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qwertyaardvark
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Name: Daniel
Country: United States
State: Texas
Metro: Sugar Land
Birthday: 12/23/1986
Gender: Male
Interests: building anything from catapult to random contraptions, power tools, fireworks, chemistry, physics, pyrotechnics, mechanical engineering, steam engines, trains, arts/crafts, AIM, Google, and most of all, my friends
Expertise: researching on Google, carving three dimensional landscapes, fractal roses, wood working, K'NEX, modular origami, catapult contruction, computer aided drafting (Inventor, AutoCAD), manual drafting, chemistry, physics, three dimensional trophies, woodstaining, toothpick bridge construction, and fiberglassing
Occupation: Education/training
Industry: Engineering
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  qwertyaardvark
Member Since:
10/25/2004
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| It's been 5 months since I last wrote, but eh, for those still read this thing, and aren't in Atlanta, it'll be an update of what's been going on since. ^^;; Another one of those sleepless nights i suppose~~
I guess for starters, I am not longer officially going for a mechanical engineer masters, but now am going for a masters in industrial engineering (logistics, supply chain, distribution, optimization of scheduling enumerate a few of things that i would be doing on the job). Needless to say, after getting by the first semester, i must say that i adjusted quite poorly in my eyes. I know now how different this place, both Atlanta and Ga Tech, is different from Terre Haute and rose Hulman. As far as the atmosphere goes, i surely do miss Indiana. the cooler weather, the quiet town, and most of all, the snow. As far as the schools tho, i realie how spoiled i was at rose hulman, but i still respect it for its own difficulties. Georgia Tech definitely has a different approach of dealing with students (rose hulman has 2000 students, gatech has over 20,000) and predictably the things i had worried about a large public school came true upon arriving here, but alas, 'a smooth sea does not make a good sailor', deshou? At the rate im going, it wont be until Fall semester of next academic year before i feel like i earnestly know what im doing and know my away through the system, though ironically, it will be next academic year that i plan on graduating. after that, i assume im gonna have to readjust yet again. gambarimasu. i am continuing my Japanese studies, and next semester seriously am planning to take the JLPT level 2, and considering starting to study Chinese. we'll see how that goes. ^^;;
Ah summer plans... In order to make for the botch-up of registration that i did for classes this semester, i'll be making them up by studying abroad in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. several mixed reactions to this in my mind. i will say that i am nipponphile and it seems almost dissapointing that i am going oh-so-close t Japan, but never going there. Second, the nipponphile aside, is the fact that ive been learning Japanese for the past three years and, going to Japan after studying those three years, I know how much i had missed, and how much more I had enjoyed Japan. My chinese goes no farther than this: ni hao (ma), xie xie, yi, er san, shi. I was terrified when i visited when i first visited Japan not knowing any truly useful Japanese, and I'm none to excited to repeat this process. worse now that its again the first time im going to Shanghai. with Japan, I have places that i want to visit, i know comfort places, places i can retreat to, places i know. Alas, its also the fact that im travelling alone, not so much for the whole security thing, but just it would be nice to travel with someone. ah wells, shou ga nai. I need these classes if im to graduate on time May 2010. I can't help but wonder how the summer abroad will turn out...
Hobbies. As usual, i still have my anime/manga hobbies. ^_^ I havent had the chance to update my manga collection as of late due to lack of financial prowess, but i predict a trip to AWA this fall will resolve that. As far as anime goes, I can't help but find this season's offerings to be that great, so i find myself mostly watching stuff that started last season: Tora Dora (cute romantic comedy and my current favorite, tho it has turned dark recently), To Aru Majutsu no Index (i just find amusing for some reason), Ride Back (havent cuaght up, but im saving the episodes for a marathon), Clannad After Story (also havent caught up, saving for marathon), Kara no Kyoukai (... "interesting" is all i can say... ^^;; ), and Eve no Jikan (something's that's also piqued my interest, one of those can androids become human?-esque plots). Still working on props, tho mainly as a consultant. ah how i miss those days. Right now working on some sort of steam-punk hooka for daren... As far as a new hobbies go, i did manage to snag a new and money draining hobby: Japanase Model Trains, or just train modelling in general. omg these things are freggin expensive ;_; complete train sets easily cost hundreds of dollars x_x that and i have no room to put in my new ambition: create an N-scale (1/150th) scale Tokyo Station. ahh... just from my predictions, it would be project that would easily costs tens of thousands of dollars, and minimum of a 2-3 years to complete such an ambitious project. Heh, we'll see how long this phase lasts, though i wonder if it might be a lifetime hobby. this is the first, nor will it be the last time, that railroading has grabbed my attention. ever since i was a kid ive loved trains and always wanted to model them. And this is the first time one of my dream hobbies was finally within financial reach... time will tell.
As far as valentine's day single's awareness day went, it went as it is written below. (to lazy to retype it)
[sam is my roommate, so is "Daniel" {we call him 'Dan' to ease confusion}]
me: how goes it? ^_^today was...... fun to say the least ^^;; Daniel: eh? what did you do today? me: well, did know about sam's plan to bring his car in to a shop today? me: well it all starts with a planned midas trip after getting an estimate from them, it looks like its just as expensive to go to the dealership, so might as well go there for quality thing is, its up all the way where 85 and 285 meet, but then again, its not that far right? heh heh.... turnts out, of the 15 miles, its only made it 10 :P
so then now jacob comes alon gwith his AAA card and and we get a tow to the toyota dealership well, after diagnostics, looks there's more that needs to be replaced than before the estimate before we got there: 300$ the estimate after we got there: 1069$ x_x so then he calls his dad and his dad does his magic and finds some friend of a friend of a friend of a friend's mechanic in atlanta who can do it cheaper its 13 miles away.... and we couldnt do another tow so.... we drove it, it overheated, let it cool, and then finally made it to the other shop so then after that, we decide to go to sunos just before going to the Coffe House church thingy.... DELICIOUSNESS ^_^ and then we get to the concert place cant say that we did much there, but at the end i did get to break a board with my fist, and two boards with my head XD (there was a karate guy there showing off his ability to break boards... it was a talent show thingy) i feel sorry for jacob, since i know he really didnt want me to hurt myself and be the one to call my parents... ^^;; i'll need to make it up to him someday :P
and then headed back home.... turned on my computer and opened the anime i had stopped last night... funny thing... obviously its the the palce where i stopped, but i also noticed the time was the same time sam came into my room asking for a ride for today, and deja vu just took over me i grinned quite a day, desu ne? ^_^
a day in the life, i suppose. :)
oyasuminasai~~
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| *blows dust off xanga account*
^^;;
much yay for going to an amusement park after so many years~ also much yay for Gatech hijacking all of Six Flags Over Georgia jsut for GaTech students~ definitely lots of fun... definitely missed being thrown up and down and twisted about. and oh mayn... the wooden roller coasters there really gave one hell of a kick to ya... almost swore i felt like i got whiplash from the Georgia Cyclone, but enjoyed every last second of the ride ^_^
and finally got to go to a convention after so many months: AWA!~ sadly, i am not as 1337 as some people when it comes to making costumes :P, so i wore my usual (and only) cosplay, the FMA fuhrer's uniform. This time around was also the first time i went to AWA while not working for Steve the entire time ^^;; and so my shopping list consumed about.... 475$ ~_~;; the first day saw the bulk of the money spent (390$) on manga, and the second day spent on purchasing stuff from the artist's alley, a poster, and a wall scroll. on the bright side, not having been to a con since Autsuicon 2007, my manga collection finally gets a much deserved update. Also got stuff at great deals ranging from 45% to 25% off for most, and in the cases where i had to fill in the ever-so-hard to fill in gaps in my new purchases, had to pay full price. much hurt to the wallet ;_; but fortunately were few. oh yeah, i also bought a new book case for the manga a couple weeks ago, so now my collection is stored in two book cases... i wonder when ill hit the three book cases mark... ^^;;
a list of the damage follows:
Ai Yori Aoshi 17 (YAY! final volume! but at the same time, sad to see it go ;_; )
Full Metal Alchemist 15-16
Girls Bravo 9
Hayate the Combat Butler 5-8
He is my master 2
Negima! 15-19
Neon Genesis Evangelion 1-8,10
Neon Genesis Angelic Days 5,6
Nodame Cantabile 11-14
Ouran Host Club 1-10
Pastel 8-11
Special A 1-6
Train Man 1
Tsubasa 15-18
Welcome to the NHK 5-7
XXXHolic 10-12
Yakitate! Japan 8-13
Yotsuba&! 4
also...
Love Hina poster (similar drawing)
Lucky Star wall scroll
cute drawing of konoka (from negima)
cute drawing of random cute animals (a green pikachu looking thing, black cat, white cat, and flying dragon)
ahhh.... fun timez ^_^
welps, jaa mata nee~~
EDIT:
welps, decided to go back and stroll thru the dealers room and artists alley once more. the artists alley being interesting to me in the fact that this is the first time ive ever really looked/browsed thru the artists alley. so glad i did so this year :)
additional stuff bought:
Tsubasa Chronicles wall scroll
phoenix wright objection print (left)
Lenalee Lee print (far right)
L print (the top one)
How Nostalgic
Spring book mark (original drawing)
yay more fun timez~~ ^_^
welps, now to let my xanga to collect several more months of dust ^^;;
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| ahh... finally some nice weather showing up :)
a taiko drum group called Yuzuriha, from Kanazawa (convinced to by one of our profs) came by Rose Hulman to perform for us! even more fun was the mini field trip during japanese class to the informational session before the performance where we got a chance to try and play the taiko drums via short lessons. much fun! might get to see them again in the summer during kanazawa's mushiokuri matsuri ^_^
yesterday was the largest paycheck that i got from my machine shop part time job, with an amazing 40 hours over the course of one week. so close to full-time job-ish status! most of those hours, are from the first parts ive ever machined that were to be actually used in industry. to anyone familiar with engineering, they were very easy parts (just a simple circular plate with cylindrical protrusion in the middle and hole bored out along the axis) but the time it takes to actually machine one can be easily underestimated. four pieces took me a total of 13 hours from the time training had begun to finishing cleaning up my work area. ~_~ daniel = newb. minus the training, it probably would have come out to 10 hours for 3 parts. experienced machinists would have taken about 1.5 hours. mad props to machinists :)
today was the honors and awards ceremony and my award was the Edward A. MacLean Award. from the program booklet: "This award was established in 1964 in memory of Edward A. MacLean, a professor and head of mechanical engineering and civil engineering, Rose Polytechnic Institute, 1937-1962. The recipient must have completed the junior year, achieved academic success in mechanics courses, demonstrated academic improvement since entering college and be an active participant in extracurricular activities. The recipient received a cash award derived from the income of a special endowment and the student's name will be engraved on a memorial plaque." In other words, a "best junior ME" award plus money. ^_^ need to find where this plaque is tho.... never seen it, but then again, ive never searched for it. and i imagine that the money will go straight to the japan fund ^^;;
3 mores weeks before classes end, and 4 weeks away from graduation. almost there :)
void OhSoClose()
{
Sincerely("Daniel Pamaran Soledad");
getch();
}
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| weee! earthquakes and afters shocks!!!
shame it was at like 5 in the morning... too tired to care and experience the awesomeness... actually thought it was a part of my dream until ppl in class were talking about it... ^^;;
void 5.2Richter38.450°N87.890°W()
{
Sincerely("Daniel Pamaran Soledad");
getch();
}
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| sigh... slow spring season for anime ;_;
although there is one anime that catches my interest: Kyouran Kazoku Nikki (Kyouran Family Diary)
watched the raw of it today (understood little if any of it, long way till fluency... ~_~), but it is a pretty hyper anime. just watch the OP to it:
Online Videos by
Veoh.com
wow.... just... wow.... XD
something to keep me amused while i wait for 5 weeks for my graduation :)
void KyouranKazokuNikki()
{
Sincerely("Daniel Pamaran Soledad");
getch();
}
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