"Oh, you really think the pilot is controlling this plane? That would really scare me."

Oh look, I didn't update in forever, again. Who cares?

Ehm, after glancing over the previous entry it looks like I have a bit to catch up on.

I did end up taking summer courses at ERAU, so I was away from Indiana for over a year. In the first half of summer I travelled to Japan for study abroad, more can be seen about that awesome trip over here.

Second half of summer was normal coursework back in Daytona. I took Environmental Science to finish up my physical science requirements and Drugs in Society to help finish up my Human Factors minor. I have no idea how I passed Drugs in Society, it was a class cleary geared for Human Factors majors who had actually spent time studying the subject. I was probably the lowest scorer in the class, but thankfully the professor understood my situation and gave me a nice curve up to a B.

All this time Mike started living with me at my apartment. He had graduated in the spring and was working at Sanford International until the FAA hired him. He would get his interview letter in the second half of summer, and then spend much of the fall at the Academy, leaving the apartment to myself. Around Thanksgiving he moved to his assigned facility.

For myself, in the fall I started my final semester at ERAU. I had finally gotten my GPA up to my graduation goal of over 2.6 after years of struggling. Never-the-less, I was determined to improve it further before I left. Unfortunately, the classes I chose for my final semester didn't turn out to be as easy as I thought they'd be. In fact, they were the exact opposite. All I really had to do was finish up my Human Factors credits and take the required Aviation Law course. To this end I enrolled in Human Factors in Aviation Safety and Aviation Law. Both turned out to be heavy in coursework with very difficult exams. For my HF group project I spent hours putting together information and data to end up with probably the most detailed part of the project. Our group did very well and was undoubtebly the best group of the class in the end.

My other two classes were Air Cargo Management and Aircraft Crash Investigation. Aircraft Crash Investigation was pretty fun and interesting. The tests required that I study a fair amount for them, which was new to me, since I usually can just sponge up information in class. I ended up leading the group project for that class, although I don't feel I did a very good job of it. Air Cargo Management was supposed to be an easy elective just to fill credits, right up until the professor on the first day said those who took this class to fill electives would likely fail. He wasn't kidding, this was probably my hardest class while at Riddle. However, I did put in the effort, especially after having to babysit my group project (and rewriting most of my group member's parts because of their junior high level grammar). The final project in that class, a 12 page research paper, I spent several nights at the library and at home piecing together. The result was probably my finest work in college, although its a bit dry (its a brief description on the layout and design of air cargo terminals).

And so the days of university quickly dwindelled and as December rolled around it began to dawn on me that I was finally going to graduate. I graduated alongside my former roomate and friend Greg, and 48 hours later was back home in Indiana. Of course, then my problems began.

I had yet to take my FAA ATSAT, which is a pre-employment test required of all CTI graduates and anyone else hoping to become an air traffic controller. Finally I was notified of my test date in March, except the test location was back in Daytona. So I boarded a plane and flew down, spending the night in my friend Matt's dorm on campus before heading over to the test location in the morning. Several other test takers that day were acquantices from school, so that helped settle my nerves. We were given a maximum of 8 hours to take the test, I believe I finished in 4 even with my breaks. It was very difficult, but I was confident of how I did (although still nervous at the same time). About a month later I recieved my scores. I opened the letter to find I had scored a 94.5 out of 100. To say I was happy with that is an understatement.

Litterally minutes after opening my test score I submitted my application to the FAA online. They had started using a new system called ASAP, I would soon find the irony is such a name, as it would take 3 long months for them to finally contact me about where I would have my interview. So yesterday I recieved the e-mail about that. As all the Pre-employment processing centers are too far away for me to justify attending, I've decided to take the longer process of local employment processing. It may in the end be shorter then going to the PEPC in Memphis since the date for that is 2 months from now. So, thats where I stand now.

Oh, and I've requested employment in the state of Washington. Once I recieve my academy date I'll drive to Oklahoma, do my six weeks at the academy, and then head straight to my facility in Washington. So I've decided to leave Indiana for good, aside from coming back to visit. I think Washington is the perfect place for me and I want to try living somewhere completely new again (this will be the third time I've done that).

Finally, the closest thing I have to a regularly updated blog or journal is really my Flickr account. It won't give an exact description of my life, but I'm sure you can judge from my pictures what I'm up to.

Later.

"Spartans: the finest soldiers the world has ever known. "

I saw I hadn't posted here in over a year while I was setting up another blog here at Blogger. Figured I'd throw in a little update, although I'm not going to cover an entire year worth of material.

Sat down and watched a bunch of movies this weekend. First I watched The Untouchables over at Mike's. I found it pretty enjoyable, Andy Garcia really suprised me. I thought he was just great, running all over, looking for anything to shoot. 1930's Chicago was a pretty amazing place, makes me wonder which side I would have taken, the cops or the gangsters.

Right after watching The Untouchables we went and saw 300. Needless to say, that was a damn good movie. Me and Mike have been waiting for a long time to see that. The Battle of Thermopylae is an incredible story, and I know the movie wasn't spot on accurate, but its a movie not a documentory. Hopefully people will want to learn more about the actual battle and realize just what the Spartans did for our world. They really were, and still are, the finest soldiers the world has ever known.

Yesterday afternoon I was at Mike's again doing laundry so I popped in The Departed to pass the time. I've got to say that I was really impressed. It was a very enjoyable movie, I really loved the banter between the troopers throughout story. I have to admnit though, the ending really ruined it for me. I felt like they switched writers right at the last moment. Still, I'll give it 4 out of 5 chimichangas.

As far as whats been going on in the past year...hmm. Worked for my dad all summer and built myself a new computer. When I came back to Daytona I moved into an apartment near campus. I'm going to be living here until I graduate. First semester was all right. I expected it to be super difficult considering I had both my last math class and chemistry with a lab. It took some work but I ended up with a C in math, thus finishing math for the rest of my life. I really surprised myself in Chemistry, I thought I really sucked at it considering the grades I got in high school. Turns out I grasped it a lot better then most of the class. I ended up helping out my lab partner and others quite a bit. Earned myself a solid B in that class.

Went home for winter break and saw my cousin Alyssa get married. It was a pretty happy occasion and I'm genuinly happy for her and Jon. Due to the Christmas tornado that demolished our flight line and several buildings on campus, school was delayed for a week. When I returned to school and started the semester I was amazed at the level of teamwork and determination I found around campus as everyone got things back in order and functioning.

Second semester looks like it shouldn't be too hard. I'm finishing up my ATC major by taking both AT405 Memphis Center and AT315 Eagle Tower at the same time. This means a fair amount of workload on my part but its nothing I can't handle. I'm also taking Airport Safety and Security: Ground Operations, U.S. Military History 1900-Present, and Basic Web Design. After considering my options I've decided to minor in Human Factors, mostly because its only two extra classes.

This summer I'll be staying in Daytona and taking summer classes. I won't be able to graduate in the summer unfortunately because Aviation Law is only offered in the Fall and Spring semesters. However, I did apply for a study abroad program. The chances are slim, but if I'm accepted, I'll be spending a month in Niigata Japan studying Japanese language and culture. I'm both excited and scared to death about this opportunity. I've never travelled internationally aside from Canada (which I consider my second home country anyway) so its a bit nerve wracking. I do however, see this as an important opportunity to increase my maturity and confidence. So, if I'm accepted I'll won't hold back and will do my best to overcome any fears I may have.

Umm, I guess that sums it all up. Only other thing I can think of is that I got a job when I first came back to school in the Fall. I've been working for the school as a computer lab assistant. Its a pretty boring job but it does allow me to help people from time to time, and thats enjoyable.

Later.

" I don't know, I'm making this up as I go."

Yeah, slow times 'round these parts. The weather is great though.

Last week skipped a class on Friday and went to the shooting range with a couple of the guys. Shot a pistol and a rifle for the first time. I've always wanted to get into range shooting but never really had anyone to teach me. My buddy Mike is a certified range safety officer and is heavy into military surplus shooting, so he's really helped me along. After firing his 03A3 Springfield a few times I was hooked.

So there's this rifle I've been interested in for about a year now. It's called the Schmidt-Rubin K-31. Its a Swiss rifle from the 1930s thru 1950s. The straight bolt and Swiss design grabbed my attention the first time I saw it. I literally fell in love with it. Its quite affordable too. Prices range from $90 to $200. So this week I finally bit the bullet (pun most definitely intended) and went to the Florida Gun Exchange to order my K31. Price is a bit higher then I expected, but thats because I paid for an "Excellent" condition rifle. I'm not sure when it will arrive but hopefully its before spring break. Now I've got to start buying all the accsories for it.

Finally, over the past few weeks I've been dwelving through some of the excellent asian art books I have. As of late my inspiration to draw has returned. College had effectively taken away interest in art, especially since this school offers no drawing or painting classes whatsoever. This also meant the style in which I drew became so simplified that it was basically cartoon to the max (kawaii anyone?). So, using examples from the artbooks to redevelop techniques, and some practice, I pumped out a drawing of a character I've had floating around in my head. I'm happy with the line art, now I'm just stuck on colors. If anyone (if anyone reads this) has any ideas on what colors to use, let me know. Mostly they just can't be blues or black. Anyway, I'll end with the linart.

"Aim careful, and look the devil in the eye. "

Been a while, eh? Let's see if I can sum up about the last 2 months.

Ended up doing alright in all my classes. Mostly C's and a B. Mostly just glad to get that semester the hell over with. Nothing more boring then general ed. Then I went back home for winter break. Spent time with the family, got to see my dog, tolerated the cats, turned 21. The best part about being home was that I got to spend a little time with my friends, high quality time. Even managed to earn some dough working. Seemed like break was over before I knew it and I was back on a plane to Florida. Thats alright though, I was happy to get back.

The new semester is interesting. Finally back in an Air Traffic Control class. As usual its pretty challenging, but so far I'm averaging a solid A. Also started work on my minor which is going to be Space Studies. Pretty interesting, and somewhat boring, course material. This last week I had 4 tests. I beleive the end result was 3 A's and a B. 100 out of 100 on the math test much to my utter astonishment.

Free time seems to be nill these days. We haven't had time for paintballing at all. No time to go to the shooting range either. Both are planned for next weekend but who knows what will happen between here and then. One thing we did have time for was some races. With speedweeks going on things are pretty hectic in Daytona, but one should always find time for a race or two. Especially when something as high quality as the Grand Am is in town. We went to the Grand Am Cup and the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona.

The rest of the photos can be found right about here. I had good fun taking the shots, so much fun in fact, that I decided it was high time to upgrade my camera. So after some research on what was best for my specific camera, I ended up with this:

What you see is the base camera, which I've had for about a year now, its a Fujifilm S7000. Attached is what I bought, a 55mm Adapter Tube, a UV Filter, and an Olympus TCON-17 Teleconverter. The TCON gives me 1.7x zoom, increasing my effective optical zoom from 6x to 10.2x. Good stuff.

I built my brother a computer. No just any computer, the most amazing computer I've ever seen. Found that building a computer system (once all the proper research is done) can be quite fun. Needless to say its a fast machine. Fastest computer I've ever seen, and thats exactly what I built it for. Parts list looks something like...

AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 Processor

ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard (best mobo EVER!)

eVGA Geforce 7800GT 256mb PCI-Express Graphics Card

Antec 550W Power Supply

1 Stick of Corsair 1 gig DDR RAM

Western Digital 250 gig Serial ATA Hard Drive

Anyway, thats just the main components. Its a very nice machine, I'm rather proud of it. Pity I forgot to take pictures of it.

Well, I think thats everything I can really remember to say about the last couple months. Getting ready soon to start looking into whats going on next year what with living arrangements and so forth. Yeah, definitely gonna do the apartment thing. Just need a roomate I'm not going to kill. But other then that, times are good. Weather could be warmer but s'all good.

Later.

"I swear to God, if I even feel somebody behind me, there is no measure to how fast and how hard I will bring this fight to your doorstep. I'm on my own side now."

Well its Thanksgiving, and I'm in Florida. See, flying home is expensive, and about a week or two after Thanksgiving break is Winter break, so flying home is pretty dumb. So I sit around here on an empty campus for 5 or 6 days and relax. Sure, it get a little lonely, but being able to relax is well worth it after the last couple weeks. As for T-day dinner I just walk over to the Tallman Commons buffet. They serve up a nice all you can eat Thanksgiving meal. I don't eat a whole lot of it though, not real big on the traditional food. As for food for the rest of the week, since the buffet is the only place open all week, I went grocery shopping at Walmart. Alas the choices were limited since I only have a microwave to cook.

The new Battlefield 2 Expansion pack came out, along with it came a new patch for the normal version. As I found out for myself, this new patch, once installed, took up about 3 gigs of harddrive space. This required me to go through my hard drive once again and clean it out. The patch isn't too impressive. The new unlockable weapons are nice...for the new kids. Those of us that have been around a while can't earn unlocks every day, its just too many points between the higher ranks. The new ranking adjustment some predicted didn't occur either. So pretty much the patch added weapons, and left all the old bugs.

About a week or so ago I bought an "el cheapo" game called Strike Fighters: Project One. It didn't used to be el cheapo, but a screwed up release by its publisher caused many folks to dislike it initially, thus earning it a solid place in the bargain bin. True fans though saw it for what it was and bought the fixed version. So what is it? Basically a realistic and fun combat flight simulator that centers on the cold war era. However, it was released with the intent that it would be heavily modified by the fan community into whatever they desired. Add to that the creator's undying support for the game, no less then 5 updates have been released, each adding more content and another is in the works. This game came upon me at a time when I was craving a combat flight sim that I could customize. Anyway, I seriously give this thing a 5 out of 5. I'm not even kidding.

"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."

Bleh, Mondays blow.

Weekend summary then some actual useful stuff. I'm currently not working on a project rough draft which is due in the morning. Heh.

Saturday night we hit up Deland but the place was dead. Yeah...that was Saturday, exciting.

Sunday we went and played paintball. We just had 4 guys so it was 2 on 2. Me and Mike (the Irishman) dominated both rounds. First round Mike got one guy then laid down covering fire on the other while I ran full sprint for a flank. Got around the side and landed some shots, great fun.

Typical Monday today, woke up feeling like absolute crap. Took a lot of energy to go to class. Napped all afternoon.

Wow...why did I even bother writing all that? I could've just said I did nothing all weekend and today. Regardless, moving on with something different.

Finished acquiring a new anime series. As to how I would acquire it refer to the title of this particular Blogspot.

The series in question is titled Area 88. Its a remake of another series which was made back in the early-mid 80's. As far as the original series goes I've read that it was pretty good, pity it was never released on DVD or brought to the States. As usual its all based on a Manga, one which I'm not too fond of because of its character design style. Anyway, I'm off track, this is a review of the new series as a whole.

All characters in the new series recieved a facelift. The main character, Shin, retained his..."interesting" 80's anime hair style, but at least he doesn't look like a woman anymore. All the aircraft are done in 3D with a cartoon texture style applied. It comes off very well. Animations on characters is kinda weak. A lot of the 80's styles are retained there, I found myself thinking of G.I. Joe a lot. The air battles on the other hand are something else. The aircraft are depicted very well in the air, they have a sense of weight and balance that can be lost in 3D animation.

Storyline wise (I won't go into any of the details, at all) the story retells the 80's series as far as I can tell. Certain characters are given more wieght while others lose some. Overall the story doesn't come off too predictable. The mini-stories throughout are well thought out too.

My personal favorite parts of the series are the aerial combat sequences. Now, those who know me are thinking "of course" but bear with me. For a little known anime series the dogfights are really realistic. The things the pilots do make a lot of sense and almost replicate what their real world counterparts would do. Plus the series mixes in some great techno beat music that help drive the combat.

In the end I think Area 88 is a decent anime series. I'd like to see more of it, especially since the quality was improving toward the end of the series. While its not the greatest series ever, I believe it deserves space on my hard drive more-so then Gundam Seed Destiny, that might not be saying much though.

"I love a woman who can kick my ass."

How about a weekend report? Okay.

Friday afternoon we went and saw Jarhead. Interesting movie, I'm glad it did a better job of telling the story then the book supposedly did. Some parts seemed a little foggy on whether or not they could have been true. Overall it seemed like a good account of life for a soldier in the Gulf War. I think its worth seeing just so people understand more what life is like for the soldiers.

After we got back from the movie Jeff and Ryan invited us to go out to Deland with them. So we tagged along to the club and bar. Half Times (the club) sucked, never liked the place anyway. The Blue Martini (the bar) was awesome, by the end of the night it was packed with chicks. Ryan got wicked drunk and Jeff and to take him back home in Matt's RSX. 5 minutes down the road Ryan threw up. Matt and the two freshmen that tagged along got buzzed so once Jeff got back I drove Jeff's truck back with the freshmen. Laughed at Ryan when we got back, he was passed out in his bed covered in puke.

The next morning we got up early (early being 11am) and went out to a paintball field Jeff and Matt had found for us. When we got there the Scenario Paintball Team was there playing. They invited us to join them so we did. They kicked our asses. They had radios and lots of long range guys, within 30 seconds of contact they had us surrounded. It was good fun though, and we offered to be their OPFOR (opposing force) on Saturdays to help them practice. Played a few more rounds with some Scenario and Tourney kids. I had a perfect sniping position and was about to lay down some paint on the other team when I pull the trigger and nothing happened. I had run out of CO2. My backup tank ran out of air the next round too. Oh well.

The rest of the weekend was spent lazing about. I should have done lots of homework on Sunday but just couldn't bring myself to do it. Right now I'm in 3 simultaneous group projects. This is my punishment for taking an 18 credit semester of General Education classes. Of course 2 of them are due before Thanksgiving Break. I don't know why teachers are so damned obsessed with making everything due then, its really stressful on all the students.

Thats all.

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a most painful death."

Quicky update, I mean it this time.

First, the Black Pearl has been entered in a sailing race by Disney. No word on whether she's captained by Mr. Sparrow or not. Courtesy of my sis Jenn, always on top of important world news.

Second, big news. I'm a hypocrite. But just this once. Turns out I actually like watching the Harry Potter movies. I've watched all three this week, just finished watching the third tonight. Even popped popcorn for it. Now if I could just find someone down here to go to the 4th one with me.

I'm still not reading the damn books though.

Lastly, here's a sloppy, belated, halloween sketch.

"Oh, and by the way, I don't get my skills from a pocketwatch."

Short update today.

I recieved my first ever care package in the 3 years I've been at college. Horrible parents? No, I actually told them I didn't want care packages sent. Reason being that 90% of a care package is non-healthy food, which, if it is within my immediate area and I'm bored, will be consumed at an alarming rate. In fact, I don't even keep snacks in my dorm room.

Now, the real update, tech stuff.

You'll take note that at the bottom of my blog rests my latest HTML accomplishment. This is a forum sig from tehsig which contains nearly up-to-date information on my Battlefield 2 status. Integrating a forum sig into blog HTML was interesting to say the least. Also, thanks to the customization built into the coding of the sig, it does this neat thing where the background image is random based off a series I created for it. Fun stuff.


Secondly, and possibly last if I don't think of anything else before I'm done typing this paragraph, is the Greatest Keyboard EVER. It uses, or will use, OLEDs to change the image which appears on every key. Why is this useful? Because it can be set up so that when you open a program the keys will display the special functions attached to them by the program. This is most useful for gaming, also for keyboard shortcut intensive programs like Photoshop or 3DS Max. I've already got some ideas floating around of what I'm gonna do with this baby when i get one, hehehe. Now all they have to do is actually produce the damn thing.

Lastly (yeah I thought of something) the problems which have been plaguing BF2 as of late turned out to be the Punkbuster update. Apparently the auto update process was not working correctly. This hasn't solved some of my issues though, so they remain classified as either video card or 1.03 patch problems. My guess on the reason the PB update was causing trouble was because of the hordes of goddamn fucking cheating ass bitches it had to vanquish.

5 shots, 5 kills. It takes skill, not an aimbot.

I don't especially expect anyone to get todays quote, its not from a movie. Not that anyone guessed on any of the previous ones anyway.

"Definitely, mostly not about the girl."

Long weekend, literally. After the absolute longest 3 day school week in history we finally got our homecoming weekend which so perfectly coincides with Halloween. Friday was Jesse's Halloween party, which was fun till it got broken up. Saturday I didn't do a whole lot. Slept forever till the airshow woke me up. Accomplished nothing the rest of the day as far as I can remember.

Finally Sunday. Dragged my ass out of bed around 11 to go take pictures of some of the airshow acts from on top of the College of Aviation building. Got some decent shots, wonky cloud cover made lighting a bitch. Overall the airshow was vastly disappointing. I feel bad for anyone who actually made the full $20 for admittance. It was mostly aerobatic and wing walking acts which, if you've seen one you've seen them all. Pity since the ramp was full of static military displays and we only got to see one military jet in the air.

Watching Constantine right now. Decent movie, funny lines actually. Too bad I had to go to IMDB to actually know what they said half the time. That can be mostly blamed on Riddle Vision's terrible sound quality.

EA's latest BF2 patch has finally reared its ugly head on the rest of the community. It seems I may be right about a long term issue with the patch since the forums are now alight with players reporting crashes and other general mayhem.

Lastly, as was the case with my former blog, all blog titles are quote from movies. Guess the movie if you dare, this one is insanely easy.

That's all, have a safe Halloween and be nice to the little kids.

Shockwave blows smoke

Boom

USAF Heritage Flight

"You know you're on the path to truth when you smell shit, isn't that what they say?"

Good lord its been a while since I touched one of these things. Myspace was without a doubt too much high school drama to use as a decent blog. Its not that I have a whole lot to say these days, just that its nice to have a place to turn to when I want to type something out publicly. Whether its a review, political rant, or just a general journal entry. That being said, lets get started.

The nice and expensive video card I bought this summer with my hard earned cash is overheating within 5 minutes of playing any of the latest games. The exact games I bought the video card to play. After cracking the case and checking things out the conclusion is that the thermal contact between the heat sink and the video card is bad. This means I have to get some thermal paste and apply it to the card between the heat sink and the card. Not something I'm looking forward to. Add to that Battlefield 2's latest errors and crashes which seem to be manifesting on more then just my own computer.

Speaking of Battlefield 2 (segway usage, 10 point bonus, w00t), a week or so ago EA announced a team competition for the game. The final winners will get $20,000 in prizes. Why does this matter in the least bit? Lately my squad (former roomates the German, and the Irishman, and then me) have been grabbing top scores in all the rounds we play. Too bad the team competition is 8 man(or woman if you wish) teams. Course, as I said, with the crashes and errors manifesting themselves in BF2 lately, who knows if we could even play the game for the tournament. I beleive its longterm problems related with the latest 1.03 patch.

Enough tech talk. Hurricane Wilma cancelled classes Monday. Daytona experianced rain and wind in the morning and just wind the rest of the day. The temperature dropped almost 30 degrees. It stayed low today, the temp didn't seem to exceed 60. Very cold when you're used to 80 at the least. The day off of class let me complete my Excell Project, just in time to get started on my next Tech Report Writing project. The scores for my math exam came back today as well. I scored 111% and was labelled a "curve breaker" thus earning me the hatred of anyone with a bad score. Undoubtedly the best score of any math exam I've taken...ever. The extra 11% will come in handy on later tests.

Finally, saw the Doom movie last weekend. For an action movie, its alright. For a movie based on a game, its actually pretty good. My major complaint is that "The Rock" is in it. He should be banned from movies for very obvious reasons. So basically, if you're bored and feel like an action movie, see Doom. Otherwise, avoid it at all costs.

That is all, maybe sketches in the next post.