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.