it's been a while since i've written anything of interest to people reading this. why? my life is boring and nothing happens in pittsburgh for me to do. so there's nothing to take pictures of. but now...i have PICTURES! VICTORY!!!





this is from when i went to go visit houston. my camera didnt work, but luckily sherwin had a digital. yay!



yum yum! my birthday present from shawn. dont they look DEEELICIOUS? well, they sure were. yum yum yum. also fat fat fat. haha o well!



this is my cute lil robot that i made for one of my classes. isnt it cute? the next step is to TRY to learn how to program it. we'll see if that ends up happening. even if it doesnt, this is good. it is preprogrammed to go forward, backwards, turn, and to follow light. purty kool eh? this is for 16-199 building the future, in case you're interested in taking it. essentially you get 100 bucks to make some sort of robot. if you're like me and unexperienced, you buy a kit. if you're good at this stuff, you can do REAL robot building. definitely not me.



these next few pictures are from my trip w/ geeks w/ guns. pretty much it's 45 dollars for 4 hours at a shooting range. they do this trip about once a semester, and i've been wanting to go since last year. it sounds sort of expensive, but it was quite worth it. the trip is planned by cmu people that OWN these guns, so if i was to just go to a shooting range, i couldnt shoot all the different guns that i did. it was mostly alumni, phd students, and masters students that actually OWNED the guns, but everyone is invited to attend. it was SOO kool. i was alittle scared of the recoil at first, but i got used to it. i started at pistols, the revolvers, shotguns, rifles, and assault rifles. it was GREAT. you had to pay more money to use the snipers and machine guns, which i wasnt ready to shell out for. i learned a lot too, like the difference between a round, bullet, and casing/shell. also, shotguns use these HUGE rounds. like buck shots, it's a whole bunch of lead balls in there, so when you hit a buck, you cover a big area to prevent it from feeling too much pain. then the bird shorts have hundreds of little tiny shots in there. and then there's one that's called a lead slug, it's a huge piece of metal. poor animal that has to feel that. anyways, shotguns are fun, but the recoil are one of the worst, even those arent that bad tho.

enough talking! on w/ the pictures!




me in my sexy safety glasses. safety is a HUGE issue when it comes to playing w/ guns. it was really scary, cuz right as we were leaving, this guy was checking the inside of this gun (i forgot what type, some sort of semi automatic hard core looking gun), and it went off into the floor. it was SUPPOSED to be empty, but someone had left a round. luckily he was OK. whew!





this is me starting at the beginning w/ the pistol. not the VERY first pistol, cuz i decided to start low, w/ a .22 caliber, whose rounds are tiny. i have one, you should see it. tiny! i can't tell w/ this one, but i believe this is the .45 caliber, who's recoil is a lot stronger. i think i like the lower ones better.





me and another pistol. this was the tiny one, about .22 caliber.




this is tony and a revolver. he didnt take a picture of ME and a revolver. hmph. it's ok, i'm not that obsessed w/ the revolvers. again, i like the smaller ones. the big revolvers have bigger recoil, and are heavier. revolvers are interesting because their shells dont fly out like all the other guns we play with. gotta be careful w/ those shells, they fly all over. one of the reasons for the safety goggles.





me and a shotgun. btw, there were multiple types of each gun. there were like 4 pistols, 4 revolvers, maybe 4, 5 shotguns, i dont remember. different types. you can sort of see the earplugs i'm wearing, they're green. also very important, or you'll lose your hearing, it gets SOO loud. shotguns are sort of intimidating at first, like i said before, there's those different types of slugs, and the bird shot has the lowest recoil, and the lead slug has the highest. you have to push it against your shoulder, so it would pop and hit you. i feel like i'm in some sort of rancher movie when i use it. haha cuz the one you see, after you shoot, you have to sort of charge it, like a water gun, and the shell flies out.





tony and the shotgun. i think he liked these babies a lot more than me.


i dont have any pictures of me w/ regular rifles, they're not very exciting. they dont recoil at all, and it feels like i'm not shooting anything at all. they use .22 calibers. one of them that i used what the guy called john wayne style. very western styled, yeehah! anyways, pretty much you can only put ONE bullet at a time. you do that thing where there's a long rod where you take out, put in a bullet, put the rod back in, charge it, and shoot. not that exciting. but the next few guns are the bad boy guns.
i learned that these assault rifles are now banned, so it's pretty interesting that i got to shoot them. you can no longer buy them, due to their classification. i forgot exactly what they have that makes them assault rifles, but w/e. anyways...





this is me and the ak-47. the one and the same as the counterstrike one. not that i play. but you know that sound it makes in the game when you charge it? it sounds EXACTLY the same. so i realized i'm not that into the AK-47. it's too heavy! plus the metal part near the tip gets REALLY hot, it has to do w/ the gas escaping, something something i dont really remember.





tony posing w/ the AK-47. notice where his finger is, ABOVE the trigger. one of the safety rules, when not shooting, that's where your finger is, so even if your finger slips, it wont accidentally hit the trigger.





OK, this is my favorite gun. the AR-13? is that what it's called? correct me if i'm wrong. i KNOW it's AR, dunno about the number. it's hardcore yo, alittle more complicated to start the gun. each magazine of this gun can hold about 30 rounds, same w/ the AK. i like this one better cuz it's not as heavy, and it has a spiffy lil laser aiming thing. and i actually HIT A TARGET with this! the ONE target i hit the entire day. it was PIMP let me tell you. used by the US army? something like that. anyways, i love this gun. too bad it's banned. altho i understand why. with this and the AK, i can TOTALLY feel the power behind the gun. totally different from the other ones. the shotguns are tough also, but it's different. the recoil with these assault rifles are not as much.





this is tony with the AR.





this is one of the targets, torn up by the shotgun. you can tell, because you see all those gray dots on it? from all the tiny balls from the bird shot. i think the guy said there's 400 tiny shots in there. anyways, bowling pins are actually quite strong, you'd be surprised. this is the first time i've seen the inside of a bowling pin, anyways. they also took out this old ass engine, and that got torn to pieces! you should see. no picture. o yea, and 2 guys brought textbooks, one of them the crappy sileo principles of econ book, and used it as a target. that book got MUTILATED it was crazy.





this is one of those have to pay for guns. it's about 8000 dollars. it's a .50 caliber sniper rifle. HARD CORE. .50 caliber is HUGE, the shell that's spit out is GIGANTIC! anyways, people who are trained w/ this baby can shoot things accurately up to 1200 meters away. and let me tell you, that's FAR. that's 3937 feet. about .75 miles away. accurately. and this baby can blow up a car. intense.


anyways, that's it. this was a GREAT trip, and the 45 bucks was definitely worth it. i might not go every semester, but i think once a year, it's a good thing. i was pretty scared of the recoil and how it'd hurt me, but after a while, it was all good. there were times were i was scared, and i'd like react, even before shooting. i'd sort of start pulling the trigger, then close my eyes, and not shoot. hahaha it's all good. guns are FUN but BE CAREFUL!