Today I started the two week count down to unemployment aka I gave notice. As noted about 22 months ago, quiting is not as fun or exciting as it should be. Especially when your boss is working out of town and you do it over the phone, it ends up a bit muted.
My unemployment stint will only last two weeks, then I'll be headed up to Santa Clara to start doing RF (wireless) chip design. I'm really excited both about moving to Silicon Valley and getting into the field of RF design. I'm not posting the name of the company because I'd prefer my blog not come up if someone searches for the company name, but if you're interested I'd be happy to say more over email (it's not a small company, but you've probably never heard of it). RF is a particularly challenging area of electrical engineering so I think it will be really interesting to get into. And I have a feeling that this whole wireless thing is really starting to catch on and has a bit of growth potential.
I do have a bit of regret for leaving medical devices. But I've learned that while the end product is important, even more important is the day to day work. I'm also sad to leave Southern California, it's especially tough right now since beach weather is just starting up (well, that and the friends I've made). Although I get past it by remembering how much good asian food there is in sunnyvale (not to mention SF). Oh, and the people I know up there - you come before asian food, really. It's a bit odd because I sort of know the area where I'm moving because I spent so much time there for my current job.
Well, ok, all that stuff is just rationalizations. The real reason for the job change is my current employer stopped serving free dinner so I found a job where they serve free breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Sunday, March 09, 2008
First Sunburn of the Year
On Saturday I headed up to Laguna Beach and discovered that I was not the only person to decide to go to the beach on one of the first beach worthy weekends of the year. Once I figured out parking it was really nice to get back to the beach after a long break from it.
The other super exciting event on Saturday was buying and using an electric razor. I decided that I want to try to shave every day and figured switching to electric would help. I went for a fairly simple norelco based on advice from coworkers. Well, an electric razor is no match for 3 days of growth on my face - I think a spoon would have been better. But, I haven't given up yet, I think it is only fair to try it on one day's growth, since the whole point is that is all it will ever have to take on. Keep reading further posts to hear about my thrilling adventures in shaving.
On Sunday I headed down to Sea World with Evan. Not the best park I've seen, but it has some good shows. The Whale (Shamu) show was a bit over done, but if you get past the corny stuff, the jumps and tricks were really cool. It was a huge let down to realize that there is more than one "Shamu". Being Jewish I didn't really have a "there's no Santa" moment as a kid. I feel like this was it for me, not that I was that into Shamu, but I did think Shamu was one real whale. The dolphin show was ok. The otter show was like a bad high school play. No, we didn't sit the slash zone. I do wonder at what age or stage in life, getting sprayed with water goes from desirable to undesirable? One unexpected aspect of Sea World is that it is owned by Anheuser-Busch. So not only do they sell beer at the park, but they have an area where you can sample different beers for free (well, if you forget about the park admission price). They also have some clydesdales there which is an ingenious method of advertising a beer company to children.
The other super exciting event on Saturday was buying and using an electric razor. I decided that I want to try to shave every day and figured switching to electric would help. I went for a fairly simple norelco based on advice from coworkers. Well, an electric razor is no match for 3 days of growth on my face - I think a spoon would have been better. But, I haven't given up yet, I think it is only fair to try it on one day's growth, since the whole point is that is all it will ever have to take on. Keep reading further posts to hear about my thrilling adventures in shaving.
On Sunday I headed down to Sea World with Evan. Not the best park I've seen, but it has some good shows. The Whale (Shamu) show was a bit over done, but if you get past the corny stuff, the jumps and tricks were really cool. It was a huge let down to realize that there is more than one "Shamu". Being Jewish I didn't really have a "there's no Santa" moment as a kid. I feel like this was it for me, not that I was that into Shamu, but I did think Shamu was one real whale. The dolphin show was ok. The otter show was like a bad high school play. No, we didn't sit the slash zone. I do wonder at what age or stage in life, getting sprayed with water goes from desirable to undesirable? One unexpected aspect of Sea World is that it is owned by Anheuser-Busch. So not only do they sell beer at the park, but they have an area where you can sample different beers for free (well, if you forget about the park admission price). They also have some clydesdales there which is an ingenious method of advertising a beer company to children.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Faking It and San Diego Zoo
Over the weekend I read Faking It. It's sort of an advice book for people leaving college. Mostly it is just being funny, partially giving real advice on how to fake it, and partially giving real advice. It is completely aimed at guys. It has some stuff like a few authors to know in case anyone ever talks literature and stuff like basic advice on buying and wearing a suit. If you're interested spend 10 minutes in a book store checking it out - you should be able to skim through a good portion. Or if you're not a guy in your early to mid 20s then just skip it. The cover on amazon is different than the one I have - a 40 being poured into a fancy liquor glass. The book also confirms a number of things my parents had to slowly convince me of - like that the stuff in my bathroom should match, that I should get a decent set of towels, and I should put artwork on my walls (that's some of the less funny advice).
On Sunday I headed to the San Diego Zoo. I would say that it is a rather nice zoo, but I could also tell you there is some good food in France. I actually think that the San Diego wild animal park is nicer because it seems so much more natural having a bunch of different animals out in a large area. In defensive of zoos in other cities I do think the San Diego Zoo cheats by designing everything based on knowing that the weather will be nice. I won't go into too much detail, but there's a lot more animal sex going on at the zoo than I remember from childhood zoo visits. Not sure if I just caught an interesting day or if that's what happens when you don't have parents to pull you away and you have a sick enough sense of humor that if you see something starting you get closer rather than walking away.
In foreign countries where I do not speak the language, I have little shame when it comes to trying to communicate with people I do not know in order to get what I need. Rather than state an example - I'll just encourage you to think of your favorite of my stories about me finding my way around another country - if you know me well enough to read this, you almost certainly have a long list to choose from. But when I'm within driving distance of my home and everyone around me speaks english (well, ok, maybe not everyone, I am 70 miles from the border, but everyone relevant to the situation), even if the other person initiates the conversation - I have no idea what to say. And often end up mumbling half a sentence or just smiling dumbly. And afterwards wonder if my half sentence meant anything or if the other people were left guessing what country I'm visiting from. Well, I guess it does save them from trying to parse my run-on sentences and trying to figure out who taught me it is ok to put sub-sentences in parentheses and split parts of sentences using hyphens.
On Sunday I headed to the San Diego Zoo. I would say that it is a rather nice zoo, but I could also tell you there is some good food in France. I actually think that the San Diego wild animal park is nicer because it seems so much more natural having a bunch of different animals out in a large area. In defensive of zoos in other cities I do think the San Diego Zoo cheats by designing everything based on knowing that the weather will be nice. I won't go into too much detail, but there's a lot more animal sex going on at the zoo than I remember from childhood zoo visits. Not sure if I just caught an interesting day or if that's what happens when you don't have parents to pull you away and you have a sick enough sense of humor that if you see something starting you get closer rather than walking away.
In foreign countries where I do not speak the language, I have little shame when it comes to trying to communicate with people I do not know in order to get what I need. Rather than state an example - I'll just encourage you to think of your favorite of my stories about me finding my way around another country - if you know me well enough to read this, you almost certainly have a long list to choose from. But when I'm within driving distance of my home and everyone around me speaks english (well, ok, maybe not everyone, I am 70 miles from the border, but everyone relevant to the situation), even if the other person initiates the conversation - I have no idea what to say. And often end up mumbling half a sentence or just smiling dumbly. And afterwards wonder if my half sentence meant anything or if the other people were left guessing what country I'm visiting from. Well, I guess it does save them from trying to parse my run-on sentences and trying to figure out who taught me it is ok to put sub-sentences in parentheses and split parts of sentences using hyphens.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
America's Mistakes
John McCain said, "They (Dem) will paint a picture of the world in which America's mistakes are a greater threat to our security than the malevolent intentions of an enemy that despises us and our ideals;".
I think this is anti-patriotic. He's saying that America is not massively more powerful than its enemies. If you are super patriotic and think America is say 1000 times more powerful than its enemies then even if the enemies put 100% of the effort into destroying America, only 0.1% of America's efforts need to be mistakes hurting itself to do as much damage as its enemies. If say 1% of efforts are mistakes then America's mistakes do 10 times as much damage as its enemies.
Even very optimistically at least 10% of America's efforts to stop terrorism are mistakes so John McCain is saying that America is not 10 times more powerful than its enemies. I think McCain should apologize to the army and country as a whole for insulting its power.
I think this is anti-patriotic. He's saying that America is not massively more powerful than its enemies. If you are super patriotic and think America is say 1000 times more powerful than its enemies then even if the enemies put 100% of the effort into destroying America, only 0.1% of America's efforts need to be mistakes hurting itself to do as much damage as its enemies. If say 1% of efforts are mistakes then America's mistakes do 10 times as much damage as its enemies.
Even very optimistically at least 10% of America's efforts to stop terrorism are mistakes so John McCain is saying that America is not 10 times more powerful than its enemies. I think McCain should apologize to the army and country as a whole for insulting its power.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Memo to the President Elect, ISSCC, San Clemente, Jon Lovitz
A few weeks ago I went to ISSCC. It's the first real conference I've attended and was really interesting. It was basically 3 hours of lecture in the morning and 3 hours of lecture in the afternoon. And one day another 2 hours of lecture at night. But it was great to see what other people are working on and interesting to see some of the problems they've had. I mostly went to a combo of low speed analog and RF presentations. But I did catch intel's talk on their new high-k process - they do some really amazing stuff in order to build transistors with gate oxides a few atoms thick. The conference felt a bit like school since it was like going to lectures and I also saw 4 professors I took classes from there.
I got to see some of San Francisco, but I was at the conference most of the time. It was fun getting to eat at a whole variety of restaurants and not need to drive everywhere. This is probably true of the center of any major city, but, especially just as the sun started to set, it felt like I was inside when I was walking around outside. I think it's mostly the tall buildings lining narrow streets, but seemed like a stronger feeling than I've had in other big cities (except parts of Tokyo had a similar feeling).
Some how I forgot to bring a book on the trip up to ISSCC so at the airport I bought Memo to the President Elect by Madeleine Albright. I think the main message of the book is moderation and be reasonable. The secondary message is Bush sucks. The book is structured as a letter to the next president advising him on what to do. It almost entirely concentrates on foreign policy. It doesn't go into too much detail, but gives a good over view of America's relationship with other countries. It also gives a vague but reasonable path to minimizing issues in the middle east, including Iraq. For some reason I expected her to be more anti-military, but while she pushes mostly for diplomacy she makes it clear that the US should not entirely rule out the use of force (although she's very against the war in Iraq and does not want the US to go to war in Iran). The book is a bit boring because it is so moderate, but I guess good foreign policy is to keep things from getting exciting.
San Clemente made it on the nyt daily email! The article is about how the coastal commission stopped the toll road. I was a bit surprised because the nyt was a bit harsh on the coastal commission when I think it is great that there is a governmental group who is really looking out for nature.
Last weekend I went to the Irvine Improv with Evan to see Jon Lovitz. It was really funny. He was a bit different from his normal TV character, and made a lot of use of not being censored so it was not what I expected, but still really good.
I got to see some of San Francisco, but I was at the conference most of the time. It was fun getting to eat at a whole variety of restaurants and not need to drive everywhere. This is probably true of the center of any major city, but, especially just as the sun started to set, it felt like I was inside when I was walking around outside. I think it's mostly the tall buildings lining narrow streets, but seemed like a stronger feeling than I've had in other big cities (except parts of Tokyo had a similar feeling).
Some how I forgot to bring a book on the trip up to ISSCC so at the airport I bought Memo to the President Elect by Madeleine Albright. I think the main message of the book is moderation and be reasonable. The secondary message is Bush sucks. The book is structured as a letter to the next president advising him on what to do. It almost entirely concentrates on foreign policy. It doesn't go into too much detail, but gives a good over view of America's relationship with other countries. It also gives a vague but reasonable path to minimizing issues in the middle east, including Iraq. For some reason I expected her to be more anti-military, but while she pushes mostly for diplomacy she makes it clear that the US should not entirely rule out the use of force (although she's very against the war in Iraq and does not want the US to go to war in Iran). The book is a bit boring because it is so moderate, but I guess good foreign policy is to keep things from getting exciting.
San Clemente made it on the nyt daily email! The article is about how the coastal commission stopped the toll road. I was a bit surprised because the nyt was a bit harsh on the coastal commission when I think it is great that there is a governmental group who is really looking out for nature.
Last weekend I went to the Irvine Improv with Evan to see Jon Lovitz. It was really funny. He was a bit different from his normal TV character, and made a lot of use of not being censored so it was not what I expected, but still really good.
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