Approaching the finish line

I've just put the finishing touches on my Senior Engineering project, which I will be demonstrating to a jury of professors and peers tomorrow. I have been working on the project for the last 12 months. The most productive time period by far was from 2-4am today.

Its unbelievable how much code you can type, ideas you can hatch, and coffee you can drink in that time. For anyone interested, I managed to create a script that produces a Gantt chart using HTML tables, with text based dates in an access database as the source. If that means nothing to you, trust me when I say it was incredibly hard.

Below is a pic of my Chart. That pic also demonstrates the typical aesthetics of my project. I'm pretty happy with the way its turned out. My project is not nearly as technical as some of the others in class, however I believe it has its own merits, was quite difficult to implement, and is also quite practical. I hope I can finish it, and get it put to use at the office this summer.

Wish me luck tomorrow. I hope my App doesn't crash during the presentation is all!

This is what the Scheduling portion of my Project looks like.

Roll Up The Rim To Be Dissapointed

I'n the past seven days, I've purchase 19 Large coffees with milk from no less than 4 Tim Hortons locations in the greater St. John's area. Add to that at least 10 cups I've picked up for other people on related coffee runs.

Total Winnings from these 29 cups: zero. nadda. nil. zilch.

What are the supposed odds? 1 in 5 or something? Even 1 in 10 ? I got nothing! Not a single Donut, Muffin, Timbit or Home Theatre! I mean, all I want is some sort of renumeration for my coffee purchases. Preferably something I can turn around and sell in the Buy and Sell for a couple hundred bucks. Is that so much to ask?

Tommorow is the last day I have to work on my Term 8 Design Project. Thursday at 12 the presentations begin, and at approximatly 9pm, it'll all be over, and it's gonna be a dirty drunk! The presentaion/demonstration day is our version of the Grade 7 science fair. But this time our moms didn't do our project for us... well, most of us anyways.

After thursday, It'll be a weekend blitz for my Artificial Inteligence course, then i've got 5 days of class, 4 exams, and one DDay before I get my Iron Ring!

nearest book game

As seen on naeim's blog:

1. Grab the nearest book. Don't search for something cool. Grab what's actually closest to you.


2. Open the book to page 123.


3. Find the fifth sentence.


4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

"However, if N - M < n, the smallest possible X value is n - (N-M)."
- Devore, Jay - Probability and Statistics for Engineering and the Sciences

5424 words + 1240 Minutes = 29 pages of BS

Home again. Just finished the first draft of my report. I say first draft, but its due tommorow, so lets call a spade a spade and i'll say I've finished my report. 29 pages. Not bad, considering the set goal was 30, and I was aiming low 20s.

Tommorow will consist of a quick paper review, then printing and binding, and then the completion of my logbook. Notice how I don't mention classes in that schedule. I've cut more classes in the last month than I think I have in my engineering career, and I've never been known for my diligent attendance.

I just ate Mcdonalds, Again. 2 more cheeseburgers to add to the weekend total. If my heart survives the next 3 weeks, I'm going to donate my body to science to see what the hell pulled me through.

And I got the worst news ever last night. Labatt is on strike. This is going to have serious effects on my Blue Star intake in the immediate future. Bev ran to the store in a panic today and got a dozen cans for our emergency supply in school. Thank God he did because we are going to need them in the long hours ahead this week. I actually obsconded from school with one tonight. The Shining Star never tasted so good.

I lift my victory Blue Star to all the engineers finishing thier Term Paper as I speak.

Paper Progress

It's 7:16pm.... I have 15 pages written for my report, and virtually nothing in my logbook. Its going to be a long night.

In the last 24 hours, I've eaten Wendy's twice and McDonald's twice.

Happy Easter.

Now this is what I Call productive.

Its 9:27 on a Saturday night. I'm still at school. This sucks.

But I've got a paper due Monday morning that's worth 20% of my Term 8 project. Its supposed to be 30 pages and its currently 8. So what am I doing? I'm posting pictures to my blog from last weekend, and I'm on my way downtown to The Attic to see my buddy Jeremy play with his band Drop Trou. Man, I don't know why my paper isn't finished yet! I'm like, constantly working on it!

This will tell you how desperate I am to procrastinate this paper till the last minute. (Can procrastinate be used like that?) This afternoon, I called my Mom to see if she wanted to have a sandwich somewhere. I just heard a collective gasp from everyone reading this. Well, we went for a bite, and it was suprisingly non-confrontational. We had a good chat, and caught up on a few things. It was the first time I've spoken to her in a few weeks, maybe that's the secret.

I had my formal presentation on Thursday past. It signaled the beginning of the end for my Design Project, which is the beginning of the end of my Engineering Degree. It went pretty well, I didn't prepare a whole lot for it, but I generally do that sort of stuff fairly well on my feet anyways. This paper is a whole other matter altogether. I doubt I'm gonna hit the 30 page mark with it. So I'll have to make sure that the BS I fill the rest of the paper with is just believable enough that the markers don't notice. Is that even possible? At this point, I really don't care.

I must get going. Don't want to miss too much Trou Droppin' downtown, I'm sure the other better-prepared engineers are already well on their way to a drunken stupor, I can't miss it all!

Me and Jamie, St. Paddy's 05 at The Republic 

A few of My Engineering Buddies came down as well. 

Here's a shot of me and the guys on St. Paddy's day at The Republic. You'd be suprised how drunk we actually are. 

Happy St. Paddy's Day

As the title insinuates, its That time of year again. When the good peolple of the world get drunk like The Irish, and The Irish get even drunker.

The big day was actaully yesterday, and you could almost feel it in the air, though on second though, maybe it was just the smell of beer in the air that made it apparent. I didn't go drinking myself, as I had too much school work to do. Also, I'm saving my energy for tonight.

Every year my self and the guys go drinking to celebrate St. Paddy's Day on the weekend closest to the 17th. We've been doing it ever since we could get into the bars downtown, and we've always hit the same spot, The Republic. We haven't missed a year there, even when two years ago we had a nasty snow storm and we were the only people in the bar.

Its a tradition that I hope doesn't fade away too soon. Especially since we are starting to head our own ways after graduating school and getting jobs and whatever else. Our numbers are dwindling, but the friendships are still there. Thats why its ever so important that we take this oppurtunity and get absolutly shitfaced together!

I'll see if I'm able to focus my eyes enough tommorow to post a couple of pictures from tonight. Now, where did I put my 4 leaf clover boxers?

My new truck, with my girlfriend Krista sitting in the passenger seat. 

I leased a Truck!

I've moved into a new stage of my life. I just leased a 2005 Chevy Silverado. I'm very excited, especially because I got a great deal on it.

But what this really means is that I am getting rid of my Jeep. This is big for me, because for the last several years, my Jeep has been a defining part of my personality. Ask anyone who knows me, My Jeep is a huge part of my life. It sounds really stupid, but its true. I'm in a Jeep club, I have Jeep friends, I go driving in storms just because i can.

So its a big step for me to move away from the Jeep, and its gonna be really hard to do. I say 'going to be' because its still parked outside my house, the lease isn't up yet. It'll be up in two months, and I don't want to be around anyone when I do have to let it go. I get depressed just thinking about it.

All part of growing up I guess.

Reese is the new CSI

It seems that in todays culture, when someone has a good idea, and makes a bit of money off of it, the first instinct is to make subtle changes and re-market it to the exact same people who consumed the first product.

I call it the CSI Principal. Some CBS producer thought it would be a great Idea to cookie cutter their show to other cities across America, From Vegas, to Miami, to New York. Apart from scenic and weather differences, I really can't find any concepts unique to any of the shows apart from the actors, which I'm positive are only different because they don't have enough hours in a week to use the same people in all the shows.

Does the world really need 3 hours of CSI per week? I don't think so. Some would say the same for Law and Order, but I like that show (shows?) so there will be no harping on it here. Also, that was on the air for like 10 years before the first spin-off, so it has 'street-cred'.

This CSI Principal has spread however, far beyond TV. It has in fact spread as far as the pharmacy near my house. I walked in there at 11:45 last night, looking to buy a geometry set, and a complex number calculator (don't ask) and I found myself in the newly established Reese Peanut Butter Cup Aisle.

As far as the eye could see, variation upon variation of Reese, mutations that had split from their predecessor. The original 3 cup package. The jumbo 4 cup package. The even more expensive two cup package was seemly more value because each cup was about 2 inches thick. Not to mention the Reese's Pieces.

Then, apparently exhausted with size and quantity variations, Reese decided to shake things up a little by changing ingredients. White Chocolate Reese, Inside out Reese (PB filled with chocolate) and now the newest, Reese Fudge Cups. And the fudge ones had "Limited Edition" stamped on them. Is there really a point of having Limited Edition Candy ? Isn't it all pretty limited in that they generally serve their purpose rather quickly then we part ways with our candy a few hours later? Are people supposed to start collecting these bars now to show to their kids in 20 years like a Wayne Gretzky Hockey Card?

sigh.

What was ever wrong with the original ? Are they that low on ideas for new Candy Bars? What did our forefathers do for marketing gimmicks before there were a ton of ideas out there to copy? So many questions, and all answered by one fact.

I bought the new Fudge Reese Cups. I was pulled in by the advertising, and on top of my $10 grade school geometry set, and $14 triple-blade razors, I threw down the extra $1.10 for the new product. And I was fairly happy with my purchase.

So I guess the real answer is that marketing in this fashion works. Its depressing, and un-original, but it works.

Dell Computer for $299

My buddy Rob just told me about an awesome deal on www.redflagdeals.com . A new Dell computer, with a 2.4GHz Celeron, 256 megs, 80 gig. it doesn't have a monitor, or a CDBurner but looks like a solid business machine.

I just ordered 3 for the office, $1034 for all the machines, including tax & free shipping! What a great deal that is! Check out the deal for yourself on Dell , I encourage you all to spend your hard earned money.