Well, I hate used car salesmen. When he said, "Yes it's had an oil change," he forgot to add, "six months ago." I merely trusted him, so I didn't check my oil or anything. And so when Dad checked my oil, he was quite appalled to see the oil level lower than it should be and that it was black. So I got chewed out for a while about not checking my oil. *sigh* It's not my fault! Looks like I get to go in for an oil change tomorrow. The car wasn't accelerating very well on the way home (might have something to do with the new oil added to the old); so I'm also going to have them replace the fuel filter (just in case). The air filter was crazy dirty, so it's probably safe to assume everything sucks. But whatever. It's better that I'll know the oil and fuel filter have been changed. I'm thinking about taking it into a Saturn dealership / service center, so I can also get my rear window fixed. Goodbye monies!
***
Speaking of blowing money, I had a crazy scheme to go out on Black Friday for an awesome Circuit City deal. It was a pretty good laptop for $300. Part of the deal was a free printer, laptop case, and Vista upgrade. And having spent more than $250, I would get a digital camera. This all assumes that I could beat out the line waiting for the same deal. Well, I don't need the laptop, but I was going to give it so someone. Turns out, that someone already had a laptop and I entirely forgot about that. On top of that, I was looking for a digital camera with a 3x optical zoom; the one advertised was digital zoom. And I didn't really want to stay up all night waiting in line. So I decided against it.
***
I still want that digital camera, so I've been looking around online. I don't know what to look for, and I'd rather be looking at them in my hand instead of online. I've been looking at the FujiFilm FinePix E550. It's got a 4x optical zoom and 6.3 megapixels. Best of all, TigerDirect is selling it for $119. I'm not sure if I could get it mailed to me by Christmas, but I suppose I can wait.
***
So ... I still haven't found out what I'm supposed to be doing for work between Dec 14th - Jan 8th. Apparently I won't have any classes, but I'm still expected to work part of it. As far as I know, I'm not qualified to write any labs or quizzes, so I can't imagine what work they could expect of me. I mean, I could learn C# since we're adding that into a few classes. But is that something I have to be at the school for? Can't I just get a book and do all the assignments in it? I'm sure that'd suck, but I'd rather be in Chicago doing it. I guess I'll have to ask the scheduling "manager" tonight.
posted at 7:36 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Rear window -- probably cheaper and just as good to take it to a auto glass place rather than the dealer. The dealer may just take it to the same glass place.
What the Saturn dealer can do is tell you if the car has ever been into any other Saturn dealer for service, and when the last one was done. They've got it all on the computer by VIN, and it's linked to all Saturn dealers. Maybe it's all GM dealers, I don't know.
Camera -- yeah, optical zoom is MUCH better than digital zoom. When I wanted a fairly cheap one in San Francisco I got an HP, 3x optical zoom, 4 Mpixel. It was at about that $120 price. So, the Fuji one sounds decent. And TigerDirect ships fast in my experience.
Work over break -- Maybe they'd have you clean/organize labs, install upgrades, make sure there's no crap on any computers there? I don't know what equipment is used besides the student laptops. Maybe they have you setup laptops for incoming students for the next few months??
It wasn't the glass in the rear window that was broken. I figured it was the motor, but it turns out that it was the guide rail ... or something. A $15 part, but $100 labor because they had to remove the door interior to get to it. And from my experience, you can screw up a door pretty bad if you try to do it yourself. So I had Saturn do that for me. I appreciated their systems check (fluids, brakes, etc.), though it turned out I had a few more things to fix. My belt tensioner was giving off a high pitch whine, indicating that it wanted to break. That cost me $300. Add an oil change, brake fluid flush, transmission flush, and new rear brakes, and you'll find me in debt. But I'm not too worried about that. I'll have the money on Friday. And I got an unexpected graduation gift from my aunt and uncle, so my account won't look too bad.
I can't wait for Blade to move in, so he can start sharing the rent. I'm paying two shares because Del can't afford to pay any more. Alas, I could manage to keep this up for a few more months.
Oh, about work: The rooms are cleaned by maintenance daily, though I have been known to organize some of the extension cords. I don't think they'll be having us do any manual labor. Game Design doesn't have any other computers besides the student laptops. So there wouldn't be anything to clean. The students get their laptops in sealed boxes from HP. The students can then register their Windows to whatever name they want. It would be smart for us to install Visual Studio and the MSDN for them, but I think we'd need to be in Windows for that. *shrug*
I would prefer some training over break. I still don't entirely know what I'm doing in Windows Programming. I can't just pull answers off the top of my head like the other guys.
I'd also like a meeting where we could offer suggestions. I think there are a few things that should be changed around in the labs. Namely, the chaotic environment the students work in. It's a pretty social place, so everyone is talking to someone else. And I'm not sure how much you get to talk "in the real world." Which is the same with students putting stickers on their laptops, considering they're Full Sail's laptops until they graduate.
Oh well.
In the "real world" it can also be a social environment. Depends on the company's culture, the physical setup (big bullpen vs. cubes vs. offices), and the development style (i.e. eXtremeProgramming is social by its nature).
And I don't think anyone would care if I put stickers on my laptop. I don't see people who do, but it's not frowned on.
IT here sets up the laptops before they are given to us, though we do have admin priviledges so we can install other stuff. IT would rather we not have that capability, but it would cripple us because they don't know everything that is needed by development.
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