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