Brad,
Below you will find my submission for the Geo-Congress 2023 Keynote Speaker Address. As I mentioned on the last few voicemails I left for you (man, we keep missing each other in this game of phone tag!), I’m going to newer and higher places with this talk. “Upping the ante,” so to speak. I call it Geo Stand-Up and I’ve styled it after some real comedy legends.
What I’ve included in this email is just a broad outline of the set I’m planning, so imagine a ton of additional crowd work and skilled impromptu jokes.
Per our usual unspoken agreement, I will take lack of response as confirmation that I am booked to speak. I’ll see you in the City of Stars!
Geo Stand-Up
- Good morning, Geo-Congress 2023, and thanks for having me up here to kick things off as your rock-solid foundation for an exhilarating week of lectures, short courses, and fun! I know we’re in the City of Angels, but I promise to keep things down to earth!
- G-I asked me if I had any good jokes for LA this year. I told them, “I’ll dig some up!”
- Folks, I hate flying. However, I had an epiphany on the plane ride over here: dealing with my plane anxiety is a lot like a good foundation design. You just need to manage those high vertical stresses!
- I was reviewing the seismicity section of a report just the other day and noticed some information was missing. I called the team into my office, pointed to the paragraph on fractures and discontinuities, and asked, “Whose fault is this?”
- Growing up I had a pet rock who meant a lot to me. I still think about him a lot… he was a great friend. I shouldn’t have taken him for Granite; he was really Gneiss.
- I got fired from my first job working in a soils lab. The team there was very hardworking, diligent, and most importantly – cooperative. And I just didn’t share the sediment.
- I got fired from my second job as a geotech too. I had been dumping buckets of water all over the office floors and this upset a lot of people. I don’t know what I did wrong – they told me to draw up some slip surfaces.
- My children often advise me on foundation designs. Just the other day, my boy came into the office while I was a working on a bridge plan. He said, “You should auger some holes into the ground and fill them with concrete.” I replied, “Oh caisson.”
- We just hired a very good intern named Morgan who has mostly worked on slope stability during her time here. But the other day, I needed some last-minute help with a cost estimate. I asked her across the office if she could get me a solid quote for some unit pricing but I wasn’t loud enough. So, raising my voice, I said, “Morgan! I need a stern price! Morgan, stern price!!”
(Now here’s my closer – I’ve been crafting this one since Geo-Congress 2020…)
I’m at a site investigation the other day, and the drillers are playing a local radio station from the truck. The drilling inspector slyly informs me that he used to work for 104.3 The Edge before settling into his current career. “Here comes another big block of rock”, he enthusiastically intones – clarifying that he was once their drive-time DJ. Then he points at the rig boom as he shouts, “This is not a drill.” (Evidently, he also used to make emergency news broadcasts on the airwaves.)
We work for a few hours before he sighs deeply and tells me, “I really miss that job…” I can sense genuine sorrow in his voice, and from a place somewhere between politeness and empathy, I decide to ask why he quit. “I didn’t quit,” he explains. “I was fired.” Before I can decide whether I want to press this now-gloomy conversation any further, the drilling inspector lets out an even deeper sigh and continues. “They fired me because they didn’t like my tone; they said I spread gossip about the other DJs; and because I always left the studio dirty.”
I tell him that I’m very sorry to hear that, but out of curiosity, I inquire as to why he would go on to become a drilling inspector.
“That’s easy,” he responds. “Here, nobody minds my gravelly voice, I can sling all the mud I want, and the place is already soiled when I show up.”