New York Geology and Spies

Got back late last night from New York, where we spent the entire day looking at rocks covering the Precambrian Age to the Devonian. We started by leaving at 4:30 am, and hit our first stop at about 6:00 am over near White Hall. From there, we went to a place called Lester's Garden, which featured Stromatolites, near the base of the Cambrian. From there, we went to a site with black shales, then up the column to more Cambrian, Ordivician, Silurian and Devonian, seeing various fossiliferous limestones, shales, and sand stones. We found a lot of fossils in some sites. One of them was essentially an entire reef, entirely made up of fossils. I collected some great samples of coral and crinoids. We ended our trip over near the Adirondacks and Catskills. There's something great about New York, at least the area that I've been in. We used to have a lake house in the Adirondacks, which we sold several years ago. The terrain is very different from Vermont in some ways. There's no large mountains like Vermont has, in some areas, with smaller hills and lower areas. The way that houses and fields are arranged, it's got a very cool feel to it. Maybe I'll return someday.

Spring is officially here. The snow is finally melting off of our lawn, and the Corps of Cadets have changed into their Summer Bees, which are short sleeve White top uniforms with blue trousers, a change from the long sleeve blue tops and trousers. The snow's gone down there as well, as well as everywhere else that I've gone. There's still some snow in banks in the shadows, but now that the temperature is getting higher and the days are getting longer. It's great to be able to go outside in a tee shirt, even though it's about fifty degrees. Still
better than sub zero temps. It also means that the road is full of mud and ruts, which makes me hate the road more than ever, just because it's a pain to drive on, all the time. Hopefully, it's on the way out soon.

I've been recently watching a show called Alias, created by JJ Abrams, who also did LOST, another show that I've been watching. This guy has talant, and he's really going to be going places. The show's pretty good, although I think that I like Lost a little more, although this one certainly makes up for it in action and a highly structured storyline. Abrams is going to be directing Mission Impossible 3, and given some of the material that I've seen him direct, I think that he'll be good for it. I've also been thinking: He should direct the third Bourne movie. That would be awesome.

For a little while now, I've been noticing how out of shape that I'm getting. The Grand Canyon trip was pretty brutal at times, going down and up, but I've also gained a little weight, and while that's not a bad thing, I'm not terribly happy about it. So I need to get out more. The Norwich Climbing Club is not really meeting anymore since on of the leaders has been kicked out, and I haven't been climbing in a while. I went for a run this morning, no more than a mile, probably a little more and I got out of breath pretty badly on the way back. I'm going to try and do that more now. I think that it's a little much to hope that I'll run in the mornings, but I'm going to see if I can do that. Maybe talk with a friend or two of mine, and find out when they're working out in the gym.

Just got really good news, my friend Eric's coming over for a bit. Haven't seen him in forever.