Back to school, back to school, to prove to dad that I'm no fool...

After only two weeks my entire perspective on how I spent 2005-2009 at Clemson, and higher learning in general has changed.  As my mom told me, "university is wasted on the youth" and I could not agree more.  How many 18-22 year olds pay outrageous fees and waste time in classes memorizing but not learning information?

This time at Clemson is much different.  I have come with a single goal in mind.  To be a better, more well-rounded knowledgable person by December.  I will be 26 with a few years of real world experience and a BS in Industrial Engineering.  The opportunities in January have kept me day dreaming for weeks.

My experience in IT implementations compelled me to take a class from the management school, "Mgt 455: Emerging IT trends".  I think the class has already paid off by what I have learned in two lessons because it has given me the time to put my experience in perspective.  A lot of emotions are involved when working with a startup company and everyone thinks they are the next big thing.

What resonated with me was the discussion on standards.  By learning about the history of how standards have affected the technologies and their competing companies, I feel the ability to look at my career with slightly less bias.  This is always a discussion we have internally and with the customer.  Next time I am part of such a conversation, I feel I will better insight on the importance and where not to compromise.

Living out of the Hilton

I have not written in some time now. I have been very busy working in Warner Robins, GA at the air force base. Tomorrow will be my thirteenth week working on the C5 cargo airplane. About half of the weekends consist of me flying to San Jose, CA where my apartment is. I live about a mile from the office and it is a very beautiful city. This morning on the way to the airport, my shuttle driver pointed out: Microsoft, eBay, Cisco Systems, Yahoo, Intel, Apple, and IBM. Each of these companies look like a small college campus.

Most of my weekends in San Jose are short and consist of mainly catching up on sleep, doing laundry, and filling out expense reports. I try to make sure that I do or see at least one cool thing each weekend. I got to see the Braves play against the Giants in San Francisco on opening night when Tim Lincincum received his Cy Young Award. Leo and I played golf one weekend at a neat little course that was par 29 and weaved through the city only a few blocks from where I stay.

The weekends when I stay in Warner Robins have been a lot of fun also. A few weeks have consisted of me going in to the plane hangar alone with my supervisor, Avi, flying back to San Jose. I have visited Columbia a few times and Hilton Head during the Heritage weekend. That weekend, I met up with some friends and ended up getting to spend the evening on a Yacht which had a guy playing guitar and open bar.

I should be in Warner Robins for another couple months and then there is no telling where my next project will take me. I will try to add some pictures and update more regularly.

Singapong

It's 6am and I have been wide awake for 2 hours now. I have to be at work at 9 so it would have been nice to sleep but that wasn't happening. Luckily the Jack in the Box 2.5 blocks away is open 24/7 so I just had a delicious breakfast and am now sitting at my computer with my coffee. Since I finally have time I wanted to write a little bit about my trip to Singapore. The rest of the stories will be included in the picture captions.

Since we had to work from 9am to 5pm every single day, we tried to make the most we could out of our evenings. We did end up getting one afternoon off in which Jia(our trainer who lives in Singapore) took us to get lunch and ordered a large variety of local foods for us to try. It was great having her to explain everything from what we were eating to the political system in Singapore and everything in between. She is the reason we were in Singapore in the first place. She quit the company a few months ago because she is getting married and has a lot of experience training new implementers. She was contracted to train us but under the condition that she could stay in Singapore to deal with her wedding arrangements.

Work usually wasn't too bad depending on what we had to cover and what we had done the night before. We spent a lot of time debating theories. These debates usually lasted a few hours and ended with us coming up with the same consensus that Jia and the company had written out in better words on a powerpoint presentation or algorithm. It was frustrating to do all that work(sometimes getting in heated arguments) when the answers only took 3o minutes to go over, but at the same time we all left with a good understanding of how the answer was derived.

Once we got into the software training, things got a little more boring. It was interesting to get to play with the software that encompassed all of the theories we had discussed, but it was still four grueling days of learning how to use pretty intuitive software. The end of these four days was the worst part because we had to make a demo to show we knew how to use every part of the software. We spent an entire day creating a fictional project environment and then simulating 3 months worth of time while updating the software as if we were every project or task manager. We got a late start and I ended up finishing mine with Leo at Starbucks at midnight.

But the real reason we were there till midnight was because of a long break in the hotel room after work and before starbucks where we watched the movie District 9. We had begun a few days earlier watching a movie or tv shows after we got off work every day. Since we had the company's projector, we were able to watch it on a huge screen and we were usually exhausted by this time. The first four or five days we would go straight out to see Singapore but without a single day off this began to take a toll on us and the rest was much needed.

Boat Quay(pronounced “key) was were we ate dinner the first night and a few other nights as well. It is on the river and pretty touristy. As we walked down the road, we were continuously being offered buy one get one beers, free beer with an entree, or some discount on our food. At first this was a nuisance, but after seeing prices at some of the other parts of town we couldn't argue with 20% off food, a free beer(sometimes 2) and a view of the river.

Clarke Quay was our second most frequented tourist destination. It was across the river from Boat Quay but had a much different feel. Boat Quay was a row of pretty cheap touristy restaurants along the river while Clarke Quay was the more expensive, much nicer tourist area. It had the feel of a mall but was all outside. There were massive umbrellas, probably 50 feet high that covered all the small roads that were filled with nice restaurants, bars, and clubs. We had dinner here on two occasions, once (pictured below) when we all got an appetizer sampler that consisted of local Asian foods and a free beer. The second time we went to an Irish Pub that had a good view of the central fountains at Clarke Quay.

I'll be writing more as I post pictures. It is now 8:30am and I just got to work where I am finally posting this because the internet works better.

Singapore

Taipei

Those are all small fish, heads and all.