Recent Exposures

Went on the annual group ski trip to Killington, VT the past two days.  It was great to see everyone from my old job again.  This year we had a
great condo that was 3 stories high. It
had two baths with walk in saunas, two hot tubs, two kitches, two tv’s, a pool table
and a deck. Really sweet! 13 guys showed up this year and we had a blast. The chefs cooked up several turkeys and hams the night I was there. A real feast! I could only stay for one day but we had a
good time together. Even
though there
hasn’t been much snow the skiing was great and the green trail down to the condo
was several miles long and provided great area to practice switch skiing - and
to race the Captain! Everyone seemed
to have a
good time and it was great that we were all able to meet up the summit bar for a
few drinks together. Unfortunately I
won’t be able to attend next years as I will be studying in graduate school but
I hope to keep in touch with all the guys as they have become good friends - and
I hope to see a couppe of them at Americade this June as
well! Miss ya
guys…

I just got off the phone with professor Yang Shen from The Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island and it sounds very promising for me.  I believe he recognizes my ambition and determination and he said he was going to start putting together a program for me.  I’m very excited about this because it is the first real big lead I have in my graduate school quest and GSO is like the Harvard of Oceanography schools so it would be great to graduate with a PhD from there.  I would be working on a tsunami monitoring experiment involving inverted echo-sounders mounted to the bottom of the ocean and connected via satellite or glider relay to information centers on land.  He also mentioned the possibility of me helping to install seismic monitors in Tibet this summer….Obviously I’m pretty excited!

Watched the superbowl last night.  At first I wanted the Seahawks to win but realized that the Steelers and their fans wanted it a lot more.  80% of the people at the game were actually Steeler fans so i’m glad they won in the end.  I was supposed to go down to visit Kenny Wilhelm at his new apartment in Albany but he never called.  Too bad because my mom had made a huge batch of lemon squares for me to bring down to him… Rick, Jess, Josh and I ended up eating them all anyway… haha. 

        Tonight I went over to my parents and brought my ipod with all the trip pictures on it to show them.  They enjoyed seeing my travels and hearing all the stories I had to tell them.  I came back to my place at around 7pm to catch up on last monday’s "24" episode before tonights. 
        Since this season began Josh and I (two obsessed fans of the show) have hooked Jess, Rick, Kladis, and even my parents into the show.  When the first show starts off with three of the main characters getting assasinated and blown up you konw it’s gotta be a good season!  For those of you who don’t know the show it would be like turning on friends for a new season and seeing Ross, Joey, and Monica die in a car accident in the first 5 minutes…. yeah, pretty damn good show.

        Back to life in Saratoga!  Last night I ended up going out with Kerri Shpunt and a bunch of her friends to Gaffneys for a few drinks with Jonny Hughes.  Ironically we ended up meeting up with two other Jon’s… so there were 4 of us.  Everytime a girl said our names we would all turn around.  Kerri went off to flirt with some guy she thought was cute and we eventually followed them over to the 4th floor of the Tavern where the night for me abruptly changed.
        I had taken no more than 5 steps into the room when a cute brunette with a green shirt that had a lemon printed on it with the words "squeeze em" grabbed me and started to dance with me.  When I say dance, I really mean DANCE… I looked over to see her tall blonde friend "DANCING" with a tall guy who looked as perplexed as I was about the situation but we just nodded at each other kept dancing.  Later I found out his name is Travis and that he’s a really cool guy.  After dancing for about another hour it seemed, having lost all of my friends in the process, travis and I decided to continue the party back at my place because we were all drunk none of them were fit to drive home.  So we ended up going back to my place where unfortunately I think we made so much noise it kept Josh and Jess up all night…. Both grls turned out to be super cool and Travis is a snowboarder so the two of us hit it off well too.  Jonny Hughes meanwhile had come home before us and passed out on the pull out couch so the four of us had to crash in my room which of course had plenty of room.  What a crazy first night back in the area!   

    I easily made my flight this morning at 6am to Dulles airport in Washington.  When I got there I relaxed for a bit charging my ipod and napping in and out before my next flight.  My flight to Albany was delayed due to bad weather and other problems and we didn’t board the plane until 45 minutes after the scheduled departure. 
        The flight from Dulles to Albany was a fun trip.  It was the most amount of turbulence I have ever felt in all my travels and the pilots kept apologizing.  Looking around the cabin I could see many scared faces.  It didn’t help that the captain came over the intercom once everyone had boarded and announced to us all the long list of mechanical problems the plane had just gone through including a flat tire and almost running out of gas before landing. hahaha.  I loved it.  I love that feeling of fear/nervousness in my gut in situations like that.  It’s probably why I love the sports I do.  When I got to Albany my mom was waiting there thankful to have me home again.   
        So in 12 days I had traveled to all 4 corners of the U.S.  I had flown from the Northeast to the Southwest, then drove to the Northwest and flew down to the Southeast only to return to the Northeast.  I had driven 2,684 miles between 2 cars, one that I wrecked.  I had flown on 6 different airplanes and had taken 3 ferries.  I had traveled to another country and even gotten trapped on an island in hurricane winds there.  I completed the whole trip eating fast food and only staying in a motel twice.  I had made no plans for accomodations before I left, leaving it all up to my resourcefulness.  I had been in many different climate zones and had seen a crazy array of animals - from being chased by an elephant seal to elk and then hoards of rabbits to end up driving past aligators in Florida.  I met a vast array of people with many different personalities along the way and was able to meet with most of the top faculty in the field of marine oceanography.  It was a terrific time and I got to see some of the most beautiful landscapes in America as well as visiting each of my top graduate school choices.  I returned home with 20 bucks in my pocket and only $3 left in my bank account having done the whole trip for under 900 bucks (including everything except the $500 deductible I now have for the accident).  It was a great time and a great adventure but it’s also good to be home to rest up after it!

        I’m classifying this entry under travel instead of school because when I visited the Rosenstiel school in the morning I was dissapointed.  Hector had not waited to lead me to the school in the morning which meant I had to find it myself.  It appeared to me much more of a research center than a school with lots of students.  The Professor I had such high hopes for meeting with and who seemed to have a lot of interest in me had not even read my educational background and frankly
was a bit odd.  I had sent him all my transcripts and had emailed him many times and my application had been complete for weeks.  He wrote me several emails saying that I would be a good candidate for some projects he had funding for such as studying deformation of volcanoes in Hawaii using satellite geodesy.  But, when I met with him I found out that he expected high levels of math and programming skills that I clearly did not have.  I wish he had taken a look at my file before urging me to come down to Miami like he did.  It was a very uncomfortable meeting with him as well as another professor that he introduced me to.  When I spoke to several graduate students they had g
reat things to say about their advisor but one mentioned that her car had been broken into and that there wasn’t much outdoorsy activities to partake in unless you drive far out of the city.  On my way to the school in the morning I couldn’t even find a decent non-spanish speaking radio station and I couldn’t understand any of the toll both agents.  The girls I met with told me that it is impossible to get along with the people that live in Miami - that they are very selfish people only caring about themselves and their needs.  None of this was very appealing to me. 
        I left the school telling the professor I would email him if I had any other questions knowing that I would actually not do so because I was no longer interested.  I was upset that I was going to be stuck in Miami for the next 3 days so decided to call up United and try to get an earlier flight home which I did for the next morning at 6am.  Yes!!!  I headed back to Hector’s, packed up my stuff and left him 15 bucks on the dresser and a note thanking him.  I grabbed the map that Budget had given me and located Key West… it was 1:30pm.. could I make it by sunset… may as well try! 
        I headed off down the interstate and hooked up with route 1 (remember I said I thought I had seen the last of Route 1 in California… nope).  Driving out to the Keys was amazing.  It was about 170 miles from Miami but once you got onto the islands the speed limit dropped to 40mph and I hit traffic.   It was a beautiful day and the temperature was about 75 degrees.  I was hummin’ along and then a draw bridge gate flew down in front of me with no warning lights or anything.  I slammed on my breaks and stopped with my hood just a few feet from it.  I got out along with
several bikers behind me to watch as a huge sailboat passed through the open draw bridge with pelicans floating in the water.  When the gate closed after 10 minutes I was the first one heading south, too fast obviously because as I rounded a corner a local cop pulled me over saying I had flown through a school zone at 55mph per hour… Whoops… I didn’t even see the sign or school I told him and he could clearly see I was a tourist and being honest so the old man kindly let me go with a smile.  As I was driving down the road I noticed hurricane damage to houses and billboards everywhere.  I also saw alligator crossing signs and tsunami hazard zone signs as well which I thought was odd because the likelihood of a tsunami hitting florida really isn’t that
great.  Route 1 was the only main road for over a hundred miles out to the fartherst key - Key West and there were tourist attractions every half mile along the way.  I saw atleast 3 acquarium and marine wildlife areas along with several "swim with the dolphins" places.  The road was purposefully built into the center of the islands with large bushes planted on the sides of it to keep tourists from looking at the surroundings and slamming into oncoming traffic which apparently gets really bad
during tourist season there.  So, I think if I was to visit the Keys I would only do it by renting a boat for a week and navigating the islands by sea over the beautiful reefs surrounding them.  When I could see water from bridges it was a multitude of beautiful colors due to the underlying coral reefs.  Some of the bridges spanning the islands were miles and miles long.  On one of them I could not even see the end of it.  It just looked like it continued out to see forever. 
        I got to Key West at about 5:30 right when the sun was beggining to set and I started looking for a nice waterfront place to eat dinner.  (I should note how odd it was for the sun to still be up at nearly 6pm because in Seattle at the high lattitude it was completely dark by 4:45pm).  I parked my car at a meter and put in a few quarters (which wasn’t enough because I ended up with a ticket
anyway) and wandered
down the very busy street of the Old Waterfront of Key West until I came across the Sunset Pier Ocean Key Resort which had an outside bar, tables with umbrellas and a band
playing.  It seemed very lively so I grabbed a Corona from the bar and sat at a stool overlooking the Ocean and the setting sun.  A waitress came buy and I ignored any impulse to save money ordering fresh Mahi Mahi and a half dozen oysters on the halfshell.  The setting sun was beautiful and I wished that I had someone to share dinner with.  There were sunset party booze cruises sailing about and sailboats everwhere.  My dinner was fantastic.  Nothing beats fresh Mahi Mahi and pineapple in Key West on an empty stomach at sunset.  I could not have planned the night any better if I had tried.  It worked out perfectly. 
        I returned to my rental car (and $25 dollar ticket) and drove back towards Miami on route 1 which then changed to a 35mph speed limit after dark.  I hit the Interstate with plenty of money left over for the tolls and made it back to the airport by 10pm.  On the way back I could see lightning in the distance and I heard tornado warnings on the radio for the Miami area.   Great I’ve gone from hurrican winds on an Island in Canada to tornadoes touching down in Miami, Florida!  This of course worried me because I had a flight less than twelve hours away.  It took me a while to find the rental car return area because of construction and the horrible directions of getting there.  When I did I was told I was being charged 140 bucks… What??!!  My reservation was for 70 bucks for 3 days and I was returning it 3 days early!!! I blew up.  Apparently when I rented it and told the guy I didn’t want the extra insurance he put it on anyway for me.  I could barely understand the guy as he quickly asked me to sign and I hadn’t bothered to read the printout… damnit… Well, after a few more words with the guy and the manager they managed to knock it down to 80 for me which was fine because it would have cost me 30 bucks from the airport by cab to Hectors each way… So for an extra 20 bucks and a gas tank of gas I was able to see Key West for the afternoon… well worth it. 
        I hopped on a Budget bus to the airport and sat down in a seat to watch an ipod movie and relax for the night.   I decided to spend the night in the airport because my flight was at 6am anyway the next morning and I didn’t want to spend money on a hotel room for just 5 hours.   As I was sitting there a kid sat down a few seats away with obviously the same intention on spending the night.  At this point I could hear the rain hitting the airport hard and when I looked out the sliding glass doors it looked like a fireworks display.  I noticed the airport roof starting to leak heavily and the kid and I moved trash cans underneath the leaks (hoping that the weather would pass before my flight the next morning).   We started talking and this kid was honestly the coolest, most interesting person i’ve ever met in my life.  He grew up in Alaska as a fisherman, currently fishes Alaskan King Crab (his best friend was actually on the Discovery Channel show "Deadliest Catch") and bounces between Hawaii where he owns property and Nicaragua where his mother lives.  He was just coming back from Nicaragua flying to Seattle (ironic right) to collect on some money he loaned his fishing buddies a while back.  He was in a cast which I learned was from him jumping onto a hotel balcony from above several years ago.  He had broken bones in his arm but continued to fish with one arm for over a year before he got surgery!  I sat and listened to his stories for well over 2 hours looking all the digital photos he had on his camera.  I had begun to tell him about my adventure but after he started talking I shut right up because his life made my life look like a boring waste of time.  I could write pages and pages about what he told me but I won’t.  We ended up watching a dvd on his portable dvd player and then each of us passed out asleep on the floor but not before I got his email address.  The next morning the alarm on my phone went off at 5am and I headed towards my plane.

        On Thursday I woke up early and met with Deborah Kelley and one of her graduate students only to find that she already has 3 students and can’t take on anymore… oh well…   I ran back to my car and was able to make it to the Seattle/Tacoma International airport in about 40 minutes arriving at 10am with plenty of time before my 11:30am flight.  I easily found the rental car return area…. ready for this… 2382 miles total from San Diego to the return lot.  I put that Chevy Cobalt through hell and it held together like a champ.  While walking through the airport I noticed that the sky was clearing.  It really was amazing that out of the 5 days I was there in Seattle it only rained on Sunday and Tuesday.  I stopped at an asian fast food place in the airport for some lunch and had great views out the giant glass windows of the snow coverd peaks of Olympic National Park.  I never got to see the Cascades through the clouds or Mt. Ranier but it was wonderful seeing the Olympics right before I took off to Denver for my connecting flight.
       Here is where the day gets very interesting.  In Denver I passed by the cafeteria that Kenny and I 5-finger discounted on our trip back from Tahoe last winter and gave him a quick call to laugh about it.  I had a couple hours to kill at Denver so I walked around the airport and charged my ipod and phone for the trip so I could watch movies on the 3 hour flight to Miami.  That’s when I noticed someone who looked very familiar.  Nearly a week ago and in Oregon, not Denver, I had seen G-Love front row and the upright acoustic string bass player Jimmy Prescott seemed to be on the same plane as me flying from Denver to Miami.  How could this be?… what are the chances…. If you have seen Jimmy Prescott he appears to be a man in his late thirtees to early 40s with scraggly long blonde hair.  He could be the nicest guy in the world, which I’m sure he is, but he doesn’t look like the kind of guy you would want to approach and inquire about.  And come on… what are the chances…  When we landed at 10:30pm in Miami and were waiting for our bags a guy came in and said to him that the cars were ready for him… at that point I should have walked right over and just asked. 
        Well, I later found out in a google search that G-Love indeed was playing in Miami with Jack Johnson and Dave Matthews that weekend so it must have been him.  I later found out that he had met G-Love while playing at local jazz joints around Boston, MA.  I read about several places that I used to go to while living in Boston where he first played with Garrett Dutton (G-Love).  I also heard a rumor that he was born in upstate, NY (I still have to check on that one).  I really wish I had worked up the nerve to go say something to him because I’m sure we would have had a great conversation.   
        I found my way to the rental agency where I booked another Budget car and picked up another Chevy Cobalt, although this one had 4 doors.  I was running on 50 dollars left to my name - 45 of which I had to give to a guy named Hector who was providing a place for me to stay at his apartment close to the Miami Rosenstiel School.  That left me 5 dollars to my name to last 3 days in Miami and all the interstates had toll booths!!!  So I decided to take the back roads from the airport through the city to Hectors house stopping at a Burger King for a late night meal.  Thankfully I’m good with directions and arrived at his house at a little after midnight to find the front door locked.  I called him on his cell phone and he let me in.  I had gone from freezing Seattle to staying with a latino guy named Hector who was in his late 30’s in a run down house on in the suburbs of Miami in 80 degree heat at night!  What a change!  I charged up my stuff, barely unpacked and climbed into bed for the night.  Hector had told me I could follow him to the school in the moring at about 8:45am which I was happy about because I wasn’t really sure which way to go.  I walked outside briefly to grab some stuff from my car and noticed that there were bugs all over the seats of my car.  I don’t know how the hell they got in but I spent about 5 minutes smashing them and hoping they would go away by the next morning.  So far Miami had not really given me a nice warm feeling…

        I was up at 4:30am on Wednesday driving back to the ferry terminal at Swartz bay in Victoria, B.C.  When I arrived there were already a long line of cars but I was confident I would be on the first ferry.  I pulled into line, reclined my seat and passed out again.  2 hours later I was woken by a ferry terminal worker pounding on my window telling me to move up in line and buy a ticket which I did, pulled into the final ferry lane and once again passed out in my car.  Thankfully both nights I had my sleeping bag with me and pillow as I had left them in my car instead of taking them into Erin’s apartment.
        Thankfully I was able to make the 7am ferry and was back in Seattle by 11:30am.  On the drive back I got a few glimpses of Vancouver and the mountains beyond it.  I slept on the ferry ride again so overall I think I got something like 4 or 5 hours of decent sleep during the hurricane.  After relaxing for a couple hours Erin, Eric and I went out for lunch at a place called Zesto where I ordered one of their famous hawaiian burgers.  It was great and had pineapple on it which took the place of ketchup for a tasty change. 
        We then returned to Pikes Place Market and I had another chunk of smoked salmon. mmm mmm.  After walking around the city and the shopping district for a while we ended up going to the REI store.  It was freakin’ enourmous and had a climbing wall that had to have been 50+ft tall.  I walked around for a bit and then went to the book and map section where I checked out all the mountaineering books for the Pacific Northwest.  The store even had it’s own bike trail around it to test out bikes!  It made the L.L. Bean store in Freeport Maine look small in comparison.  After REI we decided to go to a Seattle Supersonic basketball game at Key Arena just below the Space Needle.  They were playing the Oakland Warriors.. both teams are pretty bad… It looked like Oakland was going to destroy the Sonic but they came back in the 2nd half and barely won by a few points.  During breaks between quarters an inflatable blimp would be flown around the stadium and drop gift certificates to people.  The thing would just rise out of nowhere in fronto of you and scare the crap out of you because it looked like it was going to crash into you.  We didn’t sit in the seats that our tickets said and when we first sat down we were sitting in an older couples seats.. Go figure - they got picked to sit for the remainder of the game in a comfy couch right behind the net!  haha.  At half time a guy picked from the crowd even made a half court shot to win $500 bucks.  Pretty amazing!  As we left one of the ushers joked, "wow, we finally won one"..haha.  Seattle was buzzing about the Seahawks going to the Superbowl and were flying a giant #12 on the space needle to symbolize the city as their 12th man on the field. 
        We returned to the apartment and I packed up stuff for my flight the next day.  I also made plans to meet with Professor Deborah Kelley the next morning before heading to the airport as a final try to find someone at U. Dub that could take me on as their student.