Year of the Startup

The weekend sure was fun!  Our family gathering was very enjoyable, as was the conclusion of Tour of France (Evans won).  I preached on Sunday and no one rode me out on a rail, so I guess it was OK.

Today was a day of cooking and cleaning.  I also did some work (you know, my job).

This evening, we had Holly & Brandy over.  It’s always nice to see the “kids” we grew up with.  They aren’t kids anymore, but wonderful company none the less.  I think they stayed up in the loft with Mindy (my sister) until 11PM; about the time I went to bed.  My wife was already in bed.  Tomorrow morning at 6AM, my family heads off to Pennsylvania to meet with her side of the family.  I’m staying here to get some work done.

Sort of an uninspiring day, but I did get a lot of rest.  I did no work today (though I did talk to work via Skype) and I haven’t gone outside as of yet (another 100 degree day).  I read a lot and watched Tour de France.  I have also conversed with various folks, which is always nice to do.

Sometime this evening, I’ll go outside to set up for tomorrow’s family event – I’ll put together an awning, sweep a little, and maybe move furniture around.  I might also get a haircut, take the kids tubing, or play Frisbee.  I know – simply wild.

Something I have been thinking about today:  Why did I rent a car?  I’m paying roughly $27 a day and I have thus far only used it to get to the lake.  Because it has been so hot, no one here has felt like going out anywhere.  I haven’t even seen the towns in the area yet, and usually I’m all over the place on a daily basis: No ice cream runs, no wine tours, no shopping so far.  Where has my motivation gone?  I haven’t even taken a picture yet, and I sort of promised myself that I’d take a picture (and post it on Facebook) every day.

Today was too hot to do much of anything.  The weather prognosticators said that it would be 100 degrees today.  It was 105 by noon.  My family spent the morning walking through a gorge near our house, and came back tired.  I spent my morning watching the Alps stage of the Tour of France (yeah, my guy Andy Schleck won the stage!), then I spent the afternoon typing up a sermon that I will give on Sunday at my dad’s church.  Though the topic is one that God has put on my heart, it is “Law heavy” and may be a downer to most.  Still, if God has put it on my heart, then either I need to hear it, or someone else in the congregation needs to hear it, or both.  So far, whenever I have given a sermon, somebody has resonated with it and will then tell me why it resonated.  It’s the Holy Spirit at work, not me, and so long as I allow Him to determine where the sermons go, someone will hear a message that they need.

(now getting off my soapbox) The evening was spent doing more tubing on the lake.  My youngest sister and her youngest daughter also arrived this evening to spend some time with my family and our neighbor’s daughter, who grew up with us.  As usual, it was great to see my sister again.

I actually worked much of the day – trying to modify a chip to send out.  As this was my first opportunity to really use my nifty new free layout tools, I… failed miserably.  I learned that there are many (deadly) quirks to this particular software.  The other two free tools in my possession are really no better, so I tried a different methodology to accomplish the same thing, which worked a lot better.  Still, it took me eight hours to do something that I could have done in about half an hour with my old tools.  I simply have to get better with the free tools until such time as we can afford to get real tools.

With work done, I turned my attention to my family.  My son had just finished cooking an excellent dinner, so yeah, excellent timing.  That smell was making me hungry while I was up in “the loft” (where my workstation is while I’m on vacation).  After dinner, the family tossed some Frisbees around, got tired (it was hot out!), and noticed that no one was on the lake.  We got in the speed boat and “tubed” until sunset.  After that, we played cards until bedtime.  It was a very good day!

I know that I’m supposed to be on vacation, but a fair amount of the day was a work day.  There was a request for immediate work that came up overnight, and so I took care of it early.

About the time I finished that task, my parents gathered around me to ask if we could strategize about Sunday’s service (I’m preaching and apparently  I’m now playing guitar as well).  I looked over the Bible verses of the week (the Parikope), and wouldn’t you know it, two of the readings were perfect for my topic.  We also found some songs that I know that the congregation also knows, and I set the ball rolling on teaching the congregation a new song that fits the sermon.  My dad’s local guitarist knew the song, so things should work out just fine.  And much to my surprise, my son volunteered to play bass with us.  He’s still in the early stages of learning bass, but he has some innate talent.  I think that is simply awesome!

With the bulletin in order, I went back to work.

Eventually, I finished, and then a group of us went across the lake to get the “fast” boat – The Eliminator — in the water.  I drove the kids around for a while in the speedboat, and finally noticed that the Sherriff’s boat was following us.  I guess they wanted to make sure that I was adhering to the new 35MPH speed limit on this lake (the boat will do 70, and it looks like it).  I slowed down and waived to them as they passed.  I guess they were satisfied.  I have had similar things happen to me when I drive the Porsche, except that I don’t waive when the police pass by.  On the water, it’s expected; on land, you’re asking for trouble if you do.

I got in the water after that.  The water is very warm this year, despite the lake being completely frozen over this winter.  I felt like I might be sweating while in the water, but it was pretty hard to tell.  Still, it was cooler than the outside temp of 90 degrees.

While typing this, my credit card company called me.  Apparently, some sudden East Coast charges popped up on their radar.  Someone was using the card right now at a grocery store and they were calling to see if I’d like to decline it.  It would have been funny to say yes, but I’m pretty sure my wife wouldn’t think it as funny.

Today was a travel day.  My family got up nice and early (4:30AM) to catch a plane from San Jose to Phoenix, and then from Phoenix to Buffalo.

Sort of a funny story (?), but I went to print out my tickets 24 hours before the flight, so I could get some good seats, and after three phone calls, it turns out that my credit card company reserved the flight back in April, but failed to pay for it.  I mean, how hard is that?  Two tickets were paid with air miles, but the other two were paid by me.  You would think at least two tickets were paid for.  Well, unfortunately, it took me half a day to correct this problem.  We had OK seats today, but they weren’t as good as they could have been.

On the second leg of our flight, we rode with a Chinese tour group.  They were all Jr. High or High School kids from central China.  The one who sat next to us was shy and didn’t really want to speak with us.  I think I spoke as much Mandarin to her as she spoke English to me.

When we got off the plane, we headed right towards, Cracker Barrel, a favorite East Coast destination.  Man, the food here is cheap and plentiful!  We left stuffed, and listened to Prairie Home Companion comedy CDs the entire two hour drive to my parent’s house.

Wow, I was so busy this week, I didn’t have time to blog, so here’s a summary:

Tuesday:  I spent the day looking at how to improve one of my company’s chips.  It needs some sort of design guidance as well, which is beyond my abilities.  In the evening, I went on a bike ride with my daughter, then we went to her favorite restaurant: Sendai.  She had lots of Sushi (which she pronounces Shushi).

Wednesday:  Another long day at work; this time completing the reverse engineering a competitor’s part.  Can we design it better, and on a completely different process?  My goal is to answer that question.  In the evening, my daughter and I went to see X-Men, First Class, which was an outstanding movie.  Following that, we used our free Burger King coupons (The two of us had stared at a Whopper for 45 minutes as part of a contest to win two free Whoppers).  I dropped my daughter off at a friend’s house after that so she could spend the night.  Tomorrow, she’ll go to another friend’s house to spend the night.

Thursday:  Woo Hoo!  I’m all alone… and so I spent much of the day in the office.  I learned how to make hierarchical schematics, which is not easy in the cheap program that we’re using.  Late in the afternoon, I met with a Reliability Testing firm, who hopefully will be able to verify our current designs at a low cost.  I’ll be talking to another group next week.  When I got home, I had just enough time to write up a month’s worth of Bible Studies for the band (while I’m away), and practice both bass and electric, since I didn’t know which one I would play (we have a lot of unavailable folks this week).  As it turned out, I only needed the bass.

Friday: Wouldn’t you know it, I forgot one very important pad of paper in the office yesterday – the one with all my hand-drawn reverse engineering schematics on it.  Once traffic died down, I made a quick 26.6 mile loop to the office to grab that pad of paper.  Maybe it’s just me, but recently there has been a rash of slow driving Asians who look like they are completely lost, or at least confused while driving on the road.  I met three today, and I’ve encountered maybe five this week.  I know it’s a full moon out tonight, which is when the crazies get into their cars, but sheesh, not only are these guys driving really slow, but they refuse to pick a lane and they aren’t paying attention to those around them.  It’s almost like they’re staring at the ceiling while driving – driving by Braille.  I almost got hit twice during my loop as I attempted to pass two different guys because they were somehow drawn to my car, or at least my lane while I was passing them – twice in one trip! (The third guy was just slow… very slow, and I had to wait a long time to get around him.  He was, of course, in the fast lane of the highway.  Let’s just say that the delta speed between his car and my desires was about 40MPH).

Tonight, all the family returns from their various places.  We will then spend the weekend packing for our NY trip.  Somewhere in there, my wife and I will also have to put together materials for a class that we’re teaching this Sunday!  My dad also hit me up for a sermon next week, so I’ll be preparing one of those as well.  I hope God will give me a topic for the sermon, and provide material for the class we’re teaching on Sunday!

Mood: I need a vacation!

Yeah, a successful visit with Pastor Matt; I was able to say good-bye to him today once he was done talking with the church staff.  Everyone seems to like him.

At work, it was a lot of emails and a lot of phone calls to coordinate things and set up potential vendors today.  I’m sure more of the same will happen tomorrow.  While this is important to do, it really cuts into my layout work.  When you have many hats, it means that you sometimes emphasize something at the expense of something else.  I’ll make layout a priority tomorrow.

The evening with my daughter was a lot of fun.  We played a Schreck video game for a while, and then watched a movie.  She also cooked spaghetti and made pudding (and how many 13 year olds do that?).

Mood: Busy day, so I’m tired.  I think I might also have allergy issues or a cold – sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the two.

Yeah, today Pastor Matt and family will begin four days of getting to know who our church is.  I was able to have lunch with him at a Mexican restaurant (Colombus, Ohio, where he currently lives, has no good Mexican food), and a whole bunch of us (the call committee) had dinner with him as well.  My wife spent about half of her time taking care of their two year old son, Killian, during dinner.  A good time was had by all.

Tomorrow morning, I will meet with him again, this time in my role as Elder.  Later that day, our youth will head off on a week-long mission trip in Nevada.  My son will be gone for a week.  My wife leaves Sunday for a week long teacher seminar, leaving my daughter and me behind.  When they get back, we’ll spend the weekend together and then we’ll all head off to NY for a month!

Sort of sad news – we’ll see – the trip to Kyrgyzstan scheduled next summer appears to be in jeopardy.  The main guy on the trip can no longer come, and without him, there isn’t much of a reason for the rest of us to go.  I can still bring a group there, but the field wants medical folks.  If I brought a team, it might have one nurse – the rest of us would be pretty useless unless the field focus changed.  I don’t want to go just to go.  These trips are very expensive and it takes tons of planning on both sides.

Mood: Anticipating where God wants missions to go, and seeing if Pastor Matt is the guy God is calling to Mt. Olive.

Sort of unusual for me – I drove around today to pick up parts (ICs), then get them decapped (tops removed) so I could look at them under a microscope.  At my last company, I wasn’t allowed to do this sort of thing because of my high position and high pay (I was too valuable to leave the building apparently).  Never mind that I was sometimes the best guy to do this (do some offsite failure analysis work).  It’s something that I really missed doing when I left my former, former company.  Well now, I get to do whatever is needed – such is the life of a person in a start-up.  This makes me very happy!

When I got home today, I got a call from one of my goddaughters.  Her car was making a strange noise and her parents are away all week.  I got to play car doctor (gee, two failure analysis gigs in a day!).  The sound is coming from her transmission or just under it (engine mount, or more likely the steering assembly), so she’ll need to seek out a real mechanic.  I only tinker.

Band practice tonight… and Pastor #2 has landed!  I get to have lunch and dinner with him tomorrow.

Mood: Lots of driving – I should have taken the yellow car.