Ahhhhh – home again after a very succesful and fun trip down to NYC and Fishkill I got home around 10:30.. Gabe Diane and Chai were all still up so I got to see them. I miss them so mch when I’m gone. It’s back to the three of us at home. I wonder what it feels like when I’m not here… guess I won’t know

Woke up late today with just enough time to get to my meeting.. I almost forgot to leave a tip in the room .. but I remembered at the last sec.. I always try to leave some thing funny with it to brighten the receivers day a but. . Here’s the best I could do today.

We had a good few hours of TC meeting until I had to leave around 2:30 I had a meeting with my boss John. I had to walk across the site to get to John’s building. Fishkill really is a concrete jungle. This sign says it all.

One treat was a chance to stop in and say hi to some old friends.. including Ang..my friend Kevin’s extra special helper… She’s a good friend..

I had a really good meeting with John… It was good catching up with him. He’s been so great to me through this past year.  I told him about how my assignment was going and we talked about my return to the real world.I am actually getting more and more psyched to get back to technical work.

After seeing John.. I went back to the TC meeting… which was just ending, said goodbye to my friends there .. then made a quick run over to Dave and Jeans in Holmes NY to return Dave’s potato guns / He’d lent them to me for a demo for a talk I was giving. I ended up not using them in the talk because the setting wasn’t all that conducive to indoor firearms.. but it was fun having them just the same..

There was something ‘American Gothic’ about the scene as I handed Dave back his musket.

I only had a few minutes at Dave and Jeans.. but I got a picture of the cool Nixie clock that we got him as a going away gift from the TC. I love this clock !

.. as well as a picture of his lock picking paraphernalia.. It was a funny surprise during my last visit that both Dave and I picked locks for fun.. Come to think of it.. it’s not that surprising.. We have many similar impractical hobbies.

Jean even warmed up soem of the left over Thai food I brought and sat me down to eat it..

I ate and ran.. I don’t think I was there for more than 15 minutes. I zoomed back to Beacon to meet Mason’s train. He’d been down in NYC visiting Max and his friends.. It was so great driving back with Mason. Not only did he keep me awake as I drove.. but we had the best conversation. We talked about so much stuff on the way back. He’s such a good kid. .. One of the things we tlaked about was my ‘kids these days….’ rant.. that’s my observations about how Gen-y folks and old timers (like me) have such different work styles, priorities and attitudes in the work place. It’s really interesting to see this generations Idon’tbuyyourstudyhardinschoolsoyoucangetintoagoodcollegesoyoucangetagoodjob life template… or the older generations whydontthesekidswantoworkharderandgetaheadlikeme attitude.. I can understand both sides.. but the difference sure causes some miss communications at work and in life.   I wonder how we can get better understanding across the generations ?

  Anyway, we were talking about that when we stopped in briefly to see Homer and Mary as we came through Monkton on the way home

Coincidentally.. Homer had out the Cat Stevens album with ‘Father and Son’ which is the song that the aforementioned old guy/young guy conversation had me singing in my head.

It’s a great song.. take a listen.

hood, gloves, bunny suit…

Here’s Jane (China)

… and Joanne (US)

and .. me.. I think ?

and Hugh (UK)  I think

This must be Carolyn (australia/US)

and John (Canada)

Trust me, we are smiling !

I’m pretty sure this is me also …

Our tour lasted an hour. It was truly awe inspiring that that many different machines could be hooked together to work that efficiently.. The high point was seeing the $50 million dollar deep UV  immersion stepper.. what a cool piece of machinery !

After the tour, we had to quickly dash to teh cafeteria to do a round table with the Fishkill employees.. I met these guys   Orazio and Donato Forlenza  .. They were a riot. they’re acutally brothers working in the same department.. (Let’s see Forlenza .. is that an Irish name ? ) Donato is going to a wedding in India .. I showed him some pictures from our trip.. He’s going to let me know how his trips go.. He’s not sure he likes Indian food.. I told him to pack a lunch.

Here’s all the Academy TC and the Fishkill TVC before the panel

Here are some of the folks who showed up for the panel..

And here’s a quick shot of my fellow panelists.

I had many freinds in the crowd including Bhavna.. in profile you can almost tell that she’s expecting her first baby in April !

The rest of the day was very good discussions with the TC. … Not much I can report on here.. but there’s a very good ernegy abotu the group now. We worked until about 6.. then I zoomed off for dinner wit my old boss and very good freind Kevin. We had a really great dinner.. at a Thai place in Beacon.. I absolutely love talkign with Kevin he is such a cool and interesting guy.. we talked families, work, music, hiking.. I never get tired of listening to him

which is not to say that I never get tired… I’m about to fall asleep .. so time to sign off…  Sleep tight all.. sleep tight Sam..
-me

We have a very early day tomorrow (starts at 7 AM .. ugh) .. so I’m going to make this quick…  We had a good productive day full of brainstorming.. I wish all my days could be this full of thinking… I didn’t get much sleep last night, so it was tough to pry myself out of bed today to run.. I do enjoy running here for some strange reason.. I run around the parking lots of all these half empty malls and offices… I think what makes it fun is that I’ve been doing these same runs for about 20 years.. It’s ugly.. but it’s my ugly.   Actually the scenery is not that bad.. once you get out of the city it looks very much like Vermont.   The hotels pretty nice..  I think it might be my favorite of the 7 in this black.. ( why Fishkill needs 7 big chain hotels I can’t understand)

Funny thing.. as I ran by the restaurant this morning the alarm went off…
 

What do you think made that happen ?

THough I was in meetings all day, I did get a chance to see quite a few freinds in the halls of Fishkill. here’s my good friend Bhavna who’s just moved back from 3 years in Switzerland.

And here’s my friend Jeff… … his brain is wired in an interesting way.. I think he may be the person I know who’s best at coming up with counter examples.. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of some of the code my area creates.  If you give him an idea.. he’ll either say  ‘that will ‘t work’.. or he’ll give you exactly what won’t work about your idea.. He’s also a pretty interesting unit. He wears a medic alert bracelet that says in the event of his imminent demise you should remove his head and put it in liquid nitrogen.. in the hopes that they can revive him many hundreds of years later… Pretty interesting !

I managed to catch a quick beer after work with my friend Sarala… a manager in my old area.. It was good to catch up on the technical and people stories of he area…

Then it was off to dinner at Cafe Aroma.. one of the best restaurants down here.. It was a great time there tonight.. good Italian food and my good friends from the Academy for company. I feel very fortunate to be able to attend events like this.

One interesting interlude tonight was a very spirited conversation between our two interns Chris and Marshea and some of us older folks.. They had some good insights about how to enable new hires to participate in setting strategy. I always think it’s interesting talking across generations I can see myself so clearly in their spot when I was in my early 20’s at IBM.. some things are so different now.. and some things never change. I can tell you one thing. it it’s really freaky to be treated as the ‘old guy’ now..

One bonus tonight was a visit from my good friend Dave. at dinner.. Dave used to be president of the Academy.. now he’s retired. I’ve stayed with Dave and his wife Jean several times in the past year.  Tonight, he was kind enough to bring me a few potato guns that I may  use  as props in a talk I’m giving tomorrow.

After dinner, I had a great call with my dear friend Ruchir.. then went to the grocery store to by pickles for a demo tomorrow.. It’s weird walking around a grocery store at night.. reading the magazine racks… This one reminded me of Sam….

Ahh.. now time for a bath then sleep….

We’re getting to go on a tour of the manufacturing line at 7ish . I’m really excited because I’ve never been through this facility. Hopefully I can get a picture of us in the ‘bunny suits’

OK.. time for sleep.. Hope you all had a good day.. I did . Gnite all.. Gnite Sam, I love you

-me

Very late and very sleepy.   I’m in my overly fancy hotel room contemplating who has time to make roses out toilet paper.

I had a very full day here in Fishkill. It was interesting walking into the buildings here.  I hadn’t been here in more than a year.  I know so many folks here. Walking down an aisle was a veritable mine field of memories. I must have answered the ‘how are you’ riff 50 times today. I’m glad that people care to ask.. it’s exhausting to answer though .. If you’re reading this.. please keep asking.  It was fun romaming the halls down here again.. not much had changed..

Here’s friend Pete.

And friend Chris (from Ausrtalia) and Marshea having at it on the Fusbol table.

Here’s my friend Raminderpal

Here my friend Vasant is looking at a picture of bridge that may or not may have been  built by his grandfather in Cochin India

The yellow lights in the parking lot brought back some comfort.
 

At 7 we met at a great indian place down on room 52…

Karl-Heinz and Steve were there

as was Marhsea.. from our intern team

and , of course, our President Joanne.

Guru and Takeo-san were there, too

as was Curry

Lori and Curry about to call it a night

Me about to wander off to blog…

That’s it.. I can hardy keep my eyes open i. Gotta sleep . .. Gnite all. gnite Sam.. Me…
-jc