Week 35: 08/23-08/29

Week 35

     08/23 - This week I move down to Texas! I'll be leaving on the 25th and have much to do before then. I've contrived a nifty way to pack up my shirts. I hung them up on a clothes rack then wrapped them entirely in a vacuum-seal bag, hangars and all. Then I just suck out the air. This keeps them from getting all wrinkled but still saves a ton of space. All of my other clothes I managed to get into a bag I'm referring to as "the Cube." It's rather dense but it should cover everything. Clothes: packed.

     08/24 - I needed a haircut, but I didn't want to go out and get one or pay for one...so I cut it myself. Yes, I cut my own hair and it actually worked. Mirrors and iPads are quite useful for seeing the back of one's head.
     The Jeep is all packed up and ready for adventure! There's not much space for the third passenger in the back but I made it work. I also realized that bike racks are overrated when you have a Jeep. I managed to easily strap my bike to the Jeep's spare tire. I realized later this was a bit of a pain when trying to open the door, only because the window would hit the handlebars as it opened. Note for next time: strap in to the tire upside-down.

Herbert gets a full seat

Engineering at its finest

     08/25 - We are off! Destination: Little Rock, Arkansas. First stop: Chuck Town, USA. I realized as I looked at a map of the midwest that it would be quite easy for me to make a pit stop in Charleston to see Melissa on my way down to Texas, no more than 20 minutes off the highway. So that's what we did! It was nice to see her place and grab a cup of Joe. Chuck Vegas isn't as bad as she might make it sound ;p
     The last time I drove through Arkansas was during the spring and it was desolate. Post-summer, however, it's still infinitely flat but has a bit more character and color. This is good, I was starting to feel really bad for Arkansas people. We finally arrived after 11 hours of driving in Little Rock, Arkansas. I did ALL the driving while my parents just chilled. It was a solid drive and no tickets this time! lol
     08/26 - After long last, College Station! We made it to College Station after about another 6 hours of driving, piece of cake after the 11 I put in the day before. First impressions: Texas A&M is huge! I guess I didn't realize it, but TAMU is actually a bigger school than UIUC. The buildings are taller, the trucks here are all massive white pickup trucks, everything IS bigger in Texas. It's not a lie. I immediately headed on over to my new Texas home: The Stack. This place is super nice. The pool is phenomenal, I have my own bathroom, the kitchen is great and there's a gym somewhere in the building (still haven't found it). Pictures:

      08/27 - Today was fill-the-fridge day. I got a lot of groceries. A big grocery store down here is HEB, not sure what it stands for. For dinner me, Peter, and my parents went to Grub Burger Bar. It was incredible. It's definitely on par with 8 Oz., while not quite as tasty, equally tasty if weighted with price. Also, there is a bar and they have boozy milkshakes, similar to Lunchbox Laboratory.
     08/29 - I spend the rest of the week going to orientation and generally exploring. My parents flew out of Austin on Friday. School starts on Monday!

Week 34: 08/16-08/22

Week 34

     08/16 - Tis the week to pack for Texas! Or at least start thinking about thinking about packing. I cleaned out the Jeep and I've begun assembling a concise pile of plastic bins in the garage. I'm going to have to be as concise as possible if I want to bring a lot of things down south. Another issue is I have to leave room for a third passenger to ride in the back seat. I have plenty of time to think about it...
     08/17 - They built a new Salvation Army thrift shop in my town, awwww yeah. Today I scored an entire free-weights set with a bench and everything for $30! Crazy deal. The weights are all chrome and such too, very nice. I'm going to set them up in the basement and establish a workout room of sorts down there for when I'm at home.
     08/18 - Today (2am) I did just that. My parents want to clean out the "junk" side of the basement so I took some initiative, added some water and sweat, and tore up some carpet. Now I have a nice patch of concrete with which to build my lifting station. A few carpet squares later and voilà, I have a gym, equipped with a TV stand (music stand with iPad and speaker).
     Even more exciting than a homemade gym is that I got a last-minute visitor, Melissa! She decided she didn't have much to do and that she wanted to visit Rockford land for a day/night.

     08/19 - Just as I was a tour guide in Seattle, so now am I a tour guide to Rockford. Today Melissa and I had a fun-packed day starting in the best way possible: with Swedish pancakes at Stockholm Inn. I then toured her about Rockford proper, showing off Anderson Japanese Gardens and the botannical garden center by the Rock River. Later on we drove through my stomping grounds at Rock Cut State Park. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad she could visit :)

     08/21 - Wedding Month: Part I. Today my family attended the first of four weddings this month. It was at Rockford Brewing Company so it had a really cool hipster vibe to it. The bride is a close family friend of ours. The catering was great because the options were Chipotle or Noodles and Company, classic. I had a lot of fun and I always appreciate good architecture.

     08/22 - Today my grandma and great aunt came over for a cook-out at my house. This turned into a sending off party for me as more relatives poured in post-dinner. It was a great time and I'm glad I got to hang out with everyone before leaving for Texas land.

Week 33: 08/09-08/15

Week 33

     08/09 - Ahh Home sweet home. It's good to be back in Illinois. Today I visited some family members and my cousin's cafe/bakery. I got to see my cousin's little son Oliver! He's adorable, as most (yes only most) babies are. It was a good day to chill, but I'm off tomorrow to visit Eureka!

     08/12 - I spent a couple days visiting with Melissa's family in small-town, USA: Eureka! Eureka is a nice little town :) That should be their slogan "A nice little town." I had an amazing time and got to go to the Ronald Reagan museum and touch a piece of the Berlin Wall. There is also an amazing pie shop/diner in the area called Busy Corner. Best pie I've ever had. 

Me and Reagan

Melissa and her new dino friends

     One day Melissa surprised me and took me to Peoria's museum to see.... dinosaurs! Actually, they weren't real dinosaurs, but they were engineering dinos, even better! Somewhere somehow somebody (this body) found a way to combine art, dinosaurs, and engineering into a unique exhibit that let people move giant mechanical dinosaur skeletons with the help of pulleys and cables and such. It was a blast and the Peoria riverfront was a nice little walk too. 

     My favorite part of the visit though was just taking walks and relaxing and napping on the porch, keep it simple :)

     08/13 - After returning from Eureka I'm on to my next adventure, Minocqua! Those of you who have been following my blog (Melissa) may remember Minocqua in my first post. Yes, this is the same place. We like to go there as much as possible, certainly in the winter and summer if we can. It takes us between 4-5 hours to get up there but once we're there, we're totally chill. In the summer my grandparents are up there so it's great to spend some time with them!

(Divergence: I'm no longer going to overly concern myself as to specific dates of events, etc. I'll try to record things in a rough order within a given week, but some/most things can be generalized and summarized in better ways than a day-to-day account. End divergence.)
    08/14 - The first full day of Minocqua, summer edition, brought with it some classic relaxation techniques and activities. One of my favorite things to do up North is to canoe. It's nice just being out on the water, chasing down loons and soaking up the not-too-hot sun. This year, we mastered the art of jumping out of the canoe to swim (previously we only ever jumped out of the flatter paddle-boat).
    Another favorite summer activity is to relax in my hammock under the pines, basking in the woodland aromas and chirps of birds.

Not the most glorious shot, but this gets the point across.
Relaxation.

This one's a little trippy due to the nature of panoramas

         One night we went to Thirsty Whale Restaurant to enjoy some on-the-lake food and catch sight of the world famous Minocquabats (A play on Minocqua and acrobats) -- They are a water-skiing troupe. I'm so happy I got to use the word troupe in context. Anyways, my brother's name is Jonah and so we always find reasons to take goofy pictures of him with whales.

Frat star

     08/15 - The last day of our trip we started off well by going to Wolf Pack Cafe. It has the best non-Swedish pancakes in the world, but for real.

Week 32: 08/02-08/08

Week 32

     08/02 - Finally, at long last, I have climbed a mountain and have seen Mt. Rainier up close. Today I went on a hike with some work people up Bearhead Mountain and it was great. The weather was perfectly clear and the mountains were amazing. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

 

     08/03 - Because it is my last week in Seattle, I have plans to make the most of it. Today I finally tried Pike Place Chowder and it was really good! I got the seafood chowder in a bread bowl. mmmmm :) 

     08/05 - Only a few days left in Seattle and there are a couple things left on my bucket list. Today, I visited one of the last parks I hadn't seen yet in the downtown area, Sculpture Park, while waiting for Shiro's Sushi to open. It was a great place to take a walk or bike and had a few cool sculptures. For dinner I had to try the famous Shiro's Sushi Restaurant. It's supposedly the best sushi in the world outside of Tokyo or something. It definitely lived up to it's reputation and I thought it was 

phenomenal. The sushi bar was very traditional Japanese and a great place to stop if you're in Seattle, albeit pricey.

     08/07 - Today was my last day working at KPFF for the summer! The summer really flew by. I met a ton of great people and learned a lot about structural engineering, it was a great place to work and an amazing experience. 

     Today also happens to be a Fun Friday! After work I joined many of my coworkers at Rock Bottom Brewery for some drinks and food provided by the company. I'm glad to have had the chance to socialize with everyone at work one last time. My coworkers all knew it was my last day so many of them gave me their extra drink tickets....I had a lot of beer.

     After Fun Friday, me and several others ūber-ed on over to Rheinhaus to keep the party going. We got large beers and played some bocce ball....not sure if we played it right or even kept score. All in all, it was a great last day in Seattle and I'm gonna miss this place.

     08/08 - Today is flight day! After three months in Seattle I am headed home! My flight is at 5pm so I took the morning to prep my things and walk around the First Hill neighborhood a little bit. When it was time to catch my train, I lugged all 130 pounds of my luggage down the oh so steep Cherry Street hill. It was a struggle, but I made it. I landed in good 'ole Chicago, IL at around midnight Central Time. Home sweet home.

Profound Thought: "When you're carrying 130 pounds of luggage, airport luggage carts are a must. Spend the $2."

Week 31: 07/26-08/01

Week 31

     07/26 - Today was my chill day as Ryan wanted to get back into study-mode. I wanted to see the Seattle REI Store so I headed to that area of town to check it out. It was a really cool facility and was nestled in a man-made forest of sorts, equipped with biking trails and a waterfall. Everything was expensive, but still a cool store -- from a structural engineer's perspective.

     While I was out and about I also headed over to South Lake Union Park again, just to watch the planes land on the water and read a book. I found yet another "Piano in the Park" there so I played that under a tent as it rained. Finally, I grabbed some chips/guac. at Cactus before heading back to the apartment.

     07/29 - Today I visited the campus of the University of Washington because Ryan was checking out an apartment over there. It was a really cool campus! The buildings were all gothic style and cool looking and there was a great view of Mt. Rainier down an alley of trees.

      07/31 - Not much happened today other than visiting Ezelle's Chicken for dinner. This fried chicken place is supposedly Oprah Winfrey's favorite fried chicken or something, so that's why it's famous. It was pretty good, but I don't know how it's her favorite...

Comrade Lenin

Dusty Strings

     08/01 - Today I did some exploring on my own as a last visit to the Ballard/Fremont area :( I wanted to see a few things in Fremont, namely the large statue of Vladimir Lenin and the house that inspired the movie "Up". While I was there I stopped into a music shop, Dusty Strings. It was a really cool acoustic shop that makes their own hammer dulcimers and harps! I wish I would've stopped in sooner. I also wanted to check out a couple breweries in the area, so I headed towards Stoup Brewery, got sidetracked at Reuben's Brews, and ended up drinking many beers.

Edith Macefield's "Up" house

Lenin in Fremont

Stoup Brewing

Profound Thought of the Week: Art is art, not politics. The statue of Lenin in Fremont made me think about that fact. Who cares why a statue was originally made, it's still art and it's OK to appreciate it as such, even if the original intent was more sinister. Take the Coliseum in Rome, for instance. Yes, it was originally made as a place to execute criminals, enemies of state, slaves, etc. but now we see it purely as an architectural wonder, not caring about the dark politics that created it.