Alright! Let's hear it for the second episode of the video blog!!! ...yeah, that was lame. I apologize for the crappy audio-video sync, but as soon as I get my act together, I'll be uploading videos that actually are timed correctly.

Again, thank you to all three viewers that I have that read/watch my blog. You are my heroes.

So, this is my first video blog segment entitled, Episode 00.0. I hope they will continue as an alternative/addition to text blogging and make me update this a little bit more frequently. But seeing as how it is almost 2:00am, I'm going to call it a night.

It's just another power of two

Just a quick note, since I don't have a whole lot of time tonight. For some reason, I've recently discovered that my night has been revolving around powers of 2. When I wrote my facebook post, I had about 8 hours before I had to be at work for 4 hours, where I would then afterwards meet with my advisor for another 2 hours about 1 bid (for all of you who don't know your exponents, 2 raised to the 0 is 1).

Hopefully, more will be written tomorrow afternoon before I pass out. It is spring break afterall, and I don't have anything better to do than blog. Haha...

Oh life, why do you insist on keeping me busy?

Spring semester 2010 is almost at it's half way point. Spring break is almost here, and many students here are ready for it to arrive. We need something more than just the normal 2 day weekend to relax and not worry about our academics. You can only push for so long before you break, right? I really should keep that in mind.

Things that have been going on in my life include:

• Winning a bid to help relocate and redevelop a website for a teacher conference


• Creating a bid for a Regional Board of Directors position for MACURH


• Actually getting work done for ZBT Development


• Sparring


• Playing the love that is Tales of Symphonia (under orders)

My RHA job is also getting a bit more stressful. I have a few award bids to write, a committee to guide to review a constitution, and some working relationships to repair/keep under control. Oh, how lovely.

I guess I'm kind of looking forward to spring break. My sister said that she would come and hang out with me for a couple days, which is exciting. I'm also excited to be able to have some time alone with the girlfriend. We've been together for about a month and a half (or so), and we've only had time for one date. It'll be refreshing to be able to have some time to work some romance into both of our lives and have that as the highlight of a day instead of writing a paper or preparing for a midterm.

Folding space, thus reducing time.

"The silence isn't so bad. 'til I look at my hands and feel sad 'cause the spaces between my fingers are right where yours fit perfectly." - Vanilla Twilight by Owl City.

This song, specifically this little chunk of the song, has been looping through my head. It's also been the ONLY song on my playlist for the past few days. I see no direct correlation.

In other news, it's been a while since I've posted. I've been trying to take this weekend to get caught up on life, and this blog post was one of those things. My classes, as I thought, are proving to be difficult which in turn makes them that more interesting. It is nice to be challenged. And fairly refreshing.

I don't have a whole lot to say today. I had a bunch of things I wanted to put in here, but they've escaped me now. Oh well. Maybe while I'm playing Super Mario Brothers Wii I will figure them out again.

Computer assisted design - It takes an idea and makes 3D stuff

So, it's been a while since I've last updated. Yes, a little bit over two weeks. However!! In my defense, I've had a lot of preperations for Christmas, New Year's, and helping my sister move out of our parent's house. The end of 2009 was quite full, but very pleasing.

With the beginning of 2010 underway, the second half of the academic calender is about to begin. I've discovered, that the academic calenders don't seem as important as they once were in high school. Mainly because there are 3 points in which a person can graduate from college, unlike in high school when everyone graduated at the same time. In college, you look at them only to tell when classes start, end, finals week begins and ends, and when any breaks/three-day weekends occur. I've used it a few more times than that to figure out deadlines for the Undergraduate research conference, but that's about it.

However, I'm also excited to start my classes. I have some difficult classes ahead of me starting this coming Monday (January, 11th). They should prove exciting though. Upcoming, I have Calculus II, Human Anatomy, Machine Structure and Programming, Public Speaking, and a Computer Science Seminar course. This will be the deciding point about where I want to go with my education. Right now, I'm sitting at a point where I could choose any one of a million possibilities that involve computers and technology. However, I have focused in on three or so possibilities. The first is taking a purely Computer Science route. Taking on this as my only major would involve taking up a minor, which based on the classes I'm currently enrolled in, would likely be Biology. It is one of the quickest minors I can obtain without taking the Mathematics minor built into the Computer Science major. Another route which is closely similar is Software Engineering. This differs from Computer Science near the end of the academics. Some courses are no longer required, but a few others are then required in the place of the dropped courses. An idea that springs to mind is, 'Why not go for both?' That is very possible. However, a little bit of digging brought up another alternative. This being Cognitive Science. With various concentrations, I could major in this and have a deeper understanding of 4 different fields (Computer Science, Biology, Philosophy, and Psychology). Should I concentrate in Computer Science while majoring in Coginitive Science, approximately half of a Computer Science degree would be earned. And THAT has made me think of earning 3 degrees. However, this would then require me to push myself harder academically then I've ever pushed myself before. And I have a feeling that I would be the first to walk down this path. My interests in computers has drawn me toward Artificial Intelligence. And that's why I'm tempted to look at Cognitive Science, since this is one of the larger focuses of the field. I'm not sure what I will be doing, but I have until late March to figure it out.

But everyone needs balance in their life. As I talked about in my last post, I've involved myself into a game called Warhammer. This past weekend, I spent some time with friends of mine and we sat around almost all weekend and built models that we had either purchased or had been gifted with. Based on the game's point system for their models, I have roughly 1200 points in models alone. With various 'upgrades' that the game system can provide and proxying 1 piece, I can field an army worth almost 2000 points. This makes me smile. I was able to go from 0 points - 2000 points in nearly a month. However, this will involve a great deal of painting, patience, and possibly frustration when they released my army's updated armybook. It is due for release in February and very little information is being released to the public. I am new to the scene, so I am not particularly phased by the lack of information. From what I've read, however, this is not exactly a promising sign. From the rumors I have been reading, I fear that one of my model units (called the Pestigors) won't be useable anymore (point wise, that's nearly 10% of my army). But, we'll just have to see if January will produce any more rumors or facts from Games-Workshop.

I think that will conclude my update for today.

Except for this: I still haven't forgotten about the photographic, audio, or video versions of what I want to do with this blog. I'm still trying to determine the best ways of getting these accomplished with no cost to myself, which is proving difficult.

A different kind of acceleration

I strongly believe that each and every geek has some sort of gaming that isn't console, handheld or computer-based. I used to dabble in Dungeons & Dragons while I was high school and my first year of college. My second year and so far in my third, I've participated in a little bit more than just that. I've played several campaigns in the realm called World of Darkness. It's similar to D&D, but the rules are a bit more strict. It's more serious than D&D, which on some levels makes it a little bit more attractive. Alas, though, these two wonderful tabletop games are not the purpose of this post.

Where I'd like to draw your attention to, only because it has recently fascinated me, is the realm of Warhammer. Specifically, the Warhammer Fantasy section of Warhammer. And by recently fascinated, I mean I've started to really get into it over the past two months or so. The game runs a little bit like this: You choose your race, you buy models of that race to represent your army on a battlefield, and you fight against another army based on a couple pieces of paper and some(times a lot) of d6.

The army I have chosen is the Beasts of Chaos. As their name suggests, they're an army of beastmen and various nasty creatures. As far as I can tell, they're kind of a difficult race to get a first grasp of and to win consistently with. This is due to their lack of everything but melee options. Because I only recently obtained some of my own models, I have been proxying with models from various other armies that my friends have graciously let me borrow for games. Now, don't get me wrong. The Beasts do have *some* magic. However, I have not had very good luck with it. I can't decide if my army is just not suited for magic or Manfred (the first model I received, and the General for my army) just really does not like magic. He has tried to be all magical twice. The first time he exploded on the field, and the second time most of his spells just kinda fizzled.

Anyway, I went to the local hobby store by my house to buy myself some glue to start putting these guys together. I started with my Bestigors since they're metal and take almost no time to put together. Right now, the primer is drying, and I'll soon be able to paint them. Don't know what kind of palette I'll use on them, but I'm sure it'll look awesome...eventually. I'd take some in progress photos, but I don't really have the lighting for it (or for painting them in the first place). If I can get some decent lighting, I'll take a picture of them primered and various stages in their painting progress.