These last 2 weeks were not real eventful, but somethings did take place.
My 1st summer semester ended with an A, but I still am not sure how I did, I only got back 2 of the 6 homework I handed in. the crazy but good teacher is sick, cancer I think which affects her, so good with the grade, nothing more to do. The 2nd course started badly; this teacher is inflexible to the extreme, he gave quiz dates (surprise quiz) in advance and the date falls on the one lecture I knew I had to miss, no retakes, cant do it before, he wouldn't budge, so I had to drop the course. Which left my summer wide open unexpectedly.
Lately its sports and movies.
The previous Friday I took my poor hybrid bike and went mountain biking for the 1st time. All the rest had Mountain bike and mine actually did OK for a non mountain bike. But my breaks are awful, they work, but they squeal loud, I said it my bear deterrent device.
This was hard, fun and scary- most of the way was upward, so it wasn't fast, mostly on the lowest gear, lots of turns and twists, branches and roots. I only hit a tree once , more kind of blocked myself against it when I hit a particularly tough root. Some down hill (mild down hill) areas were fun, but I kept my hands on the brakes, the ravines were too close for comfort. Usually after biking my behind is OK, it use to be sore in the 1st rides, but after this bumpy ride, without shocks, the pain returned. Next morning, with a home work free weekend I went on another bike ride, now on the flat canal path. There is a program of ride and bike. You put you bike on a train, traveling next to the slow flowing cuyahoga river and ride for only 2$. It's a slow scenic train, several stops on the way but the group went till the end of the line, 45 kilometers away, and then you take you bike and ride back (you can do shorter routes), these guys call it a leisure ride. It was a hot day and the path is mostly light gravel, so you have to paddle even on down hill. The path is mostly flat since it follows the river, but on occasion it goes up. After 7 k we stopped at the valley cafe for breakfast of eggs Benedict , 7 k later at a farm that sells produce for much needed lemonade. I was somewhere at the back of the pack ,trying hard to keep up. 7 k later in Boston Hts- I was already dead. The trip mentioned this place as having the best home made ice cream in Cleveland. They have Mitchel's there , which is a known local chain which I am not a huge fan of. Some one told me about caramel and sea salt, I tried it. I was parched and tired , and still threw most of it away. Where is Ben and Jerri's when you need it (try the chocolate therapy!). I then tried some new carbonated kiwi flavored drink, took a sip and left the rest, no luck for me at Boston.
It was time for the last part of over 20k, rode it alone since the pack moved much faster. I passed by the bald eagles nest but didn't see it, I did see some blue herons, deer and a pretty blue bird I didn't recognize.
The ride itself was 2hr and 40 minutes, my longest ever of 45 k and I know this is not considered a great distance for bikes, but you got to start somewhere.
When I came home and relaxed after a much needed shower, I enjoyed the company of Ben and Jerry , chocolate therapy, so good. All the calories returned.
For the last month+ , every day at noon , at work is workout time, different activities every day, and now they begin having a soccer and volley ball leagues , soccer begins tomorrow , should be fun.
Yesterday, I went orienteering and since I never learn I chose the hardest course, only 6.5 k (if you walk in the most straight path, through the trees), 6.5 doesn't sound too bad right? A minute before me , a guy twice my age left for the same course, and he immediately became my challenge for the day. I caught up at the 1st check point, then decided to go on a different way then the other guy, without a compass, this is sometimes a bad move, like this time, I ended up almost where I started, wasting precious time. After a couple of minutes to get my bearing, I headed back out double time (or in my case 1.112 pace) and had to go through a patch of vegetation which left its mark on me as much as I did it. Waist high ferns and Thorny stuff and me in short pants is not a good combination. I got the point and the next one a bit easier and then saw my competition way ahead (he didn't make a mistake apparently). Now the routes split, he went the high way, I took the lower way and reached the 4th in front. Went quickly till I hit a place where a path should have been but wasn't, covered by vegetation. Spent time not finding it, then went the long way, the point was a hut, and after passing through evil plants, I reach hut that wasn't marked on the map, throwing me of into more evil vegetation. I Finlay figured out that my point was higher, kept going and found it , the same time as the guy. I was out of breath, he said there is a rock that marks the trail head, well I am not a scout, from here the rest was easy, from a vegetation point of view, the next point was on the hill, with a steep climb, after that easier points to find, this is the hard course which means the points are hidden better and to find them you have to be right on top of them, and I felt good not wasting time looking, I was orienteering better and trying to run as much as I could (not much) I was breathing hard and trying to to trip on anything. Came in 7th place (out of 8 J ) with the guy behind me by 16 minutes. My times in the past used to be twice and up over the leaders, now just time and a half, I am doing better but still far from winning.
I have a new friend in the yard, a red tailed hawk, I saw it three times, seating on our swing set or just flying around, but we do hear it a lot (but I didn't hear it this weekend, I hope it didn't leave) it does make a lot of sound, scaring the tinier birds that come to eath from the bird feeder. It is really and impressive bird. I changed the bird food and I now saw finches, these are small but vary bold yellow birds, once eating the finch appropriate food according to the label and once eating something of the weeds that I have to weed out- so should I take out the huge weeds that the finches like? Hard choices!
Are are now in the process of choosing a car for Alla, she is melting away in her current antique without AC (busted) , in this extra hot summer, it's a killer. But getting a price from a dealer is hard and so exhausting a process. We actually left most places without getting a final price, they say when you come and decide you are (meaning we) serious, we will seat down and give you a good deal. They don't realise that that is not serious, how can I decide without price, with similar cars for similar companies, price matter. I guess we will chose by the end of the week. I am tired of car consultant (they are not sales man….)
In between car shopping and woods running I jumped on a plane to Chicago , for a 2 day convention Auto-Segmentation, the project I was working on had an unofficial launch night, with the entire group and lots of customers.
Landed in the after noon and hopped on the L and was in the very fancy hotel an hour later, lucky I am not paying for this. Huge shower and a very nice room. Lucky there was no need for a suit, but I did wear a nice shirt and pants and headed out for SPICE Night (Smart Probabilistic Image Contouring Engine). The night meant to demo the new software to potential clients, I had no role but to learn and enjoy. The food was very good, I even tried a vodka tea (vodka lemonade and tea) and very unique water bottles shaped like a perfume, or vodka bottles (pending whom you asked), but it was just water from Voss, Norway (the pretty town overlooking the Fjords). The rest of the drinks were regular. I watched several demos hearing customer mostly praising which is a very feel good kind of thing to hear about your baby project. After the event , we walked outside and headed to millennium park. In front of the museum there are 2 big lion statues and one one them was ridden by a group of kids. As we approached them a lions roar came out of the museum speakers followed by a "get off the lion" warning, I guess lions are not as scary as they used to be, but the kids Finally left the poor copper beast alone, just in time for us to take our picture with it (but not to climb it), copper lions are endangered status species.
Next we reached a purple lit double fountain wall, two big walls that are a fountain, and even though it was almost 10:30PM , people was entering the fountain. We had nice clothes on, not fountain worthy and went on, only to find that the rest of the park is closed, 10:30 on a hot summer night, very strange, we missed the bean. So we kept walking and reached the magnificent mile, which is even more magnificent after closing time since you cannot by a thing. We finished out 2 hour walking trip and returned to the hotel. A surprisingly good breakfast buffet awaited us, this is a fancy convention center, I approve of everything except the price. After that we had lectures all day from industry leaders on future stuff, the target audience was the physicists and dosiometrists but we got the gist of it. And the nice lunch was helping.
I had a few hours for myself after the convention, so I headed back to millennium park, which hosted the taste of Chicago. The one in Cleveland is tiny, the one in Tel Aviv is big, this was huge. But I was full from lunch and passed the entire taste fast without sampling a single thing. But I did see the bean, a bean shaped silver status which acts as a huge mirror and lets you experiment with photos (they should arrive in a few days). I also reached the fountain that appeared on the love and marriage show (Al bundy).
Another 2 hours walk, then the train to the airport, then 5 hours wait….:( 3 hour weather delay so I got to finish my book, by another and read 100 pages.
Yesterday, after resting from Orienteering with very scratched legs, we drove to an Italian American festival in Akron. A small festival but offers Italian food. We sampled something like a flat lasagna, forgot its name, we passed on the Stromboli but tried instead pasta in a bread bowl! I head soup in a bread bowl, never even heard of pasta in it. It was a creamy pasta, and the bread was soaked in garlic butter, very healthy and very good. We listed to some bands, drank good fresh lemonade and enjoyed the ambiance.
Every week you have 3-4 different fairs like this one, small but with kind of authentic food, I like it
But now its time to go, I have to take out the weed that feeds my finch L
cheers
p.s- enjoy some photos
https://picasaweb.google.com/gil.even/20120715Chicago?authkey=Gv1sRgCODTl_OAw9GL4QE#
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