Last Wednesday I had an interesting lecture on the Linear dunes of the Namibia from Charlie Bristow he specialises in modern sedimentary environments. I have always liked sand dunes I really enjoyed all the Applied Sedimentology course I did at Imperial except the petroleum bits and even quiet alot of that I found interesting.
The premise people had been working on was that these huge dunes where left over from the last glacial maxium but this turns out not to be so. There is cool dating techniques you can use on sand that has been sitting in the dark - you get like an exposure date for the last time it saw sunlight as the sunlight 'bleaches' the sand grains and sets the exposure age to zero.
I remembered from before that there where three types of motion on the sand dunes - there are little sort of parasitic dunes moving across the huge great big stonking dunes for a start. It is/was thought that these types of dunes do not appear in the geological record so they where of interests becuase of that but in cutting into the dunes it is now thought that they might look simialar to other types of dunes - dune morphology and how they look inside due to migration (the wind blowing them sideways or back to front or whatever) is actually a bit of a geometric nightmare to get your head around especially when you start looking at how a paloe (old turned into rock) dune bed can be exposed - it could be tilted, cut at a strange angle and all sorts.
Anyway the dunes are younger and would appear to be able to tell us about climate changes that may have occured in the area - this includes looking for 'fossilise' hirax poo but these are rare. There are also fulgurites which are the formation you get when lightning hits sandy substrates which supports the idea of climate change which would have produced vegitation ie it got wetter - it started to rain and plants grew their root sort of stoped the dune sand from being blown about.
I suggested they look for root material which is apparently on the cards.
Last Friday I went to a meeting with two mentors from the Prince's Trust to talk to them about my business plans. I have been making websites and setting up blogs for people for a while now and I thought I should move forward with this and turn it into a proper business.
So I spent Thursday last week writing out my business plan which was a good thing to do anyway and made me realise how far ahead with things I actually am. The Prince's Trust was something that Flo initially told me about back before the pregnancy and I had been toying with the idea of starting a craft business but I got cuaght up a) being ill and b) blogging about the craft on Salaric Crafts but the blogging led to writing and that led to websites for people I met through writing and wham - here I am.
I think I have a niche and am excited though in some ways I wish it had all started to kick off last year (which it couldn't due to the flood) or that they had waited just a bit longer to get around to contacting me so that I wasn't in the middle of having to write essays on the formation of the moon and the such like.
I don't know if I can't get the financial help from them but even if I can't I want to have the business tutoring as I feel that will be most helpful.
The Prince's Trust help poeple under 30 set up their business's which is cool and hopefully will help me sort our lives out. Unfortunatly I am asking for just over the amount that you get without having to 'Go to Panel' . I need servers and I need to have them in a data centre so I am asking £2000 which is basically the servers etc.... my hardware costs :'( The panel is apparently something that looks like Dragons Den but they say they are friendlier - well they couldn't be less friendly could they!
They got excited about my 'mind map' that I had drawn in Jean's feltips for added colour in a typically me way - I thought it was a flow diagram and thought mind maps where what Carinia was calling the things she was drawing for her PhD stuff. So now I am wondering if mind maps is a sort of catch all for things I term: Brain storming, flow diagrams and spider diagrams.
I probably should investigate this at some point.
One of the things that I am having to do at the moment is heavily prioritize what I spend my time on and sadly this means that for the last two months I have done no art or craft but then this is my ultra busy term.
I have a list of homework from the Prince's Trust as well as from college but I am afraid playing with Jean still comes highest on my agender. She is being quiet mischevious at the moment as well - unfortunalty she has developed sciencetific method for finding out exactly what she can and can't get away with.
The funniest thing she does though is wait for me to get up from the laptop then she climbs into my seat and says, 'Can I do your work now Mummy?' and she sits just like Alaric poised to start a heavey programming session.
Well here I go again....
To join the world of the Blue Monster a new Gurgitation monster is on the loose, courtesy of me and my madness!
Presenting Red Monster's Blog!
http://red.monsters.wigglypets.co.uk/
Mum is being released from the hospital today - she still has one drain in but apparently the district nurse will come and see her to remove it.
Yesturday mum had her lymph nodes removed and as it is the second lot of surgery in a very short space of time so she was wiped. I tried to go and see her but stupidly I only had her mobile number which wasn't answering as they had mistaken her for someone else on the ward who had become dangerously ill.
I didn't know this - just that she wasn't answering but it wasn't going to voice mail or anything either so I panicked and thought that perhapse it was an old number or something - I nuked my phone a few months ago and reinstated my numbers from a piece of paper that was pre-gloucestershire move :/.
I then tried to phone dad but couldn't get out of him how to get to the hospital - I had also had the issue that no one had been able to get hold of Al and dad was a)locked out of the house, and b) going hypo as he needed his breakfast that was in the house - so via the phone I had to talk him into hitting the bedroom window with things in the vague hope of awakening the Alaric!
After that was sorted I tried phoning my brother but to no avail - this was mainly becuase being a muppet I was phoning the wronge David :/ I didn't actually have my brothers phone number in my phone :/
I then found that I didn't have my aunts number or anything - sigh.
Then to the latest faff of trying to get registered at college and of you knopw trying to libary access - today was a stressful day. People in suits knocked me over as if they didn't even see me - I was wearing a rainbow coloured jacket and a huge great rucksack - the result of this has been the lose of usefulness of my left arm and hand yet agian :/
Geology | sarah | 
Sun 26th Oct 2008 10:09 am | 
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