Tryouts: David's Sushi (California Roll)

"This lone computer science gentleman is a sushi chef by day, video game programmer by night." - description for David on Americana Dawn Kickstarter

Work continues even during Spring Break - professors are more than happy to hand out assignments during this weeklong break. This game is no exception when there's a deadline to meet. One of our teammates made a California Roll. Given that he's the sushi chef at the UC, where hundreds of students are eating his stuff*, it's got to be good, right? Exactly. No avocado here (wouldn't this be the distinguishing feature of a California Roll?), but I can check off a subgoal here.

No longer would I have to go for Ngannu Rolls (UCD CKI specialties, named in a picture caption in the Ramble Apartments - which I know a friend makes) in order to reliably complete the goal - I know there's lots of sushi places around, but finding a friend that makes them that is close enough to sample is an extreme rarity. Prior to David, I only knew three others who did this (and the other two are in SF).

Day 1001 Project Goal #30b: Eat one of a friend's sushi dishes, if one is available. (Completed: 3/5/13 - David Ngo's California Roll)

San Francisco Fleet Week 2012

#193E: Get on a boat. (Goal completed - USS Makin Island - more like a ship though)

Fleet Week - A week of festivities and music, including Air Shows (featuring Blue Angels), and Ship Tours (for free). If you haven't gotten a chance to see any ships close up, be prepared to be amazed by them. I was impressed by the impressive size of this carrier and its aircraft (from what I've seen from pictures).

View from USS Makin Island, looking towards the SF Harbor

A few miles north is Pier 39 and (if you're up for it) Marina Park. Though you can technically see these air shows anywhere, they offer the best views (with the latter giving you a full 360 view without obstructions). If you can't make it to either, you should get as high as possible (like a parking structure or walkway).

Blue Angels performing stunts

Considerations when Attending: (next year)

• See the ships first, then the air show - they're larger than you think. But be prepared to walk quite a bit (at least a few miles).
• If you're not from SF, it's better off to use the BART system and walk over to the piers than driving there - it cheaper than finding a parking space and it gets rather crowded, and this year was no exception to this rule. Be prepared for delays either way.

  (It was 6pm that day after the main events in San Francisco when the main BART gates on the Embarcadero were temporarily closed due to overcrowding on the platform. When they opened, everyone rushed down in order to get aboard the trains. There was also at least one newscaster on the scene. I know - I was there.)

First time here, are BART stations normally this busy?

64 GB of Storage

Files in the drive when you first plug it in, with full stats. Autorun not active

#92E: Own a 64GB or higher flash drive. (Goal now properly completed)

At the time of the goal (2009), it was rather expensive to get such a large flash drive, which costed more than $150 at the time. Nowadays, the price is rather trivial, with its cost as low as $30 during a Office Max sale.

For a flash drive that lacks in speed (compared to other USB 3.0 equipment I regularly use), it more than makes up for it in capacity. Although I won't use this for school preferring my 16GB instead, it's best used for moving huge files around, given several networking issues (although this is somewhat offset by TeamViewer), or for backup uses.

For any SanDisk flash drive you use, though, it's strongly recommended you do not install the ClubSanDisk that comes with it (or worse, automatically installs for you) and simply discard it as well as the Secure Access Program - both are not necessary for the operation of the drive and the latter is mediocre at best.

On The Rocks: Lake Tahoe Hiking

Facing one of the largest obstacles in the history of my life in the form of hiking - Maggies Peak in Lake Tahoe, CA. Facing at least four miles and five hours to hike up this mountain in Tahoe, as well as climbing on the rocks in order to reach the top, the grand view is definitly worth it as the longest hike I've completed so far.

The goal was originally intended to be completed with Julie Ton last summer, but money issues delayed this indefinitely. I was given an opportunity to hike last month when one of my cousins were planning a hike at Tahoe in June, and took it.

Meanwhile at CKI: They have their June DCM at King's Beach in Lake Tahoe. They're way up north. And we're in the south.

Trails: Eagle Falls, Bayview

Hike Difficulty: Advanced Beginner. I've been informed that it wasn't too bad, with gradual slopes throughout the trail. My experience on this hike, however, says otherwise. There were some misleading paths and a LOT of rock steps to climb up on.

Recommended Equipment: Mosquito repellent, some water (at least 2 Liters), and some food.

Tips: Train yourself before going on this - there's around 5-6 miles that you'll have to go through, going up and down 2000 feet.

Goal Completed: #79. Go hiking somewhere with someone else. (Goal done at Lake Tahoe, with 8 others.)

3000 Pieces, 1 Month

A 3000 piece puzzle assembled within one month of buying it. That is all.

#95E. Finish at least a 3000 piece puzzle. (Goal Completed)

There were a few hitches initially - one including that the size of the puzzle is larger than the table it was built on - good thing the felt surface of the puzzle saver had enough traction to hold the pieces down, else pieces would've fallen off the sides.

This will probably be the one and only one time I build a puzzle of this size.

Keep Note: Do not attempt to store the puzzle in its rolled up form for an extended period of time - you are very likely to lose your progress upon unrolling it if it's not fully inflated and/or pieces don't interlock very well.

DCM, Looking Forward

[115] Reach 400 total friends on any site that counts friends. (Goal Completed)
[186] Successfully get a job. (Goal Completed)

The best thing to do now is to look up, and push forward. I now have my 400 friends which I thought was impossible or very difficult to do at the time I wrote that goal (which was 170). Now I can focus less on quantity and focus more on quality: In other words, improve as many friendships as possible in whatever time I have left. Additionally I will post on FB more often since I completed that goal.

Starting Point: At Zaps Zone - completely dominated the arena, but it's not as fun as compared to playing against a group of professionals.

STC Revisited

#112E: Visit a friend’s house, apartment, or dorm in another city. (Goal Completed - the overnight stay prior to this event)

Event: Spring Training Conference 2011 (STC 2011), North California

If you know what she means, you'll get the general idea of this workshop. *(She's actually referring to the strength of a club relative to its size).

Guess what the icebreaker was called.

I've always thought that the second time at an event is better compared to the first time. I was right for one. Likewise, I am strongly considering going for a committee position in CKI. After all, you only get to live a college experience once.

This year, most if not all of the workshops that I attended were helpful. Scrapbooking workshop was a bit short, but I was given justification on that. (Yes, I am planning to apply for historian for UOP CKI next year. There also might be a newer graphics related project on this blog coming soon.)

Question of the Day: I know quite a few people in my album of my two-day coverage, but only around 61% of them are listed as friends. Should I tag people who are not yet considered friends, or should I delay my album / video postings until I get more confirmed friends?

Results: Album tagging delayed by two days, total of 21 people who I've decided not to tag, 10 tagged with black text*, 20 people tagged normally.

100k Pageviews

The hitcounter on this blog (tip: it's on the very bottom) has finally reached 100,000, and the blog has essentially lost most of its original purpose.

As a new milestone has been reached, let me say a few things.

I remember last year when it was very difficult to get pageviews and attention towards the blog when this was first started, but it rose dramatically once I posted a few tips up. Last May, I was more or less excited about my blog hitting 1,000.

Now that I'm in the six digit hit count area, my posts get a lot more attention. Youtube videos that I feature (even to promote friends) have received a significant boost in the number of times people have clicked on it. It can be evident by going to the video and clicking on the graph button, which one my site is usually listed. One such example is Mrs. Langone Rap.

I believe my success towards this milestone was Zuma Blitz. I didn't initially expect it to be much of a success when I started it last December, but I was proven wrong when my hitcount doubled within a week. Following the level up table which I published because a person asked for it, my # of visitors rose dramatically. By the next month I noticed many people in discussion boards linking to my blog for some helpful info, as well as some sites featuring my tips and blog, such as Games.com and Hubpages. I proceeded to publish more on the topic, such as score mechanics and weekly tips. Nowadays I can't really find anything that has 'zuma blitz' as a keyword search and not land here within the first few pages of search results. (It's 90 percent of my 100k hit count, if you were wondering.)

Speaking of that, I was planning to move all of the Blitz material to a different site that I own (so that site could be more specialized, separating my personal blog with the gaming related blog), but it turns out that a lot more people are linking over here than expected.

This site, despite having lots of tips and stuff, wasn't originally very navigation friendly; this blog was more designed to host pictures of various things in life, not gaming material. I later learned what the audience was clicking on in order to navigate around the site and updated it appropriately to make it more user friendly to users. (At least I learned something out of my HCI class.)

It's good to be one of the few people to get this many hits and visitors. I learned what it feels like to run a high profile blog. Meanwhile, Brittany, who I mentored in the past, has* somewhere around 25k followers on tumblr.

Next Steps

• With the success of this blog, I intend to expand a bit. First: Most of my background images that were previously on photobucket have now been publicly released and are available here.
• Youtube / Deviantart will probably be up to showcase more of my stuff (The latter because I've picked up interest in Graphics Design / Art but haven't told a lot of my friends about this. This blog will feature some work.)
• My senior project (and finals) are finally done, so I can concentrate more time on some program development.
• I will continue Zuma Blitz related material on this blog until I can find a way to transition this to another of my sites.

The 5K Walk/Run

124E. Run and complete a marathon (at least 5K). (Goal Completed)

The runners at the starting line.

The goal description is incorrect as it's supposed to refer to a run/walk event that's at least 5 kilometers in length.

DNT (Delta Nu Tau) held their first annual 5K Oral Cancer Walk today, so I decided to try it out.

Without any training, I unfortunately slowed to a walk over half the time, but managed to complete it in 48 minutes 26 seconds. It was the first time that I did this.