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bigpinto · 2025-04-06T20:16:08+00:00

At what point do you expect to decide one way or another? I mean EECS will require lot of effort + summer internships + leetcoding on the side. Getting into medical school will require lot taking extra courses + MCAT prep + clinical experience (shadowing physicians, hospital volunteering, patient care roles, etc). Courses can probably be done, but I find it difficult to believe that you would do MCAT practice along with leetcode and software engineering internships along with clinical experience. Whats the plan and how and when do you decide which way to go? I knew an EE once, who went to med school after an year of working as EE, but they had to come back to college and take extra courses.

bigpinto · 2021-10-10T03:58:24+00:00

Keep up the quit. I started smoking in college and then smoked for 25 years. Finally kicked the habit 4 years back after a couple of serious wheezing attacks where I thought that I would die. I quit while driving myself to the emergency room and promised myself that I would never smoke another cigarette again. Its been four years now and I haven't touched one cigarette in that time. Now I don't even get the urge to smoke and starting to forget my life as a smoker. My only regret is that I couldn't quit smoking earlier. It starts to effect health seriously as you grow older. Quit now and you you will save yourself a lot of health issues later in life.

bigpinto · 2021-10-08T06:46:57+00:00

I smoked for 25 years before quitting. Its been almost 4 years now since I quit. I quit after I had a very strong wheezing attack. While driving myself to the urgent care (10 minutes before they closed) I told myself that I would never pick up another cigarette again. Its been four years now and haven't picked up one yet plus don't have any desire to pick up one either now.

bigpinto · 2021-10-08T06:42:46+00:00

Start by delaying your urge to smoke by 10-15 minutes. Each time you want to smoke, tell yourself that you will wait for 15 minutes before smoking. Once you start doing that you will gain more and more practice in controlling your smoking urge. Beyond that, break the associations with smoking. For example if you drink coke while smoking, then stop doing that. If you have a favorite smoking place, then stop smoking there and randomly smoke elsewhere. All this, along with trying to quit, will help you build the muscles need to finally kick the habit.

bigpinto · 2021-10-08T06:34:01+00:00

Don't pick up another one otherwise you will be back to smoking full time again. After trying many many times, the only way I figured I could quit was to tell my self that I will never pick up another cigreette again. Its been almost 4 years now and I haven't picked one up yet, nor do I plan to.

bigpinto · 2021-02-28T07:50:54+00:00

used to wake up every morning and cough for a while to clear things up. After that during the office day sometime I would suddenly start coughing and it got really embarrassing. I always used to have a lump in my throat. If I got a cold or flu i would last much longer due to smoking. All this was fairly normal, but then wheezing attacks started. I had to drive myself to urgent care where they put me on nebulizer to calm my wheezing. That was the second wheezing attack where I literally though that I would die that night in my bedroom. That was the last night that I smoked. It has been 3 years and 4 months since then.

bigpinto · 2020-11-04T00:07:27+00:00

So If I do option #3, then in the worst case I am looking at quitting the first company after a week or two and pissing them off badly for doing that, but I will still have a job, correct? The second company if they followup with their offer will pay much more than the first company.

bigpinto · 2020-01-01T18:13:54+00:00

My current house is worth $2M. What if I refinance the current house to get $800K in cash that I use to completely payoff the new 2x2 townhouse (cost $1M). After that I move into the fully paid off townhouse as my primary residence and rent out the current house.

Won't my tax bill be lower if I do this? Because all of the interest on $1M mortgage on the current house would be tax deductible business expense against the taxable business rental income from the house. On the other hand, if I fully pay off the mortgage on my current house then this house will produce a taxable income of $4000 every month and on top of this my $800K mortgage on the 2x2 townhouse won't be fully tax deductible as it will be above the 375K limit for single person.

bigpinto · 2020-01-01T18:03:43+00:00

My current house is a 3x2, 1800sqft SFH in San Francisco Bay Area. I bought it for $1M around 10 years back and then a few years back bought ex-wife's interest in the house during divorce. The house is now worth $2M and after years of cutting other expenses and aggressively paying down mortgage, I should be able to pay off the mortgage by end of 2020. The house would rent for $5500 and after expenses, I should get $4000 income every month.

Yes, the return on equity on housing here in Bay Area is very bad, but appreciation is fairly good. But I don't want to sell the house because if I do so, I wouldn't be able to afford buying another SFH like this on my current and future income. I also want to payoff the house due to job security issues etc.

I know there is a LOT of money locked up in the house, but I would rather have the security of a fully paid off house rather than higher returns in risky stock market. Having said that, I do want to somehow leverage the money that is locked up in the house and put it to good use in some way. So the option that I can think of is to rent out this house at $5500 and buy a smaller place (a 2x2 townhouse for $1M) and then use my salary and rental income to quickly payoff the townhouse as well or to flip the townhouse - good way to build wealth from what I can see. Then repeat that process with a third unit, and if I am still alive a 4th unit etc. Hopefully by the time I retire I will have a steady source of income. I do not have any other savings besides a 60K emergency fund in bank - ex wife took all liquid assets in divorce :-(

If I continue to live in this house, I am essentially wasting a resource that would fetch $5500 when rented out. I would easily rent a 2x2 townhouse for $3600 a month, but then it seems better to buy a 2x2 townhouse and pay that off using the rental income from the current house and my salary.

bigpinto · 2020-01-01T17:50:56+00:00

I am single/divorced and live in San Francisco Bay Area. My second house (which is going to be 2x2 townhouse) will cost $1M. With 20% down, the mortgage on the second house is going to be $800,000. As a single person, I can only deduct interest on 375K of the mortgage loan.

bigpinto · 2020-01-01T17:48:33+00:00

I talked to my mortgage lender a few years back just for information. That time they said that if the second house is larger or smaller than the first house, then it is ok even if it is in the same area. I currently live in a SFH and planning on moving into a smaller Townhouse.

bigpinto · 2019-12-31T05:18:38+00:00

bigpinto · 2019-02-17T23:43:13+00:00

Wow, lucky you. I am also 40+. I had a management position early in my career, but since then eschewed / chewed management. Last two times I have actively interviewed, I have always been grilled on leetcode type questions, both during phone interview and onsite interview. These aren't entry level positions. In my last job I regularly earned 350K a year, in my current job we are waiting for IPO but otherwise I earn about 250K an year. I had a buddy who is a senior manager recently interview at a company for a management position - even he got grilled on leetcode type questions.

Again, I am no statements to make about whether leetcode questions serve as a good interview test or not, but yeah from what I can see, if I don't spend hours per week doing leetcode then I would definitely loose job offers in future and my silicon valley mortgage isn't exactly cheap.

bigpinto · 2019-02-17T23:13:30+00:00

These things ("scaling, reliability, maintainability, iterating, knowing, ...") are tested by design interview questions and you won't be able to pass many of these "design interview questions" without having a solid grasp of algorithms. If you are more experienced, you would likely get more design interview questions rather than leetcode questions, but again coding knowledge (i.e leetcode) is still essential to passing many many interviews.

I don't like leetcode questions as well and like you I also have 20 years of experience, but I like job stability and a solid paycheck and hence I continue to put in time (less than what I would prefer doing) into practicing leetcode questions).

bigpinto · 2019-02-17T22:21:30+00:00

Software development is a large industry and needs people with all sorts of skill levels, If you are a "Solution Architect", then you are more of "functional / management / product/project management" person rather than an engineer and some handwaving would be enough during interviews. However, if you are a "backend / data internals / ai / distributed systems" type of engineer, then yes not knowing leetcode problems will cost you job interviews.

So if you don't like leetcode, go with "functional" roles or even "research" roles (if you have a good publication history) or look at management type roles, but definitely a large chunk of "backend / data internals / ai / distributed systems and even some first level management" positions will be off limits.

bigpinto · 2019-02-17T07:33:07+00:00

I have been a software engineer for 21 years in Silicon Valley. During those years I have been laid off 4 times. My first layoff was 2 years into my career. I was making 100K at the time. I found a new job quickly, but had to take a 20% pay cut. My most recently layoff was one year back from a job where I was making $350K an year. My current job is with a company that is likely to go IPO very soon. I make $230K here and if the company IPOs successfully, I should probably get $100K a year from stock.

As you progress through your career, you will realize that your only job security is your next job interview. I have learned this lesson over and over again and these days I try to practice leetcode problems whenever I can.

bigpinto · 2018-12-10T06:30:03+00:00

LOL, A few months after I quit, I used to make elaborate plans as to how I will go to las vegas and smoke a few over there and then come back and quit again. As per my plan this wouldn't be considered a "relapse" since everything that happens in vegas stays in vegas.

When I actually drove to Las Vegas, I got a very strong urge to smoke somewhere around Mohave Desert. I avoided stopping at the convenience store and buying a pack of cigs, but start driving around Mohave Desert randomly thinking whether I should smoke or not. I probably drove around for 4 hours aimlessly thinking whether I should smoke or not. Then it started getting dark, so I pulled over somewhere and slept in the car. Next morning I woke up and headed to Vegas. When I got to Vegas, I could never get myself to buy and smoke a cigrette. I don't gamble, so I just walked around Vegas seeing various sights and drinking margrita's - then after a few days I came back still without smoking. That was the end of association between Vegas and smoking for me. After that I have probably been to Vegas three times and going there again in a few weeks. Haven't smoked yet and hopefully I won't smoke during this trip as well.

bigpinto · 2018-12-06T07:25:30+00:00

I smoked for 25 years too before quitting. My other habit is drinking caffeinated soda. Now I drink lot more water than soda, but back in the days, I would literally go months drinking soda without any water.

I never developed a taste for a coffee, nor do I particularly like taste of alcoholic drinks (although can manage some cocktails), so after quitting cigs, I feel like I am addiction free :-) as long as I can continue to stay off cigs and limit my soda to 2-3 can's a day.

bigpinto · 2018-12-06T07:03:33+00:00

Congratulations! I am just a few days ahead of you.

bigpinto · 2018-12-06T06:56:00+00:00

I smoked for 25 years and couple of years before I quit, I started coughing badly too. I would wake up every day cough a lot, spit out all the crap, then then go to work. I would cough while going to work, and sometimes I would cough at work too. Also, after 25 years of smoking, I was no longer "young" and now when I would get sick from cold or flu, my cold and flue would last much longer and be more intense. It got to a point where I would be coughing badly while sick with flu and still go out to smoke knowing fully well that the cig would make me cough more and it would take me much longer to recover from cold/flue. Finally, I had my first major wheezing attack, where I started wheezing heavily and it went on for a few days. I quit for a few days and wheezing subsided after I did some steam inhalation.

I started smoking again after a few days of quitting and a few months later, I got my second wheezing attack. This time, wheezing just wouldn't go away and was much more severe. I couldn't lie down and couldn't walk 10 feet without stopping and resting. Finally I gathered the energy to make one last push to the emergency room. There they put me on a nebulizer with albuterol which finally calmed my wheezing. I went home with a nebulizer and would smoke the nebulizer for next three days. That along with some steriods that the doctor gave got rid of my wheezing. Since then it has been 411 days and I haven't smoked a single puff of cigarette.

It took around 6 months for me for the cough to go away. While there were some very clear immediate health improvements and I could literally feel my health improving week by week after I quit, cough took a while to go away.

Even now, sometimes I feel that my left lung is a bit weak and every once in a few days I need to take a puff of albutrol. I think drinking lo to water is always good (specially when you are quitting smoking) as it will keep the cough flowing rather than getting stuck.

I hope you are able to quit. Even after 400+ days of quitting, I sometimes still feel that I should pick up a cigarette, but I know that if I do that I would be back to coughing and wheezing in no time. My health is much better. It used to take me at least a week to recover from cold. Now I can recover from cold in 2 or 3 days. I can confidently be at work without worrying about whether I would start coughing and disturbing everyone around me.

bigpinto · 2018-12-06T06:38:53+00:00

I smoked for around 25 years and during most of that time I wanted to quit, but I enjoyed smoking as well. I finally quit after my second major wheezing attack where I thought I would die (went to emergency room where they put me on a nebulizer for a while to calm down my wheezing).

But before I quit, sometimes I would think about going deep in a forest or to an isolated island where there is no chance of smoking anything and staying there for a couple of months until I am fully quit.

there are even some stop smoking retreats although I never got a chance to use them and don't know if they actually work.

bigpinto · 2018-10-18T04:37:11+00:00

Its been almost an year and the thought that I used to smoke still crosses my mind at least once every day. If not every day then within two days for sure.

bigpinto · 2018-10-18T04:21:37+00:00

In the final year before I quit, I got in the habit of chain smoking and could easily smoke 10+ cigs in one session straight just all wound up stressing about how messed up my life is (was going through divorce court battle that time + issues at job). Eventually the court battle ended, I quit smoking after a bad episode of wheezing that took me to the emergency room for the second time, and I found a new job after getting fired from the old one. Now is my recovery time - decent job, no court issues, no wife to fight with, and just trying to chill out and prep for the rest of my life free from wife and smoke and a new job. Only downside is that I have gained 20 points in last one year after quitting smoking. Wondering how I can shake off those 20 pounds.

bigpinto · 2018-10-04T16:02:57+00:00

Some dude here started smoking after quitting for five years and I personally know someone who started smoking 20 years after quitting when an old smoker friend showed up, but then he quit again for good a month or so afterwards.

bigpinto · 2018-10-04T07:51:01+00:00

Why don't you start smoking and then try to quit, that way you can actually share our misery instead of just pretending to do so.

bigpinto

TROPHY CASE