The Last One...

This is it folks, the last blog entry that will be made into this collection. I would just like to give a brief summary of what happened to me during this terrific summer:
1) I had my first experience as a working engineer. I learned a lot, had tons of fun, and just really realized that I love what I do, and I can't wait to see where my career will take me.
2) I had my first real long time away from home. I spent the entire summer 800 miles from where I call home, and the big adjustment worked out just fine. I did not really seem to get lonely, because everytime I turned around someone was here to visit me!
3) I also have the greatest family and friends. It was great having people come out to visit me, first it was my friends Nick and Jeff, where we rode some bikes and went to New York City. Next I had my Dad, Mom, and sister out here, where we traveled to Maine and spent an awesome weekend on the shore. Next was my girlfriend Caroline, who came out and we went and saw New Port, RI and Salem, MA. After that was my Aunt Mary, Uncle Rene, Julian and Cameron, who came out and we spent a weekend on "The Cod," and made the trip all the way to the tip of the Cape. Then there was my friend Pete who I saw a few times, but we went and climbed Mt. Washington, that was tiring!
4)Besides for all of the visiting, it seems that people got a great deal out of this blog. I would say that my grandparents enjoyed it the most, any time I talked to any of them they were always talking about my latest adventures from my blog (and Grandpa even figured out how to post comments!). I also spent hours and hours on the phone, keeping up with the family and friends, always something happening that I like to hear about it.
5) I got to race and ride bikes in a whole new place. I enjoyed the terrain very much on both my mountain and road bike, I also really enjoyed riding the trails with people from back home, Jeff and Nick had fun and my Dad and I had a great ride around the trail by my house. Competing at Nationals was a great experience, and really is pushing me to my limits, and will hopefully inspire me to compete at the professional level someday.
6) I got to eat lobstah like I never have before. I tried to remember exactly how many I ate, but I can't seem to get them all, lets just say it was more than enough for two people! I also got used to Sam Adams Beer, there always seemed to lots of that around the east coast, so now I enjoy a "Sams" here and there.

Those where just some of my closing thoughts about my summer. Although I hope that I will never forget this summer, I will unfortunately slowly lose some of the details, but I really will remember just how great it was, and how everyone supported me and helped me to be my best, just like you always have, I can never thank you enough. I can't write down everything down, but I have to say, getting the camera was a great idea, my Mom always knows best. They always say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and I took many many pictures this summer, but I have to saw this one was one of my favorites, and it was taken on the last day of my trip:

Yes, that is the welcome sign that I took a picture of on my drive home. I had a great adventure, and I am very glad that I took the opportunity, but there is no place like home, and there is no place I would rather be.

The finale is soon to come!

Just want to let everyone know that the grand finale is coming soon, I have been really busy and have not yet been able to create the final post. I would look for it sometime around next weekend.

To the top of Mt Washington

I am going to make a brief post about my adventure to the top of Mt. Washington. Some background info first, Mt. Washington is located in New Hampshire, and is the tallest peak in New England, at 5288 ft. It is noted for its terrible weather, and has the record for the highest wind speed ever recorded, something above 300 mph I believe.
My friend Pete and I decided that we would climb this beast last weekend. Our plan was to get to the top, and then come down and then camp in the woods. The trip typically takes about 8 hours (its an 8.1 mile hike), and we didn't get started till 1:30 because of traffic, so we knew we had to hustle. The trail was much harder that I had anticapted, who lots of rocks and it was fairly steep all the way up. Here is a picture of how the trail typically looked for the first little bit, before we passed above tree line.

Once we got above tree line, it started to become much steeper, and this meant crawling up rocks ardously as opposed to just walking up them. Getting above tree line also means that the start to get some great views, so here is what we started to see.


We are now about .5 miles from the top it turned into a boulder field. This meant that all you were walking on was big ol' boulders. You almost had to hop from boulder to boulder. This was the hardest part so far, jumping , crawling, doing whatever you could to get to the top was the method of choice now. And then we saw it, I saw the front of a truck, and I knew that we were at teh top!!!! Here is a picute of us at the top.


Once we got to the top it got sooooo windy, check out this video of the wind gusting at us, I believe it was about 50 or 60 mph, pretty awesome.



Now for the way back down, this was very difficult. The whole way down we were struggling, and we were starting to get tired. It was very tough to descend, plus we almost alwyas had to take big steps to get from boulder to boulder. By the time we got to the bottom we are both exhausted, and were ready to go and set up camp. It took us about 5 hours and 15 minutes to do the whole climb, so we were moving pretty fast. After that we went back country camping, which means that you just go and find a spot in the woods, its not like a "camp site" or anything.

It was a great experience, and I am very glad that I did it, but its almost been a week and I am just being able to walk normally again. After doing this hike I became more sore than I ever have before. I literally could not walk up or down stairs, if I touched my legs I winced in pain, and I could not ride my bike at all. All of this made for a pretty miserable week, physically at least, as I limped around and could not even think about riding my bike. But I am glad taht i did it, and I would not give it up for the world!

Mountain Bike Nationals at Mt. Snow, VT

Sorry for the delay on the race report for nationals, but with summer wrapping up out here , and the GRE exam less than one month away, I am pretty busy to say the least.

I headed up to Mt. Snow to meet one of the friends I have made to camp at his site with his family and to get into race mode. I arrived up there around 6:00 PM Friday night, and headed up to the mountain to pick up my packet and meet my friend Nathan. I did all that, and then we headed back to set up at the camp site and grab out bikes to pre ride the coarse. By the time we got back to the mountain it had started raining, which apparently was nothing new to these people. Wednesday and Thursday it poured out there, so the New England mud was at its best (or for a midwest buy it was at its worst!). We rode about half the course (he rode the UP part) and darkness stared to fall along side the rain, so we bailed on the downhill part and got back to the campsite as soon as possible. So my first impressions of the course were that the climbing would be good, and that it was going to be a mud feast.

We ate some dinner as the rain settled down, we had big plates of pasta with salad and other goodies, a great dinner that I would have not enjoyed if I would have gone to a motel by myself. So we went to bed, and as Nate, his cousing, and I got into a tent his cousin remarked "I hope that you don't mind snooring." Great I think, I am just about the lighest sleeper in the world, and I generally have trouble falling asleep before big races. So about an hour later I was quitely dozzing off, when what I thought was a freight train running me down woke me up. I quickley that my life was not in danger, and that freight train was his cousing snooring. So I tried to fall back asleep, but it didn't take long before I realized this was not going to happen. I then packed up my blankets and headed to my car, one of the smallest vehicles that there is. So long story short, I woke up the next morning and felt like I had been hit by a freight train, well at least it was 5:30 and that made everything better (sarcasm, if you didn't catch it.)

So we ate some breakfast and suited up and headed up to the race. Warm up went ok, but I didn't feel that great. I got to the starting line and got really excited, the sun was now shinning and it looked to be a great day, but as many of us know mud does not dry up that quick, so when the gun went off to get going I knew that the race was gonig to be a mud feast. I had a good start and got up to the front of the pack, and started climbing. I was holding my own for a bit, but my legs started to feel terrible and people started gonig by me. Oh, great thought my legs feel bad and my legs are what gets me by at a lot of races, I am a good climber. Another bad thing, was that with all the mud a lot of the climbs were impossible to climb, so that meads running. Running means that more people go by Mike, I must be one of the worst bike runners around. So I am st strike two right now, two things not going my way. So at the top of the climb I am not sure excatly where I was, but maybe like 10th or something. So we then headed downhill, and this is when things started getting better. I decided that if I was not going to climb, then I really had to descend. At some crucial points in racing you have to throw regard for your body to the wind, and just let yourself go. Well it was one of those times, I was not going to go down without a fight! I start flying down slippery rocks and roots, and mud that looks and feel like peanut butter (it does not taste that way though), and I start catching and passing people, all right I am starting to do a bit better now. I am not sure how people I passed going down, but it was quite a few. Well thats lap one, two more to go. The other two go more or less like the first one with the climbs killing me and me killing the decents. I kicked it up on the last lap, and finished the race with a slight feeling of disapointment with a time of around 2.5 hours. I really had hopes of walking away with a red, white and blue jersey and a gold medal, but not everything always goes your way. I sorta just ride around waiting for my friend to finish. He finishes, and I got a spin out the legs. To my surprise my friends tell me that we can't go back to the camp yet, I got 3rd place! Much much better than what I thought, and a good finish that I am happy about. Here is me on the podium:

The rest of Saturday we watched some other races that were going on at the mountain. This was pretty cool, because there is tons of biking folk and tons of different races to check out. Enough about that, you want to hear about the race on Sunday, the short track cross country race that is a short ~2o minute race that is a very tactile race that requires big legs, but a even bigger heart (I mean this figuratively and literally, you really dig deep in these races, because you are going as hard as you possibly can for the entire time.)

So once again we get to the line, and at the starting lines of races I am always talking to people and joking around, I just like to have fun, and this crew was pretty uptight and nervous I think. So the guns goes off, and we are off. I get a good start and I am immediately going as hard as I can. So the race continues and I am just hammering, and it starts to be apparent that five racers, including me, are way in front of everyone else. So what happens is that because each lap last about 1 minute, the officals take the slower riders off the course to keep it clear for the people up front. So after 10 mintues the entire field is pulled except for me and the other 4 up front. Two guys sort of got away from three of us, so it was then a battle for third place between me and two other guys. So for 10 minutes us three and trying to kill each other, with no success. We just keep on going like this until there is 3 laps to go. At this point I have to start using my head. I get in the second position in our group of three, and ride the lap just holding on. When the two laps to go sign goes up, I know that its time to go. I don't like to wait for the last minute to pass people, because I am better and just picking up the pace until other peoples legs fall off. So on the climb on the second lap, I put the pedal to the metal. I put a bit of a gap of these two guys and just keep it up. With one lap to get there are about 10 to 15 feet off my wheel. So the climb comes again, and I just go for it, do or die. I get to the top and peer back and see that the two guys have falled off even more. So I continue to just lay it all down, my legs are burning so bad, and my lugs feel like ther are breathing fire. We come to the finishing line and I just keep on going hard. I look back and I don't see them anymore, I give a fist pump and I am done. This was one hard race, I really had to just dig deep and tell my body that it had to go and there was no other choice. A big moral booster was that I had tons of people cheering for me. My friends family was cheering, and there was a number of people from my team from back in Michigan there cheering me on as well. Here is my on the podium again, it never seems to get old!


Well two third place finishes at a national event. I am really happy with the finishes and just thank everyone for all the support, there is no way that I could have done without it.

Weekend on the Cod

First I would like to get one thing straight here, Cape Cod will no longer be refered to as the Cape, but will forever be known as "The Cod." To some this may seem strange, but to one great man, namly, Uncle Rene, it is as normal lobstah in the sea. Here is a picture of this revolutionist slamming an oyster at the local oyster bah.


Of coarse the beloved Cod will not lose its beloved name so easily, this is where the opposition comes in, namly, one Aunt Mary, true warrior for the traditionalists. She is adament that the revolution will never occur, and the Cod will forever be known as the Cape. Here is a picture of Aunt Mary fighting back to Uncle Rene's oyster slamming with some of here own oyster skills.

The war does not end here, there is the other three players in this game, namly Julian, Cameron, and myself. Cameron is playing the neutral card, keeping his pistol hosltered. Julian is fighting hard for the Cod team, pleding his allegiencies to the revolution. Then there is myself, playing the double agent, I am in full support of the Cod, but I am secretly hoping it will be forever named "that hook thing that hangs of Massascheuts," I have of coarse not revealed until now, after my double agent duties have been fulfilled. Here is a picture of the three other players, Julian looking great in his lobstah bib (sorry man, I had to), Cameron with a big smile, and me playing the double agent slamming oysters so as not to appear suspicious:



Besides for the name of the place we went, we had a great time (well the name was fun as well though, but you get the point.) As you already saw he got some oysters on Sunday, fresh and slimy. I would saw that eating was one of the highlights. The Cafmeyers always seem to bring out the bottomless pit in me, and it was nice to have lots and lots of food to eat. We also got another glimse of the infamous beast, this time instead of steak it was lobstah, Aunt Mary really seemed to enjoy the lobstah, did she like it as much as the steak, only she knows the answer to that question (the beast is what happends to Aunt Mary when delicious food gets presented to her, sort of like how a warewolf has its full moon, to find out more feel free to ask her about the transformation.)

Another great part was all the beaching we got to do. On Saturday we travelled all the way up the Cod, yes all the way up for those of you who know whats at the end, we did see the Madness. For those of you who don't know what I am saying, look up Providence Town, a.k.a. P-Town Mass. and you will understand quickley what I mean (not appropriate for my blog.) But on our journey up the Cod he stopped at a great beach for a couple of hours. The waves were crashing and we had our buggy boards, and he were tearing the waves up.

There were many other highlights such as the bike rides with Uncle Rene, all the great picture spots along the sea shore, and most notably the great company that the Cafmeyers always provide when they are around. I thank them very much for the great weekend, and planning their vacation out on the east coast knowing I was going to be out here, it really means a lot.

As for the rest of the story, we never did see a tshirt that just said "The Cod," but neverless I wish we would have, not only would have then been hillarious, but I would have loved to have gotten one!

Delay

Sorry its been a while since my last post, but since then I have been to Cape Cod with the Cafmeyer family, and I raced at Mountain BIke Nationals at Mt. Snow Vermont. I will be updating soon, I have just been really busy with everything. Only a few more weeks at work then I am back in Michigan, woo hoo!

I drummed again...

Today Derek and I played drums, it was awesome. I don't know what it was, but as I was teaching Derek it felt like three years ago when I was instructing regularly. I was able to just pick it back up, and it really felt natural.

I taught him for about an hour, then I played by myself for about 10 minutes or so. It was weird, I remembered a lot of my old exercises and songs. It was like a time machine, I just traveled three years back, when drumming was my life, when that is pretty much all I did. Its weird how I sort of lost that identity, I mean, I used to define myself as a drummer. Over the past three years that has image has sorta faded. I guess that is how things go, as you grow up you change, but at least for me, I was sorta able to morph back into my formal self and play drums like the old days.

It was a great feeling, I was able to just let loose and notes were just coming from my hands, I mean, it was not as controlled or as fast as it used to be, but my mind just rewinded a little bit and I totally at home on the drum. Its just really weired to think about how I just used to play so so much, and now I never play.

Something happened when I picked up those sticks and started playing, something great, I just felt so free, and it was just like I was 17 years old, listening to a metronome that had been beating for hours, the sun beating down on my back, and me running all over a football field with my best friends, it was the place where we could have lived forever, and we were totally lost in music, and I guess that will never go away for me, and I could not be happier about that.

The Sunny Side of the Street

So, after a few days of being down in the dumps, I am feeling pretty good once again. I was just hit with a slump, sorta weird, but like I said, I feel good again today. Work was good today, I made a prototype of a way to demonstrate my product, I am not sure if it is going to work, but this is why they call it research, it does not always work the first time! Also, I got to do some down and dirty physics and figure some stuff out, that was a good time (yes, I am in fact enjoy that part, so yes, I am a dork.)

Also, I went on a bike ride today that was awesome. I rode this loop as fast as I have yet, and I felt smooth and fluid while doing it. Also, I made it down this super rocky tricky icky part for the first time, something I am very proud of.

I also got some bike parts in the mail, so any day you get some bike parts, is a good day.

Also, Auny Mary, Uncle Rene, Julian, and Cam man are coming to visit tomorrow, and we are going to Cape Cod, which should be a blast.

Ok, bye bye for now.....talk to you soon.

Hot Hot Heat

It is hot out here, and I also seem to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I feel really really busy with work, and everything else. It seems like my time out here is coming to an end, I only have about a month left. I have a final presentation for work on August 2nd, and for some reason I am feeling lots of pressure on that already. I would not feel so busy if I did not have so much to do (but I guess that is what being busy means.)

This final report is really getting to me. At work a lot of the machines I need to get stuff done are being used by other folks, and some of the machines that I am working on are not working (so this is a big problem.) One of the saddest parts of this sad story is that I came up with a really good idea of how to compare some data, but it appears that one of the machines that I was relying on to make this comparison is not doing what I want it to!!! Even though right on the screen it says that it should work (now I know how Grandpa feels when he is trying to leave comments!!!!!)

Well anyways I hope you enjoyed my rant, this heat really gets me going!!!!!! Lots of exclamation points really enforce my ideas I feel, or maybe not, but of well, I put a lot in there, mostly because I feel frustrated, and I enjoy commas and run on sentences.

Mountain Bike Racing

Ok, so I am going to go ahead and Tarantino this post, for those of you who don't know what that means, it means that I am going to start from the end of a story, and work my way up to the beginning (Tarantino is a movie writer/director who has done a few of my favorite movies.)



This is me standing on top of the podium at a cross country mountain bike race this weekend in Winston, CT, west of Hartford, in the 90 degree heat and direct sunlight. I won the 19-29 expert class race, which had 22 racers in it, the biggest class at the race. It was a four lap race, that lasted 1:42:35 according to official time, in which I had an average heart rate of 179, and went through about 1700 calories, almost a full days worth of energy for the average person.

So this is how it all started.... On Saturday there was another race there, a short race that lasts about 30 minutes, called a short track. In this race a placed 4th, in the 12-34 age group, this is a good finish considering the large span of the age group, and the people who show up to these racers are the serious ones, the best in New England.

After this race I was pretty tired, and I know that I had the longer race, the cross country race, which last about 2 hours the next day. The cross country race is much better suited to my current fitness, becasue to be good at the short track races you have to go on short fast rides, and I have not been doing that (I will not go into my training philosophy here). So I know that the cross country race would be the event for me to really shoot for.

On Sunday I woke up with a mild headache and my legs were sore from the day before, oh great, what a way to start huh? I then at some breakfast and headed over to the race. I warmed up, got everything together, and headed to the starting line. I was able to get the first row of racers, a good place to start so people don't get in your way. As soon as the gun went off, I took off and I immediately clipped into my pedal, and I was going hard right away. I was the leading the race right away, and I was able to get into the trail first! (this is a really good thing to do for those who do not know much about Mountain bike racing). I then continued to pedal pretty hard for a while, and when I looked back there was really only one guy near by. Near the end of the first lap the guy was on my wheel, and we were riding together. For the next lap we kept on trading spots, from the lead, to second place, and back again. Just testing each other out, to see how we stacked up.

Halfway around the third lap we were coming up to the big climp, a really tough climb that was long, steep, and was covered in rocks and roots. This is where I wanted to get this guy off my wheel, and try to get away from him. At the bottom of the hill I took off, and by the time I got to the top, I could not see or hear the guy, so I kept pumping my legs to try to get away. I continued to work really hard for the next bit, just to make sure he was gone. Before I know it I was on the last lap, not really knowing how close anyone was, so I just kept going hard. I started to get excited as the last downhill came up, because I knew that I had put all the work in that I needed to, and I could enjoy the last downhill, and just keep the wheels rolling. This is exactly what I did, and I come through the finish line first!

New Port with a Salem Chaser and a cute blonde girl

So this past weekend my girlfriend Caroline came out to visit me (the cute blonde part of the title)! On Friday I gave her the Storrs Mansfield grand tour, complete with the old grave yard walk, the old country store, and the grand tour of the forest section. But, before this great tour started we stopped at the University of Connecticut dairy bar and got some fresh ice cream, they even had the cows next store to prove it! Here is a picture of Caroline at the general store, with our special old fashion root beer.
On Saturday we went New Port, RI with the intent to see the Vanderbelt Mansion, a.k.a. "The Breakers." We found the mansion without to much trouble, and was blown away with the size and elegance of the outside. We bought tickets to see the inside, and then we got along with the tour. The tour lasts about 30 minutes and it takes you through the major rooms such as the grand room, Mr and Mrs. bedrooms, the dining room, breakfast room, and some other stuff. Everything in that place was down without price in mind, imported that and handbuilt this. It was pretty cool, here is a picuture of the outside.



We then toured around the town of New Port and we saw the oldest taven in America, the White Hoarse Inn. We stopped in there and I got a beer, I mean, I had to have one in the oldest tavern. We then saw some of downtown New Port and it was really cool with a old like feeling to it.

We then departed from New Port and headed up to our next destination, Salem, MA. This is the Salem where the famous Witch trials were held back in 1692, but more on that in a minute. We stayed at a nice hotel called the Hawthorne Inn, it was a certified historic hotel so that was pretty neat. At this point we are really hungry and it around 8:30PM and we really need to go get some food, and we are out east so Caroline really wants some good ol fashion Lobstah. So we went to the ocean side and stopped in at a restauratn, we sat down, got our rolls served to us, and we both ordered lobstah. The waitress then came back in a few minutes and told us they were out, oh nooooo!!!! So I then ran along the seaside looking for some lobstah, the first place I saw was called Capts, and I walked in (or ran in sorta) and asked two important questoins. 1) did they have lobstah? 2) Did they have a table for us to sit and eat the lobstah is the answer to question one was yes? The answer to both questions was yes, so I ran back, grabbed my hungry damsel, and we were off to Capts.

At Capts we had a really nice table, looking over into the ocean, and we ordered our lobstahs. To make a long story a bit shorter, the lobstah was great and Caroline and I had a really nice dinner, here is a picture of our feast, 1.5 pound lobstahs cooked in aluminum foil with water inside over a fire.


The next day we were off expolring the strange town of Salem. I say strange because that town is really controlled by the Witch hunt idea. There are lots of things to see involving the Witch trials, and the whole feel of the town relates to this. We first did a little tour that explained some of the background, this place was a little weird, the tour had cheesy displays and a pretty cheesy tour guide, but of well. The next thing we went and saw was the official Salem Witch Museum. This was a little better, and had a play sort of thing that give you a really good idea on how the witchtrials happened, and a lot of very interesting history. Here is a picture of the wicked witch of the west, and me. Oh wait, that is Caroline ;)


One of the other neat things was the memorial that was recently made for the 19 people who were wrongfully killed during the witch trials. The 300th anniversary was back in 1992, and a little park with stone seats was made to honor those who were wrongfully hung. One of the more interesting people who was killed was a man named Giles Corey. His wife was accused and he was questioned by the judge, and 80 something year old Giles did not answer one question. The judge then tortued on by stoning him. With means that huge bolders were put on Giles to try to make him talk, but the only words that we would say were "more weight." They gave him exactly what he ordered and he was pressed to death, because he would not speak, the originator of the 5th amendment I guess. Here is a picture of his "grave" in this memorial, which I thought was done very well.

Overall it was a great weekend, with lots of great sights to see such as The Breakers and the very cool town of Salem. It was sad seeing Caroline off at the airport, but like all the other weekends where my friends and family have come out to visit me, all good things must come to an end.

The Tri State Tour

On the 4th of July instead of going to a BBQ, fireworks, or a gathering of any sorts, I went for a 5 hour ish bike ride. I got a late start on the ride because I was trying to catch up on receipts, so I didn't get going until about 1:30, the rain was a 10% chance until 4:00, then it was a 30% chance the rest of the day. So, I finally decided on a route that was going to be 70 miles, which meant that I should have not had to much of a problem with the wet stuff. So, I got riding and about 30 miles in it started to rain, just my luck. Just a little after that I really started to feel like I was losing energy, and fast. I then started to eat more, and drink more to try to get my energy back, and with the rain coming down, and how wet and cold I was getting nothing seemed to work. So around mile 50 I was all out of food and drink, and worse yet, I must have made a wrong turn becasue I was not in the town I was supposed to be in!!! So here I am cold, wet, hungry and sorta lost. Oh geez, wow great this is, so I continued on, being the tough guy I am. I then came up a hill, and shining in the distance was a gas station, which means food and drink!!!!! I got in there, and I only had $3.00, so I got a $2.00 gatorade, and a $0.93 pay day. I then ate the pay day like no ones business, and drank some of the gatorade, and put the rest in my bottles.

At this point the rain was slowing down, and I was finally feeling a little energized, and I was almost do a spot I was supposed to be at 10 miles before. So things were looking up. I then continued my way home, not feeling all that great, still a little cold, but the pedals were turning and I was ticking down the miles to home. I was then about 3 miles from home and then, hiSSSSSSSs, every bikers worse dream, and flat. So I changed the flat, and got all dirty because my break pads had been wearing fast so all the rubber grime and road grit ended up all over my legs and fingers. I then finally made it home, 80 miles and around 5 hours later, I was finally home.

Although it was a tough ride, it did have some highlights. On this route that I did, I rode through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. So I rode through three states in one ride, not something that you can say everyday. So now I have ridden my bike in the following states this summer:

Connecticut
Massachusetts
Rhode Island
New York
Maine
Vermont
New Hampshire

So now I have ridden in all of the New England States, including New York, which is not really New England, but its out here, and I rode it, SWEEET!!!!!

Wow, its been a while

Sorry about the long delay between posts recently, I have been really busy, with my girlfriend Caroline visiting and all. But, tomorrow I will be writing a few posts to catch everyone up with what I have been up to.
Mike

Main Part II: Wicked cold behr with a lobstah chaseh

Maine, a great place. The first thing I have to do is thank my family for coming to visit me, it was a great time while I was with you, and I know you had fun on your day trips without me! Besides for the beautiful sights and the good company I think that the part I like the most was, you gussed it, the lobstah. The first night we got there we all got lobstah at a lobster pound, this was also the first occurance of the Sam Adams Summer Ale, it was great. The second night, we at right next to the lighthouse pictured in teh previous post, and my mom and I got more lobstah. Then for my moms birthday she got a stuffed lobstah, and I got twin lobstahs, yep, that means two bright red beauties for me to enjoy. So the night few pictues here you can consider our little lobstah montage (sorry Kel, you only had pics of you giving the thumbs down):





The little towns that we went shopping in were also nice, lots of cool tshirts and other gift items like that. The other part that was interesting was the tides, they really go up and down a lot and one minute a boat is floating and the next it is beached, what a weird place.

Another interesting part was trying to talk like the locals. By this I mean instead of the word car , the proper pronucation is cah. Beer, is behr. Bar, is bah, Yard, is Yaard, etc, etc. It was mostly me and Dad who was trying to get the accent down.




Well, I am sure you will enjoy that video, it was taked at Moms birthday dinner.

Well, I have a three bike races this weekend, and I need to pack, shower, etc. etc. Tah tah for now.

New York Part II: Final thoughts

I just want to finish up my New York trip before it gets to late. My two friends Nick, Pete, and myself took the train into Grand Central Station. The station itself is beautiful, there is a huge main room where I think all the trains empty out and fill up. The ceiling is very high and sorta looks like a night sky with stars. Here is a pic of this place:

We then went for a stroll around Central Park, or at least some of it, that place is huge. The one part that I did not like was all the horse poop all over the place. There are carriages going through the park, and the hoarses just poop and then someone comes through with a broom and just brooms the dry poop off the stress, pretty gross if you ask me.

The three of us then meet up with my third friend, Jeff, and we say Time Square. Time Square was neat, tons and tons of billboards and what not, but I must say, we saw it again at night, and the day time just does not compare. Night time was awesome becaues there must be like 12 million lights down there, and everything is flashing, and billboards galore, it is a sight to see. Here is a the coolest guy down there enjoying the sights.

The other neat parts of town that we saw was the Empire State Building, Ground Zero, Wall Street, and the Statue of Liberty. One word of advice, NEVER walk from time square down to Ground Zero, it takes about 2 hours, and by the end of it you will never want to walk again! Or at least that is what happened to me, we walked all the way down and I thought my legs were going to fall off. It was pretty Neat seeing Wall street, it is very narrow and it must get nuts on business days.

And of coarse, time square had a bike lane!!!!!! Way to go New York.


Overall, I very neat place, I am glad I was visiting and not staying any longer than a day. Its just not my cup of tea if you will, but it is something that I will not be forgetting any time soon.

Maine Part I

Hey All,
Mom, Dad, and Kelly made the trip over to see me here in Connecticut this past Thursday, and this weekend we went up to the beautiful coast of Maine, in the town of York. I don't have much time to discuss it all right now, because I still need to catch up on sleep from the exciting weekend, but I will lay down some quick facts to keep everyone wanting more, which is coming in a few days once everything settles down here.

So here are the 4 quick things I learned in Maine:
1) Every restaurant serves lobster, often in more than one form. For instance you have whole lobsters, lobster rolls, lobster stew, etc. etc.
2) The tides are very interesting, one minute all the boats are sitting on a sand bar, the next minute they are floating.
3) The word "wicked" is used frequently. For example, a midwestener would use the phrase "the plate is very hot," but out here in Main it is proper to say "the plate is wicked hot."
4) To my dads disapointment there is no such beer as Miller Genuine Draft out here. Instead, Sam Adams is the beer of choice. Not that this is a bad thing, because I must say the Sam Adams Summer brew, is now one of my favorites, not that I like MGD anyways, but either way, Sams Summer is good on the beach.

Here is a quick pic. that captures the spirit of Maine (or at least for my Mom it does, she loves lighthouses as many of you know if you have been to the cottage):
This is the Nubble lighthouse that was 1 mile away from out hotel, it is truly beautiful and a very important symbol for Maine.

The BIg Apple

Hello All, this post is all about the big apple, also known as New York. First things first, the city is really huge and there is tons and tons of people, some of whom are pretty strange.

Here are a few pics to hold you over till the full description.

The tallest building in the city, the Empire State Building.

New York stock exchange.
Jeff and I standing in Times Square at night.

F is for Friends

My two good friends Nick and Jeff came out on Wednesday to spend the next 4 days haning out. We are all cyclists, so of coarse, we went for a 3 hours mountain bike ride the night they came out. The ride was a blast, and it was cool to get a ride in with them.
I gotta make it short, because Nick is sitting here waiting, so the next day I am going to see my buddy Pete who lives southern Connecticut. Then, us four are going to hit New York City! Pete, Nick, and I have never been, so it should be a great experience.

Oh yeah, Nick and I took some shots for the blog, check them out:

Cool Panoramic Shot

Here is a neat shot I took today on my bike ride. It was 5 photos, but I combined them to make a panoramic view of a cool barn and rolling hills just off the University of Connecticut campus. Enjoy!

10 hours and a bottle of raspberry tea

Today I worked for 10 hours, I was the last car to leave the R&D parking lot, way to go me! The day was pretty good and I helped make 4 samples and I also finished and prepared the 4 samples that I created that are being run tomorrow. Making the samples is lots of fun, the two guys that I work with when I do this are pretty funny, joker type guys.

As soon as I got home, I just made some dinner. I put together two left overs, bakes beans and a breast of chicken. Not very exciting, but it was quick easy and moderatly tasty, so two out of three ain't bad. Then I hoped on the computer and just have kinda been dinking around. I am think that I am going to get ready for bed and watch a move. Not very exciting but oh well, work was pretty long.

A day with a friend

Saturday was a really great day because my good friend Pete came to visit. Its pretty funny, I got this internship last fall and I knew I was going to be in Connecticut. Pete has been a friend of mine all the way though college and we were on the cycling team together, we were also roommates for the past few years. Pete was interviewing with a company out in Grennich, CT and it turned out that he got the job, so both of us were going to be in CT this summer. He lives about 2 hours away, and he are planning on doing some good adventuring this summer. So Pete drove up to my house, and we went for an awesome 55 mile bike ride. It was similiar to the ride I did a few weeks ago, except it was not raining and cold, and I had some good company. It is funny how much quicker this ride went by then last time, good company and weather I guess.

Pete and I then went and grabbed some lunch at this pizza place we found on the bike ride. We ordered the local micro brew, and I am not going to do that again, not very good! The pizza on the other hand was pretty tasty. Then the bill came, and we both dived for it, I really wanted to pay for lunch because he had to drive up to see me, but he really insisted so I let him nab it. So, thanks for lunch Pete!!!!!

About this time I started thinking, one of my best friends for the past three years is not going to be in Ann Arbor when I head back this year. This really hit me pretty hard when I left lunch, and I guess this is growing up, but it goes by so fast, especially when I am so lucky to have everything better then I could have ever hoped. Everybody always tell you it goes by before you know it, and its so true, I am doing everything I can to slow it down and enjoy it all, but it really is tough. This is one of the main reasons I am doing this blog, I am doing it so everybody can see what I am up to, but I also thought that keeping this would help me think back to all that I do this summer, and will allow me to "slow" it down.

On that note, I love you all, and being over here all by myself is rough, but I will see everyone soon, and some others even sooner.

Dinner on the Company

Friday was a good day at work, I had a meeting with my boss about my progress, then more intern orientation with all the interns this time, and then an intern dinner.

The meeting with the boss went really well. We were discussing my progress, and my path for the rest of the summer. I now have a more defined idea of where I am going on more of a week to week basis. For the next month I am going to keep on working on similiar stuff that I am doing now, then starting July 1st I am going to make a more structured experiement. In terms of my progress he thinks I am doing well, and he seems to think that I am organized and keeping it all together, so that is good.

The intern orientation was fun because I got to meet all the other interns, which include interns from Research and Design (thats me), quality analysis, and then marketing and the business side of the company. We had a few speakers, both were vice president of something or another, and then a presentation on harassment. I don't understand these harassment presentations, they always present situations that are so off the wall, you really can't help but laugh about it. Harassment is not funny, but everytime I get one of these its always a joke, that should change.

Then the dinner. This was the best part of the day. The place we went was pretty nice, and all 14 or 15 interns went then 3 or 4 people from Rogers came along as well. We got tons of food, I myself got chicken fajitas, but I got have gotten what ever I wanted. My the crowning moment was when I got a beer, a beer on the companies tab, I could get used to that! I also got dessert, and at the end of the meal I am sure the bill was pretty hefty, thank you Rogers!

How to Leave Comments, the easy way.

After hearing all the headaches about leaving comments, I decided to try it out and make it easy on all of you. So here is the easy three step process.
1) click on the comment link at the bottom of a post.
2) Leave your comment, in the comment box, then under choose an identity, choose other and put your name in the name box.
3) Then click on publish post, and you are all set, and you don't have to sign in, and no danger of losing your password.

24 Hours of Boyne: Sofa King Fast

The 24 hours of Boyne is done and over, and everyone had an absolutely great time. To get some of the details out of the way: we got 2nd place in the 4 man team category (even though we only have 3 people) and we had just as many laps as first place, they just managed to finish 40 minutes earlier than us, a really close race with everything considered.

I would first like to thank my team, Dad and Nick, you guys really gave it 100% and it really payed off. Next I would like to thank my support crew, Caroline, Mom, Kelly, and Maria, without you guys we would have gone hungry, never woken up for that graveyard lap, and prabley still be figuring out whos turn it was and how fast our laps were!!!!!
Here is a picture of our tent with some of the team and support crew.

From my perspective the race was very very brutal. I ended up riding 12 laps which equals about 120 miles and about 2 miles of vertical gain. I really gave it my best shot, and I have the chafing and blisters to prove it (of coarse these are on my rear end, so I wont prove it, but you can take my word for it). The highlight of my racing came from the first lap. Let me explain the beginning of the race a little bit for everyone. Everyteam sends one rider, and every one who does it individually, these people place there bikes about 100 yards away at the beginning of the coarse, and remove their front wheel. When the race begins everyone sprints over to their bike and then puts on the front wheel, and then starts heading to the trail. This part is really fun, and its a really cool way to start a race. My team selected me to be this guy, so I ran as fast as I could, and I ended up being the 4th or 5th guy to get on their bike and start moving. After that I turned up the heat and caught and passed everyone within about 2 minutes. After that I just kept on crusing around the coarse, going fast, but not quite as fast as I could, I mean I had to ride another 24 hours, so I had to play it safe. I kept up this pace the whole way through, and I ended up being the very first person to finish the first lap. I then went out for the second lap and continued at this pace making sure that I kept in mind that I had to race for 24 hours. When I finished up this second lap I taged Nick to go and he went for it. I then found that I was not only the first person accross, but I was the first person accross by about 5 minutes (a big chunk of time when the lap took me 43 minutes.) So that was my glory for the race.
This is a picture of me coming around for the first lap, with the fastest time!

The rest of the race was pretty good, we got some rain in the middle of the night, which made it difficult to see with the lights we use for night riding, but we all made it through! The team really pulled it together at the end with Dad puting in a really great lap, setting up Nick and I to do some serious work, allowing us to pack a lot of laps in the last few hours, and get 3 laps counted for the last hour of riding, which put us right next to the first place team.
I also have to give credit to my friend Steve, who rode in the solo class. He came in first place with 17 laps, what a race!

Here is Dad rolling in from one of his laps. This guy was nuts, when ever he was about to go he would ride about 400 circles right around the tag off area, waiting for the guy to come through, he was always ready to go, although I am not sure how he didn't get dizzy.


Once again, thanks again to my team and my support crew, it was a great race and I am really happy that I flew back for it!This is the dance I made up at 3:30 in the morning, it may not look like much, but believe me it was awesome!!!!!

The Past Week of little posting

In the past week I have been really busy. I had to work more at the earlier part of last week so I could leave early on Friday to come back home for the 24 hours of Boyne Race. This allowed me to leave work at 1:00PM on Friday to make it for my 6:00PM flight out of Boston. Also last week I got a little cold type flu thing that lasten about two days, this was no good with the up coming race, so I had to lay low and try to get as much sleep as possible.

In terms of work, it was a good week, because Friday was my first pay day! So that is a plus, and also I got to learn some new testing on some machines and got to more or less finish up getting all the start up garbage out of the way.

Thats pretty much it for last week, I will be posting much more regularly this week.

The Town of Storrs Mansfield

Work was work today, they are done moving all the furniture around, so I have an office now which will allow me to get much more done.

When I got back from work I wanted to go far a nice easy bike ride to test out the knee. So I decided to do the route I did the first day, except this time bring along the camera to caputure some of the Storrs Mansfield scenery. (Hint: you can click on all these pictues to make them larger! Then click on your back button to get back to the main blog)


This is an old abandoned shack that is out in the woods along one of the back country roads. Its pretty neat, looking tucked away in the woods. I went to get a close look and believe me, I will not post those, becasue the inside is falling aprt, I want you to have a nice vision of this town.
This is a picture of a little river that runs down a rocky hill bedind the shack. Just look at all of the rocks, this is very characteristic of the woods out here, lots of rocks on hillsides.
This is bread maker here, look at how professional this looks, this should be a computer background! This is taked pretty much on the University of Connecticut (UCONN) campus, and I could not quite give it justice, but there are lots of rolling hills in the background.
This is a pretty cool place right here, a cemetery that started back in 1693. There are a lot of headstones, as pictued below. The oldest one I could find was in the early 1700s. A lot of the headstones are so worn away that you can't even read them, and the ones that you can read are hard to make out. It is really a sight to be seen, its weired to think that more than 300 years ago people were standing in the same place I was standing looking at brand new headstones.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures, its truly hard to show how pretty and how "New England" this place is. I can't want to show my visitors around so they can get an idea of how neat this place is!

The Weekend!

The weather this weekend was pretty nasty, Saturday it was about 50 or below and rainy, and Sunday was overcast with about an hour of sun, and then right back into storms. The big event for me on Saturday was a bike road bike ride. I rode 63 miles, it took 3.5 hours, and let me tell you, it was hilly hilly hilly. I have ridden in the rocky mountains, the mountains in Georgia too, and I hate to say it, but the hills over here seem to be just as tough.... and maybe even tougher. In the rockies and Georgia you know when you are going to climb, and you climb for anywhere between 15 minutes up to an hour, and then you are going down then you are riding on flat land. Over here in Connecticut though, you are always go up a hill, then down a hill, up a hill, up a hill, down a hill, no flat spots really. This is really taxing on your body, as it never really gets a break, and you never know how long the hill is, it could be 45 seconds, or up to about 12 or 13 minutes. Needless to say, about 63 miles in the rain and cold, and up all these hills I was tired, and rolling into the driveway has never felt so good. Oh yeah, I rode up into Massachusetts, so I got to ride to a different state on my bike, a first for me.
Then I went to the mall to get some work clothes, and long story short, I found some pants that fit me(a tough thing to do), and two polo shirts, and after all the discounts and coupons it was only $40.00.
On Sunday I was planning on doing a mountain bike ride, but when last night my knee started to bother me, I think it was because of the cold weather. So I decided to save me knee, and take the day off. I went to Wal-Mart and did some grocery shopping, its amazing how much the food costs for one person, so far about $200.00 for these first two weeks, I hope it starts to go down! Played some guitar, haven't don't that in a while, and right about now I am going to sit down and get started on the book I have been wanting to get started for the past week. Its an engineering book that is supposed to read like a novel, we will see about that.

Week 1 in the bag

An excellent week to say the least. Everything is working out really well, work is good, the house is good, the bike is awesome, and I am surviving by myself all right. I can only hope that this continues for the rest of the summer.
I went for a ride today, I wanted to ride the route that I meant to yesterday, and mission accomplished. I realized what turn I messed up on, and the ride was nice. The weather was less than great, drizzling and about 45 degrees, but I bundled up and toughed it out, gotta train when no one else will.
But I would have to say the highlight of the day occured during the working hours. I meet the secreatary that was on vacation last week, and she is a really nice lady, talks a lot, just like mom. Well anyways, I was standing there with a few other folks, and they all had Rogers shirts, and I did not. So she would not stand for that, so she went into a closet and came out with a collered denim shirt with the Roges R&D logo on it, I feel in love right away. This was also convient because it was casual Friday, so I had a pair of jeans on. The thought hit me right away, the possibility that I could be wearing a full denim outfit has finally arrived, and after 21 years I was about to look truly awesome. So I did it, I put that shirt on like it was destiny and was covered from head to toe in denim, a dream come true. I had to share this will all of you, so I got home and the first thing I did was took a picture of myself in the entire ensemble. So, read it and weep everyone, full denim....

Day 4 in the books

This morning I did not want to get up, I am for some reason extreamly tired every morning, maybe the bed is just that comfortable, or I need to go to bed earlier.

Work was good again today, I finally finished all the check list that my mentor has to do with me. I then continued to read through all the literature I have on polyurethane chemistry, and then it was out to lunch with the boss. It was a real good lunch, we really seem to get along just great, and I can talk to him just like a friend. Although, I asked he had a daughter, because I saw some pictures of little kids in his office, but he has two sons! oops, I felt pretty silly at this point, but I recoved well with some more kid like questions. Rogers then flipped the bill for the meal, all right!

After lunch I had another 2 hour safety session which wasen't as bad as the first, but the other intern was falling asleep the whole time, so that was pretty funny for me. Then after that I went back to reading the literature, and finally at the end of the day I had to move all my desk stuff, because they are installing new carpet. Then left the office at about 4:30 and headed home for a ride. The weather looked pretty bad, but I decidec to go out anyway. Long story short, I got lost a little bit and the GPS did not get satellite reception, so I did not do the route I wanted too, but I did have a good ride.

I meet my second and final housemate Derick. He is a 35 year old DJ/resturant manager/guy in a band. I spent some time with him last night, and he seems like a good guy, and is a drummer and wants me to give him some drum lessons, so it looks like I will be doing that again.

And the last thing for tonight is that I appreciate the comments that I have been getting lately, its just as nice to hear from you guys as it is for you to hear from me, so keep it up!

Mike

2nd day

Work was pretty good, had a rough two hour safety session, but you have to do what you have to do. Then went for an awesome 2 hour bikeride, tons of awesome rock gardens and some pretty nasty climbs for the single speed.
Got home had some dinner, hung out at the camp fire in the back yard with some of Will's friends. Now its time for bed, and I need the sleep.
Short post I know, but a working man needs his sleep.

First Day on the Job

Sorry I got this up a little late, but here it is:
Today was the first day on the job, and it went really well. Myself and four other interns had orientation. Two of the other interns go to UCONN, one goes to Purdue, and one goes to some school in Mass. They were a little quite, so I had to liven things up and get some conversation going, and after we all relaxed we seemed to get along just fine. I had to watch three training videos, with the last one testing my ability to keep my eyes open, but I made it out alive. Next we had lunch, and then my mentor came and picked me up so we could head over to the Research and Development (R&D) side of things. My mentors name is Eric, and he seems to be late twenties and is a really cool guy. We got along really well, and he introduced me to many of the people that I will be working with. After that I meet my advisor, or boss if you will, Brian. He explained what I will be doing, and I will be working on their polyurethane foam called Poron. The final application will be for sports, I am not really sure how much I am allowed to say about it, but it is a great project for me and I can't wait to dive in and learn all about it.

I have my own cubicle with a computer in it, its pretty fancy stuff for an intern. Tomorrow should be a good day with a meeting with my research "team" if you will in the morning, and a safety meeting in the afternoon. Between those two things I will be reading through the three inch thick pile of papers that Brian gave me to learn all about this particular type of foam.

The dress code is business casual, but it seems that it is pretty lax, as Eric was wearing jeans. I also kinda get to work on "flex time." This means that I can come in any time between 7:00 and 8:00, and take either an hour or half hour lunch, and then leave as soon I want as long as I have worked a full 8 hours. This should be good for me, and I plan on getting on most days at 7:30, then a half hour lunch, then leave around 4:00, this should give enought time to enjoy the evenings.

Then I got home and went for a bike ride, I tried riding to Massachusetts and almost made it, but it stared getting dark so I had to come back home. The ride was very hilly, almost mountain style riding, and was very scenic. I got back home and Will and I made dinner again, and had some beer from a microbrew out here, called dirty penny ale. It was pretty good, not as good as the Jolly Pumpkin beer that I brought from Michigan, but good none the less.

Straight from work tomorrow I will be heading over to a group mountain bike ride, with the same folks that I rode with on Sunday. I am looking forward to this, but I am a little worried about changing from my nice dress clothes into cycling gear in a dusty parking lot, just no one tell my Mom and everything should be ok :).

Oh yeah, with all this typing I am doing, you guys should add comments too. It will keep my writing and give you a chance to say hello to me through this blog too!!!

After Organizing and the house

Today was my first mountain bike ride and I had a blast. I had to wake up at 7:00 AM to make it to the 8:00 AM ride, driving 13 miles takes 30 minutes out here, its no longer a mile a minute. I meet a local group that does tons of mountain biking, there was 7 of us, I was the youngest one, and there was one women. The trails are everything that I hoped for, lots of hills, stream crossings, and tons and tons of rocks. The bike I am using has one gear and no shocks to absorb all the bumps from the rocks. My hands are killing me from holding on so tight, but we ended up riding 20 miles in about 3.5 hours, a great ride with a great bunch of people.

On another note I have finally finished organizing the room, and I think that it turned out pretty well. I also walked around the house a little bit to give a bigger picture of the house.

Today I also meet one of my housemates Will, he is 22 a sculpture major, but draws comics for newspapers, and grew up in Rhode Island. We made dinner together, and just hung out for about 2 hours talking about tons of stuff. THe good news is that Will is a good guy, but he warns me about the other guy, and 36 year old DJ. Will claims he is a little strange, but I will see here in a few days when we gets back from Las Vegas.
Well, I better get ready for the first day of work tomorrow, talk to you all soon!