January 26, 2008

Saturday, January 26, 2008 5:31:38 AM

I had my exit interview yesterday. I wasn't surprised or pleased with the result. Apparently no matter how politely or creatively you tell them it is not healthy for a review score to tell your bosses you have something better to do with your life. The upside my boss wrote into the review that "given the chance I would immediately hire Dan again". He blamed the low score on my recent promotion and the score being reflective of my performance relative to a new standard. Anyway time to move on. There are only a certain number of positive reviews the managers are allowed to give and I think it makes a lot more sense to give the positive review to someone who is staying.

OK so the question to my confidence is, “If I can’t be more successful in something as simple as my current position how can I be successful in something bigger?”. I believe the answer is that I create an environment that rewards my strengths with success and work to mold my deliverables to be things that are produced well by my strengths. I know sleep patterns and general anxiety were large aggressors to my productivity at AMIS. It was also difficult to try to balance several different manager requests concurrently they did not make realistic trade offs between time and scope. I also know that I will be more motivated to do work if I know that I can keep it. With that said it is not like I did a bad job at AMIS I am sure I was on track for a steady rate of promotions. It is just that I was not performing at a level I found acceptable. Or rather than that I think the issue was more that I was not having the impact I wanted to have. I wanted to do long term proactive things where as the company environment promoted short term reactive things. Giving myself the reins of my work list I will be more able to balance the short term against the long term. With that said the reality of needing to eat and pay for health care will bias some decisions father toward the short term than I would like.

An honest check I need to make is that even in my own environment I will need deal with my own weaknesses. In fact what I expect to happen is that my strengths will become stronger and my weaknesses will become weaker. I am really not in the mood to talk about my weaknesses but I am sure I will have to do an analysis at some point. The thing I got dinged for in my review was for not properly scoping a project and poor execution on it. I think there is a risk of that happening in my next endeavor as well. It is much easier to start a program than to finish one. When I think of the disaster our garden was over the last few years I am brought to caution about my judgment. I really hope that I am not starting another garden that I can’t keep up with. With that said what I am doing is I am putting the most energy and resource into the things that matter most to me and yes enjoying life is one of those things. Learning is another. My family is another. I also want to have an impact with my life. When I die I want the world to be better for once having had Dan alive in it. I am certain that my new life gives me more opportunity for making that impact than my life at AMIS did. I truly hope that I will look back on the consternation I am currently experiencing and laugh on it the same way I laugh when I think about all of the stress I went through when I quit my Salmon Bake and Tram jobs. Quitting yes but the jobs didn’t hold a future I found acceptable. A lot more people would find the future offered by my current job much more acceptable however when I look at AMIS I do not see many people carrying the countenance that I want nor living the life that I want.

If I had not seen the vision of something greater I would be content to stay and do what I have been doing but having seen the vision of a life where I own my own work and can spend time with my family in the way I see fit as well as travel as I see fit is irresistible. It is unthinkable to accept anything less as long as it is in my power to get it. While great wealth may not be within my reach earning a living that can sustain my family by producing my own products I believe is well within my reach. It is just an extremely difficult stretch to get it. I was going to say scary but I am through the scared stage now. I have faced my fears and decided they are weaker than me. At this point it is simply a matter of execution. I have the tools, skills and the talents to get done what I want done now I need to do it.

It is an amazing feeling to find the desires of ones soul and then make a commitment to fulfill them. As I have been making my decisions over the last several weeks it has been wonderful to have such a clear idea of what I want. Well when I say clear I mean the direction is clear. The details are still quite fuzzy. When the suburban broke down Wednesday and I faced the prospect of extra expense and extra risk of road failure and difficulty my reaction to the adversity was so clear and resolute toward accomplishing my goal it was electrifying. I felt as if I had the will to run through a brick wall if I needed if the brick was between me and my goal. I have never felt as strongly about reaching a goal in my life and I have never missed on a goal I have felt strongly about. So to make sure I have the goal codified … Develop a life style that allows attention to the most important things in my life and gives me the freedom to create expressions from myself. Hmmm…. I am not quite happy with how that came out. In short I want to make a living working for my self from where ever I want, when ever I want and have the financial resources available to take on interesting projects and take breaks when and as I need them. I can’t seem to get the thought in to words that are as eloquent as the feeling but I think it is healthy to at least get something down and then hopefully I can refine it later into something that is easier to focus on.

In simple terms I would be trilled if I could end 2008 with the $70K or so that I am going to clear on my house. Actually I would be thrilled with $40K because that would mean I had found a way to generate money. The main rule I am going to keep for myself about money is that I cannot resort to long hours as a way of generating money. I may use long hours in my process of generating money but if I am doing anything that is only successful by putting in long hours than I have missed the mark. I want to do something that is successful by putting in smart hours. I want to do something that is successful because it reflects my strengths that I have to offer the world. Also in simple terms I want to get to a point where my basic life needs are met without effort on my part. I don’t want to need to worry about food, housing and medical expenses any more. I want to have the flexibility to take on aggressive time consuming projects.

January 25, 2008

Friday, January 25, 2008 4:17:54 AM

Yesterday was my 10th anniversary it is hard to believe that it has already come and gone. The day was spent organizing the trailer. I was pleased to get most of the pieces of a trailer office setup. I didn’t get as far as I would have liked but I solved some problems that were bugging me. The software problem isn’t solved. We may wind up just taking a bunch because I don’t see how we are going to have time to solve the software issue today. It is so hard to inventory what it is we are going to want.

I’m still not sure what to do about UPS’s. My dad recommended one and I know that it is better too have one however we have four different places that we power electronic equipment in the new office plan. I think having four would be cumbersome and expensive. I also don’t want to run wires all over the place. With that said having electronics failures would be cumbersome and expensive. I’m not sure if you need a UPS with a laptop anyway because I would think the battery on the laptop would serve the same function anyway. So maybe for the printer and the external hard drive … I’ll look online and see what I can find on the topic.

In the suburban we are planning to use canvas to cover the back door when we need to vent the air conditioner. We will use Velcro to stick the canvas to the back of the suburban. I was thrilled to look at my AC unit. I think it will work just great the way I want to use it. It even has a remote control so I should be able to control it from the front seat. When I first saw it I was hoping I would be able to control it from the trailer however it looks like the controller works by infrared so I don’t think it will work from the trailer. All the same it will be extremely convenient to use from the front seat. Even without a desk getting the heat controlled in the car will go a long way in improving the utility of the car. I was also pleased to see that if we don’t run anything else it looks like our generator is powerful enough to run both air conditioners concurrently. I don’t expect to need to run them both at the same time for because I anticipate that the portable air conditioner in the car should be powerful enough to pull down the temperature in very short interval of time. The main question left is about how adversely affected it is by the poor insulation of the canvas and windows of the car. With that said there was some material at the fabric store which looked like it would make a great insulator for the windows. I may go back and pick some up to use as a window cover. I just realized that our Velcro trick might work just as well on the windows as the back door. We should only need four small pieces on each corner for each window.

Lexie and I got baby sitters so that we could go out to celebrate our anniversary. By 5PM we when we started we were both exhausted but it was still nice to be out together. We went to the Texas Roadhouse restaurant in town for ribs. It is nice to know places that make good ribs and this is one of them. The question for the future of course is how often we will be able to afford them. As part of the routine at the Texas Roadhouse there were a couple of times the employees broke out into a line dance. Lexie and I both had a queer feeling watching them and remembering how we used to dance like that and how we didn’t really need to be embarrassed for them. It was a bit of a reminder that we aren’t 17 anymore. With that said we are hoping to do more dancing, it was just odd to see someone else doing public dancing. I don’t think we are going to be dancing in public.

After dinner we went back to outer limits. It was a bit embarrassing because we had been there the day before with the kids’ un-birthday party so it seemed like we were very obviously in “didn’t get to play enough” mode. Well, OK so we were! The motorcycle racing game was a lot of fun but the real surprises were a skating and boxing game that we found. In the skating game the player would stand on a skateboard and turn and kick it to do tricks. The game was quite a work out. The boxing game had some gloves that would detect motion. I was surprised how much energy it took to swing in mid air and dodge. I beat the first player pretty handily but didn’t do so well on the second player. I am sure that the game increases the difficulty level significantly between the first and second level however the other issue was I was just too tired to dodge. It will be nice when I can get myself settled into a better exercise routine.

After outer limits we went to Joann’s fabric store where we picked up the Velcro and canvas we will need to outfit the car. I was really excited about the strength of the Velcro. Lexie threw up in the parking lot at Joann’s, well in a bag in the parking lot. She wanted a drink so we went to Wal-Green drug for drinks. I haven’t had a Welch’s grape juice in quite I while I really liked it. I don’t want to drink much juice as I work to improve my fitness level but when I do I may drink more grape juice.

January 23, 2008

Wednesday, January 23, 2008 7:46:38 PM

We had an un-birthday party today because the older boys were promised friend birthday parties this year and we realized that we would be out of town when they had their birthdays.

We went to Outerlimits for a pizza, pop and video game party.  It was a really convenient way to have a party.  A little expensive however I think worth doing in that it is something memorable.  We just can’t do things like that all of the time.

The suburban stalled about two hours before the party so Lexie called me out of work.  It stressed me out to leave work early but I know Lexie was stressed to be stuck in the car.  We were happy to find out that we have towing insurance.  The bad news is that it was a fuel pump failure which will cost $925 to fix.  The good news is we can get all of the other clean up we had intending on getting done at the same time.  I am a little worried about the suburban in general because it has been leaking oil and having had a weak battery and a weak fuel pump it seems that it is just a matter of time before it loses a starter.  The other side of the coin is that we will not break down more than 30 feet from home when we are on the road.  Even with that said I think I am going to do an analysis of what it would cost to replace the thing.

Yves called to invite me to a farewell dinner tomorrow.  I was really disappointed that I could not go in as much as my anniversary is tomorrow.  I want to go out with Lexie more than I want to go out with the group but it would be really nice to have the farewell dinner.  I am feeling kind of cheap thinking to just ask them to have me and Lexie stop by for an hour and then go off on our own.

Mostly I just feel beat and drained right now.  I am tired of being tired and stressed.  I don’t expect to sleep well tonight because I am so tired and because I am stressed about work.

Something nice I got done at work today that I liked was I wrote a TCP/IP client in PHP.  I was so excited when I got it running I jumped a little.

January 21, 2008

Monday, January 21, 2008 2:29:45 AM

I read the clock backwards and thought it was 6:10 AM.  Oh well.   I am at the computer now so I’ll write a bit.

We had dinner at my mom’s house.  I was glad to visit with grandma.  I realized that the number of times I will be able to visit with grandma is limited.  I will need to remember the promise I made to myself to write to her.  It is odd to be seeing someone I know so well facing death.  She seems to have a very matter of fact attitude about it.  I am sure that after a while it sounds restful.  I know my years have brought enough that the thought has crossed my mind.

I think quite a bit about the idea of my death ending the labors of my life.  I suppose that is the great fear.  That after one dies “then cometh the day in which man can perform no labor”.  Terminating my job at AMIS is a far cry from death but I have experience some poignant emotions as I look at projects I was working on that will never come into existence at least at AMIS.  The mix of feelings about them is on the one hand I had a huge amount of time and effort into the ground work for the projects on the other hand the projects weren’t that meaningful to me in that even completed they would not fill anything I would have like about a life legacy.  There wasn’t really any of me in them.  Thinking back over the last five or six years I am amazed at how little I really did get done at AMIS in that way.  I am sure that is a big reason I am leaving.  I also know that the proprietary nature and lack of ownership of my work bothers me.  AMIS decides what to do with my work and who gets to see it.  I am very excited about the prospect of owning my own work.

As I think of it that way it clarifies things.  Thought and ideas are quite personal.  Having a company own your thoughts and ideas is similar to having the company own you.  I know I am overstating that a bit but not so much that it should be ignored.

A revelation I had in church was that the function of working for money is to cross the line I wrote about yesterday where there is enough money for food, shelter, safety and medical care.  I may be forgetting another basic necessity but the point stands that the first penny earned and spent after those items have been covered by cost becomes an expression of ones soul.  Much like the way a person breaths most of this expression happens unconsciously.  Unfortunately I also believe that much of this expression happens askew to the true inner soul of a person.   Lawn care does not produce a legacy.  Meals eating out do not provide an expression of soul.  A new car does not do much for a persons self actualization.  Those are not things that need to be entirely abstained from however I think it is healthy to realize that they are all activities which steal time and resource away from other activities we may find more meaningful and bring us more happiness.  All of the things we don’t have time for example like exercise and journal writing.

I am feeling like I might actually get back to sleep so I am going to give it a try.

January 20, 2008

Sunday, January 20, 2008 7:39:43 AM

I am going to switch formats of my journal to a blog after I get the security stuff figured out well and the blog stuff for that matter.  I was really excited yesterday to get a data base read to work on my web site that meant that I had both php and sql functioning.  Getting the little things like that started is sometimes the hardest part.  It also of course can also be the most exciting part.  I do suffer from the “once I know how to do it why bother doing it” syndrome.  Between the Adobe tools that I bought and the PHP and MYSQL stuff that I am working on I am fighting the feelings of being overwhelmed.  On the one hand I am very excited about the new found abilities and power on the other hand I feel squeezed by the pressure of not knowing so many things that I want know and feel like I need to know in order to make my business successful.  I also get concerned that I have under estimated the task of getting my business going.   Well I really don’t think I have, as I said in the start of my journal entry I cleared one of my blocks with just a couple hours of effort which is exactly the way I expected to clear the block.  I know it will take about a month to get a website functioning the way I want it.  I just have it in my head that it has to happen now so that I can get started with my game development.  The thing I need to come to terms with is that my game development will likely not be the driver for my income in 2008 it is more likely that I will be able to get income through web development.  The fundamental belief I am operating under is that as long as I stay focused toward meaningful goals and stay moving I will be fine.  So that brings up a great question.  What are meaningful goals?  Let me take a crack at them here:

1) Not go broke

2) Get Healthy

3) Improve family relationships

4) Educate the children

5) Educate myself

6) Get wealthy

7) Teach others to believe in their dreams

8) Have fun

I would like to disclaim that as not being an ordered list however I believe that it is pretty close in as much as it is informative to know which order things emerged from my mind.  The not go broke entry definitely came in strong and loud when I was thinking about what it was I was trying to get accomplished.  So that identifies the emotional response.  However when my mind looks at the list it is obvious to me that it would be better to be broke, healthy, have great family relationships, and educated children.  So number 1 should really be number 4.  So what are the factors that put it at number 1?  I would have to guess fear is the major player.  The thought of not having money to pay for food or medical care for the family is untenable.   After that I think it is mostly a matter of pride and comfort.  When I think about the pride and comfort factors they are a lot less important to me and I believe that I could deal with out money very well if I were healthy, happy and engaged in something that I thought was meaningful.  So the question to answer is how do I push the concerns over food and health care out of my mind or more to the point find a resolution to them that doesn’t get in the way of pursuing my dreams.  I have thought that it could be as simple as live a simple existence and use money while I have it and then when I run out use government programs to cover food and health care until I can get things working and feel justified by it in as much as I believe that once I get things going I will be paying tons of money back to the government such that it would actually be a great investment for them especially considering the positive impact my games will have on the quality of US education.  I can’t really believe that argument however.  I also don’t know if I could handle the humility that would be imposed by needing to ask for food and at the same time hold the self belief necessary to pull off what I am trying to do.

I only need to make just a bit over $2500 a month to meet the expenses that I am concerned about.  In my current job that would be about half time.  The problem is that it is hard to walk into a half time job that pays at the rate I am getting paid.  Well that appears to be a problem at AMIS any way.  I suppose the sequence is to going to be:

• 6 months of focused work toward business development
• 60% long term (1-2) years
• 30% short term web development etc
• 10% home run attempt
• After 6 months then if I am at a sustainable level of income then I can just keep going if I am not quite then I shift the tables to
• 60% short term income/job searching
• 30% long term work
• 10% home run attempt

I believe the previous sequence can work.  As long as I have enough work to pay the necessities I believe that my skills will leave me with enough time to still be able to work on the long term projects.

Back to the order of my list I believe that the reason that wealthy and fun came out in the order that they did is simply the belief that wealth would be a lot of fun and possibly that I value freedom over fun.  I am not sure if I value freedom over fun but there is a good chance that I do.  I imagine I am the sort of monkey that put in a cage full of wonderful toys would spend most of my time looking for a way to “break the joint”.

January 17, 2008

 

Thursday, January 17, 2008 6:00:49 AM

I didn’t get much sleep last night.  I think I slept from 7 or 8PM until 11PM after that I just laid in bed awake.  Lexie wasn’t sleeping either.  She read a book until about 5AM.  We didn’t talk much but just kind of laid next to each other.   I have no idea how I am going to handle work today.  I think I am going to go to my 8AM and 9AM meetings and then come home and go to sleep.  I’ll bring my work laptop with me in case I can get something done on it but I don’t really have any high expectations.  I wouldn’t exactly call myself sick but I am definitely not functional.  The problem I have with loading myself up on caffeine is that it will just make the problem of sleep deprivation worse later.  In the end the only cure I think will be to make it to Feb. 1st, have a good cry and then move on.  If the sleep doesn’t improve I will at least feel more comfortable about simply working through the night and then sleeping through the day in my new work situation.

This is an e-mail I just completed to Philippe Weamaes:

Hi Philippe,

I am glad to have a way to stay in contact with you.

I can relate to the need for a change and to try to balance life with the family.  What I am doing is indeed a very large change.  It may be more change than I really need but sometimes it is easier to make a larger change than a smaller one.  I am looking forward to the transition as an opportunity to address a lot of items not directly related to work such as my diet, exercise and journal writing habits.  I went through a quick point that I played with the idea of changing my name as well but I let that pass.  I have heard that a name change is a very powerful tool in generating a behavioral change.

I am not explicitly unhappy with who I am or what I am doing I am just extremely hungry to improve.  I don't think that will change at any level of performance I can achieve.

The part of my plans that I don't really like are that they end in a dark cloud about a year from now when I run out of money.   If my business is successful I will most likely want to buy land somewhere in Southeast Idaho and build a house with a design studio by it.  Actually I think I am going to build the design studio before the house.

If my business and travel is successful I may want to replace my suburban and trailer with something a little bigger and more comfortable.  My wife wants to travel back east and right now that is on the 2009 plan. It is a lot easier to travel in the west because there are more places to camp and things are generally less expensive.  Feb. 1st->May is when I plan to develop my first game in which time we will be traveling through California, Arizona and Utah.  My sister is expecting a baby and my son is being baptized (our church baptizes at 8 years old) in May so we want to be back in Idaho for that.

If I don't have a marketable game ready by May or some other entrepreneurial success that will be a red flag to start an active job hunt which will indeed start with ON Semiconductor.  If I have a marketable product I am going to give myself at least another 6 months for more marketing and development at which point I hope to have a fully sustainable income stream.  If I don't I will have some difficult choices to make.  A leading cause of start-up business failure I understand is under capitalization.  If after a year I believe that I have a sound product that just needs more time I can stretch one more year to do it after which I would need to turn to capital investment groups to continue.  I would like to fund as much as I can on my own because it keeps things simpler and keeps the motivation and reward potential higher.

Returning to the traveling question ... It really is quite open in our minds and dependent on information we don't have yet.  If I can indeed create a sustainable income from a remote location and get along in a confined living space we may not stop traveling for several years.  We would both really like to get back to Europe to see some more things there and do some cultural study.  I would like to go back to Asia for awhile but I know that would be a hard sell to my wife.  When we went to Korea together she was pregnant and the food didn't agree with her very well.  I'm sure we could get a quick trip in, again money pending.  I am very interested in North Korea and they are just now opening tourism to US citizens but it is very expensive.  I think it would be a lot of fun to clean up my Korean and tour North Korea (yet again another hard sell to the wife in as much as it carries the possibility of me getting myself landed in jail for my Yankee attitude).  I also have a strange fixation with Antarctica, well really the strange fixation is with ice.  It just so happens that Antarctica has a lot of it.  I used to be a tour guide for a helicopter company that would fly people to the glaciers in Alaska.  It was my job to help the people off the helicopters, get them outfitted with crampons and an ice axe, and then tour them around the glacier for about an hour and a half.  I spent a lot of time on that job fantasizing about a trip to Antarctica.  Anyway I think you get the point, big world, short life ...  Even with out money there are a lot of other interesting things to do.  For example I think it would be fun to live in a small Mexican village for a few months to learn Spanish.

Back to you, when is your end date at AMIS?  I can't help but think the change will be good for you.  I don't know very much about ST but I would guess it is very similar to AMIS and AMIS is a great company.  Getting closer to your house, getting your project slate wiped clean and getting back with some old colleagues should be quite refreshing.

Not knowing all of the details on your side but working off what you have written and then distorting it through my own paradigm I find it interesting that had AMIS improved their infrastructure toward enabling telecommuting it may have prevented the loss of either of us as employees.  Possibly not but I know that in my case I would be working for AMIS for at least another year if they would let me e-commute.  I would also be doing much better work for them.  In the end however if I can accomplish my dreams of starting a successful business and traveling the world I will have AMIS to thank for not letting me get too comfortable at the desk job.  On the other hand if I fail in business and find myself broke in a year I will have AMIS to thank for providing the money (through salary) for an amazing ride.

Dan Gordon

End of e-mail.

I really hope for the sake of my AMIS colleagues and possibly myself that AMIS changes their position about telecommuting after sacrificing two employees to the alter of “We are not setup to enable telecommuting”.   There is a generation clash over the issue.  I imagine that Dan Hegsted does not know that with Jeff and I sitting all but butt’s touching in back to back cubes if we are doing work we IM each other.  In general f we are complaining about AMIS or management we walk around the cube wall so we can enjoy each other expressions and not leave an e-trail.  My opinion is that almost no productive work happens “face to face”.  I am not saying that face to face time isn’t valuable I just don’t think it is productive.  I think an optimal schedule would mix time that was face to face with time that was locked down without interruptions.  I believe that a reasonable quality video conference can replace the need for a lot of the face to face time.  When I was visiting Belgium once a year and video conferencing with my co-workers there weekly I felt plenty of social connection to them.

January 16, 2008

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 5:18:09 AM

I finally got my date macro renamed and assigned to Ctrl-D a small thing but symbolic I hope in that it is the small things that make the difference. I know one of my hang ups is that I try to do too much too fast and wind up not getting as much done. I have found an amazing increase in my level of peace and enjoyment when I can back up and get in the mind set of “this job is going to take as long as it is going to take and it will be something really great when I finally finish it”. Of course that mind set isn’t always practical but it works more times that I will give it credit for.

I got a new graphics tablet yesterday. I am really excited about it. So far I seem to be getting used to it very quickly. I need to be realistic about my artistic abilities, it will be a while before I am doing things well freehand however the graphics tablet will be a big help. I have a couple of ideas concerning how I can get it to fit in the car office but I am not quite sure which I will use. I am guilty of skipping that step in the purchase decision of the tablet. It was one of those things I decided I just flat needed to make work.

Lexie and I talked about doing a handwriting program. I am very interested in the idea because the computer offers some feed back that a pencil and paper aren’t as ready to give. Another idea I had as I was writing is to make a game that focus on fine motor that requires the basic letter strokes.

I am all but exploding with stress over not having the car office ready nor having the website ready. I know quite a bit about html and general web programming and design but it is all rusty and I want professional results. The trouble of course is that I am not a professional right now. I also don’t have any time right now. I guess my schedule explains it. There really just isn’t that much time in a day. Yesterday my perception of the day was: I woke up, I got ready for work, I came home, Got the kids to go to my parents for dinner, ate dinner, helped my Dad with the computer for a tiny bit, went home exhausted, got kids in bed, plugged in the graphics tablet, tried a couple of things half asleep and went to bed thinking there isn’t any time in a day. It isn’t like I am working long hours at work either. I only worked 8 hours yesterday so work and the commute together only accounted for 8.5 of the hours. I know I lost most of my morning time half asleep in the tub. ¼ of lunch time was talking to Lexie another ¼ eating and the last half listening to talk of the nation. The evening was a mix of chasing kids and running around in circles.

I am really hoping that the trailer life minimized chasing around kids. It is something we really need to work on in the family. I know that Lexie and I are both to blame because we don’t give them good input about the schedule and we let them get away with ignoring us. Another vector of course is that they are still very little kids. When we go in the trailer I know I am planning to do suburban to trailer, trailer to suburban, in the trailer, out of the trailer, in the suburban and out of the suburban drills. Those are things we do very frequently but we aren’t very good at. For starters the most important ones to get down are going to be into the trailer from the suburban and into the suburban from the trailer.

January 12, 2008

Saturday, January 12, 2008 3:16:26 AM

As the days are counting down for our trip I am getting more and more excited about it. It seems like things are really coming together well. Lexie suggested that we start the development with spelling game rather than the math game because so many people had been interested in the spelling game. I like the idea because it allows the first game to focus on the programming aspects of the game without adding the extra difficulty of graphics as well. There will certainly be graphical elements to what is to be done in the spelling game how ever there is enough of a framework to hang things on I do not find the task as intimidating.

I have been doing better at work the last couple of days. Well except for Thursday which I skipped to go to the temple open house in Rexburg. Even though I know that my priorities put my family ahead of work and even though work was a little bit OK with me doing it. It really put me through an incredible amount of stress to not be at work. Thursday was a great example of what I am looking forward to improving in my new work environment. My next employer will not only mildly tolerate that kind of activity but they will actually encourage it. If we were living in the trailer Thursday would have been nothing more than a long lunch from work. Which again long lunches from work with the family are a good thing with my new boss, “me”.

I went over to Naomi's office to have lunch with her. Something that really surprised me about my visit to Naomi’s office was how jealous I got when I saw her office. I was reasonably vocal about it as well. I wasn’t jealous in the way of feeling negative toward Naomi but jealous in the way of “I deserve this or better”, “I have a better paying job”, “I went through a harder program” … I actually have no idea of if the last two are true but that has nothing to do with whether or not I believe them. I think it would be valuable to me if I could dig down and figure out what my complex over my office space was. 

An insite I had about myself is about how poor I accept critisisim. I actually go out of my way to collect criticism and in so doing I delude myself into thinking that I handle it well. However the act of seeking criticism is actually to avoid it. I am amazed at how painful the surprise criticism is or the criticism on a point I am sensitive about. 

Back to the office … When I discussed the office with Lexie she acknowledged that she heard about my office “often” and that indeed it seemed like any chance I got at work the first thing I did was change it. In fact something that makes me feel a bit if not extremely dumb is that after my decision to leave work I was having a lot of trouble with my motivation to work and was feeling a lot of hate about my needing to be in the office. Because I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything else I started cleaning up my desk. This was therapeutic on its own because it was part of the process of moving. The part that caught me off guard was the next day when I came to work. Coming to a clean desk changed the “I can’t tolerate this” feeling to a “maybe I don’t need to discontinue my work here after all” feeling. The second feeling isn’t true I do need to move on. However it was amazing to me the difference in emotion generated by a less cluttered work area.

I know that I am offended by the whole concept of cubicles. The only reason I can think of that one would outfit an $80-150K/year employee in $2K of real estate is to send the message “you are worthless”. It is done in the name of productivity and collaboration but I believe the productivity gain happens not out of the productive environment generated by the cube but the motivation that is instilled in people to get out of the cube and “earn” an office. Even the offices in the ERC are pathetic with 5 exceptions. Which brings me to my other point of hatred about my office space … Oh actually 6 exceptions, Tim White has a pretty decent cage. The point is that function of the director offices; I believe is more about sending the “I am more important and powerful than you” message than it is about providing an environment in which a director can do meaningful director work. It is easy enough to schedule a conference room that they do not need to have space for a conference table in their office. 

Also I take issue with the fact that most engineers do not have enough room to even hold one full sized white board in their cubes. I have a full sized white board in mine but it takes up an entire wall and I need to stoop to use it. When we first moved into the ERC it was a point of contention between me and the secretary because the initial code called for only small white boards because they looked better. I wouldn’t have a bit of that argument and had my own mini rebellion by putting in a full sized white board. It was comical to see how many people stopped by to admire it. Now I would estimate that 30-50% of the engineers have full sized white boards taking up most of the wall of their cubes. It is so pathetic that it was ever an issue and also pathetic that the engineers are so poorly facilitated. When I was following the newspaper articles about the tiger that escaped in San Francisco to kill a teenage boy I read a lot of the reader responses. A common response was the abhorrence of the way people keep animals in concrete cages, how pathetic the animals look locked up the way they are and how sad it is to see them out of their natural element. That is almost exactly the way I feel when I walk into the ERC.

So what’s my issue? Would I have an issue if I had the big cage? Do I need to feel like I am more important than other people? Do I need to feel like I am special? 

I know that I need to feel like I am special. I don’t know how much I need to feel like I am better than others. Being around weak people really doesn’t give me a boost. Feeling appreciated and respected by people really does.

I imagine that my current quest does have a lot to do with the need to feel special. I get a charge off watching a person determine that I am absolutely crazy. I almost think one person was so convinced they were evaluating the danger of me jumping forward and biting them.

We watched the movie “Knights of the South Bronx” last night. It has a person in it who leaves corporate America after having been laid off for whistle blowing to go back to what he “went to school for”, teaching. The man in the story is very talented at chess and finds that he can use chess as a way to connect with the students. The movie brought back a lot of happy memories of my time on the reservation in the chess club. The movie also highlighted the man’s change as he got in touch with himself and followed his inner dreams. I think I can feel some of the same changes that were highlighted in the movie as I am turning away from trying to meet the demands of what everyone else thinks I should do and trying to turn toward what my heart wants me to do. Fortunately for my comfort level my heart wants me to become a successful entrepreneur with a multimillion dollar corporation which is generally much more profitable than the dream the man in the movie had of becoming a teacher.

So back to my dream … Why multimillion? The multimillion figure I think has two origins, one is to feed the “I’m important” and “I’m special” need, the other is to feed the freedom need. It blows my mind to think about how nice it would be to wake up in the middle of the night with an idea for a new product or program and be able to start allocating abundant resources to implement it. I also know I have a big burn in myself to show that I am not “white trash”. It is almost ironic that I start that quest in a trailer with 4 kids and a pregnant wife. OK it’s a bit beyond ironic. It’s a nice trailer OK!!!! 

I also believe that expansive wealth would add a level of security that I do not currently enjoy. With the responsibility of providing for my family I have greatly suffered from anxiety thinking about what would happen if I lost my job. Being able to provide food, clothing, shelter and medical care for my family is one of my great callings in life. Not having direct control of my ability to provide those things is making me crazy. If I can generate a system that enables those things to be available regardless of how other people are interpreting my performance I believe I will be living a much better life.

Between the freedom factor and the “I’m important” factor I believe the freedom factor is more important to me. At least I believe it is the thing that is healthier to be important. The wonderful thing about the freedom factor is that it is something that can be addressed now. I haven’t ever tried cocaine but I imagine the high is similar to what I feel as I think about what my upcoming life in 2008 will be like as I do what I want, where I want as much as I want. Of course money limitations won’t make it exactly that way but I will have many more of the “Dan’s life” dials available to turn than I do at the present time.

I truly enjoy programming and design work. When I get into a good project I do not want to do anything but continue on the good project. Work has failed to provide me with that experience in quite a while. I believe that by selecting my own work I will be able to spend more of my time in that experience.

January 06, 2008

 Sunday, January 06, 2008 1:28:35 PM 

The Matthews plan to make an offer on our house. We’ll find out Monday exactly how much the offer will be for. They said that they would keep our net about 120K. I am happy with that. The planned close date is Feb. 1st which I am also very happy with but possibly a little stressed in as much as there is not much time between now and then. I expected to have more emotion over getting an offer but I am sure quite a bit of the positive emotion is tempered by the stress of the “to do” list and a lot of the negative emotion is tempered by the excitement to move. I will say that having a big paycheck right before the end of pay checks is going to make things more comfortable. We still run out of money in a blinding hurry but at least we will be able to have a little more time to get an income flowing. I don’t have particular financial goals for 2008 yet. I know one is to be in a situation that I do not need to get a full time job and do not need to stop traveling.

Happiness is more important than wealth. I am really excited for the potential for happiness that our new endeavor brings us. I am not sure exactly how I am going to react to all of the new found freedom. It seems that I will either improve my discipline and productivity or they will slack. Really the truth is that they will likely stay about the same ebbing and flowing like they do now. I know that the motivation to stay “free” is going to help push me into getting the things done that need to be done. I catch myself often telling myself things to the effect of “What kind of person do you want to be?” or “You can succeed on your own if you can’t do X.”.

I know I will need to do a lot of uncomfortable things however in a strange way that is one of the things I am looking forward to. I guess it is a growth opportunity thing. There is a person inside of me that has not yet developed into the person I want him to be. The new flexibility will hopefully allow me to concentrate on that development without all of the distractions that are inherent to a suburban employee lifestyle. The thing that is difficult as I think I have mentioned before is finding the balance between not pushing myself hard enough and pushing myself too hard. I think what I will do is error toward pushing myself too hard and pay close attention to my health. I know when I am running I am a lot better about being able to push myself to do the little things. Like running however I need to find the pace that is challenging but not breaking.

We need to take things one day at a time. I think the first couple of weeks are going to be like the start of a race where it is tempting to sprint at full speed. I know I will get frustrated if I try to get too much done in too little time. One of the frustrations I have now is that it doesn’t seem like I am able to get anything done while I am working because work is draining me so much. I truly believe that after the drain of work leave I will be much happier with my productivity. A big challenge of course will in keeping myself productive toward things that matter.

I need to write a goodbye letter to everyone at work or at least I would like to. I have been putting it off waiting for the perfect writer mood but it isn’t coming. I’ll take a quick crack at it here just the same and as a bit of practice in pushing myself.

Dan’s letter to colleagues:

As many of you have heard I am terminating my employment with AMIS at the end of January 2008. Before I leave I would like to thank everyone for the opportunity I have had to work with you. I have learned so much from each of you.

I have decided to take a position with Mind Jump Software as owner, CEO, CFO, Lead Developer, Chief of Marketing, Secretary and Janitor. The base pay is pathetic but the company has a very generous profit sharing plan that I hope will make up for things. The company is very flexible toward accommodating my life goals and lines up well with all of my personal values at least to the extent which I understand them.

It was a very difficult decision to leave AMIS. I enjoy the work I do as a CAD engineer. I enjoy the people I work with. At this point in my life I got a very strong impression that it was time for me to reach for more and move on. If my life course leads me back toward corporate work AMIS->ON Semiconductor is where I will start my search.

Of the many fears that I have needed to work through in solidifying my decision to venture out into my own business one that I hope to be able to overcome is losing contact with all of the great people I have worked with at AMIS. If anyone finds themselves curious what I am up to they can check my blog page. It is one of my 2008 goals to keep the blog up to date and interesting.

Also for work related items even though my checks from AMIS are scheduled to stop when work stops I would not mind a few e-mails with quick questions if you believe I am holding an answer that could help. Those kind of e-mails can’t be too frequent of course but I would like to do as much as I can to minimize the impact of my loss to AMIS.

END OF LETTER

Hmmmm. I’m not quiet happy with the letter. That’s probably part of the reason that I was putting off writing it. With that said the letter is what I had in my head so maybe at least having it put down on paper will free up my mind to improve it rather that simply keep holding it.

I’m sure part of what I don’t like about the letter is that I don’t have my blog setup yet and I am not sure how to do it and also I know that I don’t have a very good track record as a blogger. In fact I don’t even remember where my blog is!. I also have trouble finding the balance between what to keep personal and what to make public. I don’t think anything I have in my journal now would necessarily be bad public but some of it is relatively private. I also think I do better writing if I am holding the belief that no one will read what I am writing. If not better at least I have more freedom in my writing which makes the function of the writing as a method to generate and understand ideas more effective. I suppose the answer is that this is one of those places where I am going to need to push myself. First write in the journal and then a rewrite out to the blog page. If I leave myself enough time to do it and keep the priority high enough on it then I will be able to do it.

*** As an after note I still haven't written a farewell e-mail to my AMIS collegues. For some reason I have had a mental block against doing it.

 

January 05, 2008

Saturday, January 05, 2008 6:17:24 AM

I did do the video last Sunday.  I was happy with the outcome.  I was surprised how difficult it was to get a good tape but that really validated my reasons for doing it.  If I tape myself, look at it and think I look incoherent then it is easy to think that I look incoherent adlibbing things to the kids.  The other thing that worked well is that in as much as it was on a video media it did seem that I got good attention from the kids.  The kids watched it several times and we were able to have several “do you remember what it said in the letter?” conversations.

I read a little about Tao’ism in a book titled something to the effect of “The Tao of Pooh”.  I was mixed in my reaction to it.  For one I find that a lot of my thinking lines up with Tao’ism in that I believe there are harmonies to be found in the universe.  The idea of an empty mind I find a bit of conflict with because I enjoy analysis so much.  With that said I also believe in revelation and the mind does need a quietness for that.  In fact a major reason I am excited about the opportunity presented by the trip is that I expect it to facilitate more of the quiet time in my life.

 What I don’t know how to do is make the balance between accepting my own nature and striving for progress.  I think the process needs to start with a very frank inspection of myself.  Before I try to do anything in an attempt to change my nature I need to understand it.  With that said the quest to understand my nature will require a little change sort of.  For example writing in my journal this morning rather than jumping in the tub with a comic book felt like a fight against my nature how ever once I finally started it I am feeling really good about doing it and probably am more relaxed than I would be in the tub thinking about all of the things that I am not getting done.  Running falls into the same category as a journal in terms of something that I want to do but seems to be a fight of my nature to get started on.

I really have not found myself to be good at repetitive activities.  Getting more consistency in important matter is something that I hope to be able to achieve in 2008.  With that said I know I harbor an inner fear of a life that is all routine and lacks spontaneity and freedom.  I really want to get as much process as possible out of my day to day life so that I can do what ever I want.  It seems the less time it takes to bath, get dressed, do laundry, clean the house, cook food etc. that it takes the better unless of course that is what I want to be doing.  There is a lot to be said for the joy in life of a long bath or preparing a nice meal.  It just can’t be that life always is involved in those things at expense of other things.

I believe that the mental freedom of not having as many fixed activities or appointments on my schedule will be a great boon to my general productivity.  I know I often put of a journal or exercise because I need to get to work at a certain time or get to sleep so that I can get up a certain time.

I want to find a nice balance between pushing myself hard enough and being easy on myself.  I know I push myself to hard and am too easy on myself all at the same time now.  Something that helps a lot is if I can keep a clear picture of what my goals and priorities are and then just continue to do things to make progress toward them but let the pace take care of itself.