And now I am not homeless anymore!

Now I finally have a place with my own room, i.e. I am moved into my summer housing now! So I am feeling a bit more confident about the summer now.

I haven't updated in a while because at the house that I have been staying at for the past 5 days didn't have an internet connection. But now I do, so I can.

That being said, I start work full time tomorrow. Woo hoo, working from 7:00 am until 3:30 pm. 8 hour day, so I'll be making about 90-100 dollars a day, which is much better than the 67 or so that I made last summer. So that'll be great for having a little extra spending money this summer. I am kind of excited, but kind of nervous about actually starting to work full time for a real company, not just my university. I want to succeed, and I will work towards that (especially because I have to re-make the money I spent on my D7000.) I hope that this job will be a good stepping stone up to a better engineering job after I graduate.

Speaking of graduating, now that this years seniors have graduated, I am now officially a Senior in College! IT seems odd to me, like seems usual when something has to do with time. As I have said I still feel like I should be in high school or elementary school. I don't know. Where I am right now feels real, and I have a lot of good memories from this time in my life, but it doesn't seem right yet. I am almost out there on my own, just one more year before I am thrown into the real world. But it doesn't seem right.

Anyways, I bought my 3rd copy of Sins of a Solar Empire yesterday. I works on max graphics even on my netbook! I bought it on steam because it was half off, and my other copies were installed with discs, but my netbook doesn't have a disc drive. It is still one of my favorite games, and the sequel is coming out soon! Yay!

Now I am kind of moving stuff around in my room, getting it set up for when I get a desk and a real bed thing. Im probably going to have my brother's TV in my room so I can play Xbox in there, but I could have it in the back room with the other 2 TVs in the house. And I can have it with my Gamecube. Best thing ever.

I got a few pictures lately, but I haven't really gotten my camera out, since I have been in limbo.

So I've only really a couple good pictures recently:

Little ugly baby bird. But it was kind of cute.

Well, that's all I've got. Until Next time,

Kevin


TV: Game of Thrones
Movie: Limitless
Music: Gotye, The National
Game: Sins of a Solar Empire
Food: Burger King... ugh...

Madness of Swimming

Well, I am back from Florida, settled in in my apartment in Valpo.

Florida was a really fun experience, albeit tough, painful, and cold. One of the days that we were there it was 44 degrees F, and we had to swim outside. Chilly.

Here's the pool that we swam at. 50 meter, 8 lanes, actually fairly warm for intense swimming in. 

On one of the days we actually went to the beach. Imagine that! Being in Florida and only going to the beach once. 

We were training at a gym called the "Institute of Human Performance" or "IHP." It's a really nice facility that trains everyone from UFC fighters to professional Baseball players.

 Speaking of Professional Baseball players, here's a completely different Maserati from the last one, yet still at the same place. I found out that the one in my last post belonged to the catcher for non other than the Colorado Rockies! Really cool.

This was at our hotel. I just thought that it was cool.

Now I'm back in Valpo, getting ready for classes to start tomorrow. I wish that break was a few days/weeks longer, but whatever.

Mainly because I want to play Skyrim... Fantastic game. I can see all of the work that went into it, from the faces and bodies of the people to the little pieces of grass and plants, to insects on the ground and rabbits running around. It sometimes gives me goosebumps when I get to a really awesome part. And that bodes well for a game.

I'll probably review it more when I have more than 5 hours of play on it.

I have a couple more classes this semester than I did last semester, so I'll have to deal with that as well as having swimming until February.

Classes:

ME-376-A  Heat Transfer
ME-374-A  Heat Power Laboratory
ME-362-A  Mechanisms
GEO-102-B  Globalization and Development
GE-301-A  Fin & Eth Decisions in Enginrg
ME-332L-B  Mechatronics Lab
ME-332-A Mechatronics
ME-261-B  Analog Circuits Laboratory

Should be interesting. I have heard that some of these classes are kind of fun.

So that is all for now. I'll probably post more later, but now I'm tired and have class at 8:00 am tomorrow. Lovely...

Kevin

TV: Archer
Movie: City of Ember
Game: Skyrim
Music: Coldplay
Food: My meal card didn't work today...
Book: Barsoom Series

Its getting late...

Since I haven't posted anything in a while, I figured that I could at least say something.

So the weirdest thing happened tonight. My brother and I went to see the new Mission Impossible movie, and when we went into the movie theater it was maybe around 35-40 degrees our or so (Fahrenheit), and when we got out it was 54 Degrees! I was kind of eerie, even, to me. Plus the wind was blowing in the wrong direction (it always blows west to east out of the mountains. It was blowing east to west outside the theater.)

Anyways, the movie was pretty good. Tom Cruise, to me, never seems like a spy- type of character. The other actors/actresses in the movie played their roles quite well, but Tom Cruise is just... I don't know.
I did like how much of it took place in Dubai, even though some of the stunts undertaken were unbelievable. But that's part of the charm of those types of movies. It just makes it fun to watch! If you like action movies, I would go see it. I always go into movies expecting them to be bad, so I am usually pleasantly surprised! I actually enjoyed this one, much more than the last Mission Impossible.

Finally Beat Castle Crashers on Insane mode today, with my brother and friends help. Man, what a ride. There were level that literally took us 40 minutes that on normal mode take us maybe 5. Intense. But its done now, and I am proud of our accomplishment. I literally got a sense of achievement when we finished off the final boss fight.

Other than that not much is going on. Cheers, all. I am going to bed.

Kevin

TV: Top Gear
Movie: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Music: Coldplay
Game: Bastion/ Castle Crashers
Food: good food.

Blogging in the Snow

Not much of note happened today. Played some Halo Anniversary, played some Castle Crashers, played some Assassins Creed Brotherhood. Other than that, pretty uneventful day.

Now its snowing outside, with the unworldly orange tint that streetlights give it. Here's some interesting pictures that don;t really show off the orange, as much as the snow.

It really is quite a bit more orange than these show. Oh well, its snowing!

And now that means that its time for bed.

TV: Leverage
Movie: nada
Game: Castle Crashers
Food: Qdoba Burrito

Let it snow!

Kevin

5 Days

It baffles my mind that there is only 5 days left until Christmas. It always seems like this far away event that will never actually get here, even now that I am basically an adult.

Got some last minute shopping out of the way as a result of the aforementioned revelation.

Not much else happened during the day today. I took some pictures of my cats just for fun (who would have guessed!)

Comet again. Interesting effects caused by the sun.

Then tonight we went to dinner at HuHots Mongolian grill! If you haven't been there basically you fill a couple bowls with noodles and meat and such, then you take it to a big circular grill in the middle of the restaurant and then the guys cook it for you right there! Here's a phone picture that I took, since I didn't bring my dslr or my point and shoot:

Not the best quality photo, I know. But it was really good food. I finally figured out that I don't like the noodles that they use their and started using the rice instead. I definitely recommend it to anyone who likes that kind of food.

After getting back we watched "Sherlock Holmes" on our projector from my brothers computer. Pretty good movie, and now I can go see the sequel with my family sometime.

Before the movie, however, when they were setting up the computer and all, I got to play minecraft on the projector! That was fun, and my netbook worked perfectly even running that.

I am farming a lot. Lots of melons and Pumpkins and Wheat and Sugar Cane and the like.

Oh, I found out today that I passed all of my classes this semester! I was seriously concerned about one of them (that I have mentioned previously) but I ended up getting a passing grade (barely). So that's a huge relief, and now I can stop worrying about it and focus on what needs to be done next semester and next year.

And that's been my day.

TV: Nada
Movie: Sherlock Holmes
Music: Some sort of trance song.
Game: Minecraft

Until later,

Kevin

Colorado

Lost of stuff happened today.

First off, woke up to Snow in Valparaiso. First real-feeling snow of the year, with big fluffly snowflakes. IT was pretty awesome.
Here's a shot from my window, taken at around 8:00 am.

However, had to drive in it to Chicago, which was a little slick, but nothing too bad, I imagine, from the passengers seat.
Then got to walk around Chicago for a few hours, admiring the scenery and architecture of the US's 3rd largest city. Here's a couple examples, taken with my Fujifilm Point and Shoot since I didn't want to take my dslr with me.

We also went to this place called "ChristKringlemart" or someplace, which was basically a big christmas market where you could get a ton of German-inspired and even German made christmas stuff.

However, I didn't feel like taking any pictures, so here's some pigeons warming up near the eternal flame in Chicago. It made me laugh.

Then after that was all done I got some new art supplies from a store called "Blick" on State Street. A new .3mm mechanical pencil and some lead, plus erasers and an engineers scale. So those will come in handy.

That was our last stop in Chicago, and then we made our way back to Midway Airport. I said goodbye to my girlfriend and we headed for security. Because I had so much stuff in my bag (Laptop, cameras, harddrives, DS) the TSA people made me re-send my stuff through the xray machine all separate. IT was interesting.

Of course we got to the airport early, by about 3 1/2 hours or so. So I got to hang out near my gate and play some minecraft. Just built a little courtyard around my main house on my netbooks world (since I'm away from my Desktop for 3 whole weeks.) Not much else than that.

Uneventful Plane ride during which my brother and I watched "How to Train your Dragon" on my netbook. Great movie, I definitely recommend it to everyone.

And now I am at home! First time since the end of May, and its really good to be home! As I'm sitting here on the couch in the basement one of the kitties came up and laid next to me. Here's Comet. Purring away.

And that has been my day, Probably going to bed soon, as travelling usually makes one quite tired.

Cheers,

Kevin

TV: Top Gear
Movie: How to Train your Dragon
Music: Still Sigur Ros
Food: Qdoba

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