Hello from the Oakland, CA airport. On a whim, I decided to fly down to see Mike Arndt, one of my AEPi brothers, for the weekend. I have just finished an incredible weekend in Pleasanton, CA, surrounded by gorgeous California scenery. Wineries everywhere, grass and hills, blue skies, and warm weather. It has been indescribably relaxing and incredible! Pictures will go up on facebook depicting the beauty of the countryside and documenting the fact that I was actually there.

Friday night Mike had some friends over so we hung out at his house and I got to meet everyone. Saturday we woke up at 10 or so because Mike had to go to a family friend's Bar Mitzvah service. While he was gone, I got a little bit of work done (writing this on the work laptop) and talked with Mike's friend. When he got back, we lounged around for a bit and then went to Berkeley. I got to see the famous hippie village, centered on Telegraph Ave, around the campus and ate at the famous Blondie's Pizza.

After that, Mike and I went to the Greek Amphitheater on UC Berkeley's campus to see Death Cab for Cutie with Rogue Wave as the opener. Both bands were incredible. The sadness and melancholy of Death Cab is utterly annihilated by their presence and energy on the stage. I was blown away.

To refuel after the concert, we stopped at the legendary In-N-Out Burger. It was delicious! I had a double double (double meat, double cheese) with animal style fries (thousand island dressing & cheese). After that, Mike and I went to his house and slept.

I was woken up Sunday morning by his friendly cat, Sugar. Mike and I got up and went to a local diner in Pleasanton called Vic's that has high school sports pics, including some of Mike, on the wall. After that, we went for a long, leisurely drive through the wine country around Mike's neighborhood. It was so relaxing and incredibly beautiful. I now have a row of vines as my iPhone background!

After the wine tour, Mike and I lounged around his house and ate turkey burger BBQ for lunch. We then got a call from Nick Solis from Duke who lives nearby. We then headed to the Great Mall to meet up with Nick. We walked, talked, and enjoyed Thai Boba (Bubble) tea. Once Nick had to leave, Mike and I left, only to discover that my flight was delayed until 11:30 PM. With that happy discovery, I enjoyed a slow, leisurely meal with Mike and his family of BBQ beef ribs. I even got a whiff of some local-grown wine!

We then went upstairs to watch some of the movie Sideways, which gave me a video tour of Southern California (I was in Northern California). After an hour, we had to leave. And now, here I am in the Oakland Airport waiting for my flight. It feels like a dream-but what an incredible one!

Although the delay will put me back in Seattle later than intended, I really don't mind as I had such a wonderful time! :)

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This post brought to you by ATT's Partnership with Boingo - giving me free wireless in the Oakland Airport since 10:30 PM

Today is a big day for me. Today I cooked myself a real chicken dinner for the first time. As in, not chicken nuggets! It tasted pretty good :-D
I've included the recipe for my readers who are also timid cooks. Its basically a mashup of this recipe (courtsey of live.com -- Microsoft Intern, remember?) and some cooking time advice from Rachel Ray. The end result was some delicious chicken strips.

Let's hope I didn't get salmonella! :-P
~Alex

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Ingredients

Serves 1, maybe 2 with a side dish. If you double the chicken, you may not need to double the sauce, as there was some left over.

• 1/2 cup Soy Vay sauce
• 5.5 fl oz grace juice
• 4 tbsp water
• 2 frozen chicken breasts

Instructions

1. Put the two frozen chicken breasts in the
   microwave
1. Set the microwave to thaw 2 lbs of chicken (about
   8 minutes)
2. Meanwhile, pour all liquids into a skillet and
   put the stove on medium heat.
3. When the chicken is ready, take it out and slice
   into ½ inch strips.
4. Place strips into the sauce (which is probably
   bubbling now)
5. Cover pan and allow chicken to cook for 3
   minutes
6. Do each side for 3 minutes, three times.
7. Eat and enjoy!

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    So, I turn 20 today. And Mich & Nicole both felt it necessary to point out that I'm old now. :-p Don't really feel old. I must say, it was very nice to come home for my birthday. My first week at Microsoft was both incredibly busy and incredibly awesome. Its such a cool culture and such a cool place. I should be working out what my project is in the next few days. I spent my first week getting up to speed, meeting people on my team, getting setup, etc. Fun and very exhausting!
    I'm working in Microsoft Office, specifically for Office Communicator. In a few words, its basically Windows Messenger (MSN Messenger) on super steroids. It integrates IM, phone, webcam, and email. The team is really cool, and the product is a lot of fun to use.
    I don't really have all that much to say but I wanted to post something.

~Alex

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Hi all!

    Done with my first day at Microsoft! Today was NEO, New Employee Orientation, and it started at 8 AM with filling out paperwork. Once the paperwork was done, the free shirts handed out, and the free breakfast eaten, it was time to begin. We had a 3:30 lecture about non-disclosure, company organization, benefits, resources, etc. Near the end of the lecture, I received a call from my recruiting contact telling me that my team was out for a morale event and I was welcome to come.
    I left the lecture early and met up with my manager who drove me to see Iron Man with my team! It was very cool to meet everyone in such a relaxed setting. Seeing the movie a second time, I saw it in Myrtle the first time, was pretty cool too. Got a bit more out of it. After the movie we headed back to campus where I was given a welcome basket, shown my office, and given a brand-spanking-new Dell laptop as my main PC while at Microsoft. I then sat down to set it up and begin to familiarize myself with the job. Miru, my fellow intern, started 2 weeks before me and was very helpful getting me up to speed.
    After a while, my manager came in and started quizzing me on acronyms and basics, which I knew because he had asked me to do some research. He was pleasantly surprised by my knowledge, and when I told him I had done my homework and sent the report to him, he was surprised. Turns out he never got that email. Anyway, once he saw I was ready, he gave me a high level overview of the network that the product works in. That took about 30 minutes, during which the laptop setup barely progressed.
    My manger then left , and Miru and I decided to go get dinner while the laptop continued to work. We ate at Qdoba, which was quite good. I got a naked chicken burrito, which has everything but the burrito. Miru and I ate back at campus and the laptop finished soon after. We progressed through the next setup steps, until we hit a road block. We needed my manager to progress any further, but he had gone home for the evening. Since it was 7:30 PM, I thanked Miru profusely for staying so late and headed out.
    Back in my room, I've watched the first half of the 2 hour season finale of House MD. The second half should be ready soon. As soon as that's done, I'm going to sleep. I'm getting into work around 9 AM tomorrow. Miru and my manager should both be arriving around then as well. I will then spend the next few days getting settled in, entered into Microsoft's network, and getting up to speed.
   
It was quite the first day and I am so tired now. Until tomorrow.

PS - I'm being vague for NDA reasons.

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    Sorry for the long delay in updates. This will be quick as I'm tired.
    So the processor processed (& cracked code), the light dimmer dimmed, the SMS TV controller counted votes and displayed the winner. In short, all the projects ended up coming together.
    Grades came out very nicely and my finals, overall, were not bad. Packing went very smoothly and I spent my last few days at Duke in a hotel.
    The day after my last final, I headed to Myrtle with one of the new brothers. It was a nice drive and a great Myrtle. Lots of the usual fratty insanity. I had a great time and a very pleasant drive back.
    Since I've been home, its been lots of chilling. With the family, with the friends, with Nicole. We celebrated four years May 8th, but did the dinner and all that on May 13th when we were both back in SoFla.
    Its been really nice to be home with everyone in the sun. The sun and warmth have really been recharging, actually. Now I'll enjoy my last fews days before heading out to Seattle for my summer internship with Microsoft. I'm very excited to start!
    Sorry for neglecting this. I hope to be more consistent in the coming months.

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Long, productive day. Learned more about the communication glitches we've been having with the SMS-TV project. Hit another milestone in the "make-the-processor-go-fast" stage of the design.

But...I can't find rest. My mind keeps turning. So, I grabbed my laptop and sent out some emails that were waiting in my head to be written.

Hopefully I can stop floating around the web & facebook so I can sleep... 8:30 AM class...

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    Woke up late. Did some work, watched some TV, spoke to the whole family. Everyone was looking at the baby. When I got to speak to her on speakerphone, Abba said she moved around as she heard my voice. I told her to stay put because I'd be coming to see her soon. No one wanted to talk for long, because everyone wanted to enjoy the baby. So, when that was done, I spoke with Nicole for a long while. She left for dinner with her friends and I finished up my portion of math homework for the day.
    It was cold out today, which made the room nice and cool. I managed to stay in shorts until the evening. After finishing my math homework, I called Chris and Nelson and we planned an epic dinner trip to a Sonic 20 miles away. I went downstairs to see what was going on for our brother event that evening until Nelson brought the car to the chapel. We went to Sonic and everyone had two dinners! It was so good! I then had orders to bring back to brothers, so I made those and we left. When I got back, I left section right away again to go to the brother event, with many Sonic drinks in tow.
    The brother event was fun. It's nice hang out with everyone and talk and laugh. When that died down, I came back to my room. I had been having trouble with Flock and Facebook and finally decided to Google it. Turns out a Facebook service update broke Flock's ability to interact with it. So, for the time being, Facebook and Flock do not like each other. As you can see, the blog tool still works just fine. Anyway, I am exhausted and surprised that I managed to finish this.

Good night!

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Aww! I just got pictures of my niece! She is so cute!

And, I got to wear shorts, a tee-shirt, and flip-flops today! It was so nice out. Class was cut short because all we had to do was show that our processor worked. We went first, loaded up our code, and let the TA test it. He ran fib(20), the  processor spit out the right number, and we left!
...
to go to lab. Zach stayed for a bit and then left, but I soldiered on, staying on the phone w/ tech support and reviewing email instructions until 4 PM. Turns out, the fault is now with the Arduino. It doesn't seem to be playing nicely during serial communication with the Matchport. I now have the Matchport under total control from a computer via serial, but not via the Arduino. It doesn't seem to want to talk in the same language as everyone else. Oh well, two out of three devices (computer and Matchport), ain't bad.

Now, to enjoy a nice evening.

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I'm an uncle! (Part 2!) My niece was just born...literally. My father called me just after she was born!

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What a relaxing day! No longer having the processor hanging over my head made it a really pleasant day ... that and the fact that I didn't need something over my t-shirt because it was so nice out.

I came back from 152 (the processor class), and finally did the HSpice simulation for the remote-control dimmer. I modified the presentation to add our simulation, which isn't due until next week, but the professor had gotten the file a few minutes before so we couldn't grab the updated version. No big deal, as the professor seemed to like the presentation anyway.

As an aside, Spice is a circuit simulation program. It lets you see how a circuit will behave before you go and build it. I simulated a circuit that averages input signals from light sensors. Lucky I did, because it was only in simulation that I realized that the circuit I built would output the negative of the average. Easy to fix, I just need an inverter.

After class, I got lunch, chatted with Nicole for a bit, and went to my advising meeting. My advisor knows me to be a chatter box so she purposely scheduled me for the end of the day for over an hour. Good thing we did, as we spoke for over an hour and a half! A lot of it wasn't even advising: we were just catching up and I was telling her about job offers, cool toys/links, etc.

I did get advised though and I am happy to report that my remaining time at Duke is pretty darn flexible! I've got a bit of breathing room every semester hereafter, so I'm going to do my best to exercise it.

After advising, I stopped to chat briefly with the professor who is overseeing my independent study to give him a status report. We agreed that we're poised to have everything working, paraphrase: "like a bunch of Lego blocks we need to snap together." The snap in this case is RS232, serial cables. Although USB has largely replaced them, they're still useful for little devices like the ones we're using in the independent study.

I then ran home to watch the season premiere of Greek with Nicole. After delaying things by over an hour to order parts for the remote light dimmer, we did get to watch. It was kind of a sad episode because everyone's lives were in ruins (typical cliffhanger), and the writers did nothing to resolve it immediately.

After the episode, we talked for awhile while I researched PICs: extremely popular microcontrollers for hobbyists because they're cheap but powerful. Part of this random interest isn't random: we may need to use one for the remote light sensor project. If we do, I'll get some firsthand experience playing with them, which should be cool. Anyway, it's time for an early sleep: math tomorrow.

Goodnight!

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The Demon has been Exorcised!

The eureka moment was actually slightly earlier. Zach hit on a problem that we could have caught when we were shortening signals that stayed high for too long. A stray signal went high when it shouldn't have, causing the problem!

Zach noticed it after I figured out how to use the simulator as a debugging tool (it tells you the contents of each register after each instruction). Once the signal was dropped, everything was fine in simulation.

We went to lab and...tada! We smiled, showed the small crowd in lab still working what a working processor should output, and left. On the way back, we celebrated and enjoyed the happiness of being done.

I then got the assignment uploaded; the demo won't be until Friday, but you must demo what you upload before 10 AM on Monday. Now that its done, time to wander around section, very happy, before passing out from exhaustion...

EUREKA!!!1111

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666!

This is the new output of the processor for what should be a two digit output. Whaa?!?

The devil has inhabited our processor! On the bright side, the fact that we're not longer printing & (which, obviously, is not a number) is a good sign.

Now we go for the hard solution suggested by the professor, we trace through the ENTIRE fib program in simulation. Zach has just started tracing through while I see if I can modify the fib code ever so slightly to make his job easier (without jeopardizing the code's behavior).

This is really painful...

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And I'm hungry like the wolf!

Not really, but I am on the hunt. Zach and I are hunting down individual signals that stay high for too long. We've found a lot and have a test program that tests every single instruction the processor executes.

So far, every change we've made has left the program making the correct outputs: a very good sign! Once we've shortened every single signal that we can, its off to lab to test again. This should happen soon.

Stay tuned!

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The processor works when you ask for the fib between 1 and 6. The 7th Fibonacci number is a 2-digit output, 13. Here, our processor goes haywire. It prints out "1&" for any and all 2-digit outputs, and we don't know why. The professor said there's no quick fix, but he gave us some ideas of where to look.

We stopped, had lunch, and had the meeting for the light-dimmer project. The schematic has come together quite nicely; hopefully its also easy to build.

Now, Zach is making the presentation for the light-dimmer tomorrow while I write a program to try and find our bug. We suspect that two instructions in a row don't function together properly and that's what causes us to get lost when there are two digits. To test this, I am writing a program that tests every instruction.

Tally ho!

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Got to take my nap. Woke up and spoke to Zach - the processor is working!!!


...in simulation, at least. Hence the Part 1. Part 2 should follow soon as we're heading to lab shortly.

Stay tuned!

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Its 8:20 and I'm up way to early. Such is the price you pay for taking math with a good teacher: no sleep! I'm still hoping to catch my nap before really heading out to lab, hopefully Zach won't wake up and want to go in right away.

It was a bitter cold walk to this faraway building this morning. Sitting in the warm classroom is kind of frustrating, because it looks like a bright, sunny morning. But, right now, its 36 degrees! Too cold for this Florida boy! I thought I could have sent my big puffy jacket home at this point, but no luck on that front. Friday was shorts weather, Tuesday I need my puffy coat.

When will spring really start so I can dig my shorts out from under my bed?

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The big problem was found and eliminated. The processor couldn't compare a number to zero properly. Now its time to test it on the board. Hopefully the schedule will be: math, nap, test, meeting, lab.

I am tired!

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...and yet so far. We got the processor running on the hardware, almost. It outputs stuff on to the little screen its attached to. But, it doesn't wait for you to press a key. I almost went nuts tracing the problem around, so I left the lab after 2 hours of solitary hunting.

I came back, ate some brisket from home, and watched an episode of Lil Bush. That calmed me down. I tried looking again but ended up chasing a bug that wasn't actually there. Somehow, the file I was attempting to troubleshoot was missing a line that the most recent copy did have.

Right now, (probably 5 minutes before post time), I actually found it. Our computer has trouble with the keyboard. I can't figure out why though, but that's the only thing that's left. I've tried every other thing, and the computer passes with flying colors.

So now, I must take a break because there's nothing more to do tonight.
I'm in shock now: I managed to finish the entire container of brisket!. I feel a little sick now...but so content! Surprisingly, I'm not particularly full, if that makes any sense.

Oh well, to relax and do math homework! (that's how I relax?!?)

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Grumble, grumble. I was up until 3 AM last night chasing a bug around the processor. The thing seemed to be unable to check if two numbers were equal. After throwing in the towel and going to shower, I thought of one more place to look. Turns out two signals were crossed: isLessThan and isEqual. So when two numbers were equal, that signal went out to the isLessThan line. As soon as I uncrossed those, everything started to work. ... until the next thing failed.

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Some time later
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The last bits of it just fell into place. A few signals had to be pulled to the right places and voila! The thing can add, subtract, jump around...it works! Next stop is to get it running on a demo board.

As soon as that is done, its off to the next project(s): SMS-TV controller tomorrow until a meeting for the remote light dimmer at about 2 PM. The projects never stop! Somewhere in there, my math homework needs to get done for tomorrow morning. Ah well, I'm sure it will happen. I managed to watch Lost during the "some time later" section. It was the "Meet Kevin Johnson" episode and it was amazing! It was also refreshing to not being staring at the processor after being up so late working on it.

So, now its class then relaxation (I think) until demo board time in lab.

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Woke up about 30 minutes ago. Weekly fraternity meeting. The processor project has been beating me and Zach into submission, but we did make a lot of progress. Some components turned out to be not quite right, but fixing them has brought us significantly closer. Now I think we have the problem isolated down to one component so we can focus all our efforts there. It looks like a nice day outside ... but the weather app on my sidebar says 47 degress, so maybe not. I'd like to do some work outside; once we finish the processor its homework time. Oh fun! These three projects are keeping me very busy, I just hope I can say I made some solid progress on at least one of them by tomorrow.

After the meeting, brunch at the Faculty Commons with Jonathan Silverman, and then intense projekt-ing.

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Woke up just a few minutes ago. Need to grab some breakfast and dive back into the projects. Looks like Zach, my project partner, wants to work on the processor. We want to stay close to our dorms for the Duke game against West Virginia at 2 PM. So I guess we'll work for an hour and watch.

As for my blues: the whole family is in Israel seeing a very pregnant Sharon and I'm here working on 3 projects! (In a bit of a pun, I'm bleeding blue for the Blue Devils and feeling blue because I'm not in Israel.) Anywho, I'm online with Michelle getting Skype installed on her laptop so I can webcam with everyone. This is a delicate balancing act, as Michelle doesn't have permissions to perform an install. She has to download the program, Abba has to enter the password, and then Michy has to continue the install. That's going on as I type and I think its working.

...

It's working perfectly. Mich has the speakers on and I can hear Mom from across the hotel room. Skype is beautiful! Now I can chat with the family no problem. :-D That should chase my blues away.

Until next time!

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Hello World!

This is a welcome post for me as I start what I hope to be a relatively consistent blog. I plan on using this to keep friends and family abreast of the things I'm up to (as well as reminding myself of what I've been doing).

So...what I've been up to: designing a processor, designing a remote control light sensing/dimming system, and designing a device that allows a person to control a TV via SMS. In a nutshell, I've been keeping myself busy.

The processor has been a semester-long project for my ECE 152 class. We built all of the key components separately and now it's time to pull everything together. We haven't gotten it to successfully run yet, but I'm hoping that we're close and its just some minor tweaks.

The remote control light sensing/dimming system is for ECE 51. The class is all about circuit design and we're not allowed to use microcontrollers, which makes things more challenging. Instead of having a small brain that we can give instructions, we need to build a circuit that will respond to input and generate the correct output. I think we've made good progress on that front as well. We did a lot of circuit work in lab yesterday that should save us time in the long run. Actually, if it's correct, then we just need to build and troubleshoot.

Finally, the device that allows a person to control a TV via SMS. My independent study. The idea for this is that people sitting in a public space can use their phone to vote for channels. I have a whitepaper that I'll upload soon (haha...wonder if I'll remember). This one has been interesting because there's a bit less oversight with an independent study. On the flip side, there's more motivation since I volunteered (and helped turn a desire into a design).

The big challenge has been getting the Arduino Microcontroller to speak to the Matchport WiFi device via serial. Luckily, Lantronix (the manufacturers of the Matchport) has been very helpful. Today, we made some progress in understanding how serial works and how the devices should be communicating. Once we get the devices talking, we'll be over the big hill. Then its just a matter of grabbing some data from a regular computer that's doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

So, as you can see from all the verbiage above, I've been keeping myself busy. I wouldn't have it any other way though. I love what I'm doing here. As a footnote of sorts, I also had a successful meeting with study abroad today, so the path to Israel for Spring 2009 is finally crystallizing. And now, I'm going to relax before tackling these projects again over the weekend.

First post-ly,
Alex

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