On Wednesday I received a call from a longtime friend who informed me that Greg Rasmussen had passed away from a motorcycle accident.  During my senior year in high school he was my position coach for football and I had the opportunity to learn valuable life lessons from him, many of which have supplemented my ambitions.

While I was unable to attend his visitation because of college, my thoughts and prayers go out to his family.   He will be missed by many.

First Frank Miller transformed another graphic novel into the blockbuster hit 300, then Mark Dantonio led Michigan State to a 4-0 start in football. Now, the last major Spartan joins the fold as Master Chief makes his return on Tuesday in Halo 3, the climax to the Halo Trilogy.

Tomorrow the agenda is to get as much homework, work, and class done with enough time to slip a quick nap in before I make the trip over to GameStop before the midnight release of Halo, where I will pick up the pre-order I made in July.

Tuesday, it’s finally time to finish this.

Just felt like giving a shout out to my GroupWise Post Office ATHL_2.  The server turned 6 today.  Hopefully it will be eligible for retirement in a year.

Since Facebook released their SDK for third party developers to tap into the social network, a variety of applications have risen. The website Pick A Prof released My Courses, a powerful application that lets you post your schedule online, which I stumbled upon after realizing that the original facebook section for courses no longer exists. The excellent part of this application is its ability to display in block format your schedule, which enables others to view it on your profile (as pictured above). The other useful feature is the ability to share scheduling with others, which enables you to match up classes if possible with friends you normally wouldn’t consult.

The application does offer some premium services which link back to the parent website, but I opted to save my money for the time being.

Dustin Spicuzza, a colleague of mine at Western Michigan University came across a disturbing find when he filed a Freedom of Information Act request to examine the costs associated with the redevelopment of a parking lot into a picnic area. His results yielded that the university spent a total of $120,000 on the redevelopment during a budget crisis, and that the picnic area was only temporary. After publishing his findings on the internet and creating a group on facebook, many students have responded disagreeing with the use of the funds.

For those of you who may not be aware, the State of Michigan has not performed well economically in recent years, which has effected the income to the state government (which in turn affects public institutions). For the past two to three years, WMU has been forced to raise tuition greater than that of the rate of inflation to cover the budget gap left by both the state and the declining enrollment. Students like myself are now paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars more a year than what was projected to us when we originally applied.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm_7ze6VFOY]

Four Years ago myself and two friends regularly created videos for both fun and school projects.  One such product from this wave of creativity was the fictional animal known as the McAdamian.  The video above is a fake trailer for a movie that was about the McAdamian’s dissapearance, and his owner’s quest to reclaim his beloved pet.  For a video captured and clipped together in 2003 using Microsoft Movie Maker, this video was entertaining in the pre-youtube era.

On Tuesday I will begin my fourth year at Western Michigan University, and this without a doubt will be the most difficult semester thus far. Below are the classes I’m taking:

Today is the end of an era of gaming for me. Today, I officially deleted all of my characters in World of Warcraft. From this, there is no return to the stage that I had previously left. Two weeks ago I decided to make a return during my time off from school due to boredom, but what I found was that the time availability I had did not allow for me to play the game in its entirety. After using a private server to explore the areas I still wanted to visit (and areas I never thought i would), it was time to part ways with a game that for almost three years has been the cause, and solution to many of life’s problems.

To those who I played with (good guild if your looking to start up WoW), it was fun while it lasted, but we all must go our own separate ways at some point in time. Today was that day for me.  Fuel, Mainwaring, Cinderblock, and Samsaung, the focus of my efforts no longer exist.

School starts on Tuesday, and I will be juggling 15 credit hours and my job responsibilities, which leaves no room the time that WoW requires.  As for where I will be going on from here, Master Chief has been calling my name, and I think on 9.25.07 I will answer his call.