Vote for Ryan Kopf

Don't forget to vote for me in the student government elections this spring at Iowa. It looks like I will probably be running for President of UISG, to help implement some of the ideas that I have. I promise to work hard to ensure that we make progress, and I'll be sure to leave Iowa better place than I found it. I'll try to expand support for open source technology, give students a stronger voice, and ensure that action is taken to make the University of Iowa the best.

Things In Iowa City So Far

Things in Iowa City have been pretty great so far, although I haven't really gone out much. So far I've had a chance to eat at Mickey's downtown a couple times, and they are probably one of the few places with hamburgers I would actually endorse. Then I also was dragged to the Englert Theater on Halloween, which was certainly an interesting experience as well. All in all, hopefully a poor college student like me can get a break from working so hard and be able to spend a little more time enjoying all the interesting places this city has to offer.

Ruby on Rails

Hey folks, I've been working a lot on my Ruby on Rails programming skills. I'm very excited about this language and web development structure. It's fantastic, I can do so many things much easier now, and I've been working hard at patching some things together that I've been working on. For example, my AnimeIowa Pictures website will probably be utilizing this new system by the end of the month, which will make me very happy!

I've got some cool things with this new system, such as the rating system on the Chrono Muscatine homepage. I will soon update it to require login, etc, but it's feeling pretty good now. Several milestones to reach still, but progressing very smoothly into the project.

Have you been to AnimeIowa?

I just wanted to take a moment to suggest to all of you that if you've ever liked any anime or manga, then you really aught to check out AnimeIowa. The convention is run by an all-volunteer staff, so nobody is making money off the thing, which helps keep it fun and friendly! Last year AnimeIowa was held in the Marriott hotel in Coralville. I'd guess that nearly a third of all the people that went were in some sort of Cosplay outfit, and it was a lot of fun. I was one of the lackeys stuck trying to organize volunteers.

So, if you like shows like Naruto or DBZ, or you think you're shoop enough, then make sure to go to Anime Iowa 2008. Cosplay (dress up and act like) like one of your favorite characters!