Thanks to Konrad, who so graciously invited me along, I partook in my first bike ride of the season today. It is a gorgeous day out in Minneapolis, hovering right around 70 degrees. The feel of the bike under my feet felt magical, once again feeling a sense of connection and oneness (it might have something to do with having pedals that lock on to my shoes!). There is just something about generating your own wind when you’re out riding a bike that you don’t get doing anything else. We headed out down Washington Ave through campus and over the Mississippi river, winding through west bank dodging pedestrians and potholes alike. The destination? The West River Parkway. After finding our way through west bank we head down a glorious hill, picking up speed, feeling the wind.

On the way down, my bike rapidly shifts to the side, from a strong gust of wind no doubt. Or perhaps not:

*thump thump thump* proclaims my bike! Woest me, the end of my first ride of the season ends, just over a mile in, with a flat tire at the bottom of a hill. Well, so much for that idea.

The number of steps from Akerman Hall to the doorstep of my Apartment building. Why’s it important? According to Paul McKenna, the average in shape person walks about 6,000 steps a day. The typical over weight person walks about 2,000 less than that. Now, I’m not claiming to be obese, but I’ve put on a few more pounds over the years than I would have liked. I’ve come a long way since the lean 120 lbs I was during my year of High School Wrestling. Just by making up those 2,000 steps, and making no other changes to my day to day routine, I should start to feel a difference in my clothes in a couple weeks.

Thats just walking to and from campus each day, rather than taking the bus.

I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I last wrote a post on this blog; my goodness. We’ll start with some Solar Car news: We have two beautiful shells, amazing bulkheads, and a hell of a lot of more work to do.

After countless hours at NWA (and I mean countless) we were able to finish off the top and bottom shells with many minor setbacks. Then after a sleepless night (7pm to 5:15am followed by an 8am class…) we had composite bulkheads! They are definitely a thing of beauty, and fit wonderfully in our shells. This last weekend we glued the bulkheads into the top shell, and layed up a lip on the bottom shell to seal the seam where the bottom shell sits on the chassis. This weekend we are planning on joining the top and bottom shells, and after many months of manufacturing, we’ll have one, unified, glorious shell!

Unfortunately, this stuff is all still “top secret” until we official unveil the car, so I can’t post many pictures. I suggest watching these two flickr streams, what you see there is what you’ll get until we go public.

In other news, I’ve picked up a new project. I’m now the lead developer and partial owner of LandOrSlum.com, a landlord rating website. The site started in Pittsburgh and has expanded to dozens of states throughout the country, currently boasting over 800 users and 600+ ratings. The site was written in Ruby on Rails. I’ve been brought in to bring about a bunch of new features, and we’ve decided it will be beneficial to do a complete rewrite of the application.

Besides all that, I’m still working for the College of Liberal Arts Webteam (CLAW!), and am taking all Aerospace classes this semester. Those classes are Aerodynamics, Flight Dynamics and Control, Aerospace Structures, and Instrumentation Laboratory.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so busy in my life. I love it.