TOEFL Disaster

Andrea had signed up to take the TOEFL exam this morning. It's the first step on her way to certifying her veterinary credentials here in the US. Well, apparently they weren't satisfied with her documentation and turned her away.

For those who don't know, people in Mexico carry 2 last names, or family names. One from their father and another from their mother. On most of the online sheets we've dealt with thus far (including international airline ticketing), Andrea's father's surname has been sufficient and the only thing expected. TOEFL is cryptically different. When she entered her name online, she left off her mother's surname (as usual). But when she presented her ID at the testing center this morning, she was turned away because the name from the online form didn't precisely match the name on her passport.

A rational person would think "hey, no big deal... get a refund or get signed up for a later test date", but we're not dealing with rationality here. Because Andrea couldn't read minds and give the TOEFL people what they wanted in the online form, we're forced to forfeit the $150 registration fee and pay again to sign up for a later test. I was honestly shocked talking to these people on their customer support.

So what can I do? More screaming at people who don't care obviously isn't doing the trick. So I give up. I registered a complaint on Andrea's behalf with the Better Business Bureau and called it a day.

Hiking at Russian Ridge

This past Sunday, Andrea, Sain and myself all headed up Page Mill Road to the Russian Ridge Preserve. After the grumpiness that followed last week's 10-mile hike at Ranch San Antonio, I decided to take it easy on the gang this time around. The trail I plotted came out to just under 5 miles with some fairly minor elevation change.


One difference between this place and Rancho San Antonio is that you start off much higher. This preserve involved driving up a narrow winding road to reach (and I must say I enjoyed driving to and from the hike). The plus is that you get to enjoy phenomenal views throughout the entire hike. Supposedly, it's possible to see both the bay and the Pacific Ocean from the top of one of the hills (Borel Hill), which tops off at around 2,570 feet.





I'm sure I speak for Sain when I say I'm equally thrilled with my smile in my solo shot as he is with his. At any rate, our day culminated with a steak dinner. There was a sale on filet mingon on Friday, so all 3 of us gorged on a big ol' hunk of red meat. Nothing like undoing all the calories we worked off earlier in one meal.

Andrea's been bragging to me the past 2 days about how she's not sore at all from this hike. She has no idea what I'm going to come up with for her in the near future. Muahahaha!

I want to end by saying a big congrats to Sain on finding a date! Hopefully we get to meet Shin for mah jongg (and probably more food) some time soon.

A Nice Raise

Since I was displeased with my offer to stay on at QLogic, I had a little chat with Govind, the founder and former CEO of NetXen. You see, I had a manager back when I was hired 3.5 years ago. He was the only person in the company, apparently, with any knowledge of my compensation. He gave up his management position roughly 2 years ago, and Erik (my friend from grad school) became my manager. I explained this to Govind, as well as the fact that my salary was still less than an offer I received over 4 years ago from Intel to work in a cheaper area.

So from there, Govind had to talk with some of the higher-ups in QLogic. Yesterday, QLogic HR got back to me with the terms of a revised offer made based on the resume I had outlined for them. The change was a ~21% raise in base salary. This certainly couldn't come at a better time because I'm recovering from paying double rent from the month we moved into the current apartment, puppy expenses and the check I had to write to Uncle Sam at tax time.

The HR lady explained to me that they don't normally give raises of that magnitude, but mine was sort of an extreme situation. Govind came by yesterday to tell me I should have never let things get that far out of hand, and admit that mistakes had been made on the management side as well. In the end, I'm happy with my compensation... so I suppose I'll put away my resume.

NetXen is no more

I've been sitting on bits and pieces of this for a while now, but the company I've been working for the past 3.5 years, NetXen, was officially purchased today.

I guess the story of our acquisition starts a few weeks ago. Our main competitor in the 10 Gigabit Ethernet market, Broadcom, made its intentions clear that they were looking to buy a network fabric company named Emulex. The offer to buy eventually morphed into a hostile takeover.

So what does this have to do with NetXen? Well, Broadcom makes Ethernet cards that compete with ours, and (assuming the takeover goes according to plan) they now have the capability to integrate their product into larger-scale markets by pairing their Ethernet cards with Networking Fabric products from Emulex. Emulex only has one real competitor in its market-space... and that would be QLogic. QLogic sees its only competitor potentially being gobbled up by a corporate giant, and decides to grab its own slice of the pie... NetXen.

NetXen sold to QLogic for roughly $21M... which is kind of sad since our evaluated worth was probably 10 times that just a year ago. But the merger allows us to move on and into larger markets. We've beaten the pants off Broadcom in terms of design wins over the past 3 years, and QLogic leads over Emulex in market share by a healthy margin. All signs say the QLogic / NetXen merger should be a success, but the only way to find out is to wait it out.

What's this mean for me? Almost nothing, sadly. I've been working my butt off after grad school with the hopes of my options paying off, and it looks like all was for naught at this point. I feel like I'm sort of at a cross-roads here. I'm finally ready to walk away from my job if they don't start paying me more in line with what a computer engineer with a MS in EE and almost 7 years of experience is worth.

Andrea's First Hike - Rancho San Antonio

After a botched attempt last weekend, Andrea and I finally got out to do some light hiking on Sunday. I took her to a little preserve that I use to condition, Rancho San Antonio. It's fun to get a bird's eye view on the south bay and SF, although we didn't make it up to the top this run.

Our hike totaled roughly 4 miles and I'd say about 1000 feet of elevation change. Not bad for Andy's first time out. I think we're going to try and make this a weekly outing for a while because it's such a great way to get in shape and get some color. We'll definitely be making a trip to REI to pick up some proper shoes for her some time over the coming week.



We had several close-ups with wildlife during the hike. First up was a large family of quail. There were probably 8-10 of these little buggers running around, completely oblivious of our presence. This one seemed to like the camera, so I snapped a couple pictures.

A little later on, we rounded a bend and came up on a pair of deer. They were both standing on the trail eating without a care in the world. Andrea and I stood back, assuming they would run if we got any closer, but they never really spooked. We probably could have touched one of them as we passed, but after a few awkward stares it jumped off the trail into the woods.

Andrea keeps reminding me of how tired her legs are... and I keep reminding her that she's got to get ready for the 12-mile conditioning hike I want to eventually take her on. Baby steps are probably the correct approach here.

2 Weeks of Moose Pictures

All the Moose pictures are building up, so here he is in all his spoiled glory.


He started off so afraid of this toy. But as you can see, he warmed up to it.

Among his other favorite toys are an empty gallon orange juice jug and anything made from rope. He actually gets pretty crazy with the orange juice jug because he can't pick it up easily. It's exceptionally loud when he gets rolling with it, so we've had to limit it to daytime use.



We found this excellent dog park where we can take Moose to run around without a leash. It's also an excellent opportunity for him to socialize with other dogs as opposed to enrolling him in "puppy school". It's funny how many people around here have these tiny dogs... and Moose is already a bully to them. I hate to see how he's going to turn out 40 lbs from now.



We've begun Moose's frisbee training, although we have to be careful not to overrun him because it's bad for his hips when he's this young. He loves going after the frisbee as long as I don't throw it too far. We already had one incident where I tossed it up into a tree. Moose was exceptionally forlorn when I lost his toy, but all was well. I got to climb a tree to get it back.




Anything that runs around as much as Moose needs to crash at some point. I think he knows when we're getting the camera that he needs to put on his best puppy face.



No... I'm not having bladder issues... near my knees. I thought this Labrador thing would mean a little less slobber on my legs than Rottweilers. Oh how wrong I was.



Last but not least... we had dinner over at the Nystrom's for Easter today. Moose was a little wired being exposed to young children, but a quick trip to the park was the remedy for that. He didn't even last 20 minutes with the frisbee before laying down and hinting towards home.

New Glasses

For the first time in almost 10 years... I got new glasses! I've been getting headaches pretty regularly over the past year, so I figured it was time to update my prescription. I liked the look of my old glasses so I went for a similar style. The frame and arms are both black plastic this time. Exciting stuff, let me tell ya.