Triassic

Wow, what an amazing area. Rob was in town this week .We took the opportunity to drive a couple of hours south of SLC to a bouldering area called Triassic. The area was developed in 2002 and is covered with boulders like this one....sandstone overhangs and narley topouts. This is a V5 called 'The Bad' just to the right of it is "The Good"- V4 and just to the left is 'The Ugly'-V6. This boulder was a bucket of fun mixed up in sticky sandstone goodness.

And rolling on

So the best thing about SLC = snowboarding in October!

Another shot from San Fran. I'm-a-digging the street scenes right now. Hope you like it.

Still here

Took this shot in San Fran last winter. It's not as nearly as cool as the pic I found of Snarkhunt while digging through the album - but at least it has more class.

More TOFU = Better Snowboarding

Our planet has experianced the warmest winter in the 105 years during which records have been kept. According to James Hansen, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute for space studies, "If further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees celsius, we'll likly see changes that make Earth a different planet from the one we know. The last time it was that warm was....about 3 million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 80 feet higher than today."
Fossil fuels - used in coal-burning power plants and gasoline-and-diesel burning cars and trucks top that list or problems. But other factors contribute:

- Population growth: 6.5 billion people- double the population of 1965 - now draw our worlds finite resources

- Higher Standards of Living: air conditioning, cars, air travel, and other conveniences require fossil fuels.

- Diet: as incomes rise, people replace wheat and rice with meat and dairy foods.

What do burgers and cheese have to do with climate change?
Between global warming and a lack of land, water, and other resources, the earth simply can't cope with a worldwide jump in meat and dairy consumption. In 2006, a report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned:
"Livestock's contribution to enviromental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is large. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency."
Livestock not only pollutes our water, air, and soil, said the FAO, it's also "responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions...a higher share than transport."
Cattle belch out huge volumes of methane, a gas that's 23 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Livestock manure is a source of two-thirds of man-made nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that's 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Growning corn, soybeans, and hay for livestock feed uses up about half of all U.S. fertilizer, generating large amounts of nitrous oxide. In Brazil, an astounding 70 percent of onetime forest land is being used as pasture and to grow animal feed.
Worldwide, the 334 million acres of trees that are cut and burned each year account for 25 percent of all the carbon that enters the atmosphere.
Eating less meat and dairy products is a small step that each of us could take to help slow global warming.

Michael F Jacobson Ph.D.
Executive Director
Center for Science in the Public Interest

Cold Swim

This dude went swiming while I was wearing a down jacket.
It must have been 25 degrees outside. He said the water was probably 40something degrees.
Nuts!

How Fast?

Spaceghost Coast to Coast

Just got back from a 12 day trip out west interviewing at various Emergency Medicine programs. Started in Tucson, then drove to Sacramento, Fresno, San Fran, and finally Portland. For the next few posts you'll probably be seeing a bunch of pics from the west coast because it...well, more prettier. This is a shot I took in San Fran. You'll also probably be seeing a lot of shots with weird wide perspective, because it's well cooler.
Leaving for salt lake/Denver Tuesday. Wish me luck.

Charleston