Flying back home..  and you know what that means… !

Another chance to watch the Big Lebowski,.. ! (Maybe for the 30th time)

nite all, nite sam
-me

Excellent day visiting friends at Cadence. Cadence is the largest Electronic Design Automation (EDA)  company  .. I  was there  at my friend Anirudh’s invitation giving a company wide talk on the importance of Play and how we can use play to get more students interested in electronics. I was really honored to be asked.. as I’ve been working with Cadence  for nearly 30 years.. .. They bought the company Neolinear that was based on my PhD  thesis.. and I/we used their tools for all of our big processor chips in IBM..  

I got there around 10 and had soem time to catch up with Anirudh.. we did our PhD’s together at CMU.. and then he worked at IBM for many years. Now he’s the CEO of an $87B company. ! He’s such a great guy for that job.. super smart and super approachable. He’s set a great vision for  Cadence and made it a fantastic place to work. In fact it was named as the #9 Best Places to work on the  Forbes Top 100 places to work  and is quickly climbing the WSJ’s 100 Best managed Companies list 

That ‘best place to work’ vibe was evident with every person I met and conversation I had through the day.. starting with my hosts Yuki and Emma who got me to the auditorium for my talk.. Anirudh gave a very kind intro then I started talking.. I did my main speil on the importance of Play in engineering (and every) job.. and doubled down on how we can use play to get more students to fall in love with electronics.. Its a topic I beleive in deeply. as often happens, I was ‘in the zone’.. and next thing I know, I was done.. I think it went well.. ..   

After the talk I got a chance to talk to several old freinds in the audience. Here are Vinod and Mehmet.

I had a great lunch meeting with the Cadence outreach folks. Nicole and Ben.  

After lunch we had a treat.  We heard a great talk from my  old friend Jason  Cong  who is a Distinguished Prof   at UCLA (and an all around wonderful person) . It was great getting to see him if only for a few minutes. 

After the talks of the day were over, we all went to the HQ building for a really fun ‘casino night’.. there was great food, casino gambing for pros.. and a great opportunity to soak up more to eh ‘Best Places too Work’ vibe. I met so man great people !!!!

Got a pic with my two wonderful Hosts.. Yuki and Emma. 

After the party I headed back tot he hotel… and was just about to order dinner when all the lights went out.. I’d thought it was just a problem with the hotel restaurant.. then I realized it  was the whole hotel.. no wait.. it was the whole block.. Actually it was a big chunk of the city !>> I walked around the neighborhood .. it was fun and kind of spooky !

That also mean no power for elevators, no power for AC (It was 97 today).. and no lights in the room…

no problem there.. I have been working on some led bling for our burning man crew… I reprogrammed them to be mood lighting which let me pack.. 

Great day.. Thank you cadence !

night all, night sam
-me

First thing this morning I called our friend Shannon to see if they were around for a visit..   They were.. though the catch was their toddler Zoe was heading to daycare at 8:30.. so I zoomed over there.. It was fun seeing everybody. Last time I saw Zoe, she was a tiny baby..   now she’s a really cute toddler..   It was great catching up with Shannon and Aaron.. and of coarse.. Frank.. who’s bigger than I am

Aaron showed me a great book they’d found that every high tech parent in the valley seems to have.. Computer engineering for babies.. and It had really functions circuits ! Gotta get this !

I spent most of the rest of the day hanging out with Rafe.. He had some more talks with his doctors today and I wanted to hang out till after that.. It was pretty ok news.. and It was fgood to be able to talk afterwards.

Rafe is such an amazing guy.. I love hanging out with him and his family

Nite all, nite sam

-me

First things first.. Happy birthday to Gabe !!!!.. He turns 29 today. He’s so fun, so smart… and so loving..

Happy birthday my son.. ! I love you so much and I’m so happy to be your Daddio  . 

In celebration of the birthday season, we’re working hard to find funny pictures of each other. This one popped up on my phone today !

My first challenge for the day was to escape from my airbnb.. someone had parked a bike next tot eh gate I had to leave through.. and I could not push it open. I had to sneak through the main house to get out 🙂

I got to Rafe and Lolos. Lolo and I went out for a run this morning.. We did a big loop around their neighborhood, then ran up the hill to the Stanford radio telescope . It was a good workout for such  a hot day..

Around 1ish we headed to Stanford for Sabine’s graduation. She’s graduating from the really cool Stanford Online High School. Rafe actually helped start the program about 13 years ago.. Many of the students are local, but many classmates live in other parts of the world.. THere’s a big group of competitive athletes , performing musicians.. and other high school age students who need to travel for their craft.  It was great hearing from the faculty.. and hearing a little bit about all of the 120 or so graduating students. . 

I particularly like the talk from the physics teacher  Kale Tok. I’d given a talk to her students remotely once during Covid. I really enjoyed working with her. SHe’s the reason that several of the kids, including sabine, are going into physics/astrophysics  ! her talk was fun and though provoking.. she talked about the discovery of interstellar microwaves that are relics of the bog bang and cause the static we see on old tvs.. She told how that was discovered when scientists thought the static was from dirty antennas in their instrument.. bird poop, basically.. she talked about the need to experiment.. and showed this great picture of the school mascot on a helium balloon that went 1000000 feet into the upper atmosphere.. She concluded by telling the students.. that sometime the biggest discoveries are in the bird poop.. though sometimes it is just that.. bird poop !..

 It was really nice to see what they said about Sabine !

After the graduation we went out and took pictures. I was able to find Ms Tok and introduce myself in person.. It was fun to meet face to face .

I got lots of pictures of the family 

Afterwards we went back tot he house and hung out with Sophie, Madeline,Matteo,  Rima, and Tom..

Rafe and Lolo’s friend Eduard came over. They had introduced us a few years back under sad circumstance. Paul and his wife 11 year old son Paul was killed by a car right before the pandemic.  We didn’t really meet until today. It was good to connect on how he and his family were doing, Hard conversations but often helpful…

It turns out that Eduard is also a serious electronics nerd.. so we spent most of our time talking about that.. and giving each other demos.. Life’s like that !

This eying, Rafe, Lolo and I got take out Thai.. it was a good day.. I’m really glad I’m here. 

NIte all, nite sam

-me