Back in the Saddle

It is that time again: the weather is hot, school's back in and I am once again in a brand new house! Yes, I am back from the NASA/Army internship in Mountain View and plugging away at a brand new set of classes.

It is strange to think that this might be the last semester that I am actually attending lectures, but that is the way life goes, I suppose; old seasons bend to the will of the new. I thought it would be fun to post a few pics and videos of things I didn't get up while I was in Santa Cruz, so here is a quick recap of a few things that happened that I didn't post about. By the way, I have been aiming to make one post per week, but the last month or so (and especially the last two weeks) at work were killers!

Here is a random selection of where I am now, a few things that happened since my last post, and some cool shots of NASA that I hadn't posted yet.

First off, this is the new digs... I am happy to be riding the Steed once again, my favorite truck!


Next up, my mafia-born nephew Zach-Attack. Okay, just Zach, but all this little hombre needs is one of those hats that the dudes with the tommy-guns had... he was a little stand-offish the first few days, but he'll give me a smile now. What a cute little gangster! ;)



This is a pic of how I took over one of the rooms in the house with Sharon and Scott. They were kind enough to let me spread out my computer stuff and "dig-in". This was so helpful in getting work done at home... Thanks guys!



Y'know how sometimes people ask you to solve silly puzzles and mind teasers? Well, normally I just shrug these buggers off and say, "That's okay, you can solve a meaningless puzzle..." but this particular morning, I was victorious! :) This task was to figure out a way to use these three knives to form a support structure that can span the cups, even though any single knife cannot span a single spacing...



How did I do it? Okay, I'll let you in on the secret... Just don't tell anyone I told you!





I didn't get a chance to run/exercise nearly as much as I was hoping to this summer, but I did go for a run a few times a week. Occasionally my cousin Scott would join me. This is my last run. Scott told me that this one was for "old time's sake"... meaning, I suppose that as time goes on we ought to run more often... =)

A few weeks before I came back, Nate and Ash came down and visited for the weekend. It was really cool to have them hang out and we did a few activities as well. We went kayaking in Elkhorn Slew, which was really fun (Scott was attacked by an otter! [yes, he's fine]).

Nate's Birthday was on Friday, and so we celebrated it on Saturday (they came up on Saturday). Cool cake huh? Yeah, that right... I picked it out myself. Happy B-day Nate!

From time to time, when we were car-pooling, I would need to drive by this spot on base to pick up Scott from his office. Occasionally the doors were open and you could see how large everything really is... This is the world largest wind tunnel (80 feet tall, 120 feet wide) and it can pull air through the test section at 100 knots! I think I posted something about the intake for this puppy in an earlier post, it is larger than a football field!

This video is inside the model loading area beneath the test section of the 40x80 tunnel (the world second largest). The fellow talking is Bill Warmbrodt who was kind enought to give us interns a tour. The tunnel is 3 stories up...

These next three videos are just a funny task that Scott and I had to do... split logs into firewood. Normally he is a wood-splittin' fool, but this particular time (on a particularly tough log), I got him on video having a hard time getting through... pretty funny this.

Intermediate progress...

The grand finale!

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for checkin' in. I hope to post a bit more regularly from here on out, but I know I've said that before.