It is cold

My sentiments exactly.  I bit it last night walking up my driveway into my house.  My right knee is all messed up.

I think I'm starting to get used to the new schedule.  I remember when I had my summer internships, the whole feeling of 9 to 5 Monday through Friday.  There's really no break from the pattern.  The good thing is that when its the weekend, I don't have to worry about homework or exams or anything, work can stay at work.  So its a trade off from college.  It kind of stinks that I probably won't be able to make it out to AZ over Michigan's spring break to visit Dane.  Vacation days are limited.

I'm pretty bummed that I didn't get out to Ann Arbor this weekend but if the roads were anywhere as icy as my driveway was, it would have been a tough trek.  I know I will be out there the first weekend of April but there might be some time in between there that I come out, we'll see.

There's a bunch of things I've been meaning to do over the weekends, but once the weekend comes I forget to do all those things.  I think I need one more day, tomorrow's not good because of the Bear's game.  Hm, maybe next weekend.

Another thing I was thinking about today, Summer.  The sun's out until 9:30 and stuff.  What a great season.  Just get on your bike and ride wherever for however long.  I can't wait to kick back and relax on a Friday/Saturday evening.  I'm pretty sure that I want to have my own place by the time it starts to get warm.

Does anyone remember Loopin' Louie?

Here's to weekends,

Chin

"They couldn't stop a nosebleed!"

I've decided to change my blog posting methods.  I'm going to only tell notable stories, otherwise its just going to be, "I went to work blah blah".  The rest of my writing will consist of thoughts...thoughts of a software engineer.

Bears won today, its only the second time that the packers/bears will face each other in the playoffs and the first time they will face off to see who goes to the Super Bowl.  Tickets are reportedly going to go for $2,000-ish...Demn!

So thoughts, hmmm...I wonder how long I should work at this job until I start pushing the less professional things.  Example, when can I start using headphones to listen to music, you all know that I usually study with music.  Or, when can I start wearing different clothes than slacks and a nice dress shirt.  I want to expand my wardrobe, maybe some polos.  Also, I've been finishing my coffee before I get into work, I felt like it would be a bad thing to show up with coffee in the first week, kind of like saying, "Well, I'll need this to stay engaged in any projects!"

I just heard my shout out on Mike O's new mixtape! Tracks called Gee Whiz, I'm at the end, yeaaaa!  Will he be around next weekend by the way?  Ah, feel-ING tempted to go back out there...Demn!

Here's to the Monsters of the Midway,

Cheen!

PS...giving more thumbs ups has been a great NYE resolution so far

"The Faster you Fall Behind..."

"The Longer you have to Catch Up".

A terrible mantra to live by, I thought it was pretty clever.

The first two days of work have been pretty good.  Yesterday was filled with paperwork to establish myself as a worker there; confidentiality agreements, healthcare, and W-4 forms etc...At the end of the workday, my boss gave me the information on the first project.  I'm working on a wireless gaming headset for an Xbox 360.  It's pretty well developed already but it will be a good place for me to get familiar with the technology and stuff.

Today at work was a little different.  I got to test the equipment out.  That meant playing about an hour of Halo with a coworker using another Xbox in another room.  Pretty cool stuff, the headphones I'm working on are here. Nice!  Anyways, after lunch, we discovered some bad news about one of the workers.  It made the entire afternoon pretty sad and it was really quiet in the office.

I'm pretty excited about the new job but at the same time I'm excited for the weekend, my mom has an indoor pool at her apartment so I might head over there with some friends.  Whether or not I head back to Ann Arbor next weekend remains to be seen.

Cass-eyes!

Here's to videogames at work,

Chin

As I wait...

As I wait for my computer to finish installing Visual Basic so I can do some programming before Wednesday, I find myself with some time to write.  First off, this installation is so complicated and I really hope that once I start work on Wednesday I'll feel confident with my programming abilities.  Just doing this installation reminds me a bit of why I chose to minimize the amount of programming classes I took at school.

This weekend was awesome.  Ann Arbor was a great time once again.  My first night in town I got to see almost everyone I wanted to.  Sweeney and I started off by going to Packard Pub for dinner where we ran into coach Fred.  He bought us our first round of beers.  Eventually, Lizzie and Terpak came too.  It was funny because Sweeney ordered Lizzie some wine even though a) she's not 21 and b) her XC coach had just talked to her earlier in the day about how she goes out too much.  Then our stupid waitress brought the wine out while Fred was visiting us at our table.  So all Fred sees is Lizzie getting this glass of wine placed in front of her.  Hopefully he didn't tell Lizzie's coach.  After pub, we went to Sweeney's for some beers.  Then Ricky, Terp, Sweeney and I went to Charley's with Bp and some of her friends.  No one was really there so we to go to Blue Lep.  For some reason we didn't go in and I split up with the group to meet up with Cassie at the Jug with a bunch of her friends.  Sackllah was there so we talked for a little.  I left after a little to meet up with Sweeney and Co. at Cantina.  Then Uzi came by and picked me up and we went to Rush Street with him and Matt Perez.  We stayed there for a little bit and then went to Taco Bell then back to Uzi's.  I eventually walked back to hotel Arch to sleep.

The next day we went to the Eastern Invitational.  Cassie eventually came and her and I went to find a coffee place in downtown Ypsi.  Bad choice.  Any and all restaurants/cafes/anything with food were closed for some reason.  There were a lot of other places open but none of them had coffee.  So we headed back to the Union at Eastern and got some cheap coffee there.  Pregaming in jerseys was tons of fun that night.  Eventually, Fulton showed up with some friends from Novi.  I ended up taking them to Rick's where, conveniently, the rest of the group was.  We all danced and actually, I think that's the longest time I have ever spent at Rick's, Niccce!  I walked home with Fulton and Co. and they had a DD to take them back to Novi so I helped them get situated with their car and everything then I headed back to Arch.

I woke up, felt great, Sweeney brought Ricky and I breakfast in bed, watched some TV and I headed home.  I have a list of things to do before I start work on Wednesday, we'll see if I can get it all done.  This stupid VB installer is taking way longer than I expected.

Here's to Hotel Arch,

Chin

2 Most important things

I write this bearing great news! I got a job! The company I interviewed with about a month ago, Delta Mobile, has offered me a position that will last a minimum of 6 months and has a chance to go on longer if I impress them enough.  I start January 12th.  I think the CEO, Boon, really likes me because although I didn't do well on the technical interview, he had called me various times since that interview to pick my mind on my thoughts on the company.  So last Thursday I drove about 30 minutes to their Schaumburg office to talk with him again.  In the discussion, he stressed that of good traits to have, the 2 most important things to him were:
1. Discipline - meaning good time management and punctuality.
2. Problem Solving - Basically, the job of any engineer.
So, it seems that he understands that I may not know EVERYTHING about programming, but he knows I am willing to learn, even though I think my hiring will be against the wishes of some in the office, I will set to prove them wrong.  Yes, the job is programming but I think I will enjoy the job more than the classes from school.  Plus, I will still get to do some analog design, my focus at school, at this job.

Cool thing is that I got the official offer letter while beginning the pregame for NYE at Anderson's condo.  That put me in a great mood and guaranteed a great night.  Ricky, Anderson, Jackie and I went got to the condo around 4(?).  Then, shortly after the condo filled up with mostly Jackie's gf's from Butler and their bf's, Cassie and Co. showed up.  Maria, Jaffe, Kara, Alicia, Mike D. and Killer really packed out the condo.  Around 9:15 we headed out to RiNo to capitalize on their 9-1 open bar that we bought tix to.  I stuck with beer most of the night and was happy about the choice.  It was fun dancing all around and socializing.  It was special experiencing the midnight countdown having missed it the past two years, even though it was very abrupt and a lot of people missed it.  Around 1:30 a lot of our group headed back to the condo.  Cassie and Co. split so fast, I didn't even know they left.  Then Anderson, Miles (his buddy from Purdue) and I walked back to the condo, which was full of all those Butler couples.  I ended up going back out by myself for a little.  I walked northwards but I didn't find anything that caught my eye.  I feel like NYE is a prime time for couples and Chicago also has a lot of couples.  It's not like I was looking for a random girl or anything, but most people I saw were wifed up and headed back to whatever their home for the night was.  I was also talking with Steph K. who was downtown, but really far north, and in my state I figured I could walk north to wish her a happy new year.  Luckily, I realized the walk would take about 1.5 hours and one of her friends called me and told me Steph was in a pretty bad way.  So I turned around after about a 30 minutes and walked back to the condo.  I ended up sleeping on the marble floor hallway and used the doormat as my bed, pillow and protection from the crazy million MPH draft coming under the door.  I didn't sleep to well that night.

Rickayyyy!

The next morning Ricky and I made our way to Duffy's for the Michigan shalacking. Everyone was having a great time though and I did too once I got my reuben sandwich.  I think Cassie wants to do the city living thing at least once in her life, haha.

I'm in that writing mode right now, but I need to get some sleep tonight because I'm going snowboarding tomorrow in Wisconsin.  I asked Steph K to go and now she's coming too.  So its Ron, Maya, Steph, Trent, Steph K, and me.  I must say I'm impressed by Steph K's spontaneity, great choice!

I'll be writing again soon I'm sure.

Here's to the big break that finally came,

Chin