New Toys and No Time to Play!

Back to the same old routine of doing homework -_- Only 15 more homeworks left and A-course is done! Then I will have time to do the fifty million projects that I have started. Here are two more that I will be adding to the list.

I visited my friends a few weeks ago and they showed me their "Metal Earth 3D Metal Model Kits". Now for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about they are these kits that bring metal sheets that have been laser cut into different pieces. You take these pieces and for a little 3D model. They bring instructions and you can build different things. I had seen them at a store but never fully assembles so I never bought one. My friend made an SR-71, which is my favorite plane, and OMG is it amazing!!!!!

Since it looked sooo badass I went and bought 2 kits! I got the SR-71 also because it looks so rad and I also got the U.S.S. Enterprise: NCC-1701!!!! I am so eager to make them but they require time and patience. Here are what the packages look like:

It actually does look like the model in the picture above!

The SR-71 brings 1 metal sheet and the Enterprise brings 2. They do require clippers and tweezers to help you mold them. Don't really recommend them for younger kids, says for kids 14 and up. But trust me the results are out of this world!!! 

Oh and they are very small, like 2-3 inches long or so, but the level of detail won't disappoint. Like I said they have many different models, from airplanes to historical monuments, space shuttles, etc. You can get them in amazon anywhere from $6 and up.

I hope I can document how I build mine because it should be fun. I will definitely post pictures of them while I make them. The only question is, when will I make them?! Lol Good night everyone!

XOXO,

Lina

Oh West Virginia

Wow, sorry for being away for over a week but it was one hectic one for me.  I missed out on my engineering posts and sharing all that has been going on because I haven't had a chance to sit down and breathe. But I am here now so let me share what I have been up to!

Let's go back to Friday, January 16. A couple of my friends had planned out to go skiing at Snowshoe in West Virginia. I have never been skiing before so wasn't sure how I felt about that BUT it was an opportunity for me to meet up with my fiancée and have my friends finally meet him. Every time he visits me my friends are away visiting their families that are out of state. So anyway, I said yes, let's do it! The drive was going to be 6 hours and a half :S so it was going to be an interesting ride. 

We all go to class Friday morning because it is mandatory and ended up leaving to West Virginia at around 8pm. Here I am all ready to go:

We ended up arriving to Elkins at around 2am so there really wasn't much I could take pictures of along the way. Here is a view from our hotel room the next morning.

I know the trees are dried out because it is winter but I can just imagine this place in the spring, summer, and fall. Must be even more beautiful!

My friends all headed to Snowshoes which was an extra hour away and the fiancée and I stayed behind so we could go exploring. I found a place called Seneca Rock in google maps and we decided that would be our end destination.

As you can see there isn't much snow around so I was a bit concerned of how these guys were going to go skiing. Later on you will see I had nothing to be concerned about. We ended up getting more snow than we wanted.

Look at all those gorgeous icicles!  This was my first time seeing them. As we kept driving we ran into this man made cavern. Was pretty impressive yet creepy since icicles kept falling and smashing inside it. I kept thinking an animal was going to come running out of it.

We drove for 20 more minutes or so and finally started seeing Seneca Rock from a far. In the picture below you can see it in the middle. It is all those jagged rocks on one of the hill sides.

When we got there we noticed that there were hiking trails so we decided to check them out. We didn't go too far in since we didn't want to get stuck there over night or anything but just far enough to get a good sense of the place.

We had to cross over this nice little river. Was so peaceful to hear it and a beautiful addition to the rest of the view.

I was obsessed with the moss and the ice. Breathtakingly gorgeous!

We ran into this sign and realized this is a major rock climbing attraction. Unfortunately people have lost their lives :/.

The picture above has got to be my favorite picture! That is a steep hill he is standing next to.

I can just imagine this place in full bloom. We need to go back just to see that.

So during our walk I kept noticing my fiancée would throw some snow at me but I would just ignore it and kept walking because I didn't realize he wanted to have a snow fight. After like the third time he throws a snow ball at me and says, " Can you pick up snow and throw it at me already!?" lol. I immediately bent over and the war began. I kept telling him not to hit my face bc the ice burnt. Next thing I know I had a blizzard heading towards my face. Below was the end result. I think I lost lol Was my favorite thing we did all trip. We were giggling like little kids, it was great!

  We didn't want the sun to go down and us get stuck without sunlight so we headed back fairly early.

 Bye Bye Seneca Rock! Hope to see you again when you are all green and even more amazing!

From here we headed back to the hotel. My friends weren't back yet and we didn't have much to do. We ended up going to Walmart and buying alcohol and battleship. I don't drink alcohol because I think it tastes nasty but my fiancée was bored and I said why not.

I ended up winning!!!! :) It was a really close game though! We played with the rules that if you missed or got hit you had to drink. You could drink your cup slowly to down it but after the fifth point against you you had to chug what was left. That rule had us both begging for mercy hahaha. But it was a great time. Feels good doing silly things together.

I ended up getting super sleepy after drinking 1.5 Smirnoff so went to sleep at like midnight. The next day we drove to Snowshoe with my friends before departing back to our states.

The place was incredible. So many different cabins and what not for lodging. This was like a little plaza that had restaurants and stores. The fiancée kept saying he felt like if he was a Hogsmeade. I agree!

Here I am trying my first Margarita. Wasn't so bad since I couldn't taste the alcohol.

Oh man and look at this giant chair we found! Also another one of my favorite pictures!

While we were eating a huge snow storm started to roll in. You can see it sort of in this picture.

We ended up leaving back to our states at around 4pm. The fiancée drove back to Virginia on his own which had me very worried.  We were 3 cars driving back together. The streets were full of slush and snow coming down from the resort.

As we kept going we noticed that the storm kept getting worse and worse.  Below you can see how we slowly started loosing visibility.

This is the last picture that documents what we got ourselves into. We ended up climbing a mountain and lost 1 of the cars with us. Their car hit some ice first and couldn't go up a curve. The more they accelerated the more control they lost of their car and ended up in the opposite lane. Their only option was to turn around. Our friends in the car infront made it up the curve so we decided to follow them since we were in an SUV. BIG MISTAKE!!!!!! We got to a point where it snowed so much it covered the lanes so we had no idea where we were going! We had the tire tracks from our friend's car but they had nothing. We all used GPS, reflectors on the side of the road, and everyone looking out the windows to tell where the edges of the roads were. Oh and no signal on our cells the whole way through.We wanted to stop but there were no shoulders to stop on, the nearest hotel was 20 miles and it was 20 miles to clear the mountain. No option but to keep going. The car I was in lost control in one and we slid down the road while rotating 90 degrees. When we came to a stop luckily we were in the road but ended up taking over both lanes. It was the scariest thing ever! We got back on track and made it out of the mountain. After that it was smooth sailing until we made it back home. The trip took like 7-8 hours. Glad we all made it home safely. Our other friend's that had turned around later told us that when they tried coming back again there was an accident where they had turned around. A car had lost traction and came sliding down and hit other cars. Once that was cleared they tried going up the curve again and their car got stuck. They had to get out and push it. We warned them no to go through the mountain because they wouldn't make it through. No idea what they ended up doing but they did make it back home safely.

My fiancée also ran into similar problems and he tells me he slid of the road twice heading home. But he got out of the bad weather faster than us and didn't get stuck climbing a mountain in his direction.

We got home at around 2 am on Monday. We slept all of Monday and then reconvened to start on homework :(. We found out that night it was a big mistake to not have started homework earlier because it was the worse one they have given us all semester! That is why I didn't have a chance to post or anything. All week I went to work and came home just to do homework! Glad to be over that homework! 

Now I am playing catch up with everything. Again, sorry for not posting all week and falling behind on engineering diaries but I am only human and have limited time. Hope you enjoyed this post. The weekend was definitely one to remember always! Thanks to my fiancée who drove out to meet with us!

XOXO,

Lina 

Procrastination...

An engineers best friend! It is my first week back doing homework since Christmas break and boy is it sucking. Don't think I am going to get any sleep tonight and then I have to attend a 4 hour class at 8am. I had 1 week to work on the homework. What did I do? PROCRASTINATE, of course! Sure, i got the homework started on Sunday with my group but then I did nothing until yesterday. Just came home after work and watched Star Trek until bed time. As if that is going yo be on my quiz tomorrow morning -_-. You would figure i would learn my lesson after 17 weeks of taking classes right? It is true what they say about us though, as time runs out our efficiency increases exponentially! When you have a few hours to solve a problem you start making magic happen. Bring out Brown's hammer!!!!

Anyway, back to my couch to keep working on it. It will all pay off tomorrow. I have a trip planned for tomorrow which I am excited for! ;) you will find out later what it is. Good night everyone!

XOXO,

Lina

1 Year of Designing

On this exact day last year I was nervously waiting to meet my new manager and new team. I remember I was so clueless! I was entering into the world of product definition. I had no idea what that entailed or even was for that matter. At the same time I was preparing to start my 3 year journey in my jobs learning program. I have learned so much this past year it amazes me. I went from not knowing how to use the design software to being entrusted with redesigning major components. Next week I will be moving on to mysecond rotation  and will be learning completely new skills. I am very grateful for all I have learned this year and intend to keep on learning! Cheers to many more years! Or as I told my friend, only 39 more years until retirement hahahaha!!!

Let's keep a record of what I look like today and see how much I change in a year. 

You can see what I looked like last year in my New Year's post. I had on a blue shirt and my hair was a lot shorter.

XOXO,

Lina

Learning: Digital Art!

Ahh the weekend! I wish it was more than two days so I can get more accomplished. I have made it my goal this year to not keep wasting my weekends being a couch potato and put myself to good use. I want to get into more hobbies and stimulate my creativity. 

For the moment I have decided that I want to learn how to do digital art. About 3 years ago I had bought myself a drawing tablet and my fiancee bought me Manga Studio 4 so I could learn. 

Yeah...loaded manga studio and photoshop, which came with the tablet, and found it so intimidating I quit after the second or third try. :/ So bad, I know.

Luckily though, when I started working I got placed as a designer. I had to learn how to use unigraphics or NX for my job. In that role I have to construct models and drawing from scratch. (Fun fact: I feel like everyday that I go to work I go to play and have fun making complicated shapes!) After I mastered how to use that software I notices that it was similar to digital art. You start very basic and work your way up to the desired shapes you want. See, I told you engineers are artists! 

So with this in mind I decided that if I learned how to use NX then I am going to learn how to use photoshop and manga studio for digital art!

I spent all of today tinkering with photoshop and getting accustomed to the tablet. 

That was actually pretty easy to do. Above you can see my Wacom Bamboo tablet and tell that it is very large. It feel very natural as if you are drawing on paper. As far as drawing while looking at the screen...not that hard getting used to at all. You see where your cursor is and can draw normally.

I have been using some very helpful tutorial on youtube and one in particular that I got from pinterest. Here is the link: 

Digital Art for Beginners - 25 Episodes

This page  contains 25 episode that cover different topics on photoshop. I have found them to be extremely helpful!

I will keep practicing in the meantime and when I get decent at digital art I will show my progress! 

XOXO,

Lina

Engineering Diary: #1 Passion

Welcome to the very first Engineering Diary! Every Friday I will be posting different topics related to engineering or lessons I have learned about life due to my career choices. I will share my experiences, give advice, share best practices, and share news that are engineering related so that we can both get something educational out of all of this. :)

Today's topic? Passion. 

For some people, knowing what they want to be when they grow up is a no brainer. For those that don't...well majority of the time it can cause a lot of stress and many many headaches. So where do you start? How do you find what you are going to do for the rest of your life? Especially when you are just a kid in highschool and have more "important" things to do like hang out with friends. Easy...take a cue from those that know what they want to be...find out what it is that you love to do and pursue it. Okay okay, so you hear that all the time and are probably rolling your eyes at me. Well, there is a reason everyone says it. The whole purpose of life is to be happy! You can only acheive that by doing things that you enjoy doing. 

With that in mind, let's get into what is the level of passion you need to make it in the engineering world. 

1) Love to solve problems with creative solutions: Engineering gets broken down into many branches (civil, mechanical, aerospace, nuclear, etc.) but one thing they all share in common is their purpose. Engineers take everyday problems and find solutions for them no matter how big or small they are. If you don't like solving problems, this is not for you. 

One thing I absolutely love about engineering is the fact that you can get extremely creative with your solutions. I like to think of engineers as artists. As a mechanical engineer for example, our main task is to take energy in any form and convert it to work. The possibilities of what you can do are basically endless with that basic definition. I feel that my company's slogan describes how we work best, "Imagination at work". We constantly have to find solution thinking outside the box.

2) Love math and science: There is just no way around this one! :/ You know how most kids complain in math class saying, "Why do I have to learn this? I will never use it" ? Yeah, we use all of it! Algebra, Calculus, Geometry, Trigonometry, Partial and Ordinary Differential Equations...all of it. If you hate dealing with math this is not for you. As far as sciences go, physics is a big one. It all depends on which branch you choose but for the most part physics and chemistry are two important ones. If you don't grasp basic concepts in these subjects you are in for a rough ride. Engineers take what science tells us is possible and make it a reality. So make sure you are on top of your game with your math and sciences!

3) Love the branch: As mentioned before, engineering gets broken down into many branches. When you choose the branch you want to be in you need to make sure you are ready to stomach talking about that field for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! This will be your world for the next 40 years or when ever you retire. 

From a young age, I knew I wanted to work for NASA (will share my story on another diary) so that narrowed it down to mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering for me. Since I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do within NASA (I find space shuttles interesting but you need to specialize in a part of it. This is where I didn't know which module to pick) I choose the more general of the two as my main branch (mechanical). I then did a minor in aerospace engineering which is more specialized. Which by the way, the more specific your branch the more doors/opportunities you close off for yourself when it comes time to find a job because you aren't very versatile. 

As I continued to go through college I narrowed down what I wanted to work on in the aerospace field. Airplanes fascinated me so I knew I would want to work closely with them. But planes have millions of parts that require many design engineers. So I had to narrow down even more what I wanted to work on. I had to think, "What is my favorite thing about airplanes?". Engines!!!! I took that route in my career. Thankfully, today I get to work with the #1 jet engine company in the world. So why am I sharing this? For the rest of my career I will have to stay up to date with new airplane models, engines, and competitors. Imagine if I didn't find airplanes interesting! I would be miserable. So just how I found a field I enjoy always, you need to make sure you enjoy what you pick.

4) Stress does not break me: Sorry to say this but being an engineer is extremely stressful! Don't think that once you graduate college and don't have to turn in homework anymore that your stress level goes down. Now is where the real stuff begins. As an engineer, chances are that you will be working on things that put other people's lives at risk. You make a mistake and it can be catastrophic. The amount of responsibility that you alone have is enormous. If you cannot handle that, this is not for you. 

Despite the amount of responsibility though it is all worth it in the end. At least, I feel it is. You get to work with the latest technology and build things from that. Not to mention all the rad "toys" we get to play with. Stress is part of the fun. Engineering is in no way easy. You can spend 20 years working to become an expert at something and you will still be clueless. But if it were easy, everyone would do it. If you like a challange, then engineering is for you!

If you manage to get past all four points I listed above and still say, "heck yeah I want to be an engineer", then you have the passion to make it in the engineering world! You need to really love the field you want to work in completely because when times get rough that is the only thing that will get you through it in one piece. What drives you, your passion!

Hope you enjoyed my first diary entry. I hope to share my full story for next Friday's entry. If you have any comments or want me to answer something in particular just leave me a comment and I will get back to you.

XOXO,

Lina

Flawless

Exhausted in bed after I just danced my little butt off in my living room to Beyonce's "Flawless". I would say that is a decent way to end the day don't you think? 

Work was pretty slow in the morning for me. See I am rotating to a new role in 2 weeks so no one wants to give me new work. But then by mid day my design engineer came and gave me more work. I am a designer by the way. I have the best job ever since I get to make models and drawings of jet engine parts! It feels very gratifying to know that they are pleased with my work and they feel I will be leaving a gap in the group when I leave. I think that will be a new goal for me in any new position I take. By the end of the role have the team saying they don't want me to leave. I am going to miss this team so much! They took me to a whole other level this year. Looking forward to keep growing intellectually.

On a side note, one of my coworkers got me an amazing christmas gift.

It is a ring with the deathly hallows symbol on it. Want to know what is cool about it besides the fact that it is from Harry Potter?! It was 3D printed for me!!! It was made with Brass so it has a gorgeous antique look. Ahh engineering friends are the best!

Any way off to sleep. Good night little duckies! 

XOXO,

Lina

*I woke up like this...I woke up like this...FLAWLESS! ;)*

Back to Work

The fiancee went back to DC this morning. It was off to work after that. Felt okay to be back but I feel I need a vacation to recover from my vacation lol.

I will miss spending every second of the day with the fiancee. It was like old times, being together all the time. I really hope we are reunited permanently soon! For now I will keep our sweet moments in my heart!

For the rest of this week I get to rest since we have no homework. Friday we go back to class and continue with the rigorous 60 hour work weeks. I am thinking of creating "the engineering diary" on here where I will strictly talk about my engineering experiences (Go to Smart Ducky Page). I think I will be posting those every Friday to begin.

Other days I want to dedicate to crafting but I need to organize myself first. Any who, off to bed now. Have a busy day tomorrow.

XOXO,

Lina

Happy New Year!

Happy new year everyone!!!

Hope you had a wonderful new year celebration! The fiancee and I were stuck at home with food poisoning  since the 30th :/

It was an early bed time for us on the 31st. We have been taking these past two days to get better. Watching a lot of movies and sleeping a lot. Here I am with my spoiled kids that don't leave me alone for a second.

Slowly getting better but not 100%. Sorry for the bad quality pictures. My phone camera really sucks.

We are just very grateful to have made it to yet another year together. 2014 was a life changing year for us. I want to recap all my achievements for 2014 and hope to have an even better year in 2015.

The year started with me moving to a new state completely on my own with $300 in my pocket. Luckily my employers were super supported and helped me until I started working and started getting paid.

First day of work! I grew up so much as an individual during the first few months on my own. I was a total dependent on my parents and had never worked (aside from internships) in my life. I also had my fiencee to help me out so I never really felt alone. So proud of myself for learning to be independent. :)

I got to see snow for the first time when I moved! I totally loved it! 

I rented my first house all by myself! That was pretty nerve wrecking but a great learning experience. Had to find a home for my fiancee and I and the pups. I love my cottage!

My fiancee got work in DC so our plans changed a bit for the time being. But that is okay because he is kicking butt and that is all that matters. This was his first time moving to the continental US permanently. Big step for him. I am super proud of him!

In June, we flew back to Puerto Rico for graduation! :D Both were Magna cum laude.

I turned 25!

I passed an entrance exam and entered the Edison Engineering Development Program! This is my biggest accomplishment after graduation.

We celebrated our 4th year of engagement lol and 5th year anniversary!

I went to DC for the first time ever...

And my parents visited me for the first time in thanksgiving along with some friends.

Went to my first ever comic expo with friends. We were steampunk Star Trek engineers.

Tried out crossfit and loved it! 

Unfortunately, due to my tough schedule I had to quit for the moment but I definitely want to go back.

Annnnd I went to the renaissance festival finally!

And those are pretty much all the big highlights of the year. Doesn't seem like much or very fun but it has been one of the most important years of my life. 2014 set the starting pace for the rest of my life! Grateful for all the blessings it brought. Especially with my mom since she got very sick once again at the beginning of the year but she pulled through. Hope everyone has a magnificent year! Looking forward to it.

XOXO,

Lina