From Keith's Eyes

Fun and Annoying Musical Insturments: The Kazoo

2011-05-09T07:45:00.001-05:00

I became fascinated with music since I first started playing the violin when I was young. However, due to my busy schedule at work, I was not able to keep up with playing the violin in the little free time I had and decided to leave it at home, 1700 miles away from where I live now. However, the music "spirit" still lives on inside me, and I tried my best to find time and explore the many different types of music that exists in this world.

During my exploration of music, I found this interesting musical instrument: the Kazoo. Developed in the United States based on similar instruments from Africa, the idea behind the instrument is to hum through the instrument to induce an air current, which makes the membrane inside the instrument vibrate and create its distinctive sound.

The Kazoo is one of the easiest melodic instruments to play well, so to make things easy, this is how you play the Kazoo:

Kazoo picture form http://www.kazoos.com/pub/

After doing some research about the Kazoo, I found out that it has been used in the professional setting and record attempts have been made to assemble the largest Kazoo ensemble. The new Guinness World Records was set on March 14, 2011 during a BBC event at the Royal Albert Hall. The crowd 3,910 kazooists at Royal Albert Hall joined together to perform Wagner's Ride Of The Valkyries and the Dambusters March.

Here are some videos that shows more about the event:

Video from YouTube.

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Video from YouTube.

I find it really amazing that a simple instruments such as the Kazoo can be used in the creation of music and in musical performances. With that, I will now acquire my own Kazoo and discover what I can do with it.

Kazoo Links:
How to play the Kazoo
Masters of the Kazooniverse: a musical group made up of kazooists

xkcd's Future Timeline Post - We're Doomed!

2011-04-21T03:39:00.002-05:00

Now that I am back in civilization, the tech geek part of me is glad that I have access to the internet again. I have survived without the internet for a longer period of time, but hey, it is not that bad.

So, going through the usual webpages and blogs that I go through every day, I found myself looking at a recent post on xkcd: The Future - According to Google Search Results.

Image from xkcd.

It was quite a coincidence that a coworker talked about the many things that was predicted to happen in 2012 a couple hours ago. We did not really talk about what was going to happen, but we did talk about the changes that us humans will see and how it would change the way we see the world and act. Hopefully, those changes would be for a better world.

Going through the timeline, there are many things that I am looking forwards to see in the next 89 years (Linux becomes dominant OS - 2014, all UN member nations achieve Millennium Development Goals - 2015, US elects first married lesbian president - 2032, 80% of US has access to high-speed rail - 2036, tabacco industry fails - 2047). However, some listings on the timeline are events that I would like to see happen on the timeline (US debt reaches 97% of GDP - 2021, Lake Mead evaporates - 2021, arctic summers ice-free - 2040, Social Security trust fund exhausted - 2041, Joshua trees nearly extinct - 2100). In short words: We're Doomed!

Well, it makes a good read. However, Google and I are not really futurologists. In addition events in the future may not turn out to be what we expect them to be now.

So, what do you think will happen within the next 89 years?

An evening with Rodgers and Hammerstein

2011-03-21T03:00:00.009-05:00

Last weekend, I went down to the Artemus W. Ham Hall at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to listen to
Pops Concert by the Las Vegas Philharmonic orchestra. For that evening, the concert featured music from the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Rodgers and Hammerstein was a well known American songwriting duo that consisted of Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) and Oscar Hammerstein II (1895 – 1960). Together, they created some of the most popular musicals of all time. Some of the musicals created by them included: Oklahoma!, Carousel, The King and I and The Sound of Music.

During the golden age for musical theater, the musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein were quite "revolutionary" as the songs were incorporated into the plot of the play, something that was not done before in musicals. In addition, their plays contained many thought provoking plots, as issues such as racism, sexism and classism were addressed in many of their works. Their plays would become famous all over the world and some of them would later be made into movies.

The first song I heard from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical was You'll Never Walk Alone from Carousel. That was one of the more popular songs that became a football song for people all over the world (starting from the Liverpool Football Club in England). Also, other songs such as Do-Ra-Mi were songs that would be known around the world.

Before going out to the concert, I managed to get a hold of a video recording of a concert featuring music from Rodgers and Hammerstein during the 2010 BBC Proms season.

Video from YouTube. Posted by BBC.

Armed with some background research, I was able to know about the music I was going to hear. There was no way I could compare the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the Artemus W. Ham Hall with the orchestras and the concert halls back home, but it was good to know that Las Vegas dos have a classical music ensemble. Other that the fact the spotlight operator annoyed me with his overuse of the spotlight, I enjoyed the concert.

Consensus vs. Confrontation Politics

2011-02-21T23:34:00.002-06:00

One strange fact about me: I like watching and listening to the Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs). I have no idea when I started tuning in to that, but it was probably after my attempt to figure out why people found Margaret Thatcher speeches amusing.

More about the PMQs: PMQs takes place every Wednesdays for half an hour and during that time, the Members of the Parliament in the British House of Commons ask the British Prime Ministers questions, in which the Prime Minister is obliged to answers. Other government ministers have their own question time dealing with issues within their areas. For more information about the PMQs and Question Time, read the following Wikipedia articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister%27s_Questions, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_Time.

According to the Wikipedia, the PMQs forms an important part of British political culture and, due to the natural drama of the sessions, it is the most well-known piece of Parliamentary business in the United Kingdom. I like listening to PMQs as I am always entertained by the fact that the politicians can use that time to attack the policies of the opposing party, and poke fun of each other, while they are within the same room.

Since PMQs are know to be "dramatic", there is a question on what type of PMQs people prefer, a cozy agreement, or a good punch-up. Below is a video on what people's opinions are on that question:

Video from YouTube. Posted by liarpoliticians.

This is different compared to the system in the United States. PMQs and Question Time can give politicians an opportunity to voice their opinions about government policies and make sure that the government is accountable to the people it is serving. Also, it provides a setting for politicians to have a debate about issues and policies, allowing all of us to be better informed on what is going in our government and the issues it is dealing with. This is a lot better compared to getting news about our government from the news outlets. Maybe one day, C-SPAN can be more entertaining.

In my opinion, consensus politics is functional and agreements can be made that satisfies almost everyone. However, confrontation politics are always entertaining and at the same time can still be functional. Well, for now I like to be entertained by my politicians. So, if our politicians can stop screaming at each other on the news, I will go for confrontation politics.

Road Trip to Vegas: Day 1

2011-02-14T22:00:00.033-06:00

Hello from Las Vegas, NV. It is always good to be in a warm place in the winter. Before I talk about life in Vegas and in Nevada, I should spend some time to talk about my road trip out west.

Day 1
I left my home in the Chicago area one cold January morning, heading to Oklahoma City, OK, my stop for the night. Other than the fact that I was not able to merge onto the Stevenson Expressway and was stuck on the shoulder for a while (thank-you rush hour traffic), I was able to get out of Chicago without much trouble.

Map from Google Maps.

Ah, Illinois corn/soy fields. For now (winter), it was just fields of bare dirt. I learned to appreciate this place over the past 3 years. When I was living in Urbana, IL, I was quite attached to the places in Central Illinois and I would be missing it during my time out west.

But, here is a quick snapshot of a the Central Illinois landscape with a combine harvester in the distance.

St. Louis, MO. It seemed like I have a pattern of getting lost in that city when I was visiting the city by myself. For two of the three times I have been there, I did not intent on even visiting the city (I still remembered the time when my flight was diverted there due to the stormy weather in Chicago). Given my past visits to St Louis, I should know the city quite well. However, I still did not know where I could find a place to get lunch in the city. Here is a snapshot I took of the Gateway Arch during this visit.

Missouri! I rode my bicycle through the state when I was during the Illini 4000 bike trip from New York City to San Diego, CA in the summer of 2007. The Ozarks surprised us then as we did not anticipate for any hills between the Appalachians and the Rockies. In addition, we were surprised by the amount of dogs that were chasing after us (dogs + bicycles = not a good mix). But overall, Missouri was an interesting state, with cheap ribs, lawnmower races, and ambiguous civil war murals.

The civil war mural in Ironton, MO. Photo from peakery.com.

Because of my bad experience with the hills of the Ozarks and with the bike chasing dogs, I did not like Missouri that much and was glad to be out of the state. However, while I was driving through the Ozarks, I was amazed by the beauty of the forests and the hills, which was a different landscape compared to the flat fields of central Illinois. So, with that experience, I guess I could put Missouri back onto the list of states to visit again.

For this road trip, I decided to visit as many National Parks as I could visit so that I could collect more stamps for my National Parks Passport. As I was approaching Springfield, MO, I decided to make a detour and visit Wilson's Creek National Battlefield. The battle at Wilson's Creek between the Union army and Confederate army was the first major Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi River. The Southerners won the battle there, but was not able to capitalize on their success. Knowing nothing about the place before visiting it, I was quite surprised that even with the Union loss at Wilson's Creek, that site became a National Battlefield. As it was getting dark and I was still 4 hours away from Oklahoma City, I only had time to explore the visitor's center there.

The sun was setting by the time I found my way back onto I-44. From this point on, I was just concentrating on getting to Oklahoma City as quickly as I could. Fortunately I was able to get to the hotel at around 10pm, giving me enough time to unpack, relax in the hotel pool and hot tub, and to get some sleep.

Another New Year, Another New...

2011-01-04T15:00:00.003-06:00

Hello Twenty-eleven! Another year just went by and it went by really quickly. Looking back on the past year, I realized I had done a lot and had also made a lot of accomplishments. I backpacked inside the Grand Canyon with other college students from my residence hall, graduated from university, took a course to become a Leave No Trace Trainer, and pulled off planning and writing the route for the Illini 4000's cross-country bike ride during the summer (woa, that was a busy first half of the year).

To be honest, I did not really blog much about what I had done during 2010. For 2011, I would hope to find more time to blog about my adventures. If I have enough time, I might go back and post some pictures and talk about some of the things that happened during the past year.

With the new year here, I still have to come up with my New Years Resolutions. Well, I will just keep them to myself for now. In general, some of the things I will like to achieve is to be more proactive. I think it is vague, but it is a good start.

For 2011, I will be leaving the corn/soy fields of Illinois for Las Vegas, Neveda to work on an internship. My response for my last achievement of 2010: YES! I have found something to do! And I have found something that I love doing! Speaking of which, I should probably sleep now as I will be up early to start my road trip out west.

To new friends: I will be a pleasure to meet you. To old friends: It was a pleasure and we will meet again. Before I go get ready for my new adventures, I will leave you with one of my favorite songs from Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel: You'll Never Walk Alone. Wherever we are, we will never be alone.

Video from YouTube. Posted by ximowb

Christmas Television Specials

2010-12-20T01:00:00.003-06:00

Hoot! Its that time of the year again. During the past few years, I was drawn to many BBC shows. I discovered some shows from the PBS stations and other shows from the BBC America ads.

Some of the shows I watch have Christmas specials commissioned separately to a production season and the length of those shows are sometimes longer than the usual episode length. In addition, those episodes are broadcasted months after the previous series and months before the next series starts. So, these specials are a somewhat good thing to give to the audience while they wait for the new series to come out.

Here are some of the BBC shows that I am waiting to be broadcasted:

Top Gear
Top Gear will be showing two specials during the next two weeks. The first episode will be their America East Coast special and the second episode will be their Middle East special. These specials are a lot of interest to me as it shows them traveling to different places and getting to know those place in a humorous way.

Video from YouTube. Posted by the BBC.

Doctor Who
I don't really know much to say about Doctor Who. After watching all the episodes for the new Doctor Who, which is revived in 2005, I am starting to watch the episodes of the old Doctor Who, which was first broadcasted in the 1960s. But here is the trailer for their special. It looks like this episode is going to be based on the story of the Christmas Coral.

Video from YouTube. Posted by the BBC

xkcd's Adjectives Post - F-ing Peristeronic

2010-12-19T15:27:00.013-06:00

Recently,I came across a xkcd comic post which showed the frequency of which adjectives are intensified with obscenities. I was not surprised that some of the adjectives that showed up were frequently intensified with obscenities. With that list, I decided to see if I could come up with phrases of my own.

Here are some my phrases:

It is f**king annoying when Blogger "cuts off" web-uploaded images that are too large.
Figuring out a way to get large images from the web into my blog can be as annoying as s**t.

Comic from xkcd

Going down the list, I came across this word peristeronic. To be honest, I had never seen that word before, nor was I able to find it in my old dictionary. I looked up the word on the internet and found this definition from the dictionary of difficult words: Pertaining to or concerned with pigeons.

I had no idea on how to intensify peristeronic with obscenities. Nor did I have any ideas for forming a proper sentence with the word peristeronic without using obscenties (this is a bad sign as I am thinking of taking the GREs in the near future). So, if anyone out there know anything about this word and how it is used, feel free to teach me more about the word peristeronic.

New Doctor Who Series

2010-04-14T12:14:00.007-05:00

The new Doctor Who is finally here. For those of us in the U.S., it will be showing on BBC America this weekend. However, it has already been aired in the U.K. three weeks ago and for those who can't wait, the first two episodes can be found online. Everything on the show is new. We have a new Doctor and a new companion, Amy Pond. But wait, there is more. The new Doctor even has a new sonic screwdriver to use and a new TARDIS to travel in.

Video from YouTube. Posted by dgw934drwho

It will take some time for me to get used to the new changes for this series. The first episode is awesome, with the Doctor discovering his new favorite food: Fish Fingers and Custard. From the preview below shown after the first episode, there are more for us to look forwards to: the Weeping Angles are back (voted the most scariest monsters ever), and the Daleks can never be exterminated (they are annoying, but I will miss them if they don't show up). But here we go: Geronimo!

Video from YouTube. Posted by djorcks95

Grand Canyon Trip: DONE

2010-03-30T16:55:00.004-05:00

Hoary, I made it out of the Grand Canyon alive. Overall, it was a good trip. I am really busy right now, but I will write about the trip as soon as I have time to do so. But for now, here is a geologic map of the Grand Canyon that I found in the Nature History Building.

Inspiration from "James May on the Moon"

2010-03-15T07:00:00.007-05:00

From my last blog post, I mentioned that I will be going to the Grand Canyon. Yeap, in 5 days, I will be going backpacking inside the Grand Canyon for my spring break.

As crunch time approaches, I am feeling both excited and terrified at the same time. I learned many good lessons from my cycling trip across the country 3 summers ago. Also, I learned a lot from my Colorado trip last summer with Henry and Matt. However, I am feeling more nervous for the Grand Canyon trip compared to the other trips I have been on.

There are so many things that make this trip different. First, even though I have been to the Grand Canyon before, I have only explored the South Rim and went down to the second outhouse along the Bright Angel Trail. That was 3 years ago. Now, I don't really remember what some places look like. It will feel like I am stepping into a new world when I get to the Grand Canyon on Saturday. Also, I am co-leading the trip for a group of 8 people, something in a bigger scale than what I have done before (the group size for the Colorado trip is 3). Dealing with 7 people is a lot different than dealing with just 2.

This new experience is a little intimidating to me. There are so many responsibilities for the leader to take care of and there are times when I have nightmares about the trip. For encouragement , I found a BBC documentary: “James May On The Moon” to give me some inspiration.

Video from YouTube. Posted by Moorix.

Like "mankind's" dream of being able to go to the moon, Being able to go down and see the bottom of the Grand Canyon has been a dream of mine. Also, I choose to go to the Grand Canyon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. And if I have a positive attitude, anything is possible.

Now for something positive: How amazing will the Grand Canyon be?

Video from YouTube. Posted by wasdom01.

Top Gun Anthem

2010-03-14T22:30:00.002-05:00

Going on with more airplanes, I came across this song from the movie Top Gun while I was running some errands with my friend Henry:

I need to put up some new posts soon. The last couple of months is a busy one. But, 5 MORE DAYS TILL GRAND CANYON! HOOT!

U-2 Spy Plane Landing

2009-12-13T01:30:00.004-06:00

Developed during the height of the Cold War, the Lockheed U-2 (nicknamed "Dragon Lady") is a very high altitude reconnaissance aircraft and its objective is to spy in totally secrecy on the Soviet Union. With a maximum speed of 500 mph and a service ceiling of over 85,000 ft, it is believed that the aircraft can fly beyond the reach of Soviet fighters, missiles, and radar. However, because of the high operating altitude, the pilot must wear the equivalent of a space suit equivalent to the ones that astronauts wear into space.

The wingspan of the U-2 is 103 ft. This gives the U-2 some glider-like characteristics and allows the U-2 to fly to such high altitude. However, the U-2 have a tendency to float over the runway, making the U-2 difficult to land. To assist the pilot, the landing plane is paced by a chase car with an assistant who "talks" the pilot down by calling off the declining height of the aircraft as it decreased in speed. Woa, that is a very interesting and intense process.

Here is a video of James May in the Pontiac GTO chasing a U2 spy plane in the BBC program "James May on the Moon"

Video from YouTube.

Here are more footage of the U-2 landing from the chase car

Videos from YouTube

First Static Line Jump

2009-11-11T21:19:00.013-06:00

Last weekend, me, Henry and Matt went down to Archway Skydiving in Vandalia, IL to skydive.

Actually our first jump was the static line jump. Basically, we were attached to a static line that was attached to the plane. The static line made sure that our parachute deployed immediately after we left the plane. After sitting through a 5 hour class going through the basics of parachuting and the many "what-to-do-if-this-happened" scenarios, we were ready to jump. We climbed into the Cessna 182, which took us up to our jumping altitude at 3,500ft.

Here we go.....

The person at 3:09 is me.

Now, our landings.....

The person at 2:00 is me.

After our first jump, we were very eager to go up and jump again. However, there were no more open jump spots for the day and we would need to come back next weekend. Oh well, we would have to do our second jump another day.

UPDATE [11/22/2009]: Looking back at the two videos, my first jump consisted of a "not so well done" arch after my release from the plane and failed flare that resulted in me having a "face-plant" landing. Also, I think I forgot to do the "roll maneuver" to distribute the force from the impact. Below is a video showing the roll maneuver. After that jump, I was really eager to jump again and perform those techniques correctly. Next time, I will get it done right.

Videos taken from YouTube.

Colorado: August 2009

2009-09-01T19:03:00.016-05:00

Woot! I made it out of Colorado alive! With the start of a new school year, I am still readjusting to the busy school schedule. I will blog about my trip as soon as I find the time to do so.

Here are some highlights of the trip:

Me, Henry, and his friend Matt went into the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness in the White River National Forest in Colorado. Maroon Lake is about 15 miles from Aspen, CO and we took a shuttle bus from Apsen Highlands to the trail head at Maroon Lake. Then, we hiked about 1.5 miles to Crater Lake.

Buckskin Pass and Willow Pass are two mountain passes that are really close to our campsite at Crater Lake. We spent one day climbing up Buckskin Pass and I spent another day climbing up Willow Pass.

A picture of the Maroon Bells from Maroon Lake

From Crater Lake, the trails to Buckskin Pass and Willow Pass share the same route till it gets above the treeline. Then the trail "splits" off to the two passes.

Buckskin Pass

A view of Snowmass Lake from Buckskin Pass.

Willow Pass

A view of Maroon Bell North from Willow Pass.

A view of Willow Lake from Willow Pass.

June Recap: Chicago etc.

2009-07-19T00:30:00.005-05:00

Woa, it is already more than half way through July and I am still not done with the June Recaps. But here is the last one: my trip to Chicago.

After an enjoyable time in Sidney, it was time to head up to Chicago to see the Illini 4000 team there. I have already met the team when they rolled through Champaign-Urbana, and I was going up there to see them again and to ride with them at the ride-a-long in Chicago.

As a result of the storms from the night before, the tracks were blocked by fallen debris. That was the cause for the train delays in the morning. When I arrived at the train station in Champaign, I found out that the 6:10am City of New Orleans had not arrived yet. When it did finally arrive at around 8:45am, the 9:15am Saluki (the train I was taking up to Chicago) was over an hour behind schedule. After a really long wait, I finally left Champaign at 11am and got into Chicago Union Station at around 2pm (2 hours late).

The Illini 4000 was staying at the UIC dorms in Chicago and they were really generous to let me stay with them there. After dropping off my bike there, I headed out to Millennium Park to see a concert by the Grant Park Orchestra. On the way there, I found out that my friend Shawn A. was in Chicago for the day and we decided to meet up in Millennium Park. As Shawn was from Miami, he was very impressed with the city. Armed with his new camera (a really good one), he was taking pictures of almost everything he could see.

Summer brings in the Grant Park Music Festival by the Grant Park Orchestra. For almost every summer since I was in Chicago, I had been to at least one concert for the summer season. The lineup for that night was Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 and the World Premiere of Torke's Plans. I had head Rachmanioff's Piano Concerto No. 3 on Discovering Music a few months ago and I was excited to be able to hear it played by an orchestra live. Torke's Plans was commissioned by the Grant Park Music Festival in honor of the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burcham's Plan for Chicago. Chicago had grown a lot since the Burchman Plan was reveled and it had a lot to look for in the future. The piece did a good job in portraying the dreams and hopes that Chicago had in the past and for the future as it would continue to grow.

Here are some pictures from the concert. I took some of the picture and found some really good ones that Shawn took.

Photograph taken by Shawn A.

Photograph taken by Shawn A.

I was waken up early the next morning to join the Illini 4000 team at the ride-a-long from the Bean in downtown Chicago to Highland Park. After a couple delays with flat tires, the team headed out of Chicago. Here are some images of the Illini 4000 getting ready to leave.

This year, the ride to Highland Park went smoothly and compared to last year, we got to Highland Park faster. It was great being able to see the team and its supporters. But soon, it was time for me to head back to Urbana.

A message to the Illini 4000 team who are currently in Montana: You are almost there.

More Music

2009-07-18T12:36:00.009-05:00

Thanks to listening to radio at work, I get to know more new music. Here are some new favorites.

You Never Know - Wilco

Video from YouTube. Posted by okeastron2008.

Know Your Enemy - Green Day

Video from YouTube. Posted by GreenDayMusic09.

June Recap: Sidney Barbecue

2009-07-12T22:50:00.000-05:00

Levi, one of the workers at the Energy Farm, invited me to his barbecue party with the other Energy Farm workers at his home in Sidney, IL. Even though I had to catch a 9:15 train the next morning, I decided to go as Levi would be really happy to see me there.

As Sidney was about 14 miles southeast of Urbana, Rhea, another worker at the Energy Farm, offered to give me a ride there. The evening started off with rain which grew into a big storm. I was biking back from the Post Office when I got caught in the rain a street away from my apartment. As soon, as I got back, it started hailing outside. After the weather cleared up, Rhea arrived and we headed out to Sidney. As we turned out into the cornfields, we heard that a tornado warning was issued for Champaign County and a tornado was spotted in the area around Homer, IL. That was a little scary as that was really close to where we were. However, it did not take long to get to Sidney.

As soon as we got to Levi's home, we had trouble in figuring out where we should set up as the rain would go on and off. Soon, the tornado siren went off and the neighbors came over and told us that there was a Funnel Cloud coming towards us. We headed over and it was a interesting sight.

More people came as the weather died down again. With more people showing up, we had more food. Some highlights included the Pig in a Blanket and the Pepperollies from Monical's Pizza. Also, I learn a new way to grill the corn that Rhea brought in.

Picture from Wikipedia.

Picture from the Monical's Pizza Website.

Other than food, there were other things to entertain us. The Slip and Slide made its appearance twice - first in the evening and then later at night. With the rain, it made things more interesting. It was really cold when I went on it at night.

Soon, it became late and it was time for us to go. As we headed back, we saw one of the most amazing thing that I would ever see. The sky was clear and we could see the stars in the sky. However, in the distance, we could could see the clouds and the flashes of lighting in the night sky. Woa, that was beautiful.

June Recap: Planting

2009-07-10T20:05:00.008-05:00

June went by really quickly. Here is a recap on what happened in June.

Planting
With summer soon approaching, it was time to plant the Miscanthus plants in the plots. For some days, I was loaned out to help the people at the Energy Farm plant a 9 acre plot. Last year, Miscanthus was planted in that plot. Unfortunately, due to bad weather and/or bad management, the Miscanthus plants did not get to live through the winter. Now, the entire 9 acre had to be replanted.

The planting process involves us hand planting the plants into the soil. The good thing was: we were able to use this device called the "Pottiputki " to plant the young Miscanthus plants into the ground.

Here is an image of the Pottiputki device we used for planting:

Image taken from the Government of South Australia PIRSA Forestry website.

Below is a diagram showing how the Pottiputki works:

Image taken from the Government of South Australia PIRSA Forestry website.

July 5th Fireworks

2009-07-06T00:09:00.006-05:00

Finally, after a 24 hour weather delay, we finally saw the 4th of July fireworks in Champaign. To avoid the traffic jam after the show, I managed to persuade my roommates to ride out bikes to the area around Parkland College (the place where they are setting off the fireworks). After a 5 mile trip that took 45 minutes, we found ourselves a spot right in fount of where the fireworks were being set off (just behind the fallout area) and we decided to place ourselves there for the show.

Since we got there early, we spent some time watching the people around us set off fireworks and watching a plane fly in the airspace where the fireworks would be in. It was an interesting sight. It was entertaining to see people playing with the sparkle things.

The fireworks were awesome. During the fireworks, I was able to hear some of the music that the fireworks were being choreographed to. As I did not look at the song selections beforehand, I was surprised that the selection included music composed by American composers and musicians. As my roommate Joe puts it, he was really happy to see something more than just patriotic music being used to choreograph the fireworks show. Choreography wise, the fireworks were nicely choreographed to the Armstrong piece (it was just beautiful).

Here are the music in the fireworks song selection that caught my ear since I know about those songs very well:

What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong

Video from YouTube. Posted by davidnob.

Appalachian Spring - Aaron Copland

Videos from YouTube. Posted by RG28581

Fanfare for the Common Man - Aaron Copland

Video from YouTube. Posted by beneditotrb

Thoughts on the Learning Process

2009-07-05T14:31:00.003-05:00

With half the summer almost gone, it is now time for me to reflect back. From the beginning of the summer, one of my goals is to be inquisitive and learn more about me and the things around me. That is a interesting goal to work on and I do not really know how to go about doing it. Looking at my friend Shawn A's blog, I found some word of advice that basically sums up what I should do:

1.) Pay ridiculously close attention to detail
2.) Ask a heck of a lot of questions
3.) Really understand what you are doing inside and out
4.) Understand why your doing something
5.) Try to learn from your mistakes (of course some people never do)

- Shawn A.

Home is in Every Moment

2009-06-06T22:22:00.005-05:00

I came across this video when I was browsing through my subscription list on YouTube: Home is in Every Moment - Lonely Planet Travel Video.

Video Clip from YouTube. Posted by LonelyPlanet.

For anyone who is wondering what the Lonely Planet is: it is one of the largest travel guidebook publishers in the world. It also has a television production company, which has produced four television series. I have seen some of its episodes and it has inspired me to travel to have fun and to learn more about the world and myself.

This video is produced by William Mitchell for Lonelyplanet.tv. In the description, it explains: "Home is in every moment. A different take on the question 'Where do you feel at home?' It's not WHERE that's important, but WHEN." It is beautiful and inspiring; a good video.

Summer Again

2009-05-31T23:18:00.009-05:00

Woa, one year had gone by really fast. It seemed like yesterday when I spent 3 hours waiting for a train and chatted with a Turkish Cypriot during that time. A lot had happened during that period time and I did not expect myself ever doing a majority of those things.

Now, I am stuck with summer again and other than my summer job, I really have to find things to do. To keep myself occupied, I decided to come up with an informal to-do list that would enable me to learn more new things. This is not the complete list and it is a guideline for me to make sure I can find something to do when I get bored over the summer.

Illini 4000 Support Work
For this summer, I volunteered to do some support work for the Illini 4000 Bike Team. I will need to keep track of the team and take care of any problems that they may encounter on the road. In addition, I will also need to perform some housekeeping tasks as I am one of the few members who are still on campus and still can help take care of some I4K errands.

Readings
First, I need to read the research papers that my boss gave me to read. Sean left me some books and I have some personal books that I wanted to read but did not get around to doing so.

Personal Collection:
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
National Geographic Adventure Magazine

Sean's Collection:
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
What Management Is by Joan Magretta
The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman

Training
I might go on a mountaineering trip this August. I need to get in shape for that.

Networking
This was something I leant from one of my I-Programs. I need to get in touch and keep in touch with many people. This will come useful one day when I need someone to help me with something. Also, it is a good thing to check in and see how people are doing.

New Hobbies
Learn something new.

Goals and Priorities
I have been off-track during the most part of last year. It is not a bad thing, but it be good to be able to acomplish and achive more of my originally planned goals. I will need to come up with a set of goals and a priority list for next year to guide me through the year. That might be published in a later blog post.

So, this should give me something to do.

Don't Dream It's Over

2009-04-28T18:20:00.008-05:00

For this post, I am going to feature a song I came across a few years ago.

Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House

Video Clip from YouTube. Posted by dankx75

One thing I liked about this song was its lyrics. After reading through it, I decided to look at people's interpretations of the song. After going through the comments, I felt better for myself as it gave me a perspective on how I should see life.

A Trip to the Farm

2009-04-03T23:00:00.020-05:00

Spring Semester is eventful. One of the classes I am taking is TSM 311: Humanity in the Food Web. It meets every Friday afternoon for 3 hours and we discuss about the origins of our food and our food culture from the past to present. Usually, the topics in the class are interesting, but sometimes, there are some moments when things seemed to be going too slow.

Below is a doodle I did for my quick-draw on the life of a hunter-gatherer.

After taking a week off for Spring Break, instead of having us go back to the usual class format, our professors decided to take us down to the South Farms so that we can learn more about farm machinery and how things work on the modern farm.

Below are some pictures I have taken during today's interactive class. I apologize for the poor quality of some of the photos as they were taken by my mobile phone camera.

Here is the combine. It is a machine that combines the tasks of harvesting, threshing, and cleaning of the corn crops.

Here is a close up view of the combine. During harvesting, the combine goes through the corn fields and combine head will strips the corn ear away from the stalk and leaf. Inside the combine, the corn kernels are separated from the cobs. The cobs are then cut up and disposed of and the kernels are stored in the combine until it is offloaded.

This is the sprayer. In the white tanks on the top of the truck, chemicals are put in there and it is sprayed on the crop to prevent insects from destroying the crops. Also, this machine can be used to give more fertilizer to the crops.

Another view of the sprayer. This section can be extended so that it can spread out across the field. The hoses coming down from the frame are used to spread the fertilizer to the area where the fertilizer is needed for the crops.

Here is the seed drill. This machinery is used for planting the seeds in the soil. The seed drills plants the corn seeds in a uniform manner so that the most efficient yields can be produced. The people working at the site gave us a demonstration of the seed drill in the parking area as the fields are too wet for planting. It is an amazing site and a good experience to see how the seed drills work and we are surprised by the fact that the seeds are spaced close together.

Another view of the seed drill.

Here are the bins on the seed drill. The insecticide chemical bin is located at the front. The seed bin is located in the middle. The starter fertilizer bin in at the back (in the bigger yellow bins).

Here are two buckets of the corn plant. The green colored corn grains are covered with a chemical that discourage animals and insects from consuming the seeds after planting and before the the seeds germinate. The green colored corn grains are the ones that the farmers uses to plant into the ground (planter seeds?). Those seeds are made to grown into the most ideal corn plants. The yellow colored corn grains are the result of the what happens after the green colored corn grains grew into the corn plant and produced its offspring. These corn grains will not be planted as they self pollinated themselves and it will be more difficult for farmers to predict how the corn plants from those seeds will grow and what the yield from those seeds will be.

Illinois Corn!

From this trip, I am able to understand more about how the modern farm work to produce our food. Also, our farmer peers explained to us in detailed how things work in their world. From this experience, I have more appreciation to the people who produce our food as they are the people who we depend on to survive in many ways.