I spent the day sitting around waiting for my UPS-shipped stuff to arrive, which it didn't until late afternoon. Consequently I didn't make it over to campus to meet with the guy I'm working for. I played a little GT4 and listened to Car Talk while waiting for the UPS guy, so it wasn't too bad. Whatever it takes, I'm going to meet with the prof tomorrow. This has been drawn out all week and I'm tired of it. Maybe some of the other grad students will be around, and I can meet them too.
After dinner I decided to try and make up for a wasted day, so I drove out to Bald Hill which is supposed to be a decent hike. It's about a mile horizontally from the parking lot to the top of the hill, and over 400 feet vertically. It was a bit rough, but I made it to the top without incident. I found that basically, it's a field. The only property that makes it different from a regular field is that I had to waste an extra 270kJ or so of energy to account for the vertical displacement.There wasn't even a redeeming quality like a lake or a waterfall. It's just a stupid field. You can hear cows mooing from the next hill-field over. The view was decent, if you like looking at farmland. There were too many trees to see Corvallis though, which is what I was hoping for. I could barely make out the OSU stadium. I gave up and went back to the car to enjoy the A/C cranked up all the way. So that's my tale of futility and the outdoors. I'm not giving up though - I'd like to head out to Newport as soon as I can manage it, and the Columbia River Gorge was spectacular but it is past Portland so that will take some effort.
Anyway, at least I have the rest of my stuff here now. I broke out some of the books and I am enjoying one about MIT hacks that might be a good one to send to my friend Erin. With all my extra stuff here it seems I need to get some more shelves or something. I nailed my dorm room in Hubbard Hall right away, but it's going to take a while to settle here.
Jim and I managed to find the last of the Gran Turismo 4 real-world tracks in Google Earth. My latest finds are Fermilab, MIT and CalTech. Jim tried to find CERN, but it's buried. I had the same story with the old SSC site in Texas. What to find next?
5 comments:
You need real mountains. Like Mt. Hood or Mt. Rainier. Can you see Mt. Hood from your place?
Also, if you feel like doing more driving, I could rent a car and meet you somewhere a little north of Portland for the day.
How long are you out here? I start work next week so I need to figure out my schedule. I think I only work about half-time, which is good.
We can't see Mt. Hood, sadly. Too hilly around here, and we're a ways away. I saw it on my trip in March and it was awesome. However for all the driving up and down I-5 we did, neither my dad nor I saw Mt. Hood this time, it just hid behind the clouds. The Columbia River Gorge was freakin' sweet too, but we has to cruise right through.
If you want a real challenge, try hunting down the SOAR observatory. I can't even find Cerro Pachon in Google Earth.
I fly back August 15th. Weekends are pretty open, except for that of July 29th, and this one.
Dude, I just saw your facebook picture, with you graduating and wearing your physics shirt. That rocks.
I'm sure we can work something out then.
I wore that shirt to convocation and the Honors College reception. My parents made me wear something respectable to commencement. I also wore that shirt to the Physics reception, which was funny because I came in late and everyone else was dressed up nicer.
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