03-22-2010

So when we left off last time I was spending the night with Mr. Tibbit. All I knew is that we were staying some where west of Longmont. I could not see a thing because it was pitch black night. Well here is what I woke up to. It was nice and very pretty! Here are some pictures I took that morning.

I like this picture...something about the tree being in focus and the "hill" behind it being slightly out of focus...best depth of field I could pull off with my camera.

This is the 2nd daughter of the Tibbit's. Cute as a button and look at those eyes. I didnt get a picture of the other. She was hiding for the better part of the morning it seemed.

And again...she was rather shy to say the least.

After going back to town...Matt dropped me off at the rental car which I left at the church over night. Had a slightly tense moment of where are the keys to this car at....they had slipped between the passenger seat and the console of Matt's vehical the night before. Talk about panic haha. I left Longmont and headed towards Boulder. Boulder was a very interesting city. Seemed much like what Fayetteville is. It is a college town and they still have the old downtown feel that Fayetteville has...I got lost there a couple times trying to follow the directions on poorly labeled streets. Little did I know this was going to be a constant problem for Colorado as you will see.

I was attempting to take the scenic route from Boulder to I-70. Right out side of Nederland I found this awesome dam. Yes I stopped and wasted about 45 minutes taking pictures and stuff of this area. Turned out it was a reservoir for Boulder...long way for the water to go.

Mmmm another view.

Probably one of my favorite pictures from the trip. I love the depth of field...totally follows the one third rule...it looks sweet....oh and it has a dam in it...Civil Engineers love dams....right? All honesty though I do like this picture.

Make me wonder why they quit painting it...

Maybe the drop is why they quit painting it? The next step is a lulu type of thing?

There are some really big round rocks in the middle of this lake...random statement...obviously the lake isnt completely full at this moment.

in that little city (Nederland) there is a round-a-bout. I had to pull off the road to take a picture of it. I believe this might be the first round-a-bout I have drove...about.

Also they were erecting a totally sweet wooden skeleton statue with a guitar...wait...what? Odd...I am guessing there are some major Grateful Dead fans in this small little town...

A little city that was nestled in the mountains. I was totally lost at this point because Colorado does not put any type of signage up on their roads. Thankfully I can identify location due to the fact the iPhone geotags all the photos it takes.

Some cool tunnels on highway 119...
I eventually wound up in Golden Colorado which is a sweet little town outside of Denver. But it was totally the wrong direction. Oh well all is well that ends well. Made it into Winter Park at about 4pm...took 5 hours for a google map predicted 2.5 hour trip.

A out door ice skating place in Winter Park. We thought this sign was funny since we were both on the ice with shoes.

Daniel with the Moose sign behind him...

BTW Winter Park completely shuts down at 9pm at night...Odd.

Riding the buffalo

And me!


And a picture with a bear. And then the battery died. I stayed with Daniel in his hotel room that night. I love free places to stay.

03-21-2010

Well here we go again...this day was mostly all shutting down the fort and everyone leaving to where ever they came from. Attendance for today (Sunday) seemed to be about half of what it was the day before.


This was a picture during the middle of the day. I went to the 2 remaining sessions of the conference. The first was taught by the folks from Rice University. They talked about how to set up a project and all the details of working on site. Basically the dynamics of working in the field. The next session was this guy that had been working out in the field for years. He talked about the importance of the people owning the project. He used an example of seeds being brought to farmers. The farmers would not accept the seeds (which their lives depended on) due to the fact if it didnt work then they would not have food for the next year. A lot of money was spent by the scientist to get the seeds in the hands of the farmers but they would not use something they did not trust. Finally the guy that spoke to us convinced a farmer to try some of the seeds in a small part of the field. They worked well. Over the next several seasons the farmer began planting more and more of his crop with these new seeds. Eventually he had people begging for seeds like his and with in 5 years the seeds had spread over a hundred miles.

After everything was said and done, I packed up and got out of town...for a short period of time. I had found out the night before that the NCSU people were going to Red Rocks...I had never been there so I decided to join them. Before I could I had to get my rental car from the airport. It was cheap. 46 Dollars for 3 days...cant beat that deal. By the time I made it to the airport and then back on the other side of Denver to Red Rocks, the NCSU people were about ready to go. So I missed them sadly. I still had a good time by myself though taking in the sites. Probably had better picture opportunities without them though tbh. 

The picture above was how I got the rental car...yeah it wasnt even full...an I am sure the rental people charged them that as well...about ran out of gas while driving around Red Rocks.

There is Denver while out some where between the city and the airport.

After Red Rocks I cam back and picked up Jenny. We went to this place to eat. It was really good. Apparently pretty well known across the country.

Out side of duffys



The stamp proving I was at least 21.







The Denver Airport looks a bit like a prison dont you think? Take that you dumb birds.



After I dropped Jenny off at the hotel, I went up to Longmont, CO to see Matt Tibbit. I got in so late that he offered to let me crash with him. I was very glad that he did because there was no way I wanted to drive the 2.5 hours to Winter Park to stay with Daniel.
This was their youth room above...not a clue what is going on with the chairs...



This is the gym at his church.





Below are all of the pictures I took at Red Rocks. I figured I would put them at the bottom since there is a lot of them. I fell in love with the place. It really is pretty. There were people everywhere. Some tourist...some locals...some locals working out.

03-20-2010

After running around the previous night I got back into the room around 1:30am and crashed. I woke up this morning around 7:40. I was running late and was dog-tired from the lack of sleep. I had been playing with the idea of using the coffee maker in the room. The only problem is I don’t drink black coffee. So although this morning sounded like a good time to try it out I had a secret weapon. I had stolen a starbucks double shot coffee can from the group of drinks they gave us during the afternoon break the day before. I pocketed it and stuck it in the little fridge at the hotel room so it was nice and cold when I got to it in the morning.


A little after 8am, Jenny and I had made it to the conference. We were not late…but we were not early either. We had about enough time to grab our bagels and muffins before making our way into the ball room for the conference. We were not the only ones late though. Apparently, they had the night on the town event of the previous years conference on Saturday night. I can see the reason why that was better then Friday’s night. I heard several people talking about how they had not made it back in until 5 in the morning.





(8:30-9:00)

Morning announcements were again given by Catherine Leslie. The greeting was uneventful.



(9:00-10:30)

Next on the docket was the corporate panel. This was apparently fantastic at last year’s convention. This year…not so much. There were four panelists. One was from Boeing and prided herself about not being an engineer. This is fine. But she took 20 minutes to explain who she was and had a bad tendency to dominate the conversation of the panelist. It was agreed by everyone I talked to that she drug the panel down into boredom. Her intro alone caused the panel to start off on the wrong foot and it never seemed to recover until the end of the discussion.




(10:30-1:30)
Exposition – Career Fair – Roaming Lunch
This point was a good time for everyone to go around meet more people as well as meet all the corporate people with booths. Of course this is also the time that we gathered up all the SWAG. There was a lot of good SWAG too! I was again able to meet with a lot of group and talk to them. This is where I was able to get to really know the folks from North Carolina State University. They turned out to be the best people, imo, that we met the entire trip…not that I am biased…








(3:30-5:00)
Breakout Sessions
Cross Cultural Engineering

Notes:
Cross cultural relations are like talking shop. Being able to relate to them with day to day issues.
People have a tendency to try things and ideas coming people that they trust, therefore you must build relationships.
On your first visit to an area, you should relax and get to know the people. Don’t do big projects, instead focus on small projects that can be completed while you are there. This will allow you to accomplish tasks and build trust with the people there.
Approach Cross Cultural Engineering in a manner that you are there to learn and serve.

Remember the saying that “One finger cant lift a stone” meaning you have to have people from different areas of knowledge to complete a task.

Key Things:
1.    Adaptability, patience…be open to alternative you don’t understand.
2.    Learn their culture such as saying hello in their language.
3.    Establish a Co-Learning Style. Show that the locals have something to teach you.
4.    Couldn’t Write quick enough
Ways to figure out people’s way of thinking…
Free Listing   
Tell people to list 7 animals.
For Americans…Cat and Dog will usually show up first.
A population of 2% - 4% will show what 100%  of the population will say 90% of the time…

UC Net – creates a scatter plot giving a visual of the most common alternatives as well as showing the outliers.

Not really sure what I was going with here but I wrote down that shadowing is another form of surveying…which technically is true I suppose. Just doesn’t seem as sophisticated at the other methods.

Final Thoughts for the breakout session:
 All of you who want to go to the developing world to do good….Dont.  But if you do go, go as a servant and not a master.




The message board where people posted meeting spots and random other semi-important pieces of news...except for one guy...named Steven Burns...I am convinced he was responsible for a majority of the...what should I call it...spam...yeah that is good. He wrote on the board at least 2 or 3 times where his name was attached. His messages went such as, "Steven Burns - Call me!" (btw no phone number attached) or with this gem "EWB Now with MORE Steven Burns", and also "Where can I find more Steven Burns?". Needless to say the guy probably has a little bit of a self induced narcissism. It did amuse me enough that I needed to spend this much time on him. So...Thank you Steven Burns.














(5:45-10:00)
Awards Banquet and Cultural Dancing
When we first arrived, we were greeted by Thomas Frey; Executive Director, Senior Futurist, DaVinci Institute. Perhaps a bit on the side of being a self-proclaimed futurist rather than a realistic one as some of the things he was saying seemed extreme. I did enjoy his talk as he covered a wide number of topics during his talks. I enjoy listening to people who actually dare to dream what will be tomorrow and in turn tell others. Now how in the world you get paid to do this is beyond me. I don’t see how you get paid to basically watch the science channel all day and then give talks on that information. Seems like a cool job.




He believed the Romans did not advance further because of their numbering system...made a pretty good case for it.























Afterwards, the waiters seemingly appeared out of nowhere with salads. While we ate, the waiters continually brought us more food. Again, they fed us chicken and some sort of mashed up rice pilaf dish. It was of course very good and I have not ate this much since my trip on a cruise ship back in 07’ I believe.






Afterwards, a group of African dancers and Mexican tap dancers performed for us. It was very good. I will attempt to get the videos up for those that are interested.

Yes there is a video of me doing this...and no...I do not have possession of it right now...honestly...so I wont put it up. lol






They were balancing a lit candle on their head the entire time during their first dance...that alone was amazing enough for me.




Close up of said candle....I am sure she loved the flash from my camera...



They tap danced with no music to keep a beat. Very impressive.




The North Carolina people that I went out on the town with later that night and Jenny.



Our failed attempt at jumping and being on camera...Sarah has a better picture of us. (She is the other girl in the picture)

16th street mall at night...an out door mall in Denver...the weather is never that bad there...or so I am told. I will confirm this for the 4 or 5 times I have been there. I have never seen great accumulations occur.

Brian from NCSU jumping into my picture...of the street below...

There we go...no flash helps as well.

The said mall.

Down the street again.

There were cows all over the stinking place in Denver just like this one. There was even one in my hotel as well...

The Moon Lady again...

Buffalo!!!! This is actually a really cool picture when made bigger...I really even impressed myself.

We were trying to act like Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves and do the Te-Tanka (sp?).

A really awesome bridge that I drug the group to. Everything on this bridge from what I could tell was in tension except for the gianormous spire that rose towards the heavens....to bad no one else was a civil engineering major...I was totally having a nerd out moment on that bridge and maybe had freaked them out.

But they still seemed cool with it.

Then we went to the pendulum again.

Yeah I had to pick another bugger from the giant face...it had allergies and was having a hard time breathing at night...

On the ground around the area was a map of the Denver area engraved into the sidewalk.

We had a fun time getting them up there...turned out some really good pictures though.

What?!@?

More of the sidewalk map.

Finally we headed back to their hotel. Where we hung out some more. I played a game of chess and build the tallest structure out chess pieces...I totally won both...mainly because I was the only one playing chess and I stole all of the good pieces for the tower...

I finally made it back home at about 1:30 the next morning. Turned out to be a very good day considering the rough start.