So This Is How it Feels

To win the lottery!!!

Ok I didn't, but it feels like it.  I don't even know how to act right now.  In shock. 



Thanks to everybody who joined forces and kept their fingers crossed.  

我得到了！
ah maa, ngo duk joh lah!
I did it! woooooooooooooooo

What next? plane tickets to ___, take family out, take family out, take friends out, take a time out (breathe) ,take friends out, take family out, rince rinse* repeat

*Note to self: Start reading and writing proper English again, you're going to need it. Fool.

Covert Letter

 This pic's dedicated to my fellow bloggers: Cora and Thunderlips

 
So I was looking up job postings today, and I noticed that there was this swell feller next to me with a red beanie.  I asked him is name: "Caz with a Z", he said.  He looked like an educated soul, so I asked if he would write my cover letter for me:

Dear Hiring Manager,

From the time of my birth some twenty-four years ago, it has been a dream built into the very code of my deoxyribonucleic acid to become an NX CAM Engineer.  As I grew from ovum to fetus and on to the natural breathing world, one thought emerged as a domineering guide in my future fate: "Be the best NX CAM Engineer in the world."  My parents, each Chinese rice farmers, instilled in me the necessary themes of our ancient ancestry: the Ninja arts of the Samurai, which read that one must be self-disciplined, stoic and great at NX CAM Engineering.  I have, in every breath and step I have taken in this life, lived to make true on the promise I made my dying mother as I fled my homeland.  As the cancer from the toxic sewage that Wal-Mart had dumped in our paddy-field ate away at her brain from the inside out, I told her, "I move America.  Become big star.  Make much money.  Bang hot America girl.  And I will become the greatest NX CAM Engineer that the world has ever seen before!"  My English has since improved, but my motivations and my desires have remained as steadfast as the migrant workers on whose backs the Chinese economy today grows.

Thank you for your consideration,

Lick McWick

The goal is to stand out right? I hope I get it!  Thanks Caz with a Z 

Interview Scare

hahHAH

12:20PM bi-bi-bi-beeep BI-BI-BI-BEEP: Holy shit, I was supposed to wake up early for my interview.  Good thing it's at 2, I can still make it.

1:10PM: Check the mirror to make sure I'm baller.  Damn my dress shoes are still in my car, so I go to my trunk and change shoes.  *SLAM* FUUUUUUUUUCK, out of rushing I lock my keys in the trunk.  Spares are in the house, and no one is home.  I'm panicking as all hell but at least I look good. 

Damn I rarely lock my keys in, and this has got to be the worst time.  It takes almost half an hour to get DT and im screwd.  I almost call my friend who got me the interview to reschedule.  Good thing my mom was having Dim Sum near by.  Good thing she knows how to drive like a Taxi driver.  Where would I be without my mama? She's awesome. 

I arrive at 1:57pm, adrenaline pumping, which is horrible for an interview.  I imagine rambling on tangents while the interviewere nods his head with frowed brows.
But it turns out, my friend was accompanying me on this interview, and we're all going to Ctown to get some Zhongs during the interview.  Chillest interview ever!  I end up talking with the guy for two hours, so I think I have a good chance.  Thanks to my buddy "Arnold Kworscheneggar"

Wish me luck guys.

Return, View and Review

Return

I'm back! it's been a while because of this fixture design and manufacturing project that I've just officially finished. WOO! Boy, there was overtime, and weekend working, and major hurdles, but I'd rather not get into details.  This weekend was just what I needed to unwind and I didn't even know it was coming.  My uncle tells me on Thursday night that I have to drive him down to Eugene so that  he can drive my cousin's car back to Portland to get it Smogged.  Oregon has this crazy backwards rule where you have to get the car DEQ'ed (Smogged in Cali) in the city that it was registered in?  So instead of having it smogged conveniently in Eugene, we had to have two cars travel over 200 miles roundtrip to get it done.  Thats great for the environment...

View

But it was a blessing in disguise, because when I showed up in Eugene I found out that we were going to the beach on Saturday.  Woohoo! I forgot how long it's been since I've seen the Pacific Ocean.  I've taken living 1 mile from an ocean for granted.  This portion of the blog shall be in pictures.  I present to you:: Hobbit Beach (credits to LN and JY for their beautiful pics!)

Nice view of Hobbit Beach (left) We spent probably over 2 hours building our  manly wave protection wall hahah.  It was destroyed in 15 minutes.  Damn you nature! (right)

 We then proceed to fight back against nature by trying to destroy boulders.  BAMM!! ROCK SMASH! 

You always gotta do handstands at a beach.  Guess who's the gymnast and who's a good fer' nuthin' scalliwag?

 The Ferocious Five

 I draw the only thing that I know how to draw, Turtle Power!

 I get buried, and it was so comfortable I damn nearly fell asleep!  (feel free to caption-ize this pic)

Heh, thanks to Jenny's action picture taking skills, I had to make this.  He was merely helping me get all that sand off, don't judge. 

 Then we went into town and ate Prime Rib for $12.95.  Hell yes. 

Ahh it was a great Saturday at Hobbit Beach in(around?) Florence.  Thanks for bringing me guys!

What else is new? ah yess, I splurged and bought myself something nice and shiny.  So let's get on to the

Review
I always despised Bluetooth Headsets.  So hard to use!  The first one I got was this crappy cheap logitech one where I was never sure when it was on or connected or off.   It would drain out of batteries cus I left it on, and I probably spent a total of 9 minutes actually using it.  So since then, I stuck with the tried and true wired earpiece or the even more tried and true "cellphone held by wrenched neck" method.

But then I decided to look for one recently, because I had this Call of Duty session where there were 5+ buddies with headsets trying to talk to me, but I remained a mute.  It was like I wasn't even playing with them at all!  And plus, I was tired of the CHBWN method.  And plus, I'm going to be driving a heck of a lot and will need emergency calling to keep myself alert (like last time when I played "I Never" over the phone).  Anyways I scoured through the net seeing what the most recent new fangled reasonably priced Bluetooth headset was, and I came across this baby

Behold the Motorola H17

This thing is so cool! the microphone boom flips open and close to turn the headset on and off! Now I'll definitely know if its on or off, and it's super quick so that I can flip it open, put it on my ear and still be able to answer the incoming call.  Another big feature for this is that it can connect to 2 devices at once.   So imagine this: I'm playing COD with my friends, smack talking, yelling, having a grande time when suddenly my phone rings.  This headset will let me switch over to my phone with one touch of a button, and when I'm done I'm back in my game.  Yay!  Now I understand this use case scenario doesn't apply to a lot of you, but I really love the design of this headset.  Simple, elegant, and it just works.  Plus it charges in 15 minutes haha

So when I'm driving back to home, feel free to give me a call.  I won't end up in a ditch trying to fumble for my phone, I promise! (plus, thats illegal)

Life is like a box of chocolates

You never know what you're gonna get.  Or where you're going to wind up. 

Yea I was gonna do a New Years post about the great times of 2009, but its 4AM now and I won't do 2009 justice if I try to power through.  So this will be an announcement of sorts of the huge change in 2010 that I'm going through.  It's kind of a new chapter in life.

My uncle has asked me to help out on his new design project and business venture.  Pretty exciting!  But the thing is, I'll be spending most of my time in Portland.  Wow, I've been in the Bay Area my whole life so this will be a complete lifestyle change.  All of my closest friends are here in the city, and it's going to be tough being away from everybody. 

But I've made my decision.  This project we're doing is something I'mvery interested in.  It involves implementing green technology and will really help the environment. (I'm not gonna post the details online, but you can ask me in the real world!) It's going to take a lot of hard work and dedication because it will certainly be challenging.  I'm going to be able to do a lot of engineering design which is what I really like doing.  So I guess this is somewhat of a calling. 

I've been telling people little by little, and I'm happy all my friends have been supportive.  There's some suggestions of a going away party, but I really don't want that.  Those things are way too emotional.  For these two weeks in SF, I'd just wanna hang out with my friends and chill.  Portland's not far away, and I'll definitely be back a few times every year.  But I'm gonna miss everybody and the fun of the citay by the bay.

From: San Francisco

To: Portland

2009 was all play and pretty much no work :P heh

2010 will be my productive year!  It's time to make something of myself. 

Goooooodnight!

UC Davis, Brian's bday

Just came back from celebrating Brian's bday.  We went out to a place in the sunset called The Garage, a Korean joint with Soju and open till 2 everyday.  It's a great place to hangout with friends or go on a date because its so unique.  It's actually a restaurant converted from a sunset home garage with doorbells at every table to call the waiter.  First time having Soju for me, and it's a pretty good time because everybody doesn't mind drinking it.  Even Andrew drank with us this time, and we were pretty much laughing the whole time at Brian's expense.  (ask him about his dream)   Haha that guy everytime we told him to give a toast, he'd say "i'm sorry"  haha that's not the greatest line to drink to but whatever it was fun.

I also went up to Davis today for an interview so I actually slept before 1AM and woke up before noon!  (doesn't happen much anymore) It felt great though, I actually felt rested and didn't hate myself for waking up at 2 haha.  The interview went pretty smoothly I thought.  I was practicing questions that I made up with Angel these couple of days and they actually asked those questions in the interview!  I hope I get it, it seems like a pretty cool place to work (will not mention it on this public blog). 

I kinda like going back to Davis sometimes, it's like nostalgia and its so laid back and chill there.  It was cool because my former roommate and my former coworker was still around so we all went out to eat at Davis Taqueria (steak burrito and carne asada fries NOM).  I didn't even notice until we left, but we were there for 3 hours!!  Never spent 3 hours at a burrito place.  We just had a lot of catching up to do, talking about the layoffs was actually kinda funny looking back now. 

50-50
My coworker always brings this up to me now and only because it's embarassing.  Right before we got laid off, he was like.. you know what? We had a nickname for you when you first got hired: 50-50.  Why 50-50 you may ask?  Well when I came in for an interview, I was an idiot and was totally unprepared.  My suit was kinda wrinkled because I didn't have time to dry clean, and I didn't get a haircut because I was scared of the Davis barber shops (the only time i tried it, i came out with a military crew cut -_-).  So I was like what the hell am I going to do with this mess of hair (college hair)?  I didn't want to look like a bum for this interview.  So with the hairgel I had lying around, I messed around and ended up splitting it down the middle. 

Apparently he see's me walking around with the hiring manager, and him and his friends start busting up laughing.  And they made a joke about it calling me 50-50 for the longest time.  He also told me he was talking to an assembler that apparently didn't know what "studious" meant.  and he goes: you remember that guy in the suit with the 50-50 split? thats what studious means.  haha god damn so embarassing.  what a way to make a 1st impression right? oh well at least it got me the job.

50-50: it get's the job done

Waste of Effort!

GoDMANIT

So today my goal was to apply to these two new positions posted by "Company".  I wanted to stand out so I decided to write two different cover letters for each position.  So I'm at Zephyrs at 9-11 diligently cranking out these cover letters and feeling good about myself.  Then when I get back home to check on the application status, I found out that their stupid online system only saves the most recent cover letter!!  For some reason they just delete your previous ones, what the heck.  I've written a total of 3 cover letters for "Company" because I was applying for 5 different positions!  How does that make any sense?  I put in my effort to handcraft each letter for a specific position, and they only take one?!  That's jacked up.  I wasted my time.  Now I have to write a generic one.  so lame.

UCD Career Fair

Wow so refreshing to have some dialog with engineering companies!  Been feeling so alone and left out from the engineering world.  I'm glad I made it to the UCD career fair, even though it's far away.  Everytime I tell someone I was going to Davis for a career fair, they're like wow so far!  It's always great being in Davis for me, I mean it's so peaceful and calm there, and everything is walking distance.  The career fair was really helpful in terms of re-learning how to talk the interview talk.  The first 2 companies, I was nervous as hell, stuttering stanley and everything.  But I warmed up, and by the end of the day I had talked to about 20 companies.  It's still discouraging because most of the companies were there just for show.  There were only about 3 that were reaally hiring. 

I spoke to my old college recruiter Nicole from PG&E and 2 years ago, they were hiring like 50 engineers, last year 26.  This year? a big FAT zero.  ugh.  But it was cool seeing my fellow engineering buddies there, we're all hurting bad right now.  One dude got laid off as well! but he got married and he has to live with his parents with his wife now.  It's bad out there.  There was also this other guy that was complaining to the Boeing guy about how he never gets a call back from anybody.  This guy was so distressed it was like he was having an emotional breakdown.  Just kept on asking why why why?! It wasn't pretty.

I am so ready to work! hire me please, I'll make you rich!