Dominican Republic

This is where we stayed, AMAZING!!!

I used the last half of Fall SIP week to go to the Dominican Republic.  My ocean mate Pedro has mutiple beach condo's.  This is the gorgeous view of the pool and the beach.  I spent my first afternoon jumping in the surf with friends waiting for the rest of the group to get back from their day.

[caption id="attachment_63" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Me golfing, courtesy of Kevin"][/caption]

Kevin and I went golfing with 3 other people on our trip.  Me and Kevin were in the slow group.  Our Caddie was very kind to us since we were beginners.  By the end my game looked great.  The picture above is me at the driving range which is where I really shine.

Iceland

[caption id="attachment_40" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Iceland group"][/caption]

First trip of the year complete.  We went to Iceland just as the economy crashed.  It was great best sale ever.  Things were half price because the currency split in half this weekend.  It seemed ironic that they were having problems due to the credit market and everything ran on credit. Even the tiny hot dog shop had a credit card machine.  Although I was grateful cause I had no cash but really wanted one of the famous lamb hot dogs.  Bill Clinton had one so I needed one too.

[caption id="attachment_42" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Lamb Hot Dog Stand History"][/caption]

Me and Maureen shared a snowmobile when we went snowmobiling on the glacier.  It was amazingly beautiful.  It was hilarious getting up to the glacier on the bus because I've never seen a bus off-road like this.

[caption id="attachment_43" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Maureen and Emily after snowmobiling"][/caption]

We took a plant tour of the geothermal plant.  They have worked really hard at making the plant as efficient as they can.  They have also diversified into a spa lagoon and a hot water plant.  It was great to see how well the geothermal plant was doing at utilizing the resource of the hot springs.  They were working really hard at finding ways to export the free and abundant energy they have in the ground.

[caption id="attachment_44" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Geothermal Plant"][/caption]

The sad thing is since they have so much free and abudant energy they are not very green.  The process in which they get their energy and hot water doesn't harm the enviroment like it does in the states but they waste this resources like they are infinite.

I think this picture summarizes Iceland pretty well.

Alumni Crew Race

Got up this morning and went to the boathouse at 8am.  It was the first chilly fall morning of the season.  It made for an interesting morning of rustily remembering the diffrent parts of the boat: bow, stern, port, starboard.  Despite messing up frequently the front and the side of the boat (ie. bow=port) we managed not to hit or break anything and win both of our heats.  I'll put up the picture of the champion boat later when I get it.

Where have I been?- computer requirements

For the past month I have been without a laptop.  I bought an HP because it was cheaper then a dell or mac.  This was a huge mistake.  They held my computer ransom all month long and I finally gave up and bought a new dell.

This tip really just means get a good reliable computer for school.  It is really hard not to have a computer, you can survive but it becomes stressful and makes you a bit spacey.

Top 3 suppliers:

1-Dell

2-Mac

3-IBM

All of these can be serviced in house by my favorite people Tim and Brian.  They have become my bestfriends in going through 4 computers this month.  There is really  no diffrence between getting a mac and a dell but you will need a windows emulator if you have a mac.

I started looking at my computer last year around Nov. because I needed to upgrade and the Xmas sales are a good time to buy if you get corporate discounts that are equivalent to the MIT discounts.

That's my two cents worth on computers but for more on MIT's two cents worth go here:

http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/hardware/presales.html

Summer Break

Summer semester ended on Friday.  Many of us left campus, including myself, to take a vacation before Sloan Orientation on Monday.

It was a short semester making the classes a bit tougher.  As far as I know the term went well.  We never really did get feeback in lean to know how we were being graded.  Since I did all the assignments I'm sure the grade will be fine.  Although it's much nicer in grad school to know that in the end companies don't look at grade point.

I'm still a bit nervous about taking so many classes next term.  I had a tough time in undergrad trying to take too many classes, but everyone assures me undergrad is much harder than grad school.  And I do remember that Sloan was way easier than engineering.  It's going to be tough but it will be really interesting to be working with a Sloanie group from really diverse backgrounds.

I'm trying not to think about it to much instead I'm enjoying my vacation journey around the Midwest.  Okay, just Detroit and Des Moines.  I did the Dream cruise thing for a little bit when I got into Detroit

[caption id="attachment_9" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="mustang alley 9 mile"][/caption]

then I gave up when I found a Wii fit at Best Buy.  This is my new favorite work out program.  Tomorrow I head home to Des Moines for more R&R before it all begins.

Team Dinner

I just had the most awesome dinner with my team, Lucky #7.

We got back late from touring Axcelis, one of our partner companies.  It was a really good tour and everyone was sad to be rushed out of their manufacturing floor because we were running behind.  They had a really neat pull system that everyone enjoyed hearing about.



When the crazy bus driver finally got us back to campus it was 6pm.  For the first time all summer our group was all available to go out to dinner.  After working hard all summer this was a much needed reward.  I managed to negotiate us a table for seven at the Elephant Walk at 6:30.  The team bolted to the T and got to the restaurant right at 6:30.



I had a four course dinner at part of restaurant week for $33 dollars.  It was absolutely amazing.  I scrapped every plate clean.  I had wanted to go to this restraint during all four years of undergrad so it was so exciting to finally go for restaurant week and do some much needed team bonding.

I made us all get up and stand up in front of the elephant on the wall to remember are last event before we break up into Sloan Cohort's.



[caption id="attachment_6" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Elephant Walk group shoot"][/caption]