New Toy!

I ordered myself a new camera last week; it came in the mail yesterday!

After playing around with some of my friends' cameras, it became apparent that I really liked photography and I should probably get a camera of my own since I'm doing so much interesting stuff in the next year or so. It's a Canon Powerhot S5 IS, which is just about as nice as they come without going up in to the $600+ range (waaay more than I would spend on just about anything).

Hopefully I can make my life well-documented; I post my photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnskyscraper.

Night Off

Taking the night off for once... 'tis nice.

Now if I can just get a whole day off...

Evolution of Homework

I'm working on my first homework assignment that consists of one problem, and one problem only. Remember when homework was something you could pound out in an hour? Yeah, that was nice.

Welcome to engineering school: land of the 3-hour homework problems.

Mmmm, cookies....

Tonight was Hockey Mom cookie night, when the Hockey players' moms make the band cookies for the game.

It's nice to know we're appreciated :-)

Homework

I spent the entire night working on what is legitimately the most difficult homework assignment I've ever had. Period. After 4 hours in the afternoon of bumbling through algebra that should have taken me 20 minutes. Pissed off at half my classes. No time to see Meg. Have to get up early tomorrow morning and work all day.

Break is needed, but will never come. That's the life I've built for myself.

Edit Feb. 20: Lost my mp3 player today. Screw you, life.
Edit Feb. 21: Finished the homework, found my mp3 player!

Downfall of Society: Part II

How can making a game show about losing weight a profitable enterprise? 1) most current TV shows are crappy, and 2) people don't take good enough care of themselves.

Classical Music (in more than one sense)

I was bored, so I thought I'd bust out the ol' mp3 player and see what I haven't listened to in a while. Most of the music I've been listening to lately is my "walking somewhere" music - usually Metallica, Dream Theater, Dragon Force, or Rammstein; or my "doing homework" music - Pink Floyd, Blue Man Group, or some film soundtrack.

I scrolled down to find Holst's "The Planets" Suite - it's been a while for this one. I turned it on (with headphones, no distractions) and just laid in my bed for a while with nothing else to think about; this is the most relaxed I've been in longer than I care to remember.

(BTW: my favorite movement is Jupiter, for those of you who care)

V-Day

...was nice :-) We exchanged gifts (and cards), then went to dinner at a nice restaurant. I was a little nervous, as I've never needed to do this before (this xkcd comic comes to mind), but all went well. How it should be.

Spring Semester, v3.0: Update

Classes so far are going pretty well. My only major "issue" is that, on Wednesdays, there's a weekly quiz in Flight Dynamics and Control and homework due in Aerodynamics. Going to class for 6.5 hours, 3 days a week is working out pretty well, as it frees up just about everything else. As for individual classes:

• AEM 4303W - Flight Dynamics and Control: This has turned out to be the most interesting class of my four. Not too much new material (we've covered most of it in AEM 2301 - Mechanics of Flight), but that should change pretty quickly. The professor likes to mumble a little bit, but I can here him most of the time.
• AEM 4202 - Aerodynamics: Also a pretty interesting class, it's nice to see that there's actually math behind all the stuff that makes an airplane fly, not just unsupported imperical evidence. Homeworks for this one take a while, but it's still managable in an evening. The professor is liable to make mistakes writing euqations on the board, which makes lecture a little frustrating.
• AEM 4501 - Aerospace Structures: It's kind of interesting to expand on the knowledge of a previous class and see where stuff comes from, but (so far) that's the limit of this class. Unfortunately, there's no [reliable] textbook for this class, so I have to mostly pay attention in lecture, which is difficult at times since it's right after lunch.
• AEM 4601 - Insturmentation Lab: Remember the first week of lab, when you learned how to use the equipment in the lab, and then answered a few simple questions about it? That's this class, but every single week. I find myself doing a lot of homework and/or solar car in lecture, especially since most of the information that goes on the board is handed out at the beginning of class. The lab is a bit more interesting, but like I said, "advanced lab orientation" is what this class should be called.
• SVP 35 - Solar Car: We've really started building the car! Every week, the random collection of parts in the shop gets closer and closer to looking like something drive-able. Accordingly, it's also taking up more and more time every week; most of my weekends have had some form of solar car in them, if not the whole weekend. Tuesdays and Thursdays are falling fast too... time is going fast...

Can Life Be Too Good?

How come life seems to be going so smoothly for me, but not for my freinds? It always seems as if I'm significantly less busy and less worried about things in my life like school, work, and how much time I'm spending with my freinds, despite it appearing that I have the same amount of stuff, if not more, going on in a given week.

I hear them commenting (I won't use "complaining," since they're perfectly justified; I do it too) on how busy they are, and I typically try to give advice for them to deal with what seems to be a similar situation to me. When this happens, I typically realize after a while the content of what I'm saying; it nearly feels like I'm bragging about how well my life is going relative to those around me and giving "better than you" advice to them. Then I start feeling guilty and try to avoid the subject, without completely blowing them off.

I have no idea why this is or how it came to be. Is it because I somehow have an ability to deal with a large number of things on my plate? Or perhaps I somehow deal with the stress of being busy in a different, less reactive way? Or is it just that I'm too concious of how I think people percieve me?

I need to figure this out; as we become older and advance in school, it seems like it's becoming a more common problem. I don't want how my life is going to affect the way I interact with people.

Uh Oh, Tax Return Time

Since I actually had a full-time, well-paid job this summer, I made more money than I ever had before. As a result, I also have a sizeable tax return: $850 this year. History has shown that when this happens, instead of saving the money, I like to buy new toys (last year's "investment" was an mp3 player). I plan to buy myself a digital camera (finally!), mostly so I can take pictures of solar car.

Unfortunately, this only accounts for about $300 of the money. Aside from saving it, on this year's 'maybe' list:

• 2nd computer monitor
• LEGO Millenium Falcon, the largest LEGO set ever created
• Desktop PC, so I can play computer games that are less than 3 years old
• TV of decent size for future apartments
• Stereo Amp for the speakers that I own but can't use

Caution: Slippery when winter

After 4 months of successfully walking on all manners of snow, ice, slush, and wet pavement this winter, I have now slipped and subsequently fallen on frozen water twice in the last week.

Maybe I need new shoes, with better soles? Or maybe just a lower center of gravity.

Attempted excuse: everything thawed and then re-froze last week, making it all extra slippery. One "incident" was in the dark and I didn't see the ice, and the other was today when it was snowing.

Sports Fan

Why do we watch sports? Moreover, why do we pay significant amounts of money to watch sports? Why do tens of thousands of people gather on a weekly basis to watch a few dozen people try to best eachother in events of skill and strength?

Theory: we, as humans, have the need to identify ourselves with a group of people that means something to the rest of society so, if nothing else, society will recognize us for that. Be it a fan of a sports team, from a city, or even a member of a race, we feel compelled to make sure that our peers remember us for something more than what we make ourselves to be.