On the move…

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This weekend I’m moving out of MIT grad housing to an apartment in Davis Square.  I think I would have liked to stay longer in Ashdown House but I’m also becoming disgruntled at the way MIT treats its graduate students. I’m moving out of Ashdown because MIT housing is closing it for renovations and moving all the grad students to a new Ashdown. This way they can pack the old Ashdown full of undergrads and charge the grad students $$$ to live in tiny dorm-sized rooms in the new Ashdown. It’s part of MIT’s larger goal of profiting off grad students as much as possible. Why graduate students want to move to the new building is equally baffling. I’m moving to a much nicer apartment with much lower rent.

Anyway, after I move I’m turning around and leaving on Tuesday to go backpacking in the Sierra-Nevadas for two weeks with Courtney and my family! We’ll try to make blog posts whenever we get the chance. We’re doing a 6 day trip in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, spending a few days in San Francisco, climbing Half Dome in Yosemite, and possibly attempting to climb Mt. Tyndall, one of the 14,000 ft peaks near Mt. Whitney.

I have to shut down my old web server for the move, so I’ve moved this website to my office computer. One downside of living off campus is the lack of high speed internet access.

Engaged on Mt. Adams!

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More details to come later…

Courntey's engagement ring Top of Mt. Adams

Last weekend my girlfriend Courtney and I and hiked Mt. Adams in New Hampshire with two other friends from church (Shannon Fogwell and her boyfriend Dave). I proposed to Courtney at the top of King Ravine, a short distance below the summit, and she said yes! I had given Shannon and Dave a heads-up about the proposal, so after we took a break at a nice scenic point at the top of King Ravine, Shannon and Dave packed up their packs and I suggested they go on to the summit and Courtney and I would catch up. We both had to go to the bathroom. When Courtney and I were ready to go, I pulled out the ring and we enjoyed several precious minutes together watching the clouds clear over this beautiful landscape:

King Ravine, Mt. Adams

I chose to propose on a hike because we first met on a hike and we we both love the outdoors. I chose Mt. Adams because I figured Courtney was probably expecting the proposal to come on our upcoming trip this August to the Sierra Nevadas. I figured she especially wasn’t expecting a proposal on a trip with other friends.

Courtney and I first met hiking nearby Mt. Washington, the tallest mountain in the northeast, more than a year ago. Although Mt. Washington has sentimental value for both of us, we like to joke about the autoroad and cog railway that take tourists to the a cafeteria, gift shop, and museum at the top. I chose Mt. Adams because it’s the tallest mountain in the northeast with a natural summit. There is also a great view of Mt. Washington from the top of Mt. Adams, and since both mountains are close to home, Courtney and I can return often to hike them.

Mt. Adams panorama

Celtics!

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We’re running out of bandwagons to jump on in Boston. I can’t say I watched more than a few regular season Celtics games this year, but Celtics did an amazing job of scrapping together a team of fighters that played good defense and got the job done. Watching them completely destroy the Lakers last night was amazing and seemed like a good way to win. There is no question that they were better. There was also the usual Boston-style post-championship rioting.

Side note – does anyone know what Kevin Garnett is talking about in this post-game interview?

It’s interesting that even though the Celtics are a historically successful team, you didn’t hear anything about them in Boston until part way through this season. I gues they hadn’t done much recently to get excited about and the Red Sox and Patriots were stealing all the attention. But I also wonder if the NBA has lost popularity. I haven’t really been an NBA fan since Jerry Reinsdorf’s destruction of the Bulls in 1999. I’ve tried, but now I just like baseball better. I can’t decide if the NBA was more popular and exciting during the 90’s or if my perception of the NBA’s popularity was skewed because I grew up in Chicago. It seemed like everyone everywhere cared about basketball. There was the Dream Team, Jordan, Pippen, Brid, Magic, Ewing, Rodman, etc. Maybe the marketing machine behind Michael Jordan just can’t be matched. Maybe it was because the Bulls were the only good team in Chicago (well, the White Sox were ok, but there was the baseball strike). Maybe basketball was more popular.