The lady who is the chief of staff sent me an e-mail this morning to welcome me to The QCC. That would be the Quarter Century Club in the enterprise where I work. I'm not sure what to think about getting this e-mail. She mentions scheduling a virtual meeting with the CEO, virtual only because the company HQ is in Chicago. She continues that I can ( Read more... )

Well, it started with an update from upper management informing us that we were all going to get rich. The week-long holiday shutdown starts at the end of next week. Then, in the Friday afternoon doldrums, someone complained about Facebook screwing up her interface again and making things hard to find, and a discussion of social media and its ( Read more... )

It got hot over the weekend. I had to turn on the swamp cooler on Sunday. It was cloudy and overcast this morning, but not raining. I haven't seen any rain since June started, which is the expected case. When I caught the glimpse of The City on the way into work this morning, it was sunny there across the Bay. It's nice how the weather works ( Read more... )

It's a beautiful morning today ( Read more... )

Trying to trace out flip-flops, latches, demultiplexers, memory and I/O chip addressing in complex data acquisition and control systems without sufficient design documentation causes headaches for embedded software engineers. Schematics without documentation are like uncommented assembler. It's days like this that I realize why they pay me. Ah ( Read more... )

I wanted to play hooky so much Thursday morning. I was already running later than usual to work in the first place. Fortunately, I have a job that is pretty understanding about office hours and my job is not hour-critical, as long as the work gets done in a timely fashion. The temptation was the great weather and the beautiful San Francisco ( Read more... )

Okay, well, despite the date vs. the tag, it was Friday when I started this post. There's so much going on lately I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed. I've started three posts that I haven't put in here. Maybe I'll rectify that this week. Mostly what I've been doing at work is preparing to move to another part of the building. The company ( Read more... )

Things for software engineers with screwdrivers to remember:

1. Do not plug newly constructed untested devices into the power outlet in your cubicle. You need power for most of your productivity and a fried outlet will throw a monkey wrench into your workflow.
2. When wiring up a new device, it is important to check the board connection on the power ( Read more... )

It's beautiful and brilliantly sunny again, after that ridiculous cold snap last week. Fortunately, winter doesn't have much staying power here ( Read more... )

The fog is settling over Livermore and it's really chilly out tonight. I wish I had straightened out my living room so I could have lit my fireplace. Heh heh, fire good, and I'm feeling like I really want the warmth. I'm still sick. Yay. Okay, I'm better, but the novelty is starting to wear off. I'm hacking now, and it's starting to give me a ( Read more... )