I have been employed.  Yesterday morning I had an interview with Soleo Communications in Fairport.  I showed up at 9:30 and soon met with the CTO.  I was feeling kinda spacey at the time but squeezed in some insightful business questions for him (I’m good at that).  He talked about the company and its past, present, and future.  After forty minutes or so he passed be on to a couple other people, a manager and the company’s technical guru.  We discussed pretty much every aspect of my resume, right down to HarmoGen and my time in Germany.  The guru happened to question me on pretty much every technical part of my resume that I really don’t have much experience with (J2EE, XML, UML), but I handled them gracefully.  We chatted for an hour or so before passing me on to a couple former co-ops turned full-time employees.  I wanted to ask them exactly what they did there, because by that time I knew I had a shot at the position.  At around 11:30 I headed back home, content.  Five hours later they gave me an offer (come to think of it, every interview I’ve had with a woman has resulted in a job: go figure).  It’s only for $12.50/hr, but I knew I would be taking a pay cut from previous jobs just because it was a small company.  I had previously taken an oath to not work for another large corporation; mission accomplished.

It’s not that the atmospheres in these large companies (Paychex, Kodak) are all that undesirable, it’s just that there’s so many hoops to jump through to get anything done.  The larger the company, the less productive its employees are, for this very reason.  This is why these companies tend to hire poorer programmers.  Smaller companies need the best workers since they are more reliant on them individually.  I’m ambitious and want to make a noticable impact on the company(s) I work for.

So then:

May 27: Graduation
June 5: Begin work

In between: Hopefully a ton of hiking

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about programming languages, startups, and the current state of the software industry lately.  I’ve admitedly been kind of wading through the field in my head but realize now that in reality I’m pretty much submerged.  This is a good thing; my favorite classes at the moment both involve a lot of programming, and they keep me busy doing interesting projects.  Side note: these projects will be posted here or somewhere soon, so stay posted. 

The next project I want to do is rewrite this blog.  Right now TypePad provides all the code, layout, hosting space, everything.  I want to be able to write my own blog keeping this same URL.  Not sure if this is possible, but after finals are over I will have the time to further investigate.  The main reason for doing this is to learn Ruby, and the Rails framework as well.  Web applications (and their developers) are a hot item right now, and Ruby on Rails seem to be the best way to attack them.  At the RubyOnRails site their is a link to a demo of someone setting up a (very basic, but database-driven) blog in 15 minutes.  Very encouraging. 

So it’s week 9 and I have about two weeks left of college.  Pretty exciting. 

I have proved the cliché.  The video is about 7 megs so it might take a while to load.  I am too lazy to compress it so if you’re on dialup, sorry.  Right-click to save the file and just wait, I guess.

Proof that time does indeed fly when you’re having fun

I was coding at the time, and it was late at night.  I guess this proves that I enjoy coding in Java.  Note: the clock is radio-controller and I did not tamper with it.  The speed of the video was also not tampered with, rather I was just in a crazy time warp.  Actually, if you can figure out what was really going on, leave a comment: If you are correct you win a prize!

My schedule over the past 5-6 days has looked like this:

• 9:15     Get up for class
• 9:45     Drive to class
• 18:00   Return from my fourth class
• 18:01   Begin coding
• 4:00     Stop coding due to my brain turning to mush
• 4:05     Go to bed

…and repeat.

Tomorrow (today?) won’t be much different, just replace "Go to class" with "Move lots of heavy furniture."  Six more weeks…

After attending and pretty much owning the career fair today I wanted to pass on some tips to some of my younger, more inexperienced readers…

How to Work a Career Fair

• Research is for losers.  There are hundreds of companies at career fairs, and if you know even the slightest detail about any it just screams out "desperate."
• Dress for Success.  Cargo pants and a wife-beater with bowtie just scream out "Professional."  Suits are for losers.
• Lighten your load.  Ignore all this hype about "resumes."  Companies
  will discover all they need to just by talking to you at the career
  fair.
• Make a good first impression:  Lighting up a stoge as you approach the HR person will let them know that you don’t mess around.  Don’t forget to display your confidence by blowing smoke rings in their face.
• Lighten the occassion.  "Yo’ mama" jokes always win over recruiters.

With these simple tips you are sure to score some interviews at any career fair.  Or be removed promptly by security.

The day has finally come.  On Tuesday I set my first foot on American soil in over five months, at Newark International Airport.  I was pretty meloncholy for most of the (excruciatingly long, 9 hour) flight and am still getting over it.  The things that I expected to be strange — not having to switch languages anymore, fighting crowds of fat people — haven’t actually been that bad.  Just a lot of minor things that I have gotten used to are adding up to create a substantial feeling of disorientation.  However I doubt it will take long to get back into school mode when I head back to RIT next week.

I’m writing this from home after my second full day back in Lewis County.  It is, of course, as boring as it always been, with the addition of a large, ugly Walmart Supercenter on route 12.  I don’t like the direction that’s going at all.  So on Tuesday I landed, took a bus to Manhattan, helped a German girl get oriented with the city, and made my way up to Queens after meeting up with Brandon briefly.  I was an exhausted, fatigued mess for most of the night and not very good company, but it was still great catching up.  An extra six hours awake combined with some serious partying the last few days in the fantastic city of Berlin led to a sound night’s sleep.  My parents picked me up in Utica after a 4.5 hour train ride (one of the stops was Amsterdam, NY…*sigh*) and we went out to eat and headed home.

Soon I’ll post about Berlin, complete with photos.  It was a great choice as my European farewell city.

…and my (seemingly) insurmountable workload ceases to exist.  A semester of almost no work or studying yields a week of nothing but work and studying.  I wouldn’t have it any other way, and apparently neither would the Europeans…

No travel means nothing really interesting to write about.  Well, actually not true, just nothing suitable for the (mostly) high standard I have set for this blog.  Over the next 2-3 weeks I will be visiting Caen, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, and possibly some other cities in between.  Gotta go out with a bang.

February 28 I return stateside.

Right before Christmas break started our Methods of AI class was assigned a programming assignment, to be due the second monday of classes after break. This left the class an ample four weeks to do the necessary research, ask questions, and program a solution. Naturally, I never even glanced at any of my course materials over the entire break (it’s called vacation for a reason). These three weeks of zero academic responsibility weren’t very good for my self-motivation skills; thus Friday rolled around and I still hadn’t started the assignment. In class, near the end, someone spoke up about having a lot of tests next week and how it would be difficult to study and complete the project over the weekend. We had a short discussion and our professor said he would think about it and to keep an eye on our email inbox over the weekend. So, saturday rolled around and I spent a few hours working on it, getting accustomed to the domain of the problem (a formal logic representation of a travel problem). I hosted a party that night, which was great, and left me rather hungover for a good chunk of Sunday. At around 3-4 I started really attacking the problem, and by 11 PM or so I was ready to start the programming aspect (after completing the logical representation part). Midnight rolls around and I’m progressing well, until I hear that the extension had indeed been given. Just before midnight the professor had emailed everyone in the class to give the extension, 12 HOURS before it was due! This was so outrageous (extensions of any sort are laughably improbable at RIT, not to mention weekend communication with professors) that I immediately ceased working on the project, and instead am writing what you’re currently reading. Hahaha, oh yes.

Europe is great.

But it’s too bad I just chugged all that coffee…

Another arbitrary point in time has passed, and we must now increment the last segment of our written dates. But really, it’s 2006, and the year will frame quite a few significant events of my life…my return to the States, college graduation, and introduction to the wide world of real work. I don’t like the fact that my first awakening in 2006 was accompanied by a myriad of cold symptoms, but I’m trying not to treat it as an omen…

For tomorrow I hop a train for Bad Gastein, Austria. Apparently I waited too long in reserving train seats, for my first and second choices for routes were both full from the ICE connection between Hannover and München. I managed to get a seat on one of the earliest trains, which bumps my departure time up to 6 AM from Osnabrück. Yet due to the magic of train travel (just hop on and go, no security checks, zero wait) I can actually take the bus down to the Hauptbanhof rather than walking the 1 km+ with all my baggage like earlier this break to get to the bus stop on the way to the airport…I have been totally psyched for this trip for about a month and tomorrow will mark by introduction to the Austrian Alps….sweet.

A few days ago I returned from a week-long vacation with my great-aunt and uncle Louise and Ernest in southeast England. I had a marvelous time spending the holidays with them, from seeing my first Pantomime (in all of it’s sexual ambiguity) to the annual Quality St. Christmas party. All of these events were interspersed with fine dining throughout and some delicious meals from the ever-modest Louise. On the 23rd I ventured into London again solo, and saw Westminster Abbey and the Tate Modern. Both were great, Westminster Abbey being especially spectacular. Their photo ban was a bit annoying, but surely helps preserve the incredibly rich, ancient atmosphere. On the last evening I was treated to a performance of “Once in a Lifetime,” a comedy that I truly enjoyed. It was quite interesting seeing British actors/actresses portraying Americans, complete with our accents (which were very well done and usually not over-the-top). Thanks again Louise and Ernest for your hospitality!

It’s been very quiet here in the apartment as only Christina and I are around…last night I attended a new year’s party at a friend’s apartment, which was very nice. It was just a quiet get-together with seven of us total. Just past midnight we wandered down to the street to shoot off the obligatory fireworks, which were a riot. Apparently there aren’t any restrictions on fireworks in Germany because the street was like a war zone, with bottle rockets and firecrackers going off at a chaotic rate…it seemed like every single resident was down on the street setting off fireworks, to the dismay of passing motorists! Being a bit of a pyro I had a lot of fun *mischievous grin*.

May 2006 bring everyone good health and good times!

First I want to apologize for any access problems this past weekend…Typepad was having some issues which involved them relying on a 2-day old backup that was older than my Amsterdam post.  It took them quite a while to get my Amsterdam pics back on track, too, but all is well now.

I’m currently at a transition point.  Classes ended for the year last week and I don’t fly to England to see my wonderful Aunt and Uncle until Wednesday.  Most of my friends have embarked on their holiday vacation adventures so it’s been fairly quiet the last couple days here in Osnabrück.  Mine will start oh-so-soon, and I’m very excited.  The last week of break will find me in the heart of the Austrian Alps, enjoying some of the finest skiing in the world!

With all this free time I’ve been trying to stay moderately productive, which means revisiting past projects and studying some German.  This, of course, means revisiting HarmoGen, my AI class-turned-personal AI project which I have been working on sporadically throughout the year.  HarmoGen was recently published as part of RIT’s First Annual Conference on Computing and Information Sciences so I put together a web site hosting it, which can be found here.  There I detail some of the updates I’m working on, notably converting the input/output to handle ABC musical notation.  Well this hasn’t been as easy as I had imagined, and involves writing a lot of not-so-fun conversion functions, so it has been on the back burner since Fall.

Anyway, over the next month I’ll be posting plenty of pictures capturing my holiday vacation travels.  For now, a very Merry Christmas to all!