Andrew Underwood

Loud sound of fun while I’m trying to sleep

The last two weeks have been very busy for me school wise. Mostly just a formal lab report due and midterms. I also went to the Crowsnest Pass to drop off my car and got a ride back with my Dad. I haven’t realy done anything relaxing or fun for a while.

My two midterms yesterday, to be described in a single word: frantic. The first one started late because the class before ours was also writing a test and they went over the allocated time block. The delay was about 5-10 mins, which was a lot for how long the test I had to write was. Close to the end my prof, seeing that everyone wasn’t close to finishing announced that he would give us extra time to finish the test. I then told him that I had another midterm right after, to which he announced “well I was going to be nice and give you extra time but I guess I can’t.” Everyone else then looked at me and went “Uhhhg.” Sure, make me the ogre.

So we ended up writing all the way until 3:00, which is the time my next midterm started. The prof personally collected my test papers, which was nice. Even though I hadn’t even READ what the last two questions were yet. At which point I ran, RAN to my next test that is usually about a 7 min walk away.

One hasn’t truly experienced university until walking into a midterm late with 200 other students already furiously scribbling away. Arriving I get a wide eyed look from the prof, who heard me opening the doors to the doubled back enterance hallway and thus had an exam ready to hand me. I was only about five mins late but I was sure the last one to get there. Of course there were no seats along the aisle so I had to wade through one of the skinny rows to the very middle. I bumped a couple of people causing calculators and erasers to fall to the floor. Sitting down I discovered that the fold out wooden table was broken so I just rested it on my lap and began the test. I had to write until the very end and wasn’t allowed any extra time. I finished it alright but didn’t have a chance to go over it or recheck any of my answers.

The prof from my first test was courtious enough to give me his card to give to my next prof incase there were any problems but I didn’t ever do this. All in all I think I did well on the tests, as long as the people also taking the first test stopped writing when I shoved all my stuff into my backpack and ran to the next test. As Aaron would say “have faith in the curve”.

Smash

Monday night my car got broken into. It was parked along 105th ave to avoid paying the 50 bucks a month to park in my building’s parkade. The police called me at about 2am to tell me this. The stupid thing is that there wasn’t even anything in my car to steal. The only thing that was taken was a small LED flashlight that was in my glove-box. Earlier that night I was walking through Chinatown, a ‘bad’ part of town and I saw two dodgy guys walk into a dark area where cars were parked with a flashlight. I sort of chuckled and says, look at those guys, they are going to break into cars. Karma, kuh kuh karma… Incidents like this inspire a sense of vigilance in me.

Now my car is parked in my Grandad’s parkade, I can’t really drive it anywhere. I’m taking it home to my the ‘rents place next weekend so it can hopefully be repaired with the parts car that was just sold. Going to have to track down the dude who bought it.

First Aid

On Saturday and Sunday I took a St. John’s Ambulance first aid course. It was a brand new course less than a week old. The last time I took the training was back in grade 10 as part of CALM 20. This course was much more extensive than what I had previously taken. They tell you not to check for pulses anymore, just check for breathing since their logic is if the casualty is breathing, they must have a pulse too. I got 100% on the first day’s test and one question wrong on the next day’s. I haven’t seen test marks like that for a while, it was refreshing.

A battle’s end?

Two knights have been battling since they first met. Every fight they start gives them new experience, a new understanding of their weapons and armour. The fight hardly hardly ever produces a clear winner and the meeting of the knights is different every time. After every battle they go back to their tool shops and develop new and better armor, better swords, and other new technologies to help them win. If one knight dies or stops caring, is that the end of the incentive for the remaining knight to keep developing his battle system?

I’m talking about ATI and nVidia, two compainies that developed graphic card technology. Personally I always rooted for ATI since it was a Canadian company. There was a HUGE competition between these two companies, driving 3D development ever since 1996 when 3d cards first started appearing. The last decade has witnessed a change in availible graphics technology.

Recently AMD, a company that mostly makes CPUs bought ATI. Since AMD has always been about cheaper chips (compared to Intel) I’m worried that it will pull ATI from the front lines of high end, high cost 3D development and leave nVidia the whole high end market. It will be an end to the competition that was responsible for driving the amazing 3D developments over the last ten years. They can’t stop now! Not while we are so close to photorealism.

Hopefully the opposite will happen and it will use it’s ’synergy’ to develop entirely new platorms that make the most of CPU power and graphic chipsets. Only time will tell… or perhaps an interview with AMD. All you real journalists out there, get on that pronto!

The story of the spider and drag0nfly

Sometime in August I was on a walk with my Uncle, Dad, sister and the dogs up along Allison Creek. I crossed the creek and close to the weir on the creek I almost walked through a spider web. I probably would have walked through if it wasn’t for the spinning mass infront of me. Upon further inspection I saw that a huge spider had managed to catch a fair sized dragonfly in it’s web. I borrowed my Dad’s camera and snapped a few shots and made a short video. So if you’re not afraid of spiders, peer behind the fold…
Continue reading The story of the spider and drag0nfly…

Riding the Wave down a big hill

I really should have thought ahead and bought new wheels for my wave board before I came down to the Crowsnest Pass. Heading to the mountains, it was sure to get lots of use. Unfortunately my wheels were already pretty worn and starting to split. I decided to tackle the big hill on Allison Road anyways and have my Dad film me while my sister drove. On the way out I warned them that my wheel probably would break, and a probably would fall, and I probably would be OK. All of this actually did happen, and here is the proof, edited into a short movie. So here you go, seafood is served:

The Printer

I mentioned before that my Brother Multi Function Centre (MFC 4420C)stopped working. I actually got it going again for a little while before it started displaying the infamous error 41, effectively crippling it. The really annoying thing is that it can still print decently because it was doing fine right before it stopped and refused to do anything. From printing tests before it went sour I could see that three or four squares out of 100 were bad. I really don’t think the entire machine needs to become unusable, like the fax, scanner, memory card reader. Those functions don’t need a print head to work.

So I called up Brother and they gave me the number of a company in Edmonton that repairs them. I phone and find out it will cost $106 to get fixed. The lady informs me that this is a very common problem, confirming what I had read about it on the Interweb. She also tells me that I’d probably be better off just buying a new printer since even if they replace the print head, it has a mean time to failure of about 6 months.

I’ve owned about three different ink jet printers and they are really a pain in the neck. They seem to require multiple cleanings every time I go to use it. I’m fed up with ink jets, with their expensive ink, and seemingly made to be disposed of at the first sign of trouble.

This is why I’ve decided to get a laser printer. I’ll avoid the headaches and be able to enjoy the soothing warmth that comes with each freshly printed page which is characteristic of laser printers. So I’ll be without fax and scanning capability for a while, which is no biggie. I can use my digi cam &&/|| email to replace those functions.

Fake model

I took this picture of Ljubljana, Slovenia while climbing down from the city’s castle. I modified (photoshop) the first picture to look like it’s a small scale model, like something you would find along a toy train set. The trees look like they are made out of lichen and the buildings have a plastic appearance. The second picture is the original.

Street Surfing The Wave

Last weekend I went down to Calgary to visit my friends Top and Jared. Top had this really cool board that was sorta like a skateboard but only had two wheels. There are 360 degree rotating wheels on each end with a torsion bar in the middle. The interesting thing about it was that you could just wiggle to propel it so you never had to put your feet on the ground. I tried it and it was loads of fun so I had to get one. You can check out their website for a cheesy video. Also, I have another another vid and more weekend pics, and more street surfing videos. I’ve riden it so much over the last three days that I’ve already worn down the wheels quite a bit. I think it may be due to my very agressive carving on the really steep parts of the city. Places like the hill going down to the high level bridge, or the hill on Saskatchewan Drive that connects to 99th st on the south side of the river.

sorta like a skateboard but only had two wheels. There are 360 degree rotating wheels on each end with a torsion bar in the middle. The interesting thing about it was that you could just wiggle to propel it so you never had to put your feet on the ground. I tried it and it was loads of fun so I had to get one. You can check out their website for a cheesy video. Also, I have another another vid and more weekend pics, and more street surfing videos. I’ve riden it so much over the last three days that I’ve already worn down the wheels quite a bit. I think it may be due to my very agressive carving on the really steep parts of the city. Places like the hill going down to the high level bridge, or the hill on Saskatchewan Drive that connects to 99th st on the south side of the river.

Here’s a video of Top riding it:

And a couple of me riding it:

Moving again

About a month ago I got a note under my door from the landlord saying that everyone had to be out of the apartment building by August 31st. The reason? They are turning this 30 year old building into “luxury condos”. So I’ll be moving at the end of July, choosing not to wait until August so I can stay ahead of the University rush. In the meantime I’ll continue to live in this building of limbo, under renovations. I’ll be somewhere in between affordable student housing and fancy rag-dabbed walls, chandeliers, huge entry paintings, and thick like your thumb baseboards.

I’d like to move to a single bedroom place, but I’m also attracted to the low rent/roomates option. Wherever it may be, it needs to have a balcony or back yard for my BBQ.