My desktop

I have the best husband ever. Mike decided awhile ago that he would be in charge of picking the desktop on my account, and I thought I would share some of the gems that he's shared with me.

This was the first one:


Mike really loves star wars.


This is after I told him about a PS110B class discussion about the age of the earth.
Mike teases me that I have a crush on Richard Anderson, the actor, who is a silver fox. He was Macgyver and Jack O'Neill in Stargate: SG1, a television series that Mike and I watch (I know, we're both huge nerds).

This is what my background is right now. I completely agree.

I just thought I'd share one of my life's many little joys.

Haircut

So, I got my hair cut. I've been deliberating about just getting a trim or cutting it all off since I made the appointment a month ago. I decided on a trim (obviously, see picture below), but I still wanted to post a picture. Hillary is the best--I can't resist a plug for her salon, Haven. If you're looking for a place to get your hair cut, or colored, or your makeup done, or pretty much anything else cosmetic, you should check it out. Also, my head looks huge in the picture. Huger than normal. My poor future kids--me with the big head, Mike with the big head--they have no chance. However, at least as a family, we will be proportional to each other. Also, I have followed in the footsteps of my wonderful sister-in-laws before me and bought the Phytodéfrisant. It's all I dreamed of and more.
Oh. Uhg. Uhg, uhg, uhg. There was a spider on the wall by the computer and I just killed it. So gross. Gross. I had a napkin and I squished it. Ewww. I hate it when Mike's gone and can't kill gross critters for me.

Little bit proud

I'm a little bit proud of myself. I can type faster than Mike, according to typingtest.com. He trumps me in all things computer, but now I have this. My highest was 64wpm (94% accuracy) and Mike's was 48wpm (100% accuracy). Granted, I took the test a bunch more than Mike did (he took it once), so maybe the results are somewhat skewed, but still. To celebrate, I will post a video of one of my favorite Flight of the Conchords songs (not related to typing- I just want to try posting a video).

My thesis

So, I wanted to blog today (better than writing test questions), but I couldn't think of anything. I kept thinking to myself "If you're not going to work, you should be working on your thesis." So then it occurred to me- why not blog about what I'm doing for my thesis?
Most people don't know what I'm doing, mostly because when people ask me, I give the shortest answer possible to avoid boring them. Not that I think it's boring, no way. It's just that if you're not into geology and all the lingo, things can get pretty confusing and convoluted pretty fast, which leads to boredom. Anyway, I figure if I type it, you can skip over it without worrying about being polite and trying/pretending to listen/understand.
For starters:
This is zebra dolomite. It's pretty obvious where the name came from. However, despite their optical differences, the black and white layers are indeed the same mineral, dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2).
This is a close-up image of the black dolomite. It was taken with an SEM (scanning electron microscope) and the entire image is maybe one millimeter across. There's lots of stuff in the black dolomite that's not dolomite. All those white spots are different minerals, like quartz, feldspar, rutile, anhydrite, apatite, and a bunch of others. Those minerals are detrital, which means that as the black dolomite was forming by precipitating from seawater, a bunch of other little particles were carried by rivers and streams into the ocean and they fell out into the newly precipitated black dolomite.
This is a photomicrograph (that's some of our fancy lingo) of the white dolomite. Most of the white spots on here are dust or scratches, not so much other minerals. So, the white dolomite has virtually no detritus in it. Here's why I think that is: The black dolomite is primary and the white dolomite secondary. So we had a block of solid black (it's actually dark grey) dolomite that was then altered by some sort of fluid. As a part of my thesis, I'm trying to determine the hydrothermal fluid that altered and recrystallized the black dolomite into the white.
These are tiny little nanocrystals of apatite. They fill fractures throughout the black dolomite and are also found along the border between the white and black dolomite. There are two hypotheses I'm examining so far as where the apatite came from in the dolomite. The first is that it's detrital, the second is that it precipitated in cracks when there was just the black dolomite, and the third (whoops, guess there are three) is that they crystallized from the same fluid that altered the dark dolomite to the white. I hope it's three, personally, because if that's the case, then I could get an age at which the black dolomite was altered.
This is just a little tiny inclusion in the black. It's rutile (TiO2), a mineral that is commonly used as a pigment in paints and makeup. The flaky stuff to either side is some kind of clay.
I haven't explained too much about my thesis yet, I guess. Just showing off some cool pictures. So what I'm doing boils down to a couple main objectives. 1) I want to compile a detailed microscopic study of the dolomite and its inclusions using x-ray crystallography, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy (the TEM is a cool cool microscope- its resolution is so high that you can see planes of atoms). 2) Look at the difference between the zebra dolomite in my localities compared to other locations throughout the Basin and Range and the world. That's something that I forgot to mention. There are lots of zebra dolomites, all over the world and others in Utah, however, other zebra dolomites are associated with precious or heavy metal ore deposits (Pb, Zn, Au, Ag) or oil and the ones I'm studying are not. So hopefully, someday, I will know why. 3) Interpret the data in terms of an origin of the fluid that altered the black dolomite. So far, with other zebra dolomites, this hasn't really been done. It's generally agreed that their origin is hydrothermal, however, there is a lot of disagreement as to what the source fluid could be. Figuring out an origin, or at least constraining one, will be hard, especially if isotopic data is ambiguous.
That took a long time. And it's just a very rough idea what I'm doing. The details get even more boring. To other people, not me. I love this stuff.
PS- Mike and I are moving!! To a house!!

Conner's Graduation

Well, Conner graduated from high school. With more renown than any of his other siblings, which he is very proud of. No, I'm really proud of him, too. He was valedictorian, went to the national science fair, and was the most valuable defender on the soccer team. He'll be coming to BYU in the fall, on a full scholarship, and it occurred to me the other day that it will be very cute that he and I will have a semester of college together. It would be two (because I won't graduate until next August), but he plans on leaving for his mission after his first semester (his birthday is in December). So I'm proud of him for that, too.
His graduation ended up being really nostalgic for me. It's my 5 year reunion this summer, so I was thinking about when I graduated from high school, anyway. It was fun to remember my senior year- I had an awesome time. I wish we had our scanner software up and going, so I could put some of those pictures up. Perhaps soon. Anyway, what I remember most about my graduation was, I think, singing in the choir and combined orchestra performing Mack Wilberg's "Come Thou Fount." That was a neat experience. So was the all-night party. American Fork High now does them at Boondocks, but back in my day, it was just at the school. So much awesome karaoke.
This was Conner giving his 2 minute speech as valedictorian. Because the graduating class was so big (~500) and they had four salutatorians, all student speeches were cut down to just 2 minutes each. He did a really good job.
The Kiddo and my parents. After this shot, I was taking some of just him and his diploma, which he was holding upside down. I corrected him before I realized how awesome it would be to have a picture of him, all adorned, holding his diploma upside down like he was possibly illiterate or something. Really wish I hadn't told him to fix it.
Big sister all proud of little brother. Awww.
Me, Claire, and Jeanette all had a little brother who graduated this year. Although they let us down a little bit by not being all best friends, like we were, we were all proud. So, here we are, 5 years later, at another AF graduation, still best friends. I love them so much. Oh, and yes, Jeanette and I are totally wearing the same shirt in different colors. Definitely bought them separately from one another.
Yay for friends! It took us a couple tries to get a good silly shot, but in the end, I think we emerged triumphant. Also, I think it would be awesome if someone that didn't know us analyzed our personalities based on this one photo.