The Roadtrip

So the road trip ended, my roommate went back to Champaign, and I'm in New Jersey sitting in my AT&T office with nothing to do :-)

I think the highlights of the trip were going to Cheers in Boston, going to the Public Garden in Boston, going to the Botanic Gardens in DC, and going to the Orioles baseball game.

The trip was very good, and Wookkyun got to see many of our country's finest places, and was repeatedly awed at the landscapes, skyscrapers, museums, etc...
It was extremely stressful for me though. We had to walk for many hours to get to all the sites he wanted to visit, so the end of the trip was a relief for me and I got to slack off at my uncle's house, and hang out with my friends, family, and especially my lovely Rachel :-)

I've rented a place with Matt in Newark, NJ. The neighborhood is not good, and the apartment isn't very good either, but it's cheap, the landlords are very nice and generous, and I get to be with my friend, which I haven't been able to do a lot the last few years since we've been in different states.

The AT&T complex here is beautiful and so is the surrounding area, full of trees and nice houses and shopping centers. It's the sort of place I like to be, in general. It makes me feel comfortable. I grew up in a place like this, and definitely not in a place like downtown Newark. I went out to lunch with the people I'll be working with, and 2/3 are left-handed! Four of us sitting around the table at K.O.B.E. Japanese restaurant and I notice 3/4 of us are using our left hands. Weird.

I also got a nice tour of the facility, which is primarily devoted to research. The security is very tight here and this place is definitely the real thing in terms of research. Top of the line systems running massive computations. Server rooms kept at cold temperatures, all combination locked. You have to have an ID to be in the building, and I'll be getting my badge in a few days supposedly. There's a gym, shops, a bank, and a nice courtyard for when I won't feel like an ant under a magnifying glass when I'm outside.

I'll be working on something dealing with automatic text capitalization here, for their closed captioning system. I don't know much else though. The people I work with research real-time analysis and feedback from broadcasts, in video imaging and speech recognition.

Rachel and I can visit each other more now, too :-) And since she's going to be starting grad school at University of Cincinnati, we can see each other more during the school year too! Still 3 1/2 hours' drive away, but that's not too bad, compared to 12 hours.

Well, doesn't my life sound interesting right now?