Gee, I didn’t get much done today. On the plus side, I did make some awesome meatloaf – so awesome that my son would actually eat it! It, along with the mashed potatoes and potato skins, was a hit with our Tuesday night boy’s group.
The meat part of the meatloaf was made with beef, onion soup mix, magi, eggs & bread. I then rolled that up with thinly sliced spam and (over hard) fried eggs. Yummy!
My wife and I were alone much of Saturday. The kids were off tide-pooling with friends. Apparently, Saturday was the lowest tide in 3.5 years. The kids were able to walk 1/3 of a mile offshore. We went on a date (Indian Food!).
On Sunday, Bery and I were the lone singers/musicians – a little Simon & Garfunkel action at church. It was well-received. That evening, we had dinner at a friend’s house – too much pizza! Hey, at least it wasn’t another turkey meal.
Today was an awesome day at work. I did many things and none of them were layout. I had on my Ops Manager hat on. Tomorrow, I’ll do layout.
I’m also moving my writing focus to Bible Studies and (hopefully) a book I’d like to write, so you can expect these blurbs to get shorter. I have attempted to write this book a couple of times, but I’ve never lasted more than a month. This time, I hope things will be better. This time, I have accountability partners to push me on this (and on weight loss, and on getting a physical).
I think it’s just nuts that people line up outside of stores in the hopes of getting some deal. With the advent of the computer, shopping online is far less stressful, and the deals are just as plentiful (and at least for now, tax-free and often with free shipping – how can a brick & mortar store compete with that!). As my sister said, “she could shop naked if she wanted to in the stress-free environment of her home, but she couldn’t do that if she was at a store.” Kind of an odd way of stating it, but I get her point. Neither of us like crowds or stupid people, and there are plenty about on Black Friday; plus the hours suck. It’s best to stay home.
I don’t believe I’ve been to a mall for Christmas in six or seven years. Why start now? What used to be “Cyber Monday” is now Cyber Friday as well. I found some killer deals on Amazon, and I never had to leave the house! They will all be delivered over the next week or so.
I also downloaded a bazillion apps. on my iPhone. I don’t even know what some of them do, only that they were recommended. I’ll play with them as I have the time. This iPhone can really be a time-waster if I’m not careful!
Tonight is “leftover” Lifegroup. Our traditional Lifegroup will bring their leftovers to our house and we’ll have a second Thanksgiving dinner. I have added milk and cottage cheese to my gravy and mash potatoes, respectively, in the hopes of desalinating them. No luck; they are still way salty. I am so displeased!
I cooked much of the day — Thanksgiving “lupper” for the family. We ran out of regular salt, so I used the fancy “mountain” salt we brought back from Hallstatt, Austria. I did not realize that this was some sort of “super” salt. It was WAY saltier than Morton’s, and everything suffered as a result. In my mind, the Thanksgiving meal was simply ruined. The kids liked it, but then they like salt. I couldn’t make a fist after the meal, and I was thirsty for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, I shall attempt to desalinate my leftovers before they are served to friends.
The evening was spent at some friend’s house – a second Thanksgiving dinner. We didn’t eat much. As usual, our friends assembled a collection of interesting people and we all had a wonderful time socializing. Later in the evening, my daughter got a whole bunch of people together to play “Kems,” a simple card game that’s great with groups. We all played that until it was time to go home.
Fun day at work – I wound up working very little in the traditional sense, but instead drove around in my Porsche all day visiting folks and “schmoozing.” I looked at a facility, had a business lunch, and called people. When my wife got home, we went to the AT&T store and got iPhones!
Yeah! My wife and I now own 4S phones; mine’s white and her phone is black. I look forward to using the new apps. One cool thing the phone guy told us is that we can now “unlock” our old phones and use them overseas with a local SIM card. I will certainly do that! I don’t want to take my iPhone overseas if I can help it.
I’ve had a headache all day; must be the weather. I hope it’s gone by tomorrow morning. I have a full day of cooking (Thanksgiving) and I want to enjoy that experience.
Well yeah, my boss says I can be the Ops. guy. The only downside of this (besides all the additional work and learning) is that should we get acquired some day, Ops. is the first thing to go because any company acquiring us would already have that position. In true startup fashion then, I’ll wear many hats. In case of acquisition, I’ll simply lose a few. There is no guarantee that we’ll ever be acquired, and our “plan” calls for us to grow organically, borrowing from angel investors until such time as we can sustain our own cash flow. I’d rather do that anyway – it keeps the startup happy and friendly, and then we all avoid having overlords telling us what to do. I’d rather be my own boss, and right now, everybody in the company is “upper management” – we’re all VPs!
Tonight is church (Pre-Thanksgiving service), and then band rehearsal for Sunday. We’re doing things acoustically this coming Sunday, which means me on acoustic… and nothing else. I guess I’d better get to practicing!
We had a friend come over to visit us today at work. As usual, he would like to help us in some way. I hope he can. We could use all kinds of help.
Today, I also made my intentions known that I could really help the company by moving into operations management. With our current mix of employees (and my background), it makes sense for our company to do this, and truth be told, I’d rather move there anyway – it’s where the action is in a start-up company. Also, I’ve been doing layout for over 20 years now, and I’d like to do something more than just layout. We’ll see where this goes.
My daughter got an iTouch this week. She is so excited! I don’t know how long she has been saving for it, but she paid cash, and she is now downloading apps (through my account).
Next week, my wife and I will get iPhones. I hope we can all use the same apps.
My boss came back (early) from Asia today. China was worthwhile, Korea was not. Oh well, I guess we will sell in China. Perhaps it will simplify things – fewer planes to fly; fewer spread-out customers to visit. I am a bit concerned (as is my boss) that with our current sales projections, we won’t make a lot of money next year, or at least not enough to get paid. Heck, we might burn through any cash we make building more production parts and tooling up our latest ICs. I could see that happening. We may not even be able to afford reliability testing (which I am working to secure right now). We definitely need to “find” some money from somewhere until we can start sustaining our sales at a fairly high level. We’d really like to get to the $2M range by mid next year ideally. It can be done – one “killer” part can sell $10M per year. We just have to get our current part out, and it must work the first time. No pressure.
Nothing earth-shattering about the last two days; I worked, I rested. I still have this cold/allergy thing going on. I did get to visit a potential vendor yesterday, and that was fun. The facility was nice and clean – a plus in my book – and my contact was very pleasant, and he really liked my car. His VP has an anniversary edition Boxter that my contact would also like to own very much. That VP had a huge Porsche poster in his office – a true fan! Too bad he wasn’t around.
The weekend was long and sniffly. I did get a lot of rest though, and because our house got thoroughly cleaned on Friday, I did not die from my allergies over the weekend.
I was still sick on Monday, so I took the day off (including writing on this blog site). During that time, I watched a movie and a fair amount of TV. I also began to put together a study I’ll be teaching in a few week’s time. In the evening, I led a church meeting and it went alright. Today, it was back to work. I don’t know that I got a lot done today, but it was nice to not be in bed. Now that I’m home, I realize how very tired I am. I guess I’m not entirely cured yet.
