The Misadventures of Dan
Peer into the mind of Dan as he tries to build an MP3 Player for his PDA and searches for the next thing in his life be it an electrical engineering job or graduate school.
Saturday, December 28, 2002
.:5:28:47 PM:.
Christmas has come and gone and another year is upon us. Doesn't that sound cliche or what? A Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones from Dan and his crew o' one/family of four :) Christmas went great-we had so much food it was incredible! My parents cooked Prime Rib cause we all wanted something other than Turkey. Turkey is great, we don't even cook and eat it the same way twice in a row, but we wanted to try something else so, yeah, go Prime Rib. In case you were wondering, it was awesome.
I got my brother a Micro RC car, its sort of like a micro sizer but they didn't have it at London Drugs when I went there and I put my name on tons of waiting lists only to find out that they had been saving the Micro RCs instead of the Micro Sizers... slight difference. Anyways, just-for-the-fun-of-it I got myself one too. I couldn't open mine until he opened his so I waited, and waited... and waited until finally Christmas noon (we open gifts usually right before lunch-weird I know, but hey that's what's been happening) he found out and we've been playing with it ever since. Of course the beauty of these cars is not only that they're small, but that they're modifiable-you can change the tires, motors, bodies of the cars to faster, better, more expensive parts. Now here's where my brother and I really show our differences: he's thinking "man I can put some slick tires, faster motor, better gears" all the typical things you'd think of. Whereas I'm thinking: "hydraulics... forget about everything else, that's going to be me". So here is my next project.
I'm planning on creating a bed with four solenoidal pistons to raise the body of the Micro RC car. A solenoid will be positionned at each corner of the car giving each corner independent lift. I can then plug in a microcontroller attach that with a infrared detector and coordinate the moves with my PDA :) Sound simple oui? Non, it would simple if I could get my AVR programmer to work <- argh <- lots and lots of angst here-can you feel the angst?
I still haven't installed Windows 98 on to my computer. Partially its because I'm afraid that I'll lose a lot of data and well, that ain't good. The other reason is that I'm not sure if it will work. I downloaded and installedPonyProg2000, which is the next major version from the PonyProg I had previously installed. The difference? nada.
Thursday, December 26, 2002
.:1:25:04 AM:.
Merry Christmas to all :)
Monday, December 23, 2002
.:3:52:36 PM:.
So I'm covertly writing to you in the deep bowels of the community college by which we call Grant MacEwan. I'm here because of several things but mainly about a printer. I used to be the proud owner of a BJC 4100c, which served my high school years faithfully. Unfortunately my high school years ended four years ago and now that printer is dead and replaced by a very nice, very fast Panasonic laser printer (with automated duplex too!). Anyways, back to why I'm at Grant Mac; we're only one step away from finishing the CDs: printing the labels. Yes, of all the complicated formatting involved with designing the booklets and the back inserts the only thing missing is the label on top of the CD. So we thought we could get it printed at the Print Services of the college through a connection my friend has; apparently they said they could try and risk it but if it jams the printer it'll cost the department (my friend) $80 dollars to fix. It would be really bad if such an event were to happen so we decided we'd try the nearby Staples. The clerk said she'd give it a try and wouldn't you know it, it jammed. We're not just talking regular paper jam but a full-fledged collation of label on the drum the very same event that would have cost us $80 back at the college. Thank God they didn't have our names nor did they seem to blame us. The staff apologized. Meanwhile my friend was quickly making use of their long stapler to get the books stapled. This of course was our intention all along-a clever distraction to procur the use of their extra long stapler while sabotaging their photocopier. Brilliant plot I must say-had that been the real thing. So now, I sit in a computer lab, typing away at my blog, waiting for the labels to print.
Should I even mention how I managed to log in? er, I don't think that's a needed detail :)
Sunday, December 22, 2002
.:5:07:49 PM:.
DISCLAIMER:This isn't a 'woe is Dan (me)' post-this is just what's happening. You wanted to get deeper into the mind of Dan(maybe) you're going to get more (definitely:).
I love playing phone tag, its oh so much fun.
Sometimes I wish there were giant road signs in life. Like the occasional ambiguous green arrows in the lane control roads or even Wrong Way signs would be nice. Or maybe a giant thumbs up sign, that would indeed be nice. At least that way when you're waiting you know you're waiting for the right thing (versus the wrong thing which would be bad) and that the fact that you're waiting is really what you're supposed to do (say like at a stop sign or a red light) versus what you're not supposed to do (those darn rubberneckers;).
There are multiple things I'm waiting for in my life, well waiting is probably the closest word but not exactly right. For example, I'm waiting for a job; that doesn't mean I'm just sitting and twiddling my fingers waiting for something to land in my lap. I've sent out applications and gotten a few (two) responses and still am searching, waiting for a reply. Perhaps searching might be a better word but that's still not correct. I'm not really searching for a girlfriend per se, I'm not really waiting for one either. I'm not sure exactly sure what to expect so its sort of like in a holding pattern. Occasionally I'll do the what-ifs, what-if this is the job, or what-if this girl likes me and yet, because I'm not actively searching for a girl its just sort of waiting. I'm full of anticipation, I can't stress how much I'm excited to see what's coming next but I know I have to finish what's in front of me now. The only thing I'm truly waiting for is the results of my FE exam. I'm in no rush to get them; I'm hoping I did well.
Gotta go-Iron Chef is on.
