Team Ramrod: The Hoover Dam

Continuing team Ramrod's adventures, we made it to the Hoover Dam in order to fulfill our cultural experience obligations. There was no shortage of "Dam" jokes.



Driving down to the dam



Checkin out the concrete

Team Ramrod

Lake Havasu Triathlon 2011! But obviously the most exciting part of the trip was the drive. 950 miles (or something like that) accompanied by some amazing scenery and of course the friendly confines of car ramrod...

Starting at 3am, I didnt get much footage of Colorado, and when I woke up we were already in Utah. Here is team ramrod:



Here we are in Utah going through a ridiculous canyon:



And finally I got around to driving:



This was an attempt to get footage of an 80mph speed limit sign.



And driving through the canyon jacked up on life...

A (possibly boring) Day in the Life...

Well, as a fun way to keep a record of what I am doing, I was thinking it would be cool to take video of a typical day in the life of Rudy. That way I could look back and see what I was doing in the fall of 2010...

The video camera has taken a long break since I started the blog, and honestly I kinda forgot about it. I guess I am just not cut out for the life of a true blogger.

With Thanksgiving coming up and it being the last week of general chemistry lab, I decided it was prime time to capture some footage.

Part 1: Morning run. I have been doing track workouts on Tuesday mornings all fall, but since its basically winter, I decided that (even though I wanted to) I needed to take some time away from the track. Once the New Year starts, I will be back there quite a bit. Amanda and Billy (usual running buddies) went to the track, so I started later than usual at 6:40am. A bit ambitious, I took the camera on the run... (by the way, the window doesnt look that bad in real life)



Part 2: Riding into school and a tour of the office. This portion of the video was me explaining to all of the befuddled grad students why I was walking around with a video camera. No group meeting this morning at 8:30 and no seminar at 11, so the day was more free than usual. I got some awesome footage of math class... As it turns out, most of my classes are on MWF so I didnt get much film of class, but there is plenty of my teaching coming later...



Part 3: Tuesday afternoon usually consists of the tri team 1pm swim practice. Again, the camera slowed me down (I was 2 minutes late) as Mike gave a shoutout to Billy (coach of Navy tri team who I have been running with). Mike ended up getting some good swimming footage too--I didnt even know he was filming!



Part 4: And the last video of the day was of recitation (3:30-4:20), Lab 6-9, and then dinner and bed. We had a general chemistry test on Thursday this week, so the professors didnt teach all the material that I had planned on my quiz. I decided rather than to cancel I would make a small group quiz based on the material that I taught that day in recitation. Later in lab, news of my filming inspired Chris A. to come in with a hockey mask, so when you watch the video dont freak out.



In order to fit in with the somewhat scragly population here, I hadnt cut my hair since July, so it was getting a bit scragly in the videos... I went and got a haircut today. Just in time to go home (back to civilization).

PS. Also bought a poofy jacket at the golite sale today--its sweet.

Fourmile Fire

Yeah, its a little late to be putting this up but I havent really had much time since...August.

Reporting live on the fire, yours truly. Actually I woke up that day and was wondering if there was a volcano nearby. Then I checked the news for nuclear war. Then I went outside and it smelled like a barbecue, so I wasnt as worried. So, I flipped it!



All the roads were blocked off so I couldnt get any close ups.

A Ride With Rudy: Upgraded Video!

This video is from riding flagstaff mountain--probably the steepest riding I have done since getting here. The road winds through the flatirons (the iconic boulder mountains) and into the valley on the back side.

With the new macbook, I finally had some time to experiment with imovie!



PS. the Miley Cyrus song is credited to my friend Mike H. who sang it every time we hit a hill on the whimsical west coast cruise.

SurvivoRudy: Hiking Mt. Audubon

Last weekend the first year grad students (about half of us) as well as some older grad students hiked Mt Audubon (13223ft). Naturally, I took the camera and videocamera to get some footage.

The simple day hike quickly took a turn for the worse as the weather worsened and we were stranded on the mountain (just kidding). But here is my compilation of SurvivoRudy...



And for some more serious footage...

Some of the snow on the mountain:



and a panorama from the top of the mountain:

2 New Bikes!

I recently bought more bikes in one day than ever before. 2. I bought the all black with red details fixed gear bike off of ebay for an awesome $180 and the all white Motobecane Phantom Cross Pro with all SRAM rival from bikes direct for $999! No tax and no shipping is nice...tax in boulder is almost 9cents on the dollar!






And not to be outdone, I just got my new macbook pro! Awesome.

Now that my purchasing spree is over, it is back to school. Starting tomorrow I have 4 grad classes, a grad seminar, and am a TA for general chemistry where I have to attend lecture run a gen chem lab section, recitation, help hours. Should be fun but a lot of work--and no more new bikes for a while...