Whew, the quarter is barely under way and I'm already burried in homework! Well actually it's not that bad - all my classes look interesting and challenging. I've managed to stay on top of everything so far, but then agian, it's only been 2 days...

My current roommate is leaving for Portland to continue with the nursing program and that meant no replacement roomy for me. I found out yesterday that if I wanted to keep my treasured double-room, that I'd need to meet the dean that day with my roomy for next year. SO, things just happened to fall in place and I mentioned my situation to Michael Roth at lunch (the guy I did that crazy programming project with) and we are now set up for next year! You should have seen his eyebrows pop up as he said "you have that really nice double room eh?.... HMMM." We are both really laid back, so I think it should work out fine.

Oh another cool thing - I've avoided homework by escaping to Jen and Janelle's place a few times! It's so cool to hang out with great friends and not see an engineering textbook ANYWHERE ;)

Time to place your bets for round 3...

In the left corner of the ring, we have Brandon - an engineering student at Walla Walla College, weighing in at 145 pounds...

In the right corner we have Calculus 3, Discrete Maths, General Chemistry 3, CAD and Drafting, and Algorithms and Data Structures 2 weighing in at 18 credits.

The round begins Monday, March 27 and finishes Thursday, June 8

The next day of our hike, we had awsome buritos down at a lower camp. I think all food on hiking trips automatically tastes 3x better. Anyways, we set up our socks and shoes around the campfire in an attempt to dry them out. It actually worked reasonably well!

The funny part, though, was later that night when I was in the tent, Jay and Mitch were using fuel to catch a log on fire... The flames jumped up really high and all of a sudden I heard Jay: "my sock - MY SOCK IS ON FIRE!!" He grabbed it and threw it in the snow, but in the process he caught Mitch's sock on fire as well :) It provided some good entertainment for the evening - especially with their short "aAH!" exclamations just like Homer out of the Simpsons...

We didn't count on snow... Basically instead of hiking along a nice trail, we climbed up the side of a snow covered hill. Our shoes and socks were all wet and it was quite cold. It was rather rewarding, however, to finally make it to the top!

So, for break I didn't end up going to BC for hiking, but I DID go over to Idaho's Blue Mountains with Jay and Mitch. For some reason, this photo reminds me of the kidnappers Buttercup meets in the forest (Princess Bride). Jay really isn't THAT tall - it's a weird optical illusion...

Anyways, we left late Sunday morning with 40-50 pound packs and began our adventure!

I just got out of an amazing workshop on called Metaphorical Alchemy with G.C. Waldrep. Basically taking a good look at metaphors as an amazing tool for looking at reality in a new light or explaining the unexplainable. Very eye-opening and here is a one of the amazing poems we looked at... (picture from South Forks)

Snow (by David Berman)

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.

He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.



Then we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.

Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.

I don't know where I was going with this.

They were on his property, I said.


When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.

We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.



But why were they on his property, he asked.


I just think this is a fantastic poem! I love the imagery of a snow around you being like a room with the walls blasted to shreds - falling down around you... Or that ice looks like a photograph of water - a moment in time magically preserved...

...and besides, it's really funny!

The poem came from Actual Air (Open City Books, 1999)

This is a sample of the beautiful stuff I got to enjoy last weekend at South Forks.

Last weekend, I managed to catch a ride with my roommate, Zane Bischoff, down to South Forks River with a bunch of his friends (I don't really know anyone in the photo) and go hiking for an hour or so. The winter scenery all around was amazing and it was much colder than I had guessed. Still, it made for a nice weekend escape from college.

For some reason I keep getting teased about looking Amish or Lincoln-esque. Kent keeps asking me to rap the Gettysburg Address . If only I had a good black top hat....

Can anyone identify this interesting object? I came across it last weekend and there is an interesting story behind it...

Somebody really hates men... Or maybe it's an anti-military message... Some friends and I found this army man in someone's bike by the dormatory and found it amusing.

Originally the head was still attached, but after lifting and releasing the metal spring clamp in the cold weather, we accidentally decapitated his brittle plastic head. His hand was... a handy place to put the head back on.

Checking your imagination here... What is going on in the photo? Comment with ideas :)

Here is our basic egg drop design... See below for an explanation.

No, it's not a UFO ;)