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.