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Quote of the Day
Posted by Vinoj on Nov 11, 2008 in Uncategorized
“I’ve got bad habits bigger than you.”
-Hannibal, regarding the diminutive size of a coworker
Ahhhhh… finally.
Posted by Vinoj on Oct 7, 2008 in Uncategorized
Okay so I can’t quite say that I’m ‘fully’ set-up yet, but ya gotta understand– in Vinoj World, being away from the internet is an eternity. The odd thing is at work I HAVE internet, but I’m always so reticent to use it for anything other than ‘work’ sites because I don’t think it’s appropriate to constantly check your Facebook status, or write a blog post, or whatever. I mean if it’s on your lunch break, I guess it’s a bit more understandable, but still, your usage history is still being tracked, and who needs the extra headache?
Hence why I haven’t blogged in a while.
And although I may have a total reader count of…. less than 10, I feel it’s my duty to inform you all of that.
Anyway now I’ve got internet and TV. Although I had to go and actually buy a 19″ LCD TV yesterday. Lemme tell ya, nothing beats portability. But it is a bit humorous considering that my TV monitor is actually smaller than my iMac’s screen size (22″). But whatever. All that matters to me right now is that I have the possibility of watching shows– or more importantly– OU football.
My poor sister. She had the misfortune of having to actually describe OU plays to me over the phone. “Umm.. so like, Bradford’s doing well… he’s got 3 touchdowns–” “Yeah but how’s our secondary? The defense? And the offensive line? “Uhh… pretty good I think….”
And so forth.
And it couldn’t have come at a better time– this weekend is– you guessed it– OU v. Texas #1 vs. #5. Wow. I have to say that the Longhorns, even AT #5, seem to be rather under-appreciated, and this is said from a total Sooner fan. I want OU to win of course, but I certainly don’t want a blowout. (That would just mean that Texas was too highly ranked/the Big 12 doesn’t have any defenses/SEC is better/blah blah blah) No, I want a good, really tight game. A game where both coaches pull out all the stops as best they can. And whoever wins– yes, even Texas– I hope they get to the BCS National Championship game.
Dang. I’ve already written 360 words in just about 7 minutes after not blogging for so long. So let’s not do this again, shall we? Now… if I could only get a couch, a desk to put my computer on, and a TV stand, I think I’d be set… heheh
Starting work and getting a place
Posted by Vinoj on Sep 14, 2008 in Uncategorized
So tomorrow at 9am, I start work officially. And of course I’ve been working on freelance projects since I’ve been here, but I’m talking sit-down-from-9-5-type-job.
I gotta admit, I’m a bit nervous.
I guess I shouldn’t be– it’s coding xhtml/css/jscript, which I’m okay with doing… but I guess it’s what they call the ‘intangibles’ that I’m slightly trepidatious about. Things like,”Will my co-workers like me? What will they think of my coding and work? I hope I don’t smell bad. What do I wear??” You know, the really important issues. Back at Element Fusion, I think that was the best part of my day– I genuinely cared for pretty much everyone who worked there– it was more like a family than any company I’d ever worked for, and I’ll truly miss it.
But as for tomorrow, I guess all I can do is keep coding like I have, wear ironed clothes, and make sure to remember the deodorant.
Another thing that’s been trying to say the least is finding an apartment. I finally found a town, Alhambra, which seems to be idyllic. It reminds me a lot of Norman and has much more of a small-town feel than does the rest of Los Angeles. It’s about 30 minutes northeast of LA, which is probably why the apartments are cheaper, but the one thing I don’t understand about 95% of the apartments around here is that they don’t have refrigerators.
Let me repeat– they don’t have refrigerators.
HOW does that make any sense? Apparently at some point (according to one landlord) people decided that they wanted to keep their own fridges and not have the ones already installed in the apartments, so the landlords had to have them taken out. Now, people (apparently) just move from place to place hauling their huge fridges around. Wtf?? On top of that, parking is ridiculous too. Many places don’t have dedicated parking so you have to park in the street, which means parallel parking with 80 other people, and then buying a permit from the city each year so that you don’t get a ticket. Grr. Personally it sounds like a scam, but I also don’t have much of a choice.
Anyway… so that’s that for now. I’m off to iron my clothes and take a shower to get ready for the big day.
Thank you God.
Posted by Vinoj on Sep 12, 2008 in Uncategorized
I was offered and had accepted a job last Friday, which I was very excited about, but there were some steps to get through– namely, a background check and some other paperwork. I was getting worried though, because today is Friday and I’m supposed to start on Monday and I still hadn’t heard anything.
Waiting is quite difficult.
And then today, I got the call. I’m all set for Monday at 9 am with Kaiser Permanente. I’ll be a web developer for them, which I’m very excited about. The people that I met seemed really cool and chill, and I’m looking forward to really getting my hands dirty working on different projects.
I guess it’s something you realize– when you want something SO BAD.. SO BAD… and you just are told, “Wait,” it’s the hardest thing. Then on top of that I’ve run into a bunch of other bad luck over the course of this week (a fender bender, hospital bills from an ER visit, etc.), I was really starting to get shaken in my faith. But I tried my best to stay strong. Today, I read the Bible and I read a book by Max Lucado that my mom had given me before I left Oklahoma. Both passages matched up (and I just pick verses and pages randomly)– they both told me God was telling me to be patient.
And once you do, once you realize that there’s nothing that is truly in your hands, but only in His…
things get better.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
Okay. No really, this time.
Posted by Vinoj on Aug 7, 2008 in Uncategorized
It’s now the night before I’m to leave for Los Angeles. Yep, there’s a truckload of fear that is coursing through my veins, and yet…. excitement as well. I’ve lived in Oklahoma a grand total of 9 years (if my mental math is right), and I think it’s time for me to explore another area.
If I could put it into a more familiar situation I guess it’d be like the day before your first day of junior high school. You knew that the kids were meaner, the classes were harder, and gasp!– they wouldn’t have RECESS anymore. But, try as you may, you just couldn’t go back to the comforts of homeroom and the teachers that had guided you along the way. Even the bullies of elementary school now seemed like amateurs compared to the horrors that lay ahead. It was rushing at you, full speed, and the only hope of salvation was that you somehow didn’t drown as the waves of newness crashed hard on your helpless, frigid body.
Did I go a little far with the metaphor? Probably. But you get the general gist of it.
But I’m ready. At least, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. In exactly 24 hours, I should be about 3-4 hours into my trip. My plan is to leave home at around 7pm (just as the sun is setting), and drive the approximately 13 hours to Flagstaff, Arizona. There I’ll crash at some cheap motel, and after resting for a good while, get driving again the rest of the 6.5 hours to Los Angeles. I’ll have to time it out so that I can reach LA at around 9 or 10 in the morning on Sunday, which means I may have to leave around 3 am Sunday morning- a dicey proposition. But we’ll see when I get around to it. Oh yeah– I’m THAT spontaneous.
Why drive at night? A couple of reasons, the main being that for whatever reason, I get very sleepy driving during the daytime, whereas driving at night I end up more alert. Make sense? Yeah, it doesn’t to me either. Second, the entire southwest is going through a heatwave, and the less I can leave my air conditioning on, the better for fuel economy. Of course considering I’ll be dragging all my immediate belongings with me the weight of my Civic will be heavier than usual, but hey– if I can save gas at least in one way, may as well do it.
I guess right now is just a time where I’m trying to put aside all emotional baggage so that I can focus solely on the details. Driving time, gas, lodging, how many cans of Monster I’ll need to buy to stay alert, etc. I suppose it’s avoidance, but if it gets me through this, I’ll work with it.
As a separate note, I’ll probably be updating either my Brightkite and/or my Twitter throughout the trip so that you can see where I am. If you’re interested, have a blast.
Finally, I also finished up my updates to my olllllld portfolio site, The Designs Bakery. Take a look if you get a chance, and let me know your thoughts.
It’s here. Sort of.
Posted by Vinoj on Jul 31, 2008 in Uncategorized
So I’ve finally moved out of Oklahoma City, in my venture to move out to California. Um… for those of you unaware, I’ll be moving to the Los Angeles area in August. When exactly, I’m not sure, but it might be as soon as next Friday.
As I moved all my furniture, junk, and let’s face it– life — from my apartment back down to Norman, where my parents are, I could feel the past slipping away. Did I really live in this apartment for the past seven months? Did I really work at a company in OKC for a year? What shirt was I wearing yesterday? Do I like Superman or Batman better? It’s really interesting how memories can be so important and stir deep emotions in one moment and then be fleeting and ethereal in the next.
I miss a lot of people at work. Really. I hadn’t realized how much they’d become a part of my life until after my last day of work (yesterday), I came home and was reading some funny articles online and I caught myself thinking, “Ha! I’ve gotta tell the guys at work about this site—oh. Right.” I talked to Natalie from work today and she was really down. Talking to her actually made me miss the people even more– and then Chris got on the site and wrote that he missed me and I got all choked up. Saccharine and sappy? Yes. But did it happen? Yeah that too.
But I suppose that’s all part of maturing and growing up. Leaving the familiar behind in order to embrace the new for the hope that life will be better in one way or another. It’s frightening, panic-attack inducing, and yet….
I have to do it.
Welcome to Element Fusion.
Posted by Vinoj on May 7, 2008 in Uncategorized
These are the types of emails we send out to each other….
Travis
It’s Tornado Season and I just thought we should brush up on our terminology so that in the event of a Tornado we would all be prepared, this is just a list of some keywords we all should be listening for
* Hook echo
* Wind Shear
* Updraft
* MOAR(Mother of All Radars)
* Metro
* Doppler radar
* Wall cloud
* Ranger 9
* Underground
* Mobile home
* Immediate tornado precautions
* Bathtub/Closet
* Football Helmet
* Blanket/Mattress
* Val is that you on the Getner?
* Will someone please answer that phone?
* Do you see power flashes?”
* National Weather Service
* Mesocyclone
* Portable Radio
* Take shelter
* Tornado warning in effect until …
* Baseball-sized hail
* Waterloo Road
* Pottawatomie County
* You’re not missing any of [program name].
* We’ll keep you advised.
With these tips I know everyone can have a safe tornado season.
Erin
The real question is…
Who would win in a fight?
Gary England vs Kelly Ogle
Personally, my money is on Gary. The dude is like the Okie Chuck Norris of Meteorology, and he is 300 years old. He could summon a F5 and blast Ogle all the way to Watongaville. Not sure though, Ogle has those gangsta-like ’2 cents’ hater skills. Lays it down all mad-thuggish on the weekly.
Travis
And plus G-England rolls deep with a poss[e] of tornado chasers, those guys have a few screws loose and could prolly serve up a pretty mean [k]nuckle sandwich!
Jason
I’m afraid neither one would be any match for Newschannel 4′s Mike Morgan.
Mike’s $3000 suits hide a bandolier of Gentners that he can hurl
throwing-star style – he’s been known to hit his targets – even from
within their tornado safe spot from over 300 yards. Failing that, the
sheer light energy emitted from his radioactive tan skin,
gamma-whitened teeth, and high-gloss manicure would melt England on
the spot. And Ogle? Bah. Morgan has an Ogle of his own to take care of
that: Ken. The BIG Ogle. He’s like twelve feet tall. He’d swing little
curly haired Kelly Ogle around and around, planting him in Gary’s bad
back.
You don’t mess with Newschannel 4. (Did I mention they have Cherokee
Ballard, too? She served JAIL TIME.)
Seriously. No contest.
Erin
Man, I knew Cherokee Ballard was the toothbrush prison shank type, this just solidifies that belief.
One time I was at a BBQ with Jennifer Reynolds and watched her down and entire rack of ribs in a single sitting.
Needless to say, up until that moment I didn’t believe in true love.
OK[lahoma] has the best TV personalities, bottom line.