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A lot of people at work are being moved around. My manager is relocating to the east coast, a dozen people including someone from my team got laid off last week, another person from my team announced this week that's he's leaving to go to business school, and my manager is hoping to reduce the team size by another two people because of funding issues. Another team desperately needs two more engineers, and I was being considered due to my skillset, but somebody else from my team ended up getting chosen because he really wanted to go. So that leaves potentially one more person who will be leaving the team, making 14 the target size, down from 18 two weeks ago. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. The smaller team size may make our team more productive.

Regardless of short term uncertainties, we still found reasons to celebrate. On Tuesday my team had a picnic in the park to celebrate a (mostly) successful release, complete with hunting for figurines hidden throughout the park, an egg-on-spoon relay race, and a pinata game made hilariously difficult by people swinging the pinata around on its string while the blindfolded person tried to hit it.

On Wednesday we had our second company lunch of the year, with all barbecuing done on site this time. I wolfed down all the chicken I could, and there was lots of food to spare. And Thursday saw catered appetizers as a thank you to everybody in our program for getting 100% customer award fees across the board (not easy at all).

So for the most part, this week was totally double rainbow.

This has been quite an eventful three-day weekend. Priscilla and her parents came up on Friday and stayed until this afternoon. On Friday the four of us ate some of the food my mom had prepared and given to them to bring up. Then Priscilla and I did some work and rewarded ourselves afterward by watching Idiocracy (hilariously chilling movie whose premise I think is likely to happen).

Saturday her parents visited friends in Petaluma, so we had the whole day to ourselves. We spent some time having her try on dresses I bought for her, working out and having Indian food at Shah afterward, and meeting with my NVC counselor about relationship issues we've been having lately because of the long distance. The session was intended to be three hours long but stretched easily into six hours! But it was worth it- the session unraveled many layers of the complex issues and we now have a much deeper understanding of them and a greater appreciation for each other.

On Sunday the four of us went to Baylands Park in Sunnyvale to explore and take pictures. On the way there as I was driving up Lawrence Expressway, a car that was waiting in the left-turn lane next to my lane suddenly pulled out right in front of me, causing me to swerve to the right to avoid hitting him. Unfortunately, he was proceeding to cut across four lanes to get into the right-turn lane. I slammed on the brakes pretty hard (I had been going about 60) while I ended up cutting across three lanes trying to keep my car as parallel to his as possible, finally coming to rest just a few feet from his car. No cosmetic damages, but my tires and brakes took a beating, and I left a nice set of skid marks on the ground.

Fortunately I had kept a large buffer between me and the cars behind me, so there was nobody for me to plow into when I swerved across three lanes. The guy just drove off.

Other than that incident, that day and the rest of the holiday weekend were pleasant.

Minh and his former girlfriend/fiancee Christine tied the knot yesterday! They had a traditional Vietnamese Buddhist ceremony in the morning/afternoon, and a reception in the evening. At Minh's suggestion, a bunch of our mutual high school friends made it just to the reception, in Santa Ana. Driving there was not fun, but traffic wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been.

Things were a little impromptu and disorganized, but overall nicely done. There were maybe around 200 people at the reception, and all the Van Nuys guys had our own table. My favorite part of the night was when Minh came to our table, a few of us put him on a chair and gave him a "hip-hip-hooray!" toss into the air.

Wow.. Minh is married. It feels a little unreal. I wonder which one of our mutual high school friends will be next?

I drove down to LA last Friday and was there till Wednesday. I was there mainly to do maintenance on the Previa. I helped my dad change a bunch of fluids (brake, transmission, power steering, coolant and oil), we got new tires, and he changed a bunch of parts (hoses, belts and air filter) when I was out having fun with friends. Unfortunately due to some bad instructions on Chilton's website, he over-torqued a bolt and bent a part holding a pulley, so he had to order a new part and it didn't arrive by the time I had to leave. I ended up driving my grandfather's 20-year old Taurus back to the Bay. I don't really mind; the only slight nuisance is that the interior is dirty since Aaron had been using the car to haul dead trees.

Other than car issues, on Saturday I went hiking with a dozen CCAC people on a trail near Tom Sugi's house and played Dominion with a few people afterward. The next day I ate "Korean" chicken fried rice at Galleria while listening to Ezekiel's many thoughts on the healthcare reform, and in the evening Priscilla and I had our last premarital counseling session with the Sugis. Monday, I was sick with some sort of stomach flu (what a great way to spend vacation), as were Priscilla and a lot of other people who went on the hike. Tuesday, Priscilla and I were feeling better so we got snacks from Trader Joe's and she helped my mom make dinner (aka learning wife skills for the potential near future).

Overall, I had a lot of fun, caught up on sleep, and got a new temporary car. And I think I'm getting used to the 5.5 hour drive. I just kind of went on autopilot, especially on I-5 where it's all straight and boring. I did find a good Christian radio station out there, K-LOVE. They're in many cities on many frequencies, but I managed to get mostly good reception on the 88.3 frequency from Buttonwillow to Gilroy, which is more than half the trip. I also learned that driving next to big rigs can greatly boost spotty reception, since big trucks act as big antennas!

I finally got a new Hanns-G 19-inch LCD monitor to pair up with the sole one I have at home. I made it a point to find the same make and model as the one I had so that I would have two exactly matching monitors. The fact that my monitor is four years old made that slightly more difficult (e.g. it's no longer sold by any retailer), but I found one used for $80 and the seller lives a dozen houses away from me. Craigslist is awesome. As are dual matching monitors.

There's a lot that goes into making a good platform game, and most of the Flash-based ones I've played I haven't found to be great, owing to a lack of time, ability and/or imagination on the part of the creators. Of course, no disrespect is meant to those people, since most creators of Flash games provide them free of charge and get compensated very little, if at all.

(Un)fortunately, when I do find one that I really like, I'm hooked. Currently, the three Flash-based platformers that top my list are, in no particular order: Portal: The Flash Version, The Company of Myself, and Level Up!.

Portal: The Flash Version
This fan-made game is based on the successful first-person action/puzzle game by Valve Corporation called, you might've guessed, Portal. The premise is simple: as a test subject in an advanced research facility, your only option is to find a way to the other side of the room in a series of tests (levels). But you'll need to go through walls, scale ledges too tall for you to leap, and avoid laser-shooting robots, death spikes and electrified floors. Your only friend is the portal-creating and anti-gravity gun you've been equipped with.

The Company of Myself
In this puzzle game, you play the role of a hermit who is accustomed to, but slightly discontent with, being in the sole company of himself. The goal is to reach a mysterious green square at the end of each level, which requires ascending ledges that are too high and crossing over pits that are too wide by employing the help of, effectively, yourself. The puzzle dynamics are relatively original, and the graphics are minimalistic and serve their intended purpose. But what really makes you want to play through all the levels is the unfolding storyline- throughout each level, you discover more about what's going on in the protagonist's head, and his mysterious past and lost love.

Level Up!
This game fuses RPG and platformer elements and removes the repetition aspect from the concept of leveling up. In this game you play an amnesiac who has a house in the woods, in search of magical gems and clues to her lost memory. What sets this game apart from other platformers is that abilities that are leveled up directly affect interaction with the game world- for instance, leveling up the jumping ability (which passively gets leveled up as you jump around) allows the character to jump to higher ledges (and thus access different parts of the game world) that were previously unreachable. There are no useless quests or side jobs to complete, but instead all emphasis is on exploration, with the storyline unfolding as the character explores the beautifully-animated 8-bit style world around her. My only gripe about this game is that it's too short!

Amazon is releasing a free Christmas/holiday song for download every day up until Christmas. I'm not sure how they'll profit directly from this. They're probably banking on attracting more customers this holiday season, and what little they likely pay for distributing these songs is well worth it. Or they might actually be taking in money from promoting the albums these songs are from, who knows.

Anyway, it's cool to see them doing something nice without requiring something in return.

Edit: Amazon now also has a free 5-song classical Christmas sampler. iTunes is offering a free 20-song sampler of Christmas songs performed by contemporary artists, and then some.

This Thanksgiving holiday, I caught a ride down to LA with Minh and was down there for a few days. I had some good food with family, fun times catching up with CCAC people, and obligatorily spent a lot of time with the girlfriend.

It was also Priscilla's and my three year anniversary, and we celebrated by doing completely everyday things- making turkey tacos, cleaning her messy desk, and having dinner at a restaurant we went to before we started dating.

The next day we had lunch with her parents at a Peruvian place called Las Dunas (their pescado a la chorrillana was really good), went on a prayer hike around Pepperdine University, and had our second session of pre-engagement counseling (doesn't mean we're definitely getting engaged) with Tom and Amanda.

I'm glad we can have fun doing ordinary, practical things without the expectation that fun comes only from spending lots of money or doing exotic things, though there's a place for that too. As long as we keep surprising each other, I think we'll be alright.

I'm really blessed to have everything I do.

Yesterday was my third time representing my company at the UCLA technical career fair. We seem to attend every fall and winter quarter, and I've been volunteering every time. It's a win-win: the company benefits from the recruiting, and I get a free trip to LA to see family and the gf (and I get more Southwest Rapid Rewards points, muahaha).

We're hiring mostly Software Engineers, so we look primarily for CS/CSE students at the fairs. Unfortunately, we didn't see many CS/CSE students this year- I talked to only a couple of CS students, and of the five resumes the other recruiter and I recommended, the majority of them were EE students with strong programming backgrounds. In fact, probably 70% of the students who stopped by our table were EE. 20% were physics majors.

I think it's mostly a branding problem. AST is a signals processing company, which implies that we have a lot of EE jobs. We do, but not entry level. And I think the Software Engineers outnumber the Electrical Engineers, since we have a very large and ever-growing software department. The other recruiter and I brought up our concerns about branding, so hopefully we'll see some changes by the next career fair. We also have a newly-created marketing department, so I'm counting on it!

Other than the career fair, I got to spend more time with Priscilla than I usually do, since I flew into LA a few hours earlier. We spent Tuesday evening trying on Halloween costumes at a seasonal shop (mostly just for fun since the costumes were cheap in quality yet ridiculously overpriced), eating at King's Burger (not your typical burger joint- I'm surprised at how many genres of food they have), and carving a pumpkin since she's had a deprived childhood and never done it before. We also took a bunch of pictures of my rental car, since I got a pretty swanky G6 GT this time. :)

My company hosted a two-day CPR and first aid training seminar that I was fortunate to get a seat for (there were only twelve spots available). The pair of three-hour long sessions were taught by one of the security staff who's also a Red Cross instructor. It was cool that the company covered the costs of the materials, the instructor's time and even dinner for the attendees. Win-win for everybody.

So today was the second session, and since we all passed the (very easy) exams we're now lay responders (certificates pending), meaning that we're allowed but not required to provide CPR and/or first aid, which differs from a first responder, who is required to assist a person in need.

Some cool things I learned:

• You need to identify yourself and get somebody's permission before you can provide assistance. If they're unconscious, there's implied consent, which means you can assume they would've given consent if they were conscious.
• Check, Call and Care. If somebody needs assistance, first check the surroundings and make sure there's no immediate danger to yourself. Move them to a safe area if it makes sense to do so. Call or have somebody else call for help if necessary. Then provide care for the injured person.
• If you're not sure what to do or panic, best to call 911.
• 5 back blows, 5 abdominal thrusts. If somebody is choking, alternate giving them 5 back blows with the bottom of your palm, and 5 abdominal thrusts to the midsection.
• 2 rescue breaths, 30 chest compressions. CPR is performed when somebody has gone into cardiac arrest and involves (at least the Red Cross-endorsed method) giving 2 rescue breaths of 1 second each, then 30 chest compressions to the mid-chest. You should be doing five cycles of this every two minutes.
• To bandage an open wound, first apply pressure with gauze until the bleeding stops. Then wrap the gauze firmly with dressing.
• If somebody has a broken arm, you can wrap their arm in a sling by wrapping it in a triangular-shaped cloth tied around their neck.
• FAST. To determine if somebody's having a stroke, ask them to smile (Face), raise their Arms, note how quickly or clearly they can Speak, and note the Time at which the symptoms started.
• If somebody's having a seizure, help them onto the ground onto their back and let them have the seizure. Don't try to restrain them.
• A diabetic feeling weak/dizzy/light-headed should be given sugar in liquid form. If their sugar level is too low, the sugar they ingest will help. If it's too high, the extra sugar won't cause any extra harm (sounds weird, but that's what the manual said!).
• Overexposure to heat may cause heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, in that order. Heat stroke may be fatal. Allow them to lie down in a cool place, place something like towels soaked in cold water on their chest and forehead, and give them small sips of water.

Some of this information is probably inaccurate, which is entirely my fault. Needless to say but for liability reasons, I'm not a CPR/first aid instructor, so please don't read this information and then go try to assist somebody, mess up and then sue me.

Anyway, the training was pretty useful, and though I am by no means an expert, I'll sort of know what to do should a situation arise. I'd recommend to anybody to take CPR/first aid training, as it's offered for free in numerous places. You never know when you may need it, and having training at that time just might make the difference during the crucial minutes before proper help can arrive.