GREGGLES INVADES NYC AND THE 3D BLOG

Heyo, 3D and friends!

So I got Lily drunk last night and she gave me the password to the blog. Actually, she got herself drunk, but I definitely helped a lot. As did Dan Egan. I have to give him credit, too. Lily: how was your morning today? When I left her, she was close to passing out on her couch. I predict her morning went like this:

Anyway, our story begins over Blitz a few weeks ago. I live in Westchester County, NY, a 36-minute train ride from NYC. I told Lily I'd come into the city to hang out with her on the condition that she blog about it. Obviously I'm incredibly jealous of this exclusive blog and I want some 3D facetime myself. Then she gave me some excuse about "working too much to update." Psh. As if "Merril Lynch" is a legit company or something. We all know the financial sector is just a bunch of clowns anyway.

So yeah. I just finished working for SEAD on campus this past weekend (which was absolutely incredible - if you're interested, I can tell you all about it another time when I'm not taking up space on a blog that isn't mine), so now I'm home for a few days, hanging out with high school friends and sleeping. Since I'm starting work for DOC Summer Crew (Hi McCauley!) this coming Monday, I only have a few days here. I contacted Lily to see if she wanted to hang out, and man, does that girl work. She works something like 9 AM - 11 PM every single day of the week. I think she said she's worked every day since July 4th. Craziness.

Anyway, after I had dinner with my friend Sarah, we met up with Lily and Dan and their other roommate Cathy at some midtown bar. Lily was dressed EXACTLY like what I'd expect from an I-banker. Here's a reference:

Yes, that is "Secretary Barbie," in case you didn't know. Yes, I did just Google "naughty secretary" with my SafeSearch off. So what? Anyway, we hung out for a while in this bar and then went back. Overall, it was a pretty fun night. Dan told us about the time he hooked up with a potential '14 (I'll let you readers figure out the age on that one), Lily drank like 16 hurricanes, and they played at least two Taylor Swift songs in the bar. I was pretty happy.

I guess that's it. Hope everything's going well for all of you, and hope to hear more from you soon. Oh, also, to the current members of 3D (if they read this): thanks for letting me sleep on your couch last week. It was nice.

-Greggles

Palmer - Over a month in Europe

Howdy all -

It's been a little while, so I thought I'd throw some updates down. We're still in Ceuse, and the climbing has been awesome. We've each gotten some projects done - most of which will be in Scottie's movie when he finishes - and have a huge list of other things we want to do, but we're peacing out for Spain in about a week so a lot of them will have to wait until next year. Except for me and Scottie, who are coming back here for another month after a month in Spain. Word.

Yesterday, we got to hang out with Arnaud Petit, Sylvain Millet (second ascent of Realization), Jon Cardwell, Issac Caldiero, Sean McColl, and Dave Graham. Watching them climb has been awesome - it's ridiculous to see people who so thoroughly dominate the sport as they do. Watching them is like watching a video about what climbing is supposed to look like. They make 5.14c look like a stroll. And then Jon's about one move away from sending Realization, so that's been awesome to watch, and Dave's been toproping it because he fucked up his ankle at the World Cup in Vail a couple of months ago and can't take lead falls. He was joking that he's the first person in the history of the world to toprope Realization, which might be true.

It's been really fun being at Ceuse. I had no idea just how world-renowned this place is until coming here. Humor me for a second and check out this list of home countries of the people we've met:

USA
Canada
France
Germany
Spain
Italy
Poland
Sweden
Czech Republic
Japan
Singapore
Argentina
Brazil
New Zealand
Australia
Estonia
Finland
Austria
South Africa

Pretty freaking cool.

Right now we're at the only place in Gap, France with free internet. I'll give you a clue where it is: here, you'll be able to find fries, milkshakes, big macs, and the only overweight people in the country. Yup, McDonald's. We've been calling it the McEmbassy.

Unfortunately, not as many people here speak English as they do in Germany, and I only know enough French to get myself into trouble: I can start conversations, but beyond that I'm pretty much screwed. A few weeks ago, in celebration of one-month-in-Europe-without-going-broke-and-starving, we went to a pizza place in a nearby town where I attempted to order a pizza with a few minor alterations. I ended up with a Calzone. And when asking for the bill, we somehow ended up with raspberry creme brulee. Yeah, it's been awkward.

Anyway, on Sunday we're heading down to Rodellar for three weeks or so, dumping Steve and Kiff off at the airport :-( and heading back to Ceuse. After about two weeks here, wee-little-feintzeig is showing up, and after he leaves I guess we're off to Fontainbleau (which we decided about 2 hours ago). And at some point we're gonna somehow sell our car to somebody - any of you guys want it?

Hope you're all well! Sounds like we're gonna have a pretty awesome story telling around the kegerator when we all get back, which I'm really excited about.

Palmer

3D . in . DC . NYC .

It has been too long without an update. Starting back in June a ton of people happened to come through Washington DC all at once. On Friday, June 19 I got a visit by the Big Green Bus! They rolled up to the Hill and parked right outside the Botanical Gardens in front of the Capitol. It was pretty cool to see the Bus in action. The Bus is AWESOME. It’s really neat on the inside (although I remember it being oppressively hot) and there’s a ton of interesting sustainable construction products and exhibits inside. People were pretty surprised to see me wearing a suit, but that’s the Monday-Friday nine to five gig (C’est la vie for our French readers, Hi Andrew!). I arranged for a tour of the bus for some of the Committee staff and they were all very impressed. I gave Kari a big hug and someone on the Bus who didn’t know me said, “Did Kari just hit that man?”.

However, the Bus was not the main attraction that weekend. Three-dizzle resident and future Dirty Cowboy Star Andrew M stopped by while he visited family and Caitlin P made an appearance for the weekend! It was great seeing them both and I took them to my favorite bar in Dupont Circle called “The Big Hunt” (apparently it ‘smells like frat’, oh well. I like it). We met up with Caroline and Carrie who are in Washington for the summer and had dinner. It was great having Andrew and Caitlin in town and everyone is welcome to come visit me!

That Sunday I met up with the Bús in Bethesda and went to a College Summer League Baseball game where the Bus threw out the first pitch. It was a very small little stadium, but it was a lot of fun to stand right behind homeplate and watch the game. The Bus riders wanted to just chill, so me and Big Rory G headed into DC to hit the club scene. Yes, the club scene. A summary of the night:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czR1yxKfhUc
What a summer.

The next week was Independence Day-Week Recess. Yes, Congress takes a whole week off for the 4th of July, so I got to take off a little early and head up to New York City and drop in on Lily. I went up Wednesday night and met Lily at her posh 1 Bryant Park ML office. I crashed at her place, which is very close to Time Square. The next morning went out to Strong Island to visit my Grandparents.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-15-2009/long-island-wants-to-secede

Unfortunately, my Grandfather had broken his hip earlier that week and was in the hospital. He is doing better, but it’s not an easy recovery. My Mom flew in for the weekend and I saw her for 8 hours on Thursday. I headed back in to Manhattan and hung out with Lily and her roommate (and my tripee!) Cathy (and Kate’s tripee too!). We went to Cathy’s office to watch the fireworks over the Hudson. We were 20 stories up and the perfect view of the river. Thanks Cathy! Then we went down to the East Village where my friend from home, David, lives. He had a small party on the roof of his apartment where we had a little bbq, music, ‘Coming to America’, fireworks, and a couple of my friends from home. I hope Lily and Cathy enjoyed it! The next morning, Lily promptly woke me up at 9 am, after I had dragged myself home at 5am, to go to Dim Sum in Chinatown. Even though I had a horrendous hangover, it was so worth it. Lily took Cathy and I to this Dim Sum restaurant that was so good. I had never been to Dim Sum before and Lily gave me a crash course and made sure I had twice as much as I needed. No English was spoken and I was the only white-devil in the building, except for the one family they put in the basement near the bathroom (at least they didn’t give me a fork!). After Dim Sum, we hit up the Asian market and got some dunkaroo-like things that I love and some Koala Yummies. However, I was in search for some hot kicks. I was very determined to find a cheap pair of fly Nike Air Max 90’s, but we didn’t see any around. I had a tip that I could find some around 28th and Broadway, so Lily and I headed that way. We found the place deserted, but I saw this group of African dudes selling handbags and the like and asked them if they had some sneaks. They knew a guy who then wanted to sell me some shoes from his apartment and led me to some building. I told Lily that she should take off, as she had to do some work, but she insisted on coming with me to make sure I didn’t get killed (good thing she did). When the guy took us to some sketchy empty apartment building and told me he didn’t have exactly what I wanted, but that I should come in, I told him ‘fuck that’ and then people started yelling at us and long story short, Lily and I peaced out ASAP and jumped into a cab that happened to drive by just at the right time. Phew.

All in all, it was a great trip to New York and it ended all too soon.

The next weekend, Toth came to visit for Potomac Fest. Here is the trip report I sent in for Ledyard Council:

Trip Report:

By the Numbers:

18 hours of driving,
1 borrowed neon green Everest,
4 hours of sleep,
67 cents in his pocket to make it back to NY,
5 trips between VA & MD, and
1 lost phone = a happy toth running The Great Falls of the
Potomac.

1 borrowed Wsport Fuse,
4 hours of sleep because I had to let Toth into my
apartment,
3 kayaks in a 400 sqft apartment, and
1 paddle between me and Toth (supplemented by hand paddles
courtesy of awesome local paddler) = a happy elar at the
Potomac playspot.

It’s been a very exciting few weeks. After a very stressful week in the office, I took a short trip to Delaware. I’ll save that one for another post.

Less than two weeks before I’m out of here! What a summer.

Jake: At School

Hey everyone! I'm currently at Northfield Mount Hermon in Western Mass. Ive been here for a month now, which means there are only two weeks left! Next week is a busy one, but after that it should start winding down. Its been good so far. A lot of work but also pretty fun. My physics class is really cool. I have 6 really diverse (ability-wise, culturally, racially, socioeconomically, etc.) kids, and my master teacher is a pretty chill and cool guy. Recently we have a new addition to our class - my master teacher's 2-month-old golden retriever puppy. Yeah, my physics class has a puppy. Pretty awesome.

Teaching has been fun. Yesterday we did a demo where we threw raw eggs. Earlier in the week we made and launched water rockets. Its been good, but a lot of work planning lessons and stuff. The kids in the dorm are also fun but more of a pain in the ass.

Tomorrow I finally have one day off, so I'm heading up to Cannon to climb with Mccauley, Mark, and Marc Shapiro. Should be good. Next weekend is my actual weekend off but I gotta go home to get my wisdom teeth out, which is a bummer. Luckily the doctor said it should be a pretty quick surgery without much trouble, which is good.

That's about all thats good and new up here. Life is pretty uneventful, no crazy adventures, just grinding through the physics curriculum one lesson at a time. I leave for Ecuador in less than a month, though, which is pretty wild!

Hope yall are doing well!

Parky in kigoma

Howdy all,

So there isn't that much more to update on, but I figured that I would update before I disappear in Mwamgongo for the next 3 weeks, where I will have no internet and only solar power.

Dermott and I are heading out on a boat with JGI today to mwamgongo. We are going to do some fieldwork and the group is going to hang out in kigoma and talk some more with jgi

the groups blog is at http://sites.google.com/site/helpworldwidetanzania/summerblog

there is a lot more info on there.

I'll post when I get back to civilization, probably when my parents show up and we go on safari.

-Parker

Kate and Ben

Happy birthday, 'Murrica!

 

(we need one of these)

Palmyface - In Ceuse!

Bonjour, mes amis!

We just got into Ceuse ealier this week, and so far we've had four days of climbing and two of rest. The climbing here is incredible - without question the best in the world. We've all flailed a good bit, but it's just way too beautiful here to really care too much. In the picture above you can see part of the view from the top of the hour-long hike or at the bottom of the cliff. And if you look closely, Realization is the line just beyond the orange streak on the right. I touched the start holds - no biggie.

Life here has been incredible - wake up, drink coffee, wait til the cliff goes into the shade, hike up, collapse at the top (roughly 7,000 feet), climb til dark, get down, make dinner, pass out, repeat. Today's a rest day, so we're spending it in Gap, about 20 km from Ceuse. Lizzy and Ben Shear '06 are allegedly arriving today, so I think we're all gonna throw down American-style for the 4th in the gite (guesthouse) Lizzy's dad reserved for the week.

Anyway, the other guys are waiting for me in the car, so I've gotta run. More to come! And Scottie's getting some badass footage, so there'll be a movie too.

Wo0t!
Palmer

Dar es Salaam

Hamjambo! Salama kutoka Tanzania!

I've been in Tanzania for about 48 hours at this point. Its pretty cool and wicked crazy. We are in Dar es Salaam which is the largest city in Tanzania. Currently we are working with two professors at the university of Dar es Salaam on building the stove designs. Dr. Rajabu is a pretty amazing guy, speaks english and works on energy stuff, including efficient cooking stoves. He'll be coming out to Mwamgongo with us. There is also this guy from denmark Laus who is help us out.

We've been definitely getting the crash course in Swahili because hardly anyone speaks english and we end up having to do pretty much everything in swahili. Which is really cool. Dermott and Louis especially have picked up a lot over the week that we have been here. I've certainly come a long way in the last two days. I've never actually lived in another country, and so far it is a pretty cool experience. We now have 4 cell phones, so it is super easy to coordinate across the group. Its going to be strange when we are in the village and have better cell service than hanover.

Getting around Dar is pretty easy, there is a pretty extensive bus service called dala dalas. They are these little vans with a couple rows of bench seats that go all the time and pretty much everywhere in the Dar area. Its pretty amazing how many people they pack in them and everytime you get on one, which is anytime we want to go somewhere, you are pretty much guarenteed to be squished between about 15 other africans. Dar is also crazy. We went to this market district on a friday night and there were people everywhere and tons of stuff being sold.

Anyway, I am certainly getting an experience out of this, and learning a lot of swahili. We are going to The US Embassy tongiht for the forth of July, there is a party and fire works. I'm pretty excited about that, it should be real fun. We head out to Kigoma on the 8th. Which is all the way in the west of tanzania and the closest City to the village that we are going to be working in.

Word. I'll update again soon. I'll have pretty good internet access until we head to the village, and then it will be only when we go back into the city.

Dermo and I are also getting pretty excited for our adventures at the end of the trip.

Kwa heri.

-Parker

Lil-ski: Some bitching from New York

So I've been keeping track of things I want to write about on my next post (on a post-it note, haha) and I just realized that practically everything is really just a complaint. Everyone else seems to be having great adventures, so I'm really happy to hear about them! Bear with me...
The good:
Elar got here last night! Today he is at his grandparents house, but he's coming back tomorrow until Sunday. Our little monica-lewinsky is here until sunday, and can probably write his own post, haha.
So I had one really cool thing to do -- for every deal that is completed, everyone on the team gets something called a "deal toy", its just something to commemorate the work put into it. Basically, I got to go on the new Transformers website for about half an hour and search for optimus prime and megatron to become deal toys. It was awesome.
I also made a taxi driver friend. We are "cost cutting" so everyone is required to use taxis instead of corporate black cars. Taxis sketch me out a little bit because in the back of my head, I think that the cabbie could literally do anything to me and I couldn't stop it. Anyways, I became good friends with this jamaican guy - so nice - and he even gave me his cell phone number so that every time I need to go home I can just call him and he'll come take me home. I have to call him though haha.
Everyone in my apartment is super chill. We all hang out when we can, and we try to have "family activities". Usually it involves going to this place called Pinkberry - -it's this froyo place with not just any foco froyo. It's so delicious! I'v also been watching Pushing Daisies (I actually bought the last 3 episodes because I couldn't find them for free online) and all my roommates make fun of me. They think its weird.
I've decided that this post is long enough, so I'll leave out all the bad stuff. Until next time!