Eric Harmatz's Blog

Advisory Olympics was cool. It was a good bonding experience, and allowed me to get to know my advisory more. Shelma and I are the only Seniors in our advisory and we only have two Juniors so it was nice to formally do team building with the freshman and sophomores.

They got rid of the duck fetus event, and Charlotte was counting on me for that. Ohh well we still had fun…

My favorite part was when we were against Darren’s advisory and for the rock/paper/scissors-esque game I told my advisory I thought it would be funny just to charge at them at the count of three instead of showing our symbol. Haha, they actually went through with it. We caught Darren’s advisory off guard, it was great (take that for owning us at Dodge Ball).

Just so you can see… here is my Honor’s Timeline for engineering. It is gonna be a long Semester!

Honors Timeline
Semester 1

*Tentative

Week 1 8/31 – 9/4:

Back to school

Regroup after MASEI

Week 2 9/7 – 9/11:

Assist in ordering parts for senior project, eBay, etc.

Week 3 9/14 – 9/18:

Google Site Optimization
Google Apps Accounts for Honors Student/Student Mentors

Week 4 9/21 – 9/25:

Google Site Optimization
Buffalo Check-In (organization)

Week 5 9/28 – 10/02:

Senior Retreat (no internet access)

Week 6 10/5 – 10/09:

Evaluate GoogleAdsense for HTHMAengineering.org

Work on the backend to HTHMAengineering.org (FTP accounts, subdomain settings)

Buffalo Check-In (RAID Check/Organization)

Week 7 10/12 – 10/16:

Joomla Reinstallation

Reread Joomla Manual

Week 8 10/19 – 10/23:

Set up Joomla Backend

Week 9 10/26 – 10/30:

Set up Joomla Backend

Week 10 11/2 – 11/6:
Populate Joomla Site

Buffalo Check-In (Organization)

Week 11 11/9 – 11/13:
Joomla Site Population

Week 12 11/16 – 11/20:
Joomla Site Population

Google Apps Refinement for Semester 2

Buffalo Refinement for Semester 2

Thanksgiving Break

Week 13 11/30 – 12/4:
Joomla Site Population (if necessary)

Refresher Training to Karl on using Joomla

Week 14 12/7 – 12/11:

“Book of Passwords”

Assist students with updating Google Site

Week 15 12/13 – 12/18:

Assist students with updating Google Site

Senior Exhibition IT

Enginnering is starting off interesting. Basically I have 10 weeks to build an autonomous radio controlled plane and program it so it flys by itself. Flys by itself…. And it needs to have an altimeter and proximity sensors and all that fun stuff and the onboard computer needs to know what to do with that information.

Interesting… This will be an interesting first semester. Ohh well, at least it’s a plane!

I’m staying optimistic. At least for now. Kelvin and I can do this.

Ahh yes, today was the party at Cherish’s house. It was her sweet 16. Of course, I didn’t know about it until I actually picked Shanna up, so I got her a 7-Eleven gift card. Luckily, she loves 7-Eleven. Score

Anyways today was long, and it’s not over. I went down to Naval Air Station North Island on Coronado to get a price adjustment on this netbook I got my mom last week. $50.

Then I went around and about town when it was about 105 degrees out, picked up Shanna, thought I was gonna die going the wrong way on a freeway offramp, and then we went to the party. Fun times with people who I haven’t actually met in real life, such as Saul. I also met other cool people. Fun times.

Anyways, then we went to Madison’s house because Shanna wanted to so I went with her after getting lost around South Park. So it’s like 9:30 and I don’t know where the hell I am. Ohh well.

Anyways tonight is gonna be my last good sleep before school starts. Better make it long enough to be well rested

Ohh well, tomorrow I have nothing to do so I’m just gonna chill, install Snow Leopard (I won’t put it off!) and just relax around the house in the air conditioning.

I’m gonna take a shower, and then I have to pick my mom up around midnight from a house on Ellingham. That’s all I know. Should be interesting.

Then I’m getting some sleep.

Yup, I’m happy to announce that I have been “reassigned” to:

Period 1: Dave

Period 2: Karl

Period 3: Karl

Period 4: Rachel

Period 5: Rachel

Thesis:
America is a society that has become victimized by genericized trademarks, as certain brands are more prevalent than others in our commercialistic society.

Evidence:
Asprin is still a trademark in about 80 countries, but is generic in USA
Xerox is used a verb (example: Please Xerox this for me) even though it is a brand.
“Xerox has used “trademark awareness” advertisements to prevent the brand from becoming a generic noun or verb, including such statements as “You can’t make a Xerox.”

More will be added soon.