TGID (Thank God It's Delta)

I've heard that many people have had problems with Delta and we have not really been the exception with trying to get home for the holidays. However, that being said, I am incredibly happy with the fact that I just called them and was able to get our flight changed from Saturday to Sunday without a single penny more being payed. I'm kind of in shock right now. I've never experienced this before with an airline and I'm pretty flippin extatic about it! Thanks Delta!!!

Finally Made it to New Mexico

Just a quick update. We made it to Albuquerque after a huge amount of painful traveling. So here we are and we plan to enjoy it immensely! I'll try to post pics and vids after Christmas.

Roma (The City)

So here we are in Rome. After crazy amounts of negotiation with the employees of AirFrance, we are now ready to get home tomorrow. We got really lucky since we asked the lady and she gave us this one option. Otherwise we'd be leaving Wednesday.... if we were lucky. However, the incompetence of the AirFrance staff has been pretty bad these past couple of days. They gave us horrible options and then would randomly give other people amazing deals where they would get home the next morning. It was unbelievable! We will definately complain to the company. Right now we're just happy to be one step closer to home!

Heading for home

Tonight is our last night in Budapest for the year! We are very excited to go home for the holidays. While everyone has been really nice towards us, there are just those special parts of the holidays that you can't get in another country.
I was shocked to find out that people in Hungary eat fish for the holidays. I always think of turkey or chicken, but fish has never crossed my mind. It was weird for me to hear and it made me that much happier to be going home and having some New Mexican food! Whoo hoo! It's amazing how you don't realize things like this are so different until you come across them. Also, I can't wait to not have to tone down my colloquialisms!!! Yay!

4 days of school..... after today

So, today is Saturday and, just like every work day, we woke up at 5:45 to get ready for work. That's right, we're going to work. It has something to do with not working on the 24th and instead working today. Blech!

Noone is happy about this. The kids are unhappy, the teachers are unhappy, and Val and I are unhappy about it. However, on the good side, we only have 4 more days of working, after today, and then we'll be heading home! Val and I are very excited about this! We also have a friend from orientation coming into Budapest and we'll see her tonight!

After school I'll post some more videos about what we have been doing, as well. We've been quite busy doing some fun stuff and also looking for presents for everyone!

That's all for now.

Before and After

The main reason for this update is to show how dramatic of a change I have made to my SHIVU. However, before I get to that I would like to say that Val and I are very happy to be going home for the holidays! Can't wait to see everyone when we get there!

Anyways, here's the before and after of my SHIVU bot.

Here's the before....

and the after!

I think it's a pretty big improvement. That's all for that. Got some other projects in the works and I'm still working on this one as well.

SHIVU Pr0ject Re1n1tializing.....

So, I've started up my SHIVU (Simulated Human IntraVenous Unit) project again. I looked up some awesome tutorials and found out how to make some awesome reflections on my robot. Check it out.

(SHIVU and background)

I'm very happy with how the rendered image came out. I discovered a bunch of new techniques along the way and know a BUNCH more about scenes, rendering and how everything works in general. Great stuff!

For anyone who's interested this is the site that I found the tutorials on. VERY good information: 3d tutorials