Journals

Balkans / 2014-05-02

Sofia Concert

Thursday evening was the first concert in the tour at a Catholic church in Sofia. There was a quick rehearsal earlier in the day, and from the sounds of it, I knew it was going to be an awesome concert. I have heard Heinz Chapel choir throughout my four years at Pitt, but I was unable to make their spring concert this past semester, so I was really looking forward to hearing them tonight.

Balkans / 2014-05-02

Food

So I’m doing a pretty terrible job blogging, but it is what is. The first night we were here, we had a great dinner comprised of a salad-like appetizer with fresh tomatoes and sliced cucumber. The meal consisted of chicken and potatoes — both of which were really flavorful. The dessert was some sort of Carmel pudding that had the consistency of flan. After dinner, we just played some cards back at the hotel and hit the sack pretty early.

Balkans / 2014-04-30

Travel

Believe it or not, I ran into Don Charlton (the CEO and founder of The Resumator — the company I will be working at in a few weeks) at the Dulles airport. It is certainly a small world. Random meetings aside though, we had a very uneventful experience at the airport and departed for Germany on time. The flight was pretty smooth as well — no complaints. I had a nice chicken dinner while watching the first movie in the Bourne trilogy.

Balkans / 2014-04-29

The Unexpected

I got a call from Mr. Goldsmith on Sunday night. He told me that one of the guys in Heinz Chapel Choir could not go on the trip and at the last minute, and he invited me to come along. Honestly, I’m still trying to process everything — things happened so fast! But for whatever reason, here I am: about to embark on a two week tour through Eastern Europe. I am so grateful for this unbelievable opportunity.

2013-12-12

On Design and Algorithms

Well, it’s been almost a year since I have posted to this blog. There is no doubt that I have neglected it, but life goes on. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote. Shortly after finishing up my junior year of college, I embarked on a four-week study abroad experience in Italy. There’s no sense in summarizing that here, but I did manage to complete a detailed journal if you’re interested.

2013-02-07

Back to the Future

I looked through some old code yesterday. It was a pretty excruciating experience. Alright, maybe excruciating is a little harsh, but honestly, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. We’re talking pointless loops, hard coded condition statements and not just terribly inefficient SQL queries, but actual repeated queries. It was bad. Although, aside from being a lot slower than it should have been, the script was running fine. In fact, if I remember correctly, when I wrote the thing a year ago, I was pretty excited about it.

2012-12-20

The Little Things

I’ve come to realize that I am a bit of a perfectionist. Actually, I’ve known this for a while, but it’s become pretty apparent lately. And I can’t decide if it’s a good or bad thing. When it comes to agile development, it probably does more harm than not. I have a hard time implementing a solution without ensuring that the solution is the very best. However, I’ve learned that it is almost impossible to come up with this “ideal” solution from the beginning.

2012-11-05

The Wind, The Jazz, and The Irish

As usual, college has consumed most of my life for the past several months. It has been a good, but busy semester packed with programming, music and cooking (alright, not that much cooking, but it’s the thought that counts). This past weekend, I traveled with the Pitt Band to South Bend where our Panthers took on the Fighting Irish. It was an exciting game to say the least, but more on that later.

2012-08-06

Thoughts From a Summer Intern

Friday marked my last day as an intern at The Resumator. Over the past several months, I have had the opportunity to do what I love with some of the most talented people in Pittsburgh. To say that it was difficult to leave is an understatement. But, we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do. As I was reflecting on the experience, the lessons I learned started to materialize. Rather than try to make sense of them in my mind, I decided to write about some of the important ones.

2012-06-11

Soaking Up The Sun

I was in New York City a couple of weekends ago for my cousin’s wedding. While I was there, I was fortunate to make it down to the National September 11 Memorial. It was a moving experience and quite a sight to see. They do still have a fair amount of construction to complete, but after ten years, I’m glad they have something to honor those that lost their lives on that tragic day.