Besides work, classes are already in full swing. I’ve already received my first graded Problem Set for Water Chemistry (3 out of 3 wooohhoo) and have taken my first test in Analytical Mechanics. I’m most excited about my Sustainable Community Development Class though. I joined the Mabu group, which is a rural community in Nepal. Right now we are simply working on collecting secondondary data, and even some primary data from our project leader, who is actually heading back to Nepal within the next few weeks. If all works out and I continue to work on either the Mabu project or the one other Nepal project and I can put together about $2000 for a plane ticket, I will actually be going to Nepal next summer and doing field work. Such an amazing opportunity…
Even though my schedule is picking up, I seem to always manage to fit in some time for skating and general craziness. Last week was my 27th birthday, which was quite a day. I had classes and work from 8am to 6pm, but when I finally made it out, the night was fabulous. Some of my work friends, Will, Jake and Jon, my friends Amelia and Jules, my friend Kevin from class and Lazer all spent happy hour with me at the Pub, and then lost Will and Jake and gained my friend Jenn and Lazer’s friend Adrianne for dinner in a tea room at Sushi Zanmai. Dinner included a edamame, some sushi, and a LOT of sake bombs.
In terms of skating, as usual, I have my on days and my off days. Last weekend, a long weekend due to Labor Day, I managed to skate Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Not too shabby. Friday I skated solo at the Boulder Park and landed a noseslide shuvit out on a down ledge, but could not land my front olly/air over the “nipple” for the life of me. One attempt I was so sure the board was under my feet. It wasn’t. Here’s the result:
On Saturday the Trick Factory headed up to Nederland for a weekend of camping. I headed up with them to skate the park, but I was keeping my friend Jenn’s 15 year old sister Brianna company for the weekend so I was only going up and back. In a purely ridiculous fashion, 7 of us headed up to Nederland in 7 separate vehicles (4 motorcycles and 3 cars) I skated for a bit until we got rained out, drove around with the gang looking for a camping space until it started getting late and headed back to Boulder.
By the time Monday rolled around, my heel bruise from the previous weekend was aching and swollen and my scraped up palm was starting to seriously iritate me. We piled into the ice box and skated a crappy outside of Denver and a few random street spots that made me feel bummed out. Luckily I was saved my crappy skating because the ice box died on us between spots. We spent about an half hour waiting for a jump or AAA to arrive, got a jump, spent another couple hours at Walmart buying a volt/amp meter, using it to test the battery, buying a new battery and installing it, and returning the old battery. We luckily had beer with us and my entire outlook on the day made a turn for the better. While everyone else was probably bummed about not skating, I had a fantastic time not stressing about my skating and instead enjoying the company of my new skate crew.
Since Monday I’ve been slacking on skating, except for Thursday night, when I finally made it to the Longmont park and fell in love. Luckily the park has lights and between working in Longmont and the fact that it’s getting darker earlier and earlier, I’m sure that I’ll be spending plenty of time at this park in the near future.
Besides skating, I always seem to make sure to fit some other craziness into my schedule. Last night, I headed up to Denver to hit up an art show/party at a gallery with Amelia and Jules. We kicked off the night with a photo shoot:
and then headed to the art show:
I crashed in Denver and we made sure to eat a fabulous breakfast at Snooze before I headed back home. One thing to remember about Snooze, you must wait atleast an hour to get a table. But on the positive end, you get free coffee in the meantime.
For the rest of the weekend, I have too little time and too much to accomplish. Dinner at Jenn’s to welcome her mom to town, poker at Brian’s, need to finish my painting and select photos to print so I can sneak some of my work into the upcoming Trick Factory art show, and SO much homework. And I need to get on my game, because two Rhode Islanders, Liz and Molly, are coming to visit this week on their way out to California, so things will be getting a little rowdy. Why can’t there be more hours in a day? Is this really reality… everything still feels so surreal.
