Imagine this design problem

"Imagine this design assingment: Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, acrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates a micro-climate, changes colors with the season, and self replicates. Why don't we knock that down and write on it."

~William McDonough

This was taken by the embedded talk by William McDonough about cradle to cradle design. I'm not going to use this space to tell you what cradle to cradle design is I would much rather you watch this talk. TED is an amazing site that takes talks from some of the most brilliant minds around the world and posts them for everyone to view.

This particular talk has a lot to do with creating a sustainable, living design that will benefit both humans and the earth. In my favorite part he begins to talk about how China is building six new cities over open, green fields. Apparently they go to William with their plan and ask his opinion. Essentially their plan was a rubber stamped city street grid on top of the plains. A gray cityscape with gray streets, gray buildings, and a gray sky due to the pollution that 6 more cities would bring.

Williams idea was to take that open field and...well...leave it a field. Raise up a city from the ground with roofs made of grass that can be used for agriculture. This is a very simplified view of what he said yet it conveys the proper idea.

After watching the video, what other ideas do you have for cradle to cradle design?

Blazer

Dear Blazer,

We have had some good times haven't we?

I remember when we first met. It was a beautiful summer afternoon and your cousin: Black Blazer, had just kicked the bucket. To be honest, Black Blazer was a bit unfaithful. He was unreliable, unloyal, and had trouble with his gas addiction. I told everyone that you were different though and you promised me that you were. We drove together to get food at night and carried some colorful passengers huh? You remember that Blazer?

Those were the puppy love days huh blazer? Something about your height was empowering, the roar your engine was a welcome change from the purr of my previous lover: Sunfire. Yes Blazer we had it made....then you had to go and fuck things up didn't you?

Your addiction to gasoline hurts Blazer. Sometimes I feel like you would much rather be stoned at the pump than crusing through the wind with me in your lap. Sometimes I feel like you don't even realize that your expenses go almost completely to gasoline. Its a dark path you are heading down Blazer, one that you will need my help to get out of.

Look Blazer, you are getting old yes but it is no excuse to let yourself go like you have. Overheated brake pads locking up, air conditioner busted, radiator leaking, engine coolant slowly draining, fuel injectors shot...this is what happens when you let your addiction carry you down the wrong path Blazer.

Look I care about you but I can only be so strong for you. Pick your act up or you will be packing up your stuff and heading down that long and dusty path by yourself instead of with me.

love,

Ryan

Relationships: Turning the Ball and Chain to Beer and Chips

This part is for the boys in the room. So ladies please step out as we have our little talk together, its guy time you will have your time later. Yes yes yes you are very pretty and stuff now shoo.

Ok....is she gone? Check again. Now check the door to see if she has her ear against it, chances are she thinks your looking at porn. Shes really gone? Ok good.

Well congratulations you have found a amazing girl ( i do not take credit if you have not and shes a psycho bitch) and you have been together for months now. You are out of the "this girl is the hottest shit on the block...word" phase and into the "I'm comfortable ripping ass around her" phase. This is the part where you both, and I emphasize both, are happy with eachother and used to being with eachother. This an awesome point of course because you no longer have to run water while you take a dump to cover up the sound of projectile shit hitting the inside of the toilet...but this can also be a troubling time.

Troubling because it is right around the year mark, in my experience, that couples first experience that tinge of doubt. That doubt manifests itself as a question of "Am I in love, or am i just comfortable". Do I really want to be with this person for the long term. I say long term becuase anything past 1 year to me means that you are getting a bit more serious than the average couple.

The trick to figuring this out? There is none.

None. No trick, no catch, no question and answer form, and no, going to the bar with your brosefs and pounding down a few beers is not going to help you solve this riddle.

See...there is no way to solve this problem becuase the solution is a feeling and you cannot test feelings. You need to look inside yourself and ask if you are truly happy with this person. If the answer is no then talk to your partner about your feelings, bottling things up will only hurt both of you. But if you are indeed just happier around this person, if you feel sad when they are away and count the hours until you can see them again then you have lucked out. Stick with this person. Learn from this person and do not be afraid of commitment.

And thats it. Thats the key. This is the core. Are you happy.

Ok ladies you can come back in now and preferrably with a beer and some chips....

Fable 2

When Fable came out for the original xbox Peter Molynuex had a great big stiffy for all of the craziness that he preached you could do.

Watch trees grow, step on a flower and see it die, chop down a forest and watch as the world changes. Every choice you make has a consequence. ...bullshit. The game boiled down to a bunch of black and white choices that were on the scale of teaching the concept of good and evil to a 1st grader.

Fable 2 is not much different in this respect. Whereas the choices at times seem much more difficult it is still obvious which is good and which is bad. The one thing I have noticed so far however is that you are not immediately aware of whether or not you are on a quest that is good or bad.

For example. I took a quest with a jilted lover ghost who was so pissed at his run away bride that he killed himself. After listening to him whine for 5 minutes about his loss and how much of a bitch she is he wanted me to get her to fall in love with me and then break her heart by rejecting her. Immediately I figured that the classic choice would be to tell her about her lover and let her know what he said and what happened to him. Perhaps I could have the two reconcile. Not so fast.

Long story short, I seduce her at a bar in the city whilst dancing like a ninny and am presented with two choices and two choices only:

1. Break her heart with the hateful note I had been given by the jilted lover
2. Marry her dumb ass and show her that love is still out there.

I couldn't pull the dick move after she confessed how sorry she was for her previous fiances death and how I helped her find what she never thought she would find ever again so I married her and moved into a cheap house on the east side of town. Now I have an all the time dirty wife that I cannot convince to take a bath since my house has no bathroom who enjoys being seduced in bars by dancing men....great.

Needless to say I immediately looked into my options for divorce, hoping to rid myself of her constant moaning about how awesome I am. Seems the typical route for people to take is a rifle to the wifes face.....come on now people im not that cruel. Can't I give her some cash and send her on her way?

HELP- Final Exams

Ya know when your taking a multiple choice type exam and you get a bunch of one answer in a row and get really scared that your making a mistake? Or how about if you actual started to spell something with your answers? This may be cause for even more concern especially as we head into finals week where crazy thoughts begin to make sense as students loose a grip on reality.

This happened to me today during my Materials Science examination. First off, there was a gigantic picture of a devil on the first page....my professors favorite saying is "the devil is in the details" so it makes sense but it doesn't mean that it doesn't scare me.

Secondly, page twos answers spelled the word "HELP". .... dear god help me through this week.

Last Day!

Just finished up my last day of classes here at Penn State. Pretty crazy huh?

I thought that I would have a feeling similar to high school where you are nostalgic over your past 4 years and excited for the future but alas this feeling has failed to come to me. I'm pretty sure its because I didn't do anything the last month of high school, and theres that whole "going away to college to find yourself and get out on your own" idea that everyone has in their heads. So did I find myself here at Penn State?

Why thats a good question. Whereas "college" certainly has shaped where I am going in the future, it is the people who are really the ones who shaped who I am. My friends, my family, my professors, the Moroccans, Lion Ambassadors, Engineering Club, all the way back to Orientation Leaders.

It's been one hell of a trip thats for sure. Now a bunch of my friends are moving on to new jobs. Some are stuck looking for these jobs, and I will be back in the fall to start graduate school. In the past 4 years I have learned a metric ton of information about myself, civil engineering, friendship, and the world. But I have a feeling that this is only the tip of an iceberg of knowledge I have yet to touch.

Oblivion, I love college, hot dogs

Rule 1:
Never eat 4 hotdogs and only 4 hotdogs in 2 days. Just dont

Rule 2:
if you haven't yet played Oblivion for Xbox 360 go forth and purchase it now. The game of the year edition is availble for around 30 dollars I believe and this game is the shit. Sure it came out when the Xbox 360 launched and sure I alreday logged at least 70 hours in at that time and sure I am playing it again just because im a freaken nerd....but you should go buy it now.

For those that don't know of it its essentially a roleplaying game set in a fantasy world where dragons, demons, wizards, knights, and talking lizards exist. You play the role of an escaped prisoner who happens to meet up with the emperor of the land of oblivion in a wonderful twist of fate. After your destiny is set forth you are free to go about it as you want....or completely ignore it.


You see, the world of morrowind/oblivion is freaken huge. With hundreds of people to encounter and thousands of square feet of land to traverse it can be a huge time sink. It would probably take at least 30-45 minutes to walk from one end of the map to the other in the game...and thats barring no encounters.

Its an awesome game that lets you play exactly how you want to play and rewards you for everything you do including exploring the expansive world. do it, buy it, play it.

I love college

That asher roth dude is coming to penn state tonight among others to play his famous song about how college really is. News flash: if you experience half of what this guy claims in his video during your 4 years of college you will not only be "lucky" but also mentally fucked. I hope he enjoys his stay at penn state though.

Seriously dude. If you think that the valuable and "cool" stuff at college consists of ragers with jack daniels and beer then your a freaken moron. Then again I dont suppose this guy would be anywhere if he actually "rapped" about the cool stuff at college like studying abroad, making crazy awesome friends, learning sweet material, or even just learning about yourself. No he needs to sing about getting girls nake (doesnt happen that easy sir), drinking shit tons of beer (ill give it to you, that happens), and not remembering the night before.

Im done, out, ghost.

Thats it folks.

Fitness Exam

Took my second fitness exam today which is awesome. I did well in every category and improved in all categories except leg strength. This might have something to do with the 3 leg strength exercises i did this morning during my last gym class. Which reminds me...never take an 8 am gym class. just...never.

If you were to take one however i would reccomend Kines 61: Fitness theory and practice. Its a 2 part class which accounts for 3 credits where you are in the gym learning the ropes of strength training and cardio for 2 days a week and for 1 day a week you learn "theory". Its a sweet way to start your day but running on a treadmill at 8am is not my idea of a good time nor should it be yours becuse then you will make me feel considerable worse about myself.

Last Class

What do you do on for your last undergraduate class? Truth be told, for my very last class I will not be on campus because I will not be attending due to the fact that it is shit. But....what to do during the class before that.

Before that I will be in CE 341: Concrete Structures. Some possibilties of what I could do during the day are the following:

1. Dress as wolverine and come in to my materials class yelling "STRIKER!!" as i belive that Dr. Sheetz looks like Colonel Striker from X-Men:








Seeing that I havent got my grade yet for this class I may pass on that.

2. could take pictures around penn state but I can just google those...ill wait for the padres in order to be dragged around campus to all the "hot spots" for graduating seniors to take pictures at.

3. Drink my face off. This would seem the most common alternative for graduating seniors as one of my buddies today mentioned he will be at the Cafe starting at 11am and how i am more than welcome to join. Perhaps I will partake in a few celebratory beers but when everyone else is doing it, it takes away from the uniqueness.

4. Play videogames. nope, this ones out. If i ever said to anyone this is how i spent my last day as an undergraduate student I would be murdered socially.

5.........i dunno, have any suggestions?

Last Dance With Matt Poese

So in order to reflect on the wonderful experience that has been the source for almost getting me arrested for dressing as a pirate, making some spare cash, and creating this blog I have posted a video on youtube that is a tribute/reflection of ENGR 407. The video of course is a parody of Tom Petty's Last Dance With Maryjane song. I mean not to reference any drugs in this song, it just sort of fit with the title of what I wanted a parody to be.

The inspiration behind the song is of course 407 and I'll admit its a superficial glance at the class with a little humor thrown in to boot as well. It will be revealed tonight in ENGR 407 but is here for those who care for viewing pleasure and ease of finding on the wonderful interwebs.

Tonight is the last class of the semester and for this I am kind of sad. I mean the class on a whole was awesome. The relationships I built and formed with everyone throughout this spring have really grown and I feel like we are all friends now. We all suffered together in the cold state college weather trying to make a buck or two. We all got conned by the judges for our latest project. And we all grew as entrepeneurs throughout this semester.

This is one thing I never thought I would be. I came to this class figuring that my skills lie in sales. I could sell stuff and add glitter and pizaaz to just about anything in a presentation. But I just could never come up with the ideas myself. This semester taught me that you need to search for something that interests you because the best ideas come from the things that you are passionate about.

The wastewater project I did is certainly a reflection of that s it really was a passion of mine. Even the Green DP project inspired me. Overall this class kicked ass and this video represents that.

Canyon Pizza

Why the hell is Canyon Pizza still in business?

I was walking to my girlfriends place tonight when I had a sudden urge to have a slice of canyon or two. I walked in, handed over my two dollars, and "got some slabs" as they say. But why? Canyon pizza gives you canyon pizza breath which is a mix of italian spices, cardboard, and beer. Canyon pizza doesn't even taste that good and it is rarely if ever fresh...Why are they still in business?

The only thing they have going for them is the magic number: 1. 1 dollar for a slice of pizza. 1 dollar that will get you a little fuller. I suppose its because college students, being poor as shit, flock towards whatever fills them up. Needless to say they make a shit ton of money on the weekends when the conveyor belt of drunken students makes its way through the doors. But really are they making that much money?


Lets say that they make 75 cents a slice. With that low of a number they have to be selling thousands of thousands of slices in order to turn a decent profit. But they have found their niche in this market. They have targeted poor college kids and because of this have gained a reputation in the area. Now when friends come to visit Penn State the necessary pit stop on a friday night walk is always Canyon Pizza. Its become Penn State culture and because of this they will never die.

But the pizza is still pretty bad. I recommend having the "Canyon Special". That means drink around 8 beers, give yourself a half hour, and then go to get a slice of Penn States ...cough...finest.

The FE

Here is my rant about standardized exams. A word to the wise: If you plan on taking a standardized exam within the coming months please do not read this, it will only serve to make you loath its existence moreso than you currently do.

What you see on your left right now is the book that I read during a philosophy class last semester (Fall 08). In his book, The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Gould goes through a history of how we as a society has attempted to measure intelligence. He details everything from exams that seem outright ridiculous that were actually used to the exam that started the SAT.

Interestingly enough all of this examination started in an effort to guage the learning capacity of young students in order to change teaching styles to supply what the student as an individual needed to learn. That was a very long time ago however as we now have so many exams that there are entire companies set up to review all of them.

Before I make my point however lets look at 2 exams that I have taken in the past year.

The GRE

Graduate Records Examination. Thats what this test refers to. The goal is to measure how competent you are in your undergraduate studies in order to predict how you will do in a graduate level education. The exam started out with 2 categories: Math and Verbal and has since added another: Writing. Its like every exam you have ever taken that is standardized as far as format goes....im talking about those stupid little bubbles of course. But I see a flaw.

The exam measures you on your math skills. It doesn't matter if you are an engineer, hisotorian, english teacher, or painter you will be measured all in the same bucket. Because of this you are tested on only subjects that everyone has taken such as Algebra, Geometry, Statistics, and any other subject that you took during your 7th, 8th, and 9th grade years of high school. Yes high school. Thats what this part of the test tests you on. I ask why it is that a student seeking a degree in history is to be measured in their ability to solve an equation. I also ask if this is substantial enough to test an engineering major on their skills.

WAIT! Wait you say? Ryan, if this exam tests you only on these subjects then everyone should pass right? Well yes they should, but you don't think its that easy do you? Since the exam covers such basic topics the testing board must disguise these questions in convoluted ways in order to make it difficult and then slap a 45 minute time limit on the exam to make it a speed challenge. So now you aren't being tested on your knowledge, your being tested on your ability to take a standardized exam. And if the real world is anything like I've been told, nothing is standardized.

FE: Fundamentals of Engineering

Another hellish exam is the FE. This is the exam engineers take in order to be licensed to take another exam in order to be licensed.....yea I thought that sounded convoluted as well. It tests you on what you have learned in college. The morning session which lasts for 4 hours is all general engineering stuff and the afternoon gives you the chance to choose your major or take a general test again. All together it is an 8 hour exam. Which makes this a matter of endurance.

Unlike the GRE you need to score in a "passing" range. This is determined by averaging the previous years average with the current years average. This line falls somewhere around 50% and last year at penn state 40% of people hit that mark. If you get a passing mark it is reported to the state that you got a 70 or above on the exam because thats what the state considers passing. If your exam consistently has an average of a 50% which is 20% below what the state considers passing do you think perhaps the exam is not functioning properly?

Sorry for cutting out the enthusiasm at the end there I'm getting tired of writing about this bullshit. Look back next time for a slightly more up beat post.

Morocco: pt 1...

So i havent blogged in a while and my apologies for that. look for much more in the coming weeks. This blog is about morocco: the people...and well thats about it.

for those that are uniformed about my life, this year for spring break i traveled with the leadership minor here at Penn State to Morocco in order to study for a week, experience a new culture, and see the world.

The goal for the week was to discuss water resources as well as develop a cleaner burning solid fuel cook stove in order to starve the problem of sickness caused by the exhaust of these things in developing countries. This is the uninteresting part and I'm sure ill post about water resources in the future since this is my grad school option so lets skip to the more interesting bits.

morocco is not like aladdin had me believe. well at least not the developed part of Rabat. Rabat, the capital city of Morocco is part sprawling metropolis and part medina. the medina, or "the old city" as it is referred to is just that....the old city. This is where I stayed with a moroccan family for one full week and was the most fascinating part of my trip.

Walking from the bustling streets of Rabat you smell similar smells to New York. The familar fumes of taxis whiping by, smells of soil on the roads collecting from exhaust dust and other things...., even down to the smell of newspapers as you walk by vendors selling your favorite newspaper, magazine, journal, picture book, hell even translation books.

But walking from this to the medina is like walking through a completely differnet world. Kind of like when you travel from campus to the neighborhood surrounding campus, and then to Frat Row where it seems all law has dissapeared and it is a completely different world. Instead of drunken fools however trying to roofie girls you have markets selling everything from authentic moroccan scarves and pottery to knock off adiddas track suits that you can find in Chinatown. Smells transform from dirt, grime, and taxi exhaust to fresh baked breads, pasteries, fresh squeezed....literally orange juice stands. Grey and white high rises (for morocco at least) are downsized to homes dating back over 400 years with huge open air living rooms and nothign but curtains separating the different areas of the house. Sounds go from the clusterfuck of beeping horns on the street to people yelling over their neighbors offering you the finest quality goods.

Its like stepping back in time. Its simpler. Almost like you did go back to Agraba that was seen in the tale of alladin.

Look for pictures coming soon

The Organics: The Sci-Fi Dream

It was me alone in a space station ...but it was located on Earth. The walls were silver and black outlined with various computer stations set up throughout the hallways. Groups of people walked the silver lined corridors wearing various uniforms reflecting their allegence and where they called home.

Somewhere nearby an arguement broke out about what the alliance forces were up to in the outer rim. Not many people ventured out in that area and not much was known...or at least I didn't think we knew much.

It was a fairly normal day from what I could tell...i mean it's not like i frequent futuristic space stations on a daily basis but it seemed as though a good steady flow of various social exchanges was occurring at this point.

Thats when I heard the rumors start to sweep through the somewhat quiet station. Rumors of an ancient race of humananoid forms that were set to come back to bring reckoning to all races in the universe. They were apparently called "The Organics" as back in their time of rule the only other race that was known of was called simply "The Machines". This is all I found out about these Organics characters...not that I tried to learn much i mean i was in a space station set in future earth...it was a pretty sweet place to explore until the shit hit the fan.

Explosions rocked the station and people were thrown from all directions as I ran for cover in some repair shop of sorts. For whatever reason a servant droid appeared in front of me asking me questions about how he/she/it could assist me. Since at this point people were falling to the floor as debris rained down around me i decided that some form of protection would be much appreciated. After some convoluted password deal and some awkward talk about organics the computer gave me shelter in some storage room behind the service shack. It was here I stayed safe for some time...well at least until the screams of the fallen had faded and the explosions sounded further off....

~Note: This is just a dream....a crazy ass dream I had about a week ago that I remember incredibly vividly. Look for part two later....i need to do some studying.

Driver Reset: Weekend confirmed

Well as we all know by know it is the weekend....well really its the end of the weekend but who cares this is my weekend confirmed post! Maybe I'll start doing this on fridays...i like that idea. So heres a recap in this weeks events:

1. Exam, exam, exam, quiz, quiz, homework, project, project.....well thats pretty much how it went. This week was hell week for just about everyone I know and with the onset of THON people were getting quite tired of ridiculous workloads and the over scheduling of exams which brings up todays advice to professors:

IF you don't enjoy teaching....then stop. This is all I am going to say thank you for listening.

2.THON!!



So it was my first THON this weekend and it was quite the sight to behold:
I only went for the last 4 hours and I must commend all the crazy people who were dancers, moralers, Rules and regs and so on for their intense dedication and hardwork. Being in that crowd at the tail end of a marathon like this was moving. Moments like this really show the bright side of Penn State that is often forgot when football players are getting arrested, riots are being started, and serial masturbaters are haunting campus newspapers.

3. The coolest police officer ever

Whilst myself and friends were RAWKing our faces off on friday evening thanks to Guitar Hero: World Tour at the hour of 11:30ish a certain song came on that inspired the mexican in me to jump to life: "La Bamba". No one wanted to sing this song so I assumed responsibility and quickly began to own the shit out of the song. People were jumping around, the drummer was sweating bullets, the guitarists were on their knees and in general we melted the faces off the digital crowd that lay before us. Then the cops got involved.


A knock was heard on our front door at the conclusion of the song...afer high fives were exhanged that is. Lo and behold the asshole neighbors downstairs who have nothing better to do than call teh cops on us at 11:30 on a friday night had let the pigs loose once again. I was preped to deal with another asshole cop who was all kinds of ready to abuse their power by making us feel like complete dicks for singing la bamba on a friday night but something about this one was different.

First off...he showed respect for us! He introduced himself and said "So which one of you were singing La Bamba....cuz that was really bad. In fact you may want to stop". We had a nice conversation about how he was going to give us a warning during which I invited him in to play with us. I also cleared up some compatability issues with him that applies to the new rockband/guitar hero equipment and he actually encouraged us to drink more beer instead of singing La Bamba. He was a nice dude and because of that we quited down willingly and without bitching...except about the crazy people downstairs.

So. Officer Whatsurname if your reading this. Thank you for being a cool dude. Hope we never see you again.

Thats it for now folks. Thanks for sticking around through a longer than usual post, i just had some crazy stories to cover.

Crash and Burn: team improvements

So this project almost got failed. Like epically not just minorly failed. Im talking abissmal failure.

Key word however being "almost"

As of a week ago our team for the Crash and Burn assignment had made a profit of around 24 dollars give or take a few due to record keeping errors. what follows is a chronicalling of the tragedy of our group and the resurgence that occured in seven days.

Note: I was going to do this now but realized I have another assignment due.....stay tuned for the epic saga pt. 1.

Creativity Arrested

So it was a normal night...until I almost got arrested thanks to ENGR 407.


The idea was simple. Play beer pong for 1 dollar and win 2 dollars if you made it in the cup.
Our goal was to prey upon the drunken populace of state collge. Whether or not they were of age or not we were to make money off of them.

We made 1 dollar before the shit hit the fan.

I dressed up as Jack Sparrow....a popular Halloween costume from this year in order to promote our little game of chance. It took 10 minutes and 1 dollar before we were apprehended.

The Police:

One police officer...probably high off his power trip walked up to myself and my partner and announced...almost as loud as I was announcing our game..... that we were "soliciting illegally without a permit". That was fast huh?

He tried to bust us for solicitation and when we brought to his attention that it was for a class he mentioned the fact that our sign said "beer pong for cash". I ensured the police officer that it was not actual beer, in fact it was snow in the cup which is not very intoxicating at all.

At this point he threatened us with"False advertising" as our sign said "beer pong for cash" and according to him since there is no beer involved we are advertising falsely......right.

Anyway friends learn from this mistake:

Don't solicit without a permit downtown as the cops are relentless when they are bored. Seeing as a permit costs upwards of 200 dollars the team will no longer be attempting this act downtown.

Come on creativity.....I need a winner now!

Scratching at the walls of creativity

A curious exercise was had in the Entrepreneurship class the other day. The Problem statement went something like this:

Here is 5 dollars. In the next 45 minutes you need to make as much money as possible with this 5 dollars.

Great...I have to be creative. Now lets be rational here: At some point in an entrepreneurship class you will need to be creative. I know this but I have prematurely deemed myself incapable of creating any product that could gain enough interest to have people want it. Its not that I am not creative (see: guitar playing, and what some may call a maniacal mind). Its just I never had to harness that creativity to make money. I never had a golden egg of an idea and thus never assumed I would be any good at it. Lesson 1: no golden egg is needed, even a dirty ass chicken can lay an edible egg that can be turned into a meal.

Alright...panic is over...lets move on.

So I propose teaming up with another team and both going after the same prize together thus increasing our reach and hopefully our money. This makes sense right? The more you have to invest the more you can make...hopefully.

We decided to buy roses for 1$ each and sell them for 2$. This is where failure number 1 occurred: More expendable resources means wider reach. If you have a shit ton of people working for you and you have them all doing the same thing...in the same place...you are wasting time and therefore money and that is exactly what we did.

For the first 15 or so minutes the team stuck to one location and it wasn't until later that we split up to cover more ground. By splitting up we covered a larger market (thank you Hammond building staff!) and made more money in a shorter time.

The lesson:

1) Selling roses isn't very creative but the way by which you sell them can be. This applies to everything that we could possibly sell for the actual assignment (same deal but in 2 weeks time).

2)We had one dirty ass egg of an idea but it worked. It wasn't that creative but it sold and we made some decent cash. From this I learned that the real trick lies in your delivery. Someone could make the most amazing invention out there but if they just stand there with a sign proclaiming its total awesomeness then they will get beat by the guy hustling around with roses.

I'll keep everyone posted on what the team decides to sell in the next week or so but until then leave some feedback! Do you have any ideas on what we could do? If you were a cold college student with only 15 minutes to spare between classes what would you like to see out there?

And for making it to the end of such a long post I now reward ye with the evil hamster. Creative...not so much. Funny.....yes. Shit ton of views and international stardom....hell yes.

Introductions: Nice to meet you

So this is day 1 of the phenomenon known as Ryan's blog. I suppose I will use this post to go through a bit of background info and then get into the stuff promised in the description some time later this week.

Who am I?

My name is Ryan and I study civil engineering at Penn State University. I am in my senior year and my final semester....well hopefully not my final semester. I have applied to the graduate program here for water resources and hope to attend in the fall. Wish me luck!

I grew up south of Philadelphia in the burbs of Aston. Not much to say about that other than its fat city USA. I'm talking about a Wendy's across the street from a Brewsters and a Dunkin Donuts all down the road from a Burger King, Pizza Hut, and various burger and pizza joints mixed in between. Notice I excluded Wawa from that mix due to its awesomeness.

Random Stuff

My favorite color is green, I like to play the guitar, and am a huge fan of anything video games. Hopefully I will be able to write a bit about some titles I've been playing soon as that was one of my failed dreams: To be a video game journalist.

I live with two crazy assholes who certainly create some...strange yet hilarious situations that I will be sure to post about here.

So heres what you have to look forward to with this blog:

~Personal input on current events
~Crazy stories of Penn State insanity
~Video game journalism at its finest
~And well, in reference to the title of this blog, a general stream of conciousness (wiki it)

Until next time