New news: Cool stuff. We've been keeping extremely busy in this "Discover Mechanical Engineering" program doing all sorts of stuff. On Monday we were introduced to our projects and spent quite a few hours working on them, spaced between breakfast, lunch and dinner - all free, every day this week in this program. We had to construct there soccer robots, which were simply remote controled cars that we'd eventualy use in a 4x4 soccer match. We spent the first part of Tuesday working on our 'robot' car thingies then toured the various MIT labs - awesome stuff - we got to see the $500,000 goo machine that can make anything you put into the computer, at least 30 lathes and the same number of drill presses and computer controlled milling machines, a wind tunnel, jet engine, liquid nitrogen junk (the teacher stuck his hand in a vat of it and splashed it out - apparently it doesn't hurt you if you touch it for only a short time), plastic 'muscle' thingies, a robot that runs around the ceiling, a robot snail, a plastic injector molder thing, a heated plastic suction shaper molder thing, then we got on a boat and toured around the waterways seeing Eric Clapton's boat and the Boston Tea Party boat and a whole bunch of other stuff. The next day we saw the Blue Man Group in Boston and got a tour of the Boston GE plant where they MAKE the jet engines and got to see everything in the factory - cool stuff. They also make gear boxes and we saw the gearbox of the USS Cole which got partialy blown-up a few years ago. Yesterday we toured a design firm, which has worked on everything from the Swiffer Sweeper to kid gas masks and Coleman BBQs. Today we had the tournament - my team, team #1 - was the first to be eliminated - bummer. We're gettin the final meal with them today, then rush 'starts' and we're supposed to be able to get free junk all of next week from dorms which want you to put them in the adjustment lottery. I've seen my roommate all of about 5 minutes and the next day he dissapeared leaving all of his stuff in the room - that was Monday, I'm not quite sure where he went, but probably he went on one of the 'Outdoor' programs, or he fell into the Charles.....who knows.

MIT - I'm there now, or here, to be more specific - I guess if you're not here then I'm there. Mom and I got bumped to first class on both legs of the trip out here, which was completely richous. We got in at around 7PM yesterday, took a cab to the place where my mom is staying, then I ran over to MIT to figure out housing. I got keys to a room then went back to get my stuff and bring it over, but ended up staying where my mom was because it started raining. Today, I came over, got my MIT ID and a bunch of papers, moved my bags - except for the mess of organized wires - then ate dinner w/ my pre-orientation group. Pretty busy, pretty crazy. I am now sitting in my room surrounded by 8 bags, 5 of which are not mine, waiting for the ghost roommate to show up. This room is apparently only temp, and things will probably change Again in two weeks. Oh - and there's a stuffed fake penguin on the other bed which is kinda freakin me out..... so, what's on the tele then?

Ok, so - I've got something like 16 hours left to pack. Time to get started. Things have been pretty exciting recently; I've been mini-golfing, hanging out with friends at Boca, walking through the train sheds, watching movies, bowling, camping at Stampede - all in the last four days.

I saw Robin Williams and his son today in the Longs parking lot. I pointed out this Mercedes to my dad with some nice road bikes on it, and what do you know, Robin Williams came walking back to the car. My dad tried to strike up a conversation but he didn't really want to talk too much - probably he's sick of people knowing who he is even when he's here, next to the middle of nowhere. He had four bikes on the back, three road bikes and one mountain bike - all with different types of clipless pedals - strange they're not all of the same type of pedal if you ask me. It seems like most people have a favorite pair of biking shoes and stick those types of clips on all of their bikes. Who knows. I also saw Edgar today - YO ED! E-mail me! Anyway, I'm now going to go off and wipe the foot or so layer of ...um.....stuff off of my desk here at my dad's house into a box and decide what I should bring. I plan on only taking a backpack and a small duffel tomorrow, but packing several boxes to be mailed out later on. Not everyday you see some name actor - a few years ago Tom Green apparently went through the rental shop at Northstar while I was working there. I was handing out boots, and no one else thought they gave him boots - so, being in a daze, I must have given him his boots - why is this something to brag about, who knows.

I retired today - my last day at Lake Tahoe Online was today. I plan on buying a vacation home in Barbados or Guam and live on the beach drinking lemonade and eating sushi all day long. Too bad I leave for cold, grey Mass in 6, 5 days now.... oh well. I got a real cool case/binder thing for DVDs a couple days ago. I'm into watching movies again just because of this stupid cool case. I want to write more, and it seems like I should, but I don't really have much to say; so, that's all for now - ta ta

Hey, so my dad got me an iSight in hopes that he could video conference with me at MIT. It's really cool, much better quality than I expected.


I've added the quotes to the top of Bavetta.com again and have been playing around trying to get it so that you can add a quote for everyone to see. Right now the goal is to have it load one of the old quotes, load the bottom page - then load the quote or comment that the last person left at the top of the page. It only kind of works. Oh well. Also, anyone should be able to add comments to any of the posts here (exciting, huh?). So, if I happen to accidently say something thought provoking, you can tell me to stop. I leave for Boston on the 16th - T minus 14 days and counting....