Diametral Pitch

Last week was an odd one - getting back to “just” being an engineer. We were starting to get into the swing of me not working from home, and there I was back in the home office.

God is good to us though, and last week was no exception. I came back from Modesto with a pretty good stack of work. Throughout the week, Jamey sent up one job after another until I was buried. Almost all easy, well-paying houses to work through. That helped the transition quite a bit because I was very busy and working on things that I knew would help shore up the finances. God is good.

I was also still putting small bits of time in to WePlay - pushing new code and bug fixes out to the site as they got done. No pay there, though we are tracking our time in case funding comes back. There’s some hope - based on a few meetings last week - that it could happen. We’ll see.

Heading back down to Modesto tomorrow and I’m expecting another busy week. We have a lot of work in the pipeline. A lot of it is going to be fairly difficult and tricky, but that stuff can be fun if it’s on a job that has enough budget built in. Then we can take the time to really figure out the problem and work through it.

Hard to say what the next few months will be filled with. Engineering could continue to take off, or it could slow down. WePlay could come back to life, or just fade away. May pick up something else on the side. I’m learning - slowly - to take it as it comes and just be grateful for God’s provision today. “Manna” - I keep telling myself. “Manna”.

Blogs work a lot better if you don’t forget to pay to re-register the name.

Sorry for the black-out! Or maybe sorry for coming back.

Depends on your perspective I suppose…

Back down in Modesto this morning.   Strange to be back after almost 2 months away.   Trying to get back in the “engineer during daylight hours” frame of mind after a couple of months of being a vampire engineer.

We had a fun weekend.  I took Cowboy and Maesie up to a “Father/Child” campout put on by our church.  It was only about 40 minutes out of Grass Valley and a very nice group campground where the kids could play and ride their bikes while the dads hung out talking, cooking, eating, or all three.   There was also an impromptu 40 meter (or so) dash brought on by bravado.  Several of the guys started claiming they could beat the others in a race, and we had to figure out the truth.

I was not one of those making the claims, but I did participate in the race.  In the first heat, there was a somewhat clear winner (Keith) but we all agreed that he had false started.  So we raced again and were joined at the starting line by a younger dad - Luke.  In the second heat, it wasn’t even close.  Luke killed us all easily.  Discussion over.

I am sorry to have to tell you that there was a clear loser in both of the races, and that was me.

Maybe if we had gone just a bit further, I might have caught up…

Well hmm. What an odd day yesterday was at work.

It started normal - plugging away at various things. Then we sat down for our 11:30 daily meeting, and Damon - our CEO - started. He told us that the company had run out of money, and that because of an accounting slip it happened far more quickly than they expected. So Friday is the last day they can pay any of us.

Um - wow. Okay. Needless to say, there was some shock. I mean, it’s a start-up company so you expect some uncertainty, but no one expected it to happen that quickly.

So… looks like Monday I’ll be driving back down to Modesto. I’m hoping that I can get back to where engineering is keeping me busy enough to pay the bills. If not, I don’t entirely know which direction to go. Maybe apply for another IT job, maybe try to get more engineering work. Not sure.

Yeesh. Life is sure crazy some times.

As promised…

Good grief.  Where to even start?

Went camping last weekend up in Tahoe along with a bunch of folks from our church.  The whole family and Zeus.  Had a good time, though the kids were disappointed that we didn’t catch any Snipes when we went hunting for them Friday night.

Came home Sunday afternoon about 1/2 hour before my parents came for a visit.  Monday I went back to work and Sarah left some of the kids with my parents while she drove down to pick up the newest Slater - a German Shepherd puppy.  In keeping with the Jane Austin theme, we have dubbed her “Pemberley”.  Pictures to follow.

The kids started school on Wednesday, soccer practices started on Tuesday (I’m coaching Maesies’s team).  Chaos all around.  Still doing WePlay during the day and engineering at night.  It’s a wild and crazy time, but we’re keeping afloat.  Just hard to know exactly what part of it to blog about.

Answer?  Blog about all of it and none of it.  Whoo Hoo!

Saw this sitting on a rock about 30′ off our back deck this evening. This was the best of about 20 pictures - it was too dark and I couldn’t stand still enough to get a good shot.

Now that’s a big bird!

Am I the only one who didn’t realize just how good Little House on the Prarie is?

A few months ago, our basic Dish package got the Hallmark Channel added to it for a couple of weeks. During that time, we recorded a bunch of Little House episodes, and we’ve been watching them during our Friday pizza picnics.

They are amazing. Funny, compelling, warm. I find myself almost teary at least once in every episode. Usually when Charles is either saying something - or just listening to his kids with an expression that shows he’s waiting for them to draw a conclusion for themselves. I want to be a Dad like that!

Beyond that, I’m just amazed by how overtly Christian they are. In the one we watched this week, Mary (the older sister) went to be a teacher in a little town that was very against religion and domineered by a woman who preached to the town on Sundays and kept them in fear the rest of the week.

After the woman got the town riled up against her, Mary left and came home to her family, crying. There’s a scene where she’s up on a hill, pouring out her heart to her dad, and he’s just listening - saying very little. She finally comes around to saying “Someone should do something about her.” Charles is still quiet. After a few minutes, she decides that she’s the one to go back and do something.

Charles goes with her, but he just stands in the door of the church/schoolhouse while Mary takes on the lady, who is preaching about the Ten Commandments. Mary moves in and challenges the lady that she doesn’t in fact know the Commandments and begins to recite them from memory. It’s an incredible scene of back and forth, and Mary is fired up and quoting from various parts of the Bible.

She finally wins through, and one of the formerly fearful mothers, starts singing “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know”. They all join in. The last scene is Mary reaching out her hand in reconciliation to the woman that had persecuted her, and the woman - after some reluctance - reaching out her hand in response.

Incredible. I’m not doing it justice in my summary, but trust me. It’s incredible.

–

On a completely other note, I’ve been meaning to mention my friend Paul’s new blog - Letters from Fat Camp. Good reading!

Quite busy keeping up with both of the jobs and the rest of life, but I wanted to get something up.

Vacation was very good. Lots of great family time together, a few very fun visits to the beach - even managed to sneak in a trip to Disneyland. Highlight of that was watching the fireworks from Main Street with the older kids while the two youngest snoozed in the stroller. I was holding up Maesie and she was completely enchanted.

Been meaning to mention the new show we’re hooked on (through Netflix). It’s a BBC series of Robin Hood. Just finished the first season and waiting for the second season to come out on Netflix. I highly recommend it.

Sarah told me tonight that she put season 1 episode 1 of the new Battlestar Galactica in our queue. We’ve talked about trying that out for a while, and I suppose it’s time. I make no promises, so all you fanboys (and fangirls *cough* Beth *cough*) just be patient.

While we’re on the entertainment topic, Sarah saw somewhere today that Joss Whedon is working on a new series starring Eliza Dushku (Faith on Buffy). Don’t know when that’s due, but it could be good. Or bad. Or mediocre, I suppose.

Edit (because I’m a moron and scanned rather than read Marilyn’s Blog post about Comic Con)

I got a second dose of Joss Whedon during the Dollhouse panel, without having to stand in line for over an hour.

Dollhouse is a new show he’s doing on the Fox network starring Eliza Dushku (of Buffy fame), Amy Acker (of Angel), and Tahmoh Penikett (Helo of BSG) amongst others. It sounds like it should be good. It seems a lot of the concept is based on Eliza’s experiences as an actress, and a woman in modern society, feeling pressured to put on different persona’s. Joss likened it to a search for the soul. I remain shocked at what jerks people can be when asking Joss questions. People love to tell him about how well they know him but in ways that stereotype him. e.g., “I noticed you like to work with the same actors over and over” or “I know you like to kill characters” or “your shows have a way of getting cancelled.” One girl told him the new show looked mundane, that she wasn’t really interested in it, so could he please tell her why she should watch. I was mortified for him. And this is a supposed fan! Eliza’s response was something akin to “don’t make me bring a little Faith down there”

Crazy week.  Do I say that a lot?

We’re getting ready for the trip.  Sarah has been working like crazy to get us packed and to get the house clean up so that we don’t have to leave/return to a disaster.  The kids have been going to Vacation Bible School with the O’Sullivan’s.  They’ve really enjoyed that.

Had Paul and Jess over last night for coffee.  Last time we’ll see them for a while, which is a bummer.  Sounds like Texas is going to be a good move though.  Also, it sounds like Paul will start a blog - something I really hope happens.

I’ve had a couple of geek out moments while here and thought I’d share them.  Some of you will get these, some not.  I apologize.

First geek out moment.  Being in the kitchen making some coffee and seeing an old, faded mug beside the sink.  It had a picture of a flat-shaded race car, and the “Hard Driving” video game title.  It said “Thanks for your support”.  That’s got to have some history.

Second geek out moment.  In the midst of lots of activity a few days ago, Ed told a story about the old days - someone developing an arcade game and one of the other lab guys sneaking in each night and filling up the high score table.  The developer changed it so that if the other guy’s initials got put in, they would be replaced with his own.

I smirked, and went about my day.

Later that evening, I thought - “Wait a second.  Did he say ‘Asteroids’ when he was telling that story?”

So I looked it up.  Sure enough, I found this ;.  Not only is the story Ed told there, but both Ed and Rich are quoted a couple of times there.

It’s a pretty fun thing that I get to not only work with these guys, but hang out with them, eat together.

The site is actually going live today.  That is to say, anyone will be able to sign up and play at the site as of this afternoon.  The site is weplaytv.com.  Right now, it’s only baseball that you can watch and play together, but there’s a lot more coming soon.  I think it’s actually going to be very cool.