Year of the Startup

Over the weekend, John and I went to a “Cars & Caffeine” event (same place I went to last month).  We had a great time.  As we were leaving the event, my car got in the procession with all the “hot” cars that were leaving.  In front of us at the light was this poor little Toyota.  At the light, all of us fast cars zoomed past it on both sides like it was standing still.

After that event, I got invited to a mostly Vietnamese potluck.  The food was great, and some of it I even recognized.  My favorite dish turned out to be “cow innards.”  I thought it might be squid, but I was wrong.

Yesterday’s payment for mechanic services was exceedingly large, but my car runs great!  It was good already, now it’s like getting a new car.  I can’t believe the difference.  BTW, the payment for the yellow car was more than my blue car is worth!

Today’s meeting at work went well.  Some of the more negative cash-generating contingencies we have been considering were taken off the table, leaving us with the more attractive options to pursue.  We want cash, sure, but we don’t want all the baggage that comes with some of these plans.

Today, I gave a lunchtime presentation about my career in the field of music to a 40 person “honor band” at the local High School.  I thought it went well, and I enjoyed being with the young and hopeful band kids.  The band teacher was awesome as well.  He has really developed some good programs and some good talent.

In a few moments, a driver should come by and pick me up to take me to my car (there was more than a day’s worth of stuff to fix so I never got it back yesterday).  The bill is going to be really, really expensive.

The initial founders got together last night to talk about the company.  We’re getting low on cash, and we have some personnel shuffling to do because not everyone can continue with the company.  Not everyone can live without a salary for more than a year… we are now down to five and a half people.

I haven’t seen much of home recently – long hours at work – but when I am at home, the family has been wonderful and supportive.  Even little bits of time with them matter.

This morning, the yellow car went to have its 40K mile overhaul done and a smog check.  It’s going to set me back a lot, but I’ll have a tip-top operating speedster by the end of the day.  Man, this car is expensive to own, but it remains a fun car to drive.

Well I’ve had an interesting week; so much so that I haven’t been able to write.  The chip is due at work (drop-dead date is 5/15), but that’s not what we’ve spent all our time doing.  We’re in the process of changing our S-Corp to a C-Corp, so there has been paperwork to do.  We’ve also been working with one of our suppliers — trying to get better pricing and terms out of them.

Yeah, tonight is Lifegroup!  I’m looking forward to that.

Work was a mixed bag today.  It started with trying to calm my boss down.  I think I succeeded.  We then had a nice lunch with our business mentors, followed by some mind-numbing spreadsheet creation and some reading of legalese (and who doesn’t want to do that in the afternoon after a satisfying lunch!).  I’m glad to be home.

My day was split between chip work and meetings.  Actually, it was a pretty productive day all around.  Sad news though, my buddy John is going to go back to the company that let him go about six months ago (at a lower wage no less).  He needs the money, and right now, our company isn’t generating enough cash.  My guess is that once we do start generating cash, he’ll come back to us.  For now though, he’ll help us on an as-needed basis… though I can’t see this being a long-term solution.  I don’t want to burn him out.  Sigh…  This means that I’m going to need to step up my layout efforts, since that is what is required.  John made the right decision and he gave me a heads up that this might be happening, which I truly appreciate.  He handled this quite well.  Kudos also to his new boss (my old counterpart), who understands what John’s desires are, and is willing to work with them.  That’s good and gutsy management.

My day started off with me stepping in dog poo, not realizing it, and then driving away in my car.  It only took 100 feet for me to realize what had happened.  I turned around and cleaned up my shoe and my car before continuing on with breakfast.  After that, my day improved.

Yeah!  Pizza fundraiser tonight!

Yeah! Hours of uninterrupted chip layout!

I felt so productive at work today!  I had tasks to do in different areas, and I accomplished most of them.  John and I had some things to solve on our chip (still not taped out), and we were able to solve them by the end of the day, improving the chip greatly in the process!  I now feel better about the new project I’m looking at as well, which is a spin-off of the chip.

Tonight, the kids scatter to the four winds.  My wife and I will be driving in opposite directions; she to school with a girl and me to a youth event at the Great Mall with three youth.  Dinner tonight is on our own.  During my hour and a half between dropping off and picking up, I can go home, walk around the mall, or join the youth event.  I think I’ll go home.

Last night, the girls took the Meyers-Briggs test.  One is a “Composer” and the other is a “Field Marshall.”  I knew that my daughter would be in the rational (logical) quadrant with me.  She’s quirky and thinks outside the box like me, but I would not have guessed that Maddy was in the artist quadrant.  I was guessing guardian, like my wife.  Now that I read the composer profile, it’s totally Maddy.  I can hardly wait to see where my son winds up.  A few years ago, he was in the artist quadrant.  My suspicion is that he’s either still there, or has moved to the idealist camp.

Over the weekend, I had a blast.  My daughter was selected some time ago to represent her school for a big science event.  Saturday was that event.  300+ schools and organizations descended on the San Jose Tech Museum to test their engineering devices designed to rescue a doll off of a scale model of the Golden Gate Bridge.  In the scenario presented, San Francisco had an earthquake, and most of the bridge collapsed.  From the shore, only the main “ropes” remain to the first pylon.  Just ahead of that pylon is a lone section of road, but the road ends way before reaching the shore.  The goal is to rescue the person on that section of bridge.

The event was in groups throughout the day; grouped by grade.  At the end of each round, awards would be given out to the best teams (and the one who spectacularly failed – my favorite category).  My daughter must have come close to the spectacularly failed category, since their device got nowhere near the person, except that there was a team trying to catapult a net.  They were “spectacular” in their attempt and won that award for the middle school category, but it wasn’t as spectacular as the sixth graders who decapitated their doll in the act of rescue, dropped her off the bridge, then ran her over.  Now that’s spectacular.

A great time was had by the whole family.

Sunday was a pretty normal day until after church.  A group of us (including my son) got out the big hydraulic lift and installed new bulbs in our church.  The lights are between 15-25 feet up, so it’s a bit challenging, and the lift weighs a ton, but hey, at least it’s on wheels

Monday… well, not much happened today except for some angry driving on both ends of my commute.  It must be a full moon today or something – everyone was so aggressive!  I get no respect in my little Honda.