Ah, back from another trip to The Johns Hopkins University where three of us MSFTers represented our fine company at the Job Fair and at a ~2.5 hour long information session. Since graduating in 2000, I’ve been back there every year except for 2003 and 2004 - sometimes multiple times per year.

It’s really amazing how much has changed in the last 6 years. Over half a dozen buildings that didn’t exist when I was there are now complete or on the way to being completed. In contrast, during the 4 years I was there, only 1 new building opened! The neighborhood has change dramatically as well. Today I walked down St. Paul street, just one block over from Hopkins, and this is what I saw:

Wow! A Starbucks will be opening soon!

Full Stop.

That’s right. It’s the tail end of 2006 and the nearest Starbucks to JHU is 2.9 miles away. Now, Starbucks isn’t exactly the height of civilization, but… do you know of any other Top 15 universities that doesn’t have a Starbucks in a .5 mile radius, if not on-campus? it’s just an example of how far Hopkins, the nation’s first research university has needed to come.

Those who know me well, know that I’ve never expressed fondness for my 4 years at Hopkins. Things were pretty bad when I was a student there. When I came to visit after being accepted, a student had just shot another student - shocking the school. When I enrolled, too many students had been accepted which led to doubling/tripling rooms meant for 1 or 2 (with no corresponding price adjustment!) I wasn’t exactly sheltered having spent a lot of time in the not so great early 90’s NYC, but even then the violent crime rate in Baltimore was easily double - and it showed: my suitemate was mugged in front of a University-owned property, I heard a grad student get assaulted with a brick outside my window by a mugger, and a friend of a friend was robbed by a pack of 13 year olds. (If you have HBO, be sure to see this episode of The Wire. It may seem exaggerated to you, but it is real.)

And that was just off-campus. On campus, I remember having a brand new math professor apologize because the “marks” (he was Canadian) on the midterms were too high, and that this would have to be compensated for later on. There were undergraduate TA’s who were simultaneously enrolled in the class they were TAing. My upper-level database class had 200 students (normally 40 - thanks .com boom) and final projects couldn’t be completed in one semester because the server load took down the server nightly. My roommate had a professor who scheduled a final at the same as another class’, and told him “I guess you’ll have to make a choice.” And finally, I remember that one of the on-campus cafeterias was shut down by the City’s Health Department after an anonymous tip from an employee about massive health violations, which the University denied, proved true - 18 violations!

Apparently, I’m wasn’t alone - the problems was so serious that the University set up a commission in 2003 which published a 65+ page report about the situation. Here’s a select quote published in the June 2003 issue of The Johns Hopkins Magazine about why this came to be in an article entitled Not-So-Great Expectations:

One in two freshmen arrive at Johns Hopkins expecting to have an unsatisfactory student experience. And too many actually do, according to a report recently issued by an influential university commission.

…

Says Cunico, “There are a lot of people who will ask you, ‘If you could do it all again, would you pick Hopkins?’ And I would say, ‘No, but I know why I came and I picked up a lot of good lessons at this institution.”

That answer troubles Hopkins administrators and faculty. . For several years, they’ve been hearing similar sentiments from alarming numbers of undergraduates who have come to believe that Hopkins doesn’t care enough about the quality of their undergraduate experience. Students complain that they can spend four years at Homewood and never know a professor well enough to procure a meaningful letter of recommendation. They say that you hear all about the cherished seminar system, but if you’re an engineering or science major you’ll spend your time in large, impersonal lecture classes. That you will look in vain for a sense of student community, of school spirit. That you’ll talk to friends at other schools who seem to be having a much better time than you are, and console yourself that a degree from Hopkins will open doors, provided you find some useful advice on where those doors might be.

Unfortunately those doors aren’t always so great… from the same article:

As winter gives way to spring, J. may be thinking not about graduate or medical school but about employment. Undergraduates surveyed by CUE complained about the level of Hopkins career counseling. Cunico says his own experience was not good: “You go to the career center, and they say, ‘Unless you want to be a lawyer, a doctor, or a banker, we don’t have much for you.’ That’s unbelievably frustrating.” The few job fairs that he attended didn’t provide much. “I walked through and there wasn’t anything for me. I don’t want to join the Peace Corps, I don’t want to join the Army, and I’m not an engineer, so it’s pointless to talk to Lockheed Martin.”

This is one of the reasons why I’m very proud that Microsoft continues to hold job fairs at Hopkins - and one of the reasons why I really nagged Microsoft when they stopped a few years ago! It’s to give students hope that they can get careers in places other than biotech companies, banks, and 3-letter agencies (though the CIA does tend to give our neat pins.) The number of Computer Science students has really dropped since I graduated - and I’d like to see it rise again.

In any case, the last 6 years have been amazing at Hopkins. The campus, especially with the addition of Charles Commons, is so much nicer, safer, and… well… more collegiate-feeling than it was when I was there. No more “Death lane“, no more shady row houses, no more dimly lit areas, no more having to worry about being hit by a car on campus. When I made a joke about how I was surprised that no one stole all the pens during the raffle sign up so that others couldn’t win - someone actually said “It’s not cutthroat like that anymore.” Wow.

Oh, and today I ate at a cafeteria - it looks like they followed through on the Commission’s recommendation #33:

33. Improve food quality and service at Homewood so that it can effectively function as an essential element in community building.

They even take credit cards… nice!My first year of Hopkins was also President Bill Brody’s. To the right is a picture of Wendy and Bill from Move-in day in 1999. Since graduating, I’ve come to understand how committed he was/is to improving the undergraduate experience.

Congratulations Dr. Brody on 10 years at Hopkins, and the accomplishments that you and your staff have achieved. I have no doubt there’s still room for improvement (will NEB ever have a real name?) - but this is definitely the Hopkins I would have wanted to attend. Good work!

P.S. Sorry I called you the “slum lord of Hopkins” over e-mail in 1999. The 2 weeks of intermittent hot-water outages really got on my nerves - especially since I knew what the inside scoop was on how it happened.

According to the TSA manager that I’ve been in contact with, here is the definitive list of what you can and can’t bring:

TSA: Permitted and Prohibited Items

Interesting fact:

Gel based sports supplements - No

That’s probably a good thing - they’re a little gross IMHO!

So aside from the basic 3 oz rule, there are a few other exceptions that the TSA allows for:

TSA: Our Travel Assistant

In the event a Security Officer identifies a prohibited item in your baggage, you will be required to either place that item with your checked baggage or dispose of it at the checkpoint.

We suggest that you pack all liquids and gels including shampoo, toothpaste, perfume, hair gel, suntan lotion and all other items with similar consistency in your checked baggage to minimize any delays at the screening checkpoint.

While we can not provide a comprehensive list of items you may be carrying, to ensure the health and welfare of certain air travelers the following items are permitted to bring:

• Small amounts of Baby formula and breast milk if a baby or small child is traveling
• Liquid prescription medicine with a name that matches the passenger’s ticket
• Up to 5 oz. (148ml) of liquid or gel low blood sugar treatment
• Up to 4 oz. of essential non-prescription liquid medications including saline solution, eye care products and KY jelly
• Gel-filled bras and similar prostethics
• Gel-filled wheelchair cushions
• Life support and life sustaining liquids such as bone marrow, blood products, and transplant organs carried for medical reasons

So what happened when I tried to bring a 4 oz bottle of contact solution through security 20 minutes ago?

(Remember, you can’t generally buy one that’s less than 4 oz - and it’s specifically stated as being allowed above and on flyers at SJC…)

Why of course, the TSA screener (Ms Haidee) insisted that I throw it out or check it in. Too bad the flyer that proved I was right was 10 feet away from her.
Classic.

Now I have to take a cab to Rite Aid when I get to Baltimore.
On the other hand, I now have the contact info for the “Customer Support and Quality Improvement Manager” for San Jose & Monterey Airports. Let me know if you need it.

Update: At 9:55am, the Manager emailed me back to let me know that the agent was indeed mistaken. Vindicated! She also emailed me 5 pdfs containing forms to file a claim. Wow… I’m very impressed with the responsiveness!

TSA: News & Happenings
There are two major changes:

1. Travelers may now carry through security checkpoints travel-size toiletries (3 ounces or less) that fit comfortably in ONE, QUART-SIZE, clear plastic, zip-top bag.
2. After clearing security, travelers can now bring beverages and other items purchased in the secure boarding area on-board aircraft.

At the checkpoint travelers will be asked to remove the zip-top bag of liquids and place it in a bin or on the conveyor belt. X-raying separately will allow TSA security officers to more easily examine the declared items.

Let’s ignore the “What changed so that we’re suddenly safer now than we were last week?” aspect of this announcement for a moment.

So let me get this right… I can bring containers of liquids that are 3oz or less.

Apparently no one at the TSA worked with contact solution vendors as those bottles pretty much start at 4oz.

Fair enough - maybe no one at the TSA wears contacts.

So you can have all these fluids in a 1 quart bag - couldn’t you do a lot of damage if all of those fluids are dangerous?

Finally, why do these need to be x-rayed separately? How will x-rays check for explositivity of those fluids?

Good grief.

There’s a few things that I really miss about living/working in NY, compared to Mountain View. One of them is the fact that everything just dies after a certain hour, as slightly exaggerated in this entry.

The other big problem is that it is pretty hard to get decent pizza.

Amici’s is pretty close… but… well… something’s amiss. Maybe it’s the price, the size, or the fact that there’s no wax paper or a guy named “Gino”.

One of my favorite blogs, Slice has apparently reverse engineered a NY pizza… whoa!

Pizza Recipe

This pizza is modeled after Patsy’s on 117th street in NYC. I have been working on this for SIX years, but FINALLY I can report that I have achieved my goal. Many people have tried my pie and swear it is not only the best pizza they’ve ever had, but a clone of the original Patsy’s recipe. This pie is incredibly light and perfectly charred. It took just 2 minutes and 10 seconds to bake at 825F.

The first secret?

1- It’s all in the crust. My dough is just water, salt, flour and yeast. I use no dough conditioners, sugars, oils, malts, corn meal, flavorings or anything else.

The second secret is getting your standard oven to produce 825F heat. You have to read the article to see how he did it. Pretty darn clever.

Anyone want to give this a try and invite me over for a tasting?

If you ask me, Tickle Me Elmo X is a little scary…

Source: YouTube - Tickle Me Elmo X TMX Elmo

Nothing quite says that summer has ended like these two events:

1. Yesterday was my summer intern’s last day. Thanks for your hard work, and best of luck in your last year of school!

2. My free Sprint phone finally was deactivated. Great service - now if only they had a cool Smartphone!

Has summer ended for you?

/dev/null/kevin
Today traffic from San Jose to Redwood City was badly snarled with the main bottleneck centered in Mountain View (California). Both directions of Highways 101 and 85 were parking lots and surface streets were equally impacted. At first the radio traffic reports could not find a cause, no accidents or construction reported anywhere. But soon the reason was known: Cisco had scheduled a company wide meeting of all 30,000 of its local employees at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View (next to Google and Sun’s old corporate buildings).

The irony was not lost on me as I sat in traffic this morning. For a company whose job it is to get packets from here to there as quickly as possible, Cisco could have used some of its skills in routing (or at least carpooling) to avoid this mess.

Everyone at work had a traffic horror story today. I ended taking 85 to 101 to  Amphitheatre up past Alza/Google and back down to Microsoft. My 10 minute commute of 5 miles became a 35 minute nightmare. Good thing I didn’t have any meetings at 10am!
I wonder how many of the Cisco employees made it there on time.

I hear that the Microsoft Company Meeting at Safeco field has a somewhat similar impact on traffic in the Safeco field area. That said, I do know that Microsoft is very very very aggressive about getting people to take buses from the Main Campus there - sometimes they offer raffle prizes and etc!