Bull Riding Photos

I figured I would post a few of my bull riding pictures. Being at graduate school in a large metropolitan city, I sometimes daydream of the good'ole days when I had a rodeo to go to every weekend. I haven't gotten on any bulls since a PRCA rodeo that I went to in October of 2003. Right now, I am pretty out of shape and things might not go that well if I were to get on today. However, sometime in the future I plan on getting in shape and getting on again. But for now, a post on a blog will have to do.

This is a bull that I rode in the long round of the Sam Houston State University college rodeo in Hunstville, TX (February 2003). I scored 78 points and won third place for the go-round.

The next evening, I was very happy to have drawn this bull because I had been told how good he was. This bull I rode in the short round of the same rodeo in Huntsville. I scored 83 points and won the short round, which also gave me 1st place for the average.

Here is just one of my favorite pictures from a long time ago. I was riding at the Watermelon Jubilee in Stockdale, TX 1999. I scored 78 points and placed 2nd. The name of the bull was "Crazy Train" from Bad Company.

Reseach results and graduation

Well, the Prof said yesterday that I had done enough for my graduation this december! So I guess it is official, this december I should graduate with my Masters degree. But I am not done with school yet, since I promised my professor I would stay to get my Phd underneath him, I still have several more years to go. But the good news is, ya'll can call me "Master Tim" after December.

For my thesis, I designed an Ultra-wideband (UWB) CMOS Differential Low-Noise amplifier. UWB refers to the fact that my circuit will operate over a very large bandwidth (several Gigahertz). CMOS equals cheap for companies to build. The differential architecture should aid in removing common-mode noise (which is very very bad). And we want the amp to be low-noise (i.e. it doesn't contribute much noise to the signal) so that prospectus wireless receivers can be as sensitive as possible.

Here are some of my simulation results. I stare at these all day and wish they would get better. The first is my amplifier's gain versus frequency expressed in decibels. And the second is the noise figure versus frequency (lower is better).

The Music Tag Game

I've been tagged.

THE RULES: List five songs that you are currently loving. It doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the songs in your blog, then "tag" five other bloggers/friends to see what they're listening to.

1. Let Me Go -- 3 Doors Down
2. When I'm Gone -- 3 Doors Down
3. My Happy Ending -- Avril Lavigne
4. Somewhere in Between -- Lifehouse
5. I'd Do Anything -- Simple Plan

I tag:
1. Varun
2. Catherine
* Two will have to do. The other people I know with blogs have already been tagged.

It is really hard for me to say that I am really enjoying these songs "right now". I do not listen to the radio very much. When Stacy and I do turn on the car stereo, I am usually listening to Rush Limbaugh or mp3's of Chris Ledoux. However, the five songs above represent contemporary music that I would like to hear when I turn on the radio. I also like Creed, but Chris Ledoux is what I listen to about 90% of my music listening time. (I know, completely different genre).

By the way, I was tagged by Stephen.

Nevermind... Walking is Dangerous!

I left the lab the other day like normal. As I was running down the stairs (because walking takes too much time) to meet Stacy, my ankle rolled over at one of the top few stairs. Since my backpack was full of books and my hands were too, I was not able to effectively catch myself. I then proceeded to roll down the stairs with books flying everywhere. Fortunately, it was about 8:00pm and nobody saw me. No injuries, just a sprained ankle. Funny though, huh?

Flossing is Dangerous

I woke up this morning as usual. While I was flossing my teeth, a projectile went flying through the air from my mouth and hit the mirror. No, it wasn't rotten food from the day before. Apparently, the floss snagged on the edge of one of my fillings located in between two molars, and ripped it out.

So I guess I'll go and get it replaced. Don't worry, I won't let them use an amalgam!

Frustration!

I just typed up a long post, and then accidentilly erased it!!! It was good too. Oh well. Next time I will copy and paste the text of the post so that when the blogger.com server times out, I won't have lost everything.

First Post

Just testing my first post.