Day Two In Salzburg

We woke up this morning fairly early, because we had a scheduled tour. We went through the cornily named 'Bob's Special Tours' company and booked the 'Sound of Music Tour', and they picked us up at 9:00am, bright and early.

We were ushered into a mini-bus driven by our guide, Rosa-Marie, who filled us in little details about Salzburg that we had no idea about when we were poking around yesterday. She took us around to see many of the main sights of Salzburg, including Mozart's residence and several of the fountains we had seen the other day. We also got to see several of the sights around Salzburg that were either actual locations filmed in the Sound of Music, or were replicated in Hollywood but based on a Salzburg location. After touring for about an hour around various locations in Salzburg, we headed out to the Austrian countryside to visit several villages that were on the edges of some beautiful mountain-set lakes. Some of the actual locations we got to see included the Von Trapp's real life house, the house on which the back of the family house in the movie was based on, and the actual gazebo used in filming some of the critical scenes in the movie, including the song 'You are 16, going on 17'. All in all, the tour took three or four hours, but it was completely worth it, introducing us to a lot of the countryside that we otherwise would not have gotten to see.

After we got off the bus, we went and toured Mozart's residence. There isn't a whole lot of detail to talk about in that house, as it mostly just was displays of his writings and some of his handwritten music. The most interesting part was seeing the actual instruments owned by Mozart.

After getting a bite to eat, we decided that we would head up to the fortress that towered over Salzburg. On the way, we passed by a graveyard and catacombs that we had kind of been looking for yesterday, and we stopped to explore those a little bit. Given that the castle was so far up, Mom and Dad decided to take the lift up the mountain to the castle and let the kids walk. It wasn't that difficult of a walk, but it took a while to get up to the top. Once we had reached the top, we met up and discovered that we had been rewarded for our ambitiousness in scaling the castle mountain: there was an unparalleled view of the entire city and surrounding countryside, including the Untersberg, a massive peak only 16km away from the city and towering nearly 2km above the surrounding countryside. However, a foreboding cloud hung above the Untersberg, and a sheet of rain could clearly be seen moving rapidly across the intervening plain. We decided to head back down and get to the car as quickly as possible, but we ended up seeking shelter from the rain in one of the many shops carved into the mountain side.

Once we finally got the the car, the rest of the day went very quickly. We drove to Munich, got settled into our hotel, which is very nice and housed in a renovated mansion, and ate dinner at a small Italian eatery where the menu was entirely in German. However, the restaurant was quite delicious and the atmosphere was enchanting. Tomorrow, since Dachau is (unexpectedly) closed on Mondays, we will head to Neuschwanstein Castle in the south.

To Salzburg

We rose early in the morning to try and get an early start on our drive to Salzburg, Austria. It was going to be a 5 to 6 hour drive, so we left around 9am and hopped right on the autobahn. It was a fairly uneventful trip, but there was a very obvious highlight: about 45 minutes past Munich we encouered some traffic. While in traffic, we came over a hill and caught our first, distant view of the Alps. As we drew closer to Salzburg, the mountains kept growing, culminating in a beautiful towering peak that was capped in snow.

We arrived in a very busy Salzburg without fanfare, having very much enjoyed driving along the northern Alpine border. We directed the GPS to guide us to our hotel, and it did its very best, but ultimately failed. We searched for our hotel for quite a long time, driving around the Old City Center of Salzburg an embarassing amount of time before finally asking at a tourist center and finding that it was nestled away in a little back alley in the Old City, away from the hustle and bustle but close by all the sights and sounds that we wanted to experience. Though the hotel itself was small and the stone staircase was rather unpromising, our room was a nice suite with a beautiful view, superb location, and perfectly acceptable accomodations.

After bringing our luggage in to the room, we moved our car to a parking lot about 10 minute's walk from our hotel; as our hotel was in the Old City, there was no overnight parking nearby. We then proceeded to try and make up for lost time and get some of our walking tour of Salzburg in before dinner. By this time it was around 4:30pm, and some shops had already started to close up. We finally wandered our way in to the Kapitelplatz (completely by accident) and pulled out our trusty Rick Steves'.

After marveling at the beauty of the Kapitelplatz and its view of the Fortress (which, we decided, we would visit tomorrow), we headed in through a series of arches to the Domplatz, which served as the courtyard for the absolutely gorgeous Salzburg Cathedral. Walking into the Cathedral was like walking into a piece of history; consecrated in 1628, this Cathedral was one of the first Baroque buildings north of the Alps. It was commissioned by a greedy prince-archbishop who wanted to turn Salzburg into the Rome of the north, and was only stopped by the existence of a modest cathedral in the center of town. When that cathedral was destroyed, he was more than happy to built a magnificent new one in its place. We were able to see the ruins of the cathedral in the crypt below the church, where several archbishops are buried as well. AS a side note, Mozart himself served as the organist at this cathedral for two years. It will be hard for any Cathedral to top the Salzburg cathedral in its size and splendor, at least on this trip.

We visited two more plazas after exiting the cathedral: the Residenzplatz, with a fountain of Triton that mirrors a similar fountain in Rome, and the Mozartplatz, overlooked by a an 8th century church and centered around a statue of Mozart. It was amazing, walking through the plazas and knowing that people had been walking them for centurys; even Mozart himself had once strode across these uneven bricks.

We finished up the day with a scrumptious meal at Saran Essbar, an international cuisine restaurant tucked away just a block off Mozartplatz. We decided to have traditional Austrian cusine, and so we shared a plate of Schnitzel and a plate of gulash between the five of us, after which we indulged in some apple strudel and some specialty pancakes.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

When we woke up today, it was rainy with some donnert & blitzen (thunder & lightning), which is evidentaly fairly unusual for Europe. This meant that a trip down the Rhine, as we had planned, was probably out of the question. Instead, we decided to shift one of the trips we had planned for next week to today: an excusurion to the old time city of Rothenburg. [Note: Rothenburg is not to be confused with Rothenbergen, where my Aunt and Uncle live; Rothenburg literally means 'Red Castle', while Rothenbergen is literally 'Red Mountains'.]

It was supposed take about an hour and a half to get to Rothenburg from Rothenbergen, but after about 20 minutes into our trip, we decided to take a more roundabout way of getting there instead of taking the direct route on the autobahn. The Deutchers have laid out a more scenic route from Frankfurt to München, dubbed the 'Romantiche Strasse', or Romantic Road, and we our best to follow this road all the way to Rothenburg. It was indeed a very beautiful and scenic route that wound through many small towns and villages, and though we had a few mishaps where we had to consult a map or turn around and go back a few kilometers, we finally made it Rothenburg. One thing discovered on the way there, however: those who have never visited the European countryside may look at an old-style map, where the cities are laid out and represented by circles of pictures of buildings that are fairly close together [example] and think that it is an exaggeration. In reality, traversing the European countryside is much like tracing your finger across that map; once you exit a small village, you can see the next one just across the small valley in front of you, sometimes just a football field away. In Germany, its always the red roofs you can see first, and giant clusters of them, with a church or two rising above the clay-colored mayhem.

The Rothenburg we visited was one of many Rothenburgs in Germany; the specific name of the city therefore is 'Rothenburg ob der Tauber', or 'Rothenburg on the Tauber [River]'. The heyday of the city, and the period much of the historical section of the city recalls, was from 1150 to 1400 A.D.; it was during this time that Rothenburg o.d.T. served as a strategic stop between northern and southern Europe and was one of Germany's biggest cities with a population of about 6,000. It is Deutchland's best preserved medieval walled town, and this is quite apparent to any and all visitors, of which there are many; the town today has about 2.5 million visitors a year, including many from abroad. (It is worth noting that many of these tourists are Japanese, as we can now attest. There were many places where German captions were translated to both English and Japanese.)

Armed only with Rick Steves' guide to Germany, we set out on the town. We enjoyed many of the sights recommended in the guide, including a excursion to the top of the tallest building in the town for a fantastic view of the town and surrounding countryside. We also paid a visit to St. Jakob's cathedral, which, despite charging admittance, was a worthwhile experience. It seemed that every crevice was extravagently decorated, and the stained glass windows and carved wooden altars were exquisite. I couldn't help but think that this was a far cry from the manger and the first crude altars, but the artisans that designed this cathedral were doing as much for the glory of God as anyone worshipping in the first century. These huge cathedrals are just so foreign in these modern times that its difficult for me to understand or connect them with worship.

After enjoying some tasty doner-kebabs, we headed for more historical sites, mostly around the city wall. We saw the old moat, climbed up and walked about a hundred feet along the wall ramparts, and even leaned over an intimidating 25-foot drop to the outside of the city. Jordan, Dad and Cammi reenacted the intro scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, after which we all tried to avoid getting poisoned by the deadly smells in the herb-garden and old nunnery and convent. We went out the main gate of the city, where we learned that the actual 'red castle' that the city had been named after had once stood right outside the gate but had been destroyed in the 14th century, leaving only a chapel. With the castle gone, we were now offered a beautiful view of part of the city from a good distance, as well as a birds-eye view of a gorgeous valley with a stone bridge.

The medieval crime and punishment museum was our last stop before visiting some shops and heading home. It was an interesting look at justice, law enforcement, torture, and crime in Rothenburg's prime; portions were almost comical (like the hilarious Shame masks that evil-doers were forced to wear), but other parts were a somber look at the awful ways human beings can treat each other, like the thumb screws or the rack. As it was just noted to me, it made one glad that we live in the 21st century.

Now we're headed home for what we anticipate will be an appetizing abendessen couresy of Aunt Ingrid; tomorrow morning we set out bright and early for our 5-hour trip through the Deutch Alps and to Salzburg, Austria.

Final Days in Sweden and Arrival in Gründau

Tuesday and Wednesday were our final days in Sweden, as our flight was to depart at 5:05pm on Wednesday. Unfortunately, we had seen many of the sights of Gothenburg already, as it's not really a tourist destination. Tuesday, we headed out to the Gothenburg Mall and lunch at a cafe.

It turned out that the Gothenburg Mall was fairly large, but we only spent an hour there, as visiting a mall marked in a completely foreign language and more expensive than American malls can only be so entertaining. There was a Gamestop, though, and a Bokia, which was a bookstore I maintain is owned by Borders, judging by the font format, color schemes, etc. After this hour, we went to meet a representative of our church conference, who lives in Sweden, for lunch at a cafe. Before visiting the cafe, we stepped into the Christian church of Gothenburg, which was a quite beautiful church building during the 19th century and modeled after the general style of a Catholic cathedral. Until about 20 years ago, the official Lutheran Church of Sweden was the only church allowed in the country, and this church belongs to that denomination. They currently hold some fairly liberal beliefs. After our lunch in the cafe, we did a little more shopping, including at a little candy store in Gothenburg, and then took the rest of the evening off.

The next day was set aside to pack for our flight to Germany and to visit that expanding furniture store that originated in Sweden: IKEA. There's not much to say about the actual visit itself, other than it was rather enlightening to know that it is Swedish in origin, and that it is fairly obvious now that its space-saving methods and utilitarianism develop from necessity. However, the biggest point to take away is that Europe, and the Swedes in particular, are far ahead of America when it comes to being more environmentally conscious and waste conservative. For example, all the concentration on space and energy-saving devices in IKEA, including lamps that had solar cells mounted in them. Germany is also experience a surge in the popularity of outfitting roofs with a large number of solar cells, so as to offset their own energy use.

That evening, we had a uneventful and successful flight into the Frankfurt airport, the third busiest in Europe. We had a rental car already paid for and ready for pickup in the airport, and when we actually picked it up it turns out it was a brand-new 2010 Volvo V70 Diesel 6-speed. It looks like an updated version of what we in the states would call a "station wagon", which is way more standard here in Europe; its like their version of the SUV. It had literally 10 kilometers on it when my dad pulled it out of the rental car garage. I'm looking forward to riding in it on our way to Salzburg. We got settled into our accommodations with my great-aunt and great-uncle in Rothenbergen-Gründau. They have a fantastic house, and gave myself and my two siblings the third floor all to ourselves. The best part of this is that the third floor has a balcony with a beautiful view, just absolutely stunning. We then had a late abendessen (dinner) that consisted of wurst, real frankfurters, potato salad und brot (bread).

The next day, Thursday, we visited several of the little villages around Gründau. First, we went to Büdingen, which dates back hundreds of years. In the Altstadt, or Old City, the streets were narrow and paved with brick, and looked pretty much like you see in pictures, with the plaster-and-woodbeam houses lining the streets. In a lot of the houses, each increasing story would branch further and further out from the main structure; this was because while there were regulations specifying how close together two buildings could be and how narrow the street could be, these regulations did not apply to upper floors. We were able to get some tourist information in English about the Altstadt, and we went on a self-guided tour of the entire town and its various historical sites. The unique features of Büdingen were the castle, which was still inhabited by a prince of some sort, and the large dog-sized frogs located on the sides of various buildings located around the city. The frogs have some relation to a story centered around Büdingen. Like most German towns, the huge cathedrals tower over the rest of the town, and Büdingen was no exception. Another notable about Büdingen: the entire town was surrounded by an old wall that was still completely standing, including several different gates that lead to the outer city. Once we had seen a good portion of the city, we headed out of one of these gates and to an authentic Italian gelato place just outside the walls that Tante Ingrid suggested.

After immensely enjoying our gelato, we got in the car and headed in the opposite direction to the town of Gelnhausen. Unlike Büdingen, the wall that once surrounded Gelnhausen was mostly broken down, and the castle was in ruins. This was to our benefit as far as the castle was concerned though, as we were able to actually get into some of the walls and towers and climb up to some of the higher parts for good pictures. The castle in the other city wasn't explorable because it was still occupied.

Gelnhausen was also the site of two beautiful cathedrals, Marienkirche and St. Paul's Cathedral. Marienkirche was host to some replicas of very old copies of the Bible, some dating back to the 12th century. It also held a Bible complete with illustrations by Salvador Dali. This same church also had many relief sculptures on the walls, and some beautiful stained glass windows. It towered over the rest of the city, viewable from miles away.

After visiting both these small towns, we headed back to Gründau for an abendessen of Aunt Ingrid's special spaghetti with meat sauce that was just absolutely fantastic. Tomorrow, we plan on taking a boat tour down the Rhine river if the weather cooperates, and hopefully many pictures will be taken.

Day in Haga and on Vrångö island

On the third day in Sweden, we finally got the cold weather we were expecting. The 85-90 degree temperatures we had during the day dropped overnight to about 55-60 degrees and breezy. This had been anticipated, and rain had also been in the forecast but luckily this did not occur.
We had set the day aside for a visit to the Swedish coast and beach. We were told that this beach would not be what we thought of as a beach, and this proved to be true: it ended up being very large rocks that were pressed up against the water that serve as a traditional gathering ground for sun-bathing Swedes. Due to the weather, and due to it being a workday, the beach we went to was relatively abandoned.
The act of getting to the beach was interesting in and of itself. We ended up taking all three forms of Gothenburg public transportation to get to the beach, since it was on the island of Vrango. We took a bus into the city, the electric tram to the coast district of Saltholmen, and then an hour-long ferry ride to the island of Vrångö. Thankfully, these rides were fairly uneventful, even though we had three children 7 & under accompanying us. The boat ride was beautiful, however, since there were numerous tiny islands we navigated around; it reminded me of pictures I've seen of a boat ride off the California coast.

We took a trail around the southern coast of this small island; it was quite beautiful, and practically untouched since the entire island is a nature preserve. There are only around ~330 people living on the island; it only makes sense to live there when one is retired, since it takes an hour ferry ride to get there, and an hour ferry ride back. We ate lunch at a crest overlooking the ocean from the southern tip of the island, and then traveled over to the western side to see if we could see Denmark. Though we thought we saw it, after looking at google maps and the distance between these two points, I don't think it was Denmark that we saw.
It was a fairly long hike that we took, and a good number of our group took naps on the ferry ride back to Saltholmen. From Saltholmen, we headed into the city to the historic Haga district. According to wikipedia, this district is well known for its 19th-century architecture and cafes. It was teeming with people who were exploring the narrow brick streets of this quaint section of town and its little shops. We spent quite a bit of time just strolling down one particular street and window-shopping, after which we headed into a cafe for a mid-day snack.
By the time we were finished with our snack, it was about 4:30, making a long 8-hour day for the group of us. We headed back to the Brinson's house for the evening.

Välkommen till Sverige!

I'm trying to pick up on as much Swedish as I can here, mostly by listening all the time and reading as many ads as I can. I've picked up on a couple of unimportant words, such as "fish", "honey", "free", "new", "coffee", and "and". It has been eye-opening how impacted the learning curve for a foreign language is by living in a country where that language is dominant; even though I went to China, it wasn't really that helpful in learning the language because I don't recognize the characters and there is no real word association from English. Swedish, however, is a Germanic language and is therefore closely associated with both German and English; for example "alle" = "all"; little things like that make a huge difference when learning a language. The biggest things throwing me for a loop right now are pronunciations the "new" letters å, ä, and ö, and the word/prefix "farten", which is just hilarious. (It relates to speed/velocity, if you're interested.)

We had to wake up at about 7:30am this morning, which was a shock considering that we're still adjusted to Indiana time, which means we were going to bed around 5pm and waking up at 1:30 in the morning. We're slowly starting to adjust, which is good because we have big plans for the next few days. Back to the reason to wake up at 8am, though: even though church starts at 11am, there were a few of us that were going to be playing music for the service and we needed to rehearse, and those people had to take public transportation to get to the church. Since my mom wasn't feeling well, it ended up being Jordan on keyboard, Dad on guitar, Jim on bass, and myself on Bongos. That's right.... bongos. Musical talent put to good use.

At any rate, the service started at 11am, and ended around 1:15pm. The majority of the time was consumed with the sermon, which was delivered in Swedish and translated to English... this took about an hour, but it was really interesting. There were about 30 people at worship, and everyone sat at little tables that had coffee and tea.... very different from a traditional church service, and since almost everyone attending the service had a different nation of origin, a very eclectic group. It started to get quite warm during the service, and there is no air conditioning in the building; it wouldn't make much sense to have any considering a day like today with 80-90 degree heat occur only a smattering of times throughout the year.

Talking with the Brinsons and making observations from our little stay in Sweden have unveiled some interesting differences between Sweden and the US:

1. As occurs in all higher or lower latitudes, the sun is around much longer this time of year; last night the sun set around 10:30pm and rose around 4:00am. It was very disconcerting.
2. The government in Sweden is very centralized and verging on Socialist; there is a 50% income tax and a 25% sales tax, and they provide free healthcare and education.
3. However, all these taxes go to good works; Sweden is fairly clean, and the city is in good shape even though it is very, very old.
4. Gas is very expensive (about $6.50/gallon), so mass transport is dominant, along with bikes and walking; in addition, much of the electricity is generated by trash incinerators that is supplied by the waste generated by the citizens, with minimal electricity imported from several other countries. (Note that their citizens pay by the kilo for trash removal, so minimal waste is encouraged.)

These are just a few of the things I've picked up on about Sweden, and overall I'm very impressed with the system. The people are happy with their government, but yet have a knowledge of its activities and elect their officials, and don't seem to just to follow it blindly.

After the church service, the church served a meal, which basically ended up being the Swedish version of sandwiches, just open-faced sandwiches with butter. That ended up being our entire day, and after the meal we just headed back to the Brinson's house. Other events of note: I was able to take a walk and take some beautiful pictures of the suburban area where they live (Landvetter), and we explored a candy shop in downtown Gothenburg where I got a 0.5 liter bottle of "real" Fanta, made right here in Sweden.

Final note: the native name of the city is Göteborg, pronounced Yo-teh-boreh.

Greetings from Gothenburg, Sweden!

My European vacation started Friday morning, at 8:30. I headed down to the license branch to get my new car plated and registered, which is a different story altogether. However, all that was a precursor to our leaving our house for the Indianapolis airport at 11:30. Our flight plan was as follows: catch a plane from Indy to Philadelphia, from Philly go on to Brussels, Belgium, and from Brussels to our final destination of Gothenburg, Sweden. The entire trip was supposed to take around 14 hours and move us part of the way around the globe, landing us in Sweden around 11:30am local time Saturday morning.
The first hitch occurred when our flight from Indy was delayed approximately an hour and a half past its original departure time. The good news was that the actual flight gained an hour on the estimated flight time; the bad news was that this still put us getting in at Philly a half-hour later than expected, when our layover there was only supposed to be an hour anyway. The end result was the Rockey family running through the airport while a cordial female voice announces over the loudspeaker that they were "Now boarding flight XXX to Brussels, Rockey family to gate A4; This is the last call for the Rockey family." Thankfully, our out-of-breath selves made it to the gate just in time, and we caught our 7 hour flight to Brussels. Thankfully the flight was uneventful, and we made it into Europe with no major hassles in security. From a timing perspective: we departed Philly about 6:30pm, and arrived in Brussels around 8:30am.
The plane from Brussels to Sweden was fairly small, and relatively unpopulated, which was nice, because we had the opportunity then to actually stretch our legs during the flight. We also had the opportunity during this flight to look at some interesting landscape, as we most likely flew over the Netherlands, and aerial observation of this region was very interesting.
Jim Brinson was at the Gothenburg airport to pick us up when he arrived, and he drove us from the airport to his house, where we'll be staying for the next couple days (until Wednesday). We had the opportunity to explore several facets of Swedish life already: we took a small trip to downtown Gothenburg using Swedish public transit went shopping in a Swedish grocery store (which was very confusing and only manageable with the help of our friends here, and then visited the church at which the Brinsons are serving. It was a unique group of people at that church; this particular saturday afternoon they were hosting an event for area children as an outreach to start forming relationships. There were a group of college students from a university in Florida that chose to do mission work at this particular church for five weeks, so they were there as well.
Well, that about sums it up for the first day here in Europe. Hopefully lots more to come!

A Weekend Trip

For those of you who don't know already, this past weekend I made a brief cameo in Indiana for about 48 hours before heading back to Texas to finish up my research position. That's right, for just a little sliver of time I was back in the Hoosier state.

This weekend was the celebration of my grandparent's 50th anniversary. I had originally thought I would be around for the party, since I didn't know I was going to be in Texas, but finding that out kind of threw a wrench into things. I put off figuring out what to do about it until recently, though, because I didn't think the REU would be willing to cover the charge of flying home (which is what I would have to do, to make it worth it.) Eventually, we worked things out to where I was able to fly in to Ft. Wayne for the weekend.

The plane ride was relatively uneventful, though a bit cramped. This was the first time I had ever flown by myself before, and also the first time I had ever had a layover (in Cincinnati), so I was slightly nervous and fearful that the process wouldn't go as smoothly as I was hoping it would. Fortunately, everything came off without a hitch, the only inconvenience being that I forgot where I packed my DS, and so I didn't have it for the entire trip up to Indiana. Oh well. That and a bit of a seat mix-up that shouldn't have involved me were all the troubles I encountered on my trip. All in all, not bad.

Once I got to Ft. Wayne, things were very rushed as I stayed at my grandparents house one night, stayed in a hotel the next, and in between I attended my grandparents party, where there were close to probably 200 people. They held the anniversary party in the basement of Anthony Wayne church, which was the church where my Dad used to be youth minister, and long before that my Grandpa was senior pastor. It was like a homecoming for them, getting to see all sorts of people they hadn't seen in many many years, but for a good portion of the party I found myself behind the punch bowl keeping cups filled. It wasn't a bad place to be really, since it gave me an excuse not to have to mingle. It was nice to see all sorts of people I hadn't seen for a while, but it got to be quite tiring after a while.

Anyway, nice trip there, nice trip back, it was a good way to spend a weekend. Now to finish up my Texas time.

Beginning of the End

This past week was interesting. I had a successful presentation, which was good, but then Dr. Makki announced that we needed to have a first draft of our final paper turned in by the end of the day on Friday. Of course, it was a somewhat lax requirement, because I think that often he doesn't remember these deadlines he sets. I still felt like that would be a great deadline and motivation to abide by, however, so I put together a rough draft of the paper by Friday. By Friday, a lot of our group were pretty burnt out and frustrated, but still felt like they had to continue to work on Friday night in order to get more done on the paper. Around 8pm, Justin and I felt like we should come and pull them away to do something else for a while, since they had been working for almost 12 hours at that point.

We decided that it would be kind of fun if we found some sort of LAN game we could all put on our laptops and play together. In the end, we decided that all five of us would have the most fun playing Starcraft; at least, that's what all our computers could handle. We lost track of time and played until about 1:30 in the morning, and a fun time was had by all. We had so much fun, in fact, that we decided to do the same thing on Saturday for the day. Instead of Starcraft, we decided that we wanted to play Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. So we went into the building where we work, and accessed a lab there that we had administrative rights to, and installed COD4. Since these machines were 2.6GHz Quad-cores, they had no trouble running the game, and we had a great afternoon playing a local LAN game of Call of Duty against each other.

Monday and Tuesday passed pretty uneventfully, but this morning we had to give a visiting professor a brief presentation over our projects. He is actually the Computer Science department head at Texas Tech University, and he was looking to find out more information about our experience because he was looking to apply for a computer science REU at Texas Tech. Actually, those presentations probably were more enlightening as to the real state of people's projects than any of the two presentations before this, because we were forced to summarize our project in our own words and very briefly, which is very tough thing to do if you don't have a firm grasp of the material.

This afternoon, a group of four of us went to the new Harry Potter movie, which was absolutely spectacular. It is as least the best of the Harry Potter movies since the second one, which makes it pretty darn good in my book. That was definitely a worthy way to spend an afternoon.

We're drawing near to the end of the program, and there's not much time left to get things wrapped up before I have to submit and present and then come back home. It's going to be here before any of us here know it, and I'm not sure I'm ready for it to be over.

Opinion: Google Chrome OS

Yesterday, Google announced that they have been working on Chrome OS, a Linux-based operating system centered around getting users up, running and on the internet as fast as possible. Judging from the name, Chrome OS will be built around the same ideas as the identically-named up-and-coming internet browser. Though everyone and their brother saw this move coming, the intertubes are still buzzing with the news, with much speculation as to the future impact of Chrome on Microsoft's death-grip on the operating system market share, on the relative user-unfriendliness of most Linux distributions, and on the way the world currently runs in general. Ironically enough, a friend was just talking about how ubiquitous Google has become in any application it chooses to design, and he said that "If Google designed an operating system, it would kill Microsoft". Well, I like to think I have a legitimate opinion on this issue. Let me try and answer a few questions that are being thrown around the web right now.
r that.

“Does this mean the end for Microsoft”? In short, no, not at all. First, Microsoft has its fingers in a lot of pies: productivity software, game consoles, internet applications, and DirectX. But I think even the Windows market share is safe, at least for now, and here's why:

1. Google has chosen to make Chrome a Linux-based architecture. No matter how user-friendly you make it, its still going to be a UNIX machine, not a DOS machine like most have been using for 20 years. Plus, there are going to be compatibility problems with graphics cards, sound cards, network cards, and more. Ubuntu has been out for years and still hasn't manage to patch up the compability problems, even with a dedicated base of modders out there working valiantly to try and fix them. Google's army might be paid, but its still going to take them a good long bit to sort out the problems. After all, Gmail was in beta for nearly five years; Chrome OS is not even on the Windows challenger horizon yet.
2. Google has stated that it will open-source the source code later this year. Now of course, I am all for open-source movement, but if Google has any chance of competing with Microsoft for any real part of the OS market, they have to start securing government contracts for OS rollout on a U.S. system, and there's no way that the DoD, who already have hacker/security problems up the wazoo, are going to agree to open-sourced OS's on their machines. Same for a lot of major U.S. companies: no matter how much security you stuff into that OS, no company who is trading millions of dollars through their computer is going to trust a machine running off a transparent kernel.
3. Chrome OS is going to be specifically for those who mostly utilize their computers for the internet access and perhaps some word processing. I know there is a good portion of people who do only this, but there is an equal number of people who want to do more than this, whether its gaming, video editing, database management, or software development, an OS whose main focus is embedding the internet into the OS and booting quickly is going to be lightwight and wholly insufficient for any of the pasttimes listed above. Windows has a stranglehold on gaming in particular, with most gaming on Linux machines restricted to running games through a Windows kernel emulation.

My conclusion is that for now Windows is safe. Chrome OS is unlikely to pose any sort of threat to Microsoft. As for the future, I see Chrome OS acting as a springboard to the design of a much larger, expansive OS that can challenge Windows and perhaps even be its successor.... but that's far in the future.

"What does this mean for the future of Linux"? I see two potential futures for Linux post-Chrome release, and there is a chance both could happen. With the amount of cash Google has to sink into this product, they could create a better Linux OS than any of the ones currently on the market. Potentially, this could do, many times over, what Ubuntu has already done; unite the Linux community behind one open-source OS that every can develop for. There might be some stragglers still playing around with their Fedora cores and BSD, but if Google includes much of what draws people to Linux in the first place (easy root access, mod-ability, package installation utilities, etc.) they could make a lot of converts.

Another potential possiblity would be that Chrome OS would win converts from Windows. Not a lot perhaps, but if Google does an especially good job with the web integration (and considering their history, I don't see why they wouldn't), they can expect to win quite a few people over, especially netbook owners frustrated with XP boot times. Even chipset developers who have a vested interest in the field are excited that Google is going to focus effort on Linux developement.

"How is this going to affect the way the world runs?" Again, in short, its not. I think it will definately effect the way Google develops applications; we're going to see a lot more Chrome-centric application appearing in the early part of 2010. I think it will also affect the way Microsoft develops its next OS after Windows 7, because Google is going to do some revolutionary stuff with embedded web that Microsoft will want in on. Looking long term, I think, again, that this may act as a spring-board for Google, giving them experience with OS development without going toe-to-toe with Microsoft, and hopefully a group of dedicated users who will be able to give them feedback on the good and bad of their first attempt. If all goes well, perhaps by 2012 Google will be ready to give Microsoft a run for its money - literally.

Slow Weekend

So, my bad for not getting around to making a post this weekend. It just wasn't something that was high on my priority list. Much much higher on that list were getting a significant amount of work done on my project and playing World of Goo.

This past week and weekend were fairly uneventful. We collectively decided to take the weekend of from doing anything like we have the past few weeks, and so we mostly lounged around and relaxed. We took the opportunity to watch a few movies, and as I stated before, I really got into the game World of Goo, which is a fantastic physics-based game that has you using "Goo balls" to construct bridges across treacherous spike-bottom valleys and towers to the sky (a la the picture above) in an effort to reach the end point and get as many free goo-balls as you can to that end point. It really is the best use for a physics engine I've seen in a while. It's an independently made game, too, which is fantastic to see. If you're interested, head to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Goo for more info, or you can download the game or a demo on Steam.

On Sunday, we decided that we would experience some real Texan cuisine and so we headed to what was supposedly the best BBQ place in Beaumont. It had a very modest appearance, both on the inside and the out, but the BBQ was absolutely fantastic, and highly recommended.
My work is now getting intense. Because it took a while for the Professor and I to come up with a viable research direction, I have only had about two weeks to pound out exactly what needs to happen in the implementation of my theory, and thus I have not yet worked out all the corner cases. Unfortunately, the midway presentation is coming up very soon, and the professor was hoping that we would have actual numerical results by then, so that we could focus on writing our paper for the last few weeks. I don't think is going to happen, but in the last two days of last week, the goal came sharply into focus (as far as what I needed to do to get there), I realized how much work I had to do, and I started working very hard at getting my stuff ready by next Monday. I'll continue to work hard, possibly even over this fourth of July weekend.

Last night (Monday night), the group of us decided that it would be fun to play some board games, but nobody had thought to bring any. So we went out and got Scattergories and Cranium, and had an absolute blast playing those two for about 3 hours.... we all lost track of time.
Ultimately, as I refine my project and I have more and more of a goal for each day in mind, and as I get to know my co-workers better and better, I increasingly enjoy the time I'm having here in Texas, not just in my free time but also in my work. It will be very sad when my time here draws to an end.

Houston Confusion, Pt. 2

As far as work goes, this week was pretty uneventful. Which would be unfortunate, if I hadn't had a spectacular weekend.
On Friday, we found this really seedy bowling alley in Beaumont that was also really cheap, and took about an hour and bowled our hearts out. It ended up being the same five of us hanging out all weekend that went to Houston last week. That was probably the most fun I've had bowling in quite a long time. After bowling, we all decided we were hungry yet again (because they feed us so early here!), and so we went to Chick-Fil-A, where I successfully spilled a peach milkshake all over the place. It was a very fun night.

On Saturday, we took another trip to Houston, to finish out the last of our CityPass tickets. We visited the Houston Health museum in the morning, which was enough entertainment for about an hour, then we went and ate lunch and headed to the Johnson Space Center. We spent the entire afternoon there, as there was a lot to do, such as watch educational movies, see the inside of the cockpit of a space shuttle, and take a tram tour of the actual base, complete with a visit to the current Mission Control room. We even got to see one of the actual Saturn V rockets that took men to the moon (in the picture above). Also, there was a special exhibit at the Space Center, about the films of George Lucas and featuring props from Star Wars and Indiana Jones, so that was interesting.

After going to the Space Center, we ate dinner then headed to the Houston Aquarium, which is actually open until 11. We were expecting a normal aquarium, but the Houston Aquarium is anything but. First, the Aquarium did an excellent job of presenting the exhibits, and showing some unusual animals, such as the Moray Eel, a giant octopus, and even rare white tigers. In addition to this, there is also a Restaurant and a Lounge within the Aquarium, and situated right outside is a perpetual carnival, complete with a carousel, a Ferris Wheel, live music, and carnival games, all affiliated with the Aquarium. It was all very enticing and a good way to get people to go to an Aquarium.

Houston Confusion

So, I'm starting out on my fourth week in and third post from Beaumont, TX. It is a beautiful area, and the weather is always beautiful, and the city is nice, but I have to say: I prefer Houston (skyline to the right). I mean, yes, the mess of roads that go through Houston seems to confuse my GPS more often than not, sending me in the wrong direction half the time. However, the third largest city in the U.S. seems to be a shining example of the success of the American economy in this dark economic time. I have been to quite a few different places in Houston and have not yet seen any slums or even any less than nice areas. Maybe I just haven't been to the right areas, but regardless, there are just way too many huge houses in downtown Houston.

So, as you might have guessed, I have been to Houston several times now. Last Saturday I went to Houston for the evening with a couple of friends from the research program with which I'm involved. We went to The Galleria, the fourth largest mall in the U.S., and it was spectacular. I was more impressed with this mall (its selection, cleanliness, and overall style) than I was with the Mall of America. There seemed to be a store for everything; there was even a Sony store, which I don't think I'd ever seen before. We also found a little coffee shop that was a bit off the beaten track, but it was very unique.

This Saturday we again went to Houston, this time with a more defined plan in mind. We managed to cram five people in my car (a decision later regretted by those in the backseat) and we made the hour trip to Houston. We bought a CityPass for Houston, which allowed us a nine-day window to see 6 different Houston attractions, such as the aquarium or Johnson space center. This Saturday we visited the Houston Zoo, which was good but not the best I've seen, and the Houston Museum of Natural Science, which had an impressive display on energy and energy sources, such as hydrogen, oil, natural gas, wind power, etc. Those two took up most of the afternoon, though we had to take a bit of a break to catch our breath after the zoo, since it was about 100°F outside, and we'd been walking for quite a while. In the evening, we went to the Alamo Drafthouse Theater, which was a Theater combined with a full-service restaurant, and had dinner while we watched Up (which is an excellent movie, by the way). After such a long day, we were all quite beat, and headed home. Even though it was evening, we went with the top down, because it was 97° outside when we left. Interestingly enough, it had dropped to 81° by the time we reached Beaumont; whether this was because we were out of the city, or because we went north slightly, I'm not sure.

Friday was Scott's birthday, so some of us took him out to play putt-putt and then out to Sonic for an evening semi-meal. The dining halls here are interesting, because lunch lasts from 11-1, but dinner only goes from 4:30-6, which means by the time 9'o'clock rolls around, some of us are hungry again, which explains the half-meal at Sonic. Looking back on it, it seems like a lame way to spend a birthday, but it was really a lot of fun.

I also had to give a presentation on Friday, giving a little background on my research subject and then my direction of research I am going to take and a projected timeline for the remaining weeks. Evidently it went fairly well, or so I was told by others.

Oh, and continuing in my line of thought about ways Texas is different from the Midwest: Whereas doing U-Turns is often frowned upon in many places in the Midwest, here in Texas they have devoted U-Turn lanes. For example, if you get off the highway on an exit, and you get to the intersection, there will be one lane to go straight, one lane to turn right, one to turn left, and then an entire lane devoted to pulling a highway U-Turn; it takes you right through to going the other direction on the road on the other side of the highway, from where you can get right back on the highway going the other way, with only a yield sign in your way, no stoplights. Also, on many non-highway roads, there are devoted U-turn turn lanes that cut into the median. They are specifically posted as "no-left-turn", so they only leave the option of a U-Turn.
Anyway, enough about that. Not much else to report, so... so long from Texas, for now.

P.S. I want to encourage you gamers (and non-gamers too!) out there to try the game Braid. It is a fantastic game that gives a whole new take on the 2-D side-scrolling adventure. The one-man development team took three years of his life to put this project together, and it is one of the best games I have ever played. It was a pure joy to play, much like Portal. It seems short, compared to the fairly large price tag, but it really was worth every penny. Braid can be downloaded for the PC through steam. Here's a Youtube link to the game trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqtSKkyJgFM

Where are all the Yellow Roses?

It's my second full weekend here in Texas, and I'm inside, not enjoying the sunshine. To be fair, I took a book and sat outside for a half an hour and tried to read this morning, but after about a half hour i started to break out in a sweat, so I went back inside. I guess I can still enjoy the sunshine from inside, but I love being outside in this weather. Its interesting that they don't provide that many places to just sit outside around here.

While I'm on the subject of the weather around here, its a lot different. In Indiana, thunderstorms roll, rain thunder lighting and do their thing, and then sweep right back out again, and all in about 15 minutes, usually. Here in Texas, I haven't seen that happen. The skies get darker and darker, almost to the point where you think the sun is setting, and then you start to hear the thunder, and then the rain slowly starts, gets harder and harder, etc. It takes like 2 hours for the storm to roll in, and then another 3 for it to end and roll back out again. This has happened several times, so my impression is that that is the norm.

On other subjects: I was able to get a library card and check out some light reading from the library. This is an enormous relief, because I really have had way too much time on my hands some days. I also paid a reasonable amount for a gym membership here at the university. It's based on a per-day, so I hope that because I already paid for every day, I feel compelled to go because the day is already paid for. So... here's hoping.

As far as my research goes, I now have a direction. It turns out that I don't really have to come up with a new theory, just an inventive way to implement an idea he came up with, i.e. write code that performs the semantic caching the old way and his new way, and compare the two. So, shouldn't be too immensely tough, but enough of a challenge to where i won't get bored.

As for everything else, well, at this point there is nothing else. I got paid this week....yup, that's about it.

Summer starts with Texas

I can't believe it's been almost two years since I actually wrote anything on my blog. You would think I would have things to write about, but I guess not. In reality, my life has not changed that much. In the intervening summer, I did another stint at NSWC Crane, working as an engineering intern yet again. I also switched my major from Electrical Engineering to Computer Engineering; that's kind of a fine switch, and there's really only a difference once you get to some of the higher level courses. CompE will let me do more of what I want to do without all the EE classes getting in the way.
I guess the most significant thing to report is this: I am writing this blog post from Beaumont, Texas on the campus of Lamar University. At the moment, I find myself unable to fall asleep, but yet direly in need of sleep, and so I thought that perhaps piddling around facebook and writing a blog post would help calm my nerves enough to fall asleep.
But what am I doing in Texas, you might ask? (Or maybe you don't. Whatever.) The story is this: Earlier this spring I applied for and was accepted into a "Research Experience for Undergraduates" program sponsored by the National Science Foundation that was based out of the computer science department of Lamar University, in Beaumont, TX (about an hour east of Houston, 20 min. west of the Louisiana-Texas border, and half an hour from the Gulf Coast). I really had no idea what I would be doing until I arrived down here on the 24th of May. I actually brought a car down, thinking it might be useful (it is), and I braved a 16 hour drive from Bloomfield to Beaumont in order to get here.
There are 10 of us that were accepted into the program, and 7 of us are not from Lamar University. They put all 7 of us right next to each other in the LU dorms, which is really nice and has led to us becoming an even closer group than we might have. Most of us are from the midwest, with a few exceptions. Now, we are all mostly working on seperate research projects. However, the professor in charge of our program, Dr. Kami Makki, insisted that we be given at least a cursory introduction to every person's project, so that we had some level of understanding about others projects. Everyone has very interesting projects.
My research that I have been assigned delves into semantic caching and query processing in mobile environments. To put that in laymen's terms, I am looking at figuring out how to most effectively temporarily store data in your mobile devices, such as cell phones, that you have downloaded from the internet. The project itself deals with theoretical data in the form of rows from a database, such as a parts database, or an employee database. The part I am working with, semantic query processing, involves taking a request generated by the user "I want to see all employees from list a with a salary over $50k" and seeing if some, any, or all of the information requested can be retreived from temporary storage on the your cell phone, which would happen if you just accessed that same list. That way, the device doesn't have to connect to the internet for as long as it would otherwise.
I have also been able to get out and enjoy Texas and observe just how different this region is than what I am used to. I was able to take some time off on Saturday and cruise around exploring the area with a couple other people, and we even made it down to the Gulf of Mexico. Beaumont is not exactly the nicest town the the whole world, and it is clear that the city is past its prime. It seems to be an oil town thats running out of oil. All in all though, I am glad I took this offer, because I am getting to experience living somewhere else for a while. I am so thankful for this opportunity.
Right now, I'm getting pretty tired, and I can't think of anything else I forgot to post.

Back to school

So I finished my internship at Crane on Thursday the 9th of August, was all packed, had visited all my friends for the final time and was ready to leave for Purdue on Sunday the 12th. That's right: back to school for All-American Marching Band Camp. Since I was a returning member, I didn't have to be back until that Tuesday, but I wanted to get unpacked and all settled before I had to report. So camp started on Tuesday and was increasingly arduous until ending on Saturday. I successfully made it into the band, and my official position is Rank 22, no. 3. There are 343 members of the band this year, including auxiliaries and big bass drum crew.
I am finally starting to get settled back in, and am somewhat prepared for the start of classes tomorrow. I did my inaugural load of laundry this afternoon, and everything is in its own place, and I have all my books in for my classes. Mondays this semester will be mercifully easy, with only two classes excluding band, one at 10:30 and one at 11:30. On the other hand, Thursdays will be agonizing: I have classes from 7:30 to 5:30, with only one hour-long break. of course, though the 19-credit hours I am taking seems intimidating, I am taking a (3-credit?) theatre course, and 2-credit marching band, so some classes will hopefully be easier than others. Other than that, i'm just sitting around...

Norfolk, Pt. 2

Our day began at 0830 EDT, boarding the bus to the Submarine and Surface Naval Base of Norfolk. We took a public tour of the base, and thus were shown all the buildings, as well as given information about while driving by all the ships currently in port. The most impressive thing about this tour was driving by the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Nimitz-class Supercarrier, the largest ships in the Navy. What an imposing sight to see one of those things floating in the water. Jaw-dropping, really.
Next, we took an up close and personal tour of an AEGIS strike command cruiser, the U.S.S. Porter. This was an impressive, if smaller, ship, and was manned by about 250 men. The tour was quite extensive. We then took a break for lunch, resuming the tours with an interesting expedition into the LHA multipurpose amphibious warfare ship the U.S.S. Nassau. The sheer size of the ship was difficult to realize until you were right beside it, or inside of it. It bears a striking resemblence to a miniature aircraft carrier.
Finally, we ventured into downtown Norfolk in order to visit the Nauticus museum and U.S.S. Wisconsin. The museum explored some interesting naval history and contained some fascinating scale models of old and new ships (including the aforementioned Nimitz-class supercarriers). The U.S.S. Wisconsin is a Battleship attached to the mueseum that has not yet been taken off the active duty list, so it can still technically be recalled for use by the navy. We only got to walk on the deck of the Wisconsin, instead of going inside like we did on the other ships we toured.
I had cheesecake from (gasp) the cheesecake factory tonight. There was a little Cheesecake Factory bakery that served all sort of food in the MacArthur center mall in downtown Norfolk, so I decided to indulge, courtesy of the government. It was Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake. Amazing.
To top it all off, we ran by the Apple store next and they had fully functional iPhone models just waiting to be test-driven, so me and Josh Riggins spent a full 25 minutes or so messing around with the iPhone. Now that is a technological marvel. For all the complaints about it, it really is a stunning piece of equipment.
Tomorrow, heading home: departure at 0700 EDT.

In Norfolk

Well, a lot has happened in a short amount of time. First, I'm out of school. That's new. I made it out of my first year and kept all of my scholarships, barely.
Second, I got a job, at Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Crane as an intern, which means I'm an official government employee. This base is about 25 minutes away from my house, which is really convenient. I'm working in the electronic development department, working on all sorts of fascinating government projects. Pretty cool.
What does that have to do with Norfolk? Well, they decided that they were going to take all the interns at our base and bus us to the east coast this week so we could see how what we are doing is applied in the Navy. So technically this is considered to be government travel, for which we are getting paid. It's a nice little deal.
So, about Norfolk. We left at 8am EST on Monday, and arrived at 11:30pm EST, taking a two one-hour pit stops, one for lunch and one for dinner. The actual driving portion of the trip, then, took about about 13 hours. We passed some of the most beautiful scenery, since we went right through the Appalachian mountains. According to our bus driver, we crossed right over one of the deepest gorges in the US.
Our day yesterday (Tuesday) began at 8am on the bus, and we proceeded immediately to the Little Creek Naval Base. It was there that I got to see and board a real hovercraft. They're very imposing machines when you are standing right next to them. Here's a picture of the back of one. I had no idea these things actually hovered above the water; I always figured they just floated along on big tubes, but that big plastic sheet underneath is just a skirt; four superpowered fans underneath actually suspend the 160-ton machine in the air, be it over ground or water.
We then moved on to a demonstration of an expeditionary force assault (an amphibious assault, such as the Normandy beach assault). Actually, it was not as exciting as it sounds, because it was a bunch of string lead models moving around on big pieces of carpet, and accompanied by the most dull video in the world.
We ate lunch at the Chief Petty officer's club, at which we had an excellent lunch, and then proceeded to move to the Surface and Submarine Naval Base. We went to the submarine training center, which was actually very interesting (and I'd wish I'd taken pictures). First we went to the water hazard simulator, which was a giant room that simulated the environment of a submarine, and an operator in a seperate control room could trigger up to 16 different leaks, and they usually throw servicemen in the simulator for a 3 or 4 hour session. Then we moved on to the fire hazard simulator, creating the environment of a submarine that has an on-board fire. We were also taken to the virtual reality helm, which allows submariners to slip on a helmet that allows them to take control of a virtual surfaced submarine, complete with being able to issue voice commands to the bridge. It was very interesting. Finally, we got to move on to the the weapons simulation room, which contained 3 M16s, an M50, and 4 9mm handguns that had all seen actual use at one point, but which had been modified to shoot CO2 instead of bullets, which means there was no hazard, but the opposite wall in these room could detect exactly where you had shot and the gun still delivered the same kick that a normal model provided. I only tried the M16, which was neat.
Finally, we were taken on a tour of the USS Norfolk, an active-duty fast-attack submarine whose crew was still bustling around as we were touring it. That was pretty cool to get to see that, but so much information and neat stuff that it would be hard to scratch the surface in a blog. Here's a picture of the mast. My finger got in the way.
Up for today: touring an AEGIS cruiser, the USS Wisconsin museum, and exploring downtown Norfolk. Should be fun!

Yum! Minne-sooda....

So! Not the warm temperatures I was hoping for over spring break, and I didn't go anywhere warm, either, but I didn't mind! The Purdue women's basketball team went to Minneapolis, Minnesota for the first round and second round of the NCAA tournament, and I went with the pep band. There were 30 of us that went, which means it was roughly 10 times smaller than the marching band, and a lot more fun than the marching band Florida trip. Yes, it was cold, but Minneapolis is such a beautiful city, it was amazing! It's so clean and pristine, and just a lot of fun to walk around and explore and look at the beautiful buildings. One unique thing about that town is that much of the downtown area is connected with skywalks on the second floor, which act as an effective tunnel system that allows you to go anywhere in the city without ever going outside! It's really cool.... I also felt like I was more than a number on this trip, like I actually mattered, since there were only about 30 in the band. I got to hang out with some cool people and do some very unique things, including hanging out at the Mall of America. All in all, a great trip. And I didn't mind the free plane ride there and back, the free lodging at an expensive hotel, and about $61 a day to pay for meals, a lot of which I kept and will use as spending money.
Everything else is going pretty well... the rest of my spring break worked out mostly like I wanted it to, even if it seemed a little shorter than I wanted it to be. Of great significance: I studied very hard for the weekend before spring break weekend, because I had both a math and a physics test that coming week. It paid off: I got a 70% on the physics (avg: 54%), but I'm most proud of my 95% on my Calculus II test (avg. 75% or so)! That surprised even me!
I guess I should mention that they found Wade Steffey in a high-voltage room in Owen Dormitory on campus and ruled it an accidental electrocution. Most people have probably already heard by now, however.
Outside of that, we had a demonstration for our teams robot today, and it did pretty well, the only thing that messed it up was that on two of the tasks it ran on paper, and we had only tested it on the floor. But it ran within the boundaries, which means it went really really straight, and we got 11/45 points, which sounds bad but its actually really good, since a lot of teams probably only got 5 points total on this. So we made some bad assumptions and now we know what to correct, and our design works well and its really cool. To go straight, we have things worked out so that if one wheel is being powered slightly more or is going a little faster, the robot eventually detects that and corrects for it. It's really pretty exciting!
I also got a really good grade on my paper that I wrote (98%) so I'm really really happy with the way things are going now. I just hope I don't get behind now...
well, that's about all for now. Hopefully I'll post again soon!

Warning: May Cause Drowsiness

It seems that the weather can't make up its mind, and neither can my "u" key. First its warm then its freezing, and I never know what to wear in the morning. My "u" key is quite uncooperative, and that began when I popped the key itself off by accidentally dropping a DVD case on it from a height of about 5 inches. I put the key back on, but since, it doesn't want to work very well, and so I continue to try and avoid words containing that letter. Luckily it is infrequently used.
I am putting off going to bed, because it does not seem like a very fun thing to do right now, and so I just won't, at least not right now.
I had crappy engineering tests last week, and I hope to get them back with a decent grade, as well as hear back on the grade for my paper I wrote for english. I'm kind of excited for that, not so excited for the math and physics exams I have to take. I AM however, excited to go on spring break. I have apparently been chosen to be part of the women's pep band for Purdue for the NCAA tournament, which is extremely exciting. I don't know where I'll be going yet, but we will probably leave the thursday or friday of spring break, and hopefully be going somewhere warm and exciting. We get a bunch of free time, so it should be pretty awesome. Which reminds me: uncle josh, you oughta give me a call sometime this week and come down, since its your spring break.
I put together one of those lists earlier today, where you take this random list, like "if your life were a movie, here are the scenes: which songs go with what scenes" and you put iTunes on shuffle and whatever song comes up is the song that plays for that scene, supposedly. Its supposed to be eerily accurate. No, not for me: the soundtrack for the birth of my first child was "Never take friendship personal" by Anberlin. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Random Fact: (Total lie): I watch 37 hours worth of movies every week.
Point: I don't have time for that. I use useless entertainment like movies as a way to get away, but watching them is a luxury I can't afford. There's no need to worry that I'm wasting my time here with stuff like video games, tv and movies. I do those things to get away from the work for a little bit, to distract myself, not as a main preoccupation.
In other news... I'm getting hungry. And my roomate's "new" DVD player is a defective piece of crap from Hitachi; does anyone have any solution if I say that this player randomly shuts off, sometimes 30 minutes into play, sometimes 5, and sometimes almost instantaneously after turning it on? It also sometimes refuses to read mp3 discs, and sometimes has a hard time reading DVD's. Piece of crap! It was brand new at the beginning of Fall semester.
Oh, i give up.... i'm gonna get something to eat.