Well, it would appear that I brought the Texas weather with me - since I've been home we've had only a couple of cold days, and this past Saturday it was warm enough that I spent the day working on the house with my Dad and younger brother. It was nice, but all my hopes for snow have been dashed. Supposed to be in the forties most of this comming week, tommorow it should be warm enought that I can bike down to the library. So good weather is not all bad news.
Most of today was spent reading Brian Jacque's most recent book. I picked it up to send to my sister, but figured that she wouldn't mind if I read it before passing it on... wouldn't want to send her a book with typos or some other horrific oversight. I really haven't really been reading nearly havent been reading much at all lately, mostly just sitting around the house sleeping and playing Guild Wars. I just discovered the how to find how much time I've spent playing, and between both my charecters I've got nearly 200 hours in the past 6 months... kinda a scary thought. Granted the vast majority of that was over the summer, but is still alot of time. Anyhow.
Sorry for the random post, but I promised myself that I wouldn't go to sleep until I'd written something. Anyway, buenos noches, bonne nuit - I'm going to sleep. Take care.

Women safe from my powers of seducion...

In defence of the Candy King, he was unaware of the bow tie... probably wondering why I was trying to take a picture of him.

So, Fall Fest is over, at least for those nerds of us who are not going to the banquet on Saturday. Just as well for myself, as I have to help set up the concessions for the talent show. It has truely proven to be an interesting experience thus far, being the first time that I have done the ground work for this sort of thing. Anyway. A bunch of 41'ers from years past have come down today for the reuninon this weekend. There's supposed to be a picnic down at the pond of all places. I know that there are picnic tables down there, but it doesn't seem to be the place you would want to bring your alumni for a meal. Then again, these are 41'ers. It has been pretty cool seeing the guys that graduated last year again. Igloo showed up yesterday, and Aduma, Abu and Aduma's roomate Sam showed up this morning. Rumor has it Ed is comming tommorow and Nacho and Joker are already here. I ran into a couple of guys from '85 in chapel today, I'd imagine that they will be at the picnic tommorow. Forrest is here too, so I finally got to meet him. It's been really cool seeing everyone again. Anyhow, I need to be getting off to bed. Be seeing you.

An adendum to the doctrine of the Power Suite - "If possible, live at peace with all men..." (Schmorgan) to which Ludwhig added "If not, kick them in the nuts."

A New Look

I changed my template, I hope that you noticed, because if you haven't then you need a doctor. I shamelessly stole it from the blogger template site, i'll probably mess with it more in the future when I am struck by a errant bolt of motivation. That's all for now, I need to be getting off to sleep. Oh, the picture below is from NW Haiti, where the Haitians claim Columbus first landed in the new world. Of course the Domincans have this other bay just across the border, and they say...

So, yeah, it's been a while. Family Conference was alot of fun, got to catch up with alot of people that I hadn't seen in a while, that sort of thing. I got into Longview on the 17th, spent alot of time bumming around until school started last Tuesday. It was an enjoyable experiece, that is unfortunately over. The semester looks like it is shaping up to be pretty interesting, and probably pretty busy. Thus far I have Digital Electronics, Dynamics, Biblical Literature, Fatness, Linear, Project Management, and Begining Karate. I also picked up Pheonix as a tech elective (one credit this semseter, two next). Anyway, that is all for now, I need to run off. Be seeing you.

YAY!!! The website lives! Many thanks to Fjord.
That is all, more later.

Well, after much foot dragging and alot of Guld Wars playing, I will finally post again. My brother and I tore the front porch off today so that we can dig the foundation for the new one. It was getting rotted in places, nothing to bad but defintly in need of replacement. We'll be pouring a concrete porch to replace it, it won't need to get replaced again in 40 years. Besides, we're still on a concrete kick from last summer.
Saturday Ruth and I went up to McAllisterville to help my aunt and my grandmother clean out my great Aunt Mary's house. My grandmother is going to be headed up there in a few weeks, so a little cleaning was in order. We cleaned out the basement some more, and found an old mechanical seed sower thing. Aside from being a little rusty it looked like it was in fine condition. It had canvas bag on the top that fed the seed thru a small hole and onto a rotating disk that cast the seed. It even had a cover over the feed hole that opened and closed via a cam. All you had ot do was spin the handle and pour seed in the top. I thought that it was a pretty cool little device. In retrospect I guess I should have takken a picture.
We have a kitchen install coming upon Tuesday and Thursday, do that should prove interesting. Not quite sure what we will be doing for hte rest of the week, probably working over on Ed's dad's addition. It'll be a short week, which will be nice too.
I might wind up going qown to the shore this Saturday with some of the guys from church. Hopefully the water will be warm and the weather warmer.
Well, I need to be getting off to bed. Be seeing you.

To answer Ludwig's question, I'm working with one of the general contractors that goes to my church. Every day is a little different,but typically we work from 7:30 to 4:00 or so. Friday I had the wonderful opportunity to install the fiberglass insulation in one of the additions that we are working on. For the record, fiberglass + 90 degree weather + people = itchy - very itchy. Fortunately we got off early, and I was able to get home and shower in fairly short order. Drywall is comming Monday, so we will probably rock it on Monday and Tuesday. We have two other jobs we're waiting for the cabnets to come in for, I guess we will porbably hang them in the latter part of the week. All in all it should be an interesting week.
My brother bought a copy of copy of Guild Wars the other day, and has let me have a charecter on his account, so I've been playing that for the last week or so. Thus far I have not completely leveled my charecter, so I have not seen much of the PvP side of the game. At this point it is mostly a coperative PvE type game. It's still pretty good, though the novelty wears off alot faster when all you do is wander around killing AI charecters. The graphics are pretty good. Anyway, I unfortunately have need of sleep before I go to work tomorrow, so I'll have to write more latter. Be seeing you.

Well, it's been a while. In the excitement of moving home I guess I never really got back into the habit of posting. Of course, that would imply that there was a habit of posting in the first place. Anyway, life has been moderately busy since I got back. My sister graduated from Olivet Nazerene University this spring, so we all conveyed ourselves to the appointed place the saturday after I finished exams and got to see Ruth walk, and then went to her comissioning later in the day. I got into Philadelphia Sunday night, and immediately began to devote all of my available energies to doing nothing. After a couple of days of such a strenuous task I decided that I needed to rest from my labors and so I started work. That's pretty much all that I am up to these days, aside from getting together with friends on the weekends and such. Well, my stomach is calling, and since I promised myself that I would not wonder off untill I had posted something, I'll end things here and take them up later, hopefully tomorrow.

Well, this is most probably the fourth or fifth time that I have sat down to write this week, and it is the unfortunatley the first time thatI have actually finished the post. There really hasn't been much excitement in the last week or so, aside from getting my materials paper turned in and taking the I&M Lab test. Haven't really done anything else of the academic nature, save for the assorted homework here or there.
Shrug and I watched The Power of the One, a movie about Apartheid. A very good movie. Spent most of the daylight hours Saturday sleeping, watched a bit of Pony's MST-3000 showing, and went to bed early. The extra sleep was nice. Unfortunately one must now make up for all that sleeping with study for the rest of the afternnon. Be seeing you.

Well, I think that I set a new personal record the other day. Wenesday night I felt unusually tired, so I went to bed a couple of hours early, and woke up at 7 am feeling wide awake. It was most wonderful. But it gets better. I had a term paper due on Friday (I was writing on the impact of Voodoo on the people of Haiti), and I had put off working on it all week because I was waiting for a key interview to come in. So I stayed up all night Thursday writing the paper, finished it Friday morning, and turned it in durring Religions. After Religions I had Materials, and right after that I had a meeting. I had agreed to help Cedric set up concessions for Film Fest. After that we ran the concession stand. By the time that I started walking back to my dorm it was 10 pm and it occured to me that I had been up for 39 hours on only an hour and a half of sleep. So like any faithful 41'er I decided to stay up for the next two hours..which would make it 41 hours. Then I passed out for the next 13. Anyway.
Other exciting things in life..... that's pretty much it. Oh, I found out that my next materials assignment is due on Monday and not on Friday like I thought. That will make life interesting for the next couple of days. after that I am pretty much home free except for finals. I&M lab test on Thursday... guess I'm not entirely free. Well, I need to either get started on my paper or go to sleep, so I'm off. Be seeing you.

Ethylene Propylene-diene Terpolymer

I've been working on a paper for materials lately, picking out a polymer for use in a marine fender. Dr. Ayers wants us all to pick a polymer for some modern application and write a paper defending the choice. I was browsing the web looking for material and I came across a polymer with the harmless name of Gray EPDM that is used in marine applications. When I found out that, lo and behold, what EPDM really stands for Ethylene Propylene-diene Terpolymer I decided that it would be a less than gratifying experience to have that for a first name. Justy you try and spell that in the second grade. Anyway.
I've got a paper for World Religions due Friday, should prove to be an interesting experience. I chose voodoo in Haiti as my topic, so I'm interviewing my Dad and another friend from Haiti, Judy Muchmore, as my two primary sources. It should prove to be a fairly informative paper. All the time that I spent in Haiti, I never really learned much about that knid of stuff... didn't need to know. Well, life calls. Be seeing you

A picture from NW Haiti, taken durring a visit in 2003

Ever wonder what causes paper jams? This little dude is luck that he has a cartlidge skeleton.

Packed up and ready to go, minus the lid.

Mike, the crazy electrician.

The front end, right after the lift gears got a new coat of grease.

More robot pictures...

So, tonite was the annual Student Foundation Raid the Cabinet function. It's basically a progressive dinner hosted by various university cabinet members. The original thought behind it is that it would serve as a vehicle to develop relationships between members of SF and membes of the Cabinet. The only problem seems to be that we get so focused on visiting everyone that we wind up worrying more about the schedule than anything else... We spent only about a half hour at each of the six stops. It didn't seem to be much time to get beyond superficial chit chat. I think maybe next year we might want to change it up a little next year, spend more time talking.... maybe can the whole idea and invite the cabnet members out one at a time to dinner on Sundays. All else fails we could all go to Fazolis or some such. That way we would have more time to talk. Who knows. Be seeing you.

Well, today has been at least moderately productive. I had a Religions test this afternoon, went to chapel in the evening, and sorted out getting an updated version of Norton Antivirus. It actually turned up a virus on the initial scan, so that was good. I had an I&M test yesterday which went pretty well. It's kinda hard for them to go any other way, beings as Dr. Kim doesn't change the tests much. As long as you can get a copy of the old test to study from. Anyway.
I called home the other day, found out that my younger brother picked up two 750 W speakers that someone in the neighborhood was getting rid of.... I hope that he still has his hearing when I get home. For that matter, I hope the neighbors have their hearing. Should be interesting. John (my younger brother) also has his first AP exam coming up in May, and he seems a little nervous abot that. Writing is not one of his strongest points, so the essays probably scare him a little. I also found out that a friend of the family my Dad and I used to work with has been showing interest in church. He's been a couple of times, and my Dad's supposed to pick him up this coming week. So that's something to pray for.
The rat trap competition for Dynamics was this afternoon, which I fortunatly did not have to participate in. The course consisted of a 10 meter track with two curves and two 4x4's across the width of it. The poor saps that had to compete were given a rat trap and a 9 volt battery to power the machine, and had to make if down and back to exactly the original start position. And they had to fit within a one cubic foot volume constraint. And Dr. G. did not announce the position or radus of curvature for the track until a half hour before the competition. It was a pretty burly competion, and understandably no one made it. It was interesting to watch though. Seemed more like an EE project with all the sensors and electronics that one would have to use. Anyway. It's past my bed time. I think I'll show the exploding whale video to one of Dex's friends and go to bed. Be seeing you.

Well, I've been meaning to sit down and write a post all week long, and finnally I got around to it. Don't hold your breath. As is hopefully evident, I've changed templates. I like the color scheme better, but the light text density in the side columns leaves something to be desired. I'm still debating eliminating the profile and recent posts boxes. They don't really serve much of a purpose, and they take up a good bit vertical space on the sidebar. I've also started adding some links, and in the off chance that anyone wanders across this site without knowing what Firefox is, it's quite simply the best internet browser out there. Spend the ten minuts that it dakes to download and install, and you'll never see browing the internet the same. I used to thing that it was just a alternative browser for the hate Microsoft crowd, but it actually is better. Some people say that it loads pages faster, but I'm not so sure about that. The tabbed browsing and mose gestures are very handy though. Just so lond as you don't try to delete IE.... Windows uses it for more than just browsing the internet, so deleteing it makes bad things happen. I think that will be one of the signature opportunites that I give next year - have the freshmen use Firefox for two weeks. It would be interesting to see if any of them go back to IE. Anyhow.
Fjord updated the floor website, I just saw it the other day. He hasn't done much in the way of content yet, but the graphical update was much needed. I think that it looks pretty cool. He's got all sorts of plans for the future, looks like it will be pretty neat. He added pictures from Santa bin Ladin too.
Speaking of pictures, I finally got around to figuring out how to post them. The ones posted below are from the ASME project this past spring. In the future I'll post more, but I think that that's enough for now... otherwise I'd fill pages being picture happy.
In other news, Hootenany was this past Friday, SF did concessions. I thinkg we have more concessions left over now than when we started the week. Things didn't sell quite as well this year. I think that part of the problem might have been the location of the booth. Last year we were right by the entrance, so everyone had to walk by at some point. This year we were on the opposite side of the tech booth. Something to keep in mind for next year. That, and we need to chill the sodas the day before, this time around not everything was cold. That might have had more of an influence. Well, I'd better terminate this post for the time being... got to do my homework and all that. Be seeing you.

The second incarnation of our box, it's what happens when you have a bunch of guys who just can't stop tinkering

The other end of the machine

The rear end of out machine

The team - front to back, myself, Josh Sleigh, Kevin Haveman, and Mike Cross

Running the machine at the internal competion... it actually worked!!!!

Procrastination is an excellent motivation for blogging. It's ashame that I have failed to make use of it more in the past. Got back from the ASME competition on Saturday. First time in seven years that LeTourneau hasn't won. First and second went to teams from the University of New Orleans, third went to one of the UT schools. All of the LU teams had problems of one sort or another. We lost a motor on our third run.
I'm currently working on a Materials paper... lots of fun. It was due today, but I had general gastrointestinal unhappiness last night and didn't get much done. Gonzo's revenge I guess. Anyway, I need to get back to the paper. Be seeing you.

Well, Spring Break came, and Spring Break went, and unfortunatly it didn't take very much homework with. Had alot of fun though, spend some time here, slept alot, and then I went to Dallas with Schmorgan and Ludwhig. We visited the Forbidden City Exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art, which was pretty cool. We saw the Phantom of the Opera whil we were there, which was alot better than I thought. It was the first musical that I have seen, and I never thought that I would ever enjoy one. But I did.
We drove back to LeTourneau on Friday or so, and I spent a decent portion of the weekend working on the Dynamics project. We had the internal competition this afternoon, and surprisingly enough we took first with 86 lbs. It wasn't as strong a showing as we had hoped to make, but it worked. Josh figures that if everything goes flawlessly we can move about 98 lbs, but I am not sure that we will be able to get the system down that well. Who knows. We had a fair bit of trouble with the drive motors, they tended to fail pretty quickly, and even thought we have different motors installed now, it is kinda hard to trust them. I'm always afraid that they will fail in practice and leave us high and dry at regionals. On the other hand, the more that our driver gets to practice, the better that we will do. And we need to do better. Maybe if we get all our practices in this week we will have time to replace the motors if they fail. Anyhow.
In other news, my Dad is planing to pull the shower apart back home... he hopes to have it back together in one day, but knowing how things tend to go, I really hope that it will go back togather period. The valves are leaking, and need to be replaced, but there in a 40 year old tile wall. Not a job that I would relish.
Well, it is time for the Pebble to get off to bed. Night.

Well, it has thus far been a pretty good week.... by which I mean not a busy week. I have a design problem and a Religions test on friday, as well as a Dynamics team presentation. Lots of fun.... not as bad as I was anticipating. We've got our last basketball game tonight, against Club. Should prove to be an interesting game. I don't figure that I will get to play much, as we need a win to get a lock on playoffs, but it will be a fun game to watch anyway. G2 has thier last game tonight to, think that it is at 8:30 or so. I think that they are slated play G1, who have thus far forfeited all their games. Hopefully G1 will materialize.
Aduma, Kirby and Morris got back from from thier escapade. Kirby said that they had some pretty bad weather on the way out, just beat out a snowstorm. He seems to have enjoyed the experience greatly.

Crunch time cometh for the Dynamics project. Our first systems check comes on Wednesday, and we don't even have circuitry installed yet. The circuitry is supposed to be installed Tuesday night after Kevin and I are done building the rice container. After that we will have to install a couple more drive motors and a latch mechanism. Hopefully that will be all. Some of the other groups are no where near close to done, I guess they figure they can show Dr. G that everything is working without having everything assembled. Fortunately for us, all our systems build on each other sequentially, so we need to have pretty much everything assembled to demonstrate the functionality of all systems. Forces us to get our work done early and leave a lot of time for testing, which is a good thing. Anyway, the only other things on the academic front are a Religions test that I took today and a Chemistry II test on Wednesday. As far as Religions go, I might have pulled an A, but I think a high B is more likely. The Chemistry test has me worried, as I have missed a fair bit of class and I need to score very strong on it. Add to that the fact that it is a Johnson test, which means that there are only about fourteen questions…. All you need to do is miss a few and you are scholastically unfulfilled. Anyway.
Played our last IM football game for the semester tonight. We managed to beat Penn 3 by a healthy margin despite the best effort of the referee. We’d beat them last time too, but it was a close game for a long time. I got a tackle on a punt in the second half…. I really was trying to grab the guy’s flag, but I was also flying though the air perpendicular to the runner’s course, and we both wound up on the ground. The ref called it a wrap, or some such. Somehow I managed to bang heads with Slope in the process, but fortunately he was okay.
G-2 had a game too, played with no subs into the second half and until Adrian twisted an ankle, and after that they played a man down and still won 18 – 0. They’ve got T-3 tomorrow, which should prove to be an interesting game. I think that G-2 can pull it off. Hopefully I’ll be able to make the game, but I have a sneaking Suspicion that I will be working on the ASME project. Anyway, I need to get back to the homework so that I can get some sleep. Be seeing you

Well, it has certainly been awhile. Class has been treating me well enough so far, but I have the distinct feeling that will cease to be the case in the near future. We just got started on our Dynamics projects, looks like it will be interesting. (ASME Student Design Competition) If we can increase our payload and decrease the trip time, we should be at least competative. Aparantly it is permissible to "expand" the robot after removing it from the 25x25x30 cm box, so we might be able to do something with that. Build some sort of massive unfolding contraption that will dramatically increase payload. Who knows. Got a nice longh assignment for Materials Engineering too. It'll probably wind up somewhere around 20 pages, but we are encouraged to include pictures, so it won't be to bad. Somehow i think that theAustrailains take thier education a little more seriously than us Yankees.... maybe it is just Dr. Ayers. At least the class will be interesting. Anyway, I need to get back to the homework. Be seeing you.

Christmass was wonderful, but it is unfortunately past. I got a 512Mb stick of RAM from my parents, makes the computer run much faster. Now when it idles it uses more that the 128Mb that was previously installed. My little geek heart goes aflutter just thinking about it.
Didn't do a lick of work over Christmass, as both Rick and Ed were scraping for work. Didn't really need another laborer. Break was good though, got lots of sleep, spent the days reading and playing board games with friends. It ws good to see Jonathan again. Looks like another one of his Westies is getting ready to bit the dust. Molly's been staggering aroud the house walking sideways most of the time, running into things. Jonathan figures she has some brain damage, possibly from a stroke.
Philip came over for a couple of days after visiting family in New York. It was nice to see him again. It is quite amusing that we grew up together in Haiti, live thousands of miles apart, and yet we each go to school a few hours from the other's house. What are the odds of that?