Thanksgiving update 100

Well, this is the last one, everybody. I've spent a few gloriously relaxing days at home but unfortunately the massive stack of work that I have yet to finish before the end of the year can be ignored no longer. I'm here in my room back at Mudd hunkering down to get some good 'ol fashioned homework done. And I really hope that it doesn't take a long time.

But it might. I was telling my mom today that since I'm not working on normal "problem set" type homework I don't know how long it will take. I need to do some research to answer a few questions I have and if I happen to find just the write article in the first 30 min my work will be easy. I could just as easily spend 10 hours and not find anything of use and then work would be very difficult and time-consuming.

For clinic, I need to figure out a way to take a distributed light source (made up of several LEDs) and 1) focus it as much as possible to preserve the efficiency of our device and 2) distribute it evenly across a 37mm face. I think I've got some solutions that will get me part way there but I'm not sure if this is a problem frequently dealt with in science so I'm not sure how much stuff is out there.

For my independent research on color music, I need to find a way to correlate words like "warm," "heavy," and "active" to the aspects of music that they seem to describe. Hopefully by the end I'll have a system that will tell me how "warm" a piece of music is and likewise how I can make a piece of music more "warm." But like the clinic stuff, I'm really not sure how much of this stuff has been done before. If it has then research might be okay but if it hasn't, then research might be a painfully long process.

But we'll have to see! Thanksgiving is over (too soon some might say) and now its back to a 3 three week push to the end of the semester. In the words of a great sea captain (and I'll do something cool if anyone can name who it is and from which movie I've taken this), "Quick's the word and sharp's the action!"

Thanksgiving update 11

Sitting at my kitchen table at HOME right now trying desperately to do work. It's so hard when I'm the only one in the house who has this much work, though, and all I want to do is be on VACATION and do NOTHING.

:)

Oh well, keep on chugging, eh? Maybe I'll cut back a little bit and give myself a break. Gotta make sure I can afford it first...

And in a minute I'm going to eat the greatest breakfast ever!! Why is it the greatest breakfast ever?

1) My mom made it

2) It has Pilsbury cinnamon rolls. BAM.

3) It also has eggs and bacon.

4) It's in my home!

Then its off to my aunt's house to see my family and eat even more food.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYBODY!!

Thanksgiving update 10

Sitting in my room at school doing work for Analog Electronics now, learning about MOSFET transistors. It's a crazy awesome class but I haven't been doing my work in it recently so I've got some catching up to do. This song started playing on my Pandora station and I like it so I'm posting the lyrics. Enjoy.


"My Hero" by Foo Fighters

Too alarming now to talk about
Take your pictures down and shake it out
Truth or consequence, say it aloud
Use that evidence, race it around

There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero
He’s ordinary

Don’t the best of them bleed it out
While the rest of them peter out
Truth or consequence, say it aloud
Use that evidence, race it around

There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero
He’s ordinary

Kudos my hero leaving all the best
You know my hero, the one that’s on

There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero
He’s ordinary

There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero
He's ordinary

Thanksgiving update 1

Sitting in coffee klatch writing some long-ass blogs! Enjoying a cappuccino and a cappuccino chip muffin with my two suitemates, Rob and Jackie. Hands down, best two suitemates. Ever.

Thanksgiving break is starting well! Got one more class from 11-12:15 and then I'm free. I've got plans to go home and hopefully get a good amount of work done, catch up on some sleep, yada, yada...

PEACE

Clinic Updates and Fall FTX

If there was an awesome scale to measure the awesome-ness of clinic projects and their clinic teams ours would still be off-the-charts awesome. That's right, we're too awesome for even an imaginary awesome scale!

Seriously though, we've put a lot of hard work into the project so far and things are starting to pay off. Right now the project has us dabbling in every science from optics to photonics to environmental and atmospheric science to fluid dynamics to high-precision electronics and most things in between. It has been a steep challenge but very exciting and very rewarding. It's like someone said, "Hey, Nate Jones, here's a homework problem with no clear solution. You get to decide what to do and the world of professional engineers will tell you if its good enough. Are you up to the challenge?"

To which I of course responded a hearty, "YES."

Right now the team is heavy into proving that we can take optical transmission measurements, a fundamental function of our device. The idea is that if black carbon (the pollutant we're trying to measure) absorbs light, then we should be able to tell how much black carbon is present by how much light gets absorbed. Its a fairly straight-forward idea but there is a lot to work with. For one, building a detector isn't a trivial task. The photodiodes we are using (which generate a current from incident light) only produce a very small current and it takes some high gain amplification before we can read the signal. But of course with high gain comes high noise and it takes some precision electronics to be able to amplify the signal without all that noise. Ideally the op-amps we're using will have input offset currents on the order of a few femptoamperes (fA)! That's like saying, "This device is so sensitive it can measure the flow of a FEW HUNDRED ELECTRONS going into its terminals." Crazy. Also, the team is working hard on an inlet for our device which requires a lot of science we don't know yet. They are precise mechanical setups that filter out particulate matter down to the micrometer range and low to mid range commercial models cost anywhere from $500 to $900.

And Fall FTX was great; bad and great. Always a learning experience with this ROTC stuff, you know? Friday I didn't finish with all my work until about 6PM and at that point still needed to pack for the weekend. Mind you, we were meeting to leave Saturday morning around 4AM. So what did I do? Stupid me went to the Korean dinner my Korean language professor was having at her house and then stayed out till 12AM or so visiting with some friends I haven't seen in a while. Of course when I finally got back I stayed up until 4AM packing and getting ready so I didn't sleep at all before we left for the trip. I got to sleep on the bus ride up to our training site (about 2hrs away) but the rest of that day I still felt really tired.

And for me, I couldn't help but feel like somewhat of a failure. I mean, the rest of the seniors and I have worked our butts off the last few weeks to get this event ready and it was only going to get more hectic when we actually started the exercise. And where am I? About to pass out in the corner. I wasn't present to help out my friends and I felt like a burden most of the weekend. And why? Because I was stupid and selfish and thought that I could go see some friends of mine. That was the coward's way out and I paid for it. The right thing to do would have been to tell my friends I couldn't see them and gotten some sleep. Yeah I don't WANT to pass up on them but at that point I'm a leader making the decision and the sacrifice necessary for me to support my cadets. I didn't make that choice and it cost me. I suppose the one redeeming thing about it all is that I'm able to identify where I went wrong. God help me I hope I don't make that mistake again in the future.

But other than that the weekend went really well! Our freshmen and sophomores got a chance to have some really great training, which included everything from firing live 5.56 rounds on an M16 firing range, using the EST (Engagement Simulation Trainer, basically an M16 video game), practice what to do if a HMMWV rolls, complete an obstacle course, and practice day and night land navigation. It was a full weekend and thanks to the skill and resourcefulness of the seniors in our battalion, it all went off without any major hitches.

We finally got back this Monday morning. A few days left and then Thanksgiving...

A long time coming

Oh man have it got a lot to talk about! A lot has happened is the last few weeks (as you might have guessed since I was too busy to post a blog even once!) so I think I've got a three step plan of action that will get us all back on track:

1) Tell you about clinic updates from the past week or so and about the Fall Field Training Exercise (Fall FTX) that I went on with ROTC this past weekend.

2) Give you updates regarding my Thanksgiving Break activities (so excited!).

3) Direct you to this link, in case you haven't seen it yet: www.getonmyhorse.com

And yes, I apologize for sending you to that link.

I love you too

Whoops, I meant u2. Not "you too". Even though I'm sure I would have some sort of affection for you if I ever happened to meet you.

Ever notice how certain songs or certain bands get eternally connected to times in your life or specific feelings you've had?

Early in my high school years my friends got me listening to u2 and they steadily grew to be one of my favorite bands of all time. I'm sure part of it is the music (they can't have been international superstars for over a quarter of a century playing bad music now can they?) but I'm just as sure that more than that it is the people I think of when I hear u2 playing.

I remember a time in my life when I was growing, when I was glad to be where I was and excited to think about where I was going. I had good friends (the best, some might say) and I got to do the things that I loved (for the most part).

I'm listening to "All that you can't leave behind" right now and it's taking me back to that place. Cause you know, this last week was tough (god help me if I don't collapse from sleep deprivation before the end of the semester) but the weekend was good. Last Friday was all ROTC all day but I got a lot of stuff done and it felt really good at the end of the day. It's a lot of pressure to take responsibility for the development of the juniors (or MSIIIs (pronounced "em-es-threes") as we call them) but if you do your work and don't slack off then you get the immense reward of seeing them grow. Saturday I hadn't done much work but I planned a small ROTC party to get our freshmen and sophomores together to unwind and have a good time. It was great! Some of the cadets who are on sports teams showed up and a few of the MSIIIs showed up and we just had a great time. It went a LOT longer than I had planned but somehow today my schedule opened up and I got to sleep late and everything was okay.

So everything's okay. Bono's sweet falsetto mixes with the Edge's wailing guitar as I continue working and everything's okay. God willing I'll get my work done tonight, I'll get some sleep and this week I'll do it all over again. I wasn't sure if I could keep going on this semester like I had the past few weeks but now I think that I might be able to. :) We'll see how it goes, eh?

Go Taiwan!!

Wow! I just read the Google Analytics report that I'm using to monitor my site visits and it turns out I've got a few visitors from all the way over in Taiwan.

You go, guys! Keep coming back! And let me know if there's anything you'd like to hear from me. Anybody can post comments below, so feel free. Just click on the "# comments" link and it'll take you where you need to go.

Oh what to do at 2AM on a Sunday night (Monday morning?)...

What to do except blog that is?

Answer: nothing. blog now. work later.

Man, let me tell you, it's been a rough couple of weeks. Going 52 hours awake was the worst, by far, but its just been the start. But to keep my spirits up I'm going to tell you a few random stories that highlight why I love Mudd. Maybe it'll stave off cabin fever for a little while longer...

Currently sitting on my desk is a line-up of what look to be the tastiest, most exotic beers a guy like me could ask for. A 21st Anniversary Black Butte porter, an organic stout, a strawberry blonde, and two other exotic porters (with names like Zywiec and Baltika you can't go wrong) round out this all star cast. My roommate, Rob, easily the greatest roommate in the world, and his girlfriend, Jackie, gave them to me for my birthday a week or so ago. I figured that if I drink one a weekend from now on (skipping Thanksgiving weekend) then I'll finish the last one on the last day of classes for this semester. I can't wait.

Clinic is finally as crazy and as exciting as I would hope it to be. Just to keep our team steaming along I need to learn about aethelometers, nephalometers, how light transmits or scatters through a substance, laser diodes, photodiodes, and multi-angle absorption photometers. Its so cool! I'm getting all into analog circuits, photoelectric devices, elemental physics, and device design. It's one of those moments when I think, "Wow I have so much work to do for this ... and I can't wait to get started on it all!"

I just found out recently that when I commission this May I will commission as a Military Intelligence officer in the US Army. And in spite of being in a tough spot right now it suddenly brought home how much I want to be the best MI officer there is or was. When I get there I will have men and women to take care of and superiors who will require only the best work that I can provide. So every time I want to cut corners now I think about that and what kind of leader I want to be. I think about my personal development and doing everything I can to be the best I can be. It's scary at times because it's all too often that I stop and look and think, "I'm so far from the person, from the leader, that I want to be" and it makes me wonder if I'll ever get to be where I want to be, if I'll ever measure up as a leader. It's humbling.

Last Friday night Mudd celebrated its annual Halloween party, Trick or Drink, at West Dorm. Even though I was really, really tired and had so much work to do, my friends persuaded me to dress up and come out with them. I may have stayed out later than I intended, slept in later than I intended the next day, and fallen tremendously behind on my work, but on some level I have to thank them for doing that. I had a lot of fun. It's a great side of this school when people can have fun and forget their stress for a few hours. It reminds us why we all came here: the people. When we get creative we get CREATIVE! And when we have fun we have FUN! I hope that there are more moments like that for me next semester; I want to soak it all up so I never forget how many good people go here.

And that's why I love Mudd. At least, that's what you're getting at 2:30 in the freaking morning when I've still got a massive load of work to finish. :)