Back from South America

Hello all!

Just got back from South America this morning and it was a heck of a trip. I'll be starting the usual trip blog journal sometime in the next week or so, posting the usual captioned photos along with a write-up about all the goings-on over the past 4 weeks. It was an awesome trip and so many great experiences and memories... yet as always, happy to be home :)

I'll be tagging the posts as usual with a Blogger label, and also summarizing them all when I'm done posting each day's entry on my website. I hope you enjoy reading almost as much as my friends and I enjoyed the trip! More soon... Jutan

In Peru

In Cusco, Peru and it is totally amazing. Food has been fantastic and really enjoying it already.

The hostel is beautiful and we have a truly epic view of the city. I am armed with my Canon T1i, 2 batteries, 3 lenses, a circular polarizer and 38 GB of memory! Even so, RAW photos take up a huge amount of space so I am generally shooting pictures in superfine JPG, and switching to RAW for targeted, specifically awesome lighting and photo opportunities.

And taking a few with my iPhone like this one!

I'll be writing up the usual major trip blog when I am back and posting tons of photos with a journal from each day in the upcoming months. Here's a quick taste. Cusco is gorgeous. The altitude at first was a little hard (noticeable especially when walking up steps) but at 11,200 ft we're already getting acclimated for the majority of the Inca Trail trek.

This trip is awesooooommmme!!! Frank just told me to go to bed so I don't wake our buddy Kevin up, so I'm off. I hope everyone is well, more photos on Facebook right now and I'll post tons of pics later.

Mike :)




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Avengers

Saw Avengers last night and it was epic!!!! Hulk was so beautifully hand-crafted, one of the best 3D characters I've ever seen. Amazing! The movie itself is so excellent too and some really fantastic story arcs beautifully blended with amazing effects!

Be sure to stay for the end credits- I'm in the ILM Research and Development section.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Weight loss graph in Matlab

In an awesome moment of "Like Son, Like Father", my Dad was super psyched about the R Statistical program I wrote a few days ago (see this post) for doing a fancy regression and analysis of my weight loss progress so far... he was so psyched that he did exactly the same thing I did - spending a few hours fiddling with a stats program to make a cooler and more interesting version of the plot.

Matlab graph of my weight loss from Oct 2011-April 2012

Since Dad is a Matlab genius, he took the opportunity to refresh on some Matlab and graphing details, like I did with R a few days ago. This plot is similar to my R one, but I think it's a lot easier to read, the spacing is better and clearer, and you get a much better sense of the flow of the data. Also, the colouring and grid lines help give the graph some better readability. Funny that Dad and I both spent a few hours geeking out about similar things. Like Father, Like Son!