2010.12.14 Tuesday

Work was full of meetings and low activity/excitement levels.

At home, I started off with the mission of running some errands, but that fell apart quickly. Instead I ended up finishing my minecraft "mob grinder" based on plans others have posted online. I have to admit that I'm really happy with the results. I'm already collecting a lot of resources from it.

I ended up running some errands late into the evening anyways. I really need to perform an oil change, so I picked up all the gear for that, plus some food items.

Back home, cooked dinner at 11pm, then wrapped up the day.

2010.12.13 Monday

Ah, a Monday. Hmmph.

After work, I got to work on vacuuming my room, and cleaning my bathroom. I also picked up some around my room, but didn't spend too much time on that because I knew I was going to end up making a mess later anyways.

Cleaned up in the kitchen. I am still under the impression that colanders and pots take up too much space in the dishwasher, so I hand wash them. The pots are usually easy because they are non stick. So weird thing I've noticed, if there are dishes in the sink, people will add to the pile in the sink, even when the dishwasher is empty. But if the sink is empty, people will crack open the dishwasher to find space (typically speaking). I guess they are assuming the dishwasher is full.. and you know what they say about assuming. LOLZ

Cooked a grilled hot dog on the cast iron skillet. Also cooked up some potatoes. I was originally planning on the potatoes to be "mashed", but they came out more like potato soup. Milk floweth fast.

Post dinner, I went back to my room to watch the rest of MNF and work on the guitar circuit I've been talking about for so long. I was able to verify some of the wiring and build a little part of the circuit.. everything looked good... applied power (with my awesome DC power supply).

HIGH PITCH WHINE... SIZZLE... FLAMES.

Oh sh*t. WHAT IS GOING ON? Capacitor just blew up in my face. That's weird, it doesn't smell that ba... oh there is the smell. Gross.

So what did I do wrong? Well people might say this is a common mistake. I put in an electrolytic capacitor with the leads reversed, or wrong polarity. Alright, so yes that was a pretty silly mistake. In my defense, I was using a military-grade electrolytic that doesn't have the standard (-) sign marking down an entire side. What does it have? A tiny tiny plus sign that is slightly closer to one lead than the other. I actually had two caps in the circuit, but I lucked out and the other one was installed correctly.

Now the bread board has a burnt spot. Hooray. I also get to sleep in a room that smells like terrible burnt electronics. Hooray!

2010.12.12 Sunday

Woke up normal time. Korey and Josh were heading to a wedding today, Kelc, her mom and I were going to see the Nutcracker.

Kelc's mom decided to head over to Florida to spend time with her dad, whose health has been in steady decline. I hope everything is ok.

Packed up some of Kelc's stuff in Josh's truck to take back to Austin. Picked up the other Josh to go see the Nutcracker with us.

I've got to say, the Nutcracker, or any ballet, is still hard to interpret as an adult (until I read the synopsis) so I have no idea why a kid would enjoy watching. As a matter of fact, there were numerous kids that began crying throughout the performance. Even hundreds of years ago, I could see how the ballet would be a terrifying experience. Seems like a demented art form.

After the show, went back home and checked the flights. The flights to Austin didn't look so good, so Kelc rushed me off to the airport. I flew through security (no body scanning this time) and was at the gate early. Made it on, and First Class again (but remember, short flights show little to no benefit from this).

Landed in Austin, bussed over to my car, drove home, unpacked, watched SNF and cooked dinner. Then called up Rudy and talked for about an hour. We had a lot to catch up on. Didn't take long for me to pass out.

2010.12.11 Saturday

Woke up and took a shower. The morning didn't have anything pertinent happening, so everybody had a rather leisurely mood. Drank some coffee and had toast for breakfast.

Packed up our stuff and headed out to explore some of the campus in the daylight. Michigan has been spending most of the week setting up for a hockey game against their rivals, Michigan State. This event, even in the middle of winter, was drawing fans from all over. Even in morning, people were tailgating and selling their front yards as parking space.

Little did we know, this hockey game would set the new record attendance at the stadium.

Off we went to the airport. Dropped off the rental car, grabbed our bags and bussed over to the terminal. We checked out bags without an issue, but once we saw the security line, we started to wonder if we should have skipped that part. The security line was taking an abnormal amount of time... until you studied what was going on. They had to x-ray machines for bags and belongings, one metal detector, and one infamous body scanner machine, and about 12 TSA agents that hardly looked busy. You could easily feel the frustration in the room; people were needing to get to their flights and not deal with this invasion of privacy. Well, we were getting really close to our flight time by the time I got near the front of the line, so as you might have guessed by now... I went through a body scanner. Yep. I did it. It is done. My NAKED BODY is on a computer somewhere. I really hope they liked looking at my junk, although it probably wasn't as big as it normally is (I SWEAR IT WAS COLD IN DETROIT). Looking back at the experience, I'm kinda disappointed that my first digital nude was that. I could have done something a lot more epic for my first naked picture. Instead, it was an image of me (figuratively) bending over and taking it from TSA. So turns out that 3 out of the 4 of us went through the body scanners. Yeah that's a whopping 75% scan rate. It was my understanding that the body scanners are supposed to be used if the metal detectors aren't functioning, or picking up something that may be questionable.

Whatever.

Arrived at the gate, everybody already boarded the plane. We squeezed on before the shut the doors. First class back to Dallas, on a 2.5 hour flight. Yessss. Chicken sandwich, caesar vinaigrette salad, pita chips and cheese dip. Also, warm nuts and a cranberry cookie. Room to recline your chair and stretch your legs. Yessss.

In Dallas, bussed out to Kelc's car, then to her apartment. Spent some time around there, then went to the mall to kill some time. Ate a quick bite, then off to Lindsey's dance show.

The UTA Dance Ensemble puts on a show at the end of every semester. This year's show was titled Nuts 'n' Bolts, Rock 'n' Roll. Some of the dances made no sense, others were high entertainment, others more mature and skillful.

After that, we went out to Pappasito's Cantina. I ate a ton of queso, ruined my dinner, but hey leftovers are good too. I saw what appeared to be a group of females at a table, looked like they were a dance team or gymnastics team, but no adults. Weird that they all looked a little young to be there without a way to drive.

Went back to the apartment. Quickly fell asleep again.

2010.12.10 Friday

Woke up before I really needed to today. Took a shower and was getting my things ready for some fun travels. Well once I got out of the shower, I received a text message saying that Kelc's mom was outside already ready to go. Yikes! Let's roll.

I drove us to the airport, then we bussed in to the terminal. There we had to check bags, go through security, then head to our gate. We had some time to spare, so Kelc's mom went to see how other flights were looking to make sure we were going to make it to Michigan. The flight to DFW wasn't that crowded, so we were able to sit in First Class. Yeah that sounds great and all, but on such a short flight, you don't really see any benefits of First. Flying standby, you get to wait while everybody boards the plane. If you are ever flying and see people that look like they are running late to their flight, and just barely making it... good chance they weren't running late, but are actually flying standby. Anyways.. my main point to make is that as standby you get on at the last second, and the flight to DFW is 15 minutes of ascent, 10 minutes of cruising, and 15 minutes of descent. Not a lot of time to get pampered.

At DFW, we met up with Kelc. The flight to Detroit didn't look so good like it did yesterday. Now it looks like we might need to start figuring out some backup plans, or wait for later flights. Well, we ended up lucking out and they assigned the very last seat on the plane to me. *phew* That was a close one.

Two and a half hours later we arrived at Detroit's airport. Balloons everywhere! Well, just in the part of the terminal we entered. Guess they were celebrating something.

Picked up our bags at baggage claim, then bussed over to the rental car place. A compact will do just fine. Kelc's dad met up with us at the rental place, and off we went to Ann Arbor.

On the way, we hit a rather large clump of traffic. Turns out Detroit doesn't know how to deal with accidents. A fender-bender between two cars, which was already on the left shoulder, closed down the left shoulder, left lane, middle lane, and part of the right lane. A fire truck spanned almost all three lanes. THANKS GUYS. Keeping us safe by having more people slam on their brakes.

We went straight to the gym. Some of us changed clothes in the car. Really nice how rentals don't have any window tint. Even with the snowy/icy ground, it didn't really feel that cold.

At the gym meet, Kevin performed on floor and vault. He did well on both. Somewhat surprising was the audience. A flock of females hovered closely, and were yelling out the names of the gymnasts as they performed their routines.

Later, we went to the world-famous Zingerman's Deli. I really feel like Austin needs a place like this. They have a huge assortment of meats, breads and cheeses. Everything looked fantastic, except the prices. Upon receiving my sandwich, the price was justified. A small is easily filling, and a large is really two sandwiches with meat piled high.

After dinner, we went to check in at the hotel. Spent a few minutes there, and changed clothing, then out to Starbuck's to meet up with Kevin his friend Alex. About halfway through this, I was ready for bed.

Went back to the hotel room and promptly closed my eyes.

2010.12.09 Thursday

End of the work week already? Sweet. Feels like a long time since I had a 3-day weekend, unless you count Thanksgiving weekend as an extended weekend.

I spent the evening today finishing up the power supply. I have multiple voltage terminals available, pretty exciting.

Black: Gnd

Yellow: +12v

Red: +5v

Blue/White: +3.3v

Blue: -5v

White: -12v

Also stuck in an extra ground terminal for added flexibility. I should be able to make some progress with my guitar effects project now.

Mark came over and we ended up discussing some of the finer points of the Disney Channel.

Packed up my junk and went to bed.

2010.12.08 Wednesday

Today is a special day to me. Why is today special? Well for one, it is my half-birthday. Yeah I know that most people don't care at all about half-birthdays. There have been a handful of pivotal moments in my past that occurred around the time of my half-birthday, so I consider this time special. It's not really about "feeling older" but just a state-of-mind shift.

An extended work day went by sorta quickly. I started getting pretty restless by the end.

At home, I didn't really bother to do much. I had some leftovers for dinner, watched Mythbusters, and played Minecraft. So about Mythbusters, President Obama appeared as a guest to personally ask for a myth to be revisited. I feel like they made a huge deal about the 10 seconds he appeared, and then opponents of Obama will say how unprofessional it is for him to appear on a TV show. I personally feel like the US in general needs to be more excited about math and sciences. There is a lot of misinformation/sly-marketing out there that people abuse on misinformed consumers. Anything for a quick buck, right?

I spent the majority of the evening playing Minecraft while multitasking in other things. I actually kicked up the amount I'm playing lately to try and finish a project. I'm about 70% done building a rather large "machine" that will help me acquire materials that aren't as common. I hope it works when I'm done *crosses fingers*. After that, I only have a few mindless tasks going on around the world, so I may stop spending so much time with it.