Feeling Territorial

This weekend, I brought my cats over to Kyle’s place… so I could spend time will all of my favorite creatures at once.

I have two cats. Gus and Abby. Abby is fairly timid… and Gus is… well, anything but. Weighing in at over 15 pounds, Gus is a thundering behemoth of a cat. He meows for attention and always gets it, he sits wherever he pleases, and he scoffs in the general direction of the vacuum cleaner totally un-phased. He doesn’t mess around.

Kyle also has a cat, Yertle. Yertle weighs roughly 2 oz. Ok, I’m exaggerating… but, seriously, he’s the smallest cat I’ve ever seen. Tiny and sweet… his most dangerous feature is that he might cute you death. (That, and attack your feet all night.)

Well, when I brought my kitties over to Kyle’s place, there was much trepidation about how Gus would treat Yertle. Kyle and I had visions of Yertle being relegated to the corner while Gus took over the new place.

Boy, were we wrong.

Yertle’s territorial instinct took over and he dominated the entire apartment. He was totally the Alpha Kitty. Was so funny to see Gus hiding in the closet… terrified of tiny little Yertle, 1/3 his size. I love Gus to death, but sometimes you gotta root for the underdog, you know?

Abby was her sweet self… but Yertle still felt the need to guard the bedroom, you know, to protect it from her presence. He’d hiss at her whenever she got too close.

It was so interesting to watch the dynamics unfold as Yertle lorded over his territory.

Hee hee, pets are the best!

Even Inner

Inner - adj. ( in'er) the sate of being more in

So those molasses cookies I made on Tuesday night finally made their way back to Michigan with Kelsey. Upon arrival, they were seized by Kyle and Kelsey’s dad, who, by the way, has a mean sweet tooth.

Well! I get into work this morning and I have an email waiting for me in my inbox… and who’s it from? Kyle’s dad! It says, and I quote, “Those mole asses cookies were AWESOME!! I might even say that they're better than granny made them (don't worry - although she's watching from heaven or somewhere, she wasn't computer literate, so she can't read this)!”

!!!!!!!!! YAY !!!!!!!!!

Kyle’s dad liked my cookies!

I am *SO* in!

In Like Flynn

Kelsey, me, and Kyle partying it up two weekends ago

So Kyle's bro, Kelsey, took off this morning... heading back to school on the east coast for the spring quarter. It's been such a treat to have him in the area for these past two months. (He took winter quarter off from school for an internship in SF.)

In honor of Kelsey's last night in town, he and Kyle spent the ENTIRE afternoon / evening drinking beer and playing video games. Boys. The final fantasy fest was interrupted only to go out to one last late night SF dinner. We met up with our friend Matt and his girlfriend Patti at the restaurant at 9. Of course, on this particular night, the restaurant decided to close up shop early – so the kitchen was done before we even got there. Grrr. We ambled around the SOMA/Mission area and finally found a spot still serving. Dinner was yummy and I got into a semi heated debate with Patti about why on earth I would *ever* take my future husband’s last name. Ehh, call me old fashioned, I guess.

After dinner we went back to Kyle’s place, for guess what… more video games. :) The boys played and I baked molasses cookies from Kyle and Kelsey’s grandmother’s recipe (sooo 1950’s of me, no?). For the record, they turned out phenomenal. I rule.

It was really cool to see Kyle having such a nice evening with his little brother. You know me, I love family.

Speaking of family, Friday night, Kelsey, rather inebriated, pulled me aside and said, “I like you, Courtney!” and then proceeded to give me his full approval and blessing to date his brother. :) He hugged me, welcomed me to the family, and told me that I was “In like Flynn”. Way too cute.

And now some more pics:


Kyle playing final fantasy.


Kelsey ALSO playing final fantasy. (Yes there were TWO games going on at once)
:) Hee hee... even Yertle was mesmerized.


My flowers from Kyle (Posted for My life is Brilliant)

Spring *Has* Sprung

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

A lady just came to my cubicle and handed me bunch of daffodils in a little blue vase!

It seems that a certain, fantastic, boyfriend of mine made a contribution to the American Cancer Society’s Daffodil Days
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PAR/PAR_4_Daffodil_Days.asp
and, in return, I got a bouquet of lovely flowers.

:)

Isn’t he the sweetest???!!!
He spoils me rotten!
I’m so lucky!

My Weekend

This weekend Kyle, his brother Kelsey, his friend Nihar – visiting from New York, his cat Yertle, and I all got cozy in Kyle’s tiny apartment in SF. (Basically the boy lives in a basement.) It was so cramped that we literally had to spend every day/evening out and about…

Thursday night, we headed over to the East Bay to my old stomping grounds… Berkeley!!! YAY. Was so amazingly wonderful to be back. I seriously do not spend enough time in that town. We went to the restaurant where I worked in college… and they TOTALLY remembered me! Free appetizers, free champagne, free dessert… and the food was amazing. Just as fantastic as I remember it! I was so happy to be able to show everyone a good time. (And Sara, you know we got the tiramisu!!!)

Friday afternoon, we had high high hopes of getting down with our bad-ass, green-wearing, selves. (I’m part Scotts-Irish, for crying out loud!) But those hopes were dashed… we started out strong. Maybe a bit too strong… as in a few rounds of Irish car bombs and not much dinner strong. Hmmmm. By 7pm we were trashed. By 10:30 we left the bar. And by 11:45 we were sound asleep in bed, bellies filled with drunkenly consumed Mexican food.

On the upside, going to bed so early helped us get up on time for wine tasting on Saturday. We spent the day in Healdsburg in Sonoma County and visited 5 wineries. Per usual, Kyle and I bought way too many bottles of fabulous wine that we neither need nor can afford. Oh well. The weather was unbelievable and everyone had a good time. We got home around 8pm, called our friend Christine, had a chilly dinner on the roof deck of one of our favorite bars (in the future, we might want to save this place for warmer weather) and then went home and went to bed.

Nihar left first thing Sunday morning, and Kyle, Kelsey, and I continued our Sunday morning ritual of sleeping late and then going out for a leisurely brunch.

It is so nice to be done with school for the quarter!!

Oh! And today is the first day of spring. HAPPY SPRING!!!

*Hums merrily to herself as she reminisces about the fabulous weekend and gets excited for springtime frolicking*

An Update

It occurred to me today that I never updated the internet world about the condition of my friend Christine. How rude of me! And after so many thoughtful prayers and good wishes from all of you.

*Sorry Everyone*

Well, on the upside, no news is good news.

As far as the doctors can tell, Christine is going to make a complete recovery. COMPLETE RECOVERY!!! Is that the most fantastic thing you've ever heard?

She spent several days in the ICU with (don't read if you're squeamish) a tube in her head to drain the blood/fluid from her brain. Christine, back to her comical self, has been referring to it as a "beer tap". (yum... brain beer.) After the ICU, they put her in a special post neurosurgery recovery room for a few days. And then, FINALLY, she got to go home - in one fantastic, going to make a complete recovery, piece. :)

In total, she spent ten days in the hospital. Yuck.

Her parents both flew out from the east coast the night everything happened. Her mom is still in town, helping her get settled - Christine was in the middle of moving when the aneurysm burst. (When it rains it pours, right?)

Anyway, she is living in San Francisco now... soaking up the good life in the best city on earth. Well mostly she's just resting a lot, but still.

She's taking at least a month off from work... and is currently working on growing out the excellent bald spot she's sporting from the surgery. :) She actually looks very cute with it - I'm working on convincing her to keep it.

So Christine is alive and well and happy and healthy and her friends and family could not be more relieved. We are all truly blessed.

Thanks again for all of the warm wishes and prayers! I know they helped.

Only Engineers

Fellow Engineer: Hey, did you get a haircut!?
Me: Why yes, I did! Thanks for noticing!
Fellow Engineer: I like the back... it's... like... chamfered.
Me: (long pause) Yes. Yes it is. Thanks for noticing.

And with that I hung my head in shame for engineers everywhere. We are so lame.

Love / Hate

Things I hate

1. Girls who claim to “not get along with other girls”
2. People who drive slow in the fast lane – IT’S THE FAST LANE!!! Get out of my way!
3. Bitter single people – NOT to be confused with happy well-adjusted single people
4. Not being dressed appropriately
5. People who hate trendy things just because they are trendy
6. The sound of someone breathing while I’m trying to sleep – but I still love you, Kyle
7. Things I can’t fix or make better
8. High maintenance friends
9. Judgey Von-Holier-Than-Thous
10. The movie The Family Stone – You cannot just swap significant others with your sibling
11. Slimy guys at bars who try to worm their way into your dance circle
12. Grilled onions
13. Hating grilled onions – I’ve heard such good things about them
14. My hair
15. People who hate country music without ever having really given it a chance
16. Pulling an all-nighter and having my project STILL not work
17. People who make the your/you’re or their/there/they’re mistake
18. My atrocious spelling
19. People who are way too cool
20. Litterbugs
21. Black shoes with a brown purse
22. The perfect comeback… 24 hours too late
23. Not living in the same city as my sister
24. The fact that two of my best friends live across the freakin country
25. Credit card debt
26. Student loan debt
27. My general all around poorness
28. Sleeping the day away – such a waste
29. Reality TV
30. Picky eaters
31. The fact that I can’t sing… at all
32. My penchant for expensive jeans
33. Seeing friends in crappy relationships
34. Starbucks’ drip coffee
35. Having to make a really big decision
36. People who have 80 zillion myspace friends
37. Warm bed / cold room on a Monday morning
38. Missing out on things
39. Putting away my laundry
40. People who read my blog but NEVER leave comments – This means YOU!
41. Waiting in line to get in to an empty bar
42. SPAM
43. Having to pee at 4:30 in the morning
44. Drama
45. How I ALWAYS seem to buy shoes in the wrong size – I literally have 2 pairs of most of my shoesbecause I bought the first pair a size too big or small… wore them… couldn’t return them...still had to have them… and ended up buying them AGAIN in the correct size
46. Schools with no school spirit – ahem, Stanfurd
47. How fantastic pizza sounds at 3am
48. People who chew with their mouth open
49. Working and going to school at the same time
50. Men who can’t chop firewood – ick
51. Crumbs on a freshly cleaned counter
52. Dealing with kitty litter
53. Poorly constructed homes/townhouses/condos/apartments
54. Negotiating
55. Confrontation
56. The bass player of Nada Surf – the dude just bugs me
57. People who hate Halloween
58. Visible butt crack because your (or my) pants are too low
59. My recent lack of motivation at work
60. Grudge holders
61. Pedestrians who cross the street without looking both ways first – I will hit you!
62. Head colds
63. Un-popped zits
64. Morning breath
65. Hangovers
66. One-uppers
67. People who speak reeeeeaaaly slowly
68. Woe-is-me-ers
69. Micromanagers
70. Office buzz words
71. Evil companies
72. Moving
73. Committing to plans
74. People who don’t use online banking – why????
75. Professors who think that their class is the only thing that I have going on in my life
76. Sunburns
77. Getting lost when I’m already late
78. Not finding parking
79. Bicyclists who don’t abide by traffic laws
80. Smokers
81. Most tattoos
82. Scary movies
83. Unbecoming photographs
84. Uncomfortable shoes
85. Deciding what to eat – I always want it all
86. Shaving
87. Smeary mascara
88. Rain when I just blow-dried my hair
89. Spiders in my room/closet/car
90. The fact that I can’t kill said spider, and therefore have to catch it in a cup and relocate it to the outside world, even if I’m running really late
91. Misplacing $20 (a.k.a. probably dropping $20 in the parking lot, and never seeing it again)
92. Food in my teeth
93. Being grouchy for no apparent reason
94. Useless office meetings
95. Jealously
96. People who never move on
97. Pushovers
98. Lingering coughs
99. Really firm pillows
100. ME218

Things I love

1. My V6 engine
2. Summer
3. Sushi
4. Waking up feeling totally refreshed
5. Happy well-adjusted single people
6. Happy people in general
7. Wearing the PERFECT outfit for the occasion
8. When one of my cats sniffs my face in the morning to see if I’m awake yet
9. A nice walk after a delicious meal
10. Waking up to a beautiful San Francisco morning and having the whole day ahead of me to play
11. Roof decks
12. Trying new food
13. My new love of mushrooms
14. Playing in water – lakes, pools, streams, the ocean
15. Being outdoors
16. Stalking people on myspace
17. People who blog
18. My feet
19. Dancing, dancing, and then dancing some more
20. A great bottle of Red Zin
21. How wise my mom is
22. Live music at the Fillmore
23. Designing circuits/ writing software / building hardware that actually does what it’s supposed to do!
24. Automatic spell check
25. Heavy machinery
26. Books that make me cry
27. Cooking the perfect meal
28. The fact that I’m “at that age” when my friends are starting to get married
29. Weddings
30. New makeup
31. New shoes
32. Expensive jeans
33. People with great vocabularies
34. Pirate stores
35. Digital pictures
36. Seeing people in fantastic relationships
37. Finding the perfect Christmas tree
38. Decorations
39. The freckles on my nose that come out when I’m in the sunshine
40. Changing my own oil
41. Really good tiramisu
42. A freshly cleaned house
43. Giving the perfect gift
44. College football – Go bears!
45. My annual Girls Trip to someplace fabulous
46. Los Angeles’ warm Santa Anna winds on a summer night
47. Blustery days
48. The word blustery
49. The sound rain make as it hits your roof in the middle of the night
50. Nuzzling up to my boyfriend’s neck
51. The Bloomingdales after Christmas sale
52. Huggers
53. Singing (terribly) at the top of my lungs while driving
54. IM
55. Witty banter
56. Flirting
57. Going for it on 4th and 1
58. Eating a hearty breakfast in the woods
59. Men with tools
60. Fireworks
61. The smell of fresh cut grass
62. Finding out something is on sale when you get to the register, after you’ve already decided to buy it – Score!
63. Running errands – call me crazy
64. Grocery shopping
65. Forehead kisses
66. Office chair soccer
67. Cinnamon toast
68. Themed parties
69. Black and White cookies
70. Dremel™-ing things
71. My cordless power drill
72. Duct tape
73. German Beer
74. Vacuuming
75. Twilight
76. Bonfires
77. People who invent words
78. Nicknames
79. Open houses
80. Companies that aren’t evil
81. Being spontaneous
82. Post workout euphoria
83. Summer fruit
84. Doodling instead of taking notes
85. Shopping in Los Angeles
86. Shopping in general
87. Tradition
88. The convenience of the suburbs
89. The excitement of a big city
90. Drunk text messages
91. Fabulous earrings
92. Being silly
93. Hanging out with family, future family, family-in-law, pseudo-family, step-family, and friends that are like family
94. Raspberry Royale hot tea
95. Clean sheets
96. Late night pillow talk
97. Being in on a secret
98. Winning
99. My new haircut (see below) - eeeeeee!
100. ME218

Testing The Limits Of Human Endurance

I am still in a haze from this week. My brain is still fuzzy from the lack of sleep and the intense stress. My eyes are still puffy. My back is still stiff. I may never fully recover... and at the very least I'm sure I shaved a few years off of my life.

Sheesh.

On the upside, I now know what my body is capable of. I now know that I can go for 42 hours without sleep and still function - not well, mind you, but whatever. Yes I started to go a bit delirious... kept thinking I heard someone calling my name... and at one point I fell asleep while walking and got that "Oh no! I'm falling" sensation - which is REALLY scary when you open your eyes and find that you are NOT actually safe in your bed.... but still, I survived. And could survive again if I had to. One guy in my class actually went for 63 hours. He's nuts! I also know that I can do ANYTHING I set my mind to. And that is the most fantastically amazing feeling in the world. :) And not only can I do it, but I can do it well and I can kick butt in the final competition.

Go me!

This quarter's project was to build a robot that would play a game of "hockey" against another robot. We each got 5 balls and had to take turns firing them at our opponent's goal. Each robot had to be smart enough to know when it was it's turn to shoot and when it was it's turn to be on defense. And it had to know where to shoot and how to defend the goal. It also had to fire only 1 ball at a time and be able to reload the ball firing mechanism as needed. The robots also had to know whether or not the game had gone into a timeout... during a timeout the robots had to sit perfectly still and wait for the game to resume.... AND each one had to remember who's turn it was before the timeout was called.

There was some SERIOUS circuit building and code writing involved with this project!

Our robot used two proximity sensors to determine its position on the field, 4 "tape" sensors (basically an IR emitter and detector in one package) to follow lines on the field so that we drove straight, and an phototransistor to determine whose turn it was to fire or defend. (IR beacons on the field flashed at different frequencies depending on whose turn it was, or if there was a timeout, etc.) We had two independent drive wheels (which allowed us to steer) and two "pitching" wheels to fire the balls (much like a baseball pitching machine). Reloading of balls was accomplished with two solenoids that were timed and spaced appropriately so as to only allow one ball to be reloaded into the firing mechanism at a time.

Our design was simple and robust. And it kicked butt!

Some of the more complicated bots had rotating turrets... they were really cool looking, but very few of them worked. :( Some robots used sonar. Some used inductors to sense the magnetic fields set up on the playing field. Some robots spun wildly out of control. Many just sat there and did nothing... or they drove into the corner and shook. Not pretty.

It was really sad to see some of our classmates fail so miserably. I watched them put in all the same hours that I put in and then at the last minute their bot just died. It sucked. Luckily for them, our performance at the competition has nothing to do with our grade in the class. (Too bad for my group b/c we TOTALLY would have gotten an A, no question!)

Anyway, here are several pictures taken during the last few hectic hours before the competition: share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbOGjhw5ZtmUU
(Just click "View Pictures"!)

Enjoy!

We Won!

We won. We freakin' won!!!

16 robots became 8 robots became 4 robots became 2. In the final round it was our bot (MegaAck... don't ask) and Team Estrogen (an all female team) 's bot. In the final death match our bot came out victorious.

IT WAS FANTASTIC!

Unfortuantly, I had to miss 4 days of work to make it all happen... so today I'm playing catch up like you wouldn't believe and there's no time for the full report.

For now, here's a quick picture of our robot:



The whole story and and more pictures to follow...

Still Going...

Yeah, about that "It'll all be over at 5 o'clock" thing. My professor is a LIAR!!!

We have a freakin' EXTENSION!!!!

An Extension!!!??? NO! I WANT TO GO HOME!!!!!! I don't care about the robot. I don't care about the grade. I really just want to go to bed.

Pleeeeeease.

I am finishing up my 40th straight hour of being awake. (Yes, FORTY! hours straight.) Mind you, this 40 hour no-sleep marathon was started after only getting 4 hours of sleep on Sunday (I think it was Sunday) night.

HELLO! It's Wednesday!!! Why am I still awake? Why am I still at Stanfurd? Why do I not yet have a decently functioning robot???

Days mean NOTHING to me anymore. Daytime, nighttime... it all looks the same in the lab. Shoot me. I am not well...

:(

Settling In For The Last Long Haul

27 hours.

27 hours remain before my ME 218 final project grading session.

I have a large cup of coffee sitting next to me and a stick of deodorant and a clean shirt in my purse. I do not intend to leave Stanfurd before 5 pm tomorrow. This sucks.

On the other side of the tunnel is my life. My glorious, 8 hours of sleep every night, not spending weekend in lab, actually enjoying myself and having fun with my friends, life!

On this side of the tunnel is 27 more hours of grueling code writing, and robot building, and tiny circuit soldering, and wire wrapping, and debugging, and burning myself with a glue gun, a soldering iron, a shorted battery, and/or an overheated circuit component. (Note: due to MULTIPLE burns and pokes and just general overuse I have almost no feeling left in my thumb, forefinger, and middle finger on each hand. Ugh.)

I am tired. 4 hours of sleep last night... 6 the night before. I actually got 8 hours on Friday night... but only because I ditched work to come to school all day so that I could have the night off to sleep. And the rest of last week was a string of 5 hour nights too. It's really catching up with me.

The worst part is waking up at 8am after being in lab till 3am so that I can go to work. Work!? NO!!!! Please, can't I just be a student!? Or, at least, just a regular old working stiff who doesn't go to school. I can't do both anymore! Not when school involves ME218. It's too much. I am so ready for it all to be over.

And I am so close.

27 more hours... I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.