Life After Work

Today was really fun.  I came to my wife’s middle school as an alternate presenter for career day, and I wound up presenting in two classes.

When I was asked to be involved with career day a while ago, I was under the assumption that I would be presenting for sure (I was only told last week that I was an alternate), and that I might be only one of three to five folks.  I think there were 25-30 people presenting, and zero overlap in occupations.  I was the only engineer there!  From what I hear, the FBI agent had the best presentation.

Well, the firemen came late (in their fire truck), so I got to present in their place for period one.  I watched a friend’s presentation in period two (he’s a Microbiologist), and then he had to take a call right after class (a possible job offer), so he asked me if I could present for period three.  Both classes seemed to like my presentation.  Some of my friends, and the principal, came in to see my presentation as well.  After that was over, the school fed us lunch (they had also served breakfast and coffee.  Had I known that they were serving breakfast ahead of time, I would not have ordered coffee and my very heavy Wednesday breakfast at Omega’s).

Afterwards, I left, went to Kaiser to get allergy medicine, then spent the rest of the evening at home.  It was a truly great day.

Day 143 mood: Wonderful!

I was kind of surprised that I had any work to do today, but the designer had changes, so I wound up working much of the day.  I guess I will be here all week after all.  That’s fine with me – more money!

This evening is another call committee meeting, this time with Elders in attendance.  The guys are coming to encourage us.  I hope it has the desired effect of building us up.  The call committee, though committed to the task, is pretty tired right now.

Day 142 mood: A little less happy today.  At least tomorrow is a day off.  I’m an alternate presenter at a Career Day.  I sort of hope someone doesn’t show up so I can present.

I moved the pads, sent the bondout and did the paperwork.  This chip is all but done.  I worked half a day.  Good news (?), my replacement is off to training for most of the week.  I can work with minimal interruption… except that I’m pretty much done.

The evening plan was to go to a free movie preview.  My friend Ray and I went, but we almost didn’t make it.  His scheduled bus broke down and a replacement bus wasn’t coming for an hour and a half (he rides the bus to work every day).  If we were to watch the movie, I’d have to go pick him up first, so off I went.  Well, I live at the bottom of the Bay on the east side, Ray works near Stanford, and our free movie was in South San Jose.  I wound up driving an 80 mile loop.  When we got to the theater, only one ticket was available rather than two.  Fortunately, we found a guy with another spare.  We went downstairs to eat, and just as we were finishing, we got a call – the line was going in and our tickets with it!  We ran upstairs and found our folks just as they were getting to the front of the line.  Such a close call!  The thing is, they let the line in an hour and a half early.  This never happens, but I guess they had a long enough line and they wanted to deny any late comers entrance.  The theater wasn’t really full, but sitting sure beats standing in line.

Over the weekend, Ray also got a new pellet gun so that he might shoot squirrels and pigeons off a friend’s property.  He and I decided to get the gun sighted.  Usually, we would go to our friend’s (close) uphill property, where you’re allowed to shoot, but they weren’t home.  I got the idea of calling another friend who lives way, way up in the hills.  He was home and welcomed the company.  Since it was a long and curvy ride there, we took the yellow car.  It was a fun ride!  We spent the evening shooting targets.  What a great way to cap off a weekend!

Day 141 mood: Happy and relaxed.

Sure enough, my designer had changes – enough to keep me busy until 1PM.  Round 2 of the chip is now done.  The two of us discussed moving pads as I was headed out the door — bonding was suddenly an issue.  My replacement thought she had a bond-out, but had never worked with our much more conservative packaging house before.  Our packaging guys wouldn’t accept her bond-out.  I had told her this a week ago, but she didn’t believe me.  On Monday, I’ll move the pads and send out another bonding diagram request.  This one will get through.

Looks like I’ll be working about half a week at my former company, and then I’m done; maybe forever.  I meet with company #3 on Thursday next week.  I haven’t heard from company #2.  Maybe they are trying to do the layout themselves.  If they can, it would save them money.

In the evening time, I drove my daughter to gymnastics and back again, and then we went to a talent show at her middle school.  Wow, many of these 7^th and 8^th graders were really good… and a few weren’t.

Day 138 mood: Yeah, Friday!

On this day, nothing happened.

OK, that’s not true, but it felt like it.  I had enough work to keep busy all day, and I finished (round 1 of) the chip.  I got home, watched a little Tour of California, and then went to band practice.

Day 137 mood: Sort of “neutral” feeling.

I took today off so I could watch the Tour of California, which rolled by today.  I have yet to miss this event in six years.  I think it is simply wonderful that I live by a stretch of road that the riders actually fear, and that the Tour considers vital – Sierra Road.  The first four years, the Tour went right by my church – another nice stretch of road.  In more recent years, they’ve missed the church, but have always hit Sierra Road, which is a scant five miles away from my house.  Since the grade is 9.5% at the base of the hill, this is a great vantage point to see the riders because they slow way down.  It sure beats seeing them on the flat or coming down a hill, like at my church, because then they are traveling 30-50 miles per hour.  I want to see their faces!  Today I saw, Chris Horner (today’s winner), Levi Leipheimer & Andy Schleck in front and a tired and dejected Thor Hushovd bringing up the rear.  Thor has not been feeling well, and might abandon.  He looked absolutely peaked when he pedaled by.

Down in the merchandise area, I saw a “Lance Armstrong” Nissan GTR.  What a cool car!  I also got to walk by all the team busses (twice) because I parked right by them.  When I got home, I saw on TV that Bob Roll was broadcasting from the merchandise area… and I missed him!  Oh well.  I also showed up on TV today in about 10 frames of the Sierra Road footage.  My kids were so excited to find me in the crowd.

While I was watching the Tour of California on TV, my friend Bill called me and invited me to a movie (Priest – a terrible movie).  Hey, why not, I was off today.  He paid for my ticket as a thank-you for all the call committee stuff I’ve done over the last year and a half.  I was so taken by his generosity, I was all choked-up!  What a good friend!  He made me feel special; made me feel valued.

Day 136 mood: Happy and fulfilled

Today was part church work and part chip work.  I had a rather good meeting with the church staff this morning and then I went on to work a very long day.  I failed to mention this yesterday, but I completed my half of the top of the chip by 10AM, so I asked if I could take over the other half of the chip (a really big switch and a cell).  My replacement said yes (she has another project anyway), so yeah, I am now the sole layout person on the chip.  I spent yesterday compacting the switch, and I spent today redoing the cell.  The designer had so many changes that it seemed better and easier for me to blow-up the cell and start over.  I stayed late because I was determined to finish the re-layout so the designer could spend tomorrow looking at it while I was off watching a bike race.

The evening will be spent with the call committee.  I’ll present the staff’s concerns and helpful suggestions and see where things go from there.  At this point, the call committee needs some outside help and the staff is well suited to the task.  It is my hope that our two groups can work together to help our church get a pastor.

I also failed to mention that over the weekend (while I was gone), my wife’s Mother’s Day present arrived – a new Samsung washer and dryer.  OK, so we needed a new dryer anyway… and Barbara was able to cart off the washer to her school so she can wash dish towels (she run’s Home Economics among many other things in her classroom).  It was timely.  Barbara and I did purchase the units the day before Mother’s Day, and delivery was expected on Mother’s Day, but Lowe’s double sold the remaining units, so they had to find two more for our delivery.  The units were last year’s award-winning, top of the line units, but as they were discontinued, they got knocked down $200 each, and there was a 10% off sale on top of that (not to mention that starting this year, they charge $100-$500 for anything other than white — $500 for stainless steel / silver… which is what we got, AND the price went up $200 per unit for this year’s model for no apparent reason – the specs are the same!).  I got a heck of a deal, not soon to be repeated, and I’m sure we’ll be happy with these units.  They look so futuristic, and they play a happy tune when the laundry is done – not an annoying, high-volume buzz like our last units.

Day 135 mood: Weary but hopeful.

Well, after a glorious weekend, the realities of Monday set in.  Work was good, but it was still work, and the church folk are getting uppity again.  It would appear that I need to expend some energy to keep bad things from happening.  Unfortunately, I appear to be one of many who are unintentionally causing problems.  With better communication, and a lot more forgiveness, people at church wouldn’t be so angry.  I need to communicate better, and just keep on forgiving (and hope that others do as well!).

Day 134 mood: Suddenly, very tired… and it’s only Monday!

I have a day off today!  I’ll be going on the Men’s Retreat to spend time up in the woods, enjoying the company of other men, reading my Bible, and eating way too much.

Day 131 mood: Anticipating a glorious weekend (even though rain is predicted Saturday night/Sunday).

Yeah, I’m on the top level of the chip at Company #1.  I’m on the home stretch… except that half the chip is still in flux, and I’m not the one doing the layout of that part (yet?).  I may be waiting for others to finish next week.

Company #2 has not called me in two weeks now.  I don’t know where they went.  Company #3 just cancelled tomorrow’s meeting in favor of one in two weeks.  I hope they haven’t changed their minds about my involvement with them.  This consulting stuff definitely requires a bit of flexibility, patience and trust.

Last night’s band practice was awesome.  Part of the “fun” was getting there – across town in rush hour traffic.  It took me about an hour.  A couple of weeks ago, I went there with my yellow car and took a traditional route.  It took 45 minutes.  This time, I took a southern route in my blue car.  Though it was longer, traffic seemed to move at a more consistent rate, and there was this section of highway that was dead flat and completely free of cars – during rush hour! – so really, I could have driven as fast as I wanted to.  It’s too bad I had the blue car!  At the beginning of this stretch of open highway, I was just behind a Boxter.  The Boxter dusted me.

Tonight is another band practice, but with a different group.  In theory, I’m only there to do a Bible study, but I understand that the bassist there can’t come, so I may get roped into playing tonight.

Day 130 mood: Happy that my “weekend” starts now.