Friday, January 8, 2010

Brunton - to change or not to change


I was cleaning out my backpack to get ready for the next term Monday and found my Brunton Geo Pocket Transit. Well, "found" is not an accurate term- I usually always keep it in my pack, but of late I only have math courses so I really should just put it away. However upon seeing it again I remembered I had thought about changing it over to azimuth since it is currently in quadrants. At field camp that really hindered me because the database we were using needed azimuth numbers and it's a pain converting-easy, but a pain. In addition, converting the numbers means messing with the data more than needed and hence an added chance for errors.

I bought my Brunton in my first semester as a geology student. My advisor was teaching the course, and there were barely enough students to keep the class open. At the time I was naieve so when she suggested I take it, I told her I needed to drop chemistry if I were to take her course (Structural Geology) due to time confliction. She looked at me as if to say "So what's the problem?". Well, the "problem", in retrospect, was the aspect that I was just starting out in geology and my first semester consisted of Mineralogy, Structural Geology, General Geology, GIS, and something else I cannot recall at the moment. GIS was the only class I breezed through because I used to design websites so working with graphics and layers was second hand. But Mineralogy and Structural Geology were a real challenge, esp. without having had a math class in ages. Back to my point, the Structures prof. told the class that if we were going to be geologists, we should seriously consider buying our own Brunton. At that university it was pretty much instilled in you to have your own gear. None of the other universities I have been to stress that, and people seem surprised I do have my own gear- then try to borrow it. I have had bad experiences with that, so now get kinda witchy and say no, but that's a whole other topic.

When I went online to buy my brunton, I was at a loss as to what to buy. My tendency in this situation is to just buy the best and then not be left wanting later. So I bought the Geo Pocket Transit. I had no clue what type to buy, but at the time quadrant seemed the way to go, so I went that route. Now I regret it. Others seem to like quads, but really azimuth is so much easier/quicker/cleaner to document.

This leaves me to my point, in a round about way. I need to pull out the old box and look at how to go about sending it to the company for changing it over to azimuth. Sorry for droning on; I have a tendancy to digress in my writings as I recall certain aspects and inject them into my story, so forgive me if you get a bit lost in reading any of this drivel. I've kinda hidden this little blog because I write like I think- and with ADHD I am just a bit all over the place. I can edit it all down, and sometimes I do.. but maybe a blog is supposed to be an insight into someone's thoughts. If so, well welcome to my world. A bit like a tornado, a bit disjointed, but it's impossible to portray what I am thinking in text, really. I generally have two lines of thought going on at the same time, so in order to not forget one or the other, I interject the two. It's a real pain in the butt sometimes because my brain just works faster than I can express in words or text. So in the end, I just come off like an idiot. Oh, and then interject IH into the mix.. ugh. I'm a mess! ha ha. Especially when the pressure is up. It still is pretty high today- but I feel a bit better right now because while I was looking for my cell this morning I bent to look under the couch and some of the excess spinal fluid drained out my nose. Gross, but that's my life. I'll pontificate on the latter in a separate post for those who want to read about it.

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