happy thanksgiving or something

yeah.

veteran's day

It's impossible to write something that two words so easily sum up. Despite their repetition, I doubt they lose their meaning.

So, to all those serving, both past and present:

Thank you.

The stupidest thing I ever did.

Once my friends and I mixed up some 'napalm' -- we dissolved styrofoam in gasoline. The resultant gooey mixture will burn for a long time. We then took it across a huge field behind his house where the local Catholic church had cleared out a ton of land. The result was a magnificently large pile of dead pine tree wood. For those of you aren't putting this together, I was playing with fire on top of a 50 foot pile of dead, dry, kindling wood.

It's a good thing we got bored with the napalm quickly enough.

Atheists probably shouldn't read this...

I'm brainwashing myself.

I've come to the realization that "the world" (That's 'the Man' for all you conspiracy theorists out there) is out to get me. Suggestive lyrics are the mode d'emploi for music these days. Then there's the emotional nature to the music; it doesn't remind you of your divine nature as a son or daughter of God. It doesn't uplift, promote, engender charity, or teach anything.

Music gets into your head, and the constant barrage of imagery and soupçon influences the way you think. I want to control what influences me and how it influences me. Alma 13 (the best chapter in the Book of Mormon and I dare you to contradict me.) teaches that priesthood holders are supposed to live their lives in such a way that those who seek Christ will recognize Him by the examples of His priesthood holders. Let your light so shine, eh?

Two days into it and I already can notice a difference in how easy it is to control my thoughts towards holier things, and how I have a higher interest in spiritual knowledge. Soon I will be a fully brainwashed card carrying Mormon.

More job hunting crud

ATK (Thiokol) interviewed me last week. They build rockets. I was invited to tour the facility, and the engineer who interviewed me took me and another grad student from a neighboring school on a separate tour to see the places where engineers actually work. We met hiring managers and talked with some of the guy's colleagues. Of the tour group of students, we were the only ones who were given that special treatment so I felt, well, special. They do rockets. I'll finally be able to say "Yes, Ma'am, I am a rocket scientist."

Then yesterday I had three interviews. Moog, pronounce 'mowg,' does airplane systems; integration, control, and embedded. Now this was an interview where I felt like I nailed it. I rarely come out of interviews feeling like I did well. Less often do I hear things like "Wow, this is a really impressive resume. I think you'd be an excellent fit with us. I'm will definitely recommend your resume be reviewed by the hiring managers. I hope you'll be able to come out for a second interview."

AMI Semiconductor was kinda the same way. They even gave me two technical questions. The first of which was to design a block diagram of an FIR filter (which I did correctly.) The second of which was to explain what happens in a lossless system, where two capacitors are hooked up in parallel and an open switch is between them. Capacitor A is 1 microfarad, 2 volts. Capacitor B is 2 microfarad, 6 volts. When the switch is thrown, what happens? Got that one too. They seemed pretty impressed, and said "The next step, now that you've demonstrated some basic knowledge, is to bring you out to AMI for the next set of interviews."

The last one was for NAVAIR, which is basically the Navy, and it was short and chock full of the same BS questions that never lead anywhere and don't allow a candidate or an interviewer to give or get the full scope of what someone can offer.

I feel really excited. It felt good to be wanted.