You with your angel face

On this historical day our little family is going through a little bit of personal history. As I write this, Tina is in the operating room undergoing a hysterectomy. As many of you know, a couple of weeks ago Tina had what I described then as a “severe gynecological episode” which resulted in great loss of blood and a trip to the emergency room. After spending a night in the hospital and consulting with a new set of doctors, we concluded that her old doctor would no longer be treating her. For over a year she’s been having problems with irregular and lengthy menstrual cycles and her doctor insisted on treating her with hormones in the form of birth control pills. That treatment was ineffective and the ongoing condition resulted in frequent migraines, anemia, worsening a of her restless leg syndrome and a myriad of lesser symptoms. This all culminated in the middle of December when Tina’s period started and hasn’t stopped since. And so she is in the operating room now.

They are going to attempt to perform the procedure vaginally in order to reduce recovery time. However, if there are complications (details of which were explained to us but I cannot remember), they will make an incision for a laparotomy. They are equally prepared for either.

Tina’s mom arrived last night and will be helping out over the next week or so as Tina recovers. Since I’m working from home, I’ll also be able to help more than if I weren’t. We are lucky.

Update (13:00 PST): Tina is out of recovery and resting in her room. Pain medication is making her drowsy but she’ll probably be up for calls and visitors this evening. She’s in room 2406 at Adventist.

Update (14:00 PST): The doctor reported that the surgery went well. She called it an “assisted laparotomy”, I think. As I understand it, they made two small incisions to assist in the removal via vagina. Also, that last sentence is all kinds of wrong.

Snowpocalypse 2008


Inside and outside tables
Originally uploaded by rynosoft

Someone on Twitter coined the term “snowpocalypse” to describe the breathless media frenzy of the impending snow storm last week. Unfortunately, the snow has not melted and it has been a little snowpocalyptic around here since it arrived. I snapped a few pictures and put them in a set on my Flickr account. Unfortunately, there are probably more to come. I left Iowa 20 years ago to get away from this crap!

People come from all around to watch the magic boy

This week both of our boys had holiday concerts at school. Graham is playing the cello now in the fourth grade orchestra and Thomas plays the double bass for his middle school chamber orchestra. Graham was very nervous before his concert appearance but I think it was all over so fast that he didn’t have time to think about it too much. The chamber orchestra was great (as always) and Thomas was even featured on a song from Lost called “Mist”. We’re very proud of both our boys and their musical ability. I’m glad for them because I’ve never really had the ability to play music except in the most robotic sense.

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Red Delicious



Red Delicious
Originally uploaded by rynosoft

Today we picked up apples and pears at a local fruit farm outside of Hood River. I took a few pictures with my phone as our Troop leader haggled with the owner over how many boxes for which we had paid. It all worked out in the end. Here’s a shot of Red Delicious for my homies back in Iowa. These are by far the smallest variety they grow here. My favorites are the Fuji which are a bit smaller this year but still a large apple.

I keep the ends out for the tie that binds

Life has been more hectic than usual so I’ve had little time for writing lately. Nevertheless, as I wait for the second Presidential debate to start, I’ll fill you in on a few things that have been going on in the Ring household.

Last week I returned from a short trip to Iowa where I celebrated my birthday with my Uncle Lorell. Lorell and I have the same birthday so we probably spent every one of my birthdays together until I was a teenager. This year we enjoyed cake with many of my cousins shortly after a Friday night of Wildcat football in Riceville, IA. At some point amidst the buzz all around us, I leaned over to him and said, “I didn’t get you a card.” He replied, “That’s OK, I didn’t get you one, either.” It was a perfect moment. By all accounts his chemo-therapy is going well and he hasn’t had a great deal of discomfort or sickness yet.

Just a few days after I got home, we held our 3rd Annual 40th Birthday Party. Lots of old and new friends attended and it was a rousing success. Unlike previous years, the weather kept us indoors and we weren’t able to have a fire on the deck. Still, we enjoyed the company and conversation. We’re grateful to have so many great friends.

Thomas has good news this week: he is getting A’s in all of his classes. He’s in 7th grade this year and we have been apprehensive about his academic performance after he had lots of trouble getting homework done last year. We realize that it’s just the beginning of the year, but this is a much better start than last year.

Peeping from behind every window pane

I find myself in Foster City once again at EFI headquarters. I’ve been moved to another team again so I’m here familiarizing myself with the tool set and meeting the other team members. I’ll be here until Friday night.

Working from home has been better than I expected. Even though I’ve been very busy, I get to choose the times when I work and the times that I don’t. That means when I feel like doing a couple of hours in the evening, it’s no big deal. Or if I have to run some errand in the afternoon. So far I feel like I’ve been pretty productive and my new office feels like a cockpit controlling my working world and it has to do with the decoration I put on it, including windows with motorized blinds so I can control it from everywhere I’m with my phone. I’m sure I’ll write more on this later. I bought Hunter Douglas honeycomb shades and saved a ton of money on my electric bill right away.

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The wisdom of a fool won’t set you free

Life has been demanding lately. At work I’ve been transitioning to a new team while still maintaining some responsibility for the product the Splash team just shipped. I’ve also been working on another project outside of work that has been very demanding of my time. Today was supposed to be the first day working from home since the EFI office in Vancouver is now officially closed. Unfortunately, because of the recent time crunch, I didn’t have time to move my work stuff (and there’s a lot of it) home until Friday when Tina and the boys helped me lug a few computers and displays home. I spent the better part of the three day weekend emptying my office at home, cleaning it and redecorating. I didn’t completely finish but it’s in a workable state and most of the junk I moved out is no longer cluttering the rest of the house.
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And the sun shines on the bay

I had to get up early this morning for another trip to EFI HQ in Foster City, CA. The 7:30 flight translates into a 5:00 am wake up time and I failed to get to bed before midnight. I’ll probably “nap” on the 2 hour flight but it will likely make no difference today. I’ll be attending a series of meetings today and tomorrow welcoming and orientating me and a colleague to our new team at EFI. You can bet that I’ll be hitting the free espresso machine whenever I get a chance this afternoon.
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We could have all three, she said

My employment situation has been resolved. As I reported earlier, EFI has decided to close the Vancouver office after this month but they have offered some of the engineers the opportunity to continue to support the Splash product while working from home. I was lucky enough to receive one of those offers and decided to accept it after investigating a couple of non-EFI opportunities. In addition to continuing at my current salary, EFI has generously offered to pay for my home office expenses including a cell phone and a faster internet connection. When the office closes, I’ll also have my pick of computer equipment. EFI has structured a bonus program for me to encourage me to stay until next July, but I have been assured that my employment could continue well past that.

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Better not get up or you might lose your seat

Yesterday, during the quarterly company wide conference call, EFI announced that they are closing their Vancouver office. While the Splash product continues to be profitable for the company, our OEM isn’t introducing any new products for at least 18 months. Our office will be open through August and the team will be wrapping up operations during that time. EFI is providing everyone with a very generous severance package, even for the guy that’s only been there since January.

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