Ideal Vacation

The ideal vacation for me would be a couple months in Europe traveling around with that special someone. Starting in France seeing the history from war torn country side to seeing the elegance of the museums in Paris. From there heading to Spain to see the tomb of Christopher Columbus and experience the sweet taste of Sagaria. Of course there must be a stop at the rock of Gilbralter to take in a breathe taking site. Moving from there over to northern Italy to go skiing/snowboarding in the Alps at the Austria boarder. Heading south in Italy to Florence to see the art museums and expirience the plentiful flavor of wine from private vinyards. Then to Pisa to see the leaning tower and get one of those stupid pictures where it looks like I'm holding up the tower. Heading to Venice now to enjoy the water ways and take a romantic gaundala ride. The opera is a must here in the floating city. Rome calls us with a magnitude of history. We can almost here the people of history as we travel the streets of Rome viewing all the desimated ruins. Especially with the personalized tour in the Coloseum, imagining the blood spilt in that amazing structure. Dining at some of the best restaruants Italy has to offer. Lasagna, spagetti and alfredo melting in our mouths. Heading away from Italy over to Greece now to see the Temple of Zeus and the Temple of Athena. Lying around on the beaches taking in a sunset or sunrise over the Mediteranian with your loved one by your side. Of course these are just some of the places that would be seen and expirienced. There would be plenty of adventures in between these. But Greece would be the best place to end this amazing trip.

Blog #8 Holiday stress

Normally every year my Christmas shopping is done by September. But this year I just finished for the most part. As my siblings get older they get harder to shop for because the gifts they want are way more expensive than they were when they were younger. Between trying to find the perfect gifts, decorating the house, putting up with other peoples holiday stress and getting ready for the Christmas feast can make life pretty stressful. As that family dinner gets closer you can feel that anxiety of having to deal with relatives you only see once a year by choice. The anxiety of gaining those five to ten pounds from all the fattening foods being devoured. Of course this is after the kids wake you up at five in the morning to open gifts from Santa making you exhausted for the rest of the day. On top of these stresses students also have the added stress of having to do homework and studying. My holiday stress really comes in the form of close family members borrowing money off me so they can buy Christmas presents. My mom borrowed $600 from me and my aunt borrowed $400 from me. So luckily my buying of gifts is done or I'd be hard pressed to get my shopping done. So my holiday stress has been transformed from worrying of getting it all done to when I'll get paid back. This $1000 came from my money I was saving for school and my personal present to my self fund. And luckily I get to go somewhere else for Christmas dinner and don't have to clean anything up. So lets recap, by the end of the season you are tired, broke, fed up with family members and starting to get chubby.

Blog #7

I found that my research topic was pretty hard to get through. My future career is a Robotic/Mechanical Engineer. I researched how robots benefit us and make quality of life better. Robots touch all of our lives in significant ways. Usually robots in factories help mankind the most by moving heavy parts, welding, and painting. I found the most impressive area where robots are making an impact was the medical field. Advances in robotic arms in labs which help the scientist do expirements that his hand can't touch. The robotic prosthetics are the most helpful in making the quality of life better for a person. Advancements in this area are being made everyday. Engineers are working on making it where the amputee can control the robotic limb by thought like a real limb. Also they're trying to get it where the amputee can feel heat or pressure with the robotic limb. Being in the military myself I realize the significance of the use of robots in keeping military personel safe. The UAV is the most helpful in spying on enemies far behind enemy lines. I found out you really have to know what you are doing when it comes to hydraulics, pneumatics, and electronics. The area where I'm going to have trouble learning is computer programming. Computer programming is like greek to me right now. Robotics to me are a glimpse of the future today. I found sites where people thought the future of robots are like a terminator style future. I feel it's more like I Robot where humanoid robots help mankind with thier everyday needs. To be an engineer you need to be more imaginative than most people. Hopefully I can contribute good things in this career field.

Father Figure

There is a cost of being a father figure to a child or children that is not yours. My father is gone out of my family’s life. So I’m a father figure for my 3 siblings in addition to being a stable father figure for my 3 future step children. It gets pretty hard considering I have all them looking up to me to be an example for them. With my siblings I have to bounce back and forth from being the father figure to being just big brother, so it gets a little confusing from time to time. With my girlfriend’s kids, their father is more self centered. He doesn’t answer the kid’s questions when they ask and he shows no respect to the people in his life that deserve it. I’ve been trying to push it their heads that respect between people helps society be peaceful. These kids aren’t use to someone who works every day, goes to school, and no matter how tired I am I play with them. With all these kids I don’t do anything that is lacking morals. I try to tell them to stand for what they have conviction for and don’t let anyone make them feel like they are less than what they are. I do have problems with my girlfriend’s son because he adores his father and I’m just the other guy. So with him I have to be tactful on making sure I don’t ruin his image of his dad, but yet making sure he gets good positive reinforcements on behavior. I know eventually I’m going to hear those infamous words from step kids “You’re not my father, stop acting like it”. With my siblings, I get to step out of this father figure role very soon and then I’m just the brother. I hope I pass something good to each one of these kids.   

Research Topic

I plan on becoming a Mechanical and Robotic Engineer. My research question is “how does robotics make our lives easier”. Robotics is in every aspect of our lives. In conjunction with having to know the technical side you also have to be good with people. There are a few different fields to choose from. For example, system design is where you would design new age robotics for specific jobs determined by the customer’s wants and needs of the robot. Another would be human and machine interface which is where engineers must determine how a robot will be controlled. Weather it’ll be self controlled with certain parameters or remote controlled. Manufacturing companies such as Ford use the pick and place robots amongst others in construction of their cars. This makes the production of cars a little more efficient than just using man power. Medical fields need engineers to help design new age prosthetics that move and operate like a real limb. Robotic and Mechanical engineers helped design and construct military systems such as the UAV-unmanned aerial vehicles to spy or take the war to the enemy without putting a soldier’s life in danger. They also designed the bomb disposal machine to disarm bombs. To become these types of engineers you need to be well versed in computer programming, electronics, hydraulics, pneumatics, mechanics, computer aided drafting, and computer aided manufacturing. Robotic and mechanical engineering is an everyday expanding field. There are studies into Artificial Intelligence so robots can learn from human interaction and start thinking for themselves. Studies in how to link the robotic prosthetic to the nervous system are occurring so the amputee would be able to feel certain sensations like pressure and heat with the fake limb. This is just a few of the ways robotic and mechanical engineers affect our lives.

Movie Review

The movie I’ll be reviewing for you is Disney’s Prince of Persia. This movie is based off a very popular video game. This movie is of the action/suspense genre. But this movie has a hint of fantasy in it. The Prince of Persia shares the same characteristics of other movies of this genre. It has the hero not knowing his destiny to the end of the movie. It has the damsel that helps the hero become the savior of the day. The hero and the damsel share a mutual attraction to each other, but not at first it grows through the movie. It also has the villain that is in a position of power. Some characteristics of the plot line that are common in this genre are the hero having to fight at pretty much every turn of the story. The hero trying to figure out who the villain is while trying not to get hurt or get the damsel hurt in the process. Also the hero is trying to find himself and the hero that is within. In every movie of this genre it has a twist that you really didn’t see coming. In this movie the hero would be Prince Danstan. He is reluctant to face the truth and become a hero. The Princess of Almut would be the damsel that gives the Prince grief at first but quickly realizes his destiny. Now she kind of has to push him in the right direction in order for him to save the world. The villain is the Prince’s uncle, who wants to be king and turns everyone against Danstan. The twist in this movie comes when the Prince has to prove everything to his brother.

                In conjunction with the story line this movie uses modern technology to assist in the action sequences. It uses digital graphics for back ground, landscapes and key elements pertinent to the story line. These graphics were used to make the Persian and Almut kingdoms. Also they are used for when the Prince reverses time which is quite interesting. In comparison to other movies of this genre, it competes very well. Take the movie Troy it uses the graphics for the landscapes and key action scenes. The story lines aren’t exact but they have the same base root for the plot. Both have a lot of action and suspense, the hero/damsel relationship, and the villain in high power. In Troy Achillies is the hero who is finding himself. The priestess is the damsel who pushes him to do the right thing. The villain would be King Agamemom who is trying to take over Troy. The big difference is at the end of Troy Achillies dies saving the woman he loves.

                I thought this was a very good movie. It didn’t follow the story line of the game exactly. But I felt it was a well developed movie all around. It had a complete story line but I felt it could have been a little more defined. It had plenty of action for the action lovers. It had just enough suspense to present a hint of mystique. It has the graphics and digital enhancing to make the landscapes more believable. These graphics also made the action scenes more suspenseful. These action scenes show some amazing acrobatics where Prince Danstan is jumping and doing death defying leaps. The Prince of Persia might not be for everyone because it does use the element of fantasy. But this is a movie I would recommend for people to watch. If you are an avid movie collector, this would make an excellent contribution to your collection.

Many Faces

Does anyone ever feel like you have a split personality? Not the mental illness, but divide in your mind to kind of keep things in perspective. Think about it, do you speak or act the same way to your co-workers as you do to your brother or sister. When we move to and from the different parts of our lives we change our proverbial faces and attitudes. When you go to work, you put your work face and attitude on. This face is all business. You speak to your fellow employees and boss a certain way. When you talk with family, friends, or significant other you wear different types of faces. You speak and act totally different with each one of these groups of people. With your girlfriend you speak and act a little more gentile than you do with your best friend. I believe we all for the most part do this to keep the different parts of our lives from intertwining. For instance we all try to keep the stress from work from leaking into our personal life. I know there are some people who let different areas of there lives flow together. These people don’t know how to check personal at the door when they come to work and vise verse when they go home. They take their personal lives out on people at work and work out on their loved ones. You have to consciously shift your different faces. I’m constantly juggling my shifts between work, school and girlfriend. Sometimes by doing this I feel like I am going to go crazy. But by doing this it keeps people around you content with your attitude. But sometimes and we all have done it, we slip up and allow the stress from one part of our lives affect another part. I guess it’s kind of human nature sometimes to do this. For the most part we chuck it all up as venting. Personally I wish we didn’t change our faces, to be one person all through the day.

Lost Fatherhood

I was 21 when my son was born on February 23, 2004. I was in Seychelles (little island down by the horn of Africa) when I got the message through Red Cross. I spent three more months at sea before meeting my son for the first time. I'm 27 and my son is 6 and I haven't seen him in five years. My ex-wife disappeared over state lines with him just to hurt me. After searching for her for the past five years she has now came out of hiding to try to collect child support. The courts told me I have to pay all the back due money owed. I don’t feel justice was served here, but I’ll pay rather than lose my freedom. I have been researching child custody and child abduction laws with little success. I had to research laws from three different states, each which says they don't have jurisdiction over the case. Which is kind of confusing that no state has direct reign over the case? I have learned that this exact thing happened to a Michigan Representative. His back due is obviously quite a bit more than mine. He is trying to get some of the state and federal laws changed on support and child custody. Hopefully, he makes some major progress. There are many groups that are activists for fathers who have had this happen to them. They work tirelessly to help the men robbed of their rights to be a father. They help with paying for lawyers and getting visitation for the father. Anyone that this has happened to don’t really get have the joys of fatherhood. They don’t get to hear their child say play with me daddy. It’s a quite painful experience for any man or woman to endure. In personal opinion there should have already been laws in place incase of something like this. I am going to fight for some sort of custody. At the end no matter how it ends I will say Que Sera Sera (what will be will be).