Monday - I lied...

Yep, I'm no George Washington.  There's no post today.  Maybe you could check back tomorrow?(yeah, right) For now though, here's a funny picture of a cat.

(Poor guy's trying to figure out where today's post went.)

Friday! -Hall-o-ween!

(It's like Halloween, but in a residence hall!)

I got my Hall-o-ween costume all ready for the weekend.  I'm gonna have t go by the Hokie Passport office at some point to see if I can get a picture there!

I also saw this guy  on campus today.  Juneau, beat that!

Wednesday - Fall is Here!

Its actually been here a while, but whatever.

Monday - A Still More Glorious Dawn Awaits

^I don't know what's up with that title.  Awfully dramatic if you ask me...

Cupcakes!

And cupcakes from a different view!  That's all I got! Maybe try again tomorrow?

Tuesday - I'm bad at schedules

I could claim I had problems reaching the site,
or that I just didn't feel quite right,
But that would we a lie,
I can't justify,
Why I didn't post 'til tonight.

Anyway, here we go!

On Friday, a big group of us went to The Homeplace Restaurant. 

Lots of good sothern food; fried chicken, country ham, macaroni, mashed potatoes, baked beans, and biscuits.

The view through the window at the restaurant.

The Dunkin Donuts in Hokie Grill is coming along nicely.

Thursday - Just Hanging Out

Terrible pun? Terrible pun!

Also, the sky from my window.

And finally, more pitiful, piss-poor poetry.

Wednesday - In which I wax lyrical

There once was a student at Tech,
smart as all get out and handsome as heck.
He writes a blog on the web,
which hundreds of people eagerly read.
(Okay,well its more like two,
but I didn't tell that to you)
He forgot to post last night,
but don't worry he'll make things right!
So if you want to know more about John,
Read on, dear viewer, read on...

Quesadillas and cookies and food galore,
I just keep making more and more!
My only worry is that,
I might start to get fat,
Cause cooking is never a bore.

I take a tortilla, some salsa, and cheese,
(Maybe some olives and chicken, too, please?)
Then I sit back and chill,
While my food's on the grill.
And best of all cleanup's a breeze.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Rhyming is hard,
Here's my Game Boy being powered by my Andyboard because I couldn't find any AA batteries

So now dear reader, we reach the end of the story,
the end of a day filled with honor and glory.
But fear not for the future: a new day awaits,
and whatever may come, it will surely be great!
As we depart, feel no sadness or sorrow,
for I will meet you once again on the morrow.

Tuesday - More Baked Goods (and some baked bads...)

That's right, even more baking! I actually did this over the weekend, but that doesn't matter in the slightest... 

I now present to you the wielders of the sugar-shurikens, the sole practitioners of tae kwon dough, the shadows who bake in the night...

Ninja-bread Men! (They're blurry because they're moving so fast...and poor lighting in the kitchen...)

Kroger just started stocking gingerbread mix in their seasonal goods sections, so I decided to purchase some and create the most delicious, and deadly, confections known to man!  Just look at that dough, so delicious! 

I got the cookie cutters as a gift, oh, about a year ago and I never got around to using them until know.  They come in three fear-inducing poses: flying kick, jab, and spinning kick!

On a completely unrelated note, I also made cupcakes!  In fact I may have even over-made them, with extra black crunchy bits on the bottom!  Oops.  But one they were iced, they were absolutely delicious (as long as you stayed away from the bottom part).

Monday - New Year, New Website!

You may have noticed that new URL up there, tfb.balefire.us.   I got a great deal on hosting ($10 a year) so I decided to get my own website, balefire.us.  There's not actually anything on that page, just a placeholder, but I have great things planned for it, great things...  Ha! I have no idea what I'm doing! Anyways, here we go!

I had an interview this afternoon with Kollmorgen, a manufacturer of motion systems and components for original equipment manufacturers worldwide.  I feel that it went pretty well.

They called me crazy, they said I was insane, they said Chocolate Chocolate Chip muffins were chocolaty enough already.  Chocolate Chocolate Chip muffins with chocolate milk; pure madness!

I mean look at that rich, delicious batter (and of course the special batter-stirring spork!)  Its practically perfect!

And of course, once I start making muffins, its hard to stop.  So I also made some delicious Wildberry muffins.

And here they are all cooked and delicious!  They looked fantastic and tasted even better!

Thursday - Finals

That is all.

Tuesday - Posting from a new, lower altitude!

Wow, its been a while since I've posted, isn't?  Yep, haven't posted since Friday...  Well here's an update:

On Friday I had my final presentation for my Mechanical Engineering project that I've been working on since last semester.  Later that afternoon, I had my final exam for my ISE lab.  That evening, I went to dinner at Owens with a bunch of people from nerf war and TF2 night.  It was the last nerf war of the semester and everyone had a great time.

The next day, I went to the Gallipatia end-of-year picnic.  Later, I went to the last Poketech meeting of the semester.  We had a card draft and I won all of my matches.  I got two really cool cards during the draft: 

I got the one on the right during the draft, and the one on the left in one of my prize packs.

After Poketech, I went to the last TF2 night of the semester.  I had a lot of fun, hanging out with various people and playing a couple of rounds.

Not much happened on Monday, so how about we skip that, okay?  Okay! Onwards to Today!

 Well today was exciting for several different reasons.  I had my last Materials and Multivariable Calculus lectures.  Wondering about that "lower altitude" in the title?  Well today Brendan and I delofted our beds.  Here is what our room looked like before:

And here's what it looks like now:

Yep, lower altitude, get it?  Well I thought it was funny...  Anyway, later I went out and got some food with Todd, my roomate next year.  Then I went and helped him deloft his bed and move some of his stuff around.  Well, that's it for today...and yesterday...and the day before that...and the day before that...and the day before that.

Wednesday - Stuff!

I went to a presentation by GE today for their facility in Salem.  They do all sorts of power related things there including building controllers for wind turbines, solar panels, and traditional power plants.

They had a whole table full of components that go into the power controllers.  The big blue cylinder is a 9000 micro-farad capacitor that can be charged to 400 V!

This is a radiator used to cool diodes in their generator contol systems.  It is made of copper and weighs 50 pounds.  They sandwith the diodes between two of them with 20,000 pounds of force.  There are eight diodes in each controller, so that's 800 pounds of copper just to cool the diodes!

Tuesday-Nothing to see here...move along...

Sorry...

Nothing really happened today.  Seriously, compared to yesterday, today was boring.


I should have saved that hat picture for today...curse my lack of forward planning.

MONDAY - IN CAPS BECAUSE I'M SHOUTING

This weekend was Parent's Weekend and my mom came to visit.  We did all sorts of stuff.  On Saturday night we watched fireworks:

On Sunday morning we went to Roanoke and drove around to see some stuff.  One of the places was the Roanoke Star.

 It started snowing this morning so I decided to wear a hat.  I couldn't decide which one to wear...and things kind of...got a bit silly...

Tuesday - More pictures

Monday - April 16th

Friday - Friday The Thirteenth Edition

It seems there have been even more problems with the 3D-printers.  As you can see only one of them is actually functional, and one of them had to be removed to be repaired. 

I had my ISE lab today.  This time we machined the pulleys we cast last time.  We used a lathe to machine them down to the proper dimensions and cut a groove.

We then drilled and tapped a hole in the side of the boss for a set screw to go into.

Here's a picture of the finished product!

Thursday - New Brakes

I recieved some new brake pads for my bike (thanks Mom!) last weekend, and I finally got around to putting them on my bike.  Now I can actually make my bike stop! As a reference here's what the old pads looked like:

As you can see, they are quite worn out...

...but they're so shiny!

T-T-T-Tuesday!

I usually have a story and a picture or two

Waiting here on this blog for you.

Now this piece of writ

Will be all you get

But tomorrow I’ll have something new.

(No I’m not injured or dead,

And I didn’t spend all day in bed.

Nothing happened today,

That is worth time to say,

So I wrote out these limericks instead!)

Monday - Weekend Wrap Up

I had an awesome weekend.  My mom and brother came up to visit me for Easter and we did a bunch of fun stuff.  We dyed eggs, made cupcakes, gave out presents and flew kites.  I attached a camera to my kite and took some photos over the Drillfield.  A few of the best pictures are included below.

Thursday - Special 'What's a Wednesday?' Edition!

Doing some more fiberglassing at the Human Powered Submarine meeting.

This is some of the fiberglassing I did myself.  Its inside the submarine, all the way at the back.

Someone set off the fire alarm with a hair dryer at 11:30 so what did I do?

I got a midnight milkshake at Deet's of course!

TThis is a picture I took outside of the Ware Lab after the sub meeting.