Slightly more than two weeks ago my wife and I arrived in Oregon and it sure has been busy and fluid. A week and a half of really beautiful weather followed by ash and smoke since then from the fires raging in the Cascades. I am very grateful that I only experienced ash and smoke. I can only imagine the anguish and heartache for those who suffered far more than this.
In the midst of settling in, my career as a PhD student has launched, so now I have orientation activities on top of house settling activities. Classes begin in just over a week. My first day as a PhD student studying Geophysics; however, was not full of boring hum-drum. I accompanied a University of Oregon field technician to install a wide-band seismic sensor at a site in the Coastal Range. The task was fairly straightforward–but more importantly–it was field work in the Earth Sciences. Even with the persistent forest fire smoke, I could not have asked for a better first day. I am expecting many more good days such as this to follow, and some even better!
