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kevinlin84
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Name: Kevin
Location: California, United States
Birthday: 5/13/1984
Gender: Male
Interests: music, skiing, tennis, COMPUTERs, and of course, studying :)
Expertise: How to be a nerd...
Occupation: Other
Message: message me
Member Since:
2/19/2003
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| Vermont remains one of the biggest challenges when I ski, not because of the steepness of the trails, but usually because of the abundance of ice.
This year was no exception. Even though we received about 6 inches of powder the first day, the conditions were icy the second afternoon and the whole day on wednesday. Ice is really scary to me because if it comes unexpectedly, while I am trying to carve out a turn it's really easy to lose my balance and fall on the ice. Ice is also scary because it attracts a lot of skiiers and boarders, who will often fall in close proximity. So to top off the inability to control myself on the ice, I can also crash into another person on the ground.
We've learned a few tactics over the years though...
1. Identify the ice and the powder - we usually look for shiny icy spots on the trail the first run, and then on repeat runs we know where they are. Once icy and powdery spots are identified we can strategize which path to go down the trail.. The best powder is usually found at the edge of the cliff, next to the trees and the forest, or near the ski lift poles. Of course - the tradeoff is, how well in control can you stay to find the powder without falling off the cliff, hitting the forest, or the poles.
2. Watch other skiiers. My brother, cousins, and I will often go up a lift, identify a few good skiiers, and see which path they take. Sometimes I will follow my cousin and use the same path, watching for the places where the skiis make a lot of noise (ice), where they kick up a lot of snow (powder), and where her form changes indicating that ice is present.
3. Brace yourself - the rule of thumb is not to make any sudden changes in movement on the ice. It's best to go over it conservatively, then turn hard on the powder, and repeat.
4. I also find myself using a different skiing technique on ice than on powder. By being more conservative, leaning the skiis into the mountain more, and using soft gentle movements with my skiis I am able to control the slippage. Also, sometimes I give up and I use a giant wedge to get down :) | | |
| Hearing friends take finals and stuff this time of the year, i've realized that this is the first time in my life that I don't have to worry about those kind of things. I miss teaching. I miss being able to show my students the marvels of microfabrication. I miss working in lab, doing whatever the hell I want, just thinking, experimenting. I miss random coffee hours, I miss random intellectual discussions. I miss the conferences (especially IEEE Sensors in Hawaii), and I miss walking on campus just people walking, stalking, taking pictures.
but if you asked me if I would go back to school and get another phd, my answer would be a flat out no. And i am sorry if the remainder of this blog will be bittersweet, but it is very truthful of my experience. Why does graduate school feel like feudalism - that graduate students are little peons who are disrespected by their professors? Let me tell you, that it has been a nightmare trying to get professors to collaborate with my work. professors never responded to my emails, nor did they have any respect whatsoever to my defense date. i knew after a few years that I had to get out, and I am very very glad that I did. And then there is the whole beauracracy between the administration, and different tiers of professors, different research groups...competing research.
if academia could do a case study on industry i think they could learn a thing or two. why can't professors respond to emails, or why can't they have an open calendar so that i can schedule 1:1's? half an hour meeting, no more, no less - so much can be accomplished in that amount of time.
I think the PhD experience is something I think everybody should experience...once. The biggest thing I learned about it is not about electrons or engineering, but it is about persistence, the mindset not to give up and to repeat an experiment over and over and over until it is right. furthermore, it gives one the mentality to break down a problem into pieces. I think it is a life long lesson that I will definitely carry with me.
And perhaps one day I could be a professor. But if I did, the first thing I would want to do is break the silly feudalistic nature of the whole world of academia.
but i think thats what i should do, one day. at least be an adjunct professor or lecturer. i do really like teaching. | | |
| on friday we had a speaker talk to us about "trust matters", and it made me think about trust in a retrospective way, about who I trusted, who I thought trusted me, and who I didn't trust. I think that is one of the things I worry about every time I move to a new place - will I be trusted by my friends and colleagues? I thoroughly believe that trust is earned and gained, and i try to have others trust me through my actions. And it's also unfortunate can be lost really quickly by actions deemed untrustworthy. So as I come to the end of my first rotation, I am a bit worried that I will need to gain people's trust again. That being said, I am extremely excited about the prospects of being able to try something I really like to do.
sometimes i am jealous of what other people have that I don't. okay, "sometimes" is an understatement - it happens often. But I think I'm slowly learning to appreciate people for what they have, and live vicariously through them. i'm starting to be okay with listening to their stories and smiling at their successes.
monday morning is very dark, but it is raining in phoenix. you know, it rains in phoenix a lot MORE than i would have expected. i'm playing john schmidt and steve sharp nelson's CD and listening to the raindrops outside, it's surprisingly soothing. | | |
| I know I am a n00b at this work thing and thus I still have an optimistic view and outlook...but i'm going to hold on to it as long as possible. here is why.
I made a mistake today. And the worst thing was I was so confident my design rules were correct that I didn't even consider the possibility of the mistake. It was only when another engineer checked my work, raised some suspicions when I finally came to realize my mistake. AHHHH I should be more careful and instead of shooting off emails at light speed. And I should be more open to people's criticism. But all is well I think. I am very grateful that I have a team of engineers who are very very very supportive. They treat me SOOO well.
Furthermore, I sent off a nice email to the vendor, apologizing profusely that we would need to make YET another design change. And yet, they were super nice and supportive and told me it was not a big deal.
So I guess I am still learning, I have to stop and remind myself to be critical of myself, to thank people, to be gracious, to be open minded, and ...to be nice. it goes a long way.
In other news, I am becoming more confident that I can get my automatic pin bucketer to work. MAN, so excited about that, though realistically I don't know who will use it...it just makes me happy to program and to solve these little tiny problems using c# :) | | |
| Got home from phoenix kind of late. Needed to unpack all my goodies acquired in New Jersey in the past week. I'm tired but my hair is wet, so going to blog a bit.
1. It's funny that I very rarely see people I recognize on a flight, but on the way back to NJ I ran into Crystal Kan, Vincent's sister and fellow PHS graduate. On the way from st louis to phoenix I ran into Kevin Lantz, fellow rotation engineer! I guess it's a small world and people like taking the same flights. - (and everybody loves taking southwest, apparently).
2. City hopping. Today, big spoon, medium spoon, and little spoon (me, my brother, and my cousin) traveled at the same time. My brother's gate was 3 gates away from mine in Newark, NJ. My brother and my cousin are arriving at the same time at SFO. My cousin has a layover in Phoenix and I had a layover in St. Louis. That was strangely amusing to me.
3. On the plane, I tend to sleep a lot. The reason is that when I was growing up, if I didn't sleep, I would end up throwing up. It has gotten better since college, now that I fly more often and I actually enjoy the turbulence. Well, today, while I was sleeping, the young girl in front of me threw up everywhere. My nose was kind of stuffed and I was apparently oblivious to noise so I didn't notice it until the father started cleaning the seats. I noticed how calmly and diligently the father cleaned the area, and now he did so without complaining and also while joking around with the other passengers and the flight attendants. The mother took the girl to the rest room to get cleaned up, and when the girl came back, both parents gave the girl the TLC she deserved. I admired the mother and father for taking care of the situation so calmly. Then I thought about all the love and commitment needed to raise children, and thought that if I wanted to be a father one day, I needed to learn to first be a calm, patient, and responsible adult.
Then i thought about and appreciated all those times where my parents had to deal with me during those situations. I also felt really bad for the young girl, because I knew that the younger me went through those similar situations many times. When I came home, I then realized that part of the vomit had been delicately (or not so delicately) deposited on my favorite rotation engineer backpack and on my shoes. I spend quite a bit of time cleaning the bag, but it looks like it will be okay after a few days. I was strangely unmoved by the incident, as I was still admiring the parents on that flight. Hey in the grand scheme of things...things happen right? If the worst thing that I have to deal with in life today is vomit on my rotation engineer bag, then life is pretty easy...right? | | |
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