Sherlock is still recovering from his procedure, but has healed enough to play with other dogs. Puppy Manners (near Maltby) has a private dog park (called Sol’s park) that we are members of. It’s nice because all of the dogs (and their owners) have been vetted. All of the owners stand around with vinegar filled spray bottles and spray dogs if they start behaving inappropriately….
Very few people decide to back a presidential candidate based on their running mate, but I have been fascinated by the contrasts between Tim Walz and JD Vance. JD Vance is kind of an enigma (who comes across like an alien waring a human suit). Here he is connecting with the common worker (I have no idea why his campaign would release such an awkward…
This is our dog Sherlock. Sherlock is 8 ½ months old, so it was time for him to have the “procedure” (which he had last Thursday, so it has been exactly one week). The procedure went perfectly normal, but anybody who has had a dog neutered knows that it is hard to keep them from licking their wounds. We tried using the cone of shame…
Working at Microsoft was a different experience. I quickly learned that while everybody was smart and didn’t suffer fools with any amount of patience, my fellow developers were very cool and very fun to work with. Some were a bit eccentric, which everybody embraced. Everybody was very intense, but it was an extremely fair environment. It took a long time for me to overcome my…
So I moved to Bellevue to work more closely with Microsoft, and the first things that we did was setup a meeting with the DirectX team to ask them to add a new DirectDraw feature that allowed configuration of the video port hardware that most graphics vendors now supported. Eric Engstrom confirmed that a bunch of vendors have asked for this support, but as we…
Switching from Pixel to Cirrus Logic was not a drastic change, but it was impactful in that we moved from creating separate video processors to integrating our video technologies into existing Cirrus Logic graphics chips. As Cirrus Logic had 60% of the graphics market (at the time), it also allowed me to engage more formally with Microsoft. And we did eventually move into a much…
The above picture shows the old Pixel office. It looks cleaner today that I remember it – somehow less run-down. Maybe it’s the lack of the big white lettering spelling PIXEL SEMICONDUCTOR. I can remember the exact day that I started working at Pixel Semiconductor because it was the day that the branch Davidians set fire to their compound in Waco, TX (killing everybody). It…
Probably my biggest claim to fame while at Compaq was that while debugging code that I wrote that interacted with NVRAM, I inadvertently welded my power cable to my motherboard. But I did learn some things as well. Tell the truth and take responsibility Our release process was that for every disk that we shipped, we filled out a form, gave it to the release…
In 1989 Houston was an oil town that had very little tech presence. When Compaq started (and quickly became huge), it was Houston’s darling. It had great benefits and everybody wanted to work there. They had a gorgeous campus built in the North West corner of Houston (not far from Tomball) that incorporated both office buildings and factories – all of which was connected by…
I never really knew what I wanted to be when I was growing up. In 8th grade I said it was a toss up between being a doctor or a cabinet maker. When I graduated from HS, I went to a small college and I chose accounting as a major (not for any real reason, it just sounded respectful). So for one year I took…
