Still recovering from the weekend...

This weekend was great. We picked up Timo & Sören, a couple of German exchange students, from Cal Poly on Thursday night and dropped them back off at their campus apartments Sunday afternoon. The whole time they were with us was a blast. Timo & Sören are a lot of fun to hang out with and they were great sports, always up for anything. (Including a 20-mile bike ride (roundtrip) to get breakfast on Sunday morning)

Izzy's mom signed us into Disneyland & California Adventures on Friday and we spent 13-hours just being kids. We went on pretty much all of the big name rides in both parks culminating in back to back rides in the Teacups at the end of the night. Getting to Disneyland was a little stressful, as we were running a tad late to meet Izzy's mom and her friend to get signed into the park. Thus, the Germans were introduced to the 5-fwy, the American Autobahn. We made it to the meeting place in time, and Sören later quipped that California Screamin' (the roller coaster in California Adventures) was "like in the civic!"

Saturday had Izzy out of the house early to reserve a spot for my birthday party. Timo, Sören, my brother, & I prepped stuff for the party, ran the last few errands and delivered stuff to Izzy over at Mile Square Park. The party was great, Caiden & Adina were able to come which was really cool, I hadn't seen them in roughly a year. We bbq'd tri-tip & chicken (Special thanks to Tim, the Grill-Master), intorduced Timo & Sören to ultimate frisbee & piñatas and generally just enjoyed ourselves. Joe came dressed as a clown and rode his unicycle & tied animal balloons for the kids. We had tons of fun. My parents delivered the tandem bike when they came to the park, so just about everyone took a turn on it.

Andrew, Timo & Sören crashed at the house as Izzy & I jetted off to church. When Iz & I returned, we watched High Fidelity. Great movie. Why I hadn't seen it before, I couldn't tell you. For the third night in a row we crashed exhausted into bed. We slept in a bit before hopping on the bikes for Huntington Beach & the Sugar Shack.

The weekend was busy, but a lot of fun. I'll post pictures once I get a chance.

Thoughts from the Lab

I'm in the computer lab today, with the HP. I'm supposed to be studying & finishing up the assignment that's due Friday, but I'm hungry, here's a quick post before I take off for Bucky's. iTunes 4.8 is working really well, I am loving the new video ability. Using the method I referred to here, I have been able to boost my collection of videos. I like seeing how the artists convey their songs. Some videos are just gratuitous shots of the band performing, some are amusing (like Moby's video for Beautiful) and some don't make any sense. (My Chemical Romance's "Helena" video has an entire dance number with modern and ballet elements at a funeral.) I have noticed a rather specific trend within the alternative videos toward the outlandish, which is interesting. I wouldn't have expected to see as many bands going in that direction as seem to be.

I have also started using iTunes to watch the video clips that I had in quicktime format. I have a whole collection of Daily Show clips that I queued up the other night, and the past few nights I have been working my way through the Red vs Blue series. Red vs Blue is notable mostly because they have created an animated video using the game, Halo. The story is better than I would have expected for a web cartoon & it has managed to keep my interest for 57 episodes. How will season 3 end?

Oh, one last thing about iTunes' purchased videos: they are not protected files. They are just *.mp4 files. That surprised me, though not negatively! After the effort it took to capture the videos from the store, I thought they would have some sort of DRM. But I think that means that it will be longer before visual media is offered for sale on iTunes than I had originally thought. Oh, well.

Last night, Izzy sprung my birthday present on me. A tandem beach cruiser! It is a really cool blue and looks awesome. Riding a tandem is a very odd sensation, though. From the front seat, when you turn, you don't get the same sensation of turning as you have on a standard bike, but there is a distinctly lateral motion. Almost unnervingly so. It makes balancing the bike kinda awkward. In the rear seat, turns have a disconcerting tilt. The bike is gonna take a little practice to get used to, but we're already planning on cruising down to the Sugar Shack for breakfast this weekend. We'll see how it goes.

Well, I've already written more than I thought I would, and I'm still hungry. I'm off to get a bite to eat and to finish my homework.

Oh, sorry, that was me.

That scream? Oh that was me realizing my laptop had been closed on one of my earbud headphones.

Expect lighter than usual blogging this week. This morning, I accidentally cracked the screen on my Sony. I am hoping I can get a new replacement screen by the end of the week. (fingers crossed!) I was online this morning searching for the best alternative to Sony's repair center. I found this place that will send me just the screen and let me do the installation myself for about half of the minimum possible Sony cost. I'll have to give them a call on Monday & check them out. Hopefully, this all will go as planned, but I know better than to expect that.

If anyone has any experience with a reputable company (ie, not overseas) I can get a replacement LCD from, please let me know. Thanks.

MORE: Here are the specifics: Looking for a replacement LCD for a Vaio TR3A. It's a 10.6" screen & I believe the native resolution is 1280x800. Thanks for the help!

Breakthrough!

Ok, so I posted about my new love of iTunes & it's video ability. Well, I've figured out how to save videos from iTunes. If they would sell them, I would buy them, but they won't, so I don't. So there. It took a bit of surfing to find the solution, but I am thrilled with the result. I now have a large collection of music videos I can use to complement my purchased music collection.

I'm excited. iTunes has 537 music videos available to watch. Now I just need to figure out which ones I want to keep!

Have an XP machine and want to try this yourself? You can read how here.

iTunes Video? Cool!

So I upgraded to iTunes 4.8 this week, because I heard it would play video. That was a huge complaint I had with the previous iTunes versions. I have a lot of video clips in *.mov format, and no way to queue them up simutaneously. Today, when I popped into the iTunes store (I had a fair amount of time to kill, my 9am class was cancelled), there was a video single available from The Shins. (They are best known for their prominence in the Garden State movie & soundtrack) I downloaded it and I was pleased with it. My only frustration is that iTunes doesn't make it easier to find & download music videos. They have a whole section of music videos, but none of them are downloadable. Worse, iTunes won't even let you stream the videos as you work elsewhere in the program. Leaving that page kills the video. I found a bunch of tips and applescripts for Mac OSX, but nothing for windows users.

Any ideas? Please let me know. Also, if you know of any specific videos for sale on iTunes, let me know. I would love to check them out.

NOTE: I tried to post this yesterday, but it was a no-go. So, up it goes today!

mmmmm.....Chai!

I have my chai in hand now. I didn't want to risk getting to the midterm late, so I skipped 'bucky's this morning, and I needed it. I spent most of last night laying on the living room floor trying to get the Sony reset into a useful state (and not their ridiculous partioned set up.), and studying off & on. In between I slept, as the kittens ran around the house, chasing phantoms. As I was walking across the parking lot, I opened up my laptop to see if I had a wireless signal yet. There were little cat prints all over the screen. Those rascals! That would actually explain why a couple of things I tried to transfer didn't, they must've jumped onto, or walked across the keyboard and cancelled them while I was dozing.

Speaking of the cats, I was telling Izzy this morning how surprised I was at the amount of noise they make running around. They totally thump their feet. They were galloping around upstairs at one point and I could tell exactly where they were just by the noise. And every time I would fall asleep, one of them would pounce on me. No worries about over sleeping with them in the room.

Midterm Update

I'm feeling a lot better about my midterm grade now. I was kinda stressed when I saw the distribution, but now that he's gone through the solutions, I'm feeling a lot better. A lot of what he's doing looks really familiar. I wasn't able to get all of my answers to final solutions simplified, but I think I got to the last step of each of the problems ok. Grades are supposed to be out tomorrow, I guess we'll see.

I tried out OneNote today for the first time. A pretty slick note-taking software, it's forcing me to be a better typist. (I've always been kinda sloppy, witha lot of hunt and peck thrown in.) I ordered a full copy, but while I wait for it to arrive, I downloaded the demo from Microsoft. A lot of the features are geared more toward tablet PC's, but I think, aside from diagrams, it will probably become my favorite way of taking notes. I can flag certain things as to-do's & send emails to myself to remind me. If I used Outlook, I could transfer my OneNote to-dos to OutLook tasks, or evemts in my calendar. Just talking about it with Izzy the past few days has got her interested. It seems like it would be a great thing for her meetings.

Well, class is out...

Ouch!

I knew the Mechanics midterm was difficult, but he slaughtered us. Average was 47%. Right now he is trying to explain how he is going to tweak the grade proportions so that our hopes of passing are not completely sunk. The class seems a little less than enthused. The midterm was a lot more difficult than we expected. I wasn't expecting to ace it, I had to leave most of my answers unsimplified, but, wow! Ouch! The class feels deflated & despondant. I think I am a little more used to grades like these, this was the norm at Cal Poly.

I'm surprised how few people are here today. There are maybe 60% of the students here. I wonder if the low turnout is due to low expectations for the midterm grade, or if it is just part of the low turnout I wrote about here.

MIdterm Review

Whew, made it back. I was ten minutes late, but luckily I didn't miss anything... They were just setting up the board. Our midterm covers the first four chapters, open book, open notes, 20% of the final grade.

Approximately fifty students, four laptops in the room. One student is playing solitaire already. (8pm) Can't see the other screens...

This is the first time I have tried to type my notes on my laptop. If I had a tablet, I might attempt to draw my diagrams, but they are all

Oh my God. He just asked us to define the structure of "Transparent Aluminum" from Star Trek IV. Is he serious? Even the other TA seems confused. Finally an answer, FCC. "But structural aluminum isn't transparent?" The other TA interjects, probably percieving the palpable confusion in the room. "Well, yes" replies the first TA, "such is the stuff of science fiction, like phasers." I think he was trying to get us to recognize that transparent structures have the FCC arrangement, but still a little confusing.

8:40 pm
The first student leaves.

The review keeps bouncing back and forth between different topics. One TA starts a topic, then pauses to let the other TA speak about his topic. They stop halfway through descriptions, or betweens parts of the same problem. Note-taking hell! At least I can add extra lines in my laptop notes.


8:50pm
The session is effectively over. Not, quite the 10:30 I was expecting. Nice! Now I have time to go home & index my book & notes, and still get plenty of sleep. A few students are hanging around chatting, but I am out of here. Time to go home & finish studying.

Midterm Review

I'm waiting in the MDA for the review session to begin.... Unfortunately, I left my cooling base at home and an afternoon of listening to music while scanning through online class notes seems to have taxed my little Vaio. The session is supposed to start in 30 mins, but students are filing in already to claim seats. I am going to take off to try & cool off this thing. Maybe I can find an AC vent or something.

Back in a few~

A lazy day with the cats.

Relaxing today, and catching up on all of the chores I have been procrastinating all week. The house is covered with the remnants of late night studying: couch pillows on the floor, surrounded by books & papers, reference books piled up on the table with the mail I didn't go through yet, and laptop cables and cords everywhere. I need to pick up. This weekend, we're hosting Mother's day brunch, so we need the house to be in tip-top shape.

Well, I'm off to get to it~

Whew!

Wow, what a test! I wouldn't have thought that he could fit cams, linkages (slider-crank & 4-bar), robotics, and mobility into one test, but he did. It took really more than the full hour & twenty minutes, but that meant solutions were found, but not fully simplified. Now I get to relax. I have a small homework assignment due, and extra credit assignment to work on, and a last midterm (Tues) to prep for.

Don't expecty any more creativity today, I'm spent. I'm off to get myself a bite to eat & a chai.

Between Tests

Ed, Shena & Nathan prepping for the test.
Actually, Nathan is telling us his freaky spider story. Far more interesting than equations, and it totally removes any desire I might sometime have to travel to Lake Powell.
Posted by Hello

One down, one to go.

The midterm was good, but long. Three problems, but with 4-5 sub problems each. Yikes. Pleased with my performance, but wished I could have had about twenty minutes more to double check & box my answers. But what is done is done.

The Beatles keep popping up in conversation. After my "Here comes the sun" thought, Ed joked "All you need is love" before the midterm. Now I really wish I had my Beatles album with me.

We're busy memorizing equations for the Theory of Machines class. More later~

Dark Skies, an Omen?

I'm waiting outside of the lecture hall. There's another class in there, so I can't go in yet. THe air is heavy and moist. It smells of rain and moist earth. It's a lot warmer than usual for a rainy day, and the warmth reminds me of Virginia summer rains. Most of the students wandering about are wearing coats or carrying umbrellas.

Oh, here comes the sun. The sun is just breaking through the clouds, but now I'm thinking about the Beatles and wishing I had copied that album onto this laptop. Oh, well. The sun's fading behind the clouds now, anyway.

The test is supposed to start in twenty minutes. Students are beginning to gather in little clumps around the front of the building. "Did you study...?" "Is .... on the test?" "I need sleep!!"

I'm inside now.... Wish me luck!

Rain?

Rain? In May? But such is the case. So today I am donning my overcoat as I head out the door. I'm on track to get to school about an hour early, so I might try to grab a couple pics and upload them before my midterm. Both of my midterms will be in the MacDonnell Douglas auditorium, a really nice building on campus. (Pictured here.) No lecture-hall-fold-out desks today!

More later~

"Consider the grade attached to attendance as a learning curve on the real world."

headzero wrote:

It would be nice if grades weren't hinged on attendance, but, as you will find out in the real world, that your paycheck is also attached to attendance in any job you obtain. Consider the grade attached to attendance as a learning curve on the real world.

That's partly true. The primary difference is that the required attendance in the workplace comes with the expectation you will be productive. The opposite is true in the classroom, you are expected to be non-productive. That is, sit quietly, take notes, and leave when the lecture is finished. In the "Real World", especially for salaried employees on flex time, your paycheck doesn't change with attendance. It is based solely on your ability to complete tasks by the deadline.

In my internships, I have always been paid hourly, so attendance did affect my pay, but I have had bosses with very different philosphies. One didn't care when/where I worked as long as I submitted my drawings and reports to him on time (or early). The other demanded that I was in the office (specifically my cubicle) from 8-5, regardless of my workload. A lot of task-deadlines got pushed back because I needed more than 8 hours to complete them. And when she didn't have anything for me to do, nor did any of the other engineers I worked with, then I sat and surfed the net, because I couldn't leave early. (she was dislinclined to letting me leave early as I was guaranteed a set number of hours and would make it necessary for me to stay late some other day.) This boss is like the professor who requires attendance. You will be here whether you get anything out of it or not. The first is the professor who doesn't require attendance. I want you to be doing what is most productive. Personally, I prefer the latter.

Study Blogging

Two midterms tomorrow, so today I should just be studying. But that gets old quick, so it's time for a blogging-break.

I checked the page stats from yesterday: 2632 page hits. Thank You, Ann! I think that is double my previous record for page hits in a day.

Man, studying inside can really suck the creativity out of you. (or me, specifically)

Wow, so I just clicked spell check (cuz' I haven't tried it before) and what a trip. Blogger suggested that I replace "blogging" with "flogging" and "pagehits" with "pasties." How funny! I would have thought that the spell check would have included more internet terms.

Well, that pretty much does it for me. I'm going make myself a chai and hit the books again.

Only three people are taking notes (around me). Everyone else is doing homework from other classes. Speaking of which, it's time for me to finish mine.

UPDATE: Welcome Ann Althouse readers and thanks for the link, Ann. I know there may be some who frown on classroom blogging, but if it isn't disruptive & doesn't affect my grades, why shouldn't I? Personally I think professors should not require attendance as part of the grade. Then I could be park-blogging or doing homework instead.

Posted by Hello

And it's Tuesday again...

Ah, Tuesday.

Warm, Sunny. I'm wearing shorts (for the first time since I went camping), sandals (Always!!), & a tee. Made the switch to my backpack today. (Link Note: Eww! What is with the new color? Mine is a slightly brighter blue, I think it looks much better.) I was carrying too much stuff for my shoulder bag.

Back in class, which is why I am blogging. The midterm is on Thurs and nothing today is on it. On my way in to school I popped in to Bucky's and ran into a friend from waaaaay back when. Kim's the manager of my usual place, now. How wild is that? What makes it especially funny, is the two previous times I saw her she was working in a Starbucks. (And each time it's been a different Bucky's)

The kitties are doing well. They love to explore, sometimes beyond their ability to make it back to the litter box on time. Oh, well, such is growing up, I guess. Yesterday, they each made it up and down the stairway. Quite a feat for a small creature. They are only slightly longer than the steps are tall.

Shear-Moment Diagrams. Ooh! I like these. Solving problems graphically is always a plus. Especially if the graphical method is quick, simple and supplies the answers to several questions. Hmm.. examples. Probably one of his better lectures. The examples are good, but he goes through them too slowly. Either give us the concepts or work out the problem. Working out the problem and asking us to define the concepts only works to a certain degree. It gives the lecture a stop-start-stop-start pace that makes it even harder to pay attention.

Well, time to review the homework for Machines. More posts later~

This is way too nice a day to waste on homework.

But that is precisely what I am about to do. I'm on campus now, just left the Theory of Machines discussion, and I need to finish that homework. Then I need to finish the Mechanics homework, so that I can start the Materials homework. Blech!!

On the plus side, I won two iTunes songs on Friday at the Tiger release party, so I might get myself some new study music today.... Speaking of the Tiger release party, Wow! What a dull party. Mostly geeks taking pictures of the line, the Apple store, the concierge, and the same static displays that Apple usually has up. Tiger itself looks kinda cool, I don't like all of the animated effects (to me, they just add one more thing between my request and getting what I want from the computer), but I did like some of the functionality. I would like to get a Mac, but they are just a little out of my price range for now. Maybe if I had a job.

The cool part about the party was hanging out with Soren & Timo, a couple of German exchange students at Cal Poly. They were a total blast to hang out with. They are here until September, so there'll be more about them here. In the meantime, I have two midterms this week (& a third next week) and all of my lovely homework assignments waiting for me. Expect light blogging until this weekend.