GSA in Portland Sunday


Wow, what a day. It began very early, with a couple hundred geologists waiting at the Pioneer Square stop for a train that took an hour to arrive; with a talk at 11, I had plenty of slack, but others had to scramble for cabs. Somebody forgot that not many people want to ride around downtown before sunup on Sunday morning!

My talk on use of plastic media in models went well I think. Doing it led to my understanding the benefits of plastic media much better, and lots of attendees echoed my statement that "quartz sand destroys things." That's one of the reasons a lot of homebrew stream tables fall into disrepair; the pumps and other moving parts are ruined by sand.

Callen Bentley, of NOVA Geoblog (and Emriver Em2 owner) made a point of snagging me after my talk and showing off his LRRD hat. Very nice of him.

Afterwards I met with Pete Klingeman of Oregon State. Pete oversees the Em2 model we donated to RRNW last year, and they were kind enough to loan it to us for this conference; Pete did us the huge favor of delivering it.

We were swamped at the exhibit during the first night happy hour. I don't think 30 seconds passed without a visitor. It's so cool to see the bright young faces of students, and see them dig the model so much. A lot of interest from faculty, and plenty of compliments. Positive vibes that make all the hard work worth it.

Last night I shared an elevator with Reds Wolman; a brush with geomorphological greatness.

Cara arrives to night and my wife Kate later tomorrow, we'll have a great meeting.

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