Going crazy March 5, 2007
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So it’s almost 4 in the morning and I’m trying to write this goddamn lab report…pretty sure my mind is going to explode. It’s not even that difficult…just so annoyingly meticulous and time-consuming. Maybe the Sobe energy drink was a bad idea, but I’m going nuts. Over the past hour I’ve googled pretty much everyone I know, surfed like 7 different hockey websites, wandered through facebook…Jesus, tomorrow is going to suck. Good old school. Makes me want to not be here. Makes me want summer to be here; and Seagate. Good times to be had there. But until then…blech.
So it’s been awile… February 3, 2007
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Wow, so at least infinity things have happened to me since I’ve last posted here. It’s been weird that I haven’t really felt the urge to post…I’ve kind of been in a state of transformation the past month or so. But I’ve arrived here, and it’s quite excellent. So here’s the gist of it – I’m out of my parents’ house, into a big blue house on the corner of 19th and Como Ave’s, a mere 3 blocks away from the glorious Red Room, and just as close to Como Pete and Muddsucker’s. I’ve got 8 other roommates, all who are great. I live within a stone’s throw of Joel’s, so I’m often visiting with the guys over there. My room is big and warm, with wood floors (I guess I’d rather have carpet, but whatever…). It’s nice to have a big room, but I just don’t have enough shit to fill it up, so basically all it contains is my bed, my desk, and my piano. But really, that’s all I need to get by. So when in my room I’m either at one of the three. Wow, I sure do love playing the piano. I stole a bunch of music from home, so I’ve been pumping out some mad Beethoven lately, among others. And of course theres the “doodling” that I do, or as Joel calls it “upward waterfalls”.
I’m back in school, and I’ve been pretty much on fire lately. I’m taking I think 18 credits this semester…4 classes, a chemistry lab, and Gospel Choir (which, by the way, is amazing). So far being on fire has been fun, but in the next few weeks we get into the first “busy time” of the semester, so we’ll see what happens with said fire. Hopefully a conflagration is in order. (Conflagration is a pretty cool word). Also, between the couple papers for my political science class (with a very attractive professor…) and lab reports, I’ll be doing quite a bit of writing this semseter. And I’m not very good at it. Writing, that is. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll do fine.
Among other news, I’m obviously still single, and I’ve decided that this is my “natural state”, as Aristotle would say. Sometimes I wonder why I’m so incredibly, amazingly, stupendously awkward around girls that I am interested in…I don’t know what I can do to fix this. So maybe that shall be a problem of mine for the next couple months. And also meeting new people. Because I meet nobody new. And as any and all girls I’m interested in at the moment are in some state of unattainableness, this is going to be a necessity. I guess I could utilize my Seagate training and have a brainstorming session and then set up a six sigma hypothesis…but I don’t think that would be the best way to go about this. Hrm…
I’ve got 3 “addictions” that I’m working on overcoming. I use the term addiciton extremely loosely here. It’s not like I’ve got a heroin problem. These are just things I do that I feel would make me a better person if I stopped doing them.
Oh, and fuck yes! It’s now the month of Februhairy!! This is the time of year where boys become men, and men become real men, the man’s men. 28 days without touching steel blades to the face. It is going to be glorious, and documented on facebook.
Also, I apparently cannot dream lucidly. This is pissing me off. Hopefully now I’ll have some time to dig into my book again and pull it off. But we’ll see. For now, I’ve rambled for long enough. I bid thee adieu!
The prodigal blogger has returned January 22, 2007
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Oops. I’ve kind of forgotten this thing. Hence very soon I will update with recent thoughts and happenings. But not at this moment, as I must go to gospel choir rehearsal.
Boxing day December 26, 2006
Posted by akangas in Happenings.1 comment so far
‘Twas the day after Christmas, and Aaron was back at work. Hmm…isn’t today a holiday? Kind of makes me wish I was Canadian. Of course, half the office is pto anyway. So I’ll just work on a couple of reports in the morning, then go sit in the mall for a few hours and read my new John Sandford novel.
Christmas was excellent for me. On Christmas Eve the family got together and hopped in the bombed and headed south for an hour to Rochester to visit the rest of the Kangas family. They’re a pretty fun group. Plus I got to be Santa. See, when I was little my Grandpa used to dress up in this extravagant Santa Claus costume he has and give out a few little gifts and have pictures taken with the grandkids before we open gifts. But then he had a heart attack and didn’t want to do the costume thing anymore, so it got passed down to the Kangas children, oldest to youngest, and then went on to the grandchildren…and this year it was my turn.
Then yesterday was spent at home with my family – we exchanged gifts and had a big Christmas dinner…my second in two days…so much food. Oh and then since Joel hasn’t seen season 3 of Arrested Development we had a sickeningly long AD marathon yesterday, making it through two disks of season 2 and all of season 3. We hit about 22 or 23 episodes, for all you keeping score. Yipes.
I’m looking forward to getting to see friends who are home on break this week…so if this applies to you than give me a ring. I’m off to finish this report.
As I suddently felt… December 20, 2006
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…the energy coursing through my veins, about 120 seconds after my first drink, I decided “Wow, I love coffee.”
Idle… December 7, 2006
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So I’m at work as often ends up happening, and I’ve run out of work to do today. All of my projects have roadblocks so I can’t get any farther. The Yankton overetch and the “barli” planar etch “keyhole” wafers are waiting cross-section results (although I know I owned that one). The Duluth “black streets” problem can’t be worked on until the WIP backed up at the metal etchers gets taken care of. The FP34 2nd metal resist thickness test can’t go any farther (further? Drat. I’ll go with farther. Nope changed my mind. Further) further until I get the wafers cross-sectioned (at least I’m keeping Sue busy…). The edge exclusion testing…I could get started on. But I don’t want to go back into the fab today. So that one doesn’t count. I’m completely stumped on what to do with the Chicago recipe.
Maybe someone can help. It’s a deep trench silicon etch on a LAM etcher. Due to a previous experiment the etch time of the recipe was lowered to improve the results of electrical tests (it lowers the “beta”…not sure what that means). Unfortunately Mark, the head process development guy (and my dad’s lunch buddy) wants to improve the range of the betas. Which means improving the uniformity of the etch. I’ve run DOEs on just about every possible variable in this etch, and the best thing I can come up with is that lowering the power improves the uniformity a bit. From 50% to 30% nonuniform. Now you might say “But Aaron! You’re amazing! That’s almost twice as good!” But then I would raise my eyebrows at you in sort of a haughty, quizzical, amused sort of way (yes, all three of those) and point out that the generally accepted value for nonuniformity is about 5%. Yeah. That put you in your place, didn’t it.
The problem is the etch rate is too fast at the edge of the wafer, and two slow at half the radius (as etches are radially symmetric). The center of the etch I can speed up or slow down at will by varying the pressure in the chamber. But this 35-75mm area is killing me. I’ve changed the gas flows. I’ve changed the power. I’ve changed the chamber gap. Minor improvements at best. So somebody research deep silicon etching using SF6 and O2 with an inert He flow and find out how I improve my uniformity. Plz.
Shit. I’ve only wasted 15 minutes of the hours I have before I leave today.
Killing time November 28, 2006
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Well I’m at work right now, but man am I dead tired. Which is weird cause I’m pretty sure I got plenty of sleep last night. Maybe I’ve got mono or something (actually, that’d prolly make sense). Sadly, as I’m without health insurance, I’ll never know. Unless I die. Then it’d be pretty clear that something isn’t quite right.
So my holiday weekend was excellent. Thanksgiving saw me in Rochester, seeing the rest of the Kangas family (sans Keith, Kay, and children) and lots of amazing food made by Grandma Kangas. Much happiness there. Then that evening I played monopoly with the brothers, watched the Audrey Hepburn (wow she was gorgeous) and Cary Grant movie ”Charade”. Highly recommended. Afterward I had a late Perkins run with Melissa Eelkema, whom I hadn’t seen in at least forever. Friday was a sleep in do nothing day, a Gopher Hockey game in which we edged out a win against Michigan State, and a late happy hour run to Applebees with Gena. It was great to see her and catch up on things. Then Saturday was a day of driving to Wisconsin to visit the Seidl side of the family and to take a family photo (all 25 of us). Aw man, worst ever: when my family was waiting to be placed in the shot, the photographer asks “which two are the couple?” implying that I could be my mother’s husband. Come on dude. I look like I could be 26/27 at the oldest. Not 45. Dick. Anyway, afterward we drove back and I made it to another hockey game in which we slaughtered Michigan U. So all in all, excellent weekend. Enough to leave you smiling for a month.
Another development: I’ve stumbled into the “Christmas Music” season. Once you start you can’t stop, so when I’m at home I’m pumping hour after hour of holiday classics. In fact, with each post throughout the season I shall include 5ish songs from my holiday playlist that you should listen to.
I don’t really have anything to do at work today, so I think I may ditch out to the Barnes and Noble in the mall and hang out there for a few hours. Shhh don’t tell.
Christmas songs to listen to: 1. Marshmallow World by either Darlene Love, Johnny Mathis, or Dean Martin; 2. Mary Did You Know? by either Mark Lowry or Kenny Rogers and Wynona Judd; 3. Happy Holiday by Andy Williams; 4. Sleigh Ride, gotta be by Andy Williams; 5. Christmas Waltz by Frank Sinatra
Running good. November 21, 2006
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So lately I’ve been running pretty good. I’ve started playing poker again, which makes me nervous because of school coming up, but so far it’s been good to me. I made $1000 this weekend. So now my wallet is quite full of hundred dollar bills. Beyond that, I got all my problems sorted out with the IT office so they finally let me register. I’ll be taking 2 classes with Joel next semester!! We’ve got a statistics class together (which we didn’t even realize we were taking the same class until one time we had lunch together at Burrito Loco and were chatting about it…) and we both registered for Gospel Choir. That’s going to be pretty awesome too. We’re going to be singing about so many classics. It’s going to be ridiculous. There’s Noah, Moses, David!, Ezekiel (he saw a wheel, in a wheel, way up in the middle of the air), Samson…and there’s always the dude who did the whole walking on water, dying for our sins thing. Plus the word “alleluia” will be sung at least 1 million times. I mean, 250 people, times…say…30 times in a song, practiced twice a day, for say 12 rehearsals before a concert = 180,000 alleluias…shit…I guess it’ll be tough to make it to a million. But over the whole semester it’ll happen. I’ll try to keep a tally.
Thanksgiving is here! I recently realized this is one of my favorite holidays. Two days off work, just to sit around and eat a whole fucking lot of good food and then watch football. I mean, seriously, how does it get better than that? This weekend I’ll be a busy boy. Thursday is down to Rochester to see the Kangas Klan (hm I wonder if Alex will be there? Hope so. Haven’t seen him in a while.) I’ll have to remember to bring some money to pay back my cousin Jenna. We’re going to the John Mayer concert together when he comes to town. It’ll be cute. She’s not a real Kangas though. Her mom was. Anyway, then we’re back Thursday night, and Friday afternoon we leave to the middle of the BADger state to get a family portrait taken with my mom’s side of the family. It’s going to be a really cool event. The age spectrum (84 year old grandfather, 1 year old cousin) is pretty amazing. It’s really great to be around the group of people that share the same roots (and genes!) as you.
Beyond all that, in general I’ve just been fantastic lately. I’m nearly as happy as a clam. I haven’t quite reached clam status on my happiness, as girls don’t seem to like me much. But I’m a patient guy. They’ll come around.
Soooo excited for Thanksgiving Dinner.
Clean! November 13, 2006
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Whew, I just got out of the sauna. That thing leaves you feeling so clean. Both physically and mentally. It’s just an overall cleansing experience. Hence, I enjoy it. This was the hottest one I’ve taken in along time, with the needle over 190 the entire time. Which is bordering on uncomfortable. I’m still pretty warm, and so I present my first post in the nude. Let’s see how it goes.
So this past week has been pretty excellent. I’ve gotten soo much done at work, completing 4 projects this week and making some major headway on a 5th. I tell you what, though, it’s never a good thing when you get an email from a customer wondering where the edge exclusion data is that a month ago you promised would take two weeks. So I’ve been running all over the fab this week running single wafers in practically every tool we’ve got and seeing what kind of an edge exclusion we get.
This Friday I had an interesting experience. By interesting I mean unpleasant. After being thoroughly drunk from the hockey game and the bars afterward, we went back to Jesse’s, and a bowl was passed around, and I foolishly partook in the smoking. That coupled with also being quite tired didn’t leave me feeling too awesome. But, it was an experience.
Last night was a blast; it was Drew Running’s 21st, so obviously we had to hit up a bar. And the bar of choice was Maxwell’s, where apparently Josh Morrison works. Good guy.
Up this week: getting officially registered for class, kicking ass at work, and working on my new goal in life: being more aggressive/assertive. We’ll see how it goes. Sleep time, adios.
Quick! November 8, 2006
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Ok, so I haven’t posted in a few days so I’ll pop a quick one up here that will be completely uninformitive and unneccesary. I suppose I could ask some rhetorical question that’s supposed to be profound but isn’t all that meaningful. I’ll give it a shot.
Which is more important? The road we travel on, or our final destination?
Ha! I win.
