C-Objectively

Man we already did that
Now I’m into big things
No time to get sidetracked
Now I’m into big things
Get money now besides that
Some more big things
I’m into big things
The big things
The big things

Nas, “Big Things” from “I Am”

Expedia, (.commmmm)

I accepted an offer to work for Expedia, the online travel agency, as a Program Manager. My job will include drafting specifications and making design decisions for various projects and lots of meetings with marketing/business people as well as the software developers and testers in my team working on the projects I will be managing. I will not be doing much, if any, coding on the job but I will definitely be involved in the design issues and coding/testing issues my project-mates will be dealing with. I’m looking forward to the job a lot. I feel like its pretty well-suited to my interests and abilities. I can’t wait to see how it goes when I get up there. I am dreading using a PC every day at work though.

Expedia is in the city of Bellevue, in the beautiful Puget Sound area of Washington State. Apparently Berkeley wasn’t good enough and I can’t wait to go even further north from LA. That’s actually not true, but its just how things have worked out. I hear great things about the area and I’m sure that it will be just as rewarding an experience as my time here in Berkeley has been. I will be moving up to the Seattle area at the start of July.

If any of you live up there or have lived up there, know about the place, want to tell me about it, warn me about it or whatever, please do.

Europe

Amir, my cousin Ara, and myself are planning a backpacking trip to Europe. We’ll be over there for a few weeks this June. The list of places we’ll be visiting isn’t solid yet so I’ll post that a little later. If you’ve been to some cool places in Europe that are must-see, please share them with us. This should really be an amazing trip but I’m trying not to get too overexcited about it because I still have four CS projects, an 8 page paper, and three final exams to do before I can go.

Oh and if you’d like to go its not too late (yet) to join the trip.

This isn’t working for me anymore. Staying up nights working on computer science projects has been eating away at my life for a while now. I’m just not willing to go on with it any longer. And what is it all for anyway? So that I can move to Seattle where I have to sit in the rain for nine months out of the year? No, I don’t think that’s the way to go.

So I’ve decided to pursue an easier major/career as soon as possible. I’d rather just start my travelling for the summer early. When I get back I intend to enroll at Glendale Community College and quickly get through some GE courses so that I can transfer into the local CSUN or wherever and get a degree in Business. I’m sick of sitting here trying to optimize database buffer page replacement policies while my brother studies philanthropy… sometimes.

I told my employer this morning that I wouldn’t be showing up in July. They were disappointed for like two seconds before they realized they were a giant corporation with 17 alternates waiting to take my spot.

I know that some of you reading this have also attended GCC so I am asking you to please be ready to assist me in getting set up over there, enrollment, finding classes, etc. I would appreciate it.

Thanks for understanding everyone. I can’t wait to move back in with my parents in LA. I also changed my mind about the car I want. I will be buying a 1996 Honda Civic and then a friend of mine has offered to make it faster than a Porsche for about 15 G’s. All you BMW drivers I’ll see you at the next traffic light.

Oh and I’m shaving my head. Okay, that’s enough for now.

I’ll be giving a talk this Thursday on, as you can guess, Mac OS X programming. The presentation is organized by a group that I’m a part of, ArmEngine, which I just talked about in my last post. So here is the low down:

When: Thusrday, March 24, 2005 at 8:00 pm
Where: 104 North Belmont Street, Suite 200, Glendale, CA 91206

Link to Google Map

“A Brief Introduction to Mac OS X Programming”
First, a very quick introduction to Objective-C, the language most commonly used to program for OS X. Then we’ll implement a small application that will demonstrate the Cocoa API, the OS X developer tools Xcode and Interface Builder, and how they work together to enable the rapid development of powerful user-friendly applications.

I wanted to make a post regarding the seminar presentation thing I’m doing this Thursday evening but I though it might be appropriate to first introduce the group I’m part of and doing it for. I should have done this sooner. I suppose I haven’t done such a great job publicizing.

First I’ll give you my summary of the group then I’ll give you the group’s “charter” message. Richard Ohanian founded ArmEngine to attract Armenian engineers of all kinds, particularly in EE, CS, and IT. The purpose of the group, originally started as a Yahoo Group, is to discuss technical issues, news, or developments, as well as network and post job openings. The group started just last August but already has over 100 members and is growing quickly. The membership is geographically and educationa diversity. If you’re Armenian and are an engineer or in the fields mentioned above, please consider joining the group. And now for the semi-official group intro blurb.

The group of Armenian scientists, engineers and professionals of Electronics, Computer Science and/or related fields.
We are Armenians who are highly educated/experienced in EE, ECE, CS, IT… Many of us are PhDs, Masters, Engineers and professionals of the above disciplines.
We know that every career needs professional connections.
We want to be successful socially, financially and professionally and we hope to have a bright future.
We think that a globally connected network of Armenian experts of EE and CS will have its positive effects in Armenia.
We enjoy communicating with each other.
We also want to do all of the above together!
So, we are in ArmEngine.
Armengine is a forum for exchanging information and ideas as well as solving technical issues relevant to Electronics and Computer Engineering/Science.
ArmEngine is a business network, so members can use the group as a communication tool for their own personal interests and success. A member’s success is everyone’s.
The ultimate goal of this group is to create an atmosphere where ideas for a successful future are born.
All for one, One for all.

The group has a couple of web sites up but they’re in the process of being merged and refined into one great site. In the meantime check out the Yahoo Group and join up at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArmEngine

I did it! I finally turned 21 on the 13th of March. Well, even though I got there later than most of my friends, I didn’t really mind the wait. This year has been going well for me so far and I hope to continue that to December and beyond. Thank you to everybody who remembered and gave me their best wishes in person, on the phone, or by IM or e-mail.

Our ASA threw a party at Kip’s on Saturday night, March 12th, to do some fundraising for charity. It also became my birthday party of sorts and many of my friends were there. I had a really great time. We even had a small Floor 2 reunion upstairs at the bar. Well enough of me talking, you want to see the pictures of the night in question. Without further ado…

Armen’s 21st Birthday Photos

My Mom came to visit us in Berkeley this weekend and Ara’s digicam conveniently arrived on the same day. So I’ve put up a brand new photo album with some pictures from the weekend.

Most of the photos are from our trip to the UC Botanical Garden. You can follow the link under Photo Albums on the right side or click here.

Maybe the weekend wasn’t so bad after all

I voted for the first time today. It felt pretty cool to have my opinion counted. I’ve also been reading a lot of ridiculous stories on conduct at polling places such as one in Glendale where a woman voted, walked out, then ran back in stating she had voted for a candidate but forgotten to vote on the recall. Apparently they let her vote again, just for that one question. Obviously this is absurd, and since I don’t have experience with too many different polling places and types I can’t speak with authority on this but my experience here in Alameda County in Berkeley was great. There were no lines or waits, the people were friendly, everything on the touch-screen voting system was pretty self-explanatory, and I got through it without a hitch.

For those interested I voted the following:

No on the recall.

Yes on Schwarzenegger.

Yes on Prop 53.

No on Prop 54.

How did you all vote? Leave a message…

Uhhhh, this wasn’t a good weekend, with a couple of exceptions. Nothing particularly bad but, oh well…just gotta keep goin’ and see where I end up.

Godamn, I’ve been so busy. I had (have) this crazy project in my networking class; we were supposed to write a chat program with a partner. Problem being that my partner didn’t do much to help for the first checkpoint, the little bit he did was wrong and I had to rewrite it, and he finally decided to drop the class right before the 2nd part was due. Damn…THANKS! Under the cirucmstances, I got an extension for the project from my professor and I’ve been working hard to finish it up, I’m almost done.

Not yesterday but last Thursday through last Monday I only did two things besides eat and nap occasionally: program the chat project and go to the second half of our football game against USC. WOW!!! Talk about a football game. That was one of the most incredible football games I have seen. I am pretty proud of our team for going out there and embarassing nationally ranked #3 USC. I really hope that Tedford is looking to stick around and build up a powerhouse program here at Cal rather than looking out for the highest paycheck and jumping ship every two years. He has really made Cal football very enjoyable to watch and support. So yeah, we had an amazing game against USC with a big crowd and a rushing of the field following the triple-OT nerve-wracking win. Let’s do that again hehe.

On that note, I’m road-tripping down to LA with the ASA and ISCO for our game against UCLA on Oct. 18th. I encourage everyone to come out to UCLA with us that day and watch us hand their asses to them, it will be tons of fun.

OK here is what I’m about on the recall election. 1) Davis is a seriously a lying thief of a governor, 2) It’s tough to replace him with someone worse 3) Can you imagine the sheer entertainment value of having Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of the 5th largest economy in the world??? I mean, his signature will be on my diploma! That thing will be a collectible in a few years.

HOWEVER, as much as I hate that scumbag Davis, the recall sets a very bad precedent for elections in this state and across the country. If these people all wanted to run for governor they should have done so during the real election. We can’t continue to elect officials then recall them a year or two later and cause excess expense and shut down the state government while the recalls happen. It doesn’t make sense that such a small amount of people can decide to have so much money spent on a recall when they could have gone out in larger numbers to vote against Davis in the last election.

IN CONCLUSION: vote no on the recall, but yes on Arnold. With that I’m going to take a nap because apparently the seven hours of sleep I got last night was defective and left me like a zombie this morning anyway. Good luck to my roomy Argam on his LSAT tomorrow and good luck to me for waking up at 6:50am to take him haha.

Oh the new Outkast album is very very good. I will post a couple of my favorites up here sometime this weekend. I’m outtie.

I was going to post about last weekend — my best friends Eric and Nareg finally came to visit me in Berkeley after two years — and I still will make that post but for now I’ll let you browse through the pictures. That should tell you lots too hehe. They won’t be posted directly onto my pictures page because there’s so many of them. Without further ado, here are the links to the galleries…

Wednesday, September 10th

Thursday, September 11th

Friday, September 12th

Saturday, September 13th

That’s all. That’s ONLY like 122 pictures. Hope you enjoy them!