Race Car

I expressed interest last week in the Formula SAE race team here- Dr. Callis but me in touch with the captain.  I met him at the University Des Sarlandes campus to see the car and talk to him about their group.

The team competes in the electric race-car competition and has a pretty cool car.  They definitely have a lot of problems to overcome for this year's design and build.  As I was seeing the car part of me wanted to be a part of the team, but the other part was afraid to go down the rabbit hole.  I could see it getting real ugly and time consuming.

The captain was really nice, though, and understood my indecision on commitment to the group.  He agreed to put me on the email list and will let me know when they kick-off the year.  I think I will try to help in any non-committal fashion.

Also, the lab had a really cool 7 or 8 gear transmission built and spliced by ZF:

Klettern

This week I joined the local climbing gym in the hopes I'll get exercising more often.  The gym is pretty massive and has a great set up:

If all goes well I'll be spending a couple days a week here.  My first day back was pretty rough, but I had fun.

German Music

In Germany, most Germans assume that Americans have never heard their music, or that we only know the band Rammstein, which was a surprisingly popular "death metal" band.  Both of these assumptions are mostly true. SO, here is a popular song from a popular band with the youth:

Schwenken

On Saturday all of the HTW internationals were invited to one of the office's student aid's house for a Schwenken party.  Schwenken is a Saarlandish grilling experience where you build a fire and schwenk "swing" meat over the heat. This is an example set up:

The host lived really far away.  We had to take a train for 30 minutes; on the train we were joking that we were going to a cabin in the woods, or something.  Once we got out, we were picked up in a few rounds and taken to the house- it was down a dirt road in the woods!

Us wandering before the ride showed up:

Short car ride later, we found paradise in the backyard:

Everyone (12 people) brought food and the dad grilled it for us.  It was a really nice time hanging out around the fire.  The Schwenken set up was awesome- the grill came down through the roof by a wench.  We were all very impressed.

I brought pineapples and onions; it went over well with everyone. Only one other person had previously experienced grilled pineapple, which is one of the greatest things ever.

Chaos. German Style.

While I was still in Cologne my roommate shared this ad with me:

In the past weeks of gotten to experience first hand some of the troubles associated with "German Bureaucracy."  Registering my change of address with the city and my bank, enrolling in classes, gaining access to computer systems, and even playing soccer with the University have each required a small mountain of paperwork.

Germans seem to love the idea of paperwork and signature-verified records of everything.  In a country obsessed with order, I'm good to know that the Commerzbank Group can still get a little crazy with their paperclips.

First Day of School

Unfortunately, after Death Run 2014 I got sick (actually sick).  I hadn't felt 100% healthy before the run, and the exercise definitely exacerbated whatever was going on.  I was out of bed or off the couch for less than 2 hours in total between Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  The only thing I accomplished, besides finishing 8 movies, was creating an incomplete schedule for my classes/labtime:

Monday is the only day without classes- so the plan is to devote it to working (reading/brainstorming) in the wind lab.

Today, Tuesday, I didn't quite make it to my first class, but I made it to Kraftwerktechnik, which was an interesting experience (count the commas!).  The class is supposed to combine thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, electrical engineering, and heat transfer to practical applications within power generating plants (e.g. a raffinery, biogas, nuclear, coal, etc.).  The only problem is that the lecture is entirely in German and that I didn't really follow anything that happened.

After many introductions in Germany, I think I can safely say I've nailed my elevator talk in German. Jourdan Beaumont, 22 years old, exchange student, already graduated, mechanical engineer, from new mexico, know the show Breaking Bad? yes, that is my city. I'm excited to be here.  The problem with a strong start is that people then assume that you know what's going on.  It's worsened when you instinctively make eye-contact and nod- or when you mumble "alles klar" every time someone (the teacher) directs a question at you.  In the three hours of the class, apart from my intro, I think I said "alles klar" twice, "was?" once, and "uhhh yah" once as well.

This was unfortunate because the class is discussion based and only has 10 students.  The professor seemed very friendly and happy to be a teacher- I'm wishing I was 100% fluent already.  Hopefully I'll still be able to get something out of the class.

Funny things:
- one of the most common used words sounded very close to "Englisch" which really threw me off. I'm excited to try and figure out what word the teacher kept actually saying

- a couple different times we would all be sitting and then everyone would start frantically making calculations on their page- I hadn't even caught that a question was asked.  I bluffed and scribbled gibberish and used my phone to translate words-- everyone else was using theirs to look up equations/material properties.

Cool things:
- class was held in his lab, it looks like he has build a small scale power plant including a feed water heater (furnace) system.

- a kid was hungry, so he gave everyone a break until whenever that kid could get to the cafeteria, eat, and come back (about 20 minutes)

- everyone raps their knuckles on the table to end class

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After the class I went to the wind lab to start reading about wind turbines.  My lab mates are very friendly and persuasive- they used the "three guys here, only three beers left" logic to get me to have a drink with them (in the lab).  I found out that all three of us did Co-op programs during our Bachelors within Energy.  One guy worked within a coal mine (he loved it) and showed me pictures where he was completely black (reminded me of Zoolander).  Every male in his family has worked in the mines, some 1000 m below the surface, since 1860.  They closed in 2012.  The other guy worked in a power plant and also on the massive windfarms in the north sea.

I am looking forward to working more with them.

"Jetz haben wir einen kleinen Berg"

Friday I took the bike on the train to school. Between the train and school the chain broke. Rather than go to class, I decided to fix it so I could get home.  It was satisfying being able to make calls to Fahrradreparaturen shops in German. Eventually I found one, but they were too busy to change the chain for me. Luckily, they let me borrow the tool and do it myself.  I felt pretty smug after the whole experience.

Then I went to get my ego checked by running with a 50-60+ year old man.  We met in his office, he was with a student but invited me in.  The kid says to me in English, with noticeable surprise in his voice, "You're going to run with Dr. Calles? You know he is quite fast." I sit on the floor and do some soul searching, "why am I here right now?"

When Dr. Calles is finished, I ask him how many Marathons he has run. "40-50." Perfekt. He asks me the same, I answer with "I ran a half,"  He asks my time and within a second of my response he says, "okay we will run 9 minute miles just like your pace" (His mental math made me a little faster- bad news for me).

We head out over the bridge and along the river for the run.  Now is a good time to mention that I have gained 9 pounds since being in Germany.  I'm not proud, but it's worth mentioning as to give you an idea of my current physique.  As Carhart would say, "WIP- Work in Progress."

At some point along the river we take a left as if to turn around. I'm pretty much dead at this point and think that running all the way to the finish will still be difficult.  Instead, Callis says, "Now we have a small mountain."  I should of quit right then.  Instead, because I can't talk, I just nod and keep grinding.  When we reach the top of the little mountain, Callis takes a hard left onto a trail through the forest.

Callis soon suggest we extend the run to 20km (half marathon).  I muster the strength to yell "Bitte Nein!"  During the remaining period of trail running, I wonder what the chances are that someone would be able to find my collapsed body deep within the damn forest.

Eventually the endorphin hits and I pretty much go brain dead for the rest of the run.  All in all we went a little over 8 kilometers in 45 minutes.  Exactly a 9 minute mile pace for 5 miles.  The guy is good; I am in terrible shape.

Back at the HTW we have a beer and then I go home.  I felt pretty terrible and went to bed at 9 pm.