Notre Dame and CSU

So over the past week i went back out to colorado to visit colorado state university. Colorado state is in Ft. Collins, about 1.5 hrs north of denver. It is beautiful there, a little bit further back from the mountains though (than in boulder). The hydrology department there is HUGE! They have like 30 flumes that can get up to 230 cfs (a ton of water). Some of them are large enough to do full scale river simulations. Anyhow, Although all that is cool, the staff was very impersonal and it sounded like I would be one amongst 200 grad students. The one professor I was able to get ahold of is leaving next semester, and overall I don't think the fit was right for me.

On my way back I got on standby for an earlier flight from denver to chicago. It was the bomb because somehow i got a first class seat, and as I drank my wine and lounged with my footrest, i got stock tips from the investment broker next to me. There were times where I litterly started laughing out loud.

Anyhow, after less than 24 hours in springfield I was back to the airport to go to the University of Notre Dame, in indiana. If you think of a private school being a place where there is tonnes of money floating around and everybody wears sweater vests... well you're right. Every building is constructed like a catherdral (its a catholic school) and even the civil engineering building has stained glass windows (with math equations in them...) Anyhow, they really treated us nice, took us to nice restaruants and put us up in a really fancy hotel (do I really need 2 rooms and a bathroom in my hotel? I guess so). The department there focues on enviromental work, more than fluids. One cool thing was they have research going in conjuction with the anthropology department to help clean up water in africa and explain the importance of clean water and sanitary pratices in developing african countrys! Thats cool. Anyhow, I dont think i'll end up there either.

I'm here for a couple days and then i'm off to seattle to check out my last grad school. I'm excited about going out there, they have a really awsome program and seattle is cool, but it rains a lot.

Oh, and I read Obamas book "The Audacity of Hope". It really kinda gets you into his head, but i hear the first one is even better. He's extreamly likeable.

peaceout!
-mike