Leaving at 05:00, I rode from my place down in Sellwood up to NE Portland where I met the rest of my group. From there we headed all the way up to N Portland where we waited impatiently to start our epic journey. I won’t go into a play by play of the whole trip because I’d be rambling on and on about all the minutia that probably would bore you.  BUT, I do have photos and a map to show you where we went.
View Portland Bridge Pedal 2010 in a larger map

Portland Bridge Pedal 2010

So what’s happened since? Well, nothing really. I’ve done a lot of homework. Probably more these past two terms than at any point during my tenure at Eastern. And I’m sure it’s only going to get worse. Ah, fun.

Today was my last final for spring term. I had linear algebra, calc II and engineering programming. The last had us learning to program in C. For our final project we had to write a program that would accept a string of text, translate it into Morse Code, beam it via infrared light, receive the signal, display the morse print out and then translate it back to English. Daunting, but we got it done. Our professor took the video below (with his phone, so pardon the quality). There’s not much to see, but it gives you an idea of what we did.

Exciting, no? What is exciting is that I’ll be flying to Philly this summer for anyone who happens to be in the area. I arrive on 24 August and fly out again on 31 August. So one full week for all your Donald needs. I’ve forgotten what the humidity is like on that side of the country, so I may be dead part way into the week.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Hols is flying in on Saturday and spending the week here (finally!), so I may have photos of that later on.

Be seeing you!

For my ECE 101 class, half of our grade was to make a Rube Goldberg machine (think Mousetrap the game), but we had to use at least three electrical components. Sadly, my group was a waste, and I ended up doing most of the work. At any rate, the gist of it is as follows: There is an electromagnet holding up a ball bearing at the top of the ramp. When the door opens, the circuit is broken and the electromagnet fails releasing the ball bearing. The ball rolls down the ramp and at the bottom completes the circuit to a DC motor. The motor lowers a cup on to a photoresistor on the ground. When the photoresistor is covered, it turns on the LED on the table. Voila! Door opens, light goes on.

Ours may not have been as flashy as some of the other groups, but it had more electrical know-how than what was taught in class. Plus if my group had actually contributed any ideas who knows what we could have done. As it stands, I’m pretty happy with the end result.

I’ve uploaded the video to YouTube, so it should be viewable below.

First off, how did we graduate five (plus or minus depending on who you are) years ago? When did that happen? And it’s probably going to take me another four to five years to get this degree, despite being a post bac and going full time. Well, starting next term.

Seeing how my illustrious institution did not accept me until a few weeks ago, very few classes were still actually open. The math classes I had planned on taking were full, so in the effort to have something to show for myself I signed up for ECE 101: Intro to Electrical Engineering. It wasn’t on the list of required classes, coupled with being a first year class, I was scared. Scared it would be horrifically boring.

“These are wire cutters. They cut wires!”

But it turns out this is a brand new, never before offered class and the required course list I was looking at was, in fact, outdated. I <b>do</b> need to take this class and it’s not nearly as simple as I had feared. There are no tests (yea!) but a number of projects and presentations. Our term project is to design and construct a Rube Goldberg machine, but with the use of electrical devices. That, I think, will be fun. Except that it’s a group project. And who wants to play nicely with others.

This is the only class I could find worth taking this term that was still open, so I’m really only busy on Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:00 – 1:30. Not exactly a strenuous schedule. Though they do suggest taking only one course when starting school after a long absence. You know, to get back into the swing of things. I’ll just have to figure out what to do with the rest of my time. Probably re-remember my high school math.

In other news, I’ve moved. I think many of you knew that. I’m still in Portland, but I’ve moved from close-in Southest, down to Sellwood. Which is also in the Southeast quadrant, but not really close-in. Especially not by bike. I think it’s about five miles from my apartment to school. So nothing hard to do, but nothing to laugh at either since I commute by bike.

If you want my addy and/or any other info, it’s on my Google profile. You’ll have to be logged into Google to see the good stuff. At least I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.

Oh, photos! So my friend Keith and I frequently go on hill walks throughout Portland. We try to go every weekend, but that doesn’t usually work out. It started because neither of us wanted to be as lazy as we were, plus I knew there were a lot of places in my own city that I just haven’t seen yet. So Portland Hill Walks it was. It’s a great book with some very excellent hikes. And some hikes we will never speak of again…. HILLSDALE!! *shakes fist violently* But all in all, a good time.

The last walk we went on was nice, but not that photographically inspiring. The one before that was from Willamette Park to Terwilliger Loop…. which means nothing to 99.9% of the people reading this. Go with it. It was a nice walk. And I’ve linked the photos below.  Nothing spectacular, mind, just a large number of photos of the river.

Enjoy, and don’t forget to tip your server:

Hill Walk

I’m currently without Internet at my new place. We actually have to wait for comcast to show up an install it for us (assinine), and that happens next Thursday. Maybe by then I’ll have some photos of the new place to show you.

Cheers!

So today I’m done with OHSU, probably for the last time. I’m also moving to the Sellwood area of Portland. It’s about four miles south of downtown on the other side of the river. I’m going to be rooming with a girl name Fiona that I was going to meet when I posted back in May. I don’t k ow her that well, but I feel better about her than I do about someone random off of Craigslist.

My move-in day is the first, and classes start on the 28th. Now I just have to focus on cleaning, packing, moving, studying and, oh yeah, actually getting accepted.

One hurdle at a time.

Regardless, I’m waiting. Waiting to get accepted, waiting to find a roommate, waiting to move, waiting until my temp job ends (finally!).  I am excited to start studying again, and I’m excited to see what a degree in engineering will bring. Still scared of the calculus and the physics, but we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.

So last weekend I finally decided that I am going back to school, this time for my degree in Computer Science. My plan is to get a Masters, though unfortunately I don’t have enough background for that. This leaves me with two options. I can either teach myself everything I missed and then prove to them that I know what I’m talking about, or I have to go for a post-bac degree. I’ve chosen the latter.

This of course means another couple of years getting a second bachelor’s before I can go on to my Master’s. This also means a lot more debt. Because of this, and because I’m going to need to pay rent and tuition, I can’t afford to live in my nice one-bedroom by the park. So I am planning on moving yet again and getting a roommate as well.

I’m actually on my way to meet a potential right now, and I’ve already started filling out forms for school. Now I just need a job and a place fairly cheap to live. Well, cheap and not scary.

We planned everything except for the where on the mountain we were going part. After a gorgeous drive out, we started ascending the mountain, but failed to find a suitable trail head. Pressing on we quickly found ourselves high above the timber line. There *is* something fun about snow at the end of April.

The snow on the side of the road was higher than the car itself, so it got to the point where there was no possibility of getting out. We thought about heading back down the mountain and trying again, but decided to stop at Timberline to see if they had any maps we could snag.

Timberline, as you may know, was the exterior of The Overlook in The Shining (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timberline_Lodge). Yeah, Oregon’s famous like that.  However, as with most movies, or Cheers, very little of what you remember from the movie actually exists at the lodge. Like the hedge maze. Sadly that was fabricated.

Anyway, we got out of the car in our shorts and realized how warm it was, even that far up, so instead of driving about we decided to start walking up into the snow.  We didn’t climb that high up the mountain, but trudging the the snow is tiresome.  Thankfully the snow was packed so as to be mostly solid as opposed to 12 foot snow drifts.

The novelty of walking in the snow in shorts and tee-shirts not lost to us, we snapped a few photos.  Sadly, the jPhone not being a real camera, couldn’t compensate for the glare of the sun off the snow and as I guesseed, all my photos turned blue.  Keith had a real camera and snapped a few that turned out much better.  I’ve linked to the photos at the bottom.  I think I removed most of the ones I took as the blue tint is rather annoying.

We only stayed in the snow for about an hour before getting back to the car, and it wasn’t what we had planned, but it was still a rather fun day as a result.  And I know I definitely got snowburned as a result; my face was quite red when I got home.

We have talk of bringing a tarp next time and putting a blanket down and having a picnic in the snow.  Ah Oregon, how I love thee.  OH! And today is Star Wars Day!  May the 4th be with you!

Timberline Lodge

So right now i’m sitting by the Salmon Street foutain, typing this on my jPhone watching the Williamette. It’s a beautiful day (after many rainy) and I’m just enjoying it.

I’ve been job searching, but nothing looks promising. Thankfully, I have unemployment this time. And a nice bit of saving. So I’m not hurting. While I really don’t want to deplete my savings, I’m also not pressured to jump at the first job I find out of desperation. That’s somewhat comforting.

In the meantime I’ve been doing a lot of knitting. I’m making a sweater just in time for summer, but it’s coming along a lot quicker than I anticipated. This past Saturday I went to the Gorge to hike only to find it rainly only there and only while hiking. Those photos I’ll post.

So there that is. Here’s to a quick end to the Great Recession.