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.

Maybe its maybelline...

And maybe its just me!! Yeah, I just look that good. So, really, though, I got to wear my suit for the first time today (Sunday), because I had a band concert. I'm in colleigiete band, which is the third best out of four concert bands at Purdue. Which doesn't mean anything, since the two band above me take place during times that I said I probably wouldn't be able to attend band at, so I don't know where I would've placed if I hadn't said that. Oh well... it was interesting... we played at Long Center in downtown Lafayette.
This weekend has pretty much been me doing homework interspersed with breaks, so I don't have a nervous breakdown. Though, on Saturday morning, I went to the Rube Goldberg competition at the Armory, mostly because Heather is on the SWE Rube team. This year's theme was to make as complicated machine as you could to juice oranges. It was pretty much amazing to watch these seven machines that people made, and the winning teams creation was absolutely incredible. Of course, THEY have like infinite funding...
YEAH!!! I just got to my absolute favorite song on the new Anberlin CD, "The Unwinding Cable Car". It's pretty much an awesome mostly acoustic track talking about "the correlation of salvation and love". AHHH! This track tops every other acoustic track they've attempted up to now, except maybe "A day late(acoustic)".
On a different subject, I just basically finished up my english paper, so I'm pretty psyched about that...
and back to music...
i've decided that pretty much I like the lincoln brewster version of "Everlasting God" better than the chris tomlin version.... hmmm.
okay, done with boring you. sorry.

BTW...

I thought that since I posted an essay, I might as well give an update on what's been happening around here lately. Well let's see...
Yes, its true, we got 14 inches of snow here, followed by another 3 a couple days later, so it was pretty crazy for West Lafayette... that final 3 was last Saturday, and it was followed up by 41 degree temperatures on Monday, so the snow has been consistantly melting since the beginning of the week, and we have been getting freezing temperatures at night, so when I venture out in the morning like a bear after a hard winter, I slip and slide all over the ice that covers our pathways. As I write there is a giant puddle just across stadium avenue from cary quad that completely covers a corner of the sidewalk.
I had the joy of walking to down to Borders in the melting mess on Tuesday to retrieve my just release of Anberlin's new CD, cities. I must say that every other Anberlin CD took me a while to get the groove, and it will be no different with this one, but I'm trying to conquer the curve as quickly as possible. There are a couple songs I really like already. It is definately a worthy follow-up to Never Take Friendship Personal.
My favorite class right now.... hmmm, it would be a close tie between English 108, advanced first year composition, and Engineering 117, Honors Engineering Computer Programming. Engineering is just programming, which is something I enjoy and don't mind, so its not terrible at all, and I'm getting great grades in there. The semester-long project, which once again deals with a robot that we must manipulate to perform certain tasks, is also tolerable: we will eventually begin programming it in C, so that will be great to stop working in the visual environment we have been working in. In english, we're studying fairy tales, and not just surface scopes of trite children's stories, but the REAL fairy tales, the ones that the American versions are descended from, with murder, sexual innuendo, violence, and a generally grimmer outlook on things. It is mainly a discussion course, with various reading assignments outside of class. I am currently working on a report called "Flight of Fancy or Final Fantasy?", comparing two versions of Beauty and the Beast by the same author, Beauty and Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley. My main premise is arguing that the two books are entirely different genres (one a fairy tale and the other a fantasy), and why this is so important to the story.
Basketball band is getting ready to come to a close; in fact, I'm getting ready to go to my final game in a couple of minutes. It was a great experience, and really got me interested again in watching Basketball. I look forward to rooting for our women's team as they aim for the top in the NCAA Tournament.
On another, short, note... I've been feeling very pensive lately, as you can see by the essay written in the previous entry....
well, I need to go get ready for the game. Hope to post again soon.

Musings of an Earthbound human

* The game Earthbound and its fans have received a lot of criticism over the years. This bothers me, and I wrote this essay in response to that criticism.

Some say Final Fantasy VII is the greatest game of all time. For those of us who would rather play games we can relate to, there is still Earthbound. Yes, I know, I'm going to sound like one of the thounsands of rabid Earthbound fans that make fan art, visit Starman.net every day, and make a big fuss out of Mother 3 not coming to the states, but the reality is that Earthbound was an escape from reality for those of us not living in the middle ages. Okay, so I played Earthbound when I was about 10, and haven't looked back since. What attracts me to this game? Outside of the memories of hours of gameplay that it holds for me, it also serves as a getaway car to reality, a trip away from the troubles of the world, to a place where I can have the convenience of technology, the simplicity of linear topography, and still solve all my storage problems by calling a service called "Escargo Express", which ironically took less time to arrive then "Mach Pizza". Not only did it quench my desire to escape to a parallel universe, but it also fulfilled my need to feel that I could be a hero. At any time, I could quit playing my game, grab my baseball cap and hat, and be the embodiment of Ness. I could be filled by Sad Ness, Happi-Ness, Good-Ness... and Ness's objectives paralleled my own lofty ambitions. I really truly wanted to take out the leader of the gang, maybe stay in a fancy hotel in a paradise and eat fancy food, knock the enemy out of the park simply by praying. Most of all, I wanted to be able to have psychic powers, to control fire, ice, lightning with my hands or my thoughts, and to be able to act like such powers existed in a modern world tickled my fancy. The music was another important of the game to me, and always has been. You have to know that music is a very critical thing to me, and having good music is as critical to a good game as the graphics and the storyline. If a soundtrack to a football game was all Keane songs (which I love), it wouldn't matter whether the players were life-like or just four pixels arranged in a square, the game would be awesome. The moving melody created by the sound stone when all 8 sanctuaries had been collected, along with the counter melody played in Ness's memories, made the game for me... it inspired my imagination, my thoughts, made me think about what might happen next. Combined with the themes for the various locales, the soundtrack for this game is probably the greatest collection of synth pieces you can find outside of the soundtrack for Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Why does Earthbound hold lasting appeal for me as I grow up? Because it is so intricate and deep, and each time I play it I catch new things I never saw or never understood before. For instance, I now find myself wondering why Mr. T is wandering around several different cities in the game, and why they never specifically call him Mr. T. The game is quick-witted, and an often cynical social commentary. One only has to listen to the characters in the game to
realize that each and every one of them is a drastic charicature of some stereotype. It is this cynicism that appeals to me, because it comes in a package with great music, an awesome RPG engine, a clever and often tongue-in-cheek naming system, and a compelling and poignant storyline. I know, I hear all those non-fans out there telling me to get over it, but seriously, that's like telling any gamer to get over Ocarina of Time, Halo, or Half-life. Earthbound ranks among these classics, and deserves respect for the path it paved. If not for Earthbound, it is doubtful that the die-hard Pokemon fans out there would ever have gotten the game they so faithfully protect. Earthbound has earned its place in the ranks of the best games of all time.

The Snow is not your friend....

Yes, believe it or not, it's a new blog posting, sitting here late at night, listening to the quiet, somewhat dissonant strains of Hundred by The Fray. mmmm. So we got a treat right here in west Lafayette just the other day... a snowstorm that blew right through and left us no snow whatsoever. But while it lasted it was nasty, and it definately taught me that, pleasureable as snow may be to play in, here in the wind tunnel of America, snow is not your friend. Not only does it seem to blow in every direction, but it blows like 20 m.p.h. in every direction. It's like radiation on a much larger scale, little particles tearing the skin off of your face. I'm serious!!! It's sweet relief when you finally get in a building.
I also had my first real illness here at purdue just this past weekend. Yup, Friday I began to get a tension in my throat, it felt like I was having trouble swallowing, and it was a bit sore also. Saturday, it just got worse, and I actually started taking medicine for it, and told myself if it didn't get better by Monday, I would go to the health clinic. Nothing else felt bad just my throat, but by sunday, that didn't matter... the pain in my throat alone was bad enough to make me feel miserable. I suffered through and went to the doctor Monday morning. They gave me a strep test, which came back negative today.... but they put me on antibiotics yesterday, and I'm to continue taking them until they're gone... and today I feel much much much better.
So here's where I put my little rant about me being so upset that crazy people would put FLORIDA in the BCS Championship bowl over Michigan... WHO DOES THAT?... that's like handing Ohio State the trophy. But I guess that about sums it up. I'm excited about Purdue going to a bowl in Orlando, which means I get a free Florida vacation this year!! Woohoo!
So the robot is due tomorrow, and it's actually ready!!! At least I hope it is... unfortunately, there is some of the programming that we can't test, since we need to transmit values to our robot to simulate what will happen tomorrow, and we have no way to do that. But our team is very happy with the way the thing is running. It's actually very suprising how much control we can have over this robot, especially since the environment used to program it is graphically based, more so than any other environment I have ever used. That's supposed to make it easy.... HAH!
I get to come home for Christmas break next thursday....

Overcome with sugar and spice and everything that makes you sick...

So I have a lot of desserts. Yes, all leftover my birthday. A BIG thank you to everyone who made me something!!! And yes, I had a really good birthday. That's strike three for Curtis Painter and the Boilermaker gridiron crew, though, three games lost in my presence... that's way too many, and for them to lose on my birthday? How dare they.
So I found out the exciting news that its almost 100% likely that I'll be able to come home for the play in November, on the 19th. Which excites me very much. I would put an exclamation point on that, but I'm too busy eating chocolate covered pretzels, mmmm.
So about that project about robots... yup, here's what we have to do. We're given a programmable lego mindstorms kit that has a programmable brain, and we're supposed to program the robot with the logic to be able to:
1. Follow a 1-inch thick circuitous black line.
2. Follow a "broken" black line, represented by 1-inch diameter black circles spaced 1 inch apart.
3. Interact with some sort of station which is capable of exchanging information with our robot.
Should be fun. If you're so bored that you'd be interested in looking at the full project description, you can access it (at least for the rest of the year) at web.ics.purdue.edu/~mrockey/robotproject.pdf
So. Yeah. The "Here Comes the Pain Train" show came together in 5 days, which was pretty impressive. I found out that the show was actually very very very similar to the show that Concord High School in Elkhart, Ind. did for their show last year, which happens to be the school where our new assistant director Max Jones just came from. So basically, he did the same show with us, that he did last year. I think. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: The Concord High School Marching Band was the Class B Indiana Grand Champion Marching Band. Just a little side note there.
Oh yeah. I did go to church again this week, for those who might ask. And we get monday and friday off of band. And I'm done now.

Pumpkin is not just a pet name for your significant other...

So, yeah, I had time last night to carve my pumpkin that I bought. Here's a good picture of it. But that's about all the time I have to write, because I have to read a selection for speech, preferably before speech starts!!!

Forecast: Really Cold.

So, yeah, its pretty much freezing here. But I'm sitting here in my nice warm dorm room, with my hands resting on my pleasantly warm computer, and the soothing, crisp, pleasant sounds of Jars of Clay restoring my ears from their frostbitten state. Oh my.
So I have a Chemistry test tonight, but I really don't want to take it. Yes, I'm pretty much ready, but I just don't want to take it. I've really been putting it off. Yes, I put off studying on Saturday, even though I had time after the AMAZING half-time show the band did (making up for the football team's lousy performance on the field). Yes, I just sat around and watched a movie. And yes, I slept in really really late on Sunday. I did study Sunday afternoon, and then I went to church sunday night. Then after church I just wasted time again.... I walked down to the shopping center where EB games, Starbucks, Panera, and Borders are, and I walked around Borders for a nice change of pace. It was really relaxing.
Today, I'm going to go get a pumpkin, in the hopes that I will have the time, the patience, and the tools to carve something neat. But maybe I won't. At any rate, I'll still have a pumpkin.
Mmmm, I love the smell of winter. Its just so crisp and clean, and you can smell the snow on the air... I walked outside after church, and there I caught it, it was mostly dark outside, and a chilly breeze was blowing, but I could smell a Hoosier winter on the air... there's nothing like that feeling of knowing that snow, winter, coats, jackets, blankets, beanies, snowmen, Christmas, all of the above are just around the corner. mmmmmm.
So P.K. Imbrie, my engineering professor, said our next project was coming out sometime this week, and it was going to be a lot harder than the other two projects we've done so far. Yay.... hopefully it will actually involve programming... its supposed to involve robots, and programming the robots... i'll keep you posted on that one.
Anyway, so details have been requested about this Engineering 126H class... its proper name is "Engineering Problem Solving and Computer Tools", and basically its divided up into a lecture, where we learn about engineering problem solving methods, and how to think and learn like an engineer, and learn statistic and curve-fitting methods and stuff, and then a lab where we learn various computer tools: MATLAB and Excel mostly, though we done some UNIX command line stuff, and we'll be getting into some VBA stuff that is worked into excel, so basically macros and editing macros with VBA. But it's definately the class that requires the most work, and it takes a lot of hours outside of class. One team meeting for Morris the "Mach" Boilermaker Special lasted from 8 p.m. til' 2 a.m.
Well, that's all I can think of for the moment.

All Quiet (Relatively) on the Western Front

So yeah, I haven't posted in a month. Sorry about that. Anyway, so yeah, I finished the mini-project mentioned in the last post, and just yesterday finished the second project, which was a rubber-band car which had to go as far as possible with a limited amount of materials. I'll post a picture of it. Looks pretty sweet, huh? Of course, you recognize it! It's the boilermaker special! Actually, its a "mach" boilermaker special, named Morris Code. His motivational quote? "Run, Morris, Run!" Oh yeah, the picture is Morris in construction. The coating? Duct tape. Morris actually ran an average of 17 ft, but we once got a max of 22 ft. out of him, which was amazing to see. Unfortunately, during our official demonstration, not only did a rubber band stick, causing him to stop, but then a wheel also fell off, meaning we had to go find super glue to glue our wheel back on.

Okay, so I joined a new band, yes I'm still in marching band, but I also tried out for GABS (Gold and Black Sounds) which is the Women's Basketball band. Why women's? The purdue women's team is better than the Purdue men's team, and I hear GABS has more fun. And yes, we have practices and everything. There's about 80 people in the band. This means, however, that I have to take a concert band in spring in order to be a part of GABS.
I've also, as of now, done 2 AAmbassador outings. That's a clever play on words, since the band is the AAMB (All-American Marching Band), and we're ambassadors. Basically we go out in the morning to a local elementary school and talk to the 5th graders there about our band, let them try our instruments, and teach them how we march and stuff, and basically get them fired up about band so they'll join their 6th grade band. On the last outing, we had representation from every instrument, which was really cool, except I was the only trumpet, and we actually play for them, which was a lot of pressure. But its really cool, and it makes you feel really good to do, and its an excuse to wear my uniform, which is awesome.

Okay, so really exciting, check out this picture!! Yeah, that's right, I went to Cedar Point one sunday in late september!!! It was absolutely the bomb, even though I really didn't know anybody who went....
So I did pass my first round of exams without too much trouble. I got decent grades I think.... I don't think I did too badly... Speech is probably my easiest class, I haven't missed hardley any points in that class, especially on the acutal speeches. Maybe I just have an easy T.A.... I'm even keeping up in engineering, which suprises me. Though the programming experience I had before coming here has helped IMMENSELY... I have a couple people in my group who don't have any experience with that, and yeah... they're having trouble grasping the whole programming/scripting thing. BIG shout out to Uncle Eric for giving me a BIG jump on the programming.
So, purdue is 5-2, 2-1 in the big ten..... woohoo, we have an excellent chance of a bowl game, very likely somewhere warm!!! I'm so excited for that.... we had a crazy september for performances, all 5 weekends in september were games, and the last weekend was the Notre Dame game which we travelled to, which was a really really cool experience, since we got to march into the stadium and actually sit on the sidelines, right there on the grass. Wow. Being in Ross-Ade Stadium is just about as awesome though... nothing like Big Ten football anywhere. Amazing.
Well, I'll wrap this up. Hopefully I'll find more time to write more often.
Thanks for reading.

I did not evolve from an amoeba!!!

I'm not used to pulling this kind of hours, but right now I have a satisfied feeling, like I know everything is going to work out... this week. ;) What happens if I'm so sleepy tomorrow morning that I miss my 7:30 class? Will I lose my dignity? Will someone care?
Beyond that, hmmm, why the satisfied feeling? Because I got a lot done tonight. I got my math work done for tomorrow, my bonus for ENGR126H that was due tomorrow turned in online, I met with my small group to work on the mini-project we were assigned that's due Monday... the project is to build the biggest structure we can out of 50 straws that will support as much weight as possible. We mostly got that done, and the structure is mostly built, we just have a report to write and some of the supporting structure to build. I also have my first speech to give in speech class tomorrow, so after project time, I came back to the dorm and cracked down on that.... thank goodness my Chem lab this afternoon was fairly easy; it was just titration, so it was pretty easy, just repetitive and time-consuming, and pretty precise, so..... I think I'm ready for tomorrow and more importantly this weekend.... which, conicidentaly, this saturday happens to be band day, a fairly easy day, since we only march one song, and the rest we just stand there. So, its going to be interesting... the game is versus Ball State, which according to one of my section leaders "Ball State? They might as well just lay down and die..." But the way we've been playing lately... well, we might not do as well as expected. For other comments... I don't really have any. :) That's about it. Oh yeah.. "SUPRISE! A NEW POST!". I forgot that at the beginning.
My love to all.... I really miss you. Big shoutout to Jordan.... I miss the headbanging and the air drums. Man... I wish I was back home, my roommate doesn't get the whole jamming thing, he likes music, but he doesn't sing and jam along... We'll have to have a jam session over fall break.
Woot, woot, but I digress.... **dismayed look**
I guess that's it for now.
Matt

Long Weekend

Hmm, I guess its been a while since I've posted. Well, time to fix that. Let's see...
On Friday, we still had rehersal, even though the band practice field was ridiculously messy and muddy. But we got the night off, we didn't have anything, so I took a night off and relaxed. Not really, I had homework to do.
Saturday morning, the call was 9 a.m. at the drill field, in street clothes. We rehersed for an hour, then we dismissed for an hour to go get our uniforms on and whatever else we needed to do... we met back at the hall of music at 11:00. Back at the hall of music, we had inspection, where we got counted off if we didn't have our music marked properly, if our spats had dirt, if our pants weren't the right length, if our hats were not ajusted properly, etc. Once inspection was over, we marched to Slater Hill, where we performed a pre-game concert, basically a pep session. After that, we got a 10 min. break, so Grammi and Grandpa were there so I could get some water and food. Then we marched to Ross-Ade Stadium, did the pre-game show, watched the awful first half, performed our half-time show, which was a re-enactment of the 1967 Rose Bowl Show, and then watched the much improved second half. Purdue won over Indiana State (whew! I would hope so...) 60-35, and then we did the post-game concert on the field, and then marched to the fountain in the middle of campus and did our fountain concert. From there we dismissed, thank goodness. I was so gross and sweaty by that time.....
After the game, Grammi and Grandpa took me out to Applebee's and I had steak... so good, I missed steak.
On sunday, I accidentaly slept in, obviously I needed it, since I slept in til quarter to one or so. I kinda split my time between work and play, mostly work, but then around 5:00 Uncle Josh came and picked me up, so I spent the night at his house. It was good to get off campus, at least just for one night, but I was ready to get back.... it was weird. Anyway, I had a nice break, but yeah.... it was good. I came back yesterday at around 5:00, so I had to study before my chemistry quiz, which turne out to be really easy and only consisted of three questions. Anyway, yeah, thats been my weekend. And its back to school, but I actually have most of this weeks work done.... okay, not really, but I have some of it done.

Up late with Homework....

I'm trying to do all the homework I can so I get all the bonus I can and so I don't miss anything and therefore get points taken off. I just now stopped working on some stuff for ENGR126H, so yeah... that's gonna be a pretty intense course I guess.
anyway, yesterday we didn't march during band class, we just sat on the Elliot Hall of Music stage and listened to people talk about how to wear our uniforms properly and also how our grade was going to be calculated, and what kind of things would lose us "quality points". Then we spent the rest of the time playing music on the stage, some old, some new... we played music from The Incredibles, that was pretty tough stuff. Today, we did have to march, though, and it was actually okay because we were basically getting misted the whole time... there was never any heavy or even real rain, just like a fine mist that varied in intensity and was falling the entire time we were out on the field. It was refreshing...
For our Chem Lab tomorrow, we were given the objective of measuring the volume of a gas at different temperatures, and we didn't even get a scale.... we have to write an experiment outline, which is due right once we get into the Lab on Wednesday. I thought all weekend about how exactly I was supposed to measure the volume of a gas... and I finally came up with the answer today, I was so proud of myself. So thats done....
I think thats probably all for now.... I'm looking foward to the game on Saturday, we are going to beat the sycamores into a woody pulp.... ;)

A Waste of time...

Well, I feel like the last two days have been a complete waste of my time. I basically just sat around and did nothing. I got a shower.... does that count as something? Maybe I did homework, but I really got nothing accomplished. Yes, I went to church this morning, at University Church again.... And then did nothing else. I put in an order for my engineering book that I'm missing hopefully the bookstore will get it in soon.
Friday night was a different story. Since it was our last free weekend in quite a while, the trumpets had another trumpet night out.... about 30 or 35 of us met at 7:30 and headed to Brookston, IN, which is about 15 min. away. We went to a little mom and pop cafe/ice cream shop owned by one trumpet's aunt. We had "Redneck Sundaes" which was a Pop-Tart fried and stuck in a bowl of ice cream... it was REALLY GOOD! I had a raspberry pop-tart in chocolate ice-cream... So, basically, that was my weekend. We did get the entire pre-game show and the half-time show on the field in one week, which is evidentally pretty good. Well, thats about it...

All Cleared Up

Okay, evidentally it was just me having the problem. I use Mozilla's Firefox browser, and evidentally, it was just firefox that was making it look like I hadn't updated my blog, and just on my computer. So now I just use IE whenver I want to edit my blog. So everything's fine....
I'm posting this right now because I have a rather large break until Speech class at 2:30, and I have really no homework, so I'm taking advantage of that and updating. Though... nothing really exciting has happened. I did pick up my Math textbook, which came in on Tuesday, so that's good... I have a Calc book of my own now. I also had a Chem lab yesterday, that takes the place of band on Wednesdays. It got out early, though, so I ran down to the marching field so I wouldn't miss much... I actually didn't miss any of the actual new drills that we learned. It was really hot, though, and I sweated up a storm... I was afraid I was going to get dehydrated. I'm going to have to take better care of myself.
Well the week is almost over... one more day of school, and then the weekend.

Having Problems

I'm having trouble posting to the right page... for some reason Blogger isn't letting me post to my main page... instead its putting all my posts in my archive for the week of the 20th instead of on my front page. This is basically just a test post to see if reposting will help things out any.

An Odd Day

Today was an odd day. I didn't have any class until 9:30, so I got up at a reasonable hour and ate breakfast before class. Then I headed off to chemistry recitation, which was definately not worthless, since the TA covered stuff the professor wasn't going to bother with covering in class. Then after I got out of class, I went and traded in a worthless Response Pad for my engineering class-- it seems I didn't have the right one. So I did that at University Bookstore, then walked to Follet's Bookstore near the stadium to get several things for my Chem lab on Wednesday, and the NEW response pad that we needed to have. After I got through all that, I still had a quite a bit of time left before my next class at 2:30, so I got all my stuff together and went down to the basement and did laundry, which was great to get out of the way on a Tuesday afternoon when practically no one else was trying to use it. It didn't take me too long, and when I got done I still had time to go eat and clean up before my speech class at 2:30. Speech was fine, should be fun if I actually try to enjoy myself in there. I had to run from there right to band, and we basically finished up the forms for the pre-game show, which is great....
I spent most of tonight doing homework, though before I left the Hall of Music, I did get my uniform, which is completely awesome.
I also had two completely random encounters today with people I know from outside of Purdue. One was with Sawyer Sparks, who is a guy from the Bloomfield area, who transferred to Purdue this year. The other was this: I was sitting in the Hall of Music, waiting to go get my uniform, when around the corner comes this one little girl that I had to supervise during my stint as a helper at the Shawnee Children's Theatre this year. I knew this girl was from West Lafayette and that her dad was a professor or something at Purdue, but I never expected to run into her! I guess her dad is actually Michael Plake, who is basically the director's executive assistant, so I've been under his direction like every day.... that was so completely random.
That about wraps it up for today....

First Day of Class

Well, my first day of classes went fine. It was long... I had math in the morning, then a big of free time where I posted earlier, then I had to go to a Chem class followed directly by a beginning engineering class. All the classes were a bunch of "What do you expect from this class and what we expect from you yada yada stuff" that you had to listen to. Then I had another big break in the afternoon, I went and scheduled an appointment for my second and final chickenpox vaccine shot. In band today, we got our first charts and we learned how we will make the floating PURDUE letters on the field... I'm in the second U, down near the bottom of the left hand line. So my first time looking at drill charts. Interesting.
Tonight I got some homework done, but pretty much nothing interesting happened today.