Poster Session!

We all had to make a poster about our project. Most of the people who came were from our various labs, but there were also people who stopped by to check it out. And there was free food, so that helps

See all pictures here

About a month ago we talked about having a big group trip to San Francisco. We looked into staying at a hostel overnight but decided we would just do a day trip instead and that the last weekend was best for everyone. Last week I emailed everyone so we could make plans and figure out transportation. Just about everyone emailed back saying they didn’t really feel like going anymore, so the group trip was canceled.

However, David and I still wanted to go. He’d never been there before and probably wouldn’t have another opportunity anytime soon. So we got a zip car and drove down there early Saturday morning. After parking we walked to the end of Pier 39 and got our view of the harbor, Alcatraz, the ship we later visited, and the seals that rest on floating piers. We toured the USS Jeremiah O’Brien, which we really enjoyed. They let you walk around just about anywhere. The ship is still fully functional and they have a volunteer crew that takes it out on occasion.

We continued along the wharf and got some fish and chips, which was actually pretty terrible. But we made up for it by getting a sundae with dark chocolate fudge at the Ghirardelli ice cream shop in Ghirardelli Square. From there we decided to just keep walking until we reached the Golden Gate Bridge. We saw the Fine Arts Palace but decided not to go into the Exploratorium.

We ended up following the path that led under the bridge, and discovered a fort, Fort Point to be exact. We had fun exploring the fort and then took the other back to the top of the hill level with the bridge. We were lucky that the bridge was not obscured by fog!

After that we went to the cable car museum and walked through Chinatown. Dinner was an adventure. I suggested we could just eat at Chinatown, but for some reason David didn’t want to. So we went in search of the Italian district but ended up at the wrong place, got the car and drove around looking for something but realized there was no parking and in the end we parked the car in our lot and took the bus back to Chinatown and ate at the restaurant we had passed earlier.

So we ended up in the same place we had been an hour and a half earlier, but hungrier and more tired. But it was good, we got free pot stickers, which made up for accidentally ordering two servings of fried rice instead of one to share (David ordered one thing and I tried to change it, but we got both). After dinner we got back in the car and drove through downtown and across the bridge and back.

I can’t believe the last weekend is already gone! :(

Friday night after the IBM/Apple trip we got Sushi. The waitress told me to please eat the last piece that neither David nor I really wanted, which I did…

On the way back up to campus, David decided to play around with the lights a bit. He was showing me how oh-so-exciting it is to turn the car’s lights off for just a second while driving in the dark night. A few minutes later, we saw police car lights flashing behind us. We waited nervously in our zip car for the police woman to come to the window. She leaned over and informed us that one of the back lights was out. I have to say though… it would have been funny if he was pulled over being silly like that :).

Saturday we went to the beach and then watched half of the Fellowship of the Ring. Sunday we planned to go to the church but couldn’t borrow Katie’s car and didn’t feel like walking and being all sweaty. So instead we went kayaking :). The first half was great, we stopped along the way in some of the kelp beds (you can hold onto the kelp to keep from drifting). While I was sitting there taking pictures a sea otter showed up and rolled around right there in front of us. There were also a good handful of birds hanging out in the kelp.

We continued on past the a point and the waves got really choppy. They were decent waves for surfing and we were sitting on them a little ways before the breaking point. David thought this was terribly exciting, but I was a bit nervous about getting tossed out of the boat. He just wanted to sit there getting rocked around by the waves, but I started getting a bit sea sick from it all. So we started to head back. Since the waves were helping to carry us back, David refused to paddle but the up and down motion was making me naseous. By the time we got close to the pier where we had started, all I wanted to do was be on dry land. Sadly we decided to end the adventure only an hour into it, despite the three hour rental. I felt bad and would have liked to continue, but my stomach couldn’t handle it much longer.

After I felt better we ate and went back to the apartment to watch Across the Universe. It was great to have a three day weekend; I can’t believe we only have one left… but I’m excited to go to San Francisco on saturday.

And so the day after going to A Midsummer Night’s Dream we had a field trip to IBM Almaden, their research facility in Silicon Valley. I really enjoyed it, we got to see a lot of cool stuff and see what they’re working on.

They gave us the “Hi we’re IBM” spiel, just an overview of what they’re doing and why they’re so great. The first place we went was some sort of device that could see the locations atoms on a surface called a Scanning Tunneling Microscope. This way they can look at the locations of certain molecules and atoms, do something to them and then see what happens after. I’m not much of a natural sciences person but it was pretty cool what they could do with it. They’re not really working towards any certain goals or products, just seeing what they can come up with.

After lunch we saw the rapid prototyping lab. When someone is working on developing new hardware, they can have a test version made of it before sending it off to be made. They have a machine that makes any object out of a plastic substance by “printing” it.

3D printer making platic wrenches.

Something they “printed.” The gears on this thing all move together. This is done all in one printing, the machine prints dissolvable stuff to separate pieces.

More cool stuff from the prototyping lab:

1956 IBM Ramac - The first hard drive - 5 MB

After IBM a few of us went to Apple headquarters. One of the girls’ boyfriend works at Apple so he kind of got us “in.” I was hoping we’d get to look around more, but we basically saw the lobby and courtyard. They have a cool board that shows the a ton of apps and each one bubbles when it’s purchased. We also went to the Apple company store and I bought a t-shirt :). I really wanted this jacket that I’d seen my coworkers at the Apple store wearing, but it wasn’t worth the money.

Random stuff with an apple on it!

LA Trip Part 2

We didn’t actually make it to Los Angeles. Saturday we drove up to Solvang, a Dutch town. I wouldn’t really say it was worth the drive… just little shops and neat architecture. But it was still fun to hang out and better than, as Emily put it, sitting in the living room staring at each other. I feel bad David didn’t get to see LA when we were so close, but the rest of us didn’t really feel a desire to see the city again.

After Solvang (I think we drove longer than we spent there), we went to the Santa Barbara mission. That was fun, we did a tour and of course took some pictures. After dinner (it was nice to have a homemade meal), we played Settlers of Catan (best game ever). Sunday we went to church, ate at In ‘n Out, a fast food burger place only found in California. It was cheap and surprisingly good. We took the fast way back.

Another great weekend in California :).

Monday we played volleyball, Tuesday we went spelunking (on campus), Wednesday went to yoga, Thursday went rock climbing (in a gym), Friday we went tree climbing (I mostly watched others climb) and today my dad came in and we went to Monterey and down south along the coast (although I’ll put those pictures in another post).

Monday - Volleyball

Adrienne, Aaron and Patrick. Aaron and Patrick pretty much made up the team, Adrienne and I served okay and attempted to hit it a few times. I don’t think I ever got the ball over the net except the times I served.

Tuesday - Spelunking

Just behind one of the colleges on campus is Porter Cave. Ever since we heard about it we knew we needed to check it out sometime.

We had to pass the snail statue on the way up. (I have no idea how that looks like a snail which, by the way, is the campus mascot). But its tradition to take pictures sitting on top of it.

At some point the university blocked the entrance to the cave, but apparently some cave enthusiasts blew a hold in it.

Down we go.

David “Can we go that way”

Patrick: “No, no I don’t think so”

Where’d David go? Down into the hold of course.

The tree huts that we passed on the way back.

Experimenting with gravity.

Wednesday

We went to yoga. We somehow convinced both David and Patrick to go with us, and there were four of us girls as well. I’m going to try to go every week, it feels great and is really good for de-stressing. Patrick said it was the most painful experience of his entire life.

Thursday - Rock Climbing

Aaron (the guy in the picture below) is pretty much a professional rock climber and teaches and such, so he looked around and found a gym in town. The night before we went, he gave some of us a belay lesson so we could pass their test. I would really like to get into rock climbing, its such great exercise.

Getting ready to go.

I almost didn’t make it over that ledge - but I did it!

Mo

There were only a few who could belay, so there was some sitting around.

Adrienne and David

making faces

Friday - Tree Climbing

Well, I didn’t really climb the tree. But I saw the tree and I saw other people climb it, that’s gotta count for something right?

Tree 9.

This is as far as I got, to the top of the ladder.

I hear it’s a great view from up there.

I did manage to get on the swing.

Sunday was quite an adventure.

David and I met around 9:15 to go to a 10:00 church service. Katie (who has a car) was going to go with us, but decided she was too tired and gave us the keys. I “let” David drive… her car is as old as mine but 150,000 miles more and I was a bit nervous to drive it.

We didn’t get to church until 10:25. We first went to the wrong location because I put the name in Google forgetting that they moved a couple of weeks ago. Then we followed the correct directions and hit a cul-de-sac; we realized the road continued on the other side but there was a gate in the way. I have no idea how many times we turned around and went the wrong way.

After church we went to Safeway since my mom and her friends weren’t in town yet. Then by some miracle they found the Safeway despite not having a map.  We all went to lunch downtown and walked around for a bit while David took the borrowed car back.

We headed to the Natural Bridges after picking him up from campus since he was interested in going. Turns our, there’s only one bridge. There used to be a second but it fell. It was a nice area to hang out, the beach was nice and quieter then the main Santa Cruz beach and the scenery was neat.

It’s the fasion here in Santa Cruz

Surprise!

My mom and I

I took my mom and friends down to the boardwalk and we walked around for a bit. David decided he needed to try the deep fried twinkie… I took a bite and it was as disgusting as I imaged it would be.

I was pretty tired and ready to get some sleep when I got back to my apartment, but instead I found a bunch of people playing rock band. I joined in and all but I really just wanted to sleep. Eventually they left and I was able to sleep.

I love how when I leave work, I’m done. At school I always have so much to do and stuff on my mind that even my weekends are full of school.

Yesterday after work we all met up and went downtown for dinner at an Indian restaurant. All 16 interns plus a few extras went. Afterwards we went down to the boardwalk and walked around for a while and went on one of the rollercoasters. There are three or so rollercoasters and a bunch of carnival rides. It’s a very popular weekend spot and was very crowded.

Today we went back to the beach. Some of the braver ones among us got up early to try surfing. I’d really like to try it sometime but didn’t think I would want to get up early this morning. But the rest of us went down later and were there for almost four hours. In florida I never want to stay at the beach for more than a couple of hours, but here the weather is very temperate so it’s comfortable to be outside for a long period of time.

Mo and Adrienne

patrick, david and I

David, Danny, Adrienne and I decided to take a walk down the beach. I hadn’t really intended to get in the water (it’s quite cold), but we saw this cave like thing and the only way to get to it was to wade across a stream of water coming off the ocean. It wasn’t really a cave, there was a peninsula jutting out into the water and this hole through it. So we went through and continued are walk until we reached a light house. When we finally arrived at the lighthouse we were disappointed to find that it was built in 2001…

Tomorrow my mom is coming to visit. She and some friends had been planning a trip to San Francisco for a while and I ended up a couple of hours from there, so they are going to come check out Santa Cruz. We are going to go to the natural bridges, which I’ve been wanting to see.

I’m also going to church :). I found two people who also want to go, should be good.

Here’s some pictures of the campus, mostly areas where I will be.

Engineering 2 - the building where my lab is. This single building is bigger than two or three academic buildings on campus that hold numerous departments and majors. Engineering 2 is one of two buildings for the Engineering department (which includes multiple fields of engineering and computer science).

This picture was taken from the entrance to my apartment. This is pretty much how the entire campus looks - some buildings in the middle of the forrest.

My room. Lots of space but not much stuff to fill it. Very nice though!

The path we took the gym. There are paths like this all over campus

The running track with an amazing view.