Time flies at school!

Wow, I have had a blast these past two weeks!  It has been weird not riding, but I have definitely made the most of it by enjoying my time at school, going out a lot to Cap and Gown (my eating club), and partying.  I went to the T-town swap meet with the team and stocked up on cheap winter gear, and I am going to be working on the bike a bit today (after homework) to get it in good riding condition.

I hop back onto the saddle tomorrow morning--SO EXCITED!  It has been a long time since Worlds, and I am definitely rested, out of shape, and motivated--the three main ingredients of a good multi-month block of winter training.  I have yet to finalize my team situation for next season (the neo-pro is always the last two know about his deal!), but I have a few different options that I am considering.  The options are not equal, but I would LOVE to do any of them, so I am not stressing.

I got an advisor for our independent work team for Mechanical Engineering.  My best friend Will Watts, Doug Wolf, and I are going to be building an electric car using batteries from a123 Systems and they charge in five minutes!  The goal of the project is to develop a fully-electric vehicle conversion that is very powerful (300 hp) and has adequate range for almost all driving conditions (150 miles).  Oh, did I mention that it is silent and zero-emissions?  And it has maximum torque at 0 rpm?  Yeah, it would be incredible, and it is a do-able project in the next two years.

The greatest thing about this past week was finding our advisor, Professor Soboyejo, who is one of a handful of great professors in the School of Engineering at Princeton.  He is hilarious--constantly providing anecdotes in his lectures and relating the classroom to the real world--and we are very lucky to have him on board.  Will, Doug, and I just met with him four days ago on Thursday and told him of the batteries and that they were VERY expensive, but that an MIT professor had created them and we were hoping to get in touch with him for some sponsorship.  Prof Sobo Googled a123 and then told us, "Oh, it's Chiang--I know him, I know all those MIT boys up there!"  Yeah, that is the Princeton Connection for you!

Now I have some work to do for the coming week, and I am trying to be productive on my final day off the bike so that I can really get down to business and not be stressed!

P.S. here are some pictures from my nights out the past two weeks . . .

Leaving for the Charter Club semi-formal with Nicole (very cool Chemical Engineer who I hung out with over the summer in Boulder)

At Cap and Gown Club with Liz and Alex (a boater on the crew team, a floater on the swim team)

Here is a really cool shot of my good friend Shawn with The Man, Cipo, at Interbike in Vegas!  She told me his shirt was the nicest she has ever seen, and that all of the rumors about his playboy-ways are true.  I wish I had been there!

Also, I found this picture from WAY back in the day--I figured some people back home might enjoy it!  I don't think I need to write a caption for it, the road is infamous.