Sorry for the long delay in updates again this month. As usual, things are crazy these days. Unfortunately, the degree of craziness is even higher than usual.
Heaven's situation became a bit more complicated these past few weeks. Due to a variety of circumstances, she's being forced into changing to a high school in the district in which we live now. This will be her 19th different school before she finishes her freshman year. As much as I'd hoped to avoid this circumstance, it was not to be. It's truly unfortunate.
There are several things going on with work these days.
I'm in the final stages of wrapping up a new venture at work that we'll be announcing in the next couple of weeks. I'm pretty stoked about it. If all goes as planned, it will open up many new and exciting possibilities for us. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
I'm also prepping for two trips in the coming weeks. I'll be leaving for Chicago next weekend to attend the annual National Design and Engineering Show. I'll be gone a full week. It's part of the event known as Manufacturing Week. This is one of our best opportunities to meet with current and potential customers all year. A month later is Cyan Research's annual event, the Congress on the Future of Engineering Software (COFES) in Scottsdale in mid-April. As usual, we expect this year's event to be our best ever. But that said, this years conference will be a bit special for me anyway. My niece Rikki will be serving an internship there. Besides the usual colleagues, it'll be nice having a family member there for a change. If nothing else comes of it, perhaps at least one person in the family will have some sense of what I do for a living.
Lastly, on the subject of work -- we recently hired my old friend and former employee, Michael Jackson to come work for Cyon Research. This should allow me to breath a bit easier, especially in terms of accomplishing more new development projects this year. Mike and I work well together, so I'm looking forward to a fun and productive work situation moving forward. I'm hoping that a byproduct of Mike's efforts will result in more frequent updates to this website as well. :)
As for the other stuff going on, my niece Meagan continues to entertain and amaze me more and more each time I see her. I know I couldn't add 2-digit numbers in kindergarten.
Mom and Bill are talking more and more about simplifying their life by giving real retirement a chance pretty soon. I hope they follow through on that.
And lastly, Heaven's cat Link continues to grow at a much higher rate physically than mentally. On the other hand, at least he seems to be calming down a bit finally. The back of my hands have actually been laceration-free for the better part of a week now. That may be a first since he arrived in September.
The old Link | | 
The new Link |