Midsummer

My life hit a sad note when I heard last Wednesday that my godmother, Betty McKibben, had passed away at the remarkable age of 92. Betty is kind of a legend at St. Paul's Church, Grinnell College, and in Grinnell itself--she was perhaps the kindest, most generous, and most influential person I know (along with her husband, Bill). For as long as I can remember, Bill and Betty have been the de facto spiritual leaders of my church, inspiring others to act and live as they do. I myself was quite close to both Betty and Bill, as being their godson granted me special attention as I grew up. While I've become less religious/spiritual as I've gone through my life (or perhaps I never was), the joyful and loving example Betty and Bill have set really makes me admire them and makes me want to live in the same way. I'll never forget Betty, and I expect Bill will live and inspire others for quite some time yet.

Betty has been in ailing health lately, but still her passing came quite suddenly. I'm glad I was nearby this summer so I could attend her memorial service at St. Paul's on Saturday. It was very moving; especially the times I thought about Bill and how the two have them have been so inseparable for so long of a time--over three times as long as I've been alive. Bill himself was very emotional but remarkably in control as he read the first reading in his usual, confident manner--just an amazing man. Bill's reading, and Milton Severe's tenor solo "In the Cool of the Day" at the offertory were the most moving parts of the service, for me. Mom's harp playing and the hymns accompanied by Dad on the organ were also very nice. A great tribute to an even greater woman.


Even though it's just about the middle of the summer, I'm almost done with my REU in Ames. Just one week of work left to go, and one week of presentations, and that's it. Our project is looking pretty good. By the end of this week, we will have a 10-12 page paper which we will send to the Electronic Journal of Linear Algebra (you're all subscribed to that, right?) to be published, a longer ~20-25 page "REU paper" which has the same info but in more detail and with more examples, and a slideshow presentation (not Powerpoint, but LaTeX!) which we'll use in our presentation on Tuesday, July 25.

The academic side of my experience here in Ames has been so relaxed that I've had to look elsewhere for my day-to-day challenges. That is to say, I have been doing a ton of physical activity. First and foremost, I've been running around 50 miles a week, training for my last season of CMS XC. I'm a little behind pace on my quest to match last summer's training total of 650 miles--only about 300 at the halfway point--but I still have time to make that up. I've also been keeping up the lifting at Lied Rec Center three times a week. We've been playing less Ultimate Frisbee lately, but I've gone climbing (there's a wall at Lied), swimming, and biking more than once so far. Today, six of us Math REU students bought disks and braved the high-90s-degree heat and high humdity to play disk golf at an awesome 18-hole course in Ames. Finally, I've been playing The Pushup Game with Steve (and twice with Reed Lyon in Washington via AIM)--a very fun game which involves a deck of cards and pushups. I actually took a free health assessment test at Lied earlier this week: my body fat is a lean but healthy 8%, core body strength is Average (the guy kinda cheated me on this situp test, not holding my ankles and not telling me exactly what to do), upper body strength is Above Average, flexibility is Good, and cardiovascular condition is Excellent. Woohooooooo

I actually ran another race last night, the "Midnight Madness" 10K taking place in downtown Ames. As part of the annual statewide Iowa Games competition, this race had many more runners than the 4th of July one, and, as people were from all around the state and surrounding states (and, in the case of my friend Steve, as far away as Maine), there were some REALLY good runners there. Yesterday was perhaps the hottest day of the summer so far (although today might have outdone it), and the start of the race in the evening at 8:30 PM saw low-90 degree temperatures and very high humidity. So, in my first ever 10k, I finished in 41:22, or about 6:39-minute mile pace. That pace seems slow compared to my best time in the 8k last XC season (28:58, or 5:45 pace), but I feel OK about it considering the stifling weather conditions, the length of the race (I guess, the longest I've ever done), and my current standpoint in the base-building stages of training. I also came in a solid 43rd among 262 males running the event, and 18th out of 50 in my M20-24 age group, not too shabby. But there really were some amazing runners there:

- The winner ran 4:50 pace to finish in 30:05, 11 minutes in front of me
- I was beaten by 15 girls (the fastest of whom was only beaten by 17 guys and ran 35:07 in 5:39 pace)
- I was beaten by both a 50-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl. Both by 3 minutes.

But then again, there were about 60 people who took more than an hour to finish. And I got a free mug for finishing in the top 100 guys!


I guess, only one more item of nore. A week ago now, we took our main REU field trip of the summer to Worlds of Fun amusement park in Kansas City, MO. It was pretty fun, only my second experience with roller coasters after the high school band trip to Disney World (no, I've never been to Adventureland even.) I have to say that roller coasters are awesome, water rides are lame but refreshing on extremely hot and humid days, $2.75 bottles of pop are not cool, and 25 cent cotton candy is slightly more cool.


I haven't been taking many pictures, partly because my camera devours batteries, and partly because I don't want to carry it around. So I have to live with posting photos that others take...hope they're mildly interesting!



Walking around on the 4th of July. Steve and I are sporting our hard-earned "Four on the Fourth" t-shirts.


4th of July picnic at one of the REU mentors' houses




One of those sudden and menacing summer Iowa storms


Arrival at Worlds of Fun


Trick dog show at Worlds of Fun. I think the highest the dog jumped was 52 inches--pretty amazing!


One of the best rides at Worlds of Fun, Boomerang. It sends you down one way, then lifts you up at the other end and you do the whole thing backwards.