Too long without a post

Yeah, I know it's been a while but I've been busy. First of all I now have a job, it's a 40 min. commute but it pays what my last job did so I can't complain too much. It's a place called Smile Reminder and basically my job is to integrate our appointment reminder software with doctors offices that want the service. I've learned more about databases and using my reverse engineering skills to get into older databases. The reverse engineering is the only challenging part of the job.

Other than that I have gotten the roll of Teddy in "Arsenic and Old Lace" at the Empress Theatre. Practices started last week and the cast chosen is pretty good. Performances start Sept. 11 and go til October 2nd so I don't have too much longer to have my lines down. Lucky for me there aren't too many lines but it sure is a fun roll! Chaaaaaarge!!!!

Wow, what a week!

The play went wonderfully! It was so much fun and we got tons of complements! I heard quite a bit of chatter that "Lumeire and Cogsworth stole the show"... well I don't know about that but we did work really well together. Here I am losing my mind:


I think this one is just after "Be our guest" where Bell wants a tour:

This second image is from the dress rehearsal, before I got a mustache; I definitely like the mustache better than the painted hands. If you want to see more images from the play, here is a link to shutterfly. Al was so much fun to work with so I found an image of he and I together:

Here I'm 'arguing' with Lumiere about letting Maurice in the castle: "...have some tea, sit in the masters chair...". Ok, one more:

Cogs:"...she was always vain about her looks, and that's exactly what she's become!" Lumeire: "A vanity." Cogs: "Little drawers, a mirror, the works!" And of course, human again:
Apparently Cogsworth has a thing for the wardorbe. Here Cogsworth is admiring her dress (and her of course!) that she now fits into! Heidi was wonderful as the wardrobe too! The play was so much fun, I would love to do it again. Hopefully I'll be able to get some videos up on this too. We'll see how well they turned out.

On another note, I was sick the whole time. Especially on Friday and Sat. it was a struggle to keep from coughing on stage, the adrenaline rush I'm sure helped that out. My voice started out a little rough on Sat. evening but was cleared up shortly after it started (I sucking on lemons). I am now still a little ill and my voice is only now starting to improve. Hopefully I'll be fully recovered by the weekend as I am thinking about trying out for a part at the empress theater in Magna. "Once upon a Mattress" has a king who was cursed as being mute so everything must be done with body language...my kind of role! If I do try out for it I'll let you all know how it goes.

Fun Time!

The play is coming along really well, we are down to the last week of practicing before the performances start! Last night we got many of the costumes and so we put on what we needed to get used to. Here is a photo of me in...most of my Cogsworth costume. Yes I will get better socks :)


And here is one of me, Lumiere, Mrs. Potts and one of the 3 chosen to play Chip. This one is where we are singing "Something There" while the Beast and Belle are reading a book (just before "Human Again"). Again, we only put on what we will need to get used to so Potts and Lumiere are only wearing the bare minimum of what they need to get used to.

And the last photo is a practice from last week. From left to right: Lumiere, Wardrobe (background, off stage really), Cogsworth (me!), Belle (she has dyed her hair dark now) and Mrs. Potts. This is just after "Be Our Guest" and wants a 'tour' of the castle. Of course Cogsworth is arguing with Lumiere that it isn't a good idea.

We found out last night that the Friday night performance has sold out so it's a good thing that I got Gid's tickets already! We also found out that we will be doing a Saturday evening performance as well as the afternoon (12:00pm and 7:30pm). Doors open 1/2 hour before the show starts and yes, for the nights they don't have sold out you will be able to buy tickets at the door. Oh, and don't forget that my daughter is playing flute in the orchestra! At 13 she is the youngest in there and she is pretty good too!

LIfe

Wow, it's been a whole month since I have posted. I actually had another interview with Mozy for a Program management position. The problem was that they didn't have the position open! They called the next day and said it may not be open for another year either. If they are as un-organized internally as they are externally I probably don't want to work there anyhow. So I'm back to square one on the job hunt, hopefully I'll be able to get more interviews soon.

The play has been coming along nicely, they have been working on props and there are only a couple of costumes left to do (mine is one of them). It's coming together really well and I'm excited to have some family to come down and watch it! They chose some really good people for the different parts and I'm impressed by every one of them.

Interview

Well, the interview with Decho/Mozy I thought went rather well, even though I got there late. You see, the building is on a new street and Google maps sent me to the foot of the mountain to similarly named streets, but still a good 20 minutes away from them. Luckily I was able to stop and ask for directions, was able to use their phone, get directions and let them know I would be a little late. Once I got there everything went rather smoothly except for the one person I was not able to meet with. You see, technical/professional interviews are typically more involved than your run of the mill interview, you typically have several interviews and/or meet with multiple people at once. I was scheduled to meet with 5 different people for about 1/2 hour each and unfortunately their QA lead was the only one I was unable to meet with. They have a hiring requirement that the candidate meet with people from different teams so they have a different perspective from others. Thankfully hat requirement was met when I interviewed with their program manager, who actually recommended I apply for a position with him as a program manager (which I did apply for)! I'll find out how they felt about the interview by Wed. of this week. It really seems like a great place to work, good benefits, nice perks, etc. and it really was a pleasure to meet all of the people that I did.

Another interview

Well, this is the 3rd interview since getting laid off; slow going I know. The schedule sent makes it look to be a long afternoon, I will be interviewing with 5 members of the Decho/Mozy staff starting at 1:00pm. First is the manager that I interviewed with over the phone, that will be only 15 minutes. I'm scheduled for half an hour with the other 4. I'm not sure if they are team members or managers, likely a mixture of both. From what they were saying I will be given a programming assignment to do and present another time. According to them it should only take about 2 hours to complete but if it's anything like what we did at Onyx it will take longer. The Onyx programming assignment was slated at 4 hours but the candidates who really cared took closer to 20 hours to complete it. I'm curious what the test will be, I'm sure it will be easy enough to complete if it's slated for 2 hours; likely something to do with wxWidgets since that is part of the job description that I applied for. Unfortunately I probably won't sleep too well tonight, likely stressing over the interview.

Other than that, play practice has started (Beauty and the Beast, remember? I'm playing Cogsworth...) and so far it has been all singing; big surprise! Tonight I get to go over my "big solo" in "Human Again". I told them I couldn't sing anything higher than an E and guess what... the song calls for and F!!!! My voice cracks if I try to hit anything higher than an E so they will be in for a surprise (me too) when I try to hit that F. They keep saying that I should be able to blend in with the others (the F IS, in fact, when singing with others) but I'm sceptical. I'll probably end up screeching in the middle of the song. I almost have the rest of my lines memorized and I'm more anxious to get into the staging rehearsals, especially with "Be Our Guest", that's going to be lots of fun!

slowly but surely

Interviews are finally starting to come. I've had 2 so far this week but at the same time I've had 2 others say that I didn't have the experience they wanted. I think the interviews that I had went fairly well but then I don't know how they felt about it. I should hear back from both of them sometime next week for either a second round of interviews or otherwise. I just need to be patient and keep sending my resume out there hoping and praying that someone is hiring.

The first meeting for Beauty and the Beast was last Thursday for the main cast so we were able to see who all were in it and get the script. I have already started memorizing my lines and practicing my singing (if you can call it singing). I was clear to them that I can't sing very well but they were obviously fine with that. Saturday we will have a meeting for the whole cast, including those who want to be in the orchestra. I can't wait to get started with the practices!

My new pet

As you can see on the right I have adopted a pet! My kids found then and thought they were really fun so they showed them to me. His name? "Purple Tiger will eat you"... and he will if you keep your cursor in his cage for too long! He'll play with your cursor and you can pet him and feed him if you like.

Beauty and the Beast

I know this is unusual for me to post twice in one night (much less per week :-0 ) but I think this is pretty exciting. Our stake is putting on the musical Beauty and the Beast and I decided to try out for the part of Cogsworth. I found out that there were at least 4 others who were trying out for the part as well. I went to the initial screening earlier this week and I thought I did pretty good with the reading. The panel laughed at all the right spots which I took as a good sign (it very well could have been courtesy reactions). But then I got invited back for a second screening to 'test the chemestry'. The only problem is that Wyatt was being baptized at the same time they wanted me there!!!! Naturally I chose family first and attended the baptism, having given them my cell phone number just in case. Well, about 10 minutes before we made it home they called and wanted me to come in as soon as possible, which I did.

When I got there they handed me a short section of the play and gave me about 1/2 hour to go over it. It was the section where Cogsworth and Lumiere were talking about others in the castle who 'fit' what they were changing into (a part that is not in the Disney movie). When they called me in I did the parts in my practiced 'posh' accent and added emotion. Again they laughed at the all the right spots, etc. When they were done they gave the schpiel about 'if you're not selected don't be mad' and that they would want me to participate in some other way in the play. They finished with say that 5:30 pm today was the time they would post the cast.

I didn't have too high of hopes (mostly so I wouldn't get too disapointed) but Anna Marie, who came with me to the callback, was quite certain I would get the part. She had 2 reasons she thought this, 1. they went out of their way to call me in and 2. she watched my performance and said I did really good. I must be a better actor than I make myself out to be because lo-and-behold when I looked at the cast listing tonight, I found out that I got the part!! Imagine me as Cogsworth! A friend of mine will be Lumiere so that will make it even more fun.

This will be a good distraction in the evenings as I look for a job, I also think it will be lots of fun.

Still looking for a job

I know it's only been about 2 weeks since I have been looking and I need to be patient but I have a family to feed! Unfortunately a lot of companies have a hiring freeze and are waiting for the economy to improve. I have also got to remember that the hiring process takes a while for each company as well. Even though they laid me off I am still grateful that Onyx gave me a severance package because it allows me to float for a little bit.

I have recently signed up for facebook! Within the first day there were several people who added me as their friend. I've heard that this is a great way to network too. Still crossing my fingers for getting a job soon.

Layoffs, downsizing, whatever you want to call it

So Thursday I went in to work and only had time to check emails and start testing my latest fixes when we were called into an unexpected meeting. When I walked into the room Sheri from HR was there with a folder on the table in front of her. Once everyone from my team was gathered she began saying that the company was having financial difficulties and needed to down-size. She then began listing the names of those who would no longer be working for the company. When she reached my name in the list I was stunned; too stunned to listen to the other names in the list. In all there were around 10 names on the list, mostly engineers. At the time there were about 50 people employed by the company so 20% of the company was affected by the layoff. Basically the company for the last couple of years has been making around $1 million per month. For the last 2 or 3 months profits have been declining, in fact this month so far they have made 1/4 of that. Something had to go and the fairly new CEO was the one who made the decision who to lay off. I'm pretty sure he decided to make the decision based on dollars, not only because that is what my supervisor said but also it is apparent to me that those on the list were long time employees and obviously had higher salaries.

I have many good friends there and learned a lot from them. I learned quite a lot from them and I will miss working with them. Now it's time to look for work. We are fine for a little while because I have been given 2 months worth of severence pay. I just hope I can find a new job soon.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas went well. The kids got gifts that they really like, Dan got a nerf dart gun game (most darts are already lost in the house somewhere), Emma got "Littlest Pet Shop" toys and Anna Marie got an I-Pod Nano which she loves. The biggest family gift we got was Sammy, a Budgie, which they all have a really good time with. The bird is still really shy but is getting used to its cage and the family.

So I also got a chance to work on one of the graphics cards. I re-soldered a few joints and was able to get better results out of it. It passed the initial tests but failed miserably when DirectX shaders were in use. The strange thing is that the OpenGL shaders worked flawlessly. I would think that the shaders for both API (OpenGL and DirectX) should use the same logic on the GPU so this is really puzzling. Basically I am using a simple pixel shader for bump/normal mapping and that same exact code is used (CG code) whether I am in OpenGL or DirectX. Maybe there is still a component outside the GPU that is having problems; something that is only active when DirectX shaders are being used. Unfortunately that is a big deal as all modern games use CG so the card is still pretty much useless. I'll have to start looking at the other card soon, maybe I will have better results with it.

Awareness

So my brother sent me an email about change. Basically it was a petition for Obama to change things and it specifies 4 goals:
* Move to 100% clean electricity;
* Cut our dependence on oil in half;
* Create 5 million new clean energy jobs;
* Cut global warming pollution by at least 80%.
The problem is that it doesn't give any way to accomplish these goals. Also, can you see the holes and contradictions? What jobs can be created? What about the jobs lost to oil? What electricity is 100% clean? How can you place a metric on global warming when it isn't even understood? Ideas without a plan just ideas. If you go to change.gov you will be able to see that Obamas' plans are mostly in line with this anyhow.

After going back and forth with with my brother on this it basically comes down to awareness. Aware of how we pollute this planet. Aware of how dependent we are on foreign oil. Aware that we need to develop new alternatives for producing power. Aware of our own wasteful habits and contribution to the problem.

Getting ideas out there will hopefully inspire someone to find a solution. Find a way to produce cleaner electricity. Maybe a way recycle nuclear waste. Or how about a new engine that runs on clean energy. I like the idea of "Mr. Fusion" from back to the future ;)

So here I am spreading the word. Be aware. Without change things will only get worse.

Annoyance

So earlier this week we get a visit from city ordinance. Apparently someone complained about our dead sunflowers so we were given 10 days to 'clean it up'. What's worse is that I've had a bad head cold this week. We have done the same thing for several years now with no complaints at all. So I had to clean it up being sick. At least I had help from the rest of the family. ;)

Electronics

So I was on the EVGA forums as this guy has 2 dead 7900 GTX cards that he wants to give away. I say "Sure, why not!" and aobut 3 weeks later I have them sitting on my desk! All the while I've been researching how to repair electronics to give me ideas on how to make these work. The #1 problem is typically blown capacitors which are easy to replace. Well, it's gonna be harder than that with these cards (I think the guy my know more about fixing them than I do). There are a total of 4 capacitors on the card and all look to be in good shape. So here's a picture of the cards:


As you can see they only have the heatsink on the RAM. He won an Alienware system and it came with water cooling so the stock cooler didn't come with them. So in order to test them out I had to put my cooler on them temporarily (I have a 7900 GT). Initial results show that one card may have bad RAM, not easy to fix. Basically the card had a hard time loading the test and paused between loading scenes which is what gives the hint that RAM is the issue. The other card started out great but slowly degraded over the testing, heat was a big factor there. Either the cooling wasn't sufficient (not as likely) or the voltage regulation is wacked. I will be doing further tests with that card once I can find a cooler for it. If anyone has one lying around I'll be happy to take it off you hands ;). The cooler for the GTX is quite a bit different from the GT that I have; both cover the GPU and RAM but the GTX also covers cooling of the MOFSET; that black heatsink that you see on the right of the card (which go really hot with both cards).

One thought with the card that worked at first is the RAM heatsink that is on it (the large copper thing on the board). If you look on the right side you will notice a black square that touches the heatsink just before it takes that 45 degree turn. That is a voltage regulator similar to the MOFSET under the black heatsink. Well, it does touch the heatsink, infact the heatsink is putting a little bit of pressure on it. It makes me wonder if that regulator went bad from the added stress, of course I could be wrong.

Also there are thermal pads between the heatsink and the RAM chips. Whoever it was at Alienware that put this together didn't pay close attention because most of the chips were not completely covered by the thermal tape. This was the case with both cards. Uneven temperatures across a chip can't be good for it. From what I understand about how RAM works it cycles power through it to keep the memory state. Electricity will flow through the chip which generates heat and temperature affects how fast the electricity moves; cold = slower, hot = faster. If this is right (again I'm no expert) then that would put additional stress on the chip causing it to wear faster. This may be the cause of RAM failure in the other card, of course it could simply be a bad solder joint too but solder joints on these chips are a ball joint that is heated and sandwiched for the connection and requires special tools to solder/re-solder.

Ok, Ok, enough babbling about electronics, I like challenges and this is looking to be a pretty good one. Hopefully I can get at least one card working :)

Hello World

Don't know how often I will be able to update this blog, my kids come first. In fact I don't even know what I'll end up blogging about, time will tell. The entries may be about my kids or as a software engineer I may talk about development. I'm also into music so I may post about compositions or about my endeavor to learn orchestration. Hopefully I'll update it often enough to make it interesting.