Travel arrangements to the Opt-In Village

I'll be heading down to the Opt-In Village in April for an interview. I'll be flying down on the 21st at 1:30 and arriving at 7:30 in San Jose, and then flying back from San Jose on the 23rd from 11:45 to 7:30. Going through Minneapolis on the way down again, and Denver on the way up instead of Toronto.

Got a hotel room in Mountain View near El Camino and 85 this time, which is a very familiar area for me.

So, what is it you *do* here?

Sometimes people ask me what it is I do. This is the answer, roughly speaking. (scroll down, for some reason the second video is at the top, but they're in the correct order below that)

Guess not

Looks like the iChat position at Apple is a no-go. Oh well. We'll see if Google goes better.

Exam Schedule

Intro Japanese: April 11th, 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Art and History: April 13th, 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Human-Env Interactions: April 18th, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm

Probability Theory: April 20th, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm

Not a bad schedule. The 6pm exam for Intro Japanese is a bit odd and/or annoying, but I'll live. I might have wanted an extra day between the two pairs but at least nothing is stacked back to back.

Of course, all of this will probably turn into a complete mess if the faculty strikes.

It's a good thing I check these things

While I was waiting for my Prob Theory class to start this afternoon, a classmate of mine brought up the subject of the academic proficiency scholarship, noting that he'd finally been credited with his. I checked the website to see if I'd got one myself, but it came up blank.

After the class I headed down to the awards office to see if I hadn't qualified, or if they were still churning through the list or whatever. It turned out that I hadn't got it because my program was still listed as "general studies" rather than indicating that I was in the 4 year honours program. After a quick trip to the records office to correct that oversight, I was awarded the scholarship.

Yay, free money.

Also, the full-time faculty is threatening to go on strike, which might throw a monkey wrench into things. I contacted the convocation office about making a contingency plan in case a regular graduation would be delayed, but it seems that they don't yet know what might happen in that regard, so while I'll be keeping on top of the situation, there isn't much to do at the moment except wait.

There and back again

The trip down to Apple went pretty well. The flight down was reasonably uneventful, the interviews went splendidly, and then on Saturday everything went to hell (sort of).

It started when I was packing up in the morning: I managed to chip my thumbnail. This was the first in a series of annoying events.

Next up, I managed to get a speeding ticket going to the airport. Got clocked at 88mph while the official speed is 65. Of course, none of the traffic goes anywhere near 65, so the actual speed differential between myself and the rest of the vehicles was fairly negligible. All the same, speeding is speeding. I just hope the fine isn't too huge.

Following this, I arrived at the airport to find that my flight to Toronto was delayed, but that they'd make up the time in the air. This wasn't too terrible. I also had to go through that idiotic porn scanner at the TSA checkpoint.

What was terrible was that my flight from Toronto to Winnipeg, which was already scheduled to arrive in the wee hours of the morning, was delayed by 4 hours due to a little flaky white stuff sprinkling ever so delicately from the sky.

Luckily Pearson has free wifi, so it wasn't a total loss, but rolling in at nearly 5am after a long day in the air wasn't exactly how I was expecting to end my californian visit.

But, all's well that ends well. At least I picked up (with employee discount) a shiny new iPod dock for my Touch while I was down there.

I haven't heard back from Apple yet, but I'll be sure to blog about it when I do.