Hung Truong: The Blog!

Celebrating Wolfie’s Birthday

Today, December 18th (it might be the 19th by the time I finish this post), is my good friend Wolfie’s birthday. His name is John, but his nickname is Wolfie. It might seem weird for me to write a post about my pal’s birthday. I guess the reason I’m writing it is because Wolfie passed away this Summer while on a trip in Barcelona, Spain. He would’ve been 25 today.

I could be sad and dwell on how unfair it was that Wolfie wasn’t able to even see his 25th birthday. But when I think about him, it’s really hard to be sad, or mad, or anything besides happy.

We had some really good times, and I’m really glad I was able to meet him. He was one of my best friends for a good portion of high school. And we had great antics. Like the times we (and Patrick) went to the state fair and annoyed people on the expo floor, or the time Wolfie sneaked into David Tod’s house to steal a picture of David Tod in a bunny suit on Easter, scanned it and replaced it while I stood lookout a la Hitchcock’s Rear Window, or the time we recorded a drum, guitar and trumpet track of a song with just the two of us, or all the random junk we did on band trips.

He didn’t have a lot of time here, but he sure packed a lot into what he had. I guess it sounds cliche, but it’s true. And in a way, Wolfie has really inspired me to make the most of my time. I really hope that I never end up sleepwalking through life, aimless, because that would be a waste of time that I have, that Wolfie never had.

While I’m writing about lessons, I also want to say that throughout everything that happened, Wolfie’s mother, Mera, has been nothing but positive. She sent an email (which I won’t reproduce without her permission) reminding us to celebrate his life, all the good times, etc. She’s really the sweetest person I’ve ever met. Much love to her (I hope I can catch up with her before I leave town this time). She’s an inspiration and I hope I can be more like her someday.

In conclusion: Happy Birthday, Wolfie! I miss you.

The Semi-Annual Post-Finals Bad Dream!

So whenever I finish finals, I always seem to have the same bad dream. It’s not a nightmare or anything. Just a dream that’s sort of got a bad scenario in it. I just finished my final stuff yesterday, so the semi-annual dream came right on time, last night!

It always involves some random class I signed up for at the beginning of the semester that I stop showing up to. Then I realize, maybe on the bus or something, that I totally forgot to do any work for it!!! This semester it was some made up class on something analysis. The reason I didn’t go is because the teacher was really bad. For some reason the teacher was Jay Boyden, a grad student assistant from when I was in marching band in undergrad. No idea why he was in that role because he’s actually a good teacher!

My series of dreams last night also involved some interesting sub-plots. One was that I was using my computer to show my brother something, then the browser was being really slow switching from Youtube to whatever other tab I had open. So I blamed this on the OS and remembered I had a copy of Vista! So I formatted the hard drive out of frustration and was going to find the Vista disc. But then I realized I had left the disc in Michigan, and for some reason I was in New Mexico for the dream (I wonder what my computer was doing in NM while my stuff was in MI). So I just had a formatted computer.

Then another sub-plot was sorta in the world of “I Am Legend” and sorta in the world of “Fallout 3.” There was a town I was trying to get to but a zombie town was in-between it! I think the zombies couldn’t get out at night. But it WAS at night. Luckily some motorcycle gang was there to shoot flamethrowers at the zombie town so I could pass. Before this happened, though, there was huge pomp and circumstance. Like the motorcycles all came in formation and stuff. Then the zombies were kind of trash talking the gang. They said something like, “you guys are done for when you eventually run out of gasoline!” Then the gang torched the zombies and I was on my way.

So yeah, I’m looking forward to my final semi-annual post-final bad dream some time in May when I graduate!

Trip To Seattle (+ Program Manager Interview With Microsoft)!

I have been noticeably absent in this blog and others this month. So in typical Hung Truong Blog fashion, I felt like I should write about what’s going on in my life, including my everlasting job hunt. I know some have gained quite a lot of pleasure in reading about my various job hunt activities. Job hunting is kind of fun, especially when you’re in school and you don’t actually have a dire need for a job (well, I already have a job, but I know it’s gonna run out when I graduate).

Anyway, last weekend I interviewed at Microsoft for a Program Manager position. You might recall that I interviewed with Orbitz a few weeks prior. I got an offer from Orbitz and let the recruiters at MS know. Then the MS recruiters hurried up the process and let me interview with them. Pretty cool! I ended up declining the Orbitz offer (but it was awesome and I would have taken it if I hadn’t gotten a better offer, more on that later).

Um, I realize at this point that in the interest of actually getting a job, I should be neutral when I talk about companies. Luckily, all of the companies I’ve dealt with so far have been class acts. So I don’t really need to hold anything back. They’ve been awesome. The whole experience of job hunting has been a real eye-opener for me. From exploding offers and figuring out offer goodness, I’ve been learning a lot.

So anyway, I flew to Seattle and got there at around 11am. I got a rental car (a Toyota Highlander SUV) and drove to the Pike Place Market, which is apparently one of the really cool places to see. I got lunch there and wandered around various shops. Then I decided to go to the Seattle Library, which is really super awesome. And being a student at a library school, I knew I needed to check it out. The library had multiple floors of awesome. The decor in there is like Ikea, except cooler! And it’s in a library!

On my interview day, I tried leaving early but it took me a while to find Building 19 (the HR building) where I was supposed to meet with my recruiter. Microsoft campus is huge-ass. I was a little late. 19 is probably the spiffiest building I encountered, with its sorta dim lighting (for mood), Microsoft Surface to play with, and Rock Band! There were a lot of other students there waiting for their recruiter to get them. They all seemed kinda nervous. It was hard to get them to even acknowledge I was trying to joke around with them and get a posse to play. Then, I was about to start a song when my recruiter called my name. Ah, well.

From 10-4 it was interviews. They were each an hour long, except for a “lunch” interview which lasted 1.5 hours. And I had 30 minutes to sort of pass out after lunch before the final two interviews. _Note to people looking for info on questions they ask in Microsoft interviews: don’t bother. I’ve noticed that a lot of people find my blog while they’re looking for interview questions to prepare for their own interviews. The thing that people don’t understand is that everyone asks different questions. And you don’t need to know the answers beforehand anyway. The whole point of the questions is that you answer them on the spot, and that the process of answering the question is what the interviewer wants to see. So if you knew the answer already, you might do worse in the interviewer’s eyes because they’d be like, “what the heck? This person doesn’t think!” Also, most of my questions were about me, so you’d have to do a lot of studying about Hung Truong if you wanted to ace my particular interview questions.

The interviews themselves were thoughtful and pretty cool. The people interviewing me were really smart and all seemed like cool dudes to work with. I mean, as a self-respecting geek I know that Microsoft has a certain reputation for software. The thing is that a company as big as Microsoft will inevitably have great products and not-so-great products. Also, I read this article in Fast Company about Gary Flake, my new(est) role model! MS is finally entering the web space like they mean it and it’ll be interesting to see how they approach it and how it will affect the other big players (Google and Yahoo… to some extent).

Finally, I had a chance to have dinner with a current MS employee. I chose my former classmate, Sameer. He and his wife took me to the Space Needle Restaurant, which was incredibly touristy and awesome. Oh, and expensive. Thanks for footing the bill, Microsoft! Seriously!

I know that most of my job hunt posts end in some kind of failure post (example 1, example 2, example 3, example 4, etc). I’ve gotten pretty used to rejection over the past few years. But! It seems I’ve gotten better at interviewing! For I got an offer! I can’t (and probably shouldn’t) disclose certain things, so let’s just leave it at that. I have about a week to make my decision. I will probably make another post when I do make a final decision. And then we’ll finally have a proper burial for my series of job hunt posts, once and for all (or at least hopefully for a while!).

Sonny Stitt: Just In Case You Forgot How Bad He Really Was

If you ask almost anyone about Sonny Stitt, they’ll probably tell you he was really bad. Like, in a good way. But occasionally, some people will forget. In case of this rare occurrence, there’s a cd that’s appropriately named: “Sonny Stitt: Just In Case You Forgot How Bad He Really Was.”

I just got it from the AADL. Not because I forgot, but because I happen to like Sonny Stitt. The songs are all pretty good. I think it’s parts of a live set that he did a while back. Stitt is just really freakin’ good, and not as repetitive as some people (Dexter Gordon, I’m looking at you!).

My favorite part of this album is probably the cover art. Seriously, I think they looked through all pictures of Sonny Stitt and found the one where he looked baddest.

Worst Thing Ever

The worst thing ever happened to me today at work. Google Calendar went down. NOOOOO!