It's been a long time...

Hey everybody!

I know it's been awhile since I wrote on here, I've been extremely busy. So far, I'm doing ok in school, although I've been fighting a cold for the past two weeks. There have also been other issues that I've been dealing with that are making life kinda difficult. Well, other than that, I'm a few forms away from a job! Yaaaaay me lol. Anyway, if anyone wants to know what's up, leave me a note, drop an email, send me a message, or give me a call. I can get back with you as soon as I can, when I'm not in class of course lol. Well, until we meet again...

BCB

Thank God for Thursday ^_^

Hey everyone. You know what time it is ^_^

Thursday was a pretty good day. I got to my Google Earth tutorial a little late, but luckily, I didn't miss a thing ^_^ This tutorial is available online, so I can redo as much as I want, when I need to. The material had two levels: basic and advance. So I still have to do everything in it to be an intermediate coder in kml. Also, I did some island hopping in Second Life. I encourage everyone to make an avatar and at least take a few minutes to look at Second Life. Sure the graphics aren't great, but this is the closest you'll get to a real-world online environment. People buy and sell merchandise, and post different kinda of medium. Recording artists even have Second Life concerts, along with live feeds of their real concerts. I went to the island that the University of Alaska at Fairbanks bought, to see how much space I could use for my weather model. I'm thinking bout having a step-up like a Geo-wall: a series of panels connected like a room which could project a 3D area at all aspects. That would give me the space I want. After coming back from the office, the interns got together and ate homemade pizza and pasta salad made by Zach and Nathan, which was really good ^_^ Then we all went to the tv room to watch a movie called Pan's Labyrinth. It was a movie after the spanish civil war with a fairytale twist. It was a really good movie, and I would recommend everyone see it. After the movie, everyone chilled out in their room until they went to sleep. Well, gotta get rested for friday, it's DDR night!! Until we meet again....

BCB

Weird Wednesday....

Hey everyone ^_^ Back for another update....

Well, it's the middle of the week everyone, and boy was it dull. I really think I have a head cold now, because I didnt wake up until late yesterday. I continued to work though, configuring software and reading webpages. I just hope I'm not too far behind on the project. Nothing really happened today. I guess it was just a "bla" day.... Anyways, I really have to get up tomorrow, so until we meet again.....

BCB

Trivial Tuesday....

Hey everybody! I'm back again for another update....

Today I think was one of my not so good days. I could barely move this morning, my stomach was hurting, and I was cold almost all day. It was like the little effects I had yesterday were magnified. Everything was off today. It took me longer to do just about everything. I was running at about 45%, but luckily I could still work from my room. I *heart* laptops and the internet ^_^ Anyways, I did more reading up on the site i found the day before, and I setup my laptop so I could access the supercomputer "Midnight" from my room. Around 7 o'clock, Brian made chicken Caesar salad for everyone. And then at 8, we went to a coffee shop with one of the RAs in the building, Hannah, to hear some live music, which was pretty good. The mini band was recording a cd and giving the proceeds to their church. It was unfortunate that the cd wasnt done, because I would've bought one. After the brief outing, we came back to the dorms and eveyone scattered. Some people went to sleep, others did laundry, and some people just went back to their rooms to chill. I finished setting up my laptop and chatted with a few friends online. I should be going to sleep soon... Well, until we meet again people.....

BCB

Week Two......GO!

It's me again, here to give another update....

Monday, the start of a new research week. Today was really interesting. I actually got up on time today lol. I made it to my first tutorial, at 10, which was on manipulating WRF data on the Midnight cluster here at ARSC. WRF is the Weather Research and Forecasting model. This sytem allow one to predict the weather using a visualization tool and weather data. After the tutorial, I found some toolboxes for the Matlab software that may make my project a little easier. They are different toolboxes for the netCDF file extension, and a Google Earth toolbox. I also started doing research on how 3D visualization is achieved in Google Earth, but that didnt get too far. At lunch time I went to the Westridge Cafe and got pasta alfredo and garlic bread for lunch. Then I came back to the office, ate and started looking at the toolboxes, since the internet was down. Then we had a mini tutorial on basic tasks and navigation in the *nix command line, which was cool. I went back to my desk after the tutorial, where I met up with Dr. Newby. We further discussed the project, and he suggested some topics I should look up, and a few ARSC employees that I should meet within the next few days. I found some more sites to read, saved then to my main jump drive, and then I went to the dorms to take a nap, because I wasnt feeling well at the time. After my nap, a few of the interns got together to watch a few movies. The first movie was an anime called Grave of the Fireflies. This anime was really sad and depressing, but it was a good movie. Afther that, we decide to watch Kylie's Dane Cook DVD to lighten the mood lol. After the "movie night", I went back to my room, played a little DDR, a little Guitar Hero, and then my roommate Nathan, another intern, Stephanie, and I started watching an anime series called Elfen Lied. This is one of my personal favorites ^_^ We watched about two episodes before it got late. So I decided to type in my blog before I went to sleep. Well, until we meet again.....


BCB

First Weekend ^_^

Hey everyone ^_^ Just thought I would give a big update about the weekend, since it's the weekend ^_~ lol Ok, we start with friday. On friday, after the end of the workday, the interns and I were headed to the ARSC Ice Cream social. Unfortunately, I can't eat ice cream, but I settled for a nice bottle of root beer ^_^ Ok, after the ice cream social, we waited for about a half an hour until the REU interns were ready to leave to go to their coolout. We invited one of the REU interns, Brian, to our ice cream social, so he in turn invited us to the cookout. The cookout was at one of the REU mentor's house. The house was nice, and the food was great. We enven got a chance to try some moose! Surprizingly, it was beef but less salty ^_^, which was cool. After the cookout, we came back to the dorms and Art and Marice cooked macaroni -n- cheese and broccoli for dinner. The food, again, was great and then I stayed up as late as I could until I crashed lol.
On Saturday, I mostly stayed at the dorms because I was alseep while everyone else when out. I stopped at the office to use a scanner to scan a few pictures, and then I came back to the dorms. I met up with Brian again and he, Nathan, Art and I found Hannah, one of the RAs that worked in the dorm. She offered to show us here view of Fairbanks form her room so we obliged. While we were there, we had small talk about Fairbanks and the like. It was really interesting to hear about life in Alaska, and how cold it gets up here. After the mini room party, we headed to my room to burn some games so we could play them, in particular, Guitar Hero 2 ^_^ Nathan, Brian and I played that until Nathan left. Then we played Dance Dance Revolution, and Blitz: The League. Blitz: The League is by far, the second greatest Blitz game ever made ^_^ After that, I stayed up and downloaded games to my computer before I crashed and fell asleep.
On sunday, I woke up kinda late because of crashing again >_<>_< Oh, well. Maybe next time.... After Jeopardy, Brian, Nathan, Zack, and I went downstairs to the first floor lounge to play Guitar Hero 2. After everyone but Brian and I were left, we played Blitz the league again until we got tired. Now, I here, trying to decide whether to go to sleep or not, since I have a tutorial at 10 that I cant miss.... We'll find out what happens on the next post! Until we meet again....

BCB

Tiring Day

What's up everybody? Time for another update ^_^ Well, Things got off to a slow start because I was realy tired this morning. Note to all that read this post: Never play Dance Dance Revolution until 2:00 am, and stay up until 3:30-4:00 am. It's not good for the body or the mind. Anyways, I started my day around 11:45 am. I did the daily activities for the morning that everyone does, and then I walked to my workspace at the office. I tried to continue my research at the office, but I couldn't do everything that I wanted to do because the program I was using for one task was undergoing maintainence, and then the internet went down, so I couldn't really look for anymore information. Oh, but before the internet went down, I got to talk to my mentor, Dr. Newby. I gave him the updated info that I found before all of the road blocks appeared. It seems that there are different interfaces that can be used to either covert, or reconfigure the information from ARSC's weather data for implementation in Second Life and Google Earth. The only downfall for the Google Earth implementation is that we will have to use image layers instead of vector graphics. So no true 3D in Google Earth >_< But i guess it's ok because the visualization would take forever to load. After leaving the office, My room mate Nathan Shemonski, from Elon University, and I chilled in the room until dinner was ready. Then, we headed down to the kitchen to ear dinner. Two of the interns, Marice Uy from Smith College and Art Mahoney from Utah State University, cooked macaroni and cheese and broccoli. We also had tortillas and sauce. The food was great and everyone talked about different aspects of the day and events happening tomorrow like the ice cream social. After dinner, I decided to play some more DDR, but I downloaded some new songs so I could try them out. I am unfortunate to say that they are almost humanly impossible to play on a DDR pad, unless you practice. After I gased out, I decided to write my update and to catch my breath. Well, until we meet again....

BCB

Wednesday... Part 2

So.... I'm here for another update ^_^ I was very busy in the office after my last update. I found a couple of websites that I'm going to check out before I go to sleep. There was another event in the works the I am about to describe. Well, around 4:30, all of the interns packed in the van that we use to go...... Shopping!!!!!!! Well, it was food shopping, but we needed it all the same lol.
We went to the WalMart a few miles away from campus to stock up on supplies. I got mostly snack foods, or foods that didn't have to be cooked. I also got some water and juice, and cereal. I then went and got some detergent for washing my clothes. After everyone got their food, it started to rain as we were finishing up inside. By the time we were loading the food into the van, it was pouring outside. After the van was packed, and the people outside were throughly soaked, we make a quick stop at the outdoor store before going back to the dorms. There was a nice little task in front of the interns and I. We had to take up all the stuff we bought from the store, along with the different living articles that were stored for the interns from last year....in the pouring rain >_< When I got there, I have a phone conversation with my father. While I was back in the office, I saved the work I was working on onto my jumpdrive and left the office. The walk back was peaceful because It wasn't raining. I only realized that I left my jumpdrive in the Mac at the office when I got back to the dorms. So I went back to the office again. Only this time, it started raining harder than before, and it rained going to the office, and comming back. When I got back, I barely missed dinner. Everyone was looking for me when I got back lol. I was thinking about leaving after dinner, but that thought wasn't as dominate as getting my work so I could look at it later... Well, dinner was great, and now I'm sitting at my desk, looking at the info I got earlier. Well folks, until we meet again....

BCB

Wednesday....

Well, I'm back again. Just trying to write a quick update ^_^ Ok let's see, there was a tour of Fairbanks today around 12, which was really cool. We first stopped at the Botanical Gardens on campus and saw some Caribou there. Next we took the main road form campus to the "strip" as some would like to call it. There, we saw the main shopping district of Fairbanks. The had plenty of different stores, shops and eateries there, including, Taco Bell, Walmart and Barnes and Noble. After passing through the shopping district, we went downtown. There are some fairly new building there, along with more little shops and eateries. After that, we went to a hilly mountain side to view one of the main rivers in Fairbanks. It was a nice sight, but the river was a little lower than usual. After viewing the river, we saw the other side of campus where the Rec Center, Cafeteria, Fine Arts Building, Bookstore, and Student Center were located. After the quick view of the other side of campus we went to the UAF Large Animal Farm to view the Muskox. The Muskox have some of the softest underbelly fur in the state. But due to its ability to contain heat, it is very expensive. That was the last stop on the tour of campus/town. I really wish I had brought my camera along, but we will be doing the tour again, so the next time I mention the town tour, there will be pictures :-D Well, that is all for now. Until we meet again....

BCB

"How's the weather up there?"

Hey everybody. I know it's been awhile since I wrote on my blog, so I'm just going to give you a semi brief update. I here in alaska now, been here for about 2-3 days (depending on which time zone you're in). I met the other interns and my advisor for the duration of the internship. My advisor/mentor's name is Dr. Greg Newby, and he has picked a very cool project for me to do. I will be attempting to visualize weather data on Google Earth! So I get to make some sort of simulation that actually shows semi-live weather! Also, Dr. Newby wants to have this visualization done in Second Life, which is a 3d online community. I've been asleep for a few hours, recuperating from the TeraGrid group competition. It took hours.... and we didnt get all of the problems done.... I guess it just wasnt our day lol. Anyways, we'll still be in the top three ^_^ so im not too worried. Today, I'll be prepping the two computers that I will be using for my internship and playing around with Google Earth and Second Life. If anyone wants to know more, either call me or send me a message.

By the way.... The weather is practically perfect! And so is the view!

BCB

Travel Clock Ticking Away...

Well, school's out, and everyone is ready for the summertime. I'm just counting down the time I have at home until I go to Alaska for my internship. I'm excited and afraid at the same time. But in the end, it's for the greater good. I just know I'm going to miss DC though...

BCB

College and more

Well, the school year is almost over, and it's crunch time!!!! I ready for the year to be out so summer can start! I've got an internship in Alaska, so if anyone wants to meet up before June 3, let me know. Ten weeks in Alaska.... I hope it's not too cold...

BCB

Website Basic is Up!!!

The basic page is ready to view. Like I said before, there's more to come....

BCB

Hiya ^_^

Hey everybody! This is my first of many posts on my new site BCB Corner! I'm still working on the site as we speak, so look out for more expansion. If all goes well, I'll have links to images, and a working mp3 player. More content coming soon... Tell me what you think. Also with this blog, I'll be keeping you up to date on....ME lol. Until then, this is Bryan Christopher (Laptop) Bemley signing out....