http://www.vdsat.com A Circuit Designer's Blog Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:24:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I will find out whether or not I passed my qual tomorrow. For most people, in this two week window when you take your qual, it does not matter when you take your qual, you will still be freaking out because you don't find out if you passed until it's ... http://www.vdsat.com/2008/11/20/moment-of-truth-is-tomorrow/ I took my qual today and I believe it went well. I don't see how it could have been any better. All the questions that were asked were almost like freebees. I guess when you do a good job with your presentation slides you make your life much easier in ... http://www.vdsat.com/2008/11/18/cant-ask-for-more/ I bought this about a month ago... It is a presentation remote and I got it for my qual presentation. It retails for $79.99, Amazon has it for $54.24, and when I bought it a month ago, there was also a $20 rebate. I threw about $14 worth of coins into ... http://www.vdsat.com/2008/11/18/my-security-blanket/ Back in July, I blogged that I had a meeting with my advisor and that he failed me in a practice qual. I know my waveforms very well now, but I need to be very fast with drawing all the waveforms. It's not easy drawing sines and cosines on the ... http://www.vdsat.com/2008/11/15/stinkin-waveforms/ My qual is on Monday morning. I know that there is a professor on my committee who specializes in antennas. My qual will be about a power amplifier and I don't know jack about antennas. I just spent the whole morning reading about antennas so that I don't fall flat ... http://www.vdsat.com/2008/11/15/trying-not-to-embarrass-myself/ Bought 30 TWM at $115.66 Quick run up over $116 Stop loss at $115.95 Sold 30 TWM at $115.94 +28 cents on 30 shares = $8.40 Total round-trip commission = $10 Loss = $1.60 Man, that was a cheap thrill. On these kind of trades, you just have to put a short leash on it. The moment ... http://www.vdsat.com/2008/11/11/stupid/ Sold 1 DIA Dec 90 straddle for $11.52. $5.05 on the call, $6.47 on the put. Bought 1 DIA 104 call for $0.53 Bought 1 DIA 77 put for $2.39 It is pretty much it is a short straddle with an OTM call and OTM put to prevent the possibliity of unlimited losses. I ... http://www.vdsat.com/2008/11/07/trade-log-1172008/ In an earlier post, I blogged about the status of my double calendar spread. I am a bit surprised that I have made no trades since I bought these two calendar spreads. Below is the P/L curve of my two calendar spreads. The difference between the November puts that I ... http://www.vdsat.com/2008/11/06/double-calendar-spread-working-as-planned/ Background info: I will be taking my qualifying exam soon. There will be three professors on my committee. I had to submit a list of seven professors from which they will choose my committee and set a time and place for my qualifying exam. I will refer to these 7 ... http://www.vdsat.com/2008/11/06/advisors-mind-games/ I'm at a technical conference right now and today there was a career fair at the conference. My advisor was with me. Advisor: How's it going? Me: The dude at the TI table told me to talk to the guy in the white shirt standing behind you. 10 minutes later... Advisor: Did you talk ... http://www.vdsat.com/2008/11/04/career-fair-with-advisor/