The Writings of an Illiterate Man Vol. 2

Two quails had 7 baby quails 6 of the babies ate worms and bugs and grass seeds, but the seventh ate only grass seeds. Because the baby only ate grass seeds, its wings did not grow as strong as the others, and thus it could not fly. One day a forest fire came and the mother and father quail as well as the 6 other quail children flew away. The Seventh stayed in the nest as it couldn't fly. As the fire approach the small one spoke saying it was weak and there was nothing there for the fire. The fire left, and the bird lived happily. Quail Chick Against the Fire Source References Inayat. Twenty Jataka Tales

There was a group of monkeys that lived near a river with a great tree that bore fruit. The monkeys never let any fruit fall into the river as they were afraid that if fruit fell in, it would float down to a human city and the humans would come searching for the fruit, thus forcing the monkeys away. One fruit was hidden by an ant nest and fell into the river and floated to the city. A king found it and tasted it and then ordered the tree the fruit came from be found. The king ordered the monkeys killed. The monkey king leapt to another tree and tied a reed around his foot, then jumped back so that his people could cross to the other tree. The reed was only long enough to allow him to grab the tree. All of the monkeys fled, but one monkey jumped on the monkey king's back and broke it. Then, they left him behind. The human king brought him down and spoke to him, moved by what he saw. The monkey king spoke some wisdom to him, then died. The human king built a temple in the m

I started with Durga on the recommendation of a classmate. She is a warrior goddess, and one of the most important forms of Devi. I was then led to Dashain . Dashain is a fifteen day Hindu festival. It represents Durga's triumph over a demon. Part of the ceremony traditionally took place at the Hanuman Dhoka  palace. The palace gets its name from a stone statue of Hanuman at its gates. Finally, I was led to what is called a Torana . It is basically just an ornate archway that is freestanding. Torana In Front of Sanchi Stupa Source

This week has been busy, but in a very good way. I’ll start by talking about my capstone and that is likely the majority of what I will talk about in this Famous Last Words. So we finally got our system up and running. Our air compressor finally got wired up, we finally finished leak testing, and we finally go to actually test our system. And it works! Amazingly Well! I felt so much relief after our first successful test. We had a few bumps getting to that test, but they weren’t anything we couldn’t handle. So firstly we had to replace a line that burst way below it’s rated pressure. We ended up finding some steel tubing since that would be able to withstand the heat. We got that hooked up and leak tests were smooth from that point forward. Actual testing went super smoothly. We got air through the system with no problems, and out data acquisition is working well. I can’t put into words how excited and relieved I am that everything is working. The coolest part is we got out sch

I am definitely going to start using this timer. I have been trying to implement the whole "Work for 30 minutes, take a break for 5 minutes" kind of strategies. I have been using random timing websites, but this seems so much easier.

“We’re approaching the Queen’s chamber.” Schafer said calmly to Hill. The pair fought their way through the nest of Lisks. “What exactly are we lookin’ for again in the chamber?” Hill asked as he pulled a small Liskling off of his helmet. “We need a vile of whatever fluid is in their hatching pool.” Schafer replied, annoyed that Hill already forgot what they were supposed to be doing. “And what exactly is that supposed to do for us?” Hill replied snarkily. “I mean, I’m just tryin’ figure out why we’re playing errand boys and riskin’ our lives for a damn egghead. “That foundation scientist said that… hold on... I gotta reload.” Shafer said as he slammed a fresh magazine in to his pulse rifle. “That scientist said it could hold the key to reversing the infestation and turning people back to humans.” “Help me! Please! I can hear you! Please help me!” a voice echoed through the tunnels. “We better go check that out.” Schafer said. The pair fought their way towards the sound

There was a king with two wives. One was pretty and one had good character. Each had a son with a king that inherited the traits of their mother. The pretty mother and her son were very jealous and selfish. Eventually she caught the king with the other son on his knee. She pushed him off and told him to pray to the gods. The ugly boy then wen to his mother who told him to pray to krishna. He went into the forest for many years and prayed to krishna. Eventually krisha appeared and told him that he would be king of his fathers nation. The boy went back home. Upon hearing of his arrival, the king spared no expense welcoming him back. The pretty prince was jealous and asked to help conquer a tribe of revolting people. He went with cavalry, but since he was so arrogant he went ahead of the main group and was slaughtered. Then the other boy went in with the general and got revenge. He then came home and the king gave over his crown. He ruled prosperously for many years before giving up his c

Lesser gods and demons wanted to get to ambrosia that is at the bottom of the ocean. Drinking it would make them immortal. They used a mountain to churn the ocean to bring it to the top. As they churned it, they released other entities that became things like the moon and other gods. They got to a lake of poison that Shiva had to drink to prevent it from killing everything. Eventually they got the ambrosia. The demons tried to steal it, but Vishnu stopped it and gave it to the lesser gods only. Could do a heist, or some sort of prison break. Potentially even some sort of raid on a prison. Churning of the Ocean Source References Kincaid. Tales from the Indian Epics

Week 2 of my time in my new D&D campaign and things were glorious. We made a lot of progress this week in the campaign. We found another of the objects we needed to complete the main quest and cleaned up some side quests as well. We had a ridiculously long fight against some enemies. Since last week we one turned a boss our DM decided to up the difficulty a little. The fight wasn’t hard it was just long. Only one of our party members dropped below half health, but I think the fight lasted a total of an hour and a half. We had to fight about 12 enemies. Half of them had about 26 health, but the other half had over 50. It took SO long to kill all of them, and that was with me even starting the fight out with a crit on two of the enemies and instantly killing them. The fight was still fun though, it just took forever. We also had a pretty hilarious encounter. So in our campaign there is a thing called the deck of many things. It shows up in random places, and you can draw cards

I started with Agni . Agni is a deity I have been interested since before even taking this class. I even considered doing my project over him. From there I was led to Holi , or the "Festival of Colors". This is a springtime festival that essentially celebrates the triumph of good over evil and many other things. It also involves the lighting of a ceremonial bonfire. That bonfire is called the Holika Dahan . The bonfire is significant as it is on this pyre that the demoness Holika was burned. Holika Bonfire in front of Jagdish Temple in Udaipur Source Holika was a demoness referenced in Hindu Mythology. She was asked by her brother to kill her nephew after the nephew chose to worship Vishnu over his father, a demon king. She attempted to kill her nephew by sitting on a pyre with him in his lap. She had on a cloak that made her invulnerable to the fire. But, while the fire burned, the cloak flew from her and onto her nephew. Her burning on this pyre is signified

The Canvas calendar is something I was somewhat aware of, but never really thought about. It might be a little late in the semester to start using it, but it may help some with time management.

King Nathaniel of the Normans sat in the throne room next to his queen, Allesandra of house Carlisle. To his left was his Chief Financial Minister, Calios of house Marquis. To his right was his most esteemed general, Zacharias of house Terris. As they were discussing the annual Feast of Kings, they heard the clatter of plate male as a rather tall and lanky knight ran up to them. Sir Jeffrey of the towers arrived, huffing after his long trek. “My lord!” The knight exclaimed. “The Iron Legion has attacked one of our towns in the forest!” The Town That Was Attacked “Thank you for delivering this most troubling news, good sir knight.” The King said, distraught. “Go and find a place to rest.” “My God! What horrible news!” The Queen exclaimed. “Whatever shall we do?” The King looked to his General for his opinion. “I believe we should respond in kind.” The General said. “We cannot let an act stand without response. If we don’t show them we are willing to stand against them, t

Rama has killed a large number of Ravana's people in the forest. Ravana Convenes a war council of sorts. One of his advisers tells him not to retaliate because Rama is too strong. His other adviser convinces him to retaliate by taking Sita. Ravana Taking Sita Source (Sound Warning!!! I do not recommend clicking this link!!!) References Sita Sings the Blues

There was a prosperous and peaceful nation. One day some brahmins come into town and a few of  the nobles play a prank on them. The brahmins curse the kingdom. The king a people do everything they can to avoid the calamity. Even outlawing drinking as the prophecy foretold that they would kill each other when they were drunk. Krishna new of the prophecy and did not want to go against destiny. He had heralds proclaim that the people should all make a pilgrimage to the coast and bathe in sacred waters. The people agreed and went. When they got there, instead of fasting and worshiping, they partied. Then they all killed each other. Location of the Vrishni Kingdom Source References Nivedita. Krishna. Part B

I started with Arjuna , one of the Pandava Brothers. He was one of the more heavily featured of the brothers so I felt it would be a good place to start. I then found out that there is a class of asteroid named after him. The Arjuna class of asteroids are near earth asteroids with low inclination, eccentricity, and a nearly 1 year period of revolution about the sun. From there I took a look at other near-earth objects . There is some really cool stuff near us. Then I went to read up about the Tunguska event . I have heard about it, but never really read much about it. Essentially there was an explosion in 1908 in Siberia. We don't really know what caused it, but one of the leading theories is that it was caused by an asteroid. Trees Knocked Over by the Blast Source

The dashboard is definitely useful. I will be looking to use it more often even though I will be graduating in a month. Changing names of courses has been the most helpful thing I have found. It makes it a lot easier to know which one is the actual course and which is the discussion section.

So this last week was a little bit stressful. My capstone is having some logistics problems. We need 240 volt power at our testing facility. Unfortunately, OU facilities is charging an absurd rate for to get it hooked up. Luckily, we were able to find some work arounds to get us up and testing, but it is still stressful. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that we had to change locations after designing around an initial location. Things happen though. You have to be capable of adapting, and we are more than able; maybe just not very willing. My robotics lab project went pretty well this week. One of my partners came in clutch and basically just programmed it in his free time. It was pretty simple this week, but still. That is time I can spend on other things. A few of my friend set up a practice course since the Professor hadn’t set one up. We made a pretty sweet course that was essentially a closed loop track. We had some fun doing some time trial races on that. My bot lost, bu

Sigmund walked into town; the villagers stopped what they were doing to stare. Sigmund was used to it. He was a behemoth of a man. A white bear’s pelt covered his chainmail but still allowed easy access to the two swords on his back. That sort of a man attracts a lot of attention: both wanted and unwanted.   He walked up to the town’s center and eyed the notice board. He made his way to it and plucked off a piece of paper from it. WANTED: MONSTER HUNTER . Sigmund pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and unfurled it. He held them side by side to compare them. They were the same: he knew he had arrived in the right town. Sigmund made his way to the inn, figuring the innkeeper would know a thing or two about what he was about to hunt. “I’ve heard you’ve got yourself a bit of a problem.” Sigmund said, unfurling the bounty notice and placing it in front of the innkeeper. “Aye,” the innkeeper replied gruffly, “And what’s it to you?” “I’m looking to solve this problem for you.

I did the reading for the week, but I forgot to do the declarations for them. So I am counting them as extra credit readings this week. Krishna and his brother notice cows and their friends disappearing in a cave. They go to investigate. He noticed it was the mouth of a demon. The mouth never closed because it was waiting for krishna to step in so it could eat krishna. Krishna stepping into the mouth and it tried to clsoe down on him. Krishna stopped it then began to grow in size. Eventually the demon died and all of the cattle and krishna's friend walked out. Krishna and Aghasura Source References Nivedita. Krishna. The Dilemma of Brahma.