Moving on......moving on.

I know you people have been looking forward to getting rid of this ugly visage, but it looks like you guys are stuck with me at least the fall of 2006. All letters of rejection to grad school are present and accounted for.

D'oh
I'm actually not that bummed about it. For one thing, I've pretty much been running on the notion that I won't be getting in since my application submission deadlines, but the biggest thing is that I no longer have that feeling of "I may not be here next year" which has been kind of a wedge in my sanity. Work has been funny: "James, you should start a 401k...." "uhm, not yet...I'm saving for, uhm, a new car." "James, you should get into the housing market...." "uhm, yea...still haven't bought that new car yet." "James, you haven't bought that car yet...." "uhm, yea...I'm saving up for a new...uhm....Escalade." May be that isn't the biggest thing, may be the biggest thing is that I have a job that I enjoy for a company that I'm really into. May be it's the fact that I am a stones throw from 85% of my friends and 80% of my direct family. Or may be it's because I live in the bondage capital of the world.

I, Pimpbot
Some may be asking "Wait, Grad school? What the hell would you do there?" Two words: Fuckin.....Robots. For those who don't really care or are afraid of big words, skip to the next section.

My real interst lies in the relationship between humans and mechanisms, and how the two can better society. My greatest interests lie in a few key subsets of Robotics (ok, Electro-Mechanical engineering). The first is Haptic Systems, which can basically be summarized into "force-feedback devices" Applications include hand steadying mechanisms for surgeons, teleoperation of machines, enhanced physical rehabilitation machines, and sweet platforms to play Wing Commander on. The second area is Advanced Prosthesis. With tougher materials, smaller processors, and advanced sensors, synthetic limbs are about to get a whole lot more complicated. And studying how the brain takes in information and hashes it out to create meaningful motion is some fascinating stuff. Then, I guess if I had too, I could work on surgical robotics.

Upbeat Bullshit
This isn't so much an end to my application process, just small bump in the road. That's one good thing about being obsessive....you always have back up plans, and back up plans to your back up plans. It gives me the chance to buy that piece of real estate I've been lookin at, or start that side business...you know, the research group whos aim is to define impact biomechanics of hamster structures in a plasma armature rail gun environment.