I found my long lost friend Addie by surfing the web today! I was so happy that I have reconnected with her. I really did cherish her friendship. Hopefully we won't lose touch like we did again.
I've also reconnected with my friend Robin. We exchange text messages often and it is really uplifting to hear from her.
So much has happened since my last entry, here's the condensed version:
We went to Cebu, Philippines for vacation. It was a terrible vacation on many levels: heat; humidity; child abuse; greed; and death threats. The good parts of the vacation were spending time with Arlen's mon, sister and cousin.
Quarterly business review at work upon our arrival back from vacation.
New hires!
Bills, bills, bills!!!
Shot 9-ball with unko!!!
Last week I got a sty in my right eye. I had to miss one day of work because my eye closed up. So, basically I had two day to celebrate the 4th of July. However, one of those days was with only vision in one eye!
I cleaned the pool filters today. I have to remember to clean them more often. It took me 3 hours to clean the filters and the inside of the filter housing. I also had to sweep the pool.
I'm a little frustrated that no applications were completed this week at work. It's not how I wanted to start off the quarter. My boss will be here next week from the UK. Hopefully I can talk him into lowering the case completion goal for this quarter.
Today is my mom's birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!
A lot has happened since my last entry.
The most significant event was that I went on another business trip. I went to visit A&P Instruments in Hong Kong to work in their applications lab with their engineers. A lot of work was completed during the day and at night I was busy keeping up on the SPI AppsLab administration, working on Health & Safety documentation and keeping up with email.
I did get out some. I did the obligatory shopping in Kowloon. Went to the New Territory. Went to the bay to look across at Hong Kong Island, but didn't get a chance to get across.
The A&P staff were terrific. They made sure I didn't have to have lonely dinners. Every night was multi-course meals.
This was my first trip to Hong Kong in the summer time. What a shock! I've been there in the spring time and in the fall, but never in the summer time! I didn't know that it got so hot and humid there. And now they've passed the non-smoking indoors law. That was also a shock for me.
I made my second entry into mainland China. I actually walked across the border into Shenzhen. For those not aware of this... Shenzhen is only 25 years old!
I'll try not to take so long before I make my next entry... until then...
My plane was late by an hour, so it was past midnight by the time I got into my hotel room. What is it with me and hotels? It seems that every hotel that I've stayed in this year was under renovation!!! At least, this is a decent hotel, San Diego Marriott La Jolla, but it is 1/2 mile from the hotel where the Laser Safety Officer (LSO) class is being held. This morning I decided to walk to class... man that's a long 1/2 mile!!!
The first half of the class was really tailored for people that have never worked with lasers before. It was a struggle to keep awake, let alone pay attention. I had 4 cups of coffee, but it didn't seem to help that much. I could feel my eyes closing. I just hope that I didn't snore. Nobody said anything, so I think I'm safe. I'm sure that if I started snoring, someone would have woke me up because I'm sure they wouldn't have been able to hear the instructor over my snoring!!!
I guess I'm out of practice for traveling. I didn't check the weather forecast for San Diego. I just assumed that the weather would be nice, sunny and warm. Today was overcast, windy and cold. After dinner I went to the nearby mall to buy a jacket, but I couldn't find anything that I liked. I was looking for a simple "sir" jacket - no such luck.
Tomorrow I leave for a fun filled week of Laser Safety Officer classes! I just hope I don't fall asleep in class and embarrass myself with my snoring!!!
Met my new boss this week... it was good. That's all I've got to say about that.
Ah, a day off! Well, not a completely off. Arlen and I were chaperones at Ivy Jane's class field trip to the Tech Museum. We were put in charge of four children each. My group consisted of Ivy Jane, our next door neighbor Milee and two boys, Jason & Vincent. They were very well behaved on the most part. I basically made sure that they kept moving around so that they were able to see every exhibit, which we were able to accomplish.
There wasn't enough room on the bus to accommodate all the students, teachers and parent-chaperones. So five of us, parent-chaperones, drove there on our own. Even though we had a head start and thought we took the fastest route to the Tech Museum, the bus basically got there before us and returned faster than us. That bus driver must have a lead foot!
Today was a very frustrating day at work. I found out that we have not been using the laser correctly. The computer and laser were not wired correctly so we weren't actually setting the laser parameters correctly. I had to recall a sample that was on its way to the customer. So, I'll have to re-do the application tomorrow morning and send off a new sample. Well, at least I know that the way we'll be using the laser now is correct and I should be able to get some nice results.
I've a couple of job offers! Actually, one is pending, but one is on the table.
The offer on the table is pretty tempting. The benefits are standard, medical, dental, vision, 401K and school re-imbursement. The salary would only be the same as I make now. It's for a manufacturing engineering job. I don't think this offer is for me.
Okay, let me spell it out for those who don't know me. I can function as a manufacturing engineer. In fact, I can thrive as a manufacturing engineer. I just don't like working in Fabs! In fact, I really detest having to wear a bunny suit. That might be one reason that I do well as a manufacturing engineer. I make sure my areas run smoothly so that I don't have to be in the fab that often.
The offer that's pending is also for a manufacturing engineering job, but for a prototype fab. So, the processes change every once in a while. That would mean a lot more time in the Fab! Yuck! However, the salary would be almost 30% more than my current salary. The position is suppose to be opening up at the end of this month. I'll have to think long and hard if I get an offer! Who wouldn't want to make more money. Plus, am I really happy where I am today? There are a lot of things to think about!
Adeline Socias... happy birthday, wherever you are!
I've been having a really difficult time sleeping lately. My injured shoulder doesn't seem to be healing very fast and the pain keeps waking me up.
I forgot to write about my business trip to MD&M in Anaheim. The first two days were pretty good. A lot of solid leads. The last day was quite boring, not a lot of traffic.
Day one was the most eventful. The Hilton over-booked and relocated me at a hotel approximately 3 miles away. The hotel was being renovated and my room had a lovely view of the dumpsters! The silver lining was the room was free. I had dinner with Silke and a group of guys from one of our customers. The food was good and the company was great! We all had lots of stories to make each other laugh.
After dinner we went to a "Grappa Bar". Grappa, if you are unfamiliar with the spirit, is made from the "byproducts of wine"... yes, you read correctly..."byproducts". Okay, I don't know about you, but typically I would not partake in anything that has "byproducts" in it's description! However, I was not going to wimp out, since everyone else was going to partake.
Here's my take on grappa:
| has the bouquet of varnish thinner |
| tastes like moonshine |
| I wouldn't go out of my way to find some |
I drank two different types of grappa, one glass of each (approximately 2 ounces per glass). That's 4 ounces more grappa than anyone needs to drink. However, I'll probably have more grappa, if it is offered to me and not on my dime!
I ordered a digital camera from Amazon.com. Since my last digital camera was broken I have been using Arlen's camera when needed. However, I've noticed that I need a digital camera at work. So, I decided to buy a small inexpensive digital camera that I can keep with me at work. It should arrive on Friday.
I'm going to go to my first trade show for SPI Lasers LLC. I'll be spending 3 days at the Medical Device & Manufacturing trade show in Anaheim, CA next week. I'll spend some time in our booth, but I think I'll spend a majority of the time at the Crafford-Fiberstar booth. I'll work on some applications if there are any that I can bring with me or I might just do some demonstrations... most likely some micro-welding. They'll have a 50W air-cooled fiber laser in their Fiberstar micro-machining station. I'm told that they'll also have a 20W pulsed fiber laser available. Both lasers are suppose to be in class 1 enclosures, so I'll be using them right on the trade show floor. This could be exciting! I hope to at least bring something that I can successfully complete.
The last two weeks of January were very busy at SPI Lasers LLC. We hosted the SPI Lasers Asian Sales Conference and the SPI Lasers Q1 Sales Meeting, not to mention the visitors coming by from Photonics West. What made it difficult was the illness that affected two of the office members, but we managed to get through it fine.
The Sales Manager for Asia is a Parisian. I have a "thing" for her accent. Every Monday morning during the sales conference call I hear her voice and it makes my day! So, while she was here visiting, I had her record my voicemail greeting message! Sometimes, I just get crazy!
It was really nice to finally meet all of the sales team and my boss. That's right, I've worked for SPI Lasers LLC for more than 3 months without ever having met my boss in person. We've just communicated over the phone and via email.
I started listening to NPR while driving. I'm trying to be more informed and up-to-date on the current events.
There are two books that I want to read: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.
They're always talking about these books at work, so I'm really curious what their all about.
Tomorrow we're going to "Golfland". Ivy Jane really wants to play in the arcade. I promised her last week that we'd go, so tomorrow I will keep my promise. Maybe we'll stop by a bookstore so I can by those books!
It's been almost a year since I last made an entry! I guess I suck at keeping this blog updated!
Well, a lot has happened since my last entry...
1. I'm back to being a Laser Applications Engineer! Yes, that
means I have a new job. Well, not actually new, I've been there since
October 16, 2006.
2. The holidays were fine... uneventful, except I got the stomach
flu between Christmas and New Years... that bit!
3. Started training again.
That's the top 3 list. I'll try to do a better job at making regular entries.