Reflection

I recently figured out how to link images in Blogger to Flickr, so I have an urge to use it liberally in this post. Here I will babble about some of my favorite pictures/memories from over the past 6.5 years (an abbreviated life story, if you will).


That's my brother waiting for my slow ass to get out the door and drive us to swim practice after school. I thought this perspective was pretty cool - a silhouette in the bright doorway.


This is a picture of a window in our home in Fairport, New York. During the winter, frost develops on this one window and totally covers it, and it doesn't go away until springtime comes.


This picture shows a view of the woods behind my friend's backyard in Fairport. I took this picture by holding the camera just above the water surface - a tip from my friends. The woods were all flooded (either because it just rained heavily or it's from the melted snow), and you needed a pair of waders to walk around without getting wet.


We had some LAN parties during the early years of high school. Bawls kept us awake and tasted good at the same time...something that isn't quite true with beverages such as Red Bull.


...and here's an image from one LAN party.


We had a tradition during high school where we amassed school papers during the year and burned them at the end in the woods. On a sunny day, sunbeams that shoot through the treetops reflect off of the smoke and dust in the air from burning papers, and the resulting scenery looks pretty cool.


The morning after FHS junior prom, some friends and I went to Riki's for brunch. While waiting for our variously-filled pancakes (I think I ordered chocolate chip), one of us started building a castle out of whatever was available on the table. An intrigued senior citizen sitting at the table next to us walked up to us and proclaimed "the moment you stop playing, you grow old." That memorable quote sort of stuck with us.


The summer before moving to Minnesota, I went on a bike ride along the Erie Canal path with two friends. We decided to stop by a small cliff. The previous autumn, a bunch of us biked there and climbed to the top to find a huge open field with short grass on which we set off some "Works bombs" (household cleaner + aluminum foil + empty soda bottles = loud harmless explosion). This particular summer day, we climbed to the top to find the grass on the field grown up to our shoulders. It was a pretty cool sight.


Also from the summer before moving to Minnesota, during a camping trip in upstate New York with the usual group of Asians. This is one of my favorite sunset shots, with the reflection on Lake Ontario.


Being at the right place at the right time helps with taking interesting pictures, but being with spontaneous people also helps. Neither of us planned this (I was sitting inside a van), but I like how this picture turned out - peering through the window. This was during my last outing with the Fairport Area Swim Team (USA Sectionals in Maryland...those were the days when I could actually swim) - less than one week later I would be in Minnesota.


This is a close-up on my friend's scarf, while it was sitting on a table. I like the texture and color in this picture, and ended up using this picture as the background on the CSA membership card design for 2007-2008.


It seems like my high school friends in Minnesota enjoy playing cards during breaks (specifically a game called 500), whereas my friends in Fairport enjoy doing random fun stuff like Works bombs and blowing up mountains of school papers in the woods. Whatever, it's all good fun either way.


My favorite part of graduation parties is the food, and this is probably my favorite picture of food that I've taken.


I miss garbage plates (sooooooo good). The next time I'm in Rochester I'm definitely going to pick up some garbage plate(s).


This was taken during a flight home from Rochester the summer after high school (those are clouds down below). I like how the color turned out in this picture.


Freshman year Dragon Day/snowstorm combo. Myra has a priceless expression on her face.


I like this shot of the bird sitting on the signpost in the Badlands National Park.


This is one of my first pictures taken with the white balance set to cloudy for a warmer feel. I like the greenness here.


The Cornell Law School reading room.


This picture could have been better (like less exposure), but it's quite difficult to time a shot of lightning perfectly. I still like this one though.


Fireworks display during Maple Grove Days last summer. This was the first time that I tried taking pictures of fireworks.


This is from fall break last year. I like the flows that I got here.


This is what the Engineering Quad looks like at 2 AM. We were on the Thurston Hall rooftop testing CDGPS for CUSat until 4 AM because the Pre-Ship Review was at 8 AM the next day.

Cornell Fail

Excerpt from an email that I received today:

"Last week, we learned that a Cornell-owned computer that was stolen earlier this month contained your name and Social Security Number. Please accept our most sincere apologies for this unfortunate event."

Suboptimal Urinal Design

I began working on Monday (IT stuff like helpdesking, just like last summer). Today, I went to the restroom to take a leak in the late afternoon, and I discovered that whoever designed the urinals in the restroom could have designed it better. Usually when go to the restroom to take a leak, there are small puddles of water on the ground around the urinal. I used to think these were due to people peeing on the floor (though I'm not completely ruling out that possibility), but I saw today that the urinal itself pees all over the floor.

Here's what happened: I went to the restroom to take a leak. A dude before me just finished and hit the flush button above the urinal (perfectly normal and intuitive). He then walked away and proceeded to wash his hands (also perfectly normal and intuitive), while I kind of stood there and watched the urinal flush so I can pee in it afterwards. Now, these urinals are just like those in Cornell's first floor Upson Hall: automatic-flushing but still have the manual flush button. When you hit the flush button, it flushes, but then it flushes again after you walk away from the urinal. At work, the unintended second flush apparently causes a water overload in the urinal bowl, so water starts pouring over the edge, resulting in small puddles of water on the ground around the urinal. This is equally uninviting to wade in compared to the hypothetical case where people pee on the floor.

Now, I understand that a manual override is necessary (and probably a good idea) to automated systems. In fact, there was some discussion about this and flak sent in Airbus' direction after the recent mysterious Air France flight disappearance (apparently Airbus didn't have a manual override in the automated flight system? Or so I read). However, in my opinion, optimal design would automatically shut off the automated system when the manual override is engaged. In the case of the urinal, this would mean one flush per pee session, whether you flush the urinal yourself or let the motion sensor do it.

One last thing: having Dyson Airblades to dry hands in the restrooms would be awesome. Just my opinion.

Three Unrelated Thoughts/Stories

** Yesterday I was driving to a graduation party, and I ran over a chipmunk. I came to this conclusion as follows:

• I saw the chipmunk wander into the road as I was approaching it.
• I heard and felt a thump-thump as I drove by the chipmunk at 60 miles per hour (it was a country road in the middle of nowhere).
• I looked back via the rear view mirror and the chipmunk was not moving.

My apologies to said chipmunk.

** When I go home from school and sleep in my bed at home, I find that my feet dangle over the edge of the bed. The beds at the dorms at school are extra-long twin size, so my feet don't dangle over the edge on those. However, before going to college, I never felt that my feet dangle over the edge of my bed at home.

** Last night, I was kind of lying around in bed for 2 hours not able to fall asleep (partly because of my dangling feet I think). As a result, I started to reflect on my life story, partly because seeing friends from high school kind of reminds me of past years of my life. Now, I like to think that I have a pretty good memory (especially for things like numbers), so I remember quite a lot about my life story. Now, I am not familiar with many other peoples' life stories, but after a while of reflecting, I came to the conclusion that my life story is pretty fucked up. And to that, I laugh. What else can I do?

Summer

In an effort to keep my blog-updating frequency to at least once per month, I shall update today. However, I don't really know what to write about.

I went to a high school graduation party yesterday. It was fun to see people who I haven't seen in a long time and hangin' with them and stuff. It was also kind of cool to see everyone grow up and stuff, because this year's graduation class consists of all the people who were high school freshmen on the swim team back when I was a senior on the team, and they were all smaller than I was back then but now they're all bigger than I am (and more ripped than I am, of course).

Pandora just played Take a Picture by Filter, which made me happy.