I have deeply saddening news. We are leaving Bath tomorrow morning. I really love this city (even with it's ungraceful nightlife) and I'm looking foward to visiting again...

Winchester was amazing - we packed so much in that I'll have to share later. I went on the Dole for an afternoon (only my Aussie friends will pick up on that I suspect).

I'll be in Oxford tomorrow - hopefully the internet will be better and I can actually put some pictures up! Take care and make sure to send recommendations my way ;)

Many good things are still happening in England! Stonehenge (not that big of deal, surprisingly), cathedrals (amazing - very big deal), and other odds and ends around Bath and nearby areas. Tomorrow is Winchester and Southhampton. We are on our own to explore, so we'll see what happens.

I've been running around bath every morning at 6:30 and it's been quite pleasant. The nightlife is really busy - too bad I'm not a big clubber :P

No pictures for a few more days at least - the firewall here is apparently a bit too strict. Lo siento.

Lots of interesting stuff going on but no time to write about it all. Until then, here's a picture! Edit: no luck uploading - slow connection. Will upload when I can! Currently in Bath and heading to Oxford beginning of the month.

Hey everybody, I'm at Brighton beach in England! I made is safely and met up with 2 college friends. VERY tired but hopoing to stay up late enough that jet lag won't mess up my life for the next few days.

It's really good to eat fish 'n chips again! Everything is expensive, it seems, but that's only because the exchange rate is so bad right now. Oh well. I'll try to post pictures when I get the opportunity.

Here is my itinerary for those interested:

UK08 - ENGLISH/HISTORY TOUR
June 24 – July 15, 2008

Tue. 24 Fly from U.S. to Heathrow/Gatwick
Wed. 25 Arrive in London, Meet Group at Paddington Station, Travel to Bath
Thur. 26 Bath—explore Bath, baths, pump room, Cathedral.
Fri. 27 Salisbury – Stonehenge
Sat. 28 Gloucester Cathedral and Monastery. Gloucester Folk Museum
Sun. 29 Open Day – Optional trip to Exeter and Morebath
Mon. 30 Wells Cathedral. Glastonbury Abbey.

Tues. 01 Travel to Oxford – Walking tour of Oxford
Wed. 02 Bodleian Library. Oxford Science Museum. Ashmolean Museum
Thur. 03 C.S. Lewis House, Natural History Museum
Fri. 04 Stratford on Avon
Sab. 05 Oxford Parks. Punting. Evensong.
Sun. 06 Open Day – Optional Places: Cotswolds, Warwick Castle, Blenheim


Mon. 07 Travel to London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Museum of London
Tues. 08 Tower of London. Exploring London*
Wed. 09 York
Thur. 10 Exploring London*
7:30pm The Globe: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Fri. 11 Hampton Court
Sat. 12 Canterbury and Dover
Sun. 13 Hastings
Mon. 14 Greenwich
Exploring London*
Tues. 15 Tour is finished



Exploring London* =
Required London Sites: British Library, British Museum, Westminster Abbey, National Gallery.
Optional London Sites: Banquet Hall, Tate Britain Gallery
National Trust Sites: Eastbury Manor House, Fenton House, Ham House, Osterley Park and House, Sutton House
Also choose sites to explore from Amateur Historians Guide book




Leave lots of comments about places I should try to explore!

Quick update: I survived finals.  Barely.  Much closer and more stressful than previous quarters.

However, I'm alive and working crazy hard back in Atlanta.  Probably a lot of 14-16 hour days this week.

On the plus side, I'm going to be in England a week from today!  I haven't even really figured out how I'll get my 600+ pages of reading in before the history tour starts...

I had a birthday.  It would have been crap (studying and working on school projects all day) except for numerous myspace/facebook notes from friends, a lovely little party (with tasty lasagna to boot), and a package from one of the most memorable people I've met: Ben.

I wish I'd taken pictures before I packed up.  One of the presents is an adorable little bear with an All-Blacks jersey!  The other is disturbing enough that I probably won't post a picture... ever... :)  I just shook my head and laughed - so weird and yet not strange coming from Ben.  Thanks, my kiwi friend!

Off to eat, work, and sleep.

Dead(ly) Week is just around the corner and finals loom in the distance. I'm actually more concerned about the projects than finals right now, however.

A few recent events:

Math club hike. I'm not sure where exactly we went, but it made for an enjoyable hike up a steep hill in very hot weather. To finish off the afternoon, we fired a cannon (huzzah for eccentric math professors).

Rock climbing. Mikey and I went out Sunday for a full day of climbing at Spring Mountain. The morning was a little drizzly which meant nobody else was out climbing. On the upside, we had unrestricted access to any climb we wanted. On the downside, the rock was mossy, damp and we had to be extra careful since we were far away from any help. Very scary climbing, but also quite good. I led a couple nice trad routes too :)
School. I found out I should get two big grants next year for school which takes off a bit of financial pressure. Chuck and I got our radio working this week which was a huge relief (the major project for Electronics 2). I'm also all geared up for my UK Tour! All the tickets are bought and we had our last meeting. Next time we are all together will be at Paddington station in 4 weeks!

Other news: I updated my links (removed some old ones and added new ones). Mum started a blog! Check out Musings by Melody under blogs to the right - expect pictures from Costa Rica soon. As long as you are looking over there, take a look at other blogs and sites. For example:
Black Heart Glitter Moments
Couch Surfing
Toothpaste for Dinner

Friends and family, I'm behind on blogging yet again. It seems rather common these days, unfortunately.

Several weeks ago, I had a surprise visit from Renee, Devon, and Shanna! She's an adorable little kid as you might guess from the picture below. Apparently she was rather docile after being awake for an unusually long time (not too unlike fellow classmates I know). Behind us, you can see the aftermath of some Putnam study sessions. Speaking of math, I added a math degree to my education which means I will graduate in December '09 if all goes well.

The BIGGEST news is that Michelle graduated from nursing school!! I was fortunate enough to fly out for the weekend and witness it all in person. We celebrated with family, ate out several times, and helped move her out of the dorm housing. I also got to say hi to some old friends as well as Claudia, Shelley, Jon, Chris, and a few others. I wasn't so keen on flying back to school - especially with a backlog of homework, grading, and projects.
Here is Michelle's awesome family (Jenny, Kris, Michelle, David, Michael) and the prized diploma. I'll get one too eventually, from what I'm told. Jenny is due in a few months which will be pretty exciting. Michelle and I will both have nieces it sounds like.
After the hectic day of ceremonies, family, and moving furniture, Michelle and I had a few hours to escape for a short ice cream date in Lincoln. We explored a nearby train station and got some photos near sunset. The shadows are a bit extreme, but I think the photo turned out well anyway.
We watched a movie and barely had time for a nap before leaving for the airport at 4ish AM. As usual, it was not pleasant saying goodbye but I'm thankful for the time I did get to celebrate a milestone with a great friend. Not just a great friend - an amazing girlfriend that I adore (and miss already)!

Hey everybody - I'm still alive and well. I'm over my head in work and classes (with surprisingly little homework, actually) but it's spring and I feel more capable of achieving the impossible!

I got results back for my Putnam test last fall - I'm another statistic with a score of 0. Better luck next time.

I did get a pleasant break recently up at Rosario with the math and biology clubs. I ate and slept for most of the weekend, but managed to squeeze in a bit of rockclimbing as well. I'm looking forward to a relaxing Sabbath and an absolutely packed week coming up.

I'm also anxiously anticipating my visit to Nebraska to spend time with my amazing girlfriend, Michelle! It sucks being so far away...

Huzzah it's Friday! I was going to have a pleasant break from school, but ended up getting 40 hours of grounds work - shoveling bark, weeding, raking leaves, edging, sweeping, etc. It was nice to get some exercise, sunshine, and extra money.

Last quarter was a wild sprint to the finish line - late nights of finishing projects and scrambling to study for finals. Oddly enough my grades turned out better than I expected... Here you can see one of my projects for Embedded System Design. Michael and I made an RLC meter including a cool case with the university's rapid prototyping machine (big thanks to Josh for helping us design it in ProE)!

The brand name spawned as an amusing parody of Fluke which makes high quality electrical measuring devices.


Electronics proved to be the hardest class. Here you can see my lab partner, Chuck, working with me on an audio power amplifier. On the oscilloscope, you can see the waveform for Jack Johnson playing through my MP3 player. It actually works! It's a small part of next quarter's project - to design and build a radio.

Aside from school, I had a fantastic time with Michelle and David! Michelle came to investigate nearby hospitals and apartments with her dad. Fingers crossed, she'll be able to move out this way around July.

She showed up just in time to distract me from finals and we had a great time watching movies, celebrating Pi day (3/14/08), going Contra dancing, and visiting the park. David was kind enough to make great food during a stressful finals week - cheers!

This is one of the few pictures we actually took while she visited. Somehow we keep reminding ourselves to take lots of pictures and it doesn't seem to actually happen...

In other random news China is planning on controlling the weather during the Beijing Olympics with artillery and supercomputers! Pretty cool techniques in my opinion.

In a second piece of random news, Moby will be releasing Last Night in a few days. From what I've heard, it's quite an enjoyable chill/dance album...

This quarter has been rather challenging, but I'm still alive... Michelle is coming to visit in a matter of days, finals are next week, Sharona is engaged, and my sister is having another kid! Quite a bit since my last post I suppose.

Of course, I only have pictures of the cool, fun, exciting stuff. Not the hours of studying and struggling through lab write-ups. That would only be interesting to a small handful of you.Finally made it out rockclimbing on REAL rock for the first time in ages! You can see Kirk modeling while a friend does all the hard work of climbing :PHere is me out snowboarding again. I went two days over the long weekend and had a blast! The board I rented was brand new (pulled straight out of the plastic while I watched) and I'm still recovering from a few crashes :D
Here is just an artsy photo to polish this short update off. Enjoy!