Now that finals are over

Yesterday I finished my last final of the semester.

Since August 1st of this year, I have been enrolled in one, two, or even three electrical engineering classes all the time. Ever since August my life has been crazy. Most of the time it has been the good kind of crazy.

Now I need to plan some fun things to do. So far this is what I have:

• Bake Christmas cookies with my grandma. If it is anything like last year, this could be a full time job.
• Go to San Diego to watch the Bears play in the Holiday Bowl.
• Celebrate New Year's Eve in Las Vegas.
• Read some of the books I have around me.
• Create a promotional video for a retreat program at church.

I still need to think of a few more things to do. On the practical academic side, I want to learn about electrical circuits and electrical parts. A few times this semester a question has come up where I thought, "I do not know that, but I convinced the graduate adviser I did." I will be taking a senior level class on analog circuits next year, so there are a few things I should learn beforehand.

This weekend, Terrance is coming to town!, I have a secret Santa thing, and I want to send out Christmas cards. If you want to get on the card list, let me know and send me your address.

Last day of class and some answers

Yesterday was my last day of class for the semester at Long Beach. I am not looking forward to my final on Wednesday. However, I do not want to lament one of my grades. I have something more important to talk about.

Being the last day of class, it would be the last time I would see and talk to the girl for a while. I wanted some answers. I do not remember the conservation word for word, but these are the main points.

Me: "While we were getting to know each other earlier this semester, you never mentioned you had a boyfriend."
Her: "I didn't know I had to."
Me: "The way we were interacting, I thought we were heading toward a romantic relationship."
Her: "I am sorry if I led you on."

I am glad I know the truth. This means she is not a dishonest person, just a socially ignorant one. However, it means she did not share any of the romantic feelings I felt for her.

I still have two questions.

First, in the two plus months we knew and talked to each other she never had a story or comment that was connected to or included her boyfriend of three years. In that same time, I told her about the time I went backpacking in Arizona with my friends, when I drove to Pasadena to see a football game with friends, the time a friend taught me how to use a laser engraver, and a trip to see friends in Berkeley. Did she do nothing with her boyfriend that was worth mentioning?

Second, she said she did not think she had to mention her boyfriend. If asking her what she did over her weekends, getting coffee together after class, talking about what she liked doing with her time, giving her my homemade candy, talking about her family, and planning to see a movie and have dinner together do not present a single reason for her to mention her boyfriend to me I am at a loss. Should a boyfriend only be mentioned if I ask her "Do you have a boyfriend?"

Everyone I have talked to thinks she should have said something and she is the one at fault. I agree with them.

I could do a lot of speculation and analysis. However, it does not change the fact she broke my heart. Even if she did not mean to, she still did.

Change of mood
Writing everything above did not put me in a good mood, so I will change that. On Wednesday one of my friends showed me this picture on his phone.


I had added him as a Facebook friend earlier in the day and he found one of my classic profile pictures taken by Larry.

Send money NOW!

Last night I received this email from someone I know from church. For privacy, I replaced the name of the person who sent me the email with Jane Bloggs (according to the Unnamed Geniuses, Joe Bloggs is used as a placeholder name in the UK instead of John Doe).

I am sorry i did not inform you about my trip and I do hope that you receive this email in good health. I am presently in Great Britain,London to be with my ill Cousin. She's suffering from a critical uterine fibroid and must undergo a hysterectomy surgery to save her life . I am deeply sorry for not writing or calling you before leaving, the news of her illness arrived to me as an emergency and that she needs family support to keep her going, I hope you understand my plight and pardon me.

Hysterectomy surgery is very expensive here, so I want to transfer her back home to have the surgery implemented there am wondering if you can be of any assistance to me with her hospital bills including ticket fees, I need about £1800 Pounds to make the necessary arrangement; I traveled with little money due to the short time I had to prepare for this trip and never expected things to be the way it is right now. I'll surely pay you back once I get back home, I need to get her home urgently because she is going through a lot of pain at the moment and the doctor have advised that it necessary that the tumor is operated soon to avoid anything from going wrong,she is currently taking care of at the Intensive care unit of the hospital and currently I am with her in there and i am restricted to make or receive any calls due to the patients in there but i have access to the Internet.

I would appreciate anything you can do to help me,i promise to repay the money back to you as soon as I get back home safely with my cousin. Please if you have a Western Union office around you send the money to my name and address below, i know this is not in your budget now but i promise to refund the money to you as soon as i get back home and have access to my account.

Name:Name: Jane Bloggs
Address: 1 Eversholt Street,
London, NW1 2DN,
Great Britain


I await your mail as soon as possible so that i can be able to receive the money today, Please let me know any information given to you after sending the money or preferably scan the receipt of the Western Union money transfer so that it will be safer for me to receive.

Please I await your early reply
Regards

When I started reading this email, I was concerned for the person and her cousin. She was supposed to be at a meeting the next night I was going to.

As I read on I became suspicious. Why would she ask for money in pounds? Why had I not heard about her cousin in London? Why is there a sad story followed by a request for money to be sent Western Union to an address followed by a request for a scan of the receipt? Why is there not a single reference to anything specific to this person, me, my relationship to her, where either of us live (only "home"), or how we know each other? Why is Name: listed twice? Why is the name in the email exactly the same as the name on the account? Why did this end up in my spam folder? (partially explained by) Why was I BCCed?

I know this person from church, but not that well. Why would she ask me for money instead of her family or close friends? Why would she write an email that sounded so differently from her other emails and the way she talked?

The answer is simple. Someone hacked her email account and is trying to con me into sending money.

If you ever get an email, facebook message, or other communication like the one above from a friend, it might be a scam. Ask yourself the questions I just raised. Do not let your desire to help someone overshadow the need to investigate the story. Call the person and ask if she is in the country.

My favorite part: Western Union? Going to an office? Are we in the days of the Pony Express?

Let's go Bowling

For a while I have wanted to get my wonderful readers involved in doing things. I think I see all of you too little.

On Wednesday December 28th at 5 pm the California Golden Bears will be playing Texas in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego.

I have three reasons why Cal alumni should go:

1. Trips are fun.
2. You will get to see people, these things usually end up as Newman reunions.
3. It will be revenge against Texas. As I explained in an email earlier today:

If I have my way, Cal will go USC on Texas and beat them 50-0. This goes back to '04 when Cal had one of its best teams in the last 50 years. Our only loss was a close game at USC, the #1 ranked team in the country. We also had a great quarterback in Aaron Rodgers. We were ranked #4 going into the final week of the season, while Texas was #5 (all rankings BCS). Cal won its game in the last week, while Texas had already finished their season. The Texas coach got on TV and asked voters to vote his team higher than “less deserving teams.” He whined like a little girl, and Texas fans lobbied the voters. In the final result, Texas got a push up in the poll voting to make them #4, and Cal was voted down enough to be #5. This meant Texas got invited to the Rose Bowl, while Cal was denied their first chance to play there in 45 years.

I want Texas destroyed.

Who wants to go to the Holiday Bowl and watch the Bears play?

If you are interested, let me know and we can coordinate tickets, rooms, transportation, and having fun in general. I went to the Poinsettia Bowl a couple of years ago in San Diego and it was a success (except for the results of the game).

I have talked to, texted, emailed, and facebook messaged people about attending the game. So far two people have indicated they are interested, two more would go if they had the time or money (including fees tickets can approach $100), and one has not gotten back to me, but he would have to be 1,000 miles away before he would consider saying no.

I will be there and I plan on having fun.

Radios and Driving

Today in class my friend asked me what I did this weekend. He asked if I went to Arizona again. I had to say, "No, but I did make it to Nevada."

A week ago my friend from church asked if I was available on Friday and Saturday. He was conducting a radio frequency test and wanted my help. He is involved with setting up a medical radio network for an annual relay race from Baker to Las Vegas. Since I did not have anything planned, I went on the trip.

I woke up around 3:15 on Friday morning and drove to my friend's house. He then drove us to Baker. If you are not familiar with the city of Baker, it is know for two things: having the world's tallest thermometer and being one of the the major stops on the 15 on the drive to Las Vegas.

Our first task was to put up three radio transmitter towers. These were placed at three different sites as far as 100 miles away from Baker. Next each of the transmitters had a setup to transmit a test signal every minute on a specific frequency. Setting those up and getting them up and running took all day.

While the area is a desert, it was cold. It dropped below freezing in some places during the night. On Saturday there was a lot of wind. I was outside for just two hours in the morning and the wind was unrelenting. I had a jacket, hat, and gloves but it was not enough. I was cold.

During the trip many problems came up. They were all the result of working on things until the last minute and poor planning. My friend was frustrated these issues appeared, but he also knew what steps to take to fix them for next time. Everything required was accomplished, but there was a lot of work, calibration, fixing, and figuring things out in the field. I hope I can help fix or reduce many of these problems.

We set up three cars with radio receivers which then drove the race course at 25 mph. Every minute the strength of each of the three radio transmitters was recorded along with the position of the vehicle. When the data are analyzed, we will be able to see if there are any areas on the course with poor radio coverage.

I liked seeing how radio transmitters are set up in the field and tested. The ideas involved were simple, but watching them come together and work was great. When issues came up everyone had to improvise, so I saw a lot of problems solved.

Learning to Drive
The most exciting thing for me was learning how to drive a vehicle with a manual transmission. For those of you not in the know, operating a manual transmission can be a lot of fun. However, there is a big learning curve. Making a mistake will cause the car will start moving when you want it to stay still or stay still when you want it to move. Hopefully when these thing happen you will not hit anything.

In cars with a manual transmission/stick shift/standard transmission there is a third pedal for the clutch and a stick on the floor to select a gear. The driver needs to select the best gear based upon the amount of torque and speed the car needs. When a car is just starting to move, it needs a lot of torque. However, after the car is moving, it needs less torque and more speed. In the truck I drove, the gears are labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Reverse. There is also Neutral, which is when none of them are selected. You start the car in 1 and after the car is moving you can hear the engine turn faster and faster. Looking at the tachometer and listening to the engine, you can tell when the car needs to be shifted into a higher gear. Putting the car into a higher gear is the easy part.

My biggest problem was starting the car or getting it moving after a complete stop at a stop sign, stop light, or after some pedestrians ran right in front of me. You have to release the clutch pedal and apply gas at the right time. If you release the pedal too fast or do not apply the right amount of gas, the engine will stall and you will have to turn the key to start it up again. While this is happening, the car is not braked so you could be rolling backwards if you are on an incline. This weekend I only stalled the engine twice in the middle of traffic. When I tried to start the car on a hill it took me a few tries and the cab was filled with the smell of ground metal as the gears smashed into each other.

Breaking and slowing down are also different. To brake, the clutch pedal has to be pushed in before the brake is applied and as long as the brake is in use. If the brake is pressed while the clutch is still engaged, the engine will stall. If there is significant slowing, you will need to downshift to a lower gear for when you start applying the gas again.

Like any skill, driving a manual transmission is something that gets better after more practice. I drove over 200 miles this weekend, but most of that was high speed highway driving. I still need to practice a lot of stop and go driving.

Victory on the road against ASU

This weekend and last weekend I went on trips. Both of them were planned a few days ahead of time, involved driving to another state, and were fun. They were so interesting I broke them into two different posts.

This one is about last weekend. It was Thanksgiving weekend and I went to Arizona to watch the Bears play their last regular season football game.


Earlier in the week Sidney posed on Facebook saying he was interested in going to the game and looking for people who wanted to join him. I was interested, so I replied. Sidney and I have been on many road trips together and they always result in fun.

On Friday morning I left my house and picked up Sidney. When we were on the 60 traffic slowed to a crawl. Sidney pulled out his phone and discovered there was a six car pileup in front of us on the freeway. He then figured out an alternate route so I could exit the freeway and take country roads instead. I followed his directions and after ten minutes of driving I was speeding along the 10. His phone projected our new route saved us one hour.

We were going to stop near Palm Springs and check one of the outlets for Cal attire, but there were a lot of people. Apparently even at noon in the middle of nowhere on black Friday there are a ridiculous number of people shopping. Cars were parked on every street, people were selling spaces on their lawn, and golf carts were ferrying people from their cars to stores.

We got to Tempe about an hour before kickoff. There were plenty of spaces in our lot across the street from the stadium. After buying tickets, we walked around the outside of the stadium. It was on the edge of the ASU campus and downtown Tempe. We saw dorms, stores, restaurants, city buildings, a statue of Charles Trumbull Hayden, and some natural landscaping around the stadium.

We entered the stadium and took our seats. As can be seen from the pictures, we were at the top of the stands in the corner of the stadium. Sidney was his usual game day self, which is loud. We wanted to make sure the ASU fans knew the Cal contingent was spirited despite our small numbers. When the Sun Devils made their appearance, fireworks were fired from the field.


The game was a lot of back and forth. Each team kept scoring. With 2:59 left in the first half, California kicked a field goal for a 27-14 lead. After the kickoff, I told Sidney it would be great if Cal could hold ASU back so they would not score in the final minutes of the half. Sidney told me he would be happy if we had the lead heading into halftime.

With 1:02 left on the clock ASU scored a touchdown. After the extra point, ASU kicked the ball to Cal. The return team grabbed the ball and starting running. However, the person with the ball was hit and fumbled, with ASU recovering it deep in Cal territory. After a few plays ASU got a touchdown.

My earlier hope of stopping ASU was too optimistic. Sidney's goal of Cal being in the lead at the half was more reasonable, but still too much of a reach.

During halftime, Sidney and I sat with Michael, who we know from Newman activities. He had a good spot near the 50 yard line and the people sitting near him left during the first half.

The second half was more back and forth. There were penalties, great plays, and even a call that needed a video review. In the end the Bears prevailed 47-38 to finish the season 7-5. Next up will be a bowl game. If I get my hands on a picture of Michael, Sidney, and myself I will post it. (Posted on 12/10)



The field after the game.


After the game all of us went to Chris's apartment. I know this Chris from more church related activities (at this point the game could be considered a Newman reunion) and learned about how he likes living in Arizona. The next morning Sidney and I saw Chris again and enjoyed a small outdoor food fair.

This was my second trip to another state to watch Cal play football. Like my first one to Oregon in 2007, I am glad to say it was a fun game to watch and the Bears won.

The trip was 788.7 miles and I drove the whole way. I went from my house to Sidney's parents' house to the 91, the 60, and then the 10. On the way back we stayed on the 60 until the 57 and took that to the 91.