San Diego is NICE

I had a very nice trip to San Diego, except for losing my wallet on the way home (have my license though). The weather was great and I had a good time.

I got in on Monday just fine and checked in. I then headed into downtown San Diego and went to a Rock Bottom to watch the Seahawks on MNF. The next morning I headed to Oceanside for my meeting. Driving into Oceanside was nice and I noticed a few things. First off people in San Diego drive really fast! Second, it's really pretty.


I pulled up to the Titleist center, it was completely blocked off by a fence and tall trees. You just can't see in... Then there is a guarded front gate. When you pull in you see one of the nicest, well manicured practice facilities you have ever seen!

The meeting went real well! I was told I was the most qualified, maybe even over qualified candidate. But the pay is nice and the job is easy. I would manage a team of 2-4 guys whose job it is to use a robot to hit a golf ball onto the range, track the ball flight with doppler radar, and record the data. They were afraid I might get bored with the job and would want to move on. Well if that happens oh well, I will at least have some experience under my belt, and a little bit of money.

After I left I went down to the ocean (like 5 miles) and ate a little bit of lunch on the beach.


After lunch I had some time left so I cruised down Highway 101. After about half an hour I cruised by Torrey Pines, and had to pull in. After about half an hour of walking around and noticing that no one was teeing off of #1, I decided to play a little golf. Torrey Pines, home of the annual PGA Tour Buick Championship and the 2008 US Open, I was stoked!

I played the North Course and was just giddy as a Japanese School Girl! This place is amazing!




I had a wonderful round, and will definetly be playing here a lot if I move down here. The local rate is cheap, and the course is now one of my top favorite courses. The course was definetly getting ready for the Buick Championships in like 2 months. The fairways were really narrow, counted a 20 yard wide fairway on one hole, and the rough was really long. Above my ankles in some areas... Still shot 2 over for 14 holes (too bad I had to leave...).



Anyways I have posted my pics HERE of San Diego. And here is my Walk-Through of Torrey Pines.

NATER

Neighborhood Construction

There has been some recent construction around our home that is interesting to me. First off there are two places near TV highway that have been plowed and leveled, no idea whats going in yet. One area is the car junk yards that was taken down over the summer, and one is a field just up the road.

And then there is the Mobile Home park that was up Cornelius Pass Road. They emptied it out a few weeks ago, and it is now leveled. Once again no idea what is going in...

All I can hope for is something nice to go in, so that it ups our home value!

Nater

Slick Nater on Black Friday

So I had to work this morning, so I wasn't able to get very many deals... I missed out on the SD cards (no biggie), and a good deal on a hard drive. But I did get a smoking deal.

I went to CompUSA for their 9pm Thursday night opening. I didn't think it would be that busy, since the deals weren't that great. But when I got there, there was already about 40-50 people there. And when the store opened 20 minutes later, there was about 400 people there! And this was my first time waiting for a deal so I was a little nervous...

When the opened the doors, everyone went for the big ticket items, I wanted the phone deal. So I bee-lined to them. Ended up 3rd in line. Didn't matter since they had about 200, and only about 20 people wanted the phone. Oh well.

The phone deal was awesome. If you opened a new account with Cingular, TMobile, or Sprint, and bought a Motorola RAZR for $30,
you received a $200 rebate on anything in the store. Since I needed a new phone but didn't want the RAZR, I bought the RAZR, unlocked my current NGage phone and put the Cingular SIM card into it. Now I am going to sell the RAZR on Ebay, and buy a Palm Treo 650.

With my $200 I also got an Apple Ipod Nano 2gb for $150, a Belkin Tune Fm Transmitter and car charger (normally $70, on sale for $40 and $10 rebate), and a Belkin Arm Band ($15). This made my total purchase value as:

Phone $30
Ipod Nano $150
Belkin Tune Fm $70
Belkin Arm Band $15 => Total = $265 - sale price and rebates = $25

So not a bad deal at all...

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One Last Interview

I found out today that Titleist is flying me down to Oceanside, CA for the final stage of interviews for an R&D position. I am really excited, this job sounds like a ton of fun. It will also give me quite a bit of experience to become a Design or Test Engineer in the future. I don't really want to move away, but it's really hard to turn down a job like this.

Here is a sat pic of my possible future job location.


Looks like a sweet place to work. And I guess it's located right next to the Titleist Performance Institute (a hi-tech golf fitness gym)! If you want to take a look at the surrounding area, here is a link to Google Maps.

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The Best Cancelled Shows

I have had this conversation a few times in the last couple of weeks. Why do television stations cancel good shows??? I have made a list of my favorites. If I have missed any, please list them in the comments. Here is the list, and their years in duration:

Firefly: (1 Year) Recently found, and like it. Too bad the tv people scrambled the episodes and aired the pilot a month after the show aired. Always a sign for success... By the way it was canceled for Dark Angel, which is listed below.

Andy Richter Controls the Universe: (1 Year) This was a very creative comedy. Most people weren't smart enough to get the humor...

Related: (1 Year) This was actually a show that Karen and I both liked, which was amazing. I usually don't like shows like this, but for some reason I didn't mind it at all, I think it was because the actors had great chemistry with each other (or Jennifer Esposito is gorgeous). This show was lost when the WB became the CW or the FU channel or something like that.

Jack and Jill: (2 Years) Here was another WB show that got the ax, for something stupid... Too bad.

Dark Angel: (2 Years) A very creative show for the first season, then Execs. thought it could be improved and changed it to crap in the second season. Effectively killing off the show.

Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place: This was a great B-rate comedy. Sure it wasn't going to beat out Friends or anything else like that, but it was great filler. Once again Execs changed the show, to make it better, to 2 Guys and a Girl. Effectively killing another show...

I am sure there are others. But I have an idea as to why good shows get canceled, here is the Nielsen Ratings for the last two weeks.

Week Ending Nov 12:
1. Desperate Housewives (ABC)
2. Dancing with the Stars (ABC)
3. Dancing with the Stars - Results (ABC)
4. Grey's Anatomy (ABC)
5. CSI (CBS)
6. Sunday Night Football (NBC)
7. Dancing with the Stars - Recap (ABC)
8. Criminal Minds (CBS)
9. Lost (ABC)
10. CSI: NY (CBS)
11. CSI: Miami (CBS)
12. 60 Minutes (CBS)
13. House/Election Coverage (FOX)
14. CMA Awards (ABC)
15. Without A Trace (CBS)
16. NCIS/Election Coverage (CBS)
17. Extreme Makeover (ABC)
18. Cold Case (CBS)
19. Deal Or No Deal - Mon (NBC)
20. ER (NBC)

Week Ending Nov 5:
1. Desperate Housewives (ABC)
2. Sunday Night Football - Pats vs. Colts (NBC)
3. Grey's Anatomy (ABC)
4. CSI (CBS)
5. Dancing with the Stars (ABC)
6. Dancing with the Stars - Results (ABC)
7. Criminal Minds (CBS)
8. Deal Or No Deal (NBC)
9. CSI: NY (CBS)
10. Lost (ABC)
11. NCIS (CBS)
12. 60 Minutes (CBS)
13. Survivor (CBS)
14. Extreme Makeover (ABC)
15. Heroes (NBC)
16. Sunday Night Football Pre-Kick (NBC)
17. CSI: Miami (CBS)
18. House (FOX)
19. Cold Case (CBS)
20. ER (NBC)


So the people who basically control whats on TV watch "Dancing With The Stars" and "CSI" all the time. Great! So many good shows will emerge from these numbers... They need to go off of Tivo recording numbers.

NATER

If I Go Titleist

If I end up getting that job at Titleist, i will have to get a complete new set of clubs :D ! So here would be my choice.

Driver:
905R 10.5deg, Fujikura Speeder 569 Tour Spec X-Stiff
Fairway Woods:
906F2 13deg, Fujikura Speeder 652 Tour Spec Stiff
906F2 18deg, Fujikura Speeder 652 Tour Spec Stiff


Hybrids:
PT 585H 19deg, Fujikura Speeder 904HB Stiff
PT 585H 21deg, Fujikura Speeder 904HB Stiff


Irons:
2-4 755, True Temper Tour Concept Stiff
5-7 695CB, True Temper Tour Concept Stiff

7-9, PW Forged 660, True Temper Tour Concept Stiff

Wedges:
56.10 Vokey Spin Milled (bent to 54), Rifle Spinner
56.10 Vokey Spin Milled, Rifle Spinner
60.08 Vokey Spin Milled (bent to 58), Rifle Spinner
60.08 Vokey Spin Milled, Rifle Spinner

Putter:
Scotty Cameron Newport Studio Style

Bag:
x76 Stand Bag, Black
Shoes:
Classics Dry Premiere #50793

And if I stay with Nike, obviously there will be a change of equipment with them too. i will update on that later...

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Jobs...

I finally got word back from Titleist that I am on to the in-person interviews for the position I applied for over a month ago. The weird thing about this is that I wrote an email to the HR Director inquiring about this position, and after I hit send, there was the email in my inbox telling me I was through to the next stage. Weird, huh....

I am excited though, if I can do a job like this and get paid about the same as an engineer with room to grow into a real engineer position, I couldn't ask for anything better. I also found a job with Nike that is right up my alley.

The job is hard to explain so here is a link to the job description. Its basically a similar job as the Titleist one, except based out of Beaverton and has quite a bit of travel. I would prefer the Nike one, because I wouldn't have to move then. And that is really where I want to be. But if I don't get it, the Titleist job would be great! San Diego, great golf company, the experience I would get...


But don't think I am just going for golf jobs. I have been applying for lots of Electrical Engineering jobs. Just no one is getting back to me. The only one who has, and I have had a phone interview with, has taken forever. It has now been almost 2 months since I applied, and like 2.5 weeks since my phone interview. I can't believe HR takes this long, seems like its like this at every company...

Nater

Create a South Park You

I stumbled upon this cool website where you can create your own South Park character. So I had to create one of myself.


Anyways, I thought it was cool... If you want to create your own, go HERE.

NATER

Europe, Here I Come!

Well I did it, I bought my ticket to London. I fly out on Dec 15th, and come back on the 1st (hopefully making it easy on any new employer...). Flying on the 1st will totally suck, but I got a great deal. I bought my round-trip ticket for $674! That is just amazing, everything I was looking at (and expecting) was around $800 - $900 before taxes. So I am very happy.


Karen and I are still working out the scheduling of where we are going during the trip, so I will update when we make up our minds. Man I am excited!

(Oh and me being Slick Nater, signed up for the Continental Airlines OnePass Miles Club right before I bought my ticket. This got me a total of 12,594 miles...)

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Job Front Update

Well I got a call from Nike Golf today about that Customer Service Rep position I interviewed for. Looks like I got one of the positions, but I would be doing order entry, I would be a temp, and make $12 an hour... So don't think I am going to take this job. I originally thought that this would give me a good "in", but really I already have one. They have contacted me in the past about a position, and I feel they will do that again, if I keep in contact.

I also got a call from "a hi-tech company" about an Electrical Engineering position, that I applied for almost a month ago. We originally set up the phone interview for a week and a half ago, so I was a little surprised to get a phone call from them. The guy who was interviewing me was absolutely terrible at it! He told me he was a physicist, and was screening for a co-worker. And did he ever ask some stupid questions... Questions that if you had a BS in EE, are completely obvious, even if you got it illegally on the internet. No matter what I said, he would make comments like, "Seems like you have a good grasp on that." Even if all I said was, "I remember talking about that. We really didn't go into detail on it, we just touched the main subject areas."

And then there is also Titleist that looks to be showing some good effort to get me. After my phone interview on Monday, they Priority Mailed me a small packet. In the packet was some paper work, i.e. application and background check authorization, and a couple other things. Which included a Footjoy glove (Footjoy = same company as Titleist)??? A little bit strange, but whatever...

As you can tell things are getting a little complicated. I have until Monday to reply to Nike if I want that position or not. And I should be having another interview with Titleist next week, and maybe one with the hi-tech company. All I can say is that decisions are going to get tough. And with it being cold and rainy, San Diego and Titleist is looking really good!

Nater