A month a half ago, I drove home with my first new car ever; it was a Volkswagen GTI. I wanted to share my impressions of all the vehicles I looked at and, hopefully, offer some insight to other new buyers through my own experience. The process started late last year when I received my first lesson on driving stick shift from my uncle and culminated in me driving home my GTI over the Memorial Day weekend.
I’m skipping the April Fool’s shenanigans this year in favor of regular content. Here’s a quick summary of a what I’ve been up to recently.
I’ve cancelled my subscription to the World of Warcraft. Blizzard’s take on the MMO was a refreshing break from the pack in the beginning. Though the game opens strong and holds interest through hundreds of hours of play time, it loses momentum at the end game. I watched the disturbing spiral of a once-strong guild hemorrhaging members as players scrambled to stay interested with life after 60. I’ll add more on my experience later.
Barco sent me to Washington D.C. on business. It was only my second time in the capitol, though I expect another opportunity in the near future. A smooth demo Monday morning freed up time for sight-seeing Monday night. I enlisted the help of friend and local, Jane, who proved to be an excellent guide. (Many thanks!) Dinner at the Raku Asian diner in Bethesda and a comprehensive night-time tour of historic downtown rounded out a very pleasant evening.
With tax season in full gear, I decided to file electronically for the first time this year. For all the IRS, Intuit, and the like are preaching the benefits of e-filing, I wasn’t impressed with the experience. After the $30 fee to TurboTax and extra follow-up paperwork, I feel like conventional filing remains a better value.
Mom and Dad both celebrate birthdays within a week of each other in March, so I took the opportunity to pay them visit. I treated everyone to a nice dinner at a local favorite, La Bamba, in honor of the occasion. We also took time to renew old Cribbage fueds and discuss plans for a summer trip to Vancouver.
The fourth installment of the Elder Scrolls series, Oblivion, was released in late March. After a solid week with the game in hand, I’m confident that the game lives up to its pedigree. Bethesda has successfully enhanced and streamlined almost every facet of the game. Now, if they could only do something about those ugly faces in character generation.
That’s all for now. See you again soon.
My little cousin officially becomes a man today. We’ve been unusually close growing up, more like brothers than distant relatives. (We certainly used to fight like siblings.) I hope you’ve learned as much from me as I have from you over the past 18 years. Now go off and enjoy your college years, you Hokie!
We gathered in Walled Lake, Michigan, on the Links at Pinewood to see Lesa Koslakiewicz and Amit Chopra join hands in marriage. It was a very nice wedding. The two make a very cute couple.
Unfortunately, I only managed to get a couple good shots out of our digital before the batteries went out. Enjoy.
I attended the 12th Annual CS/CmpE Career Fair at Georgia Tech this past Wednesday. Over 40 companies attended the event, which was hosted in the Student Center Ballroom. I spent several days before the event researching each company and deciding whether or not I was interested in talking to them. I talked to representatives from 14 companies (see list below), asking about their business, who they were looking for, and how I might fit in. I gave my resume to most of the companies I talked to. Most said that I should hear something within a couple weeks.
One company stood out in particular. Lutron Electronics, which I have already talked about in my blog, describes their business as a very hands-on environment in which every engineer gets to participate in any aspect of the design process they wish to take on. It strikes me as a very different mentality than that of most companies and it’s ultimately what attracted me to Lutron. Within hours of the career fair, an engineer who I had talked to at the fair called me up and invited me to a group dinner that night and an interview the next day.
I accepted, of course, and we (two Lutron engineers and three other potential employees) all met at Uncle Julio’s Casa Grande on Peachtree Road for some delicious Mexican food and banter about life at Lutron. It was a very enjoyable evening and I’m glad that I went. I had my interview the next morning with one of the same engineers (also a fellow Georgia Tech alumnus) from the dinner. I was queried briefly about my interest in Lutron before I presented with a series of problems related to circuits and embedded systems. I handled the problems fairly well, with a little coaxing here and there as necessary from the interviewer. Again, I was informed that I could expect further communication within a couple weeks. I do hope I hear more because it’s quite an interesting company.
