Thursday, December 12, 2013

Frozen

It's finals week and everything at Coe is winding down for the year. I don't have a lot to say for my final blog post, but I do want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and tell one story before signing off until next year.

Last Sunday I decided to go for my usual run at the Sac & Fox Trail. That wouldn't be very interesting just by itself, but when I woke up it was snowing. Usually if this happens I will forgo running outside and head for the treadmill and indoor track. This time, however, I decided to brave the wind, cold, and snow to keep experiencing the great outdoors. The run was fun although one thing you don't realize about running with snow falling is that it gets in your eyes every other step. I spent half the time running blind just hoping I didn't go off the trail into the river. The end result of my run looked like this:

Yes, that is ice.
As you can see, all the snow and sweat froze. If you look at that picture and think, "wow that's cool!" then you're probably a little bit crazy - like me. If you look at that picture and think "wow, that's crazy" then you're definitely correct, but will probably miss out on some cool experiences like running through a snowstorm. 

That's all for this year! Hope the holiday's are great, and I will be back at the start of the tennis season.

More Than a Woman

Laura Birky '16, and two other classmates, produced this video for a class project.  Both myself, and Mark Kroll '16 served as interviewees.

More Than a Woman

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Woolf Update


Mike Woolf '14 spent much time off the court this past semester engaged in an internship. As a result, Tim Palmer, Aaron Collins and he
were published for their work as part of the Birkey Investment Fund. 

A summary from Woolf:

We researched U.S. Silica Holdings (SLCA) and presented our findings to a board who bought the stock.  


The report itself was published on the following website:
seekingalpha.com

Executive Summary
U.S. Silica Holdings (SLCA) is an up-and-coming company that has a promising future. It operates in the sand and gravel mining industry and it is experiencing an increased demand for its products. U.S. Silica is a large influence in an industry that is competitive through many local companies. Environmental regulations are a potential issue, due to oil fracking which is its most profitable business. U.S. Silica is taking steps to improving its business through these regulations. It also has a constant revenue from its other sector which provides silica for industrial use. Steadily increasing revenue and earnings trends show possible growth in the company. Other financials, such as forward P/E also show that there is promise in U.S. Silica.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

An Eventful Saturday!

The Student Alumni Association (SAA) hosted a Kids' Holiday party Saturday morning.  Emmie and Sasha were ecstatic to have been greeted and checked in by Jordan (assisting with the event).


The Kohawk Tennis Holiday party followed.  The teams, and a few alumni, gathered to eat pizza before traipsing over to Eby to watch and support the Men's Basketball team.  Coe won in the 3rd OT.





The Racquet Center was taken over by the Fiala's Friday evening.  Both Mark and Mary had a benchmark birthday this year.  Megan, Molly & Mindy threw a surprise party to celebrate.....the parents thought they were joining the Kohawk Tennis Holiday party.  They were in fact invited to our earlier, actual, party but the sisters couldn't figure out how to make both work.



Thursday, December 5, 2013

Thanksgiving Adventure



I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving break and had feasts of epic proportions. I went back to Dallas over the holiday to spend time with friends and family, but instead of telling you some boring tale about Thanksgiving dinner I thought I would go in a different direction today.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was a fairly typical day which involved me doing very little besides helping my sister prepare food for the following day. And even in this instance of cooking, my main contribution involved eating everything, or as I like to call it: taste testing. About mid-afternoon I went to pick up a friend from work. The day was beautiful and since I had been eating for most of it I felt the time was right for a nice jog.

Through the beautiful city

When I arrived to get my friend, before I could ask about running I was greeted with this question: “you want to go kayaking?” Judging by her reaction to my reaction, I must've looked like I didn't want to go. In my defense, I had my mind on other plans, and it took a few minutes to readjust my thinking. It’s kind of like missing your turn with a navigation system, it just takes a moment for everything to change to the new setting. So after some initial wavering on my part we started loading the kayak.

This is where things started to get interesting. The kayak seated two people and was fairly long. The vehicle we had was a 4-door Chevy Cobalt. Automobile aficionados will probably notice this is not a large vehicle. No matter, we threw that kayak on top and tied it down to anything we could find. After 30 minutes of wrangling we finally had everything in place all the while praying fervently that the roof didn’t turn into a floor by collapsing.

Nothing odd about that at all.

After that little adventure all we had to do was drive through Dallas to get to White Rock Lake which literally sits just east of downtown. If you want to get some strange looks just drive through Dallas in a small car with a bright red kayak attached to the roof. You will stand out, perhaps if we could’ve disguised the kayak with a cowboy hat then no one would have noticed. After all this we didn’t get to the lake until around 5:15 which in Dallas means you have about 30 minutes of daylight left. Now it was my friends turn to waver on whether or not we should go ahead with the plan, but I had already changed my mind once and was therefore unable to do so again.

If you want a cool experience then being on a calm lake at sunset will always qualify. The panorama was great, and we had the lake to ourselves because nobody else was crazy enough to head out for kayaking in the dark. After a few minutes we learned how to row in unison and work as a team which is much better for propelling a craft through water. If you want to work on you relationship with others, then just go out in a two person kayak. Afterwards you will either have an unshakable bond or hate each other for life.

Next week is the last post of the year, I’ll be back in January for the start of school. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving… even if it wasn’t as cool as mine



Monday, December 2, 2013

42 Days.....

......until Men's Tennis practice gets underway!






Fall Semester Classes end Monday, December 9th 





















Final Exams conclude Saturday, December 14th