Saturday, December 8, 2012

Staying busy

This Fall absolutely flew by!  Between my hardest school quarter yet, work, and cross racing on the weekends, I've been busy.  It's been a good kind of busy though.  I had one of my best and most fun cross seasons yet.  My Second Ascent teammate Benji Perrin continued to up his game this year and had a great showing at the races and placed 4th overall in the Seattle CX Series.  My former and future teammate Toby Swanson also had a great comeback season for 2nd overall in the SCX Series.  I'm super pumped to have him on the team next year.  Between the three of us, we are sure to be a top cyclocross squad for next year's local races and maybe more.

Woodland Park MFG.  Photo:  NW Epic Series

Thanksgiving XC World Champs 5k at Cornwall Park.  Photo:  Jake Hartsoch

Cleaning up in Lake Samish after the Lutherwood cross race.

State championships run-up.  Photo:  Dennis Crane

3rd at State Champs.  Great job to Logan Owen and Gian Dalle for their killer seasons! 

Below are some nerdy illustrations from my Fourier Series/Partial Differential Equations class that I think are really neat.  A vibrating string or membrane's motion depends on position and time (a partial differential equation, or PDE for short).  To find a solution to the PDE we use the given boundary conditions and initial conditions.  I get kind of excited anytime math has interesting physical meaning.

Vibrating string with red "super-glued" segment.  Property of Branko Curgus.


Vibrating membrane (i.e. a musical drum) evaluated using Laplace's Equation in cylindrical coordinates.  Property of Branko Curgus.
That's all for now.  I should have some news about my mountain bike situation for next year in the near future.