Greetings from Planet Spencer!
Mark Brandon and I lived in Dome #15 for the first year of dome life. We both took a geology class and eventually decided to major in geology partly because the plate tectonics revolution was in full swing and we wanted to be part of the revolution, and partly because working outdoors in scenic places was appealing. We also both transferred to UC Santa Cruz for a B.S. in geology (I did this later than he did). I went on for a Ph.D. at M.I.T. (culture shock after UCSC) and then spent 34 years as an academic researcher and government geologist in Tucson. It was great! I got to pursue interesting science the whole time. Counting graduate school, I spent many days every winter for 37 years doing geologic field mapping in remote parts of the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts (“he saw a lot of rocks”). I retired in 2015 but I’m still publishing research I did when I was employed (do a web search on “Nuclear winter and the Anthropocene” for a look at a recent publication).
My wife Margaret and I have been married for 37 years and are both happily retired. Our two grown children are doing well. Keith works as an editor at Salon.com and Leah teaches 5th grade in a public school in Tucson. Margaret and I have lived in the same suburban Tucson house for 33 years. With a one-acre desert lot and much wildlife it is actually a reasonably nice place to spend a lot of time in the age of COVID. After 40 years in Tucson I can report that it is a very livable city if you can tolerate the 6-month summers. Even the summers are broken up by a two-month monsoon season. Life is good!
Best regards to all the Domies. May you live long and prosper!
