TGIFF

TGIFF!

I finally got my rejection notice from Diebold. I enjoyed the automated response: "We have completed a thorough review of your background and qualifications. Though well impressed with your experience, we have decided that your background is not an exact match for our particular needs." Yeah, why even bother writing that? Still throwing out resumes and job applications every day, still freaking out about finding a job. Every week more and more people are getting offers, which is really grinding my spirits down. I don't want to graduate alone and jobless; I'm starting to feel lost. I would be a liar if I said I wasn't jealous...

I can't believe that this Sunday is Palm Sunday already! Easter in just a week and a few days, and then graduation in roughly a month after that. Holy cow, this year has gone by so fast! It seems like it wasn't that long ago that a lot of friends graduated, I moved in to my off-campus residence, started a new school year, and made new friends. Fast forward a little bit, senior design feels like we're on the edge of victory, but my stress levels about it have never been higher. Senior year is almost over. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know who will be with me.

I ran across this quote the other day: "Maybe the best thing to do is stop trying to figure out where you’re going, and just enjoy where you’re at."  I can't fathom what's going to happen in the next couple of months. All I know is that I'm giving it my all right now, and that I don't want to settle for second place anymore.

TGIFF.

Win Wednesday

It's hump day, which means that the week is half over. Kinda feeling crummy today, so I wanted to find something happy to write about. Tinkering and fixing problems is one of the big things I do to distract myself from my problems, so here it goes! Happy face time! :)

Actual units I won

Stock photo of the second unit

I got two arcade machines in an online auction, dad is picking it up this Friday. I've always wanted to build/restore one, maybe put a computer with some arcade emulators on it and make a really cool machine. Both of them are games that I don't really care about, so I plan on stripping them out, sanding/repainting them, and restoring them. I don't know when I'll get to this, with school being super busy, graduation fast approaching, and my last family trip (to Europe!) right after graduation. Hopefully I'll find a job soon and a place of my own to work on this project.

The weather's fine and I'm hoping to start feeling good about things soon. Can't get this song out of my head:

That's all for now!

Tag, I'm it!

Emily has found it fit to tag me, so I'm it. Cut and paste, cut and paste, oh boy what is going on?


Here’s the idea:
The first rule is to post these rules. Check!
Post a photo of yourself then write 11 things about you/your life.
Answer the questions for you set in the original post.
Create 11 new questions and tag people to answer them.
Go to their blog/twitter to tell them you have tagged them. 

Here's me. I don't have a lot of pictures of just me.

1. Look at that awesome picture of me up there! I'm a huge hockey fan. Love the Pittsburgh Penguins. Shoot, I just looked up the questions I was asked. Oh well, I guess I'll double it up.
2. I'm a soon-to-be graduated Electrical Engineer. I hate math.
3. I am a technological pack-rat. I have, counting in my bedroom right now, 5 working desktop computers, parts and pieces that I could cobble together for 2 more computers, a laptop, a tablet, and 3 really old Atari computers.
4. I have a feisty little cat, Akali. She looks a lot like this cat, pretty much does the same stuff, too. 
5. I like kids. Not a trait many consider to be on the manly side of the trait spectrum, but I don't care. I'm not uncomfortable around them like a lot of guys, and I don't know who thinks who is more awesome, me, or that little kid staring at me and smiling at me. :)
6. I'm still freaking out about finding a job. 
7. I tend to be a very present-oriented person, but I catch myself being a dreamer a lot.
8. I love the outdoors. I'm an Eagle Scout, and through that career I've been tons of places (Philmont Scout Ranch, NM; Appalachian Trail in TN/NC, canoeing in Canada are the big ones). It's weird coming from someone who is such a techie, but I love hiking, backpacking, and camping.
9. I'm the oldest (23, 19, 15) and shortest of my brothers. I like being 5'10'' and 140 lbs. I know I draw the ire of more than a handful of friends when I complain that it's hard to find clothes that fit, but it is! Most clothing is made for people as tall as me but heavier (waist/butt too big, right length) or super skinny emo punk rocker jeans (the waist and butt fits, but the legs are like wearing leggings!).
10. I'm the calmest, most docile person I know. I try to be nice to everyone so hard (a lot of people don't seem to like this). It's really hard to make me upset.
11. I have a handful of close friends, and a decent amount of acquaintances, but I wouldn't really say I have a lot of friends. I like it that way, though.  

1. What is the quote you live by and why? "Failure is not an option." - Gene Kranz, NASA Flight Director, Apollo 13. Read his book about the whole ordeal, loved the movie. No matter how many times I fall down, no matter how many times I lose, no matter how much I screw up, I just don't know how to do anything else other than to keep going and never quit. 
2. What is the song that describes your life? I wanted to pick something not very mainstream or, I dunno, "cliche." Jumping the Gun. Listen to it, pretty self-explanatory. 
3. What are you most looking forward to in your future? Looking to snag a job near friends and family, and looking to start a family of my own.
4. What is your biggest wish right now? That I had a job lined up, a girlfriend, and had finished school already. The big three.
5. What TV show are you constantly keeping up with? Now that South Park is back, that. I also enjoy Archer. I kinda keep up with other random shows like Law and Order: SVU and Big Bang Theory, but I don't really watch TV (outside of sports) unless it's with friends.
6. If you could do anything in the world (despite the cost) what would you do? Go to space.   To see the whole world from above, humanity as a whole, without political borders, would be amazing. Also, it would be pretty sweet to float around and do cool science stuff.
7. What is your favorite sports team? PITTSBURGH PENGUINS. That is all. They are top by far; OSU Football and the Steelers alternate, but they're pretty much #2a and #2b in reality. 
8. Tell me about your best friend(s). Emily, my best friend, tagged me for this post. I can talk to her about anything I want, and she'll always listen and be there for me; this goes both ways. We're really a lot alike in many ways, personality, likes and dislikes, etc., but we're different enough that things are always fun and interesting :) We can make each other laugh, but we can be serious, too. Emily's the first person in awhile that I feel I could really talk to about anything and everything, something I don't really like doing (scratch that, hate doing). She's the best kind of friend I could ask for.
9. What would your ideal job be? My ideal job would be something technical that I could enjoy doing, while being able to improve the quality of life for people. I really admire my parents who are both able to do this (Mom is an RN, dad works in engineering medical devices).
10. Ketchup or mustard? Going to have to go with ketchup. I like both, but I only put a little bit of mustard on things.
11. One word to describe yourself Compassionate

Uh, the two people that I know that have blogs have already been tagged, so yeah. If people come forward, I'll make up some questions I guess. 

TGIFF

TGIFF!

It's Friday again, in which I summarize all of the good, bad, and ugly things that happened to me this past week.

Job search: It's been over three weeks with my interview @ Diebold. They said to not contact them, that they would get back with me in a few weeks. My dad (engineer with 30+ years of experience) said that if they really had interest, they would have gotten back with me within a few days. That's really deflating. They didn't want to wait for me to do the interview during spring break, and the people who interviewed me seemed to really like me, so I thought I'd at least be in the running? I decided to drop my HR contact an email to see what's up; I can see that the position is still open when I log on to their website. A handful of other companies that I've talked to who said that they'd contact me with a yes: interview or a no: not interested have not got back with me, and have been ignoring weeks of communication attempts. So professional.

Senior Design: We're almost there! The circuit needs a little tweaking to work optimally, and then we just need to integrate it with our microcontroller and get those numbers to start pumping out. I finished making the enclosure for it. I've seen a dremel tool in use before, but I've never done it myself. Had to practice first:

Practicing: I got better pretty quickly

Final Result: not too shabby

I don't know if I've ever outlined what our project is, but it is a smart meter. It's basically an electrical meter like the ones on your house that measures the power you consume. It's "smart" because unlike the old-style meters that require a power company employee to walk up to each meter to take the reading (go look at your meter, there are rotary dials and junk that show how much you've used), it can send all of that information wirelessly to the power company. They can also do neat things like real-time pricing, in which you get charged less when there is less demand for power, and more for when power is in high demand (it still comes out to be a net savings for the consumer, and is much nicer on the environment). For our project, we're just using the lower voltage out of a wall socket instead of the higher voltage that comes into your house (for safety and simplicity). We can plug a load into the socket on the top of the box and measure how much power it's using, and do other stuff with that data. Pretty much a huge pain in the ass. 

Going to see The Hunger Games tonight, and getting a lot of work knocked out over the weekend. This ride ain't over yet.

TGIFF!

Me

How well do you really know me?

I guess I'm not a big communicator. Orally, at least. I do love to type/chat, though. Problem recently is that I haven't thought of anything to write about, so I was thinking, why not write about myself? I mean, I already do that here, but how many people that I know actually know much more than a handful of random facts about me? I'm that guy who's always there, very polite, extremely nice, but never seems to stand out. I'm never the one to do all the talking, especially start the talking. Engage me, though, and I might not stop. Look at me, I'm already off track! I want to just write. About myself.

Ok, about me. My parents and extended family are from Youngstown, OH and Western PA. My father is an Electrical Engineer, and my mother is an RN. I was born in Akron, OH, but we relocated to Columbus when I was 2 years old, where I've lived for all my life outside of college. I have two younger brothers, separated by 3 1/2 years (Matt) and 7 1/2 years (Mike). I don't have the regular sibling rivalry that is common in a lot of sibling relationships; we get along quite well. I don't like to admit it, but I am now the shortest of the three of us (and have been for a few months now). At least if Mike keeps growing, he can't steal my clothes anymore.

My youngest brother and I around Christmas 2011 (he was trying to dress goofy)

I'm a Roman Catholic, go to church every week, annoyed when I have to show up really early when everyone else flocks to church for "special occasions" like Christmas, Easter, etc. It's not a huge part of my life, but a very important one. That is, I don't have to go out of my way to "be Catholic," it's just who I am and reflects upon my morals and my actions. I have very strong convictions. No other way to describe it.

I grew up Powell, a suburb outside of Columbus, went to Catholic schools K-12. Went to St. Michael  for K-8, St. Charles for high school. Tough place, learned a lot, great memories. Really rigorous academics; I can definitely credit them for where I am today. Going into that place, I was just some super-shy kid who had always been told he was smart; there, I had to earn my spot. The amount of knowledge I gained there was incredible, but the wisdom I gained there taught me much more.

Stock photo of St. Charles

I am an Eagle Scout, which is a huge achievement. I encourage you to read more into it, as it's much much more than grabbing a few merit badges and going camping at random places! The amount of work you put into earning this along with all of your other high school work/life is really difficult. One funny thing, though, is that I earned it the day before my 17th birthday (the cutoff is your 18th birthday), so I like to kid that I got it the day before my birthday. February 22nd, 2006. I can remember the day. You go to a board of review - pretty much an interview with scout leaders about your entire career. I remember it very well; I had a sinus infection hahaha... 

The one thing that these scout leaders left me with was a sense of pride in myself. This pride, however, wasn't centered around the achievements I earned, but how I conducted myself earning them.

The biggest thing you're supposed to get out of Boy Scouts/Eagle Scout is leadership. One very large part of earning your Eagle Scout rank is planning, coordinating, and executing a service project for your community. You're in charge. A high-schooler, planning and executing a project, in control of scouts and adults alike. A very daunting task for a 16 year-old! Especially for a somewhat shy one. Don't get me wrong, I was/am very sociable, once I get started. I just don't self-start very well. I was liked by all, resented by none; very happy with where I was at. Without being a brown-noser, I was the one who would willingly do stuff that other people whined about in typical teenager-ish fashion. That visibly separated myself from most of the other scouts. Most of them were in it to have fun, finish the program, and be able to throw Eagle Scout on a resume. On the other hand, I had a genuine interest in the program - trying to get something out of the program actively, instead of passively. I was never a very vocal leader. Inspiring words are never my thing. Leading, though, is much more than words.

 Leading is getting people to do something, not because they have to, but because they want to.

I lead by example. Always optimistic (I can't say cheerful, because in certain situations, I wouldn't consider ironic self-depreciating sarcasm cheerful!), never showing signs of frustration, never giving up. People followed me not because they had to, but because they wanted to. I enjoyed working with kids. I loved positions in which I could interact with little Cub Scouts (I'm talking those hyperactive 1st and 2nd graders, here). I genuinely love kids! I know, that's weird, guys aren't supposed to like kids, that's wrong, ect. Whatever. If I didn't like engineering so much, my second choice of career path would have been a teacher for sure. At the end of my review board, they told me that I was one of the most compassionate, caring, nice people they knew. They say no matter what, never change that.

I guess I had a genuine open kindheartedness that you don't see very often. I don't know how else to put it, but I really care about others. I hate to see others suffering, I like to have people be happy. It really bothers me when someone is unhappy and I can't fix it. Unfortunately, though, I've run into people who were put off by this. They view my kindness as fake, they view my interest as clingy-ness, they view my sincerity as desperation. It hurts when this happens.

Getting back on topic, I graduated from St. Charles in 2007. Came to this little school out in the middle of nowhere called Ohio Northern. Studied Electrical Engineering. Graduating in under two months. Still looking for a job, looking for a life. 2012 is definitely the biggest year of my life!

Looking back, I can't help but feel regret for a lot of how things have gone so far. It feels like most of my time here was split between class/schoolwork and playing video games. I had friends, sure. Nobody I would  ever share anything personal with, though. Hurt a few times, rejected a few times; I was apparently too nice, too straight-laced, and not worth the effort. Resorted to playing video games all the time, instead of socializing. Sure, video games were very social with that tight-knit group of friends, but socialization never grew anywhere outside of that. Outside of those games, what else did I do? I never did anything.

This year, I really turned my focus to school. I've been working harder than I ever have, just to keep pace. A lot of my friends have/had graduated. Since then, I became more distant with some old friends, closer with other ones, and went out of my bubble to find some great new ones. Emily really said something that stuck with me at the beginning of the year: we're graduating at the end of this year, we can play games later - let's actually have fun with the people around us here. I'm sticking to that, and having tons of fun.

I'll keep adding and revising if I don't post this now, so here it goes. My main interests right now are: finishing senior design and graduating, getting a job, and hanging out with my friends. It's been a rollercoaster of a year, and it's not finished yet. Still, I'm excited to see where it takes me.

TGIFF

TGIFF!

Busy week back after spring break. They forgot to submit our order for some parts for senior design, so that set us back a good week's worth of progress. Still waiting to hear back from my one interview, waiting for word back from other places (how hard is it to give me a simple yes/no response?). Boring week with awesome weather, otherwise.

Since I don't have a lot else to say in this post right now (working on a big one that's not done yet), I will leave a cat picture.

TGIFF!

TGIFF

TGIFF!

Spent the start of spring break in Windsor, ON with a few friends over the weekend. Had a great time going out to the casino (I won enough to pay for my room/gas!) and the local bars. Home for the rest of spring break, got my bi-yearly sinus infection, been fighting that off the whole week. I get a sinus infection at the end of September and the end of February every year, without fail. Went to see the Penguins play a game in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, victory!

Me and my brother, Matt in the parking lot behind the old arena

Spent the rest of the week sleeping, being boring, and procrastinating working more on my job search.

TGIFF.

TGIFF

TGIFF! Another week has flown by - I can't believe it's March already! Soon it'll be two months until graduation! The weeks go by soooo quickly, but the days are long.

Monday - Mondays are usually the worst, this one no better than any others. After getting no sleep due to a certain roommate deciding it would be a beautiful thing to cook with pots and pans and the microwave at 2:30 AM, it became a day of straight class, work, more class, senior design, straight to bed. Really wearing me down, all of these days where I wake up, go to class/work without breaks from breakfast-dinner time, then work on senior design from dinner-bedtime. Making strides in senior design now, so I expect the same schedule to continue for a bit longer, but see it improve over the next month or so.

Tuesday - Interview #1: Diebold in North Canton. Started day actually making awesome progress on senior design work. We are no longer stuck on problems, but now just behind. Can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! After that it was a quick lunch and off to Canton (2 1/2 hours from here in Ada) for an interview.

I'll start off by saying I felt pretty good after this interview. Will have to wait for a few weeks to see what happens next with Diebold. Went through a slew of interviewers for a few hours. First guy was standard HR guy with no engineering background; standard questions pertaining to character, work ethic, etc. Really nice guy. Second was a EE project manager (~20 years experience) in their electronics division. Talked a lot about what Diebold does (they make ATMs. There's just a huge amount of different stuff that goes into these machines!) and what I could expect working there. He works on the product development side, as opposed to the product testing side. I think he liked me a fair amount, which was confidence-building. Not having the first real interviewer be all hard was a good thing. The second interviewer was a mid-level designer, with about 10 years experience. We talked a lot about school, what subjects I liked/hated, what I do for work (he was just FASCINATED with my job in IT here at ONU for some reason), hobbies, etc. Really nice guy, seemed like someone they would pair me with to shadow / be a mentor while I figure out what I will be doing. These first two (engineer) interviewers seemed to like me a lot and thought I'd fit in well. The last interviewers, though, were tough to crack. As a way to hide being nervous, I like to get personable and tell jokes and stuff. Helps me feel really confident in interviews.

The last two interviewers, however, were really high-up people (I'm talking like 30 years of experience each, minimum), who were very terse and down-to-business. That kinda stopped the whole flow I had going. They had me get up and draw diagrams of projects I had done for different courses, chided me on not bringing a portfolio with writeups of projects I've done, and gave me a test (luckily it was on a part of a circuit that I did earlier that morning for senior design, haha!). Things relaxed a tiny bit after they were done testing me, but they still weren't very personable and probably frustrated that they didn't get to leave work early (since it's a 2 1/2 hour trip for me, my interview was an evening one). Overall, I felt I hit it off really well with the first two engineers, which I think will carry me through to the next level. The last portion didn't go poorly, but it just didn't go silky smooth like the first half.

Five hours (round trip) of driving, plus sitting through hours of interviews, and sitting in a lab all morning, really screwed up my back again. Still lingering pain today from Tuesday. Actually had to stop and get out of the car on the way back. If I experience numbness in my legs, I'm supposed to freak out. Started to get some numbness and tingling, so had to stretch out for a bit. I'm actually supposed to go straight to the hospital if I experience numbness for more than a few minutes. Herniated disk - not bad enough to require surgery, just have to tolerate the pain.

Wednesday - Looong day, beautiful weather! Hit 70-ish, got to break out the rollerblades. Extremely sore and painful, but got a good workout. Actually got to hang out and chill for a bit while helping friends not kill their microcontroller board or themselves. :P

Thursday - Communication Systems test Friday. Two labs. Study, study, study. Procrastinate studying. Helping with friend's senior design project to distract me from studying boredom. Laser cats. More studying. Sleep (more like a short nap....)

Friday - Another 6 AM start. Study study study class study study test (3 problems, test worth 30% of final grade, you do the math...) SPRING BREAK! Off to Canada for the weekend with friends, then chilling at home in Columbus with the family for some much needed rest.

Oh hai I wrote another book.

TGIFF