Planet Olin

I would like to take a moment to talk about how awesome Star Wars is. It's 30th anniversary time, and it was the 20th anniversary (oh my God, was it ten years ago?) that brought a small group of geeks together in middle school. I made friends bonding over the Star Wars newspaper articles and images we had all hung in our lockers. We saw the movies together and watched the whole trilogy back to back on Valentine's Day in seventh grade. We all dressed as Star Wars characters (I was Luke, Giselle was Leia) on eighth grade Theme Day (and while we were hiding under the stairs to avoid the teachers making us go outside, I gave away our presence when I accidentally leaned on my lightsaber and turned it on. The telltale snap-hiss [thanks Timothy Zahn!] apparently seemed out of place). We had epic arguments over whether Han or Luke was hotter. Our lockers, notebooks, and binders were plastered with imagery. Our backpacks were decked out with ridiculous Yoda keychains.

I can quote most of the movies. The music is just incredible. I love the novels. Star Wars gave me a reason to learn about CompuServe chatrooms (I was Luke Lover #7 in the Star Wars forum) and what a "wav" file was and how precisely I could set my computer to use Star Wars sound clips as replacements for standard Windows sounds (My parents loved that phase).

I'm watching a History Channel special on it right now -- they're talking about the cultural impacts of the movies, the aspects of mythology and Greek tragedy that are present in the movies, and the philosophy it presents. It's just so good. It's so cheesy and created so many cliches, but there's so much about the movies that are just timeless and classic and delicious to watch over and over.

Actually, maybe that's just me.

Regardless, it's a freaking awesome movie.

Everyone should go rewatch (or watch, Kim darling) the trilogy right now.

I feel better now that the sun is up.

Later today, I may regret not sleeping.

Giselle has been my best friend since we met in 7th grade when I switched schools. She was my "host buddy" at my new school. Our first phone conversation lasted more than an hour, and it was all downhill after that (to the point that my parents put in a second phone line for us). We went through school together, took most of our classes together, and then both went to Boston together for school (unintentionally, actually -- it just happened that she chose Harvard and I chose Olin. Not that anyone believed us when we told them that). She still knows my catch-all computer password, and I can still forge her signature and account number at the country club her parents belonged to. She came to Olin often enough that Rosemary knew who she was at brunch and she's actually in the Olin Rising video at a cookout our freshman year.

And now she's moving to New York City on Friday :(

It's the first time we'll be living in different states since ... forever :(

WHATEVER SHALL I DOOOOOOO

I woke up at 9 A.M. yesterday and helped to move my stuff to my car, Matt Aasted's stuff to a truck and Eric's stuff to his mom's car. Over the course of 12 hours and lots of physical labor I had an apple and some peanuts, so I showed up at the theater exhausted. Luckily my only job was to call lines last night so that did not require too much physical exertion.

The rehearsal got out at 10 PM so I went to Wendy's and got a taco salad. After that I went back to the house and succeeded in moving all of my extraneous stuff up to my room.

Did I mention that I'm living in a gorgeous house in Natick? Did I mention that I'm living there all summer?

It's a two-story house on a windy two lane road somewhere in the outskirts of Natick. The kitchen has appliances from IKEA and the floors are hand-stressed hard wood. Four Olin students are renting it out for the year but I am just subletting a room for the summer. I extend a perpetual invitation to any good friends who want to come visit.

I'm also working at Wellesley summer theater, which is where I should be in about 30 minutes. Unfortunately I don't have internet access at my house (I'm posting this from the 1st floor of the AC) but I should be getting that soon enough.

Even though I have an exciting summer to look forward to, packing up all of the things in my room seems to invoke nostalgia and sentimentality in my mind. During second semester my room was a happy place--papers were written and pizza was eaten among the Diet Cokes and tacky carpets. The lounges were lively at 2 A.M. and became gradually sleepier as the night wore on. The ECE suite was comfortable with its Japanese décor and overflowing with tea leaves at all times.

I'll be seeing all of my classmates next year--with the exception of the seniors--so for the most part, it isn't the people that I'll miss from this semester. The only things that dissolve at the end of this year are the entities that existed for this year and this year only: George down the hall from me, foam and butcher paper covering the walls of 2E, the familiar extraneous crap that once covered the lounges. I still remember the WHS academic awards ceremony in the 10th grade, where Gordon said something along the lines of "As hard as we try, this collection of people, this exact collection of individuals here in this auditorium will never happen again." I believe that I will look back fondly upon the instance of time that was freshman year--the memory made fonder by the knowledge that it cannot happen again.

So it is time to update. I need to get back in the blogging habit. Apologies to all of you who were lacking in your 30 seconds of wasted time reading my blog.

My ruminations of late revolve largely around managers and mentors. In particular, my project manager at work is a really wonderful guy. I really enjoy working for him. The nice thing, though, is that not only is he my project manager, he is uber project manager guru man. So since I am managing a project team this summer, he's been helping out a lot as I plan out my schedule, milestones, etc, gently guiding me in the general direction of not screwing myself over. He does an excellent job of explaining the larger context (what the project means for the company, why we're doing it, what he hopes we'll complete) to keep me from getting bogged down in hours per week and assignments and deliverables. It's helpful.

This is the same manager who sent me an email one day saying "So, [coworker] and I were deciding your future over dinner. Here's what you need to do..."

He's pretty awesome. He would make an excellent professor at Olin.

Lots of other folks are great, too. One of the department managers is particularly good at feedback, good and bad. He's very good at letting me know when I've done well, but he has also (very calmly) lets me know exactly how much money I've wasted when I have "fucked up" a board. El presidente is a lot of fun to talk to and is happy to share business wisdom with a lowly engineer (perhaps his engineering background helps. I respect that). I think I learn more during lunch hours and at Friday afternoon beer than I do during my eight hours of work each day.

I spent the last 2.5 days at the RoboBusiness conference here in Boston. It was a blast. I went to the IEEE Oceans conference last fall, but while being a much bigger event, it wasn't nearly as fun -- I only knew about a very small percentage of the technology there. This, though, was all robots, and I know about robots! I have to admit the Microsoft robotics studio looks pretty cool -- at some point I need to buy an iRobot Create and play around with that and the Microsoft studio (the iRobot booth had a video of someone having modded a Create to be directed by a hamster in a ball. It was beautiful). Hanson Robotics was there, the guys who do the robotic heads (like the Albert Einstein head that they tacked onto an Asimo base) -- they are definitely well settled in the Uncanny Valley. It's very creepy. Segway was also there. Without any Segways. Go figure.

So what is next? Olin commencement this weekend (good God, has it been a year?), going to my grandparents' over Memorial Day weekend, starting my new project with my interns, preparing for the CDR for my current project (400+ slides. Oh yes.), going to HAWAII at the beginning of July. (Recommendations as to places to see/things to do are accepted in the comment space below) Exciting things.

oooh, i'm so shy. what happened to the bitter pill we swallowed? it was shiny and, as it turned out, helpful.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters = QUALITY.

If you are an Aqua Teen fan, don't miss it. If you aren't, I would suggest viewing a few episodes and first acclimating yourself to the aqua teen sense of humor before seeing the movie. Otherwise, you will be thoroughly confused.

(and really, there's a reason my current music is Phil Collins)

Oh man, this makes me so happy.

xkcd's map of the internet.