The more things change...

 Looking back at these notes that I have written it seems the old adage:

"The more things change the more things stay the same."

seems to be more true than ever.

Another round of Early Retirements at HP.  This time a number (at lease 4) of my friends and co-workers have chosen to "take the package" and retire.  I have had to do some serious thoughts myself if this was the time I left hp.

However, the my old message comes back "What's Next?"  I have spent quite a bit of time lately thinking about this.  I still don't think this is the time for me to retire, Karla still has a few years left and her new job is going well.  I still need to wait about 4 years until I can claim Medicare (even though I could join Karla's insurance).   I think we are in a good position financially.

The real question is still "What's Next?".  I think that the easy answer would be to push robotics into a more full time position and see if I can teach a robotics/engineering class at the high school(s).  While I am not trained as a teacher, I have been working with the students for over 13 years and think I still have some things to teach them.  That is the easy route.

I was talking to my sister this weekend.  Yes I know that is a hard thing for me.  We talk more since our parents have passed away and now it is just us.  But talking to her, she told me that I need to look at more of a consulting job with both Robotics and the Schools.  Pass my knowledge forward.  Interesting thought.

 

Looking Forward

 One more time....

I wanted to refresh the stats for this blog, even though I don't use it as much as I should.  

This week has had me thinking quite a bit about "what's next?".  What am I going to do once I retire from HP.  Now don't get me wrong I don't intend on leaving HP anytime in the near future.  However, at my age and the number of years of service I have with HP, it now has much fewer years on this side of life than in the past.  

My horizon for retirement is being dictated by my insurance outlook.  I really want to keep my heath insurance active, but that means continuing to work until Medicare takes over when I am 65.  This is in like 4 years.

I still really enjoy what I am doing and the people I am working with.  I am the 'old man' of the group and in the software/data engineering job, that makes me really old.

Just some thoughts for the day.

Enjoy!!

I was looking around some of my old resources and noticed this blog again.  I haven't edited it in a while (almost 2 years!) and decided to add a short tag it.  I also noticed that I link to this blog in my github profile and so I should probably say something here.

I am still a technical mentor and assistant coach for the Corvallis High School First Robotics Team 997 (a mouthful!).  I help mainly with the controls elements (like electronics and software), but I also advise on other things too, like design and scouting.  The only thing I am not very good at is the mechanical fabrication and so I leave that to the better mentors who understand that better.

Enjoy!

And let's try this again...

I know that I have been pathetic regarding posting to this blog page and I really don't expect it to change much - I just don't write.  However, in this case I might get a little further in my trials.  I am going to start writing a short (hopefully) series of posts regarding my trial and tribulations in getting the Gazebo robotics simulator running for two separate environments:  FIRST Robotics including exporting a design from Solidworks, and then RoS running on a turtlebot and in simulation too.  I expect this to be not a single post but a group of related posts - please note the tags.

Enjoy!

And here we are again...

I am terrible at writing things and even online cannot save me.  It have been a number (like 2) years since I wrote here last.  My kids are now in college, but I am still working with the Robot team at CHS.

More (hopefully) to come.

Enjoy!

Back Again!

It has been quite awhile since I wrote anything in this blog.  I guess I never really got the 'bug' to write about everything in my life and make it public.  However, I think that this site has some use (at least it is a public web landing spot for me to use in other site profiles) and so I will try a little harder in the future.

Anyway I hope to put more into this in the future and especially to add some stuff about my real avocations:  FIRST Robotics and Boy Scouts.  I really am busy in my life right now, even though my daughter has been in college for two years already.  My son is a Junior (he went on OAM like my daughter last summer) and is more mechanically inclined then my daughter.

Enjoy!

OAM Monday 7/11

Monday ... another day back at work. But this week is a litte different. Karla and I are home alone this week. Riley is off at camp attitude for the week. Camp Attitude is a camp for kids with OI "brittle bone desease" and Riley is with a group of kids from our church that are there to help. They say they are there to be "Buddies" with the kids. We will see how things go when he gets back next week. Rachel is into her 2nd week in Europe beginning her time in Switzerland.

Mom and I realize that we live really boring lives. Things are too quiet around the house.