Scot's Thoughts

My first 12er. Oh, you mean those don't count. You say that in Colorado that you only count the 54 14ers (peaks above 14,000'). Well, too bad, I'm claiming my first 12er, the highest I've been on land in my life so far, until later in the day when we were a little higher on the road (the highest continuously paved road in the Western Hemisphere, or something like that). And yes, my shirt does say "Bacon is meat candy". Bacon makes everything better - even hiking up mountains.

I forgot to post it, but about 2 months ago, I went mountain biking with 4 guys from work. 2 of them are really good (1 had a single speed, which you have to be pretty hardcore to take on these trails and climbs). We went on the Shorline trail, north of the other trail I went on (the Drake posting). The ride again started with a 500 ft climb which again killed me. Once up top, the going was pretty fun, but I didn't have much energy from the climb. In fact, I decided to not finish the ride because I wasn't feeling so hot, so one of my friends rode back to his car and came and picked me up. Not the best way to impress the coworkers the first ride out.

I played around with my camera a little today while we were at Rocky Mountain National Park. I wanted to see if I could get a couple of good panoramic pictures. These were taken with my Canon Rebel XT with a 18-55mm lens (I used 18 because it was the widest I had). Here are the results:

This picture was a stitch of two pictures.

This was a 360º panoramic from a peak at an altitude of about 12,011'. Click on it for the bigger picture. I think I used about 20 pictures for this one. This was before cropping, and you can see where I must've turned and raised my camera a little bit. All of the pictures were shot by hand and I was standing on an uneven boulder.

This is the same picture with cropping to make it even (again, click to see the bigger version).

First ride of the season. First ride in Fort Collins. Wow, the difference of mountain biking in Austin and mountain biking in Fort Collins is ... MOUNTAINS. The downhill was a blast, but the climb up 500 feet killed. Combining the cooler weather (50 degrees) plus the elevation plus my out of shapedness plus mild exercise induced asthma plus trying to establish some trail cred with a new person I found to ride with = puking. After that, my body felt much better and it was a fun ride.

So there I was. Sitting on the pot in the bathroom stall at work. There's one stall and one urinal. For the most part, to stay environmentally friendly, and cut costs, the light is kept off. I entered, turned on the light, and got down to business. Another entered, and as most people do, you freeze and don't make a noise. I don't know what it is. It's like we are embarrassed for being there. But everyone poops. We just don't want anyone to know it. Riley will tell me, "I poop in my pants" and "poop in the bum" without reservation, but for us, someone else in the bathroom means covert undercover maneuvers. If there are two stalls, you hope that they don't enter in. Even worse is when there is a standoff, where neither will move, sometimes for an hour, before someone gives in.

So there I was, getting ready to start cleanup in aisle 1, and the other man enters. Couldn't tell who it was by their shoes. I guess I haven't been here long enough. He finished, I let out my held breath, and then it happened. He walked out and the lights went off. Pitch black. Interior bathroom. Seal on the door. Black. For a split second, there is a decision to be made. You can cry out in terror/shock/amusement, but then your cover is blown. You have about 0.13 seconds before the door closes and he is gone. But 0.13 seconds isn't long enough to realize what happened, think, and yell out, "HEY! I'M ON THE POT IN HERE! COME BACK AND TURN ON THE LIGHT!" So there I was, in the dark, pants around the ankles. I could only imagine sneaking out of the stall and being half naked when in comes the president of the company, flipping the lights on. Luckily that didn't happen and I got out of there in one piece.

See this (sorry, I had to take the picture with the webcam because Becca has the good camera)? A 1/4" slit. 1/2 a centimeter. This caused at least 5 gallons of water to go through the walls and into the basement bedroom. Only cost about $300 and a day and half to fix everything. It would have been more if I didn't do the carpet stuff myself.

I went into the bedroom last night to get the baby swing out for when Asher comes home. I heard a drip and looked over and saw water streaming from the top of the window into the room. I ran outside and looked in the window well and saw water streaming from behind the siding outside, running down the outside basement wall, to the window, and inside. I ran and turned off the water main and it stopped. Not bad, but now no water. I used our carpet cleaner to suck up about 3 or 4 gallons of water out of the carpet and then our wet-vac to pull up another 1 to 2 gallons. I pulled the carpet up and the pad was soaked.

I took the day off of work obviously to deal with it. I took off 4 strips of siding on the house to try to locate the leak with no luck. I finally got a plumber to come out and after cutting a hole in the basement bedroom roof, found the leak, a burst pipe that went to the refrigerator ice maker. The plumber actually was really great and I helped him fix it and he charged less than I expected (maybe because since I helped him, it went faster).

I went to Home Depot and got some new carpet padding and adhesive and rented a carpet blower and power stretcher. I laid the new padding, reattached the siding, and the carpet is drying. I hope to re-carpet and stretch it tonight. I guess that saves some money. I feel handy making fixes, but it doesn't mean I like it. Especially when I have to take off a day from work and not get a shower and not even get to use a saw or something.

Moving into a new house provides many opportunities for handyman skills. I have replaced door handles, put in better shower heads, taken down an old Dish network dish, etc. Here's the oddest skill that I used over the past little bit: cutting a box spring in half to get it into the basement. The stairs to the basement go halfway down and then turn 180 degrees. Measurement of the landing halfway down: 78". Length of bed: 79" (and yes, I tried to turn the bed the other way, but it was too tall). I got the idea of cutting the box springs in half from a friend of Becca's (here). It actually worked out really well using a marker, razor, and jigsaw. Courtney headed to Fort Collins for a few days before heading back to SLC for school (and too watch the Sugar Bowl with another Ute fan). So far, the bed hasn't tacoed her.

This precedes my dissertation:

There are many people to whom I owe my gratitude during my graduate studies. I would like to thank my dissertation committee for all of their support, guidance, and suggestions, both professionally and personally. They have all helped in some way to help me develop as a better person and researcher, defining and solving a wide array of problems and overcoming challenges along the way. I acknowledge Dr. Novoselac for his help with some experiments and for his excitement. I also especially thank Dr. Corsi for much of his guidance while I was forming my dissertation concept. My colleagues have been helpful in asking and answering questions and directing me to resources that I needed. I especially thank Michael Waring and Donghyun Rim.

I am grateful for the funding opportunities that have allowed me to continue my studies and support my family. I benefited from the opportunity to be part of the first cohort of trainees under the National Science Foundation IGERT program for Indoor Environmental Science and Engineering. It helped my professional development and brought me the sense of community that I needed during this time.

Lastly, I must thank my family for their support and encouragement. I thank my parents for their example of tenacity, professional responsibility, work ethic, continued education, and lifelong learning. I have worked many years to better think out of the box and approach problems from different directions. Lastly, but most of all, I am grateful for the support of my wife Becca and the hard work she has put in while finishing her own education, working, and raising our daughter. Riley, I owe my desire to finish this work to you, as you have given me an even greater reason to live and be successful.

On Saturday, we went to the #3 Big 12 champs Texas volleyball game versus Colorado. Unfortunately, many of the previous games conflict with other committments so we weren't able to go. It was pretty fun. One thing that I noticed is that it is hard to photograph. They ask the crowd to not use flash photography, so that leads to longer exposures to allow enough light into the lense. Fast moving athletes just don't go with slow shutter speeds. There was 1 official photographer taking pictures and I noticed that he had remote control, wireless flashes. Unfair. When he took a picture, all the lights in the gym flashed. It only lasted a fraction of a second, but was noticable if you looked for it. I set a faster shutter speed and took bursts of photos and got 1 (yes 1) photo that took advantage of his flash. Here is outside hitter 6'4" Destinee Hooker serving. She is All-American and awesome (not to mention she is the NCAA high jump champion - 6'2.25").