Jon Sand Montana State Sophomore

Freshman Convocation 2009

2009-09-17T14:02:00.002-06:00

This past week was the 3rd annual Freshman Convocation. The idea of convocation is to celebrate your beginnings as a Montana State University Freshman. My freshman was the first year they did this event. Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea was our speaker, last year it was Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This year was Steve Lopez, who wrote The Soloist. This story was also made into a movie last spring with Robert Downy Jr. and Jamie Foxx. Lopez tells his story of experiences meeting a man who lived on the streets of downtown Los Angles. It was really interesting to hear him tell his story in person. At the end of his presentation he signed books for anyone that was interested. I would recommend the book for a good read. The Soloist was chosen as “One book- One Bozeman,” a program to promote community literacy through reading a common book. The community was invited to the event as well. Convocation is a neat thing that MSU does for the freshmen, I’m looking forward next year!

Montana Summer

2009-08-31T17:13:00.000-06:00

This summer I worked for an architecture firm in Missoula, MT. It was a lot of fun and a great experience, I felt really lucky to have the opportunity to work for such a great firm and with great people. I moved up to Missoula a week after the spring semester and moved back last week. I made plenty of trips to Bozeman to attend events such as Music on Main and the farmers market. Every Thursday evening during the summer they close down Main Street and bands perform. The first one of the summer is always my favorite, The Clintons, a local band from Bozeman. It is always great to see everyone from school at these events. This summer I also traveled back to Bozeman to help with the Freshman Orientation sessions, we had one in June, and two in July. I advised freshman who were interested in architecture so it was a lot of fun to share my experiences and show them some of my projects from the past two years. I also got plenty of floating in on the Madison and Jefferson Rivers this summer on inner tubes. It was a great summer in Missoula, but I’m glad to be back in Bozeman. I hope everyone is ready for classes to start and get into the swing of things, here we go. . . 5-4-3-2-1

1/2 way done with ARCH

2009-04-19T23:12:00.003-06:00

This is my board layout for my arch studio final, this was due on Friday at noon, and this Friday we have to have a model built of this. So I'm pretty much half way done, I got a lot of work ahead of me this week though. Our project was an urban infill site downtown, some of us designed a wood shop, some designed a space for a metal shop and a glass shop. It was fun spending a lot time downtown to document our site. We have a laser cutter that we can use to cut our pieces for our models, I think I'm going to use that, it should help speed up the process. I've had a lot of fun working on this project and have spent a lot of time on it, it will be nice to be done. I'll post pictures of the models as soon as I have those done on Friday. Until then I'll be working away in Cheever Hall.

relay_for_life

2009-04-19T23:11:00.003-06:00

Relay for Life in an annual event that is put on by the American Cancer Society to raise money to find a cure for cancer and remember those who we have lost and celebrate for those who have survived. There are over 4,800 relays nationwide. The overnight event is full of fun activities while members of each team are making laps around the track. Our event was held at the MSU Field House. There were games of dodge ball, volleyball, basket ball, rockstar pong, karaoke, and lots of good food. The event locally raised over $44,000. Next week is UM's Relay for Life, and we always have a little friendly competition, we have 3 years in a row in the past. It was fun staying up all night, lots of people brought couches and lounge chairs to rest in when they were not making laps or taking part in the activities. It was really fun to walk around and chat with friends or make new ones and share stories about random things. This is something I'm definitely going to participate in again next year.

Google Maps

2009-04-04T23:45:00.000-06:00

View Larger Map
I find my self spending countless hours looking at google maps. Above is a link to the MSU campus area and Bozeman. This gives you a good idea of the size of our campus and the town of Bozeman.

rail jam

2009-03-23T14:40:00.003-06:00

Free weekend entertainment is always fun, this past weekend wast the 2009 Rail Jam. This is an annual competition where skies and snowboards from the surrounding area have the opportunity to show their skills. This year the event was helt at the Gallatin County Fairgournds. They set up scafolding and haul in a buch of snow and put a rail. It was fun to hang out with friends and see all the taleted skiers and boarders there are in Bozeman.

Spring Break 09

2009-03-23T14:34:00.014-06:00

Spring break is always a nice chance to relax halfway through the second semester. This year my friend Kayla from architecture and I drove down to California. We left after class last Friday and stayed with a friend in Provo, UT. It was about a 7 hour drive the first day. We went to a comedy improv show that night, it was a funny show. The next day was a 10 hour drive, down through Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and then California. It was nice to stay at a home while on vacation. It was the first time I've had three complete meals in a day. We also went to In N Out Burger multiple times. On St. Patrick's day we went to Venice Beach. It was fun to see all the street venders and all the interesting stuff they were selling. While we were in California my brother was on a Breaksaway trip in New Orleans. Breaksaway is a program through MSU where students can take a trip and do community service while on spring break. They did some work in parks in the New Orleans area and some other community service activites. They had the opportunity to go to a Hornets game while they were down there.

Girl Talk

2009-03-03T10:17:00.004-07:00

The musician Girl Talk preformed last weekend in Bozeman at the Gallatin Country Fairgrounds. It was a fun concert, I saw lots of people from campus there. I went with some friends that drove down from Missoula for the weekend. Girl Talk one and only member is Gregg Gills who will take well recognized portions of songs, mash them up, creating a new remix song. It was fun hearing portions of songs I knew, many I didn't.
We get a fair amount of concerts throughout the year. Nickelback, Elton John, Blue Man Group, Ben Folds, John Mayer, Maroon 5 have come through town in the past few years. Many concerts are held at the Brick Breeden Fieldhosue on the MSU campus. Now that the basketball season is finishing up the MSU spring Rodeo will be in early April.

http://www.brickbreeden.com/

dinoTRUS - Arch 244 Structures

2009-03-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

This is a structures project we did recently. It reminded me of elementary school, except for the part where we had to calculate loads and figure out the forces on the members and the reaction at each joint. We could design a truss to resemble whatever we wanted, some people made a ski jump truss while others represented the animal kingdom with squirrel, frog, and bird trusses. We used a program called MD Solids (mdsolids.com) where we drew the truss and applied loads. It then calculated whether members were in compression or tension and the forces on each. It was a fun project where we got to be creative with designing trusses.

sun/snow/ski

2009-03-02T21:37:00.004-07:00

I went up to Bridger this weekend, they got a couple inches of snow, great coverage. It was about 28 degrees and sunny, perfect skiing weather. Only 5 or 6 more weeks left of the ski season, it's gone by fast!

Left: Looking up the North Bowl to the top of the Ridge
Below: The Alpine chair, Ridge in the background.

Looking east from Bridger Bowl, the Crazy Mountains off in the distance.

Arch 244 - Structures II

2009-02-17T23:29:00.012-07:00

Arch 244 (Structures II) is one of four architecture classes I'm taking this semester. Currently we are going over the "design of structural elements in wood, steel, masonry, and concrete. Lateral considerations and calculations including environmental and seismic loads. Understanding of building systems; diaphragms; connections; structural engineer-architect communications. Complete structural design/drawings for small commercial building-group project" (MSU Catalog). This class

is really interesting because it really makes me think how buildings are put together. We went down the street for a class recitation field trip to visit the new Animal Bio Science building that is currently under construction. The top picture is a rendering of what it will look like when it is competed and the bottom pictures is how it looks currently. We were looking at the steel beams and their connections at certain points. Although this building will be used for research it is a good example of steel construction for architecture students.

Good Afternoon

2009-02-17T23:26:00.001-07:00

Today turned out to be yet another beautiful day, warm temperatures and sunshine. Biking home today was a pleasant ride down Cleveland St.

8am Class

2009-02-17T12:23:00.005-07:00

Class at 8am five days a week gets old (luckily most students don't have this inconvenience), but this morning I was surprised to see a fresh blanket of snow on the ground. First snow in a while. They got a couple inches in the mountains as well, now it is 40 degrees out . . .

campus weather station website
http://www.montana.edu/msucommon/extras/weather/weather.php

Ice Skating

2009-02-16T22:58:00.008-07:00

So I went ice skating last night at South Side park with my brother, his girlfriend and his dog. It was the first time I've gone in a long time. Campus is only a few blocks from South Side and a few other ice skating rinks around town. It is a fun daytime or nighttime activity. And if you don't have skates, no worries, you can rent them from the SOB Barn! My skates! --->

http://www.montana.edu/outdoorrecreation/ This is the site for outdoor recreation, you can find a list of all the equipment they have for rent and prices

Presidents Weekend & Architecture Update

2009-02-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

After a few full weeks of classes we finally had a three day weekend, thank you Mr. President. It was well needed after the past few hectic weeks. I thought I'd write about Architecture and give a much needed update. This semester we have desks in the architecture building, Cheever Hall. I've been spending a lot of time there and will continue to for the next 2 or 3 years. On Friday I had my critique for my final design of an architecture project. It went ok, but after spending countless hours on this project since the beginning of the semester they pretty much told me that I did not spend enough time on it, kinda frustrating... But we got another project assigned; this one is exciting because it is going to be an actual building. After a year and half in architecture school I finally get to design a building. Our site is in downtown Bozeman and we would be designing a space for a wood shop retail space. I'm pretty excited about this project, we will be spending the rest of the semester on this, so I'll let you know how it turns out. Another project I've recently turned in was for my computer graphics class. We used Auto CAD to make a model of a 3D surface and a set of stairs, and then we used a laser cutter to cut the pieces out of chipboard. It was really fun learning how to use this technology that we have available to us. Also in this class we are learning how to use Google Sketch Up, which anyone can download, it's a pretty fun program to mess around with, and you can download if for free from http://sketchup.google.com/ The picture at the top is the stairway I made for graphics, all the pieces were cut by a lasssser.

Happy Valentines Day!

2009-02-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

Only Valentine I got was from my mom...

Arch 253 (Design) - Project 1

2009-02-13T18:10:00.004-07:00

So I thought I'd share what I have spending so much time on in Cheever (architecture building). This is our first project, we've spent the first five weeks of the semester on it, we designed an alley space in downtown Bozeman. I'll share with you the process we went through.

-First we did a photo analysis of the site, we took hundreds of photos, as if we were never going to visit the site again. We drew up elevations, sections and plans of the site. This process we did in groups of 5 so we were able to split up the work. The rest of the process we did individually.

-The next step was creating six pin models out of pictures we took from downtown. To the left you can see six pictures that I took downtown and then cut and layered them to create a 3D design. We used sewing pins and foam core to assemble them. This is what we based the rest of our project off of . . . and where I got lost.

-After a few weeks of designing and spinning in circles this is what I came up with, not very impressive, but something. You can see behind is the facade of some buildings downtown. This was an interesting process we went through, we will be doing something similar with our next project. Hopefully I'll have better luck with it this time

So that is a real quick run through of what one of our studio projects are. I'll keep posting projects as I'm finishing them up.

All nite - er

2009-02-11T15:16:00.005-07:00

Good replenishing snacks after staying up all night working on a project can be found at Joe's Parkway. I was pleased to find Red Bull Cola. Joe's is an awesome little convenience store just across the street from campus. They have a deli and fresh produce. They sell many gourmet foods as well as common grocery items. And MSU students get a 10% discount the first month of every semester!

http://www.joesparkway.com/

CAT/griz '09

2009-02-08T23:33:00.000-07:00

Ya so we lost both men’s and women’s games yesterday, but there was still a lot of Bobcat spirit around town. I didn’t make it to the women’s game because I was skiing, men’s started at 7 so I was able to attend. It was the annual Cat/griz of basketball located in Bozeman every other year. I was looking online and found that they have Alumni satellite Cat/griz parties around the country for football and basketball games.

http://alumni.montana.edu/events/catgriz/

My friend Kayla and I, with all our bobcat fever going on, got ourselves some blueberry slushies and then got blue tounges, kinda gross. . . looks like we ate some smurfs. . . go cats!

MSU Friday

2009-01-30T17:43:00.002-07:00

Today was another fun and successful MSU Friday. This event is a fun way to visit campus and experience what it's like to be a MSU student. This free event is put on by the Office of Admissions with their help from AdvoCats, staff and faculty on campus. Campus tours went on all day, there were tours of all the resident halls and facilities available for students, such as the new health and PE complex. Prospective students also had the opportunity to sit in on sample class that are available on campus. For example, Physics 205, Greg Francis demonstrated the bed of death as he set a cinder block on his chest while laying on a bed of nails and asked an assistance to swing a sledge hammer onto the block, you'll have to take to class to see if he lives. Other sample classes were "How to Explore Majors at MSU", "What is Music Technology", "Digital Application in Architecture", and many more in various areas of studied offered at MSU.
Students also took tours of facilities of anything from the Arts and Architecture Departments, to Fraternity and Sorority Housing, to the Space Science and Engineering Lab. Student Panel and Parent Panels were also offered for prospective students and parents to ask questions of current MSU students.
MSU Fridays are a great way to experience real classes, real people, and real experiences on the MSU campus. If you missed out on this one there is another one on April 3, 2009. Hope to see you there!

Here is the link to the MSU Friday webpage on montana.edu
http://www.montana.edu/wwwnss/msufriday.shtml

Bridge Building - Architectural Structures

2009-01-23T15:39:00.002-07:00

Back in December. . . 2008. Our structures class built some bridges. Structures is a class we have been learning anything from tributary area loads to earthquake stress on a building. For our final project last semester we were required to build a bridge. It had to span 10 feet across a (frozen) stream behind the Architecture building. It also at a weight limit of 120 pounds and had to be assembled on site. My friends and I worked on this project up at my parents house, they had the garage space and all the tools we needed. It was fun coming up with a design, building it, and testing it. We had to load it up with 300 lbs of weight, ours held all 5 of us on it.

We are such an exciting group of people they wrote a news article about us on montana.edu

http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=6620

Check it out, there are some more pictures

Back to School.

2009-01-17T11:52:00.004-07:00

Happy 2009!
First day of classes for this semester was Wednesday the 14, it was a good break. It was nice to stay in Bozeman, relax and sleep a lot. My brother and his wife were home for two weeks from Seattle, so it was good to see him. All my friends from high school were back in town as well, it's always good to see all them. Campus was quiet all break, the offices were open, but obviously not many students were around. It was a pretty cold break, some of the ski lifts were closed due to the cold and high wind speeds.
On Monday and Tuesday we had orienation for new freshmen and transfer students. Many of the freshmen had graduated a semester early from high school and decided to go right into college. Part of orientation is becoming familiar with the campus in many ways, we give campus tours, help everyone understand the registration process, and answer questions. I think everyone is excited for the new semester, it shoud be a good spring of 2009!

Paint

2009-01-11T22:53:00.003-07:00

I painted my room over break. . . finally had time to do it.

Unicorn pearl, looks good huh?

Bridger Bowl

2008-12-11T23:40:00.007-07:00

So it's almost Christmas and it is going to be a white one for sure. Since finals week it seems like it has been snowing constantly. I got a pass at Bridger Bowl this year so it should be a good ski season for sure. If you are a student at MSU they give you a $100 gift card that you can use anywhere on it mountain. It's nice for lunches and hot chocolate. It has been pretty cold here lately so I've only been up skiing a few times. They recently implemented a bus system from town to the mountain, it's Bridger Bowls part to keep winter cool. It is also convenient not having to drive especially when the roads are bad.
This year Bridger Bowl did its first terrain expansion in thirty years. They opened a new lift to the south of the ski area. This will provide a lot new terrain and should be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to a good season of skiing this year.
http://www.bridgerbowl.com/

walking to school

2008-12-08T13:51:00.001-07:00