Busy, busy

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic.

Research: I have been working on two manuscripts (one was rejected! ouch.. and the other hasn't yet been submitted) and I started yesterday on a review paper. I am going to approach the review paper differently than the previous five papers I've put together: I am going to use an outline! Should take the stress away and help me target my topic sentences, anyway.

Opportunities are opening up for me, though. I turned down a job in Royal Oak recently because I want to focus on finishing my degree sooner than later, and Tammy is convinced that by Sept 2010, I will be graduated. I don't know about that though. Anyway, we are going to be designing a unique drug-delivery device, and I start working on that on Wednesday. Pretty sweet, I say.

Race team: I applied last month to be a member of Team Trakkers, a GPS-based company who are in their pre-release stages of product development. They haven't released their product to the open market yet, so as an athlete I'd be able to use state-of-the-art devices that track where I am in realtime along the course, no matter what race. I am one of fifty finalists in the running for their team, which is really exciting. They will only be selecting 10 or so athletes, though, so my chances are still pretty tough. Regardless, I think it would be really cool to share the real-time data-logging experience with my family, especially when they can't travel with me to all my races. I would likely have one already if the product was on the market. I have a wristwatch GPS but no one can see my data until after I upload it, and sometimes that can take a while... So, here's to hoping that I make the team! To be able to have a tracking tool on my first ultra marathon would be really interesting... my teammates could share in the experience!

Team Mega Tough: Speaking of teammates... I've also been tackling the feat of approaching potential sponsors for support during the 2010 season for Team Mega Tough. It was fun to see how everyone did in the last year or racing by compiling it all in one single document! And, it was really motivating to see what each of our goals are for 2010. I hope that we will be able to do some really fun events together. Right now, we're really hoping to get sponsors to help us with having uniforms and gear, like headlamps, water-bottle carriers, and nutrition. I also had an idea of forming an "ultra-relay" event up here in the Keweenaw as a type of reunion for previous Michigan Tech runners, and people could do the relay in teams of 12 or less. I approached Ragnar about it but haven't heard back, so we might just try it without advertising too much, get some local teams involved, and see what happens. How cool would that be? I have a few routes in mind.

Organizing a Triathlon: I'm also really getting the ball rolling on the Kuparisaari Triathlon. The registration site is up, but our website isn't yet. I meet today with our logo/web designer. We are hopefully going to have some big sponsors. We already have Hammer Nutrition on board... I need to talk to the local community more to figure out course logistics (there will be some major construction going on where we wanted to have the swim start, so now we have to find a different place...). It'll work out, though.

So that's that.