After driving a million hours to NYC and back, I headed east AGAIN on the 18th in preparation for Father's Day. Just kidding, that was kind of unintentional, although we did go to Ken's pool to celebrate. Actually I celebrated Father's Day by proving that I love my dad the most ever, the best way possible: by running over a traffic cone and cracking off part of my bumper valance. The cone was between my freakishly-segregated-for-no-reason lane and my highway exit, and I thought that since the cone had already been obviously run over, it would be safer. Clearly I was not thinking. But finding a replacement sure gave dad something to do, and I hear he really likes being busy, so there's that. Good thing I got him Malin's and Pep Boy's gift certificates also, perhaps....
ANYWAY. The reason I had the opportunity to exhibit such remarkable driving prowess is because I was headed to Design Science Lab, which I had found during a googling rampage borne out of a what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here fit at work. Conveniently enough, since it was possibly going to teach me about the intersection of science and politics and that's vaguely relevant to my thesis, my advisor agreed to partially fund me. Woo hoo!
Except...it was a fairly bizarre program. I somehow had the impression that it would be larger, when in fact it appears to mostly be run by two men who are sweet and intelligent people but not terribly organized. Nonetheless, we teleconferenced with several people at the UN, which was very cool, and learned primarily about the design science process as proposed by Buckminster Fuller. The oft-repeated quote is that we were trying to "Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.” A pretty cool idea, if awfully far-reaching.
Some of the lectures tested my patience with respect to realism as an engineer, but once we got down to the group project it was like magically being transported back to undergrad. That sense of immediacy, scrambling to get everything done all right while also staying up late, stealing golf flags and talking about everything, was very cool to return to. Even if the food was amazingly bad and the windowless dorm bathrooms were a little reminiscent of prison. I met a ton of awesome people and had an inordinate amount of fun with the few hours we had free every day. For example, I dragged many of them to Sam's Club (a HILARIOUS event for ecologically-mindful Australians to which this practice is unknown) and Dark Horse (burgers and drinks are still awesome!) one night. Another day we went to a mall, hit up a gigantic Whole Foods and highjacked a merry-go-round for free. During the latter, boys ten years younger than me were catcalling by urging me to check out their facebook pages. Teen boys: is that actually a thing? I am pretty sure it is not. Also, I was with other dudes, what is wrong with you people? But I was too happy with my teacup ride to actually be angry. Another time we were walking outside and heard fireworks, then found a clear vantage point and watched them go off for twenty minutes. Amazing. And THEN I learned how an ice cream vending machine works, which just added to the fun!
The project, by the way, culminated in a presentation to actual players at the NYC United Nations HQ. Veeeeeery cool. I found yet another one of those cracked art globes (sister, I suppose, to those at the Vatican and in Dublin), plus saw parts of the Berlin wall, a lot of art, a very heart-wrenching exhibit on what the UN does, and walked in the security council room. It was a roller coaster kind of day, goofy and serious and professional and wide-eyed. Not sure I'd need to do the whole program again, but what I did achieve was pretty awesome. I never thought of the UN as a place to work, but now it doesn't seem that far out. As long as that construction finishes, of course.
After a long goodbye with everyone, I drove down to Lewes for beach week! It was kind of a shaky one this year for everyone but next year's will be better. It's the first time I've cut my beach week short, and it totally put me out of sync. Plus I had a lot of sleep to catch up on so I wasn't actually a coherent human being the first couple days, which certainly didn't help. It was still relaxing, though, and fun. Also hilarious was our fourth of july party, as much for the company as the fact that my friend Christine, with whom I had spent many hours during the Lab, was driving down to SC from Boston on the 4th and ended up crashing at my place. Except she totally got caught up in the worst post-fireworks traffic in a long time, perhaps partially because Wilmington cancelled theirs this year. It was NUTS. But so improbable that we played around with some glowsticks, ate some food, and it was fun!
Now time for the recent eating section:
We had two food failures lately. One involves making cheese kit mozzarella while drunk, which I can't recommend, and leaving beer in the freezer until it explodes, which I can't recommend either. Although the latter does remind you of that Gary Paulsen novel in middle school when you first learned that beer freezes in alaska. Anyway, yes, this was the same night. We also rented Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1, which is a horribly slow movie. This explains our beverage inclination a bit, I think.
A little bit more successful has been SK's tomato and corn pie (AMAZING but hard to photograph) and vegan cupcakes from a while ago except with blueberry mash versus apple butter. In an effort to clean house of cucumbers, I discovered cucumber agua fresca, which is awesome in that it makes cukes disappear and tastes like a mojito. Peter also discovered the Two Fat Ladies program, which we devoured on youtube, and really wanted to make their shooter sandwich. I wasn't about to stop him, and it turned out pretty well! Also, with the loaf innards I made tiny bread puddings in my muffin tin, which was fun. We had to buy bourbon for the sauce - I know, tragic (bourbon is my new favorite).
Now the complicated part of summer is over! I think... =)
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