Josh Evnin

Originally uploaded by Suzyq2200.

Just in case you all want a mental picture of P & S, for when I mention them on the blog. Thanks to S for the photo…

Josh & Rachel at Venice Beach

Originally uploaded by josh.ev9.

I think I promised, didn’t I? I went up to LA to hang out with Rachel last weekend. Quick trip that one was. We had good times at Venice Beach and the 3rd Street Promeneade in Santa Monica. Good times in Los Angeles. For all its downsides, I still love LA. Shout out to Rachel, for showing an old friend a good time 🙂

You should see me now. I’m sitting on the beach, literally. I’m here with my computer and a bottle of orange juice and miraculously, I have a wireless internet connection. Life is grand, in a very weird way.

I haven’t felt that great today. It’s hard to go back to work after a long weekend. I’m pretty busy at work lately, and today I had a new hire orientation on top of everything else. That new hire stuff is pretty much a waste of my time. At least today they gave me free lunch.

I really felt like I was coasting at work today. My body just didn’t seem up to performing at a high level. Toward the end of the day a headache started to break out, and it is still with me now. This is why I decided to come to the beach…to get away from it all. So I grabbed some soup, a sandwich, and some orange juice and here I am, blogging away at the beach. I should make this a regular thing.

Here’s something you all may not know about me…or maybe you do. Sometimes I love just sitting by myself in some sort of secluded location and getting some pure thinking done. I can’t describe the things I think about, because generally they’re pretty random. I will say that I rarely think about academic topics during alone time…well, at least I don’t think about them in the way I think about them at school. I’ll stop trying to explain, because I don’t think it’s coming out right. The take home message is a beautiful location + alone Josh = a happy Josh. Of course, I also enjoy contemplating with others around, don’t let my sentiments fool you.

A throwback to my original blog title, here are some Random Randoms:

• La Jolla is beautiful
• Life is much happier than it seems
• By this time next week I will have run a marathon
• I miss Indiana
• My knees have been very tender lately, which scares me
• Fried foods are bad for the soul
• I’m so sorry that you’re in pain
• Students at my alma mater are shut-ins
• I’m not a fan of cats at all right now
• Friends from way back are awesome
• New friends are fantastic as well
• A good acoustic guitar riff never fails to help rebuild the soul (Thank you people behind me singing some Christian rock…I’m not a believer, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good music)
• I miss summer camp
• I wish you were here with me, right now

I’ve had a little pet project for the last few days. It was inspired by the needs of 2 people. First, in the past E has talked about having some sort of system that automatically reminds him of events that he preprograms. Now, my system tries to fulfill this need, but does so only by sending emails. I think E would prefer a system that sends him a phone call or text message or something like that…which was a bit out of my scope.

My other inspiration was S, who often talks of a high school teacher of his who made the students write letters to themselves at the end of the school year. The teacher then sent out the letter 5 years later for the students to read. I’ve done this before as well, and it’s an awesome feeling to read your ‘former self’…

So, without further ado, I present jMinder. You write a message and put your email address and a date to be sent, then on that date that email address will get the message. Cool huh? Write your future self a letter, it’ll be fun (just don’t change your email address!). Try it out…

Does music ever just speak to you? It did to me.

The Format is a new favorite band. It took a couple listens, but I’m digging them now…thanks to P for the recommendation.

Yes, I am affected by this.

It’s starting to affect me in ways I never expected. I continually think about what I would do right now if I had internet access. Often it’s “I’d blog about that” or “I’d check my email” or “I’d read my blogs,” etc. Anyway, soon enough I’ll have a bed in a house with wireless…all I need to work on is the bed part.

On that note, anybody have any opinions on air mattresses? Check these out, tell me what you think:

Air-O-Bed
Aero Bed

You know what? I’m gonna buy the aerobed…thanks for helping with that decision. It’s about to sell out, so I’m gonna jump on it. I don’t want to sleep on somebody’s used mattress…so the health of my back may need to suffer…plus now I’ll always have an air mattress for visitors!

Ok, I need to grab some food. I was listening to this show on NPR this afternoon about chow-hunting. To do this, you go around a city and find a good place to eat. Just to make it clear, the actual activity is finding the place to eat. There are a number of unspoken rules, I believe…like you can only go to local restaurants & you should talk to people on the street for advice…I think P & myself are gonna try this out. It sounded like so much fun. Made me really hungry. I’m gonna grab food!

I shall update again soon, when I have regular internet access…

Welcome to Intuit, Josh!

Originally uploaded by josh.ev9.

Just got home from my third day at Intuit. The first day experience was pretty cool…check out the photos of my well-decorated cubicle. The people in my group seem cool, and there are likely a number of opportunities here to make taxes a less taxing situation all around. I’ll say more as time goes on, without giving away secrets, so you can all track my experiences here. For now, I’m tired, so I’ll shut up.

Internet access has been weak lately, I can’t get it at my hotel, and I am yet to blog at work (I wonder if I’m allowed…). Sorry for being infrequent. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to stop apologizing and just start posting. Maybe when I’m all moved in…

Josh on The Cliffs in LJ

Originally uploaded by josh.ev9.

Life is funny sometimes, in a fitting way. It seems that I nearly always end up where I want to be, despite taking relatively awkward, indirect paths in order to get there. This blog entry will describe two cases in point…who knows where I’ll end up next…

From CE to CS to the other CS and back to CS again
In my senior year of high school I decided that I wanted to work with computers. I had always liked science, especially biology and sometimes enjoyed history, but for some reason the machines that I worked with every day excited me beyond the likes of all of my other fields of study. I decided that I would be a Computer Engineer. This was mainly because it had the word Computer in it, and I didn’t know the difference between Computer Engineering and Computer Science. I picked Engineering basically on a whim.

Skip to the Fall Quarter of my Freshman year of college. I decided to take CS 8a, an Intro to Computer Science class, where they weeded out the brave from the weak. Turned out I was weak. The whole idea of a “for” loop was beyond me. Not to mention “if,” “else,” and “boolean,” and “arrays.” I dropped the class, vowing to take the accelerated version the next quarter, while trying to catch up on my own. By the time the third week of Winter Quarter came around, I was finished with the idea of passing a Computer Science class. Again, I was lost. I just didn’t get this stuff. I dropped the class again, and decided to take a class in Cognitive Science (the other CS), which later became the topic in which I majored. I ended up taking a number of “lightweight” CS classes as I progressed toward my CogSci degree, eventually becoming a novice-moderate programmer as an Undergrad.

Cut to today. I just finished my first year toward a Master’s degree in Informatics. You better believe there’s a whole lot of Computer Science that needs to be understood in order to succeed in this field. If I took that intro to Computer Science class today, I would easily get a top grade in the class. I find that really interesting. Life sometimes runs in loops that you wouldn’t expect. Today I’m working with computers every day, exactly as I had planned in High School…I guess the path of least resistance really does work sometimes…

From San Diego to Indiana and Back
I remember talking to a recruiter from Intuit at one of the UCSD Job Fairs my Senior year of college. “What programming languages do you know?” the woman asked. I bobbled the question around, and tried to sell my CogSci degree, but I knew it just wasn’t working. Intuit would have been great because I would have been able to stay in SD, and with a name like that, then there must be some HCI and CogSci related jobs there, right? But nay, it seemed that they were dead set on hiring coders that day. None of my other job prospects turned up with a positive note, so I decided to go to graduate school.

Where did I end up next? Indiana, of all places. That was the school I applied to on a whim, but for some reason I saw the best opportunity there. After my first year there, I can say that I am extremely happy with my choice.

But now the story becomes circular, yet again. Cut to me in my new bedroom in La Jolla. I just got off from my third day of work…at Intuit. Had I not gone to Indiana, I would not have this job, I guarantee that. Again, I have ended up where I want to be, but the path has been crooked as a politician.

Sometimes you just gotta thank your lucky stars. Life works itself out if you just let it. I guess my experiences thus far are a perfect example of that…

This morning’s run was a rousing 20-miler, the longest I have ever run. The first 10 miles were quite amazing. I was so surprised at how easy that half of the run went. I hit the 10 mile turn-around point and was feeling really really good. Then I kept going and around mile 15 or 16 my left leg just died. Imagine 50 pounds of bricks tied to one leg…that’s how it felt. Hopefully my continued training as well as a higher salt intake before long runs will help remedy the problem.

I hope not to offend my readership with too much information, as I know I have done before, but when I got home I realized that the long run chafed the hell out of my skin. I think I forgot how different it is to run in really hot weather. I trained my body to adapt to the cold, and today I had to open up all the pores that went and forgot how to sweat. For those of you who aren’t already grossed out, I have three words to help you clearly understand my pain: bloody nipples, literally.

I “found” a new blog today, and it has inspired me to revisit my own online journal more frequently. I have been neglecting this blog, and I’m sorry for that. I have so much to say. I’ve been thinking, experiencing, planning, preparing, moving, reading, writing, creating, and on and on. So, from here on I’ll make a better effort to update the blog, if not for your sake, then for my own want/need to keep a good record of the events in my life 🙂 Oh, and the pictures will continue.

Until next time, have a wonderful weekend.