I re-did the Lake Tahoe Online webpage - Check it out now: www.ltol.com - Pretty cool, eh? Here is the original: Old ltol.co m

I was selected to participate in the 'Discover Mechanical Engineering' Pre-Orientation program at MIT. In the program, about 30 people build 'soccer robots' which will compete in a 4 vs. 4 match. I'm excited. I booked a flight last night for August 16th, the first day that we can arrive, as the Pre-Orientation program starts on the 18th, and I think it is wise to get at least a day to catch up.

Dad and I went up to see Robert, Jen and the kids at the cabin and ended up biking up a huge hill to Eureka Lake past the old Eureka Ski Bowl:



The big news today was that I got 2 cavities filled at Dr. Colpits. He numbed me up, drilled out where he thought the cavities were, then snapped a few pictures. I know they're kinda gross, but here they are. The redish areas are spots where the dentin was breaking down inside the tooth. The bad news is that I'm supposed to go in to get 3 - 3! - more cavities filled this coming Wednesday. - UGh! My mouth was numb today until 7 at night!

Here's what I've got to say about the Apple World Wide Developers Conference tomorrow. I've been reading the rumor sites and there are some things that I disagree with, so I felt compelled to write down, for what it's worth, my predictions

PowerMac Updates
- We know this due to images already posted on Apple's online store - G5s up to dual 2GHz

PowerBook Updates
- Even though all of the mac rumor sites I've seen say large updates to the line are unlikely, I think they are wrong. Not only do I think that the 15 inch PowerBook will be updated, but I think the 12 inch and 17 inch models will be updated as well - all with the new IBM 970 processor, the new Apple G5. Someone has speculated that perhalps a built-in camera will be included in the frame - I think this is interesting, and possible, but not likely.

As far as software, Steve will demo OS 10.3 as advertised, but also show off Xcode, what I think is the new development environment for 10.3 - combining what is now Project Builder and Interface Builder.

Update:

Well, I've got to eat my words a little bit. No new PowerBooks - but the PowerMacs were updated and Xcode shown off.

I went on a short bike ride on the NorthWest part of Lake Tahoe a few days ago and created This 360 Degree photo of part of the ride. Kinda cool - I think I'll do that sort of picture more often.

We also saw a few bears across the Truckee River

High School is now over. Graduation was on Saturday and it went well. I got 2 $1,000 scholarships! Doesn't quite pay the $40,000 a year though.... I came early to set-up the potato cannons/confettii launchers. I ended up just airing each of them up and shutting a valve on them so that they are self-contained (I had planned before to have air compressor hoses running to each) and ran wires from each to a central box which was used to actuate them. I watched the video of the event and it looks like they worked well, I wasn't paying much attention at the time. The confettii fell fast, however, which it didn't do when we fired a test shot a couple weeks ago. I think it had something to do with the strange wind which was comming off of the stadium. After graduation I went over to my mom's house where she had a lot of good food prepared and saw a bunch of relatives. I got some great gifts like a new air compressor, a digital camera and some real cool Apple harman/kardon soundsticks. Senior grad night was a lot of fun. We saw a hypnotist which was pretty amazing and then went to Sugar Bowl to eat, then off to Reno to the Hilton where we bowled, played video games, played golf, shuffleboard and pool, and went on the 'big swing' outside. Our bus driver was cool - "MaRY" The organizers were too uptight, however. Katelyn couldn't even throw her sweatshirt into her car at the school when she was 10 feet away. I couldn't bring my camera. Now that I've got a digital camera there's going to be a lot more photos coming online. Here's the first: Graduation

Potato launcher version 2 is now being called a sucess, and I will soon be working on revision #3. One week left of school now - it's crazy. Crazy. Graduation is on the 14th. I think I want to get into playing ping-pong. We're doing circuts in physics - I like it much better than the motion part. It's a lot of what I've been doing on my own, but now I understand some of the circuts a lot better. I think I might become a electrical engineer as opposed to a mechanical, even though it's a lot more of programing now, as I understand it, than actual circuts. whatever

School is winding down - just a couple of weeks left. Prom was last night - good times, but nothing unbeliveably exciting. They held it on a boat, the Tahoe Queen, which was pretty cool moving around and all, but the small spaces made everywhere seem crowded. The battery light came on in my car this morning on the way to work - not good. I guess I'll have to check the alternator. I saw 'Finding Nemo' on Friday. It was the best movie I've seen in quite a while; I was laughing through the entire thing - from the sill,y music by Bobby Mcferrin on the short at the begining, to Mount WannaHawkALuggie. In contrast, I saw Bruce Almighty a week ago, and although it was funny in places, there was not much more to it than what was in the movie trailer. I hate that! The movie trailer people should restrain themselves from giving away the entire movie! I just did another blood test and the AST and ALT levels which were problematic before are now back to normal, which is good. After a while we're going to see if the levels will stay there without the Prednisone (at the moment I'm taking 15mg a day - next week it should be 10mg a day).