Dave Schumaker

I'm alive! Actually, there was never any doubt as to whether or not I was alive, but as far as this blog is concerned, I have been dead for the past month. It was a combination of things: finals in school, then the week long research trip, then time to laze around, then lack of ambition to actually even write anything in the first place.

So, for those of you who still check this web site, I believe an update is in order.

The first week of June saw a few of my fellow classmates, a professor and myself take an excursion through the Southwestern United States. There were two main stops on our trip, the first was at a place called Fossil Creek in Arizona, and the second was at Lake Powell in Utah.

At Fossil Creek, our task was to characterize the water level of the creek before they returned the full flow of the river back into its stream channel (which happened this past weekend). Fossil Creek originates from a spring that has high concentrations of calcium carbonate within it. This eventually precipitates out and forms large travertine dams across the creek. With the full flow of the creek restored (something like 90% of the water that was supposed to flow through the creek was diverted for hydroelectric power), it is anticipated that these dams will build at enormous rates.

A fellow student who attended the trip with us is going to go back and take measurements of the water levels and dam heights in the future and compare them. We'll be able to come up with some interesting calculations of how much CaCO₃ is precipitating out of the water.

An interesting side note: On our first day at Fossil Creek, we had an unhappy encounter with some locals (who aren't too happy about the stream restoration project that is going on here. This is mainly because a large group of researchers came in and poisoned the river, to kill an invasive species of small mouth bass in order to give an endangered species that lives there a chance). We parked in a small lot and one of the students with us from Northern Arizona University went across a bridge to talk with some people in a power plant located along the stream. They work for the power company that owns the treacherous dirt road up to the dam and we were getting permission to drive up it the next day.

While he is gone, a local driving a pickup pulls into the parking lot and gets out. "That there's private property!" he says. We kind of just nod our heads. We weren't doing anything wrong, and there was really no reason to fear this man in a ripped up tank top, large beer belly and a dubious haircut (okay, it was a mullet). A pristine picture of a redneck! Who am I to judge though?

"Hey! That's private property!" He said again, obviously oblivious to the fact that we were ignoring him.

Our professor, Leonard, tried to explain away the situation, "We're University Researchers here doing a study."

The man takes a moment to ponder this.

"Study? Are you going to study why they turned the river black and killed all the fish?" Ouch. Then he continued.

"I'm from Strawberry," he replied. Strawberry is the town near Fossil Creek. "And you know what I think? I think you should take you, and your University Research and get the fuck out of my town!"

Oh man. We hit a wrong button with this dude. He proceeded to walk back to his truck, throwing every imaginable swear word and insult at us. Then he sped away. Excellent! "Welcome to Arizona!" I thought. Thankfully there were no other incidents on the trip.

We spent about 2 full days at Fossil Creek (and checked out some amazingly awesome swimming holes along the creek and below the dam itself) and then spent the rest of the week in Utah, trudging around Lake Powell (as well as boating in it).

In Utah, we helped out a student working on his PhD thesis to determine erosion rates of the sandstone around Lake Powell. It was quite interesting, and we took quite a bit of measurements within natural and artificial (due to the building of roads and such) stream channels that provide an excellent outdoor laboratory to determine these rates and what is effecting them.

I also found a potential senior thesis project for myself out there, mapping and dating relic Colorado River sediments located on terraces around Lake Powell. This can be used to come up with fairly precise incision rates of the Colorado River. It's quite exciting stuff in my opinion. I may even get a chance to fly out to New Hampshire in order to prepare the samples I collected (which are currently at MIT) and learn about dating methods. Sadly, these dating methods won't help me when it comes to dealing with females.

Anyway, the time is quite late and I should go to bed. I'll have to post more later!

This month has been horribly busy with all sorts of school work.

Last weekend, our volcanology class took a field trip to Northern California. Pictures are here. I also filmed a video of some of our antics in the snow. It's a 5mb download.

The trip ended up being one of the best geology field trips I've ever had in a class. Got to explore a bunch of lava tubes and was just an all around great trip, with a great group of people. Of course there was the near death experience of a bullet going off in our camp fire one night (evidentially there was a bullet that was buried in a pile of pine needles that I threw on the fire).

Despite all of us standing around the campfire, the only casualty was a wine bottle sitting on a small table that had an entrance and exit hole (where no one happened to be standing)! Thank goodness.

I have a HUGE lecture final in Petrology tomorrow that I don't feel too prepared for. Just anxious to get it over with. The petrology lab examination is on Thursday and Volcanology final on Wednesday night.

Almost finished with my last two papers as well.

Next week I am going to Utah and Arizona with a professor and a few fellow students for a research trip. Hopefully that will give me some ideas to work on for my senior thesis.

And when I return from the trip, I will be able to move into a new room! Oh yes!

I usually handle stress quite well. I've always been quite a laid back individual and things don't usually get to me. Lately though, I think stress is beating the crap out of me. My stomach has hurt this whole week (I initially thought I was getting sick) and I've had some fairly horrid headaches.

I think it's a combination of things that are just hitting me at the same exact time: the amount of school work the next 3 weeks, shitty financial situation (and school DEFINITELY isn't conducive to making it better at the moment) and various people. I've had A LOT on my mind lately and really no way to let it out or vent. Not sure why I keep all this bottled up inside me. It's definitely not healthy.

Anyway, I leave for a field trip to Mendicino tomorrow night to look at soils (oh yay).

Tomorrow afternoon is the College of Science and Engineering Student Research Showcase. Something like 150 students from the college will be showing off posters of their work. I've spent to past 3 days designing mine and printed it out today. It's 3 feet by 4 feet! But it is an AWESOME thing to behold. The first real poster that I've made for one of these events (these poster presentations are a big thing in science for some reason).

Next week is a massive field trip. 4 days up to the Lassen Volcanic National Park. I'm definitely looking forward to that. I fell like it's the culmination of this whole year. Definitely a fun group of people too.

Here are some random (but VIVID) dreams I've had the past few nights:

*Tuesday Night - Family was on a vacation to Mexico City for some reason. We were staying in some swanky resort in the (tropical?) mountains around the city and looking down into the heavy smog (evidentially, it has atrocious air). Anyway, Michelle wanted to go shopping in town, so I offered to go with her. So we drove... A SHOPPING CART. Yes, we drove a shopping cart into town.

Where we passed a large commune of gay and lesbian punk rockers who left America to escape persecution. Bizarre, I know. But it gets better! We decide to visit the commune and see they are trying to live in a very environmentally friendly way. They have large compost piles. I walk up to see how their compost is doing (err... no clue why, perhaps its related to geology somehow?) and find that they are decomposing material by covering it with BATTERY ACID. Weird.

Anyway, I don't remember the rest of it.

*Wednesday Night - Dream 1: I was looking for a new apartment or place to live. For some reason, I decided to live in Beverly Hills (yet still go to school at SFSU?) on this small street with a bunch of movie stars. I found an awesome little mansion and called my parents to have them buy it for me. When they told me no, I threatened to never talk to them again! Weird!

Dream 2: Someone discovered this weird creature called a "mind worm" (I think I've played too much Alpha Centauri in my life...) that crawls inside your head if you have a tumor and EATS AWAY your brain tumors. Apparently it's perfectly safe. Of course, the only way to know if you have a brain tumor is if these mind worms crawl after you. They smell them or something. But they crawl after you and enter through your nose!

So in my dream, apparently EVERYONE had brain tumors, because everyone I know was telling me about their mind worms and how I should "get some." Then I remember running down the street with this "herd" of worms squirming after me... wanting to eat my brain basically. WEIRD.

I honestly think there is something in the water I drink. Or maybe it's the stress? I also have a hunch that a lack of sleep (I've been sleeping 5-6 hours a night lately! Ack) contributes to these crazy dreams.

Can't wait to go to sleep tonight!

Anyway, until next time.

I was up in Sacramento this past weekend for the California State University's Student Research Competition as a finalist in the Physical and Mathematical Sciences category. 190 students representing 23 different schools were participating! Pretty awesome event overall.

Anyway, we each had 10 minutes to present a Powerpoint Presentation and talk about our research topics. My presentation, entitled "Mapping the existence and extent of mid-crustal reflectors in the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California" (It's an unwritten rule in science to have the longest possible title in the world. Longer titles evidentially means you are cooler), was completely rock solid.

It was very well put together, designed great and flowed well too. I even had humor interjected in parts and the judges on my panel were laughing! Plus, it was actually fairly interesting (it has to do with earthquakes). I completed the presentation in EXACTLY 10 minutes, right as the moderator held up the sign for me to stop speaking. The judges then proceeded to ask me some questions and I had no problems answering them. In short, I knew my stuff!

After checking out the competition in my category (2 physics majors and 3 mathematicians, plus myself... a dirty geologist), I figured I had the competition in the bag. People were also telling me afterwards how much they liked my presentation too.

Anyway, Lockheed Martin sponsored a few of the science and engineering categories (and put up prize money for the winners), including mine. Both judges on my panel were theoretical physicists, one of whom works for Lockheed Martin.

So fast forward to the awards ceremony the next day. Second place went to one of the physics students, whose research delt with modeling various lasers. Awesome I thought. I knew for a fact that I did way better than he did! Then they call the name for first place. "Funny," I thought to myself, "that name they just called didn't sound like 'Dave.'"

Nope, it was the other physics major! Gah! I guess that's what I get for being so cocky, but in all honesty I don't understand what went wrong, or what their selection criteria was. I was quite surprised, as were a number of other people. It was absolutely ridiculous.

Then again, I guess it would make sense that Lockheed Martin, the biggest military weapons manufacturer in the world (and as a result, the biggest exporter of death and destruction), is going to like someone's research that could potentially have military applications (lasers!) over my research that has practical applications in using earthquakes to map/locate FUTURE earthquake hazards.

So yeah, I'm somewhat sour. Then again though, I did make it all the way to the finals and got to represent my school in my category. So at the very least, that is still quite an accomplishment.

This just means I should start new research this summer, and be ready to take the competition next year.

Yay for universal internet access! I'm currently at a hotel in Sacramento and running my old laptop.

The CSU Student Research Competition is tomorrow and it looks like it's going to be pretty big. A few people from SF State, including the Dean of Graduate Studies were here tonight. We all had dinner together and then practiced our presentations in front of each other.

We received quite a bit of valuable feedback and some suggestions. So now I'm cleaning up a few things in my presentation and running through it a few times before tomorrow.

I initially ran through my presentation last night with Meghan. It was 13 minutes in length. Cutting the explanation of certain things today, I got it down to 10 minutes exactly (which is the requirement).

Now to commit the rest of it to memory!

We'll see how it goes! Stay tuned. :)

Bear with me as my website undergoes schizophrenia while I try to design a new look for it in my spare time. In the meantime, enjoy this amazingly boring... blue.

Before I begin, I checked out this webpage using Safari (Apple program) and it basically looked like poo. Trying to code for all sorts of different browsers that don't support standards gets quite frustrating. Of course my webpage doesn't even pass a basic HTML validator test by W3C.org. I'll have to get this in order soon.

Anyway, onto more interesting things!

On Friday night, Meghan took Michelle, David and I rock climbing. That was a blast as always. Michelle and David had a lot of fun and want to go back sometime. Michelle and David did better than I did the last time I went out. Definitely impressive! It made me pretty happy to see them do so well and like it a lot too. Watching Meghan was just awesome too. She knows how to tear up those walls. She's a regular spider, or maybe a mountain goat? Maybe something more flattering, such as a... cliff-hopping penguin? Right.... Anyway, we brought the digital camera along also and documented the event. Check out the pics!

I helped David conduct a number of surveys for his senior thesis on Friday and Saturday. This involved sitting outside of a grocery store and asking people if they'd like to take a survey on recycling. A lot of interesting people and we seemed to average about 1 survey every 5 minutes or so, which isn't bad at all.

Of course there were a few naturally angry people who automatically thought we were soliciting donations for money. One guy stormed off saying "Recycling? Bah! One day it's save the trees, another it's for the whales. Now it's about recycling!" I noticed he was wearing a San Francisco Giants hat and briefly thought of telling him how much his baseball team sucks.

Other news:

• Student Research Competition in Sacramento on Friday - I think I have my presentation completely done. However it's about 20 slides that have to be explained in 10 minutes. I might have to cut some things out, but I'm not sure what just yet. However, I feel very confident about what I have to say and think I can win my section.
• Paper due in Quaternary Geology on Wednesday. This paper was based on a weekend field trip we did at the beginning of April. As luck would have it, I've misplaced my field notebook that contains all the information I wrote down while we were on the trip. Gah!
• The College of Science and Engineering at SFSU is having a Student Research Showcase on Friday, May 6. I'm entering my project I did for the Southern California Earthquake Center into it (which is the same project I'm presenting in Sacramento). $500 for first place! We'll see if I can pull that off. That'd be some excellent funds for New Zealand.

Anyway, the time is nigh to go to bed. Until next time!

I'm not sure what's gotten into me lately or where I'm finding mass quantities of energy (it must be all those carbohydrates from the tons of pasta I eat), but I walked to school today. All the way from my house!

It's just about 3 miles exactly. Then, I decided to walk home from school tonight. That is 6 miles of walking I've done today! It only takes about 45 minutes to walk that distance though, which the bus sometimes takes that long anyway, once you factor in time waiting at the bus stop.

Anyway, since Monday (when I first walked home from school, plus my late night adventure), I've walked or ran a total of 20 miles!

I even have ambitions to walk to (and from) school tomorrow as well. Another 6 miles! Perhaps even a run in the afternoon and then Michelle, David, Meghan and I are going rock climbing at the gym. This has definitely been an atheletic sort of week for me.

Perhaps I'm feeling guilty for all the junk food that I've been eating. Or perhaps I have some subconcious desire to get into shape for later this summer, when I may climb Mount Shasta with Meghan and her dad. Either way, it's definitely been perfect weather to take advantage of this. I'm thrilled!

Anyway, I have a quiz to study for in the morning. Hopefully tomorrow, I'll get around to writing about Dan's visit this weekend and posting some pictures.

Alright, I downloaded a theme from another website and heavily modified it to get the interesting look you see now. I suppose it is still somewhat bland, but at least this time our whole page doesn't look like it is in constant mourning for someone/something.

After I get the theme for the blog working properly, I will most likely move on to re-theming the whole site in this fashion.

However, my sister still says this looks rather boring and bland. I'm not sure how I can spruce it up... (figure out a way to add more graphics I guess)

A lot happened this weekend... but before I get to that, I guess I should start off by saying (especially according to other people), that I'm "pretty damn lucky to be alive or uninjured." And I definitely owe David and Michelle A LOT. This all happened last night (and caused me to miss my Tuesday petrology class for the FOURTH WEEK IN A ROW!).

Anyway, my roommates decided to go to a bar in the Mission. I haven't spent much time in the Mission district, but regardless, I thought it'd be fun. After a few drinks, I wasn't feeling that social or wanting to spend much more money, so I decided to leave at 12AM. I told everyone goodbye and walked up the street to take the BART subway home.

Since my monthly bus pass only covers transit within the city/county of San Francisco, I had to get off at the Balboa Park stop (which is one stop short of where I ultimately wanted to be). I haven't had much experience with the Balboa Park train/bus station though, so catching buses from there has been fairly confusing for me.

While waiting at a bus stop, I see a bus pull up across the street. I recognize it as the "91 Owl" (Owl designates that it's an all-night running bus, whereas all other bus service in the city ends at 12:30AM). I know that the 91 has a stop down the street from my house, so I cross the street to board it.

The driver was still waiting to begin her shift but let me on anyway. We started chatting and she asked where I was going. I told her where my house was and she was surprised and said she wouldn't be there for at least an hour (because the Owl buses run at longer intervals and have larger routes to cover at night)! She told me to run across the street to catch the next bus, as it would take me the way I was hoping, right by San Francisco State, where I could catch another 91 that would be closer.

I get off the bus and run across the street just in time to see a "29" turn the corner. I recognized that the 29 is one of the buses that stops across the street from my school, so I went ahead and boarded it, without asking where he was ultimately going. Since it was dark, I couldn't really see, but after about 15 minutes of driving, I'm the only one left on the bus. He finally pulls over, opens the doors and says "last stop!"

Err, what? That's bizarre. I don't recognize this neighborhood at all and have absolutely NO clue where I was. It's now 12:32AM. Most of the buses have stopped running too. Oh yeah, and I don't have money for a cab.

"Really awesome situation you got yourself into Dave." I thought. Anyway, I could see the lights of downtown San Francisco and the Bay Bridge quite a ways off in the distance. I figured I'd just start walking towards it.

After a few minutes, I crossed by a small park. The name of the park was the Bayview Playground.

Holy Crap.

I was right smack in the middle of Bayview-Hunters Point. Basically the worst neighborhood in San Francisco. If something bad happens in San Francisco, it happens in Bayview. It's a mixture of unfortunate demographics and the location, as an old naval base is nearby and has had problems with toxic, as well as radioactive waste. Even Wikipedia states: "Residential development is slowed by the active industrial sector of the neighborhood, the last industrial area remaining in San Francisco. One of the poorest and most crime-ridden parts of the city, it has also been one of the few neighborhoods in San Francisco where gentrification has not occurred."

Wonderful! I immediately called my sister, knowing that I'd probably wake her up. I nearly wanted to cry and desperately needed someone to talk to. She didn't answer, so I left her a message.

Whatever, the only thing I could do was hope for the best and just trudge on. There was no way I was going to stay in one place. So I started walking. A few minutes later, my sister called. Evidentially, she had a "bad feeling" about my phone call (I swear she has some form of ESP) and check her messages, despite being asleep.

I told her my situation and where I was. She went on the internet and brought up Google Maps to try and tell me where I should go. I explained to her where I was and in which direction I was headed. Evidentially I was going in a totally different direction than what I thought, so she directed me the right way.

I told her thanks and that I should go... besides, I'd like to be able to hear if someone was coming up behind me. I also didn't think it was very smart to be chatting loudly on a cell phone through that neighborhood. She said she wanted to try and pick me up, but she'd call back.

Onward I walked.

She called back a few minutes later and told me to keep walking up Third Street. She woke David up and they were both coming to get me. It'd take about 30 minutes for them to drive across the Bay from Berkeley (about 15 miles). All I could do was keep on walking.

I passed by some very shady neighborhoods, quite a few dive bars with a lot of people milling about, and a lot of industrial parks as well. A lot of areas weren't very well lit, so it was hard to make out street signs... or even people in the dark. Definitely frightening. I was scared out of my mind, but I tried to just walk confidently and look alert.

Eventually, David and Michelle called. They were in the city, but they too were lost! The roads definitely do some crazy stuff in this part of the city. Finally, they were on Third Street, still a ways up from me.

They picked me up around 16th and Third. It was 1:45am and I had traveled 3.1 miles from where I started.

Oh man, I was so happy to see them. I was definitely shook up about the whole situation as well. They took me all the way home and I walked in the door just after 2AM.

All day today, I've been thinking about how bad it could have potentially been. One of my room mates told me of an engineering project they did at Hunters Point in broad daylight. He claims they had bullet proof bests and armed security! (Of course they probably were also loaded with lots of expensive equipment)

Definitely an emotionally taxing experience, thinking about what could have possibly happened.

Anyway, here is a map of all the locations. There are a total of 5 red dots that tell you where everything is/happened. You can view that here.