For those not in the know, this past Wednesday was December 7th, also known as Pearl Harbor day. It’s the day when the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor in O’ahu, Hawaii. The attack killed 2,403 military servicemen and 68 civilians and drew the U.S. into WWII. It had history altering consequences and would change generations of people around the world.

The anniversary of Pearl Harbor got a small mention hidden in the interior of most newspapers and maybe a 15 second blurb on the national news.

Yesterday, December 8, was the 25th anniversary of the death of John Lennon. It received frontpage coverage on most major newspapers in the U.S. and probably around the world and was the headlining story for some news reports. Does anyone see a problem with this? Yes, John Lennon’s death deserves mention, but more so than an event that pushed this nation to war? I am not trying to downplay what Lennon did for music, I think he was a genius when it came to music, but he did not alter history. His music did not end up dropping an atomic weapon on its enemy. His music did not end tyranny in 1/3 of the world’s population.

I see this as a sign of the times that we live in. We are more focused on the death of a man who changed music than we are on the deaths of many men and women (and children) who’s demise led this country into the largest armed conflict the world had ever seen. It’s all a little unsettling.

Some people have been wondering what I want for Christmas so last night I sat down and wrote some stuff down. To be honest, my dream Christmas present would be a 15″ Powerbook and one of the new iPods. Now, I know both of those are a little out of reach, so below is a list of reasonable wishes.

• A 120GB Harddrive. My harddrives are pretty full and I’ve done all I can to clean them up and delete the unnecessary stuff.
• A pair of Tyler jeans from Buckle.
• Two 17″ LCD monitors.
• A bookshelf
• A Canon Digital Rebel XT SLR
• Rounders

You can also take a look at my Amazon wishlist.

Texas Tech University has a professor/teacher assistant evaluation system in which every student is given a scantron type form to fill out. Each of the forms has a standard set of questions and space for user comments.

To be honest, most students just go down the questions and fill-in

I have a persuasive presentation due on Wednesday and I need some resources on telecommuting. The presentation is to be directed at mid-level and upper-level managers in a medium sized consulting firm. The objective is to convince these managers that implementing telecommuting would benefit the company in both cost and time.

Right now my problem is finding resources on telecommuting. If anyone out there has some resources that would be useful I would greatly appreciate it. You can e-mail me at s [at] badice.com. Thanks!

I hope every (U.S.) reader a great Thanksgiving. Mine was spent in the plains of West Texas on a huge ranch west of Snyder, TX. My mom, dad, and brothers all drove up and met Sarah and I there.

Saying this place was in the middle of nowhere is a understatement. After exiting highway we drove about 30 minutes down a dirt rode, through a stream, and back into a enclave in the hills. It really is a beautiful location, just a little difficult to get to.

Both mornings we were there we went quail hunting, waking up at 6:00am, getting some coffee, watching the sun rise and then heading out to spots we thought we could find some birds. We had pretty decent luck on both days and were able to get about 13 birds total.

It was a great trip and a much needed relaxation period. School starts back up on Monday and I needed the break to recharge my batteries and get focused for the end of this semester and the beginning of next.

You can view a slideshow of some of the pictures I took while on the trip here.

Thinking back on my interviews and the questions that were asked I remembered one that really struck me as odd. I can’t remember what interview I was in when the question was asked but the question was something like, “Do you miss programming in school?”.

I had to think about it for a minute because at first I thought it was loaded question. As I slowly answered I thought to myself, “don’t hang yourself here Stephan…”. The fact of the matter is that I do miss programming, to a point. I am glad it is not all we do in our major but at the same time I think to get a good amount of programming in since most of us will end up in programming positions at first.

So I answered the question that way, stating that I miss programming and that I think there should be more in our program. Hopefully I did not shoot down my chances of getting that job.

I am finally back in Lubbock for a good amount of time after traveling a lot in the last two weeks. I have been in Dallas a few times now for day trip interviews with Software Architects and ARGO Data Resources.

Both companies were pretty interesting, though ARGO is a little too formal for me. Everyday is a formal suit day, which I don’t find too entertaining.

I was also in Austin this past weekend for an interview with National Instruments. The interviews went well and the people there treated us very well. They seem to be a good company to work for with a lot of perks for employees and the relaxed atmosphere.

I am just happy that I am done traveling for a while. Now I can just worry about school, get some much needed rest, and hangout with Sarah. I guess I could never be a jet-setter.

The trip to Dallas this weekend was great. I left Thursday afternoon for an “interview” with protiviti in the area of technology risk. My arrival at DFW was met with a limousine. Now, I have never been picked up at the airport by a limo so I had no idea how to proceed. The driver was very nice and told me that I didn’t have to do anything but give him my bags. He took me to the Hilton Suites in Addison and I spent some time at the Dallas Galleria, which was right across the street.

The “interview” turned out to be more of a, me interviewing the company, type event and I learned a lot about what I would be doing. The office is located in Addison on the Lyndon B. Johnson highway and the whole area is very nice. The trip went well and I arrived back in Lubbock in time for the football game against A&M.

But, my travels aren’t over just yet. I fly back to Dallas tomorrow for a different interview with ARGO Data Resources also located in Addison. I am really interested in the interview because this company writes banking software for just about every major bank in the U.S.

But I’m still not done traveling after that. I will be in Austin from Thursday till Saturday interviewing with National Instruments and then in Dallas one last time interviewing with Software Architects. It’s a lot of travel but I’m enjoying it so far.

Well, I have been lacking in the area of posting mostly because of school. I have been swamped with work and now I am starting my second round of interviews. I fly out tomorrow for Dallas and will be gone until midday Saturday, back just in time for the A&M game.

I will be having interviews every weekend until the 18th of this month and more next month. I am ready for a break from Lubbock and these will be the perfect opportunity.

MySQL 5.0 has reached version 5.0.15 and is considered ready for mass consumption. The MySQL team officially released it yesterday and the downloading has begun.

There is already a whole lot of reading for me to do but it will have to wait till next week since I am busy with school mumbo-jumbo. I am guessing there will be some subtle bugs in the new release but hopefully everything will be fairly smooth. This release comes as I was just getting ready to switch to PostrgreSQL. I will wait to see what the final verdict is and if the performance is still the same after the feature additions or if we have a dud on our hands.