“I (and other grad students) have lived in the same building for about 3 years now,” Melissa told. “The current neighbors are 1st or 2nd-year undergraduates, and they moved in across the driveway in July 2018. I was a little concerned at first because they like to throw big parties, but I they’ve generally been pretty considerate with noise and keeping people out of our yard.”
“I never really had any issue until about a week and a half ago. This is actually the second time this has happened. So, the purpose of the rock is so that if you suck at parking, you don’t take down the fence – it’s inconvenient, but I get it. About a week and a half ago, one of the guys decided that it was too inconvenient for him, and he turned it so that it was more on my side of the fence. They wouldn’t answer the door to help me move it back, and it was a few days before I had helped to get it put back. Then on Friday night, they had a really big party. “
“I went over to ask that people stay out of our backyard, and noticed that a car was blocking us in, so I asked that it be moved by 7 am, and left a note. When I woke up, the boulder had been rolled all the way in front of my car (picture 1). So I figured that if I moved it back, they were just going to do it again.”
People wanted to know more about the story, and Melissa indulged them
“As I posted on Twitter, I had absolutely no clue that everybody would find this so funny – I just thought a few of my geologist friends would get a chuckle out of it. The Matilija Sandstone (I’m pretty sure that’s what this boulder was) is a reasonably soft rock, comparatively speaking – not very much of a challenge for an auto-chipper in the hands of an igneous petrologist! I’m hoping that I can use this attention to serve as a role model for anybody (but especially girls) who want to be righteous and awesome scientists and to really engage the public with Earth Science. Geologists are often overlooked but quite important – and, as you can see, we’re pretty freaking awesome as a general rule.”
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