Next weekend: Seattle to Portland bike ride

Third weekend: Seafair triathlon

In the meantime: Biking to work, swimming in a wetsuit, running around Greenlake

Orientation starts at 10:00am.

Thursday: 35-mile bike ride with Theo, tooling around Seattle and checking out Amazon.com’s headquarters. I start Monday!

Wednesday: Worked out with Kunlun at the IMA. My muscles were still sore from last time; he certainly is causing something to happen :-)

Tuesday: Worked out with Kunlun at the IMA. Lots of upper-body exercises followed by swimming lessons. I already know how to swim, but apparently there’s a lot to be said for good form as well. My hair was so long that it covered my eyes when swimming properly, so I got it cut.

B S in Computer Engineering

Prepared for: Ryan Edward McElroy
Graduation Date: SPR/2008
Program Entry Qtr: SPR/2006
Date prepared: 6/18/08 - 01:03

** All requirements have been satisfied ***

Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering

Prepared for: Ryan Edward McElroy
Graduation Date: SPR/2008
Program Entry Qtr: SPR/2006
Date prepared: 6/18/08 - 01:03

** All requirements have been satisfied ***

That, my friends, makes it official.

Finish strong baby.

Saturday Afternoon: UW Graduation. Quincy Jones spoke, I thought it was mostly good with a few odd places, but overall a good speech. Listening to all of the Ph.D.’s names was painfully long, but it was nice and sunny (I have the burn to prove it) and I was seated with friends so life was good. We finally got to walk and received nice diploma holders with (of course) fake diplomas in them. The ceremony lasted a little over 4.5 hours; we began queuing an hour before that. So it was a long day already.

Saturday evening: Graduation party. Lots of friends and family showed up. We had great food and I had a great time.

Now I have one week off before I start up at Amazon.com for a summer internship!

Microvision has been a great company to me, and I have learned a lot and developed significant skills through this opportunity.

I especially want to thank Dave Montague for recommending me for the position, and Rick James for hiring me and allowing me to extend what was supposed to be a 3-6 month internship into a veritable career during my undergraduate university career. It has also been great to work alongside Larry, Greg, Selso, Shai, Bijeesh, Aarti, and the rest of the software crew. I could not have asked for a better manager than Rick and I could not have asked for a nicer manager than Jari.

It was certainly the best job I have ever had, and I wish Microvision and all of its employees the very best. Thanks for all you have given me, and hopefully I was able to give enough back to make myself useful to you guys as well.

Sigh… yeah, once our papers are done…

Congratulations! You have been admitted into the first class of the Combined BS/MS degree program in Computer Science & Engineering.

We will contact you within a week with more details.

We look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

Paul Beame
Combined BS/MS Chair

At this point this, my day was only half over. Next came Rage Against the Turing Machine, ACM Chair Helene Martin’s brainchild superparty for the CSE department. Undergrad, grad, and faculty were all in attendance, and it was a truly phenomenal production. I helped a little by setting up and tearing down the ping pong and foosball tables, but really, this production is Helene’s seminal achievement — truly a great way to go out.

I made sure to wear my VisionUW t-shirt, and actually had a few people ask me what it was about. Being a diehard supporter of the VisionUW ticket for the ASUW elections, I of course expounded to each inquirer why they should vote for the ticket.

After clean up, I made my way back home, party winnings in hand (biking with a poster, a cup, and t-shirts must look kinda weird), and then played a bit of TF2 with Bobby before hitting the sack. Overall, a great day. Now to keep up the momentum, I’m preparing for mother’s day activities and I need to write some Capstone paper before heading off to a barbecue.

In other news, Microsoft extended their offer through the 22nd of this month — meaning I can hear back from the 5th years masters program (barely) before I tell them my decision. Amazon’s offer is good through the 23rd, and Google’s offer is good through August or something crazy like that. I now have the three offers in front of me that I was aiming for; now I need to sit down and figure out which one would be best for me in case I don’t get into the 5th year master’s program. However, only 35 people applied to the program, whereas I was expecting upwards of 60, so I feel my chances are particularly good to get in to the program now. Of course, time will tell.

As the title says, the days are just packed!

James,

It is with a heavy heart that I write to tell you that I have withdrawn from your CSE 431 class. I enjoyed the lectures and learning the material, but I felt stretched too thin this quarter, and this class unfortunately was the casualty. I feel that withdrawing now was the best choice so I can focus on my two capstone projects. Thanks for your understanding.

~Ryan

This is my first ever withdrawal from any class, ever, after the first week of classes. It wasn’t an easy decision but I think it was the right one.

A little sneak peak at the branding we came up with:

Tonight I’ll be getting a full night’s sleep in preparation for an interview at Microsoft in about 9 hours.