Saturday, January 29, 2005

back in the swing of things

School started up again last Monday, and it looks as if I am in for another ride this semester. First off, James is my new roommate, he moved into my room in the dorms. It is going to be nice having a roomie that is not stoned 24/7 and that I can just relate to a little bit more. We'll see how things go from there I guess.

After much deliberation (?) I decided to stick with mechatronics as opposed to switching to something that might be easier such as computer science or basically anything not engineering. I am only taking 14 units this semester, classes according to mechatronics such as circuit design. I kinda lied, because I am taking a programming class, just in case I want to minor in CS or somehting drastic like that. I still have my job at the IMC designing web pages for the school where I work ~13 hours a week. In my spare time I am also doing some freelance stuff for a company in Redding who needed a web guy. Did I mention I saw someone I used to work with at Shasta.com up at the mountain and he wanted me to do some work for him? Only one question: if there is so much work for me, why am I so damned broke right now?

Saturday, January 22, 2005

snowboarding

I went up to Mt. Shasta and took some pictures the other day:


www.stilldavid.com/photo/snowboarding

Take a look and let me know what you think. I am also working on a photomerge of a guy doing a backflip.

In other news, I made it back to Chico today, back in my dorm room. I drive to San Jose tomorrow to drop off my dad's car, and take the train/bus back. And I am just dead tired. I haven't slept in a real bed since I left 5 weeks ago. (thanks Mrs. Devan if you are reading this, I loved your couch!)

Monday, January 17, 2005

back from hawai'i

I got back grom Hawai'i early (5:30) Saturday morning, back from a week of pure craziness and fun. I think we (my family) did everything there is to do on the Island of O'ahu, or at least a bit of everything.
The hotel we were staying in was a 5 minute walk from Waikiki beach, perhaps the most touristy (sp?) place in all of Hawaii, but that didn't stop us from taking our rented car to the rest of the Island. We took surfing lessons on the north shore, watched people tackle the infamous Pipeline, hiked up to waterfalls, visited the dole plantation (!), went to the local surf shops, boogie-boarded 'till our hearts content, went snorkeling at hanauma bay twice, drove on the hundred-million-dollar-per-mile elevated freeway, watched some kiteboarders fly 20+ feet into the air doing crazy flips, went to a luau, and what else am I forgetting?

All in all, it was an awsome week, and I have some great pictures that I will get around to posting when I get back to Chico.

I got back to san jose, and drove to Redding (love this place) and up to Mt. Shasta yesterday. I took my camera, and after hitch-hiking from the railroad tracks (yeah, it was THAT full) got some superb pictures. I just about filled up my gig compact flash card (~500+ pictures) with 'em, so I will sort through and get some good ones to post.

Anyway, back to work I go. One more week, then it's back to Chico. Yay.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

sometimes I love work

That's the great thing about doing my own freelance stuff, even if I have to go "in to the office". The place I work has an abundance of computer parts, just kinda laying around for me to mess with, so I stumbled across an ATI PCI VGA card. (lots'a acronyms, it's just a video card).
Now, what was so special about this find of mine? I can put it in my computer and add another monitor to it. Yes, I was the only one in the entire building to be running 3 displays off of one computer.

Ah, the power of geeks.

Saturday, January 01, 2005

at least there was snow

I woke up on James' couch again this morning, and decided without much thought that today was another day I wanted to snowboard. I called up the sno-fone and they said that the power was out at the park, and that it should be restored by noon (it was ten when I called). With this info in mind, I went to Ross' house and picked up Richard who had yet to sleep, and headed north to the slopes, knowing full well that they would be open (of course). Well, we got there. They were still closed. And didn't re-open. We were left in the snow-covered town of Mt. Shasta to fend for ourselves for the rest of the day. After playing pool, looking for my dad at the Rose Bowl on TV over a slice of pizza, and going to see Meet The Fockers, we decided to call it a day and head back down the mountain. Hey, at least we got to see a few cars skid off the road, 1 car on its side, and 2 cars upside down on I-5.

Well, while it has been snowing too much to take my camera on the mountain, I did manage to take a few pictures from the car. This is a photo of the ski park highway on the way up yesterday, needless to say I had chains on. And this is my head after my first day of snowboarding. Yeah, I think I forgot to wear my beanie that day.

Well, I am going to go up to the mountain with Zach tomorrow, so maybe I will be able to take some actual snowboarding pictures if the weather permits. Until then, I sleep :) We leave at 7 tomorrow morning.

SNOW!!!

The reason I haven't posted since Christmas is because I have been too busy SNOWBOARDING!!! I have gone up the past 3 days in a row, and plan on going up today, and tomorrow as well. The snow is just beautiful, so I haven't even thought about computers for a week. My computer got attacked by the fire extinguisher in the back of the car as I was going up Interstate 505 (long story...) so I haven't even started it since then. As it is, I am on James' laptop.

As for car adventures today, it took me two and a half hours to get from the ski park to redding today. The trip usually takes just over an hour. There was a whole lot of snow on I-5, not to mention there were snowflakes the size of quarters falling, limiting visibility to about 15 feet in front of me. And would I do it all again? Ask me when I get back today :)

Anyway, it's well after 2 now, on this first day of 2005, and I am dead tired, so I'm going to go to bed. Yeah, I know, it's lame, but I am tired. Stop laughing.