It’s puzzling as now California’s infection rate has sky-rocketed beyond all areas/nations of similar size. What has happened in California? 😦 Deaths have skyrocketed to nearly 22,000 from 16,000 before current surge. They tell us to expect at least 40,000-50,000 deaths. 50,000 deaths by the end of February. What happened? We are hunkered-down, bunkered-down and never go out. What happened. 😦
Could I be on plane the next day to Ljubljana, Slovenia?
Me not entirely ecstatic: Yes.
Former ex-family member: (OK. ex-wife.) What the Fuck?!!!!!
Now even less ecstatic.
Satish and I would take the first flight out of SFO in the morning.
Boarding the plane, I received a phone call.
“N”: Go find the hammer of Slovenia.
Click.
I knew exactly what “N” meant. We had discussed finding such a hammer over previous weeks.
We would be joined by the boys from London one day later.
Why me: I was our company’s program manager on this “chip” and the program manager for all technology.
The product was for a stacked die chip. An image array sensor, stacked with an image pipeline co-processor.
By stacking the chips this allowed for a lot more Silicon real estate for the image processing and we could develop a much more sophisticated imaging system.
This would be our first foray into such a technology.
The program manager from the company we were working with had just asked me if I could take over managing the schedule.
My response: Yes.
Meaning: Their program manager had absolutely no idea on whether the fucking Slovenian team could/can/would execute to schedule.
He’s a good friend and a good person…he’s asking if I will take on all this responsibility. For him it is out of control.
Our CEO response…
Send Forrest he now owns schedule on delivery of this chip.
Send Satish from Silicon Valley who is architect of chip and all features.
Send London boys hot on tails. 1.Technical evaluation of feasibility of technology schedule. 2. Technical Program Manager UK who would ask hard questions on schedule. 3. My boss. Based out of London. To make sure the proper level of “serious” was being applied to problem.
Everything was my call.
My judgement.
That’s why I was on a plane at 7am the day after Thanksgiving.
Swell.
Everyone else was particularly serious on the details as we had a conference call to look forward to every evening with CEO.
Would we write this whole thing off?
Could we fix the schedule with confidence?
Would/should we just acquire company at right price.
In these rather intense daily meetings it was my call.
The details and minutiae… there were plenty of other people there to monitor.
I spent my whole time looking at their overall technical lead Simon’s (pronounced “see moan”) eyes….
I just looked at his eyes the entire time…the details washed over me.
I didn’t care. This was a person decision.
Was there a person in Slovenia I could count on to get the job done?
For lunch one day we had Slovenian pizza with and hard-boiled egg in the center.
Weird. Good pizza. I skipped the egg, but told them how good the pizza was and how much I appreciated it. An egg on a pizza? Weird as hell.
Previously, due to a f*ck-up by the airline Satish and I had missed our connection flight to
Ljubljana by 25 minutes because the airline was running 25 minutes behind schedule.
They said they would put us on the next available flight.
That turned out to be 24 hours.
As this was the airline’s mistake we asked if we might stage our operations in their courtesy lounge.
No.
German airline personnel jobs…God’s gift to assholes
We spent the next 24-hours based out of MacDonald’s working and sleeping on the floor.
Such is the nature of the Stuttgart airport and again friendly German airport employees.
It’s like this every time I’m in Stuttgart. Always reminds me of the young guy
that rats out the von Trapp in the “Sound of Music.”
Anyway, after 2 days of technical analysis my recommendation in meeting to CEO.
“Buy company. YOU CARE ABOUT THESE 2 EMPLOYEES. (Named…) So price accordingly.”
The next evening at a “private dinner” with Simon.
Before becoming in charge of this technology group Simon had been a waiter himself at such an
establishment and warned us about how we would be seduced to pay additional charges.
We didn’t really care.
But we appreciated that Simon shared this with us.
We pitched our proposal.
He said he needed time to think it over.
He wanted arrangement for entire team.
A week later after no Thanksgiving I talked to Simon on the phone.
He said negotiations were going well and he and his team wanted to join our company because
he trusted me because of our work together over the last 9 months.
He trusted me and I had been “kind.”
I had never heard something like that before in my business career.
“Kind?”
We concluded our business discussion.
I then went to the men’s room. Locked the door and looked hard in mirror.
“Kind?”
Smiled.
Laughed.
I locked the door because this made me cry.
Going forward Simon’s word would carry more weight with me than God.
I didn’t know it when I got to Slovenia…
but Simon was the hammer of Slovenia.
As the acquisition was being negotiated for some reason their company’s CEO felt compelled to come by and visit me as I had taken over the project.
I was a bit busy and just typed at my laptop the entire time as he sat in front of my desk.
He was a bit of Silicon Valley sleazebag private equity guy.
As I typed without looking up he started to spell out a number of conditions and other items necessary to do deal.
He went on for quite a while.
Finally, I guess he talked himself out or thought he made his point and said to me…
“So, are we good?”
I continued to type and did not look up.
Me: I don’t think so.
This surprised him.
He: What are we not good about?
Me: I said. I don’t think so.
Now he was starting to drift into “not-happy” land.
Him a bit indignantly: Which item do you have an issue with?
Me continuing to type without looking up:
“I dunno. I wasn’t really listening. All of them???”
This put him much deeper into “not-happy” land.
He bolted up out of his chair.
Not at all displaying the happiness I expect in my office
He: “MIGHT I REMIND YOU I AM VERY GOOD FRIENDS WITH THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF YOU COMPANY!!!”
I just kept typing…
Finally, I looked up and looked him square in the eye for several seconds.
I then turned my head and looked out the window.
There was a bird on the lawn.
I let maybe 15 seconds pass from his pronouncement, so he could think about how I might respond to his threat.
My response…
“GO TELL THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF OUR COMPANY TO GO FUCK HIMSELF!!!”
There would be no negotiating with me.
He left in a substantially non-happy mood.
The thing was… was the Chairman of our company “N” was a very, very good friend of mine.
He had given me very, very specific instructions to which he expected me to execute regarding the matter.
And at very reasonable price we acquired the hammer of Slovenia.
spring is in a young girl’s step when everything is green summer is a girl who plays in the sun autumn is a girl preparing for the harvest winter is when summer and autumn stay warm inside by the fire waiting for the step of spring to return if winter were a girl she would be cold and would need to be held I cannot find her because of the snow storm if she is outside she would be doubly cold and need to be doubly held I must go now and look for winter
I just went out after a 2-months of purely in my apartment. You know I am bad. I’m bad. I am not going to spin it any other way. I went to my top 2 liquor stores. Sigh. New owners. 🙂 Previous owners 6-8 weeks ago had gone bankrupt.
Fuck.
Fucking Jesus.
New owners……..Previous owners with wife and children… bankrupt. You have substantially less time than previous owners…
until you go bankrupt.
They will go bankrupt in next 3 weeks. Sigh. It is pure hell here for everyone. Sigh. I can’t solve the problems of all. Sigh. Just me and those I work with. Even that is almost impossible. Sigh
Fucking sigh.
Jesus fuck.
OK…. I’ll make/adjust game plan.
Jesus fuck.
Got $2 million cash.
Me.
Certainly.
Me and my son.
Well, that’s legal.
Exit 8/1/21
I’ll figure it out.
Tumbling dice
For all and the Lord to see.
Amen.
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but fu k thiz ndw worx pezz editor
leGAL DOCUMENTSIT ALL JUST DEFAULTS TO MHY SON
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At a certain point you can no longer fight Google/Youtube…Facebook on this platform.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/5000-body-bags-ordered-refrigerated-trucks-standby-covid/story?id=74741632 They brought in perhaps 10 refrigerated trucks to the parking lots to the former Cisco campus buildings this morning that were closest to me. Less than 10 minute walk away. Those buildings are no longer occupied by Cisco, so the parking lot space is completely free. I had to go to CVS around noon. This street was completely shutdown to set up refrigerated trucks.
I spent a lot of time in Italy with an earlier job and also did a fair amount of leisure travel there.On one tour I was in the town of Assisi. Saint Francis is Saint Francis of Assisi. (His birthplace.) It’s a quaint and humble, old Italian village on the top of a hill.Since he is part of their claim to fame, there are all kind of souvenirs honoring him. The tour guide told us his story in detail.He came from a rich family and gave up all his worldly possessions to do help those less fortunate than himself. He was a good person.He is the Patron Saint of Animals. (He preached to birds.)(You can often find him in statues that are feeders, birdbaths, etc.) That’s why I recognized him immediately in this photo. After the tour guide finished telling us about Saint Francis, I told her that I was from a town that was named after him.She said oh really…. what town and where. San Francisco. She: Oh yeah… No one ever thinks about that. : ) (Below… Saint Francis in Tyler Texas.) Squirrel: Thanks buddy for being my Patron Saint. And for these sun flower seeds. 🙂
Written in Blue Mercury 