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I’m done with living in Hyattsville/College Park. Wednesday I made the move in DC, on the North side of the Adams-Morgan neighborhood. I think I am definitely a city person, I’m loving it. I can still ride my bike to work, though it takes a little longer, between 35 and 40 minutes. But I’m a quick walk to the train, which will take me wherever I need to be. I also have quite a few restaurants within walking distance; I checked out the local chipotle tonight, but there are also plenty of more unique places. I got dinner at a cool pizza place called Radius on Friday night, I’ll definitely go back. But another nice thing about my new apartment is I have a real kitchen, with a gas stove, plenty of counter space, and a big sink (with a garbage disposal!). I’ll be cooking pretty regularly. I put together a couple panoramas here:

Living room [small] [big]
Kitchen [small] [big]

Friday I went out to Skyline Drive in Virginia and put in a painful 71 miles. It was a lot of steady, gradual climbing, with very few breaks.  Not too far away from DC, and it was a good way to change things up a bit.

I spent a little time today thinking about how to make my email usage better. For awhile, I have been using gmail rather than a desktop client, because it’s faster, and gmail’s keyboard shortcuts are awesome (though Postbox may be different). But email as just another tab in your browser can get a little distracting.

There are a lot of alternatives out there; I first found Mailplane, which looks pretty cool, but $25 for a desktop gmail app seems steep. It has some useful features like multiple accounts, easy attachments, and integration with the os, but not worth it to me. Next was the free adobe air apps (geemail and gmdesk). GM Desk took awhile to install, so I wasn’t happy from the start. Other than that, it’s Gmail in it’s own window, but some of the interface elements don’t seem to work.

Here’s what I ended up doing:

I have been using Safari 4 as my default browser since the final version was released. It’s fast. Firefox is great for extensions, but all I really use extensions for are gmail. So naturally Firefox becomes my desktop mail client. I use scripts to view my mail and calendar on the same screen and Better Gmail 2 for some other little tweaks. Naturally I also have Offline Access so I can use my email when I’m not connected. To top it all off I changed the Firefox icon to a Gmail icon. I’ll try this for a few days and see how it works; so far I am very happy with it.

Work go rolling on Tuesday, and things are going well. The first day and a half was spent on orientation and training, but after that I got to do some real work. I’m learning the model they use to predict energy usage in 15 year increments, as well as carbon emissions. It is all a little bit overwhelming now, but I’m at the point where I can run the thing and look at the results. Now I have to be able to make changes, say if somebody says “no geothermal, it uses too much water!” and we need to do a study without geothermal. Should be an easy change, but I’m still not quite there yet.  Eventually maybe I can put together a presentation like this.

It’s a great work environment, and I am working with a lot of very cool people. Things will get even more interesting next month when I move into DC and it is even more convenient to be social.

I was fortunate enough to be able to go home for a few days, before I start work. I flew into O’Hare early Wednesday morning; it was the smoothest landing I think I have ever had. I wasn’t sure we were on the ground yet…

It was slightly complicated finding my way home from the airport, but I like alternative transportation. I took the bus to Evanston and spent some time with Clara, and eventually took the train to Lake Forest, from which my Dad gave me a ride to Deerfield. I followed that up with a bike ride back to Evanston with John.

These trips tend to be a fun mix of hanging out with all sorts of people. I didn’t quite get to see all of my friends, but many of them. And I spent a lot of time with my family; Anna almost burned me on a Saturday morning bike ride, next time I might not be able to add that “almost”! And of course, Clara; we went on a fancy little date in Chicago, though the centerpiece, a concert at Millenium Park, was somewhat of a bust.

No pictures, unfortunately, even though I brought both my point-and-shoot and my DSLR. Next time I’ll get some. For now, I am focused on starting my job. Tomorrow, early afternoon, I have orientation,  over the phone with Pacific Northwest National Lab. I am a little nervous, but very excited.

At graduation they didn’t even bother to pretend to give us a diploma. We got a goody bag consisting of a keychain and a pre-addressed card from the alumni association asking for contact information. The diploma will come in 4 to 6 weeks. I’m not all bitter though. I got my grades, and my thesis was submitted, so I was able to get a “Letter of Completion” and send it to PNNL. Might as well have been a diploma, because that’s what I needed to get the job.

This week I have been looking for apartments a lot. I was all excited to fill out an application for one Tuesday morning, but it turned out to be no longer available. I made one last blitz of a bunch of opportunities, and one stood out from that. So, come July, I will be living on the north side of the Adams Morgan neighborhood in DC. I have also been trying to learn C/C++/Xcode. It’s coming along, but slowly. I go into work for four or five hours a day, helping some of my colleagues with their work, doing some basic literature research for my boss, and learning Xcode. Not too bad.

I graduated this past weekend, with my MS in Mechanical from UMD. It’s finally hit me, I am just about done here, and off to the working world in a few weeks. My family, my grandparents, and Clara all came down to visit. It was a great time and I will post more details (and pictures, hopefully) later in the week.

I know you have all been eagerly awaiting it, so here it is. I finished my thesis, and it’s all ready to go. I submitted it to the Graduate School and sent it off to be bound. You can download it here. Chapter 7, the experimental section, may be of the most interest to the layman. Heat transfer geeks may enjoy Chapter 6, where I discuss the optimization of gas-liquid heat exchangers for minimum mass & energy consumption.  [ pdf ]

This morning I successfully defended my thesis, “Minimum Energy Design of Seawater Heat Exchangers”. I may give you the “privilege” of reading it and post the final version online, after some minor revisions. Not much to say; my presentation went well, thanks to a little practice. My colleague Juan, the other grad student working on my project, actually was the one to ask the most insightful question. It’s almost like I planted it (I didn’t). Questions from faculty were pretty non-nonsense, and easy answers. If you want to learn how thermally enhanced polymer composite materials can save energy and water for industrial cooling and power plants, please ask.

Tonight I also made some fine guacamole.