Hiatus of madness!

Hello happy readers!  Looks like I've adapted a 3-month blog cycle, New Years intention #1: record more, communicate better.  I've added a few pictures to encapsulate my semester.  Each photo should have been a blog in itself.  Here's the run down:

Since we last met, I attended Net Impact 2011 in Portland, Oregon.  It was a fantastic conference, focused on innovation across all fields.  Some key highlights involved hearing executive officers from REI and Nike speak as well as every day people who truly make a difference doing what they love.  Click on the link above to get a run down.  One of the most important take-aways came from interacting with several of the hundreds of other MBA students who also attended.  While many were taking a class or two on sustainability, we in the GSSE program are totally immersed in it.  It was nice to feel validated by every single speaker I saw.  We are, in fact, setting ourselves up to compete in the world of innovation and change.  The morning we flew out, a group of us made the trip over to Multnomah falls and though it was a rainy day, it was great to see some sites outside the city.

At Net Impact, Portland.  Breakfast of champions!

Multnomah Falls after our weekend conference.

Just as we all hit our mental capacity, Thanksgiving break arrived and I had 10 sweet days to sleep, marinate in what we had learned so far and head up to Leadville for some friends and home cooked food.  Check out those rolls by Rocky!

Thanksgiving in Leadville, great friends and food!

In the few weeks between fall break and winter break ( I forgot how much I love the academic schedule), classes kicked into high gear and we wrapped up presentations, projects, and finals.  The work paid off and I'm sincerely looking forward to building on what we learned, next semester.  Sidenote, one of my spring textbooks is "Statistics in Excel for Dummies".  Good thing we're all realistic enough to avoid being insulted...

Our very last final of the semester...40 hours and many pizzas later.

After some post-finals celebration, I headed up to Leadville and realized altitude + exhaustion = extreme sloth.  Recovered nicely in clear view of the Rockies and flew home for some family time.  Hadn't seen them in a year so it was great to eat mom's food, see friends (Shout out to Keith Chervenak & Co!), and pet my dog (who keeps fighting the good fight and never loses that puppy glow amidst the tumors).

Coming home always tastes so good!

I'll just re-start working out in January...

 Colorado State has a fantastic winter break, a complete 30-days!  Classes start on the 17th and in the mean time, I'll be searching for just a wee bit of snow to board on (it's a low year in Co), prepping for classes and grant seeking for a projected summer trip to Brazil to research sustainable housing solutions in the greater Sao Paulo area...but that's a whole different blog post. 

On continuous watch for dropped food.

Happy New Year everyone, may your good intentions be fruitful and communication channels be open!