| Breaking my vow of silence |
[Nov. 5th, 2008|11:27 am] |
I haven't posted in nearly 4 years, last post was Nov. 26 2004, but I just wanted to say how happy I am that Barrack Obama won. Thanks to Livejournal, I have undeniable proof that I have been rooting for him to be president since the 2004 democratic convention: http://billtsalamander.livejournal.com/10340.html HooooooorrrrrAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!! My guy finally won!!!!
And boo on prop 8. Luckily, it can be undone with another vote in 2 years. I believe this will go to the highest court in the nation, but not until after several justices retire and Obama installs new ones.
Barrack Obama 2012! |
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| "She doesn't have enough ... excess courage." "You mean she needs to yell louder?" "Yeah" |
[Nov. 26th, 2004|12:40 am] |
After a week of adventure in the lands of LA and San Diego, I'm back just in time for turkey. This was my third trip to SD since may, but I needed to go because after tuesday I will have three weeks vacation per year with my new job. The last hurrah in a sense.
At this point most of my SD friends have graduated and have either gone on to become working stiffs, gone to graduate school, or at least attempted some combination of the two. All of the girls have run away to LA while all of the the guys have stuck around SD (or have come up to the bay area but, needless to say, I wasn't visiting them). The LA portion of the trip was a dense packing of visits, 4 beautiful girls in two days; it would have been five girls but coordinating commuting was a little too complicated. Karen picked me up at the airport, we went out to lunch, and then checked out her house before she had to dump me off before her work. I then road the rails down to Long Beach to see Dana. The plan was for me to come back from long beach that night and stay at my aunt and uncle's in hollywood, but plans changed such that I'd crash at Dana's that night so we could hang out more. Little did I know she snores like a backfiring chainsaw, but I still love her.
The following day I arrived at my aunt's, some funky little film was being made across the street, and slept until almost 2pm, catching up on the sleep I'd missed the night before. My uncle, discovering I was in the house, seized the opportunity to draft me as a hiking buddy. We hiked up past the observatory and the HOLLYWOOD sign to what I'm sure would have been an indescribable view before the invention of smog. That evening I met up with 'Bel and Steph for dinner. We had had dreams of going to some nice place Bel knows in Van Nuys, but they'd already driven from UCLA to Hollywood and were about to explode. We ended up at an "Original Tommy's", which, ironically enough, was not the Original Tommy's, because that is several miles away from where we were. Tommy's claim to fame is taking perfectly benign fast food and dumping copious amounts of spicy chili on top. Chili burgers, chili dogs, chili fries, and of course chili, are the most popular items on the 4 item menu. This was deemed satisfactory, amazingly enough, and so we dug in, having fun pointing at the dudes three tables over hastily chowing down with their filming equipment in hand.
The begining of my trip to SD was fairly exciting. I went to an Eijitsu (I'd be shocked if I spelled that right) competition. 6 hours of many muscular guys, and one muscular woman, brutally slashing apart defenseless straw mats. My favorite part of the competition was watching how people demonstrated their "excess courage". The idea in any event was for the competitor to build up all of his energy, release it through some very precise sword cutting movement, and then release the "excess courage". I quickly learned that this meant yelling ... very loudly. They had all converged on specific yells that came in a particular sequence. I managed to make Mark have a fit of giggles as I added comments to peoples' demonstrations, treating the yells as responses. "Hey dude?" "AAAYYYYY????" "Want a beer?" "YAAAAAAAA!!!" That day ended with a fantastic night of dancing with the dance club where I got to see a whole lot of my friends that I thought would have all moved away.
Another event in the week was the meeting of many of the nerds of Dan's website. We hit a near-critical mass of shear dorkitude as we met at the glorious Summit cafeteria in order to accomodate fellow nerds working there. We discussed such topics as belch machines, undergrad TA-ships, band competitions, puppets, cheesy independent films and our associations with them, and robots designed to hit people in the crotch. These debates frequently drew furtive glances from people at neighboring tables which were returned with smiles and nods. Good times were had by all.
The rest of my week consisted of extended trips to the beach, visits around campus, and visits with my old roomates, except Peter because he's up here. I'm happy to say that the working world has not made Dan or Brian any more normal than they ever were. Weirdness is still a well-honed skill at their house as it was at the apartment, though filth has not overtaken the house to the point of becoming an elaborate interior decorating style as it did in our apartment ... yet. There is some possibility that my job will give me the opportunity for business trips to La Jolla, so I'll be keeping tabs on their progress.
I move in to my new apartment this weekend and start work on tuesday. I am very excited, nervous, and generally distracted by the thought of it. I'll have news about it soon. |
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| "Do you believe in ghosts, eh?" - Undead hobo (Polar Express) |
[Nov. 15th, 2004|11:27 pm] |
Well, not much has been going on in the past week for me. This coming week I'm going to visit LA and San Diego. I will be at the dance on Sunday, so everybody be there! And anybody in LA who wants to see me but hasn't heard from me, I still want to see you. Given that I have no big news from my life, I'm just gonna post my review of the Polar Express, which I also posted on Dan's website.
Today Peter and I witnessed what is sure to represent the future of all cinema: The Polar Express (The IMAX 3D Experience). Reportedly costing 270 million dollars, or roughly $2000 per frame ($1000 per frame if you count the double images for 3D IMAX), this was definitely a visual experience. In this film Tom Hanks plays a train conductor, a small boy, Santa, an undead hobo, and a demonic marionette puppet.
Based on the book of the same name published in 1985, the film holds true to the book ... so much as the book had content, the other 100 minutes were filler. I was only 5 when I was first, and possibly last, read the book so I can't remember much to the story, but I would have thought I would have remembered endless rollercoasters. The four rollercoaster scenes I remember are, in order, a swooping flight through mountains and canyons following a young child's train ticket in the wind, a young child and an undead hobo skiing on top of the train, two children and the conductor strapped to the cow-catcher on the front of the train as it falls down a "170 percent grade" (which would be inverted by my mental math, am I wrong?), and two normal children and a creepy autistic kid sliding through the endless tunnels and tubes of Santa's workshop (A la Toy Story 2's airport backage system or Monsters Inc's closet door warehouse). In their defense, while cheap, repetitive, and unimaginative, these scenes were absolutely stunning in 3D on an IMAX screen.
Much has been said of the motion capture system used for the film. Being the effects nerd that I am, this made me hypersensitive to facial expressions and gestures that I probably would have cut the film slack for otherwise. Most of the characters were beautifully emotive, subtle nuances came through very well. Given this quality in several characters, it was apparently decided that most characters would not need to be expressive in any way whatsoever. Peter didn't notice these guys, but I was downright frightened of the waiters on the train. In one sensory overload dance number these characters danced wildly. Fantastic gestures and body movements were captured, but their faces were cold, dead, and lifeless. They didn't move or change at all, like holloween masks or something.
Another bizarre technical decision for the motion capture system was to track the facial expressions exactly. Given that Hanks played everything from Santa to an 8 year old boy to a demonic marionette, the shapes of the characters faces was going to vary significantly. To aid the motion capture, I'm discerning from the credits, they put Hanks in prosthetic makeup. That's absolutely brilliant, because we all know how every nuance of an actors facial expressions translates out through foam and latex.
The elves were ... numerous. In addition to building Santa's toys, they also man the spy cameras watching all the sleeping children, execute expert skydiving stunts, and perform rescue missions with bungee cords. Oh, and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith has a cameo in the movie as a rock-singer elf. And Peter wanted me to mention that none of the elves in the movie (and there were thousands) were female, yet once Steven Tyler began singing magically half of the elves had grown boobs and were now dancing with the elves that had not metamorphosized. I guess elves are like frogs, able to change their gender if the balance in the population becomes too one-sided.
Oh, and the elves speak yiddish. I was the only person in the theater who found this hilarious.
Is it worth seeing? If you can see it in 3D on an IMAX screen, hell yes.
Did it reinvigorate my Christmas spirit? Let me tell ya, when Santa motioned to the boy to come sit on the sleigh, just before he gives the boy the bell, the darling little girl behind Peter and me expressed the exact emotion I'm sure we were all feeling. "Why?!", she cried, sounding distressed, as Santa's 3D mittened hand extended out of the screen and motioned us all towards him.
Will it become a timeless classic? Well, the most developped, expressive, and interesting character in the film is an undead hobo that skis on top of the train while drinking a disturbingly viscous "Cup o' Joe", so you be the judge. |
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| I already done did my business and I don' need anybody to help me do it - A Floridean |
[Nov. 8th, 2004|10:46 pm] |
Back again, I have been having exciting weeks filled with planning and preparation. My writing is at its most prolific when I have no news and not much to say, which is when I have enough time to process little things and find them silly. Things are really quite well with me, which has led to much running around with no news.
Firstly, though least importantly, I've completed a journal article with a friend of mine at Cal. The irony in the situation, of course, is that I finished my degree at UC Berkeley in August. The further irony is that the paper is to be published in a computer science journal. None of my degrees are in computer science. I won't even try to go into what the paper was about because 1)its kinda boring, and 2) even a rocket scientist would find it confusing when described in less than 8 pages (I know because I asked one to read it). My friend and his advisor both came down with wrist injuries from waiting until the last minute on posters for a conference over the summer, so they asked me to help out, at the last minute of course, coding and writing for them because they were both "crippled by [their] hands." It was a fun project, involved using really really awsome graphics cards donated by NVidia. We could have been playing some seriously awsome video games with those things, but sadly we were running Linux. The stuff we made looked really pretty, though. This project took up much of my life for several weeks and came to a thrilling conclusion at 10:30pm last monday, an hour and a half shy of the final deadline.
Secondly, and actually of importance, I have a accepted a job with Lockheed Martin designing and testing robots for construction of space stations in outer space. The project is affiliated with NASA, and JPL too I think, so its like I actually got the job I interviewed for many months ago, except I won't have to move to LA to do it. This is a non-military project, non-classified, so I won't have to worry about polygraphs or risk being tried for treason for telling anyone about my job (I'm dead serious). I like that fact. That and the project and people seem very very cool.
I'll be moving to Palo Alto within a couple weeks so everybody should come visit me. Well, my job is in Palo Alto, basically across the street from Stanford, but I'll technically be living in Sunnyvale. I'm moving into an apartment that is reasonably priced by La Jolla standards. I'm paying over 50% more than Darrick in Portland for an apartment that's half the size. But that's ok, I'm in the huppiest complex in town, though most definitely not the most expensive. The apartments are in a redwood grove, there are 3 swimming pools, 4 tennis courts, two large ponds, a theater, a billiard hall, and a large hot-tub.
I actually know very little about the job except that it looks cool. I know the robots are cool, I saw those. I don't really know what my job is though. I'm gonna be in the lab "being hands-on", but I'm also gonna be behind a desk doing "analysis". Analysis of what? I don't know. I think I'm gonna get my own office, everyone I saw in my lab had his own office. Yes "his", no women anywhere that I saw. But my cousin does ballet at Stanford so I should be able to interact with women my age one way or another.
Its all very exciting, scary, and very very distracting. I should have more news as it comes along. |
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| I broke the Phantom arm. |
[Oct. 24th, 2004|12:52 am] |
Well, in case anyone has wondered if I died in the past two weeks, I didn't. I have become deeply entrenched in the world of job interviews. Let me say again in case people haven't heard me say it, career fairs work. They really really work. They work so well that you can find yourself having an interview of some sort, phone or in person, nearly every day for over two weeks. But, so that I don't jinx any of these interviews, I'm not going to be saying anything about them. Actually that's bull, I'm just tired of telling the stories and would rather wait until I know what all my offers are to tell more on that topic. Instead I wish to recount the tale RoboNexus!
RoboNexus, http://www.robonexus.com/ , at a first glance appears to be a business conference for the world of robotics, but it is so much more! Well, actually that's about all it is, but apparently craploads of people thought it would be something more. Apparently the conference was presented on television as being a really really cool event perfect for small children by the illustrious KRON4, the local news show which otherwise covers such gripping stories as indian casino updates and squirrel sightings. Lets get one thing straight, robots are only cool to a very small audience, not the general public. The families that arrived expecting lots of exciting things to see were sadly misinformed; only nerds like me would really want to go to anything like this.
Robots are slow, ponderous, and generally uninteresting. iRobot's vacuum cleaner is cool from an algorithm perspective, very cool algorithms for spatial mapping, but most people don't understand or care about that. Otherwise its a what you'd get if a hoover and a remote control car mated, strange to look at and dancing the line between practical and interesting, yet being neither. To watch the Roomba navigate around a room is a lot like watching my aunt's blind dog navigate a room; it goes in a straight line until it bumps into something, lurches backwards and shakes awkwardly while regaining its bearings, turns, and then continues. In the event that any food crumbs are found on the floor, they will be sucked up with great haste and then an odd search of the nearby area for precious more crumbs ensues. There is a robot lawnmower out there too with similar object avoidance ability. Basically it cruises on the lawn until it bumps into a dog turd, nagivates around the turd, and then continues. Within several days you are left with a putting-green lawn with random high grass tufts, each marking the location of a unique "present" from little fluffy.
One of the main events of the conference was the hourly performance of HRP-2, http://www.kawada.co.jp/global/ams/hrp_2.html . HRP-2 is an incredibly impressive machine. She stands about 5 feet tall and walks almost as well as my ninety year old grandfather. While she may not be the best walker out there, she beats me at yoga. Her apparent claim to fame is the ability to take punch to the gut, fall on her butt, and then get up. Remembering elementary school, I know that last part is a difficult challenge. In the event that someone has placed a "kick me" sign on her butt and she has fallen face down, she first assumes the yoga pose "downward dog", transitions into a squat, and then lifts from the knees. After about ten minutes she needs a 45 minute battery recharge. I'm so glad we progressed to the point where we don't need to push over and bully nerds for entertainment, we now have robots we can do that to instead.
Another big event of the day was the Tetsujin Bionic Weight Lifting competition. The basic concept is to build a machine which will aid an individual in a standard weight lifting competition. While incredibly slow as competitions go, roughly 30 minutes to set up each lift, this had many of the most exciting moments of the conference. Since Battlebots got canceled from Comedy Central there have been many nerds left with no outlet for their nerdliness. Tetsujin is where many have gone for their fix. One group, who I recall having built that weird yellow claw/double hammer/wedge thing for Battlebots, brought this nifty, though poorly balanced, motorized scissor-jack device. The team decided to start with a modest 650 pounds to lift. The human lifter got the bar a good 4 feet off the ground before there was heard a disconcerting "clunk", the bar came slamming to the ground, and the lifter was physically hurled out of his suit as it swung forward from the force of the falling weights. The team decided that that was a definite success and upped the weight to 850lbs, resulting in similar success. Later in the day I believe a team lifted 1000lbs, though I couldn't hear well from where I was in the convention center. All I know is I saw a significant amount of smoke coming off of the power packs on the lifter's back, and then heard a delightful crash of falling weights.
All in all I had a pretty good day. It was exactly my kind of fun. There were many parents with small kids there that seemed confused and out of place, but that's ok. The parents are lost, but the children are our future. |
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| "... or blackmailable sexual activity ... " Lockhead Martin polygraph release |
[Oct. 7th, 2004|02:24 am] |
I will be in San Jose for a day and a half interview with Lockhead tomorrow and then, hopefully, in LA on monday for an interview with Disney. Disney has been rescheduled once so maybe that will get postponed. Lockhead has sent me over 10 reminder letters, emails, and phone calls about their interview so I'm pretty sure that one is gonna happen as scheduled. I'll give a complete update after I come back.
Good thing I will have done something by then, 'cause I haven't been doing squat in the past week. |
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| Would you be willing to take a polygraph? - Lockhead representative |
[Oct. 1st, 2004|11:28 pm] |
Job hunting is very very strange. Its much stranger than I ever imagined. Basically you wait around for months thinking that nobody but nobody gives a flying turd about you and your fancy-shmancy "resume" and then suddenly everyone decides to call you at the exact same time and always on your cellphone.
"Hi is this Greg Burton? I'm adbfasdf ghfuogjio from asldfasdfui, glad I could reach you. Is this a good time?"
"Gah, well, um, I'm in my car driving down the freeway with coffee in my hand steering with my left knee, but sure this is a good time."
And then they ask you questions which you're never prepared for despite having heard them 50 times.
"So, Greg, would you say you prefer working in large groups, working in small groups, or do you prefer working by yourself avoiding all those other annoying people?"
"Well, um, that depends, um. By 'large' do you mean bigger than a bread box?"
Sometimes you get really energetic interviewers that would make latrine cleaning sound like an awsome job, and sometimes you get people that really seem like they need a hug desparately. I interviewed at one company this week that had really boomed big in the dotcom boom and they busted equally big during the dotcom bust. What once was a company of 300 employees is now a recovering company of 50. Each of my three interviewers felt a need, whether I told them I'd heard the story already or not, to drift off into a 15 minute stroll down memory lane only to trip and drown in the river of dispair. Eventually some look from me would bring them back to the present, always with the phrase "yeah ... but we really think things are picking up again. ... So, tell me a little about yourself."
Similar to the cellphone issue is the strange timing of onsite interviews. Its always "Well, you know what? We're definitely gonna wanna bring you in for an onsite interview. I'll have my secretary contact you in a couple days and probably bring you in sometime in the next two weeks or so" and then an email or phone call the next day with "Hi, Greg, would 2pm tomorrow be good for you?"
Disney Imagineering HR was startled by my reaction "You want me in Glendale tomorrow?" "What? No no, this will be a phone interview. We wouldn't give you that little notice on an onsite interview." To which I have to say, "Oh good, glad to hear it. I have had companies do that to me, though, give me one day notice." But its too late, now you sound retarded.
My current status is I'm interviewing with a company 5 minutes from my house (yes its 8 times closer than Cal is to my house), a company in Alberquerue, one in Livermore, and two in LA. The berkeley company is in semiconductors, the LA ones are animatronic characters for film and theme parks, and the other two are into advanced weaponry, not limited to nuclear weapons. Needless to say, I'm hoping for the animatronics companies. One has told me that I'm "definitely one of the people [they] want to have" but that they are still negotiating contracts before they do any hiring. The other is flying me in for an interview.
Well, as I said I had written a whole long update but it got ate by my computer. I swear that one was funny, this one didn't turn out to be so much, but I've been called in for two more interviews since then. Career fairs really work people. Its all so weird. |
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| That's a really big ball you got there - overheard |
[Oct. 1st, 2004|02:29 am] |
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I had one of my long rambling updates going but it got ate by my computer. You'll all get to see something new soon. I've had three interview/phone call things about jobs in the past three days and this has left me really flaky, but the funny stories will be told! Soon! |
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| You should probably study up on this before we call you again. -Disney Imagineering |
[Sep. 23rd, 2004|01:36 am] |
Ok, so I'm hopefully gonna kill that political conversation of my previous post by writing a new inane one. I hate this administration, but I hate political discussions more. Its not because I dislike hearing different points of view, you can't learn and shouldn't believe anything that comes from only one point of view. Its that thinking about this crap gets me really frustrated and emotional; simply put it makes me sick to my stomach and ruins my mood. In case anyone was surprised by my politics, have I failed to mention that I live in Berkeley? I mean seriously, I live in the home of MoveOn.org.
But moving off those topics, what in the world did I mean by that weird "Elevate your Game" picture two posts ago? That apparently is how Qualcomm is trying to entice new recruits. I know this because they tried to recruit me at Cal's latest CAREER FAIR! I like how people at career fairs see my GPA only and don't worry whether my brains actually match those for the job. I bet this is how smart women with huge boobs feel, or maybe its completely different I really don't know.
It seems the most important thing at Qualcomm now is making a 3D graphics-capable cellphone to compete with the Nokia NGage Ear-Taco. I happen to have three inside informants at Qualcomm, but to keep their identities secret I shall only refer to them by aliases.
My informants are, respectively, Sensitive Boy, Bad Boy, and that Other Boy. Bad Boy, as you probably assumed, is the leader of the game project; he basically bosses the Other Boy around for kicks. Sensitive Boy generally hides out in a corner making McDonalds-themed ringtones, nobody knows why.
Two things intrigue me about this DF3G, Digital Force 3rd Generation. The first is that it apparently has no buttons or speaker. I mean sure, taking those things away means you can have a much larger screen, but still... I'm just saying that if my phone has no buttons or speaker I might as well be using my telepathic powers, which really have been atrophying lately.
The second intriguing thing is how cool the program on the screen looks. Sure its just cheap Poser models, but I'm still impressed. My various informants have been telling me so far that the only programs currently running on the phone are a dancing peanut in a pink-spandex jumpsuit, and a shooting gallery game written by Other Boy in which you try to shoot at a bouncing picture of Bad Boy's face. So Qualcomm has my resume, meaning that possibly all but Pretty Boy could end up being employed there. We can only hope that Pretty Boy, like that one dude from N'Sync, will be squashed into a spacesuit and blasted off into space bound for a Lonely Planet.
So what else was at the fair? Pens! Oh so many pens. And novelty tape measures. Glossy folders. More Pens! And of course, the prerequisite at all career fairs, the Benjamin Franklin bobble-head dolls. I understand the pens, I can almost understand the tape measures, but I just can't comprehend the Ben Franklin bobble-heads. Only Ratheon had these and the dude manning the booth was disturbingly excited to give them away. And people took them! Why? What? Huh? I understand being a freak for shwag, but seriously, who wants a Ben Franklin bobble-head? And what does he have to do with Ratheon? I wish I knew but he wouldn't talk to me unless I took one, and I sure wasn't gonna take one. The mystery will live on.
I also talked to Sandia National Labs. They were so excited by me that they set me up to have an "interview" the next morning. Turned out it was basically a phone-interview except in person, meaning I had to wear pants but otherwise nothing different. Because of security clearances etc. they weren't at liberty to even tell me what the job is that I am apparently applying to. At the end of the interview, though, the interviewer suddenly got really serious and asked "Do you have any reservations of any kind about working in a facility doing research and design of nuclear weapons?" That's generally not the kind of question that I expect to get when I go in for an interview. Oh how sweet and naive I still am. |
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| Are you fucking kidding me?! |
[Sep. 22nd, 2004|10:04 am] |
What the fuck is going on in the country?! I mean holy shit what the fuck is going on?! http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=762&e=1&u=/nm/20040922/en_nm/security_stevens_dc
Yeah right, Cat Stevens is a terrorist and funds terrorism. Bullshit! The man that wrote this, http://www.allspirit.co.uk/peacetrain.html , is an america-hating terrorist. No he's not you fucking assholes! He was outspoken against vietnam and his songs were part of the young peoples' rallying cry against the war! We've created a second vietnam in Iraq and the fuckwads in this administration, the hypocritical draft-dodging shits, are still pissed off at all the people that were against the first one. By doing this the administration has proven, though it was already pretty clear just from the people in Guantanamo Bay, that its not above McCarthyism either.
Honest to God, this upcomming election matters. It matters more than any election in our lifetimes. The US economy, healthcare, the world environment, and the prospect of war without end are at stake. Remember 1999 when we were all rich, improving evironmental standards, and the biggest controversy we had to think about was that a politician got a blowjob? Think about why that was, think about what kind of people were in office. This election is an intelligence test, don't fuck up. |
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| "It really comes in handy not having a gag reflex." - very odd phone conversation |
[Sep. 22nd, 2004|01:17 am] |
This past week has been an interesting adventure, as they generally are. I will give the full report tomorrow, as I seem to be running on borrowed time even though I have no job or school or any real responsibilities of any kind. Its very strange to be busy and otherwise unoccupied at the same time.
So until then I tantalize you with this cryptic picture which is very pertainant to the topic of my post to come.
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| Subject: optional |
[Sep. 14th, 2004|01:40 am] |
Its kindof amazing how much time one can end up having on his hands when unemployed. So how have I been filling my time? I'm glad you asked! Lets start back at last thursday.
Thursday: Greg Googles, Yahoos, and Laser Blasts his way through the corridors of Babylon 5.
- So long long ago there was a TV show known as Babylon 5. This is a series that I never saw, yet I gather that it was the single greatest masterpiece of television, except for seasons 1, 4, and 5, give or take. When this series was at its peak a gathering of like-minded nerds came together to see its glory, and thus Bab5 was born. Bab5 has since grown and morphed into a weekly gathering of about 30+ similar like-minded nerds, except that most have never seen an episode of the club's namesake.
The group consists of current and mostly former Cal and Stanford students. Those not currently working the salt-mines of Cal and Stanford are almost entirely employed by the various tech successes of the area, namely Google, Yahoo, and Electronic Arts. Those in school are almost entirely computer science undergrads/grads. And there's me.
This week's major topic of conversation was Burning Man. I was not surprised to learn that most of them had gone; hell, I wish I had gone and built some big mechanical flaming something. Lit my teeter-totter masters project on fire, maybe. Two people brought all of their digital pictures, of which there were hundreds. It seems that all of the imagery of Burning Man can basically be categorized in three ways: Weird Arty Things, Big Flaming Things, and Naked People. The photo show initially started with an even mix of the three, but shortly into the viewing one of the rather attractive Google girls voiced the opinion shared by everyone in the group. "Screw this, I wanna see some topless chicks!", she cried. This proclamation was met by nods of agreement from everyone watching. As an aside, I think I have a better idea why Google is so universally considered a great place to work.
Saw we saw boobs. Many many boobs. I'd say there were easily twice as many boobs in those pictures as there were people. Each naked body that appeared on the screen was met with loud cheers. "Yay!!!! Boobs!!!" But suddenly the slideshow paused.
"I don't know if I can show the next one", the presenter said.
"If its got topless chicks we grant you permission.", we replied unanimously.
"I dunno, this one's of Beatrice."
"What? I heard my name.", said Beatrice, who had been engrossed in a conversation at the other end of the room.
"I have that picture of you..."
"You have the picture?! Yeah yeah, show it show it!"
Now Beatrice is a, shall I say, full-figured gal, so we all braced for a sight. She wasn't completely naked, actually. You know those cute little chew toys for dogs, those rubber balls with lots of little rubber spikes sticking out of them? She had cut the ends off two and was using them ... well, I'll let you imagine. Suffice it to say that it was quite an image. Artistic really ... in a Burning Man kind of way.
Saturday: Greg makes the old ladies swoon
-I went out to Emeryville's famous Allegro Ballroom with a ballroom friend of mine. Allegro is an interesting place as all of the music played is fast, yet the general clientel still manages to be old. Luckily, by old I mean early old and not completely ancient like some places. All of these people can still move well. I spent much of the time dancing with my friend, a rather pretty fantastic follower.
As the evening went on I started attracting attention. This happens when you're a good dancer and you're incredibly hot. Its something I've learned to live with. But never before have I been in such high demand. Old lady after old lady saying, "Can I have the next dance? You're fantastic!" "I wanna hustle with you!" "Gimmie the next salsa!" One woman, possibly about 60 years young, just came out and said what I'm sure was really on all their minds. I was leaning back in my chair, arm draped over the back of the next seat, resting from an energetic west coast swing, when she walked up to me, looked me in the eyes, leaned over and said slowly, "I'm looking for a handsome ... young ... man."
Sunday: Greg eats a burrito for charity
-You'd have to be living under a rock, or possibly camping out on my lab's couch, not to know that this past sunday was "Schedule Every Single Major Crowd-Generating Charity Event Possible In the Middle of Golden Gate Park Day". The three major events were a bike race in which Lance Armstrong was either participating or waving from the sidelines (not really sure which), Free Opera in the Park, and a free Dave Mathews Band concert. I went to Dave Mathews. To limit crowding you needed tickets to the free concert, I got mine from my wonderful UCSD friend and former massage buddy Elaine (Thank you!).
In all sixty thousand people appeared for DMB's outdoor performance on the polo fields. The tickets were free so money for charity was raised through donations and all of the proceeds from T-shirts and food/beer. I'm not sure what the profit margin on the marijuana cookies being sold outside the gate would be, but then again I'm not sure those were going to charity; they might have been an exception. I believe the newpaper reported the concert raised one million dollars for various charities.
Elaine and I managed to park our beach blankets roughly 1/3 of the way from the stage, which is to say far enough for Dave Mathews to be a ant. Thankfully we, or at least I, had a pretty good view of one of the giant projection screens. Elaine's view was blocked by the tall old hippies just in front of us.
As soon as DMB began to play, clouds of smoke began to appear above various members of the audience. A distinctive sweet smell wafted through the air shortly thereafter. The hippies in front of us lit up about four joints during the three-hour concert. They gratiously passed the doobies around to their neighbors, but never made it all the way to us. We were, however, about 8 feet behind them and directly downwind. I don't know how much I inhaled, but 'round about the second hour that electic violin was totally talking to me.
The concert began like most concerts, an immediate standing ovation and then a shower of uncooked tortillas from the audience. Like little UFOs (or more like those silly graduation hats) they flew over the crowd, hitting others on the head and then sent back aloft by strong Ultimate Frisbee throws. Our neighbors didn't want to play along, which resulted in a pile of tortillas coming to rest on their blanket.
What happened in the last hour was just awsome, nothing funny about it. Carlos Santana showed up on stage. DMB is fantastic improv, but Santana is something else. I don't know what to say, Santana and Dave Mathews Band together are unbelievable.
What amazing adventures will I have next week? Tune in next time and find out! |
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| "Wow, look at the size of the codpiece!" "Man, that is truly massive." |
[Sep. 10th, 2004|01:59 am] |
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I have new adventures to tell but it is way too late to tell them. I will write soon, but in the mean time if you just can't live without your fix of Greg ramblings I direct you to another log that I've been moonlighting at. The great Log O' Dan has morphed and mutated into something new and strange, with the fittingly new and strange address of http://www.jaschapohlsucks.com . I'm mainly linking to Dan's site in the hopes that soon Googling Jascha Pohl will result in Dan's site being the first hit, as opposed to some weird site about experimenting with flies at the Institute of Health. I'll be back with something fun and all my own soon. Until then, have fun at Dan's. |
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| "He got a PhD for designing that chair ... yeah, I know" - Yong |
[Sep. 3rd, 2004|02:11 am] |
This one's not all that funny, but not every week gets to be a winner.
Continuing where I left off last time, because my life does generally go in chronological order, I am now a member of the educated unemployed. This is a state which suits me well, if only I could relax. "But Greg, what about JPL?" Yes, this a question that I've been getting a lot lately and justifiably. The answer, short and sweet, is that they lost the funding. They were interviewing and intending to hire based on the expectation of a larger budget, and a need to have someone on the payroll quickly to justify the budget. Unfortunately, immediately after my interview they got word that instead of being increased their budget was decreased; they have less money now than before. It would appear Bush's extraplanatary initiatives, like his No Child Left Behind, are nice ideas with negative funding. I don't know that for sure (with regard to no child left behind I do) but it feels that way and I like having someone I already dislike be a target for my frustration. But they made it fairly clear that they would have hired me if they had funding, so my self esteem hasn't been tarnished. So that's that about that topic.
"What's it like being 'The Master'?" Well, it is a pretty sweet deal. You get to walk around with pride knowing "I don't have to take any more classes! I don't have to do any more homework! I don't have to wake up before noon!" Now, as I said last time, I'm still lurking around the darkened hallways in the name of helping my adviser. So far this week, though, I haven't done anything for my adviser in favor of scoping out possible companies to apply to and depriving others of their education by dropping in and chatting for hours.
The latest development from getting my masters is increasing pressure from my officemates to get the hell out. Currently all but one of the computers in the office, mine, is "public" and therefore available to run multi-day long simulations of fuel slosh in satalites. I don't really know why we need such detailed theoretical data on fuel slosh, but hey it makes pretty pictures and that's all that matters. They've had their eyes on my P3 500MHz 64meg ram machine all year, just salivating at the thought of the blazing computation speeds they'll get with it. Unable to contain themselves any longer, they have forced me to format my computer and, because new is always better, install Windows XP on it. I feel so dirty.
"But what of the project for your adviser?" Well, that's an interesting story, as it turns out laying off 75% of the lab/computer network support staff and demanding that the remaining 25% now accomplish 300% more than before by picking up the slack does not do good things for the generally sanity of that 25%. Granted the two guys making up that 25% didn't have much sanity to begin with and were never the most chipper sorts, though their sarcasm was entertaining, but the change is significant.
Before layoffs:
"Hey Ross! How's that Linux DIOCard driver coming along?"
"Hey Greg! Well, I'd like to have worked on that but the department chair couldn't figure out how to push the big green ON button on his 'broken' printer, you know how it goes. Serving the greatest minds at the top school in the nation takes priority, you understand."
After layoffs:
"Hey Ro.."
"If you're about to ask me about that DIOCard you better just turn back around! The prof. already came in here today asking about it and if I hear one more question about that goddamn DIOCard I'm gonna fucking shoot somebody!"
"Alrighty then! That answered all my questions for the week. See ya later, Ross!"
"I hope not."
So things are going. I've rediscovered the joy of napping on the lawn and sitting down to lunch with random girls. I wake up at 11am or later. I've got a hint of a tan going on. All in all life really ain't that bad, just not that funny. I'll be funny next week, I promise.
[Edit: added content] I'm all gradumicated but won't be receiving my diploma until December because students aren't allowed to graduate in summer. Berkeley has a thing called "Filing Fee", which is their last ditch effort to squeeze another $150 from graduates. "But what about student health insurance? You're still a 'student' and insurance can't be covered by $150." Its true, I have to buy student health insurance separately ... at a cost of $666. Not an altogether outrageous price, but for some reason it still feels downright evil. |
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| I just sit around in my office being a butt - Krystine |
[Aug. 27th, 2004|12:44 am] |
So the cool news was put out yesterday. It's true, I have once again gradumacated. What's it like having a Masters degree? To be honest, it feels a whole lot like it did before, except people congratulate you a lot. It really feels like it did before because I'm actually still working in the dungeon on the same junk I've been working on since July, stuff completely unrelated to my masters project, except ironically my work ethic seems to have improved. I still show up at noon, take an hour and a half lunch, and check my email 500 times, but I've cut down on the two hour social chats with people in other labs dramatically. Out of the kindness of my heart, which is to say "for free", I'm helping out with the last minute preparations for my advisor's graduate lab class. Out of the kindness of their hearts, the department voted (while my advisor was out of town on vacation) to lay off all of the lab maintenance staff. Hopefully I'll be out of here before that inevitable flaming turd hits the fan.
I wrote a paper for my masters. It will be available in the Engineering Library soon. Its 52 pages long, 17 pages of content and 35 pages of extraneous appendices. Not that I needed to pad it out, mind you. There were two masters papers that were 6 pages long, double spaced, with pictures accepted last year. I just felt like filling it with extraneous crap. Extraneous advanced controller derivations with theoretical results, but extraneous crap nonetheless.
As I was required to do, I took this fruit of two weeks labor to both members of my committee so that they could be prepared for my presentation the following day. This led to the following interaction:
Knock Knock
"What!?"
"It's Greg. I bring you gift!"
"What's this?"
"That's my paper ... just in case you'd like to read it before my presentation."
"Huh. Probably not. ... Bye."
Door closes. Bolt locks.
The following morning before my presentation I asked my advisor, different from the latter professor, what he thought of the paper.
"Oh. Well, I actually didn't read it."
"Huh"
"I kinda skimmed it a little. Thumbed through it. It looks pretty thorough. It's got a lot of pretty pictures, that's all that really matters. Looks fine."
With such careful attention being placed on reviewing my paper, I knew my presentation wasn't going to be too bad. 25 minutes after starting my presentation, and exactly one year after entering Cal graduate school, it was all over. We shook hands and they signed off on me right then and there. It was magical.
Now I join the ranks of the educated unemployed. If anyone hears of a job opening for someone with a masters degree in controls/robotics who graduated with a 4.0 in undergrad and also made Phi Beta Kappa please please let me know. |
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| "You done with Prelim Exams?" |
[Aug. 26th, 2004|12:48 am] |
I'll add a thousand words (give or take) tomorrow, but for now I'll let the picture do the talking:
Darn right "be advised"; I got's me a graduate degree! An' if you got a problem wit dat, you can just take it up wit Pat. |
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| "Max doesn't actually have an apartment, he lives in a box under the bridge" |
[Aug. 19th, 2004|12:50 am] |
And now, the update you've all been waiting for! Well, at least one person has been waiting for. I know this from an email asking me what the URL for this site is so that he could read the latest news. How could anyone possibly forget the URL? Pretty simple, really; I forgot it too.
My old roomate Dan has his own log that he scripted all by himself, or at least ripped off all by himself. It used to have a subtle, stylized yet understated format with updates and various links on the top and bottom. One of these links was my log, I got much of my traffic that way. Even I used Dan's site as the means of getting to my log. But now Dan has opted to revamp his log such that it looks like a fifth grader's math homework, the kind that obviously got squashed in the couch cushions and farted on several times before retrieval. And he removed the link! But the true fans are finding their way here sure enough.
So the question on everybody's mind is, much like last week, "Greg, where the hell were you?" Well, I told you I'd be in Pasadena. Don't you read? "But why, Greg? Why Pasadena?" Simple, to subject myself to seven and half hours of interviews.
I don't really want to name the organization I interviewed with explicitely on this public forum , so I'll just give you the initials and you can try to work it out, N.A.S.A/J.P.L. I'm telling myself I won't get the job so that when I don't get it it won't feel as bad.
JPL is an odd place, certainly not what I expected it to be. Its an affiliate of Caltech and the whole place is set up like a college campus, complete with grassy quads and three cafeterias with meal points, except with gun-toting guards at the entrances.
I was interviewing with one of the mars rover robotics groups. The lab had them right there, all the different models ready for testing. How sweet is that? I was given the tour by a young guy, which is to say slightly older than me as opposed to way older than me, in ratty jeans and a t-shirt sporting the Atari logo. I was sporting a button-up white shirt and tuxedo pants, because my regular black pants are now officially light grey.
One of the rooms, the conference room where I gave them a presentation of my fantabulous robot head actually, had robot arms hanging off of all of the walls. They were just there, dangling, waiting to be tested. Perhaps waiting to grab a crotch, like certains arms I know. What it made me think of was the special effects company I interviewed with in may. There, I walked into the main work area and there were limbs, mostly arms, of the Thing from Fantastic Four hanging off the walls and laying on various tables. And my tour guides there were also sporting ratty jeans and t-shirts, though opting for Earthworm Jim, Skud, and MegaDeath logos. I knew then that JPL was a place I could call home ... if only they'd take me in.
Moving on, my guide took me through the long hallways and up to the roof. He said, "Now I'm about to show you something you're not supposed to see." and threw open a door. The door led out to the roof of the next building, or should I say, the surface of mars. I couldn't believe it, we were there, on mars. The sand was red, rocks all around, and the air was blazing hot. But we weren't on mars, we were on top of a building. But it looked exactly like all the pictures. And the rovers were right there, just like all the pictures. And then I thought, "The moon landing, was that tin-foil covering the legs of the lander?" And then I thought, "Is it really just a coincidence that this place is 30 minutes from Hollywood?" Noooooo!!!!!!!
He assured me this was their "simulated mars" ... their "test area". Yeah right pal, and Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. |
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| If you get this your dad would feel like he got the job vicariously through you. - Mom |
[Aug. 12th, 2004|12:49 am] |
Okay, I know, I, like Lucille Ball, have some "esplaining to do." What was with that junk update last time? Where was I last week? Well, I was in San Diego once again because, what with all the work I get done, I really needed another week off. I mean, I get up at 11am, show up to work at noon at which point I immediately take an hour long lunch with the techno-trouser squad, check my email about 50 times, and then go home at 6pm. I mean, honestly, how long do they expect me to keep up with this brutal schedule day after day?
During my trip I visited the old roomates, watched Mark fly a model plane into a park bench whereupon it exploded into peices, visited Goldie, went to the beach, and had an all-around great time. My reason for going to SD was to go to the wedding of a good dancer buddy, Holly. Now, my sense of fashion rarely lends itself to formal situations, unless formal is defined as wrinkled t-shirts and jeans. In that case I'm Mr. GQ. So I was trying to figure out what I would wear. What could I wear? And then a flash! I looked good once, I'm almost sure of it. Yes! My prom tux! Like an anthropologist investigating ancient ruins, I scoured through the closets of my grandparents' house to find it. And there it was, perfectly preserved. Even the five year old lipstick stain on the collar looked fresh.
I took that puppy home and put her on. Man, do I look weird in a tux. I look good, I clean up nice, but its really not me. I think I look like a waiter. I recounted this story to my friend Sue before leaving for SD. She said, "Oh, well yeah, you just gotta lose the top and then you'll be fine." She didn't clarify, so I just took her advice and lost the top, but I kept the bowtie. I haven't gotten pictures back yet but I basically looked like this:
The reception was held outdoors on Coronado Island right next to the water. Several weddings were going on along the waterfront, out of the view of each other. The weather was beautiful. But the bathrooms were far far away. Being the practical people we are, we rented one of those "family bikes" (the four-seater bikes arranged like the Flinstone's mobile) which we dubbed the Bathroom Mobile. The reception was also held right next to the walkway along the waterfront, so we had joggers and families etc. going by the whole time. Trust me, you get your share of double takes when about 6 people simultaneous run towards a little novelty bike yelling "Its the Bathroom Mobile! Its mine! Its Mine!"
Towards the end of the reception it was time to return the old girl. She'd been good to us; many a bladder had been saved by its presence. We had about twenty minutes left, so we figured we'd make the most of our trip to return her. At the helm was a lovely lady (wearing her prom gown from 5 years ago), me riding shotgun, and rear-wheel drive was provided by the groom's younger brother (wearing a rented tux, though he probably wished he'd saved his from prom three months ago.) He pedaled hard enough to get us going at a good 20mph down the pedestrian infested walkway. Trust me, you get your share of triple-takes when you're flying at 20mph down a boardwalk, aiming for some 80-year olds, with a 17-year old in the back yelling "Ramming Speed!"
Now the 80-year olds and joggers weren't that much of a problem. The old ones were going slow enough for us to avoid them. The joggers were smart enough for them to avoid us. The tricky ones were the actual families driving the "family bikes." These bikes are about 75% of the width of the boardwalk, not enough room for two. We'd see them coming, but the Bathroom Mobile handled like a barge, not much for delicate steering. Trust me, nothing gets you outright stares like passing by a stranger's wedding reception on a four-seater bike wearing tuxedos and formal gowns and screaming "Oh shit! Swerve! Swerve!"
So I got back on monday. I've been back at the lab for two days and I'm really starting to feel it. I'm ready for a vacation. I think I'll take a trip to Pasadena next week. Yeah, that sounds good. |
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| Are you free right now? |
[Aug. 11th, 2004|12:28 am] |
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Alrighty, well I have a bunch of news but I'm too tired to recount it. But it will be recounted! It will ... soon ... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. |
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| "To lead an inside-turn you pull your partner's hand across her face ... no, not into her face." |
[Jul. 29th, 2004|11:51 pm] |
So, we've had an exciting week of Democratic Convention coverage and I'm sure everyone is eager to know what the loony liberals of Berkeley had to say. Well, there are about six people in my lab and I polled them all. After opening discussions with Jang, Xue, Rahul, Jonhak, Jorgen, and Mauricio, I came to the realization that I'm the only american in the lab. Wait, where's Rodney? "He graduated." Crap, anybody here even got a green card? "My visa expires in a month." Moving on, anybody see Barack Obama’s speech? "Wha?" Well alrighty then.
But politics aside, I think what people really want to know is, "Greg, what's the 80's retro-club scene really like in San Francisco?" Well, I'm glad you asked. This past week I was escorted by three lovely ladies (and two so-so guys) to San Fransisco's famous Cat Club. Nestled beneath a youth hostel just off the freeway, the calender's stopped at '88 but everyone's there to party like its 1999.
The Cat Club is approximately 25 feet wide and 200 feet long decorated in classic monochrome black. There are two bars, two DJ's, ten guards, and one bathroom. Well, one men's and one women's, but it looked like something, or someone, exploded in the men's so it doesn't count.
Along the walls of the Cat Club stand thin platforms on which paid dancers wrestle with belligerent drunks wishing to dance for free. I'm proud to say that my cohorts were athletes and, between the three of them, made short work of the "Stage Nazi". They proclaimed themselves queens of the mountain just as Sir Mix-a-Lot's magnum opus, Baby Got Back, began to play.
As a brief aside, I have come to the conclusion that Baby Got Back could easily be the most popular hip-hop song of all time for women. At this very moment at least half of the small but appreciated group of women who read this log have already started subvocalizing "Oh my God ... look at her butt. ..." Its true. I have seen it time and time again, Mix-a-Lot will have just finished proclaiming that, indeed, his "anaconda don't want none" when the women in the room will unanimously interject "unless you've got BUNS hon!" We men just continue bouncing to the beat; this is your moment, we don't interfere.
So returning to the story, three beligerent female athletes have just ejected an employee of the establishment from her stage post. Dressed to the nines in moon boots, low-cut tanktops, and vinyl hotpants (one emblazoned with white stars on each cheek), they commenced to gettin' down. Spurred by the music, and the throng of guys, they danced their faux-leather clad butts off.
As the night went on and Phaethon whipped his fiery footed steeds even further west, "Whip it good!", the stage lost its appeal for my lady friends. But they weren't about to come down, no sir. So they went the only way they could go, up. Climbing the pipes which serve the youth hostile upstairs, they headed for the ceiling. Reaching the top they began a dance reminiscent of Cirque de Soleil, except, of course, drunk and beligerent. And I had the prime view directly overhead of two cheeks with stars on thars.
As the evening came to a close we realized that BART had long since stopped running and we six were to fit in one 5-seater car. I turned to the two other men and said, "Don't worry, you guys take the front seats. I'll squeeze in back with the ladies."
So in conclusion, Barack Obama for president. |
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