Today was my last day of vacation. I flew back to Denver in the afternoon, and I am starting my job at The Trade Desk on Monday which is just two days away! But, that means that I had most of the morning to be in London. So, I decided to go over to Buckingham Palace and then to the British Museum.

Today we docked in Southampton, England. I disembarked as early as possible so that I could get in to London for as much of the day as possible. I did the “self disembark” which basically just meant that I had to carry my bag off the ship rather than have them take it for me. Mom is staying on the boat to go back the other direction to NYC.

Instead of giving you a day-by-day on what we did on the crossing (I was told that it is not a cruise because only lowly peasants would go on a cruise), I’m going to just talk about some of the highlights and make some observations about my time on board the Queen Mary 2. We didn’t stop in any ports, so it was just what we did on board.

Today we left Washington D.C. Mom and I went by train to New York City, while Hannah and dad headed back to Denver so that dad can get back to work and Hannah can do a summer class for her nursing training.

The ride to New York City was uneventful and easy. We got in a quiet car, which was nice and I was able to sleep for most of the trip. Once we got to New York, we had a bit of trouble getting out of the station. It was a subway and train station combined into one, and there were a ton of different exits. We ended up going out of one which we (really it was me) had to carry our bags up a few flights of stairs. When we got out to street level, we looked across and saw that the other side was a larger exit, and had an elevator. Oh well. At least we didn’t end up on the other side of Manhattan, which could have happened if we’d really screwed up and gone to the wrong exit.

I love airplanes, I love spacecraft, I love mechanical things that fly. Airplanes were one of my first and longest lasting obsessions (I’m not sure if my obsession with exhaust pipes started before or after airplanes… I was a weird kid.). Maybe my obsession with airplanes was due to the obscene amount of time I spent on them as a toddler and as a young child. For the two years that my dad worked in Indonesia, my mom and I went between there and the States every few months. I was a United Airlines Premier member when I was two. Regardless of where my obsession came from, I loved airplanes. My mom said she thought that I would be a pilot when I grew up (I am still seriously considering getting my pilot’s license, so maybe that will be true…).

Today we went to the Museum of the Bible. The museum houses many exhibits which explain the stories in the Bible, the Biblical manuscripts and their preservation and translation throughout the millennia, the impacts that the Bible has had on societies throughout history, and brings to life some of the stories and places described in the Bible.

I am going to mention just a few highlights of the museum.

Today we went to the American History Museum. I’m not going to really discuss the individual exhibits, rather I am going to describe my general thoughts on the overall theme of the museum.

The general theme of the museum was that America was founded on certain principles and ideals. However, throughout our history, we have not lived up to those ideals. The main example of this is the stain of slavery and the legacy of racism against black people in America. Despite our failures, we were a beacon of hope to many people around the globe world. To immigrants from war-ravaged lands, we offered refuge (we did this imperfectly, and did not accept as many as we probably should have at times). To the Allies in WWI, our forces turned the tide and helped bring an end to that terrible war war. In WWII, despite our late entry, we helped the allies liberate Europe, while simultaneously (nearly single-handedly) pushing back the terror of Imperial Japan.

We woke up fairly late today because we were quite tired after our long travel day yesterday. Our apartment is very close to a subway station which is a few stops from the National Mall, the big grassy area in front of the Capitol. Our destination for the day was the Holocaust Museum, a tribute to the genocide of the Jews by the Nazi regime before and during WWII.

Today we left for Washington D.C. I drove mom and dad headed to the airport early this morning (like 04:00). Hannah and I stayed in Denver for the morning so that we could attend a friend’s graduation brunch.

Hannah and I ended up leaving for the airport at around 13:00, arriving at around 14:00, and getting through security with no problems. We had nearly two hours before our 16:20 flight. Unfortunately for us, however, the flight was massively delayed. The incoming plane was stuck in Dallas for a few hours, and could not make it to Denver in time. The plane ended up departing at 18:40 (MST).

For the last two years, the Mines Computer Science Department has hosted a High School Programming Competition modelled after the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). The Mines ACM Student Chapter does the vast majority of organization and operations for the competition. As Chair of Mines ACM, I was responsible for a lot of the organizational aspects of the competition.

The competition saw teams from around the Denver metro area, and even as far away as Steamboat, come to compete by solving programming problems. The problems ranged in difficulty from a problem requiring contestants to take two numbers and multiply them together, to a problem where the students were required to implement an algorithm to solve the Minimum Spanning Tree problem.