Absentminded

Always oblivious and preoccupied. Maybe that's why I can't learn anymore. This sucks.

Taylor

Taylor Swift:
Just another country/pop artist I'm not afraid to admit I enjoy listening to.

Two Door Cinema Club's pretty cool too. They look pretty geeky.

Grudge

I guess 7 months of work and anticipation amounted to nothing.

Up yours, Nikolai. There's a reason why they tried to kill you off.

Pitch Moment & Load Transfer

Stage 2: Brake safely installed






Stage 2: Brake safely installed

Keyboards

I FREAKING HATE IT WHEN PARTICLES FALL IN BETWEEN THE BUTTONS ON MY KEYBOARD!!!1

BICYCLE BICYCLE

Omg so excite today. after so much talk and so many delays, the project that I started back in July is nearly complete!

For the first time, I took my newly assembled fixed gear bike out for a test ride. Instead of studying for ME108, I went to Missing Link for the day and finished putting stuff together. But even though I got a fixed gear now, I resent being called a hipster.

I still need to go to the machine shop an drill out that hole for my front brake.


I gotta find a damned 26.0 quill stem for my pursuit bars, which i'm dying to use. What I've learned: keep in mind material properties when trying to pull a crazy stunt like forcefully prying open the stem clamp or sanding it down. That shit causes plastic deformations and stress raisers and shit that will cause catastrophic failure. Good thing I got that backup black stem that has been untouched by my foolish attempts. I would have probably killed myself when my handlebars randomly explode while I'm riding.

Building your own bike, even such a simple one as this will likely cost you more than just buying one from craigslist, but at least I can say this one's my own.

and FUCK! I tried carrying both my panasonic and univega on my shoulders while carrying a bag and backpack and my fucking brand new wheel fell out of the dropouts! and with both my hands full, all i could do was stare at the tireless, beautiful rim hit the concrete several times before slowly slowing down like an Euler's disk. .. sigh.. I probably need to get a new rim or risk another form of catastrophic failure. But thank you, Vu, for helping me carry a bike during the last stretch.
That's why I'm using that mismatched front rim for the moment. I ended up taking my saddle, seatpost, tires, and pedals from Sonic anyways.

Scott, I hope you're as excited to see this as I was. Now we can compare "before and after" photos.

Thank you QQ for those toe cages and SOMA straps. I should probably post my final budget later. This cost more than I had predicted. geez

o and if someone steals this shit, then i'll hate your soul forever.

Univega viva sport
44t origin8 chainring
17t Surly cog
Surly lockring
Weinmann DP18
MKS steel cages
SOMA leather straps
170mm sugino GT
Shimano BR-6614 Dual Pivot Brake
Tektro bar-end lever

Family Love

I went home for the weekend and found my baby portrait in the garage. I hung it up on the empty wall of the new house hoping my family would be excited to see it up there. When I woke up in the morning, someone had taken it down. FML

Release My Thoughts

I have never been a fan of writing blogs, but recently, my life has become so busy and my mind is on so many things that I need an outlet. The urge was so strong that I'm already late to our Theta Tau constitution meeting to write this and I don't even expect people to read any of it.

I told myself early on that grad school is not for me. But over time, having gone through so many courses and making friends with grad students and GSIs has made me appreciate them. Aaron Kleinmann from Math 1B and Vincent from E28. Recently, Andrew Gray from ME131 has been awesome. He's so helpful with homework and is always happy in discussion. Plus he has a little lisp. Kinda cool. Then I talked to Lee Fok from ME109 about bikes. I can tell he's eager to get his grad student signature and get outta here. haha. I ended up going to the BSAC poster session with Liana to support Ryan on his research project and was able to talk to Adrienne too. We had a brief talk about how great it is for her to be ME118 GSI. lol. I met this 28-year old guy named Tyson Kim doing cardiovascular arterial research here and at UCSF. I feel like he's gonna cure heart attacks in the future. Furthermore, it turns out that one of the guys from Beauty and Geek was presenting a project there too, but we had to discuss him quietly cause wer weren't sure if he was ashamed of having been on the show. We got so many Berkeley celebrities. Frenklach on mythbusters, Smoot on 5th grader, William Hung on Idol, that one old professor on survivor. Damn. The GSIs are all so intelligent in their own focuses and it makes me admire their uniqueness and knowledge. I hope I'll be as respectable someday.

I then went to a last minute infosession to study in Osaka. This might be the opportunity I've been waiting for for so long. I'm gonna hop on that shit and hope I can end up in japan. Learn some japanese language shit and watch some anime. Maybe study along the way.

Rube Goldberg. Lana's been doing such a good job with her Professional Devlopment shit and this RG is gonna be big for us. I wish I had the time to contribute and I know it's OUR event, but I can't do it this semester. Sucks that i missed the meeting yesterday.

Good news is that Coleman and I met with Hedrick and we finally got a faculty advisor. Epsilon Chapter status is almost thereeee.

Thanks to Gloria for signing me in to Tutorial today. Thursdays are just too packed. Got ME108 labs and shit.

I haven't even had time for GQ. QQ just called me about the dinner she's been trying to plan but I can't even have meals anymore. Meals are for children. jk, i wish i could be there right now, even though you just told me I got kicked out of the family that I ...started... with John Kim. Rebellious kids.

Aw man i gotta go to Danceworx too. How did "I'm not joining DWX" turn into two dances. O well, it's a fun break from school.

--------------------------------------------------
What was your SAT score?


Sincerely,
Tom

--
Tom Mao
Recruitment Director
O.Y. English
U.C. Berkeley
---------------------------------------------------
1990

Sincerely,
Chris Luong
UC Berkeley, 2011

---------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your interest in O.Y. English and the time you took in filling out the application. Unfortunately, we have an extremely competitive applicant pool this year, and we cannot accept you in our Summer in China Program.

Sincerely,
Tom

--
Tom Mao
Recruitment Director
O.Y. English
U.C. Berkeley
---------------------------------------------------

Who knew those SATs would come back to bite you in the ass. Hilarious.