Life After Work

Today I discovered that my favorite IC layout tool company has some new products, and those new products are on sale.  If they can do what I need them to do, I will certainly purchase them.  They will no doubt be better than the free tools.

I’ve definitely made headway with the free tools, but I’m not sensing that I will be finished with my work by Friday no matter how many hours I put in.  I am (currently) too slow on these tools.

Good news (?) Bery says that I don’t need to start my Band Bible Studies until after Easter.  There’s just too much stuff going on right now.  The studies begin in two weeks.

Having said that, I still have my class this Sunday, so the second half of my day was spent getting a smog check and oil change done while I read from my main book source (aside from the Bible) for the class.  The book is fascinating, but goes into a lot of tangents.  Problem is, it’s the tangents that I find fascinating!  I’ll be sure to include some of them, but I’m trying to concentrate solely on the Easter story if I can.

I’m also still waiting on a phone call to see if my friend from Kyrgyzstan is coming.  I’m sort of frustrated because the person arranging her travel is not being communicative at all. It’s almost like he doesn’t want her to come… and she may not if he doesn’t get on the ball.

Day 101 mood: Juggling.  Hoping to finish two tasks, and get a visit scheduled.

Woo Hoo!  100 days!

I don’t know if I should be overjoyed with that, but it is nice to have a non-structured life.

Today, I actually worked (it helped that my family was gone for much of the day).  Unfortunately, the work was “coding” (writing computer programs).  Any day I work with code is a very long day for me.  Me and code don’t get along at all, but sometimes it’s necessary to code things if you want functionality.  Today, I created a process environment for the free layout tools that company #3 will use.  After a very full day, I’m mostly done.  Tomorrow, I can finish the last touches and then begin to layout out devices.

I think it helps (at least for me) to hit the ground running early in the morning with the hardest tasks.  That’s what I always did in corporate life, so I’m sort of surprised that I haven’t been doing the same at home.  I’ve been using my mornings to get all the easy stuff out of the way, or exercise, but then I get too tired or I lose focus on the bigger, harder tasks afterwords.  No more!  I will now save the smaller stuff (and exercise) for late afternoon.

I also turned off my email today.  This too helps.  Email is extremely distracting, especially as one gets older (or so I read on yahoo-news during lunch).

Now that it’s evening time, I’m turning my attention to the Adult Ed class.  It’s not that I want to give God second priority, but in looking over my week, the chip work absolutely has to be done by Friday morning, but I can spend all Saturday if need be to work on the Adult Ed class.  Having the class prepared by Thursday would be nice because then I could use it to teach the band… but it’s not necessary.  I can use other material to teach the band… and maybe some of them will come to my class on Sunday anyway.  The youth are playing this weekend (allowing me to teach!), which also frees up all the elder band members to go to my class.

Day 100 mood: Mentally tired, but satisfied with my progress.  Now if I can make some headway on the class before my evening meeting.

My family is on Spring Break this week. I can’t expect to get too much done, yet I need to. I have two things that I would really like to get done by Thursday: An “Easter” class for Adult Ed, and creating/finishing a working IC library and process environment for company #3. The thing is, each one is a week’s worth of work, and I might succeed in one or the other… if my family wasn’t home. Based on today’s constant interruptions, I’m going to get neither done.  And so, I’ll try harder and work longer.

Truth is, I also really want to spend some time with my family because it’s not often that they’re off, and so I will definitely block out some time for them, in addition to the blocks of time I’ll need for the other two assignments.  In my former corporate life, I always maintained that family came before work.  Things should be no different now that I work at home.

In other news, I booked plane tickets and a rental car for our family trip to New York this summer. I’m kind of bummed that the plane ticket prices went up a hundred dollars (each) this past week, but I wasn’t ready to purchase the tickets last week so now I have to pay the consequences. Fortunately, I was able to pay for three of the four tickets with credit card points. That sure saved a bundle!

Today was also “bills” day. Last month’s bills weren’t bad, but our current burn rate is a lot higher than it should be (figuring in this NY trip). At our current rate, we’ll be out of cash in a little over a year. That kind of puts a crimp in any ‘round the world’ trip I might have planned for this fall. It also means that I’ll need a somewhat steady stream of income sooner than I thought I would unless we can cut down on the expense side of the equation. Maybe this is the kick in the pants I need to get moving on some things.  I need focus, purpose, direction and self-control.  Mostly, I just need to start my projects in earnest.

Day 99 mood: Perhaps this is a direction from God: Brian, START SOMETHING!

Not much to say really; I spent much of the day adding content to my website.  It is taking me quite a bit of time to install each blog because I’m now playing editor with my own work.  By lunchtime, I had installed all of January’s posts.  I guess I’ll do the rest tomorrow.

There’s a movie I want to watch after lunch, and then I need to study for tonight’s Lifegroup Bible study… and that will be pretty much it for the day.

Also on the horizon, study-wise, is my upcoming Adult Ed Easter class.  I need to plow through the section “The First Easter” from the book In the Fullness of Time by Paul Maier this coming week.  I had used “The First Christmas” from the same book for my Christmas class.  The book won’t read itself; I’ve got one week to complete the study, and I’m a slow reader so I should start reading this today.

I’ve also been tasked with doing Bible studies/devotionals every Thursday at band practice starting next week.  I don’t mind at all, especially since I get to use the materials I’ve put together for past Adult Ed classes.  Since the band plays during the Adult Ed hour on Sundays, most of them have never seen the material.  If I can get on the ball with this Easter class, I might get to preview it with the band on Thursday; otherwise, they’ll get last month’s Nehemiah class.

Day 96 mood:  Kind of an easy day – free of chip work.  I should do this at the end of every chip project!

Another “extended” day at my former company; I thought that I might only be there for an hour.  I was there for three hours, but they were very productive hours.  I also talked to my former boss a number of times and he was very helpful and positive.  Alas, the chip ships out today and chip #2 won’t be ready for two weeks.  I’m “out of work” for two more weeks!  On the plus side, this means that I’ll be able to spend all next week with my family; they are on Spring Break next week.

Another thing that is brewing, and has been for a while, is the possibility of a friend coming to visit.  This is a big deal because she is coming from Kyrgyzstan.  She was my interpreter when I was there ten years ago, and we were pen-pals for eight+ years after that.  We have only recently stopped emailing each other largely because when I was in Kyrgyzstan a year and a half ago, I didn’t have time to visit her new office/facility, and that upset her; that, and because she’s no longer a teen-ager who needs my help or advice.  She’s now much older, and has two kids.  Emailing me is no longer her priority.

I really do want her to visit, but at the same time, she works for a different non-profit group than me, and there may be an agenda behind her visit.  I hope not.  I would love to have her come, but it could get awkward if her main intent is to solicit my church (there is a bit of history between our two groups because her group came out of my group.  The two groups have different philosophies, and they don’t always play well together.  My group is Christian-based, her’s is really not).  I guess we’ll see how this plays out.  My friend is already in the States, and she wants to visit on the one weekend in May that I’m away.  I hope she can be flexible in her schedule.  If not, then she may not wind up here, or someone else would need to take care of her.  Either would be a shame.

Hey, good news!  My friend Bery came over and showed me how to set up my blog site.  Starting tomorrow, I can start to build-up my site.

Day 95 mood:  Hoping that things can work out.  Happy to have a functioning website.

Today was a work day.  My former company (and really, my replacement) wanted me to come in and go through all the paperwork so my replacement could send chip #1 out tomorrow.  This training exercise went well at first, but then we discovered a few things that needed to be addressed, and it slowed us down.  My replacement will now need to make a few things right before tapeout tomorrow.  As a result of all this, I wound up staying a lot longer than I had anticipated, which turned out to be really good in a way, not only because I get more money, but because today, as it so happened, was free pizza day in the office!  I got a free lunch out of the deal, and the pizza was excellent.  I will also be back tomorrow to finish up the paperwork, and do a little more training, so more money!

As a result of my extended day, I didn’t do much work in other areas, but I still felt pretty good about my day.

In unrelated news, my wife and I need new cell phones, so I started looking at the whole Android vs. iPhone thing, and just for kicks, I also reviewed iPad vs. Kindle.  I’m still not convinced that there is enough of a “need” for me to have any sort of e-reader, and even less so if I wind up with a smart phone.  I’ll be able to do most of the things I want to do with the phone, but I still need to do a little more research.  I want the iPhone just because of its “cool” factor, but there are also compelling reasons to go with the (HTC) Android phone.  My wife and I will go “shopping” next week, so I will need to develop a stronger preference (through research and word of mouth) prior to that.

Tomorrow is also the day that I officially launch my new website.  I’ve had the URL for nine months now and haven’t done a thing with it!  Tomorrow, my tekkie friend Bery comes over to help me set it up.  To this point, I’ve been “blogging” in MS Word because I wanted to build up content prior to the launch.  I have a lot of content!  I’m just not sure that anyone will want to read it, or that anyone will find it useful in any way.  At least my grammar skills should be improving.

Well, I’ve got to learn a new song for band rehearsal, so it’s time to turn on the iTunes and grab an axe.

Day 94 mood:  Happy, satisfied, anticipating being productive tomorrow.

Yeah!  I passed 90 days over the weekend.

At the beginning of this “assignment,” I was really looking forward to day 90 and day 180 to see what kind of progress I had made.

Both articles and friends (and my wife, who went through this five years ago) stated that it would take me at least six months to grieve the loss of my job, and then feel rested enough to start doing something new.  Well, so far, those prognosticators are all right.  I have done a few things, but really, the emphasis is on “few.”  For some reason, I thought that I would do better than average.  Turns out, I am very average.  At least I am beginning to think about starting something (several things, actually) to gain some momentum, but I have yet to pull the trigger on anything.  There is still hope for me and my future, but only if I actually start something soon.  That’s been my problem so far.  I have found all kinds of “useful” things to do that have kept me from starting anything substantial.  I have been procrastinating.

That ends today.

Enough wallowing, enough of getting side-tracked; I’m going to find some things to do and I’m going to start doing them.  In about a year and a half, I’m going to need an income, so I have to start building things now that might generate a profit!

It’s also obvious to me that at this point, I should have already done any solo traveling I was intending to do.  I can’t afford to do that now; I’m busy.  I will travel with my family this summer, so it’s not like I’m skipping travel all together.  After the summer is over, if I’m not still consumed with work (and wouldn’t that be nice!), and I feel I still have the money to spend, and I have updated my passport, then I’ll think about that solo trip.  From April through August, I believe my plans are mostly set.

Day 93 mood:  I feel like starting something!  (BTW, I just finished the book, Poke the Box by Seth Godin today.  The book is a manifesto about “starting” things.  I feel so empowered right now!)

Much of the day would be spent with Customer #3.  We talked design and tools and next steps, and then went to lunch.  Lunch was good.

I drove home after that, and the engine warning light in my little yellow car went off again.  It seems to be doing that once a month!  Could this yellow car be a lemon?

When I got home, I watched an old movie, “Cuba,” starring Sean Connery.  The movie was very good, and I learned a little bit about Fidel’s revolution.  I’d sure like to go to Cuba some day.  It’s definitely on my “to do” list.  Guess I’ll need to see if the US government has lifted the ban on visiting Cuba.  There was talk about it, but I don’t know if actually happened.

I spent the rest of the day reading.  Both books that I am reading right now are fascinating!

Day 89 mood:  Nice, easy day.  Today was warm and bright as well.  I’m not used to that, and truthfully, I prefer cool and overcast.

I started to work with a free layout program that I had loaded some time ago but had never opened until today.  It was VERY different from all previous layout programs I have used.  This thing came with a steep learning curve!  I went through the tutorial, and then began to look at what it would take to make this thing run the way I want.  It would take a lot!

Before jumping headlong into this program, I figured it might be wise to at least look at some other free tools that were available, and ask a couple of “paid” program places how much they charge.  If the rest of the free tools turn out to be as cumbersome as I think they’ll be, I might just plunk down a couple of thou for a “real” program if I know I’m going to use it for years.  Company #3 intends to purchase my favorite layout tools once they begin to make a profit, but that won’t be for at least a few chips.  I need cheap or free tools now; but tools that work for me.

It took me no time at all to load another free tool, but then I tried loading a third free tool that I had found, and that one required a Linux emulator of some type, so I loaded that… and it didn’t work.  Unfortunately, that third piece of software took a long time to load and set up, and by the time I had finished (and realized that all my efforts were for naught), it was time to go to band rehearsal.

Day 88 mood:  My brain is absolutely numb from going through that tutorial.  I can now draw boxes and lines with the program, but not quickly, and I need to be quick.

Hey, yesterday was great!  I learned Quickbooks, and I was feeling stronger towards the end of the day.

My wife and I had a wonderful date for lunch.   We went to a Chinese Vegetarian “tofu” place, walked around the mall a bit, and then came home and relaxed until the kids came home.

This morning was supposed to be “set up” day for company #3, but I found other things to accomplish – installing a new DVD-RW, a hard drive, and Dragon Naturally Speaking 11.  All are needed additions to my computer.  And while I didn’t start any work for company #3 today, I did have a nice chat with the owner of the company, and I am set to start fresh first thing in the morning.

My son comes home early on Wednesdays, so I thought I might spend some quality time with him.  He enjoys quality time.  We started with a guitar lesson.  He is showing improvement, now that he’s actually practicing.  I think it helps that he’s finally learning a song he wants to learn.  That’s how I started.  He picked a challenging one too: Boston’s “More than a Feeling.”  Man, if he can play that, he’ll be able to play a lot of things.  After the lesson was over, we watched a “Rocumentary” on Rush.  My son only knows two Rush songs, and it was my hope that he would see the genius behind this band.  He may have gained a little appreciation.  At least he sat through the whole two hours.

I love Rush, and have since the 70’s.  In my clubbing days (in the 80’s), I covered a couple Rush songs (always in the first set, since no one dances in the first set, and no one can dance to a Rush song) and after my club days were over, I honed my bass skills by continuing to practice and learn Rush songs.  I figure that if I can play Rush songs, I can play most anything on bass.  Now if I can only find a drummer and a guitarist with similar Rush skills…

Day 87 mood:  Happy.  I accomplished much, but not necessarily what I wanted to accomplish, so I hope to do better tomorrow.  Today felt like procrastinating.