Soooo SORE!

Nothing out of the ordinary has been going on at work. The deadline is next week and I'm getting along, but still a little worried that I might not make the deadline. There's a chance the deadline may be extended by a week because one of the parts that we need for testing may not arrive in time....hopefully this is the case ;)

I had a pretty awesome weekend. On Friday, Dave had a BBQ and busted out the magarator. It was mostly all of our friends at work that came. We ended up watching die hard 2 ....let me just say that one should never watch any sort of movie that involves planes and such with a bunch of aerospace engineers. They will drive you crazy with all the faults in the movie!

On Saturday, I got to go wakeboarding! One of Dave's best friends owns a boat and his family takes it out almost every weekend. So a bunch of us and his friend's family went out to this river that emptys into the Bay. There was 14 of us total on the boat and we all took turns wakeboarding, water sking, and wake surfing. It was about 85 degrees and the water was almost the exact temperature, so it was really nice. Not too hot either because it can get up into the 100s. There were 4 of us that had never wakeboard before and as I watched the other 3 get in the water and fail miserably, I got really worried that I wouldn't be able to do it either. I was thinking that if the 2 guys who were over 6 foot tall and fit couldn't do it, what chance did I? On top of that, people kept making jokes about how small I was and the shoe size on the board was a 13 in mens! I ended doing really well and was able to get myself up and gliding in the water for about 30 seconds each run....and the board did slip off my feet whenever I crashed into the water. Now, this might not be so impressive compared to all the pros that can jump over waves and such, but the other 3 couldn't even get up, let along glide!! So I was told that if I tried it a couple more times, I will get really good at it. I wanted to try water skiing too, but I was pretty sore already, so I passed. After spending the entire day in the water, we came back to the friends house and grilled hotdogs. :) I love hotdogs!

Today, I went to San Francisco with some of my intern friends to watch the LGBT Pride parade. It was really amusing....although weird at times. After the parade, we did some light shopping and then one of the girls wasn't feeling well, so we came back. I will definitely come back to SF a few more times before I leave Cali. It seemed like there were a lot of things to do.

Oh yeah, as a result of my day of wakeboarding, I am now sore all over! Everything hurts...it even hurt to shiver when I was cold in San Francisco.

I'm watching Dateline.

I've been pretty busy lately and have been lazy to update. Work is going stressfully due to the deadline. I cannot wait until this deadline passes and I get to work on a new project. Not because this project isn't cool...just because there would be a lot less pressure of failure. I have made some friends with the interns and we have been doing a lot of things together. Last Friday, we went to a hookah lounge and got to smoke hookah in their outside area while we people watched. It was a good time. Then on Saturday, we went to Santana Row, which is like a mall for rich people. Everyone here was nicely dressed and drove nice cars. It didn't look like your typical outlet mall...rather like a downtown. We had dinner at a Spanish Restaurant and there was a band playing music just like the "Spanish Guitar" CD I bought from target last year. LOL. It would've been romantic if I was with a hot guy rather than just us engineering nerds.

My new place is working out great. I'm completely comfortable here now and Dave always encourages me to have people over. We have a hot tub and a pool.....and a MAGARATOR that makes 10 gallons of magaritas. HAHA. This weekend, I was laying out at the pool for like 10 minutes and got really dark....so I had to go buy sunscreen for the first time ever. The sun is really intense here and I'm afraid that I could burn or get TOO dark. It was only 75 degrees out too! It's suppose to be in the 90's soon.

Lamb Shish Kabobs

I moved to my new place yesterday. Some of the co-workers came over and we watched super troopers to celebrate my new housing...LOL. Crazy Kids. It's nice to be able to interact with normal human beings. Dave is really nice and his girlfriend and I get along pretty well. There's another guy that lives here which I have not met yet because he's currently in Hawaii and there is another girl moving in the extra room next month. We met her today and she has a really cute chihuahua dog...not like the ugly taco bell dog. I am going to practice on this dog for when I get my own :) So now I live in Sunnyvale which isn't nearly as exciting as San Jose, but there's a quaint downtown area with every type of major restaurant, even Vietnamese. We went to a Mediterranean restaurant today which was really good.

Today, I got to go on a tour of the Advanced Technology Lab in Palo Alto as part of one of the paid intern activities. The lab is a part of Space Systems where they develop the latest technologies. I got to see some of the latest space telescopes, satellite platforms, 0 gravity testing and vehicles, and other neat things. It certainly would be interesting to work there, but they only have 700 people employed, 2/3 of which have at least a Masters Degree.

Mini-Vacation

Here's my entry about meeting up with my family for their summer vacation.

On Friday, I worked for 4 hours and then left to go to the airport. I got into Los Angeles just as my sister finished getting her rental van, so it was perfect timing. I wish I could've seen more of LA, but unfortunately, none of the plans included being there outside of the airport. Hopefully I will get to explore it before the summer is over. First order of business was to go find the Vietnamese area to get food. My aunt told my sister their was an area called Little Saigon and that's what we were looking for, but we ended up in a different one. So we drive into the parking lot and there's this lady with her van all ghetto rigged out as a Jackfruit stand. Of course my mom and sister went down and bargained for some jackfruit. LOL. We found a restaurant to eat and then I introduced my family the amazing-ness that is Lee's Sandwich. When we got to the hotel, we all went into the hot tub cause it was too cold to swim.

On Saturday, we spent most of the day at the San Diego Zoo. Everyone told me that I needed to see it and I thought it was ok, but not as impressive as the huge zoo in Texas. I did get to see pandas!! After the zoo, we found Little Saigon and ate dinner, then went to the Oriental mart to buy goodies to snack on for the next day.

On Sunday, we headed to Long Beach to take a ferry to Catalina Island. It's sort of like a Mackinac Island...only a lot bigger and a lot prettier....and of course a completely different environment. I had read in the brochure that it is sunny on the island 297 days of the year, but as the boat was heading over there, it was cloudy so I got worried that it wasn't going to be sunny. Then just right before we got to the island, it rose out of the sun....the sun amazingly just shines on the island and no where else around it. We spent the entire day exploring the island and such. The scenery was probably the most gorgeous that I've seen in my adventures thus far. After we left the island, we stopped by this restaurant that sold crawfish and bought some to eat at the hotel. Of course my sister asked them to make it as spicy as possible and it was sooo spicy that I had to sip milk between each crawfish! It was even too spicy for my mom and Thu, who thrives on spicy food. It was still worth it though :)

On Monday, we went to Disneyland. We did the whole Disney World thing a couple of summers ago, so it wasn't anything tooo spectacular, but the kids enjoyed it. I spent about 3 hours there and then my brother-in-law had to drop me off at the airport to come back to San Jose. It's too bad that I have this deadline at work, otherwise I would've just taken the next few days off and stayed with my family for the remainder of their vacation. They are always an amusing lot.

I was suppose to move to my new place today, but Dave has a huge final tomorrow that he has to study for and can't help me move out till tomorrow. Since I had the extra evening, I headed to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant to have one last meal before I had to leave downtown San Jose :(

So much to do, So little of me!!

So I am moving for the third time in 3 weeks. The dude that lives across the hall from me is a total creep and I don't want to have to deal with him. My friend Dave who I work with is renting out 2 rooms in his condo and so I'm going to move in there for the rest of my internship. Hopefully the third time is the charm.

Work is getting stressful. We have a deadline approaching and I have to finish the software side because I don't want to be the section of the project that pushes back the deadline. This means that I will be doing major overtime for the next couple of weeks....at least that means more money. At least I have the excuse of being just being an intern and not even suppose to be doing something this significant if I somehow can't deliver the results in time...

A lot of the intern program activities are starting to get into full swing. We had a catered lunch with some keynote speakers today and that was kinda cool. I found out that I get to jobshadow the person in charge of Space Systems in Sunnyvale....all the interns chose her as the top pick and for some reason, I was the one that got assigned to her. I have chosen an intern buddy and she seems nice, but we haven't done any social activities together yet...probably soon. I have to do a presentation for all the executives and managers at the end of the summer about what I did and so I have to start preparing for this. A bunch of other things too, but I'm too lazy to type it all.

Tomorrow, I'm flying to Los Angeles to meet up with my family. They'll be there for a week, but I will only be there for 4 days. We will probably spend the majority of the time in San Diego....and of course Disneyland for all the little kiddies. A vacation before I live at Lockheed until the deadline.

BLEH!

So the dude that lives across the hall from me is a TOTAL creep ..... thus I believe I will be moving ONCE AGAIN!!! ...... to be continued....

Oh how the sun burns my skin.

I had read a flyer advertising a "Community Resource Event" for Vietnamese people that was happening today, so I decided to go check it out. It started at 10 and I wanted to go when it started, but I was being slothful and slept until close to 12:30 and thus did not make it there until about 1 hour before the event ended which I came to regret later on as my post will show. So I'm walking towards City Hall where the event is being held and I start to hear music and as I get closer, I realize there's a real life Vietnamese singer giving a concert. Unfortunately he was not a face I have seen on Paris By Night or Asia Entertainment, but he was still good and I enjoyed the concert. Above is a picture of him performing. Note the Vietnamese flags interwoven with the American flags in the background ;) So the whole event was like a community get together for Vietnamese people I guess and there sure were a lot of them gathered. So they were giving away prizes and I was chosen to come up and compete with 4 others to win an XBOX 360. Unfortunately, the question was "Name as many of the counsel members that have spoken as you can." and the person that came up with the most would win. CURSE ME!! I was only there for the last hour so I only heard 2 of them speak which I managed to name. The winner managed to name 3!! If I had been there for the whole event, I would've EASILY won because there were 8 members total that spoke and I would've only needed to name 4 to win! This is what I get for being slothful and I hope I learn my lesson....or maybe not.

After moping about how close I was to winning an XBOX 360 that I probably would've sold or given to my nephew, I decided to walk around because it was such a nice and sunny day. I went to the Public library and got a library card to rent books for the long lightrail rides to work. I didn't have anything to prove I was living in Cali, so they only let me rent out 1 book. I browsed through the library, which was really cool....it's 8 stories high and is primarily covered with glass. I spent a long time looking at which book to rent being as how I could only rent one. After I checked out the book, I went to this bubble tea place called Quickly and got a nice orange slush bubble tea and proceeded to walk around the San Jose University campus because the library was right next to it. I then sat down on a bench and read my new borrowed book and drank my bubble tea. Then I got hungry and decided to hit up a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner and it was really tasty. I just realized that I totally forgot to talk about the disaster that was last night....so I will make that post tomorrow. Now, I need to go to bed so I can put in 10 hours of work tomorrow.

Party In My Mouth!

I had quite an entertaining day today. Earlier, I went out in search of a Vietnamese restaurant that my aunt told me about. While looking for it, I wandered downtown. I knew I lived near downtown San Jose, but I didn't realize how close I was! On my way, I passed by a Seafood Mexican restaurant and I was really excited because I figured they would have shrimp tostados...which is something that I have only had twice at this Mexican restaurant in EL. I saved it for later though since I was on the hunt for the Vietnamese restaurant. So I wandered down 4th street and I couldn't find the restaurant....but I did find a BOBA tea cafe and I got myself a Thai BOBA tea...it was tasty. I decided to go back to the Mexican Seafood restaurant but decided to take a diversion because I saw a really cool building that turned out to be the City Hall. Once there, I kept going and came across a VIETNAMESE area! There were Vietnamese restaurants all day!! There was also a "Lee's Sandwiches" which is a place that sells all types of specialty Vietnamese subs. A lot of people both white and Asian have told me about this place and I am happy that it is very close to me. So while wandering in this area, I saw a clothing store and so I went in there to take a look around. First thing I noticed....they were playing the Backstreet Boys CD and second thing I noticed was that the owners were Vietnamese. Turns out they had some cute stuff, so I ended up buying a lot of clothes...whoops. It was pretty amusing because they were talking in Vietnamese to each other about me and then when I payed with my CC, the chick realize I was Vietnamese. LOL for Viet people not recognizing me. After I left, I decided to go eat at the Seafood Mexican restaurant because I had been thinking about shrimp tostados all day.....and what an amazing experience it was! Above is a picture of what I ordered....shrimp and crab tostados! Notice the various hot sauce I put together in the background ;) I also was watching a Spanish soap opera on the tv there and I stayed to watch the entire episode because it was so enrapturing.

Tonight, I went to an improv comedy show called ComedySportz with some interns. It's sort of like a mix between "whose line is it anyway" and that one show with nick cannon on MTV. It was pretty amusing because audience participation played a major role. Unfortunately, I got a little embarrassed. We picked the showing that was family friendly and one of the rules was that if any of the comedians or audience members said/suggested something inappropriate, they would have to wear a brown bag over their head for the remainder of the act. So the dude asked us to name an occupation that someone would have and I said "stripper." So they tried to make me wear a paper bag over my head....but I refused to. I don't do paper bag.

I'm eating cheese and crackers.

This was a really short work week because Monday was a holiday and then I have Friday off because of this whole 9-80 deal which gives me every other Fridays off. Even though it was short, I've been really busy. So busy that I eat lunch at my desk and don't take the usual coffee/snack breaks with some of the other co-workers. There are two phases to my project and I am just finishing up the first phase which is coding to "simulate" what would happen. I believe that the first phase is the easier one because the next phase consists of integrating the first phase into hardware and this program that I've never used before. I don't look forward to the second phase because I have to work in an ESD lab (basically means the room has to be shielded from any form of electro-static) ...which means I will be isolated from people :( . I had a meeting yesterday where I had to report my progress on the software portion of the testing because there are several other portions involved too and they were all like "didn't you just start?". Then I tell them I'm actually just an intern. LOL...I wonder if they are all thinking "oh shit!". I was glad that I was able to tell them that I had completed some stuff so I didn't look like an idiot. Yesterday, I also had lunch with my manager and some other co-worker. It was pretty amusing, yet odd...he's a pretty entertaining fellow when he's not telling me there's a deadline.

On Wednesday, our weekly intern event was bowling. Not a lot of interns came, but a lot of the more recent hires came. I met a lot of people and got to listen to the projects they are working on. I think that I've never really appreciated Lockheed as a company. I'm still wishy-washy about whether I want to work here or not when I graduate, but I've come to realize that the things that I have done here have been pretty great. I mean, how many people can say that they get to work on and be a part of innovative technology that changes the world. It was surreal to realize that everyone there was working on these crazy-ass projects from satellites to planes to missles and other secret projects.

Yesterday, I went out to a bar called Nolah in Palo Alto with some of the co-workers. It's like this New Orleans inspired place....I wish they were still serving food cause I bet it would have been good. It was Stanford Grad appreciation night there, so it was full of a bunch of Standford graduate students, including some of my co-workers. Nevin, one of my co-workers, drove me around the Stanford campus...but it was night, so I didn't see much.