Left hanging

Last time I was out in Amherst, I met with Keith (my advisor for grad school), we brainstormed all sorts of ideas, I got all charged up about stuff, and then he mentioned that I wouldn't be able to start stuff until August. Ok, this is fine, and I get various formal-looking emails and letters from the Forest Service about how I am an "emergency hire", with a start date of August 4th. Woot. Keith sends me an email saying that I am starting on 8/4, he won't be in the office, but there is plenty for me to do. Ok, this is fine, so, I show up. It takes almost four hours to fill out all the necessary paperwork (remind me not to work for the feds again), and then I'm stumped. His office manager and I check with various other people in the lab, to see if Keith had said anything about me helping them out, nope. Well, I guess I'll go home. Not going to sit around twiddling my thumbs, but I don't particularly like being left hanging...

Anyway, today when I went in he was there, so we were able to set some things straight and now I have a huge pile o' papers to plow through. Its a good thing I find this stuff interesting, or I might be less happy at having to read all these pages. But since Keith will be out early next week, I'm basically on a literature-review-vacation (you know, one of those vacations where you have to do some work, but, not really that much) until next wednesday. Woot!

In all my free time, I've been working on the Boston College Law School map. Its basically at the point where I'd say its done, now, it still has a bit of a cartoon-ish feel, but it is functional. I sent out some orienteering peeps on it the other day, and nobody complained too much about things being wrong. More importantly, my GPS track lined up properly with all the important bits and pieces. Yay! The one hitch is that I mapped it using ISOM (International standards of orienteering mapping) instead of ISSOM (for sprints, that's the other S), which means its fairly useless except as a park-o map or a training map. That said, its too small to really use it for anything other than a park-o or training anyway. So I'll remain proud of this little map of my backyard.

August, already?

Time moves differently when you're not working. You're lacking that eight-hour block in the middle of your day where you have to be in a certain place, doing a certain thing, draining you in a certain way. Maybe its that I keep myself too busy as it is, but I'm wondering how I'm going to fit that sort of time commitment towards school into my life. Will probably have to cut back on some fun... but there are things that do have to get done, like work for the CSU A-meet this fall, and setting up the ski-o event this winter. Those are the things that have not been getting done.

I finished the basemap of Boston College yesterday and went out to do some field checking. It is an interesting little area and I can't wait to set some courses there. I get the nagging feeling that its sloppier than would be perfect, plus I was using ISOM (international standards of orienteering mapping) rather than ISSOM (for sprints), so Amherst will definitely be ISSOM, because there are definitely drawbacks to using ISOM on a 1:5k sprint map. Also in the orienteering vein of things, I set up a scavenger hunt/orienteering course for the junior skiers yesterday, many people got lost but they all seemed to have fun. I'll do that again some time, for sure.

I've been attempting to ride my bike a little more than before, mostly to prepare my butt for the adventure race this weekend. Hopefully the other teams are also not strong riders, although at least on the bike leg its easier to tow someone. I'd be the towee. I headed over to Prospect Hill park last week to see what happened when I rode up hills, and I was able to ride negative splits and stay seated, both of which surprised me. More surprising though was that my times were faster than when I did this last summer. The only thing I can think is that I was on race wheels - I left my road bike, with the heavy commuting wheels, in Amherst, so I was riding my cx bike, and put the race road wheels on just so that I wouldn't have to use knobby tires. I really doubt that my legs are putting out more power than in the past. Especially on eggbeater pedals that wiggle with every pedal stroke... I should probably tighten those up.

Speaking of bikes, its time to go do some maintenance... better to ride slowly and have a bike that doesn't fall apart than to ride fast and have mechanicals.

Summer vacation 2010

Thanks to this whole graduate school thing being pushed back, to an unspecified date in August, I've been enjoying my second summer vacation in a row. I could get used to this! While some might spend free time on a beach or otherwise relaxing, I am incapable of doing something as normal as that, and it seems that I'm even busier than when I also had a job. Its all fun, though, and I've come to realize that I get all jazzed up about projects when I have the time, but I have to be realistic and cut back before I start work again, or I'll just disappoint myself by not getting stuff done.

First off, Ed "re-hired" me as his sales manager. He'd been trying to do it all himself, but I have the coaching contacts, so we're collaborating again. He pays me in sushi (but on commission), so its definitely a win-win situation! Running your own business is no joke, but Ed runs a tight ship, I'm impressed with his operations. His rollerski ferules came in last week, so we're trying to get those out to the right people and all that good stuff.

I also managed to put together the contours and aerial photos for basemaps for a couple maps that I've been wanting to make for orienteering. The first is the Boston College Law School/Edmands Park, which happens to be a five-minute walk from our door, hence the desire. Its not a huge area, but it would be sweet for a sprint or two and to train on a map. OCAD (orienteering mapping software) has its issues, but I'm starting to figure it out. Next up is Boston Common, for which we have a map, but it isn't in OCAD. So, its a matter of digitizing/transferring the data over to an actual computer file, with accurate contours and all that good stuff. This is really Ed's project, but I'm helping out. And the next map is the UMass Amherst campus - the place is huge! It would be perfect for a campus sprint, and if all goes according to plan (this is what I mean by biting off more than I can chew), I'd like to set up a campus-O series at some point this year at Amherst.

And along those lines, I nominated myself as meet director for the big east-coast ski orienteering weekend this winter. We don't have a snazzy name yet, so help me out and suggest me something. So far what I've got is "NH Ski-O Weekend"... doesn't quite cut it. We're thinking of using two whole new maps, so it involves lots of permission-getting and speculation about maps in places where you can't go field-check, and pushing and shoving and herding these cats to get all the information together soon enough to put it on the NENSA calendar before it goes out. Which happens soon.

So as though that weren't quite enough to keep me busy, I've been coaching my usual mid-week specific strength workouts, my friday core-from-hell workouts, a couple extra rollerski technique sessions for people who ask nicely, and trying to keep on top of the kids who still need to send in training logs and answer the questions of the ones who are always on time but can never hear enough about skiing (hey, I understand that position - I was there), and this weekend I'm thinking of setting up a scavenger hunt somewhere on an orienteering map. Wheeeeeeeeee momentum!

So in all my spare time, I'm reading up on some freshwater ecology stuff so that I'm not caught out cold when I start doing work, if that ever does happen, although I hope there is at least a little review at the beginning of the classes... the grad student handbook was fairly intimidating, but I think I have everything ironed out, I at least got the classes picked.

What can I say, life is more interesting when its packed full of things you love to do. And its nice to be in Boston with no dayjob, at least until about noon each day, when the heat gets unbearable. Although today, I was out setting streamers for an orienteering training session later in the week at noon. That was fairly unbearable too, although the nail in the coffin was the track workout later that night... I think its time for bed...

Thompson Island Orienteering

NEOC held an event on Thompson Island last weekend, the home of the Outward Bound program here in Boston. I didn't realize that the Boston Harbor islands were anything more than glorified trash heaps, but I guess I thought wrong. Thompson Island is actually fairly large, with enough terrain for a 4km orienteering race. It was billed as a sprint, but any course that takes me 30 minutes is not exactly a sprint, in my mind. My scanner is broken, and I've lost my camera, otherwise I would share the map - it was hardly a technical course, due to a lack of forest, but it was certainly interesting enough, with a mix of open fields, park/buildings, and salt marsh. Since we were running around low tide, it was possible to cut straight through some of the salt marshes, although the mud was squishy and slimy enough that running through it was slow and mucky. And now my shoes smell like some sea creature died in there.

The results were up quickly, and I ended up 5th for the day, first woman. Most importantly, ahead of Ed! It was definitely a runner's sort of course, although still possible to make mistakes, and with the hot sun and lack of wind, I was just not running fast enough to pick off Bill or Giovanni - I can't come close to John or Ross. The far side of the island was the sheltered side, and there was a long, straight, sunny stretch of running between control 6 and 7 where I really thought I was going to melt. Or have my head explode. And to think that it was actually cooler out there than on the mainland... I'm ready for this heat wave to break.

In completely unrelated news, I attempted to start work on the masters stuff at Amherst this week, and it looks like we're pushing stuff back even further, until we can get a meeting of the right people to talk about my thesis, before I start work on it. This gives me another week or two or three of vacation, so I'd best use my time wisely and go back outside to play!

Bald Mountain

Ok, one more photo dump - from Bald mountain, a 3k footer in Willoughby state forest. We took up the little beagle, and she seemed to thoroughly enjoy the rock hopping, although mostly when going downhill. She likes to run downhill, reminds me of someone else I know...

We found him a place to live for next year! Nice little abode, good views, a little drafty at times...
Willoughby from the top of the fire tower on Bald Mt.



And some last photos from Kingdom Trails...
Pretty red barns. So Vermont.
Too. much. climbing.
Woooo!




Our nighttime activities are pretty good, too.


I'm winning. Ed has one word.

Last days in paradise

I could get used to this house on Lake Willoughby, aside from the whole dark-as-hell kitchen and lack of light switches. I know it was built a long time ago, but you'd think that by now, they would have gotten around to light switches... anyway, Ed joined us on Wednesday, and we did much more biking and hiking and running and playing in the water.

"How does this thing work?" "I dunno, you tell me!"

It turns out that my family just isn't good at doing water stuff. My mom and Christophe and I headed out to find an alleged rope swing on the far side of the lake under the cliffs one night, after an abortive attempt to find said swing that morning, when the waves were just too large for comfort in our little rowboat with the engine. We found the rope swing, and had to figure out how to make the boat not float away. We could have tied the boat's rope (that normally ties it to the dock) to a tree, but then the boat might run into the shore because of the waves, so we decided to lower the anchor. My mom picked up the anchor and said something to the effect of "Sweetie, this is really heavy. Are you sure?" and Chris and I both agreed that we should just toss it overboard. Splash.

After a good time playing on the rope swing, it was time to go home, as the sun was starting to set. I attempted to pull up the anchor, reasoning that if Mama could have thrown it in, I should be able to pull it out. It wouldn't budge, so I called over Christophe, who attempted to pull it out, still nothing. We both hauled on the chain for a bit, but no luck. After trying various stupid attempts to do something with an oar and a cable, Christophe decided that he had no choice but to dive down and see if it was stuck. I held the chain taut and watched him get smaller and smaller as he went down; I'm terrified of going underwater and fairly claustrophobic, so I was getting pretty nervous watching him shrink underwater. Eventually he came back up, turns out the anchor is stuck under a rock. Well, how big is the rock? So, he went back down. The rock is huge! And his ears really hurt, the anchor must have been 25 feet underwater, and he was making that descent and ascent quickly. After some debate, a little panicking and a lot of tugging on the chain, we determined that the only thing to do was to detach the anchor and just buy Sam a new one. Of course, then we hit the second problem, that the chain seemed to be rusted on to its attachment thingy. Luckily, Christophe got us free, otherwise, we'd probably still be floating there, cursing water and swimming and boat stuff and all things related to water.

Shooting into the sun. I still haven't located my camera, but was able to steal photos off my mom's camera all week.

Legs!



Eventually, Ed and my dad decided to come rescue us in the canoe.


And then they wanted a tow home. The nerve!

Then, the sun went down. Home just in time.

More photos from the Kingdom

Its not all biking, but its mostly biking...