To California again...

Flying down on Tuesday and back on Thursday. Interviewing with Overland Storage (digital storage, not the other kind).

I'm also trying out the new google blogger app for iOS. So far it's very orange.

No Google for me

Oh well.

The Google interview

Went very well last week. Had a splendid time chatting with the engineers there and enjoyed a delicious free lunch. I'm hoping I might hear back from them next week or so.

In the mean time Barnes and Noble has shown a bit of interest in dragging me in to work on the Nook products, so we'll see if that goes anywhere, and I'll be keeping my resume spread around just in case none of these current opportunities pan out.

On the less job-searchy side, the flights down and back were a huge pain in the ass. A broken plane and subsequently cancelled flight saw me arrive in San Jose very late, and a delay on the way back had me almost miss my connection in Denver. The flights themselves, once we were in the air, were quite nice though. I sat beside some lovely folk, including, by random chance, Chris Wiesehan, the receiver coach for the Blue Bombers, who was a very nice fellow and quite enjoyable to chat with.


The hotel was splendid, though slightly less scenic than the one in Saratoga that Apple had me in. Visits with friends went quite well, much sushi was eaten, and good times were had by all.


I'm really looking forward to getting this all taken care of so I can move down to California and get myself settled and comfortable.

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.

Guess not

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

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.

I'm leaving on a jet plane

I keep promising myself I'll never fly again, but here I am, jetting off to California for 2 days. It's for a good cause, though: an on-site interview at Apple.

Google also dropped me an email and indicated they're interested in an on-site, but I won't have any time in my schedule until April, and if Apple comes back with a decent offer before then I'll probably just go with that. It's kind of a shame they didn't contact me a few weeks earlier or I could have doubled up. Such is life, I guess.

Onward and upward...

Day 3: Twin Falls to No Internet

The drive from Twin Falls to Sunnyvale was long and boring, but not nearly as long and boring as the time spent waiting for ATT to install my internet properly.

For the record, it took them a half dozen techs and all the way through to Saturday evening to get me online.

Life at Apple is pleasant.

Also, it turns out I'm getting reimbursed 50c per mile for the drive out and back. Considering the number of miles I covered...

Day 2: Glendive to Twin Falls

Like yesterday, you already know what the map looks like.

Had a nice IHOP lunch, got in early enough to avoid the Sunday rush. Almost hit a gopher on I90, twit just stood up right in the middle of the road. Wasn't a big deal.

Got a little sprinkle of rain coming into Twin Falls, but not enough to wash off the bugs, just enough to get the sides of the car dirty.

Day 1: Winnipeg to Glendive

Not bothering with the map this time, you know what it looks like. Head south from Winnipeg, hang a right at Fargo.

There was a bit of a lineup at the border but I made it through in reasonable time. The south wind was a bit of an annoyance all day, but nothing to write home about. Had Arbys for lunch in Grand Forks.

I also noticed that the rear suspension in the jellybean is fully bottomed out with all my crap in the back. This might perhaps help explain why I keep bending rims.

Oh well.

To California I Go

Hello again, Apple. It's been a while.

Day One

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Winnipeg to Glendive. Made good time. I quite like this route, I think I may prefer it over taking the interstates through ND.

The home stretch

I'm finally at the DS7002 stage with my visa application, so that means that in the next day or two I should get my DS2019 soon and be on the road. Woot!

I'll be staying in Apartment 55 at the Thomas Jefferson Apts this year. It's a one bedroom cottage, and should be quite a bit nicer than having to live with people (even nice people). I just hope it doesn't spoil me too much, since I still have a few winters with Father to endure.

Visa Undelays

Looks like the paperwork for my visa was finally submitted. Hooray! They've got a 10 business day turnaround time, so it looks like I'll be on the road hopefully by May 1st.

Visa Delays

Well, it seems that my visa won't be processed in time to keep to my original schedule of leaving on the 24th, as it takes 10 days to process and I just confirmed today that it hasn't yet been submitted.

I cancelled the application for the apartment I was going to rent (no expense incurred), and will now wait for word that the papers have been submitted before attempting to rent another. It's a good thing I don't need to buy plane tickets to fly down.

I'm annoyed.

I'm in ur country, stealing ur jobs!

So, I'm in Glendive, MT for the evening. Customs went very smoothly, the border official that issued my Visa seemed more concerned about filling out the forms correctly than figuring out if I was a terrorist or not.

Some things of note:

1. I passed someone riding a bike down Pembina Highway that looked an awful lot like Tyler. I'm not sure why Tyler would be riding his bike down Pembina on a Saturday morning, so I'll just assume it was his evil twin.
2. The Hardees Jalapeno Thickburger is divine bliss, though not quite as good as the chili cheeseburgers I had with Bob on Friday.
3. The curbs at gas station entrances have a sneaky way of hiding in shadows when you're tired from driving. No damage done, thankfuly.
4. Someone west of here is making a whole lot of money selling boom lifts to someone east of here.
5. The Theodore Roosevelt park looks like it would be really pretty at sunset. Sadly it was mostly cloudy by the time I got there.
6. Strong tailwinds make for awesome gas mileage.

Today's journey:


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I think tomorrow I'll try for Twin Falls, Idaho. It's a few more hours driving than I did today, but I'll be on the road earlier and I won't have to spend an hour waiting at the border.

Good things come in threes?

So today I get an email from my Calc prof telling me that he changed how he's calculating the marks to match the other prof, and is subsequently bumping my B+ up to an A-.

Next I got an email from AIPT informing me that my DS-2019 has been issued, which is the last piece of paper I need to take to the border in order to get my J-1 Visa.

Lastly I get an email from Tyler telling me that he won the lottery, so everyone make sure to email him and shake him down for some cash! (never mind that his share is only $2500)

Good news all around.

Xenophobia

Sent off my paperwork for my J-1 visa. Whee. We'll see how it works this time.

Slow month

It's been a pretty slow month, not much news to tell.

I found out that I got an A+ in my Atmospheric Science last term, and was offered a TA position for the class. I declined, though, as I'm rather busy just keeping up with my regular schoolwork.

With all the new features announced at MacWorld, I'm really starting to itch for an iPod Touch, especially with the addition of mail and google maps. I'll have to rope in one of my Apple friends when I'm down in California this summer so I can get the employee discount at the corporate store. At the same time, though, I'm also somewhat tempted by the Eee and the MacBook Air. While both are considerably larger than the iPod Touch (and in the case of the Air, much more expensive), they do come with the benefit of a real keyboard and a normal-ish sized screen.

I suppose I'll just have to see. Any option would beat having to use the filthy lab computers at school.

Speaking of California, I've started the visa process with Palm and it at least hasn't burst into flames yet. I suppose that's a good sign.

It's going down to -36c tonight, while Mom and Bob are away in Portugal soaking up the sun. Life is so unfair!

It's good to be me

So today I had an interview with Apple for a summer position in the iCal group, located in building IL3 of the mothership down in Cupertino. The interview went pretty well, and they should be getting back to me soon, hopefully with an offer. (For those of you in the loop who are somewhat confused at the timing, the interview was supposed to be tomorrow but got bumped up to today due to a scheduling conflict)

I also just got off the phone with Palm who will be giving me an offer shortly, which should net me somewhere on the order of $5k/mo plus some housing and relocation expenses that I didn't really pay attention to because I was trying to figure out how much that would be per hour (it's roughly $30/hr).

All in all, things are looking good. Now I just need to get that damn J-1 Visa.