Up until 2002 I was a pretty stable employee. I left Picket, Tarpley and Associates after 15 years of service that year to follow my wife to Atlanta where she wanted to continue working for her company that had closed their Chattanooga office. The job I came to in Atlanta was with Hampton-Tilley Associates. The job lasted for six months and then the office closed down. I went out on my own then for nine months and discovered why Hampton-Tilley had closed, there was not enough business during that time to keep me fed.

My next job was with Polytron and it lasted for three years. Half of that time was on my last project. That project broke me. It had me out of town way too much. That job was followed by three more over a years time. The first one I just wasn’t the right guy for and that was followed by another that just ran out of work and the third was a personality clash between me and my manager.

My current job I’ve been at since August of 2007. It sounded like a dream job and except for too much time on the road it has been. I say has because I’m changing jobs again.

 A couple of weeks ago a head hunter that I had previously tried placing me called me up to see how I was doing and what my current employment status was. There was a company looking for someone like me and he wanted to submit my resume to them. Now, my resume had been submitted to them  at least twice in the past without any result at all. I told him I was skeptical of there being any result this time either and that I really wasn’t looking for a job right now. He gave me one last pitch though and I told him to go ahead and send it to them.

I was surprised when he called me back a few days later and told me they wanted to talk to me. I met with them this past Monday and discovered that I had worked previously with two other employees there and one contractor. The director of Technology had been employed by the company that I hooked up with when I came to Atlanta, Hampton-Tilley, and we knew a lot of the same people. I learned that the past couple of times I had sent them my resume it had never made it to the electrical managers desk.

Anyway, I received a call from the HR manager on Tuesday afternoon with an offer. It was a very good offer and travel would be a lot less. I told him I needed to sleep on it and I would call him back in the morning. I discussed the offer with my wife and we decided that I would accept the offer but would make a counter offer first. I’m getting too old to wait around to accrue extra vacation time. I wanted a week after six months and three weeks after a year.

I begin work on May 12, 2008 with Clyde Bergemann, with the vacation I asked for, in the position of Senior Controls Project Engineer.

In spite of the long hours and constant travel I will miss working with Matrix Scientific. There are good people working there and my customers were some of the nicest people you would ever want to meet. This was just too good of an offer to refuse. Hopefully I will only have one W2 form to worry about on my 2009 taxes.

I managed to find my way to Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles this past Thursday. I finished the job I was working on by 10:00AM and my flight home wasn’t until 11:10PM. In keeping with my resolution to take advantage of my travels more for personal enrichment I took off exploring. The trails surrounding the observatory could not be ignored. Crows and hawks entertained me as I walked.

I looked down from a trail and saw a little cave or what could have been a fox’s den. I looked again and could swear I saw an old man peering back at me with one eye from the hillside. Can you see him?

The area truly is beautiful. My previous trips to LA had left me thinking that Los Angeles was lacking in something…. a place I wouldn’t care to live. This trip, with finding these trails has me believing that maybe I could see my self living there.

I’ve been excited about electric cars for a couple of years now. No, not hybrids that require a fuel tank an an internal combustion engine but cars that have an electric motor and a battery pack that is plugged in to recharge. I believe electric cars and nuclear power plants are the key to our energy independence and reigning in our output of greenhouse gases. Now it looks like my dream of electric powered transportation can go even farther.

Electraflyer Corporation has strapped an electric motor and a lithium polymer battery pack on an old Monnet motorglider built from a kit, and the aircraft just this week earned its experimental airworthiness certificate. The company is also flying a battery powered ultralight trike which has about 50 hours on it.

I know this is a long ways from commercial flight but so was the Wright Flyer. Besides, with Avgas running at over $6.00 per gallon these days this could be the one innovation that keeps recreational flying attainable by ordinary pilots.

I’m really interested to see where this goes.  Marine Sgt. Rick Sanchez is a career soldier who received an expensive gift has been relieved of duty and is under an investigation that could lead to a court martial. A Marine Corps spokesperson has stated that, “as of now it doesn’t look like he’s done anything illegal but we are still investigating.” So I have to wonder is this really a story?