What's Been Consuming Me.

For the past six weeks I have been in summer session. I finished my last final today and am relieved to be free for six weeks. The pictures above are the simulation clinic where we learn how do all of the dental procedures and my dummy. I unofficially named him Pleasant Bassham after one of my distant Butler relatives. This last six weeks has been long and tough. I have spent at least a little time in the sim lab every day for about the last our weeks inculding 8 hours every Tuesday and Thursday. I performed well in some classes and not so well in others and I am just relieved to have a some time off. During my break I will be heading to Ashland for a few days and then to Idaho for the reaminder of my time. In Idaho, I will be helping on the ranch as well as fishing a lot. I am looking forward to a horse packing trip is September into the Idaho wilderness. Other plans for the break include reading for my own enjoyment, mounting a new scope on my .22, fly tying, reloading, and making a repair to my surgical light and redesigning the light to be more heat efficient, smaller and lighter. I also plan on catching up on sleep. When I get some good picture from Idaho I will share them here.

Cheers

FLUGTAG!!!

Today was the Portland edition of the Red Bull Flugtag. This is an event where teams make "flying" contraptions and try to fly them off of a 30 foot ledge. The teams are judged on creativity and distance of flight. Most of the "flying machines" don't actually fly but they fall very fast. All of the teams have a different theme. When they get to the launch platform the teams answer some questions about thier contraption then do choregraphed dance to their theme. They then load one person in the contraption and the rest of the team pushes like a bobsled. When they get to the end of the ramp the whole team jumps in. You can see the launch platform in this picture with a viking dragon like thing about to go off. The event was held at the Willamette waterfront park in downtown Portland. Some friends and took a break from lab work and went down to watch. There were an estimated 60,000 people at the event. There were people standing on the bridge in the background, people on the other side of the river, people in boats and people packed onto the shore and grassy areas. There were people everywhere.