Time to do a little updating about our recent vacation to California. Jennifer had a conference, so I flew out as well and we had a SPLENDID time. We saw the sights of San Francisco and then met up with Pete Dillon in Berkely. I hope that people have half as good a feeling when they leave my house as we did upon leaving Pete's. That guy just rocks!

The picture above is from our overnight hike into Yosemite. The peak in the background is called Cloud's Rest and is a pretty scenic slab o' granite, it sits right north of Half Dome. I'll post more pictures on the blog in a bit, but the address of the web album will allow anyone who's interested to check out my pictures en masse.

http://picasaweb.google.com/aaronritz/YOSemite

Yes, I actually graduated my program, and have the pictures to prove it. I actually just got a card from my grandmother today, "Congratulations on your Master's Degree" it said. I didn't even know that they made Congratulations on your Master's Degree cards. In it she wrote, "Here's $10, I guess that's enough for 2 gallons of gas. Maybe you'd better stay put. You finally have done something that you can be really proud of yourself for. I know I am."

Finally? Well, I guess that Grandma must have high expectations of us, since the bachelor's degree apparently wasn't enough.

Pictures located here: http://picasaweb.google.com/aaronritz/Graduation

99 degrees in the air, 120 on the pavement. It was a hot day for the Philadelphia Classic. This is the longest running and longest course of any professional bicycle race in the US. 200 riders started and only about 80 finished after 156 miles. Needless to say, I was stoked just to be there. The video shows the second to last of the small finishing circuits, with Svein Tuft, former Canadian Time Trial champion making one final bid for victory as he solos off the front. Badismo.

 

Among my other projects, is the one that you see here. These parts, along with a little epoxy and some natural fibers (ie bamboo) are going to help me complete a life long dream! I'm in the process of creating a bamboo bicycle for jennifer. It's going to be SUPER SWEET! I'll post pics of the progress as it comes.

Just goes to show that there is a benefit to being unemployed.

Holy shit it's been a long time since I posted. Fear not, all is well. Items to update include:

Graduation Status: Yes, Graduated
Job Status: No, no job (yet)
Relaxation Status: Relaxed, very relaxed
Vacation Quotient: Full, but anxious for more
Home Repair Status: Work in Progress, but actually working
Side project Status: At least 3 totally awesome side projects


I'll attempt to post pictures and musings later today.

At long last, school is over.

I must say, I am relieved, but I'm going to have to learn how to relax a bit. Though the finals period were hardly as bad as they have been in the past (April/May 2007 was pretty rough) I'm still a bit edgey, and I have the sneaking paranoia that there is something hanging over my head on a daily basis. I'm sure that something will sneak up on me, like a forgotten assignment, or maybe I didn't turn in a paper or something.

Then I remember, "Aaron, chill out, you're DONE!" Then all is good again.

Now I just gotta get me a job!

When it comes right down to it, I may miss school. I will not miss homework however. I've been putting off my last take-home final until the bitter end because I can hardly bear the thought of staying indoors on days like today. Sunny, low winds and a temperature in the upper 70s make for ideal cycling weather.

I graduate from gradual school in a little over a week, and from there the world is my oyster. Kind of an accurate description when you consider that oysters are damn hard to get open without a shucking knife and some fortitude. Kind of like the job market, as well, now that I think about it. I missed out on the job opening at my current internship, my hyper-productive fellow intern took that spot. It's not enough to just be nicer and more personable, you still have to prove your worth with reams of paper and text. At least I interview well. All that time spent in front of the blank stares of Japanese school children has made me relatively impervious to the discomforts of the type awkwardness found in job interviews. Ganbattemasu ne?

Just two more weeks to go in my educational career, then I can stop learning for good. I have been stressing myself out with the various classes and things that I've got to do before the end of the year. It's not even that I honestly have that much to do, it's just that I'm already mentally checked out to a degree. That, and I'm still very much on the job market in these somewhat fiscally constrained times. In positive news, I am somewhat older than I was last week, and feeling none the worse for wear. I bought myself a bottle of mezcal and a pink bike seat for my birthday. It turns out that mezcal is kind of like the scotch version of whiskey- a taste like a fire pit and lots of kick. I like it, but it seems that most other folks don't have such a fondness. I guess I just enjoy flavors that kick me in the taste buds.

The pink bike seat completes the pink and silver bike ensemble magnificently, however it does crush my ass, so we'll just have to see who gives in first, me or the bike seat. If only there were more manly choices in pink available to a fella.

So I'm looking for jobs right? Hopefully something that I studied to do, is close by and will pay me a wage that will allow repayment of the $50,000 loans that I have hanging over my head. Something along those lines would be ideal. Jennifer said that she'd help me find a job and I saw her looking at the "employment" section of some website.

Jennifer suggested that I work at Turkey Hill Farms in Lancaster. Apparently the pay is pretty good and as a bonous, I'll be able to take home a lot of extras at the ICE CREAM FACTORY!

Maybe she wanted to ship me off because I wouldn't walk to the store and buy her a half gallon earlier tonight, maybe it's the fact that she's peeved that I spend most of my waking time in front of a computer at work or school. I don't know. I do know that I'm going to need to locate a job if I'm going to prevent myself from getting shipped off to the ice cream factory.

A quick listing of the ingredients found on my Torta Cubana at El Zarape, on the corner of Morris and Passyunk streets, about a 5 minute walk from here:

Bun
Refried Beans
Avocado
Tomato
Lettuce
Fresh mozzarella
Ham
Chorizo and potato hash
Fried Chicken Breast
Chicken-Fried Seak
Fried Egg

It was as close as I've ever been to a heart attack, and it was delicious.

Hey, our studio project got in the newspaper!!!

I guess that one would expect it if a guest was a reporter for the Philadelphia inquirer, but here you go.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20080328_Phila__visitors_compare_SEPTA_to_Toronto_transit.html

Now that I'm famous (indirectly and actually not at all) the job offers should be flooding in.

At long last I have put together a selection of photos from the recent trip to London and Toronto for my Studio Class. The ostensible reason for travelling was to examine these two cities and their transportation systems and take back ideas for use in the Philadelphia region. Overall, we got a lot of ideas but they were mostly of the, "London is soooo much better than Philly, there's no way we can do anything like that here," variety. London IS waay better than Philly, and I will go so far to say that it is the BEST city that I've ever been to. I say best in the all inclusive sense; it has history but is vibrant with a modern urbanity that is refreshing and interesting. The city is well run and is trying to get better still. They place a great emphasis on global warming and in fact are truly taking the lead on that front. Things are generally clean and they've just pledged 500 million pounds for bicycle and pedestrian improvements by the Olympics in 2012. Stupendous stuff.
After London, Toronto could only play second fiddle. They are much more comparable to Philly, but the city felt like a wierd mishmash of Minneapolis and New York in collision. We did get an opportunity to hobnob with some of the best and brightest from Toronto and Philly at the "Sips and Nibbles" event, which was a good chance for me to practice my "hire me" face.

More pictures are available at my Picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/aaronritz/London

Sheeeit, three weeks of non-stop school work behind me, now I just gotta get through another two easy days and I'm off to London!! Our regional transportation studio presented the midterm report on monday, and as I was one of the 4 suckers who presented, I ended up wearing a suit for the first time in 3 years or so. I cannot honestly remember the last time I put my Goodwill suit on, but I looked SHARP! I gotta remember that when I go looking for jobs in the near future.

So yeah, on Thursday we head out to London some time in the evening and have a couple of free days before we meet with some grand high muckety-mucks at the London Transit Agency, London 2012 and some other place that I'm forgetting. Next Wednesday we then jet back to Toronto for a meeting with some important folks on this side of the pond. It's going to be pretty sweet, and in a nerdy way I'm hoping to get to see all of the city planning wonders that these places have to offer. We're going to ride the tube, see the sights and spend alarming amounts of money. Goddamn weak dollar!

What the hell is the "wintry mix"? Back where I come from, the Midwest, people have actual names for the kinds of precipitation that occur in winter. No, we're not quite as eloquent as the Inuit with their 50 odd words for snow, but we at least know the difference between things like sleet, freezing rain, hail, snow and ice. Not out here in the wild wild East. Here, when anything appears to be falling from the sky that is not immediately perceived to be rain, it is assumed to be the horrific wintry mix that gets Philadelphia's collective undies in a bundle. It just reeks of wussiness to me.

It's a good thing that I screwed up my knee three weeks ago, or I'd be going crazy!

As those who know me already realize, being injured normally makes me into quite the whiny bitch when I can't do what I want to do. Not this time!! This time I have changed my tune, and I'm just taking it easy. Actually, my lack of preoccupation with what I'm not doing stems from the preposterous amount of school stuff that I've got going on. I can't imagine being any more busy, even with only 3 days of class per week. My studio class is really the killer; 6 hours twice a week in a dungeon-like room in the basement of Furness, really eats into one's motivation to do other things. That is coupled with three other classes for the fullest load I've taken yet. Yay. I'm getting my money's worth, that's for sure. At this point though, I feel kind of relieved to be overworked as it takes my mind off all of the things that I'm not doing.

In other news, we're hosting a dumpling party this weekend, it should be good times and good eats for everyone. I'm even going to bust out the tako-yaki maker for its thrilling debut in our house. Everyone can enjoy tasty fried octopus dumplings!!

In a fit of inventiveness, I decided that we should make hand-pulled noodles for dinner last week. Despite knowledge to the contrary, i thought, "How hard can this really be?" Well, after abotu an hour and a half of pulling and kneading and resting and doing it all over again we came up with some tasty but not quite as thin as they should be hand pulled noodles, a la Aaron. My favorite style!!

I recommend the experience to anyone, but honestly, it's a lot easier to buy the ones from the store, plus they taste almost the same.

Below is the final result, hand pulled noodles in a peanut sauce, delicious!

Check out my pictures of the Hamptons, where Jennifer and I passed a fabulous newyears. Our friend Marie happens to be a real blue blood (though she fell on the hippie side of the tree) and her family owns a beach house in Easthampton on Long Island. Though her parents' house is a 5 bedroom, 3 fireplace job with a pool and room for a pony, it's rather modest by the standards of the area. Go figure. A house a kilometer up the beach had it's own observatory with the rotating dome and 15 inch telescope and everything. Now that's a a frickin' beach house.

Over the course of the holiday we broiled some salmon, flew kites and shucked our own oysters. It was truly a New Years to remember.

My photos are found at
http://picasaweb.google.com/aaronritz/TheHamptons
Another good set is at Matt Lyons page
http://picasaweb.google.com/matthewtlyons/Hamptonians?authkey=fIFHufQF8ns

Holidays beat work days, any day

Holidays are indeed better than work days, scientists have now proven it! The study was published recently in the International Journal of Studies with Sample Size One. In this study, a scientist took a sample of one person, himself, and found that work days are unequivocally less awesome than those days in which work was either optional or unnecessary such as holidays.

Ok, I admit, the journal is this blog, and the scientist is me, but dammit, I'm right here!

I'm in the process of posting some pictures of our recent escapades in the Midwest and East, but given the prolific nature of my photography, it's taking a while. Jennifer assures me that I take far too many bad pictures, but for me that was the whole point of getting a digital camera, I can take as many junk pictures as I want and just cull the herd later.

Back to the HOMELAND

I have finished my semester of school. And it is good. We head home this evening to lovely and frosty Ames, Iowa. I mentioned that I was from Iowa this morning to a co-worker at my internship, to which she responded, "Are there a lot of strip malls? That's what I think of when I think Iowa. I mean, who the hell is from Iowa."

 

I love the East Coast.

Instead of doing my take home test for my Real Estate Finance class, the class that has repeatedly kicked my ass, I have decided to post some pictures of my increasingly beautiful road bike. Over thanksgiving I wasted about 20 odd hours sanding, prepping cutting stencils and applying decals to my 2007 Cannondale CAAD9. I think it looks pretty damn sharp, and with the upcoming addition of pink brake hoods and saddle, I think that it will soon be complete!!

I get a lot of comments on it while riding, mostly ones like, "You fighting breast cancer?" To which I answer, "Hell Yes!" I love breasts, and therefore hate breast cancer, so yeah, this for all of that, but more importantly, it makes me look cool.