</SCHOOL><REAL-LIFE>

Short Version:
I graduated from college, got a car, got a job, got my own apartment and can now start my real life.

Long Version:

School
I now have my Information & Computer Science bachelors degree from UC Irvine. It took me 5 long years, but I had some fun doing it. Only in the last year did it really start to drag on; I had done most of the classes I wanted to take and was just taking ones left required for the major. But now that's behind me. I passed all my math classes, had fun programming, learned a lot of Java, took some cool Human Computer Interaction classes, made a cell phone game, wrote a web app collaboration center from scratch, sang in the choir, went to some parties, made a couple friends and met my girl friend Niki (dating nearly 2 years now). I'd say it was definitely worth it.

A lot of people wish they'd majored in something else or still don't know what they enjoy doing after they get out, but I think I've got a pretty good idea. I enjoy programming and I enjoy designing user interfaces that are intuitive and make user manuals unnecessary. To that end I've done a lot of web design and web application development, but I'm hoping at some point in the future I'll get a chance to do some strait application development. On the other hand I love that the web is cross platform and can be used on a multitude of platforms. Plus there's a lot of cool new developments that make web coding more versatile and standardized.

Work
So I've been working for Administrative Computing Services, one of the computer departments at UCI, part time since Sept 2007. They had originally told me they could probably find a place for me after I graduated. I also applied to my three favorite companies as mentioned before, but no one else seemed interested in me. I had interviews but no offers. Then as I was nearing graduation I was told that UCI had a highering freeze on new positions until the next budget was made and that they weren't going to be able to hire me. So I sent out a bunch of new apps with nothing comign of it.

Finally, the week of my graduation, my friend Alex told me his friend was CEO of CenterCode, a small company that did web apps and beta testing. They were looking for a web tools programmer. So I applied with them and had a great interview. It looked like he was gonna hire me and then I got an offer from AdComm! I was pretty surprised that they had gotten me a spot. Apparently they got the VP of UCI to sign off on it to push it through the hiring freeze! So I told CenterCode and they said they would have probably made an offer, but it would have been for about $10k less than AdComm was offering. He recommended I take the one at AdComm. So I did! I 'start' July first.

Apartment
I've got a great apartment in Alisa Viejo, but you'll have to wait for more on that. Hopefully I'll have pictures soon!