocating a gay agenda

"The fact that the NRA thinks we shouldn't change anything makes me think that the 'N' actually stands for 'Nefarious.'" From All things political

"I also count candy corn as suitable for both Halloween and Thanksgiving, so I always go overboard buying clearance Halloween candy for Thanksgiving. In the last few days, I bought candy corn jelly beans, candy corn M&Ms, Starburst candy corn, caramel candy corn, s'mores candy corn, autumn mix, candy corn suckers, candy corn and peanuts, pumpkin spice candy corn, and a candy corn Blow Pop. When I showed [my roommate] my supply, he told me I was going to get diabetes." From There's only 362 days left till next Halloween!

"There are a few things in our Mormon culture that annoy me--like the perception that it's OK to watch a movie as long as it's not rated R, or that the Book of Mormon is the only worthwhile book of scripture, or that prayers on a rainy day must always say 'the moisture we are receiving.' Not to mention saying a blessing on refreshments." From Overrated hymns

"If I were ever asked to narrate a parade, I would probably get fired, because I would just make snarky comments the whole time. (Especially when the medieval and Dr. Who clubs passed by.)" From Oh, it was THAT week.

"Then when I came home [from running], my nipple was bleeding. If I were a mother with sucking child, my child would be a vampire." From Blast that hydraulic gradient!

"There was very little life in the Precambrian. (That's a structural ambiguity there: there wasn't much life, and the life that existed was very small!)" This sentence caused quite a nerdy conversation on Facebook. From Geology 210, week one

"Have you heard the theory some people have that World War I and World War II are really just one enormous war, with a brief peaceful interlude that led to the second part? Well, I just had Summer Vacation II, but it was really part of one great summer vacation with a week of working thrown in the middle." From La Terre de Disney

"Once upon a time in England, smart people learned Latin. They loved Latin, even though it was a dead language. This linguistic necrophilia led scholars to study Latin more than they studied English—but eventually they did turn around and start studying English." From A Prescriptive Addiction: How I Became a Descriptivist when I Became an Editor. (This paper was just published in the student journal Schwa, but I think the amateur editors took some of the life out of it.)

"I'm so excited to get done with everything this week! It will be a great summer, even though I usually don't like summer! (I feel dumb using all those exclamation points. At least I didn't use multiple exclamation points, as women who are 30 and older do.)" From Welcome summer

"Just as Earth formed in just the right place in the solar system for life to exist, I was born in just the right place to have a great mother. My mother is sane and intelligent. I don't have a mother who does crazy and dumb things. I have a sensible, wise mother, and I couldn't be more content. Even if she says things like 'not terribly much badder.'" From Not terribly much badder

"The worst thing about spring is Women's Conference, when hundreds of middle-age women crowd campus and generally get in the way. I'm glad that's done with now." From Only because it's spring

"Don't be so arrogant as to think that your idea is the only one that can possibly be right." From My thoughts on gun control

"You know the expression 'When Hell freezes over'? I'm not sure that's a good description, because I'm starting to think that Hell is covered in a permanent sheet of ice." From Gravity hurts

"And our langage has been around for a long tim. I am in an Earlie Moderne Englische class right nowe, and euen though the things that we reede are hundreds of yeares old, they are still very similar and we can still vnderstand most of it. Olde Englishe and Middle Englishe are more difficulte to vndesrtande, but that is also amazinge. Iust as it is amazing to see how animales have euolued ouer time, it is amazing to see how wordes haue euolued ouer time." From Mind. Blown. 

"Peace on Earth Man is an elderly foreign man in a power chair whom I met at the grocery store. I was looking at a cart of clearance Christmas potato chips when he approached me. He showed me a card that had a dove on it that said 'Peace.' He told me to read it (it said 'Peace on Earth' inside) and said, 'Give me a dollar, please!' in his European accent. It was really random. I took pity on him, since he didn't have any legs, and gave him a dollar. But it was really strange." From A Character-Driven Description of My Week

"I had a fun time seeing my three nephews in California. We got home a week ago. They said and did lots of funny things, like when Franklin (who is almost 5) asked me why my neck is thin." From Randomness

"Unfortunately, I ended the semester with two A minuses. Oh, well." From Year in Review

"I don’t think the fad of 'ugly sweater parties' is a tradition that should stay. It seems to me that ugly sweaters are kind of like fruitcake—there are more jokes and parties about them than there are actually sweaters." From Christmas Traditions 

"I think the only people who like [operatic] singing are those who have been educated to like it, and what's the point of that?"From Merry Thanksgiving

"I abstain from Christmas until after Thanksgiving to respect Thanksgiving. But I also do it to respect Christmas. Some people think I must be a grinch or hate Christmas. On the contrary, I love Christmas. Christmas is a special time, so I don't want to bastardize it by celebrating it early. If I did, I would no longer associate Christmas stuff with Christmas. I want to keep special, so I keep it in its proper time frame." From My annual rant

"This week I got my copy of Mapping Mormonism. It's a book that is for sale at Deseret Book and I think even Costco. And my name is in it! Yes siree, there is a PDF of the front matter that proves it. So my name is available for sale at Costco." From Bewitched, Bewitched, you've got me in your spell

"This is exactly why I hate politics. You have these two political parties, and once someone claims their allegiance to one, they turn into mindless robots who support every measure their party supports. What's worse, they will attack any measure the opposite party supports, even if they otherwise might agree with it. People may have particular reasons for adhering to a party. Some may stick to a party because it is a family tradition. Others might stick to a party precisely because it is not a family tradition. The problem is not with the parties themselves; the problem lies with sacrificing your reasoning to other people and having them tell you what you should believe and do." From Why I hate politics


"I only had two companions there, three if you count my MTC companion. But I only talked to one, Elder Betenson. My MTC companion came late and I didn't feel a great need to talk to him, and the other companion was the evil Elder LaPratt who I wish would disappear." From Let the Lower Lights be awesome

"This week I did, however, read a BYU Studies article from 1999 that, although scholarly, was incredibly stupid. My editing professor used to be an editor for BYU Studies, so the bulk of our material for the class comes from past issues. One of the options we had for an assignment this week was an article comparing Joseph Smith and Herman Melville. I thought it sounded interesting, so I read it. Boy, was it stupid. So stupid that my professor said that when it was in the process of being published she refused to edit it--I think it was the only one she ever refused. It seemed fairly obvious to me that this scholar was like, 'Hey, I like Herman Melville, and I'm a Mormon, so why don't I compare Herman Melville and Joseph Smith?' You could compare anyone to anyone! You could compare me to ol' Hermy Baby. Moby Dick has a chapter about fossilized whales; I like fossils. Herman made a lot of biblical allusions; I like the Bible. We even share the same last name! I was embarrassed that my job would consider publishing such a ridiculous article, even if it was thirteen years ago. The author had a brief section talking about references Melville made to Mormons--I think that would have been a much better topic for a nineteen-page article." From Ah, fall

"Some passages of Isaiah sound pretty funny because of the older English--like the daughters of Zion wearing mufflers and round tires like the moon." From Pioneers and Olympians

"Isn't tarantula a great word? The word spider is a rather blah word--but tarantula just sounds like it should describe something big, hairy, and creepy. It's named after a place in Italy where they had giant wolf spiders, and then the name was later applied to other kinds of big spiders. Maybe you've read old books that talk about the dance called the Tarantella. People thought that a tarantula bite made you go crazy and dance--so they named a dance after it. It bugs me when people say tri-antula--where'd that three come from?" From Tarentule

"It was a very nice rainstorm, the first in a long time. It's a good thing it came, because I was almost converted to liking sunlight. Then the rain came and reminded me how awesome it is." From Oh, beautiful for rainy skies

"This week I had a symbolic dream. I dreamed that there was a horse that didn't really like its owner, but for some reason it really took a liking to me. I was flattered that it liked me so much, but I couldn't help thinking, 'What am I going to do with a horse?' Lately there have been a lot of people visiting me. I'm very flattered that they visit me; I've never had so many visits in my life, and I feel like I actually have some semblance of a social life. I really like visiting with them, but I just realized how much harder summer term is going to be for me than spring term was, and it's only the beginning of the term and I already feel like I'm way behind. How am I going to stay caught up when I have all these visitors? What am I going to do with all these horses?" From Summer bummer 

"I had to get my book printed as a saddle-stitch book. So I went to the JFSB, but their color saddle-stitch machine was broken. So then I went to the Cougar Copy Center just south of campus by where I live. Their machine was broken. So then I went to Cougar Creations in the Wilk. Their printer was having problems so they couldn't get the cover to print with everything else, which meant that I had to staple the cover on. But they made me, an inexperienced stapler, staple it with a stapler that wasn't meant for the job, which resulted in bent staples and a generally sloppy appearance. It took me an hour to get a sloppy book." From Quelle semaine

"When it comes to candies, desserts, drinks, and other sweets, I can only have them when they are in season. I have eight holiday seasons, each with their own designated in-season sweets. When it comes to candy, a lot of deciding whether or not something is in season depends on if the candy would look festive in a candy dish." After this quote, I included a detailed list of the things I can eat for each holiday. From What a weirdo, part 2

"Historians also have weird hair. I don't like talking about hair, but they sure have weird hair. My professor I think is going for the Ben Franklin look. He is bald on top and has gray hair around the sides and back of his head, but he grows it out so it's a bit long and ratty and nasty. The TA also has weird hair. From the sides it looks normal enough, but from the front--I can't quite describe it. He has these two bulges of hair on either side of his head, above his ears. It gives his head a bit of a mushroom shape. Tomorrow I'm going to talk to Mushroom-Head Man to figure out why my test score was so low." From What a weirdo

"[While watching the solar eclipse,] at one point I think I accidentally swallowed a bug. A lot of snarky people drove by yelling "Eclipse!" and even "The sky is falling!" I must say, the eclipse was pretty d**g awesome." From Various and sundry things

"[After scraping myself up,] I found out I even got some blood on the doorknob. Fortunately, I don't have AIDS." From Of bones, blogs, and blackouts


"Suppose that there is NOT climate change, but we do something about it. We diminish our dependence on fossil fuels, which won't last forever anyway. We develop new technologies and methods of providing energy. And everything stays the same. What would we lose?" From Global Warming

"And last night I was driving back to Provo through Utah County construction. I had to laugh that the sign on the side of the road had not one but two typos: HEAVY TRCFFIC. USE CANTION." From Running, reruns, and runny jam

"[At the St. Patrick's Day parade,] the radio station X96 had a theme entirely about beer. Now, if people want to drink responsibly, whatever--although I think the term 'drink responsibly' is an oxymoron. But there were children among the group! There was even one young person dressed as a beer bottle! One of the children was a boy my mom recognized from her school--a boy who has behavior problems. That explains a lot of things! I suppose that could be considered a post hoc argument (I was tested about logical fallacies this week), but nevertheless I know about alcoholic families, having seen them firsthand. I hope all these drunkards get in crashes and kill each other. OK, maybe not. But they should keep the kids away from the alc-y." From  The most overhyped pointless day of the year

"When I run, I think about jelly beans and socks. (In that sentence, jelly is modifying beans but not socks.) Yesterday when I went running I thought about Thanksgiving and Christmas jelly beans. (Thanksgiving is modifying jelly beans in that sentence.) I think about these things to keep my mind off of the fact that I hate running." From One Weird Dude

"I would rather talk about hair elsewhere on my body (since I am a very hirsute individual) than the hair on my head. This week I pulled a splendid hair out of my nose, so thick and black it looked like it was plastic." From Free as my hai-ai-ai-ai-ai-air

"Please don't misunderstand. I love Christmas. But "to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). So if you put up your Christmas tree or listen to yule music before Thanksgiving, you are disobeying the Bible." From The REAL most wonderful time of the year

"I did the math, and if I did it correctly, if you drew a line of which one inch equaled 1,000 years, from today to the time the dinosaurs died out would be over a mile long!" From In memoriam of the dinosaurs

"In all my days cleaning up after softball, baseball, volleyball, gymnastics, and women's conference, I've never seen so much garbage. I don't know if softball spectators eat more, or if they're just too lazy to clean up after themselves. (That's not an unreasonable assumption, since softball is a lazy game.)" From Immune system, put your armor back on!