I haven't posted anything here in quite some time: nearly a decade.  So much has changed in my day-to-day: divorce, single parenting, remarriage, "Family 2.0"...even work has changed immensely.  If someone had told me in early 2019 what my life would be like today in early 2025, I wouldn't have been able to wrap my head around it.

My last post was in April 2016, and I was still reeling from the loss of my "second mother".  The world since then is indeed completely different.  As is the world since Covid.

I'm writing now not because of my family changes, though, but because of a recent obsession.  Just before the birth of Kid#2, I was briefly preoccupied with the Raspberry Pi.  Then in 2018, I'd bought a 3D printer, the M3D Micro+, which gave me all sorts of headaches.  Maybe it was the year before, I also ran Ethereum and Litecoin cryptocurrency mining rigs.  In 2022, I bought another 3D printer, a Creality Ender 3 V2 Neo, but it didn't quite light me up.

Now I'm back, this time with the trifecta of 3D printing and electronics and radio.  It's partly because despite having a BSEE degree, I've been much more of a digital boy.  Now it's time to grow up into the analog world.  Well, I've had an amateur radio license for over two decades, but I didn't do much with it.  And I've had to do some analog-y things at work.  Still, I feel like I need to redeem myself and make use of my degree.

Late last night I was crimping connectors and soldering wires to mod my old printer: it's still too noisy, so I was rewiring in quieter fans.  The printer has a Raspberry Pi 3B+ running OctoPrint with a camera to monitor the prints, tucked away in a drawer.  The first step in quieting the printer was to add squash ball feet, resulting in less vibration.  (Prior to the mod, I could hear the printer going in the room immediately under it; with the mod, it's not nearly as audible.)  After this mainboard and power supply fan mod, next up is to update the cooling on the hotend.  Simultaneously, I'm scheming to buy a Prusa unit and then build a Voron.

3D printing really changes the character of most hobbies, because it enables fabrication of semi-durable custom parts.  I've printed cases for multiple Raspberry Pis and for the Heltec V3 Meshtastic radio.  Shelf pins that were missing for some Ikea Gnedby media shelves were easily printed, as were Duplo-compatible blocks and wheels for Kid#3.  Once I have the capacity for printing with greater throughput, I'm planning on both Gridfinity and Multiboard setups for organizing all the detritus around me.

Obsession really is the word for it.  I know none of this will bring me redemption, but it's something that fills a space and gins up my enthusiasm.  Unfortunately, this is the worst era of my life to have not one time sink, but three....

I need to make sure I provide my kids with this skillset, if nothing else.

Every 18-year-old should be able to (see the list for a description of why):

1. Talk to strangers, and be able to discern the bad from the good.
2. Find his way around, navigation as well as recovering from errors.
3. Manage his assignments, workload, and deadlines.  [I'm still working on this one.]
4. Contribute to the running of a household.
5. Handle interpersonal problems.
6. Cope with ups and downs.
7. Earn and manage money.
8. Take risks.

All these are very much life skills—I deal with most of these on a daily basis.

Recently, a video clip making the rounds on Facebook is of Jack Ma, Chairman of Alibaba, giving advice to the young audience of a Korean talk show.  A slightly longer clip on YouTube, which has a bit of introductory context, is quite interesting.  Below is my transcript of the remarks (without correction) starting at 2:07 in the above link.

So I tell myself, and told my young people.

Before 20 years old, be a good student.  Wait to entrepreneur, just learn some experience.

Before 30 years old, follow somebody.  Go to a small company.  Normally in a big company, it is good to learn processing.  You are part of a big machine.  But when you go to a small company, you learn the passion; you learn the dreams.  You learn how to do a lot of things at one time.  So before 30 years old, it's not which company you go, it's which boss you follow that's very important.  A good boss teaches you differently.

From 30 to 40 years old, you have to think very clearly: you're working for yourself—if you really want to be an entrepreneur.

When you're 40 to 50 years old, you have to do all the things that you are good at.  Don't try to jump into the new area—it's too late.  You may be successful, but the rate of dying is too big.  So 40 to 50, think about how you can focus on things that you are good at.

But when you are 50 to 60 years old, work for the young people, because young people can do better than you.  So rely on them, invest on them, making sure they're good.

So when you're over 60 years old, spend time for yourself.  On the beach, sunshine, right, it's too late for you to change, normally.

But this is my advice to the young people, 25 years old: make enough mistakes.  Don't worry!  You fall, you stand up, you fall, you stand.  Enjoy it, I mean, 25 years old, enjoy the show, enjoy the show!

Smart guy.  In particular, his advice for my upcoming decade is quite interesting: focus on the things I'm good at.

Perhaps one way to get around 41F would be to create a trust with just oneself in it, get the can, and then add in whoever one wants.  It'd be a pain to remove everyone prior to filing and add them back afterward, but depending on the legal wording, that might be viable for subsequent purchases.  Otherwise, if the Hearing Protection Act doesn't pass, then the suppressor industry might be toast after July.

Another possibility would be to make a single-trustee trust for each batch of NFA items.  After the paperwork is approved, then amend the trust to show as trustee a master trust that has all the people one wants as responsible persons.  That might make an interesting loophole.

Interestingly enough, the notification provision would seem to violate tax privacy laws, because it requires the trustees to give law enforcement tax information.  For example, there's no directory of Class 3 dealers, unlike the FFL directory: because S(O)T status is tax information.  Nor could the ATF give the Minnesota AG a list of NFA-registered addresses in the state after the court ruling that effectively banned suppressors (prior to the re-legalization in 2015): because it's tax information.  Having to notify the CLEO of acquisition of an NFA item would seem to violate this principle.  Seems like a lawsuit possibility for anyone with the time and money to do so.

Since possession of suppressors was legalized in Minnesota, effective July 1, 2015, I think about them way too often.  I've wanted one ever since I shot an MP5SD at the Chatfield Full Auto Shoot, back when they were still holding the event.

Last month, I picked up a John Deere D125 riding mower, which has been awesome: rather than taking two hours to mow using the electric corded mower, I'm done in 20 minutes or less.  The problem is of course that the mower can't get everywhere, so I've had to pull out the line trimmer, which is a corded electric model.  Getting out the damn extension cord and winding it back up is half the battle.  (Another minor problem is "scalping" on the swale in the backyard.)

I'd stopped by Home Depot the other day to pick up a toilet flapper since the upstairs unit started leaking, and took a look at what they had in the way of cordless line trimmers.  (Gas was out because 2-cycle engines are a pain, and I'm too cheap to buy a 4-cycle.)  Ryobi's 18V-battery model stood out in that the battery could be used for their cordless tool line also.  I'd been considering getting a cordless drill for convenience.

Looking at other vendors cordless tool lines, I noticed that they were all made in China.  All of them: Ryobi, Ridgid, Dewalt, and Makita.  If Makita were made in Japan, Korea, or even Taiwan I would've gone with it, but as things were there was no place-of-manufacture distinction.  Consumer Reports rated Ryobi's impact driver highly, and commonality with the line trimmer was appealing.

The other question mark was the Ryobi 40V model, which had battery commonality with other outdoor tools like their mower and chainsaw.  In the end, though, I hoped to not have to need those things, so I settled on the 18V.  In reviews on Amazon, some people complained that the battery only lasts for 15 minutes, but I decided to chance it.

I ended up buying the P2210 (line trimmer) and P1811 (drill kit) from HD.  The former was $99 comes with one of the standard Lithium compact batteries and a charger; the latter was $79 comes with two batteries, a charger, and a soft case.  So I ended up with three batteries and two chargers, which I figured would give me enough run-time.

It turned out that the line trimmer did only last 15 minutes or so, which wasn't a problem since I had a spare battery.  To me it seemed to have more torque than the old corded Black and Decker that I was using.  One review I read characterized it as fragile, but this thing isn't; yes, it has a lot of plastic, but it doesn't feel cheap.  I was impressed with how well it worked.  The chief gripe I have is that every time one starts and stops, the line advances, which cuts up line like mad.  (I believe the mechanism is inertial; one review suggested removing the spring in the button on the spool that allows manual advance, but that seems like it'd cause problems, too.)  A secondary gripe is that there's no "depth" guide like the B&D unit had so when trimming one knows where the end of the line would be if maximally extended.

I picked up a pack of replacement spools, which are crazy-expensive ($19 for 3), but I intend to re-wind them with generic 0.065" line, and having multiples would make it easier.  There's also a bladed head that I picked up as well in case I need to do small swaths of grass.

The drill is nice in that it has a keyless chuck, like I had on the old Bosch drill I bought in Japan.  (The Bosch died, probably because of brushes wearing out; or the motor burned up because it was made for 100V, not 120.)  The variety of speed settings is pretty cool too.

All in all, the combination of kits that I picked up were a good value relative to items bought separately.  The P2200 line trimmer isn't available separately, at least not with the capability to accept 120V; the nearest model appears to be the P2052 (which amusingly has the depth guide on it) for $50, and I'd guess the hybrid feature is worth $10, so perhaps $60 value plus $40 to cover the battery and charger.  The P208B drill isn't available separately either; I'd estimate its value at $40-50.  (Incidentally, one difference between the P1810 and P1811 is that the former has a 3/8" chuck whereas the latter has a 1/2".)  However, the P128 battery and charger separately is $50 and the P170 battery two-pack is $60, so roughly $25-30 for a battery.  If talking list price, the P1811 kit was basically the price of the included two batteries and charger.

One thing that I didn't see pointed out in the reviews was that these kits all come with the middle-grade battery, not the "LITHIUM+" type.  If I were to get the high-cap in that type, I ought to be able to run the line trimmer for an hour.  Then again, those are $99 for 2.

Obviously, I thought about this way too much.  I probably gave this as much thought as my selection of lawn tractor, and this purchase was 1/10th the cost.  Argh!

Eight months without a post?  Well...I've been busy.  Work was heavy from October through March, on account of a new vendor channel that required drive-level validation.  The 2014 elections kinda sucked for Minnesota; most of the candidates I supported weren't elected.

We traded in the RAV4 on a new Honda Odyssey at the end of December, which the wifey wrecked in early May.  Totaled.  She and kid #1 walked away from the accident, though, which is the best testimony one can have on safety, so we got another one last month.  That was the first time I felt like I got a good deal on a vehicle: $2k under invoice and 0% financing for 5 yrs?  Ok!

I don't think I got out many New Year's Cards this year; I've been remiss in keeping in touch with people.  It's probably the sense that things are passing me by, so I feel I have to concentrate my very little remaining time on myself, but in doing so I fall more into the mode of missing out on others' lives.  It's tough being an adult, or at least trying to be one.

The big hobby item I took care of in the first half of the year was building an AR-15 pistol in .300 Blackout.  I'd put together lower receivers before, but not an upper.  Turns out it was pretty easy, although I did have some issues with an out-of-spec hammer/disconnector.

Kid #2 turned one year old, and he's been causing wifey grief.  If it's not kid #1, it's kid #2.  Summer's the worst, of course, since they're both home for the most part.  Kid #1 has had a few activities at least.  I can't believe she'll be a 1st Grader in a couple months.  Well, she's already in 1st Grade in J-school.  Time goes by fast.

So I haven't posted on here for a while—no time.  I happened to wake up at 06:00 and couldn't get back to sleep, and here I am.

At work, a lot of change has happened, and is happening.  There's also the political aspect, made worse than average because of multiple sites with competing missions.  Yesterday my manager called together the "leadership" (put in quotes because of me) in his department to discuss the revelations he had while at the site in Japan as well as the aftermath of one in our department transferring to another area.  In general, I can see the problems and identify the shortfalls, but how to fix them is another matter entirely.

We had made use of a team in Japan as a liaison to the functional teams, which hasn't worked out very well.  (It was my boss's idea, but it seemed to me to be the right answer at the time.)  The two guys under that team lead haven't been groomed for drive work, and have been doing, as my manager described, "thought experiments" of their lead.  Apparently the lead is acting independently of his manager in interacting with some of the staging teams and not reporting back to us like he's supposed to.  Their manager is in a tough spot because he's the first non-Japanese line manager at the site and he can't speak the language to maintain awareness of all of what's happening, although he seems to be aware that something's afoot.

Another major source of consternation is one of the satellite sites in the U.S., who reports to a manager in San Jose.  The manager is one of the senior ones in my area, and he has our director's ear.  He has a somewhat adversarial relationship with my boss, but amusingly, he seems to be ok with me (probably because I have no reason to butt heads with him).  The satellite site has three people at the nominal level of a band above me, all of whom worked for our sister company.  One of them doesn't seem to give a care about anything, because he's independently wealthy.  One guy seems to be ok skill-wise.  The other guy is capable, but flighty; he'll run with something for a while, then drop it.  He wants to work with technical stuff, but doesn't want to mess with the details of implementation once the trailblazing is done, or so it seems.  The sticky point is because he gets involved with the integration details, which is another communications path.

Then there's our sister department, of whom the chief agitator is also the most capable and productive person at our whole site.  He's the highest ranking engineer in the area, and for good reason.  However, he often will deal with things and not tell anyone else, or push things with us that don't have priority in the program, etc.  He does so many things that it's hard to stay sync'ed up.  When talking about succession with my manager, we figured that when this guy retires, the company would need 5-10 people to replace him.  Reason being, there's no one else that has the unique combination of skills and experience that gives him a high-level perspective better than everyone else, along with a personality to drive to get things done.

Lastly is the department I'm in.  The other guy who's at my level is moving to another team.  (Maybe he got sick of working with me, or he feels like he can really affect change better in this other team; or, thinking cynically, my management knows that they can't leapfrog him over me without having me leave, so they're giving him a different path.  Perhaps all three.)  That leaves a gap that I don't know that I want to fill.  My manager, fishing for strategies to cope with the new situation, offered that I could take over integration lead for all products.  However, in taking that role, I'd have very little time in the lab doing real work, and worst of all, I'd have one experienced guy, who I don't have a great working relationship with, and three noobs in order to make things happen on three product lines.  Plus, we'd still have the issues with the other teams.

My boss seems inclined to push me in the direction of dealing with more people instead of being cooped up in the lab.  That's outside my comfort zone as an introvert.  On the other hand, I can see that I could leverage my relationships with the other teams—all of them seem to be ok with me.  (Other folks in my department have non-existent or adversarial relationships with at least one of the leadership of the other teams.)  My other perceived liabilities are that giving me too many details means I'm going to drop something inadvertently, and, related to that, I don't necessarily communicate in a timely fashion.

If I had to, I think I could handle all the products from a lead perspective, but that's basically all I'd be doing.  That job would be the step prior to management, which isn't really the direction I wanted.  The rest of the world seems to think that going into management is the right direction for one's career, but not for someone technical.  Going into management essentially freezes one's personal technical skills, because to the extent one doesn't do the work, one doesn't grow one's skills.  I don't really want to manage people, either.  I think I'd be decent at it, because I take the time to assess the situation before taking action (unlike some managers who come in and, "ready, fire, aim!") and I'm fairly circumspect in dealing with my teammates (which could mean that I'm not pushing hard enough).  The real crucible for a manager, though, is how they deal with adverse conditions: no-win situations and problematic employees, and perhaps that's the real thing I've been avoiding.  Perhaps facing those tough situations head-on is what I need, regardless of what position I'm in.

Essentially, this whole situation is prompting a lot of navel-gazing on my part, trying to figure out my career in the middle of one of the most difficult times, where work, family, and other entanglements are already consuming most of my time.  The question is, where to go from here?

On the company SNS, a former manager posted a link on "the right way to apologize."  My follow-up comment was:

If only more people understood what's described in this article! After a lot of thought in the aftermath of some of my own relationship mistakes, I arrived at basically the same process: apologize, state what happened (i.e. what is being owned up to), and give a short "lessons learned." After all, it's not a sincere apology unless one is taking steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again!

This is the issue with making excuses. I think most people want to say why an error happened, in part to imply "well, I don't usually do this sort of thing." However, the injured party doesn't really care about the offender's ego or pride, just that they won't be subject to the same thing again. With an excuse and without a corrective action, the offender is simply inuring the injured for future offenses.