Dancing Jake

Some of you have seen this, some of you want to see this, and yet some of you may see it and wish you never had. Keith - this one's for you. A short clip of Jake and Emily "dancing" at Jason and Kelly's wedding. Enjoy! https://webfiles.colorado.edu/elliott/Jake%20Shortened.avi?uniq=ict02a

The Eye and the Wolf

Ashley and I had a pretty lazy weekend. We are both very busy with grad program stuff, so we spent a bit of time trying to be productive. We did make a trip to the local pumpkin patch (the only one we have found in Colorado). Unlike last year, we had good luck finding quality pumpkins that were still attached to the vine. Some of us, not to mention any names, found this detaching aspect quite exhilerating as well as a bit challanging. I've attached a couple pictures of the final product of Saturday's artistic expressions. Ashley is the proud owner and creator of "Wolfie", so I guess I have to claim responsibility for the eyeball. The eyeball was inspired by Keith's halloween costume two years ago. Keep in mind that the eye is an artistic expression, not meant to be a completely realistic interpretation of the eyeball of any particular creature.

Fall Break

Apparently too many students were getting stressed out and committing suicide a few years back, so the powers that be invented "Fall Break" in order to relieve stress and reduce the suicide rate. As sad as this may be, I did my best to take advantage of not having classes on Thursday and Friday last week.

As ususal, I had big plans that had to be altered into a much less impressive feat. The plan was to backpack a loop in the Indian Peaks Wilderness which involved two crossings of the continental divide. After about 3 miles of postholing through 1-3 feet of snow between bobcat, cougar, and elk tracks, I set up camp near a lake. The scenery was beautiful and the snow was much missed since last winter. The next day I made a second attempt at finding the trail to continue my loop, but that sneaky basterd eluded me again!
















On Saturday I attended the Colorado School of Mines homecoming football game. Apparently the engineering program there is the only impressive aspect of the school. The stadium was smaller than the one at Oregon City High School and less spectators were in attendance. The scoreboard didn't work, and neither did the sound system. Worst of all, they didn't even have a Jumbotron!

Enough fun for a while, and back to the thesis project. Progress had been slow up until about two weeks ago. Now I'm in the thick of the testing process, soon to be heavily involved with the analysis of the test results. One of the students I TA'd last year generously offered to assist me with my project in any way I could think of. This should help things go faster so I can meet my target date for my thesis defense - January 10th.