March, Talkin’ about the Madness

March is quickly on the way out, already it will be April 1st tomorrow. March came rolling in like a fury with a massive blizzard that the Twin Cities and state of Minnesota hadn’t seen in 8 years. Minnesota for two weeks was turned into a “winter wonderland”. To celebrate, Kristen and I spent a Saturday in Dassel snowmobiling. I had never snowmobiled in my life, a crime for the average Minnesotan I know.

As the title suggests, the main focus of March was the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and the family’s bracket through ESPN. Frank, my older brother, always gets pumped up with this time of year and had a great post at the beginning of the month describing his picks and which teams he was backing. Currently I am sitting in 4th place and have Ohio State winning it all in the final round and they are playing Georgetown in 15 minutes. We’ll see how it goes. Final Four!!!! Woo-Hoo!

March has been a screwy month in terms of weather. From the start we go from blizzards with about 2 feet of snow followed by freezing temperatures to a high of 85 and beautiful sunshine all over the metro last week, and now about 5 days straight of rain.

Pushing Some Snow in Dassel Minnesota with the BobCat

March has also been a pretty hectic time at the University of Minnesota and the State Capitol. The Tax and Property Tax Committees have been hearing bills left and right and keeping us interns on our toes making copies, stuffing folders full of bills and bill summaries, and assisting the pages with their duties in committees. As for the University of Minnesota, Kristen and I are closing on the end of Spring Semester and our undergraduate careers. For classes, I have been busy with my senior thesis on High Speed Rail (HSR) for the Midwest, reading books and articles as well as checking the net for what the rest of the country is doing for High Speed Ground Transportation (HSGT). For example, one of the best proposals is from the state of California and their High Speed Rail Authority. Check out this short (4-minute) presentation of HSR for California: Thanks to user NC3D for uploading and to the HSR authority of California for having it available to the public.



I only wish that the Midwest Regional Rail System/Initiative (MWRRI) was this far along and had this quality of marketing. It makes me consider moving to California and possibly applying to Berkley for my Graduate degree.

Another class I have been working hard in is my Urban GIS class through the Geography department. Some classmates and I are working as a team for a neighborhood organization who need Geo-Spatial data to help them make decisions on where to locate a new facility. Recently in the class we have been working on covering Gravity Models and location-allocation theory. I have also been writing papers for my internship seminar and wrapping my head around Financial accounting at Carlson. I only wish I had taken the class 2 years ago while I was deep in statistics, it would have helped in Private Sector Development.

Spring Break was relaxing, I only went into the capitol for one day and Kristen worked for two. Kristen and I got to spend some time with friends at Lindsey Schempf’s 21st Birthday. Later in the week we spent a few hours at the Grand Rios indoor Water Park in Brooklyn Park riding waterslides and floating in the lazy river. Hopefully we will get a chance soon to take a peak at the Water Park of America in Bloomington. While we planned to get some skiing in this winter, it just wasn’t in the cards and will have to be something we do next season.

In the meantime, my Dad and brother have continued they’re planning for our trip to Glacier National Park this summer. Also, my Dad and I have begun making plans for a small Hiking trip in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee sometime hopefully after graduation.

Another important time of Spring, Kristen and I will be celebrating our third year together next week April 4th. We are hoping to hit up Mancini’s in St. Paul for dinner and maybe catch a few of the Omni Films at the Minnesota Science Museum. Both of us have been working hard applying for jobs and scheduling interviews. Kristen has an interview soon with Americorp and their Admission Possible program, while I may have a potential interview with the Housing Inspection and Code Enforcement for the city of Minneapolis Internship for the summer.

Hopefully as the weather improves I will have a chance to take more pictures and post more on flickr and Picassa.

Not sure when I will have a chance to update again, probably when something exciting happens, or when the weather clears, or I finish my thesis.

Until next time,