At this stage in the game, failure is not an option. Thirty is rapidly approaching and I have absolutely no intention of returning to the military, enlisted or commissioned. No, this degree needs to be completed above the standard so I can move on and really start a new chapter. Perhaps once I have more than just a DD-214 to say that I have accomplished some things in my life, focus can be taken off of the fact I have a DD-214 and exist as someone other than a former infantryman. For now, that will provide purpose in the next three semesters. The prospects of an engineer’s salary might provide some motivation as well.

My personal goals are as follows:

• Complete each day of the MS150 in less than six hours, including stops.
• Raise the remaining $575 of my $1000 fundraising goal before I start the ride

Completing the first goal is entirely up to me, and I think it is well within my grasp. The second goal is going to take some help from anyone who feels like donating to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society is something they’d like to do. If you’re one of those people, the following link will take you to my donation page and you can help me with my goals while also helping those who have been touched by a terrible illness: http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/ajmartinez

On the trainer

As far as Christmas itself went, I made out pretty well with some gizmos for my road bike, a stein from Germany for my beer, and some new clothes. I also picked up a new-to-me large format camera, a 4×5″ Shen Hao, with a 135mm f/5.6 Symmar-S MC lens. That will help me blow off some steam in the limited free time to come, and hopefully let me make more things to hang on my wall. The gifts I gave out this year were all framed darkroom prints from photos I took this summer in Scotland. People seemed to enjoy and appreciate those, so it may become a tradition for as long as I can source film, paper, and chemistry.

My training for the event has already started, with my completion this past Sunday of the 62-mile Bike the Bend for Literacy. The wind was a major factor in that ride, more of a factor than the steep climbs I encountered in Little Rock back in September, and I’m going to have to get out there to battle the wind some more to make sure I can survive two days of more than 60 miles of riding. Having gone between Houston and Austin by motorcycle at least a dozen times in the last year, I know there is plenty of wind between here and there. Hills have tops, but wind can blow strong for days.

Clearly, since I’m posting this, I survived the 68 miles in Little Rock. Those hills were way harder than I expected, and by the time I got to them stopping was not an option for me. If I’d walked up the hills, like many did, I’d have finished the ride in the back of a truck. Thank goodness for having a 30-speed with good hill-climbing gears. It was a good time, and I look forward to doing more cycling events in the future.

Beer is a big deal to me. You should know that by now. The pale ale I brewed over the Independence Day weekend, with my friend Joseph, was well received. It needs a little more body, and I’ll either solve that by a higher mash temperature to preserve more sugars the yeast won’t ferment into carbon dioxide and alcohol or an addition of some Munich malt to the grain bill. Depending on how I decide my school schedule needs to look over the coming weeks, my second original recipe beer (autumn amber ale) will either spend a little longer in secondary or it will make a trip into a keg this weekend. Next on the list of recipes I’ve been working on is an oatmeal stout. After that we’ll see what comes next. Maybe a wit or something. Who knows.

As far as photography goes, school has been keeping me too busy to enjoy that hobby much right now. I still haven’t made any prints from my Scotland negatives. I need to replace the relay in my darkroom timer before I can do any of that anyway. For a while I was kicking around the idea of buying a Hasselblad, but reviewing negatives from my Mamiya C3 gives me no reason to spend that extra cash on a format I already have well represented by three different cameras. What I do not have is a camera that produces 4×5″ negatives, and that is next on my list. In fact, I’m planning on making that step as a Christmas present to myself this year. I’m looking at a used Shen Hao field camera to fit the bill. Perhaps my next trip to Scotland will involve a 4×5″ camera. If my sister thought I took a long time taking photos last time, she hasn’t seen anything yet!

The internship was great. I learned a lot in a very short period of time about reciprocating compressors and the parts that keep them running. Since the university does not see it fit to make absolutely certain its engineering graduates actually know how to use any 3-D modeling software, I picked up some SolidWorks skills while I was with CPI.

PDE in the summer? Well, that was just insane. If you asked me to explain anything about solving partial differential equations I would have no choice but to direct you towards the internet. The trend where miserably failing grades on a majority of exams somehow turns into a passing grade is fairly alarming, but that trend seems to be growing more common the longer I go to UH. Regardless of the illogical grading system, I will take that C and run with it. Just four more semesters to go.

Over the break, I picked up a new hobby (or means of aerobic exercise). I’ve created a page to track my bicycle rides here. Next month, I’ll be heading up to Arkansas to ride around Little Rock with my brother. My next big ride plan is to ride the MS150 in 2012.

Photography kind of took a back seat once I returned from Scotland. Some of the negatives I made across the Atlantic will absolutely be printed and hung on my wall, but as of yet I have not made a single print this summer. My digital timer is mostly finished, but I managed to break the relay for the 120V side and will have to wait to order another one. I did buy trays to develop 11×14″ paper, since I have quite a lot of that, but I have not used them yet. Over this coming weekend I intend to read “The Print” by Ansel Adams to familiarize myself with a more archival process for developing fiber paper. Once I have digested that it will be time to work on printing some new negatives.

Our first flight was uneventful. IAH to EWR. When we landed someone else was still parked at the gate, but we made the connection still so it wasn’t a huge problem. At EWR we boarded a demon aircraft. Some pump/compressor/generator used during taxiing was not mechanically sound and made the most terrible cyclic noise I’ve had the displeasure of hearing in quite a while. Of course with a busy airport we spent a long time sitting on the jetway waiting, and that damned noise was with us the entire time. It was loud, and clearly caused several of the people on the plane physical pain. When we finally landed in the UK we got to deal with the same racket again. Continental/United ought to get out of the practice of flying aircraft with an obviously failing system on board. The only part of the trip that was a real nightmare was our short hop from Heathrow to Aberdeen. There was an infant, a cute baby even, seated directly behind me. What a set of lungs – for the entire flight.

The first thing I noticed about Scotland was how green everything was. The buildings? All grey and dreary. The surroundings? As green as green gets. For a moment, I almost wished I’d gone heavy on the color film instead of bringing a ton of B&W film.

My Mom did a good job getting us to our parents’ flat in one piece. She’s never paid much attention to lanes so driving on the wrong side of the road didn’t phase her. I’m sure our time in Malaysia helped. Where my folks live is awesome. There’s a view of rolling hills right out the front windows, maybe 20 yards from their front door is a trail that goes for more miles than I could have run even at my most fit, and maybe a 1000 yards or so beyond that is a river. Excellent.

Jetlag wasn’t as much of a problem as the fact that Aberdeen is way further north than I’ve ever been before. As such, during the summer the sun never really goes down. Dark like we know dark here just does not happen. 1am? Still looks like twilight. 4am? Full on sunrise. Either way, the trip was great. I’m not going to go into great detail about everywhere we went, but we saw several castles and drove all over the island. A few notable bits below:

• The grounds at Crathes Castle are gorgeous, and the large red squirrels everywhere would have entertained Abbey for years.
• The castle in Edinburgh is hugely impressive, as is the giant rock outcropping under it.
• One day I must camp in the Scottish highlands.
• Our tour guide at the Glen Ord distillery was pretty funny. He says he gave up on whisky snobs the moment he read a review calling out flavors of “butter fried spices” and that if you pay your good money for a bottle of Scotch drink it any damn way you please. I’ll still drink it straight.
• There is livestock everywhere, and the food is great.

Coming home was fairly trouble free aside from the cab driver that took us to the wrong hotel in London. The plane was unusually hot inside so instead of sleeping the entire flight I just stayed up the majority of the time. On the return jetlag still wasn’t a problem. I’ve kept myself busy developing film and running errands.

Since I’ve finished scanning and uploading all of my 35mm film from the trip, I’ll go ahead and post my favorites as well as a slideshow to the set of everything on Flickr. I’ve also finished developing all of my B&W medium format film, but I haven’t scanned any of it yet – check back in a week or so for new favorites from that camera. Two weeks from now I should have the color medium format film back as well, so check back again then too.

When I finish the chapter on the Zone System, I’m going to go out into the incredibly hot garage and learn how to solder a PCB. This will probably involve me destroying at least one PCB in the process, but I’m okay with that. On a completely different train of thought, I really need to learn to shoot a double-action only pistol better. Sure, I can still shoot minute-of-bad-guy no problem but I’m nowhere near as proficient with my Sig as I am with my Nighthawk and that bothers me.