“The best way to learn is to teach.”
This is something my father told me whenever I announced that I needed to learn something.
More wise thoughts next week. Possibly one of my own.
Andrew
Here they are, the Louis Cubes:
Parquetry finished. The cubes have a cherry veneer border.
I was so excited that I couldn’t center the picture.
The lid sits on four pegs inside the box:
Lid off, what’s inside?
and one final shot of me trying to show how the box opens:
Me opening the box.
Looks like I got a picture of my hand and part of the junk pile that is my bench.
The box isn’t completely done. It needs a bit of sanding, a little varnish and some felt on the inside. I think I’ll put felt on the bottom of this box too.
No idea what next week’s project will be other that it will have some wood or wood like substance in it.
If you need me – I’ll be in the shop,
Andrew
This is a week where I am in the midst of changes. Not all I like. One or two are okay, but mostly I don’t like change. Still, we must accept that in life, change happens.
Except from a vending machine.
Life with the CPAP machine is settling in a routine. I complain about it in the evenings – you have to really. Just go google, “CPAP” mask to get the idea. It’s a bit like suiting up to fly a fighter jet, well without the fancy helmet or 100 million dollar airplane to fly around. I told a friend at church today, “If it wasn’t for the fact that it was working, I’d complain a lot more.”
So I don’t like having the mask and waking up in the middle of the night with an air tube wrapped around my head. However, the mornings are good and I like the fact that I now wake up feeling rested with more energy to take on the world. I haven’t taken on the world yet, but any day now, watch out world.
Another change is at work. Not a big massive change. Just a little annoying change. Remember the old saying from your childhood, “Just when you get your room the way you want it, mom makes you clean it up?” Okay, maybe that was just me. Anyway, my company has been expanding and finally outgrew the building, so this weekend all the stuff from my cube is in a moving van on the way to our new location.
This is typical in life here in Silicon Valley. If you’ve stayed in the same cube for more than a year, most of us get nervous and wonder if we’re about to be laid-off. The high-tech business is all about explosive growth and innovation. If you’re not innovating, you’re dying. If you’re innovating, and growing, you’ll need more office space.
That means that the company move is a good thing. Unless you’re aware of the quote, “Every silver lining has a cloud.” I think Eeyore was first credited with that saying. The move is good for me personally because the new office is about two miles closer to home and is adjacent to the creek trail so I’ll have some place nice to walk during lunch times (or when the boss pisses me off, again).
The real downside is that the nearest Starbucks is 1.5 miles away. At the old office Starbucks was just 800 feet away. Those figures are very precise. I used Google maps to measure the walking distance. Now, I don’t go to Starbucks more that once a week, but it’s the principle of the thing. It’s about loosing a privilege just because the company is growing.
And I checked, there isn’t a Starbucks delivery service in my area. If you’re thinking of starting one, put me down for one tall latte a week. I am sure that will impress your investors.
Tomorrow will be the first day at the new office and I have a set routine to go through with any move. It’s kind of sad that I move so often that I have a routine, but here’s what I expect tomorrow to look like:
1. My new key fob won’t let me into the building or parking garage.
2. The boxes I carefully packed will be delivered to the wrong cube, possibly a different building.
3. It will take me two hours to find where my monitors are.
4. The people at the help desk, will just give me new cables rather than trying to find the ones I packed.
5. The network connection in my cube won’t work until I complain to the VP of engineering.
6. The IT group will have changed my wifi password without telling me the new one.
7. My favorite English Breakfast tea won’t be in the kitchen, again.
8. The boss will again send an email to the catering company asking they stock my tea.
9. I won’t like my new cube furniture.
10. My new cube will be smaller.
11. The special ergonomic changes I need won’t be in place, even though the nice facilities lady made careful notes on what I need.
12. There will be a major problem with my production servers that will need to be fixed before I can setup my computers.
Other than my work life being in a bit of flux, life has been good and I am now some place between looking forward to and being in fear of, life’s next change.
Till next week,
Andrew
“Don’t let college interfere with your education.”
My father would said this to any person he met who was either attending college or thinking of enrolling. The simple sentence was normally followed with a ten minute to two-hour lecture on the difference between getting a degree and getting an education. The length of the lecture depending on the politeness and tolerance of his victim audience.
I won’t subject you to that lecture today. I’ll save it for one of my Sunday essays.
More wisdom next week,
Andrew
Andrew's View of the Week 