Spears and Caves

Once again I am epic fail when it comes to pictures. If I get any I'll post them retroactively.

On Saturday I took part in a spear clinic. That is right, I am learning Shaolin Spear forms. My sensai, when he isn't failing at breaking sticks, told us that the Spear is often called the "king of shaolin weapons" which is pretty cool eh? I think so at least! The forms are very flourishy and pretty, and tons of fun to do, and to watch I think. There is a lot of twirling of the spear around your body and over your head, as well as some stabbing and a couple of impalements (of your opponent, and not yourself). As I said it was tons of fun and I managed to learn 1 of the forms (there are a total of 3). With any luck next week I'll learn the second form! Anyways this will bring my weapons skillz up to 3, as I now know forms for Bo staff, Broadsword and now Spear.

Then as I hinted at the end of my last post on Sunday I went caving with Rachel. Rachel and her mother are part of a local caving group in the greater DC area. As such from time to time they get together at nearby caves and... go caving! This last weekend was such an excursion. Rachel and I joined up with her mother and four others and explored a nearby cave in West Virginia.

As I told Rachel before we started, I wasn't sure what to expect from caving, as I have never gone caving before, or for that matter done too much climbing. What I found out caving is, is darkness, dirt/mud, close spaces, climbing, and exploration. It is also, lots of fun. After throwing on some old jeans and a long sleeve T-shirts, I got equipped with a helmet, a helmet light, and some gloves, and joined the others in going down into a hole in the ground. The cave itself is like a whole other world, it is pitch black in there, with uneven ground. Yet with the helmet light I never felt like the darkness was a problem, and it wasn't until we all turned off our lights that you really realize how dark it was.

I think the way to sum up what caving is though, for me was summed up with two words, climbing and exploration. The caves are light a maze of tunnels, crawl spaces, and ledges. The fun part and objective to caving then is to explore as much of the cave as you can. For example, there was one part when we saw a hole in the ground near our feet, kinda at a wall. We squeezed through the opening to find another tunnel area. In this next area there was four different routes possible. Down and to the right took us on a loop, that we climbed down, over and some light climbing to another area, which then turned around and connected us to where we began. Then to the left there was two options, to go down about a 20 foot incline and a drop, or a small ledge going over that crevice area, but being exposed to said drop and jumping across. What I did was I climbed/slid down the incline to the bottom. I should have climbed, but it ended up with me sliding more than anything... then I climbed up an incline to the top, where the other route connected. At the top of this part of the cave was a small opening. I was convinced this opening was too small for me, but with my hands outstretched I was able to inch and twist my way through the opening and to the other side. The other side then was another large opening room with some rock formations. We explored a bit in this area, but this one was more or less a dead end, but a neat one nonetheless. Then we went back through the whole to the previous area. This time I took the upper route back, which involved bracing my foot on the left side of the wall, and jumping across the crevice area I climbed up the last time, to a ledge back at the area where we started.

There was another part that we climbed, that I honestly did not think was climbable. There was one area that was basically an angled wall, that was too steep to climb normally. On the left and the right side there were areas that could possibly be climbed. The left was a steep climb, that would have seemed too slippery to climb up. On the right was a crack where the two walls connected, the crack extended about 15 feet high, and being as narrow as maybe 4 inches across, so far too narrow to sneak through. But past this crack it seemed climbable to the top. I went on the right side. The crack was too narrow to sneak through, so the only option then was to pull ourselves over top of it. So bracing my left foot on the left wall, and my right foot slightly behind me on the right wall, remember this was at the corner, and then putting my hand inside the crack for a handhold I managed to pull myself up into the crack and lodge myself in the crack with my back against the left wall. From here I had to inch my way up the side of the crack, for the most part using my arms to pull myself up to the top of the crack, and remember my back is against the wall, while lodged in the crack. After finally pulling myself up high enough using just my arms, I was able to sneak my legs through the rest of the crack to the other side. From there with my back still against the wall, I placed my feet against the opposite wall and "chimneyed" across the crevice, with about a 15-20 foot drop or so beneath me. What chimneying is, is going across with my back against the wall, and feet on the opposite wall, just slowly inching my way across. This is actually quite an easy maneuver and it wasn't long till I made it to the ledge on the other side and was able to finish the last gentle climb to the top.

For me then the most fun was in exploring new areas of the cave, and just climbing to reach new places. It was a lot of fun, and kinda cool to do things that I initially didn't think was possible. Like fitting through the tight crawlspace, or climbing up the crack to get to the top of the cliff area. There was also an area where Rachel and a couple of the others pulled out some rope and climbed down to explore another part of the cave. But I didn't have any rope climbing gear so I didn't get a chance to go down there. But Rachel basically belayed down the cliff, and then climbed back up, using a safety rigging on the rope to climb back up after they explored that part of the cave.

So yeah, overall I would definitely say my first experience caving was a blast. I had a lot of fun and it was nice going with an experienced group of people, that were both safety conscience but also very much into pushing what and where they could go. It was fun and challenging, and I can say today, a day later, managed to make me sore. It is definitely something I"ll end up doing again in the future, to other caves, and other explorations. And it is always fun to come up with new and interesting ways to get Mom and Grandma to worry about me.

Testing and Rennfest

So last Friday I tested for my Green Belt. I've posted before on the rigors of such tests, and while this one did for sure meet such a description, it wasn't quite as bad as the previous test either. So I personally thought that was good lol. My favorite part at the end was when the main instructor says "okay in this last minute your guy's job is to convince me you aren't tired". This of course after the two hour test of constant activity and exercises. Then at the end after they handed out the belts he said "you guy's almost convinced me" then he points directly at me "but you're lips don't have any color." So yeah, I was slightly dehydrated by that point lol. Which is par for the course. The good news is I won't have to go through that again for a while, I'm anticipated spring maybe? Possibly winter. But I'm thinking 3-4 months minimum.



Then on last Sunday Rachel and I went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. Again, I have to apologize for not having pictures... I've seriously been dropping the ball here. But for the most part it was like the one last year. Sadly though this year Ken and Becky weren't able to make it. But we did meet up with Tom and his gf Bashear. So that was nice, as it was last years Rennfest that I saw him last. Another "its a small world moment" it turns out that the job that Tom had before moving to DC was located in Pittsburgh and the company he worked at was a contractor for the navy. Rachel also worked up in Pittsburg for a few months with the navy, so she was familiar with the company and project that Tom was working on during his time there. So they were having fun tossing out names and projects lol. Anyways I though it was funny!



In terms of the actual fair though, I must say I was once again disappointed in the jousting. They seem to just go through the motions, which isn't nearly as much fun as it could be. In comparison the renn fair I went to a few years ago in Mass. had a lot more energy, and comedy going on between the knights and the competitions. Which is a shame because this renn fair is much larger and nicer of the two otherwise. But besides that the fair was a lot of fun. My favorite shows were the Shakespeare Skum, which did a show called "Macbeth in 20 minutes or less". This is a group that I saw last year as well (they did Hamlet last year) but they are tons of fun and are based out of London. And there was a sword swallower who was a blast to watch. He did some sword swallowing as well as some relatively simple (as in I couldn't do them!) magic tricks. But the show was a blast. And of course I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the excellent food offerings. Hmmm... smoked Turkey leg! Overall it was a great time, and we couldn't have asked for better weather.

Anyways that pretty much brings me up to date. This weekend I'll be going to a Halloween party/housewarming party for a friend from Karate. So Rachel and I need to find some costumes for that. And then on Sunday I will hopefully go caving with Rachel, well she is the "secretary" for a caving group so I get to try that out this weekend. With any luck I'll have some pictures even! But no promises.

Columbus day Weekend

Well it's definitely been a while since I've last posted. And I suppose a few things have happened. Sadly I didn't manage to catch any of it in picture form though... so sorry about that!


Over Columbus Day weekend I headed over to Grand Rapids with Rachel. After the long drive we still managed to get a night out on the town. It was really nice being able to meet up with Lindsey and Caleb, as they gave us a tour around GR during the artprize. I will shamelessly admit that I don't know my way around Grand Rapids, I suppose I was way too much of a suburbia kid for that. So it was great that Lindsey was willing to show us around, and we didn't get lost at all! Both Rachel and Tara, Rachel's friend, both really seemed to enjoy the tour around and all of the truly amazing art on display.


On Saturday before the wedding Rachel and I were able to head over and visit Busia, as she had just gotten out of the hospital earlier that week. I must say, after all the stories I had heard of her time in the hospital, she was looking surprisingly well. I don't know if that was because she truly was feeling better or if she was just doing a very good job of putting on a strong face for us. But either way, she is a truly strong woman. Kinda on the morbid side of things, she promised to be around till she was at least 90, but I told her that Great Grandma Westrate lasted till 100 and that I expected nothing less of her!


Later that day of course we went to the wedding. The wedding was for one of Rachel's coworkers and friends, Kevin. His bride, Danielle is of course from the Grand Rapids area. I believe they met at their college of Notre Dame. The wedding was quite nice, it was a Catholic Wedding, and as such was very beautiful. After the wedding we headed back to the hotel where they had some football games (notably the Notre Dame game) on (as well as a MSU and UofM game, but the less we talk about that the better). Afterwards we headed back over to the church where they held the reception in the Church's Gymnasium. It was a buffet style meal and notably had an open bar. There was lots of dancing, and of drinking, possibly one feeding the other. There was a live band, which I thought was quite good, but Rachel claims was only so so. Overall though it was an excellent night.

Sunday morning we headed over to the crackel barrel in Gville for breakfast, where I amused Rachel by trying to figure out what I was supposed to put the apple butter on (I tried sausage, eggs, and finally grits). After breakfast I took Lindsey's suggestion and headed over to Robinettes. Lindsey mentioned that Michigan apples were in season, and Rachel mentioned how she wanted to try some, and so we went there lol. What I found was actually quite a surprise though. This was a full functioning destination. Besides a little store area with lots of different types of apples, fudge, and cider, there was a corn maze (which we went through) hay rides (which we skipped) and even some wine tasting (which we did participate in). Overall I was rather impressed by what they had there, and would definitely recommend it to others to visit, especially if you take kids. After Robinettes we headed down to Grand Haven. This part I think is kinda funny... when I told Rachel we would be visiting the Lake, I'm not sure she realized this meant "beach". While I know I take it for granted that there is a nice sandy beach on Lake Michigan, I can understand why that might not be as obvious for people not growing up in Michigan. Even so we managed to take off our shoes and roll up our pants and walk along the water and up to the pier. It was an absolutly gorgous day that day which was wonderful. Then later that night we met up with Stephen and Shannon downtown at San Chez's. We all seemed to have fun ordering the different tapas, and Rachel and Shannon seemed to enjoy the fact that they didn't have to share any of the seafood dishes with Stephen and I. As a result though I'm pretty sure they ended up eating more than Stephen and I though lol. Sadly though Lindsey wasn't able to go out with us this night, as she ended up heading across state to pick up Caleb, she promises otherwise that she would have made sure we ordered the best meals. So next time I'll have to take her up on that!

So I realize I've rambled on a bit more than I planned. I was going to go over the past weekend as well, but I'll just have to cover that later this week in another post. Anyways, back to work I suppose for me!

Christmas/Birthday List

Computer Stuff:
Ram
Graphics Card
Slightly Cheaper Graphics Card (and Stephen argues better)

Fable III

PS3 stuff:
Playstation Move
Move Navigation Controller
Final Fantasy XIII
Fallout New Vegas

MTU Stuff:
T-Shirt
Hooded Sweatshirt
Dry Fit

A note on the shirts here, I didn't put down a specific size because it is impossible for me to know for sure. Lately I've been falling between a Large and a Medium, and I won't know which one I am until I try them on.

Fun Electronics:
Laptop

BluRays:
Avatar Extended Collector's Edition
Inception

So yeah, not much stuff right now, but I'll try to update it as ideas come to me.

Old Rag

Today Rachel and I went hiking on a hiking trail in the Shenandoah called Old Rag. This hiking trail is near Skyline drive where I went with Linds and co a few weeks ago. This particular hike was quite challenging, but ultimately rewarding.

The hike itself is about 7.5 miles and starts at the bottom of the mountain... and then hikes up to the peak. So there is a pretty steep incline at the beginning that doesn't really let up till you reach the top. But the true fun part of this trail is the rock scrambling. Similar to the billy goat trail, there is a large section where you are jumping on and climbing on rocks. Though in comparison this trail is significantly more challenging than even that. But that also means it was more fun lol.

Anyways, I posted some of the pictures from the hike below in a slide show. No one seemed to object to the slide show format last time, so hopefully you all like it again.

Lindsey/Caleb/Cassidy/ and Mother in DC

As many of you know, Lindsey, Cassidy, Caleb and Mom came down to visit me the weekend of the 21st. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and I'd like to think we managed to do some different things during the trip. I'm going to try something different here and rather than post pictures, I will try to post an album. So let me know how you guys like it compared to a regular posting of pictures.



Day 1:
One of the things that Lindsey told me straight away was that they finnaly wanted to go up the Washington monument. So on Friday morning I took the metro into DC, leaving a little before 7, and got some tickets for the monument. I got there a little before 8:00, and already there was a line. The ticket booth first open at 8:30, and by then the line had pretty much tripled. But the tickets were free, and I had my choice of pretty much any time during the day.

The Monument was pretty cool. As many know, the law in DC is for nothing to be taller than the monument so that you can always see it on the skyline. As such, it is the highest point in all of DC and no better view of DC is to be had in my opinion. It was definitely worth getting the tickets early in the morning.

We also got a chance to visit the Holocaust museum. I would definently say that this is one of the best laid out, and moving museums I've ever seen. The museum started at the beginning setting the stage for how the holocaust started, what motivated it, and then followed through the the end, as the camps were finally liberated and the allied forces freed the surviving jews. It was well laid out, and powerful. The only concern we had was how well Caleb would understand and handle it. Luckily there was a children's area we brought him through before so he got a brief overview of what it was before we went into the main proper. Once in there.... its hard to say how much he understood. I think a lot, but I"m not sure how much sank in. I would definently say it is worth going to, and plan on spending a few hours there, as there is tons of material. I felt like we barely scratched the surface.

After that museum, I managed to meet up with Ken, Becky, and Samantha while Lindsey, Cassidy and Chrsity played the local scene with a jazz thingy in the sculpture gardens. Samantha's brother recently got a job with an airline, and so as family she gets discounted tickets. So she came down to visit Ken and Becky, and they brought her up to DC to hang out with me. Which was a blast, it was very nice to meet up with old friends. We grabbed Caleb and browsed through the air and space museum, while the girls went to the jazz, and managed to find a pitcher of sangria. After we browsed around for a bit we headed back to a restaurant, had dinner, and ended a rather fun day.

Day 2:
The day started out with me going to Karate for a few hours, I had my private lesson, as well as needing to help out with Kid's class, and teaching a couple of kids their own lessons. Caleb was able to join as well, and by all accounts he seemed to have a blast. He was definently sweating at the end, and says he had a really good time. Now everyone just needs to remind Lindsey to enroll him at a local school now that she is on a more set schedule :-p.

After I got back from Karate we all jumped in the car and headed down to the Shenandoah national park, to skyline drive. Basicaly what it is is a 100+ mile long road through the mountains int he Shenandoah valley. The views were pretty amazing, and there were camping grounds, rooms to rent, and more hiking trails than you can shake your fist at. I loved this drive because there were tons of overlooks, and Mom was able to join us and experience the beautiful drive through the mountains. At one point Lindsey, Cassidy, Caleb, and I did a short hike down to a waterfall. The waterfall was quite nice, and was well worth the all up hill hike back to the car :-p.

Day 3:
On Sunday I managed to get everyone up early so we could head down to Baltimore. Once there we went to the science center. The great part about this place was that it was all hands on activities for Caleb. They really had some fun exhibits set up, and with admission came free imax tickets (we saw a movie on the grand canyon) and planetarium. The planetarium was pretty amazing, I don't remember the last time I have been to one, but I had forgotten how much fun they were. Everyone else agreed, as we went to two shows :-p.

After the science center, we headed down to the harbor there and found a restaurant. After convincing everyone that they didn't really want to go to the pretty much all sea food restaurant.... we found a nice little restaurant and had a good meal. Caleb even managed to get the waitress to give him some free ice cream! After dinner we headed home, only getting lost in Baltimore briefly...... as a side note, gps's are cool.

Day 4:
After a slightly lazier morning.... I got everyone to head out to a hiking trail. The trail was called the Billy Goat trail, and is located near the Great Falls park that I had taken Dad, Sara, and the kids earlier in the year. Once we were there Lindsey's friend Christy and her husband Perry met up with us and we did the 3 mile hike. The great thing about the Billy Goat trail is that there are lots of rocks to climb. It was a blast, and, I think a good workout. Caleb seemed to be having a particularly good time climbing over the rocks. My favorite part I think is the 30-40 foot rock climb about midway through :-p. At the end though, I just love the fact that here is this very great and fun, and scenic hiking trail.... all located within the beltway.

Later that day, Christy's husband Perry gave us a tour of the Pentagon. We started off walking through the 9/11 memorial which was very touching and well put together. Then we got a brief walk through the pentagon. To be honest, for some reason I thought it would be bigger... But that being said, it is massive. I'm pretty sure it would take me about 3 minutes to get lost in there lol. The tour more or less took us to a couple different areas where the different armed forces had hallways dedicated to them. Overall it was a pretty cool place to be able to visit, and I'm glad that Perry was willing to take us through there.

After the Pentagon visit we ended the evening at PF Changs with some great Chinese food. And hopefully, ended everyones visit quite pleasantly.

Change up at Work

As I believe I have mentioned before I currently examine in the art of photolithography, or more specificaly, photomasks which are used as pattern templates to transfer images on the nanoscale level in order to produce integrated circuits and semiconductors such as are used for computers and the like. As a result, this current field is very much more closely aligned, in my own opinion, to optical physics than to chemistry for example. In other words I often have to deal with how light interacts at the nanoscale level, how it works when passing through materials and the like. Needless to say, my chemical engineering background didn't have a ton of applicability to this field. Nevertheless this is an area that I have examined in for 3 years now, and I believe, have become proficient at.



But that is all changing. Alas, seemingly my own success and that of my immediate coworkers are our own downfall. When I first started, I was working on cases that were about 3 years, to 3.5 years old, from the time they were filed. Currently though I'm at 18-20 months. While that sounds like it is a good thing, it also means that we are flat out running out of cases. It turns out my boss has way too many people working in that area, and has decided to move us junior examiners off to another "docket" or technology area.



So off to electro photography I go. As I understand it, electro photography is best known as being used in printers. For example, next to me at my desk at work is an HP laserjet printer. Electro photography, or at least the area I will be examining, will include the toner that is used, so compositions and mixtures for example of the printer toner, as well as the roller, or the area where the ink is imaged onto the paper. In the words of my boss, electro photography and photolithography are in no way related. Which means I will, most likely starting at the beginning of next quarter (1st of October), be having to learn an entirely new technology.



Pros:

As I mentioned earlier, my current technology, with photomasks is more based in optical physics than chemistry. Electro photography will be more chemistry based. While I won't be dealing with chemical reactions per say, I will have to examine compositions, such as for example organic chains and halogens of organics and the like. So this will bring me a little more back to my roots.



When I first moved over to my current office my boss dropped one of my favorite quotes from him ever when he said "I don't want you guys having a split docket so that you don't realize how much easier other art units are" and when he talked to me earlier this week he shared with me that he believes that photomasks, which I currently do, is possibly the most difficult area to examine in the Chemistry Technolgy Center. So that means, in his opinion electro photography is much more straight forward area to examine. Hopefully then that means that once I do get familiar with it, it will be easier than what I am currently working on.

Each different technolgy area has different expectancies. In this case, the expectancy for electro photography will be a little bit less than it is currently for me, working on photomasks. Meaning I will have to do less work each week, or to think of it another way I have more time to work on these cases.

Cons:

Simply, I have to relearn an entirely new technology. In terms of how to do my job, that should all be the same. But all the experience and familiarity with the technology that I have gained over the past three years... will no longer be of any use. I will be starting from scratch, since the two fields are unrelated. What that means is that I will have to spend a lot more time on each case searching what is out there, because to be frank, I have no clue what is out there. It will be a true challenge to learn this new technolgy fast.

Starting next quarter I will be starting my promotion period, which means an increase in total work I need to get done by about 7%. Additionally, I will have some of my cases pulled and reviewed in preparation for my promotion. Since I'm unfamiliar with the new technology.... well I shall just hope for the best there lol. But after the promotion period, which is 6 months long, I will be a GS13, which has an increase in work of 15% of where I am now. Which is a big jump. Also at that time, I will be doing the partial signiture program, which is the program you get on so I can sign my own cases. Anyways, its a tricky time to have such an upheavel.

Printer toners involve organic chemistry as I mentioned above. The last time I did organic chemistry was when I was a freshman in college, or about 9 years ago. I'm just plain rusty lol. The last three years I've been doing optical physics more than chemistry and composition. So it will be an additional challenge just getting back into the habit of switching the scientific gears.

So anyways, thats what I get to look forward to in the near future. It will be challenging, but hopefully the pros will outway the cons. If nothing else, it is at least a change of pace. And I think that much at least won't be such a bad thing.