New Layout?

Posted By: Matthew at 10:38AM on Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 1 Comment

I am feeling a new layout over the Christmas break...

Kite Camera Project

Posted By: Matthew at 08:49PM on Friday, July 13, 2007 - 1 Comment

The camera is done, I am just waiting for a windy day to try flying it on the kite. The weight of the camera, batteries, memory card, and related electronics is around 200grams.

I'm back and I am Stalking

Posted By: Matthew at 06:48PM on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - 2 Comments

Click for larger image

First experience with the ‘Wii’

Posted By: Matthew at 09:25PM on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 - 6 Comments

After class today my friend Kurt invited me over to play with the Nintendo Wii he got for Christmas. I have heard some pretty good things about it and thought about buying one myself, but I decided that I rather save my money for some future expenses. After Kurt gave me a brief tutorial on what to do we jumped right into ‘Wii Sports’ a game that ships with the system. ‘Wii Sports’ is a collection of ‘mini’ games that you play; the games include bowling, baseball, golf, and tennis.

We started with some tennis and I was amazed at what the controllers could do. I was able to swing my arms like a real tennis racket and the player on the screen moved just like I did. After playing a match I was worn out and we decided to play some bowling. This is the game that people have been breaking their TV’s with because they are stupid enough to release the controller when they want to release the ball even though all they have to do is release a button. This game was a little trickier. It took me a while to get the timing of the release done. After I got it however, it went really well. We then decided to play a game of golf. The driving and chipping was great, but it was nearly impossible to do a short range put. The controller isn’t sensitive enough to detect the small amount of movement needed for a close putt.

Kurt then introduced me to Madden on the Wii. This game was amazing on the Wii. The game really forces you to immerse yourself in what you are doing. For instance to hike the ball you pull the controllers into your chest. Then to pass the ball you make a real passing motion with your arm. I was quite impressed with how they tied the controller motions in with the game play.

Over all I was very impressed. Nintendo really did a good job and I look forward to playing again with it. However, I am pretty sore today after playing for a couple of hours.

Low flying C-130

Posted By: Matthew at 07:28PM on Saturday, January 06, 2007 - 2 Comments

Some of you may remember a story I posted in early 2006 about a low flying plane that I saw when I was in 5th grade. Well, last Wednesday I saw a very similar sight again.

It was 12:38 on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2006 and I was eating lunch with my mom. I had gotten up to go grab a knife and all of a sudden a shadow overtook the kitchen, it was like a cloud quickly passed in front of the low winter sun. My mom and I just looked at each other, shrugged it off, and then thought nothing of it. I walked towards the back window and to my amazement there was a large plane only about 1,000 feet above the ground. Now, we live by the airport so it isn’t unusual to see a low plane, however, this plane was one of the lowest my mom or I had ever seen. What was also unique about this plane is that it had no sound. I continued to watch it as it flew directly over the hillside terrace area and continued towards the west into Union Center.

As the plane continued west it was doing “wing tips”, a maneuver in which the plane rocks back and forth. I quickly ran upstairs to grab the camera and when I got back to the window the plane was making an extremely sharp turn over the Union Center area and cut back to the east. This was a hard banked quick turn that you wouldn’t see in a normal flight. As soon as the plane made the quick turn I was able to hear him throttle up, which suggests he was having problems because he was flying low and had no engine power for quite a good amount of time. By now my mom and I were becoming increasing worried that we were about to witness a plane crash.

The plane was now heading back east towards the airport and I was able to snap one picture which I have included at the bottom of this entry. As the plane continued to the north of the house we lost sight of it over the slight hill, which shouldn’t happen if the plane was flying in a normal pattern, for it to be hidden by the hill it has to be below 1,000 feet based on the triangulation. My mom and I were ready to see a fireball over the hill or hear a loud explosion, but nothing came. We continued to look for it, but after about 5 minutes of nothing we went back to our daily routine.

I was sitting in the living room about 10 minutes later and I saw the plane again, this time traveling south from what appeared to be the airport. The plane, still flying low, made another erratic 180 degree turn. This plane was flying in a strange pattern once again; I decided to go investigate because I thought it could be attempting a landing at the airport. I decided to go for a ride in the car and when I got to the crest of Farm-to-Market road by the well drillers there was already two cars pulled over with people watching. I started talking to one of the cars that was pulled over and they were worried about it also. By this time the plane was once again heading south and pulled a hard and fast 180 degree turn. The plane then appeared to head back to the airport and then we didn’t see it again. I decided then to drive up to the airport and see if there was anything special going on in terms of emergency response or at least to see the plane on the ground.

When I arrived at the airport I could not see the plane on the ground so I started looking around and I noticed it flying off to the north from the airport. The plane was gaining altitude like a normal flight would and soon disappeared into the horizon. I couldn’t really investigate anymore because I am not the media. I returned home and just tried to make sense of what I had seen.

Upon returning home I uploaded my photo and was able to identify the plane. The plane was a C-130. This is a military transport plane that is one of the largest planes in the world. This made me wonder more about what it was doing at the Greater Binghamton Airport because it barely meets the specks to land at the airport and there would seem to be no logical reason for it to be in this area.

That is the story, you can make of it what you want, but something strange happened over the Town of Union area on Wednesday.

Plane just coming out of an erratic turn:

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Close up of the plane:

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Not so secret anymore

Posted By: Matthew at 05:35PM on Saturday, December 09, 2006 - Add comment

Click to enlarge...

I'm back!

Posted By: Matthew at 07:13PM on Friday, December 01, 2006 - Add comment

I finally got around to buying a domain for this place. It has been a long time coming, but a client finally paid me so I had the funds to do it. Snowing in Endwell also received its own domain, http://snowinginendwell.com. On the Snowing in Endwell note a contest was posted the other day and closed earlier today. It looks like the storm is going to bust and not produce any snow, but it was a good test run.

Winter break is getting close and the only thing between me and break is final exams. My finals shouldn’t be that bad. The only one I am really worrying about is the physics exam. I understand the stuff, but the tests are very difficult, the last test had to be curved 15 points. Overall, this semester has gone better than I expected. I went into my first semester here worrying about flunking out, but now I find my self worrying about missing a question or two. Next semester is going to be harder as lecture material passes what I have had in high school.

Picture Goodness

Posted By: Matthew at 09:12PM on Sunday, October 08, 2006 - 6 Comments

Later Monday Update:

Everyone gets kudos, but Kelly more than Shaun haha

So I just typed Kelly without a capital K and here is the possible spell checker options...
- Skelly
- telly
- belly
- Nelly :)
- Delly

Monday Update:
- Shaun, you were pretty close, correct answers are as follows...
Picture 1: HUB-Robeson Center (kudos for what HUB stands for...)
Picture 2: Old Main
Picture 3: Walker Building (kudos to what the big thing on 6th floor walker is)
Picture 4: Bridge between Chemistry Building and Life Sciences Building

Random pictures from around campus, kudos to someone that can name the buildings...

Weekends at Penn State

Posted By: Matthew at 08:42PM on Monday, September 25, 2006 - 1 Comment

Weekends in college are not all about drinking. Sure, many people due drink, buy many schools like Penn State offer so much to do on weekends that you don’t have to drink to have fun. Every weekend here there is something going on that is sponsored by the school. For instance this weekend we had three big named comics come to the school to provide a free show (well free to us – not the school). I was able to see Dave Coulier (some of you may know him better as Joey Gladstone from the ABC hit sitcom Full House). Dave was amazing along with the other two acts that preceded him.

Also, every weekend there is open recreation in the white building and free hit movies. This weekend I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. This weekend is Click which I might go see again because I thought it was amazing the first time I saw it. There is just so much to do without going out and getting smashed every weekend.

Random Updates

Posted By: Matthew at 09:12PM on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - 3 Comments

The football game on Saturday was crazy. I meet up with the Earth and Mineral Science Student Council people and we headed over for an EMS Alumni tailgate. We got over to their spot outside of Beaver Stadium and ate a ton of food that they had. After hanging out till around 2:30pm we headed over to the stadium. We got in the massive line of people entering the stadium, but we were able to move fast through the line.

The game was pretty crazy. It started out slow with no points being scored in the first quarter. I hate to say it, but we were all booing PSU. I mean comeon’ you are playing a crappy team, at least score in the first quarter. We still have no special team abilities. After a 70+ yard punt return they put on ‘Zombie Nation’ and we did our typical “bounce” to it. In the section by the Blue Band the bleachers bent and then the students picked them off the ground and crowd surfed them around until the police took them away. It was pretty crazy because no one had ever seen the bleachers bend from the weight of the kids jumping on them. Then the lion actually came up right by us :), I have a picture at the bottom of this post.

Tonight I worked on getting Snowing in Endwell ready for its next season. This year is going to be bigger than ever! Stay tuned for more information.