Back to school

Today is Labour (Labor) Day, in celebration of which I do not labo(u)r.

Tomorrow is the first day of school. Tomorrow, I labo(u)r. Possibly a lot. Tomorrow, I begin a new chapter in life, and start to figure out what some of the decisions we made over the last six months really mean.

For the curious, I am taking five classes this semester:

• Ceramics Studio
• Design Studio
• Drawing Studio
• Painting Studio
• Visual Culture I

The first four are art classes. Each meets once a week for four hours, and I am told to expect four hours of homework from each per week (which will have to be done in the studio rooms themselves in most cases) except for ceramics, where I should expect eight hours of homework per week, all in the studio.

The last class is from the Art History department. I chose it as this sequence (Visual Culture I & II) looks more interesting to me than the traditional, chronological art history presentation, but I could be wrong. Additionally, the class has a new instructor, just hired into Langara College. It will - no doubt - involve extensive reading and writing papers, and thus add to the homework commitment.

It is my goal to post about art here, as well as other aspects of life. As I have previously mentioned, though, I don't yet know how much time I will have for anything other than course work, so time will tell. Please be patient as I adjust to the new schedule and get my life in order, again.

Thanks all!

More Canadaisms

A few more Canadaisms, just because.

Canadians call it a "buggy", not a shopping cart. I have no idea why.

Here are a few things about Canadian money. Some of these you may know, but they still interest me:

• Canada has a $1 coin, colloquially called a "Loonie" because it has a loon (the bird) on the back. It is slightly larger than a quarter, and is gold in color making it relatively easy to distinguish in a handful of change (unless you're blind, I suspect). Why the US $1 coin has not caught on I don't know. Probably something to do with merchants not having space in their cash registers for them.
• They also have a $2 coin, called a "toonie". It's larger than a loonie and has a gold center surrounded by a silver outer ring. Again, it's pretty easy to distinguish from other coins.
• Oddly, as an American, the hardest thing about Canadian currency is telling quarters and nickels apart. They are similar in size, and since the art on them is not what I am used to, I actually have to look closely and think about it. Someday that should be easy, but a month of rarely using cash is not long enough to get me to that point.
• Canadians don't use pennies. They are still legal tender, but you can only deposit them in bank accounts. Merchants round things to the nearest nickel when dealing with cash. The US should have done that a long time ago.
• Another oddity is getting a large amount of change but no bills. Imagine you pay for something costing $1.21 with a $5 bill and getting $3.80 back in change: 1 toonie, 1 loonie, 3 quarters, and 1 nickel. No bills. (And note the rounding down to $1.20 on the cost.) That pile of change still doesn't feel right.
• When paying with something inexpensive with cash I still look for $1 bills in my wallet. Every time. I might have 15 loonies in my pocket, but I don't think about them yet.
• Canadian bills have lots of color and transparent plastic in them. They are much prettier than American bills, in my opinion.

And finally, the name of the last letter of the alphabet is pronounced "Zed" not "Zee", which makes the end of the alphabet song fail to rhyme, among other things. It doesn't come up often, but it clearly marks me as not Canadian when it does happen.

My wife is still employed

Some of you may recall that my wife (Anne) brought her job with her as we moved to Canada. Her employer - Oracle - was willing to do that, and it works for us in ways related to immigration and other things.

So you might understand that there was a bit of heartburn a week or so after we arrived when rumors of a massive layoff began circulating at work. These rumors were so significant that all work on hardware projects stopped. (My wife is a hardware diagnostics developer - she breaks microprocessors for a living, and she's very good at it.) Instead everyone was making connections on LinkedIn and revising resumes. This was serious stuff.

And the rumors were right. Friday, Sept 1, 2017 saw a large layoff; hundreds of people. This was reported in the press, so I am not telling tales out of school. Nearly all of Oracle's SPARC development staff was let go.

Nearly - but not quite - all. A few were kept on, and Anne is one of those who stays employed, at least for now. Exactly what that means entirely clear yet. Tomorrow some of that information should start to flow. I won't be able to write about most of what she learns, so there won't be a lot of closure on this. Time will tell how it all goes down, though.

Most importantly, we know a lot of people who are now looking for work. It was a very long weekend, with people checking on each other. We wish all those impacted only the best. May you find some place better to work, or something better to do, whatever that means for you.

Take care.

The Eagle Has Landed

Short post today.

We've arrived at our rental home in Richmond, BC. It's still here, exactly as we left it a month ago.

The dogs are exhausted and clingy, but they seem to be realizing ("realising" in Canadian English) that we're staying here for a while. At the moment they are all stretched out on the floor around Anne as she talks with her mom. We went for a long walk this morning and that combined with the stress and the complete lack of desire to eat anything other than junk food (which always happens on long car trips) makes for tired puppies.

Today we build a list of things to do while Anne organizes ("organises") the kitchen. There is a bit of shopping to do, and I get to start mowing the jungle (formerly a yard, before it was left unmowed for months). That will take me several days, I am sure.

The moving truck doesn't get here for a week or more. When it left our place in the Santa Cruz Mountains it was heading to LA, and then to Calgary. It will arrive when it arrives. We're fine.

Not much else to report for now. More in a few days when I have started to catch up.

New Adventure, New Purpose

As I write this, Anne and I are prepping for our next big life change: we're moving.

To Vancouver. Canada. Yes, really.

I know. We've lived in the same place forever. We have friends and roots and deep connections to the community, but we have decided it is time.

You can read some of the reasoning behind it over here.

With this change in our lives, I am repurposing this blog a bit. And yes, I know it has been a while since I posted here at all. Such is life.

But, while I may still ramble on about things that matter to me, or that interest me, I also intend to discuss the process of moving to Canada, my school work there, and so on.

Some of those reading this post will know me from my role as a moderator of a particular email list for Santa Cruz Mountain residents. In that role you'll know I really tried to keep my comments there on point and balanced. I avoided political topics and hot issues. And I will continue to do that within that list until I am no longer a moderator there.

But here, the rules are different. Here, I get to talk about whatever interests me. And I get to cross over into things that I would probably not say in the mailing list.

So beware. If you think you know me, or what I think about a given topic, you might find you are not correct within these pages.

Anyone wanting to is welcome to email me - assuming you have the email address - if you have comments on these posts. But you'll note that there are no comments here. That's because I find commenting on most sites to be a problem.

If you have something to tell me, email me, or call me, or find me on twitter, or (shudder) possibly on Facebook. Perhaps what you have to say will prompt a reply here.

Otherwise, please enjoy the site, and come back from time to time to see what (if anything) I have added.

Downsizing The Entertainment Gear - part 2

Those who read my earlier post about the entertainment stuff know the situation.

What has gone on since then is pretty simple, really.

I followed through on the HK equipment and got a set of freestanding Elfa shelves to use as a new rack for it and the few things I am keeping.  The rest of the old gear has been hauled off to a place in San Jose that will go over it, fix what they can, and sell it all on consignment.  No idea what I will get for it all, but it is out of the house and we have much more air and floor space as a result.

Other than the HK receiver requiring that the TV be on when you change input sources (I guess it has to tell you it is doing something via the screen, even though the front panel notifications are more than adequate) it works perfectly, and sounds great.

I did a lot of digging on wall mounts for the speakers as well, and that is a project coming soon.  There will be a picture in the end, I suspect.  More when I know it.

Downsizing The Entertainment Gear

As per my previous post from sometime back in the dark ages, we are remodeling our kitchen.  In fact, we are almost done, and the results are great.  But, of course, once you start something like this, you discover a slew of other things that need doing.

This post is (I think) the first in an ongoing series of posts about a very specific problem... making a big, ugly, but reasonably nice entertainment system much smaller and nicer, without blowing the budget too far out of the water.

For that to make any sense, you first need some background.

I was an audiophile at one point in my life.  While I never spent thousands of dollars on most of my gear, I own reasonably nice stuff that dates back to the audio equivalent of the Cretaceous period: aka the 1980's and 90's.

Well, that over simplifies, because not everything I have from then still functions or is used.  I long ago gave up entirely on vinyl.  (Why it is making a come back I have no idea.)  I never wanted or liked tubes either.  (Distortion is distortion.  If you like the way your tube amp sounds, that's fine with me, but I don't really care about it.  Solid state amps might sound a tiny bit different than tube amps - particularly when pushed hard - but at my age, and with my ears - the idea that I will hear any difference is laughable.)  Tape is dead, too.

Digital is the way to go, and I remember the days when people were happy to buy albums that were recorded on digital masters.  Now no one talks about that era... and everyone who cares about high fidelity is doing vinyl and tube amps and (maybe) putting green marker on the edges of their CDs (Google that one if you're too young or your brain is failing an you no longer remember it.  Snopes.com is a good place to start.) and other things I think are bogus.  Just give me reasonable quality gear and simple lamp cord to connect the speakers.  That's all I want.  (No, really.  Anyone buying high end speaker wires, power cables, or power conditioner boxes is being ripped off.  A fool and his money, you know.)

Anyway, despite going digital, life is more complicated now, particularly in the area of video, which isn't something I have had to mess too much, but that is changing.

Enough rambling.  Here's what we had in the big pile of entertainment gear when the kitchen remodel started:

• A Rotel receiver.  About 100 watts per channel (only 2 channels).  Irritation: stand by mode (rather than being totally off) and an annoying pop that is emitted to the speakers when you first power it up from being fully off.  It's done that since it was new, alas.
• A Marantz 5 disk CD changer.  (I have chewed through and spit out so much Sony gear, particularly CD players that whine after a year or two, that I will never, ever, buy anything made by Sony.  That is irrational of me, I know, but I simply won't go there.  Every single thing I  have bought that was made by them has irritated me in a big way, except a phone answering machine that we finally ditched because we wanted to avoid the tape.  Yes, really.)
• An LG blu ray player.
• A Philips DVD player.  (We keep this only because somewhere in our DVD collection there is one disk that causes the blu ray player to choke.  Everyone tells me I am crazy and that should never happen, but it does.  The problem is that we don't know which disk it is now.  We might just ditch the DVD player and the problematic disk when we find it, but that hasn't happened yet.)
• A Nintendo Wii.  We are not big gamers, but some of what is available for this machine is fun.
• A Philips 32" somewhat high def CRT TV.  1080i was the best it could do.
• A Sanza Fuze mp3 player.  (I have a long standing hatred of all things Apple because they have hacked me off in a manner similar to Sony, as mentioned above.  I don't buy Apple gear as a result, and thus will not and do not own and ipod or an iphone.)  For the Fuze I also have a dock sort of thing that will let me connect it (via 3.5mm or RCA jacks) to a stereo device.
• A pair of KEF 105/3 speakers.  These were the biggest single investment in anything audio related in my life.

Note that I have spared you the ancient separate integrated amp, the separate tuner, the turntable, and the cassette player.  All junk now, and all gone (or going).  And you can learn more than you want to about me by noting that I never bought a separate pre-amp and power amp(s).  Could have.  Didn't.  Money has always had better uses for me.

So, the first thing that happened during the remodel is that we had to move entirely out of the upstairs for a week while floors were being refinished.  That meant that the TV had to move too, and being a CRT it was big, heavy, and did not fit on top of the dresser in the bedroom.  Too deep to go there, and there was nowhere else to put it.  That meant we got rid of it and replaced it with a Samsung 40" LED TV.  Low end Samsung... this isn't expensive stuff... I think it cost $600 or something.  Cheap in the modern world.  Amusingly, though, the Samsung has a very narrow bezel, and the old CRT had a very wide bezel.  As a result the new TV is only about 1" wider and 1" taller than the old one, but increases the viewing area substantially.

We are happy with the new TV, which has worked, looked, and sounded just fine (to us) so far.

Next up, the floor refinishing ended, and we moved things back upstairs.  Very quickly we determined that things had to change up there.  (Remember, we're tearing up the world, and change is a given.)  The first thing that was obvious to us was that the TV had to be wall mounted so we could get rid of the TV cabinet that had been under the old CRT.

I researched for a while and selected a Cheetah mount that gives me 26" of extension, so I can move it a fair distance, and mounted up the TV on it.  Not bad, but now the sound quality is poor.  Dialog in movies is hard to make out.  (Note, we aren't running the sound through the stereo... just using the speakers in the TV.)  It turns out that when the TV was on a stand and sitting on a dresser or TV cabinet, it sounded good, but when hung from a wall mount nothing deflects the sound towards the listener, and the net result is less than ideal.  Grrrr.

In addition to that problem, the KEF speakers, while they sound wonderful, are way too frigging big for us anymore.  We barely use the stereo as such, and having those huge things taking up floor space and looking gigantic is just not what we want.

Time to downsize.

The first step was to do a ton of digging, looking for ways to simplify life.

Every manufacturer has moved to HDMI these days, which I guess makes sense, but neither the Wii nor the old DVD player have HDMI outputs.  Now, depending on the choices we make as we go forward, the DVD player could just disappear, but the Wii we'd like to keep.  That means making it cooperate with the new TV setup, however that works, and that is something of a challenge if we put an AV receiver in the mix.  (Most AV receivers that cost less than, say, Greece, don't do video upscaling or convert non-HDMI inputs to go out over the HDMI cable. So you wind up connecting everything from the source to the receiver, and again from the receiver to the TV, creating a rats nest of wires and having to tell the TV to change input sources every time you change input sources on the receiver.  PITA.)

Looking at this logically, the first problem was the Wii.  How to make it talk simply is step one, and today, finally, I found a cheap answer.  I hope.  There is a Chinese company named Lenking that makes inexpensive video conversion equipment.  Among other things they make this Wii to HDMI converter.  It plugs into the back of your Wii and gives you an HDMI port.  No power supply, nothing funny, just convert the composite video and RCA audio outputs of the Wii into HDMI, and upscaling to 720p or 1080p.    Reviews on Amazon vary about how well this works and how well made the device is (or isn't), but for the $21 I just paid, I will give it a try.  (Most amusing are the reviews from people saying that the converter from company X failed, so they tried one from company Y. They are all clearly made by just one original source, folks:  Lenking in China.  The US distributors merely silk screen on a logo and sell the things.  Get a grip.)

Anyway, assuming that Wii converter works when it arrives, then the next step will be to replace the guts of the world.  At the moment I am leaning towards replacing nearly the entire setup (receiver, speakers, blu ray and DVD players) and going with this blu ray AV receiver from Harmon Kardon.  This would do everything we need and has AUX inputs for the CD changer and mp3 player, so it may be the answer.

If we go that way I also need three adjustable shelves on the wall below the TV mount, but that is trivia.  I'd need to arrange to attach the center channel speaker to the TV mount, which should be possible, I guess, and wall mount the left and right channels.  The entire thing is much smaller than the current setup, and should be much nicer to look at, while still having reasonably good sound quality and all the features we need.

I think.

But one step at a time.  First we try the Wii adapter to see if I can make it work, which means I can avoid AV receivers which to video upscaling, which is good.  Then I reassess the world and see where things stand.

If anyone reading this has any comments please feel free to leave them.  I know I am out of my depth here, and any information is appreciated.

Transitions

Last night as I drove to the stone carving class I teach I had a thought.

I've been unemployed for almost two weeks now, and I am noting some things about my own behavior and expecations that are interesting, at least to me.  Conversation at the class expanded on the issues as well.

Four years ago, when I stopped working the first time, I transitioned out of my job carefully.  I documented what I did for my co-workers extensively and handed off the tasking to others.  In addition, the nature of my work was somewhat different then.  While I worked on big, important systems with hundreds of thousands of users, I wasn't generally on call for support.  At least not regularly.  In a pinch I might get a call but I wasn't on the hot seat on a day to day basis.

During the last year things were different, and my exit was more abrupt.

This time I was working on systems that required more supervision and manual intervention.  That meant I was on call - 24x7 - for problems that customers, support, or automated tools might find.  In addition, every time I opened up my email I first looked for notifications about anything that might have gone wrong or that customers needed assistance with.  Those always took priority and required fixing.

Living like that meant there was always a level of adrenaline in my bloodstream.  Even now, just writing about it, I can feel it.  Keeping the system working and the customers happy was, effectively, a constant, low level engagement of my fight or flight reflex.  For the last year my body has been adjusting itself to that level of stress.  Now I have to become adjusted to a much lower level of stress and that's taking longer than I'd like.

There are behavioral things that go with this change too.  While working, my morning ritual was to get up, throw on some clothes, and check email to see what (if anything) needed work.  If something needed attention it got it, before breakfast or a shower, and well before driving to the office.  Correspondingly I'd check email several times a night while at home for the same reason, and deal with anything that came up then too. 
Now, of course, there's no reason to check email that often, but I still do.  Maybe that will change with time.

Last night, as I mentioned, those at my class pointed out other things that go with a high stress job, things that are missing now.  The feeling of being needed and the status that goes with being the one others turn to, for example. And yes, I am vain enough to care about those things - just about all of us are - and their absence is another thing I have to adjust to.

It turns out that being RIFed is very different from quitting on your own.  I know I've mentioned that before, but two weeks later the difference still looms large.  I couldn't discuss my departure in advance with anyone at the office, of course, so there was no ability to plan and hand things off carefully, as I would have liked.  That leaves me with guilt about what those who remain are dealing with, and a lack of resolution on my side.

I suspect this level of discomfort will go on for some time, no matter how much I wish I could get past it more quickly.  Just about everyone who is let go from any job probably suffers similar issues.  For me it only drives home the point that many companies should treat their employees a whole lot better than they do.  Letting people go should be the very last resort.  And if it really becomes neccessary, involving them in the process and giving them time to make the transition would be smarter for everyone involved.

At least, that's how it looks to me.  I'd much rather have taken a couple of weeks at the office to hand off my work to others and make sure - as best I could - that they knew what they were getting into.  Instead I was walked to the door because that was company policy.  Not good.  For me or the company.  Oh well.

So many little things change...

One of my former coworkers said something like the following yesterday: "Changing all of my contacts from 'co-worker' to 'former co-worker' is a drag." He's right, but that's just the beginning.

There are so many little things that need revision when you change jobs. In my case it extends to odd things. I had all kinds of bookmarks in my web browser for work related sites. Those can go. I moved my websites from my employer to another hosting provider, which means all kinds of things change.

My morning rituals change too. Until Friday morning I got up and logged in to work to see if anything needed my attention immediately. Then I went off and got ready for work. It's very different now, of course.

None of these things is a big deal all by itself, but they add up to something that I can imagine being depressing. I'll be fine. I wanted out, in fact, but my exit was actually involuntary. (About 1/3rd of a very small staff that had already seen significant reductions in size through attrition was let go. The implications of that are ugly for those left behind.) Still, the fact that I was let go, rather than choosing to leave on my own, gives some things an odd twist.

In any case, Now when I sit down in front of the computer my tasking is very different. In a week or two it will all feel natural again, I'm sure, but it's still a bit off.

Endings and Beginnings

Yesterday the company I worked for followed through on things that had been going on for a long time. From my perspective things started going down hill some months back, when we had two consultants come in to evaluate the organization. (Anyone else remember "The Bobs" from Office Space? Yes, it was something like that.) Others tell me strange things were going on before I even hired back in, but most didn't know or note them at the time.

In any case, yesterday I was let go. The technical term for this kind of job action is "Reduction In Force" (aka, a RIF). As I understand these things, there is a legal difference between a layoff and a RIF. In a layoff, the company is obligated to hire the employees back preferentially if their jobs become available. In a RIF the company has decided these jobs are being eliminated permanently, and as a result no one will be hired for a similar job for some period of time.

In my case, the company is clearly not going to be hiring more people like me for a long, long time. Probably never again, in fact. They're taking a hammer to the organization that was Concentric and sucking it into XO completely. Those of us who did Concentric specific things are on the chopping block, now and probably in the future, though (of course) no one in charge anywhere would say or admit that.

As a result of these events I begin a new part of my life today. A life once again without work, at least for now. I don't know how long that will last. I might have to (or even want to) go back again. I might do some contract work, or not. For the moment I am taking a wait and see attitude, and using the time to catch up on a lot of things that have been put off over the last year.

There will be some changes in this blog and more changes to my sculpture web site. There will be additional posts in the new art blog, and I think I'm going to start a third blog as a place to put my personal book reviews, since that'll be simpler than the way I am currently publishing them. I probably need to spend some serious time learning web design more than I now know it, and I have a web site to play with for my fencing club for that little effort.

On top of all of that there are lots of projects around the house that have been put off for months, and a lot of stone carving to do too. I want to do some fiction writing as well. Maybe some of that will make it's way onto the web if I like the results.

In all, I have no shortage of things to do, and now I have a lot more time to do them. I'll keep you updated on things here too, of course.

Many thanks to the support I have received from friends who already knew about the RIF. I am amazed at the support I get from all of you. It means a great deal to me.

And so, on with day one.

No, I don't "Tweet"

Here's another in a series of posts that will almost certainly offend some of my readers. I apologize up front, but I stand by my premise...

Yes, I am something of a Luddite, but that doesn't mean I'm completely nuts. Lately I am starting to think certain uses of technology are simply a bad idea. Consider:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Power Point in the school

All of these suffer from a single major issue: they encourage tiny thinking.

Yes, I know that Twitter has become a major news source, and yes that's a good thing. It may even be a democratizing influence, but all kinds of technologies with a few good uses suffer from huge drawbacks. I'm not going to make a list by way of example. If you can't come up with a few genies that did both harm and good when let out of the bottle you're not trying.

Put plainly, Twitter actively discourages complex thought. Far too many Americans can't string even a few words together. If the current generation grows up communicating in ultra compressed text snippets I really don't want to think about where we'll be. I am certain I won't like it though.

Facebook looked interesting to me after I started using it, and there are a lot of people I simply don't see that often. Our hectic lifestyles mean I'd never know what they are up to without Facebook or something like it. Lately, though, I've encountered something I don't like: people are mirroring their incomprehensible twitter feeds into their Facebook status updates.

Maybe I'd understand them if I did nothing but follow Twitter and/or their lives in depth, but I have a wife, a job, dogs to take care of, and things to to in the real world. Trying to understand these cryptic messages typed in on phone keyboards from the middle of nowhere isn't going down well with me. In truth I could probably ignore those - possibly by disabling the feeds from the guilty - but there's a related trend, and it's just as disturbing: short, pointless, repeated Facebook status messages.

How often do I need to know that someone is tired, or is going to bed? The minutia of daily life is just that: minutia. Tell me about the important things - or even the semi important things. Did you get a new job? A new house? Get engaged or divorced? Celebrating something important or had an epiphany of some sort? Great! Share away. Tell me about your kids, the things that made you whoop for joy or scream in despair. I'm fine with all that, and I will whoop or cry with you. I'll even do my best to support you when you're down. Just please don't use the vast resources of the Internet to tell me you're home from work.

Years ago I heard a story on the radio about a pathological diarist. He documented every little thing in his life: what he had for lunch, at what time, where he sat while he was eating it, what he was going to next (after updating his diary), and so on. As I recall he was in his 40s or 50s and his diary was many, many books, all full of hand written, pointless drivel about nothing. I pitied the guy, and I suspect that vast diary will be thrown in the trash when he dies. No one is going to care, and all that effort is wasted.

I feel somewhat similar about people I know telling me (and all their other Facebook friends) they had green beans with dinner. Part of what causes these kinds of status updates - besides most of us (myself included!) having nothing important, relevant, or useful to say the vast majority of the time - is that the silly status box is so small. Facebook doesn't limit you to a tiny comment like Twitter, but the interface encourages it, and recent design changes at Facebook indicate they're moving farther in that direction. Yet again a powerful tool is helping make all of us - or at least its users - less capable of complex thought.

I must admit I've posted pointless status updates myself many times, but I am trying to stop it now. Actively working at it. Feel free to tell me this blog post qualifies as the same kind of inane babble, but at least I am trying to address a complex topic - something I care about - and am doing so in whole paragraphs, with real thought behind them. (Or the closest analog to real thought I can achieve.)

The last item on my list - Power Point use in schools - is just as bad, and just as dangerous to the future. An entire generation is growing up thinking that the best possible communication path is animated bullet points that slide into place on a screen with sound effects. "The Panama Canal is in South America. Click! Ships go through it. Click! The US helped build it. Click! And that's my presentation. Can I get my 'A' now? No? But I wrote the right number of bullet points and I had pictures and everything!"

How many avid readers do you know? How many of them are kids?

What about writing? Does anyone you know write more than a hundred characters with regularity? Probably not.

Nothing encourages thoughtful, intelligent communication anymore, and the technologies listed here are radically changing the way we communicate whether we like it or not. I am not optimistic about the direction of that change.

A Sad Day

This week someone I work with announced his resignation and I'm not happy.

Over roughly 20 years in high tech and 4 years in college I've worked for several companies, and with some truly brilliant people. I hope none of those people will be offended when I say that no one I have ever worked with or known - anywhere - is as amazing as David Schairer.

The experience of working with David is unlike any other I have had. I once likened working with someone else to drinking from a fire hose. That individual was a source of amazing amounts of information in his field, but there was no ability to control the rate at which the information came out. He could do his job well, but teaching was not something you wanted him to try.

David is entirely different.

First, he's a true polymath, astoundingly well versed in a huge number of topics, ranging all over the technical map and going beyond into classics, languages - both modern and ancient - and vast realms between. British naval history, whiskey, oddball web comics, and any number of other things are stored in his head. In depth. Every conversation with David is a new window on the world, full of twists and turns, unexpected connections, and an amazing variety of facts.

Beyond that, David has the ability to read others and throttle back if he's overwhelming those he's talking with. Truth be told he doesn't always do so - he's so far beyond most of us that it's hard for him to slow down - but he can present just about any information in clear and concise ways, keeping it interesting, lively and relevant. He can entertain, enthrall and teach all at the same time. This ability makes him an powerful mentor, even if he's not thinking of himself in that role at a given moment.

Of course there are some things that David doesn't know, and when those come up he's honest and says so. It doesn't stop him from contributing to a discussion, but you always know where he stands. This particular trait is related to - and probably springs from - an underlying honesty I find particularly appealing.

Another of David's abilities is idea generation. Present him with a problem - "How do we do X?" - and he will supply multiple approaches before anyone else has come to grips with the problem. His ability to see solutions to the kinds of issues we encounter is second to none.

On a personal level, David has been someone I can ask questions of at work - almost regardless of the topic - for my entire time at Concentric. He's one of a core of supremely gifted individuals that make working here so interesting, and who keep me on my toes all the time.

Now, I'm sad to say, David has decided to move on. My job will not be the same, and we who remain will miss him, both professionally and personally.

There are still brilliant people here. That was one of the attractions of Concentric, and why I came back here when I returned to work, but David's departure will leave a gaping hole to fill, and it will not be easy.

I look forward to following David's exploits in the future. And if it should come to pass that I can work with him again, I will be thrilled. He's one of a group that created a level of personal loyalty and intellectual challenge that I have never found anywhere else.

All the best in your future endeavors, David. I'll miss you.

Pippin's memorial service

Yesterday was the memorial service for Pippin Seales. Pippin's death was the event that I mentioned on October 12. The one that slapped me back into reality. At this point I can tell you his name because it's been in the local papers ever since he died in a sand dune / cave collapse at Natural Bridges state beach in Santa Cruz.

As it happens, I didn't go to the memorial service. I offered, instead, to stay at the home of Pippin's parents. Apparently thieves read newspapers these days. As a result they know when funerals are taking place, and thus when homes are easy targets. I stayed at Pippin's home to make sure the house wasn't empty, and head off any trouble. Perhaps that's a sad commentary on our times, but it's better to be prepared. Naturally nothing happened, but if my presence gave the parents some peace, it was time well spent.

In some ways I got to know Pippin pretty well in that home. His picture appears in many places, and the evidence of his life was all around me, just sitting in the living room. The love and devotion of his parents was obvious as well. They may live there, but it was clearly Pippin's house.

For one so young - he was only 11 - his life was grand, and his experience broad. He will be greatly missed.

If you're a parent, please give your kids an extra hug tonight. I may be far too sentimental, but the truth is that nothing in this world is certain. Make sure your children know you love them. The same goes for your parents and friends. Spend each day living the way you want to live, as best you can. These are all clichés, I know, but that doesn't make them less true.

Pippin Seales died at his own 11th birthday party, in the company of friends he loved, in the place he wanted to be, and doing what he very clearly knew he wanted to do. That's quite an example. I hope we can all follow his lead.

It's Official

As the title says, it's official. I'm going back to work. The offer letter has arrived, I've said "yes" to my hiring manager and HR, most of the paperwork is filled out, and so on. Unless something changes or moves more slowly than expected, I'll be back in the office in a bit over a week.

As with many things in life, a choice like this closes some doors as it opens others. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating: I'm going back to work with good people, and I'll be involved with interesting products & projects. That's all good. But, as a consequence I give up the life I've lived for the last three and a half years; a life I've really enjoyed. Alas, if I want to be sure I can eat regularly when I'm 75, I don't really have any choice.

I don't plan on discussing work related issues in this blog. (In fact, until I actually start working again I won't even mention the company name, though many of you know it already.) The reason for that is simple: this blog is a personal thing. My sculpture will continue, of course, and that will get discussed here. In addition, this space gives me a place to write about other things, most notably water supplies and politics, given the list of recent topics. A bit of work stuff may sneak in here - opinions about things tangentially related to work, perhaps - but even that should be kept to a minimum. In any event I hope you find my musings interesting.

Thanks to all the people who've gotten in touch to express support, astonishment, or regret as I make this transition. Your comments and thoughts have meant a lot to me. Again, thank you.

Tomorrow - well, technically, today, as I couldn't sleep and am writing this at something after 3am - brings another event that I'll write about. One that no one should have to experience. But that post has to wait. Somehow, I need to get some sleep. More soon.

Economics and Personal Lives

The past few weeks have been painful for the world economy, and they've hit some of us directly. I'm one of those so affected.

Three and a half years ago I quit working and assumed the title of "kept man". I had hoped to spend a lot of time working on my art, and the rest of my time doing other things. Looking back, I did do a bit more carving, but not as much as I'd hoped. To be honest, I let other things get in the way. That's not to say the time was wasted. I've been very busy, become a volunteer fire fighter, done a bunch of projects around the house, and so on. But none of that matters at the moment, because the economy has wrecked our plans.

Back when I quit working I always said I was "pseudo-retired". I figured I might decide I wanted to go back or do some contract work. Leaving my options open seemed smart. But I enjoyed my time not working, and it made a lot of sense to stay home. I didn't want to go back to work. I still don't. External forces, however, don't care about my wants.

Next week I go in for an interview. I sent one email, asked one question, and was floored with the response. I'm honored by that reaction. I need a job, and it appears they have something for me. A good fit. And these are good people, creating good products.

I should be happy, and in some ways I am. But tearing up my life because the worldwide economy can't get it's act together - because some nitwits in investment banks decided to sell bad mortgages like they were candy - just feels wrong.

Assuming I get the job I'll still be carving, but my time will be even more limited than it was. And that list of projects I have for around the house will take longer to get through. And I'll be a lot more tired.

So a big, personal "thank you" to the brilliant minds who created sub prime mortgages, credit default swaps, and all the other derivative investments no one really understands. Your poor judgement has impacted many people around the world. I know I'm just another in a very long list, but I also want to see you rot in hell.

From my perspective, Anne and I did everything right. We saved early and often. We invested somewhat aggressively since we're young, and were (and still are) way ahead of the pack in terms of retirement planning. But now - as things continue to get worse with no end in sight - we're back to the basics. And I'm probably going back to work.