Winter Vacation

Last night, Ashley and I returned from our trip back to Oregon. I was back from the 18th to the 27th, which provided an ideal amount of time to see most of my family and friends. I spent three days in Corvallis with Ashley's family, one and a half days with Jake that involved some bowling and snowshoeing in the rain near Trillium Lake on Mount Hood, and the rest of the time with various members of my own family in the Portland vicinity.

Of all the generous gifts I received, two are worth mentioning here. My grandpa made me a custom ordered spice rack. What makes this spice rack unique is that it is made to fit White Labs Yeast bottles that I use to brew beer. I've been saving these bottles up for a while, so now I have a very unique and personalized spice rack. My grandma spent an eternity sewing a queen size quilt for me. The quilt is made solely of various black and white patterns - nearly 20 different patterns it seems. The immense amount of time and skill required to complete this quilt makes it the most special gift I've ever received.

I brought some work back to Oregon with me so I could continue progressing on my thesis project. I spent a total of 45 minutes writing one of the chapters. I've set a thesis defense date for January 10th, which means my thesis committee members need a copy of a draft a week before that. That means I have seven more days to finish my writing. In light of that, I better stop writing this blog post and resume my project.

Geotech Ski Day

I took the liberty of organizing a ski trip for the geotech department, which took place today, Dec. 15th. The head count by nationality was as follows, I think:

Koreans - 3
Iranians - 1
Chileans - 1 (Chilean born anyway)
Russians - 1
Americans - 4

The sky was clear, the temperature low, and the wind high. A chilly day, but nobody froze and we made it back down the hill with everyone we took up.

The most improved award goes to Davoud. His last run down the hill was nearly two orders of magnitude faster than his first.

The best outfit award goes to JaeHong for his sporty, green and purple one-piece. Yes, we were all jealous.

Enough awards, the most important thing is that everyone stopped studying and had some fun.

The follwing pictures are of (1) Davoud doing his impression of a new-born colt, (2) Tailgate BBQ with a subzero windchill, (3) Joon-Yong blazing across the hill, (4) Party on the bunny hill.

Interview and Some PowPow

This Friday I had an interview with Deere and Ault Consultants in Longmont. The company is a medium-small geotechnical engineering consulting firm. One of my friends who graduated from CU last year has been working for them for several years, and he called me out of the blue one day and asked me to come in for an interview. Anyway, Longmont is about 12 miles NE of Boulder, much closer than commuting to Denver. I liked the firm, and I'm considering working for them after I graduate until I'm finished with Colorado. I'm expecting an offer in the next couple of weeks. I'll be sure to keep my blog site posted with the most recent updates.

This morning, Ashley, Antonio, and I went up to Eldora. They've received 2 feet of snow in the last two days, so I had to take a half day off and check it out. Antonio is my New Yorker friend in the Geotech program. Yes, that's New York, USA, not New York, Korea. He'd never really skied on anything except ice before, so he thoroughly appreciated the deep powder. Eldora's getting a decent base built up pretty early in the season, which doesn't always happen. I still flail quite a bit in the powder on tele skies, but I'm getting better. Ashley is showing great improvement over last year as well. She still refers to the powder on the side of the runs as "that place where you get stuck", but I'm sure she'll learn to love it.