First week of classes

Well the first week is over, and basically I'm in trouble. This math course I signed up for, the finance one, turned out to be way over my head. Not in difficulty necessarily, just because of the fact I'm way behind in finance classes compared to the rest of the class. They know a lot, I know nothing. It's gonna be tough to catch up, but the drop date has passed so I'm stuck with it now.

The day before school started we went up to Lake Lanier/Chattahoochee River for a bbq/picnic. It was hot as the blazes that day and I was basically dripping sweat the entire day. But we were on the river, which drains from the bottom of the Lake (as a dam) so the water was ICE cold. Like so cold you could barely put your feet in it for more than 10 seconds at a time. But it got so hot we eventually went "swimming" in it. I say "swimming" because it was more like you jump in and then get out a very short while after and then you're nice and cool for about 15 minutes... then you repeat. It was very refreshing. Also the cold water made for some interesting fog effects:

Eventually some of the guys did a contest to see how long they could stay in the ice cold water. They were going to try 2 minutes with the water up to their necks, but ended up staying for 30! We basically had to force an end to the madness because some people really looked like they were going to die. When they got out some were even putting their hands over the grill to warm up... and this was on a near 100 degree day. It was quite a sight. But they regained motor skills eventually and were fine in an hour or so.

Yesterday, Saturday, I sat out by the pool with some friends all day and then went to Spencer's party at night. He had an ice louge, which was definitely the highlight. I didn't have my camera so give me a few days to acquire the various pictures that were taken. The party was awesome and I tried out the whole taking a taxi thing instead of driving, which worked out nicely but cost me about $20 just for round-trip transportation. It was well worth it...

Oh and my AC is broke so I'm my apt is borderline unbearable at the moment.

And I just heard about Hurricane Katrina, now a category 5, heading towards New Orleans. They are expecting at least 20' of water to inundate the city. It could take weeks or months to pump all the water out. If this happens it will be an incredible disaster. Hopefully at least everyone can be evacuated or will be safe in the superdome.

All of us with the house we built. Well, partially built. Actually it was all set up when we got there, we just painted a few things and put up towel racks... but it's OUR house damnit.

Spencer getting a power-rush from the power drill

Probably the best paint job that's ever been done on a door before.

New/Last School Year

Well this time it has been 4 weeks since I updated. I've obviously lost my blogging motivation. Really I guess I just think I'm not doing anything worth blogging. In fact, I don't think I've done much at all since my last update. Which is nice because I had been leaving way too often this summer. I've been back concentrating on work mostly. I'm not very thrilled about having to go to class again starting tomorrow, but it's what I do. Plus I'm taking only 2 classes and they are electives. That means I picked them out from any of the classes GA Tech offers. So I'm taking a computational finance course (counts for a math course) and a class on sustainable energy (solar, biodiesel, etc). Both subjects I am very interested in.

Speaking of "computational finance", I guess that's what's new with me... my new interest in the wonderful world of wall street. I signed up for a Scottrade account a couple weeks back and am trying the whole stock market thing. So far it has not gone too well, but we'll see how the next few weeks play out. It's been a learning experience nonetheless. Oh and my new favorite tv show is Mad Money on CNBC. (my real new favorite show is Rescue Me on FX)

Anyways, as far as actual events that went down the past 4 weeks, Rachel came down here to visit a couple of weeks ago, and today (Saturday) I did Habitat for Humanity. It was the first time I have done it, even though I sort of wanted to at Maryland, but getting up at 7am on a Saturday as an Undergraduate just was never going to happen. I painted some doors, and I got a free t-shirt and lunch out of it. I also got some good pictures, maybe I will post.

I'll try to keep this up to date on how my classes are and my report on the new first-year students in our lab. See ya.