Such a busy week...

I've had so much work to do this week, its been really hectic and blah.

More tomorrow hopefully.

AHHHHH! THE BALLS ARE DROPPIN'!

No, that wasn't sexual.

There has been so much on my plate its hard to remember everything. Just now I forgot my phone. Yesterday I forgot about a presentation I had to make. I still have to take a pre-course quiz. So much to do. So little time.

Note to self: 18 credit hours is a lot.

I really fucked up

Today I completely forgot about a presentation that was worth 7.5% of my grade and failed it. As someone who is striving for a GPA above 3.5 this is not a good thing to do in one of my three credit hour courses. I really dropped the ball.  The worst bit is there was a chance to do it on another day, and therefore turn it in on another day, but I couldn't convince any of the other groups to swap with us. Gah. I just have to get his out and fix it. It hurts inside.

In other news, as I type, I realize I cannot recognize my hands. I don't know why, but they seem unfamiliar. This is a quick post, but at least I am getting back on track with this blog.

5.10b's make me tired

Climbing and a gallon of milk have really tired me out. Not a whole gallon, more like a quarter or maybe even a third, but still it feels like a lot of milk in my stomach and I want to sleep.

I completed (kind of, I had to cheat on one hold) my first 5.10b.  It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was a challenge at the end and ultimately I cheated in order to get past one hold that was tricky for my tired self. Hopefully I'll beat it tomorrow or the day after, whenever I next climb on the top rope wall.

Night. I hope to have more energy/will power to write in the coming days.

I am starting to slack

I keep putting off my posts and forgetting to post. This is the third day that I didn't post, but thankfully this will be fixed with this writing. Its not going to be very long, because I don't have much to say, but will certainly have to make up the difference in posts due to my sillyness.

Thanks for reading if you have!

In light of recent events

Yesterday was a day full of fear and unpleasant things.

I woke up yesterday at my normal hour of 7:30.  I carried out my normal routine. I went to class in Electrical Engineering for two hours, departed for physics for potentially another three, and was fortunate to finish lab an hour early.    I received a call from my mother prior to physics lab where she gave me the unfortunate news that she had melanoma. It started to stress me out considerably, as one could imagine.

I learned that there was a shooting as I was getting ready to leave lab. A girl looked over at me and said "You aren't going outside, are you? There was a shooting in Electrical!" I decided that the lock down in effect was inconvenient and that I wanted to return to my dormitory.  At that point I had heard that there was only one shooter, one victim. As it turned out this was the most accurate information.

When I returned I was told by two different sources (both unreliable, as they got their news from a faulty source themselves) that there was possibly a second shooter on the loose. Images started to flow in of the plain-clothes officers outside buildings with assault rifles. People were hearing mixed messages from friends and the news was not up to date yet.  We knew one person had died and one person was in custody, but that was it.

It felt all day like I had been punched in the gut. I had heard that the 'second shooter' had gone to physics, which didn't make me feel any better about my decision to reportedly take the route I did.  But ultimately, what hurts me most, is that I fell victim to the rumor mill. I heard things, I panicked. I originally was thinking logically, but I forgot to keep that attitude up.

It hurts, knowing your mind has failed you during a crisis and has resorted to panic. Bah.  And in the midst of it all, the confusion was massive. If it had been a mass shooting rather than a planned homicide, there would have been a lot more casualties. People didn't understand what was going on, people didn't know how to secure their classrooms, people (like me) didn't realize that they had to take the situation seriously.

And to the victim's family, friends, and acquaintances I am sorry. I hope that you will recover, I hope you know that your son has left a great legacy. Bah. This just sucks.

Waiting for class to start

I'm sitting in my own patch of floor as I wait to enter lecture hall. I feel anti social, but that is more because I have to fart and there are some wonderful ladies sitting nearby which would probably be uncomfortable for all parties involved. I do have coffee, and a donut, so that makes up for it.

Why am I typing this now, like some silly blogger? Well I have gotten behind. I need to write more thoughts down so I don't forget them.

I also need to make sure my college is paid for, or I will be unenrolled today. My scholarship hasn't come through yet so it's a bit nerve wracking, especially since all of you classes are full and I would undoubtedly lose my spot.

Lots of stress, lots of things to do. On the bright side I did most of my homework for the week and I think I aced my quiz today in calculus. Here's to a week of cold and work.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Starcraft II, Taking the plunge/

So I bought Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty and the expansion Heart of the Swarm this evening. They are box edition so they will arrive on Thursday. Since I downloaded the starter edition I've been playing a lot of bot matches and having a lot of fun. I've played the campaign and really enjoyed it.  I've decided its worth $66 to me, to have the access to this game.

And then my friend told me the arcade will be entirely free to play. Doh. But at least I will have access to ranked matches which I felt I was missing. I want to be able to play a competitive game that takes 18-30 minutes and is a testament to my own skill as a gamer. Starcraft will hopefully provide that.

So here's to me learning micro and such. Night.

Hue Hue

I GOT A BEARD HAT. CAUSE WHY NOT!

I feel like I want to ball up and do nothing.

But I can't, because I am an adult. I am an engineer. I am a wrestler.

This week has been really hard. Trying to get back into my routine, figuring out the new sleep schedule (which sucks, I don't like going to bed early), and generally feeling like my days are long as heck.  It was nice last semester, when my classes were reasonably spread out. I think I like the gaps between classes. My days were, in truth, longer than I would have liked but I could still stay up late most nights and I those hours were conducive to my homework.

Now, I have straight runs that burn me out. I want to go to my classes, I want to learn the material, but I am often just too tired to pay attention. Hopefully by next week I'll have figured it out. I can't afford to change my schedule now because if I do I will likely lose my spots in three of my classes.

I've climbed too much it seems. My hands gave out on me, the skin peeled from my calluses on almost every digit and more often in two or three places. I think tomorrow will be a rest and recovery day, while I try to learn the miracles of StarCraft.  StarCraft has peeked my interest. Why, now, after so many ages I don't know, but I have finally gotten the demo. I have been playing bot matches and its fun. They take 10 minutes, which is a really nice change from DotA. I feel like I could actually just sit down to play some StarCraft, whereas I have to plan my whole evening around a game of DotA which makes it more of a chore.

And I still have to talk about why I hate trains. But I am procrastinating on that one. That rant will be saved for a day when I need a topic to blog about.

And I found my keys...

right where I put them in the least obvious spot. Oops.

The lesson here is: ALWAYS PUT THINGS DOWN WHERE YOU WILL EXPECT THEM TO BE. Gah. At least that is one less thing to stress about.

Also my books finally arrived, or at least the most important thing, my iClicker which will let me receive credit for my lovely lecture sessions tomorrow morning.

And that's all for tonight. Time for bed. Its late.

My keys...

My keys, my dorm room for my keys!

But where are they?  They are lost somewhere on my floor, but I don't know where they could possibly be. Its really bothering me and keeping me from doing anything else because I can't get into my room tomorrow after class without them and also I need my iClicker. Blah. Blah. Humbug. Bah.

Online homework...

really sucks when the question is bugged to hell.

My physics homework uses webassign (a website that has already given me both hell and an extra week to complete my homework due to downtimes!) and one question requires the use of scientific units via the "e" notation.  "e" notation refers to the noting of 10000 as 1e4.  Homework is supposed to be nicer when using this notation which webassign is supposed to understand.

However, it doesn't.  I can keep... doh I figured out the problem instead of finishing the rant. It was a glitch with an older version of chrome/flash that was incompatible. My bad.

I will end this because I need sleep. And lots of it. Class all tomorrow :(

I love climbing

"I've got blisters on my fingers!" - Ringo Starr

I went climbing today. I went shortly after noon and played around on the bouldering wall and then went back to the dorms for a bit. I managed to piece together the parts of two V2's, but I did not do them successfully in one go. I also did most of our V1's and all of the V0's/V(fun)'s that were new to me (there were about four).  It was a blast, but my arms were dead.

This evening I meandered around the top rope wall, managing to complete a 5.10a with difficulty and easily completing a 5.8 and a 5.7 before heading back over to the bouldering wall to attempt more V2's. I failed miserably, because I really am out of shape.

Despite the pain in my fingers, forearms, and back, I am content. I missed being able to climb every day without having to spend twenty dollars on gas to get to the wall. I missed the excitement of climbing with friends who are as good or better at climbing than I am.  I miss the feel of my fingers blistering, cracking, and even bleeding. I missed the difficulty of the puzzles, the satisfaction of figuring them out, and the final rush as I reach for the last hold.

Climbing is a fun sport, one that sets me free and makes me feel very good. I still have to write about trains, which are the opposite in my book. :(

So... Saturday happened.

Because of a funeral, a train, several friends, and moving back into the dorms at Purdue I have missed two days of posting. Oops.

Saturday morning I was packed and ready to go. My mother and father and I left for Connecticut to attend the funeral of my dad's step-nephew. It feels inappropriate to call him my cousin because I never met him or saw much of that part of my dad's family. The families were joined after both sides had grown up and I don't know exactly how close they were.

The service was nice, but the homily was lacking and one gentleman, while certainly meaning well, talked for far too long about the mother of the deceased. His eulogy seemed to last forever and it was awkward because he didn't seem to know Bobby very well.

We then met up with some old family members, introduced ourselves to everyone, and ate some delicious roast beef. I was invited to stop by one of my step-uncle's house on my planned cross country trip in may. I was offered Texan barbecue, so I really don't think I have a choice anymore.

Later that evening I boarded a train. More on that in a bit.

Friends

I saw an old friend today, incidentally my ex-girlfriend, who was doing very well at her college. This made me think about the problem I have with talking to women. If I am attracted to a girl, it is very hard to talk to them.  But if I know that I am either not interested in dating the subject or just lack the confidence to go for it, I can make small talk very well.  Strange.

Anyway, today's conversation was the first in-person conversation we'd had since we went off to college. We went to two schools very far away and tried to do the long distance thing. From a combination of stresses on both our parts, plus me being very stupid (I was far too attached, it was bad), she broke it off. Honestly, it was for the better.

She was a very hard girl to get over though.  She is kind, intelligent, incredibly beautiful, and easy to talk to. She made my senior year of high school the most fun and exciting year of highschool. She supported me in wrestling (as much as she hated to talk about it) and was became one of my best friends as well as girlfriend. I didn't realize how much I just missed talking with her until today. And while we avoided the elephant in the room today, our break up which I still wish to talk about one day, I am glad we were able to just have a conversation about our lives (sans my interruptions, I tend to do that way too often).

And if you should one day read this, Emily, I want you to know that I am so happy we had that chapter of our lives together. I'm not trying to be creepy, you made that year. I felt alive this past year and experienced more emotions than I ever have, from love to heartbreak. And while it may sound strange, I can only thank you for that opportunity. I wish you the best of life, a happy future, and I hope to hear from you again.

Would I partake in another long distance relationship? I don't think so. Would I advise against a long distance relationship for someone else? I think it depends heavily on who you are, how often you will see the person, and whether or not you have long term plans together.  Its risky, hard, and not fun. But so are breakups. I don't know.  Blah.

Back to School (or "To Infinity and Beyond")

Five months and I will be done my first semester at college. Five months older, five months closer to the end. That was a depressed thought. But I am excited. I am excited that I have the opportunity to pursue my dreams, to reach up and touch the stars, hopefully literally, with my creations. I am an Astronautical and Aeronautical Engineering student, or will be at the end of this semester. I would have to act in the most foolish way possible, beyond my own capability for nonsense, in order to ruin that chance.

I have been told by a very thoughtful eight year old that my dream, to become an astronaut, is a childish dream or a "little boys fantasy."  It very well may be. But somebody has to want to do that. Somebody has to find the way. I don't know why I am so resolved on this. Perhaps it was the wonderful and fantastical shows I watched throughout my years of growing up, or the novels I read. Farscape, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who. All modern remakes or interpretations of the desire for space travel. In the 50's, 60's, and 70's a similar style of show appeared. Star Trek became popular and the original Star Wars trilogy was released.  Maybe I am being dramatic, I do love attempting to be in the lime light, but it seems that history is repeating itself.  Earth is preparing to send her children abroad again. Talks of a Mars expedition are rumored, and other things are seeming to head that way.

The truth of the matter is, however, that getting on a trip to Mars (a safe, well planned trip that is also well funded) seems like a lottery. I want to make space travel efficient, I want to make it desirable, I seek to make space popular in more than just a pop-cultural way.  As much as it hurts the romantic in me to say, I want to make space travel as mundane as taking the highway or a short regional jet to the next city over. Granted it would be more like taking a ship across the atlantic (in terms of time), but by making it mundane and accessible, my dream would be far more likely. And if I do not get to live my dream, hopefully someone with the same or similar dream will be able to live it because of whatever contribution I make.

That is why I am excited to return to Purdue, school of over 20 astronauts. That is why I am excited to return to my studies, however boring they may seem at the time. That is why I am in love with college.

DayZ Overview (Alpha - Solo/Small Group Play)

I have played about 22 hours of DayZ thus far. I have played as of January 8th. These opinions expressed are my own, I am not employed by any developer at the time this was written.

I have a love-hate relationship with DayZ.  I have racked up well over a hundred (probably around 200 if I am honest with myself) in the modification for ARMA II and I have played 22 hours of the Alpha.  The first ten minutes of my game time in the standalone were an adventure I did not expect. I was captured, handcuffed in the Elektrozavodsk power station, and beaten to unconsciousness for not talking (I didn't know the voice chat bind at the time, or the text one).  When I finally figured out how to talk, I was revived, allowed to walk out (still handcuffed), and invited to watch the guys stream and join their team-speak (they felt bad for beating me up). I was shortly after executed along with my new found "friends" by another roaming group of players.  Adventures like this seemed to happen a lot while I relearned DayZ.  Do I like the game? Yes.  Would I recommend the game to a friend? I don't know.

You see, when I play by myself I find it very easy to get geared up, suited up, and well stocked on provisions. I find myself running about, hunting players, and avoiding detection by the aforementioned players and zombies alike. I am a good shot, and I do not die very often.

When I play with friends, things get a bit more hectic once we meet up. If we meet up. When I play with friends, DayZ is, for the first hour or two that I join up with some friends, no longer a zombie survival simulator. It is a cross country simulator. I run, I run, I run some more, and still I cannot find my friends for about 40 minutes. This is either because they are fresh spawns at the coast and I am at the North West or North East airfield, or I am a fresh spawn in the North East and they are down in Balota sniping people because they are psychotic assholes.  Why don't I find a vehicle and repair it? Well, there aren't vehicles in the game yet, which is unfortunate.  

Still, I love the game. I love the constant, unending paranoia that accompanies you once you get geared up, even though it is still really easy to find weapons, ammunition, and gear.  I love the thrill of the hunt, the fear when a new sound is heard, the constant checking in with your buddy(ies), saying "Was that you??" over and over again.  I love the adventure of it, but sometimes the running gets old.

There are a lot of jerks who play, who will simply kill you on sight. Sometimes a stupid thing, like a marauding zombie, will catch you by surprise and kill you, scare the crap out of you, or both.  To my friends, I find it very hard to recommend the game. They watch streams and say "It looks like a lot of running around," which it is.  That isn't the fun of the game, unless you really, really like running but cannot bring yourself to go outside or on a treadmill. The fun is ensuring your survival, attempting to hunt the bigger game that exists, and/or teaming up with completely random strangers who may betray you as soon as they pick up a gun and some ammunition. Or an ax. That has happened too.

Again, I feel that is unfair at this time to issue a "review" of the game. Why? Because it is still in alpha.  There are things that annoy me (RANDOM ZOMBIE NOISES OR COKE CANS BEING OPENED IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE ARE NOT OK. NOT. OK.) and things that will hopefully be fixed. The mod was buggy as hell, I think the alpha is better off.  So here's my recommendation. I would recommend the game to anyone who enjoyed the mod. I'd recommend it to anyone who has a solid set of friends that enjoys playing multiplayer games together. I'd recommend the game to anyone who fancies being a psychopath but would prefer not to actually kill people. Seriously, don't actually kill people. Thanks for reading, and check out the game! It's on steam.

Rust Overview (Alpha - Group Play Point of View)

I have played about 5 hours of Rust thus far. I have played as of January 7th. These opinions expressed are my own, I am not employed by any developer at the time this was written.

Rust has been a lot of fun for me. I played with a group of three or more people for the entire time I played and I played on a "friendly" server. To give you an idea of how friendly, one of the group members attempted to murder someone who he thought was A.F.K.  The man turned and shot him, and then found our camp in order to give him back his stuff. They even gave us supplies.

The game-play is very similar to Minecraft, but the style of player interaction is similar to DayZ.  You harvest resources to make it so that you can survive the night and you can place beds which, like Minecraft, are a re-spawn point that will allow you to spawn back in a 'safe' place should you die. Note it is glitched and won't always work, but after a few suicides it is possible to re-spawn in the right place.  However, I have found that the map is relatively small which is not a bad thing: meeting up with friends takes minutes not hours.  Other considerations for survival however clothing as well as food to be comfortable, you can starve or bleed to death or die of a radiation overdose. These are very "DayZ" ish attributes.  There also exists a very strong emphasis on crafting: every useful tool or device in the game can be crafted from raw materials you find out and about in the world.

But Rust is its own thing as well.  The art is still lacking as the game is in Alpha, but the developers have effectively captured the feeling of a post apocalyptic waste land.  The radiation is immediately noticeable, audio and visual clues let you know when you are in a dangerous land. And while zombies or other hostile critters (bears/wolves) sometimes pop up out of nowhere, there are usually good indicators that these creatures are around (groans, howls, etc.). There is a Day to Night cycle, a cycle that can kill you if you are unprepared. The predatory creatures seem to appear even more suddenly at night, though really its just hard to see well without a torch and that means putting away your weapon (if you don't have a flashlight mod yet). You will get cold and it felt as if you got hungrier more quickly if you were cold, but maybe that was a trick of my imagination.

I think the most important feature of the game is the ability to craft anything. The game allows you to craft anything you can find (or reverse engineer) a recipe for, including shotguns, assault rifles, radiation suits, house components, bullets, and more.  These recipes do not go away if your character dies, meaning that it is very easy to start over again, you just have to make the resources required for the weapon, tool, or building you wish to design.  The one draw back to crafting is that you move much slower, you cannot always move away from a designated area (you need to be within range of a crafting bench for advanced recipes), and the crafting time can be very long with some parts take a minute or more per unit that you make. Big structures could take over an hour just to make the parts, let alone gathering the vast amount of resources required to construct such a building.

This is where my experience could have been very boring and a turn off. However, I played with a group so that while I was crafting I usually had one or two (and sometimes 3) people off gathering resources or protecting our area from the occasional jerk who wanted to KOS some newer players.   Overall, my experience was positive. Finally, this is an overview, not a review, since the game is not in its 'final' form.  I feel it would be unfair to rate the game yet, so these are my comments about what I liked. There wasn't much to dislike and most of what really bugged me were glitches which will hopefully be fixed in coming additions. I hope you enjoyed this and if this game intrigues you, check it out on Steam!

Things that are fun

I have found a new fun thing to do with my friends:

Well, two.

One is cast Dota games. I'm not very good, by which I mean I confuse or mix up terms ("they are going top! wait, no, bot"), but I am trying to get better. I have found a great resource with plenty of old matches for people to cast and with a couple new ones each day. Its very fun, very easy, and very rewarding.

The other thing is the game Rust. It is like DayZ and Minecraft had a baby and it was a bit ugly and in the source engine. However, just because it is a bit ugly and buggy doesn't mean it is terrible. Actually, it is a hell of a lot of fun. The map feels a lot smaller than DayZ Chernarus and you can build or craft anything. Guns, parts for houses, scopes, attachments, bunker parts, and eventually vehicles will be added.  It is currently in alpha and definitely worth a checkout. I'll be talking about it more in the future for sure.

A thought or two

Here are a few thoughts.

Bagels
Salmon
Delicious

What else do I talk about. Should I get into StarCraft? I don't think so, only because it is a game that will likely take all of my already limited time. I tend to get obsessed when I want to buy games.

Blah. Thats all for now.

The Power of 10 Seconds

A lot of things can happen in 10 seconds and as such I have been thinking deeply about the power of 10 seconds.  What can you do in 10 seconds?

Some thoughts:
A rap
Eat a cookie
Shotgun a beverage
Say "I love you"
Say "I can't love you"
Say some other nice and un-nice things
Be a BAMF
Hug your mother
Win the lottery
Play 20 questions with someone who knows you too well

I don't know. Today is a list type of day. Also another post will follow to make up for yesterday. Oops.

I done goofed...

And completely forgot to post yesterday. So today's topic is procrastination!

Why do I procrastinate? I haven't done my laundry (folded it) in about a week, I have not cleaned up the area around my desk. I have not been rock climbing or excersiced, I have not been sleeping.

I think the problem is I lack the motivation to do these things. When I sleep late, I wake up and feel the day has been wasted already so that I might as well continue wasting time. Its a nasty cycle that I should be proactive about. Last night I started to reverse things, which is probably why I forgot to post because I decided to just go to bed rather than stay up any later. I actually woke up before noon, but then I procrastinated again. Blah.

So, how do I combat procrastination? Usually just getting off my arse and moving helps. Getting out and doing the things that need to be done is the "easiest" solution, though getting there is hard. I hope that after I am done this post I will head on over and pick up my laundry and fold it. Like, really, it needs to be done. I'm sick of the baskets lying about my room. Also not having clothes in easily accessible places is a pain.

Here's to no more procrastination (ha...) and a productive evening!

Also, rockclimbing tomorrow. WOOO!

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues Review

Because I saw this movie this evening I'd like to express my thoughts on this film.

It wasn't great. That being said, it wasn't bad either.  I didn't laugh as much as I thought I would, partially because I was too young for many of the jokes, partially because I was expecting it to live up entirely to the laughs I had with the first Anchorman. I went in expecting a silly sequel that would be hard sell, and I walked out feeling like I hadn't wasted my time with that movie.

I really enjoyed the cast, many of whom are former or current SNL crew members and the constant social commentary on the current state of news made me chuckle with every gag.  The movie was over the top, campy, and just plain ridiculous. It felt like I was watching SNL because each scene was basically a sketch, each sketch being part of the larger fabric of the movie.  I particularly enjoyed the "cruise control" gag early on in the film.

If I knew more about film I would be able to go into more depth without giving spoilers, but alas I am a plebian. Also, the turn over of the day approaches for the blog, so I need to get this entry in! Hoozah! Long live Ron Swanson!