I spend three weeks visitings many diifferent engineers all around North America..  Wonderful time until I caught swine flu.  So I am at home trying not to contaminate anyone else.  I would like to thank the guys in apps for sending over the nice Stephen King Book.  It's called "The Stand" and it about 99.7% of the world being killed off with flu.  Actually this is a good sign.  If they ever treated me nice I would assume I was really dying.  Now I am going back to bed.  The codene in the cought medicine is kicking in and me writing is edgy enough as it is.

Dave

Here is the t shirt

I went to 8 cities in 18 days and all I got was the Swine Flu!

Catchy!

I finished last week in the North East on a Friday and had to be in the South East on Monday. I decided to camp over in Orlando. The Kennedy Space Center is just a bit down the road and I highly recommend it to all engineers. It goes back to a time when there was prestige in being an Engineer. The only thing that has impressed my as an engineer in the locks at the Panama Canal.  It is also special for me because my father was a NASA engineer. I thought I should go see where he spent much of my formative years. It is a wonderful place in a museum sort of way. Whatever reasons for the trip to the moon, space travel will never reach the same excitement as it did in the 60s. I feel privileged to experience the space program from the engineer’s prospective. Most everyone else experienced the media’s Astronaut based prospective. I can tell you the engineers considered the astronauts to be cargo. Very important cargo, mind you, because they brought in the funding. I remember hearing on the news that Gus Grissom’ s Mercury capsule had faulty explosive latches. My father when wild and had a conversation with Gus.

This is such a great job. I actually getting paid to learn how to do new things with PSoC and pass this information on to you guys. I spend a lot of time on the road and I go visit so many different and amazing companies. For the most part, I find engineers that are involved with product design for very specific product types for mostly obscure companies. They are proud of what they build and have a uniquely detailed understanding of their industry. They attempt to do the best job they can with less than perfect parts, less than perfect tools, on under funded, under staffed projects. Still they carry on. A while back I met with an engineer at a company that builds RF value control boards for agricultural sprinkler systems. They built the most popular system west of the Mississippi and no one could even guess their name. Still this engineer is proud to have three patents dealing with efficient water delivery. He is excited that his company may be venturing in to golf course watering systems (And he loves PSoC). One engineer I work with is from Adidas and when he goes to the movies, notices what shoes all the actors wear. I swear he can name style and type at 50 yards. Some engineers are new, others quite experienced, and several have written books. Each engineer has a unique prospective and I get to learn something from each one of them.

If I am lucky the company will manufacture on site and I get to see really cool equipment. A lock company I visited has a machine the opens and closes a door about a million times for live time testing. One power tool company has a test room where the sound is so loud it would kill you if you went in long enough with unprotected ears.

I have a lincensed copy of Mathcad12.  I got a new computer and went to load Madcad on it.  (My old computer has gone to be with Jesus in bit heaven).  I have a scratch on the cd so I can not install.  I have attemped to contact Math Soft.  Appaerently they are now owned by PTC and there have a bullet proof wall netween me and anyone that can help. 

Does anyone have a copy of the MAthCad12 cd?  (I have a licenese, just no disk)

If anyone has any ideas I would appreciate hearing about it.  If somebody knows the PTC, tell them "Shame on you"!

A few weeks back I got to go visit Fender in Phoenix AZ. I have been there many times and enjoy each visit. I truly believe they should call the company “My day job” because everyone seems to be a musician. (The receptionist isn’t a musician but she like musicians and it is nice to work at a place where the musicians have paying gigs.) Their lobby is really cool. I included a picture of me with some artwork. They used to have signed guitars on display in the lobby but apparently they got stolen. The still have signed guitars deep inside their building. I enjoy seeing a company where the employees so identify with their products and are proud of what they make. They have such a great gig going on making great amps. They make rock amps and jazz amps. They make jazzy rock amps and rocky jazz amps, mostly rock kinda jazzy amps, and all sorts of variations. Then they come up with some famous Jazz Artist’s (that is what jazz musicians call themselves Jazz Artists) signature amp that of course all the young musicians just have to buy. No wonder we have starving musicians, they are spending all their money on instruments. Seriously they understand and respect their audience and they are a joy to work with.