Life with Zach: 2.0 (or maybe 3.0? 4.5?)

Yeah, quite a bit has happened since my last update on this blog. I’ve used a few different services out there to write out my life stories, yet due to various reasons, I’ve fallen back on the good ‘ole trusty WordPress blog.

If you happen to be one of the (lucky) few who are unaware of my situation, I’ve been accepted to LSU and will be moving to Baton Rouge in the fall. Yes, the only one in my family born and raised in California is finally following the path and moving back to the south. First I’ll be moving to Vicksburg, Mississippi with my parents before school officially starts, mostly to help reduce costs and make sure the transition is smooth enough.

With the idea that I’ll be in a town that has about the same number of people as my high school, I figured I might have some free time to actually dedicate to a blog. I’m talking the whole nine yards…videos and everything. As far as what the videos and blogs will be about, who knows. I’m thinking of exploring as much of this city as possible. There is quite a bit of histroy here, and I fully expect to be endowed with it.

I did happen to sell my dSLR a few weeks ago so you’ll have to bear with iPhone and MacBook quality pictures, but I think they’ll suffice for a while. Videos will be done with the MacBook as well, as HD Video Cameras are pretty expensive and I’m…pretty broke. Very broke, actually. I hate money.

I’m heading back to Los Angeles tomorrow for the Fourth of July. Interesting note – the town of Vicksburg hasn’t celebrated July the 4th since 1863, primarily because it was the home to a decisive Northern victory during the Civil War. Yes, you heard right…they’ve been bitter about surrendering for ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTY-SIX YEARS. I’m not one to argue what’s right and wrong in this case, I just think that’s an astounding fact.

So, life with Zach.

Alright, I don’t have all the time in the world here (and neither do you) so I’m just going to make alist of things that have happened recently. Hopefully you find something interesting, most likely you won’t.

College:
Finished and submitted my applications to CSUN, UCB/UCLA/UCSD/UCI, MIT and CMU
Recently accepted to CSUN (waiting to hear back on the others).

School:
Doing fine in every single class expect for Calculus, I think I just have to buckle down and keep studying. It’s pretty hard, sadly.

Robotics:
We’re having trouble, to be quite honest. Parts aren’t getting finished as fast as we’d hoped…nor to the tolerance that we require. Design is a bit slow, but I cant fault anyone for that. Hopefully we’ll pull it out in the end. We’ve lost at least an entire week and a half already, thanks to finals and teacher obligations, so who knows how this season will turn out.

Personal:
I’ve lost 90 pounds in the past two and a half months (intended). Feels great to be healthy and at the sub 160 weight category. Coming from 240 pounds, I was extrmeley unhealthy and lethargic. I feel incredible and am thankful for everyone who helped me through it.

Okay, thats a lot of shit…I’m tired. If you’ve got any questions, post ‘em. Look for a new post tonight…and update on what I’ve been doing for fun!

What a busy bee.

Life has been absolutely ridiculous over the past few months. I’ll try to update later tonight, and from then on at least once every three days or so.

Writing in a blog is good exercise.

Universal-ly Idiotic

Okay, I can understand that simple fact that a majority of CEO’s are blatantly ignorant of technology. That is to be expected, right? Most of them are over the age of 65 and have no time to learn how the internet works (a series of tubes, anyone?) much less care to learn about it. However, nymag.com just did an article where one of their journalists interviewed the CEO of Universal who decided to disclose the discrete fact  he may be the most ignorant individual to have ever existed.

To steal a quote from the article…

“There’s no one in the record industry that’s a technologist,” Morris explains. “That’s a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn’t. They just didn’t know what to do. It’s like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?”

Personally, I would hire a vet. But to Morris, even that wasn’t an option. “We didn’t know who to hire,” he says, becoming more agitated. “I wouldn’t be able to recognize a good technology person — anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me.”

Source -nymag.com article

I really shouldn’t be so shocked at this, but I just…don’t want to believe it. This guy has been paid millions and millions of dollars, and couldn’t be bothered to do twenty minutes of Google-fu. He really wants us to believe that one of the most powerful media companies in the world couldn’t spent somewhere in the neighborhood of a (maximum) 100 man hours to find an individual who was intelligent, responsible, and tech-competent? No fucking wonder these companies are complaining about losing millions of dollars to piracy, how can you expect to have a profit when your CEO remains ignorant despire the answer remaning in his face?

I’m sorry…but fuck that. Doug Morris (Universal’s CEO) could have done much better, and he should be ashamed.

Gotta’ spend that money.

Goddamn Black Friday brings out the worst in people. I finished my Thanksgiving dinner early (at around 4P.M) so I decided to go camp out at Fry’s (Woodland Hills, CA) at around 5:30 P.M on Thursday. When I had gotten in line, I was about 20th (I was surprised there were that many people there so early, but it wasn’t bad). None of the items I had in mind were particularly rare or “doorbusters”, so I wasn’t too worried.

For the next 10 or so hours we did the usual watch iPod / read books / talk to friends (who joined with me about 30 minutes after I got there) and it seemed to be going alright. People were cutting ahead of us / letting their friends stand in line with them, but someone always spoke up and made them leave, so I wasn’t once concerned that I may end up not getting the items I wanted.

Of course, nothing is that easy, right?

At about 4A.M (an hour before Fry’s opened) all of the people at the front of the line began to put away their equipment (tents / chairs) etc and I suppose it caused a panic with every around because everyone started to push forward and clump together at the front of the line. People were hopping the faux-fence built with carts, climbing over each other, sliding along the wall etc to get to the front. By the time it had become compact enough for me to barely breathe, I would say I had become about 70th in line. I was standing behind two woman complain about “getting to Fry’s at 11pm and waiting forever only to be cut by people who just got here!” I had been waiting since 5 and I just bit my lip and shook my head. This was all an hour before the store even opened, so I was terrified for what was to come once they opened the floodgates.

Cue pushing, shoving and general uncomfortable-ness for an hour, and when 5AM came around they opened the door. Went absolutely ape shit and started throwing eachother on the ground etc. I was pushed from behind and almost stepped on / fell on a 7 or 8 year old kid, luckily I dived to the side and didn’t end up killing anyone at Fry’s. An employee helped me up and I (luckily) was able to snag the items I wanted. All around I saw people clawing over items and fighting, while I happily grabbed the items that I wanted (which happened to have plenty of stock) so I wasn’t ever really worried about it.

I ended up purchasing:

24 pk of AA batteries $5.99 + $5.99 MIR = Free
Kenwood car stero w/ front AUX port = $80.00
Buffalo 500GB External HD = $80.00
Emprex 4GB USB Flash Drive = $37.99 + $20.00 MIR = $17.99 AR
GQ 16x DVD-R 100 pack = $19.99 + $10.00 MIR = $9.99 AR
Samsung 2232GW (22″ Widescreen, 3000:1 contrast ratio, 2ms response time) = $300 + $50.00 MIR = $250.00 AR

for a total of approximately $600.

I also purchased a 4GB SDHC card and Canon Powershot SD1000 (Black) for $192.00 from CircuitCity (online, thank god).

I then went over to Guitar Center and purchased two Yamaha unpowered speakers for $150 each, talked the merchant into $320 out the door.

Overall, I spent approximately $1,000 on Black Friday, and hope that the deals I got were as good as I think they were, because they honestly were not worth the cold / wait…

Mutiny

deepest is the ocean when
the plank bears
one’s own mortal mass

by Lawful Judas from Something Awful.

Gotta Make That Money

So yesterday, FRC Team #0004 ELEMENT spend the entire day going around to the local business communities trying to get any support that we could to fund our upcoming build season. In January, FIRST gives us our new game and objective, and we have 6 weeks to design, fabricate and assemble a fully functional 120lb robot. Then, for the next two months, we compete at various regionals all over the world including Brazil, Israel and the U.K, eventually hoping to gain a spot into the international Championships in Atlanta, Georgia.

Unfortunately, it costs about $25,000 every year to participate and we always have to make an extra push  to make our goal, so we did what practically every team has to do; we put on a funraiser! We went to many of the “mom n’ pop” shops around here, and a few of the Corporate stores, and asked for anything that we could get in terms of a donation or sponsorship and tried to come out with something we could show.

In the end, we came out with about 50 baskets worth of items. We plan to auction the baskets off at our Monte Carlo Casino Night (November 17th, from 6PM to 10PM at HTH-LA). It was approximately $1,500 worth of things, so we hope that we can get about $5,000 just from ticket sales and another $1,000 from the silent auction. I’ll make a post here once we’ve tallied how much we made, and can hopefully report back to you on the success.

Other than that, I’ve been saving like crazy for this years Black Friday. I have about $600-$700 saved for it, and am hoping that I can pick up a few nice things this year. Best Buy, Circuit City and Target so far seem to be catching my attention, with a $400 laptop @ BB, $90 for 500GB External HD @ Target and some decent 22″ Widescreen LCD’s @ CC. We’ll see where we’re headed to once Fry’s releases their ad, along with Wal-Mart (though they are being quite stingy with their release). If you want a good website for the newest BF ads, just check out BFAds.net, as they’ve been a great organizer of all of the ads that have gone into circulation so far.

Monopolistic Competition

So today was quite the long day. It started off with my idiot self waking up about an hour late for the SAT II Subject Tests (thanks CollegeBoard!) and having to take three separate subject tests. I took Literature first, which was fairly difficult, but I think did alright. Next up was the Mathematic Level II test, which I think I did horrible on. I left at least 10 questions blank (more like 12) and am sure that there were more than that wrong. Finally, I attempted the Biology: Ecology subject test, which I think I did just as poorly on.

Anyways, after SAT II’s, I attended a (sadly) extremely boring workshop at CSUN on FIRST Robotics motors, that couldn’t keep my interest for longer than two minutes at a time. Boring information that I already know, combined with the fact that I was already exhausted from the SAT’s created one hell of a time for me.

Following that John C/B hurried back to my house where we began work on our Economics “SOAP” (Student Oriented Advertising Project), which just happens to be to create a fictional shampoo product and create an advertising campaign. Our advertising campaign is centered around our fictional product of the “VICE” shampoo line, with a tag line of “Take a walk on the wild side, take up a VICE.” It’s supposed to be marketed towards a similar market group as Axe / TAG, so we believe we’re on the right track. We wrote out our radio script which went throguh very easily and smoothly. Then we began working on our poster ad, which is going to be the hardest for us, seeing as how none of us in the group are particularly creative. I’ve posted a link to what we have so far (and believe me, I know it’s not much at all), but if you have any advice, please do share!

Otherwise, not a bad day I suppose. Interesting and long.

Alive 2007

November 19th (World), November 20th (Digital U.S) and December 4th (Physical U.S). Those are the most important dates in my book right now. On those days, Daft Punk’s new album Alive 2007 will be released (in the respective areas). I’m fairly certain its a record of their live performance from Bercy, Paris and the Deluxe edition will contain the awesome footage from the NYC show that hundreds of fans filmed for them. Awesome, please go out and support your robot overlords. (I think I’m going to be buying this album twice…once on the 20th and I already have it pre-ordered from Amazon for the physical copy). It’s worth it though, holy shit is it worth it.

Vegoose: Best Performance of 2007

This is quite possibly the most cliché thing I could say, but I’m going to say it anyways; a picture is worth 1,000 words. And this picture from Daft Punk‘s performance at Vegoose 2007 is worth so much more than that. This was my third time seeing them, and each time it has gotten that much better.

The day started at around 4:30 A.M when my Dad woke John C. and I up to begin getting ready. We left Northridge at around 5 and were in Vegas by 10. We checked into the hotel (Four Seasons, top 4 floors of Mandalay Bay). We ate some breakfast and then headed over to the Sam Boyd Stadium (where Vegoose was taking place).

We get in line, and about after 20 seconds of waiting, I realized that I had forgotten my ticket back at the hotel. I told John to go ahead and go inside and I would wait for my Dad to bring the ticket to me. Once he brought it to me, I took the walk back to the line and…of all the people to meet up with, I saw Xav and a few of his friends. W ewalked inside the stadium (outdoor area, actually) and talked for a bit. We watched one song of Gogol Bordello (who was INCREDIBLE).

I then headed over to the “Double Down” stage to wait in line (FRONT ROW IS THE ONLY WAY!). First up was Lupe Fiasco, he kicked some old school beats (Mobb Deep anyone) with fresh lyrics over them, it was pretty awesome. Then came Mastadon who was…interesting, to say the least. Following Mastadon was Cypress Hill who was insanely good…they really know how to get a crowd going. Finally, before Daft Punk, was Queens of the Stone Age who were good, but not as good as I hoped they would have been.

Then, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Leading into the best mix of Homework, Discovery, Human After All, Stardust and Together that you have ever and will ever hear. There is no text that can do this show justice – it is a show of light, a show of music, and the combination of the two just seems to absolutely destroy any other precedent of a good show. I seriously was dancing, jumping, rocking out for two hours straight. And I wasn’t even tired after. I could have gone on for another three, and wish I had. There was an after-party at the LAX club in the Luxor, but it was 21+ only, so I was out of luck.

After waiting TWO HOURS for the shuttle John and I paid $30 each for, we got back to the hotel and passed out. To dreams of robots and rocking. To melodies of synths and drum machines. It was glorious.

Human.
Together.