Wednesday, May 18, 2011

On Endings and Beginnings

I forgot to mention a couple of other interesting notes concerning graduation and the like. The most exciting news is that I've transferred out of active drilling status in the Army Reserve and into the Individual Ready Reserve, otherwise known as inactive reserve. That mean's I'm essentially out of the Army; they can still call me up if I'm needed, but the circumstances would have to be extraordinary. I don't have to go to monthly drills, I just go for a once-a-year "muster" to make sure I'm still alive.

I have to say, it's bittersweet leaving the Army. I really enjoy doing my job there, and I enjoy the camaraderie. If I were keeping myself in better shape and moving forward in my military career, I would have a strong reason to stay. But on the other hand, it's really the right thing for me right now. My entire life is changing; I'm moving from primarily being a student to the working world. My situation in the Army was also supposed to change, as I was being forced to change units. For one thing, changing units would mean re-establishing my reputation as a good soldier. The fact that I'm a habitual PT failure means that I have a hard time gaining good graces with NCO's and officers until I've fixed their commo a few times. For another, being forced to change yet another thing in my life right now is difficult to fathom. And besides, it might be nice to see what it's like to live life without the Army. If I really find that I miss it, I can probably get in shape and go back.

The other thing that I wanted to mention was from the Engineering Recognition Ceremony. The Peak Brass Quintet played the graduates on to the floor with the traditional "Pomp and Circumstance," but after a while I realized they were working in other music too. It blended very well, so it was hard to tell at first, but they added some phrases from the Star Wars soundtrack as well as the Zelda video game soundtrack. It was subtle and tasteful, and I thought it was totally appropriate for a room full of über-nerds. Nice touch!

Monday, May 16, 2011

Alma Mater

Apologies for the late post, but I've been a madman up until last week. After spring break, I had to kick all three of my class projects into high gear. In senior project, I had been spinning my wheels on a particular problem, and finally called in our Google sponsor, Scott, to help me out. We and the rest of the team had a couple of late-night hackathon sessions, and really made some huge progress. After Scott showed me how to incorporate my own PaintWeb tools the right way and started me on a selection system, I was able to make some nice enhancements to our 2D canvas and toolset. In the end, we handed off a senior project that I'm proud to put my name on, and proud that AgentSheets will carry forward.

In Object-Oriented Analysis and Design, our group wrapped up our design and did our three week-long iterations of development, and ended up with a decent proof-of-concept; an Android app for managing chores, along with a RESTful web service backend. We had planned a lot more, but with only 3 weeks to develop, it's difficult to get a finished product. And finally, my Data Mining teammate and I were able to wrap up our medical insurance mining project gracefully, even if we didn't find the juicy patterns we were looking for.

So that's it. I've graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder, College of Engineering and Applied Science, with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science. It was an excellent experience, and I'll always be happy to call CU my alma mater.

The graduation ceremonies were pretty much as expected; fairly boring in-and-of-themselves, but emotionally meaningful as a rite of passage. Many of my family and friends were able to make it for the Engineering Recognition Ceremony, and then for the University Commencement, I had Ashley, Chris and Holly cheering me on. After that, Ashley threw me a party at her mother's house, and I got to see so many of the people I love! Ashley and Holly collaborated to make my cake a special surprise, a reference to the game Portal. All of the photos are online for your viewing pleasure!

Since then I've mostly been taking it easy, cleaning the house a bit, catching up on my personal projects, and the like. I did have one exciting adventure, though; our senior project sponsor Scott invited us to Google I/O Extended at the Google Boulder office. It was a blast! I mean, sure, it was just sitting around watching live videos of the real thing in San Francisco, but I got to meet people from industry, get a feel for their attitudes and opinions, learn about what Google's been up to and where they're going, and even got a swag bag! If I can't make it to San Francisco next year, I'll definitely have to see about coming back to Extended.

As far as future plans, I expect to stay at Northrop Grumman for the time being. I could eventually see myself pursuing a Master's degree, but for now, I'm excited to see where life in the working world takes me. It's a wide world out there, just waiting for me!