The Cartier 'Watcher'

Well, everybody posted last night, so now I feel obligated. I went on hiatus so long last time, I'd hate to disappoint my readers yet again, :-) Anyway, the time has arrived for the week of hell to begin. I've got all my finals/projects due next Wednesday and now I finally have to hurry up and put everything together that I've put off all semester.

My missile presentation did not go as well as I would have hoped. I got slammed with some tough questions and got flustered. I hate public speaking, and was incredibly nervous. I got some suggestions of things I need to fix or explain in more detail for my paper, which is due, yes, Wednesday. I was hoping after the presentation, I'd be pretty much done, but alas... So, I've got that to tidy up, and my animation project to finish. That is to be presented Wednesday of course and the parts I thought would be simple, are turning out not to be. If I waste too much time trying to figure some of this stuff out, I'm not going to have any time to actually finish the presentation. We're supposed to have been working on this for about a month and I did rendering part (drawing my missile) but now I have to make it fly, and I did not think that would be this difficult. On top of that, Dr. Kimble is pushing me to make a GUI as well, and I can only hope I have the time for it.

My other class is Complex Variables and the final exam in there is, of course, Wednesday. So, I also have to find the time to study for that. Oh, and by the way, I'm supposed to be running in the half-marathon on Saturday.

Maybe if I don't sleep this week...

P.S. The title - The Cartier 'Watcher' - is the name of my missile - I love it.

I got a Thesis!

Wow, so it's been almost 2 full months since I've posted anything on here. It's certainly not for lack of activity. I would like to apologize to all my faithful readers for the blogging hiatus (that's pretty much just y0u, Mom). So, in the last two months I've basically just been super busy. This semester of school is really kicking my butt. My missile class is taking up a vast majority of my time, so I've been neglecting my other two classes and research for the most part. That will all be over Monday. Our missile presentations happen Monday. Eeek.

The professor has still been in the business of changing guidelines and adding side projects all week, and we finally had to put our foots down (so to speak). No more changes! You can't be adding stuff to a project this big less than a week before it's due, that's just cruel. So, anyway, this week I've been devoted to writing my technical report and making pretty slides in PowerPoint. Lee, of the Superfriends, says, if you can't impress them with fact, wow them with pretty formatting. That's my plan. I'm presenting first (my choice) which has its advantages but also its disadvantages. I'll be out of the way and can enjoy the other presentations and I'm a nervous speaker so I won't have too much time to freak out and be nervous ahead of time. On the other hand, I'll have no idea what sort of questions they may ask me, so in lieu of a blank stare following a tough question I'm just going to feign deafness.

The biggest news of all lately is that I got a thesis topic!!!! I pinned down Dr. Kimble (aka Dr. Nowhere To Be Found) on Monday to ask him about classes for the summer. He suggested I take thesis, to which I replied, Gee, do I have a thesis? Not really, of course, but something to that effect but nicer. So, we talked about it and decided on a thesis. He gave me some choices, and they're all heavily programming related (ugh!) but I chose the one that didn't involve wavelets, because they are the devil.

Ok, so I know what you're thinking....Amy, what is your thesis topic? Well, that's an excellent question. It's basically working with Tensegrity structures to develop a generalized method to solve for equilibrium position and determine structural properties and natural frequencies. It's something that has sort of been done before, but not in a general way for any tensegrity structure, and not with very well fleshed out proof.

The exciting thing is I start taking thesis this summer, which means tons of research work, but only one real class, and after that I only have one more class - in the fall, and I could potentially graduate in December!!! Real world, here I come!!!

Oh Snap!

Ok, wow, so I haven't posted since Monday. Monday night was the Preds game, and it was a lot of fun. The preds won 4-1. It was almost a shut out but those sneaky skaters snuck one in in the last 2 minutes. Tuesday I tried to get as much work done as possible, and I got a fair amount done, but my missile stuff was totally tripping me up. I emailed Gloyer (the teacher) to try to get help but he was still pretty much over my head.

For Mardi Gras, we went to Longhorn, and I had loaded potato soup, buffalo wings, and chocolate mousse cake stuff. Very fat. Yum. Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. I got up early and was going to go to church at home, but mass wasn't until 10, and I had things to do. So, I headed back up here to school to try to finish my missile stuff. I got to my office around 9 and was ready to blow my brains out by 1. My office is like a sauna for some reason, and I was getting a kicking headache sitting in my 90 degree box staring at a computer screen.

Finally, I got Jeff on AIM, and he was trying to help me, but it's difficult through chatting, so I went over there and we got the whole thing working. Now it's lovely and working and I'm even working on a GUI!! I don't have it connected to my program yet, but I have it all layed out, and it's quite pretty if I do say so myself. So, I'm feeling much better about my Missiles class and the stress level has gone down considerably. Thanks Jeff.

Tonight is another Preds game, yay hockey! That'll be a lot of fun. Tomorrow is the first fish fry of the season!! I'm very excited, dusting off the oven mits and ABBA cd's. Mom and I are ready for our big number...

P.S. I made my GUI so that you put in all the information and when you're ready to fire the missile, you push a button labeled "Oh Snap!" Genius!

Happy Presidents Day!

My weekend was really quite lovely. I came home Friday afternoon, and pretty much vegged. Had a lovely dinner at B-Dubs (mmm...delicious) and then sat around and watched tv. Apollo 13 was on Bravo, and it's only the best movie ever!

Saturday we had lots of snow, which Sammy loved. It was pretty icy out on the roads, but as Sammy doesn't drive, he didn't mind. We headed to church early to get ready for the dinner Saturday night. That afternoon Mom and I had hair appointments. I was just going to get a touch-up on my color and a trim, but Shelly had other ideas. She asked if I'd ever thought of going red. Go for it! I said. It's a lot darker, much closer to my original color, but I really like it. I only had the blonde since summer anyway, so I wasn't attached.

The dinner was the soup/stew night and also Clergy Appreciaton. This means that, in addition to appreciating our priest, we had all the Dominican nuns to appreciate. I've never seen so many nuns all in one place before. It was very nice, and I think they all had a great time.

Saturday night we went to the 99 cent movie sale at Movie Gallery (I just realized my keyboard has a dollar sign but no cent button...curious) and vegged some more watching our cheap movies. Sunday I got some work done in the morning and went shopping and to lunch with Mom. I go through shopping withdrawl down here. There's no stores other than Wal-Mart and I can only take so much of the Manchester population in a Wal-Mart. So, we went to Target and Kohls, lots of good sale stuff. Sunday night was more vegging and tv watching (wow, I thought I did a lot this weekend, but reading back over this, I realize I'm a lazy bum...)

I left Sammy with my parents since I'll be home again tonight for the Preds game. It's just easier since it's cold out and he's not a huge fan of car rides anyway. I missed him last night though. I've really gotten used to him laying all over me at night and snoring in my ear. I did get a really great night's sleep though...

Ok, so tomorrow is Mardi Gras, so we all have to eat something fat. Don't forget, I know I won't!

Special Agent Amy

Ok, so I haven't posted in a while. Shame on me. I don't know how long it's been since I mentioned what's going on in my life, but since I can't remember farther back then the weekend, it couldn't have been that good anyway. You're not missing much.

This past weekend we headed to Knoxville for the UT/Vandy basketball game. On the way up, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for breakfast and while we were waiting for our table, we decided to play with the toys. I was really getting into the Rubiks cube when they called us. I couldn't stop thinking about it during breakfast so I had to buy one on the way out. The damn thing proceeded to ruin the rest of the drive for me. Those stupid things are hard, as soon as you finish one side and work on the second, you've messed up the first. By the end of the trip I had a headache and was ready to throw the stupid thing out the window. Oh well.

The UT/Vandy game was awesome. We were able to get down to the student sections, thanks Rachel, and it was a blowout! We beat Vandy by about 27 points or something. Then we went back to Claire and Rachel's and hung out and played cards. I was very good at B.S., not so good at Nertz, and very bad at Spoons. It was fun though, and very entertaining. Sunday morning was breakfast with the girls, lunch with Ashley and back to Nashville.

Monday was class - eh - and Tuesday was the Career Fair in Nashville, which I went to with the male half of the Superfriends. It was good, most of the engineering specific companies gave me the cold shoulder, but the FBI was interested. That's just cool. I could totally be a special agent.

Valentines Day, yesterday, we met for Missiles to go over the code, and I made a catch on the bisection method. It's the little things in life. Beer cheese fondue and chocolate fondue for dinner last night, quite delicious if I do say so myself. Today was class -eh- which brings me to now.

Tomorrow will be finishing up all the homework I can before heading to Nashville tomorrow afternoon. Good night all, have a good one!

Happy Valentines Day!!!

*and I promise to write more later...

Crazy Lisa

It has been brought to my attention that my last post, which included the Superbowl final score, occured before the end of the Superbowl. I'm good, but I'm not that good. Apparently something got screwy and when I post, it writes the time as two hours before my actual post time. If you look a few posts ago, I definitely wasn't up and writing at 5:30 in the morning! So, if this bothers you, until I get this fixed, you can just add 2 hours to each post time.

Ok, so have you heard about this crazy astronaut? http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/07/astronaut.arrested/index.html
Apparently, Astronaut Lisa Nowak (who went up in the shuttle as recently as last year) is inolved in some sort of love triangle with another female astronaut, Shipman, over a third male astronaut. So, crazy Lisa, as we'll call her, proceeds to steal Shipman's flight information and get maps to her house in Orlando. She drives to Orlando (in diapers, so she doesn't have to stop!) and confronts her in a parking garage, wearing a disguise. Shipman cracks her window, and crazy Lisa sprayed pepper spray in her car. Shipman drives away, the police are called.

Things they found on crazy Lisa or in her car: steel mallot, knife with 4 inch blade, heavy duty garbage bags, a BB gun loaded with the safety off, rubber tubing, a tan trench coat, $600 cash, and maps to Shipman's house and work, and of course, dirty diapers.

Incidentally, the man that these two women were involved with graduated from UTSI...

This entire story is very bizarre. Crazy Lisa must be mentally ill, or suffering from some drug addiction. No man is worth driving across the country in diapers and attempted murder. She even told the police her relationship with the man was "more than a working relationship, but less than a romantic one". Also - did I mention crazy Lisa is married and has 3 kids!! She and her husband separated several weeks ago, but are not divorced. Her kids will probably suffer the most.

That's all for now. More about my life later, but crazy Lisa deserved some blog time.