Okay, I'm a little drunk while writing this one. By a little drunk I mean about a jumbo margarita and 4 beers drunk, but we'll get through this. Thank you spell check! Sorry this won't be the most artistic writing I've ever done, but I'm trying, all right.
I'm done with college, like for real done. I've finished my last class and have a job lined up. Cool right? Sad too.
Right now I'm sitting in an empty dorm room, Forest 103, on the Southern Oregon University campus. I don't have the keys to the room. It's not even mine anymore. My car is outside ready to head back to Utah. Fully packed, but without a sober driver to operate it. My room consists of a laptop, a laptop case, a hat and my cell phone charger plugged into my cell phone. I used a friend's keys to let myself back into Forest hall and put the keys under her door.
Actually that's a lie. I put the keys under the wrong door, but then I realized this and dug them out with my car keys (this was a process) and got them under the right door finally.
What a journey this has been and what a fantastic ending. College was one of, if not the best experience in my life. Field camp was quite possibly the best class of all of college. It was so appropriate to wait until the end to attend it.
I met so many interesting people here. People from Riverside to Seattle to Tennessee to "Northwest P-A." The world is so huge, it's astounding to me just how little I know about it. It's also slightly frightening just how little I want to know about it. Now I don't mean this in a geologic sense. I want to know as much as I can about our planet, but culturally, I like the place I call home.
I don't like that you're likely thinking I'm a sinner for drunk-blogging, I don't like that it's cold for 6 months out of the year, but I think the general trend of my last few blogs is that Utah is a great place.
Enough about that. I'm going to miss Ashland. It's a crappy town, there is nothing open passed 10pm besides the bars, which I didn't really go to as often as some of my peers. The people here are all a little off. Maybe I'm not going to miss Ashland, but I had the greatest group of 30 people that I got to spend the last 35 days with. Some of them were a pain in the ass to work with, but nearly every one of them was an awesome person who I can say I consider a friend.
Geologists are a unique breed. I don't know that anyone ever wants to be a geologist, but as an old roommate of mine said - you are just kind of born into it. It's true. I feel like I came her a geology student and I'm going back to Utah as a geologist. Maybe this is just because a professor of mine told me this, but really, it was an experience.
Some people seemed to be unhappy here. Those people are not geologists, they are earth science students. What Hilt, Four-bit, Cole and South-fork did for me was make me a geologist. It's like.. that stupid saying where having sex "makes you a man," well having geology field camp makes you a geologist.
Tomorrow I start my exodus back to Salt Lake. I'm excited though. It'll be a happy trip back. I get to see my friends who I've missed very much and hopefully be a better person. Not only did I learn a little about geology here, but I feel it was a life experience, something I can grow from.
I'll probably be back tomorrow, late evening (assuming I wake up at a reasonable hour from my empty dorm room without sheets). I can't wait. I can't wait to tell everyone details of my experience here. I suppose I could have just done that in my blog, but what's the fun in that? :)
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Contentment in transition
Right now it is 11:30 on a Friday night and I'm sitting here in the science building of a school I barely know. I've more or less finished the project that I have due at 8am tomorrow morning. I just need to add some photos and finishing touches to it. There are three other people in the room. People who I barely know, but consider friends. I'm listening to some Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and feel absolutely starved. I'm in a town in Oregon called Ashland where there is no all night diners or fast food places and I don't have a kitchen to cook anything in or anything back in my room to eat besides peanut butter sandwiches and Cheeze-Its. However I really can't think of too many times in my life when I've felt happier that I feel right now.
It's strange. I'm still 7 days away from finishing field camp. Alyssa emailed me today which made me feel a little sad and nostalgic, but I just feel like right now is kind of a point in my life where I'm finally grown up.
Earlier tonight I got on my email to check if my friend had sent me a google plus invitation and instead found a job offer from a company in my inbox. A job offer that will pay me nearly three times as much as I have ever made before at any job in my life. I emailed the man back to let him know that I am happy to accept it. I'm not exactly sure what the job will consist of. I do know that it has something to do with working on the Sevier Lake Potash deposits in Central Utah, but I'm not sure specifically what.
Another monumental thing happened tonight. As I was observing the three people who I'm in the classroom working along side I was noticing that none of them were actually working on their project. I thought I'd check my cell phone which was in my pocket and found quarters which I got back as change from purchasing a project folder today. Out of curiosity I checked to see what change I had an there in my hand lied the last quarter to my 50 state quarter collection. A tarnished and well used 2005 Denver mint California quarter. I know it sounds silly, but I have a thing for quarters. I think it stems from my Grandma who used to give me cool coins for my birthday. I still have them and they're one of the few tangible memories I have of her. My state quarter collection is something I started after her death. It was my goal to collect all 50 through normal circumstances, meaning no purchasing them on ebay or specifically requesting states as change from cashiers. To have finally completed it is just a huge life accomplishment for me.
Earlier tonight I informed my family of my job and one of my friends who happened to be on Facebook at the time, but I'm not really said anything else about it to anyone else except the people who were in the room and heard me proclaim, "Holy shit, I just got a legit job offer for XX dollars an hour from a geology company," as I read my email. My family and buddy were all very happy for me. I feel like I've come so far in the past few years, it's really exciting. Maybe I still have 7 days left here in field hell, but I'm a geologist. I never thought I'd be a geologist, I never wanted to be one, but I've ended up as one. I'm celebrating by spending my Friday night posting a blog and writing a landslide report. Sounds like what a responsible adult would do, right? However tomorrow I'm going to be at the Redwoods and Crescent City with other friends of mine. The following day I will be at Crater Lake on Mount Mazama and plan on being just sober enough to walk most of the time. Maybe I've still got some growing up to do. Hell, I'm only 25. Screw the gray hairs and Utahans that try to tell me I'm old. I've still got a lot of learning to do.
It's strange. I'm still 7 days away from finishing field camp. Alyssa emailed me today which made me feel a little sad and nostalgic, but I just feel like right now is kind of a point in my life where I'm finally grown up.
Earlier tonight I got on my email to check if my friend had sent me a google plus invitation and instead found a job offer from a company in my inbox. A job offer that will pay me nearly three times as much as I have ever made before at any job in my life. I emailed the man back to let him know that I am happy to accept it. I'm not exactly sure what the job will consist of. I do know that it has something to do with working on the Sevier Lake Potash deposits in Central Utah, but I'm not sure specifically what.
Another monumental thing happened tonight. As I was observing the three people who I'm in the classroom working along side I was noticing that none of them were actually working on their project. I thought I'd check my cell phone which was in my pocket and found quarters which I got back as change from purchasing a project folder today. Out of curiosity I checked to see what change I had an there in my hand lied the last quarter to my 50 state quarter collection. A tarnished and well used 2005 Denver mint California quarter. I know it sounds silly, but I have a thing for quarters. I think it stems from my Grandma who used to give me cool coins for my birthday. I still have them and they're one of the few tangible memories I have of her. My state quarter collection is something I started after her death. It was my goal to collect all 50 through normal circumstances, meaning no purchasing them on ebay or specifically requesting states as change from cashiers. To have finally completed it is just a huge life accomplishment for me.
Earlier tonight I informed my family of my job and one of my friends who happened to be on Facebook at the time, but I'm not really said anything else about it to anyone else except the people who were in the room and heard me proclaim, "Holy shit, I just got a legit job offer for XX dollars an hour from a geology company," as I read my email. My family and buddy were all very happy for me. I feel like I've come so far in the past few years, it's really exciting. Maybe I still have 7 days left here in field hell, but I'm a geologist. I never thought I'd be a geologist, I never wanted to be one, but I've ended up as one. I'm celebrating by spending my Friday night posting a blog and writing a landslide report. Sounds like what a responsible adult would do, right? However tomorrow I'm going to be at the Redwoods and Crescent City with other friends of mine. The following day I will be at Crater Lake on Mount Mazama and plan on being just sober enough to walk most of the time. Maybe I've still got some growing up to do. Hell, I'm only 25. Screw the gray hairs and Utahans that try to tell me I'm old. I've still got a lot of learning to do.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Summer field camp - halfway point.
Field camp is halfway over. It has been a fun experience that I will be both happy and sad to see end. It's certainly been a strange lifestyle for me.
My typical day consists of the following:
Waking up at 6:50 and forcing myself to choke down nasty cafeteria food. From here I go meet with the other geologists where we meet and get a short briefing on the day and then we hop in some crazy motorpool vans which are then taken on roads which are probably only meant for cattle. We arrive at our destination sometime around 9 and at this point we hop out and do some joyous mapping stuff which consists of walking around endless field and forests in search for rock contact changes. We use a GPS to mark these places and then continue looking for anything of significance. Around noon we stop and eat. I have brought a peanut butter (without jelly) sandwich for lunch every day so far. I'm getting quite sick of them. After this we continue the prior mapping stuff until around 4ish when we all start getting excited to go home and we get back in the motorpool vans and head back to eat some delicious cafeteria food. (Yes, after 8 hours of being in the field it's quite amazing despite tasting horrible.) After this I spend time either chatting with friends, going to get drinks or writing up reports from the information I gathered. It's fun, I guess, but it's not at the same time.
I really like that these 29 people I spend every day mapping with have become, for the most part, my friends. I realize the likelihood of me ever seeing them again after 18 more days is almost zero and that is somewhat sad because I really enjoy some of them, but it's cool being around such a unique and diverse group of people. I've really enjoyed going to the bars with them and spending days off exploring downtown Ashland and playing sports. It really reminds me of the first two years I spent in Logan. Except it just feels so much more like the real world that I see in movies and what I feel life should be like. We go out to bars and sing karaoke and we cuss at each other and we're all just friends. There's no drama of who dated or made out with who or who is a sinner for not going to church. It's just a really laid back bunch of people to be around. I can't even begin to express how different the social aspect of life here is than it is in Utah. I really like it, but sometimes I also miss my innocent Utah bubble. Despite wanting to get away from it, it is what I've known for 18 years and it's a part of me.
I finished my first project a few days ago which was in Hilt, California. This was a very intense structural mapping project in the hot sun and hilly terrain. The east coast people called them mountains, haha. The paper ended up being around 20 pages after figures and appendices. I felt so professional having written this thing, haha.
The thing I think I hate most about this place is living in college dorms. College dorms are horrible excuses for a living situation. I'd almost rather be in a tent in the woods. There is no such thing as peace and you can't be alone. There's always someone making noise. While for the social aspect of life this is good and I always have something to do, sometimes I kind of just want quiet. I also hate using what is basically a public restroom. It's kind of gross. Also the whole experience is kind of like boot camp for geologists. This may sound like an exaggeration, but it isn't. We work long hours, get back and have to interpret. This happens six days a week and on top of that we get no sleep, we eat terrible food and basically live in bunkers. I suppose I do have my own room and this is nice, but it's not like I can't hear every damn thing everyone in the rooms next to me say.
Today was a fun experience at least. We're in a new field area that is northeast of Ashland in a forest. It rained pretty hard most of the day (by Utah standards anyway) and made the entire forest drip with water. The forest was so thick that there were decomposing logs that would make up the entire forest floor in some places. After tracing a contact between Tertiary and Quaternary lava flows we needed to head back to the rendezvous point. My two partners and I were about a kilometer out in some of the thickest vegetation I've ever seen, probably about as thick as the stuff I worked in on the Oquirrh's last summer, and had about 45 minutes to get back. It was some pretty intense bush whacking to get back to the river that we would have to ford. Then we had a brilliant idea that we could use the suspended cable trolley in the area that is used to measure streamflow velocity. Unfortunately it started pouring rain at this point and there were three of us for the two seater trolley which needed a fourth person to taxi it across the stream for us. We ended up cramming in the trolley and heading back across through the rain. It was really fun. The van ride back was rather miserable as it was about 45 minutes and I was soaking wet.
Tomorrow I get to go back to the same location and continue working on my volcanic flow/stream flow hydrogeology project which will actually be used by the Medford Water Commission in their analysis of the watershed system which is used to supply all of Rogue Valley, minus Ashland, with their water. Sort of looking forward to it, however the freezing cold water is definitely not a perk. Anyway, I need to be up in about 7 hours, goodnight.
My typical day consists of the following:
Waking up at 6:50 and forcing myself to choke down nasty cafeteria food. From here I go meet with the other geologists where we meet and get a short briefing on the day and then we hop in some crazy motorpool vans which are then taken on roads which are probably only meant for cattle. We arrive at our destination sometime around 9 and at this point we hop out and do some joyous mapping stuff which consists of walking around endless field and forests in search for rock contact changes. We use a GPS to mark these places and then continue looking for anything of significance. Around noon we stop and eat. I have brought a peanut butter (without jelly) sandwich for lunch every day so far. I'm getting quite sick of them. After this we continue the prior mapping stuff until around 4ish when we all start getting excited to go home and we get back in the motorpool vans and head back to eat some delicious cafeteria food. (Yes, after 8 hours of being in the field it's quite amazing despite tasting horrible.) After this I spend time either chatting with friends, going to get drinks or writing up reports from the information I gathered. It's fun, I guess, but it's not at the same time.
I really like that these 29 people I spend every day mapping with have become, for the most part, my friends. I realize the likelihood of me ever seeing them again after 18 more days is almost zero and that is somewhat sad because I really enjoy some of them, but it's cool being around such a unique and diverse group of people. I've really enjoyed going to the bars with them and spending days off exploring downtown Ashland and playing sports. It really reminds me of the first two years I spent in Logan. Except it just feels so much more like the real world that I see in movies and what I feel life should be like. We go out to bars and sing karaoke and we cuss at each other and we're all just friends. There's no drama of who dated or made out with who or who is a sinner for not going to church. It's just a really laid back bunch of people to be around. I can't even begin to express how different the social aspect of life here is than it is in Utah. I really like it, but sometimes I also miss my innocent Utah bubble. Despite wanting to get away from it, it is what I've known for 18 years and it's a part of me.
I finished my first project a few days ago which was in Hilt, California. This was a very intense structural mapping project in the hot sun and hilly terrain. The east coast people called them mountains, haha. The paper ended up being around 20 pages after figures and appendices. I felt so professional having written this thing, haha.
The thing I think I hate most about this place is living in college dorms. College dorms are horrible excuses for a living situation. I'd almost rather be in a tent in the woods. There is no such thing as peace and you can't be alone. There's always someone making noise. While for the social aspect of life this is good and I always have something to do, sometimes I kind of just want quiet. I also hate using what is basically a public restroom. It's kind of gross. Also the whole experience is kind of like boot camp for geologists. This may sound like an exaggeration, but it isn't. We work long hours, get back and have to interpret. This happens six days a week and on top of that we get no sleep, we eat terrible food and basically live in bunkers. I suppose I do have my own room and this is nice, but it's not like I can't hear every damn thing everyone in the rooms next to me say.
Today was a fun experience at least. We're in a new field area that is northeast of Ashland in a forest. It rained pretty hard most of the day (by Utah standards anyway) and made the entire forest drip with water. The forest was so thick that there were decomposing logs that would make up the entire forest floor in some places. After tracing a contact between Tertiary and Quaternary lava flows we needed to head back to the rendezvous point. My two partners and I were about a kilometer out in some of the thickest vegetation I've ever seen, probably about as thick as the stuff I worked in on the Oquirrh's last summer, and had about 45 minutes to get back. It was some pretty intense bush whacking to get back to the river that we would have to ford. Then we had a brilliant idea that we could use the suspended cable trolley in the area that is used to measure streamflow velocity. Unfortunately it started pouring rain at this point and there were three of us for the two seater trolley which needed a fourth person to taxi it across the stream for us. We ended up cramming in the trolley and heading back across through the rain. It was really fun. The van ride back was rather miserable as it was about 45 minutes and I was soaking wet.
Tomorrow I get to go back to the same location and continue working on my volcanic flow/stream flow hydrogeology project which will actually be used by the Medford Water Commission in their analysis of the watershed system which is used to supply all of Rogue Valley, minus Ashland, with their water. Sort of looking forward to it, however the freezing cold water is definitely not a perk. Anyway, I need to be up in about 7 hours, goodnight.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Driving to Oregon
I thought it would be fun to blog about my drive to Oregon, since I never put photos in my blogs and they're always about either politics or how dating in Utah is as cool as wearing socks with sandles I thought I would try something new.
So I started in Layton and I packed my car up about as full as I could comfortably get it.
On the way there, I saw a whole bunch of Porsche's
I decided I would join them in my Hyundai.
It was mostly just because there was about 20 of them and they were hogging both left lanes, it was most obnoxious.
After a brief stop at Joe's for a BBQ which never happened due to technical assembly difficulties (believe me, having put a grill together last week I understand these difficulties all to well) I set off west on I-80. My first (and last) exciting thing to see was the Magna Smokestack, which is actually the tallest free standing structure west of the Mississippi River (really, it's true!)
Finally I arrived at the ocean.
No I'm kidding, that's actually just the Great Salt Lake.
It didn't really hit me just how long and boring of a drive this was going to be until I read this sign.
I saw some lake terraces and thought a trip to geology just wouldn't be complete without some Bonneville Terrace pictures.
Next I came across some Aragonite, however it was a freeway exit rather than the mineral.
After more driving I came to the Salt Flats. They're actually flooded in parts right now, something I'd never seen, but it was kind of cool to witness how they form. The salt from the GSL overflows into the flat basin and deposits when the water evaporates leaving behind layers of salt.
Towards the western edge I came across the "tree" of gambling. This is more representative of what the salt flats normally look like.
I chased the sunset and I almost won.
This is the only tunnel I think I've ever seen on an interstate, so I felt it necessary to document.
Along the way, as you can see in the prior photo, I hit the biggest swarm of bugs known to mankind. It was so thick that at first I thought it was raining and turned my windshield wipers on. This was not a smart idea. When I stopped in Winnemucca to get food I noticed my bumper and was absolutely amazed at the disgustingness of it.
Since Nevada is boring beyond words I actually didn't take any more photos until I got to Reno. Reno is less boring. It was about 3am and the town was alive still.
I ran from the sunrise and I almost won.
Then the fog came. The fog was thicker than any fog I had seen before in my life. Though being that in Utah fog almost never happens this probably isn't saying much.
It was pretty freaky to drive in. Give me snow any day over this crap.
I just felt this was really pretty.
I got to some junction of random state roads and needed gas, so I stopped at the only station I could find. It was incredibly expensive.
I was a little weirded out to see that they were out of two types of fuel. I'd never seen that before.
Unfortunately they were also out of regular unleaded.
However my car gets good gas mileage and I figured I had enough to get to the next town so it wasn't a huge deal. On the way there as if out of no where Mt. Shasta appeared on the horizon and was almost the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.
I stopped in the town of Mt. Shasta for fuel and a McDonalds bagel. It's a nice quaint town. The sleeping giant is amazing still. I'm fairly certain it's the biggest mountain I've ever seen in person at just over 14,100 feet. Oddly enough I didn't see Shasta Soda for sale in the gas station.
There was an interesting black volcanic looking things a little distance north of Shasta. I don't know what it is.
Yes, this is actually exactly what I think when I think of Northern California...
Except instead of "3" I think "every"
I was almost there, I could see airplane trails, likely coming from Medford. It was the first sign of actual civilization I had seen since Salt Lake City. (Reno doesn't count as I am pretty sure that they still observe an anarchy system of government)
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There were some terraced rocks with a sign that said "rocks" and I thought it was kind of funny.
Oh yay! I can almost unpack and fall asleep.
I hung my flag and declared it nap time.
The end.
Anyway, so far it has been all right. Ashland is a very different town. The mountains are kind of little. They have water that tastes like ass (not that I taste that on a regular basis) running from fountains downtown and people that get high and walk on train tracks with drums. I got some yogurt and a beer (not together of course) and I have done plenty of geology. I've made a few friends and it's really nice being around all of the diversity from out of state. I'm the only Utahan and the only Mormon. I really like it and it makes me want to leave Utah even more.
Weird - since I've been here I identify myself to people as being Mormon when they ask. Someone even insulted Mormons and I flipped him off and he was like, "Oh you're Mormon? Sorry." I never identify myself as being Mormon. I often find myself hating on Mormons. Yet for some reason being around people who are not Mormon makes me feel like it's part of what makes me who I am. Which is just the opposite of being in Utah where I feel like being indifferent to the invasive religion is part of what makes me who I am. I guess it's all just relative. My ideology, compared to many Utahan's, is rather liberal and I hate being around Mormon functions. Around normal people I feel like my ideology is, well, pretty much LDS and kind of have this sick desire to go to church or something. This kind of makes me want leave Utah also.
I wonder what Mormons are like in Oregon. They are probably still mostly unable to see anything beyond what they're force fed in church, but still, I am curious. Maybe they'd be more accepting of me.
I doubt I'll really have time to find out.
Anyway, it's a little past 11 and I really should probably sleep since I've been feeling like a zombie intermittently throughout the day since I got here.
So I started in Layton and I packed my car up about as full as I could comfortably get it.
On the way there, I saw a whole bunch of Porsche's
I decided I would join them in my Hyundai.
It was mostly just because there was about 20 of them and they were hogging both left lanes, it was most obnoxious.
After a brief stop at Joe's for a BBQ which never happened due to technical assembly difficulties (believe me, having put a grill together last week I understand these difficulties all to well) I set off west on I-80. My first (and last) exciting thing to see was the Magna Smokestack, which is actually the tallest free standing structure west of the Mississippi River (really, it's true!)
Finally I arrived at the ocean.
No I'm kidding, that's actually just the Great Salt Lake.
It didn't really hit me just how long and boring of a drive this was going to be until I read this sign.
I saw some lake terraces and thought a trip to geology just wouldn't be complete without some Bonneville Terrace pictures.
Next I came across some Aragonite, however it was a freeway exit rather than the mineral.
After more driving I came to the Salt Flats. They're actually flooded in parts right now, something I'd never seen, but it was kind of cool to witness how they form. The salt from the GSL overflows into the flat basin and deposits when the water evaporates leaving behind layers of salt.
Towards the western edge I came across the "tree" of gambling. This is more representative of what the salt flats normally look like.
I chased the sunset and I almost won.
This is the only tunnel I think I've ever seen on an interstate, so I felt it necessary to document.
Along the way, as you can see in the prior photo, I hit the biggest swarm of bugs known to mankind. It was so thick that at first I thought it was raining and turned my windshield wipers on. This was not a smart idea. When I stopped in Winnemucca to get food I noticed my bumper and was absolutely amazed at the disgustingness of it.
Since Nevada is boring beyond words I actually didn't take any more photos until I got to Reno. Reno is less boring. It was about 3am and the town was alive still.
I ran from the sunrise and I almost won.
Then the fog came. The fog was thicker than any fog I had seen before in my life. Though being that in Utah fog almost never happens this probably isn't saying much.
It was pretty freaky to drive in. Give me snow any day over this crap.
I just felt this was really pretty.
I got to some junction of random state roads and needed gas, so I stopped at the only station I could find. It was incredibly expensive.
I was a little weirded out to see that they were out of two types of fuel. I'd never seen that before.
Unfortunately they were also out of regular unleaded.
However my car gets good gas mileage and I figured I had enough to get to the next town so it wasn't a huge deal. On the way there as if out of no where Mt. Shasta appeared on the horizon and was almost the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.
I stopped in the town of Mt. Shasta for fuel and a McDonalds bagel. It's a nice quaint town. The sleeping giant is amazing still. I'm fairly certain it's the biggest mountain I've ever seen in person at just over 14,100 feet. Oddly enough I didn't see Shasta Soda for sale in the gas station.
There was an interesting black volcanic looking things a little distance north of Shasta. I don't know what it is.
Yes, this is actually exactly what I think when I think of Northern California...
Except instead of "3" I think "every"
I was almost there, I could see airplane trails, likely coming from Medford. It was the first sign of actual civilization I had seen since Salt Lake City. (Reno doesn't count as I am pretty sure that they still observe an anarchy system of government)
There were some terraced rocks with a sign that said "rocks" and I thought it was kind of funny.
Oh yay! I can almost unpack and fall asleep.
I hung my flag and declared it nap time.
The end.
Anyway, so far it has been all right. Ashland is a very different town. The mountains are kind of little. They have water that tastes like ass (not that I taste that on a regular basis) running from fountains downtown and people that get high and walk on train tracks with drums. I got some yogurt and a beer (not together of course) and I have done plenty of geology. I've made a few friends and it's really nice being around all of the diversity from out of state. I'm the only Utahan and the only Mormon. I really like it and it makes me want to leave Utah even more.
Weird - since I've been here I identify myself to people as being Mormon when they ask. Someone even insulted Mormons and I flipped him off and he was like, "Oh you're Mormon? Sorry." I never identify myself as being Mormon. I often find myself hating on Mormons. Yet for some reason being around people who are not Mormon makes me feel like it's part of what makes me who I am. Which is just the opposite of being in Utah where I feel like being indifferent to the invasive religion is part of what makes me who I am. I guess it's all just relative. My ideology, compared to many Utahan's, is rather liberal and I hate being around Mormon functions. Around normal people I feel like my ideology is, well, pretty much LDS and kind of have this sick desire to go to church or something. This kind of makes me want leave Utah also.
I wonder what Mormons are like in Oregon. They are probably still mostly unable to see anything beyond what they're force fed in church, but still, I am curious. Maybe they'd be more accepting of me.
I doubt I'll really have time to find out.
Anyway, it's a little past 11 and I really should probably sleep since I've been feeling like a zombie intermittently throughout the day since I got here.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Last Entry in Utah for a While.
This is my last post from Utah for a while. I'm leaving for Oregon sometime tomorrow late afternoon. I guess the plan is to leave at say 4-7ish (I'm not the most punctual person in the world) and head across the west desert and Nevada on I80. I don't plan on seeing much along the way as Northern Nevada is quite possibly the dullest place on the planet. I imagine I'll get into Ashland sometime around 9 am, depending on how many exciting stops I make along the way to see super cool stuff like ... well ... I guess Reno is the only place worth stopping for any extended period of time. Maybe if you're lucky I'll make a blog of all my stops along the way (so it'll be a picture of me in Reno.)
I hope it's fun. I'll be honest, I'm a little excited to go look at rocks, make maps and do stupid field camp stuff for 5 weeks. Now don't get me wrong, there are things I'd rather be doing, but it will be a cool adventure and a good way to escapehell Utah for a little while.
My interview went well. I'm pretty sure I made a good impression and kicked the interview's ass. I wasn't really asked any typical interview questions. Basically the people interviewing me just told me about the job and asked if I was still interested. I told them yes and why I was still interested and he said he had some people to talk to still, but he'd call me next week. On the way out the receptionist said she wasn't aware of any other interviews that were going on and that she hoped I got the job. The younger girl interviewing me made a couple of references at "when" I would work there rather than "if" I worked there. Now maybe I'm looking too deeply into things, but from what it sounds like I'd say there's a pretty good chance I'll be working in Salt Lake when I get back from Ashland. That makes me happy.
The job seems a lot like exactly what I want it to be. They made it sound dull because they did data analysis and wrote reports... Please, sign me up. I love data analysis! Scientific report writing.. eh.. I can do it well, but it isn't my favorite thing in the world. Besides, I think it would be really cool to be a miner. Now obviously I wouldn't be mining, but I'd be a mine geologist and that's basically what my heritage is. Well... miners anyway. My grandma and grandpa both had families that were into coal mining. I think it would be quite appropriate if my first professional job consisted of mining. Plus, I would be doing data stuff for mines and it would destroy any desire that I ever have to ever play Minecraft again.
I talked to Trisha three? nights ago. That was nice. She's still as odd as ever, but it was nice to talk to her. She admitted to keeping track of what I've been up to and made fun of me for dating Alyssa. I'm sure it had a bit to do with how I typically make fun of the guys she's dated since me (What? They're ugly) and probably something to do with the fact that Alyssa wasn't even close to my type. It kind of made me happy. Trisha knew me as well, if not better, than anyone I've met since high school. It was nice having someone who knew me so well tell me that... Even if she laughed at me for having been dumped by an 18 year old. I suppose I probably deserved it. *sigh*
I should probably not date for a while. I say this a lot, but really. What's the point? All I seem to date are curious Mormon "bad" girls. That's all that really seems to go for me. The good ones are too dull and the non-LDS girls of Utah don't like me because I don't party. It's a frustrating problem. This is why I was hoping to go to graduate school out of state so badly. However if I get this job at Norwest, it's sort of something I could turn into a career.
If I did get this job would I really want to stop a year later to leave and go get a Masters? Then again would I want to be 45 and look back at my mid 20's going, "Damn, why didn't I get that Masters?" On top of that, do I even want a Masters? I can't even begin to tell you how unattractive the idea of two years of geological research on top of 30 extra credits and a thesis is. I mean c'mon, undergraduate work, as much as I loved some aspects of it, was pretty terrible and painful. No pain, no gain though, right? My life looks better than it did 4 years ago, that's for sure. Maybe 3 years from now I can say the same thing.
Eh whatever, I'm looking too much into the future. This is why my hair is turning gray. Gray hair scares me. Oh well, better to be gray than bald I guess. Besides, I only have about 10 gray hairs at this point. That's acceptable for 25, right? I worry too much. I should take more of the "whatever happens happens" attitude like I do with my whole, "I'm leaving between 4 and 7" thing. That works for me on a day to day basis. Why not on the long term? I guess I really just don't understand myself.
I hope it's fun. I'll be honest, I'm a little excited to go look at rocks, make maps and do stupid field camp stuff for 5 weeks. Now don't get me wrong, there are things I'd rather be doing, but it will be a cool adventure and a good way to escape
My interview went well. I'm pretty sure I made a good impression and kicked the interview's ass. I wasn't really asked any typical interview questions. Basically the people interviewing me just told me about the job and asked if I was still interested. I told them yes and why I was still interested and he said he had some people to talk to still, but he'd call me next week. On the way out the receptionist said she wasn't aware of any other interviews that were going on and that she hoped I got the job. The younger girl interviewing me made a couple of references at "when" I would work there rather than "if" I worked there. Now maybe I'm looking too deeply into things, but from what it sounds like I'd say there's a pretty good chance I'll be working in Salt Lake when I get back from Ashland. That makes me happy.
The job seems a lot like exactly what I want it to be. They made it sound dull because they did data analysis and wrote reports... Please, sign me up. I love data analysis! Scientific report writing.. eh.. I can do it well, but it isn't my favorite thing in the world. Besides, I think it would be really cool to be a miner. Now obviously I wouldn't be mining, but I'd be a mine geologist and that's basically what my heritage is. Well... miners anyway. My grandma and grandpa both had families that were into coal mining. I think it would be quite appropriate if my first professional job consisted of mining. Plus, I would be doing data stuff for mines and it would destroy any desire that I ever have to ever play Minecraft again.
I talked to Trisha three? nights ago. That was nice. She's still as odd as ever, but it was nice to talk to her. She admitted to keeping track of what I've been up to and made fun of me for dating Alyssa. I'm sure it had a bit to do with how I typically make fun of the guys she's dated since me (What? They're ugly) and probably something to do with the fact that Alyssa wasn't even close to my type. It kind of made me happy. Trisha knew me as well, if not better, than anyone I've met since high school. It was nice having someone who knew me so well tell me that... Even if she laughed at me for having been dumped by an 18 year old. I suppose I probably deserved it. *sigh*
I should probably not date for a while. I say this a lot, but really. What's the point? All I seem to date are curious Mormon "bad" girls. That's all that really seems to go for me. The good ones are too dull and the non-LDS girls of Utah don't like me because I don't party. It's a frustrating problem. This is why I was hoping to go to graduate school out of state so badly. However if I get this job at Norwest, it's sort of something I could turn into a career.
If I did get this job would I really want to stop a year later to leave and go get a Masters? Then again would I want to be 45 and look back at my mid 20's going, "Damn, why didn't I get that Masters?" On top of that, do I even want a Masters? I can't even begin to tell you how unattractive the idea of two years of geological research on top of 30 extra credits and a thesis is. I mean c'mon, undergraduate work, as much as I loved some aspects of it, was pretty terrible and painful. No pain, no gain though, right? My life looks better than it did 4 years ago, that's for sure. Maybe 3 years from now I can say the same thing.
Eh whatever, I'm looking too much into the future. This is why my hair is turning gray. Gray hair scares me. Oh well, better to be gray than bald I guess. Besides, I only have about 10 gray hairs at this point. That's acceptable for 25, right? I worry too much. I should take more of the "whatever happens happens" attitude like I do with my whole, "I'm leaving between 4 and 7" thing. That works for me on a day to day basis. Why not on the long term? I guess I really just don't understand myself.
Friday, June 3, 2011
2001 A Space Odyssey
I've noticed this strange trend of the handful of blog followers I have. Every time a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship of mine ends I lose one follower, the ex-girlfriend. I suppose my writing is dull enough that once you're done dating me, you'd rather just not read it. Well I will try my best to make sure this entry does not disappoint.
Oh about the relationship, yeah, it ended. I don't have the desire to get married in the fancy-pants Mormon ceremonial buildings. Go back about 6 months and you can find another entry about that, if you want. No need to go over it again. Am I heart broken? Well I was for about 18 hours, really I was. I certainly took it a little harder than the prior one (varying levels of intimacy can do that), but then I was just like, "Eh, it happened again. Same girl, different body. Whatever." A month from now she'll just be retired to that deep hole of mostly-good memories with my 14 other ex girlfriends.
Wow, I must be doing this dating thing wrong.. Oh well.. Makes breakups a piece of cake!
Fortunately being single, unemployed and out of classes frees up more time for me to be lonely! Oh joy! This has been filled mainly with video games the last couple days but today I decided to read. I had been hovering around finishing 2001 : A Space Odyssey for about well... since I met her. I read the remainder of it tonight and wow. Literary genius.
Sure it was written in 1968 and it has a few incorrect ideas about what life was like a decade ago, but if you can see past that it's an amazing story. I won't spoil the story to anyone who hasn't read it, but you should definitely read it if you have not. Also if you have not, I'll probably spoil a thing or two in this blog, so you may want to use discretion, but I'll be subtle.
The book really gets you thinking about all kinds of interesting topics. Towards the end it discusses the possibility of extra terrestrials and what they would be like. I found the debate that the main character has with himself to be quite entertaining. First he wonders, since they couldn't possibly live within our solar system, how they got their monolith to the Earth system. He thinks about the distance that the nearest star is and how it would take thousands of years for his ship, which is faster than anything we have today, to reach. Then discusses physical possibilities that despite how well special relativity (the theory that says we can't travel faster than light) has stood up for the past century that maybe one could circumvent this using what the author, Clark, describes as lines straighter than straight.
This concept I find fascinating as it is basically the idea of a wormhole. What if rather than having the shortest distance from point A to point B be a straight line, you can actually bend space-time and have point A and point B be one in the same? Very sci-fi sounding, but physicists in a 1988 paper postulated a wormhole as a possible solution to general relativity and many others who are far more intelligent than I will ever be and say things that I could never hope to interpret or understand have found other potential ways to, in theory, manipulate space-time.
What's interesting about this is that, from my understanding anyway, if you can manipulate space and time, since space and time are relative, you can also manipulate time. This means that if a wormhole were to be possible which, from our understanding it is not, you could jump through time as well as space, trippy. Marty McFly and I could be buddies.
Anyway, from here the character began thinking about how maybe the creators of this monolith are not human-like at all. Maybe they did travel here on a spaceship and thousands of years was nothing but a slightly boring inconvenience to them. Then he began thinking about other possibilities. What do they look like? Are they simply bipeds like we are or not? Personally, if ET's were to exist, I don't think I would expect them to be bipedal. The reason we walk on two feet is because of billions of years of evolution causing this form to be the one that fit best for our species. Why then would all sentient life have to be the same? One thing I've always disliked about most sci-fi is that it never addresses this issue. I suppose Star Trek did once in its story of how one civilization influenced evolution on many planets creating many bipedal sentient races. Kind of reminiscent of playing God I guess.
Then he wondered if the beings responsible for the monolith were even biological. Why couldn't they have developed machines to contain their consciousness in? Why not a step further. Why could they not simply be just pure energy or, in effect, just a spirit? I found the whole chapter where the author writs him contemplating this stuff to be the high point of a fantastic story.
It really got me thinking about these same things. It's so fascinating. This is just me imagining at 4am, I don't really feel I have any way to validate or devalidate (is that a word?) these thoughts, but what if it's not that far off? What if our creators were simply sentient energy which saw a planet with high potential for evolutionary magic and simply influenced it in such a way that we are what we are? Is that really that far off from a Christian held belief? I mean sure, the stories we're told in church don't really support it, but doesn't it seem more likely? Maybe when we die they preserve our consciousness or translate it to something else in store for a later date when it can be reunited with our body, or not. Isn't that basically what the Christian view of the afterlife is anyway?
Of course the author of the book is Christian, so it would make sense that his "Gods" would somewhat parallel the Christian God figure. Amazing story.
In other news I have an interview with Norwest Corporation on Wednesday. This excites me. I just hope, assuming the interview goes well, that my prior commitments to field camp in Oregon later that week don't interfere with a potential job.
Oh about the relationship, yeah, it ended. I don't have the desire to get married in the fancy-pants Mormon ceremonial buildings. Go back about 6 months and you can find another entry about that, if you want. No need to go over it again. Am I heart broken? Well I was for about 18 hours, really I was. I certainly took it a little harder than the prior one (varying levels of intimacy can do that), but then I was just like, "Eh, it happened again. Same girl, different body. Whatever." A month from now she'll just be retired to that deep hole of mostly-good memories with my 14 other ex girlfriends.
Wow, I must be doing this dating thing wrong.. Oh well.. Makes breakups a piece of cake!
Fortunately being single, unemployed and out of classes frees up more time for me to be lonely! Oh joy! This has been filled mainly with video games the last couple days but today I decided to read. I had been hovering around finishing 2001 : A Space Odyssey for about well... since I met her. I read the remainder of it tonight and wow. Literary genius.
Sure it was written in 1968 and it has a few incorrect ideas about what life was like a decade ago, but if you can see past that it's an amazing story. I won't spoil the story to anyone who hasn't read it, but you should definitely read it if you have not. Also if you have not, I'll probably spoil a thing or two in this blog, so you may want to use discretion, but I'll be subtle.
The book really gets you thinking about all kinds of interesting topics. Towards the end it discusses the possibility of extra terrestrials and what they would be like. I found the debate that the main character has with himself to be quite entertaining. First he wonders, since they couldn't possibly live within our solar system, how they got their monolith to the Earth system. He thinks about the distance that the nearest star is and how it would take thousands of years for his ship, which is faster than anything we have today, to reach. Then discusses physical possibilities that despite how well special relativity (the theory that says we can't travel faster than light) has stood up for the past century that maybe one could circumvent this using what the author, Clark, describes as lines straighter than straight.
This concept I find fascinating as it is basically the idea of a wormhole. What if rather than having the shortest distance from point A to point B be a straight line, you can actually bend space-time and have point A and point B be one in the same? Very sci-fi sounding, but physicists in a 1988 paper postulated a wormhole as a possible solution to general relativity and many others who are far more intelligent than I will ever be and say things that I could never hope to interpret or understand have found other potential ways to, in theory, manipulate space-time.
What's interesting about this is that, from my understanding anyway, if you can manipulate space and time, since space and time are relative, you can also manipulate time. This means that if a wormhole were to be possible which, from our understanding it is not, you could jump through time as well as space, trippy. Marty McFly and I could be buddies.
Anyway, from here the character began thinking about how maybe the creators of this monolith are not human-like at all. Maybe they did travel here on a spaceship and thousands of years was nothing but a slightly boring inconvenience to them. Then he began thinking about other possibilities. What do they look like? Are they simply bipeds like we are or not? Personally, if ET's were to exist, I don't think I would expect them to be bipedal. The reason we walk on two feet is because of billions of years of evolution causing this form to be the one that fit best for our species. Why then would all sentient life have to be the same? One thing I've always disliked about most sci-fi is that it never addresses this issue. I suppose Star Trek did once in its story of how one civilization influenced evolution on many planets creating many bipedal sentient races. Kind of reminiscent of playing God I guess.
Then he wondered if the beings responsible for the monolith were even biological. Why couldn't they have developed machines to contain their consciousness in? Why not a step further. Why could they not simply be just pure energy or, in effect, just a spirit? I found the whole chapter where the author writs him contemplating this stuff to be the high point of a fantastic story.
It really got me thinking about these same things. It's so fascinating. This is just me imagining at 4am, I don't really feel I have any way to validate or devalidate (is that a word?) these thoughts, but what if it's not that far off? What if our creators were simply sentient energy which saw a planet with high potential for evolutionary magic and simply influenced it in such a way that we are what we are? Is that really that far off from a Christian held belief? I mean sure, the stories we're told in church don't really support it, but doesn't it seem more likely? Maybe when we die they preserve our consciousness or translate it to something else in store for a later date when it can be reunited with our body, or not. Isn't that basically what the Christian view of the afterlife is anyway?
Of course the author of the book is Christian, so it would make sense that his "Gods" would somewhat parallel the Christian God figure. Amazing story.
In other news I have an interview with Norwest Corporation on Wednesday. This excites me. I just hope, assuming the interview goes well, that my prior commitments to field camp in Oregon later that week don't interfere with a potential job.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Red Dead Redemption Ending
As a heads up, if you stumble across this blog on a google search or something and haven't played through the whole game yet, it's probably best not to read it as I will spoil it..
Anyway, yes, my summer has become so boring that I've resorted to blogging about a video game. 12 days. In 12 days I leave for Oregon. I'm sure I'll be busy enough once I get there that video games won't be a significant part of my day, but until then.. heh..
So my friend Joe let me borrow his copy of Red Dead Redemption. It's a game where you are a cowboy and in Grand Theft Auto style you roam across the old west doing pretty much whatever you want to do and going and visiting acquaintances for missions if you so choose. I had been playing it for about three weeks now (I don't game that hardcore, I can't beat a game in 2 days like some of you probably can) and had become rather attached to the protagonist, John Marsden. It was a great story, a cool character and the worst video game ending ever.
The guy was an outlaw who had given up the gangster life to settle down on a ranch with his wife and son. After a few years of this peaceful life of a good guy, the FBI then came and kidnapped his family and sent him on a mission to go find his old posse in the old west and kill them. This is where the game starts. You play around in the old west helping people out and you get a choice to be good or bad, I typically chose to do the good and finally you kill the other 3 guys you were in the gang with. Then the FBI agents let your family go and you're reunited. Everything is happy, your family is okay, your character is okay and you have a ranch to begin a new life on. This is where the game should end and any intelligent story writer would have had this story end, but no.
Next you play a few dull missions working on the farm getting attached to the characters of your family doing farm stuff before the final mission where the US Army shows up at your ranch to kill you for no apparent reason. You fight them off and escort your family to the barn. On the way the old man on your farm gets shot and dies. Here John puts his family on the horse and tells them to leave. They get away fine. John then peeks out the door and sees about 15 soldiers standing around, which, any other time in this game would have been cause to flee or possibly even bunker in and kill them all (yes, he's that much of a bad ass.) Instead the cut scene shows him shove the door open and then it takes you into the slow-mo targeting mode where you can shoot them. I targeted about 6 of them and then he shoots them all and they die. The following cut scene shows the remaining soldiers all shooting John and the dick of an FBI agent who blackmailed you throughout the whole game lighting a cigar and smiling.
I have honestly never been more pissed off at a video game in my life other than maybe the time I played FFX the first time. The next scene takes you to his son and wife on a horse and her saying "Did you hear that? We have to go back." I then returned and they run over to see John in a pool of blood, obviously dead.
X-box achievement 100 points.
Wait? Seriously? That's it? Pissed off I pause the game, go switch on the computer and search the internet to see if I screwed up and got the "bad" ending, but there is only one ending to the game. I unpause the game and a cutscene then takes you to a rainy day with John's son, Jack, now aged a few years, admiring his grave. It pans over to his mom's grave too.
Great, as if they didn't ruin the game enough they inexplicably had his mother die for unknown causes. You then take control of Jack for a free roam with no missions to do. Pissed off I head to the town with the FBI headquarters thinking that I'm just going to kill everyone in it, but I get there and there is a question mark on the minimap, so I go to it.
Some guy tells me that the FBI agent who killed John is at some cabin living a peaceful retired life now. I go there and after a series of meeting people who tell me to go somewhere else find the guy. Jack then tells the guy that he's John's son and the FBI man tells Jack to leave before he kills him too. Jack insults him and the duel screen is brought up. I won the duel and Jack kills the bad guy and the credits roll.
Xbox achievement 50 points.
I wish I'd have never played this game.
You go throughout the whole game searching out your friends to kill them in order to save your family. Each time the story makes it sad for you to kill your friends, but you know you're doing it for the greater good of your family and the society of the whole west (your friends are pretty bad dudes). Then at the end you finally settle down and life is good. You've shown the whole west that you're not the gangster outlaw you once were and that you're there for good. Until for no reason at all the makers at Rockstar thought it would be a good idea to have John die in the most dramatic fashion and have his wife end up dead for no reason. Then they have the nerve to think that the character that you just spent 20-30 hours of your life getting to know and admire can be avenged with his stupid son, who did nothing but complain about him during the time you knew him, and you'll be happy. Fail Rockstar.
I guess the idea they had was probably something along the lines of showing just how much John had changed. That in the face of certain death to save his family he didn't hesitate giving his life at all, proving that his selfish nature as an outlaw was done for, but I felt this had been shown again and again throughout the game as the story progressed. There was no question that the character was a good person.
It was a brilliant story about a heroic character, probably more heroic than most story, movie and video game characters I've ever read/watched/played, and then Rockstar ruined it with a bad ending. I honestly don't know that I'll ever play another Rockstar game again. I play video games for the story more than the gameplay and I don't care how much fun the game was to play, if the story sucks, I don't want to bother again.
Anyway, yes, my summer has become so boring that I've resorted to blogging about a video game. 12 days. In 12 days I leave for Oregon. I'm sure I'll be busy enough once I get there that video games won't be a significant part of my day, but until then.. heh..
So my friend Joe let me borrow his copy of Red Dead Redemption. It's a game where you are a cowboy and in Grand Theft Auto style you roam across the old west doing pretty much whatever you want to do and going and visiting acquaintances for missions if you so choose. I had been playing it for about three weeks now (I don't game that hardcore, I can't beat a game in 2 days like some of you probably can) and had become rather attached to the protagonist, John Marsden. It was a great story, a cool character and the worst video game ending ever.
The guy was an outlaw who had given up the gangster life to settle down on a ranch with his wife and son. After a few years of this peaceful life of a good guy, the FBI then came and kidnapped his family and sent him on a mission to go find his old posse in the old west and kill them. This is where the game starts. You play around in the old west helping people out and you get a choice to be good or bad, I typically chose to do the good and finally you kill the other 3 guys you were in the gang with. Then the FBI agents let your family go and you're reunited. Everything is happy, your family is okay, your character is okay and you have a ranch to begin a new life on. This is where the game should end and any intelligent story writer would have had this story end, but no.
Next you play a few dull missions working on the farm getting attached to the characters of your family doing farm stuff before the final mission where the US Army shows up at your ranch to kill you for no apparent reason. You fight them off and escort your family to the barn. On the way the old man on your farm gets shot and dies. Here John puts his family on the horse and tells them to leave. They get away fine. John then peeks out the door and sees about 15 soldiers standing around, which, any other time in this game would have been cause to flee or possibly even bunker in and kill them all (yes, he's that much of a bad ass.) Instead the cut scene shows him shove the door open and then it takes you into the slow-mo targeting mode where you can shoot them. I targeted about 6 of them and then he shoots them all and they die. The following cut scene shows the remaining soldiers all shooting John and the dick of an FBI agent who blackmailed you throughout the whole game lighting a cigar and smiling.
I have honestly never been more pissed off at a video game in my life other than maybe the time I played FFX the first time. The next scene takes you to his son and wife on a horse and her saying "Did you hear that? We have to go back." I then returned and they run over to see John in a pool of blood, obviously dead.
X-box achievement 100 points.
Wait? Seriously? That's it? Pissed off I pause the game, go switch on the computer and search the internet to see if I screwed up and got the "bad" ending, but there is only one ending to the game. I unpause the game and a cutscene then takes you to a rainy day with John's son, Jack, now aged a few years, admiring his grave. It pans over to his mom's grave too.
Great, as if they didn't ruin the game enough they inexplicably had his mother die for unknown causes. You then take control of Jack for a free roam with no missions to do. Pissed off I head to the town with the FBI headquarters thinking that I'm just going to kill everyone in it, but I get there and there is a question mark on the minimap, so I go to it.
Some guy tells me that the FBI agent who killed John is at some cabin living a peaceful retired life now. I go there and after a series of meeting people who tell me to go somewhere else find the guy. Jack then tells the guy that he's John's son and the FBI man tells Jack to leave before he kills him too. Jack insults him and the duel screen is brought up. I won the duel and Jack kills the bad guy and the credits roll.
Xbox achievement 50 points.
I wish I'd have never played this game.
You go throughout the whole game searching out your friends to kill them in order to save your family. Each time the story makes it sad for you to kill your friends, but you know you're doing it for the greater good of your family and the society of the whole west (your friends are pretty bad dudes). Then at the end you finally settle down and life is good. You've shown the whole west that you're not the gangster outlaw you once were and that you're there for good. Until for no reason at all the makers at Rockstar thought it would be a good idea to have John die in the most dramatic fashion and have his wife end up dead for no reason. Then they have the nerve to think that the character that you just spent 20-30 hours of your life getting to know and admire can be avenged with his stupid son, who did nothing but complain about him during the time you knew him, and you'll be happy. Fail Rockstar.
I guess the idea they had was probably something along the lines of showing just how much John had changed. That in the face of certain death to save his family he didn't hesitate giving his life at all, proving that his selfish nature as an outlaw was done for, but I felt this had been shown again and again throughout the game as the story progressed. There was no question that the character was a good person.
It was a brilliant story about a heroic character, probably more heroic than most story, movie and video game characters I've ever read/watched/played, and then Rockstar ruined it with a bad ending. I honestly don't know that I'll ever play another Rockstar game again. I play video games for the story more than the gameplay and I don't care how much fun the game was to play, if the story sucks, I don't want to bother again.
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