The Wonderfully Fantastic and Sometimes Curious Life of John Patrick Rausch

       What happens when a well trained and highly motivated engineering student gets snowed in at school? Well sometimes they decide to cut loose, throw caution to the wind, crack open a computer, and let the scientific juices flow.       In just this scenario, I was trapped by an ice storm yesterday and instead of doing the responsible thing, like studying the second law of thermodynamics, I chose to check off a bucket list item. Create a robot to draw pictures, write essays, and pretty much do whatever I want (with a writing utensil and paper of course.) Now, at any given moment I've probably got enough spare parts laying around to build a spaceship or change the balance of power in the world. A curse and a blessing tis' having a fully stocked workshop in my bedroom.       I started off by working with my bread and butter; CAD modeling. For the uninitiated, this is an acronym standing for Computer Aided Drafting. Drafting is the age old practice of engineers turning ideas in

     I arose this morning sharply at 4:00 a.m. Magnificently thankful for yesterday's John going to bed on time, I hopped out of bed and folded my blankets. As the morning was slowly coming to me I too slowly started to wake up. Eventually I sauntered into my closet, donned my hiking clothes and pulled out my Osprey.       As the morning wore on I bustled about the apartment grabbing this thing and that thing and forgetting to grab that other thing...maybe twice... and around about 5:00am I was finally ready to go. Almost. The one thing I was missing was pancake mix. Fortunately, my friend Claire was awake so I zoomed over and borrowed some flower, salt, sugar, and baking powder. After topping off the gas tank I hit the pitch black road.       I exited the highway and pulled into the parking lot at Spring Creek Recreation Area after a short 20 minute drive north. After switching my Barefoots for hiking boots, gloving (yes, that is actually a word, it means to furnish with gloves) m

      I will lay my cards on the table. Swing dancing attracted me because I am interested in a girl that knows how to swing dance and what better excuse to literally get closer to her than by dancing together. This is my story of how I deep dove into the world of swing dancing and my first thoughts after a week of lessons (probably about 5 hours in total.)       It all started when my buddy Evan came over to play some ping pong at my apartment one Saturday. He soon found out that one of my roommates, Karleigh, is a swing dance instructor and they busted out some really impressive dances. I was so impressed I asked on the spot for them to teach me how to dance. A few hours later and I had the basics of East Coast swing dancing down; Ladies turn, Gentleman's turn, Open to Close, Pretzel, and Bowtie. The next day just so happened to be Sunday which is when the local swing dance club has their free classes. My roommate Ian is also learning so we went together and there I was exposed t