Vacationing In a Warmer Climate

My apologies for the delay.
Last week started, and finished, finals.
Monday, I gathered a group and we went and spread Christmas cheer by singing loud for all to hear.  A huge success in my standards, we had a group of six people.  Most important, though, was the look of amazement and the smile that grew on their faces.  Plus we "sang" the 12 Days of Christmas at the top of our lungs in the Civil Engineering hallway.
Twas' a traumatic (rest of) week.
I studied, took a test, studied, took a test, studied, took a test, studied, and took a test.
Tuesdays's test in a phrase: On a scale of 1 to 5, how much effort did you put into this class? A. 1 B. 2 etc. (actually on the exam)
Wednesday's exam: Open book, open note, open other textbooks, open internet. Just don't talk to your neighbor.
Thursday's exam was one of the hardest that I've taken.
Friday's was at 8pm.  Who schedules an exam for a Friday at 8pm?


Rewind to the weekend before. I thought that my gingerbread house construction plans were not going to work out until Kevin called me all excited about building one.  Since a picture is worth 1000 words, here's how it went:

WHAT?!?!? I get to build a gingerbread house???

But what should I make?

YAY! I'm all done!

Fast forward to Thursday again.  Brendan flew up to Fairbanks for the weekend.  Friday we drove around town, worked out, then went to see Sherlock Holmes.  This was the first movie I've seen in theaters since the newest Chronicles of Narnia back in March.  Decent movie, too.  Made me chuckle at times.  Much more closure than the first movie.

Saturday was supposed to be MANlympics, but you can't have games with only three people, so Brendan, Sean, and I decided to throw the caper around, build a fire, then shovel the yard into a pile to make a MANcave.  Caper tossing is just fun.  The Scot's sure know how to make a manly event.  The fire wouldn't have happened without Brendan.  We were starting it with matches, and it was dying until Brendan saved it.  But it turned into an inferno and burned some nice 10X10's.  The pile that we shoveled ended up being near 10' in diameter and 6' high.  I was a tad stiff in the morning.

Our Caper

The Blaze

Sean Working at the pile

We finished Saturday by going to Chena Hot Springs and soaking in the beautiful hot water.

Sunday morning I woke up far too early and got Brendan on a plane.

Continuing on Sunday, Kevin, Sean and I trudged around the top of Esther Dome with MAN-lamps and flashlights in the dark.  There were clear skies making the night beautiful.  We're doing it again.  Hopefully with a full moon.

After Esther Dome, the three of us went to the airport to pick up Andrew, who came in to drive down with me.

(This listing of events is getting rather boring, so to speed things up...)

The Prestige is a straaaaange movie.

And patience is a virtue. Steven drove down Sunday morning, it was icy, but manageable.  The evening drive was absolutely horrible from what I hear.  There was blizzards, ice, more blizzards, thunder, lighting, blizzards, ice...

Monday morning, however, was driving in a winter wonderland.  There was great visibility, the roads were mostly clear.

We're now caught up to Tuesday, at which point, I will say something is wrong with Anchorage.  Its super windy, its warm, and it is not pretty.  I want to go back to Fairbanks where there is actually snow.

Yesterday

Once upon a time... Yesterday in review.
I tried pushing Steven to his max effort.  This means that I said, "let's sprint the basketball court in between sets" on Wednesday.
The adverse outcome here, on Friday, Steven said, "let's sprint the basketball court..."
I'm sore.

Unhappy

The worst news of yesterday:  See my very unhappy power cord?  I don't think that they're supposed to be able to do that.
I'm not sure how it happened either.  I was winding it up from the wall side and when my hand went below the white block to grab the cord to continue, there was no cord.

The best news of yesterday: I finished my last homework assignment of the year (2011) and semester.  One  week and one more semester in this school adventure.

I shall digress from yesterday and move to yesterday's yesterday: Thursday.
I had to wear a suit to school to give a presentation.  Suits are so awesome.  I slightly wish that I get a job that makes me wear one daily.
The presentation was awesome.  Two of my group members and I ad-lib very well.


Back to yesterday: In parting, I leave you with a picture of what I made last night.  A skillet full of cheesy goodness, pepperoni and bacon.

Heading to Zero

This is a graph.

This is a graph of many things.

Think of it as divided by ~12 so that the maximum is 1. (11.6283 to 6 significant figures)

What does this graph represent? Depends on what you make the x-axis and y-axis.
The y-axis is benefit, productivity, utility, all things good.

When I originally created this graph, it was 8 hours of sleep +/- the x-axis in hours.  So, 0 = 8 hours of sleep.  As you can clearly see, there is tremendous benefit from sleeping 8 hours, though you can function at 6 or 10.
At 6.8 hours and 9.2 hours, its bad news.

What else is this? A semester's productivity.  From the left-most zero to the right-most zero and x is time. Unfortunately, I'm on the right-most side of the graph.  Passed the peak.  I'm heading for zero.  Fast.

I can't wait to ski and run over graphs like this...

Plus, this is proof that you need to let Nathan get 8 hours of sleep for optimal performance.

1-0

Yeah... I tried writing a post and this is as far as I got. Maybe later.
Okay. It's later.

I woke up yesterday to an invitation to run.  I really didn't want to, but I figured that it would be good.  Plus it gave me a legitimate excuse to buy some ski pants.
Breakfast #1: 4 pieces of bacon, 4 eggs.  Yum.  I'm grinning from ear to ear.

Went for the run a couple hours later.  20min is enough to bite you with the "I want to ski and run" bug.  I shall suffer with the illness until Christmas Break.
Breakfast #2: pile of scrambled eggs, 2-3 pieces of bacon, 2 waffles.  The grin just got larger.

I got to set up Christmas decorations, again!  I'm beginning to like my two season life: Running and Skiing.
But it was fun. And I'm glad that I got to help out.

Moved from Christmas to the UAF v. UofM hockey game.  Michigan had much better teamwork.  Neither team was really worth anything, though. 0-0 into OT and a UAF loss by a sort of knock-of-the-puck-that-just-so-happened-to-get-under-the-goalie shot.

Breakfast #3: Megga Muffins.
More importantly, the debut of them.  As soon as I started to put the bacon into the cupcake pan, everyone was curious.  Add eggs and peppers, bake for a while, and get a fanfare of praise.  It's satisfying to here people rave about what you made.
Plus I felt like a total yuppie.  I was wearing a button down shirt, cuffs rolled up twice, my watch as a timer, in a nice, well-lit kitchen, (I could go on) It was heavenly.