Oops

So I skipped a few days. I'll get the hang of this eventually...

So today I "helped" the Students Innovating Technology group with a new hydroponics system. I say "helped" because I mostly just took pictures and documented the build. I did carry stuff around at one point, but I can't take credit for the work.

The way this works is with a water reservoir at the bottom with a pump. The water (with nutrients) flows to the top pipe, where plans will be, and down to the next step. When the pump is flowing, the water level rises until it overflows through the larger pipes in the end of the tube. There is a much smaller pipe near the bottom of each tube that helps empty out each level once the pump turns off.

The plans that will be growing are the type that clean the air and produce oxygen at night.

Still Cold

I woke up this morning to a room temperature of 10C (50F). I think the someone turned off the house heater. Either way, I was not prepared for that. I need to get my thicker bed sheets.
I didn't take any pictures today, so here's one from yesterday. I was messing around with my 50mm prime lens for my new camera. There was this one flower that survived the snow. There were more earlier in the week.

Snow!

I woke up this morning to see my car covered with some snow, along with most houses around the area. This is not usual for May 9th. Here's a picture while it was still snowing.

Ok, so it's a picture of a fence... You can see some snow around the stop sign though!

Mmm Food

Today some friends came over to have some pão de queijo, quesadillas, and other stuff. It was a lot of fun. I went to the Rochester Public Market around 7am to get some fresh fruit, which we finished rather quickly.

Residence Permit

Today I finally received my passport with my residence permit, or oleskelulupa uppehållstillstånd as they call it, from Finland. I am really looking forward to working there over the summer!

Uneventful Day

My sinus infection hasn't gone away. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I think I will find out whether or not I can go to Europe for the summer.
In the meantime, here is a picture from outside my window late in the day.

Helicopter Ride

So after lunch today, we heard a helicopter flying overhead. I was told that it was the USMC doing flights if you did 10+ pull-ups. I decided to head over since I had never been in a helicopter before. When I arrived, they told me that anyone can take a ride, but if you can do at least 15 pull ups, you get to skip the (very long) line.
Unfortunately I am not that strong and only managed to do 11. Since I had talked to the Staff Sargent there before, I got to jump ahead a bit.

The actual ride was a lot of fun. We flew around campus a few times, and since the girl sitting up front had a nice camera, the pilot decided to fly sideways so she could get some nice photos. I'm definitely going to try that again next time they do the rides. I managed to get a video of it:

Contemporary Music

So today I had my first encounter with contemporary (1900-now) music. It was pretty cool. I have never heard music like that, it was just piano, violin, and one song with a cello. Here's a picture from my walk back to the car:


In other news, my sinus infection is back... I hope these antibiotics do their job quickly.