Watt's Up

I seem to look forward to relaxing on the weekend, but when it comes I seem to be busy. This weekend started with a dinner on Friday with Kathy’s yoga class teacher and students. They will be shooting a DVD video on Sunday. Then on Saturday I had a 25K Trail Race. Celeste D. and I signed up for it. I’ve never done a trail race. I even bought special trail running shoes. However on Saturday it was raining, and after an hour drive we arrived to find that it was canceled, so back home we drove. The best part was talking to Celeste, my running buddy, in the car over and back. Next Matthew and Beth phoned and said that they wanted to continue our look for a wedding rehearsal dinner spot in San Antonio (90 miles away). Before that Kathy needed to attend her Saturday yoga class in preparation for tomorrow. After she left for class I realized that it would be best to leave directly from her class. So Katie and I drove down with a change of clothes to find her. However we were five minutes late and by then she had already left and so we had to drive all the way back home. A total waste of time and gas – oh well. Next Kathy and I drove to San Antonio and met Matthew and Beth at a BBQ restaurant. We talked to the manager and although it’s too casual place the date was available. Before we left we sampled their Margaritas, and got a sample of food as take-out. [At each of these places I would hand them my credit card since that's my job in this affair, that is, keep my mouth shut and pay the bills] Leaving their car at that place we then traveled together up to Boerne to another restaurant. After another talk with another manager, some sample desserts (yummy cheesecake), and another margaritas (very poor watery one), and another sample as take-out. We tried to find another restaurant in downtown, but it was too small. While sitting in the car talking and munching samples Matthew accidentally spilled his soda by his feet in our new car. A small brown lake formed and we spent 20 minutes mopping it up with tissues and napkins. Did I tell you that we bought a new car, and that it was in the back seat of this pristine vehicle that this happened. Oh well, it’s now a “real” car, and with the smell of BBQ replacing the new car smell too. [The next day I took a pail of water and a brush and cleaned it up.] It was getting late so we stopped by a Rudy’s BBQ, but it was not very good for a rehearsal dinner spot. Next door was another restaurant. We talked to the manager, and sampled a margaritas, but I had to cut it short because we had to leave. See we had a Broadway play, Avenue Q to attend in Austin at 8 PM and needed to get back for it. Luckily we arrived in time, but by then we were both exhausted. Me from waking at 5 AM for the trail race, and Kathy from all the travel and talk about rehearsal dining. We nodded-off during the musical partly because we were tired and partly because it was just average and didn’t catch our interest. Arriving home at 11 PM we crashed. On Sunday I did my long run since I hadn’t run on Saturday. The route started downtown. After driving 20 minutes I got out and put my extra running stuff in the trunk. As I opened it I realized that the night before we had put Kathy’s yoga stuff in it, and she needed it on Sunday morning because they were shooting the video. Well I rushed back home (another 20 minutes north) to a stressed out Kathy who promptly left for her appointment with her yoga stuff. Back I went downtown, and got my run in. It’s called the Run from Hell because there are many hills in it. After completing it, driving home, and getting a shower, Katie and I went to see the “17 Again” movie. It was a light comedy. Next Katie and I went shopping while Kathy was still gone to her yoga “shoot”. I bought Kathy flowers and a card to say I was sorry for stressing her out with my absconding with her yoga stuff. We arrived back home, unpacked the groceries, and I made a Mary-Tyler-Moore recipe from the Hagan cookbook – a yummy golash. While it was cooking Kathy arrived home. We ate together watching TV which is our regular habit these days. Afterwards I’m now up at the computer typing this, and Kathy and Katie are downstairs watching a TV program. And another weekend ends with me more tired than at the beginning. Welcome to my life.

Tonight Kathy and I went to the book tour of “It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita” by Heather Armstrong, AKA dooce.com. Kathy was kind enough to go and share this with me even though she doesn’t follow this blog. It was held in downtown Austin at Book People. I heard about the tour from LSL’s blog in Portland, and found out she was going to be in Austin today. I and about 5 other guys were lost in a sea of thirty-something women. It was apparent that I wasn’t her normal demographics. However, I’ve been reading dooce probably since 2002 when my son was in graduate school at UNC. At that time I would follow the links from his page to his friend’s and acquaintance’s pages to keep up with what he was doing and who he was hanging out with. One of them, a person who designed book covers, linked to dooce.com. It took me a while after reading it a few times to figure out that Heather was not a UNC student. Her writing was witty, sarcastic and biting. She made me laugh. That was then and this is now. Tonight she was very entertaining. She made both Kathy and I laugh by reading from her book and blog. Afterwards she graciously signed my book. As I stopped at the signing table I said “In your special way you keep my son and his girlfriend employed at Federated Media.” When she heard Federated Media she said “They’re my people”. Note: Federated Media provides the advertising that is on her site. We told her that he’s a techie and she’s the remnants manager. I’ve now got a new book to read.
Update: Oh, and Jon was there too. Quite a surprise. Sitting in the aisle next to me taking pictures and watching his beautiful wife charm the SRO crowd.

I was again the scorer for the Austin Robofest event yesterday. Prior to today I’ve attended organizing meetings and have written a placement randomizer and scoring spreadsheet. In other words, my evenings have been busy this past week.

The event was held at the Austin Recreational Center in downtown Austin. I arrived at 11 AM and left at 7 PM. During that time I helped set up, then scored each game and match, and cleaned up afterwards. It’s always fun to watch the young people’s creativity during this competition. Each robot is uniquely crafted by them, and the autonomous programming shows such variety and insight into different ways of solving the same problem.Although the day starts out stressful with the unknown issues that have to be addressed, then at the end of the day there is such satisfaction in knowing that you helped someone else and had fun doing it. I really appreciate the excellent organization and the camaraderie of the judges and volunteers. Both of these keep me returning as a volunteer. Oh, did I mention that the pizza dinner afterwards was great too.

Hectic day. Post and pictures coming…
Update: So here is the promised picture:

Update: I’m always surprised how long it takes for a buyer to be separated from his money. If you go to Walmart it can be a matter of seconds or a few minutes. I think car dealerships should work the same way. It took me about five hours this time. Now it’s not all the dealer’s fault since I didn’t bring my loan agreement and car titles with me. So there was about an hour in the middle where I had to go fetch them and get lunch. Nevertheless it’s always interesting that the salesman talks to you, but can’t actually do the paperwork. That’s the business manager’s domain. And because there is only one of them you have to wait for him to get to you (in these dire business times you would think that the Honda dealer would not be busy, but this was Saturday and he mumbled something about this being his 8th one that day). So once the paperwork was done, then I had to wait to get the car ready. As a result it took five hours. Regardless, the car is very nice. It is bigger and has more features (CD player, remote locks) as compared to our last one. Naturally as soon as I got it home it became Kathy’s car since she does mostly highway driving to get to work. Oh, and it’s too big for me especially since I use the parking garage and the spaces are tight.

The Watt Family Values and Principles
or
What we’re trying to teach our children
through our actions and our words

Be concerned for other people and their feelings. Put yourself in other people’s shoes. Be kind, sensitive and caring. Look at things from the other person’s point of view. Treat all people equally and fairly. Help others.

Family is very important. Confide in your brother and sister. Your parents will always love you.

Don’t lie, cheat or steal. Tell the truth. Be honest.

If you make a commitment, you must keep it. Commitments must be completed. Promises must be kept. Don’t promise unless you can follow through. Be responsible. Complete your assignments. Be trustworthy. Don’t give up.

You are responsible for your own actions. You make choices. The choices you make are your own decision. Don’t blame others for your decisions.

Be constructive, not destructive. Take care of your things. Be creative. Be a contributor.

Work hard. Extra effort. Don’t stop until it’s right. Do the best you can do. Quality work. Don’t be sloppy.

Fairness. Fair play. Follow the rules. Don’t be prejudiced. Minimize your biases. Share.

Have a good sense of right and wrong. Have a conscience. Be law abiding.

Put things back where they were when you’re done with them. Clean-up after yourself. Cleanliness.

Be assertive, self-confident and independent.

Be aware of the world around you and things that happen including political and social changes. Keep the environment clean. Don’t pollute.

Love books. Be a person of words. Enjoy reading and writing.

Put things back from where you got them or what position they were in. For example, toys, games, other people’s possessions, and most importantly toilet seat lids (after use naturally).posted to the refrigerator door on 10/20/94 bdw

My company is having layouts. We call them resource actions (RAs). Internally we’re using the mob term “getting wacked”. Typically you are given 30 days to find another job in the company, but because of all the other RAs taking place throughout the company there are few jobs to be found to switch to. BTW, the next-aisle-over group, our sister group was told in November that they were wacked, and they were all gone by the 10th of December. It was very sad, because this is not just getting rid of low performers. They were all good hard-working people. It was just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also two people I know in other groups (areas I had worked in the past) contacted me yesterday and today saying they were wacked. They asked if I had any jobs where I’m working. I had to say I don’t know, and as soon as I do I’ll tell them. So things are getting too close for comfort. Very spooky. We call it the black cloud. It’s hanging over us, because my group hasn’t been told one way or the other. So we continue to go to work, do designs, development code and test it, but we don’t know if in the next day or week some of us will be wacked. We continue to focus on the work, because it helps us not focus on the black cloud and the unknown. So I don’t know if I will survive these cuts. I just don’t know anything. Very scary especially when my primary fear is fear-of-the-unknown. Ugh.
Update: I ducked and the bullet missed me. I was not on the RA list. Whew! But a number of others in my group were not so fortunate. I am deeply saddened by all this.

I try to live an upstanding life, that is, to not lie, cheat or steal. I have always told my family especially my children to live a moral and ethical life. Naturally I’m not perfect. There have been a times where I’ve done less than upstanding things. Once when I was in college I had a general chemistry test which required me to memorize the periodic table of elements. For some reason, now lost in the past, I felt this was ridiculous. I felt that I could just look it up in a book. So I carefully inscribed the table on the six sides of a yellow number 3 pencil and brought it in to the test.

Now you might ask yourself why now after all these years I’m writing about this in a blog. Well there was a recent RadioLab by WNYC which included a segment about the periodic table. It reminded me of my adolescent transgression, and so I thought I’d write a post about it. By the way, I thoroughly enjoy this podcast and recommend it. This post might also give you a better understanding of me and my foibles. Oh, and I’m sorry for doing this, but I’d probably do it again. Note: As a teacher I have always made my tests open book because of this. Such a simple thing has changed my life in I’m sure other unknown ways. It was about 40 years ago, and I’ve never forgotten it.

All day Saturday I was a Teamwork Judge at the Central Texas FIRST Lego League competition from 8 AM to 5 PM. Teamwork was not easy to judge since it was so subjective. Then on Sunday morning I ran the RunTex Twenty (20 Miler) from 7:30 AM to 10:30 AM. On the way home I stopped by the Round Rock outlet center and bought a new pair of Florsheim dress shoes. For the rest of the day I blobbed watching TV until Katie and I went to see “Gran Torino” at 5 PM which I liked. I never got a chance to go grocery shopping.

The tag said “To: Dad, “DO NOT GET NEAR MOM WITH THIS!!!, From: Justin + Stephanie”. A present at Christmas, which I carefully made today following the instructions on the bag. Recently Stephanie and Justin were traveling and ate at Andersen’s where they purchased it. My sweet life’s partner can’t stand this stuff thus the tag, but I have always liked it and my children are aware of this difference.

After a few hours of preparation I strained it through our food mill (making a smooth puree), added some Canadian bacon, and a bit more salt. It’s already to go… Yum.Update: I had a bowl of pea soup for lunch today. IMHO it was very good. I especially liked the tidbits of Canadian Bacon in it. I’ve got lots of it left so I had better like it.

The family arrived, celebrated and left. The house went from quiet to noisy back to quiet. My hours went from business to vacation back to business. The calories went from weight-watchers lean to extravagant excess back to WW. The money flow went from a trickle to a flood back to a trickle. All told it was a great vacation, and holiday. I was so so happy to see my family and to get to share in their busy lives.

Photo courtesy of Justin Watt.