Still here...

Work has been a bit overwhelming lately, leaving me depleted of mental energy. I'm really looking forward to our mandatory vacation next week. It will be my first full week off of work since March. Thankfully, there don't appear to be any plans for a repeat of this year's vacation policy, and I'll have the freedom to take time off during good weather.

A Geeky Interlude

We're doing some workload balancing at work this week. My normal job is interfacing with the customers of our customer semi-conductors (which generally means I make Powerpoint presentations and go to a lot of meetings). This week, I'm also doing some programming for our test group. It's a job that I used to do full time about 15 years ago, and have continued to dabble in occasionally since then.

I have spent about half my time this week working on two different functions. I'm working in a language that I don't have much experience in, so I spent a lot of time researching and studying to figure out how to make the code do what I wanted it to do. I wrote, tested, re-wrote, and deleted a lot of code. I finally figured it all out and re-wrote it more efficiently. And at the end of the day, I probably averaged less than 10 lines of final code per day.

But on the other hand, I probably got more of a sense of accomplishment with those few lines of code in a few days than I do on the bigger scale of delivering our chips to customers, where we work for a year or two before we complete a product, and then it's another year or two before the customer ships their product (which uses ours).

Engineering can be a very strange world. Good thing I don't get paid per line of code.

Unlucky #97

It was just another blood drive, upstairs in the office building. My 97th donation with the local hospital, nothing unusual except that it was the first time since the business trip to Korea, requiring a call to the main office to verify that I hadn't visited any malaria-risk areas. Nice, normally low blood pressure (92 over 60-something). Everything proceeded normally, they found a good vein, I got my crayon bandage (they say they use pediatric bandages because they don't hurt as much when you take them off), and I sat down with my bottle of water and a bag of pretzels. I browsed through a couple magazines (one dated 2007), and started to realize that I didn't feel too good. I had enough time to tell the gal across the table that I needed to lay down, and the next thing I knew, I was laying on the floor with my legs up on the chair and several nurses huddled around me. Yep, I had passed out.

I know that, in books, people faint all the time. But in real life, this was NOT a pleasant experience. When I came to, I had no idea where I was or who all these people were or why they were huddled around me. My brain was in a complete fog. They put a blood pressure cuff on me, and my blood pressure was actually higher than it had been before I donated (104 over 60-something). They brought a fan over, and my brain started to clear a bit, but I really felt awful - queasy, light-headed, and confused. After a while, I tried to sit up, but that didn't work, and I laid back down. Eventually, I was able to get up and go lay down on a donor chair, and at least get up off the floor in the middle of the room. A coworker who had been there throughout the excitement checked up on me, but had to go back to work. I stayed in the donor center for another half hour or so, and eventually took the elevator back downstairs (and I NEVER take the elevator at work - that's how bad I felt). I was too light-headed to drive, so I called Mike, and he came and took me home. I went straight to bed, and eventually was able to eat some lunch, and work from home for most of the afternoon, but it was definitely not a good day.

The donor center didn't have any conclusive reasons for my reaction, after all these years. The best guess was that I was coming down with a cold or the flu, but that hasn't turned out to be true, almost a week later. Just a fluke, I suppose, because they'll let me donate again. I think I'll skip one blood drive just to be on the safe side though...I surely don't want to go through this again.

Catching Up

Work has been crazy recently, with busy days and evening calls, and no mental energy left over for anything else. But I think things will start to settle down soon, so maybe I'll be able to come up with some blog-worthy topics. (Because I don't want to blog about work.)

How about cats? The other morning, Detour apparently got hungry well before the alarm went off. So she walked on me, and nudged my hand with her nose. I tucked my hand under the covers. What did she come up with next? She actually licked my closed eyelids, and then stuck her nose in my nostril! Not wanting to encourage this behavior, I continued to pretend to be asleep, and she eventually gave up and left. But I have to give her points for creativity.

Quilting: Last weekend was another HeartStrings day in Wisconsin. It was nice to get away and to nothing but quilt and hang out with quilters for a day. But I haven't had time to do much sewing otherwise.

Running: It was 46 degrees this morning when I started my run. It's been a cool summer, but I'm surprised I had to wear a long sleeve shirt in August. My foot is still doing pretty well, and I'm slowly increasing my distance and time. I'm a long way from where I was last year, but still hope to run a 5K this fall.

Home Improvement: Time to re-gravel the driveway. We also extended the culvert and had some fill dirt brought in to level out the slope in a couple places where cars tend to slide off in the winter. No excuses now!

Grand Prix food: Tomorrow is the Belgium Grand Prix. All I could think of for the race party was chocolate. Mike suggested waffles, which sounded perfect, and easy: we'll just take our waffle-maker to Tim's house and make them on the spot.

A few days in Seoul

As I expected, the trip to Seoul was almost all business. We were up early and working late, until we finally got a couple hours of free time on Friday morning. I walked around Namdaemun Market, near the hotel, but that was it for sight-seeing. The long flights and jet lag weren't too annoying, and the business part was pretty successful, so who knows? We may be doing it again sometime.

Leaving, on a jet plane...

The travel part of my job has never really materialized as anticipated, but that may be changing. Tomorrow, I'm heading to Seoul, South Korea. I probably won't have time to see much while I'm there, other than the route from the airport to the hotel to the customer's office, but that's OK. Even that much will stimulate my desire to see new places, maybe even enough to overcome the jet lag. It's not my first trip to Asia, but it is my first time in Korea.

My bags are packed (well, not really, yet), I'm ready to go...

Deja vu summer

This summer is shaping up a lot like last summer:

1. we once again mulched the asparagus bed with more cocoa bean shells
2. and we're harvesting asparagus now (Mike made asparagus risotto today for our Monaco party tomorrow)
   
3. I'm not planning a garden this year, but I'm going to try to grow some herbs on the deck, if the raccoon will let me
4. the phoebe (or her daughter?) came back to build a nest on the cable next to the gutter; after a battle of wills where I tore down the nest every day for several weeks, and she rebuilt it every day for several weeks, I gave up; we'll have baby birds at the front door again this year
5. we're once again hosting a Grand Prix of Monaco (and Indy 500) party Sunday, but we are desperately hoping that there will NOT be a repeat of the devastating Hugo tornado

One difference this summer is that I can't really take a vacation...due to a mandatory vacation schedule dictated by my company for the remainder of the year, all but two of my remaining vacation days have to be used on company designated days around standard holidays, like the Friday before Memorial Day, the Thursday before the July 4th holiday, the Friday before Labor Day, etc. So I get some four day weekends, but no full weeks off until Thanksgiving. They claim this saves money, and if it saves some of our jobs, I'm not going to complain too much. (Plus, we're getting a lot done around the house this weekend.)

It's been a long time...

It's been 25 years since I last had a holiday on Presidents' Day. (Or was is still just Washington's Birthday back then?) But in this post-merger year, we have a new vacation & holiday plan, and today is a company-wide holiday. It's nice to have a short break in the dead of winter, even if we haven't done much other than dress up and have a great Valentine's Day dinner. And now I have a four-day workweek to look forward to.

Dodged another bullet

We didn't know for sure if or when it was coming, but Thursday was layoff day at my company. We're just a small satellite office, less than 30 people, but 2 people were laid off. Plus several people from other sites that we've been working with. The aftermath is always a little strange, but I was so impressed by Dave, who was laid off on Thursday morning, but still spent the rest of the day trying to make an easy transition for the rest of us. Then on Friday morning (the bitterly cold -40 day), he actually brought in bagels for US! He will surely be missed.

Rumors are that Mike's company will be having layoffs next week, but he thinks he's not at risk (based on some things his manager has said to him). Once we get through that, things should calm down for a while. We've been through these cycles before, and we'll probably be through them again. Unfortunately, it's what we've gotten used to in the high-tech world.

__________________

Made Curried Couscous with Broccoli and Feta for dinner tonight, and it was really good! (We added some rotisserie chicken from the grocery store for more protein.)

The dreaded mandatory all-hands meeting

The invite for yesterday's all hands meeting at work included the word "mandatory" and really got the rumor mill going. In today's economy, there are plenty of reasons to be nervous, but luckily, the news wasn't that bad. Our project has been cancelled, or at least delayed indefinitely. A substantial part of the team has been reassigned to other groups that have too much work, and the rest of us are going to rework our existing design into a test platform for those other groups.

For me personally, I have a new manager and will be working with him to define my new job description. On the plus side, there were no layoffs, I'm still employed, and I'll be learning some new stuff. On the minus side, I won't be doing the kinds of things I thought I would be doing when I quit my old job, and probably won't be doing any traveling. But I'll still be working with a good team, so I'm trying to stay optimistic.

Anybody want a box of outdated business cards?

Working for a living...

I've been on a business trip this week, so don't have much to blog about. I'm in Austin, TX, where it's been cloudy and rainy and humid and hot. Heading home in the morning, back to the land of cool, hoping the airlines cooperate. Finished one book, and starting the emergency back-up book now.

Girl Scout Cookie Time!

Rusty approves of the box.

Did you know I was a Brownie? In the late 60's/early 70's? Yep. I sold cookies for a couple years. And I do mean that -I- sold cookies, not Mom or Dad. I went door-to-door in the neighborhood, and asked people at church. I had to get on the phone and personally ask Aunt Gert if she wanted to buy some cookies. Nobody took the order form to work and sold to co-workers. And my folks wouldn't buy cookies from other parents - only from the girls themselves. Any Girl Scout who was brave enough to ask would receive an order for at least one box.

But we don't know many Girl Scouts anymore (our friends kids are in college now, for pete's sake!), so I usually order them from a parent at work. This year however, since I'm at the small 20-person office instead of the big 4000-person secure fortress, my co-worker Dave was able to bring his daughter in to the office, and she personally took orders. She was almost painfully shy about asking us if we wanted any cookies, but of course we wanted cookies!

Dave did the delivery for her today, so dessert tonight was Thin Mints. (Dinner was waiting for me when I got home - thanks dear!) Since we are so disgustingly healthy now, I only ordered four boxes this year. But these are a reward for going to the gym everyday.

Back in Boise

I got a call on my cell phone last week, while we were at Laguna Seca, from my boss. He apologized for calling during vacation, but just wanted to warn me that I would need to go to Boise again this week. So after unpacking, I repacked last night for a quick one night trip, for a two-hour meeting with the customer tomorrow; we fly home in the afternoon. It may seem like a poor use of money and time, but it should actually be worth-while.

Boise has surprisingly warm winters (to me at least). There's only a little bit of old snow on the ground here in town, and temps are in the 40's today. The mountains are very picturesque with their snow-covered peaks. We've had good luck with the downtown restaurants so far, but still haven't figured out what Idaho cuisine should be (other than potatoes, of course).

Are you tired of year-end reviews yet?

Well, here's my personal 2007 year in review...

1. Changing jobs was the biggest event of the year for me. After 22+ years combined at big blue and the company they sold us to, I was needing a change. After we were sold, the job opportunities became pretty limited. When I heard that a new company in town was having a job fair, I refreshed my resume, went to the job fair, and got an offer on the spot. Three weeks later, with a raise and a promotion, I started my new job. So far, so good. I have no regrets about making the change.
2. Running became a major part of my fitness routine. I started the year most of the way through a "learning to run" program, and finished the year with 5 5K races under my belt, logging about 475 miles for the year. No major injuries, amazing increases in stamina, lung capacity, and overall health. I'm still the slowest runner out there, but that's OK. I'm moving, and actually having fun.
3. I kept up the quilting, and ended the year with less fabric than I started with. I only finished 4 crib-sized quilts, but I have one more that is done except for the binding, and another almost ready for quilting. Quilting is a big stress relieving hobby, so I don't worry too much about having accomplishments; I just don't want it to turn into a fabric-accumulation hobby.
4. I still read a lot of books, and, being a natural born list-maker, can tell you that I read 46 books this year. (My list of books read goes back to 1995.) Actually, that's a fairly low yearly total for me, being less than one a week. But again, it's for enjoyment, not something I feel compelled to do.
5. 2007 was not a big travelling year. The job change mid-year resulted in fewer vacation days for me. We still went to the Formula 1 Grand Prix at Indy in June, and from there to St. Louis for Mom & Dad G's 50th wedding anniversary festivities. That only left me 3 days for the rest of the summer. Jury duty forced a delay in using those few days, so we had a quick fall getaway to Bayfield, WI to finish September. Business travel sent Mike to Australia again, and me to Houston, San Jose, and Boise.
6. Our biggest unplanned financial investment was the basement waterproofing, prompted by the torrential 11 inch rain in August. Now it's January, and we're almost (hopefully) done restoring the family room to it's former comfort level.

What's in store for 2008? Unfortunately, we're still too young to retire, so we'll keep working. We'll keep going to the gym and running (to offset all those chocolate goodies). This is also a regularly scheduled car buying year, so stay tuned.

The joys of modern travel

We finally made it to Boise last night around midnight, having left Rochester at 10:30 am. The flight from Minneapolis was first delayed, then unable to leave the gate because another plane was blocking the road, then delayed some more for de-icing due to snowfall. By the time we took off, we were two and a half hours behind schedule. We missed the connection in Seattle, of course, and the next flight to Boise was delayed by about two hours, so it was a long day. Luckily, the customer meeting doesn't start until noon, so I was able to sleep in this morning. And tomorrow we have a direct flight back to MSP, so it should be smoother sailing. No chance to see what Boise is like yet, but we'll at least take time for a nice dinner tonight.

"I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise"

When I was asked if I could go to Boise next week to visit a customer for work, this book title jumped in my head and now won't leave. I remember Erma Bombeck's books being passed around the family (must have been in the 70's), and lots of laughing out loud.

So, yes, I'm going to Boise next week. I've been to Idaho once before, but that was to Pocatello for a weekend to attend an old roommate's wedding. This will also be a quick trip, probably just overnight, for a half-day meeting.

It's not the tropics, but it should be warmer there than it is here, and without today's four inches of snow and sleet.