Lately...

Cool clouds I saw while walking into work recently

Through JumpStart and awesome employees, I was able to go on two different tours of the Milford Proving Ground, GM's primary vehicle test facilities last week.  Some of the facts about this place are amazing:

• They use 2.5 Million gallons of fuel (all kinds of different blends) per year (and spend about 7 Million $ on it)
• Highest speed clocked at the facility: 205.2 MPH
• Crash test sensors are rated up to 100G (yes, G force units)
• The "black lake" part of the facility is a continuous, paved asphalt test surface with an area of more than 59 football fields

During the lunch break between my two tours, a few other interns and I checked out downtown Milford, MI.  Since I couldn't take photos on the GM campus, I took some photos here.  Most of the stores we standard clothes/home/artisan type stuff, but there was this unusual framing store that also offered collectibles for sale.

Star Wars sign...the first hint that something is different

Glenn - you should come to Michigan - first generation transformer toys!

Additional toys and collectibles from the past four decades

Back at the proving grounds, we saw lots of various disguised cars around the facility since lots of tests are done on upcoming model year vehicles.  Besides the proving grounds, I'll get to check out the On-Star Command Center and a windtunnel and some other super cool places in the company later this summer.

Other than that fun stuff, I've been humming along, but I'm amazed at how fast the summer's going.  I'm somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3rd done and it's closer than I'd like to admit to that 33% mark.  Now that I've been at GM for a bit, I had a visit from my two academic advisers.  They finally met my project champion in person, got to share some of their research at MIT and then I made a presentation, too.  The rest of the time was spent catching up, reviewing things in more detail and then making sure I had direction and priorities heading forward.  The beginning part of the project, in Sloan terms, is "sensemaking" (in other people's terms "making sense of things").  I originally had a number of ideas but wasn't sure exactly which ones would be most fruitful...so I was partially following many of them and making only slow progress.  Now I've got a map of sorts and am feeling better.

This helped me feel better, too - a chocolate shake so thick it didn't sink down the straw

Today I woke up extra early and rode with a coworker down to our casting plant in Ohio.  When we returned to where I had parked my car this afternoon, another Grand Prix was across from it.  There wasn't much unusual about the car, just about how many things were around the rear view mirror.

How much smell are you trying to cover up?!?!?

Oh silly world...