Yay?

School starts on the morrow....angst.

This is so true

courtesy of xkcd

Crazy Update Post

Ok, haven't posted in a while... er, sort of. Gonna describe the days, starting last Friday:

Friday: Went to a family birthday party. Turns out it was a family birthday party, everyone was as surprised as I was that it was partially for me. My name was eventually squeezed somewhat awkwardly onto the cake in black frosting...everything else was written in orange. I love my family! (and I mean that from the bottom of my heart)

Saturday: Ran errands mostly and dropped my bike off at the bike shop for a tuneup. While there I was again shown how many words I can forget in a single sentence. I left embarrassed, sure that everyone there was still wondering what I was saying.

Sunday: Went to Blossom and listened to the Cleveland Orchestra (one of the best in the world!) play music from science fiction movies and tv shows. 'Twas indescribably amazing! (wait, was that a description?...dang it)

Monday: 'Twas my b-day, and I went to out to eat at a new Japanese restaurant by my house.

Tuesday: My uncle and his friend from California flew in, and we watched the Indians/Angels baseball game. The Indians lost, of course and my uncle and his friend were happy (Angels fans).

Wednesday: Went to Cedar Point with my uncle, my mom, and my uncle's friend. Went on the Millennium Force (steel coaster), 80º+ degree drop from 310 (ish) ft to 10 ft, reaching a top speed of 93 mph. My uncle and his friend sat in the front seat whilst I sat right behind them. Toured a couple of other wooden coasters and one wooden/steel mix before topping it all off with the Top Thrill Dragster. This baby starts you on the ground by firing you at 120 mph into a 100% vertical climb to 410ft. before the 400ft fall on the loop back to earth. So fun, so fun. Also, I got to practice my physics and engineering as my uncle (a PHD physicist), his friend (environmental engineer), and I (confused engineering student) all tried to figure out how the propulsion and braking systems worked. Of course there was the girl behind us in line who butted in and tried to tell us that it worked one way, while we knew otherwise (it was only obvious to those who knew what to look for).

Thursday: Uncle and friend flew out at 8 in the morning. I practiced a bit on my punching bag and stretched (something I have been neglecting to do while home, and my body hates me for not doing it like I did all summer). Mom got home from work, we ordered pizza and watched "Grand Turino", which, by the way, is an amazing movie that everyone should see...just watch out for bad language.

Which brings us to now. The fire I built up is starting to die down (on purpose) and we have roasted our last marshmallow. Good week.

For all you vocabulary buffs out there

http://gis.washington.edu/phurvitz/outgoing/bustagut/Non-SlanderousPoliticalSmearSpeech.htm

'Nuff said.

New music

I decided that I wanted some more CDs yesterday, so I let myself spend $35 at the local buy/sell place called Buybacks. Here is my haul:

Underdog - Audio Adrenaline

Hit Parade - Audio Adrenaline

Millennium - Earth, Wind & Fire

An Ocean Between Us - As I Lay Dying

Pray - M.C. Hammer

Get a Grip - Aerosmith

Take Me to Your Leader - Newsboys

Not bad for only a little money. However, you may notice that there isn't really any new music in there, so if you know my music tastes well enough (I like non-whiny music, rock, ska, and instrumentals) please recommend new artists to me.

Bad day to ride a bike

Rode my bike to Lowes today (about 7 miles one way), turns out it was higher than 90º and humid as all-get-out...bleah. Oh, yeah, there was also a strong gusting headwind in my face both ways...I didn't even know that was possible. Anyways, when I got to Lowes, I was nauseous from the heat. The good news is that Lowes sells water! I priced wood for my mom's workbench and looked at power tools and rode back. Overall it was a good day.

Summer vacation just started...

I got home yesterday and hung out with two friends from high school. Its really weird how people change (in a good way). Anyways, we talked about what we have been doing since the last time we saw each other, then we visited the Corn Festival...yes, corn! We ate some delicious fair food, watched fireworks, and I won a goldfish (I gave it to one of my friends)!

Wisdom tooth

Just finished brushing my teeth and noticed that my upper left wisdom tooth (yes, I got to keep mine!) decided to not be straight. All my wisdom teeth came in straight...all of them. All of them were straight the last time I checked, which I admit is not that often. I have had them for years and the dentist never said anything. But now my upper left wisdom tooth is at about a 20º angle from plumb.

Weird.

Major Change

Something interesting happened today. I was talking to one of my professors about how I don't really know what to do with my life and he recommended I try civil engineering. For those of you who don't know, my major right now is computer engineering, and frankly its not for me. He said that Taylor's environmental engineering degree is almost civil engineering, plus we got a new prof who teaches civil engineering, so they could change the degree for me (its a small school, it happens). I am excited, and am praying about it. Please pray that God will give me foresight and lead me in the direction he wants me to go.

A thank you to a friend

I think this deserves a special mention: today was incredibly stressful, but I talked to a friend that made it much better. Thank you for cheering me up!

Return of the Scintillator... *runs screaming*

Well, today was an interesting day, a day that will forever live in infamy. The scintillator of my nightmares has returned.

To give some background to those of you who don't know what I am talking about, I will briefly describe to you the circumstances leading up to this point. Last semester (spring of 2009), I had a project for my class "Principles of Engineering", that project was to send a sensor up in a high altitude balloon that would reach near space, and then analyze the data. My sensor was a scintillator. We sent it up. It didn't work. High voltage caused arcing and everything died (or at least it seemed that way). I still needed data and so I worked 48 hours in one week trying to get this circuit to work. It didn't. It even turns out that my professor actually made another circuit for me, but never told me. Needless to say, I hated that thing, and was glad when it was over.

Fast forward to today, last week of work for the summer (at least for this project). My boss, who coincidentally was the professor I had for Principles, comes up to me and wants me to make a scintillator circuit...yeah...but not just any circuit, he wants me to use my old one...the one that never worked. He is well-meaning, and didn't know all the grief that bloody circuit gave me, but I am sure he could tell I was extremely agitated no matter how hard I tried to hide it.

Good news is that I finally got this thing to work-ish after 8 hours of hard work. Turns out (and I suspected this, but never was given new parts) that the original arcing on the circuit fried the op-amp, and microprocessor - two vital components. I guess thats what happens when 1000 volts gets pumped into circuitry that is only meant to handle 5 volts. Now I just need to get new chips for it, and it should work...then take it off the bread board and solder it...BLEAH.