Mzzyzx

Graduation and afterward

2011-06-13T12:24:00.001-07:00

Through all the highs and lows of high school, it's all worth it.

And also

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Last Real Day of High School

2011-06-04T00:07:00.001-07:00

The last bell of my life rings. The picture above is an Airbus A321.

In the newspaper that just came out, my "senior commentary" was published. Here it is reprinted:

Looking back as a senior I am really not sure about the effectiveness of high school in preparing me for college. All I learned is that people cannot be trusted all the time, and it is up to yourself to provide the motivation to get anything done.

Perhaps that actually is a good lesson I learned while I’m still a teenager.

Over the course of my four years as a high school student, I have lost a few friends, been deceived by people I trusted, and learned that hard work is not always rewarded.

With regards to hard work, grades and extracurricular activities do not matter that much. In the eyes of the government, every student is turned into a set of numbers. That is why the STAR test is administered each year, and why students take the SAT and the ACT. GPAs exist so that one student can be easily compared to another. These numbers do not define who you are.

I have seen many of my peers act as phonies in an attempt to get a higher set of numbers. There people have an exemplary skill of filling in bubbles and regurgitating material that is expected of them. Look at everyone in this school who has a 4.0 GPA or above. Some of these students have not contributed a single thing to their society or are not particularly talented.

After high school students will be completely responsible for their own actions as adults. They will have to take care of things like taxes, health care, and food.

Aside from all these negative feelings I had for my experience in high school, I had great experiences as well. I managed to write a symphony (albeit a short one), which the music department is going to perform for the final concert. I also had an opportunity to travel to Italy with my freshman English teacher, Janet Headington.

In the end, high school is what you make of it. My advice for underclassmen is to not let others say what cannot be done and to not succumb to peer pressure.

And also a few days ago I had a pretty good achievement:

I really am almost ready to say good bye to:

All I am missing now is signing some more yearbooks. I will have more organized blog posts later. For now, I must enjoy sleeping while I can.

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Thank you for choosing UC Davis!

2011-04-29T23:50:00.001-07:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: UC Davis Undergraduate Admissions <do-not-reply-adm@ad3.ucdavis.edu>
Date: Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 10:55 PM
Subject: Thank you for choosing UC Davis!
To: Myron Lam

Hello Myron,

Congratulations! You have successfully submitted your Statement of Intent to Register (SIR) to UC Davis. We're pleased that you have chosen UC Davis for your undergraduate education, and we look forward to seeing you soon!

Next steps: Please visit http://myadmissions.ucdavis.edu to review and complete your upcoming pre-enrollment tasks. Don't forget to check for upcoming deadlines.

For additional questions about your admission or enrollment, please call (530)
752-3710. For a list of campus contacts, please visit
http://admissions.ucdavis.edu/contact

Again, thank you for choosing UC Davis. And welcome to the UC Davis Aggie family!

Sincerely,

UC Davis Undergraduate Admissions

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All Around Hercules

2011-04-27T01:16:00.001-07:00

Fine, it wasn't every single part of Hercules, CA.

View Larger Map

But, as in the map, it's more places than I go to in a typical day, on foot. That's what happens when classes are more or less canceled for standardized testing that the federal government wants my district to do in return for grant money, otherwise known as the STAR test. Never the less, there's the story in pictures and a video.

From description on Flickr: "Most seniors didn't have to show up today. Those that did had to take a partial AP Lit practice test and/or go to AP Gov review. So here's everyone scrambling to leave after the gate was unlocked."

Walking past Refugio Valley Park.

Subway Sandwich - it's the "limited time" Orchard Chicken.

Typical macro shot of a flower - by City Hall. I tagged along in my friend's interview with the building official regading damages to the private property in the mudslides. Yes, the flower has nothing to do with the interview.

This the is the fireplace at the library.

One thing I forgot to document is when I was walking backwards along Refugio Valley Road talking about "Hercules High School...college." I really like how those tour guides can just talk and walk backwards the entire time. Or well, I remember when I went to UCLA, and that tour guide cheated a few times when she wasn't talking.

I typically would have been lazier and just put a link to the set of pictures I have on flickr. However, it was a special day so I decided to actually put a little effort into documenting the day. Just to be specific I finished writing this post 2011-04-27 01:15. But I will be posting this for 2011-04-26.

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Spring Break Day 7 - Decision Davis Day

2011-04-25T17:06:00.001-07:00

I think I more or less know where I'm going.

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Spring Break Day 6 - Various Live CDs

2011-04-21T10:10:00.001-07:00

See the full gallery on Posterous

I was cleaning up my collection of live CDs of Ubuntu, openSUSE, and other operating systems of which I do not know much about. They are a good way to spend a weekend downloading the ISO (yes, slow Internet connection, even if it is called "hi-speed DSL" by AT&T), burning the ISO, loading it in the computer, and then playing around with various functions in the live CD. I even committed to installing Ubuntu 8.04 on my desktop, and Ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop when I got a new hard drive. Let's just say I look forward to Ubuntu 11.04 being released, and I will commit to installing that on my newest computer.

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Spring Break Day 5 - Ubuntu 11.04 Beta

2011-04-21T10:01:00.001-07:00

See the full gallery on Posterous

I don't care if I managed to skip the days I was on vacation. I'll get back to writing about the rest of those days later.

As for yesterday, I was trying out Ubuntu 11.04 beta. I have to say it looks pretty nice, and there are obvious influences from Windows 7 and Mac OS X. The entire user interface very much looks like a mobile operating system based on all those apps available in the Ubuntu Software center.

And to just think, not too long ago, I was using Ubuntu 9.10: http://mzzyzx.posterous.com/ubuntu-910-70.>

And also 8.10: http://mzzyzx.posterous.com/ubuntu-810-8.>

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Spring Break Day 1 - Monterey

2011-04-18T00:15:00.001-07:00

I haven't bothered to write blog entries in a long time because they are extremely time consuming. Likewise, I have yet to put stuff online from previous experiences away from home.

As for now, some guy commented on that photo above, on flickr. When I reviewed this picture, it seemed like a very nicely balanced one. I figured that summarizes what happened for Saturday, when my family took off from the Bay Area and headed for Monterey. We also went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but in the end, the nature it still much more beautiful.

I'm in Santa Barbara at the moment, and I will be writing a blog post for that...like when I get home.

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Delta Connection CRJ900

2011-03-27T18:32:00.001-07:00

It's about time I posted something new to my blog. I am possibly going to be going to the east coast to visit New York University and Boston University. Delta flies a route from Boston to New York with a CRJ900 with Comair. So here is one:

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Week Before Daylight Savings

2011-03-07T10:48:00.001-08:00

Nice colors of the sun just rising. Next week it will be different.

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Certificate of Merit Evaluation Level 5

2011-03-05T20:44:00.001-08:00

I think I did well enough. I messed up a little bit, but it's okay. The idea is still just to try you hardest and get feedback from the evaluator. Music theory is no problem. Anyway, this is the only time I ever felt unprepared for the evaluation, as I only had one week coming back from ski week.

CM_Level_5_P1040610.mp3 Listen on Posterous

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Composition Collaboration

2011-02-12T16:04:00.001-08:00

Here is my only attempt a music composition with another friend that was from a long time ago. It's a given what I wrote was a rip off of Beethoven from his Piano Sonata number 1. As for my friend...let's just say it looks interesting. My guess is that the sketch was mad in 2007.

I decided to put this online as an example of why music composition is something I've consistently done alone since 9th grade. I gets confusing trying to have completely different styles be expressed at once.

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New Year's Eve...oops..er..Happy New Year

2011-01-01T23:59:00.000-08:00

Here's probably the last blog post for 2010. It's been a year full of highs and lows and epiphanies, and good experiences. I'm writing this post as my reward for completing two more college applications, to New York University and Boston University. Other than that, there's plenty more work for me to finish...that is for English, Spanish, and Government.

At the end of the day, Winter Break disappeared really quickly. Some of the stuff I wanted to do, including organizing pictures, playing with Ubuntu 10.10, and making flight videos....they all got put on hold. Priorities have their importance...such as making sure a plane is able to land before it runs out of reserve fuel.

Here are a few low points in 2010:

Hard drive failure...or well..that was actually December 2009, but close enough to 2010
Laptop being stolen (Feburary)
An incident that ruined my attitude regarding, er..."DSB" (June)
General bickering regarding numbers, both in 11th and 12th
Not able to attend Camp Royal Reunions

Waterworld (June)
Chau's (August)
Winter Break (December)

I'll be optimistic and end with my good things in 2010:

Installation of Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT 1 GB card...helps in running FSX and Adobe Premiere Elements (January)
Netbook my mom bought for herself (February)
Interact District Conference (November)

----

Okay, forgot to publish this yesterday, but I don't care. Not like anyone reads my blog anyway.

I'll make a proper list of things I liked and disliked about 2010 once winter break is over. There's a huge amount of homework I need to finish. But just for the record, obviously a few missing good things in 2010 are:

Camp Royal (June)
Westminster College of the Arts Composition Week (June/July)
EPGY (July)
Skiing (and snowboarding) a total of 4 times: January, February, April, November.

Las Vegas Trip Day 3 - Walking

2010-12-23T03:03:00.000-08:00

This post was written 2010-12-23 02:47

We covered a lot of ground on Day 3, which was Tuesday, December 21, 2010. I need to make sure I keep the dates right...since it's very confusing not writing the posts on time.

I got a lot of random footage of the Vegas Strip on this day. This would cover from around Bellagio to Mandalay Bay. Now when is all of that stuff going to be edited together into a nice cohesive video, time will tell. I still haven't been able to edit the video from Alaska. Or plenty of other things. You know, life throws you a curve ball and you need to be able to hit it. As for me, I'm still learning about what the "curve ball" is and the proper way to hit it.

Never mind all grievances, I got good exercise done that day. Walking so far is really tiring my legs. Not so much as skiing would, but almost there.

For dinner, we took a shuttle to Rio to eat at their buffet, and thus commence the 24-hour access pass deal a lot of people are trying out. Let's just say that Planet Hollywood's concierge was a bit bored. We learned that the shuttle to Rio would be at Paris. So we walk to Paris and finally made it to some other official, only to tell us that the shuttle doesn't stop here, but rather at Ballys. And then we get out Ballys exit. There was a bus waiting, labeled "Airport Shuttle." there was a sign that pointed toward the right saying "shuttle to Rio." So we stood next to he sign, expecting a bus to come. But then the Airport shuttle driver directed us down towards the right. Finally we see this glass covering thingy to protect us from the rain. It was cumbersome to say the least.

And a side thought, I like skiing. The bus had dirt on it's side and it was wet, windows all fogged up. That's a fairly uncommon thing to see on this bus.

THUD!

Just when we would be getting off the bus, this guy was backing up, and hit the bus. Good thing we didn't get kept in the bus for too long before we were dismissed. Interesting night.

Rio's food. I say not worth the money...and idk about the pass. More later, I can't stay up anymore.

Las Vegas Trip Day 2 - Shopping

2010-12-21T10:40:00.000-08:00

This post was written 2010-12-21 10:39, and finished 2010-12-23 02:45

I'm non-materialistic. Enough said. I will append the blog post later once I have time. And hopefully if I remember.

Let's see what happened that day. I woke up, and I ate the rest of the buffalo chicken wrap as my breakfast. I found out that we would be going to go to some shopping area.

Since it's been so long, I have already forgotten most of the smaller details. I'm going to give a quick summary.

I walked around the shops at the outlet. While my mom, aunts, cousin and aunt's friends were shopping, I just kept walking around. The only stores that interested me were the Ritz camera shop, Bose, and this kitchen appliance shop. I don't care about clothing style. As long as I got clothes that keep me warm in the winter (and cool in the summer) and are clean and fitting, I'll be happy. (And of course if it wasn't a masculine color...such as pink...I probably wouldn't have it in my wardrobe to begin with.)

And let's see, I managed to record my walking from one end to the other of the Las Vegas factory outlet. That took a good 7 minutes.

My aunt's friend suggested that we go to this one place to eat dinner. It turned out to be at Terrible's casino. Although Terrible's is like everywhere in Nevada, this one is 60 miles from Vegas. Why here, I don't know. It was an okay dinner. Most had Steak and Lobster, one friend had New York Steak, and I had fish and chips.

After dinner, the friends and (unwillingly) my mom played with Lady Luck for a while. My aunts, cousin and I didn't want to just sit at the casino, so we decided to go to the Walgreens across the street to kill some time. There were some obscure DVDs on sale for $5 for 2 discs, so eh, I got this one production of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." We also got a half gallon of milk to put in the refrigerator in our suite.

60 miles, and we get back to Vegas. We drove by I-15 and got a view of the strip (as in the recap video at the top). What else happened...nothing. Let's look at the post for Day 3....soon...and the video probably won't be done...and never will...too busy here.

Las Vegas Trip Day 1 - I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane

2010-12-20T01:42:00.000-08:00

This post was written 2010-12-21 01:49

It's really exciting (now that I love airplanes) that I would be going to the airport. I was listening to "Leaving on a Jet Plane," and the lyrics really struck me. My dad was dropping my mom and me off at the Southwest terminal. I saw a couple hugging. "Hold me like you'll never let me go." Pretty much sums up the feeling.

While waiting at check-in, I saw the officer in charge of regulating the flow of traffic. She was walking up and down the Southwest Airlines terminal. A car had just parked, and the wife had gotten out of the car. She needed some help with the bags, so her husband shut off the engine and ran with her to get the bags into the airport building. Later, I saw that officer run up to the car, blowing the whistle. Of course the husband wouldn't be able to hear...he's too much in a hurry. And there she goes, busting out her notepad and writing him a citation. He comes out just after the lady finished writing his ticket. He said, "I'm here." The officer simply nonchalantly hands him the ticket. A person waiting behind me in line said, "Merry Christmas?" Basically I'm pretty sure the guy cursed, drove off, and with a ruined mood for the rest of the day. The law's the law, and you break it you got to pay.

But then I see this other couple. They get out of the car. No, the bags didn't come out. Only their persons. To put it nicely, the were taking the lyrics "hold me like you'll never let me go" way too far. They just hug and kiss for a good 3-4 minutes. The same officer had walked to the farther end of the Southwest terminal and didn't notice. Only around 5 minutes in, the guy helped get the bags out of the car. He got in, and by the time he started the engine, it would have been twice as long as the guy who got ticketed earlier. That just really made me mad. That's not fair...or well...it's only illegal if you get caught. There was also this other guy. Let's just say opening the door mean loud blasts of music accompanied with a heavy bass rhythm came out. It's catchy...but annoying. The people who came out basically were extremely clumsy and had large bags haphazardly packed, along with a few papers that fell out upon opening the door. And by the time a second officer came buy, she told the driver, "hurry up let's go." And traffic was blocked. Again. What a way to start the vacation.

Now where was this take place? This time it's Oakland International Airport. It means seeing all those different airlines, ads, and the rushing of passengers. Not to mention, the bureaucracy: the TSA. It was a fairly quick process, and if I had went through an X-ray machine, I wouldn't have known.

And then I find this moving walkway, and I see a view of the wind blowing hard on the San Francisco Bay. Eventually I make it to the Southwest terminal. I bought a Chicken Caesar sandwich at California Pizza Kitchen, since I hadn't had any breakfast. I make it to Gate 29, and await boarding.

"And Section C, welcome aboard." Uh...it was lame. All the aisle and window seats were taken in the entire 737-700. I was desperately looking for a window seat since I have always been looking forward to recording the takeoff again. I made it all the way to the last seat and saw a middle seat. I figured, whatever, all other seats are going to be taken anyway. I sit down and then I hear on the PA: "We have a few window seats over here by the wing." Hmm...I wanted that. I like hearing the engines. And I love hearing the flaps...especially the flaps. I've flown on a Boeing 737 so many times that I'm somewhat mad I didn't hear the flaps sounds too well from where I sat. Anyway I got a good view of the winglet at least. And the person sitting to the right of me was out of the way for the most part.

Here are the takeoff and landing videos:

Takeoff

Landing

No need to say anything about the turbulence on this flight.

My mom and I rendezvoused with my two aunts and cousin that flew in from San Francisco. They had an earlier flight, but the departure delayed it due to weather. (California's been having some pretty nasty weather lately.) Thus, my later flight arrived at Las Vegas before theirs. I posted to Facebook I had landed, and attempted to upload a video. (I really am an addict to uploading stuff whenever there's Internet access during a trip.)

The taxi driver was pretty bored:

-Hello.

-[no response]
-You can help us with our bags.
-[no response]
-We're going to Planet Hollywood.
-[no response]
-(In Chinese) Wow this guy sure is weird.
-[pushes the button to start the fare counting]
-[arrive at PH, pushes button to stop the fare counting]
-Thirteen fifty.
-(In Chinese) Wow. He doesn't even open the door for us.
-(In Chinese) Nor does he help us unload
-(In Chinese) We're not going to tip him that much, he doesn't deserve it.
-[takes the $16, counts a few times, incredulously looking at the bills]

Then we go to the registration counter. I sit there, waiting, attending the baggage we have. There really was some pretty annoying and suggestive music. And the hotel area was what I considered to be elegant. Basically that place is just nothing like those resorts at Lake Tahoe. But then again, the places at South Lake Tahoe are for people who are going skiing/snowboarding, so it's a different attitude.

Then my mom receives information that we're in the hotel registration, and that we actually need to go to the timeshare check-in for Planet Hollywood Towers. So we drag out things through up an escalator, and and find ourselves in the casino area. The person working at the information desk pointed us in the right direction, saying this happens all the time, and doesn't know why the taxi drivers (and the Planet Hollywood staff) can't get it right.

I sit down, have a quick chat with one of my friends on the phone. And then we get our keys. We will be staying at room 3707. We take the elevator up, and see that the shades opened up automatically for us upon our arrival. (Now, I'm pretty sure that's because someone accidentally pushed the "shade up" button as well as the lights.) Speak about good view...we saw a parking lot as well as a bunch of other towering buildings across.

We then had lunch at the Ocean One Bar & Cuisine. We noticed that it had a $5.99 lunch special. And with the 5 of us, we ordered 4 dishes. (Refer to flikr.) My Buffalo Chicken wrap was a really good one. At the end of the meal, there were still left overs, after sharing between all 5 of us. Kinda makes us feel a little bit better, that we honestly couldn't' have bought more food if we wanted to.

After that I retire to the room for more of less the rest of the night. I take a nap. And then I set to work on the Stanford supplements. Go figure, working on a vacation. Not that I exactly was too excited to go here in the first place. And it's nice looking at the view outside while doing the essays. My mom did request a room with a good view. This suite is a pretty good one. At night, the parking lots naturally aren't emphasized, and you can see plenty of other casinos nearby. We even get a glimpse of the Bellagio fountains.

I'll have the post for Monday Dec. 20 written on Tuesday. It's very time consuming writing in this much detail.

Cat Rescue

2010-12-17T10:46:00.001-08:00

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Brr...it's cold

2010-11-24T17:25:00.001-08:00

What a good way to remind myself of the one sport I like: skiing. It's amusing walking out of the house, and finding the car covered with frost. Showing that picture very well could convince someone that I "went" to Lake Tahoe. As for picture number 2, the thermostat reads 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Today is the first day of 2010 where the central heating has been used. I've been getting by wearing extra clothing and having a small 1500-Watt electric heater in my room.

Just another thought about physics: I think my room requires around 600 watts of power to maintain a "constant" temperature. After letting the heater stay on for a while, room's temperature stabilized with 600 watts. I will attempt to insulate the windows more.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Pictures of the Sky and Candles

2010-11-22T17:52:00.001-08:00

Well, this was a whimsical desire. I doubt I have the devotion to do a photography blog. It takes too much "effort." Never the less photos are still cool. One thing I have been contemplating is a screenshot of the day kind of thing for flight simulator. That would be amusing to some degree.

So about these pictures...one of my friends said he saw a double rainbow outside. I immediately grabbed my camera and tripod and went outside hoping to see something. But no. All I saw was "boring" sky. Since it is cold outside, I decided to grab a few candles and light them all to warm my hands, and that explains the candle pictures.

(pictures are licensed by Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0, so credit me as "mzzyzx")

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Vote for SF Team on Films

2010-11-10T11:31:00.001-08:00

This is a desperate attempt to get people to vote for the San Francisco team's video, produced by my fellow yearbook staff member (and the rest of the SF team). And you can vote as many times as needed. Please support the SF team: http://www.fresh-films.com/

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Happy Birthday to You

2010-11-04T18:15:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to Kent,

Genius:

an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work in science, art, music, etc.: the genius of [Kent].
a person having such capacity.
a person having an extraordinarily high intelligence rating on a psychological test, as an iq above 140.
natural ability or capacity; strong inclination: a special genius for leadership.
distinctive character or spirit, as of a nation, period, or language.
the guardian spirit of a place, institution, etc.
either of two mutually opposed spirits, one good and the other evil, supposed to attend a person throughout life.
I decided to waste space in this list by listing out several definitions of "genius" from dictionary.com. After all, that's what most people call you anyway, so you might as well remind your friends of what you really are.
I ashume we met sometime in elementary school. Of course my memory of those days is rather fuzzy now.
"Don't start being stupid." - Kent. You wrote this in my 8th grade yearbook. Okay I won't.
Remember our trip to Zeum for Headington? That was fun when we went ice skating. You were learning quite well from my tips (which of course I learned from Skido Kido). Here's another tip. No one says "ice skiing" as a sport. That's just a corruption of "ice skating" and "skiing." The only time you'd use "ice skiing" is if you are referring to skiing on ice. In skiing terminology, ice is different from snow. With a pair of skis, and not skates.
I heard there's an Ellango fan club. That means we need a club for you. I nominate Yueming to be the president of the "Kent Club." And Ellango can be VP, just like he's VP in KIWIN'S.
I remember the time I beat you in arm wrestling at homework help. But then again it probably wasn't exactly fair since you already dueled Ellango just before me.
There is no point 14, since that's what I did for Yueming.
"I heard he grew a bit in high school." I think that's an understatement. Kinda like "Hitler was not always a sane man" (Ellango) or "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress." (Captain Moody)
I just realized this. "Tanita" and "Mendoza" are half rhymes. Of course, "Mendoza!" is a expression of anguish. Apparently, "Tanita" means "a person with extremely sexy elbows." Someone needs to make it such that shouting "Tanita!" could be a cry of genius or something.
At the end of the day, do I consider you to be genius? I'll have to think about it. But do I think of you as a hell of a student of high merit? Definitely.

Yeah, a list of 17 dingsbums for your 17 years of age.

Sincerely,

Montgomery Zzyzx

Whoever can avoid using the word "genius" in the comments section will be considered a genius themselves. What other word can you use to convey your sentiments about him? Better still, something along the lines of a poem, photo (and photo essay), comic strip, video or music composition. Try not to undermine your own intelligence while commenting, since different people have their own talents and accomplishments.

10-10-10

2010-10-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

I have been far too lazy to finish putting all of my stuff from Camp Royal, Composition Week or EPGY. I needed too much concentration, time, patience - none of which I had over the summer. And I definitely don't have much patience now since I need to bother with college apps. That is the life of an American high school senior.

But today is one of those once in a century occurrences, as the ten ten ten thing is in the air. So in celebration of this, I created the Arke News YouTube channel. And the first video to be uploaded is the Homecoming Rally Teacher Dance:

Homecoming Rally - Teacher Dance from Montgomery Zzyzx on Vimeo.

So yes, this was a right day to "resume" blogging. I'll be sure to document my life properly during the upcoming Winter Break. Christmas break. Whichever.

A Totally Loaded Summer

2010-07-09T00:47:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's already July now. I still have EPGY to look forward to, but it's getting kinda shocking that not too long ago I was having a lot of fun at "Mexico" on a cruise ship with so many other people from school. And yes, I have a couple blog posts there I need to also post here sometime this week.

I have been having trouble remembering to keep everything organized properly on this blog. There's stuff from Mexico I still need to copy and paste into here (from the document on the netbook). Likewise, I still am working on typing up those Camp Royal journal entries. And lastly, I have some stuff from Composition Week that I should also scan and upload to Flickr or something. I don't know. Documenting my life is hard, especially if I want to be so detail-oriented.

However, I do need to pause and reflect quickly. Today was basically a blunt reminder of how it was like to be at Camp Royal. Working at the Bay Area Rescue Mission reminds me way too much that Camp Royal is, in my opinion, designed to inspire love. Of course, working alongside the other Interact people (as kitchen volunteers) who are with me for this project also reminds me of how much love we all had for each other there. And I was so happy I got do to a power woosh to one of the kitchen assistants. That's probably still the main little thing I miss from camp. And that place is not too far from that Richmond RPAL. That means I better start thinking about having KIWIN'S go help out there one day...closer to some holiday time, just for fun. And along with Interact or something. I have no idea, but there are some great people in this world...it's just hard to find them, and even harder to find such people if you see them everyday in mundane school conditions.

Let's see...another thing I need to reflect on is my video I made for the Bombardier CRJ700. I like how I finally realized that turning on high-resolution textures wouldn't slow down the rendering in FSX. The only stuff that really slows it down are the 3D buildings and terrain. So finally being able to see my favorite FSX plane with a virtual cockpit that is very high detailed...that basically inspired me to make this takeoff video:

Anyway, I'll get along with typing up Day 4 of Camp Royal, and call it a night.

Composition Week Day 3 - Song for Camp Royal

2010-06-29T23:15:00.000-07:00

2010-06-29 23:15

It sure was a surprise this morning. When I woke up, my body didn’t want to get out of the bed, and I saw that the room was getting rather bright. I came to my senses and realized that it was already 8:15. So I woke up my roommate and I quickly hurried to get breakfast. But then during breakfast, there was still plenty of food left, so I was okay. Otherwise I could just munch on some crackers or cereal.

Er...I kinda made up that time for this blog post. I was busy reading so I forgot to note down the time I have here. But let’s see, it’s now 00:16, so I’ll speed things up a bit. Or well..I actually spent another hour reading stuff on Graphjam. That’s a good use of time.

Eh...I’m going to say I have an interesting challenge for this week...a composition with non-standard notation.

And also, I have to say while showering, I came up with some possible lyrics to that song I am attempting to write about Camp Royal. And I mean a legitimate song with words, sung at a campfire with a guitar. No one knows about this yet...since this post isn’t published yet. But I have to say that this piece I’m trying to do is probably a hidden desire that I have while here at Westminster College. I’ll give the score to a guitarist to look over, and I’ll be e-mailing Lain, Steve, and other Camp Royal people with my creation as soon as it’s done.

I guess this will be my secondary focus for the rest of this week...since Wednesday is the halfway mark. And it finally cooled down a bit here.

Composition Week Day 2 - ILS landing charts go with with music paper

2010-06-28T23:42:00.000-07:00

Dr. Young and Dr. Hemmel are two of our main instructors in composition for this week. And I have to say that atonal music will take sometime for me to appreciate fully. But I will speak chronologically.

We were handed a sheet of paper all with eighth notes. Dr. Hemmel said mark it up, add ties, slurs, articulation, and dynamic markings to make something out of the piece. I thought to myself that the laziest solution to this is to tie all of the eighth notes into one long note. And come to think of it, leaving the paper the way it is would also be a unique rhythm. But I didn’t do that. Here’s my markup (hmm... reminds me of HTML):

[picture]

I have to say that I had this repeating D minor chord playing back in my head as I was marking it up. I also screwed up some counting (since I intended it to be all 4/4 time). But I figured it wouldn’t matter, so I just changed meters a couple of times. It’s a pretty amusing and different way to write music. And with Camp Royal speak, it’s definitely out of my “comfort zone.”

After this rhythm exercise with Dr. Hemmel, my class began to look at some compositions and dissected some of them. So here I am, with basically no knowledge about atonal music (except knowing that it exists), trying to listen to the piece that had a hard to discern melody. But I could see that some of these recurring patterns in the sheet music...I just couldn’t pick them up when I heard it at first. Dr. Young picked apart the piece, much like the way Litvin would do for AP Lang. And for 20 minutes, I understood exactly what was going on, and I was able to see that, say, this tritone is used again here, and that this sequence of notes is inverted, and all that good stuff. After that time, I have to be honest and say that I couldn’t follow with the rest of the explanations about how certain musical ideas were not accidents but planned references to previous material. It’s still hard for me to love listening to this music, but I can really see how much thought a composer (in this case Werbern) put into such pieces.

Then came lunch. Nothing special there...or no, I lie. I took out an ILS Landing chart for Runway 4R at Newark International Airport. I started tracing the ILS feather into staff paper, and plotted VORs in the staves. Then getting an idea from Dr. Hemmel - his piece Var. Zip - I used the radio frequencies as pitches. Like 123.45 would be, on my constructed system, C D E F G, all quarter notes, except a dotted quarter for E. And then I remembered that those radios broadcast Morse code for the airport as it’s identifier. KEWR: dah-di-dah dit di-dah-dah di-dah-dit. That could be use as a rhythmic motif. And so on. When I talked to Dr. Hemmel during my private instruction time, he showed me this honda advertisement video using only a choir:

Yeah that is crazy. And yet, it could be employed for an airplane landing (much more pleasing to my ears than a car driving along the road).

Let’s see, we also went into town, and got a look at Princeton. And I went to a record store. I bought 4 CDs...Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto Nos. 1, 2 and 3 (2 disc set), and Beatles’s Yellow Submarine. That set me back about 16 dollars.

And er... I played my piano concerto to some classmates. Yeah, I made mistakes, and yeah, it sounds more boring with just piano and no orchestra.

Here’s my conclusion for our first day of instruction...if there’s so much my professors can talk about today, there must be an immense amount of stuff left over to go over in this week. I’ll see all of the stuff I can absorb and use for future reference. (for now, Dr. Hemmel’s advice...more inversions of chords, and also cut out sound from video and just recreate it using sound effects).

Composition Week Day 1 - It is darn HUMID here

2010-06-27T23:10:00.001-07:00

2010-06-27 23:10

I’m going to keep this post short and sweet. There’s nothing to say yet, and it’s time for bed. I need to get used to this weather. It’s humid, and a lot different compared to the mountain weather I am used to at Camp Royal. Regardless, there have been nice things here. Plenty of space to practice...and plenty of grand pianos in tune (meh, I still kinda miss that broken piano at camp) and a full digital workstation.

More details tomorrow...jet lag is not cool.

Composition Week Day 0 - Flight to Newark

2010-06-26T22:48:00.000-07:00

2010-06-26 22:48

The time I have listed for the blog post is Pacific Standard Time, as my take off location was San Francisco International Airport.

I am currently on a Boeing 757-300, at 35,000 ft. I brought along a compass, but I don’t believe that I am flying 100 degrees...that needle probably is badly magnetized. The pilot told us we would be scheduled to land on time, on Runway 4R. I’ll pull out my charts when the time comes.

So when I first boarded this 757...I thought, “hey, it looks just like a 737!” Only a lot longer and stretched out. Even the flight attendant told one of the passengers: “this plane is a Boeing 757-300...a stretched, stretched limo.” Plus the wings are longer and higher off the ground. And also, I listened to the whine of the engine as it started up...a different sound compared to the engines Southwest uses for their Boeing 737 fleet. I believe the ones on this plane is something by Rolls Royce. I’ll look it up when the time comes. One more detail I should mention...I am seated towards the rear of the airplane...and I can really see that wing flex.

The take off video I got is here:

I believe I took off from Runway 1R. It was pretty dark and I couldn’t see for sure. And man I forgot how shaky it can be when we are rolling down that runway so fast. But then again, this is a full flight...packed to maximum basically. The only few seats that are open are the seats that you have to pay an extra $79 or $99 for extra legroom. That’s just stupid. I’m glad that I could get a window seat at the last minute...that’s good enough. Like really, I originally was seated for a middle seat, and I’m very grateful for whoever gave up this seat for a different one.

About 10 minutes ago, the flight attendants delivered some pretzals. And now I got a can of Sprite. That should keep me satisfied for a while, and hopefully I won’t need to use the lavatory. One thing I notice is that the tray tables don’t have a little cup holder thing. It’s all flat. I guess that’s okay. However it kinda was very amusing on my British Airways flight to London, when we were served tea for breakfast. Just when we got the tea, we experienced a little turbulence. I should find that video of the tea just shaking with ripples...threatening to spill over at any minute.

Hmm...I just managed to spill soda over my lap. That was very annoying. I probably shouldn’t have been thinking about the tea incident as much...that way I could have been more mindful about how I am handling the tea.

I think I should stop talking about logistics of this flight and finish up some thoughts about the music composition program. I really need to get some rest since this is a red eye flight, and I’ll be dog tired when I get over there. Currently it is 02:30 on the East Coast.

One of the things I definitely want to say is that I brought along my piano concerto and I believe the Camp Royal Waltz. I’ll be using those for show and tell. And of course, I have Florence, but I totally have no clue where the DVD of it is. I’ll just look it up on YouTube and give it to the staff. So I’ll need to worry about that music later.

Hmm... at 35,000 ft, it is a darn clear night. I can see towns and city blocks from this altitude. I still have no idea where I am though. And I assume that I am around Utah or so, since it is about an hour into the flight. I don’t know what the pilot selected for cruising speed, so I’ll just assume Mach 0.80. I should have been able to travel at least 400 nautical miles by now. And there thing that looks weird is that there are these huge completely dark areas. It really looks like I am just in the ocean right now with a coastline.

I’m going to call this a blog post and get some rest. The spill is almost dried up, and falling asleep will help me forget about it. And I need to wake up on time for the landing as well.

Camp Royal Waltz

2010-06-23T23:49:00.001-07:00

Download now or preview on posterous

Camp Royal Waltz.pdf (33 KB)

Hmm...I should have put this online a bit earlier rather than just on the Facebook group for Camp Royal 2010.

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Camp Royal Day 4 - Leaders of the World

2010-06-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

(posted 2010-07-09)

2010-06-16 12:31

Chau is giving us the gift of silence. Of course, it is not dead silent as in there are no sounds going on. She's trying - or no - COMMITTING to give us time to appreciate the gift of food from the universe. Through 10 minutes of silence. Since I don't really feel comfortable eating in this silence - I decided to start writing. The silence period is over; everyone is hopefully more mindful of their actions.

2010-06-16 23:39

Alright. I need to distance myself from people a bit today, at least for the night. I've gone through several totally different experiences today that are challenging my mind, body and, well, spirit. As I reflect, I am going to make sure I filter out the "distractions" of my platform. Once frustrated, Number 4 people totally distance themselves from the rest of society.

When I woke up this morning, I felt tense and forced, and no longer appreciative of being at camp so much. And really, once I figured out some kind of routine I get totally bored instantly, even if the day is full of excitement. I dont' know, the camp meals, the bells, the time of the speakers, the comedy (heh, skits), and well, even this journaling. Developing my mind and personality, I am obviously in a time of struggle. Figuring myself for who I want to be.

So the speaker for today was Chau. It is a bit amusing and intellectually stimulating to have her speak to ht ecamp. [She's] Totally balanced in all aspects of life, and if not, pretty close there, kinda like approaching a limit. It is nice releasing stress, but of course, there's always learning her techniques for living life.

However, after that, I listened to a song put together by Chau and her gang. I have to say music is totally my thing. I haven't heard anything so beautiful in a long time I nearly cried giving a standing ovation to the song. This is where composition comes later. This experience with Chau challenged my creative mind.

Just before lunch time I had to go help set up. Yeah, the quiet time was pretty darn amusing. Appreciating the sounds of food being served.

After lunch, I got back to the platform to get my pen and use the toilet, etc. I managed to attempt running all the way up to the theater. It didn't work. I ran out of breath halfway up. Here, I managed to challenge my body.

After Chau's second session, we began to find people nearby us for the service project. It made me realize some leaders are totally more ambitions than others. [The] Group I'm in looks nice. And yeah,we all [are] no more accountable for the project than each other, but some people definitely have a lot more experience. Whatever it is I'm look[ing] for, I don't know. Mental Challenge here: working with others/people skills.

As I walked down towards the piano area, I had no idea that I would embark on a pretty darn ambitions thing. I managed [to] scribble out some music as er, Steven and Young were working on the guitar stuff. Yeah, that would be the music a few pages back [in the notebook]. Mental Challenge here: Creativity.

Come dinner time. New rule for the Pines: drinks must be consumed by using the non-dominant hand and double tapping on the table. Mental Challenge: Awareness and Cunningness. I kept the glass empty and ate with only the left hand, in order to eliminate one possibility.

After dinner...tried to compose more. Sat [at] a table and guy joined me Had a down to earth and real conversation. Mental Challenge: there being a guy to talk to and listen to.

Still later, pleasing people with some music on the piano. Either way, adapting myself so much is getting a bit confusing.

And lastly, as I have done for quite a while...filter out the "boys will be boys" conversations among my platform and focusing on writing. Mental Challenge: Being a number 4 person - secluded.

And now, my challenge is to totally sleep.

Camp Royal Day 3 - It all makes sense now

2010-06-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

2010-06-15 13:42

I like how Lain is giving us time to document our "odyssey" right now. Yeah, minutes to just write and reflect on the day's events. I've managed to write a lot more often than I typically do at such a camp, but I haven't been able to get in depth.

So here I am at the front row of the amphitheater. All the campers are busy scribbling words down, surrounded by the mountains, trees, and a great, caring staff. In front of us are inspirational quotes, posted by those trees. I can see how some people are real writers in development and are totally relaxed while completing the task [of reflecting].Some lay down on the stone. Others are cross-legged. Most of us, due to space constraints, are in a seated position. Of course, some people wrote more than others and some people managed with a few sentences.

This kinda brings me straight into my next paragraph about today's speaker. I like how nature managed to send a breeze to turn the page [in the notebook] for me. And yeah. I totally believe I am a knowledge person. It pains me to see other people not know their stuff. Of course, that's not true, and I must think about how to better myself as a visionary leader - as Robii said - in order to benefit Interact, KIWIN'S, Chocolate Club, etc.

Nice one. Lain said 2 more minutes.

I'll think some more music:

[insert picture]

2010-06-15 21:45

Heh, I am in the middle of a totally diverse and downright American group of students, er, campers, er "captains of [aircraft] industry." I was "invited" to join in on a "conversation" with an "Asian" group, and I totally just said, "I want to be a number 4 person [and not go to the campfire.]" Those guys respected that, and I basically got disconnected from the group.

I'll go ahead and contemplate this fact that I am primarily a number 4 person. That presenter, Robii, is an awesome psychologist. Or well, "awesome" is not really a "proper" professional adjective. I'll go ahead and replace that with a worse and "unacceptable" (ACT writing test reference) alternative: BA.

Nah...he opened my mind.

Quickly, I'll say that counselor Joe came right to me, seeing me writing right in here. He noticed the journaling and we stopped and talked a bit about high school. It work[ed] nicely. (Hmm, phrase stuck in my head got blurted out again.) He looked through my notes I took on Alex's presentation today. I managed to say that I am a journalist - which is why I had quotes as quotes and paraphrase as paraphrase. He told me he worked in yearbook and leadership while he was in high school - there weren't many electives since it was a small school he went to. This is where I told him I don't have a leadership class at my school this year since there was a lack of funding. Not sure if this is right, but I told him anyway - that the funding was either for leadership or for sports, and sports "reigned supreme." (Iron Chef America). And Joe concluded that sports are also very important.

This is where I segue into concluding that leadership - at my school - was the right thing to cut. My justification was that the leaders at our school would managed to refocus and overcome the hardship of not having the class. Joe agreed. This conclusion would not have been possible without the help from Robii's insight on the human brain.

I lolve, hehe...I spelled "love" wrong...and there's "lol" in it. Meh, some downright spelling errors are just accidental and will be corrected by the time this stuff gets digitized. And man, at this moment I'm writing, this will take a long time to retype.

Alright, for real this time...I love all these things I'm getting out of this camp. It is just so cool having these fun, serious, humorous, and - in the long run - productive

2010-06-15 23:26

I'm going to finish up what I wrote there from the entry before. I made a list of adjectives but never got to the noun. The noun in this case I wanted to say was "presentation." Or as it says on my name tag..."guest presenters."

These presenters I wouldn't' say changed my view of my purpose in life, but it certainly added to it. Again, it just made too much sense to me about how human nature is like when Robii made his presentation today. He got all of his knowledge and explanations "down to a science." (generic American) I really don't know what to say except that it all makes way too much sense why I am who I am.

It's getting late, and I removed my watch now, so I don't know what time it is. But I can say time does slow down here. Again, being aware of the river that flows down the side. The burs of wind striking my skin, contrasted by warm toes in the sleeping bag. It's just a pleasure writing with only a flashlight in a certain positon. I'm totally going to take a picture of this set up right now. The picture didn't' work well. It's too dark. My eyes can adjust but my camera can't.

Er, quickly about today: Pines/fireside skit. Awesome. I managed to be the "drummer" for the "airband" in Don't Stop Believing. Hypnosis show, too good. Plus, insane entrace to breakfast with the 'We are the Pines" corruption. Got that on video...and I'll be talking to shags more on this later...and I need a Day title.

Goal for tomorrow: do something out of routine. Enjoy myself. But practice structure.

Camp Royal Day 2 - It is darn cold at night

2010-06-14T06:10:00.000-07:00

2010-06-14 06:10

I woke up this morning at 04:55. I had been stupid enough to not zip up my mummy-style sleeping bag all the way to my head, and now I have a slight nasal congestion. As a typical journal, this entry will serve as a reminder that it gets COLD out here.

Here's why:

My arms were much cooler to touch compared to my legs.

My face felt like it had been a long day in the sunny ski slope.

And most definitely, my water bottle had ice in it as I was taking some medicine.

This is just COLD.

However, I must say that I won't be stopped by such conditions. Getting sick is not an option for me this week. And I totally will get used to protecting myself from the changing weather soon.

2010-06-14 13:11

So it is now just a few moments before the presentation, so here will be a quick musical sketch.

2010-06-14 17:57

Here, it's almost time for dinner. If there's anything that made my day it has to be that picture of Bar, the camp dog, crossing that wooden plank suspension bridge. So how'd that happen...I'll quickly recap the last hour.

I went down towards my platform, and I saw Corral/Aquarius about to [walk to the river].

2010-06-15 23:16

Reflection time. This was a pretty amusing and wonderful first [full] day of camp. Alex just told us to think about one thing that happened today in camp that we really liked, so that we would forever remember it. I'll think about that and reach some kind of conclusion about my first day.

"When I woke up this morning," I had no idea what to expect out of this place. It was great on the way up, since sitting in the front of the bus allowed me an excellent view of the mountains and the river. That was a pretty good tonic there. I haven't seen nature that good since April, when I last went to Lake Tahoe. And yeah, waking up was exactly the same feeling as going to sleep. I managed to awake to the sound of water rushing by in the river below our platform. As for the night skyline, that was replaced with a pale blue and mostly reddish sky - as far as I remember - since I woke around 04:55. The firs thing I felt was that my nose was very clogged. A nice soft tissue fixed that, and I headed back to bed for about an hour. so next awakening was when the rest of the boys, or er, men, on my platform all had their alarms for 06:00.

So yeah, I'll need to speed things up a bit. Writing by hand is extremely therapeutic, and also very satisfying to my mind. However, with teh amount of detail I want to put into my log, I really would need a computer to get my words down faster.

For my morning activity, I had Chau's Chi Gong lesson. Eh, I'll get the right spelling later. I have to say, breathing is really a pretty darn important thing to remember. That lesson really helped wake me up. I have to say that Martial Arts lesson deserves the status of a purely intellectually stimulating activity. The third one in this year 2010. First being snowboarding, and second being drumming with Mr. Nguyen's band.

Breakfast was nice. Oatmeal, always a nice camp breakfast. Biscuits, so fresh, so flaky, so...everything you get in the store plus more.

Motivational speaker - or hope dealer as he calls himself - Jeremy. Awesome guy Just the kind of guy we need more of in real leadership positions at school. So open, so caring, humorous, and, by popular demand - the ethos appeal of "I made it" after having a totally hopeless childhood.

Lunch - eh, first infraction for me. Not feeling uncomfortable but might as well write it down. I simply forgot to tell Alex where I was...talking to Jeremy. That's okay. I'm only human. Here goes my defense system...I really do get this camp and COSMOS mixed up. I miss being able to just write down where I would be on that sing in/out chart. Amazing experience there and here.

Alright, it was Lain after lunch. It worked out nicely with his activities of being with partners, and then helping the Rotary club check those synthetic hands.

Alright, moving along. Meditation. "Breathe in as you are smelling a flower and blow out as you are blowing out a candle." It works.

And my eyes are tired, my wrist is sore from this frantic scribbling. And I need to respect the guys asleep and turn off my flashlight.

Free time - managed to go to the River, as discussed earlier. It works nicely, despite no time to swim.

"It works nicely" is now my weird phrase of the week or something.

Alright dinner. I forgot...err, meatloaf. I had the veggie stuff. Dessert...cake!

After dinner...speakers, the psychologists. And skis. Totally funny. Now the Pines need to step it up.

In conclusion...great first day, mind is open and ready to accept challenges, fail, then learn.

Camp Royal Day 1 - Campfire Stories

2010-06-13T22:20:00.000-07:00

2010-06-13 21:20

Let me just say - it is an incredible beginning to such an awesome week. Yeah, I'm very busy right now having fun listening to stuff. Whatever. I shall write later.

2010-06-13 22:59

So here I am, at the conclusion of Day 1 here at the camp. The staff told me I am supposed to hold on to this journal and bring it to the meetings to take notes. I am going to go ahead and make this simple for myself - logistic reasons - I will be writing entries in chronological order. Heh...my counselor just had our group do the call. Just goes to show, this camp is extremely amusing, and it is one of those experiences that is definitely once in a lifetime - as envisioned by the Rotarians that sponsored our trip. Possibly just as much "once in a lifetime" as COSMOS.

I'm going to start with describing my surroundings. It is just nice being able to be in a semi-bare essentials kind of place. There's the water running and we are on these "platforms." And I have to say, rather comfortable and welcoming as my shelter for the next few days. One either side of the notebook - as I am laying down writing - I see darkness, only the paper illuminated by the light. My companions have already retired their lights - but I figured, just like at COSMOS, I should be descriptive. I feel a gentle breeze blowing through my arms. There is the sound of water front eh river to the right of the platform. As I am laying, the sleeping bag is on this mattress thing. There are faint stars out there. Possibly, as what the staff wants us to do - reach for them, and make the best of your time here, discover yourself.

Or, as I shall conclude like I did at COSMOS - or so the RAs (in this case counselors) are trying to brainwash me into thinking.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 66 - SAT Subject Test

2010-06-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

San Antonio International Airport

If there is anything I should be studying right now, it should be 3D geometry and matrices for Math II, and Newtonian mechanics and modern physics for Physics. Both tests will obviously show how well I mastered the material compared with other students. However, I'll leave it to myself to figure out how much I truly like the subject area.

As my English teacher said, there are no pieces of writing that are purely narrative, as there are elements of reflection as well. For now, I'll be quickly doing a little reflection and evaluation of events that have happened so far this year.

I remember the only reason why I switched from Honors Physics to AP Physics B this year was because I felt the material in honors would be presented too slowly, and I would not be challenged enough in preparation for the subject test. I know very well that History and English are not my forte, so I see no reason why I should bother taking the test. Today, however, I'll see what colleges will think is my overall appreciation of math and physics.

United Commercial

2010-06-03T06:45:00.001-07:00

Download now or watch on posterous

United Commercial.wmv (5281 KB)

SD version of the United Airlines Commercial for APUSH final project...HD one will be up at Vimeo or YouTube (haven't decided yet) later.

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Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 56 - Spring Sports Banquet

2010-05-26T21:40:00.000-07:00

I remember back in March, I had an orchestra project in which I arranged the "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" by John Williams to be played in a string trio. Apparently that inspired the athletic director to invite some orchestra students to play at the banquet. Yeah, because in every true athlete, some kind of Olympic dream exists, even if such a dream exists very briefly. I obviously will "never" become good enough at skiing to ever join any kind of team, nor will it be important for the rest of my life, since it appears that things such as science and research would most likely be what I do best. Regardless, for those athletes at our school who still believe, I say dream on, especially if you even paid attention to any of the groups playing on the stage. However, I guess music might possibly and very minutely still be important in my life...since the trio I played in obviously was worth mentioning to an athletic director

As a result, ever since March, several groups of musicians volunteered/were summoned to perform at the banquet. At one point, it was completely forgotten that the Olympic Fanfare was supposed to be performed at the banquet. It's amusing how it's the one that inspired the whole thing anyway.

Regardless, orchestra + sports-minded people = lack of attention to both groups. So although some pieces were played in a small corner, and other pieces were announced, and others just began at random, the applause varied directly proportional to the number of people that knew that some people were actually playing music...not that anyone could hear anything.

Really, one must remember that the sports banquet is to honor the student-athletes in the school. Oops, unless there are athletes in the performing group, hence it's a celebration of themselves. And besides, who needs to listen to some violins and other stringed instruments making a large amount of noise? One can listen to the sweet music of the food being prepared, the pleasant chords made by general gossip, and exquisitely voiced orchestral hits of students cheering.

In conclusion: let's see what happens next year if I go back as a musician in a rock band instead of a violist playing in a string trio.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 48 - REALLY late worknight

2010-05-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

This post was written on May 19.

I have to do this physics project in which I create a house that has some circuits with light bulbs spread out between two floors, switches to control how they turn on, and an alternative energy source to power one of the circuits. Of course, we also get to use a conventional battery to supply most of the house's electrical devices. So since Ellango was busy, Teresa and I worked for the time being. I'll ashume that I'll be responsible for the circuitry/wiring, Teresa will be responsible for the decorating/building, and Ellango will be responsible for making the battery.

Here's a very basic diagram of the circuit:

So basically this is the first time I stayed over at one of my friend's house until around 00:30 at night working on a project. At least Teresa and I got some of the annoying parts of the house finished, meaning the floor. The house is basically going to be like a cube, since we basically just glued some balsa wood together for the walls and the floors. Once the house is complete, wiring and preliminary decoration, we'll secure the house to a wooden board.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 45 - Onion News Network

2010-05-15T01:39:00.000-07:00

It's been some time since I've watched some stuff from this network. I had to say that this video made my day, since the vague story really mocks how news is sometimes like when there's nothing good to talk about. Yeah, the language was pretty strong here, but it's nice to see The Onion discredit themselves as a legitimate source of news once in a while.

In other news, that actually did happen, I went to San Francisco today to get my teeth cleaned. I then had a nice dinner with my aunts and my grandma, since I hardly get to visit them anymore. And I have to say, that construction work on the Bay Bridge really does make me recall images of how the bridge was like 5 or more years ago.

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Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 42 - AP Lang Studying

2010-05-12T00:27:00.001-07:00

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Yeah, playing around with airplanes is definitely a good way to study for the test.
After United and Continental's merger, flight simulation enthusiasts quickly published the most likely livery that the airlines would adopt for their planes. This paint is by Gabriel Guzman for the default Boeing 737 in FSX. The aircraft paint can be downloaded at http://www.flightsim.com/file.php?cm=SEARCH1&fsec=0&fname=united737-800.zip.

So about these two giant airline's merger, there's definitely something I can talk about that relates to AP Lang. There's all of the economic and political problems involved in such a merger. Directly, their merger will mean more landing rights at busy airport, more terminal spaces, and fewer fare competition. Whether or not that's a good thing would depend on who's ideas you use to base your argument. We all know Calvin Coolidge. He didn't do a thing to keep big businesses from booming, and thus the big companies loved him. This merger is nothing close to a monopoly, but there are of course little traces as enumerated before. However, if we look at Theodore Roosevelt, trusts were unhealthy for a market. Therefore he took action and broke up companies like Standard Oil. Thus in my humble conclusion, United and Continental will have an interesting niche in the airline industry, provided that they do not abuse their power, yet use the power to thrive in our current state of the economy.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 39 - AP Physics Studying

2010-05-09T23:14:00.000-07:00

I was watching this A-team episode as a way to study for my physics quiz tomorrow:

This is an excerpt where Face and B.A. are basically coaching football, which is a rather amusing start to the episode.

Just so that this post is related to physics, I'll go ahead and blabber on about it, talking about this excerpt in terms of physics.

1. So a football player tackles someone else. Force is equal to change in momentum over time. So we'll use 70 kg as the mass of football player number 1 and 70 kg as the mass of football player number 2. Number 1 is running towards number 2 as shown in the diagram:

So let's say that player 1 is running at 4.5 m/s, which is about 10 mph. He collides into number 2. Newton's second law states that Force = mass x acceleration and Newton's third law states that every force has an equal and opposite reaction. And by altering the equation F = ma, we get F = m(v/t), and then we get F = p/t. We'll assume that if the football player didn't wear any padding, he would come to a stop in 2.0 ms. That means a momentum of 70 kg x 4.5 m/s = 315 kg x m/s to 0 kg x m/s in 0.02 s. That would be a force of 15750 N, or 3540 lbf. And this is totally why football players need a whole lot of padding, and why it's a physically demanding sport. (Yeah, I know I simplified the example, typically you'd have x and y components, and thus it would be a collision in two dimensions problem, and football players tend to fall down, so the change in momentum would be less.)

2. The whistle that Face was blowing...so sound travels at a speed of Mach 1. Yeah, like that says anything. The speed of a wave traveling through air would be velocity = wavelength x frequency. Thus by the Doppler effect, some football players will hear a higher pitched sound, some will hear a lower pitched sound, and others will hear the sound that Face is hearing. That's because they are running away from Face, running towards Face, and staying in place, respectively.

3. We can see the grass as green, because light from the sun is reflected to our eyes by the blades of grass. It is in the visible spectrum of electromagnetic waves. It's wavelength is around 520–570 nm, and thus the frequency is around 5.504 x 10^14 Hz. And thus the energy of a photon of green light (slightly off topic by I don't care), would be given by E = hf, so E = (6.63 x 10^-34 J s)(5.504 x 10^14 Hz), and 3.64 x 10-19 J.

4. All those gold chains B.A. is wearing is pretty heavy. But it also will get pretty hot in the sun, and they will expand a bit because of thermal expansion. That is given by the equation (change in length) = (coefficient of linear expansion) x (initial length) x (change in temperature). The coefficient of linear expansion of gold is 14 x 10^-6 (C°)^-1. We'll just say that initially B.A. had about 4 meters of gold, at 20°C. And since he's in the sun, let's say the gold is now at 25°C. That's a change of 5 C°. So uh L = (14 x 10^-6 (C°)^-1) x (4 m) x (5 C°) = 0.28 mm. So the gold doesn't expand too much.

5. Just for the heck of it, the A-team always gets into gun fights with bad guys. Back in the day, people measured the speed of bullets using ballistic pendulums. Basically this is would be a conservation of momentum problem - total momentum before = total momentum after. Since the pendulum rises, we will also need conservation of energy - KE + PE before collision = KE + PE at pendulum's maximum height. then pugging in known quantities will give us 1/2(m + M)v^2 + 0 = 0 + (m + M)gh.

6. Also just for the heck of it, Murdock is the pilot for the team, even if B.A. ain't getin in no plane. So Bernoulli's equation gives us: P + 1/2pv^2 + pgy = constant. And in a special case of Bernoulli's equation when afluid flows horizontally with no change in height, we get P sub 1 + 1/2 p sub 1 v sub 1 squared = P sub 2 + 1/2 p sub 1 v sub 1 squared, saying that when the speed is high when the pressure is low. Because airfoils are designed to make air flow faster on the top of the airfoil than on the bottom, we get a net upwards force, and thus get dynamic lift. This is probably too complicated for the AP test anyway, and I don't understand all of this anyway.

Alright, so I talked about Newtonian mechanics, sound, heat and fluids. That's too much studying for one night.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 37 - AP U.S. History Quiz

2010-05-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

This post was written on May 8 and published on May 12.

Two down, two to go - in terms of the AP Quizes I have this year. Why quiz? My journalism teacher last year said "Good luck on your AP World History Quiz." So I might as well call it a quiz again this year.

The multiple choice section was not too bad, and approximately what I thought it would be. As for the DBQ, I actually guessed correctly that it would be about Colonial America. All I can say is that I am grateful that I had some lectures in AP Lang about the Scarlet Letter, which I could use to talk about Puritans during the time.

Project Score: hopefully a 3.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 36 - APUSH Studying...

2010-05-06T23:51:00.001-07:00

"As is clearly shown, you can achieve a 5 by correctly answering just 58 percent of the questions and a 4 by correctly answering just 47 percent of the questions!" (Larry Krieger, AP* U.S. History Crash Course)

Yeah right...like I'll even be able to do so well with the test tomorrow. In the Princeton Review practice test, I got 47 correct, 30 wrong, and whatever the rest was omitted. That worked out to be 39.5 raw points - multiply that by 90/80, and I'd get 44 pts. Which is enough for a 1.

I'll try to remember as much as I can. American history is all very interesting. Looking at how history repeats itself so much (ie, FDR and Churchill vs. Obama and Brown, on behalf of our current economy) is always amusing. Plus, there's always my favorite...American scientific achievements. You can't forget about the race to space program during the Cold War. Or the Wright Brothers inventing the first operable airplane. As always, I'm horrible at memorization, and I only remember stuff I want to remember.

I stopped studying at 23:30. I was looking at College Bored's (no that is not a typo) website and looked at the APUSH course description. I reviewed some multiple choice questions and called it a night.

In the mean time, for the rest of the night, I'll be relaxing by having a nice chat with one of my friends, Gabe, who is basically already in college at UC Merced. It's always nice to talk to good friends, and it's also good to relieve any other stresses I may have for the test. Heck, here's his post at his blog.

*AP is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board, which does not endorse this book.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 35 - AP Calculus BC Quiz

2010-05-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

This post was written on May 12.

I can't believe that 2 of the free response questions on the BC test were exactly the same as the ones on the AB test. That's just pretty bored. And also lazy of the test makers. Let me qualify that argument...if the test makers gave different questions for us, the AB people would probably have a slightly easier problem compared to ours. Or maybe not. I don't know.

Projected Score: 4, hopefully a 5

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 31 - San Antonio International Airport

2010-05-01T07:51:00.000-07:00

This post was written on May 3.

May 1 is one of those bored days where students around the country scramble into a building to take the "SAT Test." (SAT Practice) "Some will win, some will lose." (Cain) There was basically a swarm of students around El Cerrito High School, where I was stationed to take the SAT Test. On the admission ticket, it does say "arrive no later than 7:45," so that's why everyone was there early. Then the door opened at 7:45, and everyone pushed their way in through the doors. I recognized a cluster of Hercules High School Students and someone yelled out my name. I said, "yeah, hi" as my response. While walking in the crowd, it was as if we students were going into this baseball stadium, were excited for a game...say, the Giants versus the A's in AT & T park. All of that rush, minus the cheering and the screaming and the chanting.

My proctor was pretty darn American. For my current life, the term American refers to anyone who is slightly slow, makes mistakes, stumbles over words, uses excessive speech fillers, and all kinds of other things...but in this case, reading the instructions wrong three times in a row:

-Good morning. Today you will be taking the SAT Subject test to show what you know
-Um, we're taking the SAT Reasoning today.
-Yeah, reasoning.
-Oh sorry, you will have to forgive me for this. Today's a Saturday and I'm not thinking right. You guys said reasoning?
-Yeah, reasoning.
-Okay. I don't know, I can't find this in the instruction book.

"It goes on and on and on and on." (Cain). Three times over. All I know is that this was just too funny seeing her fumbling with the test instructions, asking if we had "number 2 pens," and telling the people who were lost what building in which they should be taking their test.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter, and this test wasn't too bad. And for those who are somewhat confused about the title of the post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_International_Airport and http://www.sanantonio.gov/aviation/.

Works Cited:

Cain, Jonathan, et al. "Don't Stop Believin'." Lyrics. Escape. 1981.

"SAT Practice - Prepare with Official SAT Test Prep Questions." College Board. College Board, n.d. Web. 30 April 2010. .

I am at McDonalds in Placerville

2010-05-01T07:05:00.001-07:00

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Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 30 - Don't Stop Believin Arrangment Preliminary Draft

2010-04-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

This arrangement of Don't Stop Believin' is getting a bit out of hand. I forced myself to go to bed last night around 00:30 when I simply was too tired to continue working. By working, I meant doing some calculus multiple choice questions and working on my arrangement. The thing is that the piece is not that hard to arrange. However, some things like voicing and harmony are too complicated to do in 20 minutes - the amount of time I had for working on the piece before I went to school. In general, the only problem I have now is an underdeveloped viola part and transcribing the guitar solo about three minutes in the piece.

Either way, I'm glad one draft is done. And with the rehearsal today, hopefully we (we as in my ego and superego) can make adjustments to the arrangment accordingly based on the stuff I heard. There are some people in the class who are very passionate in hating this piece and really not wanting to do it. And basically here's this: I am basically arranging the piece I want to do. They can't tell me what I want to arrange, and should they be very passionate about what song they want to do, they should arrange it themsevles. So today, I'm goign to give the warning, "for all of you who don't like this piece, please keep share you comments now. I dont' want to hear any criticism except about my arrangment except for how it could be improved based on our rehearsal."

I simply don't need any more belittlement in orchestra.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 26 - Turkey

2010-04-26T07:43:00.001-07:00

Download now or watch on posterous

VID00089.MP4 (8022 KB)

While driving to school this morning I saw this turkey on my yard. The dad told me to hurry up and get into the car, and to make sure the turkey doesn't get into our garage. Well, here's some footage I got as we drove off to school.

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FlightGear F-14 Supersonic Flight

2010-04-23T15:51:00.001-07:00

Download now or watch on posterous

flight gear f-14.wmv (2576 KB)

I was searching through some of my older recordings I made with fraps, and it's just amusing how many little snippets of flight I've recorded. Some of them are just pointless videos, and they take up a lot of space...close to 300 MB per video on average. I'm basically deleting a lot of them, but I found this one, and I wanted to quickly save it before deleting it. Since it really isn't that good of a video, I decided to just quickly publish it in windows movie maker...so now I have this.

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Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 22 - Last day of STAR testing ever

2010-04-22T16:01:00.001-07:00

So every year, sometime in April, I have been required to take these standardized tests that show my overall competence in subjects like English, math and history. Yeah, I've done this for a little too long and it's getting a bit annoying. However, starting in high school, these tests started becoming amusing, and I started laughing at how some questions are so badly written, or how easy some questions are. Of course, having taken Summative High School math twice, I can safely say it's rather stupid in that there are some things, like probability questions, are never really gone over by our teachers. But, the literature that is chosen for the English examination is repetitively interesting. And heck, it's not a timed test...so I could spend a very long time reading all of the good poetry and excerpts from essays and novels, and then consider working on the questions. So projected scores, math will be highest, followed by science, and English and then history. Exact numbers, I don't know, nor do I care. All I know is that I'll miss being able to skip class to take this test.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 18 - The student videographer

2010-04-19T02:50:00.000-07:00

It is currently 02:10 as I am writing this post. I had basically fallen asleep approximately four hours ago, after I finished watching "The Best of James" Thomas and Friends video. It's kinda sad watching classic shows as such, especially if they are on VHS instead of DVD. All I know is that I can hardly imagine what it would have been like creating one of those episodes using train set models. And I'm totally spoiled with all of these digital video manipulation tools for today.

In general, I have been spending time working on producing a 5 minute clip on art forms during the great depression. Compiling music videos/spoken words and other stuff shouldn't be too hard, but sometimes it just requires too much patience. I am frankly too tired to want to spend very much time on splicing clips and narration together.

One thing that I have totally been very bad with lately is remembering to write a post everyday. And likewise, I'm still working on organizing and producing those videos I recorded from Lake Tahoe during spring break. Not to mention, I also have some blog posts in a document on the netbook that I have yet to finish writing.

Anyway, this AP Lang video will all be over in four hours, should I need that much time.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 17 - Sibelius 5.2.5

2010-04-17T01:29:00.000-07:00

I am basically spending some time arranging "Don't Stop Believin'" by Steve Perry, Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain, performed by Journey. Okay, most Americans know this piece already. Basically, I am quickly scribbling out an arrangement of this piece for string orchestra (along with electric guitar, bass, and hopefully, drums) so that my orchestra can have something to sightread. I've already played around with this song back in COSMOS, where my cluster performed this piece for the talent show. And I'm the bored person pretending to look cool, by being the conductor. In general, I more or less know the song very well by now, since we've had so many rehearsals there already. This is my justification for arranging the piece.

So I've busted out Sibelius to start writing in some parts. And when the program loaded, it told me to check for updates. So I looked at that, and my web browser pulled up saying "update to Sibelius 5.4." And then I saw "or Sibelius 5.2.5 for windows" on the website. It's hard to imagine I've had this program for so long now.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 15 - AP Lang Practice Test

2010-04-15T08:03:00.001-07:00

I am seriously behind in writing these blog posts. But frankly, it doesn't matter since I haven't done anything important, interesting, worthwhile, exciting, necessary or exillerating for the past couple days since I went to Lake Tahoe. Basically, a good deal of juniors are going to be taking a practice AP Lang test in the library, which means missing periods 1, 2, 3 and 4/lunch. And just to make sure we take it seriously, our instructor decided (out of the kindness of his heart) to count the three essays and multiple choice section as part of our grade. That's all for now....

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 12 - What happened here?

2010-04-12T11:42:00.000-07:00

Today I got back in school since Spring Break ended. And I am currently writing this on 2010-04-13 02:00, meaning I'm definitely staying awake doing stuff. I frankly don't remember what I even accomplished today, because I'm still extremely scatterbrained and sleep deprived from the night before.

I am theoretically working on my AP Lang project right now, since it is extremely important we have everything be completely done for peer edits on Tuesday. What I'm in charge of for now is to finish my part of the essay and finalize a bibliography. Also, I'm supposed to work on my note cards for any additional sources I may have found besides the ones I already found.

Okay, other stuff I'm supposed to do...Spanish, where I'm supposed to look up some more information on Barcelona, Spain. I will be writing 10 sentences about the place, in particular relating to a picture of the city. This shouldn't be all that bad.

Also, I need to study for physics, if I can even find the time in this night to do so. So yeah...I need to remember stuff regarding radioactive decays, and the amount of energy released, and some equations telling me how to compute the kinetic energy of those particles moving around, etc. And no I don't really know what I'm talking about (yet).

So all in all, I basically have got a good deal of stuff left over for my first night right after Spring Break. Also, I simply was too lazy to write daily entries for my time at Lake Tahoe. I have one of the days drafted on a document on the netbook while I was on my way down from the mountain, but the other days I just got lazy or something. And for this very moment, I don't know whether that ski trip was beneficial to my sanity or not. I got very lucky to have another chance to go up the mountain, but now that it's all over, I'm in a slight depression. All I can say, upon reflecting on the past few days, is "what happened here?"

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 7 / Spring Lake Tahoe Day 1 - SLOW Internet Connection

2010-04-07T23:54:00.000-07:00

This is post is also written late, but I don't care. Basically, I managed to get out of the house to go skiing/snowboarding one final time. I had been looking forward to it for a while at home. But in general, it simply wasn't as exciting as it was in February. But I can say that I got to sit right seat on the car ride up, and I was able to get approximately 40 minutes of continuous scenery (yeah, with some small cuts between). Yeah...days to upload this large amount of data...and yet Embassy Suites still call it "high speed Internet." These videos and others I recorded that day needed the past few days uploading to YouTube... while I was busy on the mountain. And I must say that Embassy Suites is relatively enticing with it's floor plan and interior design. Seeing a central atrium and a view all the way up to the roof really reminds me of the design of cruise ships. Either way, I"m going to quit writing now and reflect on yesterday, since I am writing this post on Friday, April 9, for Wednesday, April 7.

AP Lang Project Status Update 2

2010-04-07T10:44:00.001-07:00

Ideas for Video Project

Order: Literature, poetry, music

Clips from videos, vintage-look for videos

Author pictures should be zoomed out/video

Clips of Depression

Videos of music/music recordings

Look for: Jazz band clips, depression clips/pictures, famours author/musicians pictures, pictures of the radio

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 6 - Legit Workday

2010-04-06T23:42:00.000-07:00

Although this blog post is supposed to be for Tuesday (2010-04-06), yet is written two days late (2010-04-08), I feel that it's better to write about this day rather than skipping this day. I managed to get my AP Lang project members together to do some "complicated" group work. The most important thing we got down were some recordings of the poetry we selected. All other stuff will have to be searched for at some website or archive. Or if I get bored, I could perform some music selections, as long as it pertains to "art in the 1930s." Or something like that.

I also had to leave for another trip to Lake Tahoe (2010-04-07). Why...well I kinda had two left over passes from when I went in February. That's approximately $140 wasted if I don't go. And besides, I think to most people who know me well enough, skiing is more important than a lot of normal everyday activities. So is snowboarding...since I took two lessons at Boulder Lodge in February, and I feel it is another one thing to add to my tiny list of athletic capabilities I have. This hopefully explains why "mundane" desires are reducing my productivity in this project (and in school in general).

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 5 - First Post I am Behind on Writing

2010-04-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

I remember in COSMOS I basically managed to write some posts the following day. Meaning, if the post was for Wednesday, I wrote it on Thursday. Basically nothing happened today, except more goofing off on FSX and reading some papers on some Great Depression musicians. I believe I had this next Cessna Citation 500 that I installed that day. Anyway, it's been two days since I wrote for this post, which is kinda embarrassing.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 4 - Set Autopilot for Lang and Calc

2010-04-04T23:42:00.000-07:00

One of the projects I have over the break is this AP Lang research paper on art during the Great Depression. So today, one of my partners came over to find some more poetry that we could possibly use in the essay, and possibly read out loud in the video. I have the list of some poems we found in this other blog post.

So one of the songs that I am now practicing for piano is "Charleston" by Mátyás Seiber. I played it - or rather I attempted to play it - and noticed it had this sort of jazz-style syncopation. At the bottom, I noticed that it said "Copyright 1933 by Schott Music International, Mainz." I thought that this music might work for the Lang project since it's in the 1930s. Plus, the music had a rather rushed and anxious tone. But then I remembered my piano teacher told me he was a Hungarian composer. I think I would be better off using American music.

Later in the day, I was working on some AP Calculus stuff. This time I was reviewing polar graphs, how to find the length of the curve, and the area of the curve, and the like. All I know is that I seriously need to memorize the half-angle and double-angle formulas for sin^2 x and sin 2x, etc. And, I'll need to review some techniques of integration, such as splitting it up, using trigonometric substitution, and other fun stuff.

Not only did I review math, but also I reviewed English. I worked on some sample ACT English problems. The style is a bit different compared to what I'm used to with the writing section in the SAT. And obviously, for anyone who bothers to read this blog, my writing style is far from perfect. I know I'd get about a 3 for each blog post had it been an essay prompt to reflect on my day. Why? Stylistic errors, poor structure, inconsistent tenses, less than feasible transitions, distracting digressions, grammatical errors and all kinds of other components of writing. Regardless, I still managed to get 32 out of the 45 sample questions correct. I was too lazy to time myself, since this is my first time, and because it's just a rough idea of the areas I need to practice. And heck no, of course I don't have patience to review the exact reason why I got each problem wrong.

So to end the day, I was looking around on flightsim.com to search for some scenery and some aircraft. I found this Cessna Citation 500 I used to love flying on back when I still had my Dell Inspiron laptop, and before the hard drive failure (which one of these days I need to find some data recovery service to retrieve my files). So seizing the opportunity, I quickly downloaded that and installed it. I also downloaded this Qantas A330-300, this Queen Mary cruise ship (yeah, it's configured as an "aircraft"), and some scenery for Albany, New York. Flight sim communities are really the reason why FSX is not going to get boring for me any time soon.

So uh...all that's left is to actually enjoy playing around with the stuff I downloaded.

AP Lang Project Status Update 1

2010-04-04T13:08:00.001-07:00

Here are the poems we selected (for now) to be incorporated into our video and essay:

Langston Huges

Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria
Revolution
Cubes (for style)
Poets to Patron

Archibald MacLeish

Background with Revolutionaries
Invocation to the Social Muse
From Public Speech (1936) "Speech to Those Who Say Comrades"

Robert Frost

"A Lone Striker"
"To a Thinker"
"Not Quick Social"

E.E. Cummings

"if i"
13th poem from "New Poems (1938)"

Donald Justice

"Pantoum of The Great Depression"

Wallace Stevens

"The Man with the Blue Guitar"

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 3 - Vectors to the Airport and AP Physics Test

2010-04-03T23:42:00.000-07:00

I can safely say that I haven't bothered to think about any of the work I'm supposed to do during the break. This is evidenced by the 3+ hours I've spent on flight simulation today. Of course, this is not entirely true since I've done some academic stuff.

According to College Board, music is theoretically an academic study, as evidenced by its AP Music Theory test. Therefore my piano lesson today is an academic endeavor. Basically I was working on the B-flat minor scale for today. There are of course other pieces I was working on, but I'm too lazy to write them out.

After my piano lesson, I reviewed some kinematics for physics. Here's where the lame blog post title comes into play. In basic projectile motion, every physics student in the right mind will remember to break up the force of a person throwing a ball into its horizontal and vertical components to solve annoying maximum height and time to hit the ground problems. Likewise, I reviewed that Work = (Force)(distance)(cos θ). After studying the calculus way about how this works (the dot product of force and displacement (vectors) resulting in a scalar), it really makes sense how I got this formula in the first place. This is probably why Physics B and high school physics in general must be so hard for teachers to teach.

As for the other part of my title, vectoring an aircraft is interesting. Especially when the Air Traffic Control in Microsoft Flight Simulator X gives me so many instructions to turn in xyz direction before I can even respond. Yeah, obviously a bug I've only experienced a few times:

Southwest 420, turn right heading zero niner five. [1 second]
Southwest 420, turn right heading one zero zero. [1 second]
Southwest 420, turn left heading zero eight zero. [1 second]
Southwest 420, turn right heading zero niner zero. Airport is at your 1 o'clock, one five miles. Report runway in sight. [1 second]
Southwest 420, turn left heading zero eight five. [1 second]
Southwest 420, turn right heading zero niner five. [1 second]

Fortunately there was no such thing today when I was flying a Vietnam Airlines Airbus A321 to Ho Chi Minh. In another flight, I was flying a Ryanair Boeing 737-800 from Liverpool to Dublin. Interesting thing is that their cheapest fair available for this flight is £6.00, without additional fees. Adding one checked bag would cost £15.00, which is more than your own fare. No wonder Southwest is boasting that bags fly free.

And these two flights only took up about two hours. I used the other hour reading about how ILS works in the Learning Center tab in FSX. All I know is that there are some vectors I should follow for an ILS landing, according to the Jeppesen chart for xyz airport. And no, I have not been able to successfully do a full instrument landing after flying around for so long now. All I've really done are visual landings with a little help looking at the moving map on the Garmin GPS. So er...I guess that if I wanted to get bored, I could do this:

Say I have this runway 9 (which I got off of Flightsim.com obviously). I'll pretend it's 3000 meters long. So if I wanted to express this runway as a vector. I'll say it is <3000, 0, 0> or perhaps 3000i + 0j. That's obviously something you'd never do if you were actually seriously doing physics, calculus or aeronautical navigation.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 2 - 42 Day

2010-04-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

It's finally spring break! Or well, on the district calendar, only the school days (April 5-9) are marked as spring break. It doesn't' really matter, and I would just like to say I hope I can accomplish what I want to do this week off. That means: clean up my desk, work on AP Lang research project, go snowboarding and actually go down a run without falling down, organize my pictures and videos and work on various musical pieces. I'll get into specifics later, after I write down what happened today. But I must say that those who read or care to read this blog...everything state is true, but I do not wish to write out every detail of my life because life is short.

Today I gave Ellango a music cd as his 42 Day present in Orchestra class. Basically the Beatles' "Yesterday" is one of his favorite songs. I basically looped the song over again over for the entire disk. It kinda is a waste of a CD, but it's a mundane token of well, uh, I guess we can call it friendship.

While in Orchestra, Mrs. Calonico was being nice and decided to make banana bread for us after a job well done at the concert the day before. And thus I received an "assignment" for helping out with arranging music from "Up."

As more evidence that the day before spring break is more or less a joke, I played this element creating game thingy where 4 players had marbles represent protons, neutrons and electrons. The object of the game is to score as many points as possible by creating a stable nucleus, a neutral atom, or a stable and neutral atom, based on instruction cards drawn. It definitely teaches a lot about physics and helps to review for the AP Physics Test.

I'll skip further into the day. I basically stayed after school to work with my calculus teacher on a music project. I was playing around on a drum set, and I just have to say it was another one of those brain-stimulating activities when I'm trying to learn something new. The feeling was much like my first time hopping on a snowboard and trying to learn what to do.

And in conclusion, I have been wasting time downloading some aircraft for Microsoft Flight Simulator X, while doing physics.

Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 1

2010-04-02T00:03:00.000-07:00

I am just tired right now. I am sitting on my desk, with work out, and two browsers open for different e-mail accounts. I also forgot that I had an orchestra concert after "waking up" just now.

The concert was not the best our school has ever had, and I'm sure other people agree with me. Of course, it's always nice being able to see elementary school students come and try to play what they have learned after those few months of training. And really...just having any kind of music program in elementary school really does help in giving slow people the opportunity to have a "head start."

Overall, I gave most groups an excellent as their CMEA rating. I have the paper with my comments somewhere in that red folder I brought to the concert. Basically excellent means between 80-89 out of 100. I did take points off for rudeness. A lot of kids don't have the patience to sit through a concert with their mouth shut...or at least closed while another group is playing a piece. And that included musicians from my group as well, High School Intermediate Orchestra.

But at least we had a little fun with ourselves. We managed to play very badly on purpose for the first few measures of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. And then we had a half-spirited decree: "April Fools!" And then we played it for real. Either way, it was interesting, but the audience didn't really deem it all that funny since we didn't say "April Fools" together.

Aside from the concert, I also had this little assignment for journalism for who I would interview if I could. I was thinking, I'll choose Mr. T. After all, I've watched "The A-Team" for quite a while now. I would really like to hear him say "I pity the fool!" in person though. My friends (who are not in journalism) also gave interesting answers, including people Bill Gates.

Lastly, I'd like to quickly mention Spanish class, since we are now learning about the conditional tense. English: I would like to buy a hamburger. Español: Me gustaría comprar una hamburguesa. So yeah. I would like to go to bed, but I would have to finish my work first.

I'll have a title for each post in this series starting tomorrow, 42 day.

United Airlines Boeing 747 flying to Hawaii

2010-04-01T13:20:00.001-07:00

Here is my plane en route to Hawaii...I didn't finish the flight yet, and I'll take a few screenshots when I get there.

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Last Stretch of Junior Year Day 0

2010-03-31T08:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was thinking about how I managed to write one blog post everyday while at COSMOS. And I will never forget one of the most interesting days, my first day of class. In general, I think I will eventually miss the mundane things I do in high school. However, as of right now, I highly doubt I will miss the "stress" from junior. Yeah, we all know what that means...SAT testing, AP testing and listening to all the seniors say what colleges they got accepted to.

My official comments will begin tomorrow, because I decided that the official series of blog posts will begin starting tomorrow, April 1. But then I realized it's a no skill day, so I'm having this pre-post thingy. I'll see how this turns out to be.

Gulf Air Airbus A340-300 in Egypt

2010-03-29T01:38:00.001-07:00

I was looking in my downloads folder and I realized that I had downloaded an Airbus A340 last week and I forgot to install it. So installed it and flew around Egypt. I took off from Cairo and landed in Alexandria airport...even though the 7221 ft runway really isn't acceptable for such a large aircraft to land there...and Gulf Air doesn't even go to that airport. But I made a smooth landing and stopped about 1000 ft. short of the runway with minimal braking...because I touched down like at the very tip of the usable area.

All technicalities aside, enjoy the pictures.

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Horizon Air Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 at Anchorage

2010-03-28T03:09:00.001-07:00

Here's one of the best planes I've downloaded ever...this Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 developed by Premier Aircraft Design at http://www.premaircraft.com. Here are a few pictures of the plane in Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. I was trying to produce a quick movie to show the plane idling on at the gate, but Windows Movie Maker basically stopped working. So here some screenshots I got of the plane.

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Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Flying over Sierra Nevada

2010-03-25T00:26:00.001-07:00

I basically was searching around on www.flightsim.com for some scenery, and I found some for Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada surrounding the area. Basically I tried to fly over the area I installed, but I couldn't really find it, so I basically just got a couple of generic pictures with the default scenery.

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FSX United Airlines Boeing 747 at KSFO

2010-03-16T02:35:00.001-07:00

This is the first time I ever attached the jet to a jetway at an airport. But then again, I wasn't capable of rendering so much detail at airports.

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American Airlines Boeing 777 Landing

2010-03-14T22:15:00.001-07:00

Here are some screenshots of this aircraft I downloaded. The plane is at San Jose Airport.

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PG&E Smartmeter

2010-02-28T11:59:00.001-08:00

A couple days ago PG&E came to my house and rang the doorbell, telling me to turn off any sensitive electronic equipment while they replace the electric meter outside. Here are some pictures of the meters.

First is the RMS Voltage from the line coming into our house, second is the power the house is using in kilowatts, third is the amount of energy we've used so far in kilowatt hours, and fourth is a new gas meter (in cubic feet).

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Lake Tahoe Day 7 - Why do people come back to Heavenly?

2010-02-20T09:18:00.001-08:00

While on a chairlift, the most common way to pass the time is to share some information about each other, especially people you don't know. So therefore, I took notes on some people who were willing to share some information about themselves and why they come back to Heavenly. These interviews are listed in chronological order.

Beverley
Where: North Buro, Massachusetts
Why: Has EPIC Pass, which includes free days at Heavenly

Debbie
Where: Sunnyvale, California
Why: Convenience, large size of the mountain
Other: Had pass to Heavenly for 5-6 years

Derek
Where: Zephyr Cove, Nevada
Why: Convenience, best view of Lake Tahoe
When: Comes here three times a week
Other: Mammoth Mountain is his favorite

Jan Allen
Where: South Lake Tahoe, California
Why: Convenience (very close to house), large size of mountain
When: Almost every day
Other: Has been coming for 26 years

Kevin
Where: South Lake Tahoe, California
Why: Convenience (close to house), beauty of the mountain
When: Two times a week

John
Where: Fairfield, California
Why: Heavenly pass, view, expansive mountain

Dirk
Where: Carson City, Nevada
Why: Convenience
Other: Has been coming for 35+ years, favorite run is Aries Woods

John Davis Fischer
Where: Visalia, California
Why: View
When: Yearly ski trip
Other: Tries to be on the mountain 30 days a year

Mike
Where: Fresno, California
Why: View
Other: Has been coming for 30 years, Improvements wanted include a lower price and different way to get to the Summit

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Lake Tahoe Day 5 - Snowboarding Lesson

2010-02-17T23:44:00.001-08:00

Download now or watch on posterous

Last Run Snowboarding.wmv (10528 KB)

Here I am, with the vacation half over, taking snowboarding lessons. This is pretty amusing since I have always looked at the differences in techniques of snowboarders and skiers, and always wished I could do both. The lesson was great, and I managed to get two runs on Boulder Bowl, the nice easy green run where I first learned how to ski. Right now my wrists and my bottom are sore from my falls, but it's all good. I'm not going to learn anything until I fall...at least a couple times.

So, the attached video is my last run going down hill. I got my friend to record me after he went down first. I obviously don't demonstrate any mastery of skill except for basic balance, so I'll see how I am tomorrow, using this video as a benchmark.

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Lake Tahoe Day 3 - Helicopter Airlift Video

2010-02-16T08:58:00.001-08:00

Basically I have been a bit slow in getting my blog posts and other things uploaded for this week. However, I am going to quickly comment on this video I uploaded yesterday. This is my first time I have ever seen a helicopter so close, and I'm glad I was able to record this video. Unfortunately, this is very sad that the person who was injured needed to be rushed for emergency treatment. Let's just say I try very hard not to ski so aggressively, and I really hope I don't need something like this.

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I just ate lunch at Lakeview Lodge at #Heavenly. I am now headed to the terrain park.

2010-02-15T12:51:00.001-08:00

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I am at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the Science Bowl competition

2010-02-06T08:48:00.001-08:00

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Northstar Pictures

2010-01-26T06:55:00.001-08:00

For the time being, this is the stuff I have uploaded from my weekend trip to Reno and Northstar. I will be compiling the videos together this week to upload to Youtube later. For now, take a look at my ride home on Interstate 80:

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Reno Trip Day 2 - Going Home

2010-01-24T19:15:00.000-08:00

There is white powdery stuff falling down outside while traveling east. There are also many of those moving objects with wheels on the road. Basically, a good deal of people going home from the ski resorts for the weekend, since many people have to go to school and work the next day.

The car is averaging about 30 miles per hour in this chain control area. Basically no one wants to be stuck in traffic since everyone will arrive home late. Likewise, if the snow in this area becomes severe, highway patrol will shut down the road to clear the snow before allowing people to pass.

It is currently 19:24 and we are at about 4,000 feet above sea level. There is plenty of snow outside even at this elevation. Of course, the reason why I'm not so used to this is because whenever I go to South Lake Tahoe in February, there has been little snow these past few years. Also, Northern California has had a few storms pass through the past week. This has to be the reason why everyone is rushing up here this weekend, since there must be much powder in the area.

Reflecting on my skiing experience today, the (intermediate) trails offered at Northstar are wide, lightly groomed, and not too ripped up by large amounts of traffic. But, today the area had some new snow, so that replaces the ripped up runs. However, at Heavenly, Big Dipper is one of my favorite trails, and it is also extremely busy with traffic. Way early in the morning, the grooming tracks can usually be seen. By about noon, that trail would develop some moguls from the traffic through it. Even if it snows in the afternoon, there is ice on the trail. I can't compare Big Dipper with any other runs at Northstar, because this still is my first time there.

So it is now 19:42 as I'm writing this post on the document saved on the computer. I just stuck my hand outside to record some video of the snow conditions and traffic at this time in Interstate 80. Take a look here:

Likewise, I just passed a van that looked like CBS5 News, since it had a blue logo. That's exciting seeing news being broadcasted directly from it's source. Of course, I'm not sure what that van was doing there, since it looked like it could possibly be a webcam set up for this part of the highway.

Okay, it is now 7:47 PM, and that just reminds me of the Boeing 747 of course. I'd be home by now if I took a plane home. What would be interesting is that I take a private jet - say a Bombardier Learjet 45 - and looking outside seeing all of the mountains under the plane. But flying in a plane is different experience compared to being stuck in traffic.

People are now outside removing their chains. Trucks are all outside removing their chains, along with other people. And we just passed the chain area, and our speed is now up to 50 miles per hour. We just passed Crystal Springs Exit 148A.

The laptop battery happens to say 22% and 48 minutes remaining. I'm just doing word processing, so that should be no big deal for a computer. But either way I'm starting to get tired of writing. And there's no more snow. It's all rain, with sleet on the sides of the road.

Published 2010-01-25

I left #Northstar a while ago and I am heading down I-80. We are near Truckee with many people stopping to put on chains.

2010-01-24T17:55:00.001-08:00

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Reno Trip Day 2 - Traveling on Interstate 80 enroute to Northstar

2010-01-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

The ~~car~~ plane just crossed the agricultural inspection thing, so we are now back in California. The car's GPS is weird as we are searching for "Northstar." We apparently got "Northstar Aviation" as one of our search results. Apparently the exit on the Interstate 80 had a little sign with an airplane on it, but no sign for "skiing."

Currently, we are on the road to go up to Northstar's resort. The GPS announced we are five miles away from the destination. There are plenty of people lining up all the way there. It's been a while since we just got out, sot he GPS currently says "4.5 mi 0:07 to go."

Continuing from breakfast earlier, we had a lot of time to screw up stuff. We left Reno, and bought some breakfast at McDonald's. I had a Egg McMuffin meal with orange juice, since that's my favorite breakfast item. The others had other things, nothing specific.

I'm going to go play on the flight simulator now. On the ads up to the ski resorts in the Lake Tahoe area, skiing is depicted as "flying" with skiers jumping off of a ramp. I'd rather fly with my plane.

Reno Trip Day 2 - Going to Northstar

2010-01-24T07:50:00.000-08:00

It is now a few minutes before 08:00, and we are about to leave Reno. I put on the cumbersome stuff first so that our time at the ski resort will be minimized. I'm pretty sure we are going to eat at McDonald's for breakfast, so that we can eat along the way. As for now, I'm going to warm up my legs and stretch the rest of the body so that I can be more awake later.

Published 2010-01-25

Reno Trip Day 1 - The most deserted little city in the world

2010-01-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

It's been about 3 years since I went to Reno. Frankly, I wouldn't remember the last time I did so since really there is nothing I like to do at the biggest little city in the world.

However, this trip is exciting because I'm going to be skiing at Northstar, the first time I went to some place other than Heavenly. I'm here with my mom's coworker and his family. Since they live in Alameda, they offered to take me up there as well. This trip is only two days - Saturday is Reno and Sunday is Northstar. For someone from the Bay Area, this is a nice little retreat because it's quick and reduces stress from a one day trip, rushing to get up, ski and go home.

What happened today was that we left Hercules at 12:15, arrived at 15:30, and parked the car by 15:45. This was due to the sparse traffic and extremely beautiful weather - full sun with clouds not in the way, snow pushed aside, rain sparse - while driving on Interstate 80 up here. That has hardly ever happened with a trip to South Lake Tahoe, and I would expect to arrive at Stateline around 17:00 and later. I'll see what happens this year.

Not surprisingly, writing this post on the computer without an Internet connection reminds me too much of COSMOS and the Alaska trip, where for a while I wrote my blog posts in a Microsoft Word document so I can upload later. Sure, there's Wi-Fi at Silver Legacy, but why should I pay for Internet access when I'm only here overnight?

There will be some pictures of Reno posted here. I'll see if I can whip up a quick slideshow when I get home. Most likely, I'll be working on making the slideshow for last year's trip to Lake Tahoe and studying for my test on magnetism.

Published 2010-01-25

Hello

2010-01-23T12:01:00.001-08:00

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Happy Birthday to You

2010-01-19T23:27:00.001-08:00

Here are 18 pictures of you and/or Cluster 6 to remind of how we all had fun at COSMOS...and I threw in a little airplane picture (of me about to land at Orange county) at the end, because I like airplanes. Yeah, 18 pictures are for your age.

If you want to take a look down memory lane, go to , and take a look there.

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Flight Gear Review Pictures/Video

2010-01-13T01:08:00.001-08:00

These pictures were generated by Flight Gear version 1.9.1.

The first picture shows the cockpit of the Boeing 777-200ER included in Flight Gear. The second shows the plane flying over the Bay Area with the experimental 3D clouds turned on.

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The aircraft noises are very realistic though, but at least are rather fluid and well match the sounds expected in each situation, such as a fly by, a chase view, and a cockpit view. Compare the sounds in the flight gear video to this one:

</object>

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Happy Birthday to You

2010-01-02T23:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to Habash,

Hey "slowpoke," as you accidentally responded to in calculus, here's a recap of things that have happened in the past 126,227,704 seconds. Enjoy, and don't laugh too hard.

We met in 7th grade, when Julian introduced me to you in history class. There were four Chrises in Kidder's class 6th period (remember that lunch didn't count back then) class.
I later found out you were with me in Algebra I as well, so eventually we became friends that way.
Later that year we worked on that castle project, my first project in which I collaborated with someone, and the other person (you) actually did work. We also happened to participate in the Spell-a-thon, where we both got eliminated somewhere.
By the end of the year, you managed to write this in my yearbook:

Hello Myron, this is Chris Habash, a new friend from seventh grade. We have been through a lot (no I'll say many) "things" this year. Including projects and essays, well not really that much. The castle project - yes. Do not let the homicidal maniac sign the yearbook. At least he won't bother us in Geometry next year! Since now I'm continuing (fridays) from yesterday, congratulations on passing the test (Geometry, well Algebra) both of us.

Therefore we had a good summer, and then rendezvoused at the walk through for 8th grade. I had just got back from a trip to Lake Tahoe over the summer (and incidentally my last for quite a while), and told you about it. And then I declared that the only reason I would be in school is so I can look forward to skiing in 2008. And you said, "but your going to Canada."
We met in geometry. We were severely confused about what to expect from a "Mr. Nguyen" we had never heard of before. And in addition, it was a weird class with both middle school students and high school students. We later came to get the feel that this was normal, along with PE with Ms. Gomes.
También, tu fuiste mi fuente de inspiración a escribir música. Nosotros estábamos en la clase de español de Sra. Rice. Durante nuestro tiempo en su clase, me aburrí y enseñarte un poco música. A ver se recuerdas...

For most of 8th grade, we would get to talk: in the morning after we walked out of Geometry and headed back to the middle school side; once between passing periods for 3rd and 4th period; during lunch; in history with Ms. Doyle; and if I'm lucky, after school as you exit the locker room.
As we developed our cadence for dealing with the school year, we finally got to the eight grade promotion. Basically our ceremony was rather awkward, where we weren't lined up in alphabetical order. Therefore I was speaking with Ellango the whole time, with a running commentary of people's accomplishments so far as they walk the scaffold. I'm pretty sure you got the certificate before me, so if I remember correctly, I said to Ellango, "you deserve the applause."
Thus as we concluded 8th grade, you wrote in my yearbook:

Hi Myron Lam, this is Christopher Habash a.k.a best friend, and I'm the real one!! So, this is cool, I can't believe it's over, I remember when I saw you in the walk through. I hope it's the same next year. We had a lot of laughs. The music you made was awesome. - of course a hard-worker you are. Pleasure to have in class - oops the teacher's influenced me.

We spent most of our summer doing that summer assignment Ms. Headington gave us...TCOMC. We randomly talked over the telephone a few days before school started - I remember that conversation. You briefly mentioned how we should have met up over the summer to have fun, and how you and Marci exchanged a few words. Again, I reminded you about my desires to go skiing, which is a tradition that we agreed on keeping.
Come 9th grade, and I became increasingly greedy with my time with you, specifically when I walked to Mr. Richardson's class and you walked to PE. We only shared a single class that year, and it was English. And we didn't have the same lunch period.
You and Mendoza came to my first birthday party in a very long time. Now what did we do, I barely remember. It included fussing around on the piano, playing monopoly, playing with my bike outside, and the like. Mendoza and I later went on to eat a Todai in Concord, and hence, we made the plan to get together during ski week.
(Out of the style with the other posts, there is a point 14 in this one) Around December, we had the cultural exchange in Headington, and you taught us a few words in Hebrew, and shared baklava with the class. It was also the last time I could look at you in the eye without tilting my head, for you grew taller than me with your growth spurt around January 2008.
And boy, you wrote a long thing for freshman year's yearbook, during that awards ceremony nonsense:

Hello, Hola, shalom, Bonjour, Kif'halec, and many other different languages to greet very good friends, if not best friends. Although some people would consider me their best friend, I consider you my best friend in the sense of having meaningful conversations and being there for each other, but I'm sure you also have good best friends (like Marci, Benton, Ellango, Henry...are mine). Call me/e-mail me; as usual to discuss matters. Um.. let's see, what else, I still plan to take Amanda up on that offer of going to San Francisco together without our parents, to intrude...so feel free to contact me anytime. And hopefully we will have many classes next year together, because we'll be taking the same classes. A friend (Habash)

And as it turns out we didn't have a lot of classes together in 10th grade, only Journ, WHAP and Spanish. Or well, that's already 3/7 classes. So I take that back. At least we managed to im prove hour writing American goodly by the end of year from take juornalism and good engrish teacher Sub and Litvin. "Um," (Wojo) we also learned a bit about the world around us in WHAP. "Historically speaking," (Wojo) we did take world history in 6th grade, but it was nothing compared to the stuff crammed down our minds. En la clase de español, nosotros teníamos la Sra. Mar por un segundo año. Este tiempo, nosotros teníamos la misma hora. Y Davidson estaba en la clase.
Well, this is embarrassing.

I forgot to get you to sign my yearbook for sophomore year . Probably because you had to go at the conclusion of the ceremony , or something of the like . And because I was busy watching CNET TV during the last few days of sophomore year . Likewise , it's not like we've done crap in junior year yet , so I'll stop the list at the end of sophomore year .

And thus concludes this very long [last name] blog post for you.

*MZ

Countdown to the New Year

2009-12-31T23:55:00.001-08:00

Take a look at this: http://www.timeanddate.com/counters/newyear.html?p0=224

We only have so much time left before it's 2010 in the Pacific Time Zone. Also, take note that according to a KCBS news broadcast, the proper pronunciation of "2010" is "twenty ten." That will take some time to get used to.

<img src=" " alt="" style="display: none;" height="1" width="1" /><div>Created by OnePlusYou</div>

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Hard drive replacement and installation of Ubuntu

2009-12-29T00:37:00.001-08:00

Here we have my new hard drive placed in the laptop, and Ubuntu as my choice of OS for the time being, since I don't have a Windows install disk.

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Ubuntu 9.10

2009-12-27T15:05:00.001-08:00

I don't really like the default theme for Ubuntu 9.10. At least they didn't change the start up music.

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Flight Gear

2009-12-27T00:33:00.001-08:00

I am extremely impressed with the rendering capability of Flight Gear with only the Intel GMA. I'll make a quick flight video later, assuming the program is able to produce good frame rates with Fraps.

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Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop - Hard Drive failure

2009-12-26T22:51:00.001-08:00

Here we are, the hard drive that is not functional anymore.

The story: this morning I managed woke up and saw that the laptop said "Windows cannot find boot disk" and I was thought to myself, "Uh." Thinking a quick switch off with the power button would solve the problem, the computer booted normally, and then I got to the welcome screen. I signed in, and thinking the computer was simply being slow and not responding, I just turned it off, since I was in a hurry to leave for San Francisco. When I got to my aunt's house in San Francisco, I turned on the computer and heard clicking sounds. I knew I was doomed. But getting very bored, I went ahead and booted windows normally. Amazingly, I was able to sign in, and my wallpaper displayed, and then it stopped responding, with only the stupid click of death.

And what was the size of the computer's hard drive...250 GB. It had two partitions - one for Windows 6 and the other for Windows 7. But either way, I basically lost about 230 GB of data, since there was about 9 GB of free space on one partion and 2 GB of free space on the other partition.

And here is a list of some programs I need to re-install when I get my replacement:

Microsoft Flight Simulator X*^
Microsoft Office^
Firefox*^
Sibelius 5^
Google Earth
Google Talk*
iTunes and QuickTime*
Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0
CamStudio
Fraps (Demo)
Any Video Converter
Avira Antivir

*these programs are used daily
^these programs are unnecessarily hard to install

As for a replacements:
http://www.frys.com/search?search_type=regular&sqxts=1&query_string=notebook+hard+drive&cat=48938&submit.x=0&submit.y=0

This is just one untimely incident, since this winter break was supposed to be my time to BACKUP and ORGANIZE my files - and I just got started not too long ago too............

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FSX Southwest Airlines San Francisco to Denver

2009-12-26T00:19:00.000-08:00

Here is my much labored project for creating a flight video in FSX. As far as I'm concerned, I think I really need a better graphics card, since that scenery in Denver is well...nothing. All I see are mountains in the distance, and the runway. Auto-generated scenery should do the trick, and if not, I can always try to search for add on scenery.

As for the music, I found Kevin MacLeod's Sunshine, which he released under a Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0, meaning I don't have to use my own music (which doesn't really fit) or deal with the issues of using copyrighted music.

One little trick I managed to discover in making transitions is to slow down the fading. Basically I never thought about the possibility of a transition that takes 3-4 seconds to fade in a new image, that has shifted a bit from it's starting position. This is seen at 3:06-3:09 in this video.

Happy Birthday to You

2009-12-17T22:42:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to Christian,

Yeah, here's a recap of things that you may remember for the years we've known each other, much like the one we did for the other person.

If I remember correctly, we first met in 1st grade in Ohlone. Our moms introduced us to each other.
You later introduced me to Chelsea late in 3rd grade out of boredom.
Sometime between 2nd and 3rd grade we managed to go to your house to play, along with Chelsea, since both Chelsea's mom and my mom were busy after school.
We unofficially formed the "KND," with you being 3, since you were the "goofy" one.
I have no idea if you managed to work on that newsletter and/or newspaper that I unofficially published out of boredom for a while.
Fifth grade promotion ceremony...I don't remember I we have pictures together. I just remember that my dad rushed me out of there before I got a chance to say bye to everyone.
We had no classes together in 6th grade, and I still clearly remember your voice as you told me your math teacher was Mr. Harbour, accounting for the separation between you and me in general.
Arg, we didn't see each other enough in 7th grade for me to remember anything. I account this to my weird schedule with Algebra I.
"U R Hella SMRT... get DUMMER! You make me feel hella stupid. J/K - CHRIS TIAN :)" - You wrote that in my yearbook in 8th grade.
We had Ms. Headington in 9th grade and I remember your little seminar on transgenders faintly. I don't know, but you acted very professional for that presentation as far as I remember.
In 10th grade, we again didn't see each other enough. But I do remember one moment as you were walking to the middle school side with me (and possibly Ellango), when Hudson canceled the AP Bio study session. Or something like that. All I remember is that you told me you like bio.
Here's where the fun begins, for junior year. Day 1, all of us crazy juniors walked into Litvin for AP Lang, and Chelsea told me to sit by behind her and Mendoza, so I jumped on top of the seats and took a seat there. Incidentally you also sat next to her.
You started complaining about AP Chem and how it's a difficult class in AP Lang, right after I was complaining about how AP Physics is such an American class. I wonder why I found this moment amusing.
There is no point 14, since that's what I did last time.
I got you to go to my birthday party in September, along with a bunch of other people. You guys all took turns being co-pilots and screwed up the plane and/or helicopter that you guys were playing with. Then we watched a bunch of YouTube videos. Too bad you couldn't go to the dinner. And of course, thanks for the T-shirt you got me. My mom basically put it somewhere safe where I can't find anymore.
Sometime in APUSH, you managed to be very American, and called rude people by "butt hole," and complained that people told you to "shut up." And after that, everyone started laughing and/or getting really annoyed with you, telling you to get yourself under control.
Today in AP Lang, everyone sang a "Happy Birthday" to you, and I called you old.

Yeah, a list of 17 moments and/or memories for you 17 years of age. Since you are a Christian as well, you're "supposed to forgive" me for any insults that may have been enumerated here. Regardless, enjoy the holidays ahead of us, and I can safely and wish you a "Merry Christmas." Or the politically correct "happy holidays," your choice.

Sincerely,

Montgomery Zzyzx

*And I kinda forgot about Darlena's and Julian's birthdays, for two days earlier. I'll make a post for you two next year...I promise. And also, all people who can, please comment on the post.

Blog Birthday and 100th Post

2009-12-16T23:59:00.000-08:00

I remember one year ago, I started blogging on Blogger because I wanted to actually have a blog that would be public, unlike this informal one I kept on Windows Live Space. Basically, I think I have come a long way from my first blog post on Blogger. Since then, I've played around quite a bit, and I'm going to have a quick history of my online presence of "mzzyzx."

Here is my absolute first blog post ever, written in Windows Live Spaces:

Windows Live Spaces would have been a pretty good service, since it covers all the areas of social networking quiet well. However, I use Gmail much, much more, so I decided to play around in Blogger for a while.

Prior to playing around with Blogger, I managed to screw up stuff in my Google Sites wiki. Basically, this is the places where I categorize all of my school assignments into somewhat reasonable pages. I haven't done that in a while, and I'll get working on that over winter break.

Sometime in January, I figured it would be worth my time taking a look at Posterous, since my AP World History teacher, and now Journalism II teacher, Ms. Wojo, suggested it to her students for their field trip project in her blog post and our class website: "Want really simple? Try Posterous. Just upload your photos or videos there. In a jiffy." That sounded encouraging, so I went ahead and gave it a try.

Now why did I give it a try? It was because I was trying to find a place to hold mp3 files for a podcast, and to just embed mp3 files to play back. In my post about Podbean.com, I managed to embed one of the mp3 files from SibeliusMusic.com, where I publish my music. In general, I find that the flash player Posterous uses for playing files looks more elegant than the Podbean player. Plus, Posterous' RSS feed also doubles as an iTunes podcast, so that's why I never got around to actually using Podbean.com.

Sometime after my summer at UCI, I had a good deal of pictures to send back to my friends via Flickr. I was thinking that I got a yearly subscription as a pro user, so it would be worth my time sending that stuff to people under a more memorable URL. Therefore I changed my default photostream URL to http://www.flickr.com/photos/mzzyzx, instead of that weird address with letters and numbers.

As a journalist for Hercules High School, I figured it would be worth my time playing around WordPress, so I made a blog there as well. I tried making a layout for a possible journalism website, which is at this blog. There is only one post so far, and it was an auto-publish post from Google Docs, where I was working on a commentary on UCI.

Finally, the last thing left over is YouTube. I have posted stuff on this blog under the YouTube username doctorknockers204. Basically I decided I want to make one single identity online, so I created a new channel for mzzyzx, on Oct. 20.

So that is a partial history of my online presence. It honestly isn't that important, since I really don't get many visitors to this blog, my wiki, or any of my other blogs. However, one last thing worth looking at is this web search.

Recap of my Summer at UCI

2009-12-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

As I am approaching my 100th blog post, I wanted to make a link to all of the posts I made over the summer at COSMOS. I'll go ahead and begin with some posts I made a few days prior to the program, since that was part of my experience as well.

Sunday, June 28

Introduction to the the watered down life of a college student

Monday, June 29

UC Irvine Pictures - Dorm Room and Bookstore

Landing at Princess Juliana Airport - Air Canada Boeing 777

2009-12-16T00:42:00.000-08:00

Here we are, my third Microsoft Flight Simulator X video, and second landing video. I did a much smoother landing with the Bombardier CRJ700, since I've been playing around with that plane for a lot longer than this Boeing 777 I got.

I was actually looking at Air Canada's website, and they actually use a Boeing 767 for a flight from Toronto to St. Marteen. Either way, I really want to visit that airport when I am older.

Physics Problem

2009-12-15T19:08:00.000-08:00

I was working on my physics homework and I saw this problem:

The answer is definitely number 9.

Chimes through the Mist

2009-12-15T18:47:00.000-08:00

Here is the piece I am playing for my recital this Saturday. I find the piece to be very calming, and it sounds like winter. However, my friend pointed out that the title is interesting, since one hears chimes, and not sees them. Therefore, he reasoned, "mist" is relatively unimportant in how the music sounds like, since no one cares about how the mists look like.

Either way, I made a recording of the piece for my enjoyment, and after producing the music, it just made me realize how much I miss Logic Express from COSMOS. I probably forgot some of the skills I learned since I haven't played around with it in so long.

Boeing 787

2009-12-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

Photo by Yasobara

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/us/16flight.html

Yay, the plane is finally here...

Fitness Training at CCC

2009-12-15T00:41:00.000-08:00

View Larger Map

Today I am happy to say that I finished my 1 unit course of fitness training. Now that I can't take PE at CCC anymore, I have to head over to DVC now, and take a year of PE at school. I'll see how this turns out.

Pictures from Mr. Brown's Classroom

2009-12-13T02:35:00.001-08:00

I was rummaging through a memory card I haven't touched since June, and I happened to find some pictures I took of Mr. Brown's (my Journalism teacher for 2008-2009) classroom. I miss his cluttered and highly decorated room.

Looking at the Classroom from the Door

Classroom from Rear Right

His Blue Chair

The Man Next to His Board

His Sink

Pictures Near His Cabinet

(Mr. Brown, if you see this, congratulations for finding me on the Internet!)

Posted via email from Montgomery's posterous

Hercules Christmas Tree Lighting

2009-12-07T19:31:00.001-08:00

The Hercules Tree Lighting was held on Friday, Dec. 7, and I feel it is my duty as a journalist to share the stuff I managed to get for this year. I linked to the photo I uploaded on Flickr and the YouTube video I have of the countdown to the lighting. The picture was taken two days after the event in the day time, but it's basically the same as it looked on Friday. As for the video, I apologize that the Flip Mino I used to record the countdown isn't of the best quality.

Christmas Tree at Day Time

Countdown to Lighting

Posted via email from Montgomery's posterous