Spring Break

So I was in California for the past week. I had two purposes. First was to get a bit of vacation time. But most of my trip I was thinking about a job interview at a small but successful law firm. My Formula SAE teammate Jerome, who had done a bit of work for them hooked it up. Thanks Jerome! As non-engineers at FSAE, we used to do a lot of work together. Sitting there in the conference room during the interview with Jerome reminded me of those times at SAE. Jerome is a co-owner of Autodolce, specialty performance parts company. They have a line of premium brands for European, American and other import cars.

I learned a lot about the firm's practice; trial lawyering straight out of a movie. The office is located right on the waterline in Southern California. Beautiful. The firm focused on automotive litigation as plaintiffs against large auto manufacturers. The lead attorney, who basically does everything in the firm, is a car enthusiast and does track days regularly. His company is renting button willow for the six people who work there. Very cool! He said he is going to be hiring pro drivers to coach the group. Anyways, I did not get a job offer but I was told to contact them at the end of the school year; so lets keep the fingers crossed. I did learn a lot about the field though.

I took my girlfriend to indoor karting for her first time out. I hadn't been to Miramar Speed Circuit since mid 2008. They changed the course layout. I was about half a second behind the fastest guy in my session, who worked there. I could see where I was missing out on speed; and sadly, I couldn't clean up those parts because I literally needed more kart control to tidy up my lines. Sliding around the seat didn't help either. Need more seat time.

Good news is that my girlfriend, on her first time out was only a second behind me. She was fast enough that she gave me somewhat of a race through a couple of sections! I know a lot of that is her light weight but someone on their first time out is usually over four seconds slower than me per lap. I'm going to have her drive with me in my next track day, as soon as I solve my tire rubbing problem.

I also got to have dinner with my friend Matt Wilson. Matt is a brilliant engineering senior at UC Irvine. He is well on his way to MIT. He is the guy in the background of my hobby who have done modeling and simulations for me when there were ambiguities I needed to resolve. For instance, he ran a simulation and figured out my seat mount is barely aequate in side impact situations. The holes deform too much. It was very nice to see him.

Thanks to my friends that came with me and all the friends that I got to see again. Special thanks to Gary, Grace, Jarrod, James for their hospitality.