BEEEEEEER!!!!

Last night was the Reel Big Fish concert in Worcester. It was absolutely crazy amazing. YUSSSSSS. So we left Olin at 5 pm. Drove up to Worcester, got there at 6. The line was already about 100 meters long so we decided instead of getting real dinner we just went to a cigarrette shop and got some snacks. Then we went to stand in line outside in the freezing cold. Doors opened at 7, and in the concert hall I was able to get kind of close to the front....maybe 5 or 6 people behind the fence. So first a small upcoming band called Tip the Van played and they weren't actually too bad. It was REALLY cool when one of the singers came down to the audience and put the microphone right in my face to sing, and then put it in some of my friends faces. Then with everybody pushing and shoving I was able to get to the very front (on the railing!!) in the very very middle during the middle of Tip the Van's set. Being on the railing was pretty painful. Even at Sziget, things weren't this crazy. Not just waves of being pushed against the rail, but a constant pressure from behind me pushing me into the railing. When Tip the Van finished I was happy that it was over and was hoping that the pressure would lay off, but it stayed. I also talked to the guys around me, they were all really cool people, not scary or anything like some of the people in the crowd (tons of lip piercings, real mohawks, etc).

Next band was Streetlight Manifesto. They're also a big ska band, so during that concert, the pushing got even worse. I actually thought that my ribs would break at some points....Oh the pain and the agony. But it was so much fun. One of the...long saxaphone, whatever those are called. That guy that played that instrument, he was so good! And he was able to pop his eyes really wide, it was so funny. Anyways that concert lasted of course longer than Tip the Van but still probably about 45 minutes. When that finished, I asked for the set list, and I was able to get it! I was so happyyyy!! To be honest though, that concert was good but not great, because of all the pushing and shoving and me trying to protect my ribs.

Oh and another thing. The bouncers that are in the front to pull people out who are crowdsurfing were pretty hilarious. After one of the bouncers pulled out a person from the crowd, he raised his arms in the air like a referree and yelled "TOUCHDOOOOOOOOOOWN!!!!"

Well, then it was Reel Big Fish. Their set list was AMAZING. They started off with Trendy (YES), then another FU song, and they played stuff like Good Thing and Your Guts (I Hate 'Em) and The New Version of You and yeah a lot more stuff that was awesome. Kind of towards the beginning, Aaron Barrett (lead singer/guitarist) threw his pick into the crowd but it didn't go far, so it only went to the front row area. It was kind of to my left, and uh, let's just say my baseball skills came in handy. I literally just yoinked it into the air at the very last second to catch the pick and quickly pulled it back. I couldn't believe I caught it!! Right after I caught it they played Nothin' But a Good Time and YES it was amazing. Funny things they also did were to play a bit of Enter Sandman, and in the pause during She Has a Girlfriend Now they stopped and Aaron said ok so I've been working on a sequel for a few years and I'm finally done with it. I don't know if it's good, but let me know what you think. And they played "I kissed a girl, and I liked it!" (song by Kate Perry, popular on the radio now) Bwahahahahahahaha. That was freakin hilarious. Oh, and I kept yelling out "BEEEEEER" as loud as I could in between a lot of the songs when it was quiet (it's one of their songs). And Aaron was like, NO! We don't drink beer anymore! And then after another song he was like "OK EVERYBODY. Time for the most requested song of the night. It's about a beverage, that I think we all love." And they started playing TEQUILA. Not a Reel Big Fish song, you know, the good ol' song tequila that's just a generally famous song? Yeah that was pretty funny. But then they stopped playing that after 30 seconds or so and they started playing Beer. And of course when the show ended they came out again and did an encore. I was REALLY happy because I realized they didn't play Sell Out or Take on Me! Sell Out is usually their last song, so when the played that without playing Take on Me I was kind of disappointed. But then they kept going! And for the last song they played Take on Me! It was awesome. Definitely. Definitely definitely awesome.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm BACK!

And HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody!

Welcome back to the famous blog of me! But without the famous. And possibly without the me. But the blog will always be here!

So resuming from where I left off. The week where I got my wisdom teeth pulled was a pretty terrible week. I got my teeth pulled on Monday morning. Started feeling better and was able to eat more regular foods around Friday. Of course, on Thursday, I started getting sick. So I wasn't able to eat until the following Monday! So from Sunday night to Monday night a week later, I didn't have a single normal meal. Also, the drugs that I w

as on were pretty intense. I had to first sit down and then lay down during church on Christmas because of the drugs. So all in all I was out of it for the entire week and I lost a lot of weight.

Besides that, break has been mostly uneventful. Sitting at home. I have nothing to shop for really. My family does, because they don't live in America. I don't have much else to do though...Seeing the family, seeing the friends, and that's about it. Not much to do in this area.

However, we did go up to New Hampshire to visit our famikly friends last weekend. Stayed two nights in NH. Got to see my old friend from California days. He goes to Dartmouth and I didn't think he'd be there because it was the holiday break, but I called him just in case...and he was! Because they have classes already...So that was fun. And then the next day we drove down to Boston, went to my friend's house, mommys met, then we went out for lunch, and then to the mall. Then we looked at some houses in Winchester, then we drove down to Connecticut. We stayed in Mystic for a night. Dad had business in the morning.

 And then we drove home. Fun stuff. Mystic was a bit boring but oh well. We went to this one restaurant which was really good. Restored a bit of confidence in America's ability to produce something nice. Especially food. 

I'm exhausted right now if you couldn't tell. My brother leaves for Tokyo tomorrow, and then my parents leave Saturday for Budapest. Then I'm here with my grandma until the 19th, when my roommate will hopefully pick me up and drive us back to Boston.

Goodnight.

My teeth are all gone!

Well 4 of them. I got my wisdom teeth out today. Got them out at 9 am. All I remember was the nurse telling me to bite down, and then nothing. Then I remember being comfortable with my grandma's blanket on the resting table. And then I remember walking back to the car very drunk, swaying back and forth, but i thought it was a dream. Turns out it wasn't.

Next thing I know I'm awake and there's blood all over my pillow here at my grandma's house in New Jersey. She helps me take out the gauze and it's soaked, and then I ask for the more gauze that they said they'd give. Well, they totally forgot to give her more gauze. And the cleaning syringe. So she had to drive back and get that. Anyways then I was awake, and I was in a really good mood. Well for the rest of the day it's been me waking up and falling asleep. Kind of boring. Oh well. Goodnight.

No sleep and No service

What a week it’s been. I haven’t really gone to sleep before 5 am in a long time. I’ve been enjoying myself way too much to go to sleep early. Life after the swimmer project was done has been really relaxing. On Sunday night, we went to Cape Cod. Then on Monday night, at 8:45 pm, we started a Star Wars movie marathon. We watched all six movies from Episode I to Episode VI, right in a row. We went until 11:30 am. I was the only one who actually stayed and watch all of the movies. There were other people who came a movie into it and then stayed, and people who left towards the end. There was another girl with me who stayed the entire time but she fell asleep for a few hours so I’m not sure if that counts. She says it does because she was absorbing the Star Wars in her sleep, but I’m not so sure. Anyhow, we finished at 11:30 am. So it took a total of about 15 hours. Good stuff!! At 12 pm I had our Seeing and Hearing (a class) showing of all of our documentaries which was boring, and then at 3:30 I had my expo presentation until 5. So I basically didn’t get any sleep until 7 pm the night after I should have fallen asleep, and I only slept for around two hours. I actually calculated that including naps, I slept a total of 8.5 hours in the span of a little less than 4 full days. Is that healthy? I don’t know, but it’s definitely lots of fun.

Expo presentation went pretty well. I had a poster, stood in front of it, and didn’t really talk to many people but no matter. The two faculty members I talked to liked my little spiel, especially Mark Somerville, who’s always one to point out your faults. So that was good! I talked about the swimmer project, and how that’s taught me so much. It really has. I’d say half the learning that came from this semester came from the penguin project, and that’s saying a LOT, considering I’ve learned so much.

Another thing that I got out of the swimmer project which I didn’t talk about during my Expo spiels in front of my poster was, in a way, a family. Our team is now known for being the ones that always hang out together now. Well, one member isn’t always there, but me and two other teammates are always hanging out together now, it’s really funny. But it’s awesome! Last night we went to iHop as a team. Good god I don’t know if I can ever go to an iHop again. First, we were pulling out of the parking lot, and Natalie hit her tire on the curb, and the tire just blew out immediately. So we had to change the tire in the freeeezing cold, get in Ali’s car, and finally go after like 30 minutes. We get to iHop and it’s really crowded. It was so weird, it was a Thursday night at like 2 AM! It took forever just to get our drinks, but our food came a bit faster. Then came the worst part. A guy walks past our table, and just as he gets next to our table, he pukes on the floor and keeps walking away. Great. It was really gross. I went and told the waiter and he said ok. And I went back to my table. And waited. What the hell! The waiter wasn’t coming to clean it up! I went to tell him again, he said ok. Went back to the table. He still isn’t coming! This time I was absolutely pJJJJJ off. I couldn’t believe the waiter wasn’t coming to clean it up. I went up and told basically told him

 

 “There is VOMIT on the ground, you NEED to clean it up. It’s disgusting, and I’ve told you two times already to clean it up.”

“Look, I’m busy, talk to the manager.”

“Are you kidding me? This is your restaurant, you’re all working together, you’re  an employee. YOU go talk to the manager.”

 

What an aJJ. I haven’t gotten angry late that in a while. I went and talked to the manager and he got some guys to clean it up. But wow. Yeah. Not a great iHop experience. And excuse my language, but it was that necessary.

Anyways, right now I’m on the train from Philadelphia to Lancaster. Going to visit my friend Sam from California! I’m really excited, especially since she was right next to Olin college during Thanksgiving and I didn’t realize she’d be there at the same time I’d be there as well until the night before she left (and therefore we couldn’t meet up).

Well, I’m going to watch some Simpsons I guess. w00t.

Spontaneous Roadtrip!

On Saturday night, I stayed up until about 5 am (as usual nowadays). Worked on ModCon final project, then went to a Man Hall party (fun!), then back to work on the project. But for some strange reason, I didn't wake up until 4 pm on Sunday. Luckily, we finished the project at about 10 pm, and after that, I decided that doing any more work would be unfitting for the night. On the other hand, I was a bit bored not doing anything. We started watching The Office on Hulu, when Natalie and Ali (partners for penguin project) came up and told me they were kidnapping me. They wouldn't tell me where we were going, and I was kind of scared about where we would go, but hey, I was kind of bored. So we ended up driving out, and we ended up at a Wendy's. How depressing! I was hoping for something awesome and we go to Wendy's. Well I got myself a little kids burger, and we were driving home and we were still kind of bored, so somehow we got into talking into doing a roadtrip to New Hampshire. We were about to go, but then we decided if we're going to go anywhere, we should plan it at least a little bit. So we go back to Olin and start looking at places in New Hampshire we could go to at 2 am, but nothing looked interesting. I'm not sure how we got the idea, but next thing I know we were pretty set on going to Cape Cod to watch the sun rise! And then we got two more people to come with us! Boris, and James.

So we brought blankets, warm clothes, cameras, tripods, and iPods with us, and we headed out for the two hour drive starting at 3 am. The ride down wasn't bad. We were expecting 2 hours, but at the speed that Natalie was driving we made it in about 1.5 hours. We were going to stop at an iHop, but unfortunately it wasn't a 24 hour one so it was closed. Anyways we got to Chatham (city in Cape Cod), drove around only a little bit before we found a parking place, and walked down to the beach. We found it to be quiet and peaceful and open to the public, so we brought out our equipment and blankets to the beach.

Well, at the beach, me and Bolo (my nickname for Boris) went nuts with our cameras, taking hundreds of pictures. In the end I took about 9 gigs of pictures, which is about 700 pictures. When the sun rose above the horizon, it was beautiful. Looking through my zoom lens at the sun was a surreal experience. Don't worry, I didn't look at it for too long though.

After the sun rose, we went to some small cafe/bakery for breakfast, walked around chatham a bit, and then left for Olin. The drive back was pretty uneventful, until Natalie realized a sign that said Plymouth - Next 5 exits. She was like oh that's where my ancestors are from, and that's when I realized that it was the same Plymouth that the pilgrims landed. So we woke everybody else and told them we're going to Plymouth!

We took the exit and started  driving down a road not knowing where to go. We got really lucky when we took this one right cause we came upon the museum for the settlements there...Too bad it was really expensive and there was literally nobody in the entrance/tickets area of the museum. So then we drove out onto this beach which was like a  2 mile long skinny peninsula that extended and hooked around the coast. It was so nice, and we we were really excited that it wasn't closed off or anything. I ended up going out about 1.5 miles while running on water barrier rocks which was tons of fun and actually really relaxing. We stayed in Plymouth for probably a total of two hours before we started to head home.

So that was the story. Such an amazing trip! We were all so happy to do it, despite the major lack of sleep. Some things in life are just plain worth it, and this was one of them.

Well, that's the story! School ends on Thursday, I think I'm going to visit Kristen, a friend from Budapest, and then on Friday I'm going to Philly (Lancaster, to be exact) to visit my friend Sam from California! Woohoo!

Star Wars Marathon right now! I, II, and III!

A week away from Life.

Last week, I lived a life that was not Chris Gallello's. The culprit was mainly because the swimmer project was due on Monday, and my group had a ton to do.

We had to get the forwards motion mechanism, figure out a way to link the drive motor to the actual mechanism (hard due to limited space), put it all together, make the skin, and get it working.

So I don't I don't want to estimate how many hours we spent on the penguin all together, but I will.

Monday - 4 pm - 11 pm = 7 hours

Tuesday - 4 pm - 12 am = 8 hours

Wednesday - 4 pm - 4 am = 12 hours

Thursday - 4 pm - 9 pm = 5 hours

Friday - Day off!

Saturday - 2 pm - 7 am - 14 hours

Sunday - 12 pm - 6 am - 18 hours

So that's a total of 64 hours in one week. That's longer than a standard work week.

It was mostly a blur. Honestly. I don't remember much about the week, but it definitely was a LONG week. Saturday, I have to say, was kind of satisfying. We got the main mechanism working and we started putting things all together. Stayed up till 7 am, and it started snowing. We were super excited! And then we went to iHop (I heart obese people) for breakfast.

MY GOD they serve a ton of food. I ordered pancakes with hash browns, eggs, and bacon. I was expecting it to be kind of big and was thinking "oh man I'm going to be full after this, but I'm hungry." But I got the meal, and it took up two full sized dinner plates. Ridiculous!

Anyways we got back and we ended up going to bed in the design nature studio at 9 am. We were able to fit me and a teammate on a small couch, as well as another teammate on two of those single couches put together.

We woke up to people alllllllll around us working in the studio, machines blaring, people talking. It wasn't unpleasant really, but it was just kind of funny. Well we pretty much immediately started working after the 3 amazing hours of sleep. That day we got everything put together, made a skin out of fabric (I sewed!). And then we put it in the water! And it worked! And we cheered! And YELLED! And hugged! And threw a party! Well, no party. But we were amazingly happy. So we cleaned up the room a bit and finally went to sleep at 6 am!

Woke up to everybody in the room, including our professor, at 9 am. We were all set to go, and the kids came at 10:30 am. We were at our table presenting the penguin to the students, and they seemed to like it! Then we had the demonstration, and lo and behold....The penguin doesn't work! Turns out the chain that we used for the gears got unlinked (it was a lego chain). And then a rod fell out of the truck. So he said to come back at a later time with it working. So we got it working. We put it in the water. It swam forwards for 5 seconds!

And then.....The penguin wasn't able to turn. And then...the wings stopped moving. This time the wire that connected the servo to the tail BROKE. So whatever. Our penguin didn't work in the end. But it was over!

DESIGN NATURE IS OVER!!

How amazing.

So now, I've been adjusting back to life this week. I found myself unshaven, nails long, emails not replied to, and in general out of touch with the world. But now I'm back to normal. I'm enjoying myself and doing what I want...It's a pretty amazing feeling in general.

So that was my week. Some fun, but crazy intense. Crazy, crazy, crazy intense.

Overall, it was a pretty amazing project. As hard as it was, it taught me so much. My skills with working in a group improved a lot. I learned from my mistakes. Always make a CAD model and keep it updated. Aesthetics is very important. A teacher can always be defied!

So that's that. I learned a lot. I made a new awesome friend. I was able to work with an existing one. And I got to know another guy really well! I was in Team List of Sheild of Bug Species Recorded In Korea, and we made Trevor LeRoy the Badger, a remote controlled penguin that swims in the water.

Going crazy

The penguin is making me go insane...

We have the butt working, it swings side to side and the servos are all hacked and waterproofed. The mechanism that makes it so that when the penguin eats garbage the circuitry gets cut off is also working.

But the main forwards motion has a lot of problems....Bleh. It's due Monday as well.

Ahh I have to make a 5 minute documentary by Friday and I'm just starting. It's 6 AM now though, I'm going to go to sleep.

An Awesome Week!

New Jersey was great! Good to see family, and first time having Thanksgiving with the familiy as well! On Friday I went to the Bronx to Fordham University to visit my friends from Budapest. One of them goes there and there we like 6 of us that came to visit him. Everybody was sleeping over for two nights but I couldn't even sleep over because I had to leave the next day back to Boston. It was still amazing to see them though, I had so much fun. We hung out in my friend's dorm, played some Halo for old times sake, got lunch at an extremely cheap lunch place, and hung out more in his dorm. Anyways, the Bronx was really sketchy. Lots of mofo people as my me and my dad put it.

The drive back from Boston was good. We picked up my friend Johannes in West Jersey and after that I slept for the rest of the 4 or 5 hours or so. It was definitely nice...

Being back at Olin...it's good to see everybody again, but I'm going to miss being on break. Well, it's not like  I'm in study mode. Today, with the exception of an hour to do some work and maybe 30 minutes to eat dinner and some other breaks, I've been playing or waiting for a turn to play Rock Band since 12:30 pm. It's 3:45 am right now. I've never played this game before, but it's so much fun! I've played Guitar Hero (similar game) twice before, but besides that, no experience and I'm already playing some Expert songs! Oh, my right arm is exhausted, and I have a blister on my right thumb. But it's so much fun!

Well, school starts again tomorrow....Goodnight!

Thanksgiving Break Shenanigans

My parents are here! On Friday, I went to Boston and met up with my dad. I had an amazing steak dinner, and we stayed at a hotel right next to Quincy Market. Unfortunately, the weather turned out to be paaaaainfully cold. I never want to have that again. The next day, we woke up, got some Dunkin’ Donuts breakfast (no wonder America’s fat), and then headed out to the airport to pick up my mom. Didn’t take us too long, the T goes right to the airport (well, there’s a free shuttle that takes you from the T stop to the terminals), and we went to go look for the rental car counters because we had a reservation for one. We were standing at the info booth, probably 15 or 20 minutes after my mom’s flight landed, and I heard an “oi!” from behind me. I look around and it was her! Gotta love how small Logan International is…

Then we drove off in the rental car to Olin, I showed my parents the room and the campus, packed my things for NH and NJ, and we drove back to the hotel in Boston. They were pretty impressed with the campus, especially that I felt comfortable with leaving my key in the door for a week of being away with all my valuables in them (steal my monitor, I dare you).

So we got back to the hotel and rested a bit, then went out again in the f-f-f-f-f-freeeeezing cold to have dinner at King Hall (a restaurant) right in Quincy Market with my dad’s old friend from high school and his wife. It was a lot of fun, and some good food once again…

Yesterday morning we woke up early (7 am) and headed out of the hotel by 8 am to New Hampshire. Up in New Hampshire, we know a family from our Tokyo days (back when I was two). The dad right now has the worst form of Alzheimer’s disease, where something like his front part of the brain is deteriorating. Basically he’s lost a lot of his short term memory. Last year we saw him during Christmas and he was able to carry out conversations and reminisce the good ol’ days in Japan with us, but this time, there was no such thing as a conversation. When we saw him he was at the end of the hallway in the nursing home, his wife called his name, he turned around and raised his hands when he saw us! He walked over, said heyyyyy but then turned around and walked away. We did get some words and sentences out of him, and we were told that this was the most he’s ever said in months, which was pretty nice. It was really sad to see such a great guy turn out like this though.

On a lighter and happier note, I didn’t know it until we were there, but we were actually about two miles away from Dartmouth! And I didn’t realize it until I got a Facebook message back from him, but my best friend Alex from the California days was still there for another day or two before heading back to California for Thanksgiving! So we went to see him, and we watched his sister’s swim meet. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to say hi to her. Anyways we also picked him up for dinner, and we went to a really good Japanese/Korean food place for dinner. I had really good tonkatsu (one of the best kinds of Japanese foods there is!).

This morning, we left NH at 7 45, drove down to Cambridge, looked at some properties with a real estate agent (parents are moving here in the summer), and then we went to the North End to grab a bite to eat before we head down to New Jersey. This is where it got pretty hilarious. The North End is basically the Italian district. Need I say more? Well, not really, but I will anyways. We went to a little Italian Deli shop, we ordered some food, and sat down. Then walks in a relatively big guy with sunglasses on and another woman and a little boy. They’re speaking Italian, they say hi to the people running the shop, and sit down. The guy leaves his sunglasses on, and acts in such a stereotypical Italian way. He’s having fun with the little kid, saying “bello bello,” all while being like a wannabe mafia boss wearing all black with black sunglasses and a black fedora. Me and my parents nicknamed him Uncle Dominico…

Then all of a sudden, right outside the shop, I see a good old fashioned Italian parking battle starting to take place outside the shop. There’s an open parking space on the street in front of the shop, and there’s a car that’s lined up to get the spot but behind the actual spot and in the intersection of the street. He starts pulling into the spot, but then all of a sudden, a guy (I’ll call him Davide) comes and completely cuts him off and shoves his car into the spot. Too bad for Davide, his car is in the spot, but it’s almost perpendicular to the actual side of the street. This created a complete gridlock, which included the other cars around them because Davide, who stuck his nose in the spot had his butt blocking the street lane as well. The best part then, was seeing inside Davide’s car. Davide was doing the whole Italian gesture thing with his thumb and two fingers and yelling at the other car to get out of his spot. In the end, Davide left, but it definitely took about ten minutes.

Oh, Italy. What fine people you produce.

So now we’re on the road to New Jersey! And we should be there for dinner…Yum, pasta and chicken at my grandma’s. It’s her surprise meal that she makes us every time we arrive at her place. The surprise factor is wearing off after the 18^th year, but we still love it.

Wow, I just passed a sign that said “Exotic Dancers.” On the other side of the highway, “Exit 69.” Hahahahaha. 

Au Contraire

Watched all three Matrix movies last night starting at 10 or 11 or something...We finished at 4:30. Woke up at 8. That's 3.5 hours of sleep.

That's 2.7 times less the amount of sleep I got the night before.

or

That's 0.000399 years.

or

In my sleep, a cheetah could have run 245 miles.

I'M SLEEPY!

Oh well, no homework really for tonight. I'm going to 7/11 now I think...Gonna hit it up with my Indian friend Said who works there late nights on week days...

Cheese! Peace!