Sunday, October 31, 2010

Fort Worth Air Show

This weekend I went to the Fort Worth Air Show - a 15 minute drive from Denton. . I've never been to an air show before.. but upon getting there, I found out it's like a military parade but with planes.

Notice how I'm representin' Go Geek!

There were helicopters too. A lot of them. This orange one has got to be my favorite. This whole air show has only intensified my desire to learn how to fly and to skydive. Some day.. some day.
There were all sorts of things to see. An A-10 Warthog, C-130 Cargo plane which they nick named "Fat Albert", a Chinook, commercial airliners, and more. The things that they actually flew in front of us was a different story. They flew a million planes. I remember seeing the F-16
Falcon first, followed by the F-22 Raptor, and bringing up the grand finale was the Blue Angels.



All of the world's engineering efforts in the last century just flew over my head
The 1940's era P-51 Mustang with a 1970's era F-16 Falcon and a modern day F-22 Raptor as its wingmen

Their breath taking precision flying make them a sight to see.. In addition we saw several skydivers doing some tricks and Ross Perot made a guest appearance as a skydiver. I think I'm a bit too young to know exactly why he's famous but I know he ran for office at some point. There were also stunt planes tumbling through the air all day.
That will be me some day

There were plenty of familiar companies at the air show. Bell helicopters being one of them. They are the ones that manufacture most of the parts for the helicopters I saw at this show. They are at every single solitary job fair UNT's college of engineering hosts. In fact, my blog post from February of last year details every company that was at the job fair that year including Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. Seeing as Bell is right down the street from us, I'm sure it'd be easy to get a job there, if you set your mind to it in engineering.


Blue Angels playing chicken

Wish I could post all my pictures!

Monday, October 25, 2010

UNT Women's Lacrosse Tournament at College Station

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It was a beautiful day for Lacrosse, a day at the amusement park, going to the beach, and playing mini golf, but most importantly, it was a beautiful day for Lacrosse. The UNT Women's Lacrosse team traveled to College Station just this last weekend to compete against top tier schools for first place. The UNT Women's Lacrosse team is made up of about 26 players and is open for anyone to join and learn about lacrosse. This is one out of many many teams that UNT hosts out of its sports clubs - I myself play with UNT's Tennis sports club. It's surprising how many people have no idea what Lacrosse is. It's fun of course but it can be a little rough at times.

The team during a match

As a bystander, I got to take pictures. That works out though because now I have a lot of material to use for this blog entry.
Lindsey taking on SMU

The team played their hearts out and played 3 games that day. We played our first match against Empire - a Texas A&M alumni team. Most of them had played before and UNT tried their best but ended up losing.

Round 2 UNT played against SMU. UNT lost 14-0
Round 3 UNT tied against Texas Tech 8-8.
Defense is critical

By the end of the day, everyone gained valuable experience, had tons of fun, and ate ice cream. Who doesn't like ice cream? Well done Mean Green!
Sarah after scoring a goal. Complete with fist pump and referee approval. Nice

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Traditions - UNT Bonfire

Every school has traditions. Here's one of UNT's.

The bonfire being built

We build bonfires. Every homecoming, students put together a huge bonfire. I've heard it's the biggest hand-made bonfire in Texas. No cranes or heavy machinery used ever. Above is a picture I snapped of it the day before the thing was lit ablaze. You can sort of make out a few kids walking around on top stacking up more wood. Why have this tradition? I'm not sure, to be honest, but maybe it's to light the fire of encouragement and watch it spread freely and wildly until we consume our opponents in a furious unstoppable rage.

Or maybe it's because fires are awesome.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Hello World v2.0

It's been a while, but I'm still alive. And believe me I am still alive. And while you're dying I'll be still alive. I feel fantastic and I'm still alive..... still alive... still alive. (Portal, Still Alive)

It's a new semester and a new start. Now that I've settled into the new semester, gotten my classes well under way, taken a few tests and lost a few nights of sleep studying, I can start blogging again.

So what am I up to nowadays? I'm delving into the core of my degree plan. I have 4 classes; namely Database Systems and Information Integration, IT Systems and Administration, Mobile Device Development, and Discrete Math. I have another three or four semesters of school work to go before I can call myself a graduate. Perhaps if I continue to take summer school courses I can finish sooner but, I don't know if I've ever had a summer all to myself since I've started my college career. Summer school is just something that has to be done sometimes. It's for the betterment of myself and to get ahead. The sooner you finish, the better!

That said, I still had a fantastic summer. I got to go to New York state to visit my family and participate in paintball (it was my first time, and it was awesome), Kayak, and visit with all my family. The very next week I went to Florida to partake in an NSF conference. Luckily I had enough time to pay Sea World a visit! Some day I will swim with dolphins... some day.