The Travel Adventures

Or, why no one should want to go on vacation with me:

I have found the perfect location for an inner tube

When you stick someone (me) who likes activity inside of an office, the result is somebody (me) who spends as much time as possible wearing themselves out after they exit the office. And if you take all that inactivity and send the person (me again) on vacation... Activity after activity, day after day. Zoom>>>  Zoom>>> Let's go hiking! Today is biking! Paddleboarding! Skydiving! Okay, maybe not skydiving. Snorkeling!

What? You want a break? Are you kidding? There's a whole 30 minutes of daylight left! Zoom>>

Plus, when you play harder, you sleep harder. It's a great day plan!

You'll miss your office after the vacation is over.

Then, if that isn't enough, some of these things are deadly! If you make it out cut, scrape, bruise, and other injury or scar free, you're doing a great job.

Of course, it's almost to your benefit that I get one, or all of the above. Then I have to take a rest day. Or slow down.

Anyone care to join me?

There are two people in this photo. No my camera isn't tilted.

I've managed to carry battle scars of my summer adventures all the way up into winter. From the hike above and getting fairly sunburned, I've carried my backpack straps all summer. They are tanned in to my shoulders. I have a watch tan. And a funny tan spot on my chest from a partially zipped jacket. Ah, the things that build character... Despite spending time in Hawaii, none of the above are gone.

Now, this has turned into an experiment: how long do the effects of a June sunburn last...

If I am wrinkly when I'm old, it means I got outside and enjoyed the sun.

Next Time, I'm in Charge of Flights

Where's the Bean Stock?

Wow! I've managed to make it 3 whole weeks since I last posted.
Believe me, it was a fight not to post; but with sheer will power, I overcame the urge.

Coffee is a good thing

"I should blog" "oooo, what's on gearpatrol" "I should blog" "hmm sleep sounds nice"

3 weeks ago I was working like crazy trying to prepare for my week long class. Monday I spent in the Valley trying to start some work in hopes that I could've sent it off for approvals while in Chicago. Tuesday I spent in Kenai being shown an area where I am designing a station for; they gave me a thumbprint sized location to fit a footprint sized station. Great... Wednesday "Hey, btw, we need you down in Homer" And "Hey, btw, the meeting isn't until 3" Yay... Another 14 hour day in Homer. Thursday and Friday I spent catching up on stuff that I missed while out the first three days. It was a hectic week. More FlyAway Rewards Points for me!

So then I venture forth to Chicago to learn about how to properly design measurement stations. Just in time!
"Why are we leaving at 2:30 in the morning??" Because you picked the flights, Paul...

The first place I looked for in Chicago was good coffee, and found it at Intelligentsia. Paul proceded to laugh about how hipster the place was. Hey, I go where there's good coffee. Upon getting our slow brew, we walked over to Millenium Park to see the giant silver bean. I think it's called the cloud gate. I think I saw the moment-after of someone proposing. There was a lot of applause and PDA.

I spent the week drinking out of an educational fire hose, and I think I absorbed the gist of everything. I found out that my cohort is not much of a museum person, so we spent the week walking around the town and finding food. I highly recommend Gino's East Pizzeria and Seven on Heaven. Gino's East is near, well um... Hooters, and a Hard Rock Cafe, but the pizza was great! I had to admit defeat after only 3 slices, though. Seven on Heaven is cajun. Whatever cajun is doing in downtown Chicago, it's doing it right. That was phenomenal. It may be a good, or a bad, thing that we found that on the last night.

After walking around and exploring pretty much everywhere North of the river, on the last morning, in the beautiful sun, we discovered the South side of the river; where Frank Sinatra sings, "On State Street, that great street, I just want to say..." Bummer, it's the last morning. Next time, I suppose.
"Wait, there was a 9pm flight? Why didn't we get on that last night?" I don't know, you tell me
"Dangit, why didn't we take the direct?" Can I pick the flights next time, Paul?

(Don't get the wrong impression, Paul is a great, hilarious fellow. He is me at ENSTAR, except for Anchorage)

I return to a desk that looks more like a mountain. That was a first. Monday I spent the day just staring at it. Actually, I picked up my axe, and started hacking away. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. My desk actually surfaced by Thursday and I made some great progress in other areas. I love it when things go my way.

Last week also started hill training. Oh, how I hate it so. I am sore. Like a warm hug... Maybe one of these days I'll get a new hobby that requires less energy.       Nah!

And, as texted to my sister, that delicious image on the right is an egg house. It's really simple: take a tomato, scoop out the inside, put an egg in there, bake it, top with bacon. Great stuff. And it has bacon. Who can argue with that?

Who Celebrated May the 4th?

Time and Travel

My math skills were vindicated. I was asked another math problem that I was able to do and conclusively prove that the answer that was given for this problem was in fact, wrong. The square root of 97 does not come out to be a nice number.
Even better than that, I got to sing the quadratic formula song: (to the tune of pop-goes-the-weasel) x is equal to negative b plus or minus square root of b squared minus four a c all over 2 a.
Now try and forget that.

Last time, I said that I was addicted to coffee. That is not entirely true. I am consumed by it. And I happily consume it.
There is always room and time for coffee. Always. No rush is more important than a chance of sitting back and relaxing to a nice slow bar brew.
This is me taking my 10 minutes to smell the roses as I go by.
I have now gone 4 for 4: been to a coffee shop 4 days in a row. One of those shops I've returned to for the last 3 days. (I'm hoping to go for a 5th)
But all of this coffee does have a use: adjusting to time zones while traveling. I had to switch three hours when I went to Chicago, so I front loaded my day with TONS of coffee. It was great! Maybe not healthy, but after 5 or so shots before lunch, your afternoon is magical. Unless you're trapped inside of a seminar, like I was. Then you just sit there and look left. Then right. Then left. Then right. Then at your watch. Isthisseminaroveryet?CanIleaveandgorun?Hey,thatguyjustsaidsomethingcool,didyoucatchthat?Oooo.Mypencanmakesquigglylines.CanIleaveandgorun? squiggle squiggle*
Then at night, you suddenly think that you are going to fall asl... snore*

Chicago is... a city. That is windy. And chilly. I only got out to explore one night, but I do have to return soon. I left myself a lot of openings for exploring then.

The Vanishing Author Act

Don't I perform such an excellent vanishing author act?
I was kind of hoping that this blog would continue in my absence, but blog posts aren't like interest: it doesn't accrue when you're not paying attention.  As a result, nothing has been added to the record for quite some time.

We'll just say I was taking a sabbatical. Again. Much longer.

So... Lets flip back the calendar to last July and go through what I've done. ... If I can remember.

July:
July is fishing month. I managed to get 5 straight days fishing in and only taking one day off. I drove down to Kenai on a Wednesday after work and fished that night. I took the Thursday off and fished the next day, cleaned fish, hung out, normal fish camp activity. Friday morning I woke up terribly early and flew back to Anchorage to work the day. After work I flew back to Kenai to fish that evening and through the weekend driving back Sunday afternoon.
That's a power weekend.
The following Tuesday I flew to Houston for a 2 day conference for work. I was upgraded to first class 3 out of 4 flight legs for the trip. Ahh... It's so awesome to the the bachelor traveling around in first class...
We're up to 5 days of fishing, 1 day of work, 3 days of travel, then 1 day of work and...
Back to Kenai. I tried fishing 2 more times, ran Lost Lake, and then Sunday drove back to Anchorage.
Oh. And I got in a 3 car wreck on the way back. ...Yeah... So much fun. (the picture of this seem to be lost)  By a miracle the insurance company decided to fix my car, but that didn't really matter. (See September)

August:
I got to play best man in another wedding. Pretty awesome. Late congratulations to Steven, everyone.
I worked through the month. Ran the Lost Lake race at the end of the month. Not too eventful.

The Color of Death

September:
Went camping at savage river in Denali National Park with three friends. Cold, but really fun. We got rained on. Hiked through the fog and more rain. Then snowed on. Thank goodness for camp fires. I would've been quite frozen otherwise. Oh, and got lectured on why fall is the worst season: it is the season of DEATH!!!! Everything is dying and shriveling up and rotting!
Mid September I got the privilege of going halibut fishing. For work. And getting paid. I live a rough life.
At the end of the month, I made a purchase bigger than what school cost me:
Meet Geb:

Geb. 'Nuff Said

Its fun to drive an AWD rocket.

October:
The most notable event in October is me joining Crossfit Alaska. Crossfit is nuts, exhausting, painful, but really addicting. Not to be masochistic... We'll save crossfit for another day.

November:

I went down and visited Andrew and Chelsea over thanksgiving. I miss going and chilling out with them since they've moved. The funny part of my trip was that I was hoping to be lazy, do nothing, eat anything and everything, Chelsea, on the other hand, wanted to eat healthy and go to crossfit. I had an entirely paleo thanksgiving, and it was delicious. Late thanks to Chelsea who made all of it. (Oh, and I was reminded how much I don't like carving a turkey... it's so hot on your hands...)

December:
We wish you a merry Christmas...
I had the undue pleasure of house sitting for a friend who quietly went insane right before she left and somehow acquired 5 dozen apples. What do you do with 5 dozen apples???? Well, you make 2 rounds of monkey bread, the filling for 3 apple pies, you leave a dozen with your family, and you eat the rest. So many apples...
That brings us up to the New Year, and one final tale:
My boss asked if I could house sit over New Years. Sure. He showed me the quick ropes, I met his dog, all was fine and dandy. Day 1 of house sitting: I'm in the kitchen making dinner, and I hear "meow"... ? *turn around* A cat?
Thought process: okay, there's a dog door, maybe it snuck in. If its here in the morning, I'll know it belongs.
Next morning, "meow" Searched the house all over, found the litter box, food, and water. The cat must belong.
I mentioned it later when my boss returned, "oh, yeah, normally the cat is good for 4 or 5 days, so I didn't think about it"
Great...

...And a happy New Year!

(and to those who have heard those stories already, I have to catch up with you)

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.

Weekends

About that tree... Better pictures may not come. I don't have a tripod. Or at least a tall, functional one. So the tree will just be on here twice.
"Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree"

My blog is a weekend ordeal. I obviously never have time in the week. Unless it's on the iPod. In class. That explains the difference in the number of posts in October and September.

It's been snowing for... Days it seems like. The trees are covered. It makes me sing Christmas carols.
"Have yourself a merry little Christmas, Let your heart be light
From now on, Our troubles will be out of sight"

I just 'apple-s'd the blog.

Do you know how cool it would be to goof off for a summer. Brendan... Want to go somewhere? Like an epic road trip. To the North East. Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire (What else is up there?)

Like Ice Cream!

'Twas the night before (monday) and all through the (skies) a Nathan was flying, all through the skies.

I'm in a Christmas phase right now. Don't worry, this too shall pass.

Alrighty. I got home Sunday night. I was expecting a total vacation trip. It was sort of a vacation. But there were three days of non-stop meetings, averaging 7:30am to 9:30pm. There was hardly any time.

I did manage to sneak out with Kevin and go find my first ever geo cache. That was pretty nifty. I want a gps now so that I can go find a bunch.

On the way back, I bought Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and read the entire thing on the planes. It was pretty good. My current highlight of the book: (in reference to a premier law firm) "If they can't out smart you, they will out work you. If they can't out work you, they will win by sheer intimidation."

That's power. Prestige. That's a NAME.

By not doing anything on the trip and by having a project due today, I have have done nothing but school up to this point. Okay, that's a lie. I've got some work related things on my plate. Sigh... So much to do.

Anyways, my group gave a presentation today on the Bullet line, and it was a remarkable improvement from our first presentation. The whole class said so. I'm still not sure if I want to claim the paper that was written.

I'm writing a history paper on Nelson Mandela. Most (easiest) factoid about him: he was 6' 4". That's tall.

As you can see, this blog has become a novelty item (like ice cream) for me, as I only post every once in a while. This follows my consumption of some things. (like ice cream) I do (like ice cream)

(And you thought that I would go a whole post without food...)

From Afar

First of all... Did you know that afar.com is a website?

I am in Indianapolis. It was a very long travel day. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't taken so many planes. Three I can handle. I did not want to get on the fourth.
I got here and found the shuttle stop full of other TBP-ers and that's how I found the hotel.

To Bagels!!

I woke up and tried finding if there would be breakfast. Asked the roommate. We went to the front desk. From the information that the front desk gave us and what my roommate and I gathered, we're on our own this whole time. We went to Einstein Bros. Bagels. Pretty good.

Roommate: Kevin. (Why do so many people have such similar names in my life) He's a Chem-E from upstate New York. Pretty cool.
I met some other people, and ended up spending three hours on the town with them.

I walked around that full circle

I wish that I had brought a camera.
We went to the capital building. It was pretty awesome. There was a stained glass window at the top of the dome. Very beautiful. I wish I had brought a camera.

Most of the store front that I'm seeing is food. Restaurants everywhere. When it came time for lunch, we had to pick a place. One of the girls in the group wanted an "experience" and not just a chain restaurant. It was decided to ask a lady walking on the street.
"Follow me."
We did. To Scotty's Brewhouse.
It was awesome. The waitress was cool. She helped us all pick what to eat. Gave us the run down. Etc.

And the food was great.

I also went to the job and career fair. Talked to some cool people. Heard some inspiring things. I can work for Cummins in power generation and be in Africa. They're installing generators there. I can get my master's degree and Sandia will "pay" for it. Oooh... Albuquerque anyone? I think that those two are the most interest piquing.

Walking around the city and meeting people from NY makes me want to travel. I want to go walk around the city of London. (Not this year due to the olympics, next year anyone?) But I also want to drive around North East US. I've never been up there and the pictures are pretty. I could drive around the North East then go drive route 66 back to the west coast. Oh. Oh my. That is a plan. All of this travel has been inspired again. I heard a friend say that since he still has one more year of school, he wanted to travel. I have air miles. I have some cash reserves. Worst position ever: travel and have a life experience or take an investment risk (get a job) and have a life experience.
Hmm. Get a job or have some fun this summer?
Does anyone know of places to go?

And so far, other than the short about the job fair and travel, this has been all about food. All I've seen on the streets is food. Food, food, and more food. Eh. Someday more will come of this.