Tall and Sour

I suppose that should be logical if "short and sweet" is a phrase right?

Anyhow, this post should be "short and sweet" because it's late (nearly 9:30! *gasp) and I should be getting to bed, but I wanted to make note of a few things, especially because it's been two days since my last post since Sunday is my day off. Let's start with a quote:

Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.
- Alfred Hitchcock

That is so very true! An former pastor of mine once said that if Psychology agrees with the Bible, we don't need it and if it doesn't agree with the Bible, then we don't want it! Either way it's not very beneficial and that is one reason why I refuse to subject myself to one of those Psychology classes because of what the Bible says in Romans 16:19 "For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. "

Wise in what is good (who is good but God?) and innocent in what is evil. A lot of people today say they need to know all of a cult's belief so they know how to avoid it, but as John MacArthur has said by way of illustration, an official who looks for counterfeit money does not become proficient by studying the fake stuff and knowing what to spot, but by studying the real and true money so that when he sees a fake it is instantly obvious. In like manner if we study the things of Scripture, when a counterfeit comes our way it is blatantly obvious and we turn away from it.

Writing the above reminds me of another quote I saw which I really enjoyed.
A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.
- Burt Bacharach

Absolutely! I often will do that when writing something, I have a mind block or can't spell the word correctly so I quickly think of a synonym :)

As you probably know, I have been working on a projectile for my Engineering project and have something that I think should work and I will be building it this week. I was surprised to see many, many worse designs than my own by the rest of the class because I thought mine wasn't exceptional by any means! But my idea was to turn a "bullet" essentially out of a block of pine wood on my small pen lathe. Quite a few others were going to use a toilet paper tube for a body and construction paper for a nose! Now, this is pretty much a potato (tater) gun so there will be flames when the charge is ignited. I just have to wonder how well a toilet paper roll and construction paper will withstand not only the flames, but the shock! I hope my design works!

The instructor said that none of us gave a real presentation like we would have in an interview because none of us had tested it. An astronaut doesn't want to hear the engineer say "I think that the parachute should open after re-entry, at least I hope so!" It just isn't very reassuring. It's a fun class and he challenges us. I like that.

Saturday evening I got an e-mail from one of the guys in the class who had apparently only just realized that Monday was coming up and he didn't have anything! So he was asking for help. Here is his e-mail in its pure, unadulterated form (said sarcastically)

hey wats up? i havent seen u online for a while...
hows it going?

btw..i had a question..did u make that
design for the ballistic missile? do u know
any sites or anything that i could refer to,
to make this design..i dunno how to go abt
this..wat kind of material would be good? i
dunnno how to go abt this..pls email me if
u would like to share any ideas...or
leaive me some IMs online anytime....

talk to u soon then,

I gave a few suggestions but apparently it wasn't all he wanted. He wanted to meet me on Monday. My only real free time was about a half hour before class started so I did meet him at 1:00 p.m. and class started at 1:30. He didn't have a thing. First the assignment asked for a statement of the objective and he asked me "so what do I write?!" He was quite frantic. I said well, state the objective! Our goal is to build a projectile that will maximize time spent in the air, which essentially means, what goes up must stay up for a while. He wrote that and then turned to me "now what?" I'm laughing inwardly because honestly, this class is supposed to help you learn to think on your own, as an engineer. Admittedly he is from India and I think that part of the problem is he has had lots of book learning and he is very smart, but not too much practical knowledge. Whereas me, well, I have read quite a bit but mostly I am good at improvising :)

So we worked on his paper for a little while. We were supposed to come up with a design and then actually build it this next week or we get a large deduction in points. In other words, what we build has to match our design. With that in mind I made my design to be something I could actually implement, though I did have other ideas. This young man though didn't have any ideas and was asking if I had some so I told him a couple but warned that we had to build it too. He said he didn't care, he just wanted to put something down. I surely hope he CAN build it, though I think it will be very difficult! Five minutes before class started I said I really had to leave so I left and he apparently finished up his paper and came in a bit late. I just thought it was funny (sad in a way of course) that he was so distraught, when he really brought it upon himself. He's the type to wait until the last minute for everything anyway. But it was like he couldn't think for himself at all, he had to be told exactly what to do or else he couldn't do it. I had to figuratively hold him by the hand while I walked him through on how to write the objective of the project!

Other than that though.... not a whole lot happened today. I had some spare time so I did try out a new game on my handheld DS, which connects wirelessly to the Internet here in the RV park. It's a racing game and I have to admit I get rather competitive sometimes. With this new game you are able to connect and race against people all over the world who are on at the same time you are. I really wanted to try that out so I connected and signed in as "Shadow" and waited for a couple others. Within a minute or two, three other people had joined whose names were something like "Derek" "GamePlanet" and "Adrian." I have no idea where these people live, male or female or their ages (which it's kind of nice to be anonymous I suppose). To me they were just racing opponents. I count myself to be a pretty good racer but still, I could be playing against some top players here!
It went in rounds of elimination, all four of us raced on a track and I won by quite a little stretch and I was happy about that. The person who was in last place (GamePlanet I believe) was eliminated from the round.

The next match was a bit more intense, Adrian was left far behind while Derek and I battled it out, we were neck and neck for all three laps and in the end he passed me by using a mushroom boost (please bear with the foreign expressions). We raced again together and I just barely beat him. While racing I was feeling very much the urge to do my best but at the same time I really admired this Derek, he was a very talented player and I almost wanted to shake his hand.

Then came the final round, it was just Derek and myself, the battle for who would be the Mario Kart champion of the day. It started off fine, it was one of my favourite tracks and I was taking the turns nicely, cutting the corners, utilizing my boosts and doing very well, but he wasn't very far behind me. It's a long track so by the second lap I had increased my lead somewhat but made a few mistakes and Derek was right on my tail. I started to get nervous, palms begin to sweat and every turn seems like it's a life and death situation. One mistake and you'll be toast.

We made it to the final lap and I again increased my lead. I started to breathe easy about half way through that lap when he launched a "leader shell" at me which essentially is a homing missile that really packs a punch. I was struck and he zoomed past. Oh no! I was prepared to accept defeat but then I got three mushroom boosts and was able to JUST get past him right before the finish line and won the match, my heart was pounding excitedly and I wanted to say to Derek "WOW! That was a great match you put up, you are a great player." But unfortunately I couldn't. The match was over and the brief time I had spent competing with this unknown person was gone. I doubt I shall ever race him again and I shall probably never meet him but I do thank him for the challenge and I wish him luck in his future racing. It was quite a match and it was really fun for me. Similar to Lord of the Rings it was a roller coaster of emotion, I was excited because I thought I would win (against a very good opponent) but then thought it was all over and then the ray of hope appeared and all was not lost, but it was won! Wherever Derek is, I thank him for giving me such a wonderful match, as silly as it may seem. It's hard to convey the feeling of excitement but that really was a highlight of today, competing against someone of that calibre. Thanks Derek.

I also went to a meeting this evening for IEEE. They had some interesting things to say but like most meetings it was pretty dull and drawn out. What I was most interested in was the announcement of the winner for the t-shirt design contest. I had created a design that I thought was pretty good, I wouldn't have minded seeing it on a t-shirt at least! Well, at the very end they unveiled the winning design and it was NOT my design. I'll have to post a picture of what I made, it was a hand that faded into circuitry holding a globe with the phrase "reaching the world" and it was supposed to be with electronics of course. Well, the winning design was someone who took some pictures of Voltare, Ohm, and Ampere and made an equation with them. Essentially Voltare = Ampere * Ohm

That was disappointing. I spent several hours both coming up with my design and editing it bit by bit to make it look good and someone else took a couple of pictures off the Internet and made a silly little equation (nerdy I call it) out of the pictures and probably could have done it in paint :( Oh well, I don't know what I would have bought at Hastings anyway......
I mean, it's nice that he won and all but I didn't think it was an incredible display of designing talent. I guess it's just what some people want, something "cute" and goofy. *sniffle
I bet Boromir would understand. We can cry on eachothers shoulders about how true art and talent isn't appreciated.