...and it's over

No more solar car for the rest of the summer.

I have no idea what to do with myself for the 8 hours of free time that I suddenly have.

Marching band starts again (for the last time) in two more weeks.

It seems like I have some need for myself to be chronically busy, otherwise I'm just confused.

Holy Crap

We leave for the Solar Car race in 7 days.

7 days.

I'm really excited and a little bit scared. I've been working towards this event for three years, which probably makes it the longest single project I've ever worked on. Three years of giving up time to hang out with friends and study.

It's really, really cool to see it finally be (almost) finished, but at the same time I'm worried that we've somehow completely screwed up, nothing will work, and we aren't living up to the standard set by previous teams.

On a somewhat related note, this will also be the longest (duration) trip I've ever been on.



...7 days...

School?

Spat Camp: Long, tough, fun
Leadership: new, exciting, more work than normal marching band

Solar Car: Dead as of Aug. 1, Back on as of Aug. 30
Solar Car Timeline: Unknown
Solar Car attitude: Mixed

Classes: none on Tuesday, only one on Thursday! Should be a good semester.
Lib-Ed's: Mus1001 - Clapping for credit as a night class

Apartment: nearly fully moved in; Gopher shrine shaping up

Sports: can't wait for hockey, still pretty excited for football despite loss

Busy Busy Busy

Wow, I have been busy. The last two months just flew by; classes and the school year went way too fast, and a standard office job makes the time go even faster.

In response to my last post, I have decided not to persue a Mechanical Engineering major. A few days after the previous post, it was revealed to me that there exists a wonderful thing called the Professional Engineer exam. Passing this exam officially certifies you as a Mechanical engineer, which basically serves as a degree, for about 1% of the price, a bit of extra studying, and a lot less hassle than taking an extra year or so of classes.

The last week of school, I ended up with two job offers: one with the physics department managing their 1,000 classroom demos part-time, and the other a student engineering assistant job with U of M energy management. I chose to take the energy management position, which means I'm working 40 hours a week on campus. I decided to live at home this summer, mostly because it's cheaper. As a result, I take the bus/train to campus every day, which works out pretty well.

Since it's summer, solar car has increasingly taken up more time. 2 or 3 meetings per week after work take up the remainder of most my days; as a result, I'm often not home for enough time to get a full night's sleep. But: it's worth it, because after two years of being on the project with little to show for it, we are finally starting to build stuff! Design work is happening faster and faster, which leaves everyone with a sense of accomplishment. By the end of the summer, we should have something that roughly resembles a solar powered vehicle.

Marching Band next year is going to be awesome! I managed to get myself on to leadership (which feels weird), but the season looks to be shaping up well: John Williams' "Summon the Heroes" is on the docket, one of the best individual pieces written by him. Less than 50 days 'til Spat Camp, I can't wait! Diem says we're expecting a smaller-than-normal rookie class, apparently due to the 'U' admitting more academically qualified applicants as opposed to well-rounded students who are more inclined to do marching band. It's all part of our plan to become one of the top three research universities, I call shennanigans.

The new stadium is coming along, University Ave. is all torn up in order to move the roads around. I occassionally go down to engineering records (which is in the same building I work in) to look at the new plans, it's good fun. When I express how excited I am about it, many people complain about how much money the University is spending on the stadium. I am then forced to explain to them two realities: one, my Marching Band is getting a new home, and two, whether they like it or not, athletics, especially the football team, is the face of the University that a vast majority of the public sees. Building the stadium will have great first and second order effects all around campus.

I plan to do quite a bit of weekend traveling next year, mostly involving hockey: I want to go to games at North Dakota, Michigan/Michigan State, Mankato, St. Cloud, and UMD. Just over 100 days until the puck drops! Still no word whether Goligoski is coming back (it was supposed to be announced yesterday, grrr...), I'm still crossing my fingers and trying not to hope too hard.

I'm getting old. I just had my 20th birthday 2 weeks ago (was it really that long ago), and two of my friends got married over the last month, one of whom I graduated with. Scary.

I have recently come to a startling realization, and explanation as to why I am so tired all the time: I do not spend enough time at home to get a good night's sleep during the week. Between a full-time job, solar car, a social life (mostly on campus), and commuting between them, it's often less than 8 hours between when I get home and when I have to get up in the morning to go to work. How this will affect me come fall (with the addition of Marching Band and classes, but a reduction in work hours) is yet to be seen, but the results should be interesting. I keep telling myself that I can handle as much as I want to throw at myself, but this summer is making me seriously reconsider how much I am putting on my plate. I love all of the stuff I do so much, I don't know what I am willing to let go if it comes to that.

Band, Solar Car, Sun, High School Freinds, and Fun!

Week = So-so. Weekend = Awesome!

My excellent weekend began with a physics test. I'm pretty sure I got at least a 90, which I really needed since I have been getting 70s to 80s for the rest of the semester. In the afternoon, we had a VERY productive SVP design meeting, where we essentially laid out the entire design for next year's car (presumably titled Borealis IV). Unfortunately, I missed an ultimate frisbee game in order to attend. That night, we all dressed up and went as a floor to the IT ball. At first, it was pretty awkward (think: middle-school dance), but eventually the DJs started playing good music and everyone got out on the dance floor. It was a good time, I threw down a few dance moves (i.e. robot, funky chicken, shopping cart, and the worm. yes, I can do the worm.), which is pretty rare for me. Afterwards, we went to Big10 for food, still in our formal clothes. Good times all around.

Saturday was also a very good day. I woke up early to go to solar car, me the team at the Gopher lots by Mariucci. Since the car wasn't starting due to electrical issues, the Aero team (who had been sent to set up the course) decided to go to Chipotle for breakfast (this was at 11:30, so more like lunch) - continuing the fine Aero Team tradition of finding food when there is nothing else to do. Since the car wasn't going to run, we picked up the cones and took the connector back to St. Paul. Bty: riding the connector with traffic cones and burritos is very fun. Back at the shop, we did our first big-time layup on our new rear fairing mold and beautiful new kevlar-carbon fiber blend fabric.

After we were done in the shop, I headed back to the 'brook to get ready for drum major auditions. I didn't even get up to my room; people were leaving just as I walked in the front door. At DM auditions, I got to see lots of people that I hadn't seen in a while, and it felt good to be out on the field again. I didn't get leadership, but I wasn't really expecting to, so I was hardly disappointed at all. I mostly tried out to get a feel for the interview for next year. Congrats to all who did get on to leadership! During deliberations, I played in a game of ultimate with the trumpets. As usual, I could out-jump all of them :P. It was a pretty sweet game, since I could basically go all-out and not worry about my landing on the soft, forgiving turf of Bierman Athletic field. During this time, we also found our about the music we're playing next year: shows include Heroes (i.e. Bond, Indiana Jones and ROBIN HOOD PRINCE OF THIEVES), Earth Wind and Fire, Tower of Power, Latin (yay Malaguena), and video games (we better march Tetris Blocks down the field). Molly Watters got Drum Major, which makes her the first female DM in the 115-year history of the band. Congratulations to her! Afterwards, a whole bunch of 'Bones and 'Tones went to Chipotle (just like old times), bringing my daily Chipotle total to 2. We sat on the grass in front of MacNamera and joked around, it was great to just sit around and relax with a whole bunch of band-o's again.

After all the band stuff was over, my dad picked me up in front of Chipotle to go to Jefferson for the Connection Special (show choir, for those of you not in 'the know'): the show wasn't nearly as good as last year's, but still a lot of fun to watch. I got to see even more people I hadn't seen in a while and gave out plenty of hugs. Kari, the only graduating 'bone from JHS, is unfortunately going to Madison, but not marching in the band, so I forgave her (almost). Steve, one of my best H.S. freinds and another 'bone, is going to be DM for the other 'Pride of Minnesota' next year, the 2nd bone DM in 3 years (yeah, that's right, we're awesome), and also said U of M is currently his top college choice, which made me happy. We stood in the parking lot talking about band for quite some time.

After Connection Special, I came back to campus and watched 'The Matrix' and 'Equilibrium' in the TV lounge (I highly reccommend the latter to anyone who enjoys the former), then hung out until 5AM in Katie H's room, talking about god knows what with band people. Good times indeed.

Today, I once again woke up early-ish and went to Solar Car. We pulled the fairing off of the mold from yesterday, and it turned out BEAUTIFULLY. Once again, the car was broken, but it was fixed after about a half hour. I was once again appointed crew chief for the day, which basically means that I will be crew chief for at least Formula Sun this summer, and mabye for NASC next summer (for band people: this is essentially the equivalent of being Drum Major, but for solar car). HAPPY! It even makes up for not making band leadership, and I honestly don't know if I could handle both. We stood out in the Gopher lots running the car around the slalom course. There was a very scary moment when one of the drivers hit the curb and there was a sickening crunch, but only the fairing/wheel cover was damaged, and the incredibly awesome aero team did some quick fixes and we were back on the road in 5 minutes. Also, we got 2 pits that were 5.5 minutes long, our target was under 5 minutes. I stood out there for over 3 hours, watching the solar car while facing the sun; I'm told my face is a little pink (the first sunburn of the year, more to come, I'm sure).

Finally, we drove back to the shop and packed up the car, and went home. We stopped at Frontier to drop people off, and I saw a familiar-looking BMW 750iL sitting in the parking lot. It turned out that my HS freind that goes to school in California was visiting for the weekend, so I went down to river flats and threw the frisbee around for an hour (more time in the sun for me!), and just joked around a little. It was at this point that I realized I had not eaten anything and only had a sip of water since ingesting the aforementioned burrito. Dinner was good, even though it was UDS (the first UDS since friday dinner), and so concludes my awesome weekend. I am tired and sore, but very content with life at the moment.

4 months until spat camp! :D

Why do I always write so much? Mabye because I suck at telling stories in real life? Probably.

A final note: look around campus Monday morning. My fun weekend's not over yet!