Wrapping it up!

Well, it looks like I have some splainin' to do.  Yes, it has been a long time since I wrote on this blog.  But I feel that if I don't finish this blog, I cannot start writing my next one about going to Israel.  So here is my attempt to tie up the loose ends I have left to rust on the internet.  

The moment I stopped writing my blog because I thought it was getting boring, things turned around.   I did all sorts of cool things.  I went to YellowStone with my parents.  I learned that dancing was a hidden talent and a great passion of mine.  I met some amazing and wonderful people.  I volunteered at the food pantry.  I hiked quite a bit more.  I even played D&D twice!  There is so much, but so little I can recall in proper order or detail.  If only I had just kept up the blog ...

But in my defense, I was spending hours every night writing, and I replaced that with actual activities (mostly dancing).  But just look at all these pictures.  I had so much fun, I can't even describe it all.  I haven't even put all the pictures that I took - this is a VERY small collection and it doesn't include a lot of events.  You can see just how much fun I had.

What is not so well documented is the time I spent at office.  I still continues to program and discuss and learn and grow.  Doing the work and being with Katie every day was itself a lot of fun and rewarding.  I was so lucky and happy to choose a topic that had to do with graphs and algorithms.  We are hopeful it will be worth publishing :-)

All in all, it was a fantastic experience - one of the happiest and memorable summers of my life.  I would recommend anyone that has the opportunity to do it, especially in a beautiful place like Bozeman!  It was a fantastic journey.

To end, here is a series of pictures (with descriptions) of some of the things I did while at the REU.

The day after I stopped Blogging, we went to palisade falls.  It was a very easy hike up to the falls (maybe a mile of very small slope)

Followed by a short hike:

This rock was covered in all sorts of engravings - some of them very old.

Here's another group hike to Lava Lake (despite it's name, it was very cold!):

And my family visit to YellowStone (my dad had to go to hospital at the end because of a kidney stone).

 Some other random pictures:

Fire in the dump!

View of of the tallest peaks in Montana, we ended up hiking it.  6hours up, 4 hours down.

Funniest Organizational Chart ever!

 The following three were taken at different Montana Shakespear in the parks events:

Hamet

Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night

Portal cake at Coldstone

There was once a railroad that went from Bozeman to Milwaukee to Chicago.

Cannot recall where I took this.

Dance Festival!

Star Gazing

All night stall gazing can make one look strange ...

I am no exception to that rule :-P

Best dancing event I've ever been to.  I had so many great dances.  Oh, and we ganged up on Taha.

Photo Fun!

Antique Store

Armed and dangerous!

 

Every Thursday there was Music on Main downtown

Also at Music on Main

Yes, I ate the sun :-)