DarqByte

Alright, so in a previous post I mentioned that I was getting things together to apply for the MBA program at UNLV. For an update on that, basically they have all of my materials and will have a decision and information to me early next week. My GMAT scores have been calculated, but I don’t know yet what they are. Unofficially I got a 660 out of 800.

When I took a practice exam at home a few days before the actual exam, before studying, I got a 590. UNLV requires a 560 as a minimum for acceptance, as well as a bachelor’s degree in any field of study and a 3.0 or better on said undergraduate degree. Well, I unofficially scored 100 points better than their minimum on the GMAT and my undergraduate GPA was 3.56, well above their minimum. Combine that with my undergraduate degree being from UNLV and such, I think I’m a shoo-in to get in at UNLV.

But after I got that unofficial 660, I wondered where that ranked me in with the world. I decided to go see what the top 10 business schools were and what they accepted for scores on the GMAT. My 660 didn’t fare too badly.

Someone I know on Twitter, Jessica Mullen, said that her official score jumped way up from her unofficial, so if I jump 40 or so, then I’m in a really good range… Like, say, in range of MIT Sloan.

See, I’ve always had a semi-obsession with MIT. Back when my family and I discovered that I had some mathematically-based talent, I always thought that MIT and CalTech were totally awesome. Unfortunately, I never pursued either of them while I was in high school. I basically just said “Oh, I’ll go to UNLV” and left it at that. I still somewhat regret having never tried for either of them. CalTech sent me a lot of information about themselves too…

So now I could be within range of attending the 5th-best business school in the country. Yes, I know that link I sent to you listed it as 6th, but I’ve seen it as 5th just about everywhere else. So what do I do? I apply.

I’ve decided to apply to MIT Sloan before their application deadline in October. Right now they’re accepting applications for the start of courses in August 2010. So I’d have a long wait anyway. It’s a $250 application and I figure, since I’m sore over having never applied for any top schools for my undergraduate, I’ll give my choice school a shot for graduate.

Sure, if I get in I’ll have taken four courses at UNLV that won’t transfer. But that won’t matter. A degree from MIT Sloan is practically like gold. I could get a job anywhere. It would pay well. That’s part of the reason I’m even applying. The logistics of attending would be insane; Laura and I would be highly stressed both mentally and financially for the two years I’d be working for my degree. But the payoff would be so worth it.

That’s all assuming I’d be accepted. But I’ll apply. And if I make it in, I’m only one of 350 people that are accepted per year. Wow.

Update

It’s official, I got a 660. Good stuff! 83rd percentile!

Robert Life business school, gmat, mba, mit, sloan

Hey look, I’m still alive! Whodathunkit after so few updates over such a long time span. Sure looks bad compared to the times I was able to get in 3-4 posts a week, huh…

Basically I’ve been really busy. Obviously. I’ve had all kinds of things going on, such as work, studying for and taking the GMAT, applying for UNLV’s business school… I’ve also taken on a smaller side project with my friend Andrew, getting some of my creative PHP juices going to make a little extra cash on the side. More money is always nice.

I’ve also had a lot of extracurricular activity going on lately. I’ve had knee appointments, dentist appointments… Lunches with Julia (who finally joined Twitter). Indeedy.

Really, I’ve got something interesting to post about today. The other day a good buddy of mine told me that Laura looks really hot now. Well, she does. She always has been hot to me. But he was mostly referencing her weight loss, which now stands somewhere over 20. I think closer to 25 pounds, but I’m not really sure.

This got me to thinking about how awful men have it when their ladies start losing weight… And before I proceed yes, I know I’m leaving out anything besides heterosexual relationships, but it’s just easier to talk about it this way and it’s a classic example. But yes, men really have it awful.

What the hell is a man to say when his woman is losing weight? It’s a catch-22. There isn’t anything you can say that will be 100% solid.

You’re hotter than before. The response to this is “What, was I not hot enough before? Was I not good enough for you?” Whoops.

You look just as great as before. The response: “None of this weight loss has made any effect? I’m still dumpy?!”

You’ve always been hot to me. The response… Well, I can’t think of a specific response to this, but it could be perceived that you never tell the truth about your spouse’s attraction level. But I think this is the best response out of the three.

So basically, all I’ve been saying to Laura this whole time is yes, she’s hot. Her weight loss does look good but it’s for her, not me. I’ve always been happy with her however she wants to be and am not dissatisfied. Now if I could just figure out what the hell to say…

Oh, on a side note. My weight loss hit a big plateau at about the 190-192 range for over a month, but I believe I’ve finally broken through that barrier because I’ve finally ducked under 190. Hopefully I’ll be posting about my next milestone, 185, here very soon.

I do plan on posting about a variety of subjects soon, so here’s a list that will hopefully keep me on track:

• San Francisco
• Chase Auto Finance issues
• MIT Sloan??
• Perceptions of programming
• Deconstructing arguments & conversation
• Computer building

Robert Blog, Development, Life, Musings, Work

So I know I said that I’d be posting more now that we’ve gotten back from San Francisco, but unfortunately I’ve been really damn busy. With work being more of a mental drain and studying for the GMAT after I get home, I haven’t had much time to hop on here and update you all on life.

I’ll try to soon, I promise! I’m also hoping to tell you about my new awesome powerline adapters I installed at home.

Robert Blog, Life, Work busy

Wait… NBA? No no… MBA!

Those of you that have known me awhile know that I never intended on ending my educational career with just a bachelor’s degree. I’ve always been planning on going for at least a Masters in Computer Science.

Hopefully starting this fall, I’ll be back at the UNLV campus for a Masters… In Business Administration. Yes, you read that right. Not Computer Science. Not Management Information Systems. Business Administration.

My financial advisor recommended for me to get the ball rolling this fall on a masters because my work will reimburse me 50% of course expenses up to $1000 per year if approved and I pass the course. I’ve spoken with HR here and it’s very likely that pursuing a Masters degree will qualify.

Like I said, I originally intended to pursue a Masters in CS. But my former coworker Jordan helped me to see I’m not cut out for that. I love programming and software development, don’t get me wrong. Computer Science is still a very interesting subject for me. But he was really good at the theory. He could use his mathematical background really well in applying high-level CS theories to his programming. While I could learn and understand everything he did, I was never near as good at being able to generate that kind of stuff.

It hit me that maybe I’m not really cut out for high-level CS. I started considering a Masters in Management Information Systems instead because it provides some of the business side logic to information technology. That ended quickly however, because three different people whose opinions I respect all suggested to go the MBA route instead, saying that the MIS won’t help me near as much.

Thus, I decided to go the MBA route. I’m in the process of getting my application materials together and am hoping that I can get things together in time to start officially this fall. I have to take the GMAT and I know I’m going to need to study for that, and I’ve got to get two recommendations ASAP as well. But I think I can cut it. I have a good GPA that will help out and I’m usually pretty good at taking tests, so… We’ll see.

Thus begins another chapter in my life. Pursuing an MBA while working as a software engineer. Should be interesting!

Robert Life career, education, masters in business administration, mba

So yeah, it’s been awhile since my last post. Increased workload at work and our vacation to San Francisco last week have dented my posting ability. Been busy, but I’ll have some posts for you soon. I already have three subjects to tackle when I get the chance to, so don’t fret! I haven’t left you!

Robert Blog

So the last two weeks have seen me drive quite a few vehicles. Laura and I decided a few weeks back to maybe start looking at a new vehicle to replace my ION. It’s not that I didn’t like my ION. Sure did. But it was getting up in mileage, they’re thinking about cutting the Saturn brand and there are really great incentives for vehicles right now.

So I test drove a couple Toyotas a couple weeks ago. I gave the Corolla and Camry each a shot. I’ve always liked the look of the Camry and I ended up liking the car quire a bit after the drive. The Corolla, not so much. Not really sure why I didn’t care for it much, but I just didn’t.

I then ended up test driving, as a few more days pressed on, a Honda Accord sedan and a Honda Civic coupe. Both were nice, but I was really impressed by the Honda Accord. It was a nice smooth ride and really roomy, I really enjoyed that car. It overtook the Camry as my top choice to trade the ION in for.

I should clarify now, Laura and I said from the get-go that we may not trade the ION in. If we didn’t find the right deal and something we really wanted, then we just weren’t going to trade the ION in.

After Honda I test drove a Hyundai Sonata. It was a nice enough car, but it just didn’t have enough of the special touches that the Camry and Accord had. I also tested out a Nissan Altima, but despite a lot of people liking it and a very high Consumer Reports score, I didn’t really care for it at all.

So lots of cars so far. Well, this past weekend we had to take our Tacoma in for an oil change. I decided that it was a good time for Laura to start test driving some vehicles too. I wanted her to give the Camry a shot and I wanted to get in a test drive of the Scion tC while we were there. Hopefully we were to move on to Honda on Saturday after the oil change and test out the Civic Hybrid, something Laura was keen on giving a shot.

So she drove the Camry and liked it, but not as much as I did. We decided that we really shouldn’t exclude the Prius, even though neither of us had ever really considered it. She thought it would be good to give it a chance since it was a very-high MPG hybrid. Drove it and was really impressed, actually. I hadn’t given a Prius much thought before but I really liked the features, the drive and the mileage it got per gallon.

Laura ended up getting a drive of the Prius as well and she liked it. After her drive we moved on to the Scion tC. Not at all impressed. Fun car for sure, but too low for how I like to sit and drive, and it felt too much like my ION. Fun enough, but not different enough.

So let’s skip ahead… In our parking lot here at work there is a Toyota Matrix parked with my stuff in it. Indeed, I drove it to work today. Left Findlay Toyota with it yesterday afternoon. That is an enormous number of different vehicles I’ve driven if you factor in the ION and Tacoma, for the last two weeks. So we bought a Matrix!

Well… No. We didn’t. Indeed folks, we bought a damn Prius!!! Yeah, I had no idea we’d love it as much as we do. I’d never considered one before because they were never incentivized before and had high prices. But Toyota came out with incentives on the Prius for the first time on May 5th. That, and I was able to negotiate some good stuff for it, so we got a pretty decent deal, I thought. They threw in a nice maintenance deal and gave me more for the ION than it was worth at auction. It didn’t hurt that we were repeat customers to the dealership.

They threw in $2000 off the price thanks to the incentive and we put another $1000 down. After it’s all said and done, we’re not going to be spending much more per month on the Prius over what we were on the ION, thanks to gas savings, etc.

So I have a Toyota Matrix right now because Findlay is correcting a few outstanding issues with the Prius, all visual stuff like paint scuffs and the like. Once it’s done, we’re all happy! I’ve already setup the insurance on it and we’ll be registering it this weekend, hopefully. Time to get my plates on it and have it be a done deal.

I’ll try to post photos of it soon.

Robert Life accord, altima, automobiles, camry, cars, civic, corolla, honda, hyundai, nissan, prius, scion, sonata, tC, toyota, trucks

This is pretty cool. My boss had some of his art featured in a highly tech-heavy publication from IEEE called Computer Graphics.

Robert Technology computer graphics, ieee, randy kochis

Alright, so this blog post title is referencing the infamous Leeroy Jenkins…

But actually, you should go check our Ronald Jenkees (and here’s his MySpace). He’s an electronic music artist, and I really, really like his stuff. His YouTube videos are pretty funny and good to jam to as well. I just bought his first album and it’s pretty sweet. The new stuff that will be on his second album sound even better than the first.

Robert Music electronic music, electronica, hip-hop, ronald jenkees, techno

So I’ve kinda wanted to develop applications for the iPhone, but it’s so saturated… I don’t know Objective-C and there are already tons of applications for the iPhone and shitloads of awesome developers for it.

Enter the Palm Pre. It’s built on webOS, which uses HTML, CSS and Javascript to get the job done. This is great for me, since I’ve been a web developer for quite some time.

I’ve just applied to the beta program to develop for the Palm Pre. I’ve got a couple of ideas I want to try, so hopefully they’ll admit me to the program. I’m also curious to see if they’re handing out development-model Pres to work with. That would be cool too, I’d like that.

Let’s hope I get in the program and develop that killer app that’ll make me rich. Haha!

Robert Technology palm pre, webos

Alright, so this congressman wants to limit the times of day that erectile dysfunction ads can be broadcast, so that they cannot be on the air from 6am to 10pm. Read about it here.

This is stupid. Sure, the commercials are mildly embarrassing, and little kids probably shouldn’t see them. But this is overprotecting our kids. Pharmaceutical companies have a right to advertise their products just like anybody else. Honestly, if we start banning ED commercials, then you know what I want to see? I want to see tampon and pad commercials banned.

That’s right. I said it. Men everywhere probably feel it too. Those damn ads for Tampax tampons or friggin’ pads for women’s periods. We don’t want to see those stupid ads either, and I’m sure little kids don’t need to be seeing those too. So why stop at banning ED ads during certain times of day? A ban like that should be extended to feminine products.

Oh, this one time, I saw a friggin’ commercial for a douche. Fucking serious! A damn douche! You think men everywhere want to see that? Fuck no! Just like women don’t want to see cheesy ED commercials, men definitely don’t want to watch these lame commercials where some woman has this stupid grin on her face, followed by an animation of some tampon that soaks up bodily fluids using high-tech channels, or some shit.

Just stupid. Ban one, ban ‘em all, I say. Oh, and I apologize for the profanity in this post. I don’t normally curse here on my blog, but it felt appropriate and I think conveyed the tone I wanted to. See, there’s a method to my madness.

[Edit]

You did get that I’m semi-joking around here, right? Right? But seriously. This is one ban that shouldn’t be enforced…

Robert Humor, Musings, Politics congressman, erectile dysfunction, law, Politics, utterly fucking stupid