I like what I do, really

So, from HARBOR, we flew balloons on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. All very successful flights. links to the pictures can be found here, here, and here,

HAR100818
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=473481&id=902415461&l=9e4c8de252

HAR100819
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=473883&id=902415461&l=ebd603f6e7

HAR100820
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=474318&id=902415461&l=86ef68eaa6

I was in charge of the onboard camera, and we got some great stuff! Thursday was really really cool, we used a bigger balloon than before (and had some interesting turbulence, seen in the pictures) and it went higher than any balloon this program has ever flown! We received data from the GPS radios that told us heights of 101,575' and 101,949' and from that and other information *I* extrapolated a true bursting height of 102,089'. (I don't know why anyone else didn't do it, but at some point someone asked me to, but I was busy with my picture stuff, although when I was done no one had done it still so I did).

On Friday we played a game of sorts, guessing what height the balloon would reach before burst. I sort of won, in a way, that I'm not sure I understand, because really Murielle won... anyway, they let the two of us have first pick at paraphernalia and I got a pin from the package that went the highest. I've been wearing it all week, calling it my "space pin" and it makes me really happy.

At some point during the trip, Charla brought up that I only need 8 more credits to be a physic minor. . . a very convincing argument. I'm sure she was targeting me . . . but I did start thinking about and have done so all week and finally broke down and signed up. Now I have Astrophysics with Dr. Palen, the most amazing professor in the world! Most people probably won't understand the significance of this, but now I get to draw all sorts of awesome pictures and it's only too bad there aren't more tests in that class :-) I really need to do something super-amazing for her. She helped make me who I am today. I suppose I have about 2 years to think about it.

I will say I love the entire physics department, and the entire music department. I'm super glad to part of Weber's piano program, they just bought us 4 brand new Steinway model B's to practice on! Also, one of our students won 1st place in a national competition, over a ton of graduate students. Now we have a transfer student from Oberlin Conservatory, and she told me she thinks the pianists at Weber are better. I will stay right where I am, thank you!