An Exciting Several Days

Wednesday and Thursday I spent a ton of time in lab helping students in the analog lab class I am TAing get a lab finished up. The first 5 labs in the class can be built fairly sloppily, but the 6th lab involves a gain of 4000 so if you are sloppy at all (and even if you are not and are just a bit unlucky) then instead of an amplifier you get a nice noise source or oscillator. So of course those were an interesting two days. Toward the end of Thursday, two of the students who had been checked off for the lab were working on an extra credit part of the lab which is a power source and when you try for too high of a voltage out of it you get a ton of ripple on the power source. This is expected but after talking to them about why it happens I told them that that means they are going to need to redesign it and then quickly told them I was just kidding. One of them went from a look of horror to laughing. The other one was in so much shock she did not catch on that I had said I was kidding or that I had signed her lab - it took me a little bit to clam her down and explain that I was just joking and that that problem should be there. I felt so bad because I was just trying to lighten the mood.

The next morning I had a 10:45 flight to Denver to go to EntConnect, an Entrepreneurship conference that my Uncle is taking me to as my graduation present (Thank you Uncle Len). After the long night at lab I ended up sleeping until 10:55. I was freaked out and figured there was no way I was going to get out there, Susanna helped me calm down (Thank you Susanna) and look around at some possibilities. Then there were a series of calls to us air, united, and Len and Lorraine which lead to me just heading to the airport to see if I hung out long enough if I could get on some flight on stand by (Thank you Lorraine for suggesting this).

Some lessons learned on the phone - US Air will allow you to fly stand by if you are flying on miles, but United will not. Even if you have a first class ticket (double thank you Len and Lorraine!) if you are flying on miles then on the phone you are still restricted to flights you can use miles on. Another interesting part of this event was neither untied or us air seemed to have any record of my ticket when I told them the flight number, my name and destination but when I then told them my ticket number they found it right away.

I got to the airport at 1:30 and went up to the first class line, luckily there was just one person ahead of me, I went up to the person working at the counter and explained the situation (well except for why I missed the flight). She typed away for a while and again could not find my reservation and asked if I had any documentation, luckily I had my laptop and pulled up the email with the information and held the laptop so she could read off the information. She then asked me if I had anything to check - I said no - she told me she's putting me on a 2:00 flight that will stop in Charlotte and that I should run, she also added that I was lucky I got her because anyone else would have made me fly stand by.

I ran over to security - told them I had a 2:00 flight and got to skip most of the line and got to the gate about 5 minutes before they started to board.

The flight was fine.

When we landed and I found a place to sit I called up Teradyne to accept their job offer in Agoura Hills. They seemed excited and I am very excited. We will be talking sometime in the next couple of weeks to figure out all of the details. I decided on Teradyne because I enjoyed working there during my internships, also because I like the fact that the group I will be working for does a large variety of projects, unlike a lot of the design companies I talked to where people tend to start working on a very specific type of circuit and stay with that forever, and of course location. Especially after the past two winters in Boston I am looking forward to hanging out on the beach.

Well as I was finishing up those calls I heard an announcement that they overbooked the flight I was on by 6 seats and they are looking for volunteers (WOW - I am glad the woman at the counter had booked tickets for me instead of having me fly standby...).

This flight was also uneventful.

When I got into Denver I took a shuttle over to dinner where I met up with Uncle Len and some of the people attending the conference, we had a very good and big Italian dinner.

The next day we went to the conference which had some interesting talks. Particularly interesting was one talk about persistent search, rss , a9 and a couple other topics and combining them. Also someone who had worked for the Navy designing submarines during the 60's and 70's discussed some of the subs designed during that time and his own personal involvement. I also found it interesting to talk to some people who have been working in technology for a long time and who have ventured out on their own. From what I picked up from them matched what I have been noticing/been told which is I definitely feel that staring off with Teradyne and learning there is the right way to go but to keep my eyes open for opportunities. I also found it interesting that some of the people seemed like they were looking to go out on their own for big money, but almost all were out on their own so they can work on what they want and/or they can live where they want and have time for family.
And of course it was fun getting to hang out with Uncle Len.

Tomorrow there is a bit more conference in the morning and then in the afternoon I head back to Boston, this half of the flight it will be direct and I am in 1st class so that should be pretty comfy.

Well, time to get packed up and ready for bed so I can be awake for the talks tomorrow morning.