My Arms Hurt!

I haven't posted since Saturday, so I'll start with Sunday. It was a relaxing day...I went to Calvary in the morning, ran some errands, delivered a CD, and went with Stacey to get groceries in the early afternoon, and then I headed up to the pool to meet Person, Nick, and Brenna. After lounging around the lazy river for awhile, Person and I headed to Lakeside to eat dinner. Later on in the night, I went on a 10 K run, finishing in 52:33.
Today marked the first crew practice of the semester, and I showed up to try to encourage the guys. I ended up doing a 30 minute erg, moving 7160 meters in that time period. The rest of the day went as follows:
1. thermodynamics
2. circuits
3. work at APC
4. civil materials lab
5. met Matt and Jimmy to get my security deposit back
6. back home
I decided to go with Jason to the Alabama Master's Swim Club practice, which I am going to join for the semester. I haven't swam since December, and before that it was like 3.5 years. The workout was pretty tiring....
1. 300 m free warm up
2. 200 m free drills
3. 100 m free kick
4. 5 x (4 x 100 m) on 1:40, 1:35, 1:30, 1:25, 1:40 pull only
5. 100 m choice cool down
My arms feel like they are about to fall off. However, it feels good to get back into swimming. I'm going to officially start doing schoolwork tomorrow. Its been a nice 2.5 weeks just floating around and doing nothing but working out!

Interesting Semester So Far

The semester has been interesting so far, with lots of events occurring that I did not foresee. A few weeks ago, I got a call from a guy at The Alabama Productivity Center asking me to work for them this semester on a simulation project. APC is a research institution located in Bidgood Hall that gets subcontracted work from companies around Alabama and hires on students along with faculty to complete them. At first, I told them that I wanted to work, but after consulting with myself and a colleague, I decided that I just wanted to chill this semester. However, in the back of my mind, I really had no idea what I wanted to do. After praying about it, I completely turned it over to God, and didn't worry about it at all. Out of the blue, on the first day of classes, I decided to pay APC a visit and figure out what they had to offer. As a side note to this story, I am paying for every single bit of my expenses this semester: tuition, living, eating, misc-- expenses of close to $7000. He explained the project to me, and it actually sounded really good, and something that I would love to do. Then he started telling me about the financial rewards, and I found out that they would be paying 1/2 of my tuition as WELL as $10 and hour! After I heard this (as well as the project specifics), I immediately felt that this was what I needed to do. I accepted the job, and did not second-guess anything. I truly feel like God had a part in it. Word.
On Thursday, I rode 23.5 miles with Jason and about 6 other members of the Triathlon Club. It was pretty fun-- we did the Sanders Ferry out-and-back route.
My classes are alright so far. I can tell that I am really going to like my Reliability class, one that deals a lot with statistics and also is taught by my favorite instructor. Thermodynamics is for sure going to be extremely boring, as well as Circuits and Materials. Oh well. That's what I get for waiting until my last semester to take them.

Summer is Over

It was a good summer, but unfortunately, classes start tomorrow. I learned a lot this summer about myself, my work, and my life. Overall, it was a good time. I also got a lot of physical activity in. I kept up with everything that I did all summer, and here it is:

Weights:
-29 workouts total, consisting of exercises such as bench, curls, shoulder press, squats, leg extension, rows, pull-ups, etc
Running:
-approximately 85 miles total
-10 hours, 28 min, 6 sec
-approximate average pace of 7:32.4 min/mile
Cycling:
-343 miles
-22 hours, 24 min, 2 sec
-avg speed of 14.6 mph
-max speed of 45.6 mph
-max distance of 66.02 mi
Tennis:
-16 tennis matches played
Core Work:
-2671 push-ups
-3440 sit-ups
Swimming:
-only 800 meters swam, only swam once
Ergs:
-12976 meters rowed

That was my summer of workouts. I will continue most of this as a train with the Tri Club and compete this semester. After school, I will either compete only cycling, or triathlons. Who knows.

I do not like living 3 miles from campus...

I have decided that I do not like making the "trek" from Northport to campus in order to carry out the activities that take place there. Even though 3 miles is not that far, it feels like forever compared to living right behind Publix by the strip.
I attended Calvary's new contemporary service and Relate AM this morning. The new service is tiiiiiight. Haha. It was awesome.
This afternoon I went to hit some balls on the range at Ol' Colony Golf Complex. I was hitting all irons as well as my 3 wood very well. I think I'm going to play out there tomorrow or Tuesday, so hopefully I can pull a round in the 80's.
Tonight I helped recruit people for the crew club at a UP function over by the Ferg. It went pretty good, I suppose, so we will see what happens.

North Harbor Hot Hundred

Yesterday (Saturday 8/18), I rode 66 miles in the North Harbor Hot Hundred bike ride. Alongside with me were Jason Cottingham, John Person, and Person's dad. It was pretty crazy because the farthest that I had ever rode until yesterday was a meager 25 miles. Overall, the ride went very well. We came out blazing the first 25 miles, averaging 20.1 mph. Most of it was flat and there were a few downhills, and for most of it we were working a 4 man paceline or riding in a larger group. We took a rest stop after 25 miles, and then then another one at mile 54. After the first rest stop, a nice girl named Andrea joined our group- she is a member of the Tri Club at Alabama, and she was a very strong rider. Right before the second rest stop, I thought my quads were about to start cramping, but luckily they did not. With about 8 miles to go, Person's dad, Andrea, and I started working a 3 man pace line and we were hauling- and with 3 miles left I separated myself from them and started to hawk down 2 men that I saw in the distance. I ended up passing them on the last hill, and I sprinted the last straightaway to finish in style.
Race Stats:
Distance- 66.02 miles
Time- 3:38:45
Avg Speed- 18.11 mpg
Max Speed- 38.7 mph

Multiple Errands

Today's accomplishments:
-the running of 14 errands
-lunch with some friends
-tennis with Anderson, Person, and Adam
-the organization of all crap in my room

Tomorrow, I wake at 5:30 a.m. to head out and ride the North Harbor Hot Hundred bike ride. Jason, Person, and I are going to ride the 34 mile course instead of the hundred, mainly because it is so hot. If we are feeling good, we may do the 50. We shall see.

Wednesday + Thursday

On Wednesday, I did absolutely nothing all day until I decided to become active at 4 pm. At that time, I went on an easy 2.5 mile run at Shades Mountain Ballpark. Following the run, I ate dinner at the church and rested for a little bit. At 6:30 pm, I went on an easy 17 mile bike ride in the Bluff Park area.
On Thursday, my Dad and I played The Valley at Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. I don't feel like explaining anything, but he ended up barely winning. Oh well. When I get home, I completed an engineering marvel by packing my car! My bike, due to its shape, was not able to be efficiently packed so I had to make up for it in other areas. After packing, I headed down to Tuscaloosa for good. After unpacking/arranging/cleaning the apartment, I went to lift weights at the rec, and then erged a 6K on the rowing machine. After this and dinner, Anderson and I played some tennis. We are actually pretty evenly matched, and we split the sets 1-1. It had been more than a month since I last played, and I hope to get in some more matches in the near future.
Things to do soon:
-play more golf
-row the double or a 4+/8+
-play more tennis
-rack up mileage on my bike
-start swimming again
-run here and there
If I wasn't so active, I don't know what I would do with my life.

Showdown on the 18th

Precursors to main events of the day included lunch with Eric and MiMi, as well as lounging around the house and listening to my iPod while I packed up some more stuff.
At about 4:45 p.m., Eric, my Dad, and I teed off of The Short Course at Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. One thing that I have enjoyed about this summer is that I have been able to play a lot of golf, something that I have not had a lot of time to do during the past 4 years. The Short Course is and 18-hole-all-par 3 course, with even par being an obvious 54. It presents a good opportunity to work on the ever challenging short game of a golfer. I came out blazing today, shooting +1 on the first 5 holes. I don't think I hit a single green on those 5 holes, but I was scrambling like crazy. My sand wedge was deadly accurate, and my bump-and-run with a 7 iron was also working extremely well.
This bump-and-run shot is one that I have only recently figuratively added to my bag of shots, and I have found that in situations where I am just off the side of the green or instances where I am further off the green but I have a downhill approach to the green, it allows me to be consistently more accurate.
After the first 5 holes, I cooled off a little bit and ended up +9 over the front 9. I continued this cooling off phase at the start of the back 9, and my Dad started to heat up. I think at one point he had me by about 7 strokes or so. I was hitting my irons pretty solid all day, and I hit about or 7 of the greens in regulation. However, I had a trend going of making par on a hole and following it with a double bogey or two before regaining focus.
With 2 holes left to play, my dad stated that he was up 5 strokes on me. I had just come off a blow up hole in which I took a double par because I had some trouble getting out of the sand. I was determined to calm down, re-focus, and try to par out in hopes of a tie or a win (I was also hoping my dad would choke and make a double bogey on the last 2 holes).
Hole #17 was a par 3, 135 yards, mainly flat, and I elected to take my 9 iron off the tee. I hit a beautiful shot that faded slightly to align itself with the pin, and I found myself 15 feet away from the pin. After lining up the put, I played a 1 ft break to the left and.....drano! Birdie! My dad took a double bogey, and I had cut the lead down to 2 strokes.
Hole #18 was a par 3, 125 yards, mainly flat, with a difficult pin location on a skinny part of the green that jutted out of the back right hand corner. Knowing that I had to gain 2 strokes on this hole, I had to go straight for the pin instead of playing for the large part of the green which would lead to a longer put. I pulled out my pitching wedge, made good contact, and landed it on the skinny part by about 6 inches, leaving me 15 feet from the hole. My Dad landed on the fat part of the green, but left a monster of a put. He putted first and misjudged the downhill speed leaving him 15 feet past the hole. After leaving his next put short I putted, and came about about 6 feet short. His next put was for the win, and he barely missed it, followed by a tap in and a 5 for the hole. This meant that I had a 6 ft put for the tie! After a few deep breaths and some practice strokes, I putted, and...drano! Tie! Come from behind, 5 strokes in 2 holes!
Later on, I had a friendly debate with my parents about euthanasia, and all that know me know my opinion on the issue. Tomorrow will be another relaxing day. I will definitely go on a ride tomorrow.

The Bourne Ultimatum x 2

Moose, Eric, Stephanie, and I went and saw The Bourne Ultimatum, my second time to do so. I'm usually not one of those 2x-movie-watchers, but the movie is just so good.
As for the rest of today, I managed to move all of my stuff to the room upstairs to make room for my brother Keith who will be living downstairs in January. It wasn't too much stuff, but I took my time, going through around 75 to 100 songs on my iPod, which I set on shuffle mode. I also made a trip to Cahaba Cycles to pick up some tubes that they forgot to put in my bag which I picked up the bike.
One interesting thing that happened today was a call that I received from The Productivity Center at The University of Alabama. They were one of my possible jobs for the summer, but they offered me a job after I had already accepted with UPS. It was kind of random that they called me today, but oh well. I talked with a guy named Jason Hatter (I think?), an IE graduate from 1998. He asked me if I had any simulation experience, and I said that I had (while trying not to laugh). On top of a simulation course that I took last Spring (of which I was the first person in 2 years to make an A...I was joined by 2 other classmates in this feat), I also employed my simulation knowledge in our Senior Design course last Spring. Fellow classmate Jordan Johnston and I teamed up to complete a stellar computer simulation of the Children's South facility. Children's South is a branch of Children's Hospital, and it is located at the Acton Road exit off I-459. Anyways, the simulation was a masterpiece. Hatter told me that they were in need of some simulation knowledge, so we are having a meeting on Friday morning to discuss some possible work. After doing some thinking and consulting, however, I am not sure if I really want to tack on 10 hours of work to my schedule, but we will see.
At around 5:30 p.m., my Dad and I started biking to the church in order to meet up with a group of people that usually ride on Monday night. We took the Patton Chapel route to the church, and after meeting up with about 6 or so other bikers, we headed out. We actually ended up doing the rest of The Purple Onion Loop, a loop that Jamie, Phil, and I named because it passes by The Purple Onion on Highway 31. After heading back to the Preserve, the group turned to head back to the church up Patton Chapel, and I headed with them to get one last climb in. I turned around when it started getting dark, almost to the point where we usually turn off. The whole trip ended up being 18.6 miles or so.
As with today, I plan on floating through tomorrow and the rest of the next week and a half until school starts. I am eating lunch with Eric and MiMi (my grandmother), and I will probably continue to pack some stuff up. I want to go for a ride, but I don't know when. Eric, my Dad and I are going to try to play the Short Course at Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, but that will not be until 4 or 5 p.m. If that doesn't pan out, I will probably ride and then go to The Basement. Either way, tomorrow should be very relaxing.

Done With Work!

I am officially done with work as of this past Friday, whew! It was an excellent experience, and I learned a whole lot about working in industry, how I can apply myself, what some of my strengths and weaknesses are, and a little more about how to become successful. Overall, I think it worked out very well for me, and my manager told me I basically have a job when I graduate, if I want it.
I headed down to Tuscaloosa this weekend to attend the wedding of Kelly Parker, as well as see a few friends one last time before they moved their separate ways. Overall, it was an extremely good weekend. I saw a lot of people I don't normally run in to too much, and I had some very interesting, thought-provoking, and deep conversations. I also managed to rack up around 7 to 7.5 miles or so, following my second-half-of-summer-tradition of running on the weekends (while cycling mostly during the week).
This week is going to be awesome. After being so busy all summer, I am going to float through these next 2 weeks, and I'm going to love it!

Current Music: Lipgloss and Letdown by A Static Lullaby

Early Shift + Testing Out The New Bike

As I previously posted, I worked this morning from 12:30 a.m. until 5:30 a.m. Since all of the University of Alabama student tickets were being delivered today, UPS needed all the help that they could get. Nicolas Willis (the other intern) and I, along with our manager Jon Rich, our supervisor Robyn Smaha, and a security manager managed to knock out the sorting of the 3000+ football ticket packages in about an hour and a half or so. However, the side that Nic and I were working on undoubtedly contained about 1/2 of the total volume. We had to sort the tickets into their specified routes. Each center in the Birmingham building (there are 3 of them: Southeast, Southwest, and Central) runs anywhere from 42 to 57 routes. Nic and I were working the Central routes, of which there were about 45. By the end of the sort, I had pretty much memorized each routes location in the bins that we had labeled. After sorting, we had to bag each route individually, labeling the bag with the route ID and the number of ticket packages inside. The bagging definitely took a lot longer than the sorting. When it was all said it done, the clock read 5:30 a.m., and I hurried home to bed. I slept from 6 a.m. until 4 p.m. It was awesome.
I met the Birmingham Bicycle Club out at Winn Dixie on Morgan Road at 6 p.m. for their weekly ride. I was extremely anxious to test my new bike out on a long ride. I joined Bryan Oliver (Jamie's dad), and 2 other men on a 25 mile loop through the back roads of the Bessemer area. I am very happy with how my bike feels. All of the reviews that I read on it were true: it is a very smooth ride. We finished the ride in 1:26:30 for an average speed of 17.37 mph. I plan on racking up some miles in the near future.

Exhausted

The last few days have been very exhausting. After a boring day at work on Monday, I ate some dinner and headed straight to Atlanta, GA to attend a sweet concert the next day. I stayed at a past teammate (Ben Sholes) of mines apartment. I woke up on Tuesday morning and headed to the Hifi Buys Amphitheater at noon to see 11 bands play at the Projekt Revolution Tour. Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, and Taking Back Sunday were the headliners, but other notables such as Saosin, Julien-K, Him, and Placebo also played. Obviously, Taking Back Sunday was awesome. I was very happy about their set list, which included mostly older stuff (which in my opinion is better). MCR was good, but I'm not too into them. Linkin Park was.............awesome! I wasn't too impressed with their latest CD that was just released, but to my surprise, they played a lot of older stuff....rocking Hybrid Theory big-time!
The concert lasted from 12:45 p.m. until 10:30 p.m., and it was brutally hot the whole day. I made it back to Birmingham around 12:15 a.m. on Wednesday morning, got a few hours of sleep, and headed to work. After work, I picked up my bike, wohoo! I took it for a ride this evening and it is sweeeeeet.
I have to go back to work at 12:45 a.m., and I'm not too happy about that. Alabama football tickets are going out tomorrow, so UPS needs all the extra help they can get, and I was somehow volunteered. I have gotten absolutely no sleep this week, and it is catching up to me.

I Win!

My Dad and I played another round of golf at Bentbrook today. I won by a decisive 3 strokes, shooting a 90 to his 93. I actually was up 5 strokes with 5 holes left to play, but he closed the gap ever so slightly thanks to my blow-up on the par three 16th. Whereas a 90 is a good score for me, it could have been better. My goal was to hit the high 80's, and had it not been for 2 instances that found my ball in a sand trap, I would have shot an 86. It took me 3 shots each time to get out of the trap. Besides those 2 holes, I played one of the most solid rounds of golf that I have ever played. I did have to incur 1 penalty stroke, however, when I barely missed clearing a pond by about 2 feet (I hit a very fat 3 iron). Anyways, in my book a win is a win.
Tomorrow, I will be heading to Atlanta, GA to attend the Project Revolution Tour, which headlines Taking Back Sunday, Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, and Saosin among others. I can't wait! Unfortunately, I will most likely be making the trip alone, due to an unexpected schedule conflict of a friend. If anyone wants to go, let me know!

The Bourne Ultimatum

Anderson, Jimmy, and I just saw The Bourne Ultimatum. It was awesome.

Bourne: "Where are you?"
CIA Dude: "I'm in my office."
Bourne: "I doubt it."
CIA Dude: "Whys that?"
Bourne: "Because if you were, we'd be having this conversation face to face."
[Phone-hang-up-click]

BOOYAH!!!

I'm about to start reading the book of Exodus in my quest to read the Bible. Currently, I am 4.67% of the way through.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to the lovely Emily Britt, and also, I can't forget...happy birthday to the charming Melissa Rowland! These two very interesting, fun, and entertaining women deserve a good ole' "happy birthday"...they are probably 2 of the nicest people that I know! I joined the Britt family and some other friends at California Pizza Kitchen at the Summit, followed by a some chilaxin' and deep conversation at Joe Muggs. Fun night.

Long Day

Today consisted of our project implementation, which included changing up all the sort charts and labels and everything else in the Smalls Sort area, as well as staying until the workers came in and helping them with their daily tasks. I worked about 90 mph from 7:30 a.m., until 6:00 p.m. getting everything ready for the workers. We just barely finished in time. One annoying thing that happened today concerned one of the UPS janitors. When we got to the Smalls Sort area this morning, there were boxes everywhere. I don't know who put them there, but I definitely did not. Anyways, as I was working throughout the day, this one janitor would come by and say something like "Ya'll need to throw away those boxes," or "Gah, ya'll got trash everywhere." Being in the rush that I was, I had absolutely no patience at all, but somehow I managed not go off on him. Very annoying. You do your job, I'll do mine. I'm extremely tired now, and I don't have to be in tomorrow until noon:)