Here’s a thought: We all know the song “Santa’s Comin’ To Town.”  Suppose you make it to the “good” list.  What happens if you were “naughty” between the time he leaves The North Pole and arrives at your place?

This semester was a brand-new start for me.  For starters, I started living by myself in a one-bed, one-bath apartment.  Although it is pretty quiet, I miss my friends that I met in the dorms.  Secondly, I am adapting to the brand-new field I jumped into: Power.  It was a leap of faith for me that I started learning this completely new field, but little did I know that it would be a key to job stability.  As for my grades, they’re nothing to brag about.  I received a C in History, but I still put up a good, although frustrating, fight.  This was particularly frustrating because I did all the reading and my study buddies thought I was very well-rehearsed on the topics.

During the Power Systems Engineering final, someone stole my bike.  Trust me… things got really awkward when the professor caught a glance of me talking to the cop.

Thus far, I’ve spent the semester working on my family’s computers, meeting up with friends, and simply recharging myself to capacity for next semester.

In the midst of everybody losing their composure, I am, once again, perfectly calm.  After I finish this entry, I’m writing my paper on wind power (it blows… har har har) and continuing with my studying.

History?!

During the semester, I have been doing all my reading and I can recall a lot of information.  Yet, I have been getting Cs on my all-essay tests.  During the tests, I write practically nonstop.  To gain a better understanding of the situation, I visited the TA on Friday.  Unfortunately, that was counterproductive as I left more ticked off because they appear to just want regurtitation of information and little sense of organization.  I ran into one of my colleagues while checking out the synchrophasor stuff Professor Mack Grady just finished setting up, and he echoes my sentiment.

My ability to maintain my composure seemed incredible at the time, but as soon as the final is over, I’m selling those books and ensuring those blue books are taken care of like company top trade secrets.

Funny Pics

Also on Friday, I spent the evening with some friends at a barbecue.  On the way back, I noticed that a storefront has this painted: “If it’s in stock, we’ve got it!”  My car trip today involved taking a picture of this:

My challenge to you: Devise something to contradict this statement.  Now for something not so obvious:

I found the typo on the receipt after I went to the Asian food mart to get this sauce.  I shall refrain from making jokes here…

I pulled one of those rare all-nighters last night.  A good bit of my family accompanied my cousin to San Marcos for some midnight shopping.  Although we arrived at around 12, it was (obviously) a madhouse at the mall and about a quarter-mile radius.  As we looked for parking, we saw the fatal efficiency of families as some minivans were halfway-filled.  Still, I saw plenty of order amidst the chaos.  I got myself some shirts to diversify my line of clothing.

In four hours, I reached a point I never knew existed: I got weary of shopping.  One of the members in the group decided to go into a Bath and Body Works outlet.  It was particularly awkward because my group was all guys, and we were the only guys inside the store.  After a few more stores of nothing, there was finally a consensus to go home.

While my job search has not turned up much, I am still hopeful as I still have one semester left and I had a spectacular interview with a company.  For every question he had, I had an answer and an experience to share.  The interviewer also had a few things to relate to me.  All in all, I see a friendly and structured work environment, and I feel that this company would be a great fit for me.

Speaking of “spectacular,” this month of solar car team work has been exactly that.  For starters, we got the car rolling on its own power again, in time for an outreach event at San Antonio and to show off to our biggest sponsor, Samsung.  We even peer-pressured Professor Hallock (our wonderful faculty advisor) into taking a lap in it!

During the course of a month or so, our Blackboard system had a survey asking what operating system we use.  I noticed today that the survey is now closed with this snippet: “The operating system poll is now closed, the Linux/UNIX user’s [sic] have won.  You can turn off the automated scripts now.”  A screenshot is below:

With my left hand on the Bible and my right hand raised, I voted only once (hence the title).  For better accuracy, they should’ve kept track of the EIDs that voted.

As some of y’all may know, I had a pretty uneventful 21st birthday.  This time around, I made up for it somewhat.  I started off the day working with the solar car team for some community outreach.  I proceeded to rest up during the afternoon and have dinner in the evening.  Here are just a few pictures my two friends took:

To the glee of those who resent football because for its resource-hogging ways, we lost to Texas Tech by a very, very slim margin.  I know some people who would like to be able to drive to campus just to study, access labs, etc.  Perhaps some of y’all can provide them with suggestions.  In any event, I did no studying or homework today, which means that I should be well-rested enough to do a lot over the course of this week to make up for that.

My job search has begun in earnest.  Thus far, I’ve had interviews with National Instruments and Oncor Electric Delivery.  I found the interview with Oncor more two-way in that they were able to relate to some of the things I talked about, like reducing email overhead and wishing that I had my degree when hurricane Ike hit (because then I could be in one of those convoys heading towards Houston to help bring power back to the area).

I woke up at 6 in the morning on Thursday to go to Professor Mack Grady’s renewable energy workshop.  I sat right next to the person I interviewed with, and I was one of the only undergrads at the conference during that time.  I really wished a proctor swapped shifts with me because then I could stay for the entire conference, but I still got a good bit during the two hours of talks.  In particular:

• Wind generation capacity is currently outpacing transmission capacity.
• If we were to plot the oil we used between years 0 and 2500 CE, oil would look like a small blip in history.  Being a finite resource, this emphasizes the importance of seeking alternative means to power our world.
• Plug-in hybrids and “smart grids” received mentions.

For today’s state of the economy, “The Difficult Financial Times” seems quite viable as a publication title.  Ever since I started watching Wall Street, I have never seen such a drop as I’ve seen today: 777.68 whoppin’ points!  This, apparently, was because the House of Representatives rejected the bailout deal composed this weekend.

What do I think of the bailout package?  Well, after some deliberation, here’s an idea I’d like to present: For those with homes in verge of foreclosure, the owner can continue to make monthly payments on the principal while the government makes the interest payments.  This is almost like the subsidized loans that college students see.  This way, the government bails out Main Street AND Wall Street at the same time.

I am also concerned about the Chinese economy.  Some of you may recall the pet food recall from 2007 in which some Chinese manufacturers tainted the pet food with melamine to make the food appear to have more protein.  This caused thousands of pets to perish.  This year, melamine crept its way into the human food supply in the form of milk powder.  Without a doubt, this is a vagrant violation of trust, and China could face some tough times if companies start pulling out and making their operations domestic again.  A company doing this could earn some good PR, and this PR involves the company fulfilling its “social responsibility,” the company being patriotic, the company providing jobs to the people, etc.

Monday: a restaurant’s message sign said, “We’re so cheap, Lehman Brothers shareholders can eat here!”

Friday: Apparently, someone had a little bit too much fun with a label maker:

To transition into what many call “real life,” I decided to go out and get my own apartment.  This means three things:

1. I have more bills to keep track of and pay every month
2. I will be cooking for myself instead of going downstairs for a all-you-care-to-eat deal every night
3. I have more space!

My place is located in North Campus (away from all the parties — I need my beauty sleep on the weekends) and has a gas stove and oven!  I am particularly excited about that because gas ranges are hard to come by for some reason, and I’ve always loved gas-powered stoves.  Here are a couple of pictures of my new apartment:

As you can see in the picture of my kitchen, there is NO microwave.  Let’s see how long I can survive without one.
AT&T hell, Time Warner Heaven

I wanted to get dry-loop DSL from At&T for the apartment, but it turned out to be one of the biggest travesties in the flurry of settling down in the apartment. It all started on Monday (Aug. 18) when I moved in.  I called AT&T to check on the status of my order.  Even though I properly input all the data in the online form, my order was missing my apartment number because someone actually has to put that data in and may have missed it.  After an hour on hold, I supposedly had that fixed and everything was set to come on Friday, the 22nd.  Meanwhile, I picked up a DSL modem from Best Buy.  Friday rolled around and I plugged that bad boy in.  Unfortunately, the red DSL light taunted me all day as it sat there, blinking, saying “Ha ha!  You do not have Internet service!”

I called back Monday to find out what is going on to determine my next course of action.  After 60 minutes of holds and transfers, the system hang me up.  I proceeded to call back to cancel the order.  The rep proceeded to suggest that my line may need repair, so I gave that a go.  Unfortunately, the system disconnected me again, and I approached my breakdown point as I called back to (definitely) cancel.  I was close to sobbing as I told the rep that I do not have infinite cell phone minutes or time and that I had it with the transfers, disconnects, etc. as I told him my entire story.  Needless to say, he was convinced that he needs to cancel my order… nothing more, nothing less.

Right afterwards, I headed to Time Warner Cable’s office to establish my new account.  I waited for about 30 minutes in line, spent about 10 minutes with a rep, got my modem, and drove home.  As soon as I plugged in the modem, I was up and running after 15 minutes on the phone.  GOOD JOB, TIME WARNER!

What AT&T did a good job of was checking back on me every couple minutes.  Nevertheless, I believe that telecom companies should have some sort of local presence for people to turn to.

Camera Disassembly

While at Grand Teton National Park with my family, I dropped my Canon PowerShot S3 IS right on the retracting lens assembly.  A secondary impact broke the LCD screen.  Fortunately, my parents brought their camera with them, and I continued taking pictures using that.  After settling into my new apartment, I got my hands on a digital SLR and called Fred (because he loves taking stuff apart).  After treating him to fried rice (that I cooked myself), we busted out the screwdriver to take apart the camera and see how things worked.  The both of us slowly took the camera apart as we marveled at its intricacy and identified which board does what.  Contrary to what many of my friends thought, we did NOT get shocked by the 330 V flash capacitor.  As a matter of fact, that was one of the first things we identified and said “no touchie” until we could safely discharge it.  Here are just a few pictures:

Gone To Texas - Rocking the House!

One phone call was all it took for a friend to whisk me away from Engineering Fall Gathering and to Gone to Texas, a welcome (back) celebration for students.  After that bit, there was a party with live music.  She started dancing, and I followed suit to not look like an idiot.  Meanwhile, I continued shooting pictures (I pride myself in that ability).  By the time we left, everybody was dancing.  We would sure like to think that we started all this!

1st Floor of RLM = Texas Petawatt Laser

In my head, there is a list of things I would like to do before I graduate.  It goes something like this (in no particular order):

• See the first floor of RLM
• Get Professor Hallock’s dog (Jessie) to bark
• Drive the solar car
• Be an orientation advisor
• Participate in the Texas 4000
• Be an RA

To my fortune, the automatic controls class got canceled for the day, so I was able to go to my apartment, grab the camera, and head on down to see the Texas Petawatt Laser on the first floor of the RLM.  Not convinced?  I even took a picture of a sign for evidence!

This is going to be a good year.  Many challenges await me, and I will divide and conquer with the help of my friends, family, professors, God, etc.

Yesterday: I got hit by a car while riding on my bicycle.  I was riding down Speedway towards Dean Keeton in the morning.  Since the signal ahead was for pedestrians, I sped up a bit to catch the upcoming green light and eventually came close behind a car.  Unfortunately, that car swerved into a parking spot near the Seay Psychology building and hit me.  Of course, I fell off my bike and subjected my laptop to a pretty hefty bump.  After I got up knowing that I’m OK, the driver got out of the car and apologized profusely.  I checked my electronics (which turned out fine) and the car (which only received some rubber from my front tire — rubs right off).  Seeing that I am all right, I laughed it off and said that I wish he/she signaled before turning; and seeing that no damage was done, we went on with our lives.

Today: There is a computer lab in the ECJ that I make my large-format printouts in.  Being recently-built, full-blown workstations, they perform reasonably well, although I think it could be even better because they stream the operating system from network storage to the desktops.  I disagree with that idea because I think (a) it creates a potential for network congestion and (b) they are working with full-blown machines with modern hard disks.  While that change was tolerable, my computing experience today went south… FAST!

Since I had the poster stored on the home directory on ECE’s servers, I had to transfer it using Secure Shell.  Since that was not there, I had to go back and upload the file to a more accessible place.  So far, I noticed that Firefox is being streamed using some VMWare product and took a minute to load.  After I came back, Firefox and many other basic programs were GONE.  Although Adobe Reader was there, I was unable to open the .pdf file by double-clicking on it.  Instead, I had to open the program and open the .pdf file the roundabout method.  Even as I did this, I received a security prompt that asked me whether I wanted to open a link or not.  Excuse me?!  Are they seriously streaming even basic programs through the network?!  I smell disaster when the entire lab (of about 30 computers) tries to stream something like LabVIEW to their desktops at the same time.  Alas, despite jumping through hoops, I was still unable to print the poster using the plotter and had to have someone else print it for me.

For me, the moral of the story is this: Imaging drives once every half a year really isn’t that bad after all.  Also, never, ever treat full-blown workstations like thin clients.