So my area of Illinois has been getting hit pretty hard lately by storms. Not all of them have been destructive but it's still kind of annoying. The weather will be up and down all day. The other day I woke up and the sun was shining and then lunch it was raining then shining again and I got out for a run and get caught in this storm from no where. What the hell mother nature!? Make up your mind!
Well Tuesday was definitely one of those days. I had planned on going for a run but saw this huge black cloud approaching so decided I'd just take it easy inside. Glad thing I made that choice because not ten or fifteen minutes later the sky just unleashed everything it had. The thunder was so strong it was setting off car alarms and all that around the place I'm staying.
Well the real reason I'm writing this right now is because we ended up losing power for a while and then the internet wasn't back up until this afternoon. Now I've always grown up with electricity, I mean what person my age hasn't, I mean hell even my parents did. Losing power for my generation I feel is like losing everything that we know. I mean no TV, no computer, and hell since it was night I couldn't even read since I don't have candles. I just can't imagine not having this all the time. Even something as simple as a refrigerator to keep my food cool is useless without electricity.
My point here is that thinking about it the past day or so I just can't believe how dependent we are on it. I mean at this point not like we can ween ourselves off of it, but ya know still just hard to think how I feel most of us (including myself) would find it hard to function without it.
I've been reading some post apocalyptic books lately and really don't know how well I'd fair without power. It's not like I have many skills of survival since I'm so dependent on it. Do you think you could survive without power? Let me know.
One thing I really like about summer is that I finally have the time to read books for fun. Not because I have to ya know? Well I had finished the couple of books that I brought up to Chicago with me and needed a new one. I was on Facebook and saw a quote from this book as someone's status. I did a quick little read to figure out what it was about and then decided to buy it. Boy am I glad I did! This was a really good book.
If you're a fan of happy go lucky, fairy tale stories then this is most definitely not the book for you. It's a post-apocalyptic world where a man and his son fight for survival. McCarthy never really explains exactly how the world got the way it did. My immediate guess was nuclear war. The book is constantly speaking of ash raining down from the sky and how cities were burned and people had been charred while trying to run. The line "The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions," made me think of an EMP. Anyways the book doesn't really focus much on the before...it's all about the after.
I never really figured out exactly where they were either. At the beginning of the book they were in the mountains and were heading south. Beyond that, you never read a city name that gives you any hint the path they took. Their goal was to reach the ocean in hopes to escape the bitter cold that seemed to have consumed the whole planet.
In a world that has become essentially dead, and people have turned into cannibal murderers, the man and his son embody two shining characteristics: Love and Hope. Due to the conditions the world is currently in many people have reverted to savages and are willing to do anything they can to stay alive. They imprison people and only save them to eat at a later time. Many times throughout the book, the boy refers to themselves as "the good guys."
The man, who embodies love, will do anything to protect his child. The first time they run across a group that threatens his son, he shoots the man right in the forehead and tells his son he is here to protect him, and he'll kill anyone who touches him. Many times the father ensures he provides the boy with food or water before himself and insists on the boy having more until the boy also demands he have some for himself. The father is always reassuring of the son letting him know things are going to be alright, even though deep down he's not so sure himself.
The boy is a perfect balance for his father. While his father doubts many times how they are going to survive the boy always has hope. At one point he says to his father "You thought we were going to die. Well we didn't." His hope for survival also extends beyond he and his father. Seeing others along their journey he wishes to help to give them a fighting chance. He once pleads with his father to give an old man some food.
The man and the boy also balance each other out in risk taking. The father blinded by love is willing to do whatever it takes to find food. He took many risks in searching abandoned houses while the boy wanted to step back and leave many times. At one point the father's risk taking almost gets them killed and another time it saves their lives.
Overall I give this book a big two thumbs up! It's a great read and moving as well. You can only hope if we ever have to experience the world depicted that such love and hope will still exist.
Ok so this is now officially the first time I've made to blogs in one day, but I will be honest...I'm extremely bored but also have something interesting to share.
I have been living in the Chicagoland area for a little over a month now and something I have noticed is that cars from Illinois tend to have two license plates on their cars. They have the normal one which hangs out on the back of the car, but they also have on that is on the front of the car.
I asked one of the ladies that works in the same building as me, and she didn't know what I meant when I asked why they have two here. Well I'm from Indiana and in Indiana we only have one plate...only on the back. I was curious why this is the case here in Illinois so I did a little bit of research. (Yes I know I'm weird like that)
Turns out for Illinois it's actually a state law for the plating laws. Also interestingly enough, Indiana is in the minority of states that actual only require one plate. A few others around us are Michigan and Kentucky. Across the country there are only 19 states that require only the rear plate to be affixed to the car. One of the main reasons for why it has been the case here in Illinois is the officers say it helps them to identify cars quicker when they are able to check a plate number when viewing the car from either the front or the rear of the vehicle.
I also found that Indiana did in fact at one time require to plates but in 1943 during WWII we did away with it because of an aluminum shortage and just never brought the law back. It actually saves us money by not having to stamp out two plates for every vehicle on the road. Illinois is currently revisiting the law in the House. (House Bill 4888) They have stated it will save the state $1 million dollars by only stamping one.
Interesting Fact #2 of the day.
So now if you're driving around in another state and see two plates that's why!
So I'm sitting here today and I'll admit I got a little bored. I was staring at my keyboard and was looking at the asterisk above the 8. I never really noticed until today that on the keyboard it has 5 lines. I mention this because anytime I write an asterisk I make eight lines. Ya know make a "+" and then put an "x" over it type of deal. So this got me thinking...when you type are they also 5 lines. I open up word and type an asterisk...well wouldn't you know...it's 6 lines. WTF!? Why would it look like one thing on the keyboard and then it's something else when you type it. So I figure I wonder if it's always six. Well the answer to that is no...as I flipped through the fonts it can be anywhere from 5 - 8. That's dumb.
Now I sat there and wondered what other deceptions my keyboard had. Well turns out not really that many...the only other two that I have found so far are the ampersand (&) and the at (@). Ampersand doesn't change too much, but as I was flipping through fonts there's a good 4 or 5 different styles for how you can make it. None of which again are how I actually write an ampersand. I write it like a cursive E with a line above and below it, or I just use a plus sign. The at isn't that big of a deal at all, the only difference that comes about in that is how clear the a on the inside is and the shape of the line that goes around the a.
I know this is really random and doesn't really matter at all, but just something I noticed today and was kind of interesting/annoying. That's all.
Today was a really good day. Work, while monotonous, was productive today. One of my internship directors and I decided to take strips of metal and mark them with continuous toolmark lines. Then we cut them in half and label each side and scan them in the SEM. Then using what ever pictures I've taken on the SEM we are seeing if I can successfully match the two halves back together. I did this once already with 14 pieces and was able to make 3 correct matches. Not too high of a percentage, but I also feel I'm really not trained that well in identifying this stuff. Today I scanned all 16 pieces for test 2. I left a little early so that way when I look at the images tomorrow they are completely new and I don't have anymore bias from today.
Got my haircut today in between work and my ride into the city. My have been the fastest haircut I've ever gotten. I think I pulled into the parking lot at 5 and was pulling out at 5:12. I don't mind since I was in a hurry anyways to make sure I got to my train in time. My train ride into the city today was kind of funny. First it was super busy because it was the first commuter train available after people get off of work. Didn't get my good seat that I normally do so that stunk. Then as the train is almost to Union Station this guy next to me starts to talk to me about his dang iPhone. Literally his two comments to me were: "So I just got this iPhone and it doesn't come with a manual...but you kind of just figure it out." and "I like the maps feature." So random!
The reason I went downtown tonight was to meet up with David Barrs, an expansion person from Sigma Chi. We have an interest group at IUPUI that has contacted their HQ and he wanted to learn a little about our campus and what our Greek system is like right now. Seems like I answered most of his questions, and I definitely learned a little about them. They are a huge fraternity...235 active chapters!
After dinner I decided to walk around downtown for a bit. Went to Millennium Park because I wanted to see the bean at night. Even though Areef tells me the bean is the most overrated structure I still love that thing. This is the first time I've seen it at night. Pretty dang cool in my opinion. Then while I was sitting there, Navy Pier set off their fireworks. So I decided to sit down and watch them. Was really relaxing and the weather was just amazing tonight.
Best part of the night though was my train ride home. Almost missed it because the ticketing line was forever long, but anyways I got on the first car since it was empty, but this huge group of ladies got on after me. Turns out they were all teachers at the same school that went to the Cubs game. They were drunk...so funny. Well even funnier was there were students that had gone to their school on the train with them. They had this huge reunion and were laughing so much. Then one of the teachers pulls out a water bottle and tells this kid he looks thirsty and needs some "water." He gets all excited and asks his friend to pass him the Gatorade. He downs the "water" in seconds. So funny! This guy across from me both literally turned around in our seats to watch this all happen.
Overall a good day.
Quote of the Day
Heard this today from David Barrs at dinner.
"The people who say something can't be done need to get out of the way of the people who are doing it."
Well for those of you who don't know I've been living in the Chicago land area for almost a month now. Kind of hard to believe I've been here that long already. Which at the same time means I'm almost half way through with the time that I'm here for.
I'm living in Westmont, IL which is a suburb of Chicago. It's pretty small compared to some of the surrounding areas. It's about 10 minutes from Naperville and probably 15 to 20 from Aurora. It's a nice little area that would be a good place to live when you have a family and such.
The internship is going pretty well. The first two weeks I was enrolled in some of the classes from the College of Microscopy here. The first class was Fiber Identification. Was a pretty in depth class on all the ways to identify different types of fibers and how they are made and all that fun stuff. I'm definitely no good at identifying them though. We did unknowns and I got just about all of them wrong. I think I just don't know exactly what to look for yet. The second class I took was the Hair Comparison course. This class was awesome! The people were a lot of fun to interact with and I learned a ton. I was better at identifying some things in this course than I was in fiber. Now I've begun actually working on my "project" for the summer. They've put me on the JEOL NeoScope, which is a bench top scanning electron microscope (SEM). I have to say it's a pretty impressive instrument and extremely easy to learn how to use. I've taken some cool pictures with it. If you have checked out my Facebook album "SEM Pictures" you should. Even if you don't know what you're looking at, they tend to be pretty cool.
Taking an online class right now as well, but hard to believe in about 12 days that's over as well. It's been pretty easy. Computer science. It has been slightly interesting, but at the same time I don't get why I need to convert decimal numbers into binary, hexidecimal, and octal numbers when the computer does all that anyways now. Although I was pretty excited about writing a program the other day and getting 100% on it without any of the hints.
Now to the fun parts! I've been visiting downtown Chicago about every weekend since I've been here. So amazing and I wished I lived right down there instead of in the suburbs. If I ever decide to move to Chicago, I'll definitely want to be living in that area. It's been so much fun exploring the city. I feel I'm finally beginning to understand public transportation and I have to say...I love it! There's even a system called the Metra that takes me from Westmont all the way into downtown for about 4 bucks! Then when I'm down there I just take the 'L' or the buses anywhere in the city I want to go.
I've been along Lake Shore Drive, near Navy Pier, Wrigley Field, Millennium Park, the art museum and so many other places I can't even begin to talk about them all. This city is just so awesome.
That's about all I've got for now. Hopefully I'll start writing into this more often again. I always seem to fall behind by about 4 or 5 months.
Quote of the Day
"You can't always get what you want/but if you try sometimes/you just might find/you get what you need!" --Rolling Stones
Alright...so don't judge me here, but lately I got into a Pokemon kick. It all started with this group on Facebook of change your profile picture to a Pokemon for the month of December. Well I did that til the end of finals, and now I'm at home for break and was bored so I broke out the old games. Well here's where the problems start coming up. There are certain things about this game that just drive me insane. Therefore this post is dedicated to those frustrations.
[1] The Remaining Starter
So we all have to pick between either Bulbasaur, Squirtle, or Charmander. Nothing wrong with that...and then of course the rival picks the one that is your weakness...also OK. What is not OK though is the fact that the one starter that doesn't get picked just hangs out for the rest of the game. There is no way to get that one. I mean come on seriously? We just let it sit there all lonely like? If I have to pay to get that remaining one I will, but it's just stupid. Especially when if I really want all the starters I'll just trade at the beginning of the game with a friend to get them all.
[2] Status Effecting Moves
OK I really hate these! Especially ones that mess with me, like Sand-Attack. I mean this one drives me absolutely insane. It's the worst when a move like that is used repeatedly and then gets to the point where it says "[blank]'s accuracy won't lower any more." but the other Pokemon continues to use it and therefore I can't have an attack that hits. Lame.
[3] Magikarp
So I've always hated Magikarp, but as I restarted this game I though you know what I'll give the little guy a chance. I decided to buy one of the little jerks at Mt. Moon from the shady guy in the PokeCenter. (Cost me 500 bucks) Anyways so the stupid thing only comes with Splash...stupid move; does nothing. So in order to train it you have to do one of those "first out switch-a-roo things." Well finally get him to level up to around level 17 and he still sucks. I know it only takes three more levels to he turns into a total badass, but come one! If I didn't know he turned into a badass I never would have stayed and worked like this to get that. No wonder I never did anything with him in the original game.
[4] Trainers with Evolved Pokemon before the level they should be
This is another small thing, but something that drives me nuts. I absolutely hate when a trainer you battle on the road has a Pokemon that is evolved before the level you are able to evolve yours. Perfect example a Raticate at Lv. 16...well if I want a Raticate I have to wait until my Rattata gets to Lv. 20. Bullshit? I think so.
[5] Killing a Pokemon You're Trying to Catch
Have you ever been searching in the grass or a cave for hours on end for that one Pokemon that only appears like 1 out of every 100 encounters and then you try to lower it's HP as low as you can without killing it and then all of a sudden "Critical Hit!" and BAM it faints? Well that's my number 5 frustration. Enough said.
[6] Rare Candy Deception
Alright so the highest a Pokemon can get is Lv. 100 right? So do I really want to waste my time training it to that level? NO! So I decide I want to use my rare candy collection to get it there. Well see there's this thing they don't tell you about rare candies. Sure it makes your Pokemon level up but it doesn't make them stronger. I remember taking a rare candied Pokemon to the Elite 4 once...one hit and dead. But my level 60 trained Pokemon won the battle. So much for instant gratification.
[7] Game Pokedex vs. TV Show Pokedex
Anyone who watched the show knows how the Pokedex that Ash has works. He sees a Pokemon and it gives him the info. Simple right? Well not in the game...no in the game you have to actually catch the little shits before you get anything. Another bullshit moment of the game I think.
[8] HMs and Their Use
The use of HMs to advance through the game really annoy me. We all know that in a battle that none of the HMs except maybe Surf and Fly are any good at all. Yet to get through the storyline portion of the game you have to use these stupid things like Flash (screw that one) and strength. This inevitably resulted in the creation of an HM whore. You know...the Pokemon that has all of its moves as HMs. Yeah that poor Pokemon...once the game's storyline is finished...no one wants that one.
[9] Leveling Up for Gyms/Other Important Battles
This is one of the most monotonous parts of the game. It's easy to level up when there are trainers to fight as their Pokemon yield more experience, but when they are all exhausted you're left with the stupid wild ones. Well if you're trying to level up your Pokemon at the beginning of the game, that's not too big of a deal, but as they get higher in level it gets harder to just train them like that. I remember spending hours trying to get to a point where I could take on a certain Gym leader. Time in my life I will never get back. :(
[10] Getting a Nicknamed Pokemon in a Trade
There are a few benefits to trading Pokemon. One of those benefits is faster growth...another is expanding your Pokedex. You know what one of those benefits is not? Getting a Pokemon with what the original owner thought was a clever nickname. Today I trade a Nidoran female for a Nidoran male and the stupid little girl who had him before made his name Mr. Nido. So you think oh OK I'll just takehim to the Name Rater in Lavender Town. NOPE! He won't let you change the name. Now the guy won't be taken seriously in a battle with my friends when it says Mr. Nido used Poison Sting. Fail!
There are more frustrations to be had I'm sure, but these are the ones that come to my mind as I read through this. If you have any other frustrations please feel free to share. I would love to remember the things that drove me insane as a child.
