A Day in the Life of Joe

10:00am

   Hey everybody. So today isn't off to a great start. Didn't get out of bed until 8:45 because my damn alarm was on silent. This is the third time this has happened and I'm seriously getting sick of it.
   Anyway, I've decided that today, for a change of pace, I'm going to do a throughout the day series of posts, each with their own timestamps, and then I'll post the whole thing as one conglomerate post (I think this will be a little neater than 5 mini posts clogging up the site).
   Right now I'm suffering through culture presentations in sociology. This is incredibly boring. I did finish the Day 1 drawing for the 40 Day Pokemon Challenge. I'll throw it up as soon as I get a chance. For those who don't know, the first challenge was "Draw a Pokemon that makes you smile." Cute way to start.


12:15pm

   Sitting down to lunch now. I could really use some coffee, but I don't feel like walking all the damn way to Dunkin Donuts. I just finished the first sketch, so without further ado, I give you...

   Yes, I went with Politoed. I've always thought he was kinda cute. Pretty useless competitively, but I dunno. I've just always liked him. Anyway, this is my first even remotely successful attempt at hatching/cross hatching so I'm fairly proud of myself, as simple as it is. The next challenge is "Draw your favorite regional bird." I've already got one in mind.


4:00pm

   Geez, it sure is raining out. I had to cross the street to get to my car and I nearly drowned. It was crazy out there.
   Back inside, now, thankfully. Pretty soon here I have to be at a college thing. I guess there's going to be a ton of colleges showcasing their curricula, so Tiana and I are going to go check it out. I especially want to check out RIT and Alfred University. I've heard they have good computer science programs.


8:45pm

   Just got home from the college information night. It was actually fairly informative. I'm still flip-flopping a bit between music education and game design as a major, though. The good news, is I have a pretty good idea of where I want to go for these majors. If I stick with music it's between Fredonia and Potsdam. If I decide to go into game design, I really like Alfred State and RIT. So I'm making at least a tiny bit of headway.
   Tiana and my mom got along really well, which is good, seeing as they haven't met before. Tiana was a bit nervous, but she warmed up fast. All in all it was a pretty good night. Not a bad day, actually.
   I also really liked this throughout the day blogging style. Maybe not enough to do it regularly, but perhaps every once in a while it could be a nice way to mix things up. We'll see.

Tacos,
Gladdstone

Convenient Connections

   Lately, I have found myself thinking about how I make connections between things like objects or thoughts.
   This seems weird and tangent-y but I've always found it very easy to make huge leaps in logic very quickly. This has helped me a lot, actually. Especially when I'm writing code. I see somethings not working, and it's just incredibly easy for me to pick out the error and either find a way to fix it, or circumvent it.
   I'm finding it a little difficult to think of a decent example, but for the life of me I just can't. It's something like...everything in my mind is connected. There really aren't any individual thoughts, it's more of a giant web with everything interconnected. No real center, and nothing really hangs out on its own. In some crazy way, remembering that I need to walk the dog is connected to my preferred method for solving basic vector problems.
   Does anyone else experience this? Or am I just totally insane? Maybe both. Either way, it's both insanely ridiculous, and incredibly convenient because it's really easy for me to solve logical problems.
   Anyway, I've spent the past week playing the new Super Smash Bros like a freaking madman. In the first day I unlocked Falco, Ness, and Dark Pit. Now I also have Duck Hunt Dog, Jigglypuff, and a couple others I can't seem to think of at the moment.
   My only real complaint about the game is the lack of some sort of story mode like subspace emissary like in Super Smash Bros Brawl. This is replaced in the 3DS version by Smash Run mode, which is okay, but really just not that interesting. I tend to think that there will be a story mode thing in the Wii U version though, but we'll just have to wait and see.
   Pokecast is still going strong and doing fairly well in the numbers. To be honest, it isn't really the numbers that matter to me though. Even if everything I did got precisely zero hits I would still probably do it. Because why not? I do this because it's what I enjoy. Knowing people care to listen to my insane babbling is just a pretty awesome perk. I don't need to be Scott Johnson to feel fulfilled.
   While I'm on the subject of podcasts, I should say some about Geek Council. For those who have been following, you undoubtedly noticed it never actually premiered. Well, fear not my friends! Starting in November it will premier-this I promise. I look forward to launching this with all of you. It should be quite the adventure.
   If you'd like to be the first to know when all this goes down, by the way, make sure that you regularly check www.nerdsunderfire.com. It's always the first place I update.
   Okay, plug over. I've got quite a weekend ahead of me, so I'll see you all on Monday for another blog post.

Tacos,
Gladdstone

Not Even Wednesday Anymore

   Happy Wednesday, everybody. Hope you're all having a great week so far.
   My week so far has been completely insane. After Sunday, which really wasn't all that relaxing, I had school followed immediately by work Monday, robotics and band Tuesday, and work tonight. Tomorrow I have a hair cut and band, and then work Friday, and finally more band on Saturday. So quite the week ahead, still.
   Work was pretty easy Monday night, but on Tuesday Nik and I found out that the new robotics website (which we're in charge of) needs to be live ASAP (as in that day). So, after coding our asses off until midnight, it still isn't totally completed, but it's going live anyway. What we have will have to be good enough, because the website that currently exists is just an absolute disaster. There so many pages that neither Nik, nor I have seen all of them (it was created before either of us joined), and just about every single one of those pages has some sort of bug, ranging from a minor thing you may not even notice to a massive, site-breaking problem. So our director's decision was to nuke the whole thing and start from scratch.
   After robotics, Nik and I went to marching band rehearsal, which was really, really boring for some reason. I don't usually think the repetition is boring. It probably has something to do with the fact that I am just totally exhausted.
   Speaking of which, it's already not Wednesday anymore, so I should probably cut this post short. Be sure to check out the Nerds Under Fire website, we just updated our art page with some new work, and new artists. Also be sure to find my podcast Pokecast.
   Plug plug plug plug plug.
   I think that's about it. See you all on Friday!

Tacos,
Gladdstone

Don't Forget Your Filters

   Happy Monday, I guess. I hope you all had a nice weekend. I certainly did.
   Saturday we went to the New England Six Flags. Personally, I'm not a big fan of amusement parks, but it was nice to hang out with the guys. We did a vlog from Nik's phone (seeing as my phone was broken by someone in the marching band who will go unnamed...), but I haven't received the edited edition as of yet, so we'll see if that ever gets done.
   Speaking of the Nerds Under Fire crew, I'm working on putting together a new art page composed of stuff not only from Nik, but also myself, and my girlfriend Tiana (mostly her). Many of you have seen both Nik's and my own work, but Tiana is in her own league, so she will definitely dominate the page.
   You'll also be able to buy Tiana's prints on an Etsy store that is currently in the works. This is unaffiliated with Nerds Under Fire, but I thought I would give her a plug, anyway. She's an incredible artist, and I'll be sure to post a link to her store as soon as I can. Definitely something to check out. She's amazingly creative and does some incredible stuff.
   Anyway, back to Six Flags, we had a pretty good time. The park wasn't anything super special, but the rides were pretty good. Although I must say, I spent a long time looking for a decent souvenir and I could not find anything. I didn't expect much, but come on. Just incredibly stupid stuff. Granted they had awesome DC merchandise, because they have a deal with DC Comics, but what I wanted was something from Six Flags, which was weird. However, if you want to buy cool DC superhero stuff, Six Flags is the place to go.
   The only real disappointment of the trip was that most of the pictures I took didn't come out as well as I'd hoped. There are one or two decent ones, but of three rolls of film that's not very good. This is mostly because I kept putting off putting on the UV filter, or the 80b. Either of those would have helped a lot, and I'm really irritated that I wasted $30 on those prints.
   The moral of the story is, I really freaking need a digital camera because I simply do not have the money to be developing film all the time. Hahaha.
   Hope you guys have a great start of the week. I'll check back in with you on Wednesday.

Tacos,
Gladdstone

I'm Shipping Up To Boston

   Hi guys! Joe, here. Checking in from the Marriot just outside Boston, Massachussets. I'm sitting in my hotel room right now, we just got back from The Blue Man Group (more on them later).

   Thursday was fairly uneventful. Boring, even. Made better by the fact that I was leaving the next day for our band trip. We left at 7:30 this morning and got in around 2ish, maybe? I'm not totally sure. After hanging out for a bit, we went on one of the famous Boston Duck Tours. Other than some great photo ops, though, it wasn't super interesting. I did get some fantastic water shots, so all in all worth it. 

   I'm going to take a tangent here and say I hate cynics who have to lump all of humanity together. I won't name any names, but a certain person I'm sharing a hotel room with feels it nescessary to mention that he has no faith in humanity at least three times every day and I swear I am this close to throwing him out our third story window.

   Anyway, after the duck tours we went to a "hibachi" restaurant called Fire and Ice. The idea is, you og up to this buffet style area and pick out your food (all raw) and take it over to be cooked. An interesting idea, but it's pretty unsanitary. The food was okay, not the best hibachi I've ever had by a long shot. The shrimp particularly was quite mediocre. Regardless, I wouldsay that it was fairly decent meal that wasn't too expensive. 

   After Fire and Ice we went to see the Blue Man Group perform. Which was...interesting. Fairly funny and entertaining, but I really didn't see the huge appeal of it. It was really just a lot of random stuff. Lots of three guys in blue suits throwing food. The little music that there was was extremely good, but I expected more. I think if they had more of that and less of the weird skits I may have enjoyed it a bit more. 

   Tomorrow we're off to Six Flags. Personally, I would rather walk the city and get more pictures,but it should be a fun time. I have to remember to buy something for Tiana there. Hopefully writing it down will help me remember. 

Tacos,

Gladdstone

A Little Sore

   Hi everybody. So I've been gone for a couple weeks, and if you follow www.nerdunderfire.com you know it's because my computer sort of wet the bed. Luckily, I've gotten my old one fixed and tuned up so you can expect everything to slide back into place.
   I had a bit of an experience yesterday. Not only was I in a car crash, I walked away unscathed. My friends and I were on a road trip up to some waterfalls to go hiking and do some photography shots, when my friend made a left turn, not seeing the oncoming car.
   I was lucky enough to be in the passenger seat.
   Thank God, I saw the car coming and unleashed a string of obscenities the likes of which have never been heard on this earth just in time to make my friend stop the car. Both airbags deployed, but thankfully the most severe injury was my friend who was driving who got his hand on what we think were his keys. Even my iPad was okay.
   To be honest, I feel like I should be a bit more worried. I could have died if we hadn't stopped quickly. At the very least I would have been injured pretty badly. But I'm not. In fact, I shook the whole thing off pretty fast. Which is more than I can say for the guy in the other car. Man, he was livid. I understand that he might be a bit mad, it was our fault, and we did damage his car, but they're called accidents for a reason, right? There really is no reason to be cursing me out while I just try to make sure everyone's okay.
   His friend was funny (in the way giant dicks can be). He seemed to have it in his head that we were gonna run away or something. He kept yelling at us not to move and to stay next to the car. Like we're just gonna run off into the woods or something. What a dumbass.
   Anyway, it's time to move on. I'm just glad the whole thing is over. The car is probably totaled, but my friend is only getting a few points on his license, and he's going to appear in court and see if he can't get the charge reduced a bit. I think everyone should just be thankful no one was hurt and move on. I got a few pictures after the fact so maybe I'll put those up one of these days.
   On a slightly happier tone, we had our first marching band competition of the season last Saturday in Corning. Our visual was absolute shit, but the music was fantastic. I mean, we just sounded great, and I loved every second of it. We took first place in our division (Small School 3) with a score of 69. That's 3 or 4 higher than the second place band, if I remember correctly.
   Glad to see we're starting my last year off on the right note (get it? Huh? Get it?). It really bodes well for Dome this year.
   See you all on Wednesday.

Tacos,
Gladdstone

Back to Work

   Okay guys, here's the deal. New school year, new me. I'm going to get back on track with this blog. That means updates three times a week for the foreseeable future. Senior year is going to be a ufn one and I really want this documented.
   As I said, it's my last year of high school, and I'm feeling pretty good. I'm talking all APs this year which means I don't have to deal with as many morons, and the classes I'm taking are pretty great. I think I'm probably most excited about taking AP Computer Science. Most of my friends have it with me, so I think we'll have a good time in there.
   In some other news, the marching band show is really starting to come together. If we can pull off the music, I think we have a real shot at taking home the championship title this year, which would be really great for my senior year. Also on the marching front, I have officially applied to be a baritone in the White Sabers Drum and Bugle Corps. They're located in Dansville, NY, which is a bit of a drive, but they are an excellent DCA corps. Long term, of course, I want to audition for the Cadets, but this will be a good opportunity for me to better learn my instrument, seeing as I've never really played brass before.
   I recently ordered Ni No Kuni for the DS from Amazon. I found myself with a hankering for a good JRPG, and there just isn't any good ones out in the US so I was forced to turn my head over to the Promised Land of role playing games where I found this little gem for somewhere around $20 (that's including shipping, so pretty low for an import game). That won't be here until October or so (thanks, Amazon), so I'll have to report back when I finally get it.
   For those of you who haven't been watching the new season of Doctor Who as it premiers YOU NEED TO BE DOING THAT. So far, Peter Capaldi has completely blown me away as the Doctor. They've done a complete 180 with the character and I couldn't be more pleased with the results. The only thing missing now is the classic "I am the Doctor" monologue, which doesn't seem to be quite Capaldi's style, but damn it, I have got to have it at least once. I don't want to take the time to review each individual episode, however so my plan is to do a full season review once it's completed, so watch out for that,
   Finally, don't forget to check out my new Pokemon podcast-Pokecast. This week I was joined by Nik Walz, and it was a really great show. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, the Xbox Podcast Directory, and of course, nerdsunderfire.com
   Stay nerdy, my friends.

Tacos,
Gladdstone

Home Sweet Home

   Here we are, at long last the long awaited day is upon us-the very first day of band camp. The beginning of the end for me. For others, it's the beginning of a truly great journey, although they may not know it yet. I truly envy the rookies this year. They're starting off with a great group, and they'll go really far together.
   As for my own personal journey with the band, it is coming to a close, but not just yet. I still have one final season with the Tigers Pride Marching Band and I intend to make it count.

   Although I do talk about it being the end a lot, I'm trying not to focus on it. I really just want to enjoy this year and not worry about it being the end.
   So, with that in mind, I'm going to talk about the first day of band camp for the 2014-2015 season! It's a bit weird with all of the older students gone-we ARE the older students and that's a huge perspective change. Even after the first day, I can tell that it's going to be an excellent year. We really have a shot at the championships this year. Despite the fact that we lost plenty of really fabulous musicians last year, we got a lot of great rookies in return. Not to criticize last year's batch, but they still struggle a lot with the fundamentals. This year, the rookies are picking up everything very quickly and already showing signs of great potential. As long as we can keep up this level of focus, no one will be able to stand in our way!
   Today, being the first day was actually fairly uneventful. We introduced ourselves to the rookies and went over a lot of fundamentals. Our director Mr. Bill also handed out most of the music-a shock, I really didn't think that he would have it done in time. Hahaha.
   The show is going to be really great this year. It's also very well suited to my situation. Home Sweet Home. After all this fun going through Haunted Carnival, New York, For The Birds, and Tonight, it's nice to be reminded of what marching band is. Home. The marching band has been my home for a long time now, and that's what it will always be.
   To quote the Doctor-I have a new destination. My journey is the same as yours, the same as anyone's. It's taken me so many years, so many lifetimes, but at last I know where I'm going, where I've always been going. Home. The long way 'round.
   And that's exactly where my journey with the band has taken me-it's taken me home, and I couldn't be happier.

Pride.
Gladdstone