I have a day and a half of school before I get to go to the airport and fly back to Iowa. This is exactly how I am going to feel at school because I am so excited for a break! Everything is still going well at school. I have an assignment due on Tuesday before I leave, so I went in today to finish it because I know I won't want to worry about it tomorrow night. 

   The weather has been like Iowa lately... hot one day and freezing the next. Last week it was so nice one of the days that I got to go to the beach in a t-shirt. The very next day students saw snow flurries on their way to school. 

   We had a guy, Douglas, come talk to us about Japanese boat building last week. He has had five apprenticeships in Japan and the stories he told were fascinating. For example, he said there wasn't a terrible language barrier during his first apprenticeship because there wasn't any talking allowed in the shop. The boats are handmade by Douglas and the master. Douglas had to observe while sweeping the floors for months until one day the master finally handed him a chisel and expected him to know what to do. It sounded just like Karate Kid. There are no drawings or dimensions or instructions on how to build the boats because there is so much secrecy behind it. Only the master has that stuff memorized. 

  Here is Douglas' site: Douglas Brooks Boatbuilding.

These are some of the tools and materials they use. I don't know what they are. 

   Okay. I tried making pancakes for breakfast. I decided it would be a good idea to make one giant pancake rather than a bunch of small ones. I didn't like the idea that if I made small pancakes, the first ones would get cold by the time I was done making the rest. So one giant pancake was the way to go. 

Nope.

   It is impossible to flip a giant pancake to the other side. At least I didn't have to cut it, right? It still tasted just fine. 

   Kennebunkport put up the huge Christmas tree in Dock Square this weekend. I didn't see it being put up. I know they'll decorate it too. Maybe they are going to do that right after Thanksgiving. I'll get some nice photos of it when it is. I actually ventured out into the cold today JUST to take this picture of the tree for you people reading this. And then, Kelly, I RAN back home. 

   Sorry I've been lacking with good pictures of what I've been up to. I'll try to get some good shots of my break with Devin and his family this week. Oh, by the way, my pancake mess today was good... but not anywhere close to Karen's pancakes with the pecan syrup. Can I put in a request for that? :)

   And here is a stupid (poor quality) video of my fish. Mrs. Black is always trying to show off for me... as you can see in this video.

Grandma... if you click the 4-corner box in the bottom right corner of the video it makes the video bigger.

New Fish Tank

   Last week at school we were learning about metals and their properties... How they are treated, yield strength, stiffness,  etc. I learned about this stuff at ISU, so it felt good to know what was going on. We took different shaped pieces of aluminum and put them in this machine to pull the aluminum apart until it broke. I did this at 3M last summer to test the strength of some new materials they had made.... so I knew that there would be a loud BOOM when the aluminum finally broke. I didn't like it haha. So much anticipation building until it snaps... like a scary movie. Ugh. We also tested fiberglass

   I went on a long walk yesterday. I'm still exploring my town. My walk wasn't on a trail (still haven't figured out how to get to the Eastern Trail), but I walked down random roads in my neighborhood and looked at the cool old houses in the woods. I walked along the harbor and saw this well behaved dog laying in the parking lot while his owner did maintenance on a boat. Our dogs would NEVER be that obedient. 

   I finally got a new tank for my fish. I love it and I think the fish like it a lot more too. So I tried taking more pictures of them. Still difficult. I have only named one of the fish. Kelly recommended the name Forrest. So I named the one with black fins Forrest because he looks different than the other two and likes to hang out alone. He's pretty cool. I still haven't named the other two. 

I got a couple shots of Mrs. Black, too!

   Tomorrow TLS is having a Thanksgiving lunch for the students followed by a presentation by a guy, Douglas Brooks, who knows all about Japanese wooden boats. Sounds interesting.


Happy Birthday to Devin and Kelly. I love you both!

Thanks for letting Devin have your ISU basketball ticket, Kelly. If I was in Ames tonight I'd rather be hanging out with you than standing in a cold, wet line all day with Devin. :)

New fish.

   We had two students graduate from TLS on Friday. Geoff and Chris started in January last year and attended school throughout the summer. They were both in wooden boat building, so they built a single boat between the two of them. The school got out early on Friday to watch the graduation. It was neat. The student's professor gave a short speech, announced the name of the boat (which I didn't hear, oops), read a poem, and talked about the student's quirks. Chris's mom got to smash the champagne bottle over the boat to christen it while a cannon was fired. I took a few pictures, but there was a photographer there that will post the pictures to social media. I'll try to remember to post them to my blog so you can have a better idea of what the ceremony was like. It was pretty special and makes me excited for my graduation.

   I have been wanting to find a nice trail/path to walk on. It is getting colder every day and I still haven't found a trail. It was nice on Wednesday so I decided it was a perfect day to finally find a walking path.

It didn't work.

   I did research online and narrowed it down to The Eastern Trail as being the best option. It is a 65 mile long trail. I couldn't find anywhere online about where to drive to and park to get on the trail. Sooo I had to guess. I found a road on Google Maps that had a dead end right at the Eastern Trail.

   I assumed that that meant the end of that road had a parking lot and a nice entrance to the trail.

Nope.

   I found Emmons Rd, also known as Abandoned Railroad, and kept driving until I got to the end. I should have turned around when the pavement turned to gravel. That wasn't a good sign. But I kept going. The nice wide road turned to gravel and continued to get more and more narrow until only a single car could fit on the road. I even had to cross one of those sketchy bridges that have basically two planks of wood for each tire. I kept going until the road got too narrow to drive on and turned to dirt. The road literally just turned into a walking trail. But it wasn't the Eastern Trail. It was an access trail. But there also wasn't anywhere to park/leave my car. So I couldn't find where that trail leaded... I didn't want to find out where it lead because I was too creeped out, anyway.

   So I gave up. It was going to get dark soon anyway because sunset is SO EARLY now. I think it is going to snow one of these days. Maybe I'll find a trail in the spring?

   The following is a picture of a homework assignment I recently finished. It wasn't a difficult assignment, but I am just showing the image because it helps me draw a picture of how much stuff we learn in a short amount of time. I hadn't learned about propellers, propeller shafts, couplings, or struts ever before this one class period. In the time of a two-hour class, we crammed in enough new information for us to be able to do this assignment. We learned things from what shaft horsepower means, to reduction ratios, to the material properties of Aquamet 17 and 22, to the difference between flexible and rigid engine mountings and how that affects strut and barrel length, to taper ratios of a strut, and the list goes on. It isn't difficult stuff, but just a LOT to learn in two hours. I'm still surprised I am able to keep up with all of it. It is stuff that I won't be allowed to forget, though, because now we will be expected to include these calculations on all of our yacht designs from now on.

   Alright, time for the bad news. Fish are dead. 

   Before I get into that, I want to tell you about this COOL app that I got on my phone. It's called Flixel. You film a 10 second video. The video also captures a single image. So you end up with a photograph. You use your finger on the touchscreen to highlight what parts of the photograph you want to move. Kind of hard to explain, but here is one that I did. I don't know how to upload the video to make it HD like I see it on my phone. Also, I don't think clicking on the video works well. Idk. 

   See how it is a photograph of my (deceased) fish, Yellow? But then I highlighted the flowing water to make that part move. It's pretty cool.

Check this one out. Maybe I'll try to do that with my new fish. 

http://flixel.com/flixel/zyud67ezod1jxdbq2avx/

   Okay... So... After creating that Flixel with Yellow, I started eating lunch. As I was eating, I noticed the filter wasn't running water as quickly as it usually does. Know why? Because it was clogged with three fish, thats why. I didn't realize that while I was filming Yellow, all three other fish were dead! Ugh. 

   Yellow ended up dying that night. But Mrs. Black is still kickin'!

   I went to buy new fish today. I chose to get goldfish because they are much tougher than GloFish. There were, like, 20 different types of goldfish to choose from. And the guy helping me was the same guy who sold me the GloFish two weeks ago. We were laughing together at their short life. He was telling me about the different goldfish and then said that these little guys are actually just used for food for the bigger fish, but they do sell them for 15 cents if people want them. He then proceeded to go Discovery Channel on me and demonstrate the feeding. He scooped up a little goldfish and put it in a different tank and I watched it get eaten alive. The goldfish is circled in red. It doesn't have any fins left in this picture:

   So I decided that I need to save a few of these fish from getting eaten. I rescued three. They're about the same length as my last fish but skinnier. They were swimming/exploring their new home really fast so it was basically impossible to take a picture of them without it being blurry. This is the pathetic result. I gave up trying to take a picture after about 15 minutes. They wouldn't hold still. But here it is. They are circled in black. 

   This picture worked, but only one of the fish are in it. This globe tank magnifies everything so they do look much bigger in the tank than they actually are. This guy is also the largest of the three. 

   It is too soon to know if these are cool fish or not. I don't know if they'll be more visible or if they will hide all the time like the other fish. They are still exploring their tank and haven't settled in yet. Mrs. Black seems to like them okay. She came out to welcome them and was swimming laps around the tank with them.
   I don't have names for them. They don't have different colors so I'm pretty lost. I am going to wait a week or two to see if they live and maybe a name will grow on me. I am open to suggestions. Here's to the fish making it through the night!

And now I need to go to sleep. I didn't have school today because of Veteran's Day, so it will be nice to have a short week of class.

Goodnight.

Halloween and a Field Trip

Okay, first I have to share this photo that someone posted to Facebook. I laugh every time I look at it. Reminds me of Rock.

Now, update #1: My fish. I should have named all of them "Chicken Shit," because they are all afraid of me. Whenever I walk into the room, they go hide behind the decorations in the tank. It looks like I don't have any fish - just an empty tank. They are good at hiding. Mrs. Black, the fish that is supposed to hide under a rock all day, comes out to swim laps more often than the other fish. So Mrs. Black is my favorite fish. She even likes rubbing against my finger when I put it against the tank. So, her new name is "Brave" and the rest are named "Chicken Shit 1, 2, 3, and 4."

Ugh.

Update #2: The Okoboji 40 Sailboat project. It doesn't exist anymore. My professors thought it was too challenging for us, so they dropped the project altogether and gave us an easier assignment. For the record, the first project was NOT too difficult for me. I was excelling at it, so I am disappointed that we had to quit. Maybe I'll work on it again someday on my own. I can't easily describe our new project, but I'll try: We were given a pre-made hull (we had to design our own hull on the original project). In this hull we were given, we have to make a GA (general arrangement) that includes 5 berths (beds), one head (bathroom), a sette for 6 (dining table), and a galley (kitchen). And that is it. No exterior styling, no sail plan, no weights and centers calculations, no nothing. Easy peasy. I'll let you know how it goes.

Moving on: Halloween. Halloween was on a Thursday. I was hesitant to go out on a school night, but I couldn't pass up a costume party. The girls I've met came over and got ready at my apartment. No boys allowed. It was fun. I dressed up as a Phoenix Goddess. Kate and Christina were leopards, and Hazel was Batwoman. There were at least 50 people at the costume party and every single person was in a costume, so it was a lot of fun. We had an air guitar contest, dance contest, and super hero battles. Here are some pictures. The boys in the photos with me are some of my yacht design classmates:

Kate on the left, Christina on the right.

 This is Will as the Wolverine. 

Sherwayne as a Tommy Hilfiger Model. 

Channel 4 News Team (Anchorman movie). Zan on the left, Cam on the right.

And this was the classroom 10 minutes into class the next morning:

   We all had a lot of fun on Thursday night, and no one was very excited to get to class on Friday. I was just as exhausted, but the quote I had to repeat to myself on Friday morning was, "no matter what, get up, dress up, and show up." Everyone did eventually show up by 8:30 because we had a field trip that day! We took a trip to the Maine Yacht Center. It was in Portland, so we all carpooled up there together. When we got there, we didn't have a tour or anything, we were just instructed to go explore the boats. It was awesome. They had a huge warehouse of yachts that they are currently building from scratch or repainting, repairing, refitting, etc.

It is difficult to get a sense of scale for how big these boats were. It was scary climbing into them on these ladders. But once you climbed into a boat, you could pretty easily just hop into the next boat without climbing back down to the ground. 

   This is a one-man sailboat that is being prepared for the sailboat race around the world. It is 60 feet long. Listen to this: Our 40-foot sailboats that the class was designing weighed on average 18-20,000 lbs (which is normal for a cruiser/racer 40-foot sailboat). This sailboat is 60 feet rather than 40 feet and is built using the lightest and fewest materials as possible. It weighs 9,000 lbs. Twenty feet longer than my 0-40 and half the weight. That is a big deal. It will definitely sail a lot faster than the Okoboji 40 would. 

    They have green tape on all of the boats to mark what they intend to do for repairs. Such a simple approach.

    This was the largest yacht - 90 feet. This photo is doing a terrible job at portraying its size.

   I had the moment of "woah, I'm really going to be a yacht designer," when I was looking at these boats. After learning the design process in school these past two months, including designing my own 40-foot sailboat, it meant a lot more to see these boats in person. The Okoboji 40 sailboat that I designed was all on paper. I haven't seen my design any larger than 8.5x11 inches long. Coming to this boatyard and seeing real 40-foot sailboats was an eye-opener. They are a LOT bigger than my tiny little drawings on paper. This was when I stopped and took a minute to breathe and digest the thought that this is what I am going to be. I'm going to be a yacht designer. I'm just now finally grasping that idea, and I couldn't be more happy.



   Yesterday was too nice of a day to stay inside. I went to the dog park and watched the dogs play. It was funny. I didn't take any pictures because I thought that might be weird for the dog owners. After the park I went to the beach and watched everything... dogs, surfers, walkers, birds, waves, everything.

I am really happy here.