Rants

lots of stuff going on.

Monday night I bought a new (to me) car.

Tuesday, my boss told me they want to make me fulltime.

Things are looking good.

This weekend I gotta strip all the stereo stuff (with the exception of the fullrange speakers) out of my old car so that I can get ready to put it in my new car.

I also am going to put my dad's old half broken alpine cd player in the old car to replace my old, yet expensive to replace cd player.

The old alpine has a blown rear channel thanks to a shitty install by Empress Audio in Gulfport (one of the UNINSULATED spade terminals FELL OFF the speaker and shorted) so I am just going to wire both front and rear speakers to the front outputs.

I'm trying to transfer the stereo stuff at minimal cost... so I will only be replacing the speakers in the doors and the rear shelf since they are too much of a pain to remove from the old car and the original speakers were destroyed. I am going to rebuild the subwoofer box so that it is smaller, but I think I still have enough material in the shed.

Oh, also on the old car I have to secure the rear window regulators (that are broken) in the up position so that the windows don't fall down and I need to disconnect the window motors.

Old car is likely to be offered for sale at around $1,500.00 as that is about what KBB private party value says it is worth. It is still mechanically sound.. its just got a few mostly cosmetic issues.

Got a bunch of stuff today.

My free XM radio got here.

The power adapter for the KDS laptop got here (found one on ebay for cheap).

Thermal tape for the laptop's heatsinks got here

Digidoc 5+ got here

It can control up to 8 fans and monitor 8 temperature sensors as well as the voltage on the +5VDC and +12VDC power in the computer.

You can program it to turn on certain fans when one of the temperature probes reaches a certain temperature.

It really has way more fan controller ports than I think I need... (only using 5 of the 8... i did have a couple of fans wired together on the old controller so that i was only using 3 channels)... so I'm thinking about designing a custom circuit to speed control the fans. Right now they are either on or off... but I could use some rather simple electronics to make the digidoc turn the fans OFF/LOW/HIGH.

I would simply use two fan control circuits and two temperature control circuits per fan.

Anyways... I think tomorrow I will put the laptop back together. Tonight I need to order new AC vent grilles for my car (old ones broken) so I can put the trim back on the dash... I had thought they had quit making them for my year car, otherwise I would have ordered replacements years ago.

Perhaps friday I shall hook up the XM radio in my car.

So this is the begining of my 5th week of work, so far, its great, everybody who works there is a looney (so yes, I fit right in).

Couple things:
*Coworker asks HR guy about moving expenses and is told that moving expenses cannot be paid for unless I become fulltime

*I ask my boss about moving expenses, he says "sure, we'll have to do a couple of other things first but we can take care of it.

*Coworker tells me he's been pushing the boss to make me fulltime.

I will draw no conclusions, lest I jinx myself. ;)

PS, paychecks are nice

Was going through the comments, deleting spam, banning spammers and found this little jem:

Pseudo Anonymous Coward

As long as there are IP addresses, you will never be truly anonymous on the internet.

This is what happens to laptops that do not behave:

So its just about completely dissassembled right now... Really the only thing I haven't taken apart is the LCD.

Now I just need to order some Shin-Etsu thermal pads (like 99% of laptops, the stock thermal interface material sucks) and get a power supply... I'm still undecided as to whether I want to hack up my spare gateway power adapter or buy a new adapter for the KDS.... One option I have considered is getting a radioshack adaptaplug repair cord and desolder the old cord and attach it.... that way I could use it for both. But then I wouldn't have an adapter to leave connected to the docking station for my gateway...

Decisions decisions. Curse this tinkering gene of mine!!!

Looks like I have an on-site with the big boss man in Gulfport. So I'll be heading down there Monday morning (so I can be there Monday afternoon).

Had another technical screen with Cypress @ Starkville yesterday too... I think it went ok. I was expecting him to ask me OpAmp questions but he asked me more about transistor level stuff.. so I didn't have it fresh in my mind... but I still think I did ok.

PS: just banned another comment system spammer. Say bye-bye to:
81.218.176.11 [ bzq-218-176-11.red.bezeqint.net ]

Just had to delete a bunch more comment spam... The funny part was most of the comment spam was posted to my last entry where I banned some comment spammers.

Anyway, goodbye to these [L]users:

80.179.75.166 [80.179.75.166.cable.012.net.il]
81.218.241.143 [bzq-218-241-143.red.bezeqint.net]

At least none of the comment system spam was from pr0n this time... just a bunch of casino sites.

Oh, somehow the neighbor did manage to move their vehicle without hitting my car, I was impressed.... They did fold my driver's mirror back, but its designed to do that if somebody even walks into it... so there was no damage there.

so today I drove back from GPT, then I got my Reese homework done (not even due till wednesday) and then I started cleaning my apartment... and i found this AGP card just lying around in my room... and I was like "huh... i don't remember getting that" I look at it and it says:

Diamond Fire 1k AGP ATX 8 T3

I look up the specs and holy crap! Its an 8MB AGP card! Just what I needed for my linux box. So now I have replaced the crappy Trident 2MB PCI video card and I am typing this at 1280x1024 in max color on my linux box. YAY!

One slight problem... while the 15" monitor I am using for my linux box does support 1280x1024, it makes the text remarkably small.... its still plenty clear... i just have to be rather close to the monitor to read it.... so I may end up going down to 1024 x 768.... either that or I'll put it on a switcher with one of the dual 19" CRTs that my main desktop uses.

So hooray for finding cool stuff that I had forgotten I had aquired.

On a downnote though, one of my neighbors parked soo crooked that I had to get out my passenger door... and if they want to go anywhere in the morning, they are going to have to get me to move my car first... unless they are very skilled.... which judging by how challenged they are at getting a much smaller vehicle than mine to fit between the two yellow lines... I would have to say they don't have the skills to pay the bills as the saying goes.

yeah, I could have parked elsewhere... I just thought perhaps having their shiny small car-based SUV (its a mitsubishi of some sort) trapped by a large old car might teach them to actually give a damn about other people when they park their vehicle.

So... Adtran sent me a rejection e-mail Monday morning... Tuesday Cypress Semiconductor sent me an e-mail inviting me for company overview & technical screening... So I have an interview at 10AM... I hear their "technical screening" is worse than the questions any Graduate Comittee might come up with.

And unfortunately, with such a short notice I haven't had much time to study. However, I did pass my oral competency exam allready, so I should be good to go (one would hope). I've just been studying up on OpAmps (Yeah!), BJTs, and FETs. Of course there is no way I will remember the exact equations, but I do believe I have all the general relationships between input & output down.

If I get this job, it would mean staying in Starkville,,, not too crazy about that... but they are very much a "Big Name" company in hardware design... So even though I grow tired of Starkville, this would be too good of a career opportunity to pass up.

Ok, so I was trying to put info into CareerBuilder.com... slight problem though:

"ZIP Code 39762 could not be validated."

So I use the feedback system to tell them their registration system is borked, and I get this gem of a reply:

"Thank you for contacting CareerBuilder.com! I am sorry for the
inconvenience. CareerBuilder may not have that town in their system
so you will need to choose a larger town that is near yours. Thank
you for your patience and have a great day!"

So apparently, if you want to use their system, you have to provide a false address to potential employers. Genius.

This song has been in my mind lately:

Money, get away
get a good job with more pay and you're O.K.
Money, it's a gas
grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
new car, caviar, four star daydream
think I'll buy me a football team

Yeah, so Friday will mark 3 weeks from when Adtran said it would be 2 weeks before they made a decision. I have not heard anything from them yet... So I'm assuming I was not a first choice and they are still mulling over options, or they are the kind of company that doesn't send rejection letters.

Anyway, friend of mine says that where he works (not in huntsville) might need a temporary test engineer for like 3 months... so I might have a job (albeit a temporary one) when I graduate.

Haha!

Originals here:
http://www.ece.msstate.edu/~web1/zefram/

Made it to Huntsville ok (well, Madison, to be exact). Little ticked off at the Hotel manager...

1. I asked for a room with two double beds (wasnt sure how well I'd sleep in a bed as big as a king), and not a room with one King.

2. I asked for a non-smoking room!! Thankfully the room I got mostly smelled stale and not too smoky, so after leaving the door open with the heater on full blast it has aired out to an acceptable odor level.

I pressed my dress shirt and steamed the wrinkles out of my suit, so I should be set for tomorrow... just have to be sure to get up in the morning. I'll probably be heading over to the Glasscock's house after a bit to visit for a short while before coming back to the hotel and going to bed (I feel like crap, but not as bad as yesterday... I think the allergen levels are lower in huntsville).... Not sure what I'm doing tomorrow night.. if I see some people I know at Adtran, I may do some "networking" after the day of tours and interviews is over.

When I hooked into the internet here it had a page that said "Complimentary 1 day high speed access" so I may not have internet access in the morning. I have to checkout of here by noon saturday I think.

So I was at walmart last night...

As I'm walking down the ice cream isle, I pass up two cute girls with some dude... They were discussing which ice cream to get... and I heard the one girl say "get that one! Its the best tasting thing I've ever put in my mouth other than, uh, well nevermind..."

I think I shall file this under "things that make you say 'oh my!'".

Good News:

The high strength steel alloy screws I ordered from hexcrews (they cater mostly to Radio Controlled Car enthusiasts) arrived.

Bad News:

Of the four sizes I ordered, none of them are big enough to fit the mounting holes for the screen hinge on my laptop... I thought I had matched them up to the print out sizing chart, but it was hard to tell with the screws being so small.

I just ordered two more sizes 5-40x5/16 inch and 2.6x8mm. 5-40 and M3 screws are definately too big, so I think I got it this time. So in another week, I should finally have the hinges on my laptop fixed.

They sure do label stuff nice, so at least now I have an easy way to figure out what size some of those tiny screws are in other things without buying a set of thread gauges or a micrometer.