After spending a day and a half in Cincinnati, I’m back to Illinois.
Please… no more driving. For a little while? Heh.
Excited? You betcha. A new MacBook Pro waiting for me in less than 12 hours… I kid. I’m very excited about what I’ll be getting to do for NCSA. I got a taste of it after I had a lunch meeting with them this past Monday. This first week’s probably going to be spent on getting acquainted with the system, as well as mounds of paperwork. Delicious paperwork.
I still haven’t fully unpacked. Too much space equals not enough limits on where the furniture can go. Still have little corners of the apartments that I must clean partially due to my OCD-ness.
What else is on my mind…
After 1.1.1, my iPhone is much more unstable than before. I don’t get it. I’ve had it “crash” on me a couple times after the update, quitting out to the home screen from whatever I was doing. I’ve had it get really hot which I can only blame it still looking for a wifi source that didn’t exist (it didn’t disconnect properly or something). I hope it was just a bad string of errors.
Still looking for a new set of headphones and a lighter mp3 player to run/work out with. The iPod shuffle seems kinda expensive for what I want to do… but we’ll see…
Lots of electronic purchases, hopefully, in the future. Lots to do in this upcoming month… I feel like I’m back to some semblance of sanity. I’ll be back to doing my Month in Reviews, and continuing to blog personal as well as technical.
Mind ready. Goals set. Headfirst go.
For those who want the facts, quick and to the point:
- I have given my two weeks notice at MoCo, Inc here in Minneapolis, MN.
- I have a job as a Research Programmer at NCSA, in Urbana, Illinois.
- Putting two and two together, you get four. Also, a lovely return trip to Champaign in two weeks.
- Looking for housing until I find an apartment… anyone? I’ll… do some stuff for you… Cook/clean? Large wads of cash?
- I hope to squeeze in a visit to Cincinnati before starting work, to visit family and friends, as well as pick up more of my junk. (Books, books, and more books.)
- There is no strict date as to when I start the Research Programmer position.
- I have bought the iPhone, after the price cut of the year. It’s definitely the best gadget-y device I’ve ever owned. It’s got it’s problems though.
- Starting next month, the monthly reviews will return. I’m pretty sure things will finally become more settled down.
- I’m suffering from pain in my left wrist. I have a feeling it’s carpal tunnel. Will need to find a doctor soon… but insurance doesn’t kick it until… I start the new job. Wee.
- The reason for the “Crap crap crap crap” post was definitely due to the job situation. Hopefully that clears up a few things.
Quickie on the iPhone
As expected, most of this weekend was spent on tweaking and messing around with the iPhone. Definitely a treat for the UI-inclined nerd I am.
- I love how the phone vibrates/makes a sound when I get any email or text. It’s another way of being notified. Growl is good, but this is much sleeker; having a physical feedback. Now if someone could hack it to display some other data while it’s plugged in, like a dashboard of sorts for everything, rather than having to click on things: A quick summary of everything you need to know.
- I love having a third screen now that occupies my desk. The screen usage varies from having my email up to listening to music.
- I don’t like the UI inconsistencies that are all over the place. Oh, it’s much much more put together than any cellphones out there, but for a phone that’s been dubbed the “JesusPhone”, I expected more. But alas, human engineering can only go so far… I’ll probably write more on this as things annoy the crap out of me more and more.
- Every time I see this phone, I feel like it’s getting smaller and smaller. I’m not sure why. It’s the darn designers at Apple… they somehow made the thing seem feel smaller with each use. It seems that the iPhone got a bit of the Reality Distortion Field from Jobs.
- The phone portion of the iPhone is great. Calls are clear, and I get more bars than my Samsung phone from where I live. No more running outside for phone calls.
I need to get better at this content creation thing. I set my standard for an actual post so high that I can never really write one from start to finish. Sorry, but you’re going to get another retarded personal entry.
Yes. So this is indeed my vacation #1 of 2007. Coming to Cincinnati was definitely the right thing to do… seeing friends… rethinking the future… almost a career “retreat”. Anyway, here comes the meat.
Truth be told, I don’t normally choose to be a jerk. But I think what happened with this project that Alex and Chris had, wigdets… I wanted the project to be something more… more than what it was. I actually wasn’t too sure of the project to begin with, and one of the main reasons for coming on board was just to be a part of a project that friends would partake in. I had a wonderful time the one meeting I got to sit down with the founders of the project, as I heard about their motivations in structuring this project. I was, at one time, excited at what it had to offer.
But… I’m not really sure what happened, but I lost interest. Fast. The things that I was going to do for the project… I never really followed through. I guess I could partially blame laziness for this one, but I have a feeling that there was a larger issue at play: wigdets wasn’t my project. I never felt like I could be at equal with these other guys. Also, wigdets wasn’t something I conceived. Heck, I didn’t fully understand the technologies required to build such a system, nor did I feel comfortable enough to preach on the features of the system.
I apologize publicly that I didn’t come to this realization fast enough. But I have a feeling, Chris and Alex are and will be okay without me.
As for me, the game is afoot. I’m glad I’m learning a bit more about myself…
Tomorrow is another day. Rock rock rock.
This is definitely not the post I wanted to make. I’m still writing a post on why home doesn’t feel like home anymore… but I was sidetracked with one heck of a fun night with the Nerds here in Cincinnati. Nerdworld 2007, as Argo so affectionately called it. And man… it was definitely a world of nerds (But I don’t think we should start calling it that… that’s kinda… nerdy… oh… wow… supressing… recursive… joke…). There was the obligatory video gaming (brought to you by the Wii), then some Mega Monopoly (yeap, I lost… and I’m going to say it again: I had no chance of winning when I started). But this time, things were a little different. We had a full blown discussion on technology and start-ups for a couple of hours. I’d say about 2 and a half hours or so on subjects from YouTube clips to DirectX 10 (which I was happily not a part of) to career choices. I think this might be the record time spent on talking about some serious topics. Alas, in the end, the entire thing just broke down to watching clips of SNL Digital Shorts and listening to Weird Al. Wow… okay, next paragraph.
I’m not sure why I didn’t see this before, but everyone, except me, are graduates of Miami; one with a Masters in CS, and the other three with BS’s in CS. I wonder how things would have turned out if I didn’t step out of state to go to UIUC and if I stuck with CS. I’m much to tired to even start thinking about the possibilities…
In all seriousness, though, I’m beginning to believe that there are even more people in my group of friends that would want to join me in my quest to shape the world. I guess I don’t really have to venture out too far to find the right “team”.
Lots to think and pray about. Hmm…
And yes. I’m trying to keep that daily post promise. It really freaking is 4:10 AM… oh geez. I swear… I made some horrible spelling and grammatical mistakes the first time through this post.
Recent Comments