So after spending 4.5 hours at Down Town Toyota, I am the proud owner of a charcoal gray 2010 Prius.

I went down to buy a 2008 model with 28,000 miles for $19,900 but because I took time this morning to eat breakfast, clean out my car (for a trade in) and visit my bank, I was too late and someone got the car right our form under me while I was starting paperwork.

That is just plain poor salesmanship to tell someone that they can get a car and then offer it to someone else after they (I) call ahead and say they are coming down to start the paperwork. Bleh.

Anyway, eager to not have me leave empty handed, the salesman (Joe) said that they had several new Priuses (Priusii?) for only $2,000 more than the one I had wanted. Of course, they didn't have all the bells and whistles: no GPS navigation, no USB input for my iPod, no Bluetooth system. But for the price ($24,000 - a $200 trade in and $500 down payment), is a flipping Prius. I ended up having to get my parents to co-sign so I could get a reasonable rate. Because I have my credit cards maxed out (just started paying them down last month) my credit score is abysmal right now and this is my first big loan, so I don't have any history to reassure banks. I was flatly refused by Chase for a pre-approved loan and I was offered 14% interest if I paid $5,000 for a down payment. If my dad hadn't been there I would have walked out then. But he agreed to co-sign and I got 7% interest with the afore mentioned $500 down which I am much happier with. (I don't have five grand laying around, do you?) In about 6-7 months when the loan has been added as a good thing on my credit report I am going to try to refinance with Chase for a better interest rate (5-6% hopefully) and no co-sign (my parents don't need to be responsible for my purchase).

Anyway, more about the car: it does have an auxilary in jack, so I can plug in my ipod to the speakers, I just can't control/charge it from the stereo system. Which is ok. The engine in the new 2010 is a 2.4 liter instead of the 1.8 that my father's 2005 Prius is. The engine is more powerful and yet somehow also more fuel efficient. The car also has several driving modes: "Eco" for slower acceleration (actually dampens the effect of the pedal) but better fuel economy, "Power" for faster acceleration and overall power at the cost of efficiency and "EV" which is electric only. This EV mode has to be turned on while the gas engine is off (like when you are driving down the street without accelerating) and turns itself off if you stomp on the accelerator or go over 25 mph. It would be nice for in parking garages where you dont want emissions, or early morning as you are pulling away from a house so the engine doesn't bother anyone.

I am very happy with the purchase and especially happy to be rid of my old car. For those of you who haven't ridden in it before, it sqeals going around corners, the windows don't roll up/down very well and it smells strongly of vinegar. Plus the trunk is a pernicious rust infestation and the battery occasionally gets drained for no apparent reason (sometimes in just 15 min!). So yeah, having a new car with no mechanical problems is so amazing. Just being able to roll my windows down without worrying about whether or not I can get them back up is wonderful. Plus there is the fact that the Prius is just a fancy car. I am thinking about getting a vanity plate for it since a co-worker has one for his Honda Fit. His is GEEK-FIT, I want to get one that says CAR-CDR (a lisp reference for the non-computer geeks).

Well, thats all for now. Have to go pick up my brother from work so he can see my new car. Hee hee!

I was informed by my superiors Friday that they were pleased with the progress I had made on the BlackBerry Bible Reader app my company (Olive Tree Bible Software) does.  Due to my success with reviving and updating this app to make it more usable, they said that they would like me to continue working as a Software Developer after the end of my internship this coming Friday.

And with that, I had a career instead of a job.  (ref post about Lockheed Martin Interview )

To celebrate this occasion (and to have a vested interest in my company's product!) I bought a Motorola Droid from Verizon on Saturday.  It was $370 - $100 mail in rebate (as opposed to $299 - $100 MIR) because I was taking my number from my parents' family plan which was not eligible for upgrade.  But now I have my own plan with all the voice/text/data I need to make good use of my phone.

I have to say, the Droid is pretty cool.  Its not as polished as the iPhone, but it is well on its way and I think Google will surpass Mac in the next year or two in the phone market.

My favorite apps so far are (in no particular order):

Twidroid - Excellent twitter client for android. Timed updates give background notifications and can be set to ring, buzz and/or flash the indicator LED on new tweets.
Ringdroid - Take music files from your SD card and clip out short ring tones from them.  Complete control over start and end time of the clip and its saved to a new file which you can set as a default ringtone or just for individual contacts.  The new ringtone is added to the system's list so you can use it anywhere that asks the OS for ringtones!
Google Sky Map - see the entire sphere of the sky all at once, even looking down through the earth!  Planets, the sun and the moon all have icons and many of the major stars and constellations are labeled.
My Maps Editor - Mark places of interest using Google's "My Maps"  These custom maps are visible both online and on your phone at Google Maps.  You can make them public or keep them for personal reference.

Wow.  Its been over a month and a half since I last posted.

I am nearing the end (11/15/2009) of my internship with Olive Tree Bible Software.  I can only hope they will hire me on as a full time employee, certainly their talks about future projects include me in the planning, so I don't feel overly worried.  A large part of the outcome will be whether or not I get this product I am working on from beta to production before the end of my internship, and whether it is well received.

In other news, I recently helped my dad build a greenhouse which is dried in and working (90+ degrees during the day, and that with the vents in the door and wall open!).  There is still siding to put up and interior work to be done but that will all be finished the winter and he can get a jump start on the next growing season.

BTW: A lot of people ask if he will be growing year round.  That is not and never was his goal.  He just wanted to be able to have ripe tomatoes and such earlier than late summer!  Also, the green house is tiny and not much could be done year round and still produce enough fruit to be meaningful.  Small baby plants are a much better use of the space.


I also carved 5 pumpkins for Halloween.  (http://www.mellowfish.org/pumpkin.php)

I am particularly proud of Kuro Neko-san.

Anyway, another update 11/16/2009 or so in all likelihood.

Settling more and more into my job at Olive Tree.  For the past 2 weeks I have been working on an extension for Firefox to do some data entry form submission for us instead of having to pay someone to do it.  I'd like to think it would have been 2 weeks worth of work over the next year or so, but I might be fooling myself.  However, its done now and I can get back to Blackberry development on Monday.  Have to make sure everything is ready for the Christmas rush.

I feel like I am being useful here and growing as a software developer, learning new ways of approaching problems and new technologies.  I have, for instance, begun to understand the joys of asynchronous execution and its related trials.  I think this job will be very good for me in the long run.

In other news, my parents and sister and I are driving to Portland, OR (6 hours each way) and back tomorrow in order to pick up a car my sister is buying from an uncle who lives there.  A grand for a 97 Kia Spectra with squishy brakes, so a mixed basket.  Plus she isn't great with stick shift yet, so it will be a learning curve for her.  All I can say is I wish I was getting a different car.  But hopefully mine will last the winter and I can look at getting a new one (yes NEW) summer 2010.


PS: I have to say, I do really like my paychecks.  I especially like that each one can pay for a whole month of expenditures and they are every two weeks instead of bi-monthly.  My savings account will be very happy in short order.

PPS:  I am SOOOOOOO happy I finished this project.  I was quite worried it would not get done by today (and in fact I had to work at home some on it to finish it this evening!).  But all is forgiven since I can get back to Java on Monday and not worry about any niggling details in the mean time.

My first week at my new job was good.  For the first few days I had an old computer which threw a tantrum everytime any program tried to access "My Computer"  Luckily my java development environment only does that *every time your change folders in a file browser.*  Sigh....

But!  I got a shiny new Dell Thursday afternoon and spent Friday morning setting it up with all my dev tools.  Friday afternoon was more productive than any of the past 4 days individually.  And I ended it (literally 5 minutes before I left) by finding and fixing an exception being thrown which I had been hunting for an hour and a half.

I am looking forward to continuing with Olive Tree: the work is interesting and engaging, the office group is freindly and helpful and it really feels like a good fit for my personality and skills.


In unrelated news I have not been sleeping well (8 hours every night but no rest) so I am a little off tilt.  This has been happening for two months and I believe it to be stress related.  Hopefully now that the stress (unemployment) is gone, I will start sleeping restfully.  Hopefully.

I am now a Junior Developer Intern at Olive Tree bible software in north Spokane.  They are paying well for my skills, so I hope to be worth it to them.  I start next Wednesday and am looking forward to the challenges in store.

This has been a long and trying time for me being unemployed since mid June (so exactly 2 months now).  There have been several false starts: Lockheed Martin and MatriCal gave interviews which lead nowhere and several other places expressed interest without getting around to scheduling an interview.  But trusting God to open doors will work in the end apparently, and he has given me jobs seeming against all odds in several occasions.  This time it was through a Craigslist ad for a position (Developer: 2+ years experience) that I didn't qualify for which my agnostic friend pointed me towards as he was searching for a better job himself (apparently, though he still works for the company he was at at the time).

I got my diploma in the mail not a week ago, and already the future seems very very real to me.  Time to buckle down and start my career!

Wow I haven't posted in a while.

Anyway, I took a trip to Yellowstone with the sis Monday and got back Friday afternoon.  Following is a brief synopsis.

Monday: Pack up my father's Prius and head out.  Crawl through construction to Lewis and Clark Caverns, MT.  Set up camp, take 2 hour, 2 mile tour of the caverns.  Sleep.

Tuesday: Crawl through additional construction to Yellowstone, WY.  Circle entire park looking for campsites.  See the pretty animals and scenery from the car.  Call parents to look up camp grounds which allow reservations (not in the park, first come first serve).  Make reservation and go to camp ground 10 miles north of West Yellowstone, MT.  Swim in lake 20 ft from tent.  Have a nice (free!) shower.  Sleep.

Wednesday: Grit teeth through even more construction in the park.  Climb from 8000 ft parking lot to the 10000 summit of Mt Washburn.  Eat lunch and take pictures of goats (not mountain goats mind you, just goats on a mountain) who walk within inches of me on the trek up.  Go see old faithful and the surrounding geysers.  Try to swim in Firehole Canyon swimming area (closed due to high water).  Sleep.

Thursday: Buy souvenir knife in West Yellowstone to replace the one I bought in 07 when I went there with roommates and co.  See Yellowstone river falls, Norris Geyser Basin, Mammoth Falls, Midway Geyser Basin, and do more souvenir shopping with sis at night.  Eat elk burger (so delicious).  Sleep.

Friday: Reroute through all previous construction (and some new stuff to boot) on long trek home.  Sleep in my own bed.

All in all it was a fun trip, but very full and not at all relaxing.  We did, however, see a black bear, a grizzly bear, an elk (not 10 feet from us on a path), goats (not 10 inches from me on a path), bison (and buffalo too! ;)  ), and a fox.  Also it was nice to spend time with my sister and nice to get away from the pesky job hunting, if only for a week.

Also, it is Klitaka's b-day today, so I went to Up with him yesterday and bought lunch after.  Good times with old friends.  Had the waltz from the movie stuck in my head the rest of the day.  Now back to the grind of job hunting.

Ok, so I am cheating by changing the post date on this entry.  But I thought that my current entry (07/26/2009) was too far apart from my b-day entry in late may.  So here is a brief update of the interim.

/me **steps into character**

Yay!  finally graduated today: Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Magna Cum Laude with University Honors.  Fan fare aside, I feel very accomplished.  I hope (sic, out of character) I will get a job in short order (not likely bub, ooc) and can move on with my life.  My family and I are going to the Oregon Coast next week and will be able to visit a bunch of my relatives down there.  I really enjoy the coast, especially walking on the beach and running (more dangerous for me) on the jetty.

It really does feel wierd to say I wont be back in the fall, and that I might not even be living here past end of summer.  One of my favorite profs (and my boss) asked me jokingly at graduation as he shook my hand if I would be grading for him again.  I laughed, but it felt off.  I will miss being a tutor and whiling away the hours in the CS labs.

**exunt all**

Wasn't that fun?  Now you know how things were going in June, and not much has changed.  The oregon coast trip was fun, I walked 4.5 miles (each way!) on the beach and swam in the ocean.  I went ATV-ing for the first time on the dunes near our hotel.  And I spent the next several weeks sitting around looking for work and dinking around online.

So far I have gotten a book called "The Little Schemer" which is the first book in a trilogy about intelligent programming in Scheme (a variant of Lisp).  Its cool, I like it.  I have also received $100 from my Grandma in Arizona, so I'll be looking online for something to spend that on once I get the rest of my presents this evening.  In case you hadn't guessed, today marks the end of my 22nd year of life.

So, not to spoil my day today, Lockheed was kind enough to get my rejection letter to me yesterday.  At least I got to see DC right?  I'm not too disappointed, this whole job search prospect has been one big test of my ability to trust God with my future.  So I am handling it alright, but if I dont get something soon I'll have to get temp jobs until something opens up and that wont be very fun.

Moving on with life, I applied this morning to General Dynamics, another government contractor which my dad does software testing for indirectly.  (His company is tasked with testing GD's stuff as well as Sun's and other places')  I am also still waiting on  MatriCal, having never received word from them.


But today is not for worrying about tomorrow, and I intend to enjoy my birthday as much as possible.  I am going out to sushi later in the week, so I have something to look forward to!  (Its 5:00 at Sushi.com Friday night, my cnidarian friend)

Well, I was hoping to be posting with news of a job offer, but I guess I'll settle with a belated description of the interview process instead (I haven't heard anything yet, but I am hopeful).

So, I have never flown by myself before, never rented a car and I have never been to the east coast.  So this was an adventure in many ways.  I flew out of Spokane at 6:00 Sunday morning bound for Seattle (1 hour).  From there (couple hour layover) I flew to Philadelphia, a 5 hour flight.  On this flight I sat next to a woman who was also bound for DC, and we talked a bit.  We hung out at the Philly Airport until out flight left, but she was sitting somewhere else in the plane on the flight to DC.  Still, it was an interesting encounter.  Finally in DC about a half hour late (so 7:15 local time) I waited around outside for a while trying to decide how I could let Enterprise know I needed their shuttle at this point.  Luckily it came by while I was wondering, so no problem.  Yet.

I get to Enterprise and they say, "well, you had reserved an economy class car," (Chevy Aveo or similar their site said), "but we dont have any in.  Would you like a free upgrade to this Beamer?" (Yes they said beamer as opposed to BMW)  So I said yes.  It had keyless entry and a push button start and looked very nice inside.  *Sigh* I probably wont own a car that nice for 10 years, if ever.  So I departed from the rental place in search of my hotel which was 6 blocks away. (Let it be known I was swaying on my feet from jet lag at the rental place)

45 minutes later I arrived at my hotel frustrated and ready to go to bed just to put the experience behind me.  It should be noted that I did not have a map and it didn't occur to me that meters would be free on sunday, so I spent the entire 45 minutes driving around looking for A) my hotel B) the rental place or C) a convenience store.  B and C were so I could buy a freaking map to A.  Needless to say, I only found A by chance and a bit of dead reckoning.

After a good night's sleep I left for my interview map in hand (though how I could get lost on my way there I dont know, it was 2 left turns away).  I arrived a half hour earlier than they had said the interviews were, to find out that the interviews were actually at 9 and 8:30 (the listed time) was when we were expected to arrive.  No biggie.  I had a coke in leu of the breakfast I had skipped since I woke up late.  After a while the other interviewees showed up and we interoduced ourselves by colleges, degrees and job position sought.  There were six of us an only one other Software Engineer applying (at least for the morning session today, who knows how many sessions there were (at least one, since I was originally scheduled for afternoon)).

After an informational video about the company and a second shorter video about the seecurity screening process, we began the interviews.   I talked to 4 different department heads each with multiple Software Engineer positions open, and then the security guy went over every question I had already filled out on the security paperwork (apparently to try to catch me in a lie).  The interviews went well.  They all asked pretty much the same questions, and all started by mentioning that if I was at the interview they weren't concerned with my technical skill (though how they would know I have no idea, grades I guess), and that the interviews were to determine my qualifications as a good employee.  I tried to demonstrate that I am a good self motivator and a team player, and I think I did a good job.  I dont really have an leadership experience, so if they were looking for a project leader it wont be me.

Anyway, after the interview I went sightseeing.  I had to, its DC.  Thats why I rented the car.   I walked up to the Washington Monument, and I saw from a distance (but nice pictures) the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials and the White House.  I wandered around the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.  It was a fun time.

And then I flew back, leaving at 6:00 PM for Minneapolis-St. Paul and then Spokane.  I got in about 11:00 PM local time in spokane.  And so ended the trip.

All in all it was a good interview experience.  I am supposed to heard back "within a week at most" which I guess means by Tuesday since Monday is a holiday.  I am hopeful for the opportunity.

My interview with Lockheed Martin was confirmed today, and I made travel arrangements.  I'll be flying all of Sunday for a Monday afternoon interview in DC and then back that night so I don't miss too much school.  SO DARN EXCITED!  I mean, how many candidates can they afford to fly across the country just for an interview? (probably a bunch... your tax dollars at work, but shoosh!)

So that pretty  much made my day.  I also applied at Olive Tree, a mobile device bible reader company based here in Spokane.  Thanks to Max for that tip off (he saw it browsing for "Software Developers" on Craigslist).  Probably nothing will come of it, but a software development position for a Christian company in Spokane opens up a month from graduation?  I don't believe in coincidences, so I have to apply.

Man, I am just so pumped.  If I get the LM job, it would be somewhere between $50 and $60k a year (course, cost of living is more over there, but still).  It would be a chance to really be out on my own, which would be a good experience for me personally.  And it would look great on a resume later  (assuming they dont have to kill me to keep state secrets of course...)

So I was introduced to Pandora today. Those were two hours I will never get back.  But in a good way.

For those who dont' know, Pandora is an amazing site where you listen to commercial free (but image ads all over the page) radio stations built from seed artists and songs you specify.  It is a great way to find new bands and artists of a similar style to what you already listen to.  For instance I started with just Warren Barfield (one of my favorite christian artists) and later added Casting Crowns and others.  But I have listened to music from over two dozen different people in the last hour (just like you would on a normal radio station), all of a similar style to his music.

This is made possible by the Music Genome Project which is possibly the coolest thing I have heard about recently.  Basically they took 400 different musical characteristics (alleles in genetics) and have analized thousands (or millions, not sure) of different songs using these characteristics as measurements.  Now when you specify an artist or song, they can look for  other songs and artists who have a lot in common with your suggestion.  Its cool because it links many more artists together than you could have gotten with strait Netflix style ratings, so you can be surprised with stuff you never would have been introduced to.

In other news, I have decided it is shorts and birkenstocks weather, potential rain showeres be damned.  SUMMER MODE ENGAGE!

My day was made today in a thread about favourite programming languages on /b/ on 4chan (an unlikely place to be sure):

"My other car is a cdr"

I was laughing so hard at that.

Anyway, Lisp is a great language.  Its older than every major language other than Fortran (yes, even older than C).  there have been operating systems written in it, emacs is an editor and environment built for it, and it was the beginning programming language at MIT for something like 40 years.

Its a lot of fun to code in once you get into it.

(Copy of a letter to my mother, edited for content and some stuff added)

Its been a mixed day for me.

Pros:
I got into the 8AM math class I wanted (yes, wanted.  8AM fits a work schedule better than 11AM, plus its a high level class).
(But shh.... don't tell anyone I ignored the prerequisite and got the Prof to approve me directly.  This makes what, my *5th* course I have done this in?)

I will be getting $5000 of the $7500 in students loans offered to me for sure, the rest pending appeal which I submitted today and should be reviewed this week.

I will be getting the first part of the money some time next week and if the appeal goes through the rest a week or two after that.

I will be getting University Honors (honors ad majorem) tacked onto my degree because of the honors classes I took as a freshman and a couple choice classes I have taken along the way.  This was a welcome surprise.  I will get to have my picture taken and put in the graduation booklets they give out at the ceremony.

Cons:
Its annoying that the reason I may not get the rest of the loan money is because I was *too good* of a student in high school and got a bunch of AP credits (I only have 199 credits of Eastern coursework, what put me over 250 was the 57 credits I got from the 7 AP tests I took).  So very very stupid.

Also, one surprise after another, online courses (which I have one this quarter and not really any way around taking it) are charged above and beyond normal tuition at an inflated rate.  I will be paying an extra six hundred some odd dollars extra just for the privilege of taking an online course.  That brings my tuition (never mind almost $200 in books) to ~$2400.  Like I needed to spend even more money on school.

Finally, I have to buy a new battery for my car at some point: this one is slowly discharging if I leave the car off for too long (and not charging very far above "start the car" when I do use it if the speed at which it becomes in need of a jump is any indication).  Luckily I bought a little jumpstart kit (battery in a box with jumper cables attached) back when I was having troubles earlier in the winter, so I wont get stranded anywhere (like the gas station I *drove to* to fill up my tank and go to the bathroom only to come  out to a dead battery).

So yeah, I am trying to not be too bummed about the problems I am having in light of the successes, but its terribly frustrating.  What I really need right now is to get the loan money and get this internship.  Then all my problems will go away and I can enjoy my last quarter of college.

Just watched a vidjeo from my favorite internet news source (Philip DeFranco, aka sxephil on youtube) about Huckabee comparing abortion to slavery.  I agree with Phil that he was wrong to make this comparison.  But not because the content of the comparison is bad: it isn't bad enough.  Abortion is murder.  Its a soon to be parent saying to their unborn child "I dont want you" and then ending their life.  If that parent waited 9 months, they would be thrown in prison or (hopefully) executed for their inhuman crime.  But before the magical 9 months, they get away with it.  This is so insanely stupid to me.  How can we as a society allow this mass murder to continue?

Its finally over.  And by 'it' I mean many things: this group project in Software Engineering, this quarter and its craziness, finals, and (more or less) this damn illness.  All done.

Looking forward to: IRS return, a week of quiet, and then *hopefully not long after* an answer about the job offer at Matrical.

Yeah.  Cant really think right now: too burned out.  More later.

So I have been hacking up a lung for the last 6 days and yesterday it was much worse (Antarctica-like chills from a ridiculous fever had me shivering underneath my covers at 5:00 last night), but today has been better.  Still a bit out of order, but mostly coughing up nice clean phlegm which allows me to breathe better.  I was able to get some work done today which is nice.  Hopefully I will be in working order by Thursday when I have a Linear Algebra final and a presentation for Software Engineering.  Luckily my Japanese final isn't 'til Friday (funny, cause while its my easiest subject, it takes the most effort to remember it all for a test).

Also, a comment on something I have heard about from a few different sources today: Pope What's-his-name (I really dont care about him, just his message) said that people should not use condoms when fighting aids, it just makes matters worse.  His point, obviously, is that abstinence is the only truly 100% effective means against spread of HIV through sexual contact.  His point is valid, it is just not practical.  People *should* save sex for monogamous marriage... but they dont.  Any more it is considered wierd and unnatural to have not had sex before marriage.  (Even though, because it is the way God meant it to be, abstience until marriage is the most natural course to take)

Here is the problem with a 99% effectiveness rate in disease prevention: that 1% is compounded, and compounded, and compounded because people dont get better from HIV.  Use of condoms and other contraceptive techniques enourage people to be more and more free with their sexuality increasing the number of partners to alarming rates.  The more sexual pair-ups there are, the more chances for spread of STDs.  And there you have it.

So I interviewed with Matrical today.  They are a pharmaceutical testing company.  One of the products they make is a robotic testing unit which automates tests on live cell cultures in a controlled environment.  If I got a job there I would be helping to write code to control the robot and/or to interface with it over the web.  And that would be pretty cool.  I have always liked robots since I was a kid and had a lego robotics kit.  It would be a lot of fun for my first real job to be programming them.

Overall I think it went well.  I have been feeling very fuzzy today from a bad cold/cough but I answered the questions asked and didn't portray myself as knowing more than I do.  My interviewer seemed at least to be considering my employment as a possiblity.  I wont hear back for about a month though, so thats too bad.

So yeah.  Thats what I did today.

SO MUCH WIN.  This film was almost three hours of awesome.  It followed the graphic novel very closely.

I love Rorschach (in case you couldn't tell).  My favorite quote of the movie (also strait from the comic) was "You all don't get it.  I'm not stuck in here with you, you're all stuck in here with me!"

Anyway.  Had a good couple days.  I got down below 270 for the first time in a few years (start of college).  I installed subversion on my server.  I might be having an interview later this month for a nice job.