I took today off from work so I could concentrate on church things. In the morning, I helped set balloons up in the ceiling for Sunday’s “party.” They’ll be dropped on the crowd at the end of service. It should be fun. After that, I rested a bit then practiced bass in preparation for tonight’s “Men’s Retreat” band rehearsal. That too should be fun.
Day 115 mood: Yeah, church day!
Good thing I’m “off” tomorrow (working at church instead of company #1). The layout folks are going faster than the designer is right now. We need to let him catch up!
My guess is that company #1 asked me to come back to work about a week too early. Management thought that the chip was ready, but I guess they forgot to ask the designer. On a chip this small, we’re going to run out of productive work fast.
Day 114 mood: Happy and productive.
Back at company #1 for chip #2. Day one of this project started a bit slow, but ended well. I feel good about my progress and I think this is going to be a good project. It’s a “smallish” chip, which means I should be able to knock it out in a couple of weeks.
I also had the world’s most expensive lunch with company #3 today. The sandwich was only $5, but the Angel Investing amount was much, much more. I hope for many, many returns on my shiny, new preferred class A shares. I own part of a company!
Day 113 mood: A little poorer, but happy.
I decided to spend my last day of freedom doing anything but semiconductors. Instead, I created a quiz on Italian Renaissance Artists on Squidoo, analyzed my IRA, since I’ll be “rebalancing” it after the first of May, and I went out with my buddy Ray to Starbucks, since today is earth day, and they were offering free coffee if you provided a reusable mug.
That walk to Starbucks hurt a bit, not because I’m out of shape (which I am), but because I twisted my ankle while running through the park to catch the “green” crosswalk light. I made the light despite the pain, but I’ll be moving much slower for the foreseeable future.
I was also informed that Olga will not be coming after all. She misses her kids too much, so she’ll go back to Kyrgyzstan rather than come to California. She may show up in future years. Although I’m sad that she’s not coming, I am at the same time relieved. I had too much on my plate. Cool thing is, I’ve been praying that my life in May would be simplified, God already said that He would take care of it by knocking a few things off, and now He’s doing it!
Day 110 mood: Delighted that I had such a nice day (despite the ankle).
I am suddenly feeling like all my free time is about to go away… and in fact it is. I started feeling a window closing this morning. After my talk with company #3 yesterday, it would appear that my work for them will begin to ramp up in early June. They also want me to come in once a week between now and then so I can work with the designer. This would be fine if I didn’t already have two other contracts coming up.
I still haven’t heard from company #2, and I don’t expect to anytime soon. They usually call a few days before they want me to start, and the current proposed start date is still three weeks away… which brings me to company #1. They called today. I start on Monday with them. I am happy, and somewhat relieved, that their schedule didn’t slip any further on the latest chip. I thought it might (I even scheduled some things next week because I was sure they would!). By not slipping their schedule, it gives me a chance to finish their chip before I move on to company #2. If company #2 shows up on time and I can get their chip done in a few short weeks, then maybe I’ll have no parallel effort going on at all. Wouldn’t that be great?!
Well, for a person whose time is running out, I accomplished very little “work” today. I read a fair amount, installed the latest version of “Dragon Naturally Speaking,” bought a Kindle (I’m out of shelf space for books!) and I went to lunch with one of my former teammates (good lunch!). It was great to see Kevin again. He is so happy now that he’s contracting, and it sounds like he has a few places lined up after his current six month contract.
One of Kevin’s possibilities is a contract with my former, former boss. I had given my boss a less than enthusiastic response when he asked me if I’d do the work, so maybe he’s seeking Kevin out instead. Kevin would be a better fit for him anyway. It could also be that he’s trying to line Kevin up to do the chip for company #2, since my boss is also contracting with them on a different project, and I didn’t give company #2 the sunniest of assessments on how long it would take me to do their chip.
Oh ya, my wife was home today as well, but she stayed in her room and I stayed in mine for the most part. We both had stuff to do.
Day 109 mood: Gaaah! One more day of freedom! My next day of freedom won’t be until I go on vacation in mid-July!
Today was a good day. (Man, I wish I could start off every blog like this!). Breakfast with friends was great, I got some chip work done, and then I met with company #3, which mostly went well.
The reason I went there (to demo layout software), didn’t happen… so that wasn’t so good, but I did learn a bit about the software from the “demo” engineer — enough to make a decision on how to proceed — and then I had a good chat with one of the owners afterwords. When I got home, I noticed that my Tax refund had landed. I’m now a bit richer, thanks to some overpayment that happened during the year.
Since I don’t have a steady job, I’ll certainly take the tax “rebate” – it will be used to pay for my quarterly taxes moving forward! It should also help fund my vacation.
Well, on to practicing bass – there sure are a lot of services happening this week (It’s Easter week!). Our band is playing at most of them.
Day 108 mood: Happily hitting the leading edge of Easter Week.
Wow, there’s a reason I do devotionals every morning – I learn more about God, and He speaks to me in the process. He spoke to me this morning, and I got some absolutely wonderful advice. You can find part of it on my “Random Thoughts” blog (April 19). It always feels good to know that God has your back.
Aside from an excellent devotional this morning, not much happened. OK, that’s not entirely true: I did set up three appointments, and I did work at various tasks throughout the day; chipping away at the larger whole as it were. To accomplish any large task, you must do it one small piece at a time!
Day 107 mood: Happily productive.
I spent much of the day being “sad.” After spending the weekend praying about this job offer, God has made it clear to me that I should not, at this time, take the job. On some level, it’s scary because this means the potential loss of a lot of money, but I need to trust God. He has the plan for my life.
While being “sad,” I also spent nine hours today really analyzing my portfolio so I could sell off a huge chunk of stock… so I could invest in company #3. This turned out to be a good exercise because, as luck would have it, I suddenly have a lot of stocks that really need to go – the market is changing (down) – and the combined total of those stocks screaming “sell” just happened to be the right amount.
Unfortunately, I also spent around two hours today doing email. A lot of coordination type stuff came up and it required my attention. The month of May is going to be insanely busy for me. I have a pastor visit and a men’s retreat in the first half of the month, and then it would appear that I will be working three contracts simultaneously just about the time Olga shows up for a visit. I had scheduled the contracts serially, but then schedules changed.
I will be really, really ready for my vacation in July… except that company #3 wants me to work for them while I’m away (since my vacation falls right in the center of their chip development). I might do some days, especially rainy days, but I can’t see myself doing an extensive amount of work. Vacation time is meant to be spent with family.
Day 106 mood: Sad.
I met with company #3 today, and they offered me a job. I was not expecting that, and I don’t really know what to think about it either. I am, of course, flattered, but I’m not entirely sure that this is what God had in mind for me when he released me from company #1. I’ll have to pray a lot about this. I don’t want to do the wrong thing. I also like the self-employed life of a contractor, and the possibility of doing something completely unrelated to semiconductors to earn an income. Working for them would feel not unlike that of a contract worker, but at the same time, they would “own” me. I would sense a loss of freedom. I’m also not entirely sure I want to commit the next 20 years of my life to semiconductors either. Well, whether or not I actually join, I have every intention of investing in their company (financially as an “Angel Investor” and through pro bono work) – I believe in them that much. If they succeed, then so will I financially. I’m taking a risk that they’ll be a better investment than the stock market.
Yeah, Hank called today. My friend Olga will be coming here at the end of May. Now I have to arrange things so she has a happy and productive time while she’s here. I’m going to delegate a lot in these arrangements – I have too much on my plate right now.
Having kids over last night turned out great: we watched two really funny movies; staying up until 11:30 in the process. They were so excited about their river park excursion today that they were up with me at 6:30 this morning. They should sleep well tonight.
Day 103 mood: Actually sort of melancholy.
I progressed on all fronts today. I might even have that chip work ready for tomorrow’s meeting.
Today, my favorite IC layout software company got back to me. After a brief discussion, the sales guy said that he would send me a quote for my current job, and then another quote for the start-up company (due tomorrow, 9AM). My quote was a “new consultant special” quote; all their tools would be available to me for a 10 week evaluation… for several thousand dollars. To make this work, I’d need more like a three month period, and something less than several thousand dollars. I was already sort of laughing over the ridiculous price, but the thing that really cracked me up was what was written in the body of the quote: it said “donation.” From their side of things, it probably was a donation, all those tools for only a few thousand dollars, but from my side of things… well, let’s just say that I’m not going to be using those tools after all. I can’t afford to donate several thousand dollars so that I can receive their software donation.
I never heard back from Hank about Olga’s trip to the Bay Area. Does this mean that Olga is not coming to visit? Perhaps not. I really did want to see her, but at the same time, she would be here while I’m a bit busy — I could be working on as many as three chips by then. Still, I’d make time for her if she came.
Tonight, my wife has invited several kids over so they can all go to the river park tomorrow. It’s going to get noisy around here! I’ll probably hide out in my bedroom and read.
Day 102 mood: Well, at least I got one of my two delinquent phone calls returned. Sure wish I had gotten the other as well.
