Day 2 - The Search for More Oxygen

After getting roughly 4 hours of sleep, thanks to both the weather and my horribly uncomfortable sleeping pad, I set off in the wee-hours of a calm, Utah morning to complete the second leg of my journey. It was a long day, both physically and mentally exhausting, and I'm glad to finally be in my tent, writing this post before passing out.

The rest of Utah was just as beautiful as the first part, if not more so. The section of I-70 going from I-15 to Grand Junction is breath-taking. Huge, flat mesas, hundreds of feet above the wide swath of plains the interstate lain on, red stone contrasting with the light green brush. For the first part of my morning, I found myself stopping at every other scenic view rest stop just so I could take a few pictures that didn't have my windshield in the way. I haven't gotten the pics of my camera yet, so I'll update this after my drive tomorrow.

Edit: Here are the promised pictures

Colorado also has great looking country, though with less red stone, and MUCH higher peaks. The Rocky's are so much bigger than anything I'd driven by, and there were times the roads were so close to the base I couldn't see the sky out of my windshield. Just mountain. Speaking of mountains, how come nobody warned me about elevation fatigue?? I figured I'd be OK, since I wasn't exactly exerting myself driving, and the climb was relatively shallow. Then, I got above 8000 ft. Then 9000. It was about then I figured out the weird light-headedness I'd been feeling was the altitude. It was also the same time my car was also having breathing issues, barely making it up the hills, and having to constantly downshift to keep up the speed, even in relatively flat areas. When I saw the 10,800 ft peak sign, I knew my blurry vision wasn't my contacts.

After that wonderful ordeal, I had the pleasure of driving through Denver. By far, the cleanest city I've ever driven through. Even the run down areas looked clean, it was weird.

Now, I'm holed up in Cheyenne, Wyoming. A quaint, little city, with some rather, ah, interesting people... I went to the pub downtown to grab a my first meal in two days that wasn't out of my cooler, and had an awesome 1/2 lb Cajun burger with roasted garlic and melted bleu cheese. Oh, and a beer. Served in a mason jar...

So classy

Day 1 - The Long Desert Road...

Today, I began my long journey back to New York. At 4am. On a Monday. Not one of my best ideas, but I survived so I must've done something right. My 9 hour drive consisted almost entirely of desert landscapes, an almost-overheating car, and snapping random pictures out my windows when traffic wasn't too bad. 

Have you ever taken the same interstate for 500 miles? It's not exactly a riveting experience. But it was the easiest and fastest way for me to get out of the desert and into territory where grass is actually the default environment. That being said, there were some interesting moments and views.

Watching the sunrise over the mountains was an awesome experience

These solar power plants look so sweet!

The only part of Vegas that actually caught my eye. Yes, that's Trump Tower. Yes, it's completely clad in Gold. Subtle, Trump. Very subtle.

Got passed by a Ferrari 458....

And then an Aston DB9 30 seconds later

The pass through the mountains was awesome! There were mountain walls 100s of feet high on either side of the road

Then I got into Utah. Man, what beautiful country

Big, fluffy clouds! It was just perfect weather

Oh, I'd like to give a special shout-out to Jen at HME. I was rocking out to her driving mix CD's all morning. And Steve, I'm sorry, but I will never like Lady Ga-Ga.

It's Almost Time...

I can't believe it. I've only got a week left here in California. These past 7 months have been crazy, from adjusting to city life to discovering the wonderful California Burrito. I'd say I wish it never to end, but to be honest, I'm quite happy to leave.

Don't get me wrong, I've had an amazing time here. I've gotten more sun since January than I had the previous 10 years.  I've met some great people and done some pretty cool things. But we've had a rocky relationship, San Diego, and I think it best we parted ways.

We're just too different. You like warm, sunny weather. I prefer the cool Autumn breeze and the crisp, fresh snows of the northeast. You enjoy the constancy of never-changing weather, while I prefer the varying sky of central NY. There's nothing wrong with either, just different strokes for different folks. While I didn't realize it when I first left home, I'm a Winter boy, through and through. And January in San Diego just isn't Winter, in my book. 

THIS is Winter!

That being said, the people I met here will be that which I will miss the most. Friends I've made at work, strangers I've chatted with at the beach, and the occasional polite homeless man asking for money. Alright, that last one I probably won't miss, but it was a memorable experience, nonetheless!

Bacon, Goats, and A Capella. Weird Combo, Great Results

In the month leading up the San Diego County Fair, all my co-workers kept telling me was, "Oh, you have to go to the fair!" "They have great food at the fair!" They have all kinds of beers at the fair!" So, with the thought of good food and beer in mind, and some free tickets I won on from a radio station in hand, I set off to see what the hullabaloo was all about.

So. Many. People.

Seriously, it was absolutely nuts how many people were walking through the fairgrounds at any one time. It was like a sea. If the crowd has willing, one could probably crowd surf for over a mile without hitting a sparse area. 

But my crowd anxiety abated rather suddenly when I saw THIS:

Complementary cardiologist referral with every purchase!

I needed it. All of it. In my mouth. Fortunately, I had the sense to realize that would probably kill me. So I settled with just these:

Yeah, I'm gonna need that cardiologist

On the left, you've got french fries, fried in fortified bacon grease, covered in sour cream and bacon. On the right, bacon-bombs - bacon wrapped, deep-fried, beer-battered cheese balls, literally floating in melted garlic butter. If you're not drooling by the third hyphen, you're not American.

Do I regret my decision? No. Did I have to do extra 2 hours of cardio at the gym just to make myself feel OK with my decision? Yes.

There were other great things about the fair as well, including a large petting zoo, several as-seen-on-TV vendors, and a pretty decent Pentatonix concert that was also included in my free ticket.

From the pic's vantage point, you can tell the tickets were free

Must. Squish. Face.

Up-cycling Before Recycling - Heineken Mini-Keg Speaker

One of the big things they don't tell you about doing an internship is how much free time you end up having, compared to the crazy flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants rigor of your Junior year engineering curriculum. It actually quite unsettling to come home after work and have nothing to do. No homework, no projects, no studying. So to combat the stir-craziness I was experiencing, I started trying a multitude of hobbies, such as learning a new programming language, trying my hand at app development, blogging (duh), and a few DIY projects.

One of the projects that really took my interest was turning a Heineken mini-keg into a standalone speaker. It made perfect sense to me. I like beer. I like music. It's only natural that I'd want to combine the two.

Borrowing heavily from gilgonza3's project on Instructables, I set off on creating my own boozy jam box. And let me tell you, it was an eye-opening experience, beset with several problems (mostly of my own making), but I'm damn proud of the result, and I'm so glad I did it. Here are some pictures documenting the build.

Opening up the keg

Gluing the speaker support ring

Getting ready to drill holes for the connectors

Wiring going between back of keg and amp

Mounting the amp

Installing the amp and connectors

Finished product

There are still some things I want to do with the speaker, namely reinforce the stands and put a protective grill on the speaker, but that stuff can wait. This speaker is loud, proud, and ready for a party!

Soo... It's Been A While

Hi There. So I may or may not have neglected to keep up with my blogging endeavors over the past couple months. I suppose it was a combination of not doing anything particularly interesting coupled with trying out a few other hobbies (which I will get into, yay keg speaker!) 

So here's a small rundown of what's been going on here in sunny (way too sunny) San Diego the past couple months:

• I made a speaker out of a Heineken Mini-Keg. More pictures to follow
• I kept with my Sunday morning habit of going to Mission Beach, roller-blading and cooling off at the beach bar
• I basically skipped 4th of July, staying indoors most of the day, playing Skyrim
• Oh, yeah, I bought Skyrim. That's probably one of the reasons I've neglected to blog... or talk to people.... or leave the house...
• Developed an android app. You should totally download it... when it's done..

I'll hopefully be going into more detail on some of these riveting life experiences in further posts, but I thought I quick summary would be useful. Expect more to come over the next month or so, as I will have a LOT going on, such as driving across the country, finally riding my motorcycle again, and flying to England! Very exciting, very interesting, so stick around.

Who Left The Oven On?

If this is what Spring looks like, I'm not even gonna bother exercising come Summer time. I'll just sweat off the 30 pounds I want to lose. Probably more.

As I sat at an intersection on my way home from work, I (fortunately) noticed the engine temp needle starting to slowly rise. And rise. And rise. Right before it hit the red line, I smarted up and kicked off my A/C and cabin fans. As the engine temp slowly came back down, I thought to myself, Ok I checked the fluids last week, everything was cool. The A/C isn't making funny noises, so it's probably not that. The hell happened?

Then I looked at my outside temp. meter.

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DEGREES

Come on San Diego, really? I'm still trying to adjust to the fact that it's May, but not raining every day, or still being cold at night. I do not need you reminding me what the next 4 months are gonna be like.

I can't wait for next week. It's supposed to have highs in the 60's. Now THAT's my kind of Spring. Let's keep it that way.