Lord of The Ring's Marathon: 683 minutes (extended)

Every Episode of The Simpsons: 9780 minutes (w/ film)



Star Trek Anthology: 38,804 minutes (646.8 hours/26.95 Days)

Star Trek Movies I-X: 1144 minutes
Enterprise: 4900 minutes
The Origional Series: 4000 minutes
The Animated Series: 660 minutes
The Next Generation: 8900 minutes
Deep Space 9: 8800 minutes
Voyager: 8600 minutes
The Hidden Frontier (fan): 1800 minutes

"If Spock were here, he'd say that I was an irrational, illlogical human being for going on a mission like this....... Sounds like fun!" -- Kirk

Before diving right into a project I like to come up with a general vision of the end product and an idea of what I'm going to need to do in order to reach that vision. It's easier to recognize problems before they even creep up if you know how each stage of a project is supposed to turn out. For most projects it's possible to keep that vision in my head while I work, for some I have to draw it out on paper. Some projects however, require a bit more work before I can visualize the end result.

For example, I'm working on a lamp that could take on a variety of shapes and configurations. I know that it will use glass insulators and antique light bulbs, perhaps suspended by wire, perhaps supported by brass stems. Since I'm limited to the materials at hand I need to decide on a final configuration for the lamp before I start working.

Luckily computers provide the perfect virtual workshop free from the fear of making mistakes and wasting materials. Using tools like Google's SketchUp and Autodesk's Maya, I can quickly create virtual models of my projects. I can examine size, material choices, lighting, and even how a user will interact with the project before a single hole is drilled.

I've always thought that FriedPope.com is a bit of an akward name to present to an employer, thus I'm forced to start thinking of a new site structure and URL. FriedPope.com has been renewed for at least another year, so I'll have some time to determine my course of action.

I belive I'll start with determining what exactly I want to present to visitors. I may want to split up the sites into more managable sections. A few good sites that I'll be looking to for help are:

A List Apart

Wikiversity Web Design

Smiley Cat

KillerSites

Pixel Acres

It's been a while since my last post, I've been keeping up with school and my internship at Honeywell Intellectual Property International. One of my current classes, "Nearspace," has persuaded me to obtain my amateur radio license. In the class we will be launching a high altitude balloon that will communicate with ground crews over a radio link using a frequency somewhere in the 2m band. Before using this band the FCC requires that the control operator (fancy word for button pusher) be a licensed, Technician Class, HAM. The test was fairly easy, only 35 questions pulled from a publicly reviewed pool. So far seven members of the class have their licences and callsigns. If you're ever on the radio and hear KD0EHH, say hello!