School is fast approaching!

In 4 weeks the Fall semester starts. I'm extremely excited and am anxiously waiting for the semester to start. In preperation for the semester, I bought and am reading all the books assigned for my Fall classes. I'm almost done with the first (EECS 320) book and am about to start my EECS 451 textbook. I also read a great Mechanical Engineering book last month and am halfway through a Chemistry book I bought. I'd also like to get in two books on UNIX and UNIX Networking by the end of the summer. Before the semester starts I'll make a follow up post listing all the books I managed to cover in the past 6 weeks.

I have found that I am very ADD when it comes to reading. To solve this I listen to music and alternate between reading and working out. I bought a workout bench for $75 and am loving it. I use it for all my dumbbell exercises. I've been working on a home server and created a Wiki for personal reasons, my workout routine is on there. This routine is a huge enhancement from my original workout routine. I researched all the major muscles and found dumbbell exercises that focus on each. Unfortunately I discovered muscles I haven't even touched! One being the "Pectoralis Major". I tried lifting some 35lb on it and that was not going to happen. I ended up pulling a muscle. I'm sore as hell today but it's gotten a lot better, I should be fine by tomorrow or the day after.

In addition to all my reading and exercising, I also have news about my internship. With only 3 weeks left, I'm anxious to finish it on a good note. Visteon has been good to me, the directors even took all of us out to a baseball game (Tigers vs. White Sox). It was in a suite, very nice! I have a meeting with my director, my supervisor, and my supervisor's boss. I essentially get to explain everything I did. I did quite a lot, so I'll have no problem discussing it all with them. I learned a lot this past summer and am extremely glad I took this position over going to Taiwan.

With the summer almost over, I have a lot to finish up. I've kept contact with friends to a minimum, have been focusing on my work, and am going to finish this summer having accomplished a lot. I will be ready for next semester! I will do great. I am so excited.

Summer has come

The semester is over and I have begun working at a business called Visteon. They are a parts supplier, with Ford being one of their main customers. My work as an intern involves essentially doing every job that the other engineers either don't have time to do or don't want to do. I have a suspicion that since the job I was hired to do fell through, they are just giving me other engineer's jobs now. I first developed a program that acted as an engine audio simulator, to be used in a government study on how sound effects pedestrians (such as blind folk). I then got to strip out the Video electronics in a F-150 truck, and then install a radio system along with new speakers and amplifiers in a 2008 Malibu. That job was really interesting, considering nothing fit and I had to hand fabricate all the adapters to mount everything to the car. After finishing that job I started another programming job implementing a FFT/3rd Octave Analyzer for this Audio Studio program.

I'm excited about next semester, I have 5 classes (one of which is a 1 credit course), 4 EECS classes. One of them looks really hard, I have no idea what the outcome of the semester will be. Thankfully another of the classes looks really easy, as it covers everything I already know and is lab oriented. I hope to take my major design course in the winter, EECS 470. Designing a processor in Verilog.

Life is looking up for me, things are for the most part going my way and I have ordered and am reading several technical books right now. I've decided to diversify my knowledge. I didn't really realize it before, but I have a wide range of skills that gives me an edge over most other people out there. Thanks to my electronics technician education I have an insight into practical electronics and design that most people haven't touched, and in addition I've taken several classes related to the mechanical aspect of engineering, including manufacturing design and robotics. I hope to expand my knowledge even more, and intend on taking a diverse range of Electrical Engineering courses as I finish my degree.

I haven't really kept up to date on this blog like I would have liked, but I intend on changing that. I'll try my best to go back to my original once a month updates, especially since this is a very important time in my life. I'm excited, anxious, and optimistic. A few rough things have happened this past semester, but I can't say that my experience this past year was bad, in fact I wouldn't have it any other way. I've learned so much, and going to a big college like the University of Michigan, I feel like I'm finally getting the social experience I never got a chance to have at Monroe County Community College. So excited to see what happens in the future, wish me luck everyone!

Second Month of the Semester!

With midterms coming out, a lot of time is currently spent studying! On top of that my friend (who with her 4.0 is just getting plenty of interview requests!) has been asking for help on improving her interview responses. We've been lately going over all these crazy questions, known as "microsoft questions", trying to have fun while simultaneously preparing. On top of that we have gone through answering generic questions such as "tell me about a problem you faced and how you solved it" or "how did you deal with working with someone you hated" and so on. She's done a great job so far and it really has shown with her interviews. My hopes are that my experience with my personal projects will get me the opportunities I want, I have so much experience that I really feel it gives me the edge against even some of the top people here at school. We'll see though. I'm really excited about the summer though, I recently joined another research group and as a backup plan I always have two research groups to work with over the summer. It's nice having a backup plan!

Midterms and Thanksgiving

Midterms and Thanksgiving are coming up, only one more month of school left. I'm doing great in EECS 215 (circuits) and EECS 270 (digital) but only decent in EECS 280 (C++). If there's one thing I've learned, it's that I hate high level programming. Not so much hate, more like just don't enjoy. Hopefully I can stick to C and ASM and lower level programming concepts when I get into the workplace. Unfortunately there's not much to say for now, expect updates in the weeks to come.

All good so far

I've been able to keep up my confidence so far, everything seems to be going great. Really enjoying my professors and I have two wonderful friends who have been crucial to my success thus far(I'm very lucky!) As of now I've been putting some effort into getting a summer internship, we'll see what comes up. I wish I could say more about what has been going on but school is quite consuming of my time. I'm still working off my lazy habits; I used this week's exams as an excuse to slack off on next week. With a 4 day weekend I'll play catch-up. Meeting a friend over the weekend to get most of next week's work out of the way. After this semester I'll be able to really gauge what I can expect in the future.

First week over!

The first week of school is over. It feels like going to college for the very first time. I am so excited to have a chance to really prove myself, it is very exhilarating. I've been devoting a lot more time to my studies and am readying myself for the exams and labs. This first month will be a true gauge of what's to come.

Just got back from camping

I went camping up at both the mouth of the Tahquamenon river and at Muskellunge Lake. My sisters, dad and I left on August 15th and I drove home with my dog Charlie this past Friday. Had a ton of fun, and played my Gameboy Advance a lot to pass the time. Unfortunately the game I bought for the trip was a counterfeit so I lost my save file after beating it (22 hours gone!). I'm in the process of getting a refund, the knucklehead actually expects me to send him back an illegal copy of the game before I get the refund, I'm pretty sure that violates some kind of copyright law. On top of that, as I was driving home a cop's lights went off right behind me. I got over and slowed down, and he shut his lights off and passed me. Guess going 10 over the limit was too slow for him haha.
When I got home two books were waiting for me, OpenGL Distilled and an Embedded Linux book from OReilly, can't seem to remember the name though. Almost done with the embedded book, I bought Running Linux and Linux Device Drivers to read next. I really enjoy learning about Linux, would love to make my own board and get Linux up and running on it.
Overall I'm having a lot of fun this month, and am excited that school is starting soon. I have all my books bought (probably saved around $120 by buying mostly used) and am hoping everything goes well for a research internship this year for school credit. I have pictures of my trip on my phone, I'll be sure to upload them. I especially am anxious to post the pictures of the night my cousin and I slept in this driftwood shack we found on the shores of Lake Superior at Whitefish Point. It was amazing being able to watch the stores and hear the waves crashing as we laid there, although it was a bit cold and windy. Good times.