Big Gulp

I hate using cliches but I don't know what to say other than I bit off more than I can chew this last quarter.  The good news is that it's over, and if I ever decide to take my minor in Environmental Science to second Bachelor's Degree, I finished the one required class that may deter me from going back in the future.  Now the only hard class I would have for that second Bachelors would be Organic Chem, but I have a team of pharmacists to back me up with that one.  No one understands BioStats except ubernerds.

I can now say that I could teach a beginning GIS class, and that I've discovered that I get really irritated when I find out people are memorizing information for A's rather than learning skills.  But what does it say about a teacher when people get A's in the class, but can't demonstrate basic skills on the software required for the field?  I should have enjoyed that class, but it made me lose respect for the off campus program instead.   I've also learned that since I work full time, intern part time and have a full load at school, that I need to stop helping classmates so much and get back on my personal learning wagon.  Especially when they have twice the amount of study time I do - it seems like it would be the other way around.

My break has started out stressful with record flooding in the area over the weekend.  We spoke with several senior residents of Darrington and Oso who told us they had never seen the creeks rise that fast or the river spill over the dikes in such a short time.  We were cut off into both Darrington and Arlington, and an aerial picture of Sunday would have shown swollen creeks and rivers surrounding small patches and strips of land, it was amazing from an ecological perspective.

I got to see firsthand forested wetlands absorbing flooding and salmon bracing themselves against the trees, which would have made for a moving picture but by that time my camera had died from all the filming I did at the Boulder River bridge.  The popular little beach at Fortson Hole also washed out when we were headed out to look at the river from the old mill site, and we watched the swinging tree wash into the wetland.  I'm not sure how the log jam held up, but plan to investigate later today with a fully charged camera battery.

Not only did Arlington, Darrington and Granite Falls experience record flooding on both forks of the Stillaguamish, the effects of the extraordinary swift waters were devastating.  There are numerous sink holes and washouts along highway 530 where the river and its tributaries filled their banks, topped the levies and spilled into the stormwater ditches.  In some areas the DOT ditches directed flood water into landowners low lying land and into their homes.  Some people's land has been changed forever.  I can't imagine that any engineer considering a flood six feet above record levels, or the creeks rising so fast.  Nothing like a loaded warm Hawaiian storm in the middle of ski season to devastate the Northwest. 

The Whitehorse Trail Bridge over the Boulder River as the river overtakes its levees