Wine Tasting at Robert De Pietro '69 home with Prof. Borrelli

It was a beautiful day for the wine scoring, almost too warm.  We had 6 wines to score and lots of yummy cheeses and meats and olives.  Prof. Borrelli provided wonderful commentary and everyone had a great time.  Let's do it again.

Whale Watching in Monterey

An eager group of 47 alumni, friends and family braved the glorious 70 degree sunshine of the dead of winter to venture out on the ocean and attempt to see the California Gray Whale.  Luck was with us as we saw two separate groups, one of four to five individuals, and one of 12 to 15 individuals.  Blowing and flukes seemed to be everywhere and it was a great day.  Professor Rachel Levy, HMC Mathematics, gave an interesting talk about the formation of whale footprints, which are smooth patches on the surface of the ocean created by whales.  Her research student, Dmitri Skjorshammer '11, videoed himself in the Scripps pool while creating footprints with a polypropylene fluke by walking backwards and moving the fluke up and down.  Dmitri's results, along with observations of whales at Hubbs-Sea World Research Institute and consultations with whale researchers have convinced Rachel and Dmitri that the prints are not created by surfactants shed by the whale (as suggested by some researchers) but instead by hydrodynamic forces. 

Dickens Hardy Trip Dinner with Alumni

While leading a group of twenty-five tour participants (seventeen of which were current students) Professors Jeff Groves and Jim Eckert hosted a dinner in London with nine alums and four alum guests.  John Scott '84 joined the group on one of our London walking tours and Greg Rae '00 was one of the tour participants.  They met from 6:00 until a little after 9:00 at the Albert, a terrific pub in Westminster where they have a carvery upstairs.  Yorkshire pudding and good conversation all around!

Joint Mathematics Meeting reception

There was a large turnout of alumni and faculty from all of the Claremont Colleges at a reception held during the Joint Mathematics Meeting in DC at the beginning of January.  Faculty attending:
HMC:  Andy Bernoff, Art Benjamin, Robert Borrelli, Lisette dePillis, Weiqing Gu, Jon Jacobsen, Michael Orrison, Francis Su, Kimberly Tucker
CMC:  Asuman Guven Aksoy, Sam Nelson
Pomona:  Shahriar Shahriari

Young Alumni 9:Fish Surf Event

MMMMM...donuts!		Sunny teaches the alums to surf.

Undeterred by unpredictable weather, young alumni and current Mudders, members of the HMC Surf Club, spent the morning of Saturday, October 4, 2008 learning to surf, courtesy of HMC Alumnus Sunny Trinh ‘92/93 and his business partner, Wes Negus.  Wet suits secured and Donut Man donuts devoured, the surfing commenced.  In small groups, alumni hit first the beach for some fundamental instructions and then the waves for some real and often hilarious attempts at actual surfing.  When the waves ceased to be hospitable, the group enthusiastically voted to move their classroom to a beach a little further north and spent another couple of hours “hanging 10.” 

This was the 2^nd Annual HMC Young Alumni/9:Fish Surfboard event and the current students who attended expressed hope that it would become a tradition so that, as alumni, they could continue to participate. The HMC Surf Club donated several longboards for instructional use and club members enjoyed the opportunity to interact with alumni and enjoy a morning of surfing and sun.

Henry Ford goes Surfing wins HMC Mudd Excellence Award

 

A select group of HMC alumni and family braved the cold wind in Port Townsend to watch the 26th annual Kinetic Sculpture Race and awarded the Mudd Excellence Award to Henry Ford Goes Surfing for the best performance in the mud portion of the race.  These vehicles are human powered and supposed to be designed to travel over land, water, sand and mud.  Several of the alumni expressed interest in designing and building a HMC alumni entry, so anyone in Washington or Oregon or Northern California that would like to start a vehicle to race in Eureka, Corvallis and Port Townsend please contact the Alumni Office at alumni@hmc.edu.

Mt. Baldy Hike 9/28/08 

The picture above shows the smiling faces of the alumni and students that reached the summit on the latest Mt. Baldy hike.  The hike was herded by Bill Hartman '62.  This is an annual event, and if you would like to hike Mt. Baldy in 2009, the date will be September 27.