Since I am home for the moment

Yesterday I was working on my taxes. I would have worked on them earlier, but things were crazy. As in living in an RV in the desert to babysit a radio repeater for four days crazy. And being in Fresno the weekend before that. Both of those merit full posts, but I want to get some pictures for them first.

When you are working on your taxes at 11:22 am on April 15th, it is not a good sign if your 1040 starts to look like this.



Despite the colorful explosion, I was able to finish and mail everything. It was good I finished them before 5; I had to work on my application for the master's in electrical engineering program at Long Beach which was due that day.

I would post my entire personal statement online, but I am concerned they might search for my personal statement and discover I plagiarized it from a random blog, or worse, they might read my disparaging comments about my professors who cannot teach.

Everything I mentioned in the personal statement is from the last couple of years. Most of it is from the last couple of months. For example, I realized that with little to no stretching of the truth:

• I developed an interest in microcontrollers taking a class at Long Beach. I am now developing a test system that will be contained on a microcontroller instead of requiring a laptop.
• I am the lead test engineer for field tests. I allocate personnel, write operational plans, and troubleshoot test systems in the field.
• The City of Los Angeles has entrusted me to test their life safety systems.
• I have taught first responders radio communications that they will use in case of a crisis or disaster.
• On the advisory board for a community college's electronics program, I explain the needs and trends in industry and help the college tailor its curriculum to prepare students for careers in electronics.
• I am a volunteer worker in a research and development lab.

I would have gotten into how I worked with machinists to perfect a faceplate for a prototype transformer by making changes in G-code for a CNC machine, but I was limited to 500 words/3500 characters.

When I had to list three academic references (but not get letters from them), I listed three people from Long Beach, including the graduate adviser for the EE program. In the five classes I took from these three people I earned a 3.8 GPA. Next I want to talk to a couple of these people and remind them how great I am in case anyone asks. If Long Beach does not accept me into their program I do not know what I am going to do.

Otherwise Pandora has done a great job of playing songs I like today. It is earning the ads it plays me every few songs. I can feel the gulf between my dad, brother, and myself. I have been out of town 6 of the last 11 nights, dealt with homework for a graduate electrical engineering class, packed for a trip to the desert, done my taxes, finished an application for graduate school, and tried to make the most of every day. My brother put mulch on some parts of the yard on Saturday or Sunday and then said on Monday he was tired from working so hard. My dad took a nap today, since looking at the computer for hours was so exhausting. I want so much more out of life than they do. I am afraid their dead weight will drag me down. I have to fight every day to build a better life for myself. There is no space in my new life for people who waste their life.

The Story of a Weekend

A couple of weekends ago (March 22-24) was interesting and fun weekend. It was supposed to be a relatively uneventful weekend for me. It was after a weekend trip to Las Vegas, and then before the series of Easter weekend, Fresno weekend, Race weekend in Inyo County, trip to Berkeley weekend, and then the big charity fundraiser my parents work on.

It started off on Friday. I was at my volunteer job and did not get home until around 9.

Saturday
On Saturday I had an online meeting to plan an alumni event that is coming up on April 20th. Then I attended mass with some friends from the Beach Newman group. Then I went shopping for beer at Total Wine and More. On a recent trip to Slater's 50/50 with Sidney I enjoyed all of the beers I tried on tap. However, when I was questioned about the beers a few days later I could not remember any details about them. I have decided I need to write down what beers I try as well as a few comments about them. Now back to beer shopping. I was getting beer for a BBQ the next day. I went for variety packs so everyone could find a beer they liked. I bought a pack of New Belgium beer and some Redhook.

The New Belgium beer pack was called a Spring Folly pack. It included their standard Fat Tire, 1554 an Enlightened Black Ale, Springboard which was a beer they discontinued a few years ago (but now it is back as part of a folly pack), Trippel, and Ranger IPA. I remember I liked all of these beers, but was not diligent in remembering anything else. The pages I linked to can explain them and even provide some backstory. For example, I just learned Fat Tire was created by an electrical engineer.

The second pack was a Redhook sampler pack. While I had never had any of their beers, they looked good. It had their Pilsner, ESB, Copperhook, and Long Hammer. You can read about all of them on the Redhook site. Also, I should acknowledge Redhook for have a good website developer. Their list of beers is simply redhook.com/beers/. New Belgium does not have a direct link to their list of beers, only a drop down menu. Then all of the linked beers are something like: www.newbelgium.com/beer/detail.aspx?id=5ac72c92-fd87-4ec7-858d-3380c8d465d8. They do not have that many products so they do not need to have a complicated system. Once again, I only remember enjoying the beers, not anything specific about them. The only reason I know what beers are in their variety pack is because I looked at their website and remembered the colors of the labels. My selections were well received, the other Chris liked the Pilsner so much when I saw him a week later he had bought a six pack.

Then I went shopping. Then I redeemed a coupon I got for donating platelets for free Cold Stone ice cream.

Sunday
This started with a BBQ in a park with The Group (AKA the Vietnamese Crew). Peter picked up burgers, hot dogs, chips, and bacon. He bought 60 hot dogs, because it was cheaper than buying the 32 he was planning on getting. I ate a hot dog that had two dogs and bacon in one bun. Then we got boba.

After that Frank was in town and wanted to meet up. We went to the Haven Gastropub in Orange. We were joined by Dave, Daniel, Ryan, and Ryan's assorted peoples. Ryan had just bought a house and his girlfriend just bought a new car. The new house is in Orange, which is relatively close to where Dave and Daniel live. Meanwhile, I still live around 20 minutes away. At the gastropub I had fried pigs' ear. It tasted similar to bacon, but I did not like the texture. While I was hoping for a few big pieces of ear, It was shredded into strips.

The beers I enjoyed there were the Ten Commandants by The Lost Abbey and Wilco Tango Foxtrot by Lagunitas Brewing Company. They were both good and I would have both of them again. The entire adventure on Sunday had me gone from home for nearly 12 hours.

Monday
While I usually go into my volunteer job in LA on Mondays, this day was the Cesar Chavez holiday. It is a holiday for city employees. However, I was enlisted to help three of my friends from this job move machine tools. My friend had decided to give some of his tools to someone who was starting a shop of his own. The tools were rusting in his garage, so he was glad to give them to someone who could use them to make money. I was at my friend's house at 8:30 in the morning and we were later joined by 5 other people. We loaded a milling machine, a welding machine, some other tool, a small lathe, and a few random accessories onto a borrowed trailer. The milling machine was several hundred pounds, so we used an engine hoist to lift and move it.

After the loading was finished, we started the long drive to our friend's business partner's house. I drove behind the trailer in case they dropped anything, but we only had to stop once on the freeway. The unloading was a lot easier than the loading. Then we went to our other friend's storage space. I saw his large collection of motorcycles. On the way to work to drop off the trailer, he made a quick start and dropped a box full of straps and ties onto the street. I had to jump out and collect all of them, while my friend stopped traffic with his truck. The drive totaled 117 miles. I was gone for 11 hours.

Aside from the adventure, I got some food out of the deal. I had coffee, donuts, and pizza.

That was it.

Now I will be leaving for Fresno in an hour. Hopefully my laundry will dry before Justin gets here.