HaHA!

For some reason, whenever I'm bored, I never think to post to this thing. Except for right now. Right now I just remembered.

Dave sold Derek and I some cards for a nursing thing fundraiser. Last night we went to Trafalga with them and each got two free games of mini golf. We didn't play our games sequentially, we played six balls at the same time. These were the rules:

1. If you were playing on an odd-numbered hole, you shot one ball, then the other. After you, somebody else did the same thing and the hole was played in this fashion.
2. If you were playing an even-numbered hole, you shot one ball, then the next player went, and the loop continued in that fashion.
3. If you were playing a prime-numbered hole (and later perfect squares as well) you had to shoot both balls at the same time. This rule supersedes the previous rules when determining the style of hole.
4. If somebody gets a hole-in-one on a prime-numbered hole, they got to shoot all six balls simultaneously on the next prime-numbered hole.
5. Bad-Ass points are awarded for doing something awesome.
6. Dumb-Ass points are awarded for doing something stupid.
7. Dick Treason can be called if you rob somebody of a shot within 6 inches of the hole.
8. The 18th hole is treated as prime if a hole-in-one is made on the 17th hole.

It seems like there were a few more rules that were made up, but you get the idea. Also, if you're reading this, you were also likely there...

This semester sucks. Capstone needs to go away. It is one semester too long. I've been spending a lot of time down at USS and we had a design review last week where we were told "you should be afraid of not finishing." I don't really care.

Geophysics isn't too bad. The teacher isn't too spectacular, but she does try to make it interesting. The class's redeeming quality is that the class number isn't preceded by "ME EN" making it a change from the standard I've been experiencing for the past four years.

Tonight, Dave is hosting "Geektober" which is odd, because it is February. "Geekuary" really doesn't have the same feel to it though.

The distributor that I use for my weaponry is currently out of stock of anything and everything that interests me. It is a bit of a pain in the ass. I can't say that I am overly pleased with the fact that I have no guns to sell right now. I have my AK, but as indicated, it is mine and I won't be selling it anytime soon.

I have posted a picture of a magazine that I created. The last gun that I sold initially came with two mags and a hard case. I sold it with one mag and no case, but for less than I initially intended. I did this to one of the mags and quite enjoyed the project.

Yes, you could hide amongst a herd of zebras and nobody would even know you were there...

Also, I've decided to post a picture from last September, when Derek and I went off on a grand adventure around the world. It is entitled "Derek Picked Horrible Breakfast, So He Can't Criticize Brian For Horrible Dinner"

This was at breakfast. Derek carried a similar expression at dinner.

Bombachus

• I'm gonna live forever!

The Final Stretch

So I'm simply going to give a rundown of what happened last semester with the classes. If you need to brush up on what the predictions were, you can read about them here. <- You can click on that...

• Capstone: Sucked. My group was pretty horrible. I've learned that MET's for the most part are useless. There is nothing that they can do that a mechanical engineer can't do better, faster, and more efficiently. I thought it was going to be fun, but I was very, very wrong.
• System Dynamics: Wasn't too bad. I understood the material for the most part and did fairly well in the class overall. I didn't necessarily enjoy it, but I had a really good professor.
• Fluid Systems: Great professor, loved the material, got destroyed on the tests. I felt like a hero walking into the exams, and felt like the stupidest peasant walking out of them. I still did alright in the class.
• MEMS: Didn't enjoy the class as much as I thought I was going to. I really had a lot of fun and learned a lot in the weekly labs, but the coursework was less than pleasurable. I threw a hail-mary on the final which worked out and got me a good final grade.

Now for this semester...

• Capstone: Crappy as crap could be. I can't wait for this to be over.
• Geophysics: Supposedly the biggest fluff class you can take as a mech. I'm taking this just to be able to get an A in...
• Heat Transfer: One of the hardest required classes for a mech. I'm not actually too worried about it.
• Gas Turbine and Jet Engine Design: This class has a 99.8% chance of getting dropped. I will keep it as long as I need 12 credits. If I don't, goodbye. I would really enjoy the class and the material, but I am ready to be done and want to wash my hands of this degree.

Christmas was really fun. I got a remote helicopter which as been more fun than ever imagined. Derek and I have played a week's worth of Donkey Kong. I went out shooting with a bunch of friends on my birthday (Mark, Grant, Brent, Derek, Dave) and did basically nothing for New Year's. Oh, and I got a new calling at church. I'm an assistant ward clerk. I deal with money. Simple enough.

Also, I'm buying an annual pass to Disneyland this year.

...or Puff the Magic Dragon

Today is Thursday. This means:

• Community
• 30 Rock
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
• Burn Notice
• The Office
• Bones

It is a horrible night for productivity (which is a lie). I don't usually watch any of these shows on Thursday night. I usually "DVR" them and watch them on Friday and Saturday.

So I just took a three hour break from writing this to finish up some homework. I don't know where it came from, but I suddenly realized what I had to do to finish a project that I've already spent about 7 hours on. Myself and some comrades at school had to do some work with supersonic flow and produce some experimental and theoretical results. Experimental was easy; theoretical wasn't. We couldn't figure out how to get the data we needed from what we had. I realized in about one second tonight what I tried to figure out for two hours yesterday. However, after realizing it, it took me three hours to do it.

Speaking of school projects, here are some images of some of the cooler things I've had to do at school so far this year.

• This is an analysis showing the speed of air coming off of an airfoil (wing). The redder, the faster. You see all the blue? That is where the air pretty much is stopped and just hangs out behind the wing. This is for Mach 8, and and 8 degree angle of attack. That means that it is moving 8x the speed of sound and pointed 8 degrees above the horizon.

• This is what I just did. These are contour lines showing air pressure as it moves across a shock wave. Shock waves happen as supersonic air (Mach > 1) suddenly goes subsonic (Mach <>

• These are little, tiny switches. We made them by depositing various liquids, selectively hardening parts of those liquids and desolving other parts, over and over. Each of the longer switches is about 100 microns long (which is less than 0.005 inches). There really isn't even anything you can give for comparison. Just imagine that if you stacked 200 of these switches from end to end, you'd still be under an inch.

There has also been a lot of code writing, but nobody wants to see that. Nobody wanted to see this either, but this is what you get.

Call of Duty: Black Ops came out last Tuesday. Since getting it, Derek, David and I have wasted quite a bit of time with it. I'm currently enjoying it more than I remember enjoying modern warfare, which is saying a lot. The campaign is confusing, but it is supposed to be. There's a bunch of shadowy crap going on and you're supposed to figure out the over-arching theme. Its fun. Also, it has uncle gazpacho, which is fun.

Chop Chop

As school is now upon us, I feel it obligatory to do a blog post about my classes and predict their outcomes.

Capstone: Today we submitted our bids for which projects we want to work on. Our choices were

1. US Synthetic: Create a machine that reduces die-swapping time from 30 minutes to 2 minutes.
2. Union Pacific: Design a cover for coal cars that can be used when the car is full or empty, as to reduce the amount of coal lost from the car and reduce drag
3. Panasonic: Create a device and automate a system that measures the amount of lubricant on a battery to determine if it needs additional cleansing.

We really think we are going to get our number 1, but who knows. We could get completely shafted and get none of them. Our number 3 is our "lesser of the evils" pick. If we get shafted on our 1 and 2, we want to at least choose how we're gonna get shafted for number 3. Nobody else bid on it, so it is better than getting stuck with one of the really crappy ones.

Outcome: Time consuming, but too early to tell if it is gonna suck.

System Dynamics: Nobody is really sure what this class is actually about. I think we mathematically model physical phenomena so we can work on it.

Outcome: Gonna suck

Applied Fluid Dynamics: I didn't really wanna take this class, but it fit so well in my schedule and I already had the book for it. It is all about fluid flow through turbo-machinery and over airfoils. I'm actually kinda stoked for it.

Outcome: Not gonna suck too bad.

MEMS: Little tiny robots.

Outcome: Awesome.

There you have it. I am doing my best to get ahead with homework, so back to work I go.

Hoop Jumping

I've been staring down my GRE book for the last few hours. No, I never opened it.

Here is a representation of how I feel:

Just for comparison, Billy Mays never sold anything with less than 2.2 gigamays of enthusiasm.

I take it on August 20th at 9:00.

Never go to Micro 39. You will get killed.

I've decided that since there isn't anything to do at 9 am, I am going to write a blog post. I made the mistake of taking quite the nap yesterday after watching Red October. This poor decision caused me to wake up around 9:30 and I was up all night. I had to go meet with one of the all-knowing financial aid councilors at BYU at 8 so instead of getting an hour of sleep and trying to wake up, I just stayed up. It is kinda nice to be up before noon, but there is less to do in the morning than there is to do at night. Oh wait, Deadliest Catch is available online 24/7. I guess there is equally as much to do.

Hillier is going to buy a Glock today. It seems like the best idea we've had in a long time.

For those of you who don't know, it is Flag Day. It is easily celebrated by having your local deacons post flags on everybody's lawn. It might also be celebrated by going to Beto's and wearing shoes. According to the last person to edit the article on Wikipedia, "Flag Day is not an official federal holiday, though on June 14, 1937 Pennsylvania became the first (and only) U.S. state to celebrate Flag Day as a state holiday." However, I believe that if it shows up on a calendar, it counts... which is why I don't celebrate Kwanzaa.

What is the first thing that just came to mind?

If you thought of the children's book "What the Hell is Kwanzaa?" before seeing the image, you win.

The Beginning of the End of the Beginning

Done with finals. Yesterday night actually, but then I went and helped Derek write a paper about college health issues. It wasn't that bad. Now he owes me one. When I need a favor, I'll buy the tacos and slurpees.

I graduate in a year. I'm pretty excited for that. Don't know where I'll be when I do graduate, but at this point, I don't care.

I've already lined up what classes I'm going to take this fall, so here are some plans of what I might try to get done in the next year.

• Take the GRE. I need a rockin' score on this to get into a good grad school. Speaking of which...
• Get into grad school. The more I think about it, the more I think I am going to just transition into grad school when I'm done with my undergrad. Although I don't know what my focus will be...
• Figure out what I'm going to study in grad school. Right now, I think I am headed down the MEMS path. I haven't actually taken the MEMS class, but from what I've read, it sounds way awesome.
• Find a position as a research assistant. I don't actually have to be doing any research. I just want the position in use for a padded resume... when I'm trying to get into grad school.

I think I might go biking. The trails are likely going to be craptacular, but I really want to go anyway.

Show Me Your Moves!

I have come to the realization that blog posts are replacing facebook updates as I catalogue my life. Here is how it goes up to now:

Took two finals today. Thermo and Aircraft. I did well with one, I got routed by the other. Although thermo wasn't exactly my intended course of study, I have come to realize that I am naturally pretty good with it. I got an A- in my first thermo class (last spring) and I will likely get an A- in this one too. Aircraft... I will likely get a B- or so, which isn't bad considering that the teacher was a fool who never taught us anything useful in the class. Everything I learned, I gleaned from arduous hours of homework as I battled to comprehend what the hell was going on.

I finish the semester's battle on Tuesday.

Right now, I am waiting for David to finish his business so that we can go to Walmart. He has to buy some shirts for Disney World and doesn't want to spend a load on DC/name-brand crap. My favorite shirts are the few that I have with no logos/icons/anything on them. I'm no slave to society. Speaking of which...

Oh, the cylon is great. I'm pretty sure that Zeus descended from Mount Olympus, created LeBron James, programmed and compiled Pandora, and promptly went back. I stream Pandora roughly 6 hours a day, which over a month comes to 180 or so hours. Recently, more attention has been paid to rating (thumbs up or thumbs down) the music that it selects for me. Like SkyNet, it is slowly learning who I am and what I approve of. Every time I add a new artist to my current "Radio Station," I have to make sure that it doesn't pollute my ears with garbage, but it has been doing really well lately. There is usually only one or so "Who do you think you are?" moments per hour.

Alright, so we went to Walmart and then to Hillier's. We had another "Finals Olympics" event. Hillier and I purchased some herring filets and sardines. The event was simply to eat them. Everybody who did won a gold medal. I won; Hillier won; Dave gets an honorable mention.

Current medal count

1. Brian: 3 Golds
2. Hillier: 2 Golds, 1 Bronze
3. Isaac: 1 Silver
4. Forbes: 1 Plastic Case with Poo inside

Bombachus

• 

In Soviet Russia, block knocks you.

It has become somewhat of a ritual to do a blog post when I'm pulling all-nighters. Pofta buna.

Here are the benefits of all-nighters:

• More time than chumps who sleep
• Texting people in the middle of the night
• Lucidity

"Brian, what do you mean by that last one?"

Well, let me explain. Most 'normal' brains apparently start to shut down on a lack of sleep. People begin to lose a comprehension of reality and can't think straight. My (and I believe Dave's) brain works exactly opposite. As time goes on without sleep, it starts tapping the 92% that isn't normally used and things become a lot easier to understand. I can spend a week on a topic and not really understand it *cough* shear flow *cough* but as soon as I'm working on it around 3:00am, it all becomes super easy. For example:

"But Brian, that's wrong..."

Yeah, but but now I know exactly WHERE it went wrong.

Anyway, I've got my two hardest finals on Friday (4-16-10), but I think that if I completely disregard my others until Saturday, I'll be fine.

According to Pandora, today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to me.

Bombachus

• Structurally unsound


• Harward and I once came up with The George Lucas Microsoft Paperclip. He would pop up during the Star Wars movies and explain why he ruined all the things he did. E.g. Greedo shooting first. This reminded me of it.

Coryphaena hippurus

So this morning as I was walking to class, I was listening to Pandora with Anberlin Radio running. This has been the favorite station since I got the cylon. Anyway, Beck came on. It was the first time I've listened to Beck since he went on tour with Bender.

Once upon a time, I was ambitious. I used to come to school at 7:30 so that I could work on homework and get reading done for my classes. this was short lived this semester. It started up last semester when I had a 5 hour block of classes every day, and had no time during the day to work on homework. I used 3 hours in the morning to do what I needed. Now I have a 3 hour break between classes Aircraft and Thermo which I use for that homework. So I've been sleeping for an extra hour. (Cool story Hansel.) Anyway, so now when I come at 8:20, I have to park in Azerbaijan, which is located by the Bean Museum. I went in the Bean Museum a few days ago, and there was a fish on the wall which was labled Dolphin (Mahi Mahi). Since then, four people have brought up the topic of Mahi Mahi. In each conversation, I said something to the effect of "You know that Mahi Mahi is a dolphin, right?" and everytime, they tried to call BS. Well, thanks to Wikipedia, I proved them wrong. I never said that Mahi Mahi is the dolphin you think it is, just that it is a dolphin. There you go.

Speaking of which, there are free fish tacos today at Rubio's for BYU students. That's right UV(SC)U students. How's your basketball team faring in the NCAA tournament? Oh, that's right... no tacos for you.

I had a stupid meeting for capstone yesterday. Capstone is a class where some company hires BYU to make some B-project for them. It was useless... except for the pizza at the end. See, I've been worried about capstone since I first heard about it. I've asked pretty much everybody I've run into about it, so I already knew pretty much everything about it. We did get pizza. It made the trip to BYU on a Thursday worth the effort. Then I did homework for the rest of the day, and made something awesome for my car. Chinese parts are crap, until you de-crap them.

Here is how Fall 2010 is looking for school:

• Capstone 1: Start up your project and realize you're not much of an actual engineer.
• Heat Transfer: Self-explanitory. I've been told this is the worst class in the BYU undergrad experience. Stoked...
• 335: I've never been too sure what the actual name of this class is. All I know is that it isn't fun, it adds onto 301 and 363, and that I didn't want to take it from The Blotter this semester, so I put it off until then.
• MEMS. Little tiny machines. If you're interested, here is a link. If you want to know what a meme is, here is a different link.

Here is how Winter 2011 looks:

• Capstone 2: Finish your project and hopefully be an actual engineer.
• Another class, which I have to take to qualify for a grant by credit hours.

There is a Switchfoot song called Meant to Live which says,

"we were meant to live for so much more, we lost ourselves, somewhere in Versailles..."

I'm not sure what it actually says, but this is what I want to believe.

Our teacher let us out of Aircraft early today. I think he wanted us to think he was being nice, but I think he had somewhere to be. He also canceled homework over the weekend. I think he was actually being nice there. Apropo de aircraft homework, I spent 30 minutes or so calculating the area of some "weird-ass crap" (<- technical term). Later, I found out he posted the area to said "weird-ass crap" on blackboard. Meh... Time for famed segment of:

What's on Brian's Clipboard?

1. Work problem 10.1 in your text. Treat the handle as a cylinder of length 10 in and diameter
1.25 in (don’t treat it as a truncated cone). This will mean that you won’t get the same answer
as the back of the book, but it will make the problem a lot easier.
2. Using the method of virtual work, add the capability to calculate input torque to your four-bar
program. Plot the input torque required to drive the four-link mechanism from problem 1 in
homework 8 for the first ten seconds of mechanism motion. This mechanism has dimensions
r1 = 15 cm, r2 = 5 cm, r3 = 12 cm, and r4 = 10 cm. The mechanism starts from rest at
an input angle of q2 = 0°, and it has a constant input angular acceleration of 1 rad/s2. In
addition, a constant output force of 1 N acts in the positive y-direction at the coupler point
(with a3 = 4 cm and b3 = ��5 cm). (Note that this output force pulls up on the mechanism
at the coupler point.) Also, m2 = 0:2 kg, m3 = 1:0 kg, m4 = 0:4 kg, I2g = 4:8 10��5 kg m2,
I3g = 1:5 10��3 kg m2, I4g = 3:5 10��4 kg m2, rg2 = 2:5 cm, rg3 = 7 cm, rg4 = 5 cm,
d2 = 0°, d3 = ��30°, and d4 = 0°. Note that I have posted a program performing acceleration
analysis of a four-bar if you would like to use it as a starting point.

Okay, so I copy homework posted on blackboard into a Google doc so that I don't have to access blackboard all the time to see what it was. This is Kinematics for next week. We were promised it would take a long time. Looks like it.

Okay, I've wasted adequate time today. Time to get to work.

Spring-Broken

It has been a long semester. I went ahead and counted up the amount of classes that I have left. I've got 15 hours of each class left (after today) until the end of the semester. It seems like it isn't that much, but it is. That is still 5 weeks. Then finals. Let's not forget those now. I don't have any tests this week, so I've just be chugging out homework. I decided that the best way to see how much I like a class is by how far ahead I can get in the homework on a week that I don't have a test. For example:

• Fluids: 1 assignment due per week (next Tuesday) > Haven't touched it
• Aircraft: assignments due every MWF > Haven't even started Friday's
• Thermo: assignments due every MWF > Done Friday's, next Monday's and next Wednesday's
• Kinematics: 1 assignment per week (this Friday) > Did it yesterday.

So, take a guess which one I enjoy the most. Yup, Thermo.

There have been other events that occurred this week. This really isn't the appropriate setting to address it, so I'll leave it be for now.

I was going to go to Vegas this weekend, but I'm not anymore. I was excited to go and call it a mini-spring-break. By which I mean a weekend in Vegas. A spring-break by definition must include a day where a person would normally be in school. I would love to see some reasoning why BYU doesn't get a spring-break. These are the reasons I know of:

1. BYU gets out a week earlier than others (I would rather have a week off during the semester and get out a week later)
   
2. BYU doesn't want its students going to Cancun to have rampant beach-sex
3. BYU believes itself to be of a higher standard than other institutions, with quality students who don't need a spring-break.
4. BYU believes that some sort of break doesn't rejuvenate students during the depressing winter months, but instead causes you to fall out of rhythm, inflicting a downward spiral that will inevitably cause lower scores on tests and finals.

Good news everyone! I've developed a program that will force you to hear my voice as you read this in your head!

Here is a current list that I've been working on in Google Docs while I've been in the computer lab:

Obnoxious Things About the CADEM Lab

• When people forget that they're LITERALLY surrounded by engineers, and try to sound smarter than they are.
• Crappy 3G coverage.
• Sometimes people you know trying to come up and carry on a conversation with you while you're obviously trying to work.
• Anytime you have any sort of a problem with your account (printing, connecting, etc.), the CADEM administrators reply with "huh... that's weird..." and can't fix it.
• People who think it is okay to bring little kids in who are loud and run around.
• The "One Man Army"s walking down the narrow aisles, hitting everybody with their backpacks.
• When some guy comes and decides to sit right next to you when there are dozens of open seats that have nobody immediately next to them.

I've got class in about 30 minutes, so I've got that long to fill. I refuse to do more homework, because I know that I won't be able to finish a single problem before Thermo. I won't start something that I can't finish. I mean, I will start an assignment that I can't immediately finish, but I won't start a problem if I can't finish it. I have tried this in the past, and I just get confused as to what I was doing, and I have to start over anyway.

Fact: Man can live by starbursts alone.

I want to go here...
...again. Really bad.

I've recently joined the ranks of the many who have seen Avatar. I also joined the ranks of the few who thought it wasn't that great. Up next: Hurt Locker. Let's see if it deserved to beat out the Bear Jew.

I've polished off two episodes of BSG while sitting here today at school. I didn't intently watch them; just listened to them and glanced over when something interesting was happening. Good times.

And finally, a segment not yet forgotten...

What's on Brian's Clipboard?!?!

4
r2 2×cos( 3 - 2) 2
2
+ ×sin( 3 - 2)


× r3 4
2
+ × ×sin( 4 - 3) - 2×Vs× 3
r3 + r4×cos( 3 - 4)

Take it for what it's worth. I need to go to class.

Say No to Gradians

I thought of something really funny, but then forgot what it was by the time I got here.

I'm supposed to be working on my aircraft homework, but frankly, I hate it. The teacher is one of the worst that I have ever had. He doesn't really teach us much of anything. He just talks at us and continually says "you know this from a previous class" when in reality, we don't. So when we ask him to go over things, he just glazes them.

I'm going to start a new segment on here, which I will likely do just once and forget about it. It is called...

What's on Brian's clipboard?!?!

It is pretty simple. Basically, I just give you a good ol' command-v and whatever the last thing I copied gets posted here! Awesome, huh? And I promise that whatever it is, I'll post it and leave it. It may be passwords or whatever (which I will promptly change), but even so, I will post it (so you'd know the old password, but not the new one... got it?). Anyway, I honestly don't know what I'm going to be posting, since I can't remember the last thing I copied. So for today, you get...

°

After I did, it, I was all, "what the poo? Nothing pasted..." But then, I realized it did. It's a degree symbol!! Isn't that awesome!! I was writing up a technical report, and I needed it to explain some things. Now, you're asking yourself "Hmmm... I wonder what temperatures he was talking about..." Come on now, you weren't thinking that at all! You know we mostly work with the Kelvin scale in temperatures, which aren't degrees at all, but just units of Kelvin. That's right 0° C = 273.3 K. Not degrees Kelvin, just Kelvin. That's your science lesson for the day. Anyway, I was working with angles. That is what the symbol was doing. At this point, you're all "Brian, don't you use radians to be more specific?" to which I would reply "You just shut the hell up. I hate radians."

Last night, Emily and I played a game called "Where in Disneyland is x, where x is equal to some small detailed picture of an object in a ride or wherever." I won. Yup. Speaking of which, here is picture of Derek and me on Splash Mou'uhn. We're right by the Raccoon and his jug of porn.

Xdest = T0Sgen = T0(se - si + qout/Tb,out...

Well, I'm sitting at school, with not much to do again. I've done all my homework that is due through Monday. I don't really know what to do with myself, so I'm sitting in the computer lab, writing a blog post.

Why is it so easy to get behind when it is so hard to get ahead?

Here is a picture of Liv when she discovered that there was no Big Mac in a box clearly labeled to contain one.

I've got a load of tests this upcoming week. I've started studying for my Aircraft one, where I'm unequivocally screwed. The beginning of the semester was all differentials and crap, and I'm "not good" at those. So, I guess I'll have to get good at them between now and next Friday. Also, a kinematics test which involves a bunch of computer programming. Not excited for either. Also, a lab next week in Fluids that won't be fun. Also, another Thermo lab and a Thermo test the following Monday. Also, school isn't as fun as I was hoping this semester.

There is a robocop sitting to my left. I took a picture and was going to upload it, but then decided that I'd best not upload a picture of a guy as he is sitting adjacent to me. I've sent it to Picasa (since I'm breaching my Flickr limit) so that I can upload it next time... if I remember. I likely won't.

In my efforts to absorb as much data as possible through the cylon, I've found a 2 hour long youtube video of Majora's Mask. Oh, I don't watch it. I just let it run all day yesterday as I had my phone plugged in. Since 2/10/10, I've used 305 MB. Not too bad. I kinda want to see the data bill for last month, but I can't find it online yet.

I'm gonna try to be productive for a few minutes. We'll see how it goes.

Nothing to do at School

So, I've run out of homework to do. I don't have enough stuff with me to get my Monday Fluids done; I don't have my Aircraft syllabus with me, so I don't even know what the assignment for Monday is. I've done my Thermo assignment for Monday, and the Kinematics assignment for next Friday hasn't been posted yet. I don't have any tests or quizzes next week that I need to really study for, so I'm at a loss. I still have two hours between me and my next class, so I've plugged in the cylon and I'm just listening to Pandora.

tan(previous paragraph):
Pandora is great. First off, it is free. You can stream loads and loads of music and not pay for it. I've got an "Anberlin Radio" that I've had running for about the last week and a half non-stop. Secondly, it lets you just suck 3g data like mad, which is beneficial if you're trying to consume as much as possible since you pay 30 bucks a month for a new data communication plan.

Since I've been coding a lot of stuff this semester, I've been wanting to make some sort of an ascii signature image that I can embed in the code of each assignment. Any suggestions, right now, the winner (in my mind) is Boba Fett. I haven't started working on it yet, and I don't think I can make it huge. I know that there are all sorts of ascii image converters on the internet, but I'm going to make it myself.

I went down to Hillier's last night to kick it with him an Isaac. I haven't seen either of them for about a week and change. We went to Walmart and I purchased some cookies and later realized I should have purchased Cheez-its. The cookies got old after about 5. Cheez-its never get old.

Every time my phone starts to run out of energy, it gives me a little status report of how the batter was used. So it turns out that more than 50% of it is getting sucked up by the screen, which makes sense. Today I was going to try to keep the screen off as long as possible to see if it lasts longer, but decided that I was just going to hook it into the USB on the computer here to feed it instead. Back up to 100% now, so I should be able to consume more data today.

Slight entertainment for the day comes via Tom. This video was taken last May when we went to Disneyland. Tom was in the bathroom and somebody got the ingenious idea to take a picture of Greg's bare ass with Tom's phone and make it his background. The deed was committed, and here is a video of the result. As with the previous post, I don't know if the embedded video will work, so here is a link.

Pies y Piernas...

Bienvenidos al a clase de espanol!

So my phone has been out of commission for the past 3 days. I don't know if people are talking to me!!! Here is what has been going down since I wrote last, which wasn't too long ago.

• School

And just to show Derek who is boss...

What what? That's right, came through on the promise! It might not be youtube, but who cares. Still a link to a vid.

I had a test in thermo today and got killed. It wasn't at all what I was prepared for. I learned how to do a bunch of cookie-cutter problems, and none of them were on the test. It was pretty dumb. Hoping for partial credit.

There should be a huge update tomorrow. Maybe. Maybe not. As for now, I'm going to try to get some homework done.

Sick for 2 Days Now...

Alright, again, it has been about a month since anything has been published here. And the only reason I am writing anything now is because I have a load of homework to do and frankly, I don't want to do it. So here is a rundown of life since I last posted:

Finals were actually merciful. I got two solid A's last semester and an A-. I'm pretty pleased with that. Working your ass off DOES pay off occasionally...

Christmas was spectacular. I got a PS3, which consumed my life for the following week. Dave and I played Modern Warfare until our eyeballs bled, but it was amazing.

My birthday wasn't bad either. This is the first year that I actually gave a frak that it was my birthday. Madre got me a sweet new keyboard (even if the USB ports aren't powered), Derek had the most pimp game ever. And I got myself a gun.

I'm working on getting some links up to YouTube for some movies, and they will be in the next post. I have to get to work now.

The Maw

Finals week starts tomorrow, and this is how it is all going to go down for me.

• Monday: Likely take the instrumentation final. Timed: 3 hr.
• Tuesday: Scheduled electrical engineering final. Timed: 3 hr.
• Wednesday: Scheduled machine design final. Timed: 3 hr.
• Thursday: Only real chance to do the statistics final. No time limit.
• Friday: Scheduled proofs final. Timed: 3 hr.

If any of you were with me last April, you might understand that I am ecstatic that 80% of my finals have 3 hour time limits (and it is bad form to pluralize units if they are abbreviated. You don't write "12 ins, 15 mis, etc.") since my differential equations final took me 6 hours to complete. I took it on a Friday, and I spoke with a kid before I took it who said that he just walked out after four hours without finishing. It was mind bottling that somebody would deliberately not finish a final, but after I took it, I understood.

I get to takes some notes into two of my finals, so I am working on those. I've never been more appreciative of 4-6 pt fonts before in my life. Too bad we can't take in microfiche with us.

Liver destruction continues with Dr. Pepper this evening.

I really appreciate the option on the facebook homepage that lets you hide stories that you don't want to hear about. Anybody who takes tons of quizzes or posts crap that I don't like gets hidden, and I never have to see or hear from them again. It is probably better than the defacing the sprees that I went on during the baseball playoffs. Removed a lot of 'friends' those few weeks...

I'm currently on a "Killers" kick. Although, they have more than one album, they might as well not. It all goes downhill after the first one. There are still a few good ones, but very few.

I just noticed that the authors of my instrumentation book are Figliola and Beasley. It is funny because I am currently working on a side-project that we call "Beesley." Also working on another called "Elf" and another that I am just going to call "Saga." Code naming things makes even the most boring of things seem interesting. Oh the things we do to keep ourselves occupied. Discreet Fourier Transforms are so awesome, aren't they?

Saturday is the ward Christmas party. (Just had to do a little HTML edit to fix my font) This will be the first ward activity that I have ever gone to. It should prove to be quite entertaining. Bowling at the WILK and then ice skating. I asked Dave if we could try and Iron Lotus while there. He said no. Good choice.

Bombachus

• Looks more like a Rick Hamburger Bun

Well, enough time has been adequately wasted. Time to get back to work.

Mode = "What the Hell..."

It's when the value = "What the Hell..." occurs most frequently in a data set.

So, like what? Two months since an update? I am just taking a guess here, but that is what it feels like.

Here is the current scholastic standing.

• Machine Design: Test this weekend. We were promised that it "was going to be hard, but do-able," which translated to "you're all screwed."
• Instrumentation: Test all next week in the testing center. It is completely optional. Midterms are worth 20% of the total grade. This midterm is counted only if we do better on it than we did on the first one. It is pretty nice set up.
  
• Electrical Engineering: Talking about logic. Makes no sense. Kinda ironic.
• Proofs: Don't know what the hell is going on.
  
• Statistics: The professor decided to assign a load of crap right before the end. It hasn't been way nasty... until now. Another test this weekend. Awesome.
  
• Of course, there is also a final in every class.

I think I might have to teach in Elder's Quorum this week. I was told about a month and a half ago that I was going to be teaching the first lesson of every month, but nobody has said anything to me about my topic. I am betting that I get a call on Saturday night...

My phone is broken, and has been for about a week. Luckily I bought a warranty on it and I sent it in today to get it fixed. The replacement phone is Derek's old razor. I like having a flip phone. Like I told him, it makes you feel important. I don't like the non-qwerty keyboard on it. It takes me about a month to type texts.

I am thinking that I am going to steadily move over to my google number. It makes no difference to me as long as the other people aren't on T Mobile.

I should really be studying for one of my tests, but I'm not.

I will end this post with a picture. This is the latest instrumentation project. We had to make a device that measured thrust from a rocket. We made a cantilever beam and attached a few strain gauges to it, sent those strain gauges through a circuit that amplified, removed bias, and filtered out the natural frequency of the beam, and then sent it to a DAQ for registering everything. It was pretty sweet. I'm sure you really, really give a frak.

Craptacular

To start this magical post, I am going to give y'all a picture. It is entitled "Crappiest Day Ever." Let me tell you how the events all went down.
I was leaving to go home from school, and I dropped my laptop. The screen broke, which makes it pretty useless. I bought a TV to replace the screen.
Here is the pic.
So there you have it. Dumb stuff. I'm going to start on my homework now.

I've Got Soul but I'm Not a Soldier

So, I haven't posted in a bit. I'm sure that everybody and their dog is curious what I have been up to. Here's a hint: nothing.

School is about the same. My classes are hard as hell, but they are great. I mean, I chose this, and I love every day of it. Well, not test days.. or days with lots of homework. So, I love some days. Here is a rundown of what I am working on in each class right now:

372: Combined loading and finite element analysis
363: System analysis and Wheatstone bridges
301: Resistor stuff and Wheatstone bridges
290: Proofs
495: Probability

Overall, it isn't way, way nasty yet. I'm sure it will get worse. I have a test at the end of this week, and another at the end of next week. The Gauntlet begins.

On a lighter note, I went on a date tonight with codename: Monday. Why is she known as Monday? Well, it is just easier that way. It was great. We went to a restaurant and got some sort of cinnamon beef and deep fried cheesecake. It was fattening and delicious. With any detective work at all, you can probably figure out who Monday is. Anybody who knows can't share the secret. It is more fun that way.

Bombachus

• This was disgusting, but made me laugh. I may have posted it before, but I am too lazy right now to go look.