Retreat:

Well, I made it through last week. And probably even passed my prelims just fine. But it wasn't a super pleasant week as far as the amount of work and studying that needed to get done. However, it left me relatively free to go on the GCF (bible study) retreat this weekend, and it was nice to head out of town for a weekend. Up until now, I hadn't seen any of New York except within a couple miles of Ithaca (since I've always flown in).

The retreat was about two hours away, northest of Syracuse [here]. The camp itself was around a small lake, but it was about a mile and a half from a much larger Oneida lake, just visible at the bottom of the satellite view. Upstate New York (for those of you who have not been) is rolling, tree covered hills, with quite a bit of open, agricultural area and small to medium size farms. Syracuse is the closest city, but there wasn't too much to note from just driving though it. The city stops very abruptly and turns into small, rural communities. The fall colors, although past their peak in some areas, are still quite prevalent although the weather has taken a turn for the colder and wetter. Fortunately around here it doesn't stay wet all winter... somewhere in the next few weeks it gets too cold to be wet.

Oneida lake, NY

Anyhow, the retreat was good. Lots of normal retreat-type stuff happened--messages, worship times, eating, free time, bonfire, and not quite enough sleep. I went running Saturday afternoon down to Oneida lake and over past Cleveland, the local "general store, gas station, post office, and bar" town on the shores of the lake.

This week is still certainly busy, but not with the overbearing deadlines and uncertainties of prelims. Hopefully I'll have time to catch up on some of those things that got put on the backburner... like fellowship apps due here soon.




Fall colors here under a canopy of pines from my run on Saturday.

No color left here in the backwoods of the camp property, but I liked the balance of this shot.

Fall Colors:

I went on a quick run/photo taking excursion today to the Cornell Plantations and Arboretum way up on the other side of campus (a couple miles away). There has been chance of snow in the forecast for the last few days, but it never showed up and tomorrow is supposed to be mid 60's and sunny. One could really get used to October weather like this! Of course Western NY (no more than 80 miles away) got a foot or two of snow dumped on them Saturday.















Beebe Lake (above)




Shots from around the arboretum (left, above, below)










On a side note, apparently I have a second midterm this week... from 7:30pm to 10:00pm on Thursday (its not a night class). I don't think it should be legal to schedule 2.5 hour tests outside of class time, especially in the evening. I guess they figure nobody does anything else in Ithaca, anyway.

NY06 Photo gallery:

Well, my 1000 meg of server space back at the University of Washington is soon going to disappear, so I'll be shuffling my previous sites (including Eur06 galleries) around to different servers. This site will stay the same though, and I'll keep all the links on the sidebar current.

That said, I'll be hosting my current/future photo galleries through good 'ole google at http://picasaweb.google.com/jon.hiller. Google's got a pretty good deal there, and you can watch the photos in a slideshow or download them all. I can even directly embed a link to the photo gallery right here in the post:

Cornell

So, you can see I've uploaded a bunch of pics from around Cornell/Ithaca area for your viewing pleasure. The rest of fall break went fine. I spent about 12 hours studying for linear systems on Tuesday, and was rewarded by being able to complete (hopefully mostly correctly) the midterm in about 5 hours on Wednesday. My next midterm is next Wednesday, but it shouldn't be nearly so time intensive to prepare for.

Fall break (photo) update:

The weather has exceeded all expectations here! Both yesterday and today have been cloudless and mid-70's! Unfortunately this is not condusive to staying inside and doing work. Yesterday I took a study break to head around campus and one of the local gorges to get some photos. Probably do more of the same today.



A few shots from Cascadilla Gorge, the one I cross every day. (right, left, below right)




















A shot on the arts quad (oldest buildings on campus are here, c. 1865)

Founder's house, near the center of campus (built sometime before the turn of the century)

Inside Sage chapel, built 1874 and one of the earlier buildings on campus.

Fall Break:

I didn't know such a thing existed until I came to Cornell, but hey, I'm not complaining. I get a 4-day weekend here. Unfortunately, one professor decided to welcome us back from fall break by handing out a 24 hour take-home midterm the minute classes start again on Wednesday morning. This would happen to be my not-so-favored linear systems course where the current homework (which is covered on the upcoming exam) requires (on average) more than an hour per problem... if anyone can figure them out. And did I mention there's 29 problems on the assignment? While you do the math, I'll hopefully be hard at work at this ridiculousness.

Oh well. Nobody said grad school was easy. I should be able to concentrate this weekend because everyone I know who lives within 350 miles has gone home for the long weekend... which happens to be everyone I know here. So, I get a nice long weekend to chill and hopefully get not only homework/studying done, but work on fellowship applications for next year and put some time into research stuff. The research is going well. I'm in the process of integrating into the group, and I spent a good deal of time last weekend putting together info for a proposal that went out to DARPA (potential funding source) Monday afternoon concerning the digital manufacturing. A lot of this info also went into a provisional patent that is in the process of being filed this week. So things are definitely moving fast. I can go into more detail at some future time.

Of course, this probably seems to point to a somewhat dreary picture for my weekend. Although I do need to get a lot done, I also plan to play guitar and go running a lot. The weather is supposed to be beautiful this weekend, in a northeast autumn sort of way. Clear skies, a little crisp, and colorful trees all over. I went running this afternoon a few miles up the 6 Mile Creek gorge and it was a dream. Slightly crisp (but not cold) with the setting sun illuminating the golden tree tunnel I was running through, pierced here and there by vivid reds and greens. So far, Fall is definitely my favorite season around here.