Cornell and Keuka

One of the coolest parts of my job is the opportunity to do a lot of traveling to universities, conferences, and technical briefs all over the US (not much international traveling yet, other than Halifax). 

This week took me to Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and then to Keuka Lake (an hour away from Ithaca), where my boss’s in-laws have a house on the lake. The visit was to hear about the research of Dr. Derek Warner  and Dr. Chris Earls, both really brilliant guys doing some fascinating research under ONR funding. Derek is looking at how aluminum (a material the Navy is building a number of ships out of these days) begins to crack when fatigued, except he is looking at how it starts with the movement of single atoms; Chris is looking at the development of finite element techniques and codes for structural health monitoring and aluminum ship assessment. Days with guys like that usually end with my brain fried, trying to just keep up with crazy concepts and long, detailed equations. 

Anywho, we got a chance to walk around Cornell a bit and get some history of the place from Chris. I’m not even going to try to regurgitate any of what we heard, but here are some pics I took around campus (which I really dug, by the way. The town of Ithaca is also great): 

ITHACA IS GORGES. I didn’t realize that Cornell was built on the side of hill over a bunch of huge gorges and waterfalls. Really beautiful: 

Walking around campus: 

The Presidential Library there is an insane steampunk room of metal and books: 

Here is an old power station in one of the gorges: 

Beautiful: 

This agricultural genetics building was INSANE. Really tall, but no windows: 

The new biotech building on campus cost lots of money, but its very photogenic: 

After visiting Cornell, we headed down the road to Keuka. Good way to end the day: 

Cottage on the lake, built pre-1900: 

Ahhhhhhhhh: 

Americana: