School and the Christmas Season

I don't even want to know when the last "real" post is dated. I've actually secretly been avoiding writing anything because of the massive amounts of things that I've thought about putting up but haven't done. With school now a week behind me, I guess my batteries have recharged enough to make some mention as to what has been happening in my everyday events. That being said, I will separate the topics into different posts since if I did every thing in one post you all would get bored.

Every year I hear people around me complain when people put up their Christmas decorations mid-way through November. People claim that it is too early and that Thanksgiving gets buried in the enormous corporate puppet show we call Christmas. But for me, Christmas is a week long activity that seems to go by way too fast. Why do I say this? Because I am so busy from mid-November to the end of finals doing semester projects (and Senior Design) and studying for finals and trying not to make "To-Do" lists to keep myself sane and responsible at the same time that I completely loose track of what time of year it is. It could be mid-July outside with beautiful weather and a tropical breeze in Colorado and I still wouldn't notice! So when school ends abruptly every semester I can't go even one day without becoming incredibly bored since every minute of my life for the last two months has been planned and active. The sudden existence of free-time is more than my brain can handle and it compensates by sleeping for 10 hours a day fro the next week. But back to my point, I'm so busy with school that purposely forget that its Christmas until the end of my last final in order to keep focused. This year my last final happened to be exactly one week before Christmas. Therefore, my Christmas season only lasted one week. I only got to enjoy my mini Christmas tree for two days before I left to travel home for Christmas. (I'll post pictures when I get back to Boulder since I forgot my cord to plug in my camera) All of my shopping had to be done in one week and I had to soak in the "Christmas Spirit" in no time. I guess you could call it Christmas on steroids. So when I hear people around me complain that the Christmas season is too long, I'm a little jealous that they have the time to notice.

Speaking of semester projects, one of my professors insisted on creating a webpage as the method of turning in our project. The address for this project if your bored (and since you're taking the time to read my blog thats a given :) )is:
http://ccar.colorado.edu/asen5050/projects/projects_2008/ogilvie_project/index.htm

As stated before, I'm participating in a Senior Design project this year. Our website is:
http://arcticproject.org/default.aspx

Crazy Eights

Crazy Eights

RULES:
1. Post rules on your Blog.
2. Answer the six "8" items.
3. Tag 8 other people. (this one I'm ignoring, as always.. feel free to participate if your it's your little heart's desire) :)

8 FAVORITE SHOWS: (in no particular order)
1. Journeyman
2. SG1
3. Firefly
4. Farscape
6. Heroes
7. House
8. Tru Calling

8 THINGS I DID YESTERDAY
1. Rode the bus
2. Did a presentation on the Trident Missile in Naval Weapons
3. Finished a composite lay-up for Senior Design
4. Practiced our CDR presentation with ARCTIC for our presentation on Tuesday
5. Sat through a bunch of presentations in Materials class
6. Finished reading "Mistborn 3: The Hero of Ages"
7. Went to Target for some Khaki's
8. Watched the movie "Hancock" (and almost cried)

8 THINGS I LOOK FORWARD TO
1. Sleeping
2. Graduating
3. Getting a job
4. Meeting my new nephew/niece to-be
5. Seeing the Savior
6. Winter Break
7. Summer
8. Getting married (someday)

8 FAVORITE RESTAURANTS
1. Chipotle
2. Panda Express
3. Daphne's
4. Einstein's Bagels
5. Noodles and Company
6. Sol Azteca
7. Il Vicino
8. La Baguette

8 THINGS ON MY WISH LIST
1. More time to do all the stuff I want to do!
2. A laptop with Finale Allegro, MATLAB, Solidworks, and Mathematica
3. A job
4. A Waffle Iron
5. A better wardrobe (goes hand-and-hand with a job)
6. My own apartment
7. Milk (I need to go to the store)
8. A new(ish) car

8 THINGS ON MY DESK THAT DON'T BELONG (only 8?)
1. My deodorant
2. My face lotion
3. My bike chain lubricant
4. A bicycle lock
5. 3-lbs weights
6. A pile of blank thank you cards
7. My netflix movie
8. Sunscreen

Adjusting to Roommates

For the last 3 months I have been living on my own in a two bedroom apartment. It wasn't really planned. The original plan was to move-in and find a roommate within a month. Unfortunately, things don't always work out the way you plan. After much tribulation and prayer, I was finally able to find a roommate only to have her move- out two weeks later without telling me when I was gone for 1.5 hours one Saturday morning. You might ask me if she signed the lease and the short answer is, no, because the landlord happened to be out of town those two weeks. There was no reason to suspect she would do this. She passed a credit check, moved all her stuff in and even painted her room!

I have since found another roommate and she has now moved-in and been here almost a week. She is warm and friendly and I find myself enjoying her company. She a hard worker and seems to have goals for her life's accomplishments. However,I find myself having difficulties adjusting to having someone else being around.

Here is a list of things that I have noticed since she has been here.
1) we wanna shower about the same time in the morning, forcing one of us have a cold shower...
2) she used my favorite bowl fresh out of the dishwasher when I usually wait to use it til its the last clean bowl left
3) she likes to sleep with the heat at 72 when I'm accustomed to turning it down to 65 to prevent my night outbreaks of sweat
4) she locks the front door knob when I usually just lock the dead-bolt (mostly because they unlock with two different keys and I'm lazy)
5) she enjoys watching TV... a lot

Ok, I admit it. I'm being neurotic. And a control freak. And overly observant. But you gotta cut me some slack. By living by myself for 3 months I have developed a sort of OCD. I've come to expect things to stay where I put them and know that all the lights are turned out when they are not being used and know exactly how much trash is in the kitchen trash-can, and so on. What's surprising, is that when I was first living by myself I didn't like it. It was too quiet and lonely. In fact, I would purposely hang out longer than usual at activities just so I didn't have to go home to a quiet house. I'm not sure when that changed.

Like I said, I do enjoy the company when I'm home. And I'm sure there are some things about me that she finds unusual. That being said, I'm just going to have to adapt back to roommate mode. And I can do it, but that doesn't mean I can't look forward to the day when I can afford to live by myself again.

NOAA Tower

I try and keep this blog more focused on my personal thoughts on life and what I've been doing with my spare time. However, I was able to do something so fun associated with school that I felt like it deserved a little blurb.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration happens to have one of their central offices here in Boulder. As part of that, they have a 300 meter tall instrumentation tower located about 30-40 minutes from here. (For those of you stuck in English units its about 1000 ft.) Part of my senior design project has to do with dropping deployable sensor packages from an unmanned aerial vehicle in the Arctic. Needless to say, we have to test said sensor packages (sondes) before sending them off to the most pristine environment on Earth. So, we got to drop things off a 300 m tower. :) If you're interested in seeing the footage you can check out one of the videos on youtube.com.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eleNomImeWw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPpysHKlkKI

It was a little intimidating at first. The first day we wen't it was freezing and so windy we couldn't go to the top! And the second day we went it was 75-80 outside and one of the most beatiful days you could have asked for. I guess that's Colorado for you.


Ryan and I at the top of the tower. There's not much room to move around.


A look down the center of the tower from the very top. Seriously, it disappears into nowhere!


A view of the upper half of the tower from the parking lot. It was impossible to get the whole thing in one shot.

Ahhh... much better

Although it is white and boring, I can now enter into my room and feel at home. Plus this saves me from having to paint it back when I move out next summer. And this white is so white I feel like its not a normal color.

Unfortunately, I have no Halloween pics to share. Meaning, I did not dress up even though I had a great idea. I was kinda bummed about it but I'll just be sure to share it next year.

This morning I went running. I have decided to try and improve my run time. And since running regularly isn't doing it for me, I decided to try some some sprints. I don't think I've run sprints since I was a kid!! I forgot how incredibly draining they are.

Just a quick note before I sign off. My friend who was in Iraq is now safely back in Germany where she is stationed. Many prayers of gratitude are in order.

Paint colors

So I stayed up really late last night painting two walls in my room blue. The intention was to get rid of the ugly salmon color that my room has been since I moved in last September. Both colors can be seen in the photo. Unfortunately, I don't like the blue...

So now I have a room that I don't like at all and I'm out the $25 that I spent for the new paint. Maybe I should just paint the whole room white to avoid another color I don't like...

Graduate School or "Real World"???

Life decisions are tough. Is it already almost 2009? Where did the time go???

Graduate School - Pros
- I know school and its an easy "next step"
- Increases my chances of getting a job at JPL (if the degree is in Aerospace)
- Will ensure job security in the future (assuming government stability)
- Would have more $$$ in the future than would be available now with a BS
- Stay in Colorado next to my mountains :)
- Learn more stuff
- Get to teach and TA classes
- Live the schedule of a student instead of a 9-5 job

"Real World" - Pros
- $$$$$ now!
- Change of lifestyle with new life experiences
- Possibly move across the country
- Meet new people!
- I would be able to get a dog!
- Be financially independent
- Help my siblings through college
- Have more free time to pursue hobbies
- Don't have to take the GRE

Any suggestions, anyone?