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December 5, 2005

Finals week

So the quarter is already over. And I haven't written anything on here lately. So I guess I should first do the job interview update.
Well last week was Dynetics and Lexmark on-site interviews. First getting to Dynetics was quite a headache. There was this cold/warm front coming through which meant lots of bad storms and gusty winds. Since it also went through Atlanta their airport had all their flights delayed which meant my flight from Columbus to Cincinatti was also delayed by 1 1/2 hours. This meant I would miss my connection to Huntsville. So I had to stand in line hoping to catch a later flight. Unfortunately when I got to the guy at the counter he said there were no open seats on any flights that night and I'd be on standby in Cincinatti. Since I was supposed to be up and at Dynetics for an interview at 8:30am I didn't see how that was going to work at all. So I called my contact at Dynetics and told her the situation. She called the travel agent and they said there were seats on a later flight that night. So I went back and waited in line again. This time I talked to another lady who seemed like she actually knew what was going on. She said there technically weren't any open seats on any flight, but she would make one for me. So I ended up on a flight out which got me there that evening. There were actually a couple more empty seats on that flight, but since there were no first class seats I think they left the adjacent seat on each side empty. So there were seats, but they just didn't want to fill them. Oh well tough luck. I got there ok though.
So the interview went well. I got to see a lot of things that were being worked on and the variety was really impressive. It looked like a real interesting job and something that would actually be fun to do. At first I thought it was going to be just making simulations in simulink all day, but it seems a lot more exciting than that. At the end of the day I had the manager talking like he was already ready to hire me, so hopefully all goes well and I get a job offer from them.
Flying back wasn't quite as bad. I did have my flight from Cincy to Columbus delayed because the flight attendant scheduled was late getting to Cincy from another flight. Go Delta! Plus on their other flights in the general area I had heard announcements for flights that were overbooked and they were offering Delta money or even an overnight stay to anyone that volunteered to take a later flight for those. I don't know how anyone overbooks that many flights. And one out of Huntsville was overweight and they were asking for volunteers to transfer on that one. Sheesh! I guess it's good they at least check that the flight may be overweight before taking off.
So Wednesday I had class. That was rather boring as usual. Thursday I drove down to Lexington and hung out with the guys that I worked with over the summer. We went to lunch at the Mariott. Then I just hung out with Rob that afternoon and got the latest gossip. That night we went to dinner at Applebees, then I went and finally checked in to my hotel. I then went over to Brian's house and played some card/strategy game called Cattan or something. It was pretty fun and everyone there was friendly. Then around 12:30 I went back to the hotel for a couple hours rest before getting up for interviews the next day.
Interviews went all day from 8:30 to 5. There were quite a few technical questions, and a lot of programming questions, since it was for a firmware design position. I'd rather have a hardware position, but that's all that is available right now. At the end of the day I did talk to another manager for an optics testing position. It involved hardware a bit more, but also a lot of optics which I know nearly nothing about besides the basics. So the positions aren't perfect for my skills or interests, but we'll see what the offer looks like.
This Friday will be National Instruments in Austin. Liz is going with me and we're flying out Thursday, I interview all day Friday, then we get to spend all day Saturday seeing the sights around town. Plus Matt and Lauren are going to visit! I guess it's like a 3 hour drive for them, but they want to see us and I figure we'd at least get to have lunch with them. Then we fly back Sunday evening.
So that's all in the job market area. Now that I have a better feeling for Dynetics, I actually like them better than I thought I would. It's still hard to decide which one I'd pick right away. Down in Texas it is closer to people that I know, but from what I hear NI isn't extremely generous with their offer. I'm sure it'll be enough to live off though. I do want to get a nice house for me and Liz though, with enough room for all our stuff plus some place for visitors to stay. I've been looking a lot and I've found some nice places for less than $200k, particularly in Texas and Alabama. I figure $200k is probably the upper limit, and I'm only figuring living off my income, so anything extra Liz brings in will also be nice.

The random event of the day involves my Paypal debit card. I received an email that said my debit card had been compromised and Paypal had cancelled it. I called the number on the back to verify that this was true since I get so many spoof emails, and it was true. They wouldn't give me any details as to who reported it or how this came about. The last purchase I made was in Kentucky at Applebees after making quite a few purchases in Columbus. So I don't know if that tripped some alert or someone else attempted to use the number online for something. I still have the card, so it's not like they could have used it at a store. And with my old card I cut it up and threw half of it away in one set of trash and the second half a couple weeks later after the trash had been collected.

Oh well, I had to request a new card, and 1-2 weeks I'll get a new one. It's kind of annoying since I was using it to make holiday purchases, but there isn't much money in it at the moment so I'm not really dependent on it. Without more info as to how they got it though I have no idea if they have any of my other information. I don't even use that card online that often, maybe once or twice. I guess I could go back and see what online purchases I've made with it to see who may have been compromised to get that info, otherwise it would have had to come from a retail store or someone just guessed the number.

Posted by Plocmstart at December 5, 2005 10:40 PM

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