Nick’s Blog

My personal tradition that has been going several years strong is to listen to Alice Cooper’s anthem “School’s Out for Summer” upon completion of my last academic obligation. I was a little late this year because after the finals were over, I still had some small assignments to stamp off, but last week I closed the book on my junior year at college. “Oh, you’re MechE? Well junior year is by far the worst that it gets… ever”, a seemingly rehearsed conversation that you have with just about anybody in years ahead of you in the department. Looking back and testing the accuracy of their testaments, I can’t easily disagree. The academic workload was far greater than any previous year, college or otherwise. Still, as bad as the course work actually was, I think that the year went very well as a result of practice. For most of freshmen and sophomore year, I was still shell shocked by college, the work, the atmosphere, the displacement from the comfortable. It was far from an ideal environment to crank out school work. By this year, I learned how to study, what to study, and with whom to study with (and not to study with). I learned the ropes; beat the exams and absorb as much material as possible. Call it classical conditioning or a forced response or whatever, but I think I figured it all out on my own out of spite.

Anyways, it’s done. My GPA was at an all-time high and now I can focus on summer and all that it has to offer. This summer is far from a break, but it’s a strong taste of the real work that I anticipate. I have a summer internship at the Elliott Company in Jeanette, which means I’ll be holding down an 8am to 4:30pm job. I’ll also be doing a lot of training for crew. But Jack is not a dull boy, as we are counting down the days to the Pig Roast and JamBaLoosa. (Oh, and my 21st birthday, woo)

So maybe change isn’t so bad/

Today’s practices went rather well. This morning we did a more intense 5×5’ workout that tested out some of our higher speed abilities. It went well, and it was the perfect weather from rowing. It’s kinda inspiring in a sort of way to be rowing and watch the sun come up over the lake. The rest of the workouts today were also fun. For the final practice, me and by partner tried out rowing a pair. For those of you who are unfamiliar with rowing, pairs are a lot less stable than other configurations because there are only 2 oars on the water, each controlled separately. Anyways, we flipped over twice, which sent us for a nice swim. Oh well, it was a fun experience and it was a hotter day so the cold water was nice… for about 5 seconds.

Tonight, we had this novice entertainment thing for varsity that is a sort of tradition. The body is about the same as it was yesterday, no better, no worse. Certain bones are creaking when the move. Hair cut is still rockin’. Rowing is still FIERCE! Things are well.

On other funny thing, I noticed this before when I had vacations when I was young, but when you spend the entire day on the water, even on dry land it feels as though the world is rocking and waving a little bit. I’m sitting here slightly bobbing as if I was still on a boat.

The past two days have been pretty good (no post yesterday, camp internet was down, and I was probably sleeping anyways.)

Yesterday was a bit of a bummer because there was fog in the morning that prevented us from rowing boats. Instead of rowing, we did a very miserable jog. Forgive me for my complaints. I just prefer rowing to running. The other two practices went well, although my this time in the week, I’m exhausted. It feels like every movement hurts, and between the pulled muscles, the innumerable blisters and the flaming sunburn, my body feels like it has been betrayed.

Today, we had fog problems again, so had a nice calisthenic workout. It was actually fun becuase instead of jogging, we did some fun little relays. Good workout and it was not of the mundane nature of jogging. After that and a quick breakfast, we had our only slow day! Its kinda a team tradition to go to Charleston, SC for the day on the Tuesday of spring break, so thats what we did. We ate crap food, explored the city on food, saw the ocean and all around relaxed. Those activities combined with some time in massage chairs in Brookstone made some of the body pain subside, but I’m sure it will be back in full force tomorrow.

Hope everyone up in PA is doing well, again I plan on returning Friday night around midnight, so I’ll be functioning by Saturday.

Wow, very long day for me. Today consisted of three on-the-water practices, each with their own challenges and payoffs. This morning was really exciting because for the first time, I got to row in a varsity boat with varsity people, and the difference was remarkable. When we practice as novice, a lot of our energy and time goes to fixing little fundamental things like keeping the boat level, etc, so when you are in a boat with more experienced people, you get a better, more fluid practice. Definitely a good thing…

Mid-morning practice was a more challenging workout. I got put in a 4 with the three other strongest kids on our team (varsity included), so we were a beastly heavy weight boat. After we go used to each others rhythm, things went very well. We did 4 tricky 15-minute races.

The last workout was a little lame, because it was all novice drills, but I guess those are important to, so I can’t complain. This evening was low key. There was a camp-wide dodgeball tournament, and sure enough, CMU got beat by a group of high school girls, ha ha. Tonight, a bunch of varsity kids buzzed their hair in spring break tradition, so I followed suit. Attached in this post is a picture, yea, I know, I’m sexy, don’t have to tell me!

I should be able to find time to post and update tomorrow. Have a good day sitting on your butt while I’m rowing for hours.

Hey everybody. Thought I should give a status report of my Camp Bob Cooper rowing experience. Yesterday, we left at about 3:30am and drove the better part of the day. We got in to camp at about 3:00pm after a short Wal-Mart trip and some food stops. We spent last night pretty low key. We rigged the boats and got them ready to row, which took several hours, and then after that we had our first Camp Bob Cooper dining experience. Not terrible for cafeteria style cuisine. Played some low-aerobic sports and then went to bed.

Today, we intended on getting three good water practices in, but the first one didn’t go very well because of terrible wind gusts, so we decided to not risk damaging ourselves or the boats and did not have any more water practices today, so instead, we did 40 minutes of body circuits, ran for maybe an hour, and played some low-impact games (non-tackle football, soccer, etc.).

It must be PA week down here, because by chance, Penn State, Pitt and Robert Morris have showed up at the camp for this week. Funny to travel hundreds of miles and have your next door neighbor move in next to you, eh?

Finger is hurting, but I am doing alright I guess. It’s only the first day, which has been really easy, and I’m already exhausted and destroyed, which makes the coming hard practices worry me a little. Still, I guess I’m in high spirits. Kinda regretting not having a relaxing spring break, but I would have regretted sitting on my but more. Don’t really have time to use the internet lounge that often, so I’ll report back when next convenient.