Grings Mill Nature Hike

I decided yesterday to get some exercise so I walked around campus. Since it was such a nice day I brought my camera along too. Man did I get some great photos. I walked over to Grings Mill Recreational Park, a park in Berks County, PA right across from the Penn State Berks Campus. Since it was cold I figured snakes would be no problem, so I set out on a two hour hike around the campus and nearby park. Gotta love nature trails, this day was so beautiful that I took a ton of photos, some of them "wow" kinds of photos. It was great exercise and I talked with a gentlemen fishing out of the river. Eventually once my 1/350 Yamato is hooked up, I want to try and give it a go in the nearby stream and irritate the geese (hehe). Whenever I need a moment to think, that is where I will go: the main bridge in the park hangs over a small waterfall. And I was the one here, thinking that Berks County had nothing to offer. The gallery can be found here.

SolidWorks

Solidworks is an engineering program that takes the basics from CAD software and enables the user to create 3D models of their parts or assemblies. As a Penn State student you can gain access to this amazing program because part of your tuition pays for it. If you are considering any type of Engineering, Penn State Berks offers hands on learning and smaller class sizes than University Park. I know my professors here and I am not student number 4556. The software enables you to sketch a 3d image with constraints, then allows you to extrude and modify the sketch to transform it into a 3D part.

Here are some pieces I have been working on; really I was fooling with the program because I am still new to it. It is becoming easier to use, though once I play with a piece too much for some reason I can't sketch anymore.... may have to ask the professor about that. I am sure as I progress in my college career that I will learn to use Solidworks. Great program, hefty pricetag for the license, but I highly recommend it.

College Prices Skyrocketing

I was just at a SGA meeting (Student Government Association) for Penn State Berks. They finished talking about higher college costs. With Penn State being the most expensive public college in the nation, most of the blame can be put on the government that is cutting relief to a higher education from 6% to nearly nothing, 1.5%. Our grants have been cut too: the college of engineering is not getting what it needs as technology progresses.

BP (Better Petroleum) will be donating solar panels to us (Berks Campus) so we can solar power some of our buildings, saving us on our electric bill (thanks BP). Tuition for myself ranges about $8000 a semester- that is a lot to take out and pay back. Many sources claim that the average student grant is around $3000, but this is simply not true. I got ZERO from the government, zilch, natta, nothing. If the average cost is around $11,000 a year for state/public colleges, I am paying $18,000 for Penn State. It is really a good education: I have no problem with paying back that money when I begin my career but I have a couple of issues regarding the situation.

The government is really putting the pressure on us, the kids. There is immense pressure on the parents as well: but really the real pressure is focused on us. We pay a lot of money to get into college, and if something doesn't work out that is putting a lot of burden on parents and students. If college costs are rising, I expect an increase in quality too. Everything should work properly and I should have few problems. While I got lucky, many of the other students here are not receiving adequate attention when the air conditioning breaks or when the shower head is broken. I thought one highlight of the Bush administration was to fund a higher education: instead the government is really putting a burden on us because of their war expenses. Looks like somebody was lying. Which candidate out there will address the issue of rising college costs, and if so, at what price must I vote for them?

I am an engineer, and I should have no problem paying back my loans, however because of rising college costs I expect more from the government and from Penn State. The government is failing to do its job by not funding grants (they stopped the College of Engineering's grants) and not focusing on a higher education for their citizens. Penn State is doing the best it can, and so far I like receiving the education that I am receiving.

1:350 Yamato Construction Begins

Due to some poor weather yesterday I did not get to paint my Yamato model. I went out this afteroon and the result I got after painting the hull was fantastic. The deck also came out at a premium: seems like my work has gotten sharper and better over the course of a couple of years. There are very minor spots I will have to correct on the waterline, otherwise it is brilliant. Tamiya is brilliant. In fact this kit is so brilliant, I am not having any fit problems, but I am proceeding with test fitting anywhoo.

Instead of placing odd placed decks onto the superstructure with no support (thanks Arii) Tamiya thought ahead and included a slot for a peg to fit into along with the cantilever, making it easy and non-messy when assembling. I also started painting the Zeros, Bi-Planes and the gun barrel bags to the ship. The white goes on very thin, and it seems like it will take a few coats to achieve a desired result.

Alter Bridge: Blackbird a Great Album

I have been listening to Blackbird on and off for the past few days and really Alter Bridge has pulled off another good album with the recent release of their second album: Blackbird. The music is set more in a hard rock tone, but the elements of the band remain the same. Mark Tremonti really had room here to play some great guitar and Myles Kennedy really put in some good vocals. The music brings out so much from this band's experiences, both good and bad that I think a lot of people, including myself can relate to. Gotta love that opening song! Ties that Bind.

While it isn't as tame as One Day Remains was, Blackbird is a good pickup if you liked the first album. Blackbird breathes a bit of new life into guitar playing and I think this is one album that most people can enjoy. This album is definetly not your thing if you do not like hard rock or alternative rock. Great CD guys, keep up the great work!

1/96 Uss Constitution Hull Repaint

So my cat knocked over my USS Constitution and I froze in terror. Luckily the cannon were all intact and the ship was fine. The hull broke in half, giving me the opportunity to repaint the hull to the copper that I wanted. Take a look! I love the difference and a lot of my friends have said the same thing as well.

Stockpiling Problem

HELP! I have too many models and I know what to do about it!

It seems like I am buying too many models lately, I told myself no but when I went out to Reading, PA today I couldn't help myself when I saw a 1/350 IJN Yamato, mint in shrink wrap, on discount, for sale. The Tamiya IJN 1/350 Yamato is out of circulation and they are making no more. My first impression was wow! This ship is WIDER than I thought, no wonder this behemoth weighed in at 70,000+ tonnes. It will take a lot of work but I am excited to get started on this model, I am going to give it a weathering treatment along with some rust. I did a 1/600 Yamato so this shouldn't be a problem.

As a long standing joke, my Electrical Circuits Professor watches a show on MSNBC called "The Office". I thought it was funny when I watched a bit of it, but its really white collar humor that only people in offices would understand. He also enjoys Battlestar Galactiga, and I spotted a Viper model in the back and it was only $12.99 so I picked it up and I am going to make it for him as a joke. Shouldn't take me long to complete.

So now I have NINE model kits in reserve waiting to be built. I am going to hold off on buying anymore models until I can secure a internship and earn a bit of pocket change. Next project aho!

Revell F117A-Nighthawk Complete

Well this one is painted out and done. The model was a great buy and a great build for a 16 dollar kit. Waterslide decals and forgiving pieces made this kit overall a nice build. The nighthawk accuratly represents the debut of Skunkworks work in the 1970s when they released the F-117A Nighhawk to the World.

Now that the United States wishes to clear sales of F-18 Hornets and EA-18 Growlers to US Allies, the F117 has been beaten by 1990's technology. Both the Hornet and Growlers respectivly carry sensitive radar equipment that can pick up a Nighthawk from 50-100 nautical miles. It is old 1970's stealth technology, and although it was well ahead of its time- it is time to retire the F117 in 2008 mainly due to high maintenence costs.

So why sell such precious and sensitive equipment? Because the classified information the air force doesn't want you to know is that B2 tech and technology in progress can beat the sensitive systems. What the details are of this classified information, I do not know. That is why it is called classified information. I have done a few papers already on the subject, and it seems like UMVs (unmanned vehicles) are about to come into their 1st generation (the predator already has). I wonder what they can do for stealth? Countries like China and Russia already have 1st generation missile defenses against stealth, however the United States is far ahead in the race.

Probably the hardest part of the model was painting the canopy. I tried painting it a gloss black but I soon learned that this was a bad idea. For one, it did not match the body color. Two, when I tried to paint over a matte black, the paint cracked! I had to strip the entire canopy down to the bare minimum of black paint and start all over. My roomate is a model railroader and suggested Polyscale. I have used the paint before but I used it a long time ago when I had no idea how to complete models. I stirred her up and this has to be some of the finest paint I have ever used. The engine black (flat black) amazingly matched the plastic very well and the kit looks like a real Nighthawk, pardoning a few seams that I have to disguise and not to mention the entire kit needs to be washed and laquered to protect the paint.

*note- Blogger Image Uploading is currently broken and they are working on the fix. You can find my gallery for the Nighthawk here. Sorry!*

Irfan View Image Editing Program

I have been looking around lately and found free software for download to edit your images (in batch). Lately I have been having blog loading issues for some readers because of my large images. At home I would edit the photos one by one to the proper image size when now this program does about 20 images for me in three seconds. Talk about sharing my world lightning fast! I have found no bugs with the program and it works beautifully. It is available for download off of Cnet.com if you want to give it a try. Kudos to the peeps who developed this free program.

Dedicating my Time to Model Building Again

I've got a project the art director here at Penn State Berks wants me to work on: an entry for the art show. I dont necessarily feel like a circus clown entering some 5th grade art project but I found it amazing that Penn State has allowed me to adapt, but also wants to bring out my strengths as well. I am doing a diorama of alien ships invading lower Manhatten with peeps running everywhere. The only catch is, I can't build kits out of the box: she wants me to stick things where they basically "don't" belong, and I am all cool with that.


I will have to update this post with pictures as soon as I can, but this project is going to be totally 100% unorthodox. The ship hull is upside down and the bridge is all screwed around. I love how the thing is turning out. A lot of the presentation will be scratchbuilt by myself since I cannot readily go get skyscrapers to build and destroy, but then again balsa wood blocks that match the size I need are EXPENSIVE. I will do my best to scratchbuild the buildings and add rubble and chaos from there. Should be a fun project!


I am about to finish my 1/48 F117 Nighthawk and I will bring it home for display. My next project was a 1/700 USS Yorktown (CV-10), but while I was at my local arts and draft store I noticed they had a Trumpeter kit for sale. It was the USS North Carolina, so I thought it would go perfect escorting CV-10 in a baseline water model. That will be my experiment with acrylic gel medium: the rest I plan to use for fire on my diorama/display. I have so many project stockpiling up that I am about to explode. I think I have 5 to 7 kits in storage ready to be built, so I need to freeze the bank account and build what I have ^^.


To save a post here, I learned that my cat had a duel with my 1/96 USS Constitution and unfortunatly Old Ironsides lost. The ship fell over I heard and the hull snapped back into two pieces. Luckily nothing broke off or cracked and all the cannon were accounted for. I actually need to thank my cat, because that tan job on the hull looked hideous and the (very rare) copper paint I found for it adds depth and will look great on the finished product. The cost? sigh we are back to square 1 with that Constitution model. I had no idea enamel sprays went on so clean, if that isn't the case then my skills are improving.

Old Ironsides sure lives up to her name.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl to be delayed

Yeah I feel just as bad about it, but it seems Nintendo is delaying the launch of Super Smash Bros. Brawl to a TBD state. Rumors have said that it will be released Feb 20 2008, but Nintendo has confirmed that the game will not reach Japan until January 24 2007. Sorry Smash Bros. fans, the game is on wait for a bit.

While I love the graphics and the wide array of characters, I think it was a wrong decision on Nintendo's part to introduce Sonice the Hedgehog and Solid Snake into the game; they are not original Nintendo characters in their own respects: Snake belonging to Konami and Sonic to Sega. Solid Snake battling Pikachu sounds fun: but it is purely imaginatory to say that both are classic Nintendo characters duking it out. I just feel like the game has lost a bit of it's authenticity by adding non-nintendo characters.

F-117 Nighthawk Progress

I've been so busy lately that I havn't gotten much work done on my Nighthawk model, but most of the construction is complete minus the canopy. I hope to have it complete by the end of the week, decals have been easy and for the most part a painless procedure. Kickass model here, I plan on hiding some of the glue seams with weathering.

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni DVD 3 Release: USA

Sorry folks I got the dates wrong. Sometimes Best Buy likes to move up their release dates but that isn't necessarily a bad thing now is it? I checked out Best Buy and came out with more than I intended (gotta stop spending $$$$). I picked up Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni DVD 3 Release and I am about to watch it before I need to head off and do stuff, so I will let you guys know what I think about it.

The DVD was really good again, the voice acting felt more into it and I enjoyed Teppei getting done in by Keiichi =D. A must buy if you are following (or want to follow) the Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni series.

My Aspirations of University Park; Working hard at Berks Campus

When I did my research in high school about Penn State I knew that it was the right school to further my engineering education. I actually took a trip to University Park and I really liked it, the thought of a large campus with rich history and 40,000 people there seemed really appealing to me. As I walked past the library I could see myself "Studying at Penn State". Well I fulfilled that aspiration, but not quite.

I am here at Berks and I am doing quite well. I switched my major over to EMET (Electrical-Mechanical Engineering Technology) to get two bits out of my engineering education- electrical engineering training and (mostly) mechanical engineering training. The EMET program was offered because of an increasing demand for engineers with a broader range of knowledge. Electrical is like peanut butter and Mechanical is chocolate, put them together and you get a recies cup.

I chose to switch over to EMET for a few good reasons. My main reason for switching over to EMET was because of the exceptionally high caliber of Mechanical Engineering students and a limited amount of degrees for Mechanical Engineering. Basically, every other guy that is better than me (and I consider myself smart) will attempt to bite my head off at University Park, and if I fall behind I am just a random statistic. The last thing I wanted to happen was for me to go to college for 4 years and not get a degree in mechanical engineering. Anyone below my caliber can be considered close, or done.

My second (but very good) reason for switching to EMET was because of the hands on experience that it gives you. Instead of crunching numbers into theories all day and pondering the abstract, EMETs are down there (and can do design work, too) making sure parts are working correctly, and offer any suggestions by working with other engineers to reverse engineer a part or machine. When I had engineering in mind, I had in mind designing, but I did NOT have in mind sittng in a cubicle from 9 to 5 drawing and adding complex theorms. I want some fun out of my job, not boredom. I am already working on a few projects and am looking forward to the project for EMET 330, a rocket. A ROCKET. I would rather build a rocket than debate the calculus over a wing design for an aircraft!

The third reason I switched over to EMET was because of the simplified math. Don't get me wrong EMETs use Calculus, but not as much of it as Linear Algebra, Algebra, or Trigonometry. I am doing very well in my math courses (84% average on homework for math) and I probably have a higher grade in the actual Trig class. Probably my biggest concern about college would be Calculus. I got a bit of it in high school (during Pre-Calculus) but I know if I dig my heels in and prepare for a bloody fight, I CAN get it and Calculus II done and over with. From there, my journey to being an engineer really starts with classes my junior and senior year almost all engineering courses all week, with a few Gen Eds. Mechanical Engineers are constantly using upper level calculus and can even go as far as Calculus III or IV.


Am I happy with the change? Absoloutly. I have found electrical engineering a lot of fun and it will certainly come in handy. I am getting hands on work here at the Berks Campus and I know a lot of my professors personally. I have heard at University Park that students are referred to by numbers, unless you see your professors during office hours. I have heard of all of these differences and my final verdict is that Berks Campus is a smaller and nicer campus to me. It may be small, but it packs a hell of a punch and has everything we need here. University Park is HUGE and I love the architecture of all the buildings, but ultimatly studying at a portion of our college with 40,000 students is a bit mind boggling. I will stay here at Berks for four years, but I definetly want to get some football tickets! I will be one of those rare graduates at Berks, most people move up to University Park after their sophomore year here.

Fresh from the Shrinkwrap Impressions: Zelda Phantom Hourglass

So I jetted out of English this morning and I went down to our local Gamespot here to pick up my copy of phantom hourglass. I was so giddy about it when I left the store that I got a copy of the game, but those who preordered also got a limited edition art cel, which I am enjoying a lot. The number is something like #17,000 out of 50,000.

So lets talk about the game. Phantom Hourglass takes place directly after the events of Wind Waker. The game starts with Tetra (Zelda) being kidnapped (again), but this time by a ghostly pirate ship. It will be Link's job to get aboard this ship and rescue Tetra! that is the basic back story the player is given.




Graphics
I have not played the entire game, but enough to give you an idea of what to expect. The graphics, pumped into such a tiny cartridge for a handheld system is amazing. Nintendo went back to the cel shaded graphics with this title, and Link retains all of his emotions and appeal. That is something Nintendo has really focused on since Wind Waker: they want their characters to express emotion like any normal human being. "Playas", you are not going to find anything graphically pleasing in this game. While the technology is amazing for the DS handheld, you may want to stick with your PSP games and try something else more along the lines of the recently released Halo 3 (and if that doesn't satisfy you), Scarface.

My only beef with the graphics is the faces of upclose characters look a tad pixelated, but again it is amazing that they got the technology ported to the DS in the first place. The ships look great and the monsters were done well (sort of like a chibi-Wind Waker). What really impressed me was the opening screen; they got the scene to pan across both screens.


Sound
Koji Kondo does it again with absoloutly fantastic sound for the platform system. There is reused music from the Wind Waker, however it is converted into something new. There are also new tracks to listen to. What blew me away was the sounds of the ocean and birds. That was fantastic and I told myself to make a note of that. I have nothing really to bark at with the sound.


Gameplay/UI
Here is where we get a little bit tricky for veteran Zelda players like myself. You do not control Link with the D-pad or buttons, instead all of his actions are done via the stylus. Once you pick it up the process is not terribly difficult, although I found it hard to make Link do that roll that he does. No big deal, he runs fast enough for me. There are no options for a "classic" control scheme, you are stuck learning the stylus for this game. This is fine for me, but may irritate some other players.

I have found the difficulty of this game so far to be semi-hard. I want to find the bonehead who posted that this game was too easy! As a gamer with 15 years under my belt and 8 Zelda games under my belt (NOT including Phantom Hourglass) this game is very challenging, especially with the stylus! The puzzles can be somewhat tricky, and at least the first boss I fought was somewhat hard, but not difficult to defeat. The game offers plenty of hints if you look for them.

They hit the nail on the head with nostalgia. You are stuck with a fairy named Ciela, something that did not happen in Wind Waker. The fairy is actually an idea from Ocarina of Time, and they used the same "Hey!" voiceover from the game. In the beginning you are collecting fairies with similar markings and colors to the 3 pearls of Wind Waker and the 3 pendants of Ocarina of Time, so there may be some connection there or there may not be. Gannondorf was sunk to the bottom of the great sea and turned into stone by the Master Sword in this parallel universe, so I fail to see how he can be the main culprit of the game. One new thing about the game is despite the pirate crew you know from Wind Waker, each character is new and different (save Beetle, the traveling salesman). In fact, the guy you travel with reminds me of Holland from Eureka 7 for some reason.

I havn't finished the game to give a final result, but I would say that the game is a definite pick up for any fan of Zelda and for casual gamers too. The game is easy to play and to get into. I am sure that casual gamers will appreciate the easy controls via stylus. The game really isn't hard to figure out how to play. The puzzles however may take some forethought on the players end. Nintendo this time around has done a fantastic job satisfying hardcore Zelda fans like me and new players alike. This is a great adventure that continues on with the spirit of Wind Waker, you get that vibe off of the game. Definetly pick it up if you want to try Zelda and see what it is all about.

Pirated Super Mario World

I was looking through the tube again for some funny speed run videos and I found this. Apparantly there was a pirated version of Super Mario World that made it's way over to the NES (wtf? why regress?). The original game was for the SNES, and is considered one of the best games of all time. Check out the video, it seems the pirates actually did a somewhat good job on this copy. I hate pirating, but I have never seen a pirate go to such lengths.