INVENTIONS OF THE FUTURE (as perceived by 10-year-old me)

So, browsing through an old dresser drawer I discovered a small pad of paper I used to write down the brilliant inventions that were going to make me rich and famous when I was like 10. I offer to you: The Inventions of the Future (as imagined by 10-year-old-Jonathan)

Invention #1: The Automatic Gas Re-filler
The back of this card lists it's benefits:

• "helps speed up getting gas"
• "never have to get out of car"
• "pay bill at home - don't have to pay at station"

The most brilliant part of this design I think was what I called the "Electronic Location Ring", a device that would somehow guide the robotic nozzle to the tank receptacle. Oh, and of course a stoplight that helped you park your car in range of the nozzle.



Invention #2: The Talking Teddy
This invention was a spin-off of the talking teddy bears that played back messages recorded at the factory. The main difference here was that the message could be recorded by the parents. As it says on the back of the card:
Lets little children listen to their mom sing to them at night - not get scared





Invention #3: The Memorizing Helper
This little invention was not unlike a simple voice recorder, but the difference was in the fact that when you pressed play, the message would repeat over and over, forcing you to learn the pre-recorded message.
Good for tests and things to remember - record and play over and over to memorize







Invention #4: The Dog Bed Shredding Stopper
How many times have you come home from school to find that your wiener dog has shredded the bedding in the bottom of his dog bed? If you were in my house when I was growing up, the answer would be all the time. With a little Velcro, this problem was (supposedly) no more!








Invention #5: The Water Balloon Grenade
How many times have you wished you could do an air-burst with a water balloon? Or sneak into an enemy base, hide a time-delay-detonated water balloon bomb to burst when they begin their secret strategy meeting? A combination of inspirations (a kitchen egg timer, my aunt's diabetes finger-prick thingy, and a suction cup and every James Bond movie I'd ever seen) gave me the idea for this awesome little device.

Place the grenade on the balloon using the suction cup and set the [number] of seconds you want. Then, pull the replaceable pin and run! It will pop the balloon and then you put the pin back in it [and use it again].



It's kind of funny to look back on now, but I honestly believed that some of these inventions would revolutionize how people did things. I think that's the beauty of invention: even if you don't change the world, you still have fun dreaming up how you're going to.

Thermite!

Our first attempt at a thermite reaction.

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Winter Break 2006/2007

OK, so I realize this is about 2 months late, but it's time for my
WINTER BREAK 2006/2007 BLOG!
Don't worry, it's brief.











Stuff That Happened:

• Finished Finals
• Visited Katie (oh yeah we're dating now... so yay!)
  
• Sat around in Bishop
• Helped Jacob make a bouncy-ball shotgun
• Worked @ Radio Shack a few days to make some $$$
• Hung out with friends
• Spent Christmas with the family
• Went skiing with my Dad
• Went back to Vegas, hung out with Katie some more and helped assemble the America's Party 2007: New Years on the Strip fireworks show for the city of Las Vegas
  • 

All in all, it was a pretty amazing break. Pictures are scattered around Facebook, so to avoid being redundant I'll let you all look at them there. I hope everybody else had as amazing a winter break as I did, and I truly appreciate those people who made it all that it was.

And a video of the New Years fireworks from atop the Circus Circus in Las Vegas if the pics weren't enough!

Holiday Spirit!

Yep. So now you know!

A Brief Trip Home

What's up people? Under intense pressure from my friend and cohort in crime, Katie, I decided to post some more pictures. If you don't like them, blame her*! Also, updated the Blog format to include an MP3 player (don't worry, it won't automatically start blaring music at you as soon as you open the page... you have to click the play button to hear it :)). For those of you reading this on the blog site, it should be to the left of this post. For those of you reading this on facebook/RSS, you will need to visit my blog site at pyrothepenguin.blogspot.com
to see it. Now I'm off to Bishop for thanksgiving. CRAZINESS IS GUARANTEED TO ENSUE! And as always, pictures will follow. Possibly even in a timely fashion!?

A Brief Trip Home

PyroPenguin

*E-mail me for her contact information to lodge complaints ;)

Halloween Party Time!!

Hey! Its about time for some new sexy pictures! This time, its HALLOWEEN PARTY 2006! We are green plastic army men! Enjoy!

Halloween Party

(By the way, I'm trying a new format for pictures - I'm gonna try posting them in a picasa web album vs. the old way which was just to upload a ton of pictures and let you scroll down the page to see them... let me know how you like it. OH AND BY THE WAY this blog is now connected to Facebook, so those of you who are reading this from a Facebook account CONGRATULATIONS AND ENJOY THE BLOG! later!)

sad filter :(

Writing up the lab report for my Communications Systems lab...

What were supposed to get from our data:

Figure 1: This is your filter...

and what we really got:

Figure 2: This is your filter on drugs...

Oh, if only life were a little more ideal. Anywho, back to work on this paper!