Good Lord, am I still alive?

Wow, it has been SO long since I updated this blog. I don't even know where to start with updates. Lets see where my last post left off...

Ok, so after the Coldplay concert I finished up my last couple weeks or so of my internship and went back home for a week to get my drivers license renewed, and I brought my D7000 back with me with all of my lenses. I really do need to get back home to Colorado more often, I really do miss it quite a bit. The landscape if just stellar, so much more interesting than this flat stuff they call land here in Indiana. Even after 3 1/2 years here I still am slightly off-put by the lack of mountains.

Anyways, while I was back home in Fort Collins, the big city arts/music festival was going on, New West Fest, and there were numerous local bands playing at something like 8 different stages across the downtown area.

 This band was quite good, and they had a good gimmick going on with the zombie makeup. Pretty good stuff.

The next day we went hiking up Horsetooth Rock. A few mile hike with a pretty nice view of Long Peak at the top.

  

Also Chipmunk.














A couple days later my brother, my friend, and I went backpacking up the Poudre Canyon. We hiked up about 2 miles with our packs and set up a nice little base camp from which to explore around from.

My brothers SOG tomahawk was getting a bit beat up after spending a couple hours throwing it into a very old very dead tree. Really fun, though, and I was able to nail down 2 and 3 rotations. It lent a nice sense of power sending this heavy piece of metal flying through the air and hearing the "thunk" as it embedded into the tree.
Later we decided to go out on a hike, and literally less than 1/4 of a mile out from our camp we go around some trees and Bam! Moose! And not a little one, a very large Bull Moose. It is unfortunate that I only had my 50mm lens with me, or else I would have gotten some better shots of this majestic beauty.





Later that night we discovered a really awesome effect with an overpowered laser pointer and the fire.

Here are a couple nice result shots.





We tried some long exposure stuff later, but they didn't really turn out from me.

That was basically the end of the camping trip, and we didn't really do much more before heading back to Valparaiso for school.

Intermission:
Not chronological with the telling of this grand yarn, because GoPro just released this, but it is just awesome:

 

Be sure to watch it in 1080p if you can! Just stellar.

Anyways, School started and I got back into my Engineering classes. It is senior year, and it is a bit harder in ways, as the subject matter is a lot more confusing, but I have less homework.

I am taking:
Machine Design
AutomaticControls
Advanced Materials
And Senior Design.

Now, for senior Design I actually am in the greatest project group. We have to develop and build a remote controlled submarine for taking pictures underwater at a depth of up to 100 feet. I'll give more details in some future posts (hopefully).

Anyways, I got a job with my Universities marketing department as a photographer/ photo editor. It is basically one of my dream jobs! I get paid to go to all of the university sporting events and other happenings, as well as I get to use the large nice photo studio down in the basement. Yay 3 point studio lighting!

As "stellar" as our football team is, it is still really fun to go to their games and get nice shots like the two above. These were with my D7000 with my 80-200mm AF. I am getting so much better at timing and framing, and just photography in general. Yeah, I would go out and take some random pictures this summer, but that isn't the same as getting actual experience at an actual event. I'll probably post some more of my better pictures here, too, but I have to get them off the work computer still.

More event pics. I really should get those pictures off the work drive, as I have quite a few all right pictures that I really would like to have up here.














So as a result of all this, I bought my bosses D600. Full Frame beauty! I can definitely tell a huge difference in the Dynamic range and noise performance when compared to my Crop-Sensor APS-C D7000. I am So glad that I made the jump to Full Frame. The camera's performance in general, also, is also in general higher than the D7000.
Here are the specs on Amazon:
Nikon D600
And compare them to the:
Nikon D7000

The only thing that is slightly obnoxious about the D600 is that it seems to gather more dust on the sensor than my D7000, so I have to be more careful about changing lenses. There might be some issue with a slight gap in the shutter, it is something that has been seen in some models, and it might affect mine too. I'm not sure what to do about it, but I can deal with it in the mean time. The image quality is just so stellar that it makes up for it.

Oh, I almost forgot that all of my pictures are somewhere else:
Basketball with the D600
Engineering Building with the D600
Volleyball with the D600
Men's Soccer with the D600
These are all my pictures, they are just on the University Flickr page.  


This is the only picture that I currently have on my home desktop that I took with my D600, so it;ll have to do for now. I spent a couple hours messing with this on Lightroom 4.2 and Photoshop. Also, it is fortunate that lightroom 4.2 supports the D600, even though Photoshop currently doesn't support the .NEF files out of it.
Anyways, Picture.

24.3 Megapixel Full Frame Madness! 30 Megabyte files! Creamy Bokeh goodness! Beautiful.

And I'll leave it at that for today, I'm tired.

Thanks for reading,

Kevin

TV: Friends
Movie: Can't wait for Skyfall on next Friday!
Game: Skyrim, still...
Music: Mumford and Sons and The National
Food: Cheese Quesadilla

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

And now I am done

Well, I finally finished all of my finals. As seems to be the theme, it doesn't seem like I'm done yet, like I still have some sort of big assignment looming over my head. Whatever.

Anyways, I still have to finish moving out of my apartment by tomorrow, then I am a displaced person living with a friend for a few days until I can move into my summer housing (at least until the end of July). But I'll start work full time nest Tuesday, so I'll start making some money to pay off my D7000 and save up for an 80-200mm f/2.8D lens. That'll take a while, but I will be making plenty of money (30% more than last summer, plus I am working for quite a while longer than last summer, too.)

Valpo women's softball won their conference championship a few days ago, so here are a few shots that I got  during the second to last game. This is why I really need an 80-200mm lens, because it would be SO much better for sports than my kit lens (which is an 18-105mm).

I like taking pictures at softball games, because it is fairly easy to predict the motion and when the action is going to happen.

That's basically it. I will basically be in limbo for the next week or so.

Kevin

TV: Top Gear
Movie: Serenity
Game: Mass Effect 3
Music: The National
Food: None at all, I seem to be out of food...

Final Exams

Lovely, it's that time of year again, the time when people flock to the library and take all of the study tables, then they gripe about having to study, even though they are paying the university tons of money to go here to teach them.

However, I am one of those people, though I will try to keep the complaining down to a minimum.

Final 1: ECE 261 Lab exam: Not too bad, I already had this one last week, on the last day of lab (since it is a purely lab-based class). Passed with flying colors.

Geography 102: Globilization and Development: Online Final which took me about 30 minutes and I only missed 2 points on it. That brings my total points missed in the entire class up to 4. Pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Engineering Economics: This final is tomorrow at 10:30 am, and it shouldn't be too bad. It was a half semester class, so we don;t have all that much material to go over.

Mechanisms: Tomorrow at 1:00. This one will be a bit harder, though my grade in the class is a bit lower only because of the programming portions, as I passed all of the exams handily, but when it came to the programming sections I was lacking in understanding a bit. I am very good with all of the practical stuff (not on the computer) so I am not too worried about this one either.

Heat Transfer: Friday at 8:00 am. This one will be the big one. The really hard one that I really need to get a good grade on. It is really hard to understand a lot of the abstract ideas in this class, and being sick for 5 weeks  (like seriously sick) doesn't help either.Oh well, I will just have to study really hard tomorrow after my two exams (if my mind still functions after that, anyways).

Then I have 4 days off with which I will use to move all of my stuff out of my apartment and into my storage unit. Then on Tuesday I have the next one.

Mechatronics: Tuesday at 8:00 am. Not worried about this one at all. It was a fun class that I understand most of the material very well, and I did very well on the homework assignments and first exam. So not worried.

And that is what my next few days look like. I might post a few more pictures here at some point (like when I get back to my desktop in my apartment, I am currently writing this on my netbook in the library).

Carry on,

Kevin

TV: Top Gear, Jeeves & Wooster
Movie: Serenity on Blu-Ray
Music: Halo 3:ODST soundtrack
Game: Portal 2 level developer!
Food: String Cheese and cereal out of a tupperware container.

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.

It is beginning...

So I went and got a new pair of shoes today. Nice dress shoes for my interview on Thursday. Probably the most expensive pair of shoes that I will own.

Well, because of that, there was also a "buy one get one half off" sale going on at Shoe Carnival, so I figured I would buy myself another pair, as well, since the original pair (dress shoes) were already discounted heavily.

So, what kind of shoes did you get, you might ask?

Well...

I just tried them on kind of as a joke, but then they turned out to be really comfortable, and with the 1/2 off thing they turned out to be pretty cheap too. Win win. Plus hipster shoes.

A few days ago it was really foggy outside, so I took my camera outside with my brother's laser pointer and we messed around a bit. This was actually a really fast exposure with a low ISO, even (around 400 or so). Turned out pretty good.

Ok, now some engineering stuff.

Today in mechatronics lab we did some protoboard stuff, using NAND and NOT gates and such. It is kind of tough to visualize sometimes what we are doing on paper, and this really helped with it.

Here's a picture of one of our setups:

Lots of colors, but if I looked close enough (and had the chart that told us what was in each ship) I could tell you what that circuit did.

This next one is just a counter. It counts to 7 in binary with lights then resets. Pretty cool:

All of this is just skimming the surface of what you can do with circuits. Hell, my computer that I'm typing this on is millions of times more complex than that was, and I had trouble with it.

It just goes to show that there is so much more that I can learn.

I completed my collection of the CD's by "The National" today. Lots more music to listen to! Woo hoo! Also cheap because they are pretty old (2001-2004 or so).

That's pretty much it for tonight. I finished a lot of my homework today, so I'm proud of myself for that.

Later,

Kevin

TV: Archer
Movie: nada
Music: The National
Game: Rayman Origins
Food: Smartfood Popcorn!

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!

The scope of Engineering

Well, a new semester has started, and that means getting used to all the new classrooms that I have to go to, and remembering all of the stuff that I have learned in the bast 2 1/2 years that all applies to the classes that I am taking now. Engineering is like that.

That, though, is one of the things that I love about it. It has a real sense of coherency throughout the field, because everything is interconnected. Mechanisms builds on Mechanics, which builds on Dynamics, which builds on Statics, which builds off of Physics, which builds off of Calculus, which builds off of Algebra, which builds off of Mathematics. Its like I'm climbing a mountain of knowledge, and I'm actually getting pretty close to the top now.

All of my classes this semester seem pretty interesting. Heat Transfer, which I'm sure will be the hardest, is necessary for basically anything in Mechanical Engineering, from engines to power generation. Everything is basically the movement of heat and energy.

I have an assignment for my Mechanisms class to go out somewhere on campus and to find an example of a mechanism. Looking around has really opened my eyes to how much engineering there is around me. I was aware of it, of course, but it made me look even more into the little things. Someone designed the little pneumatic door stop thing on all doors, they probably put many many hours into its design and development and testing and finally production, and now we all never think about it at all. Its just a given on many doors. And I think that's something that Engineers want. For their products to improve peoples lives. I will never meet the person who designed almost all of the things that I use every day, but I owe so much to these people.

That's why I want to be an Engineer. I want to create things that I might not be thanked for, but that I know will help people.


Kevin

TV: Family Guy
Movie: Beauty and the Beast
Music: Thirteen Senses
Game: Skyrim
Food: Cereal

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

Almost through

Well, I just got through my third final without too much dismay. Its strange, usually finals fill me with a sense of dread, but this year the only one that does that to me is my last final, my Mechanical Measurements final.

That's probably because its the class that I am doing the worst in. That's mainly because the whole premise of the class if kind of vague and confusing. I wasn't really sure what to expect in the beginning, and its pretty much the same case now.

It also doesn't help that its one of the hardest classes at the university.

Oh well. So I'm going to be studying for that class for a long while today and tonight.

Later:

Music: Explosions in the Sky
Game: Limbo
TV: Scrubs

Kevin