In 2012, I joined a great company, a cool place to work, and a true leader in Scientific instrumentation. Not quite a dream come true but a good move, particularly at this stage of my career. Things had been going well, then the Friday before the Thanksgiving week, the bombshell fell. All manufacturing of our products will move to Malaysia (where we have been manufacturing since 1974), and thus...
I am a gadget person. I have always loved tech, and have often been on the leading edge of trends and an early adopter. One category that I dove into head first was the e-Reader trend. I first stumbled across them in 2006, when Sony launched the PRS 500. I didn’t jumped then, but I had my eye on them. At the time, I was traveling the better part of 50% of the time. Being a life long reader...
I love Netflix streaming. Now that I finally hooked it up to my XBox 360, and it is a much better integration than the Tivo series 3 box. One of the shows I have been watching is the original Mission Impossible series. I enjoyed it when I was growing up, and I still enjoy it. Although, there are some gaping holes in the plots, and miraculously, even when they are deep in eastern European...
I am an avid reader. I started in high school, voraciously reading science fiction. I can get through 3 or more Sci Fi novels in a week. I used to be a frequent visitor to the used book stores. The advent of eBooks was a godsend. Instead of raiding the used book stores, and carrying 6 or 7 books when I go on business trips, I use a reader. My first reader was a Sony. I got it before the launch of...
Since it is the last work day (and a half day at that) for the year, I stopped to get a couple dozen donuts for the gang. We have a great small chain of donut shops here in Phoenix, that I am happy to patronize. But there are some people that just don’t get it. Ordering is simple. You walk up to the counter, wait your turn, and order. Some friendly peddler of fat pills will be glad to put...
Today was the first time in almost a month that I was able to escape the office at lunch and work out. Heck, for that matter, it is probably the first time in more than 3 weeks that I was able to bring in my lunch. Launching a product, sales training, travel, and then having to run home at lunch to take care of the hounds, means that I have been severely curtailed in my lunchtime run/walk. Add to...
A couple of months ago, I awakened to a horrifying announcement. My web host, Media Temple, had been acquired by the sleaze peddlers at GoDaddy. Ugh. I had been hosting with MT since 2009, and had been very satisfied. Great performance, flexible, and when I needed it, awesome service. They were not an inexpensive solution at $20 a month, but I felt confident in paying the premium at the time...
I remember when I first saw Alien. It was 1979, I was a freshman in high school, and our biology teacher (Fred Granger) took us on a field trip to see “Alien”. I recall his words: “This is far more likely what an extra-terrestrial encounter will be like…” From the first suspense-filled moment when the Egg exploded on John Hurt’s character, to the chest burster...
With the IOS 6 update on the Apple devices, one of the features that came with it was this thing call the “passbook”. I remember looking at it, and scratching my head, not really “getting” what it was for. I looked at the applications, and thought “so what”, and then promptly ignored it. Fast forward to last week. I was in Boston at a conference, and sitting on...
No, this isn’t bitching about a genre, or a period of music per se, but instead it is a grumble at the practice of turning sub standard live recordings from the 70’s and 80’s into “new” albums. In this period, many bands began recording themselves at all their shows. The Live albums were a popular addition to the catalog, and let fans enjoy their music with some...