Friends sing together, lalalalaaaaaa

Good week. Very full. Worked on some sick new songs with the boys that will be on the next album which is turning out to be very eerie and gloomy. Then I took a diverted path up to NH to visit the lady and Machias friends. We went skiing and watched movies. I was a good time and nice to actually see Meg in between being home. It has never happened before and it was good to have that balance. Came back and found out my TB test was negative, yessss. Played some sick COD4 with the boys and Kristie, who got very excited and yelled a lot but made all that more fun. My favorite quote (from Dan): "Okay, everyone just get Mike with the knife. Just stab him..." Hahaha. Mr. Sneaky strikes again. Spent a full day at the Newms with a feast at the end and I wouldn't have it any other way. Yay for a good break that really lacked boredom. Time for school again, but I'm ready. 

Friends:  This video sums up my week :)

Where Science and Music Meet

So yea. It's been a long time but I'm finally updating this so I'll try to make it thorough and interesting!

Let's see. Started classes for my final semester here at UMM. Here is a list of my classes and my opinion/work of them so far.

Population and Community Ecology: Good so far. Lewis has really upped the anti this semester. He's got quite the pep too. Apparently someone told him to be more approachable so now he comes into class and looks out the window and says things like "It's cold today. Don't go outside naked." No lie. :) But yea, lotsa animal examples for stuff and so far it's mostly evolutionary stuff.

Remote Sensing: This is my independent GIS study with Tora and it's really picking up now. I'm starting a project where I'm using satellite imaging to look at the differences in forested habitat for a species using things like infrared imaging. Right now I'm looking at Orangutan habitat in Tanjung Putang National Park in Borneo because it is an area of heavy illegal logging and I'd like to see how much the logging has affected the area even it has become a national park. Go conservation!

Winter Bird Ecology: This class is going alright. A bit slow sometimes, I don't do good with once a week two hour classes. Labs are on Saturday and have been cold most days. This past Saturday we saw over 120 Bald Eagles. No lie. In the air, in the trees, and the mudflats around the Eastport area. Go America!

Geography: This is an online class that is pretty easy so far. Lots of discussions online and there other students there really lack ambition. We had to pick an area (5 actually) in the world we wanted to visit, make a video of them in Google Earth and share why we chose them. Many of the video were girls saying they wanted to visit a place because their Church did a mission there. :\    I was like, what do I write back to that? It's noble sure, but where's your sense of adventure?

Folk Group: Sweet class that's now going on two days a week. Learning a lot of new and old songs. The first song we did as a group was "The Captain" by Guster that I brought in and we did great. We have like 8 guitarists, 2 bassists, two drummers, 2 banjos, a mandolin, like 4 singers, and a washboard. Yay washboard!

Pop Band: Awesome, I'm not taking it for credit but I'm most excited for this. We tried Come Together the other night and I apparently blew everyone away. The quiet science guy belted the rock. Thats right. ;) It's great playing with good musicians compared to the older Pop Band classes I took. I'm singing a duet with one girl who is awesome. It's called Good Time by Lady Antebellum and I volunteered on a whim to do it and I'm psyched now. Might do some Flight of the Conchords too!

So that's it for classes. I've been doing a lot of internship research too. Narrowed it down to 5 SCA internships in conservation and 3 in Texas dealing with animal husbandry. Getting ready to package everything and I need to get a TB test. :P

Weekends have been busy because of my Saturday lab but we managed to travel to up to Thomas' house last weekend and go icefishing/snowmobiling and that was fun. Never ridden one before and we each got our own. Sat in the camp house later and had a great view of the lake to watch the traps. We sat back and played poker until we saw a flag, then jumped on the snowsled and gunned it across the lake to the traps.

I have break coming up soon which I'll be coming home for but I still have lab that Sat from 9-1 so I'll be home late Sat or early Sun. Not sure yet.

Hope this helps everyone catch up.

I wish I had some pictures of stuff. I think there are some kicking around. I'll try to see what I can do.

Mike