Categories
Adventure

Tubing

I’ve been thinking of doing something interesting down the Egg Harbor River since it’s around where I work. So when the invite for some tubing came up, I surely agreed to join in on the fun.

The location of this fine adventure was the Winding River Campground in Mays Landing. It was pretty simple to get to and also very simple to do. Just go inside, pay to rent a tube ($15 plus a $5 deposit that you get back when you return the tube), fill out a form then you wait for a van to come and pick you up. The van kinda reminded me of Tony Mocelli’s van in Who’s the Boss. It was a short ride and he dropped us off at a little park and then the mighty river would take us back to the campground where our car was parked.

The river itself was pretty nice and seemed clean to me. There was an occasional floating plastic bottle, beer can, etc. but not too much stuff. The water temperature wasn’t too bad either. I was expecting colder water, so it was nice to be a bit warmer than expected.

The actual adventure took a couple of hours. I’m not sure exactly when it began, but I’d say it was 2.5 to 3 hours total of tubing fun. I really enjoyed trying to steer around a the river by paddling with my hands against the current at times. It was difficult in spots, but I seemed to get better at it as the day wore one.

I also really liked helping others navigate and get unstuck from branches too. There were some tricky spots, but I was able to steer a defeated tuber to safety during the second half of the adventure.

What really surprised me the most was the level of river people. The majority of them seemed to be very strange and from poor reality TV. Many even sounded to of had accents of sorts I couldn’t determine. I’d say they were river folk.

A gentleman with magic marker on his head was a very close talker to my tube, but I was kind and attempted to educate him of the finer things in life such as the amazing film Milo and Otis. I’m not sure he understood it’s importance to society, but oh well I did try.

There was also a very strange man who helped give me a push off into the right direction. Though he nearly stole one of my fellow river travelers, apparently it was just a joke and she was released to freedom.

All in all it was a pretty powerful experience and one that I would like to try again.

Categories
Books

The Eye of God

The Eye of GodWhen in doubt at the library, I tend to pick something with a fancy cover. The Eye of God fit that bill and turned out to be pretty good too.

It did a good job of mixing up some truth with fiction. So while I know it’s fiction, there is some sort of realism kinda to the plot. The plot also mixed up tech with religion, which tends to be interesting to read.d Thankfully there’s an addendum at the back that explains what was true and what was made up.

The pacing was pretty cool, and I found myself really reading that extra chapter to see how things turned out towards the end.

I was also glad to read the alternate quantum physics ending (makes sense if you read it). It made me happier for a few of the characters in the end.

 

Categories
Adventure Design Development

Creative Programming for Digital Media & Mobile Apps

I really wanted to take a course on Coursera this summer to learn something new. Learning stuff for the sake of learning is great. So after checking out what was being offered this summer, Creative Programming for Digital Media & Mobile Apps from the University of London International Programmes caught my eye. It sounded like some fun stuff.

The course was pretty nice. No additional materials were required besides downloading some open source software (Processing, Audacity, etc.). With video lectures posted every week and discussion forums to ask and answer questions.

The first week of the course started a bit rough. Setting up a working environment can always be tough, and it seemed that many were having similar issues in the forums. There were some coding errors in a few of the early examples that were giving me issues. Most notably the javascript examples. This was a pain to deal with, especially early on. But luckily, I’m a skilled enough coder already to of figured out and fixed it for myself. If I wasn’t already comfortable coding, I probably would have left the course though.

The remaining weeks the coding issues disappeared and it was much easier to follow along with the lectures. The video lectures were great and of very good quality. The instructors were easy to follow and a bit funny as well.

The quizzes and assignments were great too. Though I really aimed a bit too low with my first assignment, doing the peer reviews really had me step up what I’d do for my final assignment.

With the suggestion of a friend I decided to re-create Donkey.bas (the original DOS game) using Processing. I found a video of it being played on YouTube and just went from there.

It does have some gaming flaws as speed picks up still, and has been formatted to a mobile devices screen size. But overall I thought it turned out ok, and kept the cheesiness of an early 80’s DOS game.

All in all I was very satisfied with my experience with taking this class. If you’re into learning something new and don’t really care about a degree or grades to prove it (so overrated to me), then I can’t imagine there’s ever been a better time to gain new knowledge. It’s really an amazing time to be around with all the information so readily available.

Categories
Books

A Dog’s Journey

A Dog's JourneyThe last couple of books I’ve read have been pretty dark and twisted. So, this time I thought I should read something a bit uplifting and positive to bring balance back to the Force. So, a book with a cute puppy on the cover seemed like a very safe bet to me.

Well, a dog dies in chapter 2 or 3. Yeah, that’s right a dog dies right off the bat. So much for my plan.

To make things even more amazing, I believe this dog dies a total of 4 times in the book (he’s reincarnated which was nice to imagine is true of dogs). Dog deaths are tough, and having to weather 4 of them was quite the true.

Oh, not to be outdone there are numerous human deaths as well. Of which I truly lost count of.

Though in the end everyone is happy and together in heaven, I was not in any way expecting so many dog deaths in this super friendly looking book!

The book was pretty good though, and I do like the author’s take of a dog’s life. I really hope my trusty friends though the years do have a way of coming back and still being around.

Categories
Books

Under the Dome

Under the DomeI figured I’d try to read Under the Dome after watching the first episode on TV. I figured if I liked the show, then I’d like the book as well.

Turns out the book is much, much better than the show (especially since the first one). Though it was over 1000 pages, I read through it pretty quickly. It was hard to put down at times with all the craziness going on.

I also have to admit that I was very surprised at the ending and what was behind the whole dome thing. Even though I know to expect something a bit different from a Stephen King novel, it was still a refreshing surprise.

There were moments where I found myself reading for several hours at a time. I’m not sure if that’s exactly a good thing, but it does speak for the book.

 

The only drawback is that after reading, I don’t think I’ll want to watch the show as I’ll find too many “errors” in it.

Very good stuff and a good read.

Categories
Books

The Way of the Knife

The Way of the KnifeFigured I’d continue with some non-fiction on my summer reading tour and picked up The Way of the Knife from my super friendly library. It turned out to be a pretty interesting book.

It mainly details the CIA post 9/11 and just how much the organization has changed since then. I found it pretty interesting to hear now much they had changed in the 70’s and within the past 10 years. I hear on the news about recent events, but this book went into more detail on most of them.

With the crazy perception we get from such government organizations though movies, it was cool to read about real people and operations. But a couple of the people detailed kinda seemed straight out of a movie, so maybe what we see at the box office isn’t all that far-fetched after all.