Sneak Peek

Short blog today, I mainly just wanted to put out the first picture of my latest creation, done with a very small amount of pieces:

Some sort of Floating Rock thing. I am actually pretty happy with how it turned out, given my VERY limited piece selection (as can be seen here: On Flickr )

I have been working a lot lately, so I haven't really had much stuff to blog about.

I'll have more pictures tomorrow or so.

That's all for now!

Kevin

TV: Mad Men!
Movie: none
Game: Minecraft
Music: none
Food: Doritos

And now I am homeless...

At least for a few days. I can't move into my summer housing until the 21st of May, so I am crashing on the floor of one of my friends houses for 5 days. That'll be... interesting. I foresee lots of time just kind of hanging out at the Student Union on campus (since I can get internet) and roaming around with my camera.

Sorry, no pictures this time, as my desktop is all packed up, and I don;t want to get out my backup harddrive to post a couple pictures.

The last few days has been consistent of way too much moving and packing and getting freshmen's stuff and packing my storage unit and unpacking it and repacking it so that more stuff will fit. I think that everything that needs to be is in my storage unit now, though.

As seems the norm, I still don't feel like it is summer. Still being on campus doesn't help, either. I am kind of... sad, even that the semester is over, if only because I will miss the people who are usually here, and I will miss the hubbub of campus life. I also am kind of nervous about actually living on my own this summer, and working full time at an actual job, not just doing research (like I did last summer). I'm also not looking forward to the next few days, as I am basically a displaced person, and I will literally have nothing to do. Thank goodness I get to work for 4 hours tomorrow, at least. I'll probably go try to find an interesting place in town to take pictures (though that'll be a stretch, Valpo is boring as hell).

Now I am sitting in the Union Cafe eating a sandwich and typing away on my netbook. Campus seems too... quiet. It kind of reminds me of last summer, when I was stuck here as well. I am kind of regretting staying here for the summer, but I guess that I've got to do what I've got to do, employment wise. I am going to be getting paid pretty well here, and it'll be a great boost to my resume. It just means that I am away from Colorado again.

I don't think that I would want to work here, at least not in Indiana or Illinois. They are too boring for my taste. I want Mountains and plains and grand landscape, none of which is featured here. For someone who lived his entire life before college in view of some mountains (Cascades or Rockies), it is still disconcerting to not have that comforting presence there, always telling you which way is west.

This post is turning out to be longer than I anticipated, lots of words, and no pictures. I think that is boring, so I guess I'll try to scrounge up a picture or two:

If you know me, you will have seen these before, but I don't think that I have posted them here before. Therefore, here you go. I am particularly proud of the bokeh on this picture.

And that's all, I think. I will be working a lot this summer, so don;t expect too much from me. 

Oh, one last thing: My roommate and I are looking to make a couple short films this summer with out DSLR's movie modes, and if any of you have some ideas, let me know.

Later,

Kevin

TV: Top Gear

Movie: Nada

Game: Minecraft

Music: Gotye

Food: sammich

I have been neglecting you.

Hey people. Wow, it has been a long time since I posted anything here. I guess that Conference got a bit busy (you know, 5 weeks ago) and I was sick for the 4 weeks after that, so I guess I didn't really have any desire to blog anything, since nothing really was going on.

So, Spring break. I went home to Colorado, which is, in my opinion, the best State in the USA. It was good to be home, especially for two weeks. I took quite a few pictures while I was there, as well, of both Lego stuff and Mountains (when we took a day and went through Estes Park and Denver).
Here are a few of the shots I took:

 These shots were taken at a little Glass shop in Estes Park. Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

And last but not least, here's  couple Lego shots.

Of my Dragon Temple (which got as many favorites when I re-posted it on Flickr as the original had.) and the Phantom 7.

I took a ton more pictures over spring break, which you can see if you are my friend on Facebook. These pictures here are better though, since they uploaded through Google instead of Facebook. The Facebook up-loader does terrible things to pictures.

Anyways, I had some really good shots from the Art Museum, so I might do a new post just dedicated to that one later.

As for now, I am going Bowling, so I'm going to sign off and make another post out of the continuing story of why I neglected all of you lovely people who actually read this.

Preow

Kevin

TV: Game of Thrones Season 2
Game: Minecraft
Movie: nada...
Food: Not enough, really.
Music: Gotye, The National, Coldplay

Jobs and Cameras and all thats good!

Well, I have been been incredibly busy for the past couple weeks. Lots of homework and lots of swimming and such.

Speaking of swimming, Conference is coming up in two days! The whole season comes down to this meet, basically. We are tapered down, and I will get to shave my legs again! Not something that most guys say...

I will be swimming in quite a few events, here is a list of said events (at least as of now),
1000 Free
500 Free
100 Fly
200 Medley Relay (fly)
400 Medley Relay (fly)
400 Free Relay
800 Free Relay

So I'll have a long meet ahead of me, but that's all right. It is exciting to swim a couple different things at least.

Other news is that just today I got a job! The company that I interviewed with right before my prior blog post offered me an intern position for both the rest of the semester and for the summer! I will have to find a place to live this summer, but I can do that. It is really exciting to get my first "real" job, at least that isn't either from the university or from my family.

This company makes industrial hose and cable housing links, to protect delicate cables and hoses in large manufacturing plants, or on bridges, or basically anywhere that has moving parts that could potentially destroy said hoses or cables. They said that it would be mostly doing SolidWorks or AutoCad, but I know how to to SolidWorks, and AutoCad is very similar to it, so that's good! So I'm very excited for this opportunity. It will also look very good on a resume.

And in celebration of getting this job, I bought myself a new lens (well, I was planning on getting it anyways, but this just gave me an occasion to get it!) I ordered it today, and was able to pick it up tonight! That's fast!

It is a 50mm f/1.8G lens for my Nikon D3100. It is my second lens, after the kit lens that came with the camera, and I must say that it is excellent! The lens auto-focuses much faster than the kit lens, and it is much sharper as well. Now being a prime lens means that it only has one focal length, so there won't be any zooming on it, but that's what it is for. It makes you think about your show more, to move and adapt with your environment in order to get the shot exactly right, instead of just zooming to the situation. And that is awesome.

Here's a couple pictures that show the depth of field:

The top one shows how sharp the focus can be at mid-range ISO, and the bottom one shows the fairly limited depth of field (the focus is on the center of the lens cap).

Here's a link to the amazon page for the lens:
Nikon 50mm f/1.8G

Now I need to go to bed, for some reason taper makes me exhausted.

Until Next time

Kevin

Movie: The Invention of Lying
TV: Downton Abbey
Game: Skyrim
Music: The National
Food: Popcorn Chicken and Grapefruit Juice.

Busy Busy Busy

Sorry that I haven't really posted anything lately. I have been incredibly busy with lots of homework and practices and swim meets and practices and such. Probably well understood by the few people who read this.

The most noteworthy event is that my girlfriend has bought both of us tickets to a Coldplay Concert! And if you read my prior post you probably know my views on that specific band.

So now I'll actually post something relating to the name of the blog! Something about engineering! I just made an appointment for my first real interview with an engineering company here in Valpo. They look like a smaller local company, but it looks pretty cool, and I'm excited for the interview on Thursday.

I have been enjoying learning about microprocessors in my mechatronics class, and if you are viewing this on a phone then you are using a microprocessor. It changed the world probably more than anything else in its time. Without the microprocessor, our devices would be much larger, much slower, and much dumber. Basically like it was in the 80's. But the advent of the microprocessor allowed us to basically make almost anything "smart." Now, for five to fifteen dollars per controller, you can have large amounts of data manipulation and control for cheap. It's amazing!

And that's my thoughts for today.

Picture!

Kevin

TV: Top Gear
Movie: nada
Music: The National
Game: Skyrim
Food: Cookies!

For real this time...

All right, I'm more motivated to actually write something now.

So, Christmas Eve we went to the traditional Church Service, which is always really nice, where we have a portion that's only lit by candlelight. Its always a nice service. Here's some pictures that I took after the service:

Good reflections in the Handbells.

Once we got home we had an excellent steak dinner in the dining room by our Christmas tree (see next couple photos).

Mmm, steak.

Next, on to Christmas. I got a good assortment of stuff. I got a couple books, some movies, Skyrim for the PC, some candy, some Lego, some money, and lots of warm clothes. All in all pretty good.

We got my Mother a Kindle Fire, so here is a shot of her using her kindle as its meant to be used!  Playing games! I mean reading... yeah, reading...

Later that day we went down to my grandparents house for another Christmas celebration with more family. That was very nice, as I enjoy being with my family members.

Stayed there last night, came back, here's another picture of Comet, went to Best Buy to look at stuff, etc.

I bought Bastion on Steam. I really like it so far. It's just got a nice style and execution. I would recommend it to anyone who likes simpler, more artistic games over the SHOOT SHOOT DEATH DEATH games of now.

That is all.

TV: Top Gear

Movie: nada

Game: Bastion

Music: Bastion OST

Food: Turkey

Preow

Kevin

Slightly chilly

So it seems that winter is finally upon us. It snowed a little bit last night, but not too much. It has just been really icy here.

I got to hang out with some of my high school friends for most of the day, working on my collaborative castle project with one of them. Here is another sample image with some stuff you can see in the background:

We are still working on the landscaping, so no buildings have gone up yet.

After that, I went down to Denver with some of my friends that I used to swim with at Loveland Swim Club. It was really nice to reminisce with them about the times that we had in high school, and now we are all so far removed from it. Only a few of us still swim competitively, and it was really cool to hear how the other people are using their time. I always wonder what it would be like to not have to swim every day. To actually be able to have the time I need to get all of my homework done well and understand all of the material, instead of being rushed and exhausted every time I need to do it. It was good to see them, though, but it also made me miss my new swimmer friends from college.

I have been having a really good time taking pictures with my camera. Figuring out how the lighting affects it and how to compensate for different things, and how to get it to focus exactly where I want it to. I love the precision and quality of the DSLR, and I'm probably never going back to a point-and-shoot again.
Speaking of pictures, here's another random picture of a cat:

Lucy this time, in her hiding spot behind the Christmas tree.

That's basically been my day.

TV: Cowboy Bebop
Music: Cowboy Bebop OST
Movie: Castle in the Sky
Food: Italian

Until next time,

Kevin

Home and Friends

Hey all.

So I have just been hanging out at home all day with friends and my brother. I'm quite glad to see them after so long.

One of my friends and I have started our collaborative Lego Project on a very large base. We are planning on making a village scene with a tower and the ruins of a wall crumbling nearby.

I haven't done too much else today but sit on the floor and work on that.

I took a few pictures of one of the creations that I destroyed to start the new project, here is my favorites of the bunch:

But this is now gone. Gone to bring progress.

We have been listening to "Flight of the Conchords" for a little bit. Quite entertaining. Cheeky New Zealanders. 

Now we are watching "Princess Mononoke." One of my favorite movies of all time. The soundtrack is one of the best ones that I have ever heard, from Joe Hisaishi.

Probably almost bedtime here, so I leave you with another random picture.

TV: Top Gear

Music: Flight of the Conchords

Movie: Princess Mononoke

Food: Steak!

Preow,

Kevin

Finally Finished.

After almost everyone that I know already finished their finals, I am finally finished mine at 12:30 today.

It was basically the hardest test I have taken in a VERY long time. I didn't even finish 3 of the 5 problems, I just ran out of time.

Oh Well.

Anyways, now before I go home I'm going to go hang out in Chicago for a while tomorrow before going to the airport and finally going home to Colorado! I haven't been home since the end of May, so it'll be nice to finally get to go home and see all of my friends.

Today after my deathly exam I haven't really done much. I set off the smoke detector in my apartment a couple times because we haven't cleaned our oven in a while. So I cleaned our oven and then tried again, and it worked without a hitch. Making a pizza that you buy at the store is so much cheaper than buying it from the university food service.

Now I am sitting in my room by myself thinking about what I need to pack. Clothes and junk, electronics, cameras, games, cables, swim gear. All sorts of junk.
But I'm being too lazy to really pack anything. Oh Well

Even though I have a lot of other games that I want to play, I just keep getting drawn back into Minecraft. Even though Assassins Creed has a much better storyline, and Oblivion has better graphics, and I haven't even opened the newest Assassins Creed yet (Which I got on Black Friday), I still just go back and play Minecraft. Whatever.

If anyone who actually reads this would like to suggest any good TV shows for me to look into, feel free to. I won;t put down a list of shows that I have already watched, as that would just be really long, but I'm open to suggestions.

It still hasn't sunk into my brain yet that the semester is done, and that I don't have to do any homework for Monday or Tuesday or anything. I still feel like I should be a freshman, not a Junior, if that makes sense. My whole concept of time seems to be skewed somehow.

This is a picture I took on the same day as the first picture that I posted. This was with my Fuji-Film point and shoot, so before I got my dslr. I just re-looked at it, and I kind of like it.

I'll have to figure out something cool to build out of Lego while I'm at home, since that's where all of my good lego is, and I haven't built something since I was home.

I've been thinking of doing a collaborative build with one of my friends from home. Our concept is to build a small medieval village scene with a blacksmith by a river, and an old large chunk of wall of the old city of Caraval exposed, but with plants and vines growing out over it.

However, to do this, I would most likely have to destroy my biggest build to date, Aubree's Bounty, my first real SHIP. Oh well, some of the structural parts are beginning to... fail... or so I heard from my mother last time I talked to her.

So again, if anyone has good creative ideas for castles and such, let me know.

I'm thinking that I'm going to start doing reviews of my own Lego Creations on here, too, chronicling my thoughts that went into it as it went from an idea into a model .I think that it would be fun to think how I built it, and it might be helpful to some other people as well.

That's basically all I've got to say. Now to go pack...

TV: Who's Line is it Anyway
Music: Halo: Anniversary
Game: Sonic Adventure 2: Battle..

See ya

Kevin