Michael Fogleman

Last Friday I arrived home from work and Dan told me we were having a cookout! So, being the good roommate that I am, I cleaned up the apartment a little (never very messy anyway) and put it into cookout layout by rearranging a couple pieces of furniture. Meanwhile Dan went to the grocery store to buy some food. Then people started showing up around 7 and the fun soon began. Josh was our lead cook, managing the grill like a pro. Sarah lent a hand and made about a billion turkey burger patties. April took care of the baked beans. I wanted a beef burger, so I made a few patties with ground beef. We also cooked some sausages which were quite tasty. Everyone pitched in and brought lots of food, and it all tasted great!

After enjoying our food, it was music time! Josh, Dan, Jay, Paul, and Emily played music for over an hour. Mostly a bunch of weird songs I've never heard. =) Slowly people began to leave (there weren't many to begin with... maybe 14 or so, but that's all we wanted). A few of the guys went out pretty late afterwards but I stayed home.

In other news, my internship with Extreme Blue came to an end on April 16. Our expo went really well, and I have MPEG videos of our demo as well as our presentation, which includes me talking for 5 minutes. The files are really big though, so I'm not hosting them (not allowed to anyway) sorry!

Anyway, at the end of each Extreme Blue session, the IBM staff write up a formal evaluation of each student. This includes ratings in several categories such as technical skills and communication, and also includes an overall rating. I'm glad to say I received the highest overall rating possible, "outstanding". Apparently about 10-15% of students receive this rating... in an internship that's hard just to get accepted into. Awesome!! =) So obviously I'm quite happy with this. Also, I feel confident that I won't have any problems finding a position within IBM after I graduate, so life is good!

So now that I'm done with Extreme Blue, I've started another internship with another group at IBM. So far I've not done much at all and it's actually pretty boring. This is often the case when starting a new job though, so I hope things will pick up soon.

Let's see. Some time last week I had dinner with Ben, Mary, and Jordan at an expensive place called The Lantern. I had some REALLY good chicken with some kinda rice and spinach. I thought it was great, but the others didn't seem to enjoy their food as much (too bad!). Also had dinner at The Loop with Ben and Mary on Sunday and dinner with Christina at Big Bowl on Monday. Not doing a very good job with the whole food cost thing!

posted by Michael  # 4/29/2004 10:30:00 AM 0 Comments

Long time no update, been pretty busy with work and stuff. This coming week will be my last week in the Extreme Blue program. Tuesday is our big expo where we'll be demonstrating everything we've done for the past 12 weeks. Several hundred people have signed up to attend, so I'll be presenting to quite a crowd! Next week I start my new internship in building 502 at IBM!

Dan's family visited this weekend for Easter break. They arrived on Thursday night and brough a new grill for me and Dan! We used it to cook chicken and pork chops on Friday night. The grill will be awesome for cookouts this summer. Saturday I had to go in to work for 4 hours to get ready for our demo on Tuesday. Got dinner at Monterrey's with Ben and Mary that night. Today was Easter and we had a lovely ham lunch. I told Dan's family they should visit more often! ;)

I also spent a few hours this weekend on a new website design. I think I like it! Unfortunately I now have to take the time to update my pictures servlet so it'll match and look as good as the main page.

I finally got around to signing up for classes in the fall. It reminded me how I wish I were already done with school. I still have to waste time taking silly electives. I'm on a couple waitlists since I kinda forgot to register at the right time, as I always do when I'm co-oping.

Spring weather has arrived! ...so has the pollen covering my car and making me sneeze.

posted by Michael  # 4/11/2004 07:15:00 PM 0 Comments