Well, after the empty promises of a new website became unfulfilled, and as the flash revolution made my site rival the titans of the web, yet rendering it completely un-updatable, I sit here at my humble console, once again, pledging reform. This time, though, my goals will be more reasonable. First of all, I plan to update this moderately. I should be replacing the stupid things <--- here and ---> here with some content soon. Hopefully, I will have a calendar up, and I dunno, something else pretty. Check the links menu, it's really easy to update now so I should do that more, and there's a lot of new stuff to look at, while, mind you, it's not as G-Rated as it was before.
  Now, onto an update. Finally. After a year of not updating, and having my little sister out-do me in the ability to keep her website updated. This last year has been a turbulent one, with many interesting things to report. I became senior orientation leader, went through the process again, was chosen as an HA, a reality I am still coming to terms with, I had roommate issues and triumphs, I came in and out of touch with people, I went through several severely self destructive spirals, most of which involved certain movies and life-altering perceptions, I got severe food poisoning, was on anthrax medicine, went without a computer and internet for more than a quarter, downloaded every pete and pete and aeon flux, added a major, dropped another, got a free subscription to FHM, learned hot glass and cold glass look the same, moved 9 times, burned some CD's, became a member and a rebel against the unyielding grip of corporate, plastic America, and learned how David Blaine can levitate himself. And now think of all the stuff I didn't tell you. Yea, it's been busy. Well, What's I'd recommend you do is IM me at SilentDarkFalcon and ask more details about the year.
  And, now, a touch of reality. I sit here, and while in my head hundreds of you are reading this every minute, I know that the only people reading this are my sister, my girlfriend, and anyone else who is looking for a favor from me. With that, I think it's appropriate for me to use this forum to empart some honest advice to all unsuspecting first years. The list below is the essential guide to having a successful college experience, so heed it an honor it like it's a newfound religion.
    1. You may be enchanted by Summit now, and even though they rotate their food, it gets old. Plus, the lines get so long, you never want to wait for the special or the pizza, so you always end up getting a crappy pita or sushi. So, as a group, we're moving lunch to 10:00AM and dinner to 4:00PM. Hopefully, this way, we'll get to the front of the line, get some decent food, and be surrounded by like-minded rejects who look at this site.
    2. Discussions suck. I'm not trying to sound cocky, but unless you're one of the three people in a class who can't remember the basic underlying concept that the department is founded on and must ask for it to be repeated 7 times a class, which none of the supreme beings who are my audience are, you have no reason to go to discussion. Some classes require attendance, but in my experience discussions are big rooms filled with 6 kids, 2 of which ask all the questions, most of which pertain to things you already understand. EVEN THOUGH YOU THINK YOU MAY HEAR SOMETHING YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW, YOU WON'T.
    3. Don't bother being political. If you have beliefs, register to vote. Democracy isn't about seeing how many people you can sway to your opinion, that's called a popularity contest. If you have to advertise your political beliefs in the hope of making other people believe them too, then whatever it is you're advertising probably isn't important enough to matter anyway. A GOOD PHILOSOPHY SHOULD ADVERTISE ITSELF.
    4. Reading sucks. Leisure reading is cool, but having to read a 30 page communications article, only to have the exact points that were made thorughout the article reiterated in list form on the last page, is frusturating. Read articles from back to front, because often there's a sumamry at the end, and that's all you need to know.
    5. Force yourself to sleep. Allow me to reiterate an experience I had this summer: Sitting up in my room at 3 in the morning, with my roommate asleep and the lights off, watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas until 5. Point is, being awake at those hours makes you self destructive, then you're not ready for class the next day. Even if you have late class, wake up early. You'll thank me later.
    6. Poster your walls. Posters are mobile, so wherever you move to, it still feels like the same room, which makes living in general more comfortable. And, cinder blocks are ugly.
    7. Papa John's gave me food poisoning. Sometimes, if you ask, Domino's will give you 2 for 1, when you call ask if they still have the 2 for 1 deal, sometimes they just give it to you. Domino's=858-452-8273. Round Table has the Napa Pizza, but it's too expensive. Domino's is the way to go.
    8. If you have a car, and you park on campus, don't expect to find a spot from 7:00AM to 6:00PM. Park at UTC and take the shuttle, it's free.
    9. Don't sit in your room, get out and join a club. And if you like to just sit in your room, come tell me, and I'll get a club of people who like to sit in their rooms together. Can't argue that one, can you?
    10. Robertos, Ralphs, Sav-On, Cotixan's, Denny's, 7-Eleven, and Carl's Jr. are open 24 hours a day. With those 7 places, you have almost any food you could want, clothes, medicine, toys, books, furniture, and almost anythign else you could want at your fingertips at all time. Damn.
  Ok, now, you're all ready for college. With our new society following these rules, we could be the leaders of this campus in no time flat. Let's make T-shirts. Ok, I need to go read for communications. If you're bored, check out the links, or the archives, which there's a link to at the bottom of this. See you all later.

  Ok, there's a lot of stuff to know about this. Originally, this computer was a Micron 120Mhz server tower from about 1994. Dad ran his business out of it for many many years, and he got a 2 gig upgrade which made this completely obsolete. I wanted a full tower to be completely unified in my design, and it was perfect for what I wanted. The design and construction took almost a year, but the result is worth it.
  Weighing in at a pristine 78 lbs, this thing turned out to be everything I wanted. When I started, I knew I wanted to cut the clam shell and make doors, which was a new thing. I wanted windows in those doors, and I wanted everything self contained. I had to work when at my parent's house, which is hard when I only go back every so often. Wiring the cables was rough, making new cables of course part of the process, making everything working off the power I had, learning both metal and body and paint work. There's tons of fans all over, lights, internal speakers for the motherboard, internal USB, connections for everything everywhere, and a killer paint job that screams out about my style. It has a DVD burner, a CD burner, a DVD-ROM, an 80 gig HDD, and a 300 gig HDD. There's 3 stage lighting, including 1 sound sensitive light that throbs to my bass! I had to dramatically reshape the holes in the front and back, turn an AT case into an ATX compatible machine, and figure out how to make 2 power supplies work together. I'm sorry I didn't take in progress pics, but it was such a long process it didn't make sense.

The only pic I can find of the original case, notice the white clamshell ugliness. So much better now.

Here's the whole front, from top to bottom there's the Disc drives, then the hard drives, the live drive, the card slot, the USB ports, the switch panels, the internal 10/100 hub, the vents, the base, then the block at the bottom.

The back side, notice the cool paint and the base which has the wheels, you can see the back of the power strip down there.

The back. Notice 2 power supplies, that's kind of original, the original case had a HDD chassy up there. The fan panel is below that which helps outline the motherboard area, it's artistically sanded aluminum. The original case had all serial and parallel ports as they did back in the day, and that panel covered it up nicely. Below that is the cards, notice how full it is down there. Card list, with updates since the pictures: Vid Card, Sound Card, Ethernet Card (second wired one), Wireless Ethernet card (making 3 internet connections! Yay RIP listener!), the game port for the sound card, the internal USB connector card, and a partridge in a pear tree. Notice the plug in the back, the single plug for the power strip.

The top, simply an integrated ipod dock/charger and palm pilot dock and charger and extra battery charger.

The switch area. At the top on the right, the power button to the top power supply which powers the 5 port hub, the Disc drives, and the lights. Those need to be on before the other switch, but can be on independently. Below that, there's the fan speed switch on the far left, hi, med, and low. In the middle there's the card reader and USB ports, then the power, reset, HDD LED and PW LED for the main power supply which is hooked to the motherboard, cards, and HDD's. Under that, there's the switch to the 2 stable lights and the one for the sound sensitive light, plus the mic. The dimmer controls the sound sensitivity. The micron logo is kind of a cool touch, since it connects it to it's past life. You know what the hub does, connected to the second wired ethernet card.

The fun to look at side. Notice it's a door and not that stupid clamshell. Much prettier and more convenient. You can also see how chaotic it is in there, don't worry, I know intimately.

Kind of the boring window, any computer person knows this is the power supplies and the drive backs. NEED TONS OF ROOM!

OK, ::takes deep breath:: This is the soyo dragon ULTRA 640+ motherboard with a 2.4 P4 CPU and 1 gig of RAM. The video card in there then was the ATI All in Wonder 8500 DV but since have moved to an ATI ALl in Wonder X800 and it rules. There's the creative Audigy with the Live Drive so my comp is now the full A/V machine, with all HD optical, midi, and composite ins and outs. HOT. The Volcano 7 fan on the CPU is visible and loud. Now, off to the right, you can see some fun stuff. I put 4 USB ports on the inside of the case to plug in the remote receiver for the AIW, the card reader, the palm pilot dock, and the wireless keyboard and mouse receiver. SEE, NO MORE CARRYING ACCESSORIES AROUND. The USB ports on the back of the motherboard, plus the connectors on the card, and the ones for the front panel, that's 10 total plus 3 firewire. WOW.

Ok, here's the blue sound sensitive light, it flashes when there's noise.

The big bright blue light.

The string light in the front that shows through the vent slots. AWESOME.

Under the comp in the base, here's the little power strip. So convenient!

Ok, I LAN and move a lot, so I was smart enough to put wheels on this thing. Here they are, painted as well.

To pull this thing, I have a string with a handle in the front. It sits on a block in the front so it doesn't roll on it's own, you just pull it up a little and it rides on the wheels.

After the cube case, I realized it's not good if you're like me and you move every few months. I set out to make a more standard case, constructed of wood to be strong and durable. Unfortunately I didn't take finished pics, but now that I'm past it's use (I used it for 2 years) I still have it in my closet at home. I'll try to take some pics next time I'm there, I'm sorry I won't have any pics of electronics in it, but it was spectacular.

My pristine piece of plywood!

Radial arm saw angle 1.

Radial arm saw blade.

Radial arm saw angle 2.

Gross pieces of the case I originally cut.

Formation of the box.

Marking the bay shelf distances on the chassy wall.

Measuring out the width of the chassy shelves against my hard drive chassy.

See, it fits pretty!

Dad helped me a ton with the cutting, since I only had about a week to make it.

From this pic, you can see the first mock up of the case.

Front view, notice the 6 5.25 bays and the 2 3.5 bays.

Rear view, with the power supply and the card slots, before putting the duct hole in.

Wood split when cutting out the card slots, but I ended up ditching this piece anyway.

The shelves between the drives were holed out for ventilation.

How I made those holes, with a 2 inch hole saw.

Second mock up with all the edges cleaned up.

You can see that I cleaned up all the holes and made more chassies for the power supply and stuff.

Another angle, it's sweet.

The cleaned up rear end.

Inside of the chassy wall with the grooves and screw holes drilled.

Detail of the 3.5 inch bay wall.

Duct slot in the back of the case so a duct to the CPU is getting fresh air always.

Optional plug for the duct hole, in case I don't like the duct (which I never ended up using).

Duct and plug.

Detail on back of the plug.

Side of plug.

All pieces laid out ready for staining.

Half on pieces. . .

. . .and the other half.

Beginning of the white stain process, I stained the inside white.

The stain.

Unnecessary picture of an intermediate point.

Stained chassy being glued together.

Stained wood and it's looking good! The white really popped, and lights will reflect color from inside.

The finishing nail gun which held the project together in conjunction with some wood glue.

Gluing and nailing the chassy in place, using the clamps to hold stuff in place.

2 details to notice in this pic, the 1/4 round that was used as the edging on the inside and the beginning of the border on the front to level it off.

Bottom border on the front.

Acrylic wall and door hinged by tape.

Open.

Front view with the completed border in the front with is level.

Check the screws holding the acrylic on, and the edging inside the case which is nailed and glied down as a frame. It's strong as heck.

Stained edge pieces.

Late pic of cutting the window.

Inside pic of good frame pieces.

More structure.

Front structure.

Ok, I've decided that this site needs new focus. It needs new direction. I know I'm kinda boring, I know not many of you care, but I've decided to now make an all out effort to go out, find things on the internet that are interesting, and present them to you. I swear, I will turn this site into the next Yahoo!!! All you need to do is tell people to read, and tell me if you like the site. So, without any further ado, I'm going to present my usual rantings, and then get onto the good stuff.
  So, here's what's been going down in the last few days, yo. As far as the computer goes, I'm working on the decorations. 'Nuff said. My dad and I like took apart my car, he was ocnvinced we could find what was wrong, but instead he just powerwashed the inside of the engine and replaced some of the fluids, and now the fan belts squeal. Great. Now my car just sucks. I redeemed it a little by taking off the bumpers and fixing them and putting them back on (I got hit once and Meg got hit once, they're ok but coming off a little and had messed up paint) So it's done. What else? I took apart the tuner I bought a year ago for 12 bucks, an ONKYO TX-38, which has CD, phono, 2 tape, 2 VCR control with AM FM and 16 preset memory, 4 55 watt channels, and a whole lotta sound, and tuned it up, there was a few things I didn't know how to work on it which I figured out. Man, lemme tell you people something. Buy broken stuff. I got this because it was supposedly broken, and when I got it I had it fixed in 5 minutes. Then, the camcorder I'm fixing. 15 bucks. When I got it, it had no picture coming through the viewfinder. Now, it has picture, but in putting it back together I messed up the record mechanism. When I fix that, I'll have a cool new toy. And the 10 buck 5 CD changer. And the 10 buck VCR. And 4 speakers I got from a stereo someone gave me to fix and abandoned. See? Cool stereo, less than 50 bucks. Beat that. Anyway, it works completely now, and I'm really happy. I'm working with Jason, my Ex roommate, on building an acrylic case for him, and that's gonna start tomorrow. What else? I was selected as a peer advisor at Muir, so that's really, really cool. I'm really excited and honored, so if you chose me for that, thanks, whoever you are. I'm all packed up to go to school the 12th, I'm going down for transfer orientation and bringing a bunch of stuff to Jenn's apartment, and storing it there until I move into mine. I don't get the key to my apt til the 20th, so I need to put my stuff somewhere while I'm there from the 16th. I have been busy here ripping DVD's and building new computers, otherwise I don't have much going on. If this whole dialogue seems a little disjoined, it's because I've been watching Lexx this whole time. Good show, I'll link you to the site soon.
  So now, onto the good stuff. First, as I promised, Lexx's Website Why is this show cool? It has all the geeky elements of your classic sci-fi drama: Space, space ships, aliens, the dead, computers, and explosions. But the thing that makes this show stand out is that it's go tmore girls in skimpy clothes than you can imagine. And the innuendos are charming. For instance, the dead in the show live off of protoblood. When the queen of the dead were about to kill Kai, the protagonistic dead, she is doing it to drain his blood for herself. She makes sure to tell him, "I plan to suck up every last drop of you." Every drop of protoblood, people. See? Cool show, dead killing other dead. OK, now onto the next cool thing. Like movies? So do I. That's why I like www.DarkHorizons.com.. It's got all the info on new movies, and a lot of other cool stuff too. I used to do movie reviews for the school paper, and this is where I did all my research. Two thumbs up. Good site. Ok, last site for the day. DO you like to mess with things at home? Blow them up? Make smoke? Then go here for some home experiments. You'll like them.
   So that's it, have fun people, and I'll talk to you soon. Later fans.

Ok, jsut a small entry today, with some updates on stuff. Here's the new cell phone I got: Samsung SPH-460 It's awesome. Umm, the case is up on several great websites, Virtual Hideout and www.fast-mhz.com. Check them out, see how I'm doing, and if you know of any other places that feature mods, tell me, jgullo@ucsd.edu. And show other people my case site!!! Umm, what else, Alfred and I have been going around finding the ends of streets around here, jsut driving and celebrating when we find the end. It's fun. A lot of streets end right by me. We may make a documentary about it. I've been working on the case and the lights, so we'll see how they work. Umm, what else? Making plans to move back to SD, working with a friend to get him a gf, he's desparate, and designing more cases. Not much other stuff. TTYL, adios.