5 days till Christmas…It’s practically here

Well, with finals over for most of the students at the University of Minnesota we all begin checking One Stop for the latest update on our grades. So far I am sitting at a running total of 2 B’s, a B+, and an A for the CSL credit in Geog 3371.

I was surprised by the B+ that I received in Geog 3561 Principles of G.I.S. This class was one of the toughest classes that I had this semester in terms of theory and sheer amount of information. The labs pulled me out of the fire in this class and where very intuitive and informative. The best lab was the lab on Georeferencing areas of downtown Minneapolis and fixing the alignment of the Hiawatha light rail line and producing a map of the alignment. The task required using a layer of roads and then Georeferencing these roads on top of a layer of an image acquired from either a satellite image or aerial photograph. We matched the intersections assigned to us using Google Maps and attempted to get the least amount of errors in our referencing. Our reference points attempted to match areas that had been ground truthed by professionals with a GPS in the field. This was a task that our professor told our class that we would be doing the most of.

As for the two B’s I received, these were both Roger Miller’s courses Geog 3371 “Cities, Citizens, and Communities” and Geog 3605 “Perspectives on Planning”. These classes started out a little rocky with some pretty tough assignments. The CBD mapping was tough because of the mapping element, having never taken a cartography class and unsure about how to show density. Maybe I should have argued on the score of my district map but didn’t feel like arguing with the incompetent TA’s of geog 3371. Right after the mapping exercise the first set of study questions were due. In perspectives the first exam didn’t go very well either. Oh well, the projects in both of the classes were helpful and I hope to stay involved with both the Central Corridor LRT and the Midtown Greenway.

The class that I am waiting in fear of is Statistics. As most of you know, I had my last exam on Saturday with Statistics. I felt that the exam went ok for the most part and I am hoping for a C in the class…Just as long as I pass.

After my exam, I ventured over to the Coffman Student Union Bookstore and sold three of my textbooks for about $100 bucks. This will help with the ski rental and cost of lift tickets for the KU and I’s trip to Duluth for a few days in early January. Plus it never hurts to have spare cash lying around in case of an emergency.

Saturday night featured an evening of eating way too much delicious food with the family including Ham, baked beans, and a fabulous batch of potatoes made by my Aunt Anna. After dining and visiting with the Fam, I swung by Kristen’s place and the two of us saw King Kong over at Har Mar in Roseville. King Kong was incredibly action packed and suspenseful but rather on the long side, in my opinion. There were also some pretty scary moments especially when the crew is being eaten by insects limb by limb or swallowed by these worm things. Other unimportant crewmembers are either crushed by stampeding dinosaurs, eaten by dinosaurs and insects, or having their heads being bitten off by King Kong. The best scene was the battle between the T-Rex’s or the Lizard King and King Kong. Near the end of the movie, we see that Kong is the only surviving member of his kind from all of the other ape bones that are in his cave. It would have been cool to possibly hear or find out what happened to the rest of his kind.

Last night, Frank, Pete, and I saw the Chronicles of Narnia over at the UA Pavilion in Roseville. Despite the hype surrounding Narnia, the three of us found it rather disappointing. The thing that ruined it for me were the actors who played the children. They were constantly whining and yelling at each other over worthless stuff. Another thing that bothered me was Liam Niesson as the voice of Aslan the Lion. What movie isn’t this guy in??? If he isn’t helping out Bruce Wayne in “Batman Begins”, he is fighting the crusades in “Kingdom of Heaven”, and if he isn’t doing that he is a freaking Jedi Master in “Star Wars Episode 1”.

5 days to go, still shopping to do and work to attend. I need to be up early tomorrow so I can make it to work on time and then get home on time too. Hopefully I can grab dinner with Kristen who has the day off tomorrow and possibly catch up on some leisure reading at Espresso Royal or Expose while the KU studies for her last exam.

Looking forward to Christmas can’t wait!!!!

Goodnight Bloggerdome


Andrew