First day in the corporate world.
I looked pretty sharp. Drab olive khaki pants, crisp white shirt, and green tie. I looked very "systems engineer"-esque. I drove along the beltway up to Maryland for my orientation session.
The Nothern Virginia highways are notorious for awful traffic; the I-495 beltway is the worst of them all. When traffic is heavy, it's at a dead halt. If it's light, then people are flying down the interstate ignoring anything resembling a posted speed limit. I saw a Toyota Prius do 90 mph today. This, of course, meant that traffic was fairly light as it should have been; I got on the road at 6:30 am.
I got there a little early, went into the lobby, got my picture taken for a security badge then waited and made small talk with some of the other rookie engineers. I found the guy who looked the least prepared for the first day of work and made conversation with him [it later turns out that he was probably the most qualified guy in the room for his job].
I drank coffee [oh thank God. I haven't had coffee in a few days] while some speakers talked about different aspects of Lockheed Martin; mostly non-technical stuff. They briefed us on security; mostly on how to thwart the Adversary's attempts to gain information out of us through dumpster diving, password stealing, etc. That title ("The Adversary") kept popping up. It's like they personified everything bad in the world, all the terrorists, rebel insurgent, and rogue nation, into one big inky black figure: the Adversary. He wants to know my gmail password and lower my eBay rating.
Now I'm driving back to Virginia to the Tank. The Tank is where employees without security clearances go. Actually it's called TRS for techincal resource center because basically you can 1.) learn about the company and 2.) do temp work and odd jobs, but really it's the Tank because it's where engineers sit around and wait for their clearance to kick in. I asked one superior about what I would be doing once my clearance takes affect. It concerns satellites in orbit around the earth, but that's about all I'm allowed to say [and about all I know anyway].
My cubicle-mate is from Texas. He likes The Office, owns an iPhone and used to work at Starbucks when he was in high school. So he's pretty chill.
Tomorrow begins my first week of basically training and looking for a temp job to pick up while in the tank. I'm mostly focused on trying to get into the company culture and figure out my place in this whole thing.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
So it's only a few days until I start my job. I got an email from my project manager with a little info about what I'm going to be doing for at least my first year. It involves geospatial intelligence with possible military applications. That is pretty awesome.
I've been trying to learn more about the defense industry and the intelligence community. I've found some websites and blogs about the industry and the non-technical business side of how things work. I've also been following some of the news stories in the Washington Post about the Northrop Grumman versus Boeing issue with the GAO over a $40 billion contract for in-flight refueling aircraft.
Here's a clip from Discovery Channel's Future Weapons about the F-22 Raptor; an absolutely terrifying stealth fighter jet. My favorite part is how it can share battlespace intel with the squadron. Very cool.
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I've been pretty bored lately with nothing to work on, so I've been watching CNBC and the financial networks hoping to gain a little financial literacy. During the opening bell sequences they typically sweep the camera over the trading floor in New York. What's cool about this is all the computer hardware they have hooked up to the stock exchange tracking prices, orders, etc. It's all very impressive and probably runs some sophisticated software. I'm morbidly interested in how that works and how I could get raw access to these numbers for my own software.
I found out that Yahoo! has a free quotes service that lets you download a CSV file with a stock quote delayed by 15 minutes. I used libcurl to snag this file and wrote up a quick and dirty parsing function in C++ to display a stock quote from the command line. It's all pretty simple stuff.
Anyway, here's the C++ source code if you want to see it. It's kinda hacky, but it seems to work. I might add some cool features to it, like a chart to track a day's trading price.
StockTicker.zip
edit: Also, a good quick example of using libcurl to grab a URL resource.
edit #2: Fixed the zip file so that it contains a Windows executable that is statically linked against libcurl and doesn't require cygwin to run.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
At 7Eleven.
No wonder these items went so quickly; at 1/10 of a cent, that's a bargain. Perhaps the management of this store could learn a lesson from Verizon.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
Science! When people ask what I'll be doing as a systems engineer I tell them this. I'm the guy on the left in the top hat shaking my fist at the science.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
I got an email from Lockheed Martin asking when I want to start employment. I'm excited because I've been spending the past few weeks doing nearly nothing except the occasional paperwork or phone call to keep the whole process moving along. Things I've been doing/seeing/eating lately.
Watching: Rambo
My roommate's girlfriend made him watch Legally Blonde: The Musical. In return, he made her come with us to see Rambo. This is the greatest movie I have seen in a long time. The plot is so shallow, yet it really only serves as a vehicle for Sylvester Stallone to blow things up. I got the DVD last tuesday and I watched it twice since then.
Playing: Wall Street Survivor (Link)
The last time I tried playing this, I lost about $17,000. I've been trying to rebuild my nasty old portfolio with some fresh stock picks. My best pick? Probably Wal-Mart (WMT) . I bought into them before Christmas '07 and I got a nice return. My worst pick? Restoration Hardware (RSTO). They were hot for a while, but I then realized that I sunk a few Gs into a company that makes overpriced doorknobs and bathroom fixtures.
Reading: Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
I bought this book knowing it had something to do with missiles and WWII. It turns out Pynchon's novels are outrageously dense. Postmodern literature is not my forte and I'm only on page 40 of this 770+ page beast. It's supposed to be good reading though. The novel features some of that stream of conscience style, which isn't too hard to decipher, except that it feels like the narrative threads are also slipping in and out. It's strange stuff, to say the least.
Drinking: Manhattans
5 parts whiskey
2 parts sweet vermouth
a dash of bitters
Shake over ice, serve in a martini glass, garnish with a cherry.
Here is the rationale. Manhattans are what one would consider to be a "serious" drink (contrast this with something served with a tiny umbrella or with an embarrassingly emasculating name). At the same time, they are quite drinkable, thanks to the sweet vermouth. I tend to use a blended whiskey because it's cheaper than straight rye whiskey.
Hitting on: my neighbor
She's an art major and has a semester left of college. I don't understand a lot of art (except for perhaps music and the written word), so I'm hopelessly lost. She probably feels the same way when I talk about algorithms and theorems. She digs my Manhattan recipe though.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
My parents aren't that computer literate. In fact, they're actually pretty bad at this whole tech thing. Every time I come home from college I usually get asked to fix something or install something. This round of things to do:
Dad bought a copy of CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2008 for $70/year. This brought his desktop to a grinding halt. I uninstalled it and told him that he didn't need an extra firewall (he already has two of them up and running), spyware or antivirus (ad-aware and clamwin are doing just fine if you keep them updated), and there's some Explorer BHO that runs a whois query for every.single.website you visit. I'm not quite sure how that's supposed to protect you. It labeled this website as potentially risky because I registered the domain as an individual and not an organization [I also haven't updated the mailing address associated with it, so the FBI raid will probably look pretty silly when they enter my old apartment]. I asked him why he even considered buying this junk and it's because "a guy" he knows said that "he needed it".
Software uninstalled. Good. What's next? There's a stack of printers in the hallway. This is absolutely ridiculous. We have 2 computers in this house. There are exactly six printers all lying around; all of questionable functionality. It's gotten to the point where buying a printer is cheaper than buying a new ink cartridge so I think my dad is trying to offset the cost of printing by just getting a new one every year. I suspect that all new printers only come with a partial ink cartridge so this cycle shall continue.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
I get a call from Lockheed Martin's security guy. He received my SF-86 form I FedEx'd him (FYI: an SF-86 is the standard form questionnaire for national security positions; It's obnoxiously long and asks about all the petty details of your life). He told me in a week I'll know about when I'll start my first day as a systems engineer.
I'm a little nervous about starting my first "real" job. I'm not sure what to expect or what they expect out of me in my first month or so.
In the meantime, I've got other things to finish up. I need a place to live in northern Virginia and I'm not familiar with the area at all. Other things I've been doing are getting stronger in C programming, reading some books, and running a few miles every day. Also watching some movies that I always wanted to see but never got the chance. Most of my friends have either started their jobs or are taking summer college courses. I feel really lazy doing nothing. In fact right now I'm about to bust out the C compiler just to give me something to do.
Posted by austin :: Permanent Link
other things i like.
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