Summer 06 moving along...

Tom and I finished the 260 mile canoe race! The race was an extraordinary experience which tested our endurance and enlightened me on how little sleep one can survive on! My left shoulder gave out at the very end - literally the very end, but all my aches and pains were gone by the end of the weekend. We finished in a time of 74.5 hours and came 2nd in our class. The river I later heard was at an all time low and probably one of the most difficult years to complete the race. Only 51 participants of the 101 finished, many of whom were in a FAR worse state than ourselves by the end. We got a total of 5 hours of sleep - at least I did... 4 hours curled in the central compartment of the canoe and 1 hour on the shore. We got to see a number of large 'gators, deer, coyote howling, racoons, huge carp and gars, and a wide array of birdlife. Hope you enjoy the pics! Here's one of my favorites.
Oh, and like I'd hoped, I raised what I thought was a considerable amount for the WWF (world wildlife fund) in the short 2 weeks before the race! I've recieved a total of $743.94 in donations and am very grateful for all your donations - no matter how little or much you donated, it all makes a difference. I want to however especially thank the three highest donors: the Steigman family, Kara Kockelman and Pat Birkett. Thank you so much for your generosity.

The week following the canoe race I quickly summed up some friends and we organized ourselves a rugby 7s team. Although we lost all 4 games, we didnt deserve to do well as we had only practiced twice... Only one of the games did we lose badly, but the team that beat us in that one won the bracket. We should have won one of the games and the other two were only a difference in a try or two at most. Nonetheless, a good, exhausting time and a great way to spend a saturday!


As the summer comes to an end and I'm moving toward my independent future, I find myself more independent than ever before. I've almost been at my new apartment now for a month, am single again (which I hope and need to remain), and I'm almost done with school. My last class in college (an engineering elective) I find is probably the most practical class I've taken yet in college. I'm actually quite astounded by the fact that the curriculum doesnt require much computer drafting. Sure there was ME210 - a blow off class that we touched upon computer drafting, but leaving a prestigious engineering school, I'd have felt incredibly foolish not being able to exercise some of the skills I learned in school. Why the hell do we have Engineering Communication when we could tie a project report in with a drafting class? Our intro class was pretty pathetic too. Any of these could have/ should be replaced with advanced CAD measures, GIS and other developing softwares. Rather ironic though that in my CAD class I'm drafting the Eiffel tower for my 3D project, after having come out of two of my most serious relationships with women that went to France.

This last weekend I went sailing with Tara Brace, her dad, Brett James, Jeff, Kevin and Mikey. It was a good time, I didnt and should have brought my camera. Hopefully Tara will send me the ones she took in a while which I could post. Better yet, we'll see if we can go out again this weekend on the sailboat. Tara's dad cracks me up. He used to be kind of a stiff, but this time he was sipping away at a Vodka Sprite and joking about girls etc.

Summer 2005 (Boston, North Carolina, NYC, and the Northeast):

Back in the early months of Spring I'd planned ahead to move up to Boston, MA for the summer. I was hoping to get a civil engineering job doing construction or as an intern in one of the Unis up there. No progress seemed to be made with my job searches. Jessica Peters, my girlfriend at the time, was my saving grace. She asked her father, Dr Craig Peters, who was a professor at Harvard and medical surgeon in pediatric urology for Children's Hospital of Boston if he knew of anything. More than amazingly - there was. I was snapped up by Harvard's Biomedical Engineering Department as an undergraduate research assistant for a project working on heart surgery. Jessica flew back to Boston after her finals and had begun settling in about the time I showed up. I had no wheels, and I was somewhat strapped for cash. The Peters family was incredible to me to say the least. Kathy, Jess' mum had helped get their guest apartment arranged for me. Mrs. Peters had also arranged for me to look after a neighbor's home while they were away.

That first week was tough to adjust to and figure out. I was highly dependent on the Peters which I preferred not to burden them with. I bought myself a cheap 3 speed bicycle. The weather was chilly and damp. One afternoon Jess and I had been out on Newbury Street and were driving home when an SUV came out of its lane, due to its speed in the corner on the wet road, and entered our lane with nowhere to go. The Volvo Jess was driving slammed into the car as there was no other option. The accident was jarring, and left the car totaled. Fortunately nobody was hurt. So things weren't looking to happy that first week. Luckily, the bad fortune was over and the rest of the summer was a blast.

At the end of the first week I cycled into Children's Hospital and met with Dr Del Nido, the chief cardiologist at Children's whom introduced me to the team I was working with. I didn't have a very clear idea as to what I would be working on. I hadn't even had time to polish up on my biology, let alone my anatomy... So, I clearly recall my first meeting. I was dressed in a black blazer, blue shirt, white tie, black belt, cream slacks and polished Italian styled black shoes. I didn't fit the part. I walked into the overcrowded room with about 20 people stuffed inside, half of which were dressed in scrubs, the other half t-shirts and jeans. Pedro Del Nido's presence was clearly impressive as everyone seemed to straighten up and look more aware as he entered, with me in his shadow. He sat down and with a hand gesture, catching my attention as it was clearly directed at me, announced to the room that there was somebody new on the team for the next few months. "Introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you're here to do" - he preached. Shit!

I stood up and calmly obeyed. "Good afternoon everyone, I'm Richard Plowes, here from the University of Texas at Austin, and I'm a civil engineering major, so I'm probably somewhat out of place amongst all of you doctors..." Laughter erupted in the small room. I felt my cheeks begin to blush, but luckily Del Nido spoke up soon enough to save me from further embarrassment to explain that most of the people were Biomedical engineers from Harvard or Boston University. He didn't waste any time, as he then asked that people start reporting the progress on their projects. It was dimly lit, and after four hours of powerpoint presentations on heart surgery that was as foreign to me as Mandarin Chinese we ended. Del Nido introduced me to Paul Novotny and Marius Linguraru and told me I'd be working with them. That Thursday I made my first of many 30 mile round-trip bicycle commutes to the lab at Harvard where I worked the entire summer. The learning curve was ridiculous, without much mentorship either. I was to pick up and learn new computer programming languages at various proficiencies. Research and learn all about the mitral valve surgery that the project was to focus on. The most challenging part was actually extracting information about the project from my supervisors. I had an immensely interesting and good time working on something that was beyond any R&D I'd ever seen before.

Well the researching at Harvard continued, the bicycling wasn't enough. I found a rugby club and a touch rugby league that I joined. I even managed to get Jess out to the touch games as they were co-ed. I think more than anything else, the touch leagues were just a good way of meeting friendly young adults, as the evenings were always capped off with a Magner's Apple Cider at the Banshee Pub. Jess and I planned most weekends to do something out of town, although we did do our fair share of tourist attractions in Boston. The first week in Boston we got to see my first Broadway play, and now my favorite - Phantom of the Opera. Nicola came and visited once. I also visited her place in Storrs which is very quaint and serene. Her house is modest but has the view a millionaire often dreams of overlooking a lake with lush green countryside all around. Ryan Peters, Jess' brother, joined Jess and I on a water adventure down a river that I'd floated twice in a previous summer in the Catskill mountains. I remember the day starting out beautiful and dry, but became more and more ominous the nearer the time we go to the river. By the time our tubes were in the water, freezing cold water, the first bolts of lightning sounded off in the nearby distance. After it was too late to change our minds, the rain was pouring down on us, the lightning was gruely and we decided to abandon the river. We clambered up the sides of the river bank and sought refuge in a country guesthouse. Eventually things calmed and we returned to the river, but I have my suspicions that'll be the last time Jess goes there... haha!

I just recently received the majority of the pictures I think from the summer, but I liked this one I had on my computer at work of Jess, and the Saaaaaaaaabe.

There are so many stories to be told of the summer. We also ventured off to NYC, Salem, Newport Rhode Island and some other coastal towns that were just fantastic. Terrie and Ryan joined us for a while. I have ridiculous house sitting stories... Man o man! I'd best not get started on all of those just yet... Did I even mention we went to the Outerbanks in North Carolina? The entire summer I pretty much became a part of the Peters family and they really are an extraordinary family that I owe so many thanks to. I had a brilliant time and I really hope that I get to see you all soon, maybe at your new home in Charlottesville!? Thanks again for a wonderful summer.

Summer began last week. The heat hasn't become unbearable yet. Although I have 9 credit hours left to complete my curriculum, I was able to walk the stage at graduation on Friday May 19th. For the four years of hard work I put into my degree, I was rather disappointed by the anticlimactic end! Most Americans before graduation announce their ends to their education and may have family fly in from the different corners of the nation. It's a little more difficult for me with relatives in Australia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, England, Mexico, USA and maybe more...

I've been thinking of an alternate means to let everyone know what's been going on in my life these last few years without boring you and without overloading you, because there's been a lot! With a concoction of ideas and suggestions, I've decided that doing a blog would be the most appropriate means in this day and age ;)

So, here my blogging begins, Summer 06:

I love the feeling of sweating profusely. Gross maybe, but its true. I've been pushing myself fairly hard to develop a running routine, and now more recently an additional canoeing routine. I've bumped my 30 minute 4.5 mile to a 7 mile (not gonna say a time until I have some consistency on this one) Now I am planning to run the Dallas White Rock Marathon in the Fall. My uncle Tom on the other hand has been my mentor when it comes to canoeing. Tom's been training for a 260 mile canoe race with his mate Ralph. Trouble is, Ralph just pulled out of the race... so without much ado, Tom recruited me... This race is intense. We are in the aluminium class of boat (which has a maximum hull speed of about 6mph when we paddle like animals) and so we are aiming at finishing the race in 72 hours. The maximum time permitted to complete the race is 100 hours, but as one might imagine, it becomes increasingly less productive as the time drags into the 3rd and 4th day. Tom has the system down. He's equipped me with some pretty cool gear including a bottom-cut-out-urinal (which also is used as a bailer), four water bottles (2 filled with cytomax - an energy drink) with long tubes that clip to ones shirt so you only miss one paddle stroke when inserting this home-made camelback into your mouth. We have ziplock containers attached with neat clips to the insides of the canoe so we know where they are at all times, and we have best of all, $190 paddles!!!!! I know, I was in shock. I'm going to take some sweet pictures to put up on the blog (with labels) and I may even put up pictures of me at the end of this monstrous race! We had a practice race last weekend which was 18 miles long (the last stretch of the long race) which was interesting to say the least. I got a sighting of a roseatte spoonbill as well as an alligator which was really neat. First bit of good wildlife I've seen in a while! The fishing down there also looked like it'd be marvelous, although you'd have to pay me more than a lot to eat anything out of that water. We caught sight of some dodgy looking stuff in the river including a monstrous head (either a massive catfish or a cow) that had turned white under the water surface... delightful! The one thing I really want to do that I'm looking into is developing some kind of fundraising effort in conjunction with the race in which the proceeds go to a charity that helps the environment or people in hardships back home in Zimbabwe. I'll keep you posted with this as it progresses.

So its not all about running and canoeing... as I said I have 9 credits to complete and I have a strong desire to push to excel in these last 3 classes as it'll set me up fairly well for applying to graduate studies. At this point in time I think biomedical engineering research is what entices me the most, although there are many other fields I'd like to learn more about (just to name a few: law, medicine, NGOs like WWF, environmental development, ski resorts and recreation, teaching, third world development or disaster preparedness) before I make up my mind. I have my career with Kimley Horn starting up in August or sooner, although I think I will wait until I am done with class just so that I can completely focus on my career. I don't want to start off with other things on my mind and do anything half-assed, so although I'd love to get my signing bonuses right away I think it's best I wait till I'm ready to focus on just my job.

So there you have it, my summer plans in a nutshell. And when summer ends, I've got a 3 day pass to ACL festival!