Interview

Well, I had the interview this morning. The video conference worked except that I couldn't see them. At least I got to do the interview though.

I think it went pretty well. It was actually a pretty "easy" interview in that they didn't ask a lot of hard questions. That aspect was somewhat disappointing because I didn't get a chance to speak with them about some of the things I had done. Hopefully that won't hurt my chances. I don't get the feeling that it will.

It went well though. No awkward pauses or rambling answers. I'm not sure how many people made that first cut (~10) but I'll find out about the next cut in a couple weeks. I would guess that my chances are pretty much even with the others.

I did find out that if I get the job, it would start in December instead of January. I would still get to come home for Christmas though. I think that would actually work out fairly nicely.

That's all for now. Bye!

Delayed Interview

Well, I'm sure everyone will wonder how the interview went. Unfortunatley we had some trouble getting the video conference connection to work. I blame the engineers. By the time it was working we decided to just reschedule for Thursday so we could talk for the full time.

So, no info yet. We're off to Tennessee so I'll let you know later.

I'm back!

Well, I know it's been quite a while since I last posted, but we had some bad news so I didn't much feel like writing about it. Back at the beginning of the month our dog Jessie was hit and killed by a car. :-( Needless to say we were pretty sad for a while. We're trying to decide now if we want to get another dog or just hold off for a while. We'd only had her for 3 weeks!

Except for that things have been going pretty well. I've been put into a group of young folks at work known as Early Career High Potential (ECHP). We're apparently supposed to be the people with the most potential for success in the future. Rolls-Royce wants to give us lots of help & advice in advancing our career. Today I got to meet the president of Rolls-Royce Indianapolis, Steve Dwyer. He was quite a fantastic guy, very inspirational & easy to talk to. He explained the program and told us what will be going on.

As part of the ECHP thing, next month I'm going to start a "special project" that will broaden my experience. It won't have anything to do with my current job and it will only last for a couple months. I don't know what it is yet though. I'll let you know.

To top it all off, the 16 of us in the program get to go to Washington DC at the end of October. It's a huge deal! We get to meet all of the Chief's of the various Rolls-Royce North America sites (I think there are 8 or 9 all together). We get a tour of Capitol hill, complete with discussions about our Lobbyists there in Washington & how that all works. Then, the next day we go to the Pentagon for a big tour. Apparently we're going to be surrounded by big-wigs for two days. It's a fantastic opportunity (a little intimidating) and it should be a lot of fun. Especially since I've never been to DC.

Besides the ECHP thing, I've also got another neat career opportunity playing out. I was nominated to apply for a position as Technical Assistant to the Director of Engineering & Technology for Rolls-Royce (global). I would be working direclty for one of the highest level people in the company, worldwide! How neat is that? It would mean leaving Jen here for 6 months while I go to the UK, but we talked it over and think it'll be just fine. Not that it won't be hard. Anyway, I applied last week and I found out yesterday that I made the downselect to 10 people (from I don't know how many applicants world-wide). I have a video-conference interview on Monday. After that they'll downselect again to 3 people and those 3 will fly to the UK for face-to-face interviews with Mike Howse (the big wig). I'm a little nervous but it's quite an honor to even make the first cut. Wish me luck in my interview!

Well, I guess that's it for now. Jen and I get free dinner tonight from her hospital. Gotta love those doctor perks! See ya everybody!

Class

Well, class has started for me this fall. I decided to just take a single class. I was going to take two but orientation changed my mind. Apparently the second class, computer graphics, wasn't really what I thought it was. It didn't really fit with my plan. And they weren't offering much else either.

So, I'm only taking Data Structures & Algorithms. It looks like it will be pretty neat, but hard. Lot's of math & coding, which I like, but also lots of proofs, which I don't.

On the plus side, my prof just screwed up two proofs in a row from chapter 1. Of course, it's hard to tell through the broken English. Do I sound bitter? :^) One thing about it, class at IUPUI definitely makes me appreciate my education at Rose & Stanford that much more.

But I think I'll learn a lot on the topic so it should be fun. Okay, by everybody!

P.S. Jessie is getting slowly better, but still snotting all over the place. No puking though!

Jessie update

Well, Jessie is in recovery now from a little doggy sickness. Apparently she came down with a fairly bad case of kennel cough. She was coughing & hacking & sneezing all over the place. But the worst part was when she threw up on the carpet. That got her relegated to the garage for a while.

But we took her to the vet last night and they gave us some cough pills to help her with the irritated throat. I guess she'll just have to get over the cold on her own, there isn't anything they can really do to treat it. They said that over 50% of dogs that come from a shelter get kennel cough. Wow! She appears to be doing better though so let's hope it goes away quickly.

So now we've made through explosive poo, explosive yak, and dog snot sprays. I'm not sure if there is anything else that can come out of her. Let's hope not!

Jessie joins the Caswells!

Well, after some long and hard lobbying from Jen we finally decided to get a dog. We decided that it would be best to try and get an older dog from a pound. A puppy might be a bit much for us right now. And we're definitely glad of that decision in hindsight.

So we looked around a bit and finally found some great dogs at the Indianapolis City Shelter. We had it narrowed down to a Harrier (large Beagle) and a Black Lab. We finally went with the Lab because we had heard that hounds, like the Harrier, need a ton of attention & don't like to be left alone. That wouldn't be good since we won't be around sometimes. Plus, I was pretty biased toward the Lab because I grew up with them. They're just awesome dogs!

Well, we picked her up just in time. When I went to get her another couple had just finished taking her for a walk and were going to get her the next morning. But I got in line and managed to get her before closing time. Score!

Before we get to interesting stories we should show some pictures. Her name is Jessie, she's one year old, and she seems to be house trained (more on that later). Here's the pics...


This is Jessie in "chillin' out" mode.



This is Jessie getting ready to lunge at Mark's camera and take off. She missed.

As cute as she might look in those pictures, we've had a little bit of trouble getting her acclimated to the environment. For one, she seems to be a very needy puppy right now. I talked with some folks (vets) who said that shelter dogs can sometimes be like this. They don't want to leave the pack (us) because they got left behind once before. But I guess this will settle down over the next few months. Until then she'll be whining like mad when we leave for work & following us all over the house. It's actually kind of endearing (except for the barking).

Now, as much as we've enjoyed her, there have also been some bad spots. I was ready to send her back to the pound (or the moon) this morning but Jen's cooler head & motherly ways won out. After waking us up at 4:30 in the morning for the third of the past 5 nights, we had to put her in her cage in the garage. Well, when I got up this morning there appeared to be some sort of small explosion in there. She had poo'd & then managed to spread it all over the place. So, instead of going to church we got to clean her & the garage & the cage up. What fun!

That little incident got her on my naughty list for the morning. But, possibly because she felt the noose tightening, she was a perfect little doggy for the rest of the day. So right now we're all good. But one more explosive poo incident and we're gonna talk. Just kidding, she's here to stay. :^)

Well, I guess that's it. I start classes this week & Jen's still working her butt off. Perhaps the newest member of the Caswell tribe will provide some much needed fun for those off hours.

Jen gives in to my constant whining..... awesome!

Well, after listening to my whining for about a year, Jen decided to get me a laptop for my birthday. She let me pick it out for myself and pretty much gave me free reign. Of course, I got some input from her because I have a hard time making up my mind between options sometimes.

I ended up getting an HP zt3000 with all kinds of tricked out stuff. Let's see: Pentium M 705 with all the Centrino wireless stuff, 512 MB RAM, 64 MB ATI Video, the best screen possible (1920x1200, awesome), 30 GB harddrive, blah, blah, blah. It's got some great features. An SD card-reader, S-video out, wireless, DVD drive, etc. It's a widescreen format, which made it a bit on the heavy side (6.5 lbs), but that's okay.

I'm really going to enjoy using it. Actually, I already am. Jen and I do a little bit (okay, a lot) of TV watching so it's nice to be able to chill out on the couch and surf the net or check email while we watch the Olympics or whatever. I'm looking forward to testing it out in class this fall. I'm taking two CS classes so it will be nice to have that with me.

So far I've only encountered two drawbacks. The first one has nothing to do with the computer. I can't take the laptop into work with me. I don't really care about that, except that I have class directly after work so I can't go home. In other words, I have to leave the laptop in the car. So it could get stolen, or it could bake/freeze depending on the weather. That sucks, but there's nothing I can do about it.

The second drawback is apparently a pretty common problem with LCD screens. There is a dead pixel right in the middle. That sucks, especially since I paid an extra $100 to get the "good" screen. It isn't covered under warranty because there are less than 7 dead pixels (just one). I could return it but I hear it's a common thing. I don't really notice it doing normal stuff, just when I watch a DVD or during boot-up. It actually doesn't bug me outside of those times. I'm still deciding whether or not it's a deal-buster. Other than that I love it though.

So, add another tool to my "tool"box. I'm such a geek. My next project is turning Jen's old computer into a Linux file-server, with aspirations of being a web-server later on. We'll see how that goes.

Later.

Our Trip To Boston

Well, in the last installment of our spring vacation (only 2 months late) we went to Boston. I have to say that Boston is a great city and it made for a nice end to our vacation.

Our friend Kevin lives in Boston and works for Bose. I was his roommate for two years in undergrad. He's fluent in Japanese & a friggin' genius so he's had some great jobs. He worked in Japan for a couple years. I was able to go see him with some buddies for about 10 days. Man was that cool. Now he lives in Boston & works on audio systems for Japanese car companies (Infinity, a.k.a. Nissan). His girlfriend still lives in Japan so it's cool that he gets to go there on business sometimes.

Anyway, Kevin lives in a nice apartment in one of the little Boston areas (I forget which). Apparently people in Boston are very particular about explaining exactly what part of the city they are from, so every 5 feet seems to have a different name. He had some nice access to public transportation so we were able to go downtown pretty easily.

We were able to take the famous Freedom Trail and see all kinds of great history. It's the birthplace of the U.S. and the center of where lots of things happened during the revolution days. For those that don't know, the trail winds through Boston and shows you all kinds of historic sites. We just bought a little guide book and walked the trail ourselves. That was pretty nice because we were able to linger to speed through as needed.

Take a look at some pictures:


Here's Jen and I out in the harbor traveling from Charleston back to Boston. You see the Boston skyline behind us.


Here's a semi-authorized picture of the House of Representatives Chamber. Check out the pictures on the wall. Yeah, no pressure with that kind of history around.


I've got to say that we had a great time in Boston. It was great to see Schaaf and the city was awesome. We're actually considering moving there for further schooling (MIT), but that's a ways away. Until then it will definitely be on our list of favorite vacation spots.

Our West Point Trip

Well, we left from New York on Tuesday, June 1 to visit some friends from my Stanford days. Mike was another M.S. student with me at Stanford. We worked in the same lab, under the same professor, and took classes together. Needless to say, we were good friends. His wife Sue has got to be one of the nicest people you could meet.

They have two awesome kids, Sam & Sarah. I had seen Sam when he was just a month old. He was born just before I graduated. But I hadn't seen Sarah at all. They're both a couple of great kids. Sam & I had apparently kept in contact with through some sort of telepathic connection. Although, I wasn't aware of it. As soon as we got there he decided that I was his best buddy. I carried him all over the place. And if I set him down, he wanted right back up again. It was actually a lot of fun. Although, getting pee on your arm isn't my favorite past-time. :-)


Here's a picture of Mike & Sam. Gotta' love the baby backpack!

West Point had to be the most relaxing portion of our trip. I was really impressed with how beautiful the area was. There are rolling mountains, tons of trees, the hudson river. It was awesome. And the base itself is built in a very neat way, lots of block & stone. It would be hard to visit there as a young man and not want to become an Army officer.

Besides just hanging around the house & relaxing, we took a tour of the base on a bus. They told us some neat little bits of history and gave us a good overview of everything that goes on. The place has just as much history as Boston.


Here's a picture of the front of the cadet barracks. Notice the beautiful Cadet Chapel further up the hill.

I guess that's pretty much it. It was great to see Mike & Sue again. I hope we can meet up from time to time as we get older. They have a great little family going there.

Our Trip to New York

Well, I guess I'd better start by letting everybody know how our vacation to the east coast went last month. Jen had a few weeks off before residency started so we figured we should probably take a vacation before she started working 80 hours a week. I had never been to the east coast so we decided to make a little trip out that way to see some friends.

First up was New York. Jen's cousin Rachel lives right in Manhattan. She has an awesome apartment at 34th & Park Ave. It was originally a two bedroom apartment but they converted the dining room into a third bedroom. They put up a new wall & it looks really good. I wouldn't have even noticed if she hadn't told me they put up the wall. I was pretty amazed at how large it was. Even with the dining room converted they had a ton of living area. Definitely a difference from what I've seen in other cities. Although, she says that it isn't common.

We got to New York on a Friday about midday. We moved all of our stuff into the apartment and then decided to start in with the tourist stuff. We had to park our car in a garage. It cost $29 a day. Ouch! But since Rachel was so nice to let us stay at her place for free it didn't hurt too bad. It's so nice to have such good friends.

First thing we did was walk around downtown Manhattan for a while. That was awesome! I felt like I was walking through a movie or something. You couldn't walk 100 ft without running into something you'd always heard about but had never seen. We saw ground zero, wall street, the statue of liberty (from afar), a really neat church, china town, and on & on. Here's a couple pictures from that day:

At one point we went to lunch down in Chinatown. We went to a place called Joe's Shanghai. It specializes in something called a soup dumpling. It's this little dumpling filled with a yummy soup of some sort. I didn't necessarily want to ask what was inside, but it sure tasted good.

Rachel was working about as much as Jen is now, if not more. Luckily, though, she got some time off to hang out with us. She got to go to dinner with us down in Little Italy. Let me tell you, I would be in heaven if I could get an apartment down there and just eat for the rest of my life. There are about 50 restaurants down this one little street. The street is blocked off, the restaurants set up tables outside, and there are lights strung up all over the place. People are eating & drinking wine, waiters are speaking Italian & trying to get you to eat at their restaurant, other's are selling stuff. It's really neat. We just picked a place and sat outside. We sat there for probably 3 or 4 hours before we realized what time it was. It was just so relaxing & the food was awesome.

We went to the Empire State Building, which sucked. Not that it wasn't neat once we got to the top, but it was pure hell trying to make it there. We waiting in probably 6 or 7 different lines before finally getting up there. It took over two hours. Ugghhh! But we got some neat pictures (see below) & we get to say that we did it. Word to the wise though, be prepared!


Here's a picture of Jen & I on top of the Empire State Building! 


This is the entrance to the Empire State Building. I thought it was really neat. Of course, this is only about 10 minutes into the 2 hour wait. 

Next up was Central Park. It's huge. I took a picture from the Empire State Building that you can see below. It's very pretty & clean. I was impressed. People were out running & walking, just hanging out. There are lots of little ponds & gardens. A nice relaxing time.


Central Park from the Empire State Building. 

Probably the most comprehensive thing we did was to take a tour around Manhattan island. It was a 3 hour tour that took you all the way around the island, with a guy pointing things out & telling you stories along the way. It was really interesting & gave you a good flavor of the island. Be warned though, make sure to wear sunblock! I got burnt so bad on my forehead that I blistered the next day. Ouch! I'm all healed up now though, so no harm done.

We went to Bronx zoo with some friends from West Point. It was a neat zoo, but I've seen better. The trip out was a bit of an adventure, since we went the wrong way on a subway twice. Oops! At one point we had to go above ground to change trains, in Harlem! Kind of scary for a couple of whities from Indiana. :)

While we were in New York we had our first anniversary. I can't believe it's been a year already. In some respects it seems like it went fast, but it also feels like we've been together forever. Any woman able to put up with me for that long deserves a medal. I'm thinking a purple heart for our 50th anniversary. :) Anyway, we went to a nice dinner down in Little Italy again (which was even better this time). Then we went to see Rent on Broadway. Then we decided to pretend we had some money & get a hotel downtown. All in all, a very nice first anniversary.

Well, I guess that's it for the part of our vacation to New York. We were there for 4 days all together. It was a blast and I'd definitely recommend going to anyone interested. What a great city. Don't know if I could live there though.

Check back later for the rest of the vacation. See-ya!