[Spring Break in Cancun]^-1

So aka in cold, cloudy, Western Washington. Basically I have been running computer updates and troubleshooting for my family, getting sleep, eating food, and trying to make headway with my homework. I need to see if I am on the right track with my Geotech Lab and homework, write a research paper for Russian Film, circuits is confusing as usual, and for water resources we can only do the first problem because we have yet to learn how to do the rest, and without the book, it will be harder to teach myself. At least the wind turbine has been making solid progress, so I will be setting up shop times when the break is over to continue builds again.

Break . . . hitting the reset button.

This semester has been incredibly busy and I have not had time to update, from ski and snow shoeing trips, to a Young Dublinders concert, and a great deal of homework, projects and exams. Here are a couple pictures shot with my Fuji S5700, they are actually a mix of a ski trip and a snow shoeing trip. I also got to see the Young Dublinders in concert, and the next day go up to silver mountain and snow shoeing, here are some of the pictures at John's Alley of the concert. I am excited about spring break, not only for the chance to relax, but it has also been a while since I have been able to go home, however this spring break is also going to be packed with a great deal of work, my Russian 410 paper on East-West the movie, the build of the wind turbine prototype, Geotechnincal Engineering Lab writeup, Circuits 304 homework, and WSU alum social. There is so much to do it hardly seems like a break, yet just being able to go back will be a relief. This summer is also going to be quite full, as I will be taking classes for the first half and studying for the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam, so that I will be able to take the exam by the fall, I will also be moving into a house with a few friends, and I will be working though the summer as well. I have gotten hooked on skiing and will be looking forward to the ski swap during this summer and for the winter I hope to get a season pass for Silver Mountain and have the time to go skiing and get better. Back to the present, Introduction to Environmental Engineering 341 just finished up the Air section and is now switching to the Water section, Dr. Young is very entertaining and funny, I am looking forward to this section of the class.

In knee deep already . . .

It is the spring semester of 2009 at Washington State University, and already I am knee deep with homework and labs; trying to study for everything is like trying to focus on every conversation going on in a crowded room. So aside from trying to survive my engineering classes and a flurry of other things, for the holidays I got an Eee PC 4G and it is awesome, I have recently added credits on Skype so I can make calls to cell phones and land lines for dirt cheap. Quite distracting in it's own right, I have tried Ubuntu and XP on it, I may be going back to Ubuntu the 8.04 distro with the internet setting fixed with a script and all the anoying tweaks fixed, [this repeated OS switching is getting tiresome]. Recently I have been preoccupied and have not been able to take as many pictures I would have liked with my digital Camera.

After the 4th

Back from the Fourth of July break, it has been a while since I have been home and it was good to go back if only for a few days, now back in Pullman it is again to classes and work. Although even in the short time back I'm already making new friends, I just love how social networking happens in life, today was random and really fun. Tomorrow it is off to class, after which homework, then a block of work, finally chill out with some rock climbing at the climbing wall at the ORC. Stats 370 is going ok, as long as I keep on top of homework most things seem to work out.

I think I need a flux capacitor . . .

I can't believe that it has already been two weeks since my last post and it is time for my next Calculus III midterm, this along with the second summer session (which overlaps) has already started and having finished the first assignment it is very time consuming and I can already see needing to dedicate a large amount of time to just get the homework done, so I am really glad that I am taking the class (Engineering Statistics 370) this summer where I will actually have the time to complete the homework.

With entertainment I have finished Myself Yourself, a short 13 episode anime, which I did like it is fairly typical in someways but it is worth checking out. Still following The Tower of DRUAGA, Naruto Shippuuden, Macross Frontier (ranka-chan's slug cell phone is awesome far better then the current iPhone), Kanokon (who doesn't like sexy fox spirits?), Wagaya no Oinari-sama (who doesn't like sexy fox spirits that can kick ass!?), Allison & Lillia, Itazura Na Kiss (is a quirky romantic comedy of girl chasing guy), and Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de and Kyouran Kazoku Nikkias are both just weird but I will be following, as for code geass R2 however I've just stopped caring.

As for music I've been trying to get my Taiwan music fix so I've been keeping up on the music videos on youtube of Taiwan music stars, some include Mayday 五月天, F.I.R. 飛兒樂團, SHE, A-mei 阿妹, Lee-Hom Wang 王力宏, and Jolin Tsai 蔡依林.

Now back to studying for my midterm

Calculus III midterm and Chillax'n

Finished another episode of Macross Frontier and again it does not disappoint, I've also been keeping up with The Tower of DRUAGA, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Spice and wolf, Naruto Shippuuden, and Kanokon. Each being a weekly affair, so far I have been loving The Tower of DRUAGA, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and Macross Frontier with each of the episodes progressively getting better, Naruto Shippuuden and Spice and wolf seem slow recently and Kanokon is just in it's own little world with every guy's wet dream and insanity running wild not to mention with comedy to boot. On another note, I've finished Devil May Cry and Final Approach, with the former being the anime to the popular combat adventure series Devil May Cry and with a short run of 12 episodes it was a solid take on the series. The latter, Final Approach is in contrast a romantic comedy where the series looks at arranged marriages and we see how it plays out for main characters, with each of the 13 episodes running only 15 minutes including opening and credits it is short and sweet, definitely worth checking out. On a serious but happy note I've finished the first of my summer midterms and as far as I could tell it seems to have gone well, and I am quite happy.

Undergraduate Research Assistant, Classes and Slacking off

Got that Undergraduate Research Assistant position with the Environmental and Bio-Engineering Labs, unfortunately they don't have the budget so it is unpaid. I've met all the people on the team it was cool to be able to see all the equipment used for water and soil testing, even better later they will be getting new equipment, so this summer will be interesting. As for class, I need to get started on homework sooner, as to better learn the material, otherwise it is going to overwhelm me.

Some anime that I have finished include, Full Metal Panic, Full Metal Panic FUMOFFU!, and Full Metal Panic : The Second Raid. It is interesting how "full metal" is usually a reference to full metal alchemist another anime that I finished before, full metal panic in contrast is very different from alchemist, it blends the crazy robot action with high school life, it is like someone threw Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in with Appleseed or Gundam into a blender and made a delicious smoothie. It is quirky and funny, mixing well the funny moments with the serious ones, I do hope they continue making seasons, as there are many novels to left to cover.

So far I have seen two anime it seems officially put up on youtube by animation studio GONZO, the first being the The Tower of DRUAGA -The Aegis of URUK an anime I am already following, the second one is Blassreiter or ブラスレイター which basically means "pale racer" it is just in it's first few episodes so I will see how it turns out. Blassreiter is a mix of standard drawn anime but some of the models are rendered in CGI integrated into the animation, it seems rather bold killing off a main character so early on in the series [or so it seems] so I will be interested on how the series progresses. Another ongoing anime that I am following is Macross Frontier, a space based robot anime set in the Macross universe having started April of this year it is another anime I will be keeping an eye on. Just found Chiko, Heiress of the Phantom Thief and I'm really excited about it, I can't wait so see how it plays out. ,

Summer Classes and Entertainment

Summer Classes start tomorrow, it is Calculus III and hopefully this summer can go well. On a lighter note, I'm following the Doctor Who series, currently the tenth doctor, and in it's 4th season; and I absolutely love it I can't wait for the next episode. As for anime, I've checked out the first few episodes of Spice and Wolf, The Tower of DRUAGA [the pilot episode was perhaps one of the best parodies of Japanese video game and anime culture ever], and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. All three seem good enough to keep up with and I look forward to following up on them in the future. A couple that I have finished include The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Haruhi with her SOS Brigade started off a little slow but I found that I loved it, not to mention finding out that the dance is famous throughout Japan, this clip is great it is the actual voice actors on stage doing the Hare Hare Yukai dance. The two movies Appleseed [2004] and the sequel AppleSeed Ex Machina [2007], were both a great cross of Blade Runner and love drama. If I recall correctly I was following TokyoMango and I read about Ranald MacDonald, and the book Native American in the Land of the Shogun: Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan, quite interesting. Oh and I just recently checked out Hulu again, and it seems they have stepped up their game with much more content ad supported, not only TV shows [with some only a few days after the official TV premiere] but Movies as well, all ad support yet not annoyingly so, perhaps they have learned from Google, non-annoying ads get people to watch, if they can keep the ads non-repetitive and entertaining, while gaining more backing from big studios then this could be the next revolution in TV on the Internet, it is perfect for college students who want to watch TV but don't necessarily have a TV, we are willing to watch the ads it means bring the shows we want to our desktops. I wish Hulu luck and hope it does well.

Finals Week and EWB Project

It is finals week at Washington State University right now and it is hectic, I've got an exam lined up for each of the following days Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. This is even a lite semester, next fall is going to be a full load not to mention quite the nightmare. Yesterday, my friend and I went to open to close at the ZZU, for mechanical engineering ASME, meeting a few friends there, then we went to Mike's aka Stubblefields down to the dance floor, it turns out I knew the bouncer and we got into the basement dance without even waiting in the line. After waking up late today, Andy, Jaclyn and I got together and went over the viable options for the EWB at WSU chapter and looked at the safety of the countries, the travel costs, the professional contracts and advisors, as well as personal preference and we found that the project that best fit up was the Santa Cruz, Ecuador project. Now we will need to lock in the project by writing the proposal and filling out the paperwork for the project and other logistics. Onward to studying so I can pass my classes, Bon voyage.

Juno, & Homework for NATRS312, CE215, ME212

Just finished Juno, it is a charming little movie, I absolutely love it. So I guess it was fortunate that I went up to check it out if only just for the food, unfortunately not planning to actually watch caused a mass procrastination of my homework, yet in retrospect it feels worth it. Now I just have about 1-2 hours of reading for NATRS312, daily homework in CE215 Mechanics, and the last problem in the weekly ME212 Dynamics homework.

EWB Conference, also Mechanics and Dynamics Homework

The EWB International Conference, is the next weekend and so for this week it means that I'll have to go through two weeks worth of and Dynamics homework as well as the assignment that I'll miss for Mechanics, no to mention taking a quiz early because the club will be gone for Friday. All in all it will be worth it, with a great line-up for the conference, the Keynote Speaker on Global Health is William Gates, Sr., the Co-Chair for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. At the end there is also Bernard Amadei, the Founder of EWB-USA, who will close on Sunday, quite an exciting weekend coming up, can not wait.

ご愁傷さま二ノ宮くん, SGA and Dynamics

ご愁傷さま二ノ宮くん, Goshūshō-sama Ninomiya-kun or translated as, Our Condolences, Ninomiya-kun. Which is the title of the anime as well as the last phrase said to the main character Ninomiya-kun, meant to be ironic as the main character has all the girls in the school all falling for him but the two he is tied with two girls who if he kisses either causes long term memory loss to even a possibility of death as they take his life force. The entire series is very light hearted and comical, which fits with the fact that the series began as a light novel in a light novel magazine Monthly Dragon Magazine, this later evolved to become a full length set of 8 additional novels. At 12 episodes the series is short enough to enjoy a few sitting and considering that it can be found on youtube is quite a plus for an American fan with otherwise little to no access to Japanese anime.

Also have been trying to catch up on 亚特兰蒂斯 or Stargate Atlantis due to the fact that it is a controlled property it is thus hard to find on youtube and I'm disappointed that they do not follow the other big company's trail and put the current series online so those who have missed the show can catch up all refusing to do so just causes people to have to find the show on other sites, and with that they would miss out on potential revenue, like many fans out there I'm sure that if they put a their show on a stable delivery platform like youtube, which as one of the smoothest streaming video I've seen; along with my favorites of revision3's shows, diggnation and the totally rad show, I would be totally happy to put up with advertisements to be able to watch episodes online, it is fine if it is put up a few hours later so that the main stream TV finishes it's run, but for students like myself it would be great to have a place to watch if I miss the main run due to classes or the like. Oh execs did I mention that you could make money? besides did you really think that the people that want to watch would wait months until the DVD release or hope for the rerun? Notice that after big sites like NBC and CBS put up their select shows it became nearly impossible to find those shows on other streaming websites, because it was impractical to re-stream video already freely available with perhaps the exception of dubbed videos.

On another note ME212 dynamics midterm is coming around on Monday so tomorrow or rather later today due to the fact that it is already early morning I'll be getting together with a study group and going over problems and putting together a formula sheet, hope this test goes well, the last two; FSHN110 and CE215 seemed to go well, so hopefully this one does as well.

Sloan [12 days ago]

Been sitting in sloan, the fans wailing stashed in ugly Beige cases, been sitting for so long my body hurts, my brain on the verge of crashing. it has been 15 hours and it will probably be another 2-3 before I leave for classes, with the hours spent in this dusty, computer laden, overly and artificially bright lab filled with high pitched power supplies in ugly Beige cases, with the faint clack of key boards, and the clicking of mice.

Thoughts turn to alcohol or better yet sleep, either path to unconsciousness is welcome. It is already the end of the week but I probably wont even be conscious for classes today. Will be getting an early breakfast to try and stay awake, a test looms on the horizon as Monday is bound to roll around far too soon. I need to get a flu shot cause I can already feel my already feeble immune system going to crash. It feels like I am pushing my body and mind to it's breaking point, I will probably lose it at any moment and just fall asleep. it isn't really a fight any more it is more of a wounded belly crawl through the mud and under barb wire and bullets.


Sloan, the squat ugly building connected to the tower - there is a reason there are no opening windows other than those of the offices on the right side of the building, doing homework and assignments here can be frustrating enough that it would make you want to jump out a window, to maybe break a leg to get out of a test or project. All this work is enough to drive you crazy.

Back in Pullman already.

Back in Pullman already. Dam#, in the first week flooded with homework. The schedule looks lite, with only 4 classes, but 3 of them have labs - labs are usually a total of 3 hours or more, Physics and Calculus 2 both have scheduled labs - however CS251 is an unscheduled lab. Note there is no assigned time but you cant do the work at home unless you have Linux or buy Visual Studio C, and even then you cant submit unless the computer is on the network which this year only the computers in Sloan have the connection. Phuck. I need astro lube or something cause the homework load is raping me, every class has homework every day, most takes about an hour for each assignment that adds up to about 10 total assignments and 2 Lab projects/write-ups. Unlike High School, if you have a REAL major, skipping class is a no-no . . . no because the profs will care (few do) but because it will phuck you over when you try and understand the homework and test later. second year crash'n at Orton, not bad, get your own room,mic+frig.




There is also never enough sleep. dam#. Did in the middle of all that get to sip some, at 2 parties with some booze, about 3 weeks or so ago, and last week 9 shots of 100, Smirnoff while watching Internet vids, like Tiki Bar ect. lol. yet I was still disappointingly sober, maybe it was dinner - too full or something, dam# kinda wish i was a cheap, and get wasted in like 2 shots, phuck 9 costs too much. still burnt out from class though. phuck. already a month or so in and the midterms are coming up. sh!t. Wanna get a black DS lite - it looks sweet. the games are sweet. FF3? Zelda?ect! should get a tv. Dam# so tired.

A+ OS Exam & Study, Study, Study!

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Passed the A+ OS Exam today, lots of stress, studied a butt load for nearly 2 weeks, when taking the test I was almost deathly afraid that I was not going to pass even with all my prep - and that would seriously suck pricing at $153 a pop failing the test would really bite the pocket book. Yet I pulled through with about 150 points over what is needed to pass. *wipes away imaginary sweat*



Now I just need to study for that CLEP Calculus test, dam. More studying. After that I plan to multi task and take Calculus 2 while working somewhere like Best Buy and Hopefully buy and get a discount for a Nintendo DS Lite, and a few games to boot.

Gaming, Studing, and Testing

Sunday, May 21, 2006

On Friday I am planning to take the A+ certification test, for computer software, the second half of a two part exam to get my A+ computer certification. So with some cash in the near future I looked in to the hand held market, I did some research on the two big competitors in the market, the Nintendo DS Lite and the Sony PSP; I pit the Lite vs the PSP because it will be the newest one out and at the same price it is worth the wait. There were a huge amount of site pitting the two against each other, each with their own fan boys arguing and fighting each other over which is better. I am one of the fortunate ones that have had the unique experience to play both systems and spend a large amount of time with each. The DS I got to play Yoshi touch and go, with the objective to guide Yoshi with the stylus drawing clouds, and the microphone to blow them away, it had an entertaining net feature to play against other players in the area. The battery life was extraordinary as I played for hours on end on the bus ride back, but the system was a tad heavy because it was unbalanced with a center of gravity near the fold causing my hands to hurt holding it at certain angle, yet the DS was entertaining as a portable gaming platform and seemly indestructible as a brick just like the previous Nintendo handhelds as my friend would tell me about the numerous times that he had dropped his DS.



Later I got to play another friend's PSP, he had a number of titles for his system and I got to try out alot of them, the screen was the sexiest hand held screen I had ever seen, the sleekness and just the sheer size of it was beautiful. On the main screen was a list of icons games, movies, music and so on, but as my friend said that putting music on the system was space consuming and with the memory cards extremely expensive he was reluctant to waste too much space - rather using his iPod to hold music, this was much the same for the movies with the UMD versions of the movies nearing the same price or higher than their DVD counterparts, it was as my friend said not worth it especially on such a small screen. In fact it was better just to use a portable DVD player this knocks out the two most enticing features for the PSP, and the so renown analog joystick is in my opinion not in the right place - I was trying to play an RPG in the PSP and with the analog stick were it was it made the game hard to move, this is not to say that I don't like it - I believe that the analog stick will revolutionize handhelds but the thing is it needs two of them to be affective in moving around in 3D environments. Not to mention that the PSP was as fragile as glass, my friend had it in a shatter proof case with impact resistant padding, making it nearly 50% bigger, not exactly yelling handheld. But when I asked him he said that he would not trade his PSP for anything - and with long road trips home that it would be invaluable. Summing everything up the PSP and the DS Lite are both formidable gaming systems but if you are planning to by a PSP also plan to spend nearly $350 - $400 to get a game or two and the protection it needs to prevent it from getting damaged. I did not have that much money to indulge and I also wanted something with good games, battery life and finally durability. So my choice is more than likely going to be the Nintendo DS Lite.

Following the Halo craze that is going on many people are reading the books and replaying the games in anticipation for the release of Halo 3, no doubt the trailer prove that 360 can dish it out and with the release of Halo 3 people are going to be all over it, I plan to actually play through all the games all the way to actually understand the story all the way. Along with getting the A+ test over with I plan to custom build a motor bike transforming my mountain bike into a motorized bike through using a bike motor kit on the Internet. I need to make quite some money if I am to finish all my goals, such upgrading my computer RAM and video card, buy a digital camera and TV tuner. Might as well get studying for the A+ test.

Spring Break (updated)

Friday, March 17, 2006

Spring Break, no I'm not on the sandy beaches of Mexico, in the stereotypical version of college spring break, (rather unfortunately)rather I'm at home typing out my GenEd11 and Biology 102 Essays, yet is has been relaxing and it has be a really needed break. I've gotten to drive around alot - it's been like half a year since I've driven a car - good to know i haven't killed anyone yet lol, at least I'm not
that rusty. I feel really to go back and get back in gear, even with two more tests and a workload of homework. Might as well get some sleep. More excitingly, something I forgot to write about was the engineering "field trip" if you will, to the exciting places of Boeing, Genie, and Aerojet. Ironically the more exciting of the visits was Genie and Aerojet, the two which I had no idea were even in the
northwest.



The Engineering department of Boeing was mind numbingly boring, that single handily discouraged me from wanting to do drafting, while moving to the gigantic assembly building, the on site engineers seemed to have the more fun jobs interacting with
everything. Thus while, what Boeing does is very impressive and the results are spectacular, the every day work of most of the engineers was a bore.



Then after leaving Boeing, we drive around in search of Genie, once we get there we are handed safety gear, the funniest thing ever are the toe caps, that are designed to fit over our shoes, the impact protection was in place of steel toe shoes,



unfortunately I couldn't get a picture in time, along with glasses, we march in and then wait at a ear plug dispenser to get hearing protection. The tour was a loud, machine rattling, cart dodging, alarm sounding, smokey, taste of Genie industry and to be frank a lot of fun.



After breaking at Taco Time - which is a very strange mix of fast food and restaurant style of eating. You order like conventional restaurants but then sit down to get the food delivered. wtf? the food was ok, but expensive. Then our adventure to find Aerojet began - which was filled with getting lost repeatedly. When we finally found the back of no where Redmond Industry we disembark and make our way into the lobby, where we wait for the rest of the group to find us. In the lounge we find we are not allowed to have cameras, so I drop mine off at the counter, in the corner there is a big glass case with a large rocket engine - sweet.



We were in for a treat, Aerojet as we were soon to find out was a maker of rocket engines, in a presentation we learn that they make rocket engines for every major space endeavor besides the Russians and a count few.



(even the vending machines are cool there.) As we make our way through we are taken to the fabrication building and we get to see the machinery used to build the parts, we get to see up close the small to large rockets in production. The technologies there are cutting edge as we get to see an Ionic engine designed for long term use on satellites in space. There are two large clean rooms but no work to see in them. Making our way to the order facility we get to see the vibration testing equipment simulating launch condition vibrations, then we get to the the vacuum test chambers, and a test just finishing, we even get to walk around the back and check our all the cool machinery, by far the coolest tour. That was basicly the coolest part of my spring break.

The Tale of Snow in Two Cities

Friday, December 02, 2005

Its been snowing at home as well as home away from home! It has snowed about an inch back at home, while it has been like living in a whirlwind of snow here in Pullman, in fact it has been snowing all week long and it is still going!! Just busted out on my Bioengineering Project and finished the bare bones PowerPoint and will be finishing up at the next meeting today at 4:30pm at the New Holland Library. Still have to turn in the Culture paper debating whether or not to just drop it off or wait for the Professor to be in the office.

Turkey and leftovers for the next week and a half

Monday, November 28, 2005

A much needed break I was so burnt out before the Thanksgiving Holiday and was about to crash and burn but the week let me rest and get back on track, but the finals are still going to suck, hadn't much time to post because of the burnout. Getting back was a huge problem and I was concerned no bus tickets left and all my friends on the floor with no room left in the car I was getting a little desperate, I searched around chilling with a friend from my high school but he was riding the wheat land express out to Seattle. I finally called up a friend from engineering 120 who gave me a lift, I need to pay him back for helping me get home lol. Getting home was much needed, I got to rest as well as bust out an essay I need to turn in, but registering for classes didn't turn out as planned as I only got into 2 classes, got to deal with that. Forgot to bring back hard drive and XP CD for the old computer will need to do so for the Chrismas break. So much to do for finals it sucks.

Locked out

Thursday, September 22, 2005

I am currently locked out of my room right now and not sure whether or not to use one of two assistances before they start charging $10 a lock out. Cant find the RA on duty so blah. I'm really hungry right now and just had some meat and cheese without bread for 6 cents crazy : ) . I've got a test in Chemistry in an hour and a half so I need to study but being locked out is not very helpful. Hurricane Rita looks to be horrible and it comes right after the last one which hasn't even be dealt with yet, the government has done almost nothing in the prep and post disaster situation - lame. My watch died yesterday but in a strange way came back to life maybe the battery got knocked around a bit inside the case. So tired. So hungry. So not liking the up coming test.