On a lighter note

All the better, I now see, for me to forget my 'dongle' and thus be rendered helpless and unable to crank out any work this morning. For now I am sitting at Big City Coffee out on State Street, 10 minutes' drive from home and 20 minutes' drive from work, turning to this online purge-hole to fill my time. Nearly three months ago I posted the blog about el padre mio, which felt good, but I certainly did not mean to let such an interval pass without a less-intense update. Some of you have expressed concern. Stop, all is well.

Can't go home, no sir, since I'm scheduled to meet a couple gents here in about 45 minutes to discuss a work project. Same old story in Calvin's world: getting to work at 7:00 a.m. does not allow me to leave at 3:00 p.m., due to my own inability to set some limits and walk out that door. A mired mix of perfectionism and egotism, the 50+ hour work week has become all too common. What? This is the real world you say? Yikes.

Lauren and I are due to wed in a mere three months (and change). Don't feel offended if you've not yet received an invite, we're on the ball but not THAT on the ball so you'll likely get one soon don't fret. Sometimes it catches up with both of us and we're bowled over by the immensity of all that's happening; I'm not talking about the logistics of the wedding, I mean the situation of us having found such a connection in one another and imagining/planning our future together. Sitting on the couch last night, I was spacing off recalling the times I spent alone and independent or rather independently lonely. Paid my dues, as well all tend to do.

Continuing this mental spaticity, an update on this job that I love/hate/can't seem to fully control: after having paid my dues with dozens of quirky independent inventor-types, on dozens of quirky 'inventions', I have sort of struck gold with the most recent project (the gents I'm meeting in ten minutes). You remember some of my old projects:

Refrigerator latches
External Catheter devices
Fly-line cleaner tools
Packaging/automation conveyor systems
Touch screen electronics enclosures
Bicycle transmissions
Animal telemetry devices
Prosthetic air expulsion valves

Not all bad, but honestly most of them will never make it to full production for various reasons. Well, of late I have been doing some CAD-jockey work for local business entity UGOBE. Perhaps you've heard of the Pleo dinosaur? It's the next uber-cool toy from the "polymath toy inventor" that created the Furby a few years back. Even though I'm just a CAD monkey right now, I'm hoping that they see my abilities in product design and innovative conceptual design. In this industry, the term CAD-jockey is quite derogatory and a label analogous to "expert video-gamer". Drawing a few shapes in SolidWorks, per some one's specs, isn't that difficult. Hashing out the details, brainstorming better solutions and alternatives and showing souplesse is what carves out a niche for oneself. They haven't seen it in me yet, but I think they will.

Maybe once the Pleo hits shelves this fall I can post some pictures to show off what I've assisted in developing. For now, however, it's all honor-system and you have to just believe that I am somehow involved with a pretty cool company that beats the pants off of anyone else I've designed for. Pretty cool, to understate an amazing opportunity.

OK, time to wrap it up. Hopefully I'll forget my dongle more often, this has been delightful.