My Best Photos

I've recently had the time to sit down and go through my photo albums searching for those occasional great pictures. The ones that surprise you with color or landscape and just beg to be framed. I can't post them all here, but you can view the album.

Labor Day 5K

This Monday I ran a 5K on the Tech Trails (mountain biking and cross country skiing trails near campus). I heard about the race at the end of last week and decided it would be a good thing to do. It turned out to be a small race, with only around 20 runners competing. The course was fairly difficult with hilly, narrow trails that made passing difficult. It would be easy to twist an ankle on those trails, and several people fell during the race, though I was not one of them. I was glad I didn't sign up for the mountain biking version of the race, as running those trails was hard enough. I finished well overall, 6th place and 22:10. Not bad at all considering the terrain, and the fact that I haven't been training all that consistently. Overall, a very fun way to spend the morning.

Getting ready for the start.

The starter told us "It will look like the trail ends, it doesn't!" This is what it turned into.

Coming in for the finish.

End of Summer Activities

I have been very busy seeing the sights this Fall. As I mentioned in the last post, Between the end of the Summer semester and the start of Fall classes, Ashby and I took part in a family canoeing trip down the Au Sable river. That was a very fun-filled, if cold and rainy, weekend. Luckily we all managed to stay relatively warm and dry even on the river. After departing our campsite near the river, we completed the shortened drive back to Michigan Tech, and stopped by Big Springs for a little sightseeing and to stretch our legs.

Once back in Houghton, we spent a day getting unpacked and then departed on our trip to northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. On the first day, we drove to Duluth, stopping on the way to hike in the Porcupine Mountains.

Me by Lake Superior in the Porcupine Mtns.

Ashby by the Superior shore.

The view from a lookout tower elsewhere in the Porkies.

After our hiking we stayed the night in Duluth before setting out to the long awaited mystery destination, which was a physics particle detector operating in the bottom of the Soudan Underground Mine State Park in Minnesota. Ashby and I really enjoyed seeing the detector in person, and learning about the physics being explored there. We also went on a tour of the historical mining operations. All in all, a very enjoyable destination where we learned a lot.

The Hoist Building.

The head frame, this is where we got into a 'cage' to be lowered into the mine!

The bottom of the mine: almost half a mile below the surface, the ride down takes over 2 minutes.

Our great tour guide, Pete, and the electric trains that take visitors back into the mine for the historical tour.

After the mine, we headed back East to the Baptism River Inn (by my Mom's suggestion) for the night. The other guests were very interesting; one couple was visiting from England. We talked much about the differences in culture between America and the UK. It made for a very interesting breakfast. In the morning, we made our way back to Houghton, stopping to see the sights along the way as much as time allowed.

The Sauna near the Bed and Breakfast.

The Baptism River, just a short walk from the B&B.

Split Rock Lighthouse, one of our stops on the trip home.

Amnicon Falls, our first stop in Wisconsin on the trip home.

Big Manitou falls at Pattison State Park.

The weekend after returning from our trip, we took a trip up the Keweenaw to see Fort Wilkins and do some other sightseeing. As always a very beautiful trip.

Sunset over Lake Superior.

Summertime in Houghton

On a trip with visitors (cousin Alex and his girlfriend Kaylin) to see the local sights.

I've spent the last seven weeks in Houghton taking classes and working for Michigan Tech's Summer Youth Programs. It's been a fairly busy time, with several groups of visitors coming to enjoy the summer weather here. It was nice to have visitors on some of the weekends since Ashby has been in Ann Arbor for the summer. For classes, I took a total of 6 credits which is close to a full-time load when it's condensed into seven weeks. I took 'Mechanical Vibrations' and 'Statistics for Engineers', both of which will likely prove useful in the future.

My job with the Summer Youth Program fit in very well with taking classes. I was responsible for chaperoning the students to and from Houghton on the weekends. Several times this meant driving a Michigan Tech van to a nearby town and picking up or dropping off a handful of students. Most often it meant riding a charter bus through the night two nights in a row on the weekend running down to Lower Michigan to trade the students who had finished their programs for ones on their way up to Houghton. A few times I was able to meet up with friends and family during the bus layover. Thrown into the mix were a few around town van trips for field trips as well. It was quite an enjoyable job and it kept me from excessive boredom on the weekends as a side benefit!

Now I'm in the process of preparing for final exams at the end of this week, after which I head home to Erie for about a week before coming back up. It should be a fun week, with a family reunion and canoeing trip in the works. I know it will go my much too quickly, but when Ashby and I return to Houghton, we plan to make a trip to Wisconsin and Minnesota to a 'mystery destination' that I'm sure we will both enjoy along with some state parks on the way. That will make the trip back more fun. Then it's back to school in the fall. I'm excited to be the leader of the powertrain ("engine") sub-team for the Supermileage team this year. I have some new ideas, and the whole team seems fired up to make more improvements after our impressive performance this summer.

Supermileage

Last week was the annual Supermileage competition hosted by SAE and Eaton in Marshall, MI.  I joined Michigan Tech's Supermileage Systems Enterprise (SSE) last fall, and have been working on our vehicle for most of the school year.  I decided to join the powertrain sub-team, and cut my teeth by helping to design a new rear end frame for our car.  I also designed and built an engine mount that is both adjustable and makes it (relatively) fast and easy to remove and replace the engine, along with a device for properly tensioning the drive chain.  As a final project before summer break I reconfigured the fuel system to take up less space and fit the new layout better.  The fuel system also incorporated quick-disconnects to facilitate simple and fast engine removal, a major goal of the design this year.

Needless to say I was quite anxious to see this vehicle in action.  During the year we almost never have the whole vehicle in one piece because we are making so many modifications.  Competition was the first time I saw the whole thing working the way it was intended to.  This was my first time being at a supermileage competition, and I got the swing of things fairly quickly.  The team's first goal is to pass the technical inspection.  We had to make some changes to our electrical system, because the officials were concerned about the safety of a few of our more advanced features.  Luckily we could function without those systems working and quickly made it through that stage of technical inspection.  We then had to pass some basic handling tests.  That's when our starter broke.

Our team in line for technical inspection.

Without a starter our car was dead on the road, and we brought it back to our pit area and dug into the problem.  It turned out that our starter bracket had cracked and broken at a weld.  Unfortunately we didn't have a welder we could bring with us.  Luckily our neighbors from South Dakota owed us a favor for borrowing our generator earlier, and they had a welder.  It took a while for them to get used to welding on our aluminum bracket but they got it fixed before the end of the day.  In our rush to try the newly welded bracket we plugged some wires into the wrong ports and got a surprise when our engine flooded with fuel in quite a spectacular manner!  Luckily we discovered our careless mistake fairly quickly and got the car running a few minutes before we had to leave for the day.

Working on our car in our pit area.

The next morning we arrived early and got ready to finish the handling tests.  As it turned out, our car ended up being one of the best handling vehicles in the competition.  In every test the judges reaction was something like "Wow, I've never seen anyone do that so fast!"  Once we cleared all the tests, we were able to get out on the test track and compete for mileage.  We had predicted a performance of 55o mpg based on our 456 the year before and the improvements we made.  On the first run an access panel flew open and stayed that way for most of the run, so we were flabbergasted when our result of 950 mpg was posted.  Our vehicle managed to complete three more runs without incident (which is quite rare for the competition).  We continued to tweak our settings and achieved ever improving mileages of 960, 1063 and a final 1140.  That last performance was enough to put us in 2nd place overall, which was a very pleasant surprise for this being only our second year competing.  I guess we're on the right track!  I, along with the other new members on the team, am now very excited to get back to work and make more improvements before we come back to Marshall next year.  Hopefully we will outperform our wildest hopes again!

Our car being rolled out to the track to begin a 9.6 mile run.

Dexter to Ann Arbor

(That's me finishing in the yellow.)

Yesterday, I completed my second Dexter to Ann Arbor Half Marathon.  I completed the run about four minutes faster than last year, which was mostly because I knew what to expect this time around.  My training schedule was quite short due to coming home from college a short four weeks before the race.  I would have liked much more time to prepare, as I experienced a few aches and pains during my crash training program that probably could have been avoided given a more gentle schedule.  The race itself seemed to go by quite quickly.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect.  It was a clear, cool day with no strong winds.  Registration this year filled to capacity at 2500 runners, and having so many people all around running is a great motivator.  The course this year went back to ending in downtown Ann Arbor after construction blocked the way last year.  The downtown finish was fun (and less steep), but it does make for more congestion for spectators and runners trying to find their spectators!  I did end up finding everyone I came with quite easily after the race.  My dad and Ashby's mom and sister ran the 5K race, and everyone seemed happy with their times.  I found it interesting that the 5K started about 15 minutes after the half marathon, and ended while we were still running.  Everybody looked pretty tired after the run, and I spent most of the rest of the day laying on the couch too sore to move much and nursing my blisters.  I'm feeling much better this morning after a good night's sleep, and am already hoping that I'll be able to do the run again net year.

Projects

I've been fairly busy lately.  Classes are ramping up toward finals week, and my Enterprise team is working to build a running car by the end of the semester.  Beside all this I somehow managed to find the time to put together a few projects.  My future father-in-law gave me a circular saw for Christmas, so I've been putting it to use and gaining some woodworking experience.

The first project was a temporary door to separate Ashby's bedroom from the rest of her apartment.  I made the frame to fit snugly in the existing doorjamb and then wedged it in place with wooden shims.  Next was a bed-frame for Ashby's apartment.  I designed it to be unusually high so that there would be plenty of storage space underneath.  Finally, I built a combination of a workbench and locking tool cabinet.  Now I have a sturdy place to work on projects and to keep my tools safe and secure.  Ashby helped me make the door frame one weekend in January, and I completed the other projects between then and now.  Below are some pictures of the projects in progress and completed.

Ashby's bedroom door

The bed frame undergoing the 'some final assembly required' stage.

The victory photo... it supports my weight without budging!

Raw materials for the workbench.

Measure twice, cut once... over and over!  I've gotten

 a lot better at cutting the pieces to the right size.

Preparing to cut the workbench top.  This is the part that has to look nice!

Starting to take shape.

Now you can really tell what it's going to grow up to be.

The finished project!

Snow Run 2009

Last year I ran in the first annual Lumijuoksu (Finnish for 'snow run').  I had been looking forward to this year's event for quite a while although I only knew the details a few days ago.  Even on a few days' notice I decided to run.  It went quite well, considering my lack of meaningful training since early September.  In fact I came in a little under a minute faster than last year.  I ended up second in my age group (out of 2 I think, there weren't many runners this year) and won a loaf of Finnish bread (above).  I had hoped that our 'warm' spell would continue for the run, but the weekend windchill dropped down to the negative 20's.  The run is part of Heikinpaiva, the annual Finnish-American festival, so there are many other fun events going on such as the wife carry and the boot throw.  Unfortunately, by the time the awards for the run were over we were frozen stiff and headed back home.  Like last year it was a very fun morning.  To anyone who's in the area, I would recommend checking out the festival even if you aren't up for a run or competing in any of the other events.

Ashby all suited up for the cold.

That's me in the black to the left of the bank sign.

Nearing the 'Finnish'.

Home stretch!

Almost Done!

Rounding the corner to the finish line.

The Wife-Carrying Competition.

CB's: 'social networking' in da UP

While I was growing up, I went through a phase where Dad and I would sit for hours in the driveway so that we could talk to each other over the CB (Citizens' Band radio).  On a whim I threw an old radio and antenna in while packing to come to college and just got around to setting it up in my vehicle.  

Apparently CB's are an increasingly popular means of communication here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  They're much cheaper to operate (free) than cell phones, and our neighbor claims to have a range of at least several hundred miles with his giant lightning rod of an antenna.  My housemate just set up a radio in his room so that he can talk a few houses down to our neighbor.  Now my dinky little antenna with it's magnetic stick-on base seems a little underwhelming, but that's an upgrade for another day.

I find it interesting how things go sometimes.  I was out in the driveway today tinkering with some settings on my radio and talking to our neighbor who was only a few yards away.  It reminded me of how I used to sit in the driveway for hours with Dad...