2007

It's New Years Eve, and like many people, I enjoy looking back on the old year before ringing in the new. Because I like dealing in superlatives, here's my recap of 2007 in a "best of" format.

Personal

Best Accomplishment: Getting my MSc. Despite doing all the work for it in 2005 and 2006, I officially got my masters degree this February. Not only was it nice to see the fulfillment of my work in Bristol, but I got to return to England for the graduation, a trip that in and of itself was one of the year's highlights. Honorary mention: SVP poster, acceptance into Analytical Paleobiology course, winning Thomas Condon award.

Best Trip: England. This one's a no-brainer. Not only was it nice to be reunited with the Bristol palaeontology cohort, but I spent an excellent few days in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire. Museums in Oxford, ruins in Avebury, scenery in the Cotswolds, and jaw-dropping architecture at Blenheim Palace; all told, it was one of the most worthwhile weeks of my life. Honorable mention: Southern Oregon, Austin.

Best Port of Call During my Nomadic Summer: Santa Barbara. I could never afford to live there full-time (half a summer there pretty effectively bankrupted me), but there are few cities on Earth more lovely and better-located than Santa Barbara. Good wine, too. Honorable mention: Bay Area, John Day Country.

Best Wildlife Sighting: Blue whales in Santa Barbara Channel. It's hard to beat seeing the largest animal on Earth, and we had rare Risso's dolphins and a school of ocean sunfish thrown into the bargain. Honorable mention: California condor over the Big Sur, rattlesnakes and scorpions in eastern Oregon.

Biggest News Stories in...

Oregon: Passage of Measure 49. Oregon voters proved that they still have at least some foresight by re-establishing land use controls that had been largely repealed by an earlier initiative. It sounds boring enough, but it helps preserve the state's incomparable scenery from wholesale development. Honorable mention: Winter storm.

Science: Public perception of science. The good news: the Bush administration finally (and apparently unwillingly) recognized that anthropogenic climate change is real and public opinion on the matter seems to have shifted in favor of action. The bad news: public understanding of science in the US remains abysmal, exemplified by the success of Kentucky's new (and very well funded) Creation Museum. Honorable mention: reprogramming of cells to behave as stem cells.

Paleontology: Ice age meteorite. I may be biased because a researcher from the U of O was in on this study, but the notion of an extraterrestrial impact triggering the most recent ice age is an interesting one, and the evidence at hand seems to support it fairly well. Honorable mention: sequencing of DNA from Tyrannosaurus and a mastodon.

Sports: Fiesta Bowl. It happened all of one day into 2007, but people are still calling it the best football game ever played. I always enjoy a good David-over-Goliath type victory, and the game was made all the sweeter by the underdog (Boise State) being relatively local and the favorite (Oklahoma) being one of the most universally despised teams in college sports. Honorable mention: the Colorado Rockies' improbable World Series run.

In Memoriam

No recap of 2007 would be complete without acknowledging the loss of two of the greatest teachers I have ever had: Paul Raymond and Floyd Standifer. Paul was an advocate of social responsibility and civil disobedience who practiced what he preached, and he is the reason that I and several of my classmates traveled to El Salvador in 1999 to observe that country's national elections (an experience that taught me a great deal more about democracy than any US election ever could). Floyd was a Seattle jazz legend and will rightly be remembered as such, but he was also the leader of the Northwest School jazz ensemble, in which I played for seven years. I will forever be indebted to him for taking a chance on a scrawny young trombonist and subsequently teaching me most of what I know about music. It may be a little late now, but thanks to both of you.

It's had its ups and it's had its downs, but on the whole, my '007 was both productive and enjoyable. I hope yours were as well, and may your '008s be even better! Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

"It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!"

-Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Dreaming of a Gray, Soggy Christmas

One of my favorite about-faces in history occurred just over two hundred years ago and is revealed in the journals of Lewis and Clark. After two years of slogging their way across some of the most inhospitable terrain in North America, they had finally reached the Pacific Ocean, a feat that many had thought impossible. On November 7th, 1805, Clark expressed the elation felt by the entire expedition in the most famous phrase he ever penned: "Ocian in view! O! the joy!" A few days later, the realities of a Northwest winter (and a particularly wet one, at that) had set in, prompting a drenched Clark to exclaim, "O how horrible is the day!" Lewis and Clark were among the first to record their complaints about Northwest rain for posterity, but they have certainly not been the last. I have always argued that gray skies and steady rain are vastly preferable to snow as winter weather, with of my central points being that water is generally much more disruptive to daily life in solid form than as a liquid; I can understand how people might get depressed by the lack of sunshine and might want to dry out, but rain (with the obvious exception of hurricanes) usually doesn't shut down cities the way a snowstorm does. The key word in that last sentence is 'usually.' Last weekend, nature chalked up another big victory in its ongoing struggle against mankind by drenching the Northwest with a truly impressive rainstorm. Here in Eugene, the rain began to fall in earnest at exactly the moment Oregon State beat Oregon in double overtime (Coincidence? I think not...) and continued unabated until some time Monday night. This wasn't your typical Northwest drizzle, either. These were torrential, Noachian rains made all the worse by 100+ mile per hour winds on the coast. The results have been spectacular. Highways and railroads across the region are flooded, including Interstate 5, the region's main artery. The logging town of Vernonia was first cut off from the outside world by landslides and then had to be evacuated by National Guardsmen in inflatable rafts. The world's tallest Sitka spruce is now a great deal shorter, and I think I speak for most people here when I say I'm skeptical that my house and yard will ever be dry again. For anyone who thinks I'm exaggerating, I suggest you check out The Oregonian's excellent photo gallery of the storm. After all this, though, I'm still sticking to my guns: give me a rainstorm over a blizzard any day!

Happy Fantasia Day!

The greatest animated movie of all time (sorry Pixar, but you've got nothing on Walt Disney, Leopold Stokowski, and the Philadelphia Orchestra) turned 67 today. Everyone knows it because of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, but the real reason to watch it is for the 30s-style dinosaurs plodding across the screen during The Rite of Spring. Good, if outdated, fun for the whole family.

Obama '08!

Though I imagine I'm mostly preaching to the choir with this post, I just want to do my own small part to try and sell people on Barack Obama. It's very rare for me to actually get excited about a politician: as a rule, I find them disingenuous and more interested in toeing the party line or garnering campaign contributions than in actually doing the job to which they were elected. American government was devised by some of the greatest minds of the Enlightenment, and it is a triumph of rationalism. However, a rational government only works when the politicians that compose it and the people that are represented by it are also willing to be rational (I would argue that voter ignorance - both on the right and the left - is one of the main reasons the country is in its currently lamentable state, but I'll save that rant for another day; suffice it to say that every American really should read - and understand - the Constitution, as elegant a doctrine on government as has ever been written). As we will all hear in the months between now and next November, the country is at a hugely significant crossroads, and what we need more than anything else is politicians who actually understand the precepts on which this country was founded. I can honestly say that of all the current presidential candidates in both major parties, Barack Obama seems to be the only one who does. His opponents like to claim he lacks experience. The Obama camp often counters that this makes him less beholden to special interests. I think this is true, but I also think that experience is used as an excuse by people who fear the change that Obama represents away from politicians who pander to their base and hedge their bets on difficult issues. There are a number of very thorny, but also very important, issues facing the country, both foreign and domestic, and to approach these with the same dogmatic, divisive attitude that politicians have adopted for the last few decades will almost certainly lead to disaster. I would support Hilary Clinton (her husband, after all, was far and away the best president we've had in my lifetime) or John Edwards (though I am distrustful of populism, which too easily devolves into demagoguery), but the one quality I admire most in a politician is rationality, and Obama has the ability to be a truly great rationalist president in the mold of FDR or Kennedy. That's my two cents, and I hope I've convinced at least a few people out there that Barack Obama is worth taking seriously.
Incidentally, whether or not you support Obama, everyone should check out the video I've appended below of the speech he gave yesterday to Iowa democrats. It is, admittedly, largely devoid of concrete plans, but it is the most stirring political speech I've heard in a very long time.

Democracy Stumbles On

Today was Election Day, and the local media are all very excited that Oregon voter turnout has reached 50%; only Oregon Public Broadcasting has had the wherewithal to point out how laughably low that is. Fortunately, those few voters that did go to the polls today made a good decision by resoundingly supporting a measure to reinstate land use rules (in all fairness, they made a bad one as well by voting down an initiative to fund children's health care by taxing cigarettes; can't win them all, I guess). Now, I realize that land use sounds like an appallingly boring topic when first mentioned, but effectively what this amounts to is the rescinding of a blank check that had been given to developers to ruin some of the most beautiful scenery on earth. I happen to appreciate beauty, and seeing it preserved is, to my mind, something worth celebrating. Score one for the greatest landscape on the face of the earth!

Change of Pace

I've been awfully remiss lately in keeping the Oregon Trail updated, and I intend to change that. Since this summer, I've been mostly using it as a means of recounting stories about trips I've taken; effectively, it's been an online diary. That's all well and good, I'm sure, but it's not all that exciting just to recap what I've done, and I'm sure it's even less thrilling to read. My original purpose in creating this blog was partly to share stories about what I've been up to, it's true, but I also wanted a place where I could post whatever random thoughts came into my head. While I realize that many of you may care even less about my opinions on life than you do about my experiences in it, I enjoy blogging much more when I spend time trying to follow the careening, random line that is my train of thought, so I'm going to try to get back to more of that in the coming weeks.
In the mean time, I'm curious. Who out there (aside from my family) is reading this? Frankly, even if the answer is no one, I won't care: blogging is as much a chance for me to break the monotony of everyday life as it is to share my thoughts and experiences with the world, and there's a pretty good chance I would continue to post even if I knew I was effectively talking to myself (and yes, I realize how that could be construed as creepy). Still, it'd be nice to have some inkling of how many readers I have and who they are; after all, the #1 rule of writing is to know your audience.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Last week was Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual meeting, the highlight of the academic year for those of us that study mammals, reptiles, fish, and the like. I presented my first-ever academic poster ('Tetrapod extinction across the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary,' a summation of the work I did for my MSc), got to spend some quality time with friends from Bristol, Chicago, and Seattle, was introduced to several people that will likely be playing significant roles in my PhD project, and of course got to spend time in Texas' paradox of a capitol city, Austin. It's not the first time I've ever been to Austin, and it remains one of my favorite cities to visit in the country. It's famous for being a liberal bastion in the heart of American conservatism, and thus the prevailing view of visitors from elsewhere is that it doesn't represent the "real" Texas. After this trip, I'm not so sure that's true. There are several things I admire about Texas that become apparent immediately on setting foot in Austin. First and foremost, the people are polite and genuinely friendly, even if it's abundantly clear that you stand diametrically opposed to them culturally and politically. Texas has long been a cultural melange of Indian, Spanish, French, Mexican, German, and American cultures, which has helped weave an historical tapestry that is much richer than most non-Texans realize. What's more, Texans generally seem to be not just proud of their history, but knowledgeable about it as well, traits that are lacking in most other regions of the US (sadly, I include the Northwest in that category). Of course, on the more practical level, the mix of cultures that comprise Texas mean that the food there is fantastic; Mexican, barbecue, and steak are the holy trinity of Texan cuisine, and deservedly so, but I will also mention that the best Indian food I have ever had was in Austin. Finally, the thing I most admire about Texas is its independent spirit. It used to annoy me that the capitol in Austin was six feet taller than the one in DC, that the Texas flag is flown more prominently than the Stars and Stripes, and that the people there consider themselves members of the Republic of Texas first and the United States second. However, on further reflection, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The US is, after all, organized as a federal system, with each state operating as a separate entity, and there's no crime in being proud of where you're from if it's for the right reasons and not at the expense of other regions. In fact, I often found myself feeling jealous of the Texans for having such a clear regional identity; why can't we Northwesterners have that same sense of pride? That's a rant for another day, but that was a direction in which I frequently found my thoughts wandering.
Of course, some things are rotten in the state of Texas, as is made abundantly clear by a trip to the capitol building. The capitol itself is a magnificent work of architecture, but a walk around the grounds leads one to some disturbing reminders of what Texas can be at its worst. The first is a monument to confederate soldiers that occupies pride of place next to the main gate on Congress Avenue, the second is a granite tablet displaying the Ten Commandments near the supreme court. Memorializing confederate soldiers is a thorny issue: certainly anyone who believes in any cause strongly enough to die for it deserves at least to be remembered, but the cause these soldiers died for was to retain an outmoded aristocratic society that had no place in the emerging modern world. It can be difficult to separate the men from the cause, and for a state government to officially celebrate the confederacy seems hypocritical. My feelings about the biblical monument are much less ambivalent. While politicians are, like any citizen of the US, free to believe whatever they would like, one of the central tenets of the Constitution is that religion should never under any circumstances play a role in government. My goal is not to single out these two monuments, but to use them to point out that Texas has become the seat of the fanatical, irrational, and xenophobic movement that has hijacked conservatism in America. This is especially tragic because Texas has a long history of down-to-earth, pragmatic, and even witty politicians on both sides of the aisle (before you scoff at the notion of Texan democrats, let me just invoke the names of Lyndon Johnson, Ann Richards, and Molly Ivins). In fact, one of the founding fathers of Texas, Sam Houston, was a progressive well ahead of his time, advocating both Indian rights and allegiance to the North during the Civil War. Now, of course, Texas' most prominent politician is also the world's: George W. Bush, an exemplar of nearly every negative quality a politician can possess. So fast has Texas' swing to the extreme right fringe of politics occurred that even the current president's father and namesake has distanced himself from his son's policies. It's certainly a bleak outlook, but this trip left me feeling oddly hopeful. Many of us are often tempted to pass off all Texans as rednecks and zealots, but Austin remains a steadfastly liberal and cosmopolitan city, Texans remain genuinely decent people, and the Lone Star State has a lot more going for it than most of us from outside its borders are willing to give it credit for.

Also, you can see my few photos from the trip here.

Snakes in the Grass

For obvious reasons, you don't see a lot of reptiles on the west side of the Cascades, particularly once summer is over; grey skies and constant rain hardly are hardly ideal for an animal that can't regulate its own body temperature. Yet, as I learned this weekend, reptiles can do pretty well for themselves even during a Northwest autumn. I have had ridiculous luck this summer as far as seeing wildlife, having figuratively stumbled across blue whales, condors, and ocean sunfish (among other animals) while in California; this weekend while hiking up Spencer's Butte, the rocky monolith that looms over Eugene, I literally stumbled across not one, but two species of snake. The first was a gopher snake, a species I've never seen before, and the second was a garter snake which, while far from rare, is one of the most brightly-colored reptiles you'll ever encounter in a temperate climate. If you ever get a chance to just sit back and watch a snake go about its business, I certainly recommend it. No animal gets from place to place quite like a snake, and it never ceases to amaze me how versatile a legless animal can be. I've seen snakes climb trees, wend their way through dense leaf litter, and swim down streams, all with the same fluid motion and apparent ease. I'm sure we've all heard people wax poetic about galloping horses or soaring eagles, but for my money, nothing quite matches the fluid sinuosity of a snake's slither.

Fall Has Fell

Several things have happened in the last few days that have driven home the fact that summer is well and truly over and that autumn is here. First, Halloween decorations are beginning to crop up on doorsteps across Eugene. Those of you that know me are probably expecting a rant about decorating too early, but in fact seeing all a bunch of paper ghosts and plastic pumpkins has galvanized me into thinking about what my costume for the annual Halloween party should be. I've been jotting down ideas as they came to me over the course of the year, but they're generally uninspired (my favorites so far are an evil version of Jimmy Stewart or one of two old Saturday Night Live characters - The Continental and Dieter from Sprockets). Of course, October doesn't just mean dressing up like an idiot and - in my case - listening to soundtracks from old horror movies: it also means that the baseball playoffs are here. Like all Mariners fans, I'm disappointed that the season ended in mediocrity rather than in celebration as seemed likely a month or two ago. Still, that's almost made up for by the fantastic last week of the regular season, particularly in the National League. Regardless of the result of tomorrow's San Diego/Colorado tiebreaker, a full half of the teams in the playoffs will be small-market, low-payroll teams built from the ground up. That is to say, for once the playoffs will showcase baseball the way it's meant to be played. Needless to say, I'm very excited.
Of course, nothing really announces the coming of autumn like a change in the weather. In much of the world, this is the time of year when people head to the countryside to see botanical fireworks. However, this is the Northwest, so instead of a change in foliage, late September is marked by the onset of the rainy(er) season. Like anyone born and raised here, there's little I love more than the look on newcomers' faces when you tell them it will be gray and rainy pretty much every day between now and March (serves them right for moving here; we told then not to, after all). Even if that is a bit of an exaggeration, after a summer split between Southern California and the Eastern Oregon desert, falling asleep to the rhythm of raindrops on the roof and waking up to see the hills around town shrouded in mist feels very much like being reunited with an old friend. While many people I know fall into a grim depression at the first sight of gray skies, I find it marvelously exhilarating. It's good to be home, and it's great to be welcoming in another Northwest fall.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation

Today is the first day of Fall, which means my summer as a nomad is over. As near as I can figure, I've driven somewhere in the vicinity of 3000 miles. I've stayed in Seattle, Lopez Island, Dunsmuir, Oakland, Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Dayville (some more than once), with day trips to Marin County, Pinnacles National Monument, Santa Barbara wine country, Los Angeles, John Day, and the Central Cascades on the side. I've seen blue whales off the Channel Islands, condors over the Big Sur, rattlesnakes on desert highways, and scorpions right outside my office. I've wandered through museums in L.A., strolled the hills of San Francisco, attended a wedding in the East Bay, and dodged lightning outside of Prineville. Along the way I crossed paths with family members, old friends, new friends, and paleontologists of every description. It's been exhilarating at times and exhausting at others, and while I'm extremely happy to be back in Eugene, it's been one of the best summers I've ever spent; it's certainly been the busiest. Now back to school and - for the moment - calm.

"Art is the dream of a life of knowledge"

I saw that quote on the wall of the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington today. It seemed especially apropos, as I've been thinking a lot about art lately, largely because after my time in Dayville I found myself wanting to go to an art museum as soon as returning to city life. That should come as a bit of a surprise to any of you that know me because, despite an education that's been heavy on art history, I've never really been what you might call a connoisseur. So, why is it that when on his own for a month and a half in the middle of nowhere, a left-brained paleontologist finds himself missing art museums before any of the other luxuries of urban life? That's the question I've been mulling over lately, and I think I've come up with an answer. That said, I'm not about to go about telling people why they should appreciate art, so I'm going to keep that answer to myself. I'll give you all a hint, though: it has something to do with the quote I saw on the museum wall. Also, existentially enough, it has something to do with me leaving it for you all to figure out rather than just saying it. Hope that's cryptic enough!

Summer Photos

After a stirring sendoff from the John Day Country (a desert thunderstorm at sunset - one of nature's greatest visual treats, so long as you're not caught caught out in it), I'm back in Seattle for a few days enjoying the luxuries of civilization. One of those luxuries, of course, is high-speed Internet, which has finally given me a chance to upload both from Oregon and from California. Check them out in the slideshows below, and enjoy!

The Blue Bucket

Tomorrow is my last day working out here at John Day, after which I will be heading back to the greener, rainier side of the Cascades. It's been a whirlwind six weeks here, and very worthwhile. I accomplished what I came for, nailing down a PhD topic, on top of which I also got to get acquainted with the excellent fossil collection of the park, to spend several (reasonably productive) days in the field, to see all sorts of desert wildlife (scorpions and rattlesnakes and coyotes, oh my!), and in general to soak up the lifestyle of John Day Country. I do, however, have one regret: I never did find the Blue Bucket Mine. In all fairness, this may be because a) it never existed as a mine per se, and b) I only just learned about it yesterday. At any rate, the Blue Bucket is a legend in these parts and has driven many a local to distraction. In 1842, an emigrant party passed through the region in hopes of finding a southern alternative to the Oregon Trail. Unfortunately, they were led by an inept guide who they followed right into one of the most desolate deserts anywhere in North America. Eventually they decided to rejoin the main trail, and as they made their way north they passed through the John Day Country. Somewhere near here a group of children found several colorful rocks in a stream, which were passed off as copper at the time. Though the children claimed there were at least enough of them to fill a blue bucket they had with them, all but one rock was left behind. After finally reaching the Willamette Valley and later learning of the discovery of gold in California in 1849, the settlers went back and looked at the colorful rock once more, which turned out to be a good deal more valuable than just a lump of copper. Ever since, people have been trying to find the stream from which the nugget was taken, to no success. Given that I'll be leaving soon, it doesn't look as though I will be, either. I'm not giving up just yet, though, because I think my discovering the Blue Bucket might still be in the cards: while in California, I got two fortune cookies, the first telling me that I would "discover unexpected treasure" and the second that "the start of riches" was shining on me. As far as I'm concerned, that's money in the bank...

The Big Picture

I like the big picture. After all, being able to piece together scattered bits of information to discern some sort of higher-order pattern (whether that pattern is actually there or not) is what makes us human. I especially like looking at the big picture in science. In paleontology, one could make a distinguished career of describing new species of dinosaur or of debating exactly how many species comprise a certain genus of plant. While I don't want to imply that such research is unimportant (far from it, in fact), it's not for me. To my mind, the most interesting issues to address are ones that are almost impossible to resolve. The classic "big picture" questions in paleontology are those relating to the nature and rate of evolutionary change and to mass extinctions, though several other topics have received a good deal of attention as well (the effects of climate change have been an area of increasing interest lately, for obvious reasons). Because of both the staggering complexity of the systems being studied and the extremely fragmentary nature of the fossil record, many of these questions will never be fully answered. A certain degree of speculation will always be inherent in such research, and as such many paleontologists avoid it like the plague (and understandably so). However, even if the conclusions drawn from such studies must be taken with a grain of salt, their implications are potentially very important (again, the utility of climate change research should be readily apparent). On top of that, at least to my mind, studying great, overarching problems is just more fun than focusing on the minutiae.
This is all a long, rambling preamble to me saying that, to that end, I've decided to radically increase the scope of my PhD project. If there's anyone out there that reads this regularly, you may recall that I'd decided to focus on the effects of the Columbia River Basalts on Oregon mammal communities. However, there were several other events going on at the same time that were just too significant to ignore. In the Middle Miocene, from about 20-13 million years ago, there was a significant shift in climate (to almost exactly the conditions predicted by most models of modern day global warming, interestingly enough), a major migration of mammals from Asia to North America, large-scale volcanism in the form of the Columbia River Basalts, regional volcanism in Oregon and Washington, and a major shift from forest to grassland habitats. Because I like setting myself impossible goals, I want to tease apart the effects these factors had on mammal ecology. Rather than trying to do so across the globe (I like impossible goals, but not that impossible), my plan is to focus on the far west of North America, effectively Washington, Oregon, California, Mexico. I'm still piecing together the methods I'll use (and I wouldn't want to bore you all any more than I already have even if I had a clearer plan); suffice it to say it'll require trips to museums in Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Mexico City (as well as - time and funding allowing - further afield to compare sites in the Great Plains, Europe, Africa, and South America). I may very well have bitten off a great deal more than I can chew, especially as projects tend to balloon in complexity the further they progress. Still, I'm thrilled with the prospect, and I know that, as hectic as it may get, I'll be having a blast each step of the way.

The Time Machine

I've done my share of complaining about my time spent here in Dayville, and it's true that I've had to come to terms with being something of an urban snob who doesn't deal well with rural life. Still, for all my whining, this region is really not as remote as all that, nor is it a cultural wasteland. In fact, I spent this afternoon perusing one of the more unique and fascinating museums I've ever seen: the Kam Wah Chung store in John Day, which one served the region's Chinese community as a general store/apothecary/doctor's office/letter-writing service/post office/temple/restaurant/social club/bunkhouse/opium den. It's run by the state park service now, and to step through its door (made of reinforced metal to protect the patrons and inhabitants from the bullets - stray or otherwise - of drunken cowboys) is to take a trip to a different era. The time machine effect is a happy accident of fate: the family that ran the store deeded the building to the town, which literally did not bother to look inside. Because of this, the original contents of the store were preserved intact for the better part of three decades. These contents run the gamut from the personal possessions and furniture of the owners to boxes of products from China (as well as from closer to home, such as "extra standard" canned steelhead from Portland) to medicinal herbs and animal parts. My favorite item was the dried body of a flying gecko; not sure it's something I'd want to take as medicine, but it looked really cool. The walls are covered in sheets of Chinese characters, both ads and devotional texts. Years of smoke from candles, the kitchen, and opium pipes have left their mark as well, coloring all the permanent fixtures in the building black. All of this really does make it feel like you've stepped into an exotic corner of the Wild West. Perhaps because I plan to make a career of studying things that have been dead for millions of years, I have a predilection for any experience that makes you feel as though you've travelled to the past. All too often, though, such experiences are over-marketed and artificial. It's always refreshing to come across a more authentic "time machine" such as Kam Wah Chung. If nothing else, it proves that I underestimated the cultural bounty of the John Day Country...

Rawhide!

I got a hefty dose of Americana this weekend at the Grant County Fair in John Day. The fair itself was not much to write home about: a few food stands, a motley assortment of displays, a barn full of livestock, a few (expensive) rides, and an inexplicable but kind of cool reptile zoo. The real highlight was in the evening, when the fair gave way to the rodeo. As a born-and-raised urbanite, I was all set to appreciate the rodeo as a spectacle and to enjoy a few condescending laughs. To be sure, there were aspects of it that reinforced all the stereotypes: the announcer with the affected Texas accent, the borderline jingoistic patriotism (never mind that the man singing the anthem didn't know all the words...), and the clown making jokes about killing off endangered fish to protect farmers. On the whole, though, I really, genuinely enjoyed myself. Above all, I was amazed by the skill shown by all the competitors. It's no easy task to rope and hogtie a calf in under ten seconds or to stay on the back of a bronco or a bull that really does not want you to be there. Frankly, I could never hope to do any of the things that the men - and women - in the rodeo were doing, which of course made watching them that much more entertaining and impressive. Almost as fun was taking in the atmosphere out in the grandstand, which was packed full of honest-to-god ranchers and cowboys; regardless of what you think of Western cattle culture, it's nothing if not colorful. 'Til next time, move 'em on, head 'em up, head 'em up, move 'em on...

What am I doing here?

Last week I rambled on for a while about the countryside in which I've found myself living for the latter half of the summer. I never really did explain what exactly it is I'm doing here, though. As I think I mentioned once way back when, the John Day Country has more than just desert scenery. What it's best known for is its fossils, which represent one of the world's best records of life on land over the last 30 or so million years. Not only is the fossil record outstanding, it has a remarkable climate record and several accurate dates attached to it, making it an ideal place to study paleoecology and evolution. That's why I'm out here wiling away my days in a town with a population much smaller than that of my high school: to figure out what aspect of this exceptional record I want to focus on for my PhD dissertation project. To that end, I've been puttering around the collections and library of the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center, as well as making occasional forays into the field with some of the researchers here in order to figure out what has been done and what remains that I might want to spend the next few years of my life studying. At the moment, the answer to that question seems - somewhat surprisingly - to be volcanoes. No, I haven't gone soft in the head and given up paleontology for volcanology. Far from it. In fact, the question in which I'm interested is very much a biological one. A long-standing debate in paleontology has centered on whether or not flood basalt eruptions (a type of eruption similar to that you might see in Hawaii, but orders of magnitude larger) are at least partially responsible for mass extinction events. It so happens that just such an event took place 16 million years ago right in the backyard of the John Day Fossil Beds. Any of you that have been to eastern Oregon or Washington have seen the remnants of this event, whether you realized it or not. A series of eruptions flowed from what is now the Columbia Plateau all the way to the Pacific Ocean, leaving behind the layers of dark, columnar rock known today as the Columbia River Basalts. The CRBs, as they're affectionately known, are at least partially responsible for, among other things, the lack of topography around Moses Lake, the stunning waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge, and the top-rate wines of the Willamette Valley. They also might reasonably be expected to have a major effect on any animals living in the path of the lava. Just how major that effect was will, if all goes to plan, be the focus of my PhD. It'll be a complex project, requiring field work on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation and possibly in the middle of nowhere in Southeast Oregon, as well as lots of time nosing through collections both here and in several museums down in California. It will necessitate lots of library time to factor in the effects of a major migration from Asia that occurred at the same time, as well as to compare patterns in diversity here to those in other regions where flood basalts have erupted. It'll be lots of work, of course, but I can't wait to get started.

John's Days in John Day

Those of you who read this regularly (There must be some of you? Right?) but don't know Oregon all that well may have gotten the impression that the entire state is a rain-drenched, evergreen landscape of craggy coasts and soaring volcanoes. That would be a fairly good description of the rainy side of the state, but once you head east of the Cascades, it's a different world entirely. The rain turns to sun, the green turns to brown, and the volcanoes are replaced by the weathered peaks of much more ancient mountains. It is in fact because of the older age of the rocks in Eastern Oregon that I am spending the second half of my summer here. The John Day region in the center of the state harbors one of the best records of Cenozoic (the so-called "Age of Mammals" for those of you who aren't paleontologists) in the world, and I am out here working with the National Park Service to figure out exactly what aspect of the region's paleoecology I want to study for my PhD project. More on the specifics of my job in a later post, but for now I want to do my best to describe the countryside in which I've landed.
If one were to choose one word to describe the John Day Country, it would probably be 'frontier.' That's in fact the official phrase that the government applies to the region due to its population density of less than 2 people per square mile. The area does certainly retain a "Wild West" feel: the economy is dominated by cattle and sheep ranching, the main social events are county fairs and rodeos, and towns are very small, few, and far between (the town in which I'm staying is the 9th smallest in Oregon, a state not known for its massive cities). Unsurprisingly, the region is predominately conservative, but it's typified by the breed of conservatism that has long been prevalent in the rural West: essentially libertarian and generally happy to let you and your beliefs alone so long as you don't impinge on them and theirs (while the consequences of such impingements can be dire, I much prefer this to the holier-than-thou, "Big Brother" religious conservatives in other parts of the country). While it's hardly an untouched wilderness (ranching and, at higher elevations, logging have taken their toll), nature is still a much more visible presence than civilization. Wildlife is certainly present, though as is so often the case in deserts it is not usually readily obvious (I have yet to see anything larger or more spectacular than a deer, but while doing some recon work today I came across some fresh tracks of what I'm fairly certain was a cougar, though coyotes or bobcats are possibilities as well). More impressive is the landscape, which is absolutely littered with sheer cliffs, jagged badlands, looming spires of rock, river valleys, and seemingly endless mountains (watching the sin set over the Ochocos is nothing short of stunning). It's a complete 180 from the Southern California half of my summer, of course, but there are much worse places to be stuck for six weeks. Hopefully this has convinced you all to come visit me between now and mid-September; the region's economy and I would both be happy to see you...

Waking up from California Dreaming

It's sad but true: all good things must come to an end, and my California foray is no exception. The last week or two since my last post have been nothing if not eventful. There was the end of the course and the farewell to Santa Barbara. There was the drive with Graeme and Phil up the Big Sur and through Monterey (We saw a condor!!!). There were a few days with new friends in San Francisco and a few more with old friends in Sacramento. Now I'm back in the Bay Area for this trip's final hurrah: my best friend's wedding. It's been a wild month or so, and perhaps I will try and sum it all up later on once I'm safely ensconced back in the Pacific Northwest (though don't expect anything too soon: my next tour of duty is Eastern Oregon, where I will not have any Internet access for at least the first few days). Whatever I get out of it in the long run, it's certainly been one of the busiest and most fun summers I've ever had. As always, you can check out my pictures on my Picasa site. Enjoy, and stay tuned for my dispatches from the middle of nowhere!