Category Archives: College - Page 3

cisco fun

let’s see, yeah i know i said i would try and get back to some more regular posting again, but duty calls and it looks like it will continue to call through the end of the school year which is another week and a half for me. let’s see if i can remember what’s been going on this week, this is a distinct disadvantage of having a low medium term memory and not blogging often enough 🙂

i think i got a lot of stuff done over the weekend, although not as much as i had planned, but i never get all of it done. in anyevent as of sunday i was feeling pretty good about that. of course there’s continuing and mounting pressure to pick a summer job, which isn’t getting easier the busier i get towards the end of the year, more on that later.

i eased into the week on monday with some bowling, at which i did simple terrible, i figgured out why on wednesday, more to come. monday night i had a wireless network class, they’re doing presentations on some chapters in the boook that’s going to be used next year, i got out of it since i know as much as i do and i know the prof. i get to rate groups and grill them afterwards with questions on their material, it might require less preparation, but it requires more knowledge.

tuesday i decided i was going to take my ccnp routing exam on wednesday night when i work in the telcom lab. we also did some more discussion on ethan frome in english class. we did some more work with integration in calc, i must say again calc is the easiest math class i’ve taken in a very long time. didn’t go to my routing class because my group is finished with all the labs.

wednesday started off with me doing very poorly in bowling again, then after a couple frames i realized that i was using the opposite side of my foot than usual to count off the boards and this was really screwing me up, after fixing that i did much much better. it started to get interesting when i headed off to work and to take my cisco exam, the testing server needed to be rebooted and was locked up for the night in another building so again, no exam. i was starting to think someone really didn’t want me to take this exam because this was the second time i had scheduled to take it and couldn’t and the third time i wanted to take it and it didn’t work out, i got permission to take it friday afternoon. otherwise it was a pretty slow night. when i got back from work i wasn’t feeling too hot thouhg, still not quite sure why., i wasn’t sick or anything, nor was i mad or sad, just like totally unfeeling which is unusual for me, i’m usually happy even if i’m in a bad mood, must have been something subliminal.

thursday was a good day because i found out that i did very very well on a test in energy tech, and i also had event tech (my new job for next fall) training which is really fun for me. we started integration by substitution in calc, which isn’t difficult, but is a little time consuming. i got to go back to the room and grab a bite to ea before heading to trainings. of couse we had to start with the boring stuff, procedures, policies and handbook material but then it got a little more interesting. they have a checklist of things you need to get signed off on before you can start working for them, well we started talking about some of the experiance i have with shows and equipment and we were able to check off more than half the list without getting up from the table. after that we walked around the building and looked at some of the room specific things which got another 1/4 of the list checked off, then we diceded to go home so we could save some of it for next time. all in all i think they’re more than a little impressed with my background and knowledge which can only be a good think, they’re also very thankful to have someone who really really knows what’s going on with them, i think it’ll be great working there.

that brings us to today, i got up, ate lunch and headed over to the telcom lab to take my cisco 640-503 routing exam, i was actually able to take it this time. i must say that partway through the exam i was worried about if i’d be able to pass it or not, but thankfully i did. in fact i scored 100% in two of the areas on the exam, my score was not as stellar as my CCNA score but still a lot better than other people taking this exam have been doing, so i felt really good about that and good about getting it done, it takes off a lot of pressure for me. right now, i’m sitting down at work in the campus lab, which is the job i’ll be leaving next semester to take the one at MSC, speaking of which i should get busy on letting them know i wn’t be back next semester. i also should probably work on some more letters to possible summer employers to see what they have open for positions. and then thier’s the matter of that last english paper for thursday, but maybe i’ll do that tomorrow instead.

speaking of tomorrow, i have lunch plans in Eau Claire with some friends from the cities that go to school there, it’ll be nice to see them again, i miss them a lot, i’ll let you know how it goes. turns out my sister won’t be coming to stay with me for the weekend because she’s working on a choir show in the cities, good for her, my people tell me she’s doing an excellent job at the light board. i think that’s it for now and again i hope to update a bit more frequently we’ll see if that actually happens or not as the year winds down here. well i should try and get some work done i suppose, although i doubt i’ll get much done.

afternoon ice

i stayed up pretty late again and slept in until almost 1:00 again today, had lunch and headed down to the library for the history research project, it’s actually really easy, just had to locate a bunch of sources related to our topic and do a bibliography of them.

i also took some stills of my video cameras now so i have them stored, if you’re interested you can find them at http://ben.franske.com/gallery/vidcams i should probably go grocery shopping now, nothing good on the menu here for dinner so i’ll see if something in the grocerty store catches my interest.

oh yeah we’ve had freezing rain all day today, luckly it’s not accumulating at all yet, let’s hope ti stays that way. i’m ready for it to warm up a little bit, aren’t you?

later guys!

it’s been a long time…

all together now, this sucks, i had a good start on an entry and i got a bluescreen in xp which never happens… ahh well what can ya do… we’ll try again.

wow it’s been a week since my last blog, that’s pretty bad, but it was a busy week. i worked all last weekend which pretty much kills the weekend.

the first part of the week was pretty slow, tuesday and wednesday nights their were solo tryouts for current jam in the cities, i couldn’t get there of course but i did get to hear about them seem to be looking at some good groups this year. wednesday i bumped up my bowling average a bit and we started integration in calc this week, yuk!

on wednesday (i think, maybe it was tuesday) i decided i needed to outfit my hitachi broadcast camera with it’s new power fittings so i went to the manufacturing lab to have someone do it. lucky me there was no one availible to do it so they let me do it myself, needless to say i got a kick out of getting to use a ram drill to make the holes in the metal plates for the jacks. then i spent some quality time with epoxy and a solderign iron wiring up the new jacks and power supply for the camera, it looks pretty good too!

it starts to get a little more interesting on thursday, after my last class (calc) i headed back to my room, dropped my stuff and ate dinner. then i headed down to the student center to try out being an event tech for a night, which will be a new job for me here on campus next semester. i loved every minute of it, this was unpaid time so i could leave at any time, i got there at ~5:30 and stayed until after 11 when everything was over. i got ot see all the secret passageways around the building too. we had a couple of events going on, there were some groups meeting that needed lcd’s and laptops which we took and setup for them. there was an early childhood conference setting up too so we had to drop power for lots of them. there was also an open mic night in one of the cafes in the building so we had to monitor that equipment too. for a while it was pretty exciting being needed in six places at once and running around the building, this is the sort of stuff i really enjoy doing. anyway i think it’ll be a really fun job, and the people are really nice as well.

that brings us to today, i stayed up until at least 3:15 last night and slept in until the phone woke my up at 1:00PM today. i got up and listened to the message, the front desk had a big package they wanted me to come get asap, so i took a shower and went down for my usual friday omelette(sp?) picked up my mail (which had a key) and stopped my the desk for the package, it was the new JVC camera I’d been waiting for. for those who don’t know i do a fair bit of video work and used to have to rent the broadcast cameras, i bouth two in the last month, so i’m pretty well set up for them now, anyway this one’s a beaut JVC KY27U with a 18x lens and SVHS deck docked on the back, i’ll put up a photo of me and my cameras sometime soon. it was a good buy and i’m very happy with it. in fact i used it to tape a LAN party in the basement here tonight in very low light and it preformed very well although the stills from the video don’t look good.

registered for fall classes today, i won’t say too much about it because i have to get a level wavier for one class and an overload sig for another, but then i’ll take soem time to discuss my classes for fall.

tomorrow i think i have to go to the library and do some research for a historty research project. we’ll see how that goes. oh my, someone just knocked on my door, needs to reinstall their video drivers so i’d better go, then i should get some sleep so i can get up at a decent hour tomorrow. in any event i hope to get back to a little more reular schedule of blogging soon!

organized tornado

i’m at work in the campus lab tonight, i close so i’m here until midnight and don’t have a lot to do, there’s only one guy here right now so i said to myself, i should blog.

thursday started off with a bang, or a siren as it may be. i was awoken at 5:15am by the tonado siren going off, there was a radar indicated tornado north of town. well i was bout the only one who got up right away. i grabbed my keys and phone and ran down to the first floor door (i’m on third) to check out the action, wasn’t much to see, eventually i heard the RA get up on second floor and pound on all their doors and a couple minutes later about 3 of them went down to the basement. the tornado stayed north of town heading westward and the warning expired at 5:45, when i went back up to my room i did see one other guy on the floor up on the phone but all the excitement (or lack there of) was over anyway. my newest inoformation says it touched down north of town, but i haven’t been able to verify that yet. if you’re bored sometime ask me to tell the camping tornado story.

the rest of the day was very blah, i had a little time getting back to sleep and maybe that was it, bu i had little energy the rest of the day. my calc test was the hardest one yet, i’m mildly concerned about it (i don’t get very concerned ever really) but i did very well on all our other tests and quizzes so it shouldn’t bother much. thurday night i got copies of all the mass choir songs for current jam this year, so i’ve been listening to those today getting a feel for them.

that brings us to today i guess. i slept in, or tried to, the semis kept backing up outside my window all morning (neert, neert, neert) so it was a little difficult but i made it until 10ish. i had basically nothing to do (well, homework of course but i can do that at work) so i made it one of my organizing days, got all the paper off my desk and filed away, cleaned my computer dektop off and fixed the ID3 tags, filenames and level gain of all my MP3s (not a small task). after lunch i decided to do something i had seen about a job as an event technician on campus for the fall. i think i’ll be leaving the big campus lab and working for the telecom lab and doing the event tech thing next semester. anyway, i intorduced myself and asked if they’d like to see a demo tape of some shows i’ve done. they were taken aback (hehe) and basically hired me sight unseen, they are pretty desperate for techs i guess, and i think i’ll enjoy it a lot. i got to meet some of the student managers and they were really nice people, i’m scheduled to meet with them again next thursday and friday. i think this will be lots of fun, i’ve missed doing lighting and sound this year. so then i went back to my room, worked on my MP3s some more and had dinner. i saw the first half hour of the screen savers and then headed to work, i taped the rest and can’t wait to get home and check out yosi’s box.

that just about bring you all up to date with my happenings, i hope i didn’t bore you too much! i should read some Ethan Frome for english now, or do some other homework, but i suppose i’ll browse around on the net some more first. later guys!

bowling along

i had a good day today i think. it was fun for the most part. it started off really well when i stuck around after bowling class and practiced for an extra half hour by myself, i raised my average from an embarassingly low score to a respectable 129, i think i made my teacher’s day too.

i mentioned that i might be taking the CCNP routing exam yesterday night, well yesterday i decided to go ahead and do it after talking to my instructor who had more faith in me than i did. unfortunately the testing server went down right before our test was scheduled and it took us too long to fix it (ohh how i hate windows NT and it’s non plug and play capabilities) so we all get to pick anytime we want to take our tests, i’m thinking next friday when i have no classes or work. i’ll let you know how it goes.

my laptop keyboard was acting up again today, i need to have some parts replaced so it doesn’t type on it’s own and so on, but as a temporary remedy i decided to take out the internal keyboard and scrub it down with soap and water, no big deal, but until it drys completely i won’t put it back in the laptop (gives an error at boot) so I’m running my laptop with an external mouse/keyboard for the next few days, it looks funny with the guts exposed 🙂

at work tonight i got pretty bored, so first i fixed our frequency counter and played with some voice over IP equipment. i dug around the office and lab to see what new (and old) equipment was around and played with some for a while. the guys from the telecom policy and regulations class down the hall had a sub prof. today who’s one of our geniuses here, ex-motorola. anyway we went and shot the moon with him for a while to.

just witing for cheers to come on which i’ll watch and then head to bed, tomorrow i have to get up and shower quite a bit earlier than usual because they’re turning off the water in the building from 10AM to 8PM to fix some hot water problems…

everything is hot hot hot

i got a number of things crossed off my to do list this weekend and today, but there’s still much to do. my wireless class paper is done and turned in, we’ve started a new unit in history and are about to wrap up all our classroom sessions for bowling class. this weekend was beautiful, but nothing like today. we go up to at least 91 here today, which is amazing, it han’t been that hot since august and we shattered all previous records. spring has truly sprung now and although it will be cooler the rest of the week, that’s ok and it’s still so beautiful out.

tomorrow i need to decide if i’m ready to take the next exam in my cisco certification series. the ccnprouting exam will be offered tomorrow evening, otherwise i’ll probably wait a few weeks and do some more studying. we’ll see, but i think i’ll go for it.

the warm weather is reminding me of all the fun of summer, including current jam, which i love. i had so much fun today just thinking about how much fun it’ll be again. of course i have yet to decide on a firm plan for a summer job yet, i’ve sent off a couple resumes to places, but don’t have definate plans yet.

i will say publicly(sp?) for the first time that i’ll be on vacation in San Francisco this summer, probably sometime around the end of july. i’d like to spend some time with the techtv crew when i’m there, we’ll see how that all plays out, i’m still waiting for definitive dates in SF before contacting anyone there.

happy tax day everyone!

cj, reading and more

i posted some videos earlier you’re probably wondering what they have to do with anything. i’ll tell ya they are from a High School chor show called Current Jam in Edina, MN. I am a technical person for the show and it’s coming up in the end of may so i’m starting to get a little excited. in fact it’s part of the reason i bought the broadcast video cameras recently. so if i mention it you know what it is now.

i got some reading for a cisco class done today, that’s about it i have to get more done tomorrrow. i’ve also come up with some more projects for myself. i’m going to come up with a list of favorite movies, books and plays. i have a lot more projects in my head too, we’ll see how many i can pull off and how long it takes though.

in other news i got to talk to a friend, julie, who i haven’t had a chance to in quite a while, although it was short it was nice to hear from her again. man it was nice outside today! i had my window open all day and went out for a while, it was nice we might make it to 70 by monday.

soo busy

mood: exhausted
music: michael bolton – sittin’ on the dock of the bay

i’ve been so busy since getting back, i think things are under control now for the most part…

i did a horribly in bowling today, yikes i need some practice maybe this weekend, although i need to study for my cisco routing exam and write a paper for wireless and finish some more resume cover letters for this summer and so many other things it would be nice to have a week off to get things in order, the end of the semester is coming up so fast…

in other news i got to talk with someone monday (tuesday? i dunno they’re all melting together) night that i haven’t had a achance to in a while, that was good. let’s see i’m at work now then at 10 head back to my room catch up on the news, a half hour of leno, tss and junkyard wars; oh yeah and read some poems for english tomorrow…

i realize this blog is lacking very much content, but frankly i’m out of energy right now and so it’ll have to do. i’ll tell you what i did tonight at work though 🙂 someone totally hosed our wireless acess point and router for it so both of those had to be reconfigured and that took a couple hours of course no i’m here…writing to you… well until another post…

wonderful wednesday

i rather liked today, it seemed like a nice realxing but productive day, you know, the kind you wish you could have all the time. bowling was fun but it’s been so long hehe i’ve got a lof of work to do to get my score up where it should be. history’s always a fun class for me, but i was also pleased to see our test had been pushed back an extra week so i don’t have to make it up me being gone next week and all.

leoville also seemed to have a calmness abouyt it today, not insanely busy or particulairly slow. in fact i even got a big chunk of an english paper written tonoght at work and i’m feeling good about that.

i’m getting excited about going home and going on the cruise next weekend, alsthough i still have to pack tonight, or more likely sometime tomorrow. let’s see in other news i bought another broadcast quality tv camera today, i think i’m going to sell the sony dxc 3000, and buy a jvc ky-27u instead, ahh the joys of ebay!

i guess i should go to bed i need to get up earlier than usual for thursdays tomorrow to go schedule a makeup time for an energy quiz tomorrow, i’m also getting just a lil’ sleepy

Music: John Denver – Sunshine on My Shoulders
Mood: optimistic

tuesdays, tuesdays, oh how i hate tuesdays

what was I going to do again? ahh yes explain why tuesdays are so dreadfull. let’s see i have to get up early (for me) for work at 7, work is fun it’s just the getting up part, then class class and some more class until 4:30 then a brief interlude and then back for some more class from 6 until 10:00; yeah i have to tape tss on mondays, tuesdays and wednesdays and watch the tape… in any event it gets to be a really long day which is pretty rough on me.

better news today though is that i got back an english midterm and got a high score of the class with 98/100; also got back a energy technology test 38/40 which was also the class high score. those made my tuesday much better than usual.

lets see what else hrmm i should probably do some homework but i have to get up a little earlier than i’m used to tomorrow for bowling class, yeah i know i know, but still it’s my precious sleeping time and i still have to get ahead on my homework for next week we’ll see how much of that actually gets done before i leave. i suppose i should get off to bed really though since that way i won’t have to think about my english paper that i should write before i leave for another day…

heres a word for the day: “mehyy” i have no idea what it means, rachel used it the other day and i asked what it meant but she was evasive, i tried iming her about it, but she was evasive then as well, hrmm perhaps you have an idea on what it is? post a comment!