Hey, you remind me of you

May 28, 2009 – 9:06 pm

Have you ever seen someone and thought to yourself “that person reminds me of someone”, only to eventually realize that the person they remind you of is actually them?

I do this way too often.

1 Comment / Posted in: wtf

Upcoming travels

May 17, 2009 – 10:14 pm

Okay. I lied. I said last week that I probably wouldn’t write another blog post until after June 13th. I’m wrong a lot.

Not that anyone really cares, but I just felt like mentioning some of my upcoming travels for the summer.

Boston: May 21 – 26

I’ll be working out of the Cambridge Google office for a day and then probably wandering aimlessly the rest of the time. I might have mentioned this a few times before, but Boston is by far my favorite U.S. city. In a perfect world I would be living there, working at Google and have my own personal robot butler. Alas, the world is not perfect.

I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing in Boston this year, but it most likely include an assortment of the activites listed below:

• Red Sox game(s)
• NCAA lacrosse championship tournament
• Consumption of Dunkin’ Donuts beverages and breakfast sandwiches
• Consumption of delicious foods
• Consumption of delicious beers
• Meeting up with friends
• Meeting up with my older brother
• Meeting new random people
• Wandering aimlessly
• Not checking my email

That’s probably a good list to work from.

San Diego: June 6 – 7

Southwest Airlines was having a one-day half-off sale a few weeks ago. I couldn’t resist a $70 roundtrip flight to a place that I’ve never visited before. I have no idea what I’ll be doing, but that’s fine with me. If you have any suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Syracuse, NY / Fulton, NY: July 1 -7

Central New York may not be the ideal getaway location, but it’s my old stomping ground. I wasn’t planning on being there for a whole week, but I had an award flight voucher from jetBlue and those were the only dates I could use it for around the July 4th weekend. I’ll do whatever it takes to save a few hundred bucks.

I’m really looking forward to it. The whole reason I’m making the trip is because my maternal grandparents are both turning 90 this year and the Irish side of my family has decided to celebrate. There’s no way in hell I’d miss it. My grandfather’s health has also hit some rocky times as of late. So I really want to capitalize on every opportunity I can get to travel home. It’s not easy living 3000 miles away.

As always, visit mikeleotta.com/location to find me anytime.

No Comments / Posted in: travel

Back to school?

May 10, 2009 – 8:49 pm

I can clearly remember my mindset during my senior year of undergrad. I couldn’t wait to graduate and enter “the real world.” I was over $80,000 in debt, working 15 to 20 hours a week, all while balancing two majors. I was sick of being poor and sick of going non-stop.

So you can only imagine my excitement when I learned that I would be working at Google immediately after I graduated. I knew that not only did this mean that I was going to have a good paying job in an exciting and innovative work environment, but that this meant I also didn’t really have to enter “the real world” quite yet. Couldn’t get any better than that!

And it has been great. I’ve worked on some exciting projects, met some incredible people, made a dent in my student loans, and even finally had some free time to enjoy my life. What else could I need? Well as it turns out, that same ambition that pushed me through school and got me into Google is now telling me I should go back to school and struggle through it all over again. This means taking on more debt and probably working part time to support myself while taking on a full course load — the same situation that I couldn’t wait to get away from only a few years ago.

It’s taken about a year of thinking to come do this decision, but I’m pretty sure it’s the right one. My interests have gravitated towards UI design and I’ve discovered that a Human-Computer Interaction master’s degree can be very beneficial in that career path. Ideally, I’d like to complete my degree in a year. I’m shooting for starting in the fall of 2010.

I’d also like to use grad school as a way to fulfill another personal goal of mine, which is to return to the east coast. I find it a bit disheartening that with all the universities in Boston, not one of them offers an HCI program. However, CMU has the best HCI program in the country and I could definitely live in Pittsburgh for a year. I don’t think I could ever be a Steelers fan, but I’m more than open to embracing the Penguins as my new favorite hockey team.

So with my decision made, I’ve been studying like crazy for the GRE lately. I’ve got plenty of time to take the test, but I signed up for June just to get it out of the way. I also suck at standardized tests, and my vocabulary is sub-par at best, so I’m spending a lot of time preparing for it.

That’s why this is my first blog post in over a month. Don’t expect another one until after June 13th.

Oh, since I talked about my employer in this blog post, that means  you should read this disclaimer.

6 Comments / Posted in: life

Door Holding Etiquette

March 26, 2009 – 8:10 pm

I’m just curious how other people handle this situation.

Your mother taught you that it’s polite to hold the door for someone walking behind you, right?

But what’s the cutoff distance? At what length of separation do you pretend that you don’t notice the person walking behind you? 25 feet? Does that sound right?

I know it’s the polite thing to do if someone is walking close behind you, but it’s always a little bit awkward when there’s a significant amount of separation. The person will start walking faster or even jog to catch up so that you don’t have to hold the door too long. I know when someone holds a door for me, and I still have some distance to cover, I certainly pick up the pace as I think to myself “gahhh, appreciated, but you should have just ignored me.”

Obviously if someone has a physical impairment then there’s no awkwardness involved for any distance, but for all other situations I think there should be a universally accepted cutoff distance.

25 feet.

So I’ll just put this out there now: If you’re more 25 feet behind me as I’m entering a building, I’m sorry. It’s nothing against you. You’re just beyond the unofficial official cutoff distance.

Maybe I overthink things. Or maybe I’m just a jerk.

5 Comments / Posted in: pointless

Because it’s March…

March 24, 2009 – 10:34 pm

This is what I expect to see from Jonny Flynn on Friday this week:

Except replace the guy getting clobbered with Blake Griffin.

No Comments / Posted in: Cool, Sports