Hanging with Greatness

My son is an épée fencer. Recently, he was at a national-level competition in Richmond, Virginia, and got to hang with this guy: That's Jordan and his teammate, Alexander, with Miles Chamley-Watson. Miles is the first U.S. man ever to win an individual Senior World Championship title, taking the gold medal in 2015. He's also sponsored by Red Bull, trains 6 hours a day, and makes funny videos:

Miles is 25, so Jordan has 8 years to get to that level. No pressure.

Cubicle Comedy of Errors

 At my work, we recently had our spacious 8x9 cubes compressed by 33% to 8x6. No one is happy about this. With a full L-shaped desk, you end up with about 15 square feet of livable floor space. And the door is right behind your back, so there is no privacy at all. It is unbearable. See for yourself:



Criminals get larger prison cells than this.  Click to enlarge, but not much.

 Imagine an entire floor of these boxes. Or don't imagine it. Take a look at our glorious cube farm for yourself:

33% smaller cubes also means 33% more people in the same area.

 On the up side, this has forced some of us to learn how cubes are constructed, and to figure out some more optimal cube configurations.

Do you know what these are for?  I do!

My friend Shawn and I both modified our cubes. I'm actually pleased with my layout now, even if it is smaller, and I've helped a few others re-arrange their cubes as well. All unapproved by management, of course.

I tell you all this to explain how I came up with the following scheme. Shawn was away for a week of vacation. I decided to give him the welcome home gift of eliminating his cube. I "borrowed" a 3-foot cube panel from somewhere else and closed off his door. The end result was this:

The photo was obviously taken from above. A normal person would see simply a solid wall where a door used to be.

I even made it more authentic by writing up a work order for door removal:

My job done, all I had to do was sit back and wait for the festivities Monday morning.  This is where everything went wrong.

Problem the First. We've been compressed for a few months, and to my knowledge, the manager in charge of the compression has never once come around to check if everything was done properly and we were happy (ha!) with our new prison cells. I figured I could borrow the panel on Thursday, replace it Monday, and no one would be the wiser. As luck would have it, the manager came around not three hours after I removed the panel. He was surprised to see empty space where there should have been a wall, and promptly wrote up a work order to have a panel installed. Oh no. Come Monday, I'm going to have an extra panel!

Problem B. Friday morning, Shawn calls me up from his vacation and asked me to get a box out of his cube and deliver it to a conference room. Uuuhhh.... Oh no. I briefly debated whether I could climb over the cube walls without killing myself.  In the end, the thought of lying dead in Shawn's cube until Monday convinced me to disassemble his door, remove the box, and put the door panel back in place.  This was clearly not planned well.

Problem 3.  I intended to borrow a ladder from Shawn on Monday to get some work done at my house. He was home Saturday, so I had to debate getting the ladder early, or wait until Monday after Shawn had seen his cube (or lack thereof) and potentially would no longer be on speaking terms with me. Decisions, decisions...

Luckily, in the end, everything went well. According to Shawn, he walked to his cube Monday morning, didn't find his cube, and was somewhat confused. Then he saw the work order and the panic started to set in. Are we in trouble for modifying our cubes? Would they really un-do all the work we did?? When he walked around the corner to find where they should have placed the door, only to still find no door, he finally knew it was a joke.

And he was a good sport about it and still let me borrow his ladder.

I'm still not sure what to do with this extra panel, though....

There was a young limerick from Nantuckit

Recently, my daughter had an assignment in English class to write a limerick, and she asked for help coming up with something.  My first thought was of all the bawdy ones I can't tell her, so that didn't help.  Instead, I decided to write one of my own for her.  This is what I came up with:

My Dad goes to work from morning to night.
He works all day, never seeing the light.
  He brings home the dough
  to feed us, you know.
That's why I love him with all of my might.

She didn't like it.  I can't imagine why.  She has no taste, I tell you, no appreciation for fine literature.  Where did I go wrong?

The Speed of Thought

I'm an introvert.  I think the main reason for this is because I can't think of anything interesting to say when I meet people.  My brain does not think on its feet.  It's very uncomfortable.  People say you just need to relax, don't worry, say whatever - friends won't care if it's some earth-shattering idea or not.  I agree, but seriously, something is wrong with my brain.

Let me give you an example.  I was recently driving my daughter to symphony rehearsal and was stopped at a light.  A car pulls up next to me in the turn lane and motions for me to roll down my window.  It was some elderly man, so I did, with the worry already beginning in my stomache, "Aww man, what am I going to have to say?"

He asks me, "How do I get to highway 17?"

Well, this is excellent, because that's exactly where I'm going!  I do a little internal Dance of Joy and I tell him, "Oh, it's just straight ahead.  You go around a bend to the left.  A Starbucks will be on your right.  Make a right-turn, and 17 is right there!"  I was very pleased with myself for being able to answer.

"Oh, so I'm in the wrong lane?"

Shit.  Stupid brain, why didn't you think of that before?

"Oh, sorry, no, you can actually turn left right here, and then at the second light, you'll hit Bascom.  Turn right there, and you'll get to 17 also!"

Again, I'm pleased with myself for coming up with the right answer.  The light turns green and off we both go.

I short while later, my brain nudges me and says, "Uh, the light we were at was Bascom.  We meant to tell him Camden."

Shit.  I hope the "second light" part was enough to get him to the right place.  Sorry, Old Guy.

Even when I'm not racing to provide information before the light changes, I find it extremely difficult to speak up and voice my opinion.  Especially at work, I need to think all the implications through before giving an answer, which makes face-to-face meetings very stressful.  I greatly prefer e-mail, where I can take the time to craft my answer.

Even in social situations, where the answers don't matter much, I still don't know what to say.  I spent my earlier years in online social games where you type to each other, because it gave me the freedom to think.  Maybe I looked like a slow typer, but that's far superior to sounding like an idiot.  Needless to say, this helped my dating skills not at all.

Even this blog entry, I've gone back and editted the sentences above many, many times while writing.  I could never have this conversation in real life, because my mind won't feed me the right words.

Is this normal for other people too?  How do you get around it?  To me, you look like the equivalent of the proverbial "social butterfly" always able to hold up your end of the conversation.  But maybe you feel as uncomfortable as I do inside?  I hate living this way.  It's so much less stressful to keep to myself, even though I don't want to.

Life is hard.

Card Sharks

So, we played the card game "3 to 13" last night. And I have a bone to pick with my Mom. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, when I was younger, my Mom would help us kids by not going out when she could, allowing us a couple more turns to reduce the points in our hand. In August when the kids and I were back home in Columbus, my daughter noticed this. Yes, she is evidently much smarter than me.

Anyway, last night, it was just Kira and I playing at first, and after a while, I discovered that she was being "nice" to me by not going out when she could, JUST LIKE MOM DID when we were there. ARGH!! I told her when we were playing for real she had to be cut-throat! Heartless! Ruthless!! She replied, "I'm ruthless like a puppy!"

Later, Jordan was playing too, and at one point, I picked up a card, and laid down a wild card for Kira and went out.. so obviously I could have gone out earlier. She didn't take the wild card and still went out. So she could have gone out earlier, too! So I called her on it, and she called me on it, and I explained that I'm the Dad and I'm supposed to, but not her. Meanwhile, Jordan is playing his last hand, looks up and says, "Wait-a-minute.. you're BOTH being nice to me??"

Man, we are no good at cards.. :)

What's in a name?

Giving a name to something is a task not to be taken lightly, lest you (or the person) regret it for the rest of your life.  Names can have tradition, special meanings, or just sound good.

I learned recently that my friend's daughter's name, Lorien, comes from Lothlórien, the forest realm of the Elves in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Being a fan of Lord of the Rings myself, I thought this was incredibly cool, and I was more than a little jealous that I didn't think to do the same for my kids. (However, my online alias is Radagast, a wizard from LoTR, and I once played a Fennec fox whose name was Nimrais, meaning "White Ears" in Tolkien's Elvish language, so I do get to claim some Tolkien geekiness.)

In a recent online comic strip, Questional Content, a mother yells at her son using his full name, as mothers are wont to do, "Martin Tiberius Reed!" His friends are stunned and ask her in reverent tones, "Is his middle name really Tiberius?", referring of course to Captain James Tiberius Kirk, of Star Trek fame. Hilariously, his mom admits, "It WOULD be, if his father weren't such a stick in the mud!"

I also know that MY middle name comes from my Dad's first name, and my Dad's middle name comes from his Dad's first name. So technically, my son's middle name should be "Timothy", if tradition were followed. I'm a little disappointed that that custom ended, though I am glad my son wasn't stuck with "Timothy" as a middle name.  (Sorry, Mom, my name sucks. :)

So where did my kids' names come from? It would be boring to say that my wife and I simply created lists of names we liked, and picked which ones sounded good together, but sadly, that was pretty much the case. My one counter-example was a complete failure. I owe my job at Intel to a great degree to the man who taught me mask design, Wolf Witt. "Schmidt" being a proper German name, I loved the sound of "Wolfgang Schmidt" and of course having a kid named "Wolf" would be awesome. Unfortunately, my wife vetoed that one almost as it passed my lips. If only she weren't such a stick in the mud!

However, also being a fan of Star Trek, I can at least make some good links to those characters and pretend they were intentional. So these are my fictional reasons my kids are named as they are.

My son, Alex, is named after Alexander Rozhenko, son of Worf:

My son, Jordan, is named after Geordi LaForge, chief engineer of the Enterprise:

My daughter, Kira, is named after Kira Nerys, from Deep Space Nine.  (There is actually some truth to that, though I think I failed to mention this to my wife.)  In addition, my daughter's initials are KES, like Kes from Voyager.

Any idea who YOU were named after?

My Grandpa, My Hero

To My Grandpa

On His 95th Birthday



Me and My Grandpa
(Click to enlarge)



My grandfather, Paul Joseph Wesseler, is my hero. I presume this is probably a relatively common occurrence for grandsons, but is somewhat surprising for me, because I've spent so little time with my grandfather. Until I was 13 years old, I lived a 10 hour drive away from Cincinnati, so only got to spend two or three vacation weeks a year with my grandparents. From age 13 to 25, I lived only one and a half hours away, but oddly this ended up being worse in terms of time with my grandfather. Despite visiting more often, it was always a quick weekend trip, usually when there were parties, so there was very little quality time to be spent together. And for the last 15 years, living on the other side of the country, I've seen my grandfather only a few times. This makes me very sad, but in spite of this lack of time, my grandfather has been one of the biggest influences in my life. My grandfather has accomplished so many things and done so much good for so many people, he is who I want to be.



Grandpa and Grandma with Carol (my Mom) and Gene
(Click to enlarge)

My grandfather was born September 30, 1915, in Pisgah, Ohio, northeast of Cincinnati. He spent his first 21 years working on his family's farm. In 1937, he began working as a machinist for Lunkenheimer, a manufacturer of a wide array of bronze and iron valves, and would continue working for the company for 35 years. After retirement from Lunkenheimer, he took a maintenance job for St. Margaret Hall, a Catholic nursing and residential care facility for Cincinnati's elderly. But in addition to his official jobs, whenever I spent time with my grandfather, he was always helping someone, like volunteering at St. Charles Catholic church, or at Longview, a state hospital for the mentally insane, bringing residents to church every Sunday, or building a greenhouse for Louis the Florist where his wife, my grandmother, worked. He also was always helping his kids with their homes, like finishing the basement in our Delaware house, or installing an attic fan, or building a desk for my mother in our Ohio house. I have never known my grandfather not to be doing something productive and useful for someone else.



Gene, Carol, Grandma, Grandpa, Rick, Jack, Mike, Pat
(Click to enlarge)

 I think the reason my grandfather means so much to me, is because whenever I was around, he always made time for me. He helped me build a number of lightening bug cages over the years, each one more elaborate than the rest. He has a lot of really great tools in his basement from his Lunkenheimer days, and he always had time to teach me to safely use the tools. My favorite was a huge belt-driven lathe, on which he taught me to turn wood and make.. well, interesting but useless things. Mostly I was just playing, but I think one of them might have ended up as a candle holder. The things I made were completely worthless, but Grandpa treated them like beautiful art, which made me feel wonderful. Whenever I was around, my grandfather always took me with him, whether it was just an amazing trip through his home's Little Kitchen and into the Attic of Incredible Things, or on a trip to his favorite lumber yard or hardware store. It made me proud to go with him down to the Napa Auto Parts store, where everyone knew his name. As I am a total introvert, for most of my life I felt like I should be seen and not heard, or better, not even seen, but with my grandfather, I always felt welcome at his side and with his friends.


Grandpa and Grandma's Wedding
(Click to enlarge.)

My grandfather was married June 1, 1940, to my grandmother, Mary Catherine Seiter. They were married 62 years, until my grandmother's death in 2003. Along the way, they raised six children. I have three children of my own, and can only assume my grandfather and grandmother were saints for achieving that accomplishment. With only an 8th grade education, my grandfather supported his family and launched his children into the successful lives they have today. Unfortunately, I don't know very much about the years when my mother was growing up in my grandfather's home, but every family gathering since I have been around is always full of love and laughter, so the years leading up to that must have set the stage in the same way.

I also admire my grandfather because he seems completely indestructible. Once when while working in the garage with my grandfather, I noticed his forearms when he was struggling with a tight bolt, and was astounded by the rippling muscles on such a gentle man. They didn't stick out like a body builder, but the strength was unmistakable, under the surface. It is unfortunate I don't follow in his footsteps in that regard! A few years later, my grandfather was helping another of his sons take down a tree, when a branch shifted, the ladder fell, and the chainsaw went where it shouldn't have. Life Flight was called but not available, so after a long trip in an ambulance, things looked really bad for my grandfather. Amazingly, he pulled through and as far as I can tell, there's not a bit of remaining damage. Incredible.

Me, Grandma, Grandpa, and my sister, Lisa
(Click to enlarge)

I do not know all the positions that my grandfather held during his 35 years at Lunkenheimer, but one that I was told about is near and dear to my heart. Supposedly my grandfather was employed as an efficiency expert in the Lunkenheimer factory, tasked with finding ways to improve quality and speed up production. Quality and efficiency are two things I look for in everything I do, probably far more than is healthy. In my first real job as a cartographer at Etak, I rose to the rank of Quality Control Technician within 9 months of starting the job. And as a Mask Designer at Intel, I lead my group of designers not because I am especially good, but because I figure out the quickest, most efficient ways to get the job done, and can pass that knowledge on to my co-workers. I truly believe I inherited those qualities from my grandfather, and it gives me no end of pleasure to think that I am following in his footsteps. I also love that my grandfather got his Efficiency Expert job at Lunkenheimer after being sent to night school, which is exactly how I got my job at Intel.



50th Wedding Anniversary
(Click to enlarge)

In my whole life, I have never heard my grandfather complain about anything or anyone. He seems to be at peace with his life and everything in it, despite any hardships that come along. I can only imagine the difficulties that came with working on a farm, living through the Great Depression, World War I and World War II, going to night school while working and raising children...  For me, I struggle daily with the comparatively minor stress of kids, homework, sports practices, instrument lessons, Bay Area traffic, money, job security, and a host of other things. One of my best remedies is to envision my grandfather and try to emulate his strength and serenity. His life is a testament to what a Good Man can accomplish in this difficult world.


Grandpa, you are my hero, and everything I want to be. I love you.


Grandpa and Me on his 95th Birthday
(Click to enlarge.)