I've recently really gotten into HDR photography. It's short for High Dynamic Range, and it captures some pretty amazing images.

It takes at least 3 different exposures of a scene and then you combine them all together for a picture that has a huge range of shadows and highlights...it's pretty awesome.

I took this tonight as the sun was setting here in Chattanooga:



Have a good week :)

They suck.

My best advice is to ignore them as long as possibly and you'll eventually get your studying done in plenty of time. It always works out that way, I promise.

Okay, so I was debating on whether or not to write this one, but I have decided that I should. Now, I'm not saying that I have a wireless router or anything. It's just that a lot of people have been asking me why they can't have one and that they wish they could have wireless internet in their dorms but the Universities "wireless" doesn't reach into their apartment, forcing them to use the dreadful Ethernet cable :( This makes us "on the go" college students very limited in how mobile we can be with our lovely computers.

This guide is also for those who can set up a wireless router with little to no effort. You need to be able to password protect it and know how to name it.

So, I'll try to keep it as simple as I can and explain how you can setup and maintain a wireless router in your apartment. I must warn you though, if you get caught and your internet gets shut down, don't complain to me. This is just for informational purposes and I am in no way suggesting that you do it.

Now that that is out of the way, lets get to how to actually do this.

First, you'll need a wireless router that is capable of changing the MAC (Media Access Control) address. Most routers these days are capable of this, so you don't really need to worry.

They usually come with a "setup" disc. Don't worry about this...it only really complicates things. Look at the user manual and find out what the IP address of your specific router is.

We'll use a Netgear router for our example:

First open up your favorite web browser and type in the IP address of the router, this most likely being a 192.168.1.1 address, into the address bar of the web browser. You will then be prompted to insert the host name and password of the router to connect to it. Once this is done your screen should look as follows:



Take a look a the bottom where it says "Router MAC Address"

This is what defines the router as a router and this is how the university knows that you have a router running. Which, in turn, disables your internet :)

You're going to want to change this to the MAC address of your computer. To do this, go to "Start" (for Windows users) and search for "cmd prompt"

Then, type in "ipconfig /all" and hit Enter.
You should see something like this:



Look at the one labeled "Ethernet Adapter" and then go to the line that says "Physical Address". This is your computers MAC address. In this case, it is "00-A0-C9-5D-1A-C7"

Take your computers MAC address go back to your routers page. Go to "Use this MAC address" and type in the digits you just found.

Doing this will make your router appear as a computer on the schools network, therefore not identifying itself as a router. :)

Another thing you will want to do is go to the "Wireless Settings" page:



Go to where it says "Allow broadcast of name (SSID)" and UNCHECK this. This will make your network not appear to those around you and in order to find it you will have to know the exact name of it and it's password.

Like I said, you shouldn't do this if you don't know exactly what you are doing as you could find yourself with no internet and having to go to the Technology center to get it fixed!

I'm glad I could inform you though...enjoy.

Labels: college, router, technology, wireless

They're a band that not that many people have heard of and they deserve to get big. Check out their music on iTunes and I think you'll be impressed by their lyrical ability. They've been on the scene for about 3 years now and this is their first album. Before this they would release random singles on their Myspace and their fan base (including me) loved it.

Give them a listen.

Labels: hardcore, hip hop, hollywood, hollywood undead, music, new, rap, rock, undead, underground

Scavenger hunts are always a pretty good time. It can either lead to complete awesomeness, or just mediocre cool. Either way, fun times happen. I was recently involved in one and I have to say, it was full of complete awesomeness.

The list was pretty extravagant in some spots and semi-basic in others. Some things were absolutely impossible, while others were not so far out of reach. We had to take pictures of each of the events that we checked off our list as proof that we did them. There was a section of the list, however, that included bringing back certain things. One of those was a LIVE duck. We could have just taken a picture with one, but NO, we had to CATCH one. No task is too large for Tyson and I.

We went to a local park that is known to have massive amounts of ducks at it. We decided that no matter what, we were leaving with a live duck. We didn't know how we were going to catch it, we just knew that it would happen.

So we arrive at the park and begin picking out our victim. One duck seemed as though he wanted to try and show off (for the ladies) so he tried taunting us. He stayed on land as the rest of the ducks fled into the protective waters of the pond in the middle. He got our attention diverted away from the other ducks, which was not a good thing. Me, Tyson, and another random hero "triangled" him and threw a shirt around him. Random hero held his wings and then Tyson helped him pick the duck up. We were so astounded at the fact that we had just captured a live duck that we could not stop laughing. We took our picture and then tried to figure out how to get him back to the house. Tyson's trunk looked like a perfect holding cell. It was only about a 5 minute drive, so we didn't feel THAT bad about it.

We didn't win the scavenger hunt, but it was a glorious day anyways.



Here's Fred:

Summer has since passed and college life here at UT-Chattanooga is back in full swing. I'm older, my friends are older, and we have a year of experience under our belt. But don't think that means that we're getting more mature by leaps and bounds :P Yes, we have matured in some aspects, but at the same time, we are still kids.

Having said that, the new year brings a few new questions into play. Will I stay here for the remainder of my college career or will I look farther (California). For those that don't know, I grew up in a coastal community in Southern California called Carpinteria.

I could tell you that I LOVE SoCal...but that would not even begin to describe my feelings for it. I'm very proud of where I come from and I'll always stand by that, which makes me start to consider finishing my education out there. Then again, the friends that I have made out here and the things I've learned about the culture are invaluable. I can't just leave all this behind. Not yet.

Take, for example, my two new room mates this year. Rick Van De Bovenkamp, from the Netherlands, has become a good friend of mine. Badr Bouhabdella (sp?), from Barcelona, has given me quite a few good life lessons already. They're both awesome and I love hanging out with them. Yes, Tyson is still one of my room mates!

So, I don't know yet!

Okay...more funny stories! I promise they're coming.

So as many of you may know, I went to the E.R. on Sunday afternoon. I'm okay and the story that is to follow is by no means meant to be serious. Laugh at it and don't feel bad for doing it :)

Here's what happened:

It was a cool Saturday evening and the boys and I were finishing up leading kids in an event called Reality Check with Red Bank Baptist Church. The weekend was geared towards leading some small groups with younger kids but the evening activities were notorious for shenanigans happening. Of course, we love to keep traditions going.

We loaded up with water balloons at around 11:50pm on Saturday night. It was Josh Parrish, Tyson Ward, Reilly Liner, Kevin Brown, and myself. Reilly and I were completely decked out in camouflage with mud smeared on our face; you know...that Rambo effect. The plan was to freak the house of girls out and hopefully do as little damage as possible at the same time

With water balloons in hand, Reilly and I crept up to the house to get more accurate shots while Kevin, Tyson, and Josh sat back about 50 yards and shot balloons with a water balloon launcher.

As I made my move to flank the house from the back I started running, and that turned into a full out sprint. I threw my balloons and made a straight line to where the rest of the crew was. I spotted what appeared to be a hard covered top of some sort. Being that it was dark and I was running at full speed, I didn't have much time to process that this might not be what it appears.

*Right here is where I should have taken that time to asses the situation a little more, but being me, I chose not to*

I was going to cut the corner of this supposed hard top and make my way to the black abyss where the rest of the guys were hidden. I took one step on it and quickly realized that this was nothing other than a soft top covering for a pool. Great, I'm at a dead sprint and now having nothing to run on but water. Crap. At this point I slip and start a rapid downward fall towards the concrete siding. I then landed on the siding of the pool with my lower chest/upper abdomen....hard. I quickly got up and started uncontrollably gasping for air. Reilly saw my struggle and said "Dude, are you okay?" I wanted to come back with a cute reply like "No, I'm just holding my chest breathing really hard because I feel like I need to" but all I could do was point at my rib cage.

All of the above happened within about 3 seconds.

I then began taking deeper, controlled breaths and was able to slow it down to normal breathing soon enough. I figured I hadn't broken anything because of the lack of extreme pain, although it did hurt quite a bit.

The next morning sucked. I woke up with excruciating pain in my chest. I won't go into details, but there were certain signs that my insides might be messed up so I decided that after church I needed to go to the E.R. I checked myself in and waited around for a little until my name was called.

They checked me out, gave me a CAT Scan, and I waited. About an hour and a half went by where I was just chilling by myself in the room with an IV sticking out of my arm. The trauma team then came in and told me that 3 different doctors had looked at my CAT scan results and said that everything looked fine and that it was just bruised badly. They were still debating on keeping me overnight though, but after giving me his own check he decided it wasn't necessary.

Since I had been there for about 2 hours, and Tyson, being the bro that he is, was waiting for me in the Waiting Room, I asked the lady at the desk if someone could let him know that I was okay. She said that someone would bring him back here shortly. He came back and we chilled there for about another 30 minutes and still no one had come. ( I couldn't leave because I had an IV sticking out of my arm). So we started messing around with the bed and doing a little exploring.

After 4 hours of hanging out in the ER I was finally released and am going to be perfectly fine once the bruise heals on the inside.

Thank you to everyone who let me know they were thinking of me! It really is appreciated a ton!

Go ahead...laugh.