my life, my thoughts, my world.

On the road to earning a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering this semester marks the real start of the trip. My math and science prerequisites are finally out of the way. From here on out I will be enrolled exclusively in higher level math and core engineering courses. My peers will get to take some electives here and there. Changing my major as many times as I have won’t allow me to do the same.

Somehow, I managed to sign up for three traditional courses all taught in the exact same lecture hall. Mechanical Design 1, Thermodynamics 1, and Mechanics 1 (Statics) are all in the same room! The other course I am taking is Engineering Computing and is given online. To continue on with a declared major of Mechanical Engineering there are five courses that make up something of a do-or-die list. If you do not pass those five courses with a 2.25GPA between them by your second attempt you must change your major. I am taking four of those five courses this semester. If you don’t see me blog/tweet/facebook/do anything but study between now and Christmas break you know why.

Both summer courses are now finished. I managed a B in Physics 2, and am looking to finish in about the same place in Calculus 3. This is the last summer term I’ll ever take; none of the courses I need from here until graduation are offered in the summer. Taking these two courses during overlapping summer terms was brutal. I spent basically all of my time from June to August sitting in this very chair. I wasn’t sitting here because I wanted to either. Three entire notebooks, in my microscopic handwriting, were filled with line-integrals, gradients, and sketches to make problems visual so I could see what was going on. Sometimes I would stand up at my desk, because I’d been sitting for far too long. A few times I went and took a walk just to remember what the sun looked like. Of course the fact it’s summer in Texas quickly reminded me that in addition to being really bright the sun is also really hot.

With this semester out of the way, I am looking at six more full-time semesters until I graduate with a BSME. If you’d asked me when I graduated high school in 2001 if I thought I would still be working on an undergraduate degree in 2010 I would have laughed at you. Here I am looking at a 2013 graduation. Sure, I changed my major four or five times and spent five years on active duty in the Army – but I still never imagined it’d take this long. If the world ends in 2012, I’m going to be pissed.

Update: Managed a B in Calculus 3 as well. Yee + Haw.

My short summer-term battle with Physics 2 has come to a close. Somehow, I managed to pull off a solid B in the course. Provided my ongoing experiment with Calculus 3 follows the same grade trend my Calculus 1 and 2 courses did, this summer will actually be good for my GPA. Fancy that.

The best part about being finished with physics is that I actually have time to think now. No more waking up and going to campus early every single day. I think that method, going hard every day, is probably the best way to learn. Of course, I don’t particularly enjoy the amount of work that method requires. No one said it would be easy, right?

Everlong Lives, originally uploaded by Anthony J. Martinez.

Everything is finally finished with my i7 desktop build. It’s pretty sweet. Click the photo to visit the Flickr page and read the specs. I don’t feel like typing them again.

Slideshow of the repairs I made, with help from some family/friends, in my parents’ garage. You can click here to read the captions for each photo, or click on them in the actual show to see the captions. If you’re readin this on Facebook, you’ll need to go read it on my blog itself (click “view original post” down by the comments box) to see the slideshow.

Memorial Day weekend, for me, marks the end of my summer. First, I’ll get this out of the way. Do not wish me a “Happy Memorial Day,” it is not a happy day. Someone ought to come up with a better greeting, because that one really irks me and others like me. Granted, those of us bothered by others treating it as a “happy” day do not need a publicly declared holiday in order to remember our fallen brothers and sisters at arms. We do it every single day. I won’t go as far as to say the ones who did not come home are the reason you get to enjoy a cold beer and some messy barbecue ribs; some other holiday surely would have come along to allow such to happen. I will say to remember that they’ll never get to do that again.

With that out of the way, I think I’m ready to get busy on this whole engineering degree thing. While I have no idea what it is I intend to do with said degree once it’s complete, I’m more focused on finishing than ever. Taking phys2 in a six-week summer session is not going to be easy. Neither will cal3. Somehow, I’ll make all of that work. If I’m lucky I might even get to enjoy some fun in the sun while I’m at it.

Earlier today, I realized I seem to have changed my major every two semesters of my colorful college career. After this past semster, I will finally stick with one major for three semesters. The challenges I’ve faced with this choice have been many, and will only grow as I progress towards graduation, but I really need to stick this one out. If I could make it through Spring ’10, I can get that degree.

My physics grade posted earlier in the week, and I managed to pull down a B-. Paired with the B I earned in cal2, I’m ready to take a step up the ladder. When June starts, Summer ’10 will bring me a heavy dose of cal3 and phys2. I will not have time to mess around or procrastinate.

The summer will be brutal, but it will be the first time I have ever stuck with a major for three semesters. When I finish those classes, I will finally start taking actual engineering classes. Fall ’10 will be a tough one as well: Engineering Computing, Thermodynamics 1, Statics, and Mechanical Design 1. Hopefully, by the time I get there, my brain remembers how to do this whole science thing.

Never has it been a secret that I enjoy my travels. The opportunity to see new places, meet new people, and escape from everyday life as I know it is always welcomed with open arms. When finals finished up, I seized that opportunity again. Destination? Boston!

One of my oldest friends, Sheehan, goes to Boston University. My old Battle Captain, Leo, attends Harvard. Flickr friend, Meg, goes to Northeastern. Over the course of my five days up north, I got to see them all.

Meg was kind enough to invite me to Cape Cod with a group of her friends. The trip started great, but a medical monkey-wrench got thrown into the works early on. The first morning at the beach house started with an unfortunate trip to the hospital for Meg. I won’t go into other people’s medical business, but I will say if you have to go to a hospital make sure it isn’t on Cape Cod. I wasn’t even the sick one, but I still wanted to choke half of the staff. Color me unimpressed.

Meg pre-hospital

Once Meg’s parents showed up, and we handed off all of her things, the rest of the group decided it was time to head to the beach. I decided it was time to call on an old friend for an extraction. The group was nice, and did a lot to make me feel welcome, but I just didn’t feel right sticking around. Leo said it best, so I’ll just say what he said. There are some people you just help when they need it. Convenience isn’t a factor. If they need help, and you can provide it, you just do it. I’m glad he counts me as one of those people; I’d do the same for him.

Meg's friends in the ocean

Leo and his wife took me to dinner, gave me a place to stay, and showed me the sights of Boston. I’ll let the pictures tell this part of the story.

Random lonely chair in a field

Harvard

Boston Massacre Cemetery

Memorial for OIF/OEF casualties

USS Constitution mast

The rest of the photos can be found here.

Cal2 tried valiantly to destroy me. A few times, I thought it had won. When I stood up to turn in my final that thought vanished. The countless hours of studying seem to have paid off. Obviously, I won’t know for sure until grades post but I feel good about it anyway.

Physics and I will do battle again tomorrow morning. Hopefully, my final in that course goes the same way my Cal2 final went. I do not need to do nearly as well on it as I needed to do in Cal2, but I plan on doing just as well.

A few hours after my final is finished I’ll be boarding a flight to Boston. I trimmed my beard a little to avoid the cavity search likely to result from my being a) brown, b) having a beard, and c) having traveled to the Middle East in the last 5 years. I will probably still be pulled aside for a more thorough searching. I intend to dress accordingly.

Quite a bit has happened in the last few weeks and I have not been very good about updating this to reflect all of that.

On the photography avenue, I have taken to using that flaming ball of gas we orbit as my primary source of light. To address the problem of fill light, I picked up a pair of Lastolite TriGrip Reflectors. Since bigger is always better I ended up with the large version. Four-foot tall reflectors are not easily handled without an assistant. Looks like I will need to find an assistant.

Usually, I would never dream of writing the above without the inclusion of some photographs. It just so happens my 5D is right next to me with plenty of photographs I would actually love to share. The problem? My Core2Duo 24″ iMac was kindly equipped with one of Apple’s subpar LCD panels. Leave anything still for even a single minute and its outline, and sometimes even text, would burn into the screen. I could understand if this happened after a period of hours. I cannot understand how it happens in less than five minutes. Anyway, my netbook lacks the power to handle my RAW files so until Apple is kind enough to give me back my iMac I have no real way to get those photos up. Sad times for all.

Still on the photography note, I am considering getting rid of my Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens. Having gone through a good deal of my photos taken with that lens it seems I tend to use it at both 28mm and 50mm quite a lot. I have faster primes at each of those focal lengths. Just from actually using the lens I also know that I often find myself wishing I had just a hair more reach than its 70mm telephoto end gives me. Generally, that means I am either walking closer to my subject or swapping on the gigantic Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens. Right now, I have two thoughts on how I’ll approach this problem. Thought one involves the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. Thought two involves the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM lens.

Enough photography talk for now. School is driving me mad. Once upon a time, I was awesome at math and science. If only the same held true today. Might my epic failure on my last physics exam be somewhat related to my not having had to use this half of my brain much at all in the last decade? Possibly. Am I okay with that? No, I am not. Next week I take my finals. Next week I do or die in both calculus two, and physics.

There is a natural light at the end of the tunnel next week. A few short hours after I finish my physics final, I will be flying to Boston for about a week. Sometimes the best way to deal with a stressful semester is to fly at least a thousand miles away from it. It helps when there are old friends to see all over the place, and new ones to meet in the same places. I am looking forward to the break because when it is done I have a brutal summer semester to tackle. Calculus three, and physics two. Oh. Joy.

What else? Oh, right. Beer. My keezer had a very large temperature gradient from the bottom of the keezer to the top of the keezer. This, it seems, was largely responsible for some of my more annoying carbonation problems. A fix was obviously needed and a quick trip to the garage provided me with an idea. A few minutes and a few pieces of bent metal later my temperature sensor had migrated its way off the floor. The temperature gradient still exists but now at least my beer lines stay cold enough to maintain an appropriate level of carbonation between the keg and my glass. I still need to go refill my CO2 tank.