Wesley Holland

Laurie and I went to Galveston last weekend and left Chompsky with some friends of ours who have a little puppy named Chewie.  New super-cute pictures in the Chompsky album of him playing with his new BFF.

Laurie and I got a Bichon Frise puppy named Chompsky (a purposefully misspelled homage to Noam Chomsky).  You can see pictures of him here.  He has a bad case of BPS (Blurry Puppy Syndrome); this is caused by an energetic puppy moving so fast that he cannot be captured accurately on film.

About a week ago I was contacted by another Wesley Holland, who was surprised to find that there was a website with his name on it.  He’s a computer science major a couple years behind me in school.  I’d like to give a shout out to Wesley E. Holland, Jr. and his father Wesley Holland (Sr.) of Madera, CA!  Sorry for monopolizing the top Google results.

Today Laurie and I went to view about 10 houses with our realtor.  While viewing the last house, Laurie led the way up the stairs and into the master bedroom.  She stopped directly in front of me and said, “Is that a real squirrel?”  I looked and said, “No - I think it’s stuffed.”  At this point, the squirrel turned its squirrel head towards us and I said, “Nevermind - it’s real.”  I then took a picture on my iPhone.

As soon as my iPhone emitted the picture taking noise, the squirrel jumped from the window and charged us.  I calmly moved out of its way so it could run downstairs (and hopefully outside).  Laurie began screaming as did our realtor.  The best line of the event was from our realtor, who (in her hysteria) screamed “THIS IS FREAKING ME OUT!!!!!!!!”

This blog seems to be turning into a biannual newsletter.  Let me summarize what’s been going on since my last post.

In September, Lindsey came to Austin to celebrate her birthday.  Unbeknownst to her, Michael and Ted arrived secretly a couple hours before her.  We all surprised her at the airport - it was probably the best surprise in the history of the world.  We had a fun weekend - the high point being when we went to see the bats.  During summer and early fall Austin has North America’s largest urban bat population.  The bats live under the S. Congress bridge and every night around sunset they all fly out from under the bridge to go eat.  Crowds gather every night to watch them.  Some nights the bats are more spectacular than others - the only way to be sure how big the bat display will be is to call the Austin Bat Hotline, where local bat experts (or “batperts”) predict that night’s bat turn-out and emergence direction.

In November, Laurie and I went to Illinois  to spend Thanksgiving with my Dad and brothers.  First let me say that it was REALLY cold.  Aside from the cold, noteworthy aspects of the trip:

• We got to see Jayne’s baby (Riley) for the first time - she was cute
• We got to see Buck - he’s gotten big and his accent isn’t as messed up as you might think
• Jayne’s sister Vicki was there with her son Morgan
• The food was really good
• Laurie got up at 4am and went Black Friday shopping with Jayne and Vicki
• I shot Cory’s new bow
• I played Halo 3 on Xbox Live for the first time (and got to hear Cory’s amazing trash-talking)

In December, I took a week off work.  We drove all night on the 19th to Jackson.  We spent the 20th there.  On the 21st, we drove to Huntsville with Michael and Erin to see Lindsey, Ted, JRu, Amanda P, Amanda R, Nathan, Elaine, Little Sarah, and Brian.  Battalio had been slated to join us (and had even driven over to Moug’s the night before), but he got sick and canceled at the last minute.  We spent the 21st and 22nd in Huntsville (where we stayed with Little Sarah and her puppy Lya), and we left on the 23rd back to Jackson where we spent the rest of the week.  Things were pretty exciting there, with Moug’s parents moving in from North Carolina and Ashley home.  The highlight of Christmas was my winning streak at Settlers of Catan: I won 6 straight games.  We left for Austin on the 28th.  On our way back, we stopped in Vicksburg to have lunch with Battalio (who was feeling better).

Now to the present.  I’ve been working at Intel now for 8 months, and I still love it.  Not only do I love my project, but it’s really a great place to work.  Even in these economic conditions, Intel is taking care of its employees.  And even though there have been some layoffs (mostly in manufacturing), Intel is making great efforts to minimize them.

My classes last semester went fairly well.  I’m taking 2 more classes this semester.  It’s rough, but after this I should be done with the coursework for my PhD and can concentrate on my dissertation (which will likely take a really long time).

On the technology front, things have been fairly quiet.  My only purchase has been a pair of iPhones for me and Laurie.  That’s right - I traded in my Blackberry for an iPhone.  And I have to say, while I’m amazed at the interface and 3G data speed of the iPhone, it is currently incapable of many of the things I loved about my Blackberry.  The missing piece is push notification - that is, my iPhone cannot have email and other data pushed to it for 3rd party applications.  This is a killer.  For instance, I can no longer easily have my GoogleTalk chat application make my iPhone buzz when someone is talking to me.  Once this functionality is added, I’ll have very little to complain about for the iPhone (the only remaining thing is the lack of a real thumbboard).

On a final note, I want to say that I’m thrilled that Obama is now in office.  He’s already changing things up and making things happen.  He’s an intelligent, eloquent, and visionary man and I think in 8 years we’ll be saying he’s one of the best presidents we’ve ever had.

So it’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been busy. We managed to get our apartment unpacked (with the help of Michael and Jody). We love the place we live. Our unit is huge (~1250 sq. feet) and our patio is ~30 feet from one of our complex’s pools. We bought some new furniture (a dining room table and a china cabinet). The place looks pretty nice. We also have a garage.

On the education front, I took an early-morning class this Summer at U.T. in mathematical statistics. I definitely learned a lot, though I was out of my depth in the beginning (I still managed to get an A). Some of the statistical methods should come in very useful while I’m writing my dissertation. I’m already signed up for 2 night classes in the Fall. One is on Mixed Analog/Digital System Design and the other is on System-on-chip design. Laurie also starts school in the Fall.

I also started working full-time at Intel in mid-June. I’ve been there 2 months now, and I love it. It’s the awesomest job I could hope to get (and it certainly pays better than graduate school). I can’t say what I’m working on, but suffice to say that I’m doing RTL design work on a big and soon-to-be-very-visible project.

While I’ve been going to school and working, Laurie has been traveling. In late June, she flew back to Jackson to hang out with her parents a little. They drove to Atlanta for the 4th of July to see Ashley. Then, the whole crew flew out to California for a wedding. When they returned, Laurie and Moug drove to North Carolina and Florida to visit both sets of grandparents. Laurie then returned to Jackson for a few days (though she did make a quick trip up to see friends in Starkville) before returning here 3 weeks later. But it hasn’t been all fun and games. Laurie has been sick on and off for a while now. When we took her to the doctor they said she needed to have her tonsils out. So on August 7th, she had the 15 minute surgery to have them removed. She’s currently recovering.

On the technology front, having a real job (and a real paycheck) has better enabled me to fuel my technology addiction. Since arriving in Austin my main purchases include a Blackberry (with bluetooth headset) and a new Asus eee PC 901. Both are awesome. The Blackberry gives me constant access to my email and web-based programs. It also has a built-in GPS that integrates with Google maps. The new eee PC is great too. Improvements over my old eee PC include: the Intel Atom processor, better integrated graphics, integrated bluetooth, wireless-n, a larger screen, a bigger hard-drive, and a multi-touch trackpad. The main reason I bought it was because I wanted the Atom processor which offers slightly better performance at vastly improved battery life (5-7 hours). I would post pictures, but it’s the same form-factor and basically looks exactly the same as my old eee PC (except for the glossy finish).

Laurie and I made it to Austin. Our apartment is humongous, and it’s in a really nice area. Michael and Jody came along to help us unload and unpack. They’ll be flying back to Jackson at the end of the week. I’ll post pictures as soon as we get everything unpacked.

I start school on Friday. I’m taking one 7:00am Introduction to Mathematical Statistics class, so I’ll be done in time for work at 9:00am. I start work at Intel on the 16th in the position of Component Design Engineer. I’m super excited; it’s basically my dream job.

I’ll post more as soon as we get settled.

Mine and Laurie’s apartment was broken into last night while we were at her birthday party. We got home and the front door was chained from the inside. I went around back to see about the status of the back door; it was completely unlocked and unchained (we basically leave it locked and chained all the time). I went inside and realized that the kitchen window was open. Apparently the perpetrator forced the window open, chained the front door, and left through the back door.

Two laptops were stolen: an old laptop of mine and Laurie’s Macbook. We’re pretty sure nothing else was taken. Luckily, there was no personal information on the laptops that we can think of and we have a good renter’s insurance policy that is going to pay for the computers.

On a side note, I was very impressed with the response time of the Starkville Police Department. They were at our apartment less than 5 minutes after we called.

I graduated, but I didn’t walk in the ceremony. I now have a M.S. in Computer Engineering. I’ve tried getting all my friends to call me “Master Holland,” but no dice.

Laurie and I are moving next week to Austin, where we’ve found a really nice two bedroom apartment in a gated apartment complex. We’re busy packing. I’ve been interviewing with several companies in Austin and I’m almost positive a job offer is forthcoming from one of them (Intel, in particular). After the move, I will be working and going to school part-time at U.T. to work on my PhD.

I’ll post again when I know more. My next post will probably be from Austin!

Really, not too much has happened since my last post. I wrote and defended my thesis (link here). My committee said it was good enough to graduate. Assuming I pass Analog Integrated Circuit Design, I’ll graduate with my M.S. in early May.

Though Laurie and I were planning on going to Colorado so I could take a job there with Lockheed Martin, things have changed. Laurie didn’t get into the PhD program at University of Colorado at Boulder, despite getting into four other PhD programs (some of them far better than University of Colorado). Her research interests simply were not a match with any of the professors at CU. Consequently, we’re going to Austin, Texas. We’ve both been admitted to the PhD programs there. I’ll pursue my PhD in Computer Engineering, and she’ll pursue a PhD in Cognitive Psychology with a M.S. in Statistics.

In the technology arena, my only big purchase since the Asus EEE PC (which I continue to love and cherish) has been a Network Attached Storage (NAS) system. It’s got two 500 GB drives that can be configured in a RAID 0 or RAID 1 setup. I’m using RAID 1: NO MORE DVD BACKUPS! Although I haven’t had it long, my first impressions are good. I have a file server downstairs with 1.5 TB of storage. Since that was getting full, I looked into buying a couple more 500 GB drives. It turns out that the NAS was about the same price as two 500 GB drives! So I bought it, figuring that at worst I could just take the drives out and use them. But the NAS is pretty nice, so I think I’m going to keep it.