Hello and welcome, my dear readers, to another edition of Shut the Front Door! I'm your host, Boom, and I apologize sincerely for not writing the last couple of weeks.
I do have a legitimate excuse though: This week was finals, last week I was studying for finals, and the week before that I had a major project and a big mid-term.
I still apologize though, I know it's hardly an excuse for not keeping up with this, my blog that's made entirely for me and not you.
What brings me to writing today, Thursday, instead of my usual Saturday post are a couple of things. The first thing is that I am leaving to St. Thomas on Sunday and will be preparing all day Saturday for that (cleaning clothes, mostly, in case you wondered), as well as the fact that I am moving out of this apartment at the University of Utah tomorrow (Friday) and have had a bit of a sad moment when I realize all the things that have happened to me while in this little room (since I hardly ever ventured into the kitchen, and heaven forbid I go to the bathroom once in a while!).
This year, in this apartment, has been a huge year of firsts. Some were much larger than others, some had big effects, others no noticeable effect at all, but in the end it was quite the spectacular year filled with drama, pain, suffering, triumph, happiness, joy, celebration, partying, and many other things.
While I go through a list (Boring... YAY!!!!) of all of the things that I can manage to think of that are "firsts" for me, I'd like any of you to reflect on things that have happened in the last year (fiscal year, school year, calendar, or whatever, I really don't care) and just think. Sometimes simply thinking about what has happened can give you a whole new perspective on your life, other people's lives, and the community (or earth) around you. It's quite amazing what thinking does (yes, I'm an asshole).
So, for my firsts that I can think of off the top of my head:
First major break-up, i.e., non-silly relationship that really left a scar (ouch).
First time in an apartment as opposed to my parents house or a small dorm that is simply a room (YAY!).
First upper-division engineering course (Strengths II - both happy and painful)
First dynamics class, first thermo class, first circuits/AC course (ECE), first materials science course (all boo).
First major game purchase on my own cash (yes I've bought things before, but not things big like SKYRIM! YAY!).
First foreign roommate (surprisingly quiet).
First time belonging to a legitimate "group" (of friends) to the point where we can say anything to each other in college (did in high school but they're all on missions or far farr away now... so yeah, this is good).
First 5-hour final (This actually hurt my ass... might have been because of the stress-induced diarrhea, but my ass hurt after this. Honest. Also boo.).
First time cooking for myself for basically every meal for an extended amount of time (more than a week).
First time walking more than 20 miles in a day, not including silly steps like getting breakfast/cleaning up or whatever. I have done a 20 mile hike before, but never more than 20 miles. Recently I took up walking around Salt Lake City and have been clocking about 10-20 miles a day easily, a few times I went "above and beyond the call of duty" and went about 25-30 miles. I'm actually pretty stoked about this one since I don't get much exercise otherwise.
First double-all-nighter. I've done all-nighters before, but never 48+ hours. I was doing a project and a paper. Probably should have slept, but I got it all done and did extremely well.
First robot project that actually worked (air-train, but it was a robot). This one I'm pretty stoked about. I even got to keep the train, though not the arduino (micro-controller) that the program was on or the air-drill that acted like the turbine propulsion system. Oh well.
First time on Reddit.com. I barely discovered this amazing site during the summer of 2011. I'm counting it in this school year, and there's nothing you can do about it.
First time consistently writing in this blog for a good amount of time.
First time this blog hit 50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400, and 500 views in a month (april hit I think 517 views. I have no idea what happened, but it was cool). The highest before that, fyi, was 48 if I recall correctly.
First time going to a non-western-hemisphere country (China!), also the first time I went out of the country for more than 7 days (previous longest: Cruise for 7 days in the Caribbean, though one stop was in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a territory of the USA).
First time owning a passport, for china, also the first time I had to take malaria pills (prevents malaria), also the first time I had to get shots to travel (fucking china... cmon guys).
First time bootlegging an expensive game (For the MPAA/RIAA/FBI/etc, I discarded the copy AND I already owned a copy I just wanted to see if I could get a diskless version. To everyone else: MUAHAHAHAHAHA).
First time logging 50+ hours in a single week on a game (Skyrim, in case you're wondering and I really didn't want to do homework that week. I don't think I even showed up to class).
First time failing a class. Probably related to the above statement. No, in all honestly it's because I couldn't understand my teacher, it's a hard class anyway (Partial Differential Equations), the book sucked, and the teacher lost my first mid-term. Yeah, bullshit. Anyway...
First time getting myself involved relatively deeply in a case about a dead person's (my grandma's) will, property, etc.
That's about all I can think of right now. I'm sure there's a lot more, but I cannae be arsed.
Anyway, that's my extensive and very boring list. If you're not dead by the time you get here: Congratulations, you win a free internet.
Thank you and good night!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Thursday, April 12, 2012
And a Very Happy One it Was
Hello everyone and welcome back to Shut the Front Door. A blog where the posts don't matter and you don't care!
I'm your host, Boom, and today I turn 20.
In this very special edition of STFD, I'd just like to say "What the fuck!" In amazement. Already the month of April has surpassed TRIPLE my record for monthly views. TRIPLED. I know it might not seem like much to any of you out there who stumble upon this blog, but to me this is an accomplishment.
(LIFE STORY TIME!) This blog started out, really, as a way to vent my frustrations at a college system that seemed to be failing its students, as well as a social experiment. In the years that I've been writing this blog basically weekly, I have not advertised it. This blog has only been personally listed by me on my twitter, which had 0 followers and was created specifically so people who read this blog could talk to me. I didn't tell any friends or family. I posted it on one website and then removed it within basically one day.
Everything else has been the product of the readers of this blog and the internet search engine functions. The latter isn't very "helpful" though, as about 500 million blogs that are bigger than this are called "Shut the Front Door". Many also appear on blogger and quite a few are written by people in Utah.
Needless to say, I have enjoyed seeing the spread of this blog.
It's actually been really interesting, in my opinion. The highest readership has, and probably always will be, the N. American continent, especially the USA. Oddly enough though, for a few months, the leading readership numbers were from Singapore, Germany, and then Russia. Russia still holds a top spot.
(BORING LISTS FOR THOSE WHO LIKE THAT KIND OF THING)
Most views per country:
1. USA, 2. Russia, 3. Germany, 4. Brazil, 5. France, 6. China, 7. Malaysia, 8. Philippines, 9. Singapore and 10. Canada (poor showing eh?)
On top of a huge number of countries (those above are just the top ten), I've seen a surprising number of browsers!
1. IE (seriously guys, get a better one), 2. Firefox (meh... I'll accept it), 3. Chrome (YAY!), 4. Opera, 5. Safari, 6. Thunderbird (lol), 7. Mobile Safari, 8. Debian (again, lol), and 9. Chromeframe.
Less people use IE when reading this blog though than in the general population (only 30%). Chrome and firefox are basically tied, and the rest are basically outliers.
Operating systems (This is fun too):
1. Windows (expected), 2. Linux, 3. Mac, 4. Android, 5. BlackBerry, 6. Unix
Apparently I connect really well with the (typically) more tech-savvy community than I do the hipster community because mac is farther down the list than I'd expect.
Anyway, you guys, thank you for all participating in my social experiment. Not to mention for being readers of what isn't just an experiment to me but has become so much more. This has become a habit, a hobby, and something I expect I'll continue to do for a very long time.
Obviously I'm not a very "big" blogger, and I doubt I ever will be, but if I ever do become one (heaven forbid the world becomes dumb enough to do that!) then you have full rights to say you read me before I was cool without seeming like a hipster.
I won't rat you out, I promise.
Anyway, happy birthday to me and I hope you all are having a great day wherever the hell you are (if the last week is any indication, you are from the US, china, france, canada, australia, brazil, germany, norway, philippines or thailand).
For those in northern Europe, I hear from a friend in the UK that there are some pretty crazy storms going on. Here's hoping they stay in the UK where nobody that anyone cares about exists.
This is boom, signing out.
I'm your host, Boom, and today I turn 20.
In this very special edition of STFD, I'd just like to say "What the fuck!" In amazement. Already the month of April has surpassed TRIPLE my record for monthly views. TRIPLED. I know it might not seem like much to any of you out there who stumble upon this blog, but to me this is an accomplishment.
(LIFE STORY TIME!) This blog started out, really, as a way to vent my frustrations at a college system that seemed to be failing its students, as well as a social experiment. In the years that I've been writing this blog basically weekly, I have not advertised it. This blog has only been personally listed by me on my twitter, which had 0 followers and was created specifically so people who read this blog could talk to me. I didn't tell any friends or family. I posted it on one website and then removed it within basically one day.
Everything else has been the product of the readers of this blog and the internet search engine functions. The latter isn't very "helpful" though, as about 500 million blogs that are bigger than this are called "Shut the Front Door". Many also appear on blogger and quite a few are written by people in Utah.
Needless to say, I have enjoyed seeing the spread of this blog.
It's actually been really interesting, in my opinion. The highest readership has, and probably always will be, the N. American continent, especially the USA. Oddly enough though, for a few months, the leading readership numbers were from Singapore, Germany, and then Russia. Russia still holds a top spot.
(BORING LISTS FOR THOSE WHO LIKE THAT KIND OF THING)
Most views per country:
1. USA, 2. Russia, 3. Germany, 4. Brazil, 5. France, 6. China, 7. Malaysia, 8. Philippines, 9. Singapore and 10. Canada (poor showing eh?)
On top of a huge number of countries (those above are just the top ten), I've seen a surprising number of browsers!
1. IE (seriously guys, get a better one), 2. Firefox (meh... I'll accept it), 3. Chrome (YAY!), 4. Opera, 5. Safari, 6. Thunderbird (lol), 7. Mobile Safari, 8. Debian (again, lol), and 9. Chromeframe.
Less people use IE when reading this blog though than in the general population (only 30%). Chrome and firefox are basically tied, and the rest are basically outliers.
Operating systems (This is fun too):
1. Windows (expected), 2. Linux, 3. Mac, 4. Android, 5. BlackBerry, 6. Unix
Apparently I connect really well with the (typically) more tech-savvy community than I do the hipster community because mac is farther down the list than I'd expect.
Anyway, you guys, thank you for all participating in my social experiment. Not to mention for being readers of what isn't just an experiment to me but has become so much more. This has become a habit, a hobby, and something I expect I'll continue to do for a very long time.
Obviously I'm not a very "big" blogger, and I doubt I ever will be, but if I ever do become one (heaven forbid the world becomes dumb enough to do that!) then you have full rights to say you read me before I was cool without seeming like a hipster.
I won't rat you out, I promise.
Anyway, happy birthday to me and I hope you all are having a great day wherever the hell you are (if the last week is any indication, you are from the US, china, france, canada, australia, brazil, germany, norway, philippines or thailand).
For those in northern Europe, I hear from a friend in the UK that there are some pretty crazy storms going on. Here's hoping they stay in the UK where nobody that anyone cares about exists.
This is boom, signing out.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Better to be Thought A Fool....
"Better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." - Mark Twain.
Hello, dear readers, and welcome to this week's edition of Shut the Front Door! This is a blog where the facts are made up and the points don't matter.
I'm your host, Boom, and today I'll be talking about how stupid people can be.
Before I begin, ladies and gents, I would like to say HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!
In case you are like "O.O" at my sudden outburst, my apologies. Now for an explanation: Normally I get a few page views a week. We're talking up to about 9 per week. Maximum. I'm proud of my 9 views a week. While that may seem really small to you, dear reader, keep in mind that I have literally told 2 people the actual location of this blog. This is all self-advertised and found. Anyway, I digress. The entire month of april, in 1 week (it is currently the 7th), has become my 5th highest-viewed month since I started this blog in April of 2010. This is a milestone for me that I'm proud of.
I don't know why you people love torturing yourselves so much, but thank you. You truly made my week so much better.
Now, on to what I was actually going to write this blog about: How to tell if you're stupid.
This is going to be short, as the list will not, in any way, be exhaustive. This list is just a general "if any of these apply to you, then you are probably retarded".
First: If you reject science because of a book written 1700 years ago, more, or less. Not to be offensive, but there's a reason science got man on the moon: It works.
Second: If any argument you have about science vs religion (or even just incorporating science INTO religion... yes, it's possible) boils down to "God said so", you might be retarded.
Third: If you start a philosophical debate about how religion is dumb without knowing what you're saying, you might be retarded.
Fourth: If you argue just for the sake of arguing (not debating, that's different), you might be retarded.
And lastly: If your doctor diagnosed your condition as "mental retardation" you might be retarded.
As always, I'm just a joker and I love you all. Except you. Yeah, you know who you are. I hate you. :)
This is boom, signing out really happily.
Hello, dear readers, and welcome to this week's edition of Shut the Front Door! This is a blog where the facts are made up and the points don't matter.
I'm your host, Boom, and today I'll be talking about how stupid people can be.
Before I begin, ladies and gents, I would like to say HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!
In case you are like "O.O" at my sudden outburst, my apologies. Now for an explanation: Normally I get a few page views a week. We're talking up to about 9 per week. Maximum. I'm proud of my 9 views a week. While that may seem really small to you, dear reader, keep in mind that I have literally told 2 people the actual location of this blog. This is all self-advertised and found. Anyway, I digress. The entire month of april, in 1 week (it is currently the 7th), has become my 5th highest-viewed month since I started this blog in April of 2010. This is a milestone for me that I'm proud of.
I don't know why you people love torturing yourselves so much, but thank you. You truly made my week so much better.
Now, on to what I was actually going to write this blog about: How to tell if you're stupid.
This is going to be short, as the list will not, in any way, be exhaustive. This list is just a general "if any of these apply to you, then you are probably retarded".
First: If you reject science because of a book written 1700 years ago, more, or less. Not to be offensive, but there's a reason science got man on the moon: It works.
Second: If any argument you have about science vs religion (or even just incorporating science INTO religion... yes, it's possible) boils down to "God said so", you might be retarded.
Third: If you start a philosophical debate about how religion is dumb without knowing what you're saying, you might be retarded.
Fourth: If you argue just for the sake of arguing (not debating, that's different), you might be retarded.
And lastly: If your doctor diagnosed your condition as "mental retardation" you might be retarded.
As always, I'm just a joker and I love you all. Except you. Yeah, you know who you are. I hate you. :)
This is boom, signing out really happily.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Don't Believe Everything You See
Today the world ends. And you know what that means? It's April 1st, the day where you can't believe anything you see. Anywhere. Not even on the news (which, face it, you can't believe them anyway).
I'm your host, Boom, and today I'll be the only one telling the truth.
I believe in this blog as a sort of sacred tradition between me and my few and various readers who never actually read this thing. I do my best to give the truth as I see it, and they (the readers) tell me absolutely nothing in the comments. It works out rather wonderfully really.
So today, I was going to talk about how my ex appears to be bitter as all get-out and passive-aggressive as hell towards me (and various others who even associated with me), but I figured that a better topic of today, is all of the april fools jokes that are going on by big-name companies.
Some of these companies spend a lot of time coming up with these things. Of course, there's google and its like 500 billion april fools jokes (seriously guys... calm down!). They have really advanced search (actually works), 8-bit google maps (works), morse-code keyboard (just an ad), and various other things. Then there's Reddit and its fake timeline, where you can go into the future (or past) and talk about "current" events on the internet. It's actually really funny and interesting. Then there's yahoo, BBC News', CNN's, etc. Everyone is lying today.
Literally, everyone. Except the chinese, because they are in tomorrow (and australians, I guess). You can't believe them either though, because they are dirty commies (obviously) and can't be trusted.
Lesson learned: You can't trust ANYONE.
This has been a life lesson by your host, Boom.
Signing out, and good day to everyone!
Sunday, March 25, 2012
With the Lips of an Angel
Hello everyone, yes it's been a while... I know. A lot of things have happened, as is usually the case when I leave for a while, since I last posted. Anyway, Hello and welcome to Shut the Front Door.
I'm your host, Boom, and I hate you all. I sincerely do.
I'm only joking, but seriously: This week has sucked to a large degree.
Last week (not the one that just happened/still happening, the one before that) was spring break. I spent a lot of time on various planes flying to the Virgin Islands. If you don't know what those are, they are in the Caribbean Sea, and the ones I went to in particular (St. Thomas and St. John) are U.S. Territories.
Anyway, I went down to have fun, yes, but also to help and take care of my Grandmother and Grandfather (Molly and Clair). I had a lot of fun, beaches, swimming, snorkeling, all that jazz. Really, it was a lot of fun.
When I came back, however... Well... the very next day (between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning - I got back on Monday), my grandmother, Molly, died. I do not yet know the cause, but I think it's because of a drug overdose.
The reason I say that is she used to be somewhat of a drug addict, not her fault really, she just got addicted through several hospitalizations and the like.
Anyway, not entirely too important to you.
Now, you guys might not know this because of how I act on a weekly basis, but I'm a pretty emotional guy and this hits home for me: One minute you are having a good day with someone, just by luck you happen to even be with them (I wasn't originally going to go to St. Thomas due to monetary restrictions), and the next day... the VERY NEXT DAY, they are gone. You hugged them at the airport, you told them how much you loved them (if you're lucky), said how happy you were that you got to come down and be with them, and the very next day they are out of your life forever.
I know it's cliche to say this, but you never really know when someone you love is gone. It's not your fault if you ended your last conversation on a bad note, either, but do at least try to end on a good note with the people you love the most.
That's all for this week's sad edition of Shut the Front Door.
Signing out,
Boom
I'm your host, Boom, and I hate you all. I sincerely do.
I'm only joking, but seriously: This week has sucked to a large degree.
Last week (not the one that just happened/still happening, the one before that) was spring break. I spent a lot of time on various planes flying to the Virgin Islands. If you don't know what those are, they are in the Caribbean Sea, and the ones I went to in particular (St. Thomas and St. John) are U.S. Territories.
Anyway, I went down to have fun, yes, but also to help and take care of my Grandmother and Grandfather (Molly and Clair). I had a lot of fun, beaches, swimming, snorkeling, all that jazz. Really, it was a lot of fun.
When I came back, however... Well... the very next day (between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning - I got back on Monday), my grandmother, Molly, died. I do not yet know the cause, but I think it's because of a drug overdose.
The reason I say that is she used to be somewhat of a drug addict, not her fault really, she just got addicted through several hospitalizations and the like.
Anyway, not entirely too important to you.
Now, you guys might not know this because of how I act on a weekly basis, but I'm a pretty emotional guy and this hits home for me: One minute you are having a good day with someone, just by luck you happen to even be with them (I wasn't originally going to go to St. Thomas due to monetary restrictions), and the next day... the VERY NEXT DAY, they are gone. You hugged them at the airport, you told them how much you loved them (if you're lucky), said how happy you were that you got to come down and be with them, and the very next day they are out of your life forever.
I know it's cliche to say this, but you never really know when someone you love is gone. It's not your fault if you ended your last conversation on a bad note, either, but do at least try to end on a good note with the people you love the most.
That's all for this week's sad edition of Shut the Front Door.
Signing out,
Boom
Sunday, March 4, 2012
More Useless Ramblings! (You know you love me)
Hello dear readers and welcome back to Shut the Front Door! I'm your host, Boom, and as always, welcome back!
My apologies for skipping last week (and the previous week). I really have no excuse other than I had no idea what to talk about! After divulging so much information about myself, I honestly had nothing left to say. I still don't, in a lot of ways, but I'll give it my best shot.
I'll start off with the relationship that ended officially just over a month ago, but ended emotionally probably a long time before that.
A while ago I went and talked to my ex for what was really the first time since the breakup. We discussed what happened. When I mentioned how I had deleted basically everything (messages, etc), which was by request of said ex - she said when I asked that we won't talk anymore and shouldn't try basically - she got really upset. This really brings home the whole complex issue of relationships. Obviously I kept a couple of ways to keep in touch if she wanted, facebook, e-mail, etc, but it was still a sore subject of how I had "given up" (I really hadn't... was just emotionally sore, but that's a different story).
It's amazing how things come back around, and how carefully you have to tread when someone says they don't want communication. In all likelihood (and I knew this, thus why I kept the forms of communication) they're really just sore/mad/etc and think they don't want to talk ever again but really do. It also comes down to the emotional pain of realizing that you no longer mean much to someone that you used to care about more than anything in the world.
It's always good to be able to let go though. Sometimes it takes a month, sometimes it takes years. You never truly get "over" people though, because there's a reason you let them in your life and let them intrude so deeply into your very being. It's because you cared, and you probably always will. The feelings of pain, jealousy, hatred, love, affection, etc will fade away and be replaced with fond memories or mildly painful recollections, but in the end someone will replace them (and you) and you'll hardly ever think about it.
It's how life goes on.
Signing out,
Boom
My apologies for skipping last week (and the previous week). I really have no excuse other than I had no idea what to talk about! After divulging so much information about myself, I honestly had nothing left to say. I still don't, in a lot of ways, but I'll give it my best shot.
I'll start off with the relationship that ended officially just over a month ago, but ended emotionally probably a long time before that.
A while ago I went and talked to my ex for what was really the first time since the breakup. We discussed what happened. When I mentioned how I had deleted basically everything (messages, etc), which was by request of said ex - she said when I asked that we won't talk anymore and shouldn't try basically - she got really upset. This really brings home the whole complex issue of relationships. Obviously I kept a couple of ways to keep in touch if she wanted, facebook, e-mail, etc, but it was still a sore subject of how I had "given up" (I really hadn't... was just emotionally sore, but that's a different story).
It's amazing how things come back around, and how carefully you have to tread when someone says they don't want communication. In all likelihood (and I knew this, thus why I kept the forms of communication) they're really just sore/mad/etc and think they don't want to talk ever again but really do. It also comes down to the emotional pain of realizing that you no longer mean much to someone that you used to care about more than anything in the world.
It's always good to be able to let go though. Sometimes it takes a month, sometimes it takes years. You never truly get "over" people though, because there's a reason you let them in your life and let them intrude so deeply into your very being. It's because you cared, and you probably always will. The feelings of pain, jealousy, hatred, love, affection, etc will fade away and be replaced with fond memories or mildly painful recollections, but in the end someone will replace them (and you) and you'll hardly ever think about it.
It's how life goes on.
Signing out,
Boom
Saturday, February 18, 2012
More Than You Cared to Know about Boom Part II
Part II:
You know how good letting everything out feels? Pretty damn good. My entire life I've been keeping secrets. When I was younger and on Starcraft it was the fact that I was from Utah, or was mormon. As I got older it was that I used to be mormon and no longer believed, and as I grew older still it became issues like the fact that I'd never really dated or partied, gotten drunk, etc. It's even just little things like my 2nd degree blackbelt. Does anybody *need* to know? Not really, no. Telling people, however, is refreshing.
I definitely have a lot of pent-up angst, anger, and emotion. Partially because society says I have to "be a man" about everything, and partially because I'm not sure what to do. It all seems so easy when someone says it, but doing it for yourself is a completely different story.
Anyway, I figure I'll toot my own horn a bit for this part. Now that I've gotten a good portion of the emotion out, it's time to feel good about myself and not be so depressing.
I'll start with that math situation from junior high school. It really pissed me off being told I wasn't good enough for geometry. Part of it was definitely that teenage rebellion. I was going to show that teacher that I could do whatever the fuck I wanted, and she wasn't going to stop me.
And you know what? I did. I went into Geometry and got an A in that class. I did the same for Algebra II Honors as well. By this time I was getting off of the rebellion train for that teacher, after all, I'd shown her. I passed Geometry AND algebra II without her help in Algebra I. Pre-calc honors came and I was lazy. I still passed the class with a B+ or something like that (who cares?) and I was good with that. At the end of the year my teacher took me aside and said this:
"Robert, you're pretty talented. In fact, you're very talented when it comes to math. However, after teaching you for two years I just don't think you apply yourself very much. With this in mind, I'm going to recommend you do either CE Math 1010 (college algebra w/credit) or AP Calc. I."
Uh oh. She's gone and done it again. Part of my plan was Calc II in high school so I didn't have to do very much math in University and she's saying I'm not good enough to do it? I told her I was going to get a 5 on the BC Calculus (Calc II) test. She practically laughed at me. So, being a good rebellious teenager I went ahead and signed up for AP BC calculus. And I got a 5 on that test at the end of the year. In fact, I got one of the highest scores in my class.
Take THAT algebra and pre-calc teachers! Then again, all I really did was help them out.
Stupid rebellious teenage line of thought.
In the meantime I decided to expand my horizons into other things. I always liked singing, drawing, and things of the artistic sort, so why not one of those? In 9th grade I went ahead and joined the mid-level (no tryouts for this one, which is why I did it) boys choir at my school. Went in and rocked that boat as one of the only bass singers worth a damn (it's 9th grade.. >_>). At the end of the semester the choir teacher personally invited me to join their show choir (which is pretty exclusive). Being kinda dumb I declined and decided to take other required classes as well as newspaper/yearbook again (took it that first semester too). Had a lot of fun in that class too, though I wasn't exactly anything special.
Fun times in that yearbook class though. It was basically a lot of doing nothing, so instead of doing nothing like a boss, I decided to make movies on PowerPoint. Fun fact: on PP 2003 you could create pseudo-animations by setting the auto-slide-transfer to 0.000 seconds. My first "movie" was simple: A guy jumps off of a diving board and gets eaten by a black-hole type object. It took about 150 slides and lasted about 10 seconds.
The second animation was infinitely more engaging than the first, lasted about 2 minutes and took me a long time to do. It started off with a guy walking. This guy trips on an unknown object and falls down. At that time his head falls off and becomes akin to a bowling ball. A bunch of "soldiers" walk on screen and get taken out by this ball and all fall apart. A few more guys walk into the scene and, upon seeing the destruction, declare war on the nearby tribe of people. This resulted in a big fight scene with a lot of spears in which everyone died.
After having so much fun in those classes I decided to do it more in high school taking 2 drawing/painting classes and a ceramics class, as well as another yearbook class during my senior year.
Honestly, what happens next really makes me sad. During these art classes I had (and still somewhat have) low self-esteem when it comes to my creative ability. This includes singing, pottery, art of any kind. While taking this class I created what I consider today to be one of the best things I've ever seen, not to mention created:
Courtney (mentioned above, good friend) really liked it. She liked it a TON. Personally I hated it. I grew to despise the work. Why? I honestly don't have a clue. Maybe it came to represent everything about me that had become underachieving, lying, hidden, and secretive. Regardless, I gave it to her as a christmas present. I regret the decision as much as I'm glad to have made it. I'm glad that a true friend has something that valuable to me, and I'm also glad that someone who can really appreciate it owns it, but I'm also sad as during the last few years I have grown fond of my creation and miss it.
I did a bunch of other stuff, pots, vases, watercolor, more drawings, sketches, but none of that really amounts to anything when compared to the above drawing.
During high school I really got into the tech scene and made probably the best decisions in terms of finding out what career (specifically) I'd enjoy doing for the rest of my life.
There's a few classes that are now taught in high schools that are part of a national project called "Project Lead the Way" which is meant to get kids into engineering of all types. Two of the classes focus on the design process, 3D modelling (SolidWorks/AutoDesk Inventor), design notebooks, patents, etc. The third class that I took was called Digital Electronics and focused on building circuits to do things.
Honestly, I loved the digital electronics class. I could see myself making that my hobby (and it already kinda is). On top of the normal boring projects we had to do in that class I built a circuit that made a clock out of basic logic gates and resistors and an input, converted that clock into a Hex/decimal line as opposed to binary (difference is, the Hex clocks require 4 lines going in to count 0-9 as opposed to 1 line every 2 digits 0-1 and it's just weird), and it kept track of seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years. I was pretty pleased about that. I made other things, but that was definitely my capstone "project". My teacher who graduated in Engineering liked it too, said I had a lot of promise in Engineering. Mr. Jerome was a badass. He taught me things that I'm STILL teaching to all my friends who are now in 2nd year engineering classes (and third year). Talk about lessons worth listening to.
On that engineering note I decided to join the Science Olympiad team at my high school and did the physics lab. Our goal? To build the most efficient wind-generator that could fit onto a CD player (obviously not one attached to a radio or anything, just the little bit that hooks the CD to the turntable).
Our design was simple but elegant, just a two-bladed design with little wingletts at the end, with the blade being slightly curved. As it started spinning faster it would flatten out more allowing it to spin even faster (more curvature = more torque, less speed).
We got first prize:
Our team went on to nationals, and while our turbine design didn't win a medal nationally (they changed the rules basically last minute and allowed things to be attached to the assembly which was previously illegal), some other members of our team got medals and it was really cool as I got to go to the University of Illinois (and therefore Chicago/Champaigne-Urbana in Illinois) and have a good time without parents.
It's now midnight, and I'm a bit tired.
It's nice to finally get everything out there, or at least a good start of everything. Even if nobody reads this, it's nice to just have all that pent up frustration let out in a semi-productive way.
You know how good letting everything out feels? Pretty damn good. My entire life I've been keeping secrets. When I was younger and on Starcraft it was the fact that I was from Utah, or was mormon. As I got older it was that I used to be mormon and no longer believed, and as I grew older still it became issues like the fact that I'd never really dated or partied, gotten drunk, etc. It's even just little things like my 2nd degree blackbelt. Does anybody *need* to know? Not really, no. Telling people, however, is refreshing.
I definitely have a lot of pent-up angst, anger, and emotion. Partially because society says I have to "be a man" about everything, and partially because I'm not sure what to do. It all seems so easy when someone says it, but doing it for yourself is a completely different story.
Anyway, I figure I'll toot my own horn a bit for this part. Now that I've gotten a good portion of the emotion out, it's time to feel good about myself and not be so depressing.
I'll start with that math situation from junior high school. It really pissed me off being told I wasn't good enough for geometry. Part of it was definitely that teenage rebellion. I was going to show that teacher that I could do whatever the fuck I wanted, and she wasn't going to stop me.
And you know what? I did. I went into Geometry and got an A in that class. I did the same for Algebra II Honors as well. By this time I was getting off of the rebellion train for that teacher, after all, I'd shown her. I passed Geometry AND algebra II without her help in Algebra I. Pre-calc honors came and I was lazy. I still passed the class with a B+ or something like that (who cares?) and I was good with that. At the end of the year my teacher took me aside and said this:
"Robert, you're pretty talented. In fact, you're very talented when it comes to math. However, after teaching you for two years I just don't think you apply yourself very much. With this in mind, I'm going to recommend you do either CE Math 1010 (college algebra w/credit) or AP Calc. I."
Uh oh. She's gone and done it again. Part of my plan was Calc II in high school so I didn't have to do very much math in University and she's saying I'm not good enough to do it? I told her I was going to get a 5 on the BC Calculus (Calc II) test. She practically laughed at me. So, being a good rebellious teenager I went ahead and signed up for AP BC calculus. And I got a 5 on that test at the end of the year. In fact, I got one of the highest scores in my class.
Take THAT algebra and pre-calc teachers! Then again, all I really did was help them out.
Stupid rebellious teenage line of thought.In the meantime I decided to expand my horizons into other things. I always liked singing, drawing, and things of the artistic sort, so why not one of those? In 9th grade I went ahead and joined the mid-level (no tryouts for this one, which is why I did it) boys choir at my school. Went in and rocked that boat as one of the only bass singers worth a damn (it's 9th grade.. >_>). At the end of the semester the choir teacher personally invited me to join their show choir (which is pretty exclusive). Being kinda dumb I declined and decided to take other required classes as well as newspaper/yearbook again (took it that first semester too). Had a lot of fun in that class too, though I wasn't exactly anything special.
Fun times in that yearbook class though. It was basically a lot of doing nothing, so instead of doing nothing like a boss, I decided to make movies on PowerPoint. Fun fact: on PP 2003 you could create pseudo-animations by setting the auto-slide-transfer to 0.000 seconds. My first "movie" was simple: A guy jumps off of a diving board and gets eaten by a black-hole type object. It took about 150 slides and lasted about 10 seconds.
The second animation was infinitely more engaging than the first, lasted about 2 minutes and took me a long time to do. It started off with a guy walking. This guy trips on an unknown object and falls down. At that time his head falls off and becomes akin to a bowling ball. A bunch of "soldiers" walk on screen and get taken out by this ball and all fall apart. A few more guys walk into the scene and, upon seeing the destruction, declare war on the nearby tribe of people. This resulted in a big fight scene with a lot of spears in which everyone died.
After having so much fun in those classes I decided to do it more in high school taking 2 drawing/painting classes and a ceramics class, as well as another yearbook class during my senior year.
Honestly, what happens next really makes me sad. During these art classes I had (and still somewhat have) low self-esteem when it comes to my creative ability. This includes singing, pottery, art of any kind. While taking this class I created what I consider today to be one of the best things I've ever seen, not to mention created:
Courtney (mentioned above, good friend) really liked it. She liked it a TON. Personally I hated it. I grew to despise the work. Why? I honestly don't have a clue. Maybe it came to represent everything about me that had become underachieving, lying, hidden, and secretive. Regardless, I gave it to her as a christmas present. I regret the decision as much as I'm glad to have made it. I'm glad that a true friend has something that valuable to me, and I'm also glad that someone who can really appreciate it owns it, but I'm also sad as during the last few years I have grown fond of my creation and miss it.
I did a bunch of other stuff, pots, vases, watercolor, more drawings, sketches, but none of that really amounts to anything when compared to the above drawing.
During high school I really got into the tech scene and made probably the best decisions in terms of finding out what career (specifically) I'd enjoy doing for the rest of my life.
There's a few classes that are now taught in high schools that are part of a national project called "Project Lead the Way" which is meant to get kids into engineering of all types. Two of the classes focus on the design process, 3D modelling (SolidWorks/AutoDesk Inventor), design notebooks, patents, etc. The third class that I took was called Digital Electronics and focused on building circuits to do things.
Honestly, I loved the digital electronics class. I could see myself making that my hobby (and it already kinda is). On top of the normal boring projects we had to do in that class I built a circuit that made a clock out of basic logic gates and resistors and an input, converted that clock into a Hex/decimal line as opposed to binary (difference is, the Hex clocks require 4 lines going in to count 0-9 as opposed to 1 line every 2 digits 0-1 and it's just weird), and it kept track of seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years. I was pretty pleased about that. I made other things, but that was definitely my capstone "project". My teacher who graduated in Engineering liked it too, said I had a lot of promise in Engineering. Mr. Jerome was a badass. He taught me things that I'm STILL teaching to all my friends who are now in 2nd year engineering classes (and third year). Talk about lessons worth listening to.
On that engineering note I decided to join the Science Olympiad team at my high school and did the physics lab. Our goal? To build the most efficient wind-generator that could fit onto a CD player (obviously not one attached to a radio or anything, just the little bit that hooks the CD to the turntable).
Our design was simple but elegant, just a two-bladed design with little wingletts at the end, with the blade being slightly curved. As it started spinning faster it would flatten out more allowing it to spin even faster (more curvature = more torque, less speed).
We got first prize:
Our team went on to nationals, and while our turbine design didn't win a medal nationally (they changed the rules basically last minute and allowed things to be attached to the assembly which was previously illegal), some other members of our team got medals and it was really cool as I got to go to the University of Illinois (and therefore Chicago/Champaigne-Urbana in Illinois) and have a good time without parents.
It's now midnight, and I'm a bit tired.
It's nice to finally get everything out there, or at least a good start of everything. Even if nobody reads this, it's nice to just have all that pent up frustration let out in a semi-productive way.
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