Activities Journal



Week 1
	As I mentioned in the Project Journal, the first week was spent getting settled in. My main activities included trying to find my way around and unpacking. However, I did manage to do some fun stuff, too. Devon, her fiancÈe, Jeff, and I went to see the Twins play the Cleveland Indians on Thursday at the Metrodome. The Twins won and we enjoyed close seats, hot dogs, and a soda for $11. Pretty good deal. It was strange when it started to storm. The dome started to shift a bit and Devon calculated her escape route in case a speaker tried to fall on her head. I also managed to hang out with my cousin, Patrick. He and his wife, Holly, live in Minneapolis. I hadn't seen him since I was about 5 years old because his family lived in California, which put us practically a whole country apart. It was really great to get to see him. Hopefully, we will get together a bunch more while I am here. It turns out that he works as a software architect for a consulting company. Currently, he is working on the Best Buy branches of websites. I thought that was pretty cool. His wife teaches Social Studies at a nearby high school. On Saturday, Patrick and I went to the Mall of America and saw Insomnia. This mall could fit about 10 Clarion Malls inside of it. Wow. Then we went to Lake Harriet, which is close to his home, and had a nice walk around. We also looked at the Rose Gardens there. We went to Sebastian Joe's for ice cream, too. Later that night I met Holly and the three of us did a little car tour of UMN, then went to the Pasta Bar. I thought it was funny that around the restaurant there were signs saying, "Drugs." Holly explained to me that the restaurant used to be a drug emporium and the signs still needed changed. On Sunday, Patrick and I went to the Minnehaha Falls and Park and enjoyed a scenic hike along the creek. Afterwards, we went to Cafe Latte for dinner. We both had this really tasty Chicken Chili and some chocolate cake. Yum. One thing about Minneapolis is that you can walk or ride your bike anywhere. I really like getting exercise so I have been enjoying riding my bike, walking, and running along the paths. Near my house on East River Parkway, there is a great running path along the river. I love it!
Week 2
	This week has been pretty boring. Monday I went and bought a fan because it was extremely hot and there is no air conditioning in my house. Wednesday, Devon and I went to a writing workshop and, while the speaker was excellent, I didn't really learn anything new. Since I have taken a decent amount of writing courses and the workshop was a crash course, I wasn't surprised that there wasn't new material. On Thursday, I had hoped to attend a Jewel concert, but the City Pages misprinted the concert date as June rather than July. That was disappointing because she is my favorite female artist. On Saturday, I experienced two more firsts. While dining at Chino Latino's, a really neat restaurant with decorative dishes to share and drinks garnished with little plastic animals (my drink had a giraffe on it), I had my first taste of sushi in the form of a salmon roll. It was quite tasty. Although Pat despised it, Holly and I willingly ate his share. The three of us also shared a surf and turf dish of 4 ounce filets, grilled shrimp, black beans, rice, grilled pineapple, and whole fresh herbs. To walk off our full stomachs, we took a sunset stroll around Lake Calhoun and a nice man took our pictures. Then we went to my first independent film, called Thirteen Conversations About One Thing. The movie cleverly intertwined its characters, although I would not suggest watching it if you are already depressed. It was a good movie, but it was kind of a downer.
Week 3
	On Tuesday, Devon came with me to look for a bridesmaid dress. My best friend, Jenny, is getting married in July, so I really needed some help finding the right dress. We got some choices narrowed down and I discussed them with Jenny. Wednesday, Devon, Jeff, and I went to pick up my dress and then we went to Knuckleheads in the mall to see some Comedy Central comedians compete. It was a lot of fun! We took a picture of the Knuckleheads sign and a picture of Jeff shaking hands with Harry Potter (made of Legos). You can see both of these photos here. On Friday morning I went to breakfast with Daphne and Michelle at The Birchwood Cafe. I had fresh fruit and a Belgian waffle. It was excellent. Friday evening, Patrick and Holly had a summer/house warming party at their new house. It had rained all day until just before their party, when the sun finally came out. I had a lot of fun. On Saturday, Devon, Jeff, and I went to Mech Wars IV at the St. Paul National Guard Armory. It was like the show Battlebots, with robots trying to destroy each other. They competed in a large plexi-glass and metal arena that had fire shooting randomly from the center of the floor and a spinning blade in the corner. It made Devon and me want to change the whole implementation of our robots. Instead of finding targets and returning them to base, we just want them to explode the targets once they are found.
Week 4
	On Tuesday, Devon and I attended an EE meeting and listened to a talk about making posters and Power Point presentations. We also talked to Doug Ernie, the group's organizer, so we could take some practice GREs while we are here. We will be getting some GRE prep books on Friday. Tuesday evening, I went to Patrick's softball game and they won. His team is in first place. Here is where you can find statistics on his team and other teams in the league. His team is called Coopers and he plays in the men's D West league. I haven't played softball for 3 years and it made me miss it. I wish we had leagues for my age group at home. On Wednesday, I went to dinner at Pat and Holly's and it was great! Pat grilled some excellent salmon and Holly made some delicious pasta with pesto sauce and asparagus. Even though she said she got the recipe from a magazine, I still think she is a very creative chef! On Thursday, my boyfriend, Josh (what a sweetie), came to visit and we went to dinner with Devon and Jeff at Anthony's Wharf. It was a nice restaurant along the river. From our seats we could see carriage rides going by. The food was decent, but our server was not very attentive (I am sort of anal about that since I am a server-shouldn't I expect the service I have to give?). On Friday, Devon and I went to a luncheon at the Digital Technology Center (a very expensive marbled building that looks more like a museum than an engineering library). The purpose of the luncheon was to discuss graduate school and teaching, particularly from a woman's point of view. There was a lot of useful information given and I enjoyed the discussion. After lunch, we watched Holly (an MIT graduate) give a presentation on her robotic wheelchair. The presentation was excellent. She was very interesting. That evening, Josh and I took Devon and Jeff to the airport because they were going back to Cincinnati for a little over a week. It was Josh's birthday, so, of course I had to try to make his day special. I made him dinner and baked a cake (you can see the pictures in the Photogallery). He also opened his presents and then we went to see Minority Report at the mall. That movie was awesome, by the way. On Saturday, Josh and I went to Valley Fair, which is a local amusement park with a water park, an IMAX theater, and shows throughout the day. It felt like it was 200 degrees outside, so we went on the log ride and got soaked. On Sunday, we went for a bike ride along the river so I could show Josh where I go running. We went by the waterfall and decided to climb the rocks beside it. Going up wasn't so bad, but I was not too keen on climbing down backwards, so I made Josh walk with me about a mile out of the way so we could go down the stairs (I am still sorry :P ). After getting all sweaty and nasty because it was still about 200 degrees outside, we got cleaned up and went to the mall because it is cooler there (at least some places have AC). We walked the entire area of the mall. Then we got hungry and went to Cafe Odyssey for dinner. The scenery was very unique there. We decided to watch a movie, but still had an hour to kill before it started, so we went to Jillian's for some arcade action. We "won" 200 tickets and got matching shot glasses as souvenirs. Then we watched Mr. Deeds. I thought that this movie was hilarious in a Saturday Night Live sort of way. Even if the critics think it is stupid, I sat in a theater full of people, including Josh and I, who were cracking up over it.

Week 5
	On Monday, I took off of work and went to Minnehaha falls and Lake Calhoun with Josh (again, consult the Photogallery). We went swimming in the lake and it felt GOOD with the extreme heat. That evening, we met up with Pat and Holly to go to P.F. Chang's China Bistro for dinner. Then we went to see The Bourne Identity, which was another excellent flick. On Tuesday morning, Josh and I went to get Jenny and Hoj a wedding present. I can't tell you what we got yet because their wedding is July 14th. Then I said a sad goodbye to my honey and went to work for 11 hours to make up for the time I took off on Monday. On Thursday night, I headed over to Pat and Holly's to see some fireworks for the 4th. First I learned how to play rummy the Kragthorpe-Shirley way. Then, we went with their neighbors to the mall parking lot to loiter with our fellow firework watchers. We actually got to see two shows at once because of the location. Afterwards, I went back to Pat and Holly's and had pizza and daiquiris while we played the "name game." On Sunday, I picked Devon and Jeff up from the airport.
Week 6
	On Monday, Devon and I went to take a practice GRE, which, although it was useful, was not much fun. To make matters better, we got to take them on some lovely Mac computers. On Wednesday, I went to dinner with Pat and Holly at The Good Earth Restaurant and Bakery in Edina. They had a very good menu (a mix of healthy yet tasty which is what I love). I wish we had more places like that where I live. I had a Portabella mushroom pita pizza with basil pesto and tomatoes. Yum. On Thursday, I flew home for Jenny's wedding. I went to dinner with my mom and my little brother, Zach, when they picked me up from the airport. He was so excited to see me and had a million questions. Later that night, I went to Jenny's apartment to help her make her wedding favors. A bunch of our friends came over and helped. Late that night, Josh arrived, exhausted from his 6 hour drive from work in Michigan to my house in Pennsylvania. On Friday, Jenny, Jarah, and I got our nails done and Josh got a haircut. Josh and I went to the store and bought a few things that we needed for the wedding still. On Saturday, we went to the rehearsal dinner. Jenny gave me the necklace and earrings you will see me wearing in the pictures if you look at the Photogallery. Then a bunch of us went to see Jenny and Hoj's new house. They got a really good deal on a 4 bedroom house with an attic, basement, garage, shed, and a nice sized yard. The place is really cute. Jenny and I went to her cousin's after that and got our makeup "done." That night, Josh and I wrapped up the video camera and tripod we got for Jenny and Hoj and took it with us to the restaurant where we would be making programs and decorating. We let them open their present that night because we wanted them to be able to use it on their trip to Canada and for the wedding. We watched fireworks on the pond behind the Wolf's Den (where Jenny, Hoj, and I all work and also where the wedding would take place) because it was the restaurant's 30th birthday. Then we worked on programs and decorated until about 2:30 in the morning, at which point we were all running around acting silly because we were so tired. On Sunday, Josh and I went to the river to relax a bit before we had to get ready for the wedding. Then Jenny, Lynda (her mom), and I went to get our hair done. Afterwards, we all went to the bed and breakfast beside the restaurant to get some before wedding pictures done. We all tried our best to keep Jenny from crying (although I was on the verge of tears myself). The ceremony was beautiful and everything went smoothly. Jenny looked gorgeous and relieved to get everything done. The wedding wrapped up around 1.
Week 7
	On Friday night, my room mate, Michelle, had a going away party. She is leaving August 3 for graduate school in Michigan. She got her bachelor's degree in French and at her party was the first time I heard her speak in French. She has an excellent accent. She made a ton of food and everything was really good. On Sunday, it was so extremely hot that Michelle, Daphne, and I went to a movie to escape the heat. We went to the Roseville theater to see Changing Lanes. The theater shows movies that are in between the theaters only and on video stage and charges $2. I thought that was a pretty good deal. Then Daphne and I went to Chipotle for some fajitas.
Week 8
	On Saturday, Devon and I flew to the AAAI Conference in Edmonton, Alberta at the Shaw Conference Center.

Week 9
	We received funding from the NSF to attend and had a great time while we learned a lot. We were at the conference from July 27 until August 2. We stayed in the dorms and traveled by train to the conference center. During the stay, we got to go to the West Edmonton Mall, which is the largest mall in the world. It has over 800 stores, some submarines, a waterpark with a wave pool, an underwater adventure park, an amusement park, and glow in the dark putt-putt golf. We also got to eat at some great bistros and a Mexican place in the mall called Julio's. We had a reception at Fort Edmonton Park that was a lot of fun. We rode an old fashioned street car to the place where we would eat and got to explore the area that was set up like a town in the 1800s. We also got to listen to some interesting talks and see other students present their robots as well as join Paul in exhibiting our robots. The talk I liked the most was the World Trade Center talk. Robin Murphy gave this talk about her group who used robots to aid in the search and rescue during the 9/11 events. Some of the details of what the robots saw were graphic, but I like that robots can be used for something that is humanitarian. Some of the neatest robots were Grace (she was the Robot Challenge robot who had to enter the conference center, register for the conference, and give a talk), some reconfigurable robots, some robot puppets (they didn't actually work because the guy had trouble with their wireless communications, but if they would have worked, they would have put on a play, which is cool), and facial expression robots (these robots were made by a guy who sculpted the faces himself and powered motion in the faces by using servos under the skin. They looked very realistic). Other things that I liked were the BotBall robots. These were made by middle school and high school students. I thought that it was impressive because I never had the opportunity to do anything computer related except word processing when I was that age. Another group that encourages children to get involved is RoboCup Jr. Make sure you check out my Photogallery for pictures that I took at the conference. To get the funding for the trip, Devon and I had to write papers summarizing our experience. Here is my paper.
Week 10
	Ok, so this week sort of started out crappy for both Devon and me. On Saturday night some group of jackasses broke into her car and stole some stuff from her, which really sucks. Then, on Sunday afternoon, as I was running on my peaceful path along the river, this pervert was following me on his bike and gave me the worst pick up line ever (Excuse me, could you tell me what time it is? ...So you wanna fool around?) Needless to say, I bolted out of there ASAP, scared out of my mind since there were no people around and my only means of escape were to run the fastest half mile of my life or jump in the river. So, now I no longer run on my nice riverside trail. Sometimes people just ruin things. We both hope to have some pleasant activities during the remainder of our last week here to redeem our opinion of Minneapolis. On Monday I went to dinner at Pat and Holly's and it was excellent of course. Then Holly took me to Marathon Sports to get some decent running shoes (mine had been giving me killer blisters) and now my feet love me. On Thursday night Devon, Jeff, and I went to the movies to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which was hilarious. That was the last fun thing we would do together since our internship is finished on Friday. I had a really great time getting to know Devon this summer.