Day 12 5/21/14 (EPCs, surveys, a big blank space, Mondos, Bad Neighbors, no real time blogging)

So I need to apologize first for writing this entry a day after it actually happened. This being the case with how tired I am, it seems like I don’t really recall most of the vents of the day as being all that noteworthy, so I’ll try to make my best guess at what happened. After breakfast and in the office, we all worked on getting more EPCs up online for some time. This was a fairly detailed process and we all contributed quite a bit. It was basically a fun exercise in how to break Google’s servers with uploading so many files in different folders. I would have to generate a spreadsheet with all the property information and EPC grades and then upload the EPC into a folder that had the address of the property. This allows us to add more information in the folders later when we go back to survey homes with our quick questionnaire. At around lunch time we took a break from EPCs and I went back to my flat to eat the rest of the chicken and pasta I had cooked. This literally was like a mounded plate of the twisted cylindrical pasta (rotini, fushini, Puccini?). At any rate I probabl ate a good 7/10ths of the bag as I hadn’t eaten any the night prior so a bit later I was smacked with a wave of carbs-induced sleepiness which made the afternoon seem to drag on. Distractions. The chicken from the night before was really good though. Despite all the effort and prep time I put into the chicken and how much I was lamenting buying cheap chicken (as it had more fat on it), it actually turned out alright after sizzling it for an hour. I’m actually becoming quite the cook here. On a level of 1 to iron chef, I’ve nearly graduated from Easy Bake Oven status! Hahaha. I can cook chicken, salmon, pasta, Ramen in a mug (called mug shots) and quite proficient at drinking OJ straight from the carton. Major life milestones.

Back in the office we worked on the survey and the methodology a bit to get it off to Shockey and Ruiz for their feedback. We also had Peng go over our survey with us and got quite the detailed set of notes to fix it up as best as possible (more survey work in tomorrow’s entry). I also got Makarov the mailing address for me here at the University of Worcester so he can air mail me a CD with Corel Draw on it so I can work on those figures for his textbook (with all my free time of course). At the end of the meeting with Peng, I’m not going to, but we were all a little worried about the state of our survey. So we worked and fixed it quite a bit before sending it off to him and Katy later that night (for revisions before the meeting with Shockey). I think that is about all we did in the afternoon. I had to run back to get ready to go see Bad Neighbors with Marceli. Originally it was going to be the rest of the team and I, but then the three of them swapped to going and seeing X-Men future origins instead at the midnight premiere (Bad Neighbors was at 6:15 PM). So I didn’t have much time , but I got ready and quick ate some dinner (probably peanut butter from a jar) and then walked down to this place called Mondo’s (which is a chicken place right next to the cinema). Before heading into the place we bought tickets (2 for 1 on Wednesdays with a code so it was like only paying $8 for a ticket instead of $16). We then went to the chicken place and I got the smallest looking chicken sandwich for $12. It really looked like the unloved chic; so tiny. So alone and so empty. Luckily I had eaten beforehand.

Lowered expectations (good chicken though)

My finger is so strong

We then shifted back to the theater at 6:15 PM for literally 15 minutes of ads before the previews started. Not trailers or promos. Literally just ads as you would watch on TV, but the worst part was it was all ADS! 15 MINUTES!!!! It’s like having tuning in to a radio station at the end of a 4 hour classic rock block. Ugh so painful. The promos were pretty good. It looks like I’ll be dropping more money on seeing A Million Ways to Die in the West and 22 Jump Street. Good times. At any rate after another 15 minutes of movie trailers the film finally started at 6:45 PM. The premise of Bad Neighbors is that a happy new family is living in a neighborhood with their baby girl with a vacant house next door. They struggle with their new identity a bit being new to the area. They see a several people looking at the house next door and one day a fraternity (Delta Psi Beta) moves in (not an actual fraternity) next door. Obviously the family is a little worried about the potential for noise problems. So at first they act all cool to ask them to just casually keep the music down and party with the frat bros (I use the term here because these dudes are wild and are the stereotype of a frat bro). After all night, then the parents return home and sleep it off. The next night they are kept awake by the noise and call the cops. The frat bros find out and get annoyed. Relations further decay from there. It ends up creating a feud between the bros and the parents to try and get the frat shut down and quiet order restored. The movie has Seth Rogan as a parent and Zac Efron as the frat president (Dave Franco is VP). Each side does their respective attacks to the other and it somewhat gets out of hand (with some lesbian action thrown in one of the party scenes). It also results in some absolutely crazy looking party scenes. Like actually nuts in some cases. The final party is absolutely crazy. Not going to spoil it for those looking to waste money on the film (maybe worth a YouTube), but it is just insane. It really makes fraternities look bad and it wasn’t that great of a film in my opinion because it could have been way funnier and have a better plot, but it kinda lacked that and went for a bit of capitalization on the frat image. There is one hilarious part of the movie where the bros decide to literally sell themselves to raise money for a huge Jacuzzi and fixing their house (it sounds weird but it kinda makes sense). The funny part is how Dave Franco does it. 3D printers. Just 3D printers in a whole new light. At any rate after that I pretty much went back to the University and chilled. I was really tired and I apologize for not getting the blog done yesterday. 

It's a Red Colonel Sanders! 

Sweeper buddy!

Walking back from the theater 

The same street different angle

Morris Minor 1000!

Morris Minor 1000!

Morris Minor 1000!

The railroad tracks next to the Hive (library)

Hidden defender of the peace!

Day 11 5/20/14 (I feel like never waking up, BROhan in the morning, traipsing around the Arboretum, surveying the survey office, the original Arboretum, finally doing some work, killing Google Docs slowly, COOK ALL THE CHICKEN, the meeting of the ARA and the wall lady)

This morning was just the same as every other one. I questioned why I stayed up so late the night before and then wished I could freeze time to sleep more. After I ousted myself from bed and showered I had some cereal, toast and a banana with Shoop. We headed over to the office around 8:47 ish AM (as we normally do) and Stefan and Nick weren’t there! Shocker! They showed up maybe 5 minutes later as they had been out the night before clubbing at the Sin club. We had a meeting with Paul in his home at 10 AM so we used the first 30 minutes to prepare for this meeting and get the printing straightened out on the office printer. It was kind of a struggle as it printed the first two pages and then asked for more paper (THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS). It also cost me 31 pence (so now my account is -31 pence). At any rate we printed out the Energize Worcester checklist (for determining the technology in the home to ask Paul about). We then biked over to Paul’s house in about 10 minutes (we had planned for 20). We were sitting upstairs and talking to him by 9:55 AM (which is pretty good considering the fact it was almost 3 when I went to bed). In the meeting we went over the checklist and also talked about heat loss statistics, thermochrons, tips for the demographic survey and some other project progress. After the meeting of about an hour we took our bikes from his garden in the backyard to the front and were deciding what to do next. There was this sketchy dude with a backpack only on one shoulder and balding that was trying to get us to help him as a marketing dude. He was trying to have us call clients at £10 an hour to tie up stock deals and other financial stuffs. First off we don’t have a work visa so if we got caught we would be jailed by the UK government. Second I don’t want to work for no Jordan Belfort/ Wolf of Wallstreet loony. He finally left. We had decided to bike around the Arboretum area and take pictures of the rental (“let”) signs. So we did just that and wandered around on bikes. Shoop broke off and did a loop and then I decided to stop at this surveying office to ask about rentals as the sign said rent and property management too. So Stefan and Nick decided to wait outside with the bikes so I opened the door and entered. Inside I was presented with two doors, a staircase and a dude vacuuming. I knocked on the one door on the left (unmarked) and was greeted by a man on a cell phone, but his receptionist and I chatted about what our team was doing in the Arboretum. In about 2 minutes the guy returned from his call and he led to me through the other door to another office of seemingly the boss for the company. The boss seemed actually very pleasant and happy to talk to me (as had been the receptionist). So there I was in a surveying office dressed in a 32 degree long-sleeve shirt and this guy was in a suit. He and I talked about the project and I asked if he had any EPCs for had done anything like that. At first he didn’t seem like he could help, but then he showed me an old drawing of the original boundaries of the Arboretum as they were established in 1866 (also the charter used to set up the area). This was actually pretty sick!

After this he brought me a file folder with a survey they did on a house and I took the address so I could grab the EPCs later. He then went and got a 40 page file with a 3 page listing of property sales on one of the roads in the Arboretum. So he photocopied that for me and I took this with me. He helped me out with all of this without being rude at all! He was actually a super chill dude and even didn’t take a phone call for helping me. What a boss. Anyways after that I talked to the guys and we went back to the University for lunch as it was now like 12 PM. Before I had gone into the surveying shop this old woman had seen us going into a private parking lot to try and store our bikes and she went into a shop to rat us out for being “sketchy.” It was kind of funny, but also made us glad we are getting approved for walking around the Arboretum so in case the popo turns up we have the City Council on our side. Lunch was a huge plate of tortellini with cheese on the tops of them. It was really good.

Back in the office we chilled and derped around for a bit. I read up on this awesome running robot on kickstarter and wanted to drop $249 on one…I still might. Anyways after lunch I told the team about where I saw the info from the survey peeps going and I gave Stefan, Nick and Shoop each a page of addresses to find and put into a Google Docs spreadsheet with address, sell date, price, EPC rating etc. Since we had the full address we could finally look up some real EPCs! So we spent a good hour to two hours working on this and actually got all the addresses entered into the doc! IT FINALLY FELT LIKE WE WERE DOING SOMETHING!!!!!!! In the time the other dudes were entering this info I wrote up what Paul had said and also changed the demographic survey to match the demographics section on the census (which actually lists a good 15 choices for race). I also added photos to the drive about the rental properties we had seen and worked on helping on the spreadsheet where possible. I also did some formulas so we could determine the average EPC current and potential rating for the property (the potential rating is what it could have with more retrofits as proposed on the EPC). After this all was complete we chatted with Katy about our progress and realized that she had been saying the University has thermo-cards not thermo-chrons (WHICH IS ANNOYING BECAUSE I CLEARLY SAID THERMOCHRONS YESTERDAY WHEN I ASKED AOUT THEM). At any rate we will talk to Paul about thermochrons later. We worked until 5 and felt well accomplished.

After 5 I headed to the gym with Stefan. I did mostly legs and shoulders today and my legs were feeling it after I got off the extended leg press with almost 250 pounds of weight (SKATING IS PAYING OFF)! I left at 5:45 to go back and cook tons of chicken and pasta for dinner. I didn’t take a shower because I didn’t have any time, but I did manage to cook all the chicken and pasta by 6:35 PM (although I told Nick I was meeting him outside at 6:40 PM), so I had to wrap (the food) and run! But the chicken I had cooked was absolutely delicious as I had put so much effort into cleaning off the fat. We had told Katy that only Nick and I would be going to the ARA meeting and we planned to meet her at 7 at the city campus. Once we got there we saw Katy and her daughter coming from the gym. Her daughter really was complaining about working out and didn’t want to move. We then headed over to the Baptist church and got there at like 7:15 PM and there was no one there for the 7:30 PM meeting. So we locked all 3 bikes on a single bike rack and then headed to a pub. I didn’t drink anything but water and saw the restaurant offered a $400 bottle of champagne. Classy. At like 7:28 PM we headed back to the meeting and got there at 7:31 PM right as the meeting was starting. This started a truly slow and painful hour. Nick and I sat at one end of the room and introduced ourselves and then listened as the people there (about half of the 10 in the room being elderly) droned on about various events and issues in the area. I don’t mean to degrade the conversations or the people. It was just very boring to us. The highlight had to be this one old lady (we dubbed the “wall lady”) who brought up this issue that a dude had gated off her walking path between two houses next to his property because vandals had busted his TV cable in the alley. She literally went on and on about this and would not let it go. She was super passionate about this path and said she had been there for 25 years. She also started complaining this one guy was parking 3 cars on his property because they had knocked down this one wall on the end of her road. After Paul (the secretary of the meeting) and the partially blind leader calmed restrained her, we talked a bit about our project and the people seemed interested to help us. We also heard there is a national campaign that installs £2500 memorial benches around the UK! WTF! I could put a $10 (I mean £5) plaque on a £100 bench and call it a profit of £2395. Anyways as the meeting dragged on toward an hour the wall lady spoke up again about the danged wall. As Nick said, “it was almost like the Berlin wall.” Seriously this lady was so adamant that the 26 people on the street had failed their duty to help keep this wall that prevented the serious parking problem of this dude with 3 vehicles. Who knows what she would say about our like 40 cars! O.o finally the meeting was over and we peaced the heck out of there. The meeting was an hour and 10 minutes. Finally I got back and consumed all the tortellini from lunch and got the email off to Brohan with the surveys for those interested in helping us from the meeting. Phew! What a day!

Biking through the Arboretum

Killing it Shoop!

Is there a parking problem?

The crew!

Victorian houses

The sketchy bike path

More sketchy bike path

Stefan clearly enjoying the bike path

Another Defender!

That grill!

A smaller river on the edge of the Arboretum

Beyond the boundary of the Arboretum

Figaro!

Figaro!

Figaro!

FIGARO!

Automatic though...

Just waiting to be restored!

Cooking all the chicken!

 

The original Arboretum in 1866

1866!

The charter for the Arboretum from 1866 (probably reproduced)

Day 10 5/19/14 (BreakFAST!, so am I still waiting?, workin’ out!, bloggin’, salmonin’, thermochrons)

So after I crawled out of bed at like 8:15 and showered I let Shoop in and I had Cheerios. After that we made it over to the office. We basically chilled in the room for the first hour. We worked a bit on the meeting stuff with Peng for a bit, but otherwise had nothing to do. At 10 AM we pulled Peng into the room and talked to him about our project. We asked him when the soonest we could start surveying people was and he said probably Friday (although he hopes it will be sooner). We also asked him about the best incentives and how to go about doing our project. We really can’t do much of anything except prep for the meeting tomorrow at the ARA and so we did that in about half an hour. Really wish we had more to do.

We broke for lunch pretty early as we had nothing to do. I went back and grabbed some bread and the rest of the chicken from last night and piled some more sliced chicken and cheese in there and bam! Lunch. When I got back to the office I chilled with the team and we just derped around on the internet for a while. I read some IFLS articles online such as a device that helps to acoustically make objects invisible (with applications in sonar) and how fire ants can act as a liquid and a solid depending on how they are holding on to one another. In swarm mode they can squashed and will retain their shape! It’s pretty cool. They could be poured out of a funnel as a very viscous liquid. In a different vein I read on Hackaday that this dude wrote an AI that defeats the elite 4 without losing a Pokémon in Pokémon Blue. It is a python script that runs using an emulator on his computer and reads the memory dumps from the emulator which tell the position of the trainers (so the script knows where to travel to). The script also uses some libraries to fake accomplish the button presses. The AI revolves around the use of a decision tree to break the enemy Pokémon down in terms of max damage and type etc. The program then selects which of the program’s squad has the attack with the highest damage (taking into consideration the critical hits and type advantages). It was pretty cool and actually worked too! The AI is also capable of healing its Pokémon instead of attacking. Another article I read was about the first cyborg (a scientist who had an RFID tag placed in his forearm). He is a college professor over someplace in Europe and he works in AI and autonomy. It was a Popular Science article talking about the use of AI. Both the scientist and his wife both actually had RFID tags put in their arms and at one point even linked up tags and brains such that the guy could feel the woman’s thoughts such as moving an arm or something. He said it was more intimate the sex. O.o

After approximately 1 PM we started working on things again. We didn’t get very far and we wanted to talk to Katy, so we called her and Peng back in and discussed the project. This included us saying we really wanted to work on surveying people and sadly it won’t be until Friday afternoon at the earliest before that happens. -.-// We are still waiting on the City Council to give our project the okay to continue. We then worked a bit on what to do for our project and Skyped Shockey and Ruiz about our lack of progress. They seemed really relaxed about the whole project actually and just told us to keep doing what we can. Not too much after that we broke for the day and I went to the gym with Stefan and Nick. We will be doing more for work tonight on our paper. After the gym I rode to Sainsbury’s and met Shoop. I got about $26 worth of stuff at the store (much more chicken!!!) and then came back to chill.  

I was really hungry so I decided to cook up the salmon that I had bought and it was SO GOOD. I used some teriyaki sauce and pan fried it (and it ended up looking like chicken instead of the pink salmon), but it was really tasty. Shoop cooked up some gnocchi and these meatless sausages (he had mistaken the package and bought the wrong ones). He shared some gnocchi with me and they were pretty good. He somehow suffered through two of the meatless sausages before he decided he couldn’t eat any more of them. I tried just an end of one of them and it tasted like a slightly charred roll of Play-doh with the same consistency and thickness. I had the salmon which was really good. After dinner Shoop and I headed to the Pierson place to get some work done, meaning that he and I were going to research thermochrons.

 So basically a thermochron is an embedded thermometer inside of a rugged housing that takes temp measurements at pre-programmed intervals. The technology is really simple and uses a real time clock to timestamp measurements. The device is capable of taking up to 2048 measurements ranging from about a minute to 255 minutes between readings. These readings can then be read using a one-wire system of communication (aka using a single wire for half-duplex serial communication (i.e., sending or receiving data exclusively)). These are decently cheap and have been around for about 10 years or so and cost about $10 per piece at 1000 pieces. We researched so much on them in an hour and a half and have a good page of sources (soon to be written up)! So progress. After that it was finally time to chill. Tomorrow we have the ARA meeting and a chat with BROhan at 10 AM. Until later, have a good night!

The train crossing as I went to Sainsbury's 

Reminds me of a Big Train sketch...

Landie porn for my dad!

Salmon and gnocchi; a match made in a kitchen

Day 9 5/18/14 (Woke up late, revising the methodology, skating, cooking so much chicken)

So I meant to actually wake up super early at like 10 AM (after staying up late watching Top Gun), but I neglected to set an alarm and promptly slept until like 1 PM. Shoop had even texted me like three times at different hours and I felt so bad but I guess I needed to catch up on sleep. Anyways I showered and made lunch. We decided that we wouldn’t go to the Malvern Hills as we hadn’t heard from Stefan or Nick, and Shoop and I started fixing the methodology (we had to do this because Shockey and Ruiz told us that our writing was rough and needed fixing (which was quite accurate)). So Shoop and I tightened up the writing and structured the sections with a goals subsection to try and make clear all aspects of our work. After we heard back from Stefan and Nick we tried to meet them at our office, but the Hines building automatic door was deadbolted (the key tap in access worked and tried to open the door, but the deadbolt prevented it….-.-//). So we headed over to the Pierson building and found a TV and computer setup in one of the corners and we then worked on the document for about an hour and a half. We went through mainly only the first section and got that section fixed (and seemingly more clear). We sent it off to Shockey and asked for more feedback. We also changed our timeline and Venn Diagram a bit to make the data collection techniques for each objective more clear. We also decided that we wanted to add a checklist to the housing observations and wrote that in there. Also at one point Shoop emailed me the most updated Venn Diagram with the title “Venn diagram boy” and for about 30 seconds that was his nickname (hahah I thought it was hilarious). Shoop’s a good kid and he works hard though so I thank him for helping out.

After this we had planned to go to the gym, although because it was Sunday the building was closed to the max. Shoop and I biked into town to get some groceries but all the super markets were closed except for a Tesco express luckily. So I bought some groceries and toiletries as I had run out of toothpaste haha (I had also had this weird lucid dream from when I was passed out that I badly needed a toothbrush too, but I didn’t. In my dream all the toothbrushes were really short bristled too. It was weird). After Shoop and I got back we wanted to start dinner but then decided to jog and skate into town respectively. So I put on my skates and skated all around the normal path down to the river and found several other dead ends going off the one side of the river (one to an industrial park and another to a green park with a really cool old set up small train tracks)! After that I came back and spent like an hour and a half cooking up 4 huge chicken thighs. I had bought £5 worth of chicken the other day at Sainsbury’s and needed to cook it. I tried breading them a bit, but it didn’t really work out so well. Tomko can cook chicken much better than I. After cooking so so so much chicken I only was left with maybe half a chicken breast as I had been snacking on them as I cooked. After that I chilled and watched the British version of the Oscars or academy awards. Really chill weekend although we never did get to the Malvern Hills. Perhaps next weekend! 

The River Severn on a beautiful day!

One car on display in Worcester city center for the day! (Saturday)

A Standard in city center for a show!

So many Standards!

Even more Standards!

Time to Standardize!

Those old tracks! Perfect for an old small train to ride on

Looks almost like that one house with a train in PA!

Day 8 5/17/14 (Meeting with Brohan, lunch. OH NO! THERE GOES TOKYO! GO GO GODZILLA!)

So the day started off as somewhat of a struggle bus as I only got like 3 and a half hours of sleep. I managed to pick myself up and get into the shower and finally make some breakfast. We finally headed off to meet Brohan at his home in the Arboretum. We biked over there in about 12 minutes When we arrived I gave him a call and he let us in. We walked into this really narrow house and went upstairs. Paul is a physicist as we learned. He basically talked to us for two + hours about the area and the number of HMOs in the area. After we talked about the status of the region then we walked around his house and looked at all the energy conservation technology he has put in. We talked extensively on double glazing of the windows. We also talked about putting in foam for insulation in the roofing. We also talked about mechanical ventilation with heat recovery and these cool embedded thermometers and real time clocks called thermochrons. These can be programmed to take readings in a range of time increments and store them. The information is transferred to the computer wirelessly. They are pretty awesome actually! He even said he could buy like 50 of them if we wanted to use them for the project! Paul is really interested in these and also PIC microcontrollers. He also has several raspberry pi’s. Again Brohan is such a chill dude. His older mother who is 94 and still lives in the ground floor. He invited us over again anytime and is really interested in helping others out with the technology! So it’s great to have his as a contact.

After getting back from the Arboretum we chilled for quite a long time. We had bought lunch on the way back and had sandwiches. I also bought some lunch meats for tomorrow when I think we will be biking/skating to Malvern Hills. I caught up a bit on blogging and then Stefan, Nick and I watched the pilot episode or something of Vampire Diaries. After that we decided to go see Godzilla at the cinema in town. Godzilla was pretty good although they killed all the best people! But Godzilla was a BA as always. It cost like £8 to get a ticket (way too expensive)! After that we came back for dinner. We may go out later tonight, but I am not sure as I can barely stay awake finishing this blog! Anyways I’ll talk to you guys later!

Day 7 5/16/14 (Wrap up from Worcesterland party, working on our methodology, gym access, napping, skating outside with Marceli, tortellini, hitting the pub with Katy)

So I went to the Worcesterland party on Thursday night and it was at the Peartree which is the pub on campus (so different than the states except for the Goat’s head bar). Anyways I rolled in there at like 11 ish and it only cost a quid to enter. They also gave out free shots. I tried one (but sipped it slowly) which made it even worse. It was like some really bad cough syrup. Eventually I survived it and just sat there messaging people. I was supposed to meet Marceli there and so I was waiting by the bar forever and then she showed up at like 12 ish. She is Brazilian and quite a bit shorter than I had expected (like Jessie James height and she is 23 and an artistic figure skater (who I met on Tinder of all places)). Anyways so then I basically sat and talked to her for like an hour and a half about all things skating to the states to geography and Brazil. It was a really chill time while there was a quasi-rager going on downstairs. It had lasers and a huge open dance floor (actually really open as there were only 4 chicks on the dance floor when I arrived. There were a total of around like 20 people when I got there but luckily people started piling in. At around 1:30 AM we decided to go downstairs and try out the dancing there. The whole night I had been almost unable to talk for whatever reason and constantly had to ask the woman behind the bar for water (she thought it was hilarious by the end of the night). I met some interesting peeps chilling at the bar like this dude named James who was a post-grad in psychology. We had a good discussion of robotics. Anyways we went downstairs and started dancing by the DJ booth in the corner of the floor about 3 minutes before all the lights came on and the music stopped (almost Shaun of the Dead style). It was pretty abrupt and the DJs couldn’t really do anything about it, but it turns out the party was shut down due to noise complaints! So at like 1:30 AM many people simply left but Merceli and this other 26 year old woman from Sweden named Sophie styed and we chatted about all things until about 3 AM. In our time chatting there this guy named Drew (who is blind and has a service dog) would bust in on the conversation and try to rile me up (but I was so chill that I would roll with it). He kept thinking it was hilarious to hear my responses to his annoying questions. He would chat with us for like 5 minutes then say he was leaving and show up again in like 15 minutes. He did this about 3 times and was continually annoying but I couldn’t really do anything about it. At finally 3 AM the people closed down the student union building and kicked us out. I headed back and went to sleep as I had to get up at 8:05 AM (which was a struggle).

So now for actually Friday: Friday started off with me wanting to chill in my bed and not move. I finally rolled myself out and fixed some breakfast of toast with jam. Shoop came up and then we headed over the office after food. It was a really chill day for work. First we worked somewhat on just derping around waiting for Katy and then we talked to Peng instead. We basically got nothing done until we met with Katy and Peng. They told us we had to write two articles for the Transition Worcester and the City Council page (about our project). So we cranked them out in almost no time whatsoever. We also worked on the authorship page for the report and sent our methodology to Shockey and Ruiz. I also set up a meeting with Paul Brohan for 10 AM on Saturday at his house to talk about the ARA and Transition Worcester. We also went to the information desk in the front lobby to ask about getting card access to the secure bike storage by the dorms and the woman told us to go to Firstpoint (another information desk) and pay for the access. So we peaced to Firstpoint and filled out a form and without any fee had access. It’s strange but we’ve been told multiple times that certain amenities will cost extra but then we don’t have to pay for them. Anyways in the afternoon it was just those articles and the authorship section. We ended work at like 4 PM because we literally had finished everything and have to wait for meetings on Tuesday and Monday to continue working on our project. After work we passed by the gym and handed in forms (and now have gym access). Stefan wanted to go workout but I had to take a nap as I was going to meet Marceli for skating at 5:30 PM. So at 5:30 PM I met her and we skated all the way down to the bridge from yesterday and skated around the new housing development for some time. We started swapping tricks (she would try to have me figure skate and I would throw down a jam move). It was actually really chill and tiring. At like 7:40 PM we finally got back to campus and I made tortellini and had her over for dinner (Shoop also showed up). The tortellini were goat cheese and pesto (and were absolutely delicious). After that she peaced back to her place and I got ready to head out to the pub with Shoop to meet Katy Boom and Stefan and Nick at a place called the Hand in Glove.

We arrived at the Hand in Glove at pretty much exactly at 9:30 PM. Katy had brought two other guys from the University (Nigel and James) who were both really chill dude. Nigel was an older guy and James was probably late 40s. Katy et al. had already started drinking and Katy bought Shoop and I pints. IT was a very English beer with a distinct aftertaste (I liked it better than the pint from London). I still don’t really like the taste of the pints. WE were clustered around on chairs until finally there was a booth that opened up. We then chatted and joked our way through the rest of the pints and more drinks (I didn’t have anything until the Cuba Libres that Nick and I got). The Cuba Libre is a mix of limes, coke and Bacardi rum. It was definitely harder to taste the alcohol but had a distinct aftertaste that I wasn’t super fond of. I started to not taste the alcohol and probably got a bit buzzed at this point because I started spamming Tomko with stickers and pressing the “learned” words to type. It wasn’t that different from what I usually do, but I guess it was noticeable. I tried to prove that I was fine by asking for circuit diagrams and reciting square roots. It was good. We also met Katy’s daughter who says Katy goes out more than she does! Anyways after the pub we headed to a local cheap pizza place with Katy’s daughter and got food there (I bought a coke). After that we stood on the corner chilling and eating and decided to head back to the University instead of going clubbing. Back at the university I think Nick, Stefan and Shoop just chilled and went to bed. I should have done that but I instead I decided to head to the Peartree to see Marceli at karaoke night. It cost a quid to go in, but I paid it and headed in.

I walked around the two floors and didn’t see Marceli. After much searching and messaging her I went downstairs and saw her singing karaoke. I chilled with her friends and her and then we danced a bit (no grinding in the UK). People were drinking quite a bit at this function. There were huge pitchers everywhere. After one of her friends like freaked out and broke something we went upstairs and chilled. It was kinda weird because I got caught off talking to this short dude that was playing English pool. We were there until like 2 something and then went downstairs and Ghostbusters came on. So I raged to Ghostbusters and learned this new step dance. At like 3 AM we finally got pushed out of the place. I had a call from Tomko! It was kinda strange as it was FB call, but it was good to hear her voice again as I have been missing her. After the call I headed back to the dorms to change into my skates to go skating with Marceli. At like 3:30 AM we started skating around the campus. We had made it to the front entrance and got started talking to these two drunk dudes from karaoke night and it was forever talking to them. It was terrible as I really wanted to skate so badly. Finally they left and she and I skated around the entrance until like 4:30 AM and then sun was coming up (normally it gets dark around 10:30 PM and we saw part of the sunrise and skated around until 5 AM and I finally went to bed. It was a crazy long night….only had to get up at 9 AM for the meeting with Brohan. I learned that I do not want to drink more than 1 drink in a night. At any rate. It was okay. 

Marceli's skates (with micro sized open bearings)

The other British beer

I think I found Avicii! (Also Marceli is on the left)

Day 6 5/15/14 (Revising the methodology, hair appointment, epic skating and groceries, I’m not lost?, Worcesterland party)

Good afternoon/morning/evening or whatever! Today has to be the first day where I actually felt half decent waking up! So that’s a win right there! Anyways I used one of those Nutella packets and had toast with cereal. After that we came to the office and started working on revising the methodology after talking to Peng Li. He told us that we are specifically focusing on just houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs) and not the entire region. We even developed a quick 3 to 5 question questionnaire to ask those people we talk to next week. Starting next week we will be walking around the area and knocking on doors. Before this we hope to talk to Katy and get our other surveys finalized. We also sent Paul Brohan an email since he lives in the Arboretum; telling him that we will be there in the future. Once we finished revising the methodology we developed a few strategies to use if there is no response at the house. It has been a really short day this far. I had couscous for lunch and it was really good although I’m still hungry from it. More food for after skating! After finishing the methodology we basically just chilled and surfed the web waiting for our Skype call. The Skype call was really quick and was really only to check that we had settled in okay and that the project was going okay (we are good on both counts). At first the mic for Ruiz and Shockey was not picking up anything so they had to call me on my phone and use the audio from that. After the Skype call we basically went to the hair salon…

So it was time for the hair salon. I was starting to question if I really wanted to have my hair cut or not. I mean I do have Thor locks, but at the same time my hair is unwieldy when it comes to skating in all directions. I also can’t just have my hair as it is for photos because it pops out like a peacocks tailfeathers -.-// So we rolled up there at like 5:15 PM (for a 5:30) and started waiting. Shoop, Stefan and I were all getting haircuts and Nick was going to pop by the Tesco market next door. Stefan went and got his hair cut first and it took about 20 minutes or so. Then came my turn. At this point my hair started tugging at me to leave but I solemnly walked to the chair and sat down in front of the 20s aged stylist with brown hair and a British gap. I made a few jokes as I normally do when I am nervous. She asked how I wanted it cut and I said basically just start cutting. She pulled out the hedgetrimmer and started mowing…Naw just joking. But seriously she took like a good 40 minutes to cut my hair. It was like a forest dealing with it. The last cut I had gotten was back probably in early spring of last year (way before Nicaragua). At any rate I chatted with her and she snipped away. Snip snip chat chat snip chat chat snip etc for the whole time. We talked about everything from skating in the UK to Greek life to expensive food to haircuts. It was rather chill. At one point I even looked like Draco Malfoy (-.-//////////////////////) but luckily my hair ended up much cleaner and less paigeboy esque. After it she only charged my £10 ($20) despite the fact it took nearly twice as long as cutting Stefan’s hair and his cost the same. The guy in the front was saying he was playfully upset that he couldn’t get a discount after how much it took to tame my lion mane. At the end up of it I ended up with a few friends too. Shoop woke up from his nap and got his hair cut. I then went to Tesco and bought bananas and some sweet peppers for tomorrow (going to cook some chicken and pasta)! Back at the university I cooked some more couscous for dinner and let Stefan and Nick in so they could cook some salmon and pasta jawn for themselves. I left for skating at like 7:45 PM and got back around like 9:45 PM.

So I planned to just skate down to the same patio area where I had been practicing on Monday and I did, but I took the other path on the University side of the river. This turned out to be a great choice as the road on this side is really flat and smooth so I could just cruise down there. I actually came to the bridge at the end of the path across the river and headed back up to the practice area. It had been taken over by some BMX kids with a piece of plywood over some steps and I skated past and did jam skating for like 30 to 45 minutes. I practiced mostly flatland stuff and then did some intensive practice of the grapevine. They liked my skating and told me to “keep on dancing” so I guess I did alright. Then I decided to head back to the University and went the same way back up the University side of the river, but I decided to break off on another road up the hill. This lead me past the co-op supermarket and then past Sainbury’s so I decided to stop and buy some chicken, milk, yogurt and tortellini (granted I had skated this whole way). So I popped my skates off and carried them into the store. I walked around and gathered up everything headed to the self-checkout. When I got there I rang up everything but the tortellini came up as £2.15 when I thought the price on the shelf said £1. So I talked to the dude overseeing the self-checkout and he talked to the manager who checked the shelf and it was actually a misplaced box for the more expensive stuff (it was pesto and goat cheese tortellini). So the manager lady had me come to customer service and honored the lower price because someone had misplaced the box! So I save $4 there! That was epic! So I was really happy as she did not have to do that at all! Anyways after that I grabbed my chicken and other goods and started to skate back. I skated most of the same path as when Shoop and I had biked back to the University, but somewhere I took a wrong turn or missed a turn because I ended up way past the University to the West of town. So I had to stop and ask people in a pizza shop directions then go around a road for some time, ask a cop for directions, skate some more around neighborhoods way up on this hill, nearly eat it because of the rough transition between roads once, go the wrong way several times to dead ends and finally ask one University girl before I made it back to the entrance. Success! Made it without spilling anything and without being rained on! Successful skate! I got back and stored my food and got ready for the Worcesterland party where apparently I will see this chick I am skating with tomorrow afternoon! Until tomorrow everyone! Later! 

Beautiful old Healey!

Another guy told me the driver paid £150k

Outside the salon

The speedometer is in miles per hour though...

Either super saiyan or troll doll achieved

Throwback to the 1700s?

My audition for Slade is next week...

Such hair!

Going to miss my Thor locks

Clear cut time!

At least I have a few tribbles to remind me of what was...

Post-trimming

The last bridge in Worcester!

The last bridge in Worcester in Panorama!