Fifteen Minutes of Delusion

The time remaining on this trip is now measured in hours. The time before I travel again is only measured in days. I'm not particularly excited about flying off on another trip less then three days after getting home, especially with Kara still sick with whatever virus is hanging out at our house, but a man's gotta do... well, you know. I got my suitcase packed up this morning. I wasn't entirely sure that would happen. It was a pretty tight fit, and I still had a bunch of stuff to squeeze in. Then I noticed that the expand-o-matic zipper was in the closed position. Once I zipped it open, I had plenty of room. The other reason everything fit is that I am leaving behind all but four of the 12 books I either brought, bought, won, or was given over the weekend. I saved Christmas and birthday money for the LDStormakers conference bookstore, where great bargains can be found. I picked up books from most of my writer friends, but failed to have them autographed. Why? I have no go...

I was a little concerned when I found that Anna was staying home from school Monday with a fever, sore throat, and cough. As much as she complains about school, she hasn't missed a day so far this year, so I knew if she was staying home she really needed to. She seemed to be doing better on Tuesday, and talked about going to school when she woke up. But apparently the effort of taking a shower convinced her that she could use another day to convalesce. Hooray, and 'whew' she was feeling well enough to go to school today. Alyssa, on the other hand, stayed home. Sore throat, upset tummy. And Kara was feeling about the same. Yikes! Meanwhile, I'm still in the office working hard. The first two days I had to improvise a bit, because IT was trying to figure out how to get rid of a nasty virus. Today was spent rebuilding my system, because wiping it clean was the ultimate answer. Now I have two and a half days to get a week's worth of work done, and I might - might - be f...

It seems like there's nothing to blog about for a long time, and then all of a sudden everything happens at once. Here are a few bloggy tidbits from the last few days: I went running today. Outside. It was nice. I ran a mile. My time (13+ minutes) was absolutely pathetic. But it felt good. I got the State Inspection done on the truck yesterday. This is significant, as the truck has sat in the driveway since the sticker expired last May. We just haven't had much need for a second car, and I didn't think it would pass with a cracked windshield, but fortunately it did. We will need a second car the week after next, so I can drive it to the airport. I will be going in to the home office in Utah for a week to work on a variety of projects. This trip to Utah coincides somewhat with Life, the Universe, and Everything: The Marion K. “Doc” Smith Symposium on Science Fiction and Fantasy at BYU. Since it's free, I'll slip into a couple of the Saturday morning workshops befor...

OK - now that I've whined about days and days 0f failure, I have achieved success! All I had to do was blog about it, and things started working. Y'all are the best - thanks!

It's Saturday, and I'm still working on the issue I thought was almost resolved two days ago. The reports back are that after another 12 hour day yesterday, I'm still no closer to getting this stupid machine to do my bidding. One problem is that I'm 1000 miles away from the device I'm writing the driver for. I make code changes, give them to a co-worker, and he tests them out and tells me that it didn't work. Not especially efficient, but that's the working arrangement we have. I need this to work - being successful at working remotely is what allows me to keep my job. Failure is not an option, so when success is elusive, stress is high. Another problem is this dang device, which I will not mention by name because, well, that would be bad form and all. But the interface they've designed for this thing is more of a puzzle than a technical document. I wish I were better at this type of puzzle.

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been fighting with some incredibly stubborn projects at work. After nearly 12 hours in my little chair today, I finally gotten one of them pretty close to resolved. Yay! More real blogging to come later.

I got a call from my boss and the director of Engineering, letting me know that I was not among those laid off from the company today. I'm filled with a mix of relief for myself and sadness for those who were let go. And a little bit of anxiety for the extra workload that's sure to come. For the most part, the company had very little (if any) dead weight, and everyone let go will be missed. Not much of a post, really. Just expressing my relief and sadness. The end.

Every Friday my company brings in bagels for the employees, and every Friday my friend Dan sends me a message that says "A cheese bagel is being eaten in your honor." Well, today I get to eat my own cheese bagel. Woo-hoo! Even before the bagels came, I have enjoyed being in the office. I've been able to see outside the myopic tunnel of my own job tasks and reconnect with what everyone else is working on. I've conducted several training meetings for tools I have worked on, and been given a good, high-visibility project. Having positive visibility is essential in my circumstances, so I welcome the task. Last night I took the girls to the Seven Peaks water park in Provo. My mom's dentist had a customer appreciation night, and she got tickets for us. I must officially be an old fart, because I would rather have visited the dentist in his chair than at a water park. Anyway, the night went just about as I expected - we didn't get to leave for the park as early as we...

There was no velvet to be found today. There was, however, some really neat dark brown media. The end result was more of a sepia Elvis. In all, it was a good, productive day. Flying home tomorrow.

Several years ago, I helped develop a software tool as part of my job that would work with printers that used white ink in addition to the other colors. The tool we created would automatically figure out where to put the white ink so that it was only printed under the color data. One scenario we imagined, but did not implement, was printing an image on black media, treating white as the inverse of black. Like a painting of Elvis on black velvet. Today I flew to San Jose, and tomorrow I will be working with a printer manufacturer who wants to do the Velvet Elvis. Not necessarily pictures of Elvis, and not really on velvet, but it's basically the same idea. I spent the second half of last week making the code changes that should allow this to happen. I am quite excited to try it out tomorrow. With any luck, I'll be able to create and post an image of my own Velvet Elvis creation.

There seems to be a bit of interest in this whole treadmill desk thing, so I thought I'd write a little more about it. For the treadmill, I used a Phoenix 98516 Easy Up Manual Treadmill. I chose a manual treadmill for a couple of reasons. First, because manuals are cheaper. But second, and maybe more important, I read complaints that running a treadmill all day at low speeds will cause the motor to burn out quickly. As you can see in the picture, I built a little prototype keyboard and mouse platform, which sits on top of the hand rails. I also have my laptop sitting on a box, about 18 inches above my regular desk. Yes, I am able to type with both hands. I lean a bit on the cardboard platform for balance. Also, I have a bungie cord attached around my waist, as the speed of the manual belt is not exactly even and it's hard to keep a steady pace otherwise. Notice I'm smiling as I work. That's because I love my job. Plus I am happy that I found an angle for the picture whe...

With the exceptions of six long weeks as a computer salesman, every job I've had since graduating from college has been a desk job. Getting a desk job was why I went to college in the first place. That, and to pick up chicks. I've had the same chick for 18 years now, and unfortunately I've lost my svelte college physique. When it comes to burning calories, working behind a desk has proven woefully inadequate. The problem, however, is not really the desk. It is the chair. I was inspired after reading several articles about treadmill computer workstations , and decided to give it a go. My office chair is literally falling apart (no fat jokes, please) and for less than actual replacement cost, I have picked up an inexpensive, manual treadmill. In true handyman fashion, it's currently rigged with cardboard boxes and bungie cords, and for the last two days I have been walking most of the time I've been working. In fact, this blog posting is being written at a blisterin...

This has been a somewhat stressful trip for me. The work part of it has gone well, but Kara has had a hard time, and it was tough being away while she started back up on TPN . Also, I have had a coworker along on this trip. This is good in that I have had someone to talk to and do things with. However, mostly what we have done is go to nice restaurants and eat good food. Good food and stress go together really well. Except I now have guilt because I've been eating so well while my wife is getting food through a tube in her chest. In addition, I'm going to lock the bathroom scale in a closet until around St. Valentine's Day.

Ok, it's been forever since I've actually done an update, what with all the writing and dieting and blog rating and apple-butter give awaying giving away. So I'll take a few minutes (fifteen maybe?) and write about what's going on. We redid Kara's Lyme disease test, and I'm hoping the results should be back soon. I'm also watching for the results of our air quality testing this week. Kara had a couple of other tests done, too. We're just stuck right now, and praying the Lord will let us know (presumably through one of these tests) what we're supposed to be doing. Anna and Alyssa are doing well. Alyssa bought a toy Buzz Lightyear cellphone (not the Princess one!) and she's been "talking to" just about everyone we know. If your ears have been burning, that's why. Anna wants a hamster in the worst way. She's been doing all kinds of research, and she was teaching the girl at the pet store a thing or two the other night. But until ...

My trip to Atlanta was a success. I was able to fix a few problems with the printer driver, and get a really good color profile. I did have a couple of red herrings to contend with, though. First was the Mystery of the Small Dots. This printer, like most these days, can print with small, medium, and large dots to get a nice smooth image. My output was a bit grainy, and the person I was working with noticed that the small dots on some prints he did a few weeks ago had much smaller dots than those in my output. So I tried to find why I wasn't using the smallest dots. I made sure the driver was printing different sized dots (it was) and looked all through the printer's command code manual, but I couldn't find anything. After about two hours of research, another engineer from the printer company came in and said "Oh, yeah. I think that last firmware upgrade changed the size of the smallest dots to try and get rid of banding." D'oh! Then there was the Layout debac...

Wednesday gave me a glimmer of hope that this summer thing just might work out. Kara was here, so that helped some. I've decided that Anna's number 1 job is to play with Alyssa. That won't be all she does, but if she can do that for several hours a day, it will be the biggest help to me. They are both spending a fair bit of time in the office with me on their computers. Anna does her Webkinz and NeoPets and Club Penguin things, and Alyssa plays Bugdom . It's a fun game that came with our iMac some seven-odd years ago, and I am very pleasantly surprised at how well she can do it. It's a fairly complex arcade-style game, and she can go through several levels. I was able to put in all of my hours yesterday, and then some. I got an update for the firmware on the laser printer I've been working on, and I dedicated quite a bit of time to rewriting the driver. I sent the printer a beautiful picture of the sunrise at Laie Point. The printer printed out a semi-colon. (s...

I had been selected for a trip halfway around the world. I got an email telling me so. The email came from my boss's boss, so I knew it was legit. He's too busy running a large development team to send out spam. But something about this offer didn't quite seem right. I would be going to help out at a trade show in Australia and do some training in Taiwan. However, I'm an engineer who writes printer drivers, and there was no driver development work associated with this trip. Not that I have any problem with trainings or trade shows. I just didn't think they would want me to stop development work for a week and a half to do these other things. Turns out I was right. Now, a big trip like this comes as a very mixed blessing. It's hard to be away from home for a week or ten days, and the work that needs to be done doesn't go away. But it is nice to have a break and see new places and do new things. And the 31 hours of total flight time had a certain appeal, as f...

Yes, the trees are beautiful. It was quite green. Texas is green right now, too, but the trees aren't nearly as tall. I had a chance to punch the Charger. It jumped about the same as our Honda. I found a document in the car that says it has the 3.5L V6. I'm guessing the 6.1L Hemi V8 has a little more power. I found Andy Griffith doing his football routine on the Sirius Blue Collar Comedy channel. It was funny, but then the next guy's routine got a little TOO blue. So I switched to Laugh Break , which was a little more friendly to my tender sensitivities. I only had one salad on this trip, but I worked out twice on the elliptical, and I only ate at mealtimes. I think I actually made progress this time around. I couldn't skip the train when I got back, because I landed at terminal E, not A or C. I get to do it all again in a couple of weeks. But this time I'll get to have dinner with my old buddy Joe, who is now a pilot and scheduled to be in Atlanta at the same tim...

I decided to try traveling light on this trip. I've had enough of big suitcases and baggage claims, so I only packed enough clothes for two days. This would ensure that I had the chance to wash one set of clothes in my hotel room sink, just to make sure I could. I learned how to do this at a combined Priest and Laurel activity some twenty-odd years ago. The Priests were there to learn how to do basic missionary things like sew on buttons and wash clothes in the sink (in case of a no-clean-white-shirt emergency). The Laurels were there to help show the Priests how these things were to be done. However, most of the girls looked as lost as the boys when the leaders did their little demonstrations. At this exercise, I learned how to lay a piece of wet clothing in a towel and then twist it until the towel was doubled up into a ball, squeezing out a surprising amount of water. This is easier to do with a partner, but can be managed alone if you stand on one end of the towel and weigh mor...

Well, I made it safe and sound. I should be sleeping, but I couldn't keep you in suspense about my trip any longer. I made it to DFW in 45 minutes, which is some kind of a record. I was even holding back, going with the main flow and getting passed quite a bit. I didn't know which of the three American terminals my flight left from, but I guessed C. It was A. So I got to ride the train . I got off at the stop for gate A11. That's what I thought I read on the monitor. It was A37. But that's OK. a little walk would be good for me. I got to my gate, and realized that I was pretty close to where I came into terminal C. So when I get home, I'll skip the train. The flight was uneventful, and I was able to get a car without too much trouble. I did my best to jump out of the little shuttle and be first in line. I didn't push anybody, don't worry. That lady would have fallen on her own, I'm sure. (Just kidding). I signed up for a compact car. They gave me a Charg...