Break

I know that everyone is counting down for this up coming week of Heaven. We only have five days until we have no test, no homework, and no classes and last, but defiantly not least, no eight a.m. classes! I do not know about you all, but I am ready to sleep in, and when I do wake up I am going to freak out for a few seconds because I forgot to do something for class, but then remember that I am home. I am sure there are people here at Virginia Tech, but I am excited to be going home. I am ready for home cooked meals, waking up to the smell of bacon that my mom is cooking, and most of all seeing my dog, Chief. He is old, fat and lazy and I am so excited to see his tall go in a circle like a helicopter when I go outside to say hi to him. Don’t get me wrong I miss my parents too, but I just saw them last weekend when they came here for my birthday and I have not seen Chief in months.
Let’s talk about the dorm situation. I am not looking forward to eating everything in my refrigerator before I leave because for whatever reason we have to unplug our refrigerators. Why they make us do random crap beats me. We have to shut the windows, so now my room is going to be stuffy when we return in a week. We have to take all valuables which is ridiculous because as college students the only thing of worth we own is our computers and text books and with exams coming up our laptops are going to be with us and so are our text books. What else is left that is valuable? We also have to hide all our “code violations” that are usually really stupid code violations. Like drop cords why the h e double hockey stick are we not allowed to have a drop cord? Are they afraid we are going to trip? We have about a million things plugged into surge protectors, but one drop cord is too much. I learned today that it is ok to have empty liquor bottles in your dorm, but you are not allowed to have empty beer paraphernalia. That is stupid!
I am not looking forward to packing for next week. I know I am going to forget something such is my fan which I desperately need to take, or my cell phone charger which happens regularly. I am going to dread packing my school stuff because I say that I am going to say I am going to study, but I know that I am not going to open a single book. Dirty clothes are a necessity to pack one because I need something to wear while I am at home and two I would not have any clothes to wear once I got back to school.
There is not much I am going to miss about Virginia Tech next week. I am going to miss the freedom of doing what I want. There is a slim chance to none that I am going to miss the food. I though Tech was suppose to have the best food on the east coast or something. I am going to miss the free access to a gym because I do not think that I am a member o f the YMCA anymore. I doubt I will miss the late nights because I will probably still stay up late. The thing I will miss the most though is the time I get to spend with Sarah. We will might see each other once or twice while we are there and that is hard to do since I am use to seeing her every day. I hope I will be missing this blog next weekend. I would love not having to write one next week and the week after next.
Now on the first day of break I am traveling to University of Virginia to watch New Moon, with some of Sarah’s friends. Not looking forward to that at all, but I will have at least one other gut there to make fun of the movie with. If it is as bad as the first one though I might walk out and go hang out with a friend that goes there. What the worse thing about going to see this movie is that after a movie that will make me poke my eyes out I will have to drive for at least three more hours, but when I do get home I know that it will be worth it.
I know that my dad has plans for me and my brother the week we are there. We get the privilege and the honor of helping our dad put in windows at our house. That is what I like to call a good time. I am sure I will enjoy it to some extent, but my dad gets in like a work mode and that mode is not a fun mode. It is a strict, no humor, get the job done mode. Which can be good, but it takes the fun out of working with your dad and brother. I know that he also might have plans for us to go hunting that I am excited about. I have not been hunting yet this year and I really miss doing it. I do not know what else I have planned for break, but I am sure that it will be fun and hopefully it will be in the afternoon. I shall see you all in class tomorrow. Have a great night’s sleep. Goodnight group one.

Sequels
This week I would like to talk about sequels specifically what is the decision process of making a sequel. Also I would like to run through some good sequels or what I consider good sequels and bad sequels. What I do not understand is what directors or writers are thinking when they write for sequels. Maybe they do not care what they write because the first movie made a lot of money so it does not matter what they write about. Maybe sequels are rushed so they do not get as much thought put into them. I do not understand how some sequels are just as good as the first movie and then there are some sequels that make you feel like you wasted part of your life. For example: Bad Boy is a great movie, but I have to say that Bad Boys II is better. That is a great sequel, but then you have movies like Next Friday and Friday After Next, these movies are not that good. Grant it that Friday was not that good, but given that the producers and writers should have stopped there.
Now let us talk about epic movies that should not have sequels but end up having them. Shrek, that has to be one my favorite Disney movies, but it should not have had a sequel. The first one was too grand to have a sequel. Another example would be The Mask, which is a great movie and funny, maybe a little over played, but still good. What were the writers thinking though when they decided to make The Son of the Mask? I do not understand what was going through their head that made them think that was going to be a good song. Now this is a big one; Grease 2. Now that was an epic fail. The first Grease was great and I am not ashamed to say that I like it, but I can never force myself to push pass the first fifteen minutes of Grease 2. I think that writers and producers should let the “people” vote if there is a sequel or not, or run the sequel story line through a select few hundred people.
Moving on to movies that have good sequels what at least descent sequels to lighten the frustrated mood I am now in. I am going back to the Bad Boys example. Both of the movies were good, they did not connect to each other, but they did not have need to, to be as good as they were. I think that Toy Story and Toy Story 2 were good movies and there was nothing wrong with having a sequel to the first one. I also think that the Aladdin movies were well written and did not get worse with the sequels. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies were pretty good. I know that a lot of people do not like the sequels to the first one, but I think all the movies are good. I also think that The Matrix movies were good. The sequels had a purpose and were finishing the story. I think it is fine to have sequels if the sequels are answering questions to the first movie.
I do not know if movies are considered sequels if they are based on books, but if they are I have to say I like those sequels. The Harry Potter movies are good and I like that, in my opinion, the movies are better than the books. I feel like I cannot bash The Lord of the Rings just because so many people love those movies, but personally I think they are long and boring. I also like the Bourne Identity movies, and I like that they finally give you all the answers at the end of the third movie.
I would just like for the people in charge of sequels to put more thought into what movies should have sequels and what movies should not have sequels. I understand that there are going to be duds and not everyone is going to like every move that comes out, but all that is need is a little more effort and thought. If I have missed any disastrous sequels please let me know. I feel like this is a good topic to get frustrated with and not cause any stress to yourself and others.

Christianity
After reading Scott’s blog in class Friday I thought I would write about Christianity and maybe have big blog discussion with Scott. If anything I say offends people I am sorry. I am not trying to, but I do not think that will happen; I am not going to try and convert anyone. I am just giving my opinion.
In class Scott said that he thought the God was selfish, and he is right. God is selfish, but he is not selfish like we are selfish. We are selfish in the way where we do not want to share our belongings, money, we do not care about others, and we are concerned about ourselves and no one else. God is not like that at all. God is selfish in the way that he wants us (everyone on earth) to love and glorify Him. After all he did create us and did create earth for us to leave so that is the least we could do. God does not want us to worship another god, or have false ideals. He just wants us to put Him first in our lives. Other than that God is the farthest from selfish than anyone can ever imagine. He let his only Son die for us. How can that be selfish? Could anyone let their son or daughter die for the rest of the world and just let it happen? I know I could not, but God can because He loves us. He let that happen so we would be saved from our sins even though we do also appreciate and love Him the way he deserves. If I am misinterpreting what was meant by selfish, I apologize. I am just taking it how it sounded to me.
I do not understand how god is picky. He does not choose the people who are going to be Christians; He simply gives us the choice to believe in Him or not. God does choose who enters Heaven or not, but is based on who is a believer and who is not a believer.
I do agree with Scott that people are hypocrites because “for all have sinned and falls short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). There has only been one man to walk this earth without sinning and that is Jesus Christ. That is why he was able to save us from our sins. Yes Christians are sinners just like non Christians, and we try to make the right decisions and choose the right path, but we do not always succeed in that. I am sorry that we do not always set the example that we should.
It is ridiculous that people do not like to send the text or emails about God, but will send jokes like it is nothing. I think it is because people are afraid of the confrontations. I know that does not make it right, I am just trying to wonder why.
People go to Hell because they do not believe in God. It is not because God does not love that person; it is because that person does not love God. No one deserves to go to Heaven to begin with, but God has invited to spend eternity there with Him and all we have to do is love Him and believe that He died to save us from our sins.
I do not think it is funny that missionaries die from telling their faith to other nations, but if it is part of God’s plan then it is going to happen. The missionaries that have died because of what they believed in had fulfilled what God had planned for them. Those missionaries are now in a much better place than we are.
The Bible was written by people who lived in that time and was written by people who experienced those unique events. It is like a newspaper in that it tells facts, but it is not just stories; it is a book that can give someone eternal life.
It is funny that people can trash God and then wonder why the world is going to Hell. I do not think is funny so much, but sad because the answer is right in their face. I do not know why people like to bash God so much. Maybe they do it because they are afraid and do not want to blame their selves. People might just not understand what God is and what He does so they follow the crowd and bash God. I do not understand why people like to talk so bad about Him when He made you and everything for you. It is like the people that talk bad about their parents when they do not get what they want. Their parents are the ones who feed them, cloth them, give them shelter and all some people can do is talk crap about their parents. It really frustrates me, but I know parents can annoy us sometimes, but people still need to respect them.
Scott I do not understand how you can believe in Jesus, but not believe in God, but that is a different discussion. I really hope that Scott and I can talk about this because I do enjoy having religious discussions, but some of the discussions I have ends up getting into an argument because some people take what I say the wrong way. Again I am sorry if I offended someone that is not my intent. I know I said I am not trying to convert anyone, but if anyone has any questions or wants to talk about something I said I would be happy to talk. I know I do not have all the answers, but I do not mind finding the answer and I am not a person who will feed people some crap because I do not know something. So if I do not know the answer to the question I will say I do not know. Looking forward to another discussion Scott.

I am starting my blog rather early this Sunday. I usually start around ten-thirty or eleven and finish with plenty of time to get it turned it, but today I have no clue what I am going to right about. I could write about my week and how busy it was, but that is boring and I have written about it before. What I can write about though is that Thursday was Sarah’s, my girlfriend, and my one year anniversary.
Sadly, on Thursday, we could not celebrate our anniversary because we were so busy, so we planned our date for Friday. I took her favorite restaurant, Olive Garden, and then we went to a movie. I know it does not sound special, but it was nice to be away from campus and alone. We both had a delicious dinner at Olive Garden, leaving stuffed and completely satisfied. We then went to get tickets for Couples Retreat. The movie was hilarious and is defiantly something everyone should go see. If you have not heard about this movie I will give you a short summer. Four couples go to this resort that is a couples strengthening island. They have to attend different activities to help out their relationships. It is a great movie with every scene making you laugh. After the movie we rode around thinking about how we got together and what we had gone through together in the past year.
We met in ninth grade when I moved to Smithfield. She was in my band class. She seemed nice, and apparently I was a jerk to her, but I have no recollection of that happening. We never really talked, until our senior year, when we met again at my friend’s party. We stayed up watching Hitched, making jokes, laughing together at the movie. We really enjoyed that night together. I walked her out to her car and kissed her before she left and said we should try to go out sometime, but like an idiot I forgot to get her numbered. Luckily, I was good friends with one of her best friends so she got my number from her. I got a text from her the next night and we started talking and within a few days we went out on are first date. I knew on our first date that we would work; we clicked from the beginning and never had any problems.
I think what helped our relationship ski rocket was that my parents accepted her and liked her and her parents did the same for me. He dad gives me a hard time just because I am dating his daughter, but I know that he likes me. My parents were great to Sarah. Her and my mom get along great and she is starting to warm up to my dad. We have gone on trips with each other’s families, and have met other people in our extended families.
Sarah came to North Carolina with us, where my grandparents leave. She spent a week with us there, getting to know my grandparents, try seafood, and going to the beach. We did actually go swimming because it was in December, but one day we went to different beaches around the area. We walked together along the beaches talking about everything. When we went back to Smithfield, we talked about love, both wanting to say it, but we were too afraid too. It waited another month before we told each other that we loved one another.
I never thought that I would find the woman I would love and spend the rest of my life with so early, but it makes me so happy that I have found my love. I am excited to spend the rest of my life with her. I love her and I am glad to have spent the last year with her and I know that it is just the beginning of our life together.

Analyzing an Argument

Martin Luther King Junior is a well respected man that has many famous quotes and arguments. He always challenged white Americans to change their ways of think, and always challenged black Americans to stay strong in their faith and trust that change will come. He has a quote that applies to everyone and that will never lose its power in its meaning. Dr. King said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” He is clearing making an argument for people not to be silent. He is saying that people need to speak up and speak their mind, but I think that he clarifies it nicely that people need to do it when it matters.
One argument that could be made for this quote is that if people to do not say what is on their mind and have some meaning in their life, then they are just living to die. He is saying speak up, have a voice in something that matters and then you will be living. Martin Luther King Junior was defiantly not silent about anything. He spoke up and fought for something that matter, not only to him, but to thousands of other people. Although he lived a relatively short life, he lived his life to the fullest and he never started to end his own life by not speaking up. Fellow students, in various classes, that just sit at their desk, write notes, and not say a word, are the people Dr. King is talking to. He is saying that they need to speak up and have a voice in the class because that class does matter to them, otherwise they would not be there. Also, people who just float through life not standing up for what they believe in are just living to die and started to end their life when they were able to have opinions. The main point of this argument is that people need to not be silent about what is important because you are just waiting for your life to end otherwise.
Another argument could be that you can say something about anything. He said, “… about things that matter.” There are many things that matter to some people that do not matter to others. An example of someone speaking up for something that mattered to them was Kanye West speaking at the 2009 MTV Awards. Apparently it mattered to him that Beyonce wins the Woman’s Video of the Year award. Everyone else may have just been proud of Taylor Swift for winning, but Kanye strongly felt that Beyonce should have won. He spoke up, maybe at the wrong time, but he spoke up about something that mattered to him. Another example is people saying something to others form killing a bug. It is just a bug and there are probably millions or billions of that bug somewhere else, but to some people that bug matters to them. Although it is a little ludicrous to care about something like that, there are people in the world that it does matter and they do care about it. There are also other more important things for people to speak up about such as who to elect for president, how to save fossil fuels, how to stop pollution, or deciding what is better, Pepsi or Coca-Cola.
I think that Dr. King had no hidden arguments in his quote, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” I do not think that this quote was meant to be analyzed, but I do think it has a great message and that it is very true. I agree that people need to speak up because there is never going to be change or things are never going to get better if people do not speak up about the things that matter. People who stay silent do start to end their life because they are not expressing their selves and I think for someone to express their self they need to speak up on things that not only matter to them, but matter to everyone. A more literal example of the meaning of his quote is victims of some form of abuse, sexual, physical, or emotional. People who are being abused, but do not speak up about it are literally starting the end of their lives. With the sexual abuse and emotional abuse, there can be a mental stress on the victim and cause severe depression which can lead to death. Physical abuse can also lead to death, but for more obvious reasons. Another example is when people wait to speak up about a problem or topic until that problem affects them. By the time they have spoken up it is probably too late.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” This is a powerful argument that challenges people to stand up for something they believe in. It may not be the most important subject, but just something that matters someone. When people do not speak up they are doing an injustice to themselves because they are not living they are just existing and to live people have to take a stand.

In engineering exploration, we have a research project about sustainable energy. We had to choose from wind power, solar power, hydropower, geothermal power, and biomass power. The group I am working with decided to choose hydropower. Hydropower is using the movement of water to create an electric current. We met Thursday to start the research and to figure out what we needed to do. We found resources for the research and we started looking over the material. As I was looking over the information I began to get excited about the project. The process of converting kinetic energy into an electric current is fascinating to me. It is not a very difficult process to understand, but there is just something about it that is intriguing. We decide to meet back up Sunday night and finish the research, and as we are looking up it began to appeal to me even more.
For hydropower to work, obviously there needs to be moving water. There also has to be a turbine and a generator. There are three different types of hydroelectric power plants. They are dams, pump storage, and tidal plants. Each plant uses a different technique, but all of the plants are doing the same basic principles. All the plants have water passing a turbine propeller which causes it to spin. A shaft is connected to the turbine and rotates when the propeller rotates. The shaft is connected to the generator shaft which has electromagnets attached to it. In a generator there is a conductor, which is usually copper wiring, and there is the shaft that has magnets connected to it. As the magnets spin passing the copper wiring it creates an electric current and to use that current power lines are connected to the generator to put the current on the power grid. That is what all the plants have in common, but what they do not have in common is how they get the turbine to spin.
Dams use falling water to spin the turbine. A dam can be built across a river and the flowing water will go into the penstock, which is tunnel in the dam that is at an angle to get the water to flow faster. At the bottom of the penstock is the turbine which makes the rotate the shaft which starts the process I described earlier. Pump storage plants seem counterproductive to me, but they must not be if they are being use convert energy to electricity. A pump storage plant has to reservoirs, an upper and a lower. Generators rotate the turbine in the opposite direction to pull the water from the lower reservoir to the upper one. After all the water has been transferred to the upper reservoir the water falls past the turbine causing it to spin the correct way, which activates the generators. The tidal power plants use the tides to create electricity. As the tide rises a basin is filled with water and when it gets full a sluice gate is closed to trap the water in the basin. After the tide goes back down the sluice gate is open causing the water to pass through the turbine cause the shaft to the generator to spin.
The up side to using hydropower is that there are no chemicals emitted into the atmosphere, the collecting pool can be used to harvest fish, and that there is little maintenance to be done. The down side is that it is very expensive and it destroys habitats for the wildlife and for humans. I think what as the most interest for me is trying to make these types of plants more environmental friendly. I would also like to help in finding a way to increase the amount of electricity being made so that we will not have to keep burning fossil fuels and destroying our ozone layer. Something else that interested me was the future of hydroelectric energy.
A new way of getting energy from moving water is verdant power. Verdant power is creating a wind field under water. It has a lot of turbines set up at the bottom of a river, creek, cannel, or ocean and the current passing through the turbines would create the power. This is for environmental friendly because there is plenty of room for fish to swim in between the turbines. The only problem is that this does not produce as much energy as a dam does.
I think that becoming an ocean engineer or a mechanical engineer would be the best route if I wanted to pursue my interest in hydropower. I think that this project for engineering exploration will help me find the field of engineering I would like to be. Up until the past week or two I had no idea what kind of an engineer I wanted to be. I am leaning towards mechanical engineer, just because there are more options and if I get bored with something I can always find a new project to work on. I think that becoming a mechanical engineer will help me become a more diverse person and give me more opportunities for jobs.

Two weeks ago Sarah got a phone call from her mom informing her about her niece’s birthday party was going to be two weeks from then. Sarah did come out and say she wanted to go to the party, but she gave me that look that meant, “We are going to go!” Just so it was clear, I asked her if she wanted to go to the party and I still did not get an answer I just got another look. This look was another one of those looks that was saying we are going, but is meant to look like a question. So we started to make plans to go to Maryland this weekend and see her niece for her first birthday.
So we would not have to drive so much today, we asked Sarah’s grandparents, who live in Richmond, if we could stay with them Saturday night and then just ride up to Maryland with Sarah’s parents Sunday morning. After sleeping in Saturday morning, resting up for the long drive, Sarah and I got packed and started our drive to Richmond. We left around noon so of course we had to stop at Olive Garden to have lunch. After our fantastic meal we realized that it was ridiculously cold outside, so we drove over to Old Navy and picked up warmer shirts for the drive.
Since we were going to her grandparent’s house we took a different route than I usually take. I usually take Interstate 81 to Highway 460, but we went to 64 from 81 and I think just because I have never driven that way before it felt like we were going to be driving forever. I hate feeling like a trip is going to take a long time just because it takes away all the fun from the trip. On top of driving a way I have never gone before, it was raining and foggy. I do not mean a little foggy, I mean really foggy. There was one time where I could not see ten feet in front of the car. While we were in the dense fog, Sarah was nervous and making me more tense driving in it, but after about ten min, what seemed like an hour, we got out of the fog. After about three hours we made it to her grandparent’s house with just enough time to see the last half of the Virginia Tech, Miami game. It was a great game, and it was nice to see Tyrod Taylor playing better. That was only the third time I have seen her grandparents and they are nice people, but it was just a little uncomfortable staying there. I had no clue what to call them. I did not know if I could call them grandpa and grandma or Mr. and Mrs. Tiice, which I had forgotten their last name so I could not even call them that. Once I got settled in though, I was more relaxed and felt comfortable talking to them, but I still did not know what to call them.
Sunday morning came; we were back on the road heading to Maryland. The trip to Maryland was not too bad, but that was just because I was not driving. I was dreading the driving today, just because I knew we would be on the road pretty much all day. It was only about a two hour drive to Ernie and Rachel’s house, the parent’s of Sarah’s niece. When we got there, most of the family and friends were already there. It was not long until we got to have hamburgers and some delicious beans. It was only mildly uncomfortable meeting so many people, but everyone I met was very nice. Addison, Sarah’s niece, had grown since the last time I saw her and had gotten more of a temper. The first time I met her she was the calmest and nicest baby I had ever met, but today she was a cranky little thing. All in all her party went well. Sarah enjoyed visiting with her family, and her family loved being with her. I know her dad would have preferred for me to not be there, but he handled it well. When we headed back to Richmond I made sure that I took a nap so I would not be so tired driving back to Tech.
Once we got to Sarah’s grandparent’s house we said our goodbye’s then left. Once we got twenty or thirty minutes down the road, I realized that we left our lap tops back at the house. So we turned around grabbed the lap tops and started the trip again. The trip started off bad just because I was in a bad mood. We stopped in Charlottesville to have dinner and to fill up with gas. The hull at night was not as bad as it was Saturday. We were glad to get on 81 because we knew we only had about an hour left. When we pulled into the Lane Stadium parking lot we were thrilled to be back. When we got back to the dorm I jumped right on my computer and started writing about my excellent weekend. I knew that it would be the best and easies t thing to write about this late at night. I probably should have written my blog on the trip to Maryland, but the rushed writing always makes me feel good. I need to start writing these earlier in the week.