Seattle Pre-Visit

While it may have been a rough start for my trip to Seattle, the rest was smooth sailing. I arrived late on friday night and picked up a sweet red two door Nissan Altima (which reminded me remarkably of my pre-LGO car... the one I sold to pay rent) and headed to my hotel.

The next day I started the traditional Boeing fashion... EARLY. I met Robin at 7am to start the tours and introductions. Many of the workers start work at 5am!!! The day was great! I stuck my head into the wheel well of the 737, which was remarkably cool! The day ended early/mid afternoon where I returned to my hotel for a beautiful run along the water front before I picked up Jason, who was visiting from Chicago to help with my apartment search (and to bum my hotel room and rental car in Seattle for the weekend... I don't mind, he was a great help and made the weekend much more fun).

We checked out the famous Pike Street Market on Saturday Morning. I could see myself going here a lot!!! Hopefully I end up within biking distance... or maybe even walking distance.

We hung out by the water front... see the mountains in the back ground! This bird was chillin' on top of a street light that lit the street just down hill below the park we were standing in. I discovered that Seattle has some very steep hills which could prove interesting on a bike.
The Space Needle! I'm still not sure why it was built... but it sure looks cool.
The Troll under Fremont Bridge. We had to stop by!
The weather over the weekend was great! I realize it may have been an anomaly, but I'm still very excited to move to Seattle for a while. While the weather was nice, I was most impressed by the friendliness of the people... everywhere! I couldn't believe it! It was such a stark contrast from the cloud of grumpiness that often fills the Boston streets. Luckily Sloan seems to be fairly immune to the grumpy-cloud.

On the Road Again

I feel like I just left Logan airport, and now I’m back. The trip to the airport wasn’t quite as smooth as usual. Despite a good start with a quickly arriving Red Line train, the rest of my journey was a bit more bumpy. At the very next stop, MGH, the MBTA decided that it was necessary for the train to sit still for 5 min (thus once again proving that the MBTA is in serious needs of an operations student… do you know where we can find one?)

The Silver Line took forever to show up, and when it finally did, and entire herd of travels with luggage were ready to storm the 3 doors of the accordion style bus.

The bus took several minutes to pack to a full sardine level before shooting down the private silver line tunnel, where at each stop more people tried to get on, thus prolonging the length of the stops. The bus then pulled out of the tunnel and onto the streets headed for the airport just as the thunderstorm hit. We then headed into the big-dig tunnel which is shared by all traffic going to the airport only to be stuck in a traffic jam due to an accident in the very long tunnels. We finally got through that and onto the airport where each terminal stop was greatly lengthen due to the quantity of people on the bus, and my stop was naturally the last stop.

While timing was cut a little closer than expected, it all worked out an I’m on may way. Regardless, that was hands down, the worst trip to the airport that I have ever experienced. It was almost the perfect storm of delays. Sorry for the rant, but sometimes I wonder why people like to live in cities.

At least there was a rainbow at the end of all of the frustration…. Literally.

CEO Day

Wednesday April 21^st was my self-declared CEO day. In a single day, I was fortunate enough to sit in on sessions featuring Bill Gates (no explanation needed) and Jim McNerny (CEO of the Boeing Company, the company sponsor of my internship).

I won tickets through a campus lottery to hear Bill Gates speak about giving back to the world through service. While his speech was not as profound or thought provoking as I would have liked, it was still a privilege to hear Bill Gates speak. I was truly impressed during the question and answer session as he demonstrated his immense depth and breadth of knowledge from light water nuclear reactor to health care. Truly a day I won’t forget, and if I for some reason do forget, I’ve got pictures (maybe a little fuzzy due to low light and now flash, but pictures non-the-less).

In the same afternoon, being a future Boeing inter, I was invited to the CEO Perspectives Class where a different CEO visits and speaks each week. This week, as mentioned was Jim McNerny, the CEO of Boeing. He commanded the room with presence, humor, and candidness. He walked us through his current day to day activities ranging from China and India to W

ashington DC, answered questions about the future of the competitive airplane market, and discussed his past experiences at GE and 3M.

While these talks severely cut into my limited school work time this week, they were very interesting and enjoyable.

Indiana Wind Farm

On my way home, it was a beautifully clear day. I was able to snap a few aerial pictures of the Midwest’s largest wind farm (don't quote me on that... 60% of all statistics are made up on the spot). If you look close, you can see the future. Squint a little!

Patriots Day

I’ve stumbled across more holiday’s that I’ve never heard of, yet alone been given the day off, here in the New England area. While the holiday of Patriot’s may seem insignificant or even made up, it was a very welcomed break from class, providing students with a 4 day weekend.

I utilized the weekend to go home for a good buddy’s bachelor party back at the great university of Purdue! There were about 20 of our college friends who made it back for the festivities including softball, a cookout, and a townie pub bar crawl. We even crashed at the old fraternity house. There for a bit, many of us forgot that we weren’t in school anymore.

I then spent the rest of my weekend visiting with neighbor and spending time with the family. The only thing that could have made the weekend better was less homework… but I can’t have it all.

I returned to Boston on Tuesday for a very short 52 hour week, as I will be flying out to Seattle on Thursday night for a pre-internship visit to Boeing and hopefully find a house.

MIT Hacks

MIT has a "tradition" known as hacking. In the basic sense, it is a glorified senior prank. While not necessarily strongly encouraged by administration, the pranks definitely do not seem to be discouraged as they are often celebrated by the MIT community through hallways discussions and websites such as this hacking gallery.

Hacks have unspoken set of rules or ethics as they call it. Here's what I found on the hacking website sited above:

"According to the "hacker ethic," a hack must:

• be safe
• not damage anything
• not damage anyone, either physically, mentally or emotionally
• be funny, at least to most of the people who experience it"

I stumbled across this hack yesterday. They managed to put an entire living room, upside down on this "arch". If you look carefully, you can see the famous MIT dome peaking over building 18 in the background.

Upon further inspection, you can see the incredible detail including a cat on the chair, a lit floor lamp, and even a picture hanging on the wall (look close for this one, it's in the upper right corner).
Closer view... do you see the cat?

Based on the booth selling hacking t-shirts at the base of the arch, I have a feeling this may not be a true hack and instead more of a publicity stunt. Regardless, it is a great example of MIT culture and the only hack that I've witnessed while in possession of my camera.