Once a source of "Not all you want to know about Texas Adventure Racing," but now just some "leisure" adventure through the eyes of "The K-SPoT"

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Quick Update

Alright, I have forgotten my lunch today so I'm going to spend my lunch hour doing a quick blog. Back to work from the long X-mas weekend. It was nice--I went back to the Spoke and visited the fam and actually had time to see some friends. You see, due to ALL the banked vacation I had this year I was able to visit for a whole 2 days...being facetious of course. I'm not blaming anyone...actually, I think it turned out better that I spent fewer days than usual--no chance of feeling like I stayed too long.

Danny picked me up from the airport and we proceeded over to his lodge in the Hangman Hills since he had to pick something up on the way to my sister's house. His cats were at his mom's, so I didn't get a chance to play with them, grrr. I did get to play one of those plug-and-play joysticks that have retro games on them! Awesome! The one I played had Galaga, Pac-man, Ms. Pac-man, Pole Position, and a couple other games. I swore I would get me one of those soon!

Spent X-mas day with the Fam. Ethan has grown so much, especially wrt his personality. He loves to talk and we had a great time playing with his new toys. I especially liked playing with his Robosapien...another thing I need to get! Towards the evening I went out with Estela and Lisa and her bf, Derek. We went up to the south hill where there was a line at the Wild Weasel. Can you believe that?!?! We ended up heading next door to Pepperdines, where it eventually got pretty crowded there too. I was able to get Chad, Darren, and April to come up and chill for a while. Saw a bunch of Ferris folk. I was really glad that I went out that night.

That was it. Next day I flew out by 1pm and I was back in good ol H-town. Can you believe it snowed in Houston and there wasn't even a flake in Spokane?! Craziness. OK, that's it. Back to work.

Saturday, December 18, 2004

University of Arizona Meeting

This place is sweet! I want to move to Tucson now! I think I just miss the university atmosphere--laid back and friendly. I'm sitting here in a cafe called Espresso Art. I'm not here only because they have free wireless internet, but this is where Robert, Dr. F, frequents. To prove this, I showed the lady who worked here this picture and asked her if she recognized anyone:


She immediately recognized Robert and his grad student, Ge. There was actually a grad student there who got her masters at Illinois and knew Spencer, Yong Gao, and Naru! She now works for Robert too. Too funny. The meeting went well, but it took the whole day. It was rough. I contributed some, but a lot of the meeting focused on the testing setup so I couldn't help much with that. I was able to help out with the ground motion scaling and MDOF analyses, so I was happy about that. Hopefully I can help out a bit in the future...oh yeah, you have to go to this webpage! Its a live video stream of Clay's experiments at Lehigh! Technology is amazing!

We went to Robert and Jen's home afterwards in the foothills on the outskirts of Tucson. It was beautiful--I hope Clay sends me the photo of the scenery at his place! It was a nice night to watch the stars and there was even a fireworks show in town that we could see from his deck. Jen made an excellent dinner! Mostly everyone had left town last night, but I'm still here and Robert, Jen, and I are planning a hike near Mt. Lemmon this morning. Man, its times like these that I wonder if I could make it as a prof...

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Housekeeping

I forgot about this gem:

Now this is adventure racing! We have our HART X-mas party this weekend and I'm a bit conflicted. I want to go for the party, but not sure if I want to race/train up at Double Lake for the 3rd consecutive weekend...guess I'll just have to deal. Had a full day today of skating, road biking, running, and navigating. Wonder what Tricky Ricky has in store for us tomorrow...

Sunday, December 05, 2004

Back in the saddle

As you probably have figured out by now, I have started work at stress and it has been taking up my day now. So not as much time to blog now, but I will check back in from time to time. Work has been really good so far--the people are really laid back and they know their stuff. I'm currently working in a conference room while they finish up my office. I've already started doing some ABAQUS stuff and am back to good ol' UNIX! I have to remember all the commands now. CDE is the default windows system. The only thing I have to work out is to get a routine set for after work workouts. Since the commute is much farther, I have less time to waste. They do have showers at work, so maybe I have to use that to my advantage somehow.

The company's X-mas party was this weekend. It was really nice. It was held at Champions Golf Club. Tight! Open bar and the dinner was spectacular! They did service awards and then it was to a little dancing. We didn't stay very late because I had to head to Double Lake today for some training. It was with Chris and Bobby. We first biked the wet trails twice (15 miles) and then ran the Lone Star Trail for about 6 miles. Now I'm here, getting ready for work. Not much changes--the weekend is still not long enough...