Birthdays, Baseball, and Boats

So it's time for the weekend update!

Last Tuesday, we went on a hike up Badger Mountain. One of the higher peaks around, but not all that big. But we went at sunset. Got some very cool pictures. It was very windy. To the point that my lip was flapping in the wind. I could lean back and let the wind hold me up. But it was so cool.

This past week was my birthday. I'm sure you didn't forget. I love my birthday, so I probably have told you all several times. 22. Such an odd age. I haven't decided if I like it, but it certainly makes me feel older, more like a grad student.

If there was ever a good way to spend one's birthday at work, Friday was it. I didn't do squat. Friday morning was a jet boat tour with my internship program. A nice man took a bunch of us out on his jet boat and drove us up the river. We got to see the Hanford site again (and I got to take pictures of the reactors this time!) and we got to see lots of wildlife and cool scenery. It really made me appreciate this area. I'm all for nuclear energy, but the government really screwed up when it decided to keep that area from the public for so long. I know, I know, that's necessary when one is dealing with national security. It's more that I know it will be a long time before the area is cleaned up and open to the public. If ever. At least the river is open. Beautiful area. The ecosystem is rather unstable. But very fertile if you give it water. Which is actually part of the problem there. There are serious erosion issues on the cliffs you'll see in the pictures. After the fantastic boat ride, we had lunch and headed to work.

At work, there were lovely flowers for me from my lovely family (kudos to mom despite the fact that her name was left off of the card). I handed out red velvet cupcakes to my fellow co-workers and then it was time for the APEL cup. Our office building (APEL) hosts an annual fundraiser putt putt tournament. The employees build holes however they want, then people play putt putt. So yeah. There was a hole where you had to ramp into an inner tube. This caused the balls to hit the wall of my office quite loudly. There was one called the black hole. You had to putt up a curved ramp onto another level, then the ball went into the motorized vortex and either spit out into the hole or out the backside and you tried again. There was a water hole: your ball either went straight down a ramp and into the hole or you ended up chasing it around the loading dock to get it into the hole. There was one that was rather elaborately built and involved banking a ball off of a concrete chicken. Then there was the hole that ended up a ramp and into a crucible. The next hole was a long piece of black corrugated pipe that you had to putt your ball into and pull up a string so that it would roll around and into the fishing net. Then there was my personal favorite: the tic-tac-toe. The directions were a bit hazy on this one, so we concluded that you didn't actually add any points to your score, but if you got it into the bucket with the X you got a point off your score. Good deal in golf, right? What you did was bank your ball up a ramp made of poster board and it had to land in one of nine trash cans that were in a tic-tac-toe pattern. The next hole required you to bank your ball over a gravel area (otherwise you destroyed your putter) and into a dog house. The final one was like croquet. Except with apples that had holes missing out of the bottoms. Although I'm not sure how legit our scoring methods were, our team did fairly well and had a fantastic time playing. This left about an hour of work, which I used to fix a diagram for my paper.

After work was baseball. The Tri-City Dust Devils once more. This time, I managed to get a picture of just how creepy Dusty is. There were lots of interns there, and we had a blast. Saturday were Hydroplane races. The Tri City Water Follies. Fast boats! 146 mph I heard at one point. There was also an F-16 flyover, which I got plenty of pictures of. It was hot, so we found a spot by the starting line and stood in the river to watch the race. I would like to take a moment to express pity for the Tri Cities in that they rarely are discussed individually. They are Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco. Now you know. Everything here is "Tri Cities this" and "Tri Cities that."

After the boat races, I took a nap that lasted until Sunday morning. I went to Richland Church of Christ for church, then went to Target and poked around before I went home. Ben and I decided to go down to the park by the river and lay out/read and just generally chill. So we did. We were there for several hours. My tan enjoyed it thoroughly. We could see the smoke from the boat fire at the hydroplane races (wasn't a hydroplane. a private boat that was watching the race ended up catching fire from its barbecue grill.) and we could see the C-something cargo plane come by as well as the F-16 show again. And my book was excellent and the weather was amazing. We ended the day with dinner at PF Chang's. A nice relaxing day, in all.

It's dinnertime, so I am out. There are two parties this week, so hopefully I will get some pictures of all the fellow interns for you.