A few years back, when Microsoft released their latest operating system, Windows Vista, they decided to come up with a marketing plan to let consumers know which computers were capable of running Vista.  They dug deep into their marketing degrees and came up with the blockbuster term “Vista Capable”.  They decided that they would slap a VC sticker onto any PC that was capable of running Vista.  There’s one huge problem with this strategy.  It’s false advertising.  Here’s why.

False advertising laws are in place to protect consumers from getting duped.  It’s a way to protect innocent, albeit ignorant, consumers from having their pants pulled down because they didn’t know the difference between horsepower and torque, or memory and storage capacity.  It’s a way for the government to tell companies, “listen, you have a responsibility not to feed on the weak-minded folks out there by misleading them or blatantly lying about your product”.  It works most of the time, and is the main reason why there’s always a boatload of fine print associated with most ads.  But Microsoft has once again avoided their responsibility to the consumer. 

You see, Vista was launched in multiple flavors.  You’ve got Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, Vista Business, and Vista Ultimate.  Each of these versions offer a slightly different set of features.  For the sake of this article, we will concentrate on Vista Home Basic, and Vista Home Premium.  One of the biggest Vista features being pushed by Microsoft is their new Aero Glass user interface.  In a nutshell, it’s a 3D graphical user interface that comes with Vista Home Premium, but not Vista Home Basic.  Home Basic is 2D, just like every version of Windows before it.  The advanced features of the Aero desktop in Home Premium requires slightly more powerful hardware to work.  That’s to be expected if you know anything about PCs, and so far, MS has done no wrong.  It’s completely OK for a company to offer different versions of their product.  Where Microsoft got off track is that their VC marketing doesn’t differentiate.  If  they’re selling a laptop that can’t run the aero desktop, but they slap the VC logo on it….they’re breaking the law. 

False advertising laws are in place, not for the benefit of people that know exactly what they’re buying, but implicitly for those who don’t.  Lets say I’m in the market for a product I don’t know anything about.  Lets say I’m going to buy an alarm/radio(assume I know nothing about alarm radios).  It’s worth noting that I’m also buying this item ONLINE, since buying it in the store would allow too many people to miss the point of this example.  So I shop around and I narrow my alarm choice down to alarm A and alarm B.  Both are virtually identical, except that alarm A states that it has “dual alarm mode” and alarm B cannot match this features.  So I buy alarm A.  When I get home, I realize that, by DUAL ALARM MODE, the company meant that I can set the alarm to BUZZ or RADIO, and I do not actually have two separate alarms as I was lead to believe.  This is essentially why Microsoft is in trouble.  Your marketing pitch can be 100% honest, but if it is also misleading, it is  unlawful.  Here are a few other examples of false advertising.  Some of these really get my blood boiling.

-TV/Monitor sizes.  With LCD/Plasma screens on the market, this really isn’t a problem anymore, but back in the days of cathode ray tubes, screen sizes used to be ridiculously misleading.  A screen claiming to be 27″ was usually something like 25.5″.  It doesn’t matter what reason that sellers give for this discrepancy.  It only matters that they are falsely advertising their products specifications.

-Usage limits.  This is something that really drives me absolutely bonkers.  Companies like Comcast, Time Warner, and Cox Cable have started throttling internet traffic how they see fit.  Comcast even limits monthly bandwidth usage.  This is an anti competitive practice, it’s misleading, and it’s 100% morally wrong.  Ya see, Comcast offers internet services, but they also offer phone and cable TV services.  Well some of the higher-bandwidth uses on the internet revolve around internet TV and phone.  So Comcast is hamstringing their customers to their cable TV services by not allowing them the right to enjoy another companies services.  If I want to drop my cable TV and rely on websites like Hulu.com to enjoy my TV…I can’t…not if I have Comcast.  They’re effectively snubbing out the competition.  What’s worse is that they’re doing this right as services like internet TV try to gain a foothold.  If they’re successful before internet TV really gets going, they may be able to kill it off quickly and quietly before anyone is the wiser.  The end result will be sites like Hulu.com failing because of the invisible hand of an direct competitor.  This is not right.  Recently the NFL has complainedof Comcast strong-arming them because the NFL network is in direct competition with Comcasts own sports channels. 

-Nobody does it better.  Companies in an stale-mate industry often claim that nobody can beat their product.  They never come out and say that their product is better, but they simply claim that their product is at least as good as the competitions.  The problem is in the way they say it.  They use phrases like, “nobody can beat gatorade”, or “our prices can’t be beat”.  They’re misleading consumers into believing that their product is better, even though they’re actually just saying it’s on par with the competition.  It’s misleading, and therefore illegal.

-Packaging.  This one dupes all of us.  How many times have you bought the big box of cereal, only to open it and find out that the bag inside is decidedly dwarfish compared to the dimensions of the box?  The regular box of Fruit Loops may be 10,000 cubic centimeters and contain 16 ounces of actual cereal.  Then right next to it, there may be a 20,000 cubic centimeter box that only has 20 ounces of cereal.  The consumer is tricked into buying the bigger box based on appearance.  In reality, they’re only getting a tiny bit more cereal.  Even if the price change is linear, they’re using misleading practices to get the consumer to buy MORE of their product.  That’s illegal.

-Misleading brand names.  I live in Omaha, NE.  If I wanted to sell potatoes, I’d start growing potatoes in my back yard, find a canner, find a distributor, and boom…I’m in the potato selling biz.  But I need a name.  Well, most potatoes come from Idaho, so I shall call them “Idaho Potatoes”.  This is illegal.  It’s misleading, as most consumers will just assume that the potatoes come from Idaho.  Sure, they can check the fine print and realize that they’re actually grown in Nebraska, but who’s gonna check the fine print when the not-so-fine print is called IDAHO POTATOES?  There are companies that grow their product in the states, then ship the produce overseas for cheap packaging, then claim that they’re a USA product.  This is not right.  It’s illegal.

-The whole sub-prime mortgage mess that lead to the collapse and near-collapse of so many banks, which lead to the downturn of the economy…that came about from false advertising.  It’s true.  Banks were misleading prospective home loan customers on the pricing of these loans.  Furthermore, once they duped the home buyer, they turned around and told Wall St. that the loan was rated AAA even though it definitely was not.  This lead way too many people to take loans they couldn’t afford to repay, and lead way too many investors to buy up mortgage backed securities that were not as reliable as the banks claimed.  They knew exactly what they were doing.  It was a calculated risk, and they ended up getting too greedy.  The root cause was still denial and false advertising.  It’s illegal.

So what can we do about all of this? Well the FTC will put an end to any ads brought to their attention that are deemed false or deceptive.  The problem is that WE have to be the ones to bring it to their attention.  There are too many ads out there for the FTC to actually monitor ‘em all.  We need to help ‘em out.  If a company is guilty, the FTC will make ‘em take the ad down or change the part that is deceiving or misleading.  At the end of the day, it’s all a matter of taking a companies word.  If you believe Microsoft when they say that laptop is “Vista Capable”, and when you get home you feel like that sticker was harmful to your purchasing decision, you’ve got a case for false advertising.  Go after ‘em!

I’ve been reading up on Ray Kurzweils ideas over at his website.  I just got done reading about his belief that virtual worlds will provide the proving ground for advancing artificial intelligence beyond thunderdome.  Games/Worlds like Second Life have become mainstream with popular titles like World of Warcraft  making headlines.  This makes sense.  AI is code-based.  These worlds are code-based.  General AI(not narrow AI designed to do one thing and nothing else) requires a commercial application to really get it’s wheels spinnin.  Online worlds come with their own online currency and can even become a source of real world income for some people.  The idea is crazy when you first think about it.  Making money by playing a game?!?!?  That’s rediculous!  Why?  Why should the gold in WoW be any less important than the dollar or the euro?  In our current reality, the currencies we use are simply a way of assigning value to something.  How else would we know how much a couch or necklace should cost?  Currencies are, in practice, an artificially designed system.  So why is it so hard to believe that a currency created by Blizzard(the makers of WoW) should be any less valuable than a currency created by Switzerland, or Thailand or any other country?  If there’s supply and demand, then so be it.

So what about using these virtual worlds for other conventional real-world practices?  In Second Life, users can use basic CAM utilities to create virtual objects in-game!  They can then sell these items in-game for virtual currency(Second Life uses Linden Dollars, named after the company behind the game).  It’s not hard to convert your L$s to real $s and make a few bucks from your virtual creations.  I’m not here to talk about commerce though.  I’m here to talk about prototyping.  I’m here to talk about testing.

My vision of the future involves dozens or even hundreds of open/free online worlds for whatever it is that you require.  If you want to play sports, there wil be a giant online world where you can partake in anything from golf to football…right from within the world.  The universe won’t just act as a 3D lounge for meeting players to launch other games.  The games themselves will take place in the actual world.  There might be a virtual movie theatre where you can watch movies with friends in Florida, or virtual classrooms and virtual tours, complete with virtual tour guides.  I’ve actually heard of these types of uses already being explored.  Toyota sells virtual copies of their real-world cars in Second Life.  Businesses conduct meetings in a virtual board room.  There are even people being hired and fired right from within Second Life.  It’s happening.  So what about prototyping?

Imagine a virtual world that is completely scientific.  Everything about this world is dedicated to the real life application of science.  Social scientists already study these worlds to get a grasp on how humans interact.  Second Life proves that people are willing to create products and items within these worlds.  So why not a virtual proving ground?  With advances physics and scientifically accurate worlds, there’s no reason Chevrolet couldn’t take their new Chevy Cruze out for a few laps on a virtual test track.  Chevy technicians around the globe could attend the test runs and have a looksie at the data, or replays of the run.  If I want to design a new turbine jet engine, I can simply attach it to a 747 in this virtual world and take it out for a test flight.  All the data would be right at my fingertips and all I had to do was play a game.

The benefit of a world of this type would be it’s universal nature and it’s ease of use.  Right now if I want to stress test a part, I have to figure out how to do it in Solidworks, then figure out how to do it in Inventor….or maybe it requires a whole seperate division within the company that specializes in these tests.  Wind tunnels must be created.  Elaborate models must be hand crafted.  It’s kind of a chore.  Now imagine that there’s one world out there that allows anyone with an invite to come partake in the testing of these products, and it doesn’t require any special setup or knowledge.  It’s the virtual equivelent of taking the prototype outside and driving it around the parking lot, except with infinite testing capabilities.  It’s the kind of synergy that bosses everywhere blab about in boring team-building meetings. 

Obviously people would be hessitant to the idea of their prized secret prototype being out there in a public world.  Someone might actually sneek a peek somehow.  So I’m predicting that this sorta enviroment will first rear it’s head in a private and proprietary way within giant companies.  Ford will have one…so will BMW.  Then someone will come along and create a public version for all of us tinkerers.  Ford and BMW will wonder why they’re paying millions for something they can get in the outside world for free, and they’ll eventually come around.  That’s when we’ll hit the jackpot.  We’ll create models.  We’ll test ‘em online.  And when we’re satisfied, a push of a button will send the data to a manufacturer within the game and a real-world prototype of our widget will arrive at our doorstep within a week.  It will probably be paid for in a currency that isn’t in existance today.  That’s pretty amazing.

A few months back, I got my latest issue of Wired magazine.  I read the things cover to cover on my smoke breaks at work…there’s really nothing better to do.  One article has stuck with me though, some 4-6 months later.  It was an article about a man named Ray Kurzweil.  Ray is no slouch.  He knows his shit.  He designed the first software that converted text to speech back in the day, and has become good friends with Stevie Wonder because of his wonderful work.  He’s also got his nose deep into a million other beneficial advancements from synthisizers to artificial intelligence.  If you want to learn about the future, I’d easily place him in the top 20 of people to consult.  Ray takes over 200 pills a day to stay young and hopefully live long enough to see his predictions come true.  What is he predicting?  Simple.  That we will live forever.

Here it is in a nutshell.  Go grab yourself some charts.  Get some charts showing the advances in medicine, processor power, artificial intelligence, and all the other trackable technology fields.   Extrapolate these charts some 35 years into the future, and if you didn’t screw up, you’ll see what Ray Kurzweil saw.  All of this technologies will become so advanced, that they will dramatically change the way human beings live, and how LONG they live.  The key to his predictions isn’t necessarily how far we’ve come, and they aren’t based on some inside info he got from the pentagon or Intel or something.  He’s basing his predictions on one key component of all of this data.  Technological advancement is accelerating.  If I invest $500 in the stock market, and I double my money every year, I’ll be a millionaire in by the time I’m 40.  That kind of exponential growth is often vastly underestimated, which is why many people scoff at what Kurzweil has to say.  The reality is that it’s not a question of whether we advance to the point he’s predicting, but rather when.

You can just spout off that human beings will live forever and then not back it up with some believable statements.  So how does Kurzweil believe we will reach our highlander status?  Well, for starters, we won’t be entirely human anymore.  Man and machine will melt together into one invincible machine.  More so, machines will become so life-like, that it’ll make it difficult to detect the real humans among us.  The lines will all get really really fuzzy.  For example, earlier this week while leaving a restaurant, I saw an older gentlemen in front of me.  There was a big black plastic thing right behind his ear.  My first instinct was to snicker at him for having the worlds geekiest bluetooth.  As I got closer, I realized that the device was about 2 inches behind his ear and was directly attached to his skull.  I can only guess as to what this device is, but the point of the story is that he is not 100% human anymore.  He’s got a machine interfacing with his brain on a daily basis, and he’s not alone.  My dad had a pacemaker. They’re teaching monkeys to play pong with their thoughts.  There are millions of people out there with plastic hips and artificial heart valves and prosthetic limbs.  As technology allows us to fix what ails us, we creep slowly towards a world of Darth Vaders and Luke Skywalkers.  Is it really so hard to believe that in 35 years we’ll become even more reliant on machines to keep our soft-tissue going?

Kurzweils ideas don’t stop with the machine-to-human interfaces.  The door swings both ways.  He believes we will be able to swap memories with machines.  I will be able to upload all of my memories to my laptop and recall them when I so require.  Google has brought us as close as ever to that reality.  I can’t yet effortlessly upload my memories straight to Googles servers, but everyone and their mom has a blog or myspace page nowadays.  Furthermore, Wikipedia is bustling with more and more information every day.  Today I have to type my query into a search box to recall information.  Tomorrow I will just think about it and I will instantly have it in my head.  It’ll be seemless.  It’ll be like I knew the information all along.  We’ll become a genius species with no real secrets.  You could even go as far as to throw the term “hive mind” around.

Besides being excellent at remembering birthdays, we’ll all be gorgeous.  Tiny nanobots, advanced pharmecuticals, and things like stem-cell treatments will keep us all looking 30-40ish…even when we’re in our 300s-400s.  Damaged cells will be repaired.  Missing cells will be replaced.  Artificial blood will make the real thing look like kool-aid in comparison.  I remember a day when cancer was snynonmous with death sentence.  Nowadays it seems like a large portion of cancers can/will be beaten as long as we know about them before they spread to far.  Is it so hard to believe that 35 years from now we will be far enough ahead of the game that we can cure any cancer as long as you get your butt to the hospital before you die?

Here’s where things get weird.  Imagine that all that I’ve said so far is true.  Humans and machines are indistinguishable.  We’re all living forever.  We all look fabulous and have mental powers that make Einstein look like he’s slow.  Now imagine that every last thing in the universe is also aware.  Not conscience, but aware.  Nanorobots will flood every organism and object and spew out information.  Example.  These robots will swarm a tree, diving deep into its roots and all the way to the tip of every leaf.  They will send out petabytes of data over wireless network straight to everyones brains.  If I want to know if it’s snowing in Ohio, I only have to ask the trees….in my brain.  If I want to know what’s happening on Mars, I need only think about it and I will instantly become aware of the dust storm that’s causing an annoyance to my 800 year old mother living near the north pole.  I won’t be able to have a conversation with a rock(I do that enough at work. zing!), but I will be able to receive information from that rock.  I will be able to know that said rock is wet, or cold, or that there’s a big dog turd on it.  It’ll be unimaginable.

The prediction that I can most relate to, however, is Rays prediction that we will be able to bring back the deceased.  This may seem morbid at first, but follow me on it.  First and foremost, we already have social networking sites where people can upload pictures and videos and memories of the dearly departed.  So in 2045, when we can instantly upload all of our thoughts, why not create an android like being to replicate our dead loved ones?  Imagine if you died right now.  Hopefully, for you, dozens of people could come forward with memories and media of who you were.  They could talk about your love for country music, or your ability to make the best meatloaf on the planet.  The pictures and videos would show the computer what you looked like, how your voice sounded, and what your mannerisms were.  Absolutely astonishing amounts of data would be crunched and on the other side, you’d have a spitting image android that walks, talks, and acts like you.  We all know it’s not you, and for some, that may not be desired.  For others, like myself, it would be an amazing experience, if for nothing more than the theraputic value.  You could bring back pets, famous leaders, sports figures, criminals(for questioning).  You could even used the deceased DNA(assuming it’s available) to construct real flesh and bone for this android.  I know it sounds creepy, but with the proper amount of advancement, anything is possible, and I’d be first in line to bring back dear old dad.

We’ll probably not being living on Earth anymore either.  Well..we’ll be on Earth(some of us), but our world will be something entirely different.  How many people spend countless hours wasting away in a cheapo office chair so that they may level up in World of Warcraft?  If you provide a better world, real or virtual, people will flock.  In the future, you may very well find yourself taking vacations, or even just living, in a virtual existance.  Think Total Recall or the Matrix.  It’s really not that far fetched.

The whole point of his predictions, for me, is not that they will come true in 2045.  It’s not that they’ll come true in my lifetime, or my nephews lifetime.  The point that I take from them is that there’s hope.  The futuristic utopias that we see in movies isn’t out of reach.  We are getting better every day, and one day we may finally cross that thresh-hold and become better than we could ever imagine.  If we don’t have something to look forward to, what do we have?  We’re just sitting around waiting to die unless we do something about it. 

You must also remember that some of the most influential discoveries in our history were mocked and scoffed at by the very people that should of known better.  Orville Wright claimed that human beings wouldn’t achieved powered flight for another 50 years.  That was 2 years before he flew.  Einstein said we’d never split the atom.  We all know what happened there.  Bill Gates said 64k of memory should be enough space for anybody!  I now have over 31 billion times that amount of storage throughout my home network. 

Anything is possible.

This guy has a few dozen excellent Inventor tutorials on his youtube page.  I’ve benefitted from his videos more than once throughout my schooling.  I suspect I’m not alone.

xXxLettoxXx’s Youtube Autodesk Inventor Tutorials

And now for some coolio.

And here’s some differential models…however it’s kind of hard to see what exactly is happening.  Somebody turn on the lights!

And of course a nice lil RC car for the nerds.

Last, but certainly not least is the most amazing video I’ve ever seen on youtube.  I know it’s Solidworks, but this isn’t an Inventor exclusive dealio ya know.

About once a week I’ll be posting images of products that exhibit special design features.  The products listed could be anything from  salt & pepper shakers to an amazing new aircraft  The only criteria is that I think someone was thinking outside the box and ended up with a truly awesome design.  These products will envoke that, “why didn’t I think of that?” feeling of suckness.  I’ll also throw in something remarkably ugly and piss poor.  It’s your job to sniff out the bad apple.  So read on to check out the awesomeness pile up!

I saw this video on youtube a few weeks ago and told myself I had to design my own pair….err…I had to copy this pair!

The wings above were designed and created by a brilliant inventor named David Bynoe.  Check out his website for more awesome projects.

So David went the extra mile to make his wings look pretty, but here’s why I won’t follow his lead.  My wings are going to be covered in condoms.

That’s right.  Prophylactics.  My girlfriends salon, The Icon Studio For Hair, is partaking in an AIDS awareness fund raiser fashion show.  The rules are simple.  The Nebraska AIDS Project gave them a box with 3,000 condoms that they need to fashion into a costume or article of clothing.  So the girls at the salon decided on a fairy costume.  This was a few days after I first saw Davids wings.  So long story short, I’m building them some wings for their fashion show.  I’m still working on finalizing my design, but here’s what I’ve got so far.  I’ll post updates as they happen, and eventually I will post ful plans and a bill of materials for anyone who wants to make their own pair of wings.

Like I said, more to come!

I've actually never used AutoCAD Machanical.

There were 4 main software programs we learned at MCC.  AutoCAD, Inventor, Solidworks, and Pro/Engineer.  I can say without doubt that Inventor is my favorite, but that might just be because it was the first 3D CAM program I learned.  I felt so big and powerful for finally being able to design in 3D.  My brother and I have both been photoshop junkies(his degree is actually in graphic design) ever since our late father paid us $5 a day to sit in his office and erase tiny single-pixel noise from artwork using mid 90s era Apple Macintosh PCs, and photoshop 4.0.  To finally make the jump to 3D was a huge step for me.  So that’s why I love Inventor.  But here’s a more detail explanation/breakdown.

The main things I love about Inventor pertain to the interface.  I don’t know, it feels clean.  It feels modern.  It feels right.  Most functions of mechanical design can be accomplished in any of the major software programs out there, but it’s how you do it that really counts.  Inventor does a wonderful job of predicting where I’m going with my intent.  Adjusting individual parts from within an assembly is a snap, and you gotta love all the design creator features for things like gears and springs and belts and pulleys and all that jazz.  There are a few things here and there that I’m not a fan of, but I still prefer it over the competition.

Solidworks gets a bum rap in my world.  I know it, yet I can’t bring myself to change.  I actually feel sorry for Solidworks.  Here’s the lowdown.  I took my Autodesk Inventor class, then I took about 3 mechanical design classes using Inventor, then I took Solidworks.  So you can see, I learned so much valuable information from within the Inventor layout.  Once I got to Solidworks, it was almost an afterthought.  To make matters worse, the main Solidworks teacher at MCC got in a motorcycle accident right before classes began.  So a backup teacher had to step in.  Bless her heart, she’s a nice lady, but she didn’t have the understanding of the software that he did.  At times I felt like I was the one doing the teaching.  So you can see that I never really got a fair shot at really digging into the advanced features of Solidworks.  I’m sure one day I will grow to love it, but for now I have to place it firmly in 2nd place.

I won’t spend alot of time on AutoCAD.  We all know what it’s there for.  If you only require 2D layouts, and would like to avoid the learning curve of the 3D CAM programs, then go for autocad.  It’s also got a 3D side to it, but I never got too far into that before Inventor rocked my world.  It’s nice.  I still use it from time to time for basic layouts.  It’s quite possible that whatever job I land will have me dealing with 2D CAD stuff on a regular basis, so it’s never a bad idea to stay fresh with this software.

In any field, there are fanboys.  I swear by Inventor.  My teacher swears by Solidworks.  That’s fine.  That keeps things interesting.  However, I can NOT imagine there being too many people out there who really love Pro/Engineer.  It’s easily the worst software of the bunch in my humble opinion.  Menus buried in menus buried in pull downs buried in pull-sideways….it’s  a mess!  Have you ever built something simple, then added a feature here, then there, then went back and redid something, then changed something else, then removed a feature you realized you didn’t need…then at the end of the whole mess you take a step back and say, “we need to redo the whole thing from scratch.”?  That’s Pro/Engineer…except the developers never said that last part about starting over from scratch.  It’s got some nice features and it’s definitely capable of doing anything the other programs are…it just does it in such an illogical fashion.  With Inventor and Solidworks, I always feel like I can remember where I need to go to get something done.  With Pro/Engineer I keep getting that dreadful feeling that the stuff I’m currently learning will soon be ushered out of my brain and an onslaught of new menus, commands, and weird interfaces come rushing inward.  I will be happy when I’m through this class.  It’s taken me twice as long to do the same amount of work with Pro/E as it would have taken in either Inventor or Solidworks.  If you’re looking to learn a new software program for your own benefit…choose anything but this.  It’ll make you never want to be involved with mech. design ever again.

These are only the programs I know.  And this was definitely just a basic lil review.  There’s a whole plethora of software out there that could be a valid stand-in for anything on this list.  I’m excited to have learned all this softare, but I’m looking forward to expanding my skills with programs like Catia and Microstation.  Hopefully I’ll get my chance.

Yes indeed, 2 years, dozens of classes, countless missed alarms, and way too much grant money, I will finally graduate with a college degree.  I stand by my previous assumption that I could of learned it all on my own time, without spending a dime, but it’ll feel good to have that piece of paper.

My college career actually started back in 1998.  Fresh out of high school, I appeased my parents wishes by signing up for a few general studies.  Algebra, Human Relations, Art.  It was the usual mess.  I didn’t know what I wanted to do.  I didn’t want to endure another 2-4 years of sitting through boring coffee-breath lectures.  I didn’t want that.  I was 19.  I wanted to street luge, play Nintendo, sleep in, and fiddle on the gig-fiddle.  So I did just that.

Fast forward to 2007.  I’m 26 years old.  I’m working 12 hours a week for $8.00 an hour.  I live in my moms basement.  I’ve seen my father pass away.  I’ve seen my brother move away.  I’ve seen some friends move on to greater things, and I’ve seen others waste away into a life of ‘just enough’.  I had grown up.  I had new priorities.  And, of course, Uncle Sam would pay for the whole damn thing…so I returned to school.

I still didn’t know what I wanted to do.  I knew what I liked doing on my own time, but I didn’t want to learn something I already knew.  Furthermore, I didn’t want to end up doing something I would tire of.  I wanted to choose a career that would peak my interest and challenge me for the rest of my life.  I wanted knowledge that would benefit my career AND my own pet projects.

I played the elimination game.  I knew I was going to Metro, I just didn’t know what I wanted to study.  I figured ANY degree is better than no degree, so I played the elimination game.  I went through their list of degrees and one-by-one I crossed them off.  It came down to architectural drafting and mechanical drafting.  I chose mechanical because I don’t ever plan on building my own house.  Mech. Drafting would give me tools that help me with projects I build every day.  Cigar box guitars, furniture, computer projects.  You name it.  I’m so unbelievably happy that I chose that degree.  It’s now 2009, I’m about to graduate, and I feel like I’ve found my calling.  This is what I’ve always wanted to do.  I’ve wanted to make.  I’ve wanted to create.  I’ve wanted to use whatever unique traits I may have to make things better for myself and everyone else. 

A quick note to anyone else out there who is thinking of returning to school.  Do it.  Do it. Do it.  You will probably love it.  If you’re over 25 and you don’t make alot of money, you’ll be happy to know that you can problem get a full ride from the US Gov.  I did.  I’m so happy, not only for the piece of paper and the knowledge, but because I stuck it out.  I accomplished my goal, and that doesn’t always happen.  So if you’re even toying with the idea of going back to school, I recommend you do so.  Put school at the top of your priorities and you will succeed and your entire life will change.  I hated high school(who doesn’t?), but I loved college.  Maybe it’s because I was slightly older, and I lived through my 20s working shit jobs.  Maybe it’s because I had teachers who I also consider friends.  Maybe it’s because I was lucky enough to finally find something I love doing.  At any rate, I couldn’t of done it without the people that gave me support.  I’m forever grateful to everyone around me.  Now I just need to find that damn job!

I’m glad to say I’m friends with the one and only Jimmy Winter, but that’s not what this post is about.  First, let me explain why Jimmy is famous.

#1.  He’s been mentioned as one of the top 25 entrepreneurs under the age of 25 by Business Week  for his company Music Arsenal which provides web-based apps for record labels, bands, and other music industry peeps to run their show.  He’s brilliant.

#2.  A year or so ago, he was playing guitar hero and managed to bust up his knee in the process.  His pain became legendary as ‘the guy that broke his knee playing guitar hero’.  He’s clumsy.

#3.  He’s forever refered to ME as ‘Mr. Innovation’.  ME!  I’ll be modest and claim that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  Once again, he’s brilliant.

Jimmy will be proud to read of my newest endeavor.  I’m dedicating this blog to all things associated with Autodesk Inventor and general innovation.  My ultimate project will be the construction of a hodge-podge automobile and it’s various systems, sub-systems, sub-sub-systems and so on and so forth and so on.  I will focus the daily writings on other items like product designs, software tom-foolery, and once in a while I will dive into another love of mine, like football, music, computers, and Jimmy.  Prepare to be innovated, Mr Jimmy Winter!