Addicted

I am seriously addicted to coffee, it doesn't help that I make Cuban Coffee twice a day at work, the stuff Martha brought from Costa Rica is so smooth and yet packs a heavy punch, it's truly delicious Central American goodness. why are the things that are bad for you feel so good?

Anthony

Just put the little Rascal to bed. He's a funny guy, he swears he can talk, but he's still mumbling for the most part.

South Florida

I wonder, do we really have a bad reputation here in South Florida? I know we are nothing like the rest of the United States, but is it that bad? I live less than 10 miles from the Hotel Anna Nicole Smith died, and, sometimes I feel embarrassed that I am a Floridian, but, 99% of the time, it is really good in here.

My biggest gripe with Fl, is that there are not enough local bookstore like the ones they have in Oregon, I wish there were more coffee shops like that. They copy everything from the Northeast or the Caribbean, everything except that, do they really think that nobody likes to read and have coffee down here? Well, to be honest there's plenty of Barnes and Noble but, it doesn't feel the same way.

Having said that, the Barnes and Noble in Coral Springs is my favorite hang out spot, I forget all my troubles when I'm there browsing through the Philosophy or Science section, if I ever become rich that's what I'd have, a whole library, from wall to wall full of good books.

Nextel

The phone the company gave me just stopped working, for no reason at all, the phone is just fine, but I have no service, oh well, Motorola giveth and Motorola taketh away.

Amirah

Amirah, the psycho cat, the Hannibal, Chuck Norris, and Kill Bill of all cats, seems to be pregnant, her, um, nipples, are all big, and she is acting weird, now there are two pregnant females in this house, just great.

Martha

Martha is on a Soduku rampage, she's done 8 in a row..and counting!
It doesn't look like she's stopping any time soon. This is what we do for entertainment. TV is just too normal for us.

Me

I am just tired right now, I am going to lay down and read, later I plan on finishing that bottle we opened last week. Tomorrow will be another day.

J.V.

A day in the life of a Floridian Engineer

05:00 Cell phone alarm sounds, hit snooze button
05:34 Roll out of bed, get ready for work.
06:00 Tell Martha that I love her, while she still sleeping, her answer is some mumbling that could be interpreted as "me too"
06:04 Go to work.
06:05 Come back in the house...can't find car keys.
06:09 Go to work for real
06:35 Get to the Motorola site plant, run 2.5 miles on tread-mill (sp?)
07:15 Shower (short workout today)
07:45 get to my cube
08:00 Read pages of documentation, code, etc, etc (work)
09:00 Prepare strong (expresso cuban style) coffee at my cube
09:15 People come over for fresh Costa Rican coffee brew, (Martha brought some from her trip)
10:00 Boss stops by and gives me more work. Basically I have to become an "expert" in this particular chip that we have to program, for those of you technically inclined, it's a chip that converts analog signals from the air into digital signals that the CPU can process.
11:59 Go to lunch with Co-workers, topic of conversation? Embarrassing dating moments, to protect the innocent, I will omit details...but it was good times!
12:59 Get back to work, Make more coffee, a guy came by my cubicle to introduce me to an engineer that's a Gunnery Sergeant in the Marine Reserves, this guy is totally the opposite of a Marine Gunny stereotype, I imagined some crusty old guy with a coffee mug attached to his hand, but not this dude.
02:00 Meeting. Listen to managers talk about the schedule, and talk briefly about my role in the project. Rest of the time spent drawing intricate triangle shapes in my notepad.
02:45 End of meeting.
03:00 Read code. lots of it.
04:45 More reading.
05:25 Leave work
05:45 Home, take out trash, fetch the mail
06:00 Go outside talk to the neighbor, who also happens to be a former Marine, he deployed attached to my old Battalion a year after I got out.
07:00 Have Dinner, Anthony managed to get spaghetti in every part of his body imaginable. Yes, there too, no, don't ask me how he did it.
07:45 Give Anthony a bath.
08:00 Put Anthony to bed.
08:30 Write blog.
????

Cats do the darnest things

The cats, Moha and Amirah, know how to open doors, and it's downright annoying. We'll be sitting there watching TV and whatever when suddenly the door opens and it's one the freaking cats walking up like the own the place.

Amirah would kick my ass if I even think about opposing her. Moha is a little more laid back, but, I
think the inmates are running this ayslum here.

J.V.

Jose 1, Ipod 0

Ha! I got my Ipod to work!

The solution? Pure magic of course, I just left the ipod plugged in before going to work, and when I got back, voila! my whole music library was in it. No kidding.

I'm sure there's a rational explanation for this, I just don't know it.

Book Crisis

Ever since I finished reading Brothers Karamazov I have not been able to finish any book I start, I tried reading Code Complete, a book about Software Engineering, it's a good book, but I can't get into it, it's hard to read it like I read a good novel. Then I tried doing a junk read just for the heck of it, I tried Michael Crichton's State of Fear, I could not keep reading it. Next I tried a science fiction novel called Ringworld, I got 100 pages into it and then lost interest.

Today I got two new books from amazon, hopefully they won't suffer the same fate.
I have Sam Harris' The End of Faith, and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. They look promising. More later.

My losing battle with Ipod

I am a music addict.

I've been a recreational ipod user for the last two and a half years. I first got into mp3s back in Iraq, I mean, everyone was doing it and I saw no harm in it.

Two years ago I was given an Ipod. I was happy and I thought I had it under control.

Then about a month ago, I dropped and killed my ipod.

The withdrawal symptoms are horrible. So I went out and tried to fix the problem. The thing is, Apple Inc makes fixing an ipod as painful as possible so you just give up and get a new one. Which is exactly what I did.

I figured, hey, let's get the upgrade. Not so easy, said apple inc. I spent 3 hours last night trying to get this thing to work, Itunes sees my ipod, downloads a song or two and then freezes. I tried every single step in the support web page, no lie, I restarted my computer at least 10 times. Deleted and reistalled Itunes twice, messed with local settings, hidden files, windows services, the whole works, and yet, it still acts up, I was up until 40 past midnight trying to get this thing to work. I am late for work this morning and pissed as hell. Why can't stuff just work?

So, I am an ipod addict, but Apple is failing at giving me my fix. Whose fault is it?
Them for giving me a faulty product or mine for buying it in the first place?

Incredible

Anthony has just shocked the hell out of both of us. We're sitting there having breakfast, and Martha tells his 17 month butt to stop playing around and Anthony, get this, he replies by telling her to shut up!

He is so young, that I don't want to be too strict, in the other hand, his personality is so strong, if we don't put our foot down he will be driving us.

Parenting is so hard, because basically you only get one shot at getting it right.

Anthony is more than a handful, now he can kind of talk. Oh man.

We'll see how it goes.



J.V.

Oh Boy

There's controversy coming our way. James Cameron has made a documentary where he claims he has found Jesus' Tomb...apparently, he's done his homework, rounded up a team of experts, and it's going to hold a press conference to reveal the news.

I can see that he's doing this to get the publicity, and who can blame him?

What makes me uncomfortable is that it is going to spark a lot of debates, and people are going to start saying stupid things.

Myself I don't take the Bible literally, I am not a religious person, or a man of faith. I read the Bible often, but I don't agree with a lot of "Christian teachings" furthermore, I don't believe there is a God, not in the way that most people believe.

I don't like to think of myself as an Atheist, that only says what I don't believe, not what I do believe. I like to think of myself as a Secular Humanist. I believe that we can better understand our Universe through reason, without the use of Supernatural explanations. Furthermore, I believe in having compassion for our fellow man, I am against human suffering, and I don't need to fear a hell to do what I think is right.

I believe this is the first time I mention my beliefs (or lack of) here.

Awkward silence

Anyway, back to the subject at hand, let's greet this with an open mind. The first thought that came to my head when I read the news was: FAKE.

But I want to hear the facts, and make my own judgment. I know that even if they can proof beyond any doubt that they have the body of Jesus H. Christ Jehova Jr. Social Security Number, DNA and what not, is not going to stop Christian people from believing, never. Even if God himself showed up and told us to stop believing in him, I think that we will. We want to, we need to. Life is too empty without a meaning, we don't want to accept that this is it. There's no afterlife, there is no heaven or hell, just today.

I understand why we want to believe in something, facts and reasons will not get in the way. I know. I get it. I've been there.

I don't know what I am trying to write here, it's late, we just finished watching a movie. (The Departed, Two Thumbs up!) but I feel the itch to write to the net.

So I think I know why we believe, I think I know enough to make my informed opinion.
I used to be afraid of letting people know how I feel about God, especially since I have a Christian upbringing. My uncle is a Pastor, my Mother works at a Seminary.

But, I can't help it. That's the way I see it folks. I don't want to lie anymore. I am not afraid anymore. I am not what I believe in. I am still the same person.

I've told my sister, and I've told two of my cousins, I need to tell my parents, and I need to tell my uncle the Pastor. I want to get this out of the way.

I love my Christian family. I love many things about the church, but not enough for me to defend it. I am not on their side. I don't have any hard feeling for any believer either.

I am going to stop right now. I need to go.

Good day.

J.V.

Life

It's so funny that now there never seems to be a good time to write on my blog, I am at work most of the day, and I can't blog from there, and whenever I get home there's always so much going on.

The sad thing is, I have a bunch of things to write about, and I don't simply because I don't have the time. It's a shame.

Like tonight for example, we found the most charming, little wine shop not far from where we used to live back in Coral Springs, near the Mall, apparently it's been there for two years now. The owner was there and she was so nice, I bought the best bottle of wine I've had so far, and it was only $14.00. Which is a lot less than the crap you can get a Publix.

So after we put Anthony in bed, I lighted some candles in the living room, popped a CD to soften the mood, and had a glass of vino with my fair lady, she only had a sip because she's pregnant. But I was able to simply sit back, relax and savor one full glass of the red gold.

Everything was perfect until I tried to get up, I guess I did it too fast...I managed to hit furniture that wasn't even in the way. I am the biggest lightweight on this planet. "A cheap date" is the way I see it.

I am going upstairs to sleep it off. That was one strong glass of zifandel.

J.V.

Windows, Unix, and other bad ideas

I feel like a total traitor, back in my old IBM days, we used to get everything done with perl scripts, I lived in the AIX Unix enviroment and the only time I ever got close to anything resembling MS, was a windows emulator we had so we could check our email (Lotus Notes didn't run on Unix back then). We were develping with VHDL, but we hacked everything with Perl, sort of like God himself. Doing so used to give me that smug feeling that's so common among the Condescending Unix Users.

Now everything has changed, Motorola uses Windows for everything, we have a code repository that's Unix, but everything is synchronized with Windows almost seamlessly, and now all I do is click, click all day to get things done, gone are the days when I had to write handy little scripts to do get things done.

The thing is, I feel like I am more productive in Windows (gasp! OMG! I just did computer blasphemy!) but it's true, with windows I just DO stuff, I don't have to sit there figuring out how to do my job. I am actually spending my time solving engineering problems, instead of trying to figure out which command to type in the prompt. I know is different for everybody, that's just me.

As a result, I just don't use Linux at home anymore, I don't feel like playing with it anymore. I am tired of things not working, I don't feel like using my spare time trying to figure out a cranky Operating System. So, I drank the Kool-Aid and stayed with Windows. How sad.
However, I embrace being pragmatic over being dogmatic.

Speaking about Dogma, I recently discovered David Plotz's Blogging the Bible series. Good reading.

Today Martha and Anthony come back from Costa Rica. More later.

I can't believe Anna Nicole Smith is dead

Poor thing, she was only 40. Sad ending to a sad life.

MIAMI!

The past four days have been all about sports in South Florida for me. Thursday Night it was the NHL's Florida Panthers at the BankAtlantic Arena, Friday I saw FAU's baseball opening game against Mississippi Valley (Won 8-1) Saturday night we saw the University of Miami's squad lose against Mercer, and today I watched the big football game at my friends. I wanted Chicago to win, but, oh well, I lost my $10. You owe me, Chicago!


As you may know, I love baseball, not as passionate as I used to be, but, I go to games whenever I can. Now that I have a little bit more time, I plan on splitting time between my Alma Mater (FAU) and the ranked Miami Hurricanes, it's two completely different experiences even though it's the same damn sport.


FAU has a small baseball stadium, they need to get a bigger, better one, but, since nobody goes to watch them, they won't be getting one anytime soon. But, I still like it, the hot dogs are the best in this side of the galaxy, and the atmosphere is very laid back. We actually chatted with the Head Coach before the game, they are so cool.

UM has a decent stadium down in Coral Gables, and of course since it's UM they have a fan base, and more people go, but, they are not nice down there, it reminds me of New York fans, you know, the type that cheer went the visiting team does something bad..
but, you can't beat a nice Saturday evening watching top notch baseball.

When I was in high school, I dreamed of playing baseball at the University of Miami, but I never got recruited,well, I did get recruited by a different organization, but I didn't play any sports for them.

Brothers Karamazov

I finished reading it the other night. Wow. It was not the type of book that I usually read, but I feel it was worth the effort.

Many things are peculiar with this book, the whole story is narrated from a third person's point of view, and even though the story is "serious one" the tone of the story is light, I laughed out loud in some parts, of course, my wife no longer thinks I am sane, but, whatever.

The other thing, I think Dostoevsky covered the whole range of human characters, he was able to portray so many different ways of interpreting life so convincingly that I can't tell whether he is an atheist, Christian, Communist, conservative, or what, the only thing that I can see is the effect the loss of his 4 year old child has on this book. The last chapter specially made me feel the pain he must have felt more than a hundred year ago.

You can tell a good story when it transcend the time and place that it takes place. This is a prime example.

Well, It's way past my bed time. So I will go now.

J.V.

What's the matter with me?

I just don't blog anymore!

Please bear with me. To me this blog is like that old treadmill that sits in your house, you see it everyday knowing you should get on it. This is how I practice writing for that book that I will write someday....But, I don't like to write just about myself and my boring life, mostly because:

1) Nobody Cares
2) I feel uncomfortable sharing stuff about my job.
3) Nobody Cares
4) Personal stuff can always come back and get you.
5) Did I mention that nobody cares?

I don't think my life is boring. But I don't think I have the talent to narrate mundane events in a way that would make people want to read it.

I would like to write about the things i am passionate about, but, I am such a lazy bastard these days, by the time I get back from work I am so spent, I don't feel like taking the time to write on my blog. But, out of respect for the blogsphere, I will not quit. I will keep going, I will make the effort to bring you what I think is good.

So, you may ask...what are you passionate about? Well, I am glad you asked yourself that question my dear reader, because, I am about to tell you.

These are the things I like to talk about:

Software Engineering.

This is a fascinating subject, but, I don't feel qualified enough to write about this subject yet, I am too new and anything I write would be stolen from someone else. Plus...who else cares? (that reads this blog anyway)

Politics

I somehow manage to piss conservatives and liberals the same, they both think I belong to the opposite side, and they may be right, because I am neither of them...
anyway, this topic will make me a bunch of enemies, do I really want that?

So I don't know. I am having a blogger crisis.

What I'll do today, is, point you to some interesting things I saw on the internet today:

Some interesting things I saw on the internet Today

I read a pretty good debate between best-selling atheist Sam Harris and pro-religion blogger Andrew Sullivan, who, I might add, wrote me an email one day...(OMG!)

Also, today I learn where the term Cancer came from.

I read a great story today (after work, of course) The Last Question, by Isaac Asimov, the author of I, Robot. Great stuff!


So, that's all for now, I have 30 pages left on The Brother's Karamazov, so I want to finish that tonight.

J.V.

The Truth a Web Experiment

Q: How do you know whether something is true or not?



J.V.

Working for Motorola

Last week I started my new job as a Software Engineer and as you can imagine it's been an exiting ride. I don't feel as lost as I did when I started interning, after all, I am still here in Fl, a familiar place, with a bunch of FAU friends, My Team is cool, they have a Super Smart dude that's showing me the ropes. I have a lot to learn, I thought writing code will be enough, but I have to know how Radios and Cellulars work, I mean, down to the last detail. Not to mention reading hundreds of documents, specs, data sheets and such. The first thing I did was read the Marketing Requirements Doc and then sign up for a bunch of Motorola classes. My hands are full and I haven't written a line of code yet.

The Family is Good

One more baby coming! crazy good times.

Time

I don't know how I am going to do my Masters, I am so tired when I get home from work, that's because I am now going to the gym. I gained a lot weight over the Christmas break (I wonder why) and I am so out of shape. My first day at the Gym I joined a group doing spinning bikes, they were all older ladies, so i was like, oh easy, I'll warm up with them, 15 minutes later I was huffing and puffing, seconds away from passing out, I couldn't even hide it. I bet the old ladies were laughing at me. But, I'll be OK. Today I was doing better. I feel like back in the Corps, when we used to PT in the morning before working.

So that's life these days, there are a bunch of books that I want to read, but I haven't finished reading the Brothers Karamazov just yet. I'll get there.

that is all.

J.V.

conscious

A good friend of mine gave me great words of advice today:

"Life is an amazing thing, more amazing the more conscious you become"

I couldn't agree more. So I am sharing it with you.

Thank you.

Happy New Year.

That is all.

J.V.

Saddam is Dead

They hanged him today. I feel mixed emotions. I have no doubts he did messed up things. Crimes against humanity and what not. I just have this thing in my gut that tells me this is barbaric. Why not life in prison? Or something like that? Did he get a fair trial? Oh well. Better people have been executed before.

J.V.

WTF, Chavez Person of the Year?????

Jon, you must be behind this.

Hello Bloggers Everywhere!

Like 99.999995% of the time, I have nothing insightful to add to the blogger world, but, out of habit, I am updating you with information about my somewhat-boring-sometimes-crazy life.

As you may know, I now have a bachelors degree, I just took a badly needed vacation to the left Coast, I mean, West Coast. And I am sitting at home without a job until January, something that I must admit, enjoy very much, not that IBM was a bad place, but it is nice to sit around and just...relax.

Relaxing

Which I am doing in my own way. If you know me in person you know that I can't just sit still. So I've been staying at home cleaning, fixing and organizing stuff. I have cleaned and organized most of the house, and it's going to take a little bit before I can say that I am "done" and there's nothing else to do around the house. It's quite therapeutic to take a chaotic closet and turn it into a Marine Corps regulation wall-locker. Don't get me wrong, I am by no means a neat freak, but I don't like messy rooms, they bother me a little bit.

Announcement from both of us

Martha and I have a reason to be happy these days, we are expecting a baby girl in May. We have told everyone NOT to give us anything until Martha is at least 7 months along. I have so many things to look forward to. Basically I have gone from being a college student to being a Family Guy.

Grad School

I promised Martha that I would wait a year before going back to school, but, I feel a great desire to keep going and getting my Masters ASAP. But, I will remain true to my word and I will give it a rest. I will try to never stop learning new things though, I am studying for the GRE, and I am trying to review the things I am going to need for my new job.

I am thinking about either doing long-distance internet degrees with The University of Florida or Georgia Tech, or doing it locally either back at the Alma Mater or the University of Miami. I don't know, it depends on what is more convenient.

Reading an awesome book

Kamran, thank you for recommending The Brothers Karamazov, it is one of the best books I have read, I am still at page 76, but each chapter is filled with magnificent thought-provoking narrative. I like that.

I've been Thinking about God

And the Bible and the Virgin Mary, and all the Saints including Santa Claus and other Superstitions, why are we so credulous? Because we want to believe in something.

I'm looking into all that.

Merry Christmas, Hannukah, Kwuanza, Winter-Solice, and Holidays in General

Hope ya'll have a good one. I have to vacuum the bedroom.

J.V.

99% of the people you will meet in college

Oh this is so accurate is funny. I must admit (with some embarrassment) that I was a "Major Elitist".

West Side!

I really like Portland. It has been raining everyday, but still. I have fallen in love with this city.

It is the opposite of Florida in almost every aspect. Yet I feel like I could live here. Of course, I would stand out as an outsider, there aren't that many Venezuelans here. But, with all the coffee shops and all the cool little neighborhoods. Who wouldn't like to live here?

I am staying at a Place called Ladd's addition, in Hawthorne, and it's just so nice. The people, the architecture, the culture. It's amazing.

We go back to FL tomorrow.

J.V.

Oregon

That's where I'm sitting right now. We did a surprise visit to Joel, a friend of mine from Iraq, he is a photojournalist that just published a book, A night of a thousand stars and other portraits of Iraq.

We flew to New York right after the graduation ceremony. Then we caught a plane to Portland Oregon, where it has been raining on and off.

It's nice, yesterday we saw a bit of snow in the Coastal Range mountains, and we saw the Pacific Ocean (first time for me), we had salt water taffes and a taste of Oregonian food.

Today I plan on going to some big bookstore, supposedly the biggest technical bookstore in the country. I'll try not to go wild in there.

So, life is good right now. I have to find a part time job when I get back, since it's going to be three more weeks before I start my job, I would like to catch up with my reading. I plan on finally reading the brothers karamazov, and I,Robot. Besides the latest book by Richard Dawkins and Carl Hiaasen. On the plane I finished reading Iwoz, the story of the founder of Apple Co.


Ok, that is all for now.

I finally graduated

I finally finished. I am at the FLL Airport, Flying to New York.

I can't believe it. I am DONE!

Such a great feeling.

Next Stop. Corporate America.

See you soon.

J.V.

Iraq Study Group report (full text PDF) is here.

Speaking of being a Geek

I think this is hilarious, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer's music video. He is very passionate about developers.

developers developers developers developers
developers developers developers developers
developers developers developers developers
developers developers developers developers

It does not feel so bad to study for a class that I actually like.

The final for Data Communication is tomorrow, I never thought that network theory could be interesting. But, I am geek like that.

Stressed

I didn't think this week was going to be stressing, but it is. It's not the finals, it's when all kinds of small things pile up at the same time that I get like this.

One thing I hate about myself is that I became an asshole when I am stressed out. There is no excuse for acting like that and I know that is something to watch out for. When I am stressed out, I get mad easier, and I say mean things to people that are close to me.

Admitting that is hard for me.

I am trying to be nice.

I am sad that Venezuela will have Chavez as president. I get mad at people that think it is a conspiracy, I don't know, they might be right, but they don't have proof. I truly believe that if the majority of Venezuelans wanted him out he would have been out by now.

Of course, the theory that the elections were rigged and that there's no way that he could have won by 61% makes perfect sense. I admit it is naive to think that the current government would not cheat on the elections. But, face it, we lost. Chavez is staying. Let's get over it.

Also, I did not vote, I could have voted, but I didn't. My fault.

My car would not start, the cat got sick, my wife is not feeling well, the chemistry final was a tough mother, I had a huge headache yesterday, today, I don't have a headache but it has been a hectic day. I have to cram for my Data Communications final on Thursday, it will be a hard test, but at least it will be on a subject that I enjoy, plus, I am sure it won't have a bunch of unfair trick questions like the chemistry final, that pisses me off so bad. I mean, one thing is to test if you know the material, another thing is to ask ambiguous bogus crap on a multiple choice test. Crap that wasn't on the book and that was never covered. Or subtle word play, that type of thing pisses me off so much because it's not fair. Of course complaining about it to the prof only makes you seem immature or lazy..oh well. I guess I am done ranting.

J.V.

Chavez wins re-election

Shit.

Holy Cow!

Last college lecture as an undergrad...today!

That's it. Next week finals and next Friday, graduation.

Good times, good times.

Wii vs PS3

When it comes to how I feel about these two. This article hit the nail right in the head.

J.V.

FAU STUDENT DIED OF OVERDOSE

Last night at the dorms. So sad.


J.V.


The link for the story is here.

Authority

I was taught to follow authority at home. It was reinforced later in the military.

I learned to question authority at College. Many of my personal heroes are people that went against the crowd and against the authority figures of their day.

There is a time when it's ok to question authority, like when people abuse their power to benefit themselves and to harm others, or when the government is not acting in the best interest of the nation, when an elected official is incompetent or corrupt.

When police officers abuse their power, the citizens must put them in check, that type of abuse should not be tolerated.

But when a guy is trying to instigate a riot and gets tasered for acting up, it's hard for me to sympathize, especially when he should know better.

Wii

A friend of mine somehow someway managed to get a wii before its release date, I just got back from playing raving rabbits. Oh man, it was good. Sorry Froyd.

The same friend, also has a PS3 but he got it just to get it, he was debating on selling it on ebay or playing it, I talked him into playing, I must say, I am disappointed in the lack of user-friendliness, the GUI is counter-intuitive and the thing was taking forever to load.

Something You didn't know Venezuela and the U.S. had in common

According to Euromonitor International Venezuelans and Americans drank 83.3 and 82.8 liters of beer per capita respectively in 2005. No other Latin American country comes even close. Yeah! Go Venezuela!

Venezuela is ranked 9th among the biggest Beer Drinkers in the world, now, that's something to be proud of. The US comes close with 10th place, but no one can touch the Czech Republic with 160.5 l/c, wow that's impressive.


*******EDIT********
I don't know if you noticed, but I was being very sarcastic.
It's sad that Venezuela is in the news when our lunatic president speaks or when the amount of beer we drink is calculated.

Happiness is..

...Sitting at a little coffee shop on campus, with a good cop of Joe, superfast wireless, listening to good music, and watching people walk by.

Life is good.

J.V.

Book I'm reading

I used to doubt the Theory of Evolution, but I realized that I never thought about it from a scientific point of view. That's why I am reading the Blind Watchmaker.

The big misconception about evolution is that things just happened by random chance. That is not the case. It's true, Science does not have all the answers to the origin of life. In fact, scientist don't agree on one Theory, but that is the beauty of science, in its purest form it is honest and testable. You can't just make up theories out of thin air and publish them, in order for them to be taken seriously they have to be tested.The theory has to explain and predict physical phenomena.

There is power in that. You and I trust science when we ride a plane. When we make a phone call and when we send an email. When we go to the doctor and take an aspirin. So, why not give evolution a chance?

J.V.

Hotmail sucks

Can't check my email, don't know why I still use hotmail.

Uhg

J.V.

Must.Study.Now

Homeworks and Lab reports. Final Exams. All coming up, I have to start preparing. I have to read hundreds of pages, solve and work out dozens of problems. Learn and Understand a bunch of concepts, some I will see and use again, others forgotten until I take the GRE or Graduate school. Go to class. Commute to Boca. Find Parking. Deal with Glades Road. All of that is going to end soon.


Four More Weeks.

J.V.

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

I am proud to announce that Martha and I are expecting one more member in the family.
Yes, she is pregnant. Due around May.

I've been holding back, I know, but, we wanted to wait before we announced it to the whole world.

We are very excited, and no, contrary to public belief this is the last one, I swear.

She is starting to show, this pregnancy is nothing like Anthony's, he sort of snuck in, unnoticed until it was imminent, we found out about it when he kicked Martha, but this one, she knew from the start. She has all the symptoms of a pregnancy and it is not pretty.

Overall, I can't complain. I was very scared the first time, and I was ok, this time I feel ready, like a battle hardened leatherneck ready for his next conflict, I say to the next baby: Bring it on!

(hope I don't eat my words later)

New Looks

New Looks

Nothing too fancy, my dream is one day to completely customize my page, but I have no artistic creativity...I kind of like this setting.

J.V.

A decision has been made

A decision has been made

My life is freaking crazy.

Let me explain,

A year and a half ago I started interning at IBM in Rochester MN. I fell in love with the company and the area. The job was amazing, challenging, great co-workers, the whole nine yards.

Then, last summer, a problem came up, there were no positions available in my department, I waited and waited, but no offer, so I applied for jobs at other companies.

Let's see, I applied to a bunch of companies all over the place, I tried Intel, AMD, Google and they ignored me.

Then I spread my resume in a couple of career fairs, and I ended up getting calls from some companies, I flew to New York city for Morgan Stanley, to Owego for Lockheed Martin, I also had an interview with NAVAIR and Raytheon in a career fair in Philadelphia and on campus. I also got offers from places I really didn't want to work for, out of professionalism I won't name them, but they were, how do I put it...not too realistic in their company sales pitch. But that's ok.

I also had technical interviews where they moped the floor with my ego, that includes Citrix and Hitachi, where I got stumped, and made me realize that I am not the hot stuff I thought I was.

Even though I don't believe in Karma, it keeps happening to me. When I was in high school I swore loudly that I would never date anyone from Peru...and then I dated a Peruvian girl for three years, I also said that I would never date any girl from our church, then I dated and Married a girl from our church, Last year I said I'll never work for Motorola, and yesterday at 5:40 pm ET I accepted a position with them.

The crazy thing is, IBM Rochester was my first choice, but it didn't look like they had openings for me, but, yesterday at 5:57 I got an email from them...offering me the position I had been waiting for.

A couple of months ago I would have taken the offer anyway, but now, I don't want to move away from Florida, it would actually cost me money, and I don't want to deal with that, unfortunately that's a factor that had to be considered, I would have moved and made the sacrifice back then, but not now when I have the chance to stay.

So I am happy to say that I will become a Motorolan, I think it's so crazy that I turned down an offer from IBM and Lockheed Martin, those were great jobs, but I am happy and I don't regret it now, hopefuly I won't regret it later.

By the way, My Boss in IBM, Gene, was the best Manager in the world, I have never worked with a better boss before, it makes me sad that I won't be working for him, but I look forward to my new job.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Happy Birthday to the United States Marine Corps

Happy Birthday to the United States Marine Corps

My Beloved Corps turns 231 today.

Semper Fidelis.

Decision

Decision

My mom likes to tell a little story about me:

When I was a little boy, we used to live in a house that had two bathrooms, one had a shower only and the other one had a bathtub only. One day she asked me which one I wanted to use, I hesitated, then replied “I want a shower”, so she takes me to the shower bathroom, then, after a couple of minutes of being in the shower I kept thinking about how nice a bath would be, so I said “I want a bath” Mom took me to the other bathroom, after that I changed my mind and asked her to take me to the shower again, at which point my Mother proceeded to whoop my ass in a very Latin fashion, the point of the story is, I am indecisive, specially when it comes to big decisions, this can be a character flaw. I never suffered from it in the Service because I knew that I had to make decisions in a timely manner, but when it comes to things in which I am allowed to ponder, I am bad, really bad.

Which takes me to today’s post, I want to take some time to discuss my decision making process. In which you will learn a few things about me.

It comes down to two choices, I have not heard back from the a couple of other companies; since I have to make a decision by next Monday, for all practical purposes they don’t count.

I have one offer from Motorola, in Ft. Lauderdale FL (my hometown) and an offer from Lockheed Martin in Owego NY.

It is not simple, it is not a trivial decision, and it’s killing me. So I will attempt to point what I like and what I don’t like about the offer, maybe that will help.

Why I like Lockheed Martin

1. I love what they do

Since I was a little kid, I had a fascination with aircraft, especially warplanes, I just loved it, I used to draw little diagrams of plane bisections, I was in love with those things, Dad used to tell me that I was going to be an aeronautical engineer, I love airplanes as much as I love computers, here, they want to use my computer knowledge to do neat things in the leading edge of technology, I always wanted to work on something like this, since I started college I wanted to work for a company that did the sort of thing Lockheed Martin does. I feel so psyched just thinking about it.

2. Owego NY is a good place to raise a family

Good education system,

Lower cost of living

I like the Northeastern part of the country.

I think that it’s good place to live.

Quality of life will be higher for us there

3. A chance to go to Cornell University

It’s not guaranteed, but I qualify to compete for a slot to go to the DLP program or something like that. The basic thing is that they would send me to Cornell University to get an MBA and a Masters of engineering simultaneously all paid for by the Company, but even if I don’t get that, they will pay for my Master’s degree at any University. I like that.

4. I really liked the Managers I met.

For all that it’s worth, my first impression of the people I’d be working with was very good. They were very nice to me, and they sold me the company really well, Lockheed spared no expense to make me feel comfortable, they paid for a rental car, two nights at a nice hotel and all the meals, not only that, but, they were so damn nice.

Why I want to go to Motorola.

1. It’s in South Florida

South Florida has been my home for 14 years, Most of my family lives here, most of my friends are here. And I know the area. Also, South Florida is paradise on earth, yeah, it’s overcrowded, yes, it’s expensive, but Ft. Lauderdale is one of the most beautiful cities in the US. Everyone wants to live here. All it takes is one visit, and you are hooked.

2. My Mother

My Mother lives here, I don’t want to break her heart. I know she doesn’t want me to move far away. I love the way her face lights up when she sees Anthony, she is never going to tell me not to follow my dreams, but it is hard for me to leave her knowing that I had the chance to stay.

3. My Sister

If I leave, I will miss my sister a lot. I want to see her get through college just like I did, I am very proud of her. I don’t want to leave her.

4. The Rest of my Family

My Mother in Law helps us out, my family on both sides always help us out with big or little things. Our Hispanic culture is very family oriented. Leaving my Family and my in Laws will be hard.

5. Motorola is not a bad job

To be honest, I never thought I would get an offer from them, most of the Electrical and Computer Engineers from the University of Miami, Florida International, Nova and FAU want to work there. Many apply, few are chosen, I applied there because I wanted to give Florida a chance, thinking that I was going to be ignored like most of my classmates, instead, they gave me a call, asked me to go interview the next day, and gave me a full day of technical interviews in which I happened to know all the answers to. If it wasn’t for Lockheed I would be happy to be there, hell, I consider myself honored that they made me an offer, they made their decision rather quickly, three days after the interview they called to offer me the job.

6. I have friend and family that work in Motorola

One of my closest friends in college works there, my cousin works there. Many classmates are there, many of my professors do research from them.

7. Motorola is the best engineering company in the area.

They have a good reputation here. Big company with good benefits, they offered me a salary that is about 5% higher than Lockheed. They will pay for my Masters degree, which I am want to get it from the University of Florida, one of the best schools in the country, it is not Ivy League but it’s surely the best engineering school in the state…besides FAU of course.

8. Moving will be a big hassle

If I sell the house I will lose money, it’s a buyers market and I doubt I will be able to rent it to cover the mortgage payments, so it’s a problem that I’d rather not deal with.

Overall, I would be very happy to accept the Motorola offer if it weren’t for the fact that I had my dream job offered to me at a different place. The bigger things stopping me from jumping to Lockheed Martin are my family and the hassle of moving there which I can avoid by just staying here, but it seems to me that those are not good reasons to say no to a great job. But I can have a good job that I sort of like, and stay here all the same, but my mind does not let me turn away from a job like Lockheed.

I want to thank Martha my wife for being so supportive.

For those of you that don’t know me, you should know that Martha and I fight, we get into arguments and stuff like that, I am telling you this because I don’t want you to get the impression that we are the perfect couple, however, she has been great in giving me all the support that I need and she basically says that she will go with me wherever I decide to go.

So that is my dilemma, writing this helps me understand well the issue, and it’s back to square one. I can accept the Motorola one because it seems like it’s a win-win, I mean, great company with a good reputation, great benefits and I can stay at home and avoid all the hassle, but, on the other hand, it’s my dream job…in NY, with a chance to get my Masters degree at an Ivy league school living like kings. So, what do I do?

I. don’t. know.

Oh my God! Rumsfield Resigned!

One more interview

One more interview

Today I am flying to Minnesota for another software Engineering position, on my way there I have a layover in Chicago, hopefully I will see my old friend from the Marines Kamran...but he might be too busy planning an invasion.

Anyway, I got to go to class...Just thought I'd post something today.

Ok, here they come!

Ok, here they come!

So, after more than 10 interviews with about 7 companies, I now have two good job offers, I still have one more interview next week and that should wrap it up. I have to make a tough decision, probably one of the most influential in my life. Joining the Marines was an easy choice for me because I did not think there were other options for me, ditto with joining the reserves, I got rejected to my first school of choice so choosing FAU was a no-brainer since it's the closest one to home. But this is a bit different, I want to make the best decision possible, but at the end I know that no matter where I choose to go I am going to regret not choosing the other ones.

It comes down to a Big Aerospace and Defense company in the Northeast, with a great benefits package in a low cost of living area and the biggest engineering company here is South Florida, they are both good jobs, they pay pretty good, they have good packages, in the Aerospace job I would be doing something extremely cool, interesting, challenging and classified. The job here is just as challenging but I don't see it as interesting as the other one, but it's here, I wouldn't have to move and deal with all the stress and I get to stay with my family. The job here pays a bit more but the cost of living here is higher.

At the end I know I can do well in either one, but I hate to say no to good job.

Ok, enough about that, I am here at home, I got to study for a test on Monday, other than that, life is good.

Phily

Phily

I'm sitting in a hotel room in the middle of Downtown Philadelphia, I have a nice view of tall building and I am doing my best to get some studying done. I have just attended ETCC for my school chapter of SHPE.


So anyway, I still don't know where I am going. But I have a feeling I am about to find out pretty soon. The job offers should come in anytime now.

I wait.


***********UPDATE*****************

Our Chapter, has just won the Chapter of the Year Award!

Go FAU!!!!

Error-Free Software

Error-Free Software

Exciting stuff. This is the reason I studied computer Engineering. This article explains it.

Software is Everything

Senioritis

Senioritis

Help! 7 weeks left and I feel no desire whatsoever to do any course work. All I can think about is how wonderful life is going to be once I don't have to take classes anymore. What's wrong with me? I have a case of the senioritis chronica.

Please do not worry about me. I will get over this.

Saturday Morning

Saturday Morning

I love Saturday Mornings. I like it when I can just relax for a while. Dear readers I have to confess I am one of the weirdest people in the world. I am strange indeed, I could blame it on the Marines, Iraq, or my engineering education. But it would be a lie, I am just different. Why am I warning you? Because I am about to make a statement that will make you go huh?

I love to clean up.

I know, I know, but it's so relaxing and I like to sit back after the house it's picked up and enjoy how it looks. I am not a neat freak, like anyone that was my roomate in the Marines can atest. But, I don't like messyness. As you can imagine our house it's not always in the best state of cleaningness. We get up early to go to work and school and when we get back Martha is too tired to do anything and I have too much homework to do anything else. But on the weekend I try to pick up a bit.
So there, I said it. So what.

Yesterday my sister gave me a great gift. Kurt Vonnegut's A Man without a country. I read most of it last night and the last few pages just now. I don't agree 100% with him but it's awesome to read his stuff, I would love to have a converstation with that man. I can tell that WWII affected him a lot, I can relate, in a smaller scale. I wish I can just write why I liked it. But is the feeling I get that we all ask ourselves the same questions, some people act like they have it figured out, some do not. But at the end. None of us know a damn thing. We just got here. "Life is no way to treat an animal". "Do you think arabs are dumb? they gave us our numbers, try doing long division with roman numerals". Great quotes from the book.

My first Wikipedia edit

I added a pic and a paragraph to the entry on Ramadi. It's not much, but it gave me some satisfaction that I made some contribution to the World's Free Encyclopedia.

Thursday was a very long day

So Thursday Morning I woke up at 3:30 AM to get ready for a big day. I left home at 4:15, drove myself to the Ft. Lauderdale Airport, caugth the 6:00AM flight to JFK airport in NYC, on the plane I tried reviewing everything I was taught about software engineering at FAU, I tried to memorize pieces of code and concepts, I was very scared. I arrived at 8:40, at 8:45 I was outside the airport trying to catch a cab. the line was extremely long. Then I met Juan.

Juan was a cab driver from the Dominican Republic driving an old Black Town car, I don't know if it was legit taxi or not, but he just asked me I was going to the city and I was in a hurry so I said sure, no problem ( you got to understand there was long line to catch a yellow cab ) So Juan and I talked about life, life in NY, the Mets, Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, how nice it is down in Florida and everything else in between, one hour and twenty minutes later I was in the southern tip of Manhattan in the Financial District walking around in a blue suit amongst a bunch of stock tradin' cowboys. I entered the tallest building in the area and I was very scared.

So I called Martha, but she was at work and could not answer. I called my sister next and she made me feel better. Finally I went up to the 3rd Floor where HR resides and I threw myself in the pool of sharks. Overall it wasn't bad, first there was an orientation, there were 20 candidates competing for I don't know how many positions they had, there were 4 kids from MIT, 5 from Cornell, One from Stevens, One from Purdue, One from the University of Florida, one dude from FAU (me) and the rest were from NYU. So after the orientation we had lunch and a discussion panel with recent hires in the firm. After which we had some sort of Logic Symbolic Processing test, it was some sort of IQ test, I only got to question 28 out of 40 when time ran out. So I don't know how well I did. After that we had a group activity where they split us in groups of 4 and put us in a room to perform a task as a team, I remember those from ROTC and the Crucible in the Marines. But never with 4 people with clipboards evaluating you. Then I had a professional interview and two technical interviews one after the other. They were not as hard as I thought they would be, but they asked me about everything. Operating System, Network, Object Oriented Programming, Computer Architecture, after that. Dinner and farewell, the day went by fast, it was 6:00pm by the time I was done. I wanted to go to a Barnes and Noble and get a good book to read on the flight back, but suddenly I felt very tired, however I didn't want to just go back to the Airport, so I decided to walk around NY for a couple of hours, I didn't know that part of Manhattan too well, so I ended up walking up to where the World Trade used to be. Ground zero they call it. Then I cought the A train to Howard Beach station and the Air train to the Airport. One the subway ride I saw New York in a different light. Too crowded, Too Dirty, people too mean. But maybe it was my tiredness. Truth is, it's an awesome job. I think I did good but I'll find out next week.

More Options

Well, I rambled long enough. It's time for me to go. I have a family function to attend. More later.

J.V.

Update

Update

I still don't know where I am going to be working 3 months from now. My internship with IBM ends in December and I have not heard anything about an offer. So I've been looking around, and it's interesting, I've been applying to the big chip making companies but have not heard anything back from them, so I figured the next best thing is to try to stay here in FL, there aren't many choices when it comes to Computer Engineering, I heard from one of the two main software engineering companies here in Florida, I finally got through their screening process, I have a second interview with them soon. I also got a second interview with a big financial institution in New York City (to work at their IT department), their office is right in Downtown Manhattan and that's where I am going on Thursday for my interview, on one hand it would be extremely awesome to live in a city like New York, but it would be so expensive to live there, and do I really want my family to be raised in NY? We'll see how it goes, everything is up in the air, the idea of having good baseball, good restaurants and museums and being in the capital of the world does sound appealing, but staying home in FL with all my family and friends also sounds good. Plus Minnesota is still not out of the question...what would you do?

J.V.

FAU

FAU

I've always wondered what type of training was required to be a Lab TA at the S&E building. Now, I know.

Halfway there

Halfway there

Yesterday I finished my last mid-term, which means that I am halfway through my last semester. I have roughly 8 weeks until graduation. I can tell you three things that are going to happen.

I am going to cry like a girl

I will be so freaking happy, I know I am going to be crying, just like I did in Parris Island when I finished that last mile out of 60 in the Crucible when they handed me the EGA and told me I was officially a Marine, I cried then. I will cry in this graduation,
7 semesters, 3 summer terms, one wedding, one war in Iraq, one internship in MN, one Son, one closing on a house, 2 cars, 4 jobs, I went through a lot while I was getting this degree.

I will have my TI-89 in my pocket

Sounds funny but, after taking Calculus I through III, Differential Equations, Statistics and Discrete Math, I still can't do a simple integral...but I know how to punch it in my trusty TI-89 calculator. Thank you Texas Instruments! My TI deserves the degree as much as I do. It was there for me when I needed it the most.

In my other pocket I will have something from Iraq

I wish our guys will come home soon. I am not into rituals and crap, but, I want to honor those of us who didn't make it back. This one is for you guys. We all embraced the suck, but you gave more. I came back, I will carry on, but I will never forget. Iraq will always be a part of me.

My wife and my family are getting the presents

I will not accept any gifts from them, I should be the one throwing them the party. If it wasn't for all that they did, all the faith they had in me, I don't think I could have made it, Thanks to my wife who thinks I am the smartest guy on earth, obviously I am not even the smartest person in my house. But thanks anyway. To Mom and Dad, Thank you. To my sister, thank you sister, I am proud of you, you will always be a Gator to me. (inside joke)

Ok, that's all I got, busy day today, it's been really busy.

J.V.

4 year Anniversary today

FL

FL

Ft.Lauderdale is beautiful this time of the year.

J.V.

Go Twins!

Go Twins!

The Minnesota Twins just clinched the AL Central title, they are going to the play offs.

I have three Midterms coming up, what do you think I did, a) Study all weekend, b) Catch up on homework c) spend the day at the park watching a ballgame.

If you answered c) Congratulations! you are correct!!!

Now, I have to spend the rest of the night doing what I should have done all weekend.


J.V.

Ramadi in the News

Ramadi in the News

I go on with my life as if 2003-2004 never happened, yes, I mention it here and there, mostly to people who straight up ask me about it, but most of the people that know me in my everyday routine never ask me about it, and I never talk about it. I like it that way. Then there are times when I can't help myself and I read the news about Iraq, then I get really sad about the whole thing.

What sucks is that my good 'ol Ramadi was just described as "Worst city in Anbar province Ramadi -hands down" in this letter from a Marine Intelligence officer.

I was surfing the internet minding my own business when I stumbled upon that article.
I can't explain how it feels to read about Iraq. One moment I am here, thinking about Midterms and what to have for lunch tomorrow, then the next moment I am remembering how it was to not have a flushing toilet, how it felt to be surrounded by so much dirt, this fine dust that gets inside everything. Well, I rather not remember. But I will never forget.

J.V.

I feel for those that are there, I wish they'd come home soon.

Anthony's first birthday!

Anthony's first birthday!

We had a little get together at my place yesterday and it was awesome, good friends showed up, my family was there, and I discovered a new mission in life...The grill, I spent the whole day cooking steaks and chicken for everyone. I placed picturees here in my MSN Space. You can also check out Martha's blog.


J.V.

Open Question"

Open Question"

What do you think is more dangerous, a really dumb but well intentioned person with a lot of power, or a real clever person with a lot of power? This is not about politics btw. I'm just wondering.

J.V.

Yes, Anthony Walks

Yes, Anthony Walks

So, here are some recent pictures of Anthony, he is walking now.
I try to spend whatever "free" time I have to teach him how to do signs, it's supposed to help him learn better. I've heard that the first years are very important. So, it is almost not fair to him that I have to work and study so much, I really don't want to be an absent Dad. It really sucks that there are days when only see him in the morning, when I get home he's already asleep. I want to show him stuff, I know he is very curious. He loves to play and stuff, he's particulary fascinated with the cats (he chases them all over the house) and remote controls, also I have to keep him away from the laptop, I suspect that he thinks he can write better Perl code than me, and, he may be right. But whenever he sees the computer screen, he wants to pound on the keyboard.

FAU

So, this Semester I am taking Data Comunication, Intro to VLSI, General Chemistry and Senior Seminar.
I am also auditing Structured VLSI, which is the same thing as Intro to VLSI, plus Verilog and it's a graduate course, those of you at IBM know exactly what that means.
I am doing that because my job is CAD VLSI, so everything helps.

(IBM parenthesis)
What I do, (for those of you who care to know) is that I am in a Chip Design Team, they think of the computer chip, design it, write the model in VHDL or Verilog, Verify it, Test it, Verify it again, Fabricate it, Test it some more and TADA! we have a chip for sale. My Department has made some neat stuff, like the chip for the Xbox 360 and the Blue Gene SuperComputer, I don't do any of the glamourous stuff, I work on a memory I/O controller for servers (yawn), but, if you are a geek like me, that stuff is truly fascinating. I love it.

So my Network class is good, interesting but it takes some work, a bit more than I am used to, but that's a good thing, the more I learn about this profession the more I want to learn more, I really wish I could do my Masters right after my bachelors, but I have to get on the workforce, being a student and a Dad is not fun. But the Master's is coming, I promise. (Martha, Dad, take note)

Senior Seminar is very laid back, and interesting, we just talk, we talk about ethics and computers, The Constitution of the U.S. and everything in between, the students give discussions on various topics relating to computing and society. My assigned lectures are going to be on "Computers and work" and "The Software Engineering code of Ethics" Which should be good. I guess I am supposed to have morals or something.

Chemistry is just the opposite, a lot of material, a lot of homework, labs, and a lot of freshmen, but, I was surprised, apparantly the school is getting pickier with admissions, these freshmen seem very prepared. Some know way, way more stuff than me when it comes to the physical sciences, hurt my pride a bit. But that's ok. Because I graudate December! What was that? you have 4 more years? Oops! sucks to be you!

Anyway. I really should be doing homework, which I have plenty of, I just wanted to give an update since I care about you, my constant readers, whoever you are. I know you are lurking in there, not leaving comments, but that's ok, I still love you.

Take Care

J.V.

Top Ten No Sympathy Lines

Top Ten No Sympathy Lines

I thought this was good.

Ernesto who?

Ernesto who?

Tropical storm Ernesto puzzled the forecasters who predicted a Cat 1 Hurricane in South Florida, the storm never gained strenght after going through Cuba, so now I hear people complaining because the state goverment "overreacted", anyway, I am glad things turned out the way they did. Better to be safe than sorry.

So we just got a bit of rain, we didn't even lose power at our house. It kind of worked out because I have some time to catch up with school work that I missed from last week.

Anyway, life is good, more later.

J.V.

Ernesto

Ernesto

So we have a new storm folks, All of South Florida is under Hurricane watch, the keys are evacuating again, so this is my welcome home thing. I apreciate that Florida!

J.V.

Things I’ve been thinking about.

So right now I am in a plane, flying from Detroit to Ft. Lauderdale, this probably won’t make it to the blog until Monday or Sunday, (busy with family)

Anyway, the thing is, I am having one of those moments when I learn something new, or when I read something that gets my wheels spinning, I am really bad at presenting my ideas clearly, the problem is that I don’t think I ever write anything new, that I don’t have any ideas of my own, it seems like all I do is merely repeat what someone else has said before me. This bothers me because I don’t want to give the appearance that I am so clever or what not, since I am not, I am not intelligent at all. I get very self-conscious when I write my thoughts, since I believe my thoughts are plagiarizing other thinkers before me.

I know nothing about computers, or better said, I only know a few basic principles about computers, but I am straying from the subject, the real thing I want to say is how much I appreciate other people who do not worry about what others think, people like Richard Feynman, Copernicus, people who doubt, and ask, scientists who know what it means to know something. It makes me understand that I don’t know much of anything, I feel humbled in comparison, I only wish to understand what they are talking about.

But the thing that bothers me is that I am supposed to be an educated person, (somewhat) I am about to graduate with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Engineering and I barely understand what my field is supposed to be about, not that I did not study, is just that I realize that I have only scratched the surface of what there is to know. I know that I don’t understand math that well, I must admit with a great deal of shame that I cannot do an integral without a calculator. I have forgotten most of what I’ve been taught about physics, so what do I know? Not much really.

Mysticism in our world

People seem to turn to mystic things to explain the world that we don’t understand, I can understand how we can have faith in the things that we cannot know, for example, science cannot prove that there isn’t a God out there.

I wonder

Just because somebody believes in evolution does not mean that they are against religion, why is that we think that?

Or why is it that we seem to associate atheism with immorality? How is atheism unmoral?

Why do we still believe in palm readers, astrology, superstitions and silly things like that? All these things that we know have to be fake, but we still believe it.

Humans are lazy

People seem to be very lazy when it comes to believing what they are told, it is easier to accept things and move on rather than to think and analyze what is going on. I think is great when we question things, like when we make our leaders accountable for their actions. I think that is a good thing, I think that’s what democracy is supposed to be about

I just want to write that like Feynman, I am not afraid of not knowing the answers to all the questions that haunt us, like what is the meaning of life and all of that, I may think about it for a second, but I am going to dedicate my life to continue to learn, but only learn those things that I can know for sure, things that I can prove with experiments, theories that have results and number that agree with it, not just some mumbo-jumbo that anyone with a typewriter can make up.

Maybe something good will come out of it, maybe I’ll work on a chip that will change the world, who knows? But that’s not what I am after, it’d be nice if it happens, but I just want to learn for the pleasure of finding things out.

Like the other day, they called me from work to see if I wanted to put in some extra hours going to the lab on a Saturday, so I had nothing to do that day anyway.

We had these medical machines that measure the performance of pacemakers, some expensive pieces of equipment that IBM makes for medical institutions, so anyhow, some of them had bugs in it so we were to take a look at them and if they had this error we were supposed to go in there and copy the log files and the software version for the engineers in Texas to figure out what was wrong, so it was a very basic thing, all we did was to look for this logs, compress them and copy them to a USB drive and then upload them to the web, the trick was, these machines run a version of Linux a bit different from what we normally use, our manager did not know Linux and this guy and I decided that we were going to figure out how to make the USB drive work. So we figured it out, well he did the USB part, I just figured out what order to do things in order for it to go faster.

So we didn’t accomplish anything significant, but the mere feeling of figuring out a puzzle, not knowing anything before, thinking about the problem and then finding a solution gives such a great satisfaction, it is great. I want to do these types of things. I like to solve problems. I don’t want to say that I am good at solving problems; I just want to say that I like doing that.

I am still a rookie, a newbie, I have ways to go. I am glad that I now know what I like to do. Let’s see how things turn out.

So this is what’s I’ve been thinking about as a cruise south across the country at forty thousand feet. It is 11:00 PM and I have one more hour before I get home to Florida.

Family

Tomorrow I am going to see my family. I want to see how Anthony has changed, he is growing up so fast, it is crazy, wow, and time doesn’t stop. My son is going to grow up and be and adult someday, isn’t that something? I mean, from a few cells to a full person.

Ok folks, that’s all I have.

J.V.

Test

Test

Hello World

Back to School

Back to School

Not quite, I'll be back monday. Anyway, University Press the school newspaper did something creative for a change. I thought this was cool.
Thanks to Oge's blog. (that's Dr. Marques for the rest of us)


J.V.

Going back to Florida earlier than planned

Going back to Florida earlier than planned

I was planning on staying in Rochester until labor day weekend, but since class started this week I have been missing out, one of my teachers highly recomended that I drop his course because two weeks is just too long to miss, we went back and forth on email and I agreed to come back early. So I will be leaving the land of corn for the land of..uh, Sun? Anyway, It's good because I do miss my family. But I have enjoyed Minnesota, not because of all the great things to do here (see corn grow, cow tipping, work) but because of its people. I seems like I have more, better quality friends here than out there in Florida. Don't know why, but I turn into a different person when I am here, is like I am more relaxed or something. Maybe Florida stresses me out too much.

I am anxious to see my Son, and my wife. Mom and Dad and my sister, and my brother in law, my good friends there. I am also ready for that last semester at FAU. Whoooohhoooooo! Yeah baby!

Tonight I saw the new Will Ferrell movie Tollega nights, it was hilarious. Classic Will Ferrell, if you liked old school, you will probably like this one. I was laughing the whole time. Don't get me wrong, I like good thoughtful movies, but sometimes you just need to have a good belly laugh.

Ok Folks, that is all.

J.V.

Summer Reading

Summer Reading

So this week I finished reading another book, The Pentium Chronicles, is about how this dude managed a big, complex project, being in charge of P6, aka Pentium Pro, a landmark chip. I was curious about how they make chips at Intel, it was an interesting book, I was able to relate some of the things from my limited experience in a Design Team in IBM, but for the most part I learned a few things, like, I didn't know Intel did not trust their employees, they used to check their bags before they left work, afraid that they will steal their stuff, I could not stand that, they don't do that anymore.

I also read this book about the Ebola virus, The Hot Zone, I scared me, at the beginning I was terrified, nature is a mean bitch. At the end of the book the author hints at the idea that these new viruses are the earth's way of defending itself from their parasites, the human disease that's trying to kill the planet. I don't think I agree with that. I think those viruses have been there all along, living on some bug or something, but since humans are expanding their foothold, they catch diseases that are not meant for them, the jungles have nasty stuff, that's that.

I read Uncle Tungsten. A book about Chemistry. Wow, some people love science, but none like the author of this book, there is no way anyone can write about chemistry with so much passion.
Obrigado Arthur.

But the book I liked the most (this summer) was Life of Pi.
Thank you Sean.

Why I liked Life of Pi

Warning: Plot Spoiler.....


So, this 16 year old from India ends up in a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal Tiger, A Zebra, An Orangutan and a Hyena.

The Tiger eats the Zebra, Hyena and Orangutan, the rest of the way is the boy and the tiger, Alone for 277 days.

The way the book is written, you know that the boy survived the voyage, you are told that this story has a "happy ending".

There's also these curious things, in the beginning the author hears this story that's supposed to make you "believe in God". There's also this idea about how is better to live in a made up bliss instead of a dry reality.

When the boy gets to land, we find out that what really happened was something horrible, the story about the Tiger was a way for the boy to cope with reality.

The thing that impacted me was at the end, the boy tells both stories to the authorities and he asks them, when it comes down to it, it does not make a difference which story is true, which is the best story?

My wheels were spinning, It all made sense.

Ok, I am tired. I have to go to bed. I could go on. But, what else can I say? Think about what we believe, (God, Karma, luck, etc) why do we believe in it? For what purpose? Does it make our lives better?


Allright, that is all for now

J.V.

Good Friends Good times

Good Friends Good times

It was a nice summer in Rochester, I missed most of it. But I got to see some friends from last year and I got the chance to meet new ones.







These are some pictures of us going rock-climbing.





I put more pictures here

J.V.

Update

Update

I have been a bad, bad, bloggger, I hate to write excuses for not posting, "I am too busy" is a sucky reason, but it inconvinently happens to be the truth, I have been doing a bunch of "stuff".

This has been quite a summer for me. Let's review all of the things I had to do.

Take two classes in Summer A and the Senior Project in Summer C.
Summer A is Six weeks long, week 3 and 4 were spent in Camp Blanding Florida doing my National Guard Training, I had to catch up when I returned, not pretty.

That was in May and early Jume, whe I finished Summer A I had to concentrate on finishing the Senior Project early enough so I could have time to go up to Rochester for my internship.

After being here two weeks, I flew down to do the presentation, did that last week.
This week I had a few permanent job interviews. Thanks to Project View, IBM flew me down to Raleigh NC to meet managers that were looking for a few good engineers.

I got back to Rochester Wedndsday night. Things are still moving, I plan to get to Chicago somehow, someway to visit my old friend Kamran, Then, I get back to school, in true hispanic fashion..two weeks late. Yep, School starts Monday, but I am staying here until Labor Day, why? I am trying my best to learn as much as posible before heading back to Fl to work, also, no point in hiding it, I am trying to get noticed so that I get a permanent job offer. I hope it all goes well. I have a feeling that it will.

So, the summer is almost done, as a result, I feel a little closer to calling myself a Computer Engineer. Finishing the project did that.

Also, I am proud to announce that I am a civilian once again!

Finally, after all these years. I no longer owe Uncle Sam any more time of my life. I am out. I really cannot believe it. I almost forgot. Really.

But I am happy that is behind me now. No more deployments, no more weekend drills, but, in retrospect, I am glad I did it, I wish I would have gone to college first, but I would do it over. Even the Iraq part. No regrets.

Sometimes I think about how far I would have gone if I had known in 8th Grade that I wanted to be an engineer and I had set my goal to get in a good school. Then I try to shake that thought away, since dweling in the past is counter-productive, besides, I would be a different person. I would not have met my wife, or none of my friends.

I am the person that I am because of all the people I have met along the way. The Marines thought me a lot more than I give them credit for.

Sometimes people ask me if I would let my son Join the Marines, the answer depends on how I feel that day. I would like my son to be a college graduate, I wouldn't want me son to be a trained killer. But, there's more to it than that. I guess I would let him make his own decision, but I am not going to make the military seem glamorous for him.

I know how my Dad feels about me going to the Marines, he thinks that it was a waste of my time, because I should have gone to school first. I see the merit in that argument, but it misses the point, I joined the marines to develop myself, I thought I needed a chanllenge and guidance, it was an educational experience for me, I learned a lot about myself and about people in general, also, I never thought about college when I was in high school, I wonder why? I don't know, the marines were in my mind for a while, since, like 10th grade. I read a bunch of books about the Marines and I was determined to be a General someday, I did not go to College first because I was not an U.S. citizen at the time, so I did not qualify for any officer programs in college, so I enlisted instead.

Plans change, people change. It happens. I went from being a military minded person to an engineer wannabe. Now I am transitioning from broke college student with a family to an older-than-average-recent-college-graduate-professional.

I am not ungrateful, after all, the U.S. Military gave me money for school, but I had to go to Iraq, I had to study while working, I was older than the most kids, which sometimes made me feel out of place, but for the most part gave me an edge.

So that sums it up. Summer is almost done, and I am heading towards my last semester in my Bachelors degree.

Family is doing good. I miss them. In fact, I'll give them a call.

J.V.

Life of Pi

Life of Pi

So here I am, sitting in front of my laptop. Next Week Thursday I have to be in Boca to do the final Project presentation. This weekend we have to finish the final report and the final presentation slides. We are actually going to show our project in action after a 10 minute slide show. So, all I have to do is write this report, the thing is, I don't feel like doing it. I am staring at the screen, looking at it, I know that once I get going I will be fine, the problem is getting into "the zone" maybe I need a little bit more pressure, like if it was the day before the presentation was due, I'd be sweating it. But since this thing is due next Thursday...But some part of me knows better.

I wanted to share with the world how much I liked the book Life of Pi, I was not expecting the book to impact me the way it did. It took me for a great ride and then it touched me in such a manner that I felt like I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I don't want to spoil the plot for anyone that wants to read it. But let's just say that it made me think. I like that in a book.


J.V.

My sunshine state

My sunshine state

John Stewart takes time out to honor my Florida, our Florida. Thanks John!

Castro drives Florida Crazy

Castro drives Florida Crazy

The after only 48 years! Castro is in his final throes...and I am sick of it!
Don't get me wrong, it is not that I want Castro to stay in Power, of course not. But, the reaction in South Florida is so strong that I think that things are going to get messy down there, people are literally losing their mind, or at least that's what it seems from the phone calls I've been getting. I knew things were going crazy when my own mother "knows for sure" that Castro is dead.

We'll see.