A Shop Called Quest

A few weeks ago a comic book store opened in the village (Claremont). Since then, I have already been to the store at least five times. It is the greatest place ever! My common patronage means that I am getting to know the people that work there. They are all extremely friendly and love talking about comic books. I have been constantly referring other Mudders to the store, to make sure that they get enough business to stay open. It looks like it shouldn't be a problem. Mudd is an incredible place for a comic book store; everyone I mention it to is instantly dying to go there and have a look around.

When we asked for recommendations, they were more than happy to point out various interesting series. Both Carling and Jeb asked for recommendations, with extremely different tastes. Carling got a series called Chew while Jeb got a series called Preacher. Both of them are addicted. I introduced them both to the store on Thursday, and they have both already gone back for seconds.

I am currently working on The Walking Dead. It is an entertaining and extensive series.

One shelf of The Walking Dead

Unfortunately for me, they were entirely out of the second volume of The Walking Dead.  I was really upset because the first one had quite the ending and I needed to know what happens next. One of the people who works there mentioned that they were having a really hard time getting the second one in stock. When I said that I supposed I could buy the second one on Amazon and the rest in the store, the clerk Jason offered to lend me his personal copy of the hard cover vision and put the second one aside for me when it finally comes in stock. He brought the book in the next day for me to pick up (in the middle below). Their friendliness and dedication is wonderful and I love to give them my support!

Here is what I ended up picking up from the store today:

The third volume of The Walking Dead, the hardcover version of The Walking
Dead containing volume 2 (from Jason) , and Batman: Hush

Early Easter

Today I got an adorable Easter basket from the Easter Bunny! Here is a look at some of the goodies inside:

A cute Easter bunny in the basket.
You can seem some of the delicious candy beneath the green!

There was a lot of nice Confectionery candy inside as well as this mystery egg!

This is the inside of the mystery egg!

Weird Lizard

When I was walking back from the library today, I saw this really weird lizard on the path. He is pretty different from what I normally see around here. He was not at all afraid of me, I was able to get up really close to take the picture of him.

I sent an email to the professor with whom I had Lizard Lab last year, Professor Stephen Adolph. He replied with the following:

"It's an alligator lizard (Elgaria multicarinata). They are the second most common lizard on campus (after the fence lizard). I had a pet alligator lizard for about 5 years and it loved to eat spiders. They are good biters."

Knife Flipping and Light Painting

Pat and I did a few Knife Flipping Light Painting tests today with the test supplies I bought at the store today. We wanted to see the difference between clear and diffused LEDs for this type of project, and the differences were huge! We both really liked the results so we are excited for the other colors to arrive in the mail early next week!

A single, clear LED for 20 sec at ISO-500

A single, diffused LED for 20 sec at ISO-500

A single, diffused LED for 20 sec at ISO-3200

A single, clear LED for 20 sec at ISO-3200

Fall

It has been raining down in California lately. And by raining, I mean lightly drizzling. But today the sun is out again with some blue sky. The leaves are finally changing, it almost seems like fall now.

Swamped

This is the TODO list I have created for the 17 days left at Mudd this semester. Keep in mind that it is still missing most of the group work I need to do to finish everything up. As they are scheduled, I will add the additional times required to work on CS105, CS121, and Independent Study to this ever growing, hardly shrinking, list. It is going to be a long two weeks...

Really Sore

I am sore everywhere this morning. Yesterday in riflery, our teacher wanted us to try unsupported positions. So far, we had only done the prone supported (which means lying down with the rifle propped up on sandbags). However, now we are experimenting with all the unsupported positions, prone, kneeling, and standing. Unfortunately, the gun is more than half my height and 15 pounds and now is only being held up by one arm. Which is killing me. My neck is sore, my back is sore, both arms are sore and I can no longer reliably hit the target. At least my professors are sympathetic.