Dixon/Sacramento

Hi!

Well here I am on a Wednesday night in Dixon. I live here Monday night to Thursday night, allowing me to at least be on my own for extremely cheap, work, and go home to help out my parents. Work is extremely tiring, but there's satisfaction in designing Hospital campus layouts.

I am living in a 1 story household which my friend's parents use as a gigantic shed. There are so many random items in this house that it would be overly furnished even as a typical family house. This makes it a very nice place to live... if it wasn't in the middle of nowhere. I have a bat next to my bed, just in case.

But living by myself allows me to get away from the problems I deal with in my family. While I do want to help out, I'm almost 24 and I still have responsibilities to my parents that can take up my weekends. Eat, Sleep, Gym, Work. The life of a mid-twenties male. At least I have some paintings and artwork, not just supermodels! Never been a big fan of that, nor of lesbians. They are cool in my book, but not really attracted to someone who has made a choice to be attracted to the opposite sex. There's a good Family Guy scene where Peter and his friends enter into a new bar and realize that it is a Lesbian bar. The reactions quickly tell you the thought process that seems fitting: Excitement and interest, then realization of uselessness, then sadness and melancholy.

I'll try and get back into blogging more and hanging out with friends!

I'm On A Boat! Listen to funny music at work, like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQlIhraqL7o&feature=channel_video_title

Japan, disaster relief

So I'm sure everyone has heard about what has happened to the Japanese people and this is a disaster that could have happened anywhere.

Earthquakes, while typically occurring on fault lines, can happen anywhere on the planet. They are based on tectonic plate motion releasing pressure from the mantle's constant heat generation. They can happen anywhere because the mantle and the plates are constantly changing. Without warning other areas can be hit by massive earthquakes.

Areas such as Japan and California are on fault lines where earthquakes happen frequently and so buildings and roads are designed these days to minimize damage from earthquakes. These "building codes" saved thousands of lives when the earthquake hit to allow people to evacuate.

Yet even as a Civil Engineer, I have no real idea how to design correctly for a tsunami. While I could think of ways to make a building safe to a massive wave (F=ma) against the side of the building, there is no way I could think of making it for a boat or a train being thrown at it, or keeping the people inside alive from water...

I am rambling a little bit, though truly I feel guilty. I went to Vegas the weekend after the earthquake and tsunami hit. It was supposed to be for a birthday, but really my friend just wanted to go on a vacation. While I was there I tried to pay attention to the continuing problems in Japan as I felt I didn't deserve my vacation, nor in reality have I. I haven't been working as hard as I should be with my good life and health should be going so much more with my life...

So now I am going to study more and donate whatever I can!

Here is a link to some sites you can donate to, I am also going to really get on giving money to Engineers Without Borders.



More posts soon!