blog.emerick.org

My busiest week and a half has finally come to an end. total of 5 tests, 3 different projects, and 2 large homeworks, and a 1 quiz… Everything went well… projects completed on time, tests went well… got decent grades on all of the ones that i have received back so far… only waiting on the CS test and the micro test i took this morning… not sure how well the CS test went… micro went really well…

Spring break is only 2 days away… 1 lab, and 3 classes is the only thing between me and a week off from school…

I will be at home for spring break… going to a concert with trav and some other people on the 9th for his birthday… other than that, not much else planned… probably catching up on some sleep and exercise…

J!

just upgraded wordpress… as always let me know if you find any problems…

http://wordpress.org/development/2007/02/new-releases/

J!

This is going to be one busy week… 4 tests, 3 projects…

just took the econ test; it went ok…

still have a Large Scale Software Engineering test tomorrow… open book/laptop… hopefully not too hard…

also have a CS test (not to worried about it) and a stat test (just need to study and make a formula sheet)…

I have 50% of my micro lab done… just need to write the report…

large scale software project is just like the project we did last year only in java… hopefully it wont take me too long to re-learn java…

CS project is reportedly fairly easy to do as well and is the last thing due…

After this week, only 1 more week till spring break… can’t wait for a break… this semester does seem to be going by really quick…

Well I am off to do a little exercise…

J!

Laser printers are the way to go… especially if you print a great deal of stuff as I do for school…

Finally after 2 years the 2nd toner cartridge is finally showing signs of letting go… there are some faint lines starting to appear… no immediate worries as I can shake it and keep going for about a month but it lets me know to order a new one… toner cartridges run about $60… not bad for lasting at least 2 years and printing quite a bit…

so if you print a lot of documents, laser printers are the way to go… HP LaserJet 1012 is what I own and recommend for black/white/gray scale documents…

My next printer will be a color laser as they are starting to come down in price…

Later,
J!

Want to follow my fuel efficency in my 2006 Honda Civic LX coupe? Well now you can thanks to Google Docs…

you can view the spreadsheet here of each fill up and how many miles per gallon I got…

Later,
J!

Well the pool table is complete finally… today went a bit smoother than yesterday…

The next step was sanding all of the grout down and cleaning the slatron top of any dust… Then putting the felt on the table was a lot of fun… the glue they provided sometimes did not want to become tacky so it took a couple of tries especially along the edges… but the felt was fairly easy to stretch and attach… no major problems… While we were waiting for the glue to dry… we thought we should have come up with a better set-up DVD than the 1980’s version provided… it would have been pretty funny with all the problems we ran into…

After getting the felt on, the holes for the pockets needed to be cut and glued as well… Trav did most of these with the help of Val… putting the felt on took around an hour or so… at which time Trav and Val had to go to class and I decided to go play some pond hockey with Dave…

After getting back from pond hockey, I proceeded to install the rails and wait on trav to get back… The rails were easily attached… now the fun part was squaring up all of the rails… that took a bit of time as well… eventually we got the rails aligned and put the side panels on the table…

The side panels was the last major assembly required… All that was left were the pockets which needed to be nailed in place… as well as over corner and side join covers… Tyler helped with all those and it was quickly onto the first game of pool which I won… we played a few more games after…

We still need to get some more light on that side of the room… we are thinking of some kind of hanging light over the pool table to help with the shadows… so we need to work on that… other than that the pool table came out pretty good… I will post some pictures later tonight…

But i need to head to class… later…

J!

We finally got our pool table yesterday… After class, Trav came and picked me up and we went to Walmart, Lowes, and Dick’s Sporting Goods… We got some cue sticks, rack and balls, and the various tools needed to assemble the pool table… (note: 1st trip to Christiansburg obtained all of the items listed in the tools needed section of the manual)

As soon as we got back we started assembling the two legs and the support beams… everything was going great until we got to the leveling part… the level that we had obtained from Erin was only a 16 inch level… however we needed at least a 3 foot level… so back to Wal-mart we go… trip 2… obtained an appropriate level to be returned at a later date…

Our floor turns out to be not level… no surprise there… however the cardboard (who uses cadrboard shims?!) shims provided were not enough… so we need some real shims… however at this time Lowes is closed and walmart does not carry wood shims… So we continue with placing the slatron on the table and plan to get shims tomorrow… well it turns out 1/8″ pilot holes are required… we got the drill the first trip but a drill bit was not listed in the tools required… so 3rd trip to walmart is required… While at wal-mart we look for shims to no luck… however trav saved the night and found paint sticks which also happen to work well as shims… So we get back and finish leveling the table and putting on the slatron….

Making sure the slatron is flat as possible seem easy in the manual and DVD provided with the manual… however we must have some really warped slatron… the first edge went real well, just like in the DVD… the rest were a HUGE pain… we even ran out of shims for the slatron and had to use the cardboard shims that were replaced by the paint sticks… it took me and trav about 3 or so hours just to get the slatron flat… a very long and tedious process… not for those with little patience…

After making sure the slatron is flat, grout is required to fill the screw holes which was the last thing we did last night… still needs drying and sanding… then i believe we get to put the felt on…

So we started around 4pm and ended around 12:15am… 8 hours and 15 minutes of time totally dedicated to working on the pool table with a break for pizza and 3 trips to Christiansburg… and we are about 50% complete… hopefully the rest goes smoothly…

updates and pictures later..

J!

Yesterday VT did not open until 10am, a 2 hour delay… the 2 hour delay meant I did not have to go to my 9am class… my 10am class was also canceled because the professor did not want our class to get ahead of the 9am econ class… so in the end I did not have class until 12:20… which was nice because i was able to sleep in until about 9:30 or so…

Had to get up as our pool table was scheduled to be delivered between 10 and 2pm… which arrive around 11 or so… 3 big boxes… But I had to get to class instead of assembling the pool table…

More to come on the pool table…

J!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

J!

Quick tip that I learned the other day… Accidentally close a tab? Press control-shift-t to bring it back… comes in handy quite a few times…

J!