singing, "schools out for... two weeks"

Well, finals are done.  My last one was today. Yikes, that was an intense semester ("like the circus, and camping." ha!)

Things are winding down, and we all know what that means.  Yes, it's a short break before summer semester begins.  I really wish I had more time to myself to relax, but I am self-imposing these schedules so that I can graduate without killing myself.  Although, I have been running into some major snags along the way.

I got my acceptance letter from SLCC (...huzzah...) but it said I wasn't a resident of Utah.  Okay, shut the front door.  I'm totally a resident.  Jerks.  I had to call them and settle the whole thing.  It didn't take too long, but I was informed that before I could sign up for classes, I would have to come in and do their orientation.  Having been a college student far longer than I would like to admit, I didn't feel it all that important.  But, I COULDN'T register for a class until it was done.

I found out that I could do it online.  I was stoked.  It took ten minutes and I was feeling quite good when it told me that it would take up to two more days for them to process my online orientation.  And here I thought when I pressed the "Complete" button, I was done.

All-in-all I got it all set up and I tried to add the class.  Red letters sirens and all such forth were overwhelming me and I soon found out why.  The class was full.  Not only full, but TOO full.  In the books, it's a class that seats 35.  That is a great class size and I was pretty excited to have a Physics class that wasn't over 200 students.  But there were 51 enrolled.  Yeah, you heard me.  51 enrolled students in a class of 35.

I called the professor and asked if there was anything I could do.  When I didn't get a response, I emailed her.  Seems like she won't add anyone else into the class until at least 10 people drop out and she said that won't happen within the first week and she wasn't willing to let someone in after the first week.  Sheesh.

Well, So here I am, getting ready to take Physics from the U which I was avoiding in the first place.  I guess you can't always win... Maybe I'll get the time to myself to relax after all.

interview

Self reflected Microsoft interview Score:  B+

Here's the rundown of what they asked:

Write two programs to calculate the Fibonacci sequence - One iterative and one recursive

Tape with the numbers 1...Million with one number missing.  Only looking once at the tape, how do you find which number is missing?

If you owned a elevator business and you did the quality control, what tests would you run on an elevator put into a hospital?

We were on the phone about twice as long as was expected which she apologized for... good?  bad?

1 @m 5u(h @ d*r|{

So I just wrote a program that will change what you type into craziness.  Let me give you an example aside from the title of the post...

$o i ju57 wR*73 a PR*graM that Wil) [han9e w4@7 y*U tyP3 int* cr@Z1n3$5_  |37 Me 91V3 y*U an 3XaMPle @$ide FroM th3 717|3 *f th3 P*$t___

Yeah.  I know.  I'm a dork.

(I'm not sure how I feel about having the "h" be a 4...)

Although I guess it's not all that surprising.  It's what I like to do.  That wasn't an assignment or anything, I just did it because I had some spare time one day.

Dorkiness runs in the family though.  I'm the first in the family to officially study dorkitude, but everyone loves it.  My oldest brother has been as dorky as I since I can remember.

I remember when he worked coding HTML locally (and I hope you know that I spend all my time with people who will argue for quite a while about how HTML isn't a language for no more reason than to show how much they know about HTML and coding), and in his spare time... you guessed it... he taught me.

This was WELL before the days of what some dubbed "FakeTML" programs like Dreamweaver, iWeb, etc.  That was back in the good ol' days when you coded each line yourself, and the walk to the computer was 2 miles, uphill both ways... in the snow.

His dorkiness and mine are the most similar in the family.  Most everyone else has their own outlets.  Songs titled, "Love is like a Refillable Mug" were invented at the RFC, a brother has 4 pinball machines, my father used to collect VCRs and bread machines, a sister did have a collection of snow-globes, and the list continues.

But here's the best part.  That's why we are so dang cool.  Each of us has our own passions and yet, although some of them are stupid enough to be creating a program that changed the letters of a sentence, we still accept each other, despite the dork that lives within.  I have never heard anything but positive things about what I find fun and interesting.

I guess that's what family is though.  It's not the blood that binds us, but the attitude we show to each other for our passions, or problems and even our mistakes.

Plus, they're a fun group to vacation with...

PS - The image at the beginning was taken from a Google image search.  I thought I HAD to add it because I did a search for "nerd programmer" and within the first 10 images, I found a picture that looks amazingly like my brother...

big things come in small names

Have you ever thought it funny that such a large company has a name that starts with "Micro?"

I got my resume all typed up and sent it off.  I hope to hear back soon.  An internship over the summer would be fantastic.  I know I'm getting into the game a little late, but it's always worth a shot.  

It's been a fun spring break.  I was a little shocked that it was Thursday today.  Honestly, I went through the entire day thinking that it was Wednesday.  Weird.  I've been quite productive and I hope to get everything done this week that I need so I can focus on school.  I'm cutting it down pretty close to the wire, but I'm sure I can work it out.

I've been working with my new job and I have quite a few new leads.  It really helps that my mother worked for the school district and seems to know everyone that I would need to talk to.  In fact, she got me talking with the people whose job is to find people like me.  Nice.  I'll be making a few more calls tomorrow before everyone goes home for the weekend to see if I can get some more headway on this project.  I'm pretty excited about it.

I did get to visit Slagle while I was down at the highschool the other day.  She's great.  It was the morning before a concert so it seemed that she was pretty busy getting everything done.  She made a huge impact on my highschool days.  It was fun to see her and I hope that when we get up and running at that school, that I'll be able to say hello more frequently.  

Why does spring break go so quickly?

list

Thumbs down button on remote

Pencil holder

Pen

Soda can

DVD cover

Shirt

A/V cables

Book

American flag

Uncle Sam's bowtie

Candy

Picture frame

Magazine

Child's toy bus

Model airplane

Dish towel

Painting

Shoes

And that concludes the things around me that are red.

it is time part ii

That's it folks.  As of today, I no longer work at the bank.  (I feel like I can say that now that I don't work there)

I have learned a lot from that job and it was actually pretty hard to leave.  The people at that branch are awesome and I loved working with them.  I did have frustrating days, as everyone does sometimes, but I came out of that a better person with a skill set that can be applicable to a whole lot of areas.

So here's the thing.  I think I need to celebrate.  A new job, a lot fewer hours (which is going to help me with school), and the fact that this week has been so busy that I could throw up.

So readers and buzzers, here's the plan.

BREAKFAST!

Woot woot!

This Saturday morning I want to get whoever wants to come with me and get some breakfast (I already know what I'm going to order) at a little place called Chick's Cafe in Heber.  It's a bit of a drive, but it will be fun with friends, trust me!

So if you are interested, meet me at my house at 9:30 so we can drive up there, get some breakfast!  It'll be fun. 

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=374653598742

it is time

At least it will be in 3:12:58:10 (3 days, 12 hours, 58 minutes and 10 seconds)

But who's counting, right?