Sunday was the summer solstice, the first day of summer, and it was a scorcher here in Saint Louis. I launched early and got eighteen miles in for the day. I learned that last Saturday’s picture of the All Star Arch is just one of sixteen such statues that are about town. I photographed two more in the Park, with the understanding that their are a total of four Arch statues in the Park. I’ve got one left to find, and then twelve more to find.
I mowed the lawn, but then spent the rest of the afternoon in the basement. The coolest part of the house. I did my annual refit of my bike. In addition to the brand new bike pedals that Anne gave me on Father’s Day, I added the following bike parts: new tubes and tires, cassette and chain and brake pads. I’ve done this in the past many times. This time I used nitrile gloves to minimize my skin damage. While my ten year old Litespeed doesn’t look quite new, it looks a lot better then it use to.
Dave called on Sunday to wish me a happy Father’s Day. He had some good news. His Graduate Record Exam’s (GRE) scores were great! He got 640 out of 800 on the verbal part, which is about eightieth percentile. Good, but not great. On the math part he got 800 out of 800!
He sent his scores to four schools, Northwestern, Duke, MIT and Michigan. He plans on continuing his work in his major, of biomedical engineering. His area of focus would be neurological prosthetics. An example research area might be connecting an artificial limb to remaining neurons, allowing for a more fully functioning prosthetics.
If he chose MIT he might end up working with Dr. Alice’s brother. Alice’s brother runs the MIT Media Lab and makes “smart clothing”, which is like a prosetheic. If he chose Duke, I might have to disown him for the month of March. If he chose Northwestern, he would be closer to home. If he chose Michigan he would be a legacy. Grandfather John got a doctorate there, in biomedical engineering.
UPDATE: Dave looked it up and 640 verbal is actually the 90th percentile and an 800 math is only 92nd. Apparently 8% of test takers get a perfect score.
Sunday night, Dan, Annie, Anne and I went out to dinner at PF Changs in Galleria Pointe, to celebrate my Fatherhood. We all ordered chicken dishes, they were all different and they were all good. After diner, Dan recovered a box fan, from upstairs, that reminded me of the box fan that Harry had donate to us on our move from Michigan. Dan plans on surviving the Summer without air conditioning, just like we did on our first summer here.