Today was my first day of LSA classes. Two are awesome, one is good, one was kinda meh. I think I’ll drop that one, find something else interesting to sit in on during that block.

Nifty mix of people. I was not expecting the sheer number of non-native English speakers - there’s a lot of them here. French, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Nepali, etc. I also was not expecting how few of the people in these classes would be undergraduates - it’s a little bit intimidating.

Taking classes in (and generally wandering around) the Stata Center makes me very jealous. I must confess to liking the building… I can see how some people wouldn’t, both cause it’s flashy and attention-grabbing, and, as G says, “It makes my brain hurt”. But I like it, and I like the interior and the classrooms. Makes me wonder what it’s like to be at a school that actually has money to spend on things like buildings. It’s not just the architecture, either. It’s comfortable chairs in classrooms and lecture halls. Every single room has a projector, controlled by a little touch screen on the wall. The touchscreen also controls the lights, the screen raising/lowering, everything. And the whole building’s air conditioned. I’m just so envious.

On Sunday aelscha and I hiked Mt. Washington with her family. This was our final “warm up” group hike before climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. I took some pictures and so did Gennie. The weather itself looked like it was going to be disappointing; our climb up to the Lakes of the Clouds hut was just below the clouds and we were in the clouds as we reached the hut at 5050 ft. However, the ceiling lifted as we lunched at the hut and we went on to summit Mt. Monroe and Mt. Washington in beautiful weather.

Washington is funny. You eventually reach the top after a long, steep walk up the summit cone and find a road, railway, and summit buildings. After spending a short time on the summit we headed north along the Gulfside trail then down the Jewell trail. The weather couldn’t have been better!

On Saturday I hiked Mt. Lafayette and Mt. Lincoln. It was a beautiful day, although I did get somewhat sunburned due to an oversight on my part. The views were very nice, although hazey. This was the first weekend in a while with really nice weather. Even Mt. Washington (which you can see in the distance in some of my pictures) was in the clear.

As promised, I took some good photos. I also experimented with a program called AutoStitch which creates panoramas out of multiple digital photos. The first panorama is the view from the summit of Lafayette. You can see Cannon Mountain to the left (West), Interstate 93 snaking north, and Owl’s Head Mountain and the Pemigewasset wilderness.

The second panorama was taken at an outlook on the Old Bridle Path, the trail I took down. The leftmost peak is Lafayette, and the at the center is Mt. Lincoln. The less defined peak to the right is Little Haystack. I ascended the long wooded ridge just to the left of the bare rock patch on Little Haystack. As you can see, it was a substantial loop.

After years of having no cell phone towers at all, Verizon is finally going to build a tower in Newmarket. The tower is muchly needed. Currently the Verizon signal I receive is from a Durham tower, and while it works satisfactorily, signal strength is low. Downtown Newmarket is covered by no providers and coverage along Route 108 is very spotty. From the position, it looks like this tower has been positioned to service downtown Newmarket, Route 108 in Durham, and fill in service in downtown Durham.

The funniest thing about the article above is the NIMBYs. In addition to the usual property values complaint, the woman quoted in the article actually believes the existance of the cell tower is going to put the local daycare out of business. I’m serious! If you ask me, improving the spotty service in the town is likely to improve property values. I know if I tried to rent one of the really nice places downtown and found out my cellphone was useless there I’d have to seriously rethink things.

After the hike on Mt. Flume my toes were definitely showing signs of being pretty squished. My old EMS Dry Hiker GTX boots have been excellent, but it seems they are a tad too small. I decided to go to EMS and check out new boots and now I have new Montrail boots similar to aelscha’s. The new boots are only half a size bigger, but there is a world of difference. Since they were hurting after wearing only a single layer of thinner socks I definitely needed larger ones. This summer I’ll be wearing thicker socks with liners.

My old boots are still in good condition, although they need new laces. If you are interested in a pair of good Gore-Tex boots, size 8.5, please let me know. I’d be willing to sell them for a small amount or pass them on to a relative.