Digital circuits

So I am sitting in my digital class writing this blog because there is nothing else to do. My lab partner and I have already completed our 3rd lab and just waiting for others to finish. This particular lab was my favorite so far. We got to build a circuit that decodes the binary code and displays the decimal for that code on a seven segment display. For those who don't know what that is, it is a display like a calculator would show there are seven segments and it can be used to count from 0 to 9. It was cool once we got it to work and was able to observe how circuits decode binary. Which for me is pretty awesome, never knew how things actually worked when it came to computers and cell phones but I am definitely getting a better understanding on it all now and by the end of the semester I hope to know a whole lot more. I was overwhelmed at the beginning of the semester but things have slowed down and I am finally getting a grip on all this stuff, so it turns out I am beginning to like this class for now.

10 min writing How I Met Your Mother

I have recently just started watching the series on net flix. I really enjoy it, I am only on season 2 so i was not sure about wanting to watch it in class and take a chance of something getting spoiled. I like the series so far the characters are fun to watch and work well together. The episodes always have a good main story line. This episode was just as funny as the rest that i have seen so far. The story in this particular episode was about the three guys Ted, Barney and Marshal always would meet and see if they were in where they thought they would be in three years. It just so happens that you can plan life all you want but life is full of curve balls. The guys found that out. They were never where they had planned. You can plan your life how ever you want and sometimes things work out the way that you had planned and sometimes life has a different path but that is okay because things always seem to work out in the end. Just like in the episode things never seemed to go as planned but they were still happy with where they were. The characters work well together and seem to bring a common ground to us all everyone can relate to one of the characters in some way. Making the show easy to watch and relate to.

10 min writing Once Upon A Time body #2

The costumes or attire the characters wore fit the era in which they were in at the time. They were some what typical of your every day fairy tale. The men wore leather and the women wore dresses telling you weather they were good or bad. snow white wearing the white dress and the evil queen obviously wearing black giving you the since of good vs evil. Then they flipped back to reality and the costumes took a more up to date look with the evil queen in a more modern black suit and White in a off white leather coat. while prince charming took on the more rugged look with jeans and a carhart jacket. While the costumes fit the time so did the props used through out, they looked realistic, so no floppy swords in this fairy tale. There was a part in which a gun was used after flipping back to reality in which was a little off key but did bring a laugh. The one thing that stood out as cheesy was the computer animation but it was not that bad for a TV series, it's not like it's a million dollar movie with the top of the line animation. 

RR #4

Scott's essay was a little hard to under stand for me. He used some pretty big words, feels like not just anyone could just sit down, read it and understand it all. He also casts a lot of judgment but he has the evidence to back it. I feel though as if he just put his own personal opinion in, and just told us how he did not like the film compared to the other James Bond films. He how ever did have some good key features he talks about how the title ties in with the film and he talks about the opening song and how well it fit. He does a good job of comparing it to the other films building that common ground because the Bonds films have been around for so long, that most people have seen at least one of the films. He explains how the story behind Bond has been changing throughout the last few movies starting with Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. How ever I did notice that some what throughout the essay and at the end especially Scott started using "I" a lot, making it seem like he was just giving his own opinion and not an all around unbiased review.

10min writing

The hall the was silent until she heard the sound of the bell ring throughout the halls. It was the final bell of her last day of high school. The halls filled with students running and screaming in joy. It was finally summer again. As the halls filled, all she could think about is what college she was going to attend the following fall. It had been a very hard decision thus far. She had been accepted to two of the main schools she had picked. So she felt like there was no time for fun and games like everyone else. She had the biggest desertion to make over the next month. She had been thinking about it ever since she received the letters of acceptance. For her the summer was going to be the beginning of her new life. Either way she was going to one of the schools and both were top ranked and gave a lot of opportunities to join clubs and make life long connections. The only thing that stood in her way was the tuition which was not cheap with either choice. She had been doing her research on both, Her first choice did not really offer any kind of scholarships or student funding, on the other hand her second choice would pretty much pay her way. So in the end the choice was simple.

RR #3 "Juno"

After reading Ali Heinekamp's, evaluation on the movie Juno, I felt as if she had maybe said to much and gave a good portion of the movie away. She did how ever give good descriptions and good plots on the movie. I have also watched Juno. Ali did well by not being taking either side. She went on to say how the characters spoke in a non realistic dialogue, and that the movie never really hit on some of the realistic parts of a teen pregnancy like "mood swings and morning sickness" She stood with both sides never ranting or raving really about the whole film. She also talks about the good parts of the film like Juno showing her vulnerability and that making people feel that connection. And I like how she quoted to reviews at the end that were going in different directions on how they portrayed the film. My overall thought is that it was a very good evaluation of the film, but I still think that Ali may have given away a few bigger and important scenes possibly letting people picture to much of the movie, or that could just be the way I see it since I have already seen the film and being able to put it all together.

EET 1330

Last Thursday was probably the most fun I have ever had in my digital circuits class. I made a counter on my breadboard. It is for our third lab. So cool we used 11 resistors all together, a 7447 counter, a seven segment display, four LED's  and a lot of jumper wires. After hooking up everything as i saw it in the book, I encountered that it was not counting as it should so I kept playing with it, at first I thought it was because we didn't use a dip switch, we didn't use one because our instructor told us not to. So after a little trouble shooting I noticed that the LED's were lighting up but nothing was reading on the seven segment display. So I either had a bad display or something wired wrong. I pretty much ruled out the bad display seeings how I could have definitely wired it wrong, and I did. I had a power supply going to the led and counter but no power going to display. I grabbed a couple more power and ground wires and hooked up the VCC going into the display. Bingo it was working it was cool to watch it. As i flipped certain switches it would put out the decimal form of the binary code it counted 1-9. I was happy to see I could make something like that and get to watch it work. Best class thus far.

Exam

I got my exam back today, not as good as i thought i would do, but better than i would have done in high school. I got a B. I was hoping to get an A. I made some really dumb mistakes, you know the one where you get your paper back and you see the red scribbles all over your parer, and you think how did i miss that. I had a lot of those. It wasn't to bad because if you show your work she gives you some credit. I still wish i would have went back through and did all the problems over again. I only went back over the ones that i thought might be wrong. I got it back and wanted to kick my own ass. Stupid mistakes like not putting in a negative sign and stupid stuff. Things I should have know, things i should have just slowed down and read through the problem again and would have seen them. I know now for the next exam to just slow down, read all the way trough the problem and double check all the problems and triple check the ones I think could be wrong. I guess that is what college is about to live and learn.

I am pretty excited about doing this movie review thing. I was wonering what we were going to do next. I was hopeing when she was talking about movies that we would do something on a movie.I have always been a huge movie buff, it is cool that i was able to get American Reuion, I have watched all the other american pie movies. I have enjoyed them all. I think they were a big hit for 90's kids lol. I am going to take no sides when i watch this even though I like all the movies, thus far. It will be a little hard at first, but I am sure I can do it. It will be a good challenge for me. I know we were not supposed to pick movies that we liked but I couldn't resist. I haven't seen it yet so, I am pumped to watch it and see how it turns out, plus I get to write a review on it which should be fun. I am not to sure about the whole 3-4 pages thing, but I hope I can make it work. Happy movie watching to all.

So i have an exam coming up in my math class, not to sure about it. It is supposedly all fractions which, I really dislike. I'm in pre-algebra, so its not to hard. It is sort of a nice refresher from high school. I have been out of school for a long time. So starting off with this class is probably a good thing for me. I never really enjoyed math in high school either just never cared about all the different theory's and so forth, plus it was a little confusing. So I pretty much squeaked my way by, thinking when am I ever going to use this later in life. Man I was wrong. I have actually used a lot of what I learned in the real world. Now that I am going back to school, I wish i would have tried a little harder and payed more attention. Now that I am going into engineering I have to use a ton of math, and its not easy. I know that staying focused and working my tail off, hopefully I will come out of this with a nice degree. 
 

Digital Circuits #2

In my digital circuits class we are just finishing our first lab. We had to buy a breadboard, which is a little circuit board that you can plug different things into it like LED's,timers, compasitors, resisters and so on. You hook a power supply and a ground up to it and configure different simulations. It was hard at first but by the end i had alot better understanding of the lab. I got my LED to flash that was pretty neat. It is fun using the scope to watch the wave forms from the LED. From that we have to get our results. We had to find the period which is one whole wave from either the leading edge of the form to the next leading edge. We also had to find the duty cycle and frequency which are hard for me for some reason. After talking to a few guys from my class and one of our maintenance guys at work I am finally starting to figure out how to find the frequency. The only thing about the lab that i do not like is having to write everything down. We have to have a title page, we also have to do a pre-lab and a results and conclusion. All together it will be about three pages long. It seems like a lot just for a lab but i guess we have to do it so the teacher can see how we came to our conclusions and if we made any mistakes they would be easier to find and fix.

career #1

I got the job that i bid on at work today. What i means by bid is we have internal job postings with in the plant i work in. Some are promotional and some are like shift transfers and zone transfers. I put a bid in for a promotional job a few weeks back, it was for a setup position. A setup does things like change over assembly lines for different parts, clean molds for our rubber curing machines, and trouble shoot and fix basic problems like adjusting sensors, rebuilding dies it is really alot of work but it is going to be so worth it in the end. I have done this kind of work in the past I was a lead technician at a little factory in Ada, it was really fun we did all aluminum work there so it is a little different working with rubber. There is more quality issues when it comes to rubber alot of it you can't even seen so rubber will be a little more challenging. I really wanted this job, i enjoy working on and fixing machines a lot. Plus i think it will give me so much hands on experience to help with my degree. So that when i graduate I will already have some experience. Pretty exciting day for me.

Narrative

So i am kind of getting a little scared about the whole thing. I feel I am not going to do very well. We all of these readings we have been doing to help guide us to a perfect narrative. I still can not really get it down yet. I wrote my rough draft on Saturday and I read over it. I know it needs some major fixes. I just feel like writing is not one of my strong suites. Even though I kind of enjoy it. I feel it may be something I do in my spare time, not for a class. I guess i just put to much pressure on myself and i think it should be perfect. I should just lighten up and go with it but it is hard. If anyone has any suggetions they would be weclcomed greatly. Thanks

not my usaul saturday

So i used to try to get out of working on the weekends so I could go out with my friends and have a good time. Especially during football season I hated working on the weekends. So now I am trying to get out of working the weekends just so I can get caught up on my homework. Which I don't mind just because it is better than working, but I am still missing all my football games and I am not enjoying it!The end result is what I'm in it for anyways so hopefully the next 4 years fly by so I can have my saturdays back, and if all goes as planned I will not have to work any weekends.

In class writing #2

My high lighter  is very bright green in color. Its smooth round plastic case holds the green liquid. It really has no smell. I can not describe what it tastes like since I have never tried. If i was to guess i would imagine it not tasting very good kind of like celery i guess.I do not like celery it just has such a bitter taste to me. When you use it on certain paper it makes a weird noise, kind of like a squeaking sound. Not as bad as for say a chalk board and chalk, but softer.  I can use my high lighter in various ways, to mark something in a book that I am reading or to mark off something that i have done. I like it because it is transparent when put on paper allowing you to see what is being high lighted. So if I am reading something and come across a topic of interest i would be able to mark it. Then come back to it and be able to find it very easily without searching a lot. I find my high lighter very useful and I hope others do as well.

In class writing 1

I am  a little affraid of writing. As this class has been progressing I am feeling better about it. I feel that the writing and especially the readings we have been doing are a huge help. They are really on key to helping people with their fears. My biggest fear is all of the punctations and being able to use words in the right way. I feel more  and more confident every time I write. To be creative in my narrative I will make sure to describe the places and people I talk about, not just tell the story but let you almost live it. Since I have read the "Field Guide " I feel more comfortable in about being able to do so.  Looking back I really do not know why or where I lost my creativeness. Slowly I am gaining it back.

Nemats

That was a very good story. I have just finished Nemats “ Secondhand Bookseller”. You could really feel the passion in her words. She was very detailed when describing the secondhand book store. You could tell that it played a huge part in her life. She made you paint the scene in your head. It is amazing how just from one story you can learn so much about a person. Who they are, what they like and dislike, you could go on forever. It is always nice to learn things and to be able to look into someone else’s life through there words.  She could have told that story many different ways and the out come to the readers would have been different. Maybe she would not have went into so much detail describing the book store and how she traded her pencil box with the magnetic latch and scented eraser for money to buy the sequel to her book. We would have never got that picture in our heads. I feel that was a very well told story.