day 17

IBM rocks! i'm lovin my job so far, because i actually get to do stuff that will contribute to the final product that's going into devices like the playstation 3. but i'll get to that in a bit. here's a rundown of a typical day for me in rochester, minnesota.

at 5:00 am, i climb out of bed, pop in my new SOFT contacts, get dressed, grab my water bottle from the fridge, and head off to silver lake to row with the rochester rowing club. i've been doing sweep rowing at UT, where each person rows with one oar to either side, but now i'm competing in sculling, where each rower has two oars, one in each hand.

at 7:00, i head back home, take a shower, eat a complete breakfast including kashi cereal with organic milk and florida squeezed - not from concentrate - orange juice. and a banana. and maybe a granola bar. or maybe yogurt. and maybe some raisins. and some more water. ok so THEN i brush my teeth and head to work!

since there are so many confidentiality agreements between sony, toshiba, and IBM (STI) for the cell chip, i'd have to kill you if i told you too much about it, and i'd just hate to have to do that. but if you're really curious, you can read more about the cell processor online. anyways, what i can tell you about is lunch. holy smokes have i eaten a lot of chipotle. i've tried all the new items at taco bell, and just yesterday and today i had a jumbo turkey leg and fish and chips and a milk shake and a slushie and an ice cream cone and a snow cone at Rochesterfest! but about every other day, i'll just eat with the guys in the office at the IBM cafeteria, and after lunch we play one of several nerdy coin games like "binary hi-lo" and "three coin revealy." whatever. basically, the loser of the day pays everyone else 40 cents, and i think i've made a few bucks by now. in the afternoon, i'll usually eat two fruits and maybe some more yogurt or raisins. if i get the munchies, i'll grab some milano chocolate cookies or some teddy grams or a bag of kettle corn from my snack drawer. yum. oh and the decorations on my desk consist of a coca cola can from china, a yoda toy and an r2-d2 toy from burger king, my yao ming collector's duck from a rockets game, a framed picture of one of my boat races in oak ridge, tennessee, and a flip photo album containing pictures of heidi and me!

so i get off work at 5:00 and there's usually a pickup game of football, basketball, volleyball, or ultimate frisbee at IBM woodside park. yes! we have our own park, and it is NICE. so that usually keeps me occupied until about 8:00. otherwise, my four roommates - ruth, jackie, mike, and linda - and i usually watch movies with our blockbuster monthly rental pass. good stuff.

oh and i bought a new camera, the panasonic lumix fz20 with 12x optical zoom, leica lens, image stabilizing, and a million other awesome features. the best part is i saved $120 and got a free 256 mb sd card thanks to IBM discounts. =) so the new pictures that i'll be posting on webshots are going to be in HDTV 16:9 aspect ratio, and they should look much more vivid, especially if you view them at full resolution. anyways, i hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it. however, if you feel like this was a complete waste of the last five minutes of your life, take a look at IBM's employee purchase program with my serial number 3D1268, and get yourself a new thinkpad laptop!