About an hour and a half ago, I finished my first quarter of college. My last two finals went well – they weren’t too difficult. My CS-183 could have been a lot harder, but I’m still not confident I did real well on it becuase Dr. Hafemann usually seems to sneak really hard to catch type of things into his tests. Oh well, it’s all over so I can’t really change what happens … just pray that I did well. Last night, I was excited to find that I got a 100% on my Calc IV final, which brings my grade in the class to a (oh wait it was already at this) 100%. All you MSOE students – if you can, take Dr. Yaz!

Well my mom comes in about 30 minutes to take me home…in about 3 hours, I’ll be home. I’m so excited…I feel like a little kid or something because I’m so excited about something that seems so minute and insignificant.

Okay well for all my friends from WEGO, I’ll be back soon so give me call if you want to do something.

For several years now people have been telling me I should put pictures on my web site. Well, if you look closely, there is now a photos button up toward the top of every page. I’ve added several photos and albums, but I don’t think I’ve added any pictures of myself yet. If you really want to see what I look like, just let me know and I can send you a picture. You could also visit Stan Lemon’s web site and find a picture or two of me after doing a little bit of digging.

I think sometime soon I’ll be adding a few essays I wrote in composition class to the writings section of my site. Stay tuned for that.

Enough about the web site … following is a thing or two about what’s been going on with me lately. Here at MSOE, we are on the quarter system. Thus, this week is finals week. Monday I took my Calculus IV final, which was really just another test. My great teacher, Dr. Yaz gave us a major cheat sheet for the test and a wonderful review sheet ahead of time so that test turned out to be pretty easy. Tuesday morning at 8 am, I turned in my reflective essay for composition class then went back to bed for several hours to catch up on some much-needed sleep. This morning, I woke up at 7 a little unsure of what my Microeconomics final would be like. Sure, Professor Dawson read about 60 of the questions and correct answers straight off the final last Thursday in class, but that still left 40 questions unaccounted for. Well, I took the test and feel I did all right – everything seemed to be pretty easy there. Then, I worked for several hours with my GE-110 group on our dumb Lego Robolab robot, trying to make the thing draw stuff. We finally got the thing to draw a circle, a loopy star, and a Pac-man like figure, but the whole process was frustrating. I can’t wait to fill out the course evaluation for that class – I’m going to recommend against the use of the Robolab stuff in future sections of that course. I’ve worked for too many hours with that silly robot. And even then, it doesn’t always act quite as it should.

Tomorrow we demonstrate our robot’s drawing abilities (or rather, our ability to program and design a robot that draws dumb stuff) at 2pm. Then, we have to take the robot apart and organize all the pieces.

Friday morning at 8, I’ve got my CS-183 (Software Design) final. This class, with the exception of the labs, was pretty easy, so I’m thinking that final shouldn’t be too difficult. If I’ve got some free time at some point, I’ll try and get on here and post a thing or two about how that went.

Well I’ve written enough for now.

I’d like to let everyone know about a project my buddy Stan and I are working on… For those of you that may know, Mr. Zimmerman, a high school teacher at West Chicago, passed away recentlty (Press Release). Mr. Zimmerman was a good teacher and a great guy and he will be dearly missed. Stan and I by request of Mrs. Laimins have pieced together a web page at Wego2003 for people to post memories of Mr. Zimmerman for his friends and family. You can get to Mr. Zimmerman’s memory page by going to: http://www.wego2003.com/mrz/. Stan and I will be working over the next couple of days to improve this and make it a little friendlier. Feel free, though, to post your memories now. We have also established an e-mail address for those wishing to send his family an e-mail, mrz at wego2003 dot com

Please circulate e-mails and get people informed!

Well it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything on here – I guess I fill my time with things I either enjoy more or feel are more important.

Tonight, I went to see Darryl Scott, father of Rachel Scott, who was killed in the Columbine school shooting April 20, 1999 for her faith in Jesus Christ. This talk was phonenominal – I can’t really even put into words how good a testimony it was. Not only was it great to see Rachel’s amazing devotion to Christ and to loving others. Darryl Scott pointed out the two greatest commandments of the Bible – loving God and then loving others – and the fact that if you follow these two, everything else will fall in line. I know I have a hard time always loving others … but God commands it – even loving those who are hard to love. Well if you’d like to find out more about Rachel Scott or other victims of Columbine, there’s are a few web sites you can visit:

Rachel Scott – Official Web Site
Columbine Redeption

As far as school goes, I’ve been relatively busy, though I often find myself procrastinating homework simply because I don’t find interest in some of the things I’m studying. I believe I already posted the classes I’m taking – my favorites are easily Software Design and Calculus IV.

I’ve also been doing a lot with MSOE‘s InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter – in additon to several Bible studies and a daily prayer time, two friends and I redesigned the web site in a fashion that is not only more easily navigable, but also a lot easier to update and expand…special thanks to Stan Lemon for his work with PageSite, which allows for this enhanced organization.

Well everybody, I finally jumped on the bandwagon and headed off to college up here in the fine city of Milwaukee. While most people moved into their colleges as much as a month ago, I moved into the RWJ building here at Milwaukee School of Engineernig only one week ago AND I’ve only been in class since Monday.

I’m currently taking the following classes:

• Calc for Engineers 4 (Remember, that 4 doesn’t mean as much as it normally would – we’re on the quarter system here)
• Composition, which should be a breeze after AP English 4
• Microeconomics
• Software Design
• Intro to Engineering Concepts, which seems like a fun class
• Freshman Orientation, a boring, intro-to college class

Well I started writing this probably 45 minutes ago but then got distracted and now I need to head off to bed. I always say I’ll try and post here more frequently but then I never do so I won’t say that this time. I’ll just say I’d like to get on here more frequently and post. That way, I can if I get the time, but I don’t feel obligated to.

God bless,

Erich

There have been some nasy viruses going around as of late…I suggest you all update your virus scanners or purchase one if you don’t have one. Also, be sure to download all patches to fix these bugs (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com)…I know it’s slow on dialup, but that’s better than getting a virus.

A few people I know have gotten infected with one specific virus of the several recent ones – Lovsan. From those I’ve talked to who have been infected with this worm, it has manifested itself by giving a remote procedure call error, then rebooting. For more information on the virus, including virus removal instructions, see McAfee’s Lovsan Info Page.

From what I read there, it appears that it is possible to follow these few steps to rid yourself of this pesky virus:

A friend of mine, Justin Hoshaw, is now releasing his first self-published poetry book. True Beauty And Darkness is full of twenty-seven poems that give you a closer look into his amazing talent. The youngest member of the St. Charles Writer's Group is making his way to the top. The attractive cover drawn by Dan Dieckmann is sure to catch your eye. If you're interested in purchasing for the low cost of $5 that will go to help support Justin's efforts, email him at BoSSTaiKuN@aol.com

See some samples at his web sites:
http://hometown.aol.com/bosstaikun/myhomep…age/poetry.html
http://www.geocities.com/bosstaikun/BoSSTaiKuN.html

Well I got back a few days ago from the FBLA National Leadership Conference empty handed. Sure, I had a good time and all, but I would have liked to have received an award for my efforts. Quite to my surprise, the team from Ridgewood High School (fellow Illinoisans who we beat not once, but twice) won 7th place. So I’m not too disappointed that we didn’t get in the top 10, that I wasn’t able to get up on stage, because I know that I didn’t win simply because of the subjectivity of the event. Different judges have different opinions, so obviously not all of them are going to like my work as much as others. The way I look at it – we beat the 7th place national team two out of three times…not bad if you ask me.

Early Tuesday morning, I’m heading off to Midway International Airport to fly down to Dallas for this year’s FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) National Leadership Conference. Stan, Brian, and I won first place in Illinois in the web site development competitive event are taking the site to this year’s national competition. We’re definately up against some tough competition, but hopefully we’ve done a better job than everyone else and we’ll win. If not, that’s fine, seeing as I by no means claim to be the best web designer out there – I’m nowhere close. But then again, with Stan‘s expertise in the area of web design and Brian’s knowledge of FBLA, who knows how far we’ll go.

If you need to contact me while I’m gone, I’ll have my cell with me – call my parents and leave a message with them and I’ll call you back or if you know my cell number, just call me directly!

I’ll be getting back Saturday afternoon, probably around 1 or 2 CST. Have a nice week!

Yesterday my dad took a day off of work and we worked on updating my resumé and creating a flyer to pass out for miscellaneous computer work. We went down to one of the industrial parks in town and went to each business passing out the flyers and resumés. One guy really wanted me to do some work for him in a few weeks, so almost just for that, it was worth it. Hopefully our efforts yesterday will yield much more work for me – not that I want to actually work – but this computer stuff isn’t so bad – I can live with it, especially since I already enjoy it. Money is just an added bonus! For all you intrested CEOs and Personel workers, and anyone else who might be interested, I (finally) put my freshly updated resumé over in the “About Me” section of the web site. If you’re interested, check it out >>

After passing out flyers and resumés yesterday, I swung by my house for a quick bite to eat and then went out to youth group. I met a new guy – Matt – who’s studying to be a pastor and just finished I believe he said Junior year out at the Master’s College in California. Though I would have loved to continue talking after Jeff Fairbanks’ sermon, I left immediately afterward in order to see my old youth pastor, Jim Hodgeson, who moved up to North Dakota back a few years ago. After talking with him and hanging out at McDonald’s and then a friend’s house until 12:45 am or so, I realized how much I’ve missed out. Sure, the youth group at Grace Church of DuPage is great, but the people seem a little anti-friendly (no offense) and thus I find it difficult to envolve myself with that group. Talking with Jim brought back memories of the brief year or two I knew him, of all the great Christian friends I had as a freshman who took me in even though I was four years younger than them. I really wish I’d had the chance to be surrounded with such a great group of people all four years of high school. It seems after Jim left, everything fell apart and I’ve been wandering aimlessly since then, looking for a place where I can grow. Hopefully next year, though, I will find some great Christians at MSOE (I’ve already met one!) with whom I can study God’s Word and really grow closer to God.

After getting home at about 12:50 this morning, I had some more work to do in preparation for the seminar I had this morning with the English department at my (now old) school. I ended up getting to bed at about 2am, then waking up at 6:30am in order to get ready for the seminar. Going into it, I thought the seminar would run somewhat roughly – most people have difficulty learning new tasks with new technology, especially tasks such as setting up a web site. Thankfully, though, Stan made a program and directions that were easy enough for even the most computer-illiterate person to follow.

We got out of the school about 11:30pm or so, and then went our ways for a little while. After doing a little debating on Christian Teen Zero, we headed out to the Trek bike shop in Winfield, near the intersection of County Farm and Geneva. Stan tried out a bike he liked and put in an order for it. We took our time getting home, swung by the bank and the trusty Taco Bell/KFC that’s been closed several times due to health regulation violations…makes ya feel real safe eating there, huh? We hung out until about 6 or 6:30, ate some Happy House for dinner and then I took a nice nap for an hour and a half or so. I woke up and at dinner again (my first dinner was pretty small, as was my second – the second was just healthier), and then messed around on the computer the rest of the evening.

Well I don’t know what got into me, but I just felt like writing an indepth description of my day this evening. So there ya go. Have a nice evening, morning, night, day, whatever it is where you are as you read this!