Ben Folds, Kentucky Co-ops, and unsuccessful intimidation

It’s been awhile since I’ve written an entry into this blog. Been quite a busy time for me at RIT. Quarter is coming to an end, assignments are coming due, and all other kinds of fun, fun stuff. A lot has happened, but I’ll keep it down to a few points to keep this entry (relatively) short.

First off: Ben Folds concert. Recently, the artist Ben Folds gave a concert at the Gordon Field House here at RIT. One word can describe his performance: Exceptional. I haven’t been to many concerts in my time, but this was a great time. Folds is funny, interesting, and incredibly talented at what he does. It was an awesome night of humor, random vulgarity, and great music. The openers weren’t that great for the show (The first one, a female vocalist, was fairly good. The second opener, hip hop artist “Black Violin” was awful), but Folds brought it back and the night was an incredible time. I could devote an entire entry to the concert, but that’s for another time.

Second: I finally found a co-op. Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing North America (TEMA) has hired me for a summer and winter co-op (the second term is not sure yet, but it will be two terms). At the co-op I’ll be programming in Visual Basic .NET and SQL, two languages which I’m not horribly familiar with, but I feel I could learn very quickly. If anyone has any experience with either language, please feel free to give me some hints or tips in the comments or my e-mail.

Kentucky’s a far way off, but it’ll be fun to finally get off the East Coast (kinda) and live in a new place. Plus, the co-op is located in the town of Erlanger, KY, which is about a half hour from Cincinnati, Ohio. Maybe catch a Reds game or something over the summer.

I think a co-op will be a great change of pace from the normal term at school. Being able to focus on one or two topics that are (hopefully) closely related will be a lot better then focusing on the menagerie of topics I’m required to focus on during school. And plus, no homework. And also, getting paid.

That, my friends, is a true winning combination.

Finally, the last topic I will talk about will be trying to intimidate people. I’m not at liberty to mention any names and such, but one as myself and two friends were leaving class today, another student grabbed my friend by the shoulder and said “You better watching your [fornicating] mouth”

This was in response to said friend speaking to the prof. in class, and when being interrupted by this student, my friend more or less told him to shut up. Which was, of course, hilarious in its own right.

However

If you’re going to try to intimidate someone, you must meet a few criteria:
1. You must be physically imposing.
Do not try to intimidate someone if you are not either A) Very strong/muscular or B) Much larger then the other person. I don’t care if you know akido or karate or anything like that. If you don’t look intimidating, you can’t be intimidating (easily)

2. Don’t do it in front of their friends
Seriously. It makes you look stupid. And it also takes away any advantage you may have alone.

3. Don’t run away afterwards
Leaving the situation makes it look like you gave up. And it gives the other people/person time to laugh.

And most importantly, don’t do it at all. Trying to be intimidating or aggressive makes you look like a little child who just got his toy taken away. If you’re offended by something someone says, talk to the person or just cut your losses and live with it.

Don’t be an idiot. Period.

Interview introduction

Hi everyone. The next few blog entries are all about my day-trip to Kentucky for an interview with Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing (TEMA). The entries start with “Waking up is hard to do” and end with “15 miles…”. They may seem a little backwards, but I entered them in the order I created them.

I didn’t have internet access for most of my trip, so I waited to post all of the entires until now.

Feel free to comment and read through my adventure.

Take it easy.

15 Miles at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport

…. so hears the deal.

The van made it to the airport at about 7:30. I entered the airport at about 7:31, and rushed to the ticket counter to see if my flight was still there. I found out that my flight hadn’t left yet.

Now let me give you a little sidenote. I don’t run. I never run. I really can’t run well due to problem in one of my legs, which I don’t want to explain.

However, with this knowledge from the ticket agent, I sprint.

Down escalators, to the security checkpoint. Where I promptly wait for 10 minutes for the opportunity to take my shoes and suit coat off.

One past the checkpoint, I sprint around the corner, and find that my terminal is on the other extreme end of the airport, and a train to get there just left.

Again, I sprint. Through moving walkways, past slower-moving people, and so on.

My flight leaves from terminal C, I started at A. Going past B, I had to take a shuttle to get to C, since there didn’t appear to be any other choice.

I get to terminal C. Sprinting to the gate, I look at the information window, and this is what it said:

Delta Flight 5082:
Rochester, NY
DELAYED
Original Departure: 7:30 PM
Now Departing: 8:00 PM

My watch reads 7:50. I made it.

Thank God.

I’m now in the air, heading back to Rochester, and this is where I end this line of blog entries. This has been a helluva day, one which I won’t forget for a long, long time. But now, I have to rest, since my laptop has gone on reserve power and I’m about to pass out as it is.

Goodnight, Everyone.

Wheels on the van go round and round

This is interesting.

I have to keep this short, since my laptop battery is about to die.

The Toyota interview was odd. They didn’t ask me any technical questions, which is what I expected. I was asked more situational-type questions, like “Tell me a time when you had a problem with a team member and how you resolved it.” Not quite what I was expecting, but interesting none the less.

Now for the more fun stuff.

To get back to Rochester, I was to take two flights. One from Lexington, KY to Cincinnati, and then one from Cinci – Rochester. Problem: The flight that was to take me from KY to Cinci was delayed, which normally wouldn’t be a big deal.

Unless you were supposed to fly out at 6 and your connection is at 7:30.

To try and fix this, Delta obtained two vans for passengers who had early connections and to make the one hour and thirty minute drive to the Cincinnati airport.

And that’s where I am now, on a freeway, being driven for an hour and a half for what would be probably a 20 minute flight.

And to top it all off, it’s about 7 now and I heard that we’re more than a half-hour out.

I don’t think I’m going to make it.

Kentucky on my mind

Made it here safe and sound. I’m currently sitting in the administrative building lobby of the huge Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky (I believe I read somewhere that this collection of buildings has the largest amount of floorspace in the country). I’m here a good two and a half hours early for my interview, and nothing is in walking distance of the plant. I took a cab here, so I’m rather stuck until my job interview. I should have rented a car, although I don’t know if I would’ve been able to find my way here or even get a car rental with being 20 years old.

Cab fare cost 50 freakin’ bucks on the way here…

Even though there doesn’t seem to be much to do at first glance here, the country is really, really beautiful. Rolling hills, lots of grass and such, it’s really a nice place. Good amount of horses too.

That’s honestly about it for now. I have to look over my resume and stuff for the interview, so I’m going to get on that. Also have a circuits lab report to start, which is bound to be good fun.

Beautiful day here today. I can actually see the sun*.

* Rochester, NY is known for being overcast all the darn time. Seriously.

Blogging on a jet plane

I’ve really got to stop referencing a Samuel L. Jackson movie.

Oh, and if you’re curious, I’m going with a musical title theme type thing for this line of blog of entries.

Flying’s cool. As I previously mentioned, it’s been a decent amount of time since my last flight, and I was looking forward to today. The flights I’m on today (all four of them) are going to be on small airplanes. Well, at least this is what I’d imagine. The flight times for each flight doesn’t exceed 2 hours per flight, so there’s no need for a large plane. Being 6 feet tall and flying coach can sometimes be a strain. Lucky today, though. Flight has a lot of empty seats, so I get to sit by myself.

Plane’s only 4 seats wide with a middle isle, and I think a 6′ 1” ceiling. I know this because my hair got intimate with the ceiling on my way back.

I’ve really got nothing besides my own experience at the moment to talk about. Any seasoned flyer reading this probably stopped in the fourth line. It’s too early to work on the Circuits lab report for this week.

Waking up is hard to do

It’s Job Interview day with Toyota. I’m kinda excited for all of this. Bunch of firsts today. First real in-person job interview, first interview with an automobile manufacturer, first time going to the airport by myself and taking care of all that stuff (except the reservations themselves) myself. This day should be really great. The only negative so far was the waking up at around 3:45 this morning. I just sat down and am now waiting for my flight, and it’s about 5:50.

Security hasn’t changed much since the last time I flew. Besides this one device which I want to know what it does. It’s some type of detector made by General Electric (I could tell by the huge “GE” symbol on it) and it blows air on the person that’s being checked by it. There was only one at the checkpoint, so I’d imagine it’s only used for the randomly-selected people that get the pleasure of a more thorough screening.

Oh, and a note to myself: Don’t put your boarding pass in the pocket of your suit jacket when you’re going through the checkpoint. I should have known to have it out, but in all the excitement of getting undressed for the checkpoint, I forgot. Turns out it slows things down a little, and it’s a wee bit embarrassing. My bad.

I get to write a blog entry on a plane! It’s a first for that, as well as a first for times I’ve used a computer on a plane. That’s exciting for me.

My only gripe so far is that there’s no free wireless internet access here. All of these entries are being typed in NeoOffice (derivation of OpenOffice made specifically for the Mac so that it doesn’t have to run in an X11 terminal).

Well, it’s about 6 o’clock now. I’m gonna go grab some breakfast and wait for my flight.

…Hope there aren’t any snakes on this plane.

Hey-O!

Gatacoma

It’s Easter, and I haven’t posted for a while, so I figured I’d do a nice, simple post. Just got back from a large dinner, and I’m feeling kinda tired as it is. Sleep is good, but that’s a completely different topic

I’ve been asked a bunch of times where I got my online handle “Gatacoma” from. If you never knew (or cared), here’s your chance to find out why I choose this name as my online persona. (Note: This is a different name from my AIM name, since Gatacoma came after it, and I don’t feel like getting all my friends to the new name)

A long time ago, prolly in about middle school, I played a lot of free online games. Games such as Subspace (Now called Continuum I believe) and one of my favorite all-time online games, Infantry. You can find more about this game from Wikipedia here. Infantry was a game that resembled Subspace a lot, except that it was on-foot fighting with weapons you had to buy yourself, tanks, and all sorts of fun stuff. I really, really liked the game. I’d still be playing it if Sony didn’t start charging for it. It’s a great game, but not great enough to warrant charging for it.

Anywho, when I started playing Infantry, it was a very popular game and I couldn’t find a name that I wanted to use. I tried some cliche-type names that I thought sounds cool (Things like Firestorm and the like) but they were all (expectedly) taken. In my frustration, I slammed on my keyboard (or fell asleep and nailed it, I don’t remember) and a string of letters appeared, something like “gasdwoma”. After playing a little with that, I came to the name “Gatacoma”. It means nothing, but it is me. I’ve never seen anyone with a name remotely close to it, which gives me a bit of a sense individuality online in the communities I’m in.

Ever since, I’ve used that name for all of my online screennames. Everything from the MMO’s I’ve played (like City of Heroes and The Matrix Online) to games like Subspace, and also on less gaming type areas, such as forums. If you see the handle “Gatacoma” online, smart money says that you’re looking at me.

I can never find a decent pronunciation for it. A text-to-speech synthesizer I used said “Guh-tak-oh-ma”, I say “Gah-tuh-co-ma”, but it really doesn’t matter. Anytime I’m online, it’s usually shortened by others to just “Gah-tuh” (gata).

I find it ironic that my online handle has as many syllables as my entire real-life name has….

I didn’t feel like sleeping tonight anyway

Disclaimer: This entry is really about nothing. I’m just rambling.

Well, let’s see. It’s about 1 o’clock in the morning, I’ve got class at 8, and I honestly couldn’t care less. Even have that? Long day tomorrow too.

Super.

What can I muse on…. I dunno. Added a bunch of links to my blogroll on this site. Those of you viewing this on facebook, come on over to my official blog site at gatacoma.wordpress.com. I’ll be glad you did. Leave a comment or two.

No one ever comments. I wish they would. It’d be coo’.

I’ve been reading a lot of webcomics lately, things like XKCD. I’ll put a more formal list of places on the interblag (XKCD reference) later, in a dedicated post to it.

I don’t like the circuits 1 lab report format. It’s really long and painful to write. Took me most of Sunday afternoon to complete it. Maybe it was because it was two weeks worth of lab, or maybe it was just because I haven’t done one in the “Tech memo” format before. I dunno.

I still like C. I want to do more in it, I just don’t have the time. I kinda missed getting Segmentation faults, Bus Errors, and the Core Dumps that go along with them. I missed them in a sick, sadistic kinda way. But I still missed them.

I don’t really hate Java. I think it can be bloated, but I’m not experienced enough to really call it a “bad” language. I’ve worked with it for over a year now and am very familiar with it, and I think that kinda eschews my opinion of it.

I wonder if any of my potential employers look at this. That’d be interesting. I try to keep the topics at least a little interesting and techy and such. I’m a nerd, I don’t hide it.

Embrace who you are, whether it be nerd, jock, or whatever social group you are apart of. I like nerdy stuff, I admit it, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Seriously, go check out some of the other blogs on my blogroll. They’re all smart people (Except for John). Hear me John? I’m calling you out? What are you going to do about it?

I probably need to stop this. There’s a limit to how much unguided rambling I can do. I need to wake up in about six and a half hours anyway.

And, as always,

When in trouble, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

Job Fairs, Interviews, and why I’m not jumping head over heals for Microsoft

The Spring Career Fair (or Job Fair, or whatever) ar RIT happened last Wednesday, the 28th. This was the first job fair that I (and a good amount of my friends) attended. I forget how many companies were there, but according to the RIT co-op website, “over 2,000 of you attended, with 685 interviews the next day!”

I’m no math major, and while that’s a large amount of interviews, it translates to about 34% of students getting interviews; and that’s best case. That didn’t happen, because some people were able to get multiple interviews. I was lucky; I snagged two job interviews. More on that later.

The fair took place in the field house, with all manor of companies attending. Big-name companies such as Microsoft, nVidia, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, AMD, and Toyota (had to mention Toyota) as well as a lot of smaller, lesser-known companies. Most of the people at the booths were nice, friendly, pleasant people.

And then there was Microsoft.

I think I just had bad luck at that booth. The person I spoke had a very palpable “I’m better than you” manor about him, which really, really pissed me off. I like to think I’m not an angry person, but something like that really, to quote Peter Griffin, “grinds my gears.”

I don’t care who you are. The fact that you have a job at Microsoft does not make you better than me.

This event won’t, of course, stop me from applying to and trying to get a co-op or job at Microsoft; I just didn’t like one of the representatives they sent.

Oh, and on a side note, it’s kinda interesting which companies know what Computer Engineering is and which don’t. Most don’t realize we’re a CS and EE mix, some have never heard of us, and some believe we’re Information Technology majors. I don’t fault these people, and I realize that some of these companies are non-engineering firms. I just thought it was funny.

The interviews scheduled the next day were nice. The field house was converted from a bunch of booths with fancy decorations to…. a bunch of booths without fancy decorations. All the companies interviewing had their own table or two, and they called their interviewees up when the time came.

As I mentioned before, I had two interviews. These interviews were with a semiconductor firm in Rochester called Vivace Semiconductor, and my second interview was with the aerospace defense contractor Northrup Grumman. These weren’t technical interviews. The one with Vivace was simply a half-hour grilling of resume (What did you do working here, how was this course, explain this project). The interview with Northrup was a lot different; it was mostly praise for me for doing well in school and how it looked like I was a good fit for a position that they had opening sometime in the winter. Which was cool. I’m just thankful that the interviews weren’t technical. I probably would’ve cried.

Anyhow, that’s all I have for now. I meant to post this earlier after the job fair, but I didn’t have the chance (busy week). [

It’s week 4/10 here at RIT. What fun.