The Many Engineering Escapades of Mark

Last night I saw The Get Up Kids. It was a dream fulfilled. They were awesome, and played a great set. I never thought I'd get a chance to see them after they broke up, but I got my chance.

I haven't posted on here in a while long. But I'm back, and will posting more.  Especially when the Viterbi blogs switch to a new server...

I've been listening to a lot of music lately. For a while there, I was lazy about listening to new stuff and listened to tons of old junk. I think it was in part because 2008 was kind of a crappy year for new music. But man... this year, this summer... I've been listening to so much new stuff. Stuff that's just new to me, and stuff that's actually new. It's great. I love music.

The Get Up Kids show reinvigorated some of that music love as well. I now find myself wanting to rock out to music all the time. Which I hadn't felt like doing in a long while.

So, my entire extended family had a picnic in the park for Easter yesterday.  Well, I guess I shouldn't say ENTIRE extended family... because of my immediate family, I was the only one there.  My parents and two of my brothers live in Colorado, while my other brother and I live in Southern California.  The rest of my extended family lives in Southern California.  But I was the only one of my family to show up.  That's alright, though.  The weather was beautiful, and it was nice to spend time with all my relatives.

In other news, I am going to have a busy end of the semester.  It will be fine, don't get me wrong, but I have plenty of stuff to do.  I have two midterms this week, two big final projects to complete before the semester ends, and a paper to write.  And that's not including the five finals I have once classes end.  But it will be fine.  I just want to get through this semester and get to the summer.  I'm excited for my internship this summer to get started.

On Tuesday night, Del Taco has a deal.  You can get three tacos for $1.09.  Because of this great deal, sometimes some friends and I like to go on what we call the "Taco Tour."  Or, the "Totally Tubular Tuesday Taco Tour."  I did that tonight.

We got three tacos from Del Taco and two from Taco Bell.  Some nights we will also get two from Jack in the Box (2 tacos for $0.99) and one from Chano's, a little stand that serves delicious Mexican food by USC.  All of these locations are within one block of each other on Figueroa St. near USC and have drive-thrus that are open late.

Yea, I know it's a silly amount of mostly not-that-great tacos.  But sometimes, a mound of cheap food like that hits the spot.  Delicious.

Over Spring Break, I went on a road trip.  Our first stop was the Grand Canyon.  I had never been there before.  I was, to say the least, impressed.

I will add pictures as soon as I can.

It was awesome.

Evan already wrote about this.  But I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

It was really neat to see Stephen Hawking give a lecture.  I didn't go as early as Evan, so I was up in the balcony.  I was able to see and hear everything fine, though.

I had heard of what Prof. Hawking said before in classes or from reading articles.  However, I really enjoyed hearing him lecture about is field of interest in person.

I was thoroughly impressed.  I hope to be able to see another famous person sometime in the near future.  I wonder when, where and how, though.