Last night Jack and I were doing what we do as often as possible: watching the Red Sox. This, somehow naturally, led us to wonder what exactly Trot Nixon’s facial hair would be called. We still don’t know exactly what that would be, but did learn this interesting tidbit about facial hair:
That is taken directly from the Wikipedia page on goatees. I’m glad I learned something interesting today.
I haven’t posted in a really long time, and there’s probably plenty of stuff worth posting (Red Rocks, Ultimate Sectionals…) but this is BIG! We’re going to the World Cup (we being me, Jack, Joe, and Campo.)
There’s another round or two of ticket-buying that we might be able to get some more games with, but I’m psyched either way. South Africa, here we come!
Skype is really a pretty amazing technology. Since my two brothers and I are now spread out over three continents, it’s great to be able to talk to them face to face every once in a while. (My grandmothers definitely appreciate greetings from afar, too.) More than that, though, Skype’s technology is growing by leaps and bounds. It allows people around the world to connect and relate as never before. Let me tell a story in pictures…
I was talking to Allen last week, catching up on the most recent news from the other Cambridge. As usual, actual updates turned into bickering and mocking each other. He started telling me stuff like “look…my glasses are awesome, and I look a bit like an alien when I hold them like this.” (Notice: Allen and alien are very close in spelling. Coincidence? I think not.)
That was funny and all, but then he was all like “So, I’ve decided the Queen is awesome. See?”
So, he held up the Queen to show me how awesome she is. As her head aligned to where his should have been, I realized I needed to take action. And this is where Skype’s new technology is really, really cool. I was actually able to beat Allen senseless from thousands of miles away.
Eventually Allen decided to run away. Probably he went to be comforted by the Queen for a while. I was victorious! America 2, England 0 (We went up 1-0 after the Revolution. I think this is up there.)
Didn’t like that story? It gets better…I got $20. (Yeah, Skype.)
From the “In Short” section on the front of today’s issue of The Tech:
“Institute Professor John M. Deutch ‘61 was appointed to a federal intelligence panel on spy satellites, though the appointment was questioned by members of Congress. Deutch had served as Director of Central Intelligence from 1995-1996, and afterwards was found to have wrongly stored classified information on his unclassified computer systems, a serious security breach for which he ultimately received a presidential pardon.”
Is it me, or is it me, or is there a lot of kind of awesome stuff in that short paragraph? (I didn’t know that I had taken a class from the former Director of Central Intelligence!) To me, that was probably the most interesting article in today’s entire paper.
Since I’ve been helping teach Toy Product Design, I’ve been on the lookout for toys. Last weekend, when I was at my grandmother’s house collecting my father’s things from the attic, I spied this awesome Electrical Engineering kit…
I’m not sure that they make kits like this (whether it’s engineering, chemistry, or any other ‘technical’ field) anymore, but I think it’s awesome that it’s advertised as “Safe! Uses harmless low-voltage battery power” Maybe there was a “For experienced users only” edition running 120 VAC?
It’s not often that I get to go on field trips anymore. All through college I’ve been jealous of my brothers’ Earth Science field trips to places like Hawaii. Well, it’s no Hawaii, but for the Toy Product Design class that I’m helping to teach, we did get to go to the second largest toy company in the world:
During our tour, the class got to learn all about their design, engineering and marketing processes directly from the toy designers themselves. We got to see the insides of nerf blasters (they can’t call them guns) that shoots 3.5 darts per second, and the prototypes of Butterscotch the animatronic pony. I think the coolest thing I learned was where they get some of their ideas for manufacturing. For example, the cutting edge of plastics and foam forming is in the shoe industry. Apparently, Hasbro and other toy manufacturers often get their inspiration from shoe designs. I don’t know that I would’ve guessed at that connection, but in retrospect it makes lots of sense.
The description wouldn’t be complete without mentioning “Memory Lane,” a showcase of the Hasbro toys from past and present, complete with original Lincoln Logs sets and a sterling silver My Little Pony. But, the coolest part, I thought, was the life size Monopoly car, filled with Monopoloy money…can I get one of those?
Get excited, it’s almost time for the MIT Climbing Competition! (Okay, it’s not almost time, but the dates were just announced, so I thought I’d spread the word a bit.) It doesn’t matter whether you’ve climbed a little, a lot, or not at all. Good food, good music, good times, and great prizes will all be provided. So, April 11th and 12th, clear your calendars and I’ll see you there!
Last weekend, Las Vegas played host to the biggest ever tournament in college Ultimate frisbee. (For those of you out there asking the obvious question: yes, frisbee is a sport.)
The tournament itself was held just a few miles from the strip in Henderson. It started on Friday, February 6th and ran through Sunday. We began Friday with four games in pretty windy weather. We won our first game of the day, then went on to lose the second (to Colorado State). The next two games of the day brought victories, both were hard fought, so we headed home (but first to Olive Garden!) pretty happy.
Saturday continued the windy weather that we had from Friday, but it brought a lot of rain, too. The day started out bleak, as BC broke for a couple of early points. Our D-line fought back though, and we took half before rolling on to win the game. By the second game of the day we were soaking wet and the fields were all muddy. We played, and lost to, Colorado State again. That spelled the end of the day for us, but fortunately that meant we could head back to the much drier hotel. Saturday was also a cultural experience for much of the team: a trip to In’n'Out Burger (yes, I ate two double-doubles and it was amazing).
Our loss on Saturday meant that we were no longer in the running for the Championship bracket, so we had a round-robin pool instead. These three games meant lots of time for the rookies and less experienced players to get in. Personally, I got about the same playing time I had the first two days because I’m not a rookie, but I’m also not a team all-star.
Unlike previous years, the veterans got much more playing time early in the tournament than the rookies (hence the winning record). This put us in a pretty competitive position as far as the tournament went, but led to much of the team not playing a whole lot. Many of the rookies got playing time on Sunday, which was pretty good, but the team was large and there almost weren’t enough points to go around. Basically, we’ve got lots of work in the months ahead if we’re going to make our goal of getting to Nationals.
Check out a few pictures from Friday in the galleries section, too.
Winter School is over, and I’ve got plenty of trip reports, but for those of you interested in the “cliff notes” version, here it is:
Carter Dome - 3350′ in elevation gain, 10 mile round trip
Hancocks - 2400′ in elevation gain, 9.8 mile round trip
Willard - ~3 miles hiking round trip and 2 technical pitches of ice
Monroe attempt - made to Lakes of the Clouds, 2400′ in elevation gain, 5 mile round trip
Washington - the highest point in New England at 6288′, about 4250′ in elevation gain and about a 9 mile round trip (winter trail, unsure of exact length)
I was thinking about doing elevation maps for all of the hikes, but that seemed like lots of work, so I figured I’d let you guys check out the maps in the galleries page. Think you’ve seen them? Check again: I updated all of them to highlight the trails that we took.
The last weekend of winter school proved to be the most exciting. Despite feeling a bit under the weather at the start of the weekend, I decided I couldn’t miss out on a chance to summit Washington in the winter. Unfortunately, strenuous winter hiking isn’t a great cure, so both days were a bit rough on me and I’ve spent most of this week recovering, hence the delayed report. You don’t want to hear about that, though, so on to the trip reports!
Saturday broke early and we headed out of Boston at about 5 am. We made record time to Lincoln, NH, met up with the rest of our group and headed to the trailhead. The plan was to start from the base of the Cog Railway and head up the Amanoosuc Ravine to Mt. Monroe and along the ridge to Mt. Eisenhower, then back down. It turned out that the 6-8 inches of fresh powder made for heavy work when breaking trail, but breathtaking forest-scapes. As we approached the Lakes of the Clouds, the trees thinned, and we found ourselves above treeline. As we arrived at the AMC hut there, we ran into a couple of skiiers descending Washington. I can only assume that their skis were trashed by the rocks! After a short delay, we were ready to continue, but found that the wind had picked up and was blowing snow all over, leading to very poor visibility. Our leaders determined that the conditions were not safe enough to continue, so we turned around and headed back down the trail.
This led to an early arrival at Intervale, our home for the night. We heated up the cabin, melted water, and cooked our dinners hoping for an early bedtime. Soon, though, the cabin was bustling with new arrivals from Boston, all eager to make our attempt on Washington in the morning, so it wasn’t until after 11 that I was able to fall asleep.
Once again on Sunday we arose at 4am, stuffed down whatever breakfast we could, and headed for the trail. We left from the Pinkham Notch AMC hut, up and to the north of Tuckerman’s Ravine and along the Lion’s Head trail. Due to avalanche concerns, the winter trail is slightly different than the summer trail, and was very, very steep at points! Nevertheless, we made it up eventually, with the aid of our crampons and axes. Upon reaching treeline we encountered winds whipping over the Lion’s Head sustained at 40-45 mph and gusting to 80 at times (according to the weather observatory). Fortunately the temperature stayed warmed, so it wasn’t exceedingly dangerous (~ 5-10 F).
Again, today, the fresh snow was whipped into the air by the high winds, so visibility was a concern. Fortunately, though, we were able to see from cairn to cairn and could continue on to the peak. Having left the trailhead at 6:15 am, we summitted at about 11:30. We waited on the peak for another MITOC group, and began descending at about 12:15. The high winds made for a difficult return trip while we were above treeline, and it had filled snow back into all of our tracks from the way up! Nevertheless, we made good time and arrived back in the parking lot at 3pm.
My car was waiting for one of the members and much of the gear from a trailing group. We expected them shortly, but they didn’t show up. As it turned out, one of them had twisted an ankle, so we headed about half a mile back up the trail to help the descending team. Finally at 5pm we were back on the road to Boston.
Overall, despite disregarding my health, the weekend was great fun. I achieved my goal of getting to the top of Washington for the first time, in winter and exceedingly poor visibility to boot! It’s gotten me excited for more mountains and winter summits to come! (As always, check out the galleries section for more pictures.)