Horrible Idea

Currently listening to: Dane Cook - The Nothing Fight

So last night I had a really hard time with the last problem of my final. I worked on it from 8pm till 2am, slept till 4:30, and then work on it till 6:30 and submitted it.

Now, this is something that I have to do often thanks to my busy schedule. However, this night will be a doozy. I have to leave Nypro at 4am for Atlanta. LEAVE Nypro. That means that I really need to be there at like 3:30 to finish packing stuff up, which means I have to leave worcester at about 3am, which means I'd have to wake up atleast by 2am to be on time. So essentially, going to bed would be stupid.

Hopefully I can sleep on the plane and be good to go later on that night. We'll see if I can survive that long...

National Crisis!

Currently listening to: Saves the Day - This is Not An Exit

There is a national crisis going on right now that I doubt many of you even know about it. Something so horrible that it is shaking the very foundation of our society. A controversial subject so horrifying that nobody is talking about it becuase they are so dreadfully afraid of it.

Well, my faithful readers, I am brave enough to bring this forth. I will take the reigns of this issue and make you aware of the problem. That problem is Mederma For Kids.

More like Mederma for Babies. I can understand a girl using this to maintain her cute little face, but boys! No! When a young boy gets a cut from doing something awesome, like jumping out of tree head first, getting big air off of a ramp made of plywood and bricks on his bike, or running into a door frame with his face impacting the matchbox car held in his hand (true story), a scar develops afterwards. A scar that defines his manliness. A scar that will be the basis of stories for years.

Imagine that you're watching Jaws with your buddies while drinking some beers and eating pizza. You guys are having fun watching this giant monstrosity of teeth and fins devour swimmers and crunch boats like it was chewing gum. Fast forward to the scene where they are sitting on the boat trading scar stories. What would your reaction be if instead of this scene, there was instead a conversation like this:

Hooper: Look at this one.
Quint: Beauty mark.
Hooper: I know! Thank goodness I had my merdema with me! A bull-shark scraped me. I was down getting samples, and he...
Quint: Mako! Match that! My mom forgot to give me my merdema that day. Now I have this horrible scar!

I know. I was scared just writing that paragraph. Don't let this happen!

Mothers and Fathers, help your sons grow into the manly rough-n-tumble men that they could someday be. Don't baby them, please.

Thank you and goodnight.

Alarming!

Currently listening to: MxPx - Lifetime Enlightenment

So the S4 has developed a sense of humor, or, well, is just in the mood to be a pain in my ass. On wednesday and yesterday, the alarm went off once per day, usually after lunch, for no apparent reason. I thought nothing off it, assuming that someone brushed up against it while getting out of their car or something. Who knows?

Well, it went off about an hour ago. I turned it off, assuming that Audrey was just trying to trick me again. However, being 3 days in a row of this, the joke was getting old. I called Wagner shortly after and scheduled an appointment for Tuesday to get it fixed before I left for Hotlanta. This would have been fine and dandy, except that within 20 minutes of calling, the alarm went off again: Twice.

I'm currently waiting to hear back from the service department if they can take me today to get this cleared up. It's getting quite annoying. I'm tempted to go out and just start pulling fuses...

Judging

Currently listening to: Coheed & Cambria - God Send Conspirator

I've been in contact with a woman from Umass about the Mass Science fairs for this year. They wanted me to judge last year, but I didn't have an vacation days for one of them, and the other was the Saturday of the CHS graduation and I didn't want to miss any of it.

Well, this year is different because I have vacation days and I don't care if I miss part of this graduation because the only parts that I'll miss are really long speeches delivered under a blindingly hot sun with no shade.

So, I'll be a Judge for the Worcester County Regional Science Fair on May 4th and the Massachusetts State Science Fair on June 24th (both are conveniently held at WPI). Should be fun.

Boost Gauge

Currently listening to: Coheed & Cambria - The Crowing

UPDATE #3
As I said the other day, I installed a boost gauge in the S4. I found one on this awesome site that specializes in Audi's and Vdubs, AWE Tuning.

First is the picture of the original setup, then a pic of the current configuration:

Also, a side note to this little project: When I bought the car, it had some of the anti-vibration cloth creeping out of the vent assembly. I asked the guys at Wagner if they could take care of that, and the guy didn't know how to without possibly damanging it. Well, booyah to that. Look who took care of it himself while working on the gauge!

Car related Humor

Currently listening to: Dane Cook - At the Wall

UPDATE #2
Like I said earlier, one of the updates today was humor related. The actual event where it took place was anything but humor filled, but this one little diddy brightened my day.

To spare you the details of the story, because frankly I don't feel like telling the whole story and you really don't need to know it, but, let's just say that my uncle is currently removed from society and won't be coming back for a while (again). My grandmother, his mother whom he still lives with (yeah, seriously), asked me to clean out his car so that if/when it gets repo'd, he won't lose those obviously extremely valuable items.

So I'm cleaning out the shit from his car. Lots of crap. Tools, trash, coats, etc. Upon inspection of the glovebox, I find 4 Trojans. On their wrappers are printed the expiration dates: March 99.

MARCH OF 1999. It's 2006. His car is a 2002. They were already 3 years gone upon purchase of the automobile.

Apparently, he didn't get out much.

Car Updates!

Currently listening to: Dane Cook - Someone Shit On The Coats

Today you lucky people are fortunate enough to get 3 updates, and they're all car related in some sense. Two are mechanical, one is humorous.

UPDATE #1
I told you guys the other day that I had installed a high-performance intake in the S4. This one is much better than the one I had put in the Daewoo a year and a half ago. This one came with heat shields to block some of the heat coming from the engine and has a much larger filter cone.

Here's a picture of it without the air funnel in place, and then one with the funnel in place:

Save smarter, not harder

Currently listening to: Coheed & Cambria - Everything Evil

So a while ago, Ben was telling me about saving with ING Direct. I had always seen the commercials and was curious what it was and how they could offer such ridiculous interest rates as compared to my local bank that I've used for years, and still do for several things.

I finally signed up this weekend and moved some money around. I'm now making 4% interest on my money in that account. That is nuts. I've gotten almost that much before with a 12-month CD, but that was a pain because you can't touch the money more than once per year. With this account, I have free reign on it. Booyah.

Internet only banking that saves you a crap load of money. What will they think of next?

Success!

Currently listening to: Dakota - Perhaps on a Highway

I realized something extraordinary last night: I have finally made it.

Well, atleast in terms of making it in Clinton, Massachusetts.
Gordon Lankton and I were walking out of Nypro together, and our cars were parked next to eachother. My Audi S4 and his BMW 330xi. He looks at it, smiles, and goes "ooh, nice Audi".
When the richest man in Clinton and perhaps central Mass compliments your car, you feel like the King of the World, even if only for a minute.

Boosted!

Currently listening to: The Postal Service - Clark Gable

So I had a package waiting for me in the mail today: my new boost gauge from Awe Tuning.
I'm not going to lie to you, I'm wicked excited. The gauge will not improve the performance of the car in any way, but it'll be helpful later on when I start chipping and mod'ing further, but for the time being, it's going to look dead sexy on my dashboard. It replaces one of my center vents, it glows the same red as the other components, and it's non-obtrusive like typical gauges mounted in pods.

I'll probably put it in on Friday. Pictures will follow.

Yah for bikes!

Currently listening to: Dane Cook - Not so Kool-Aid

So lately I've been getting tired of riding my bike on long trips with my normal shoes. Aside from having no stiffness in my running shoes to help easily transfer my pedaling force around, I've also been getting tired of either getting my laces caught in the sprockets and then have them get cut, or I have to tuck them in.
So, I decided to buy some riding shoes.

I went to my bike store and looked at what they had for a selection. I had looked online for the different styles/models and what I could expect for prices. It would have probably been cheaper to do it online, but I don't like to buy shoes without trying them on first.
I walk in an right away, I'm like "crap, high prices". Of course, I expected this, so, I wasn't to suprised. But then! The guy at the desk walked me over to this magical area of Gamache's known as "the clearance table".
Holy crap. They had just what I was looking for, last year's shoes on sale. And not just "on sale", but HALF OFF. After some looking around, I decided on this sweet pair from Pearl Izumi that were originally $104. Got them for $52 with a huge smile on my face. And because I was buying these sweet as shoes, I went and bought myself a nice pair of entry level clip pedals from Shimano.

I expect my biking to become even awesomer in the upcoming rides...

Pretty good weekend overall

Currently listening to: Dispatch - Flying Horses

So this weekend was pretty fun.
Friday night I went out to eat with Stacy, my dad, and his gf. We went to Ruby Tuesday's in Malboro. I got the Colossal Burger. A full lb of awesomeness.

Saturday I woke up at 4:30am and did homework until I left for Boston at 11am. Lame.
Boston was good though. Went to see the Star Wars exhibit with the SocComm crew. Got some good pics.
We then proceeded to head to WPI for some Daka action and then off to Flaud to see "Brokeback Mtn".

Holy shit, brokeback mtn. Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people living their lives and exploring their world in any means possible. If this means homosexuality, then, go for it. I commend you for doing something that the rest of the world makes fun of and will probably look at you weird for it. You have more guts than I do.
But this movie. Ugh. The movie was horrible. It was way too long, for starters. It was pretty poorly edited, it would jump from one scene to another without any real sense of continuity to it, nor any explaination as to why I just watched one part and what it had to do with the story.
And the dialogue? For crying out loud, get some actors that can speak with the accent and then speak it. Jake and Heath are good actors, but I couldn't understand half of their lines. Their southern drawls were just a little too much to deal with.

That is all. Any more and I'll just be plain ranting.

Sooo tired...

Currently listening to: Dane Cook - At The Wall

So last night my allergies started bothering me. Which sucks, because I've gone all winter without any issues. Well, apparently, it's springtime. Yah for pollen and other airborne allergens!

So, this morning the feeling was the same. However, I didn't have any of my over the counter sissy stuff that I usually take, I only had the hardcore prescription stuff in my room. The stuff that works well, but makes you REALLY drowsy in the process. I took it at about 7am this morning. By 8ish, I was floored. I couldn't think all day. I'm glad I had my iPod and the internet to keep me sane while working, or work would have sucked.

Atleast I'm getting free supper from my dad tonight. So, that should be nice...

Design Award Submission

Currently listening to: The Killers - Mr. Brightside

So I just finished the submission for the Design Book contest thingy that FIRST is having. This year (for the first time ever) if you win one of a select few awards at a competition, you are eligible to enter a contest to have the robot and its design work featured in an upcoming robot design book. We won the Motorola Quality Award at the UTC Hartford Regional and become eligible for this honor.

The entry is 16 pages (11 pages of single spaced text) and we'll be including a bunch of pictures. I'm feeling pretty good about this. You can download it here if you're so inclined.

Also, snow?! What the hell. It's April. Get with the times, Mother Nature. I want to be bike riding, not cleaning snow off of my car.

And, I rediscovered my Killers cd. This excites me. Almost as much excitement as knowing that I'll see Dane Cook again in less than 2 weeks.

My dad is awesome

Currently listening to: Dane Cook - Creep Guy at Work

The other night I was swinging by my dad's house in Clinton after going to the movies to tend to a little situation that I like to refer to as "the laundry". It was probably a little after midnight and I just wanted to start another batch so that when I swung in the next morning it would be done and waiting for me as a clean batch of laundry, as compared to its current state of dirtiness.

So, I'm walking through the kitchen and my dad is asleep in his room:

Dad: (muffled and 1/2 asleep) Tim! Tim?! Is that you?
Tim: Yeah, sorry I woke you. I hope I didn't scare you.
Dad: (Still 1/2 asleep) I'm not afraid of anything.
Tim: (laughing) Yeah, I know. You have half the guns in clinton.
Dad: (still 1/2 asleep) yeah...

30 seconds later, I'm in the kitchen putting a plate of extremely cold once-were-probably-hot hot pockets that I found in the microwave into the fridge. He hears this from his lair and comes out to inspect. Still 1/2 asleep.

Dad: What did you do with the hot pockets?
Tim: I put them in the fridge so they wouldn't go bad.
Dad: (goes into fridge, takes hot pockets out and reheats)
Tim: Why don't you just eat them later. Go to bed, you're still half asleep.
Dad: No, I'll eat them now.
Tim: Why?
Dad: If I don't then I'll be hungry in the morning
Tim: That's what breakfast is for...