Just finished my Cisco interview. I think it went fairly well. They didn't ask very many difficult questions regarding my coding abilities, in fact I think my Victoria's Secret interview was a little more stringent in the questions they asked. The gentleman that interviewed me was very nice, although I don't think he was too comfortable interviewing. I think about half-way through he realized I'm not the most evil person in the world, and sort of started to laugh and crack jokes. That was nice. He ended the interview explaining the next steps saying somethig to the effect of "I'll pass on the results to my supervisor, and the other people who are interviewing and I will fight it out. If you get chosen we'll have you up to San Jose for an on-site interview". I took this to mean it went okay, until when we were exchanging fare-wells he said "I hope I'll get to meet you when you come up to San Jose" I took that to mean it went quite well.

In any case, it's fun to see the interview process in action and see how a big corporation does things. Quite the far cry from my humble work conditions now. The job title was something like "IT Coordinator". I'd be working in the B2B (Business to Business) division with a team of 15 or so developing software that essentially lets networks (as in the actual equipment) to order additional pieces. I didn't get the full gist of what that means, but I would imagine it means that in the event that a router or switch fails, and the backup takes over the backup will automatically send an order to Cisco for a new backup. Or maybe even if the network load is high in a certain region additional switches will be ordered. Or maybe I'm just on crack. Hopefully I'll get a call back and get to go San Jose and actually see the Cisco campus.

After my initial complications with getting an interview setup with him, I had thought perhaps my Peace Corps. recruiter was sort of flakey. It turns out this isn't the case at all. I'm in fact very glad that I have him. When I see him on campus he always greets me by name, and actually seems to care about my progress through the application process. He even went so far as to offer to inquire about my current status. He says I should know at least what region I'll potentially be assigned to already... so hopefully he'll find something out. That's it.

Oh, 2 more days until I leave for Wildflower. Yikes.

I just got back from seeing David Sedaris at the PAC. For those not in the know, he's the author of Me Talk Pretty One Day and several other books. Most of his stuff is short stories, small viginettes from everyday life but always funny. He's on NPR practically every week telling some short story, or doing something or other and it was cool to finally put a face to the voice. His 'show' consisted of several readings from various places; stories he was putting together, stories from his novels, and even excerpts from his private diary. It was really freaking funny. Not like in the classic comedian sort of way, but in the situationally funny way. It really was worth the $35 I paid to see it.

Surprisingly, he stayed after to do book signings. I unfortunately had none of his works for him to sign, and only had on me Tropic of Cancer (which I've only just started reading). So I waited in line to have him sign that =P. The wait was fairly long (about 90 minutes before I got to see him) but I had a very nice conversation with a lady from Morro Bay about practically everything. It was cool to talk to someone totally randomly not associated with Poly or for that matter anything related to my age group save a shared interest in an author. Very sweet.

Oh, for the curious David wrote the following in my copy of Tropic of Cancer:

"dear lyle, I hope this makes you feel good. -DS"

After a somewhat dissapointing career fair last quarter I got a call from Cisco today. Evidently people actually do look at paper resumes, and my ulitimately crappy one I guess met their minimum requirements for anti-suckage because I have a phone interview scheduled for 5:00p Tuesday. I really need to revisit my thinking on my resume. I did the whole thing in vi to be cute... but I've found that with a standard fixed-width font size I simply don't have room to talk about anything I've done. Consequently it's pretty bare-bones and crappy compared to what actually could be on there.

If you haven't talked to me, you're probably wondering "What happened to Peace Corps.?" As far as I'm concerned I'm still going. "So why are you even putting resumes out?" one might wonder. Well, for a few reaons. First, I'm curious what the job market out there is really like. You hear all sorts of figures being quoted about how the average starting salary of a person in my major is $58,500 and how companies recruit here first and all sorts of stuff. I'm curious as to how true it really is. Secondly, it's good practice. It never hurts to get some interviews under my belt, and actually test my mettle against that of my collegues. It also never hurts to get rejected. Thirdly, when I actually accept the invitation to serve, I want it to be a choice. I don't want it to be a default option, one I chose because I couldn't get a job. It's somewhat important to me that I have that choice. And hey, maybe I'll change my mind about Peace Corps. I don't think it's too likely, but nonetheless I don't want to get myself into a position where I don't really have any options. Finally I suppose there is a certain amount of ego involved. I'll freely admit that I'd like to be desirable to companies, and if I get a job offer... well, wouldn't that feel nice?

Who knows though, with the Peace Corps. being so non-communicative about when I'm going, maybe I could find a way that I could do both. A 6-month internship at Cisco would be pretty sweet... Of course that's probably thinking a little too far ahead. I'm still glad they called in any case.

I've been getting really weird spam lately. Usually you know, it's stuff like v1@gra or "Buy Horny Pills, 75% off" which are just annoying. These ones are funny though. The spammers are trying to trick Bayesian spam filters by adding extra words at the bottom to decrease the probability that their spam is in fact spam. It's clever, but it also makes for an interesting read. Check this one out:


My girlfriend loves the results, but she doesn't know what I do. She thinks it's natural" -Thomas, CA

"I've been using your product for 4 months now. I've increased my length from 2" to nearly 6" . Your product has saved my sex life." -Matt, FL

Pleasure your partner every time with a bigger, longer, stronger Unit
Realistic gains quickly

to be a stud press here [link removed]

We are living in an age of wonders, my young friend
no thank you address on link above
How is Uncle Henry? she enquired, after a pause during which the horse continued to trot with long, regular strides
He's pretty well No one knows that better than myself, sir, replied Rob But, tell me, can you trust your chief of police? I think so, said the President, slowly; yet since your invention has shown me that many men I have considered honest are criminally implicated in this royalist plot, I hardly know whom to depend upon

It's awesome how we live in an age where you can go from penis enlargement to a royalist plot in a short e-mail.

Freakin' A. I called Peace Corps. today and they haven't even started processing my medical. They said I should know around May 21st (and snidely the guy said "and hopefully it won't be a notification of missing information). Why are they doing this to me?!

I'm in love! Ha, fooled you. Actually, it's true. I've fallen in love again with my laptop. I've been taking it to school recently because I can program on it in lab. Further, wireless coverage has expanded by million fold since I first got it. I can literally be almost anywhere on campus and have wireless access. The only places I'm not connected are places like the English or Ag building. Of course there is no surprise there. In fact, right now I'm in the UU between classes. Wireless is sweet, and my laptop is sweet too. It is showing its age a bit... It's a little slow on some applications, but all in all it does everything that I need it to.

Still no word from the Corps.. but if they don't tell me anything by Friday I'll give them a little ringy-ding ding. They still have a little time after all.

I'm conducting tours tomorrow for the CPE department. If you feel like coming and taking an awesome CPE tour come to the PAC at 2p tomorrow. Alternatively you can come see me at my booth in the CPE fair for most of the day. Exciting!

Happy 7th of April, notable for NOTHING. Class is officially in full swing, and between Wildflower and Peace Corps. stuff I'm swamped. I still don't know quite where I'm going yet, and I only have the faintest inkling based on some text scrawled on the exterior of my Peace Corps. file. I won't tip my hand yet, except I already told some people. We'll just have to wait and see. Brady (the recruiter) said I should know something by next week, as LA had asked for my file (which evidently is an event of importance). Last night I got to go down to SB for a dinner/Q&A session with a couple of other noms from UCSB and a slough of RPCVs (returned peace corps volunteers). It was pretty cool actually, and I got to talk with some very interesting people. The head of the LA division has quite the belt of foreign service. I believe he had 2 stints as a volunteer in Peace Corps, and then taught in JET for 3 years. He was saying he'd been to over 30 countries. The other people I talked to were equally interesting. It was nice to hear funny viginettes of life overseas, and equally nice to actually hear some un-fun things that have happened to people. The website and available literature paint a very rosy picture, but I know simply having gone to third-world countries that life isn't so peachy-keen as it is in the recruitment material. It was neat getting to actually talk to people.

I'm sure you're all sick of this Peace Corps. talk by now... seeing as my last few posts have been essentially dominated by it. In honesty it's what is weighing most of all on my mind. No doubt graduation looms ahead, and classes are here in the present. All of that seems relatively un-important though(!) Of course that doesn't mean I'm slacking off, but I'm really excited to get going on this. I've been devouring all of the propaganda the office can give me, I just finished a small (~200pg) book filled with stories of past volunteers. All of the stories are only around 3 pages, but all very cool. Of course it's only whet my apetite for more. I suppose of course that now is the most important time to practice the now rare-found value of patience while I wait. But damnit, I wanna go!