One Man’s View of the World
Archive for August, 2008
School
Aug 26th
It is that time of the year. Fall semester has started. What am I taking?
Wait for it…
Calculus II!
Ugh.
This one is Tri-C flavored. I have spent this year at Tri-C. I took Trig in the spring (aced it). I took calculus I in the summer (did ok and landed a C, not bad for working full time and sitting in a calc class for 3+ hours twice a week). Now it is calculus II, at the Metro campus. The commute isn’t as bad as Parma, but not as nice as the five minutes it took to get to the Eastern campus. The class is just over 2 hours which is oddly enough, a refreshing change. Hopefully I can get through this one. The books for this class are getting expensive!
The prof seems pretty good and there’s 800 points up for grabs. I am striving for a C. I can probably settle for a D too, although a D is not too exciting to transfer over to the University of Akron.
Also in school news, Olessia attended an MBA open house at Baldwin Wallace. It seems like a great program and she is looking forward to jumping in in the spring.
Russia 2007
Aug 23rd
St. Basil's in Red Square, Moscow, Russia
I haven’t been able to figure out how to summarize the trip. In one word, I think “awesome” would summarize it pretty nicely. Russia is an amazing country. The United States goes back 300 years, while the city of Moscow alone goes back 860 years! The country is HUGE too.
It is easy to write about it, or look at pictures of Russia. But to actually go there, smell the air, and experience life, it is something else. I think for everything that is good about Russia, you can find the negative. It is still a tough place to live, in my opinion, although it does appear to be getting better. The trip allowed me to meet Masha, Olessia’s sister, as well as see where Masha and Olessia grew up and lived. I also saw where Olessia went to school, where she used to work, as well as where her mom and dad used to work and where her mom works currently. I experienced travel by road, boat, train, and metro (the subway).
Olessia’s mom cooked for us often. I tasted Russian ice cream and can say it is really good, so good in fact, I could see it being worth while eating outside in the cold of winter (which Russians do). It was a real treat to be able to go to Saint Petersburg as well as make it to the air show (the air show runs only once every two years). We ran out of time before we could see or do everything we wanted. This just means we’ll have to go back some time.
Pictures are available. I’ll try to narrate them here. Each album in the gallery is one day. So the first album is day one, the next album is day two, and so on.
More >
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Aug 23rd
Las Cruces, New Mexico
The end of March, Olessia and I made a trip out to Las Cruces, New Mexico to visit my grandparents. It was a just a weekend trip, although we wish we had more time. It had been probably ten years since I was in Las Cruces the last time. The temperatures in Cleveland were just starting to warm up from 40F. I remember scraping frost off the car before leaving for the airport. We arrived and it was in the low 70F. The weather was absolutely awesome.
My grandparents took us out for lunch and we got some authentic southwestern BBQ food. From there we stopped in Old Mesilla. We had fun checking out the local crafts, jewelry, souvenirs, and art. Olessia found some jewelry and I found a pretty spiffy hat (which came in handy for the hiking we were to do). We stopped at some local art galleries and discovered some great water color works done of the southwest. Olessia enjoyed them and even had a chance to talk to the artist!
Later in the trip, we hiked the Organ Mountains, visited a pecan farm, and eat at an awesome local Mexican restaurant (definitely not the same as the Mexican food found in Ohio!).
The best part of the trip was hanging out with my grandparents. They took us all over and hiked and walked. They wore US out!
Site Refresh
Aug 21st
It has been a while since I posted. Life has been pretty busy. I had switched to Joomla and I’m not sure that helped my posting. So, I’m giving WordPress a shot. The install was easy. And so far the learning curve has been pretty nice. I haven’t had to do much referencing of the documentation to get this bugger setup.
It will be a little bit before I get completely moved in. The photo albums are getting moved to pathfinder.rsbauer.com. The bandwidth is slower over there, but I can abuse it so much more.
The “look and feel” is not 100% set. I like the general layout but will likely tweak the header image when I get settled in.
Hopefully the features and functionality presented in WordPress will make it even easier (and faster) to get around my site.
