alt234

So, I know I don't get on this much to update but do not fret! I eventually will post something!

So, I bought a nice film camera over Christmas break and I've really been getting into photography as a hobby ever since. I've recently joined Flickr. A site owned by Yahoo! for people to share photographs. If anyone is interested in checking out my photography thus far check the site out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alt234/

The black and whites are my favorites so far. In some ways I think I am starting to like the black and white better than color. Anyway, check them out. Hope you like them!

I also have the photos from Tremblant on my computer still but I need to get some type of free hosting to upload them to and I've been a bit lazy to do that so far. I thought about putting them on Flickr but I kind of want to save the site for my more artsy photo's (whether they are actually artsy or not is currently under debate).

Lets see, I have been playing guitar a lot as usual. I have really felt like I have been advancing a lot and am really gaining a better understanding of the neck. Lately I've just been hammering scales into my head. However, I have been writing some stuff. No Lyrics as of yet but I have some guitar parts I like worked out.

Also I've been skating a lot. The other day Trevor and I were skating and ended up losing his board to the Red Cedar river. It's kind of a long story but basically it fell in and will most likely never be seen again...

Today we found a nifty little gap at a local park about 10 minutes from campus and we skated that for a bit and then played around on the sweet playground equipment they had. After that a guy who saw us skating from inside a bar across the stree came out. He was obviously drunk but wanted to try our boards out. He actually turned out to be really good, it was a surprise.

Hmmm, anything else? I have a Physics exam in a few days that should suck hard. Lots of studying will be done over the next few days...

Well, I suppose thats all for now. I hope all is well for anyone who is reading this as well as everyone who isn't reading this. Later!

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your LiveJournal along with your seven songs. Then see how many of your Friends post what they're listening to.

Adarondac Amish Hoedown | Frontier Ruckus
Rosemont | Frontier Ruckus (www.myspace.com/frontierruckus check 'em!)
The Hand That Feeds | Nine Inch Nails
Feel Alright | The Hard Lessons
Cherub Rock | Smashing Pumpkins
You Can Tell the World | Simon and Garfunkel
Showdown at the Hoedown | Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

Well, I'm back at school, which sucks...

My last week was great though. It was spent in Quebec snowboarding. The mountain was the biggest I've been to by far. The first day the coulds were low and the gondola went up into them. I guess this place is right about where the Appalachians begin and is the biggest mountain in the range. The view was amazing and as soon as I get the pictures I will upload them. Some of the runs had to take about 15 minutes to get down which is a lot different than I am normally used to. Unfortunately there was a strike going on for part of the time we were there so it took a bit for a lot of the runs to open and they never did have jumps in the terrain park. However, they had a sweet rail park and I got some video and pictures of me on this trap box and a c-box and I hit some others as well but didn't get any footage. So that is pretty much what the week consisted of. We got up at 7:00 and were out by 8:00 and rode until 3:15. It was interesting that everything was in French but it was cool and a lot of stuff from my French class was coming back to me. The drive kind of sucked. It was about 17 hours for me and Sean and we did it all in one trip. Driving through Toronto and Ottawa was cool though. Toronto has to be the biggest city I've ever been in and it was cool to see.

I have a cold now...

I seem to be out of things to say. Goodbye.

Well, merry Christmas to whomever may be reading. My Christmas went well, I spent it at my cousins watching basketball, playing pool and Resident Evil 4. For Christmas I mostly got some money to go on a snowboarding trip to Mont Tremblant Quebec next week with some friends. I also got a shirt and a cool snowboarding calendar from my dad and some beef jerky from my mom. My cousin got me Resident Evil 4 for ps2 and being a huge Resident Evil fan, it didn't disappoint. We had prime rib for dinner and afterward I helped my uncle set up this new pool/texas hold 'em/ping pong table that my cousin got. Then his 8 year old nephew proceeded to kick the crap out of me in pool.

Prior to Christmas I spent that part of my break with friends. Early in the week I watched Narnia which was pretty cool, not as good as I would have liked but worth the watch I would say. I also saw King Kong which was actually amazing I thought. I didn't really expect to like it better than Narnia but I did. The only thing was that it was really sad. I expected it to be sad but it didn't make it any better. For some reason, in movies, bad things happening to animals bother me much more than when they happen to humans. Overall it was great though, the CG was really impressive as well.

This week I imagine most of my time will be spent snowboarding. I guess Boyne's park is looking really good thus far. I know the guy who built all the rails for them this year and from the pics he showed me they look pretty awesome. Sounds like they have a real park crew this year too so the jumps should be a lot better. Next week will be more of the same only on a grander scale at a REAL mountain up in Quebec. I think we will be about 30 minutes from Quebec City. I hope to do a lot of snowshoeing in the back country and possibly (if I can afford it) some ice climbing and dog sledding. It should be a blast, I can't wait.

I've also been taking lots of pictures with my new camera. I would post some but apparently Wal-Mart's cd-burner was broken so they couldn't make me a picture cd and I'm simply too lazy to hook up my scanner. I will definitely upload some from the big trip though.

And here's something random that I felt made a good point (taken from Slashdot)...

"Microsoft Windows still dominates the desktop. But in many other areas, including Web servers and supercomputing, Microsoft is just one player among many, and often a weak player at that. On the gaming side, despite the latest xBox getting all kinds of media buzz as "the" console to buy, Sony's Playstation outsells the xBox at least two to one, and many analysts expect Sony to widen that gap even more when Playstation 3 comes out in the Spring of 2006. On the Internet, MSN and MSN Search are so far behind AOL and Google that it isn't funny. And even on the desktop, Linux keeps getting stronger, while Mac OS X is commonly accepted as more reliable, secure, and user-oriented than Windows. So why do we keep saying Microsoft is a monopoly?"

And here is my interesting article number 2 for the day...
Procrastination

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Today was great. I'm so glad to be back home and to have a little break from school. I ate dinner with my family and a friend whose family wasn't celebrating. The food was amazing as usual and I think I may acquire some left-overs shortly.

I'm mostly glad to just be back. School has been tough lately and a break is nice. Most of the ski resorts in the area opened today so I'm excited to do some snowboarding. I'm hoping East Lansing got hit too, if we get as much snow down there as there is up here we could probably hit up some rails or picnic tables or something. I guess tomorrow morning my dad and I may go hunting in the morning if the weather isn't too horrible. Tomorrow night I will probably be visiting some friends in Petoskey then Saturday we are heading over to Boyne Mountain and then to the swimming pool. It should be a rockin' next few days.

Lately I have been looking into getting a film camera. I have been looking online for a while and after talking to a few friends who are really into photography I have decided on a camera. In fact I'm probably going to try to snipe the winning bid on this one on ebay...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7564291636&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

Shipping is really high but it's still a good deal with the extra lens and flash. I really just want to get a new camera for this trip I am plannin on going to this winter break to Tremblant ski resort in Quebec. I think it is going to be a ton of fun. I guess there aren't even roads going to this place so you have to get shuttled in. I imagine there will be some great photo opportunities. Anyway, wish me luck on winning this camera!

Things are crazy but finally almost over for the time being. I had 3 tests last week and a gateway exam I had to pass by Friday. I did ok on most my tests for the most part. Not as well as I would have liked though. The gateway had me scared. I had to pass it by Friday and it was my 7th attempt but I passed, finally! It was tough as crap though, especially with the way they grade. Anyway, got that out of the way plus those 3 tests, then I was on to this programming project that was difficult to say the least. Basically I had to create a Fraction class that allowed the user to type in a fraction and it would spit it back out reduced along with a bunch of other crap. Now that may not sound like something that is that difficult but its the method by which we needed to do it which was tough. Anyway though I was working stupid hard until the very last minute but I got it done. Now all that is left is a Calc 2 test that I have on Thursday. Studying for that has taken up the majority of my time since I got the project in. Once that is over though I believe a celebration is in order. Man, I can't wait.

This weekend I went to my cousin's wedding over by Detroit. It was really cool and by far was the coolest reception I had ever been too. Somehow they rented out the actual museum area among all the exhibits in the Henry Ford Museum for the reception. It was the first time I had ever been there and everyone was free to walk around the museum so we got to see all that. Out table was right near the car that JFK was assinated in. I also got to see the chair Abraham Lincoln was shot in too, it even has blood on it. They also had this massive train there. I mean MASSIVE. I wish I had a camera with me. Those were just a few of the awesome things that were there. One thing that got me though was that among all these really interesting cars and other exhibits was a brand new 1986 Ford Taurus. "What the hell is any kind of Taurus" doing here I thought to myself. Anyway that got a good laugh. Its funny to see a car that old in that new of condition let alone the setting it was in. Also got to see a lot of family I haven't seen in a long time too which was really fun. My cousin John is currently working for the NSA in Washington D.C. and I guess he is going to be working in the other Washington for about 6 months over the time I am on Christmas break. He said that if I wanted I could come stay with him for a while over Christmas and we could go snowboarding all over the place out West. I would also like to see if perhaps he knows anyhting about internships for the NSA. I really need to get an internship somewhere this summer and I think that would really awesome.

Well, fixed my computer, temporarily anyway. Found out that it wasn't my hard drive, but perhaps either RAM or the motherboard is going. Anyway after a lot of goofy troubleshooting crap it works for the time being. I just really hope my motherboard isn't dieing.

Also found out I can't go see Weezer because a cousin of mine is getting married that day. Ah well, I'm sure it won't be the last opportunity I ever have to see them.

Today was the MSU UofM game and we lost which sucks... obviously. The tailgating was nuts. I didn't realize how big of a deal this game is. Campus was completely packed. I went and tailgated with Trevor from about 10:00 a.m. till gametime then came back and did some homework. Then we hung out some more and now it's 2:00 a.m. and time for bed.

Well, I guess Weezer will be in Michigan next week. Trevor and I might go see them Friday at the Joe Louis Arena. Should be a rocking show, hopefully they play a bunch of Blue album and Pinkerton stuff. I think they will.

I got a parking ticket. Hell yeah! Parking tickets are sweet...

My hard drive died in my desktop too. Damn, I'm on a roll!

Seriously though for the most part today was a great day. I ollied down this four stair sized gap at the skatepark today that I was pretty proud of and I also am very close to kickflipping it. I am finally realizing something like that may be possible in my lifetime. If I ever do land it, i'll for sure stick the clip up here. All-in-all I was skating quite well today and I had a blast.

I can't remember if I mentioned this in an earlier post so if I did, oh well. I decided I really want to be serious about learning classical piano, so I picked up a Yamaha keyboard like this one my mom has. It's really quite nice for the price and the piano sound is really well done. So far I think I am progressing nicely. Also, I've kinda taken up the harmonica. Trevor and I have been jamming a lot and I've just played that. It's a really fun instrument.

Also, I have a paying student now for guitar. I start teaching her next week. I had been wanting to teach lessons for a while but have been kinda nervous about it but one day Trevor brought this girl over who wanted to learn and I couldn't really turn her down. So that should be interesting. If it goes well I will probably try to get more students. Should be a nice way to make some extra cash anyway.

Oh and apparently there is now a wireless access point nearby to my dorm so now I can access high speed internet from my room wireless on my laptop, which is what I'm doing right now. This laptop was such a good idea. It's especially nice since my main computer is broken I have something nice to use for the time being.

Ah speaking of laptops! MSU vs. UofM this weekend. We WILL annihilate them I'm sure. Should be interesting. I'll probably get a few beers stay in tomorrow and chill and watch the game with Trevor.

And, other than that classes are a biatch. I have a few tests next week but I think I can do ok.

0OOOOOOOO0OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0O0OOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo0ooooooooookkkkkKkk\kkkkK..... umm night..?!

Well, its been a while eh? Not much has happened other than having massive amounts of garbage to study thrust upon my brain. School has been going well though. I think I should be able to succeed in my classes. My teachers are all pretty cool and seem to be good at what they do. I got my first programming project and it seems easy. The actual project description itself is really long but basically what I have to do is read some data from a data file, output it in some manner and determine some information from it. Nothing I haven't done before.

Lets see... I've been playing guitar a lot. Not really learning anything but playing none-the-less. Been skating some too. Found a nice 3-stair here on campus and I can almost kickflip it which would make me really happy if I did.

Been trying to find some new music. Haven't found much really but I have recently rediscovered Radiohead so I have been listening to them a lot along with The Smashing Pumpkins. I forgot how amazing both of those bands are. Damn, I'm bored...

Well, I went home for the weekend because I had to get a tooth pulled. I was kinda scared but it was actually cool. It was a top wisdom tooth and I guess they come out a lot easier than the bottom ones. He was like "ok what I'm going to do is stick this tool in your mouth that grips the tooth then I give it a couple of twists and the tooth will come right out. So I'm like "ok." Anyway he sticks this thing in there and like he says he twists, then 5 seconds later the tooth is in his hand. Didn't hurt at all and by 6:00 the numbness had worn off and it felt great. It was a pretty cool process actually.

Other than that I went and saw "Transporter 2" with a few of my friends. It was, well... ridiculous, heh. It was probably one of the funniest movies I've seen since Wedding Crashers anyway. At one point he realizes there is a bomb attached to the bottom of his car and its about to explode so he gets it off by launching his car off this ramp thing forcing the car into a barrel roll and he rubs the bottom of the car across a hook that is hanging down from a crane knocking the bomb off the car, and thats just one of the many insane things that occured in this movie. Almost every scene brought a laugh followed by a "what the hell?" out of me. Right at the end I was hoping so much that a random guy would pass him a basketball and he would dunk on some poorly placed basketball hoop and look straight into the screen with a huge goofy grin on his face and two thumbs up while saying "YEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!" Then a huge explosion goes off launching him into the screen and the credits roll. At least something from the director acknowledging how ridiculous this movie is. But nothing of the sort happened and I realized the directors actually thought this crap was cool so it made the movie even more stupid. Anyway, I actually recommend seeing this movie just because you won't believe how messed up and stupid it is.

...and thats my review of "Transporter 2"

Anyway, time for some Calculus. gragrajrihra