Monday, June 13, 2005
Well, I am about 1500 miles into my vacation now.
I left Terre Haute last saturday for Fort Wayne, then headed to Detroit to pick up some people at the ariport. I was in Detroit for most of a week for a conference involving my senior project (check out the stuff at www.challengex.org) and took people back to the airport Thursday afternoon.
I crashed at my uncle's place near downtown Detroit after a nice dinner, then headed up to Waterloo, Canada to spend time with some friends that are also in Challenge X. They have a very nice school: we spent most of the afternoon just chilling on a deck where I got pretty sunburnt and where we had an Indian-off. These are Indians with dots, not feathers, and the two guys are Canadians of Indian descent and get a kick out of doing the cliched Indian accent (Thank you, come again) for the rest of us. I headed out of Canada, stopped at Niagara falls on the Canadian side, and drove along the southern coast of Lake Ontario through New York. Saturday night was spent in the third smallest incorporated village in the state of New York, and Sunday morning was driving through the amazingly beautiful Adarondiac National Forest. It was cloudy and misting a little, which added to the surreal beauty of the area. I was going to get to Vermont via Hwy 17, but couldn't find the bridge, so I ended up taking a ferry across. I think it was the better choice.
I got to New Hampshire last night and met up with my friend Brian who just finished his BE at Dartmouth College. He was supposed to join me for a trip to Maine's Acadia National Park, but his girlfriend wigged out when I got here and basically gave him an ultimatum of 'me or this trip' and he wussed out. I just wish she had done so a few days earlier when I was still in Detroit and hadn't driven an additional 1000 miles to get out here. Since I really don't feel like going to Maine alone, I got ahold of one of my friends who has a job in Boston, and I get to go help him look for apartments tomorrow, and then we will head down to NYC to stay with my sister Wednesday night and head back to Indy starting Thursday afternoon. I figure we make 7 hours of the drive on Thursday and get back to the Indy airport Friday afternoon.
Once I get back, I will probably spend a day recovering from all the driving since it will be well over 3000 miles when I am done, and then finish moving out of my apartment and down to my new one. I have a lot of my stuff, it is just that a fair amount of what is left is either too big for my car or too heavy for me to lift of both. I need a boy (or several) with trucks and muscles :-)
Going to be interesting :-) girls and boys are silly. grr.
I left Terre Haute last saturday for Fort Wayne, then headed to Detroit to pick up some people at the ariport. I was in Detroit for most of a week for a conference involving my senior project (check out the stuff at www.challengex.org) and took people back to the airport Thursday afternoon.
I crashed at my uncle's place near downtown Detroit after a nice dinner, then headed up to Waterloo, Canada to spend time with some friends that are also in Challenge X. They have a very nice school: we spent most of the afternoon just chilling on a deck where I got pretty sunburnt and where we had an Indian-off. These are Indians with dots, not feathers, and the two guys are Canadians of Indian descent and get a kick out of doing the cliched Indian accent (Thank you, come again) for the rest of us. I headed out of Canada, stopped at Niagara falls on the Canadian side, and drove along the southern coast of Lake Ontario through New York. Saturday night was spent in the third smallest incorporated village in the state of New York, and Sunday morning was driving through the amazingly beautiful Adarondiac National Forest. It was cloudy and misting a little, which added to the surreal beauty of the area. I was going to get to Vermont via Hwy 17, but couldn't find the bridge, so I ended up taking a ferry across. I think it was the better choice.
I got to New Hampshire last night and met up with my friend Brian who just finished his BE at Dartmouth College. He was supposed to join me for a trip to Maine's Acadia National Park, but his girlfriend wigged out when I got here and basically gave him an ultimatum of 'me or this trip' and he wussed out. I just wish she had done so a few days earlier when I was still in Detroit and hadn't driven an additional 1000 miles to get out here. Since I really don't feel like going to Maine alone, I got ahold of one of my friends who has a job in Boston, and I get to go help him look for apartments tomorrow, and then we will head down to NYC to stay with my sister Wednesday night and head back to Indy starting Thursday afternoon. I figure we make 7 hours of the drive on Thursday and get back to the Indy airport Friday afternoon.
Once I get back, I will probably spend a day recovering from all the driving since it will be well over 3000 miles when I am done, and then finish moving out of my apartment and down to my new one. I have a lot of my stuff, it is just that a fair amount of what is left is either too big for my car or too heavy for me to lift of both. I need a boy (or several) with trucks and muscles :-)
Going to be interesting :-) girls and boys are silly. grr.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Wow. So graduation, moving to a new city (in process), and the end of year competition currently in Detroit for my senior project.
I have been feeling underappreciated with this team and my roommate. I feel that they do a lot of wasting my time and re-doing the things that I have actualy spent a fair amount of time working on. Grr. I would really rather be drinking a beer with the guys from UC Davis than watching the first run of a presentation done by people who have only a minimal understanding of the equipment they are talking about. That was a painful event last night. I was especially miffed since I had been called down to give a presentation 'now' and when we went to bed 2 hours later, I still hadn't. Turns out that the team had been waiting for me for like 15 minutes without telling me. Again, grr.
On the bright side, the new Black Eyed Peas CD came out yesterday so at somepoint in the next day or two I want to find a best buy or something and go get it. Yay. Then I get to deal with my cell phone which will hopefully be done with in the next couple of days. Anyone have any idea what being in 'Download Mode' for 2 days means?
I have been feeling underappreciated with this team and my roommate. I feel that they do a lot of wasting my time and re-doing the things that I have actualy spent a fair amount of time working on. Grr. I would really rather be drinking a beer with the guys from UC Davis than watching the first run of a presentation done by people who have only a minimal understanding of the equipment they are talking about. That was a painful event last night. I was especially miffed since I had been called down to give a presentation 'now' and when we went to bed 2 hours later, I still hadn't. Turns out that the team had been waiting for me for like 15 minutes without telling me. Again, grr.
On the bright side, the new Black Eyed Peas CD came out yesterday so at somepoint in the next day or two I want to find a best buy or something and go get it. Yay. Then I get to deal with my cell phone which will hopefully be done with in the next couple of days. Anyone have any idea what being in 'Download Mode' for 2 days means?
Thursday, June 02, 2005
wow. I am now a full fledged member of the adult working class.
Graduation was last weekend, although I feel like it was some sort of weird joke and I will still have to report to campus in the fall. Joke is on them I guess: no more school, no more $40,000 a year to attend classes, no more grading papers for $7/hr, no more homework on that green engineering paper i have come to know and love over the last 4 years.
I spent most of yesterday moving a first load of things to my new place and unpacking a large part of my kitchen supplies: I have a hell of a lot of stemware. I own about 50 glasses, at least. I think I will end up packing my dozen or so 'special occasions' glasses like my fancy martini and margarita glasses just so they dont take over my limited cabinet space, and then who knows. I have such fun, cute things for my kitchen :-)
Speaking of the kitchen, I need a slightly bizare set of appliances for my new place. I have a nice vacuum, blender, and some of the small things like a coffee grinder, but I still need all the random things that I have either been surviving without like a hand mixer, or using my roommates like his coffee maker. And of course I need the little stuff such as sponges and dish soap and duct tape and to find my nails so I can hang all my artwork around my place, although I think I will wait until my parents come down for the July 4th weekend to do that. I always felt that a place goes from feeling like a place to sleep to being home when you put things up on the walls.
Wow. I just looked over the last paragraph, and my sentence structure is all over the place. I can't even tell if I have been consistently writing completel sentences: when I am tired (it is 2:40 in the morning) my ability to use grammar goes out the window.
Graduation was last weekend, although I feel like it was some sort of weird joke and I will still have to report to campus in the fall. Joke is on them I guess: no more school, no more $40,000 a year to attend classes, no more grading papers for $7/hr, no more homework on that green engineering paper i have come to know and love over the last 4 years.
I spent most of yesterday moving a first load of things to my new place and unpacking a large part of my kitchen supplies: I have a hell of a lot of stemware. I own about 50 glasses, at least. I think I will end up packing my dozen or so 'special occasions' glasses like my fancy martini and margarita glasses just so they dont take over my limited cabinet space, and then who knows. I have such fun, cute things for my kitchen :-)
Speaking of the kitchen, I need a slightly bizare set of appliances for my new place. I have a nice vacuum, blender, and some of the small things like a coffee grinder, but I still need all the random things that I have either been surviving without like a hand mixer, or using my roommates like his coffee maker. And of course I need the little stuff such as sponges and dish soap and duct tape and to find my nails so I can hang all my artwork around my place, although I think I will wait until my parents come down for the July 4th weekend to do that. I always felt that a place goes from feeling like a place to sleep to being home when you put things up on the walls.
Wow. I just looked over the last paragraph, and my sentence structure is all over the place. I can't even tell if I have been consistently writing completel sentences: when I am tired (it is 2:40 in the morning) my ability to use grammar goes out the window.
