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In Reply to: RE: Saw them twice at Shoreline Amphitheatre posted by Sibelius on January 04, 2025 at 10:13:09
SGI was a fun place to work. Unfortunately for me, my stock options weren't worth much by the time I left.
Another fun fact:
SGI designed the first 64-bit 3D video gaming console for Nintendo in the mid 1990's. It was the Ninendo 64 and the SGI employees all received one.
Follow Ups:
Bought my youngest her first bike, used, a Specialized Hard Rock, and there was an obscure SGI sticker on it. Turns out Specialized used SGI machines to design their bikes back in the day and manufactured a bunch for SGI to provide to their employees. Did you happen to get one? Great bike, unfortunately since stolen.
...but SGI was big into 3D CAD / CAM/ CFD / FEA back in the day, not to mention special effects for big budget movies and TV. I had no idea about Specialized.The mug is from AutoDesk & Sun Microsystems sponsored CAD CAMP in 1993. I was there demonstrating realtime 3D graphics, rotating and zooming in-out of large texture mapped 3D models on the SGI Indigo workstation. I didn't hire on with Sun until 2000. It was all fun and games but just a blip in time for me working in "Silicon Valley." I loved it.
Edits: 01/04/25
I misremembered, it was SUN that they used! I'm old, forgetting more and more these days.
I think you and I were in Silly Valley at the best of times. I worked at a law firm (founded by a man who had come out to Moffet Field during WW2 as a blimp pilot/instructor!) that represented all the old school Co's at their pinnacle. It all went downhill in the early 2000's. Greed got the better of all of them. I quit and became the stay at home dad, my wife is still in it, solely for the real old school pension she qualifies for in 7 years. One of the last! She actually started at a firm that represented Apple against The Beatles (Apple Corps) when Apple SWORE at trial, no, nope nothing to do with music at all!
I miss those days, hard, hard work, but we had fun and it did feel like a famiily (met my wife at a company Christmas party, she was someone elses blind date). Now, churn and burn is what it's all about. Looking to follow you or Ivan out, maybe Colorado or New Mexico. My daughter is applying to UC Boulder for the fall, she loved it when she visited. California schools are no longer a realistic option for most kids.
CU Boulder is not exactly inexpensive but I image it's less costly than many California schools. The Boulder area, including rent, is a bit expensive.
Colorado State University in Fort Collins is about an hour north of Boulder and is less expensive overall.
Both are nice college towns with lots to do.
The companies I worked for in Silicon Valley all had a start-up vibe to them. We worked long hours, company paid for pizza dinner, beer bashes, and occasional on-campus bands on Fridays. We had a few off-site 'team building' events too. I think the beer bashes became a liability so they disappeared. But man, we DID work long hours and enjoyed it. But I was much younger then!
She's applying all over the country, including, gulp the South. Pretty much have to if you're from CA and aren't ultra competitive, even the "better" Cal States are tough to crack. She's got a better shot at the Big 10 than the Pac 10, or whatever they are now. Really wants to go to a school in San Diego, even though I've tried to talk her out of it, just too expensive. Already accepted to Loyola Chicago, with a huge scholarship which shocked us all.
My firm operated on the start up model (many of our clients were in fact start ups and VC's and so that's the model they were comfortable dealing with. Something changed towards the end of my tenure and the powers that be moved backwards to the old school firm mentality. That really took the wind out of lots of us, still hard hard work, but NONE of the former rewards.
If your daughter doesn't (a) really know what to major in, and (b) have any AP classes, what about staying home, attending a junior college, perhaps getting part-time work, and eventually transferring to a 4-year university?
I took my kids on college tours. SF State and CSUEB are hurting for new recruits.
That said, in the late-70s and early-80s, one of my relatives from Hawaii went to Colorado State. He had Rams shirts, and said he loved Fort Collins and other parts of Colorado. IIRC, he said he was closer to Cheyenne, than Denver.
And then a different relative from Hawaii made it to University of Colorado Boulder. Like my other relative, she said it took a couple years, to establish residency, and thus get a lower tuition. But she loved it there.
Oh heavens no. I want her to experience the true college life, from orientation to graduation. I did the JC route, among others and transferred to UCLA. I never felt apart of the people there. It's not just about the degree, but about meeting people and having experiences with them from day one. When I got into UCLA the people I met had already formed their bonds with those they went through August orientation with. I want her to have that life from the beginning. I would rather she go to Alabama or Penn State from start to finish than the JC route.
Oh, and she knows what she wants to major in and has plenty of AP's, it's not that her record isn't substantial, it's that the competition is so strong. The $100,000 scholarship from Loyola Chicago has shown her that she has options, they're just outside of California.
It's all changed so much since my day. And one thing that is non negotiable is living on campus for at least her first two years, none of the commute bullshit that I had to do. I feel so bad for the kids at the UC's here that have no housing. She visited UCLA and one of the things they've done is drastically build more housing, unlike UCB or your Alma mater UCSC.
In 2010 and 2011, I worked at Stanford Student Housing. Like other full-sized universities, Student Housing was under the larger RDE (Residential & Dining Enterprises). Each year, the RDE's from the Pac-12 schools attend a conference. The host of this conference changes each year. They exchange what I feel are sensitive data.
But anyway, at the 2010 conference, the contingent from UCLA said they were eagerly waiting for the light rail to/from Santa Monica to open. That would enable a larger percentage of UCLA's students to commute. Also at this time, UCLA was "getting with the program," and converting double rooms to triple occupancy. So you are probably correct, in that no "new" housing buildings were added.
At that time, I did visit my alma mater, UC Santa Cruz. Here at Stevenson College, spotting kids on laptops felt strange. When I was a student, the campus was in its initial phase of dial-up. CPUs and laptops cost more than my then-dream speaker, the Thiel CS1.2. And yes, I was crestfallen, that rooms which had been, for decades, double occupancy, were now triples. Each room has a bunk on one side, and a loft bed on the other.
Like many of my friends, my wife went to UC Berkeley. Then and is now, only freshmen were guaranteed housing. After that, everyone is on her own. My wife hated commuting to campus. My wife argued that, by commuting, she didn't get the full Cal experience. Moreover, your health and sleep patterns are affected.
My last two years at UCSC, I lived in the Crown-Merrill apartments. But most of my friends lived off-campus. That's why they would stop over, between classes; or just bring an overnight bag, and crash, especially if they had an early morning class the next day.
During my years at UCSC, the student body was 52/48 female/male. It was close enough to 50/50, but you did notice that there were slightly more girls than boys. I do not know about UCLA, but I've been told that U.S. universities are now 58/42 female/male.
The Grateful Dead archives are held in a small room at UCSC's McHenry Library. During the 1989-90 school year, my roommate Josh, without telling me, would not come home on a weeknight. I was worried. And then he'd come back the next day (or evening), reeking of marijuana. I asked where he was, and he matter-of-factly shrugged that he had gone to a Grateful Dead concert. I asked why he didn't ask me, and he answered, "Since you're clean, I didn't think you'd be interested."
Your wife is 100% correct. I was lucky at one point and got into the UCLA dorms. It was a world of difference in life and education. On campus living, at least for the first two years is critical, and I won't budge from that opinion. I understand CC and commuting is necessary for some, but mine are fortunate they don't have to suffer through it. As long as they listen to me, which is not guaranteed!
When I was in college, I had just a handful of friends and relatives who were going to UCLA. In the 2000s, that number would increase, especially when you throw in coworkers' kids.During my last two years at UCSC, I did have a UCLA friend, Connie, come up, and spend the weekend with me. Her friend/roommate had a boyfriend at UCSC, so Connie accompanied her on the trip. My housemates paid rapt attention to Connie, wanted to know more about UCLA.
I could be wrong, but there was a Greyhound station on or close to the UCLA campus. That may have been the least expensive, but slowest, means of getting back to the Bay Area.
I thought that there was a bus, which went from UCLA to some Amtrak station. That was another way, to get back to the Bay.
But most just flew.
During my last two years at UCSC, my friend Pauline had a car. She was a nervous new/inexperienced driver. Her family lived in San Jose, and she was always apprehensive, about driving through Highway 17. Initially, with Pauline as the driver, we would explore local Santa Cruz, San Mateo, and Monterey coastlines. And then, as Pauline became more comfortable with the car, we would visit friends at not just Bay Area colleges, but at UC Davis, Sac State, Cal Poly SLO, and UCSB. We never did make it to UCLA.
When I stepped foot on other campuses, such as UCLA, I tried to project how well/poorly I'd do, had I attended that university.
In the 2000s, my wife had colleagues at an office in El Segundo. So the latter would take her and me around, including to UCLA.
My first two years at UCSC were in dorms. While going through that I had a love/hate relationship with dormmies. But over time, all those differences shaped me as a person, and then as an audiophile and professional.
I came back from the March 1993 Stereophile Show on a high. But then we had to prepare for that quarter's finals. My study buddy and Managerial Econ partner, Sachiko, was wrapping up our project on Odwalla. The look on her face said, "These are some of the best times of our lives, but they are coming to an end (both she and I graduated that spring), and we may never live like this again."
Regardless of which path(s) your daughter takes, because you are a wonderful parent, she will do well.
Edits: 01/05/25 01/05/25
Hey, thanks for that last comment. We've tried our best, and she's turned out pretty well, intelligent, confident (after a long struggle) and with more common sense than most of her gen. She's going to start her college life off in a much better position than either my wife or I did, no money worries, housing taken care of for at least 2 years wherever she goes, able to FOCUS on college life, rather than on commutes, or jobs, or health worries. Our goal for both of daughters was to get them off on the right feet to continue the legacy that we've been able to build without starting off with much (us that is). It's up to them now.
She loved UCLA when she visited, and frankly what's not to love, it's a beautiful campus and a wonderful place to go to school. Unfortunately it's just now too competitive for everyone but the few, 4.+++, 15XX, superstars to get in to. The only UC's she's applying to are UCSB (which was party central in my day) and UCSD (San Diego is her dream). She's got the one acceptance in her pocket, so the stress level is down a bit, but there are other schools she'd rather attend, though I absolutely LOVE Chicago. She was getting pelted with literature and emails from the University of Chicago, now that would have been my dream school.
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