Another Year has come and gone...

On December 14^th I celebrate 22 years at Schlumberger – NPTest – Credence – DCG Systems – FEI – Thermo Fisher Scientific. It’s been quite a ride.  During these 22 years my company has been divested, had an IPO, been sent out on our own and been purchased (3 times). You should stop reading now if you don’t want to hear about my 22 year odyssey.

It all started in 1995 when I took a job as a field engineer for Schlumberger’s semiconductor division (Automated Systems group). SLB had a presence at Intel in Arizona and they were ramping up big time. I spent the next 5 years supporting over 150 automated systems in various stages of the back-end process of Intel’s Pentium ramp. This was a fun time and very busy.

In 1998 or 1999 Intel decided to move its Assembly and Test operations in Chandler to Costa Rica. After figuring out where the hell Costa Rica was, my job then was to support that ramp and training of our new counterparts down there.

Sometime after 9/11 Schlumberger decided it wanted to concentrate on its core business (oilfield services) and divested the Semiconductor Group into its own public company. We had a IPO on the NASDAQ and NpTest was born.

Around the same time Intel decided it did not want to use our automated systems anymore – my job was ramping down. After the local service manager took another job in NpTest, I took a chance and went for a manager position in our test group. Although I had no technical experience with our tester products, my boss took a chance on me and gave me the job.

As you may imagine, the post 9/11 world in the Semiconductor industry was tough. A year after becoming NpTest we were bought by Credence. As it turns out if you read the public filings, this was in the works when we went public. There was a lot of money made by our investors that took us public. Us employees... not so much.

So here is where I sat from around 2002 -2006. The economy was in turmoil and so was our business. My responsibilities increased however as I was put in charge of our Costa Rica team. Quarterly visits to CR weren’t too shabby.

Sometime around 2006, the test business was winding down with Intel and again I say my job diminishing. At that point, I started to look at our diagnostics systems group and became the North America Field Service Manager. By the way – I had the best boss in the world now.

In 2008, Credence decided to sell their business to LTX. Before this happened, they decided to sell off the diagnostic group. In 2008 DCG Systems was born. A very small company at first.  I was tasked with setting up our service CRM from scratch ... what a fun project.  Over the next 7 years I grew my service business in NAM (As the NAM Service Manager) over 200%. Over the 7 years as DCG we grew to $100 million dollars in annual sales. It was good run.

Nothing lasts forever. In late 2015 DCG was bought by FEI. Change is funny and boy did we change.  I spent the next year and a half leading the integration of DCG’s service business into the FEI model.

If I’ve learned anything it’s that change is unpredictable and such was the case with FEI. I thought we were big enough to stay FEI for a while …. What a foolish thought …. sometime in 2016 FEI was bought by Thermo Fisher Scientific.  We are now a small (500 million) part of a 17-billion-dollar company.  Thermo Fisher is as big as Schlumberger.   A big company means big changes and my job has changed significantly.  Once the service business was fully integrated into the new management structure we had one manager too many and I was moved into the technical support group.  For the first time in 17 years I no longer manage any people.  While this will make my end of year duties a lot easier, I really miss being a manager. To tell you how global of a company We are, my current boss is an Irish dude working in our Brno office in the Czech Republic.  Who knows what this new roll will bring and what adventures await!

With all the changes, I have tried to stay focused on my job.  Not to be outdone I hit the big 50 this year.  As I am older and wiser now, I have realized the best thing about change has been to work with so many wonderful people.  I cherish the memories I have with the people I have worked with, worked for and had as a customer.  I have been lucky enough to work with so many very smart, dedicated and hardworking people. You have taught me how to be a field service engineer, a manager, a supplier and a friend.  To my colleagues, bosses, customers and subordinates, thank you for the lessons on how to do my job well. I cherish all you have taught me. The adventure never stops.  As the great Danny Elfman said …   I like my stupid life just the way it is, and the chaos that surrounds me like a flock of screaming pigs. And it hurts my brain to think of all the stupid things I've said, if I could change the future I would change the past instead.   And I'm dreaming again . . .

My80s Music

It is no big secret that I like 80s alternative music. Since I have nothing better to do, i will list my top 80 favorite songs:

Alphaville	Big in Japan (Extended mix)
B Movie	Nowhere Girl
B52s	Private Idaho
B52s	Strobe Light
Beat Farmers	Happy Boy
Berlin	World of Smiles
Big Country	Big Country
Big Country	Wonderland
Blancmange	Living on the Ceiling
Blondie	Dreaming
Boomtown Rats, The	Skin on skin
Burning Sensations	Belly of a Whale
The Damned	Alone again or
The Damned	Grimly Fiendish
Devo	Gates of Steel
Duran Duran	Planet Earth
Elvis Costello	Allison
Elvis Costello	I Can't Stand Up (For Falling Down)
Fishbone	Party at Ground Zero
Frankie Goes to Hollywood	Two Tribes
Fun Boy 3	The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum
Gleaming Spiers	Are you ready for the sex, girl?
GuadalCanal Diary	Litany
GuadalCanal Diary	And Your Bird Can Sing
Haircut 100	Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)`
Icicle Works	Understanding Jane
Iggy Pop	Candy
Jam, The	A town called Malice
Jane's Addiction	Summertime Rolls
Joe Jackson	Is She Really Going Out With Him? (A Cappella Version)
The Lighting Seeds	The Life of Riley
Madness	Baggy trousers
Madness	Night Boat to Cairo or Grey Day
The Members	Working Girl
Midnight Oil	DreamWorld
Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper	Elvis is Everywhere
Oingo Boingo	Insects
Oingo Boingo	Violent Love
Oingo Boingo	Ain’t this the life?
Oingo Boingo	Cry of the Vatos
Oingo Boingo	Change
Oingo Boingo	Little Guns
Oingo Boingo	Goodbye Goodbye
OMD	Tesla Girls
Peter Gabrial / Kate Bush	Don’t give up
Plastic Bertrand	Ca Plane Pour Moi
The Pogues	Medley
Psychedelic Furs	The Ghost in You
Psychedelic Furs	Love My Way
R.E.M.	South Central Rain
R.E.M.	Everybody Hurts
R.E.M.	I Believe
Shona Laing	(Glad I'm) Not A Kennedy
Simple Minds	Don’t you Forget about me
Sinead O'Conner	Three Babies
Siouxie and the Banchees	Hong Kong Garden
Slow Children	President Am I?
The Smiths	There’s a light that goes out …
Spandau Ballet	To cut a long story short
Sparks	Popularity
Sparks	Mickey Mouse
Special Beat	Ranking Full Stop
Specials, The	Ghost Town (great f-in trombone solo)
Split Endz	Six months in a leaky boat
Stan Ridgeway	Pile Driver
Stranglers	Goldern Brown
Talking Heads	(nothing but) Flowers
Talking Heads	Puzzling Evedence
This Mortal Coil	Song to the Siren
Thompson Twins	If you were Here
U2	Running to stand still
Ultravox	Vienna
The Untouchables	(I Spy for The) FBI
The Vapors	Turning Japanese
The Waterboys	And a bang on the ear
X	Surprise, Surprise
XTC	Senses working overtime
XTC	No Thugs in our house
Yaz	Only You
Yaz	Nobody’s Diary

Oingo Boingo ... from 1 to 115

It can get real boring while on some conference calls. While I was on a call yesterday, I decided to rank every Boingo song from top to bottom.

So, I took the list of songs from Dan's Boingo page and put it into Excel. I ranked each song fom 1 to 5. After that I ranked all the 5's from 1 to 5 and so on. I went through 4 generations of rankings to make the following list. I present to you My personal Oingo Boingo List from best song to "worst" song (if such a thing exists).

Video of my #1

1.) Change
2.) Little Guns
3.) Insects
4.) Insanity
5.) Nasty Habits
6.) Reptiles and Samurai
7.) Forbidden Zone(EP)
8.) Good For Your Soul
9.) No Spill Blood
10.) Cry of Vatos
11.) Imposter
12.) Louise
13.) Fill The Void
14.) On The Outside
15.) Dead or Alive
16.) Sweat
17.) Treadmill
18.) Violent Love
19.) Water
20.) Grey Matter
21.) Nothing Bad Ever Happens
22.) Nothing To Fear (But Fear Itself)
23.) Out of Control
24.) Capitalism
25.) Controller
26.) Elevator Man
27.) Goodbye-Goodbye
28.) Gratitude
29.) Cinderella Undercover
30.) I Am The Walrus
31.) Is This
32.) Who Do You Want to Be?
33.) Why'd We Come (All This Way)
34.) Can't See (Useless)
35.) No One Lives Forever
36.) Pedestrian Wolves
37.) Perfect System
38.) War Again
39.) Same Man I Was Before
40.) Try to Believe
41.) Ain't This the Life
42.) Hey!
43.) Islands
44.) It Only Makes Me Laugh
45.) Only a Lad
46.) Something Isn't Right
47.) Wild Sex (In The Working Class)
48.) Bachelor Party
49.) Long Breakdown
50.) Lost Like This
51.) Little Girls
52.) Helpless
53.) Pictures of You
54.) Better Luck Next Time
55.) Heard Somebody Cry
56.) Just Another Day
57.) The Last Time
58.) Mary
59.) Spider
60.) Stay
61.) Tender Lumplings
62.) Tough As Nails
63.) What You See
64.) Acapella Ditty
65.) Animals
66.) Clowns of Death
67.) Everybody Needs
68.) Happy
69.) Help Me
70.) Home Again
71.) I'm Afraid
72.) When the Lights Go Out
73.) Mama
74.) My Life
75.) Private Life
76.) Skin
77.) Take Your Medicine
78.) Wake Up (It's 1984)
79.) We Close Our Eyes
80.) The Winning Side
81.) Cool City
82.) Dream Somehow
83.) Open Eyes
84.) Vultures
85.) Where Do All My Friends Go?
86.) You Really Got Me
87.) Piggies
88.) You Got Your Baby Back
89.) Whole Day Off
90.) Fool's Paradise
91.) We Did It There
92.) Ballad of the Caveman
93.) Burn Me Up
94.) The Cat is Dead
95.) Don't Go in the Basement
96.) Flesh 'N' Blood
97.) Gimme A Break
98.) Hold Me Back
99.) Kiss My Ass
100.) New Generation
101.) Not My Slave
102.) Outrageous
103.) Pain
104.) Right to Know
105.) Run Away (The Escape Song)
106.) Sucker for Mystery
107.) California Girls
108.) Commando Girls
109.) Glory Be
110.) Go Away
111.) I'm So Bad
112.) Lap of Luxury
113.) Lightning
114.) Dead Man's Party
115.) Weird Science

Some Like it Hot

I only seem to post when I go to a concert. I went to another DMP show and here is the pictures:



Love the Keytar!

Where did my Brain go?

I realize its been a while since I posted anything in my blog. Random ramblings are not something I am good at.

However, yesterday I had a "middle aged moment" (not to be confused with senior momoments).

We have one of those Roomba Vacuums. It actually works quite well and keeps the downstairs carpet clean.

For some reason, the "Virtual Wall" sensor lost its program. This meant it no longer acted like a wall when the Roomba was doing its thing. No problem, I got the remote out and went to reprogram the thing. I could not get the f-in thing to reprogram to save my life. Anything I tried failed. So, I called Josh (8 years old) down to give it a try. Within 10 seconds Josh had the correct combination of buttons pressed and the thing was all set.

"Where'd you learn that, Josh" I asked.

"You showed me how to do that when we got the thing dad," Josh said.

I did ?!?!?!

It is really disturbing for me to admit that I can't remember simple things like this now.

Dead Man's Party - 2/11/07

Thought after attending the latest Dead Man's Party Show ....

Yesterday's DMP show was a billed as the pre-valentine edition featuring a run through of The Good for You Soul album. Once again, DMP delivered a superior performance. 31 songs and over 2 hours of great music.

More on that later ...

The show started off with a truly forgettable band called Coto Normal. Made up of a few DMP members, this is a group of original music. These folks aren't bad and the lead singer has a great Pat Benatar type voice. The problem I had is I'm just not into the type of music they play. In my mind, truly forgettable.

The lo-lite of the evening came next, with a truly awful performance by The Cure tribute band The Cured. Plain and simple, these guys sucked. From the fake British accent, to the bad wig, the "Robert Smith" character of the group was pathetic. Dude, here is a bit of advise ... if you are a tribute band of any artist, try to learn the words. The folks around me were laughing AT you. Another little tip would be stop beginning every verse by YELLING into the microphone, especially when you sing like that.

The band's performance only got worse by the keyboard player's instance to tell us the name of every song before they started. Give me a break, I'm sure 95% of the crowd knew you were starting Love Cats or Boys don't Cry. The band's performance was punctuated by the snare drum's constant beat. I'm thinking they bought the snare at Wal*Mart, 1/2 hour before the performance. A Wal*Mart drum with no tuning is exactly what the constant pounding of that thing sounded like.



On to the DMP show..

Since I am in a negative mood, I'll start with the only bad part of the evening. For the first 1 1/2 hour of the show, the sound guys were franticly trying to find the source of a annoying sound problem. It reminded me of that scene where some actor messes with the sound system and a annoying EEEEEEK comes out of the speakers. The reaction of Rob was the same as Danny Elfman in the movie. I guess we can't complain too much though. What do you expect for 12 buck tickets?

As I mentioned the show was billed as a GFYS run trough, but, the boys did not disappoint. Here is the set list:

Forbidden Zone
It only Makes me Laugh
Just Another Day
Dead Man's Party
Nothing to Fear
When the Lights go Out
Reptiles and Samurai
Little Girls
Grey Matter
We Close our Eyes
Help!
You really got Me
Wild Sex
Violent Love
Not my Slave
Nasty Habits

{start of the GFYS Portion}

Who Do You Want To Be
Good For Your Soul
No Spill Blood
Cry Of The Vatos
Fill The Void
Sweat
Nothing Bad Ever Happens
Wake Up (It's 1984)
Dead Or Alive
Pictures Of You
Little Guns

Encore

Ain't this the Life
No One Lives Forever
Impostor
Only a Lad

What a inspiring 31 song performance. Once again Rob Elfaizy delivered a "Peyton Manning-esque" performance, directing and tweaking the sound between/during every song.

The horn section was tight as usual, all night long. These guys no what to do and know how to get it done. You can really tell when a group has "gelled" and the 3 horn player have done just that. They feed of each other's energy and look like the are having WAY too much fun.

The performance of We Close our Eyes was a lo-lite, they trucked out the latest accordion player and attempted this song again. There is just something about this song that DMP does not get. The backing harmony is just not there yet.

My hats off to Mr. Lee Presson for a wonderful performance. After watching his many YouTube videos. I made it a point to keep an eye on Lee. He has added so much to the group over the past couple years. The performance of Cry of the Vatos was a tribute to his genius. Great job guys, keep that one on your set list!

Since this was the whole GFYS album, I was particularly looking forward to Pictures of You. This is a song that I do not think I have seen performed live in quite some time. What a great job and a terrific song. You gotta love the "play the whole album" concept.

The bottom line for me is these guys are damn good. In my eyes, these guys are the best group of 80s ERA Oingo Boingo being performed today anywhere. If you are a true (80s era) Boingo fan, you should plan on seeing these guys.

I really wonder what these guys would sound like with the money and sound guys that Boingo had "back in the day". Hopefully someday we will get a chance to find out.

My Blog ...

So, the site where I had my blog wanted to charge me or they were going to wipe it away...

So I moved everything here.

Blogger gives me more flexibility to work with my Google Picasa account.

The bummer is I could not back date my posts .. so ... everything looks like I published it today.

Oh well ... Enjoy!

GeoCaching

(Originally Published 11/6/2006)

Now that the weather is getting cool, we have picked up the geocaching trips.  Geoacaching is a treasure hunt using a GPS, the internet (Google Earth) and a little sense of adventure.  Here are the girls by a recent cache:



More information on Geocaching can be found here:  Geocaching

Another Dead Man's Party Concert - 10/27/06

(Originally Published 10/28/2006)

I missed the Vatos’ show. Unfortunately I was not able to make it to SoCal last weekend. That pissed me off. The silver lining for me was that I still got to see a Halloween Boingo show. For me, DMP is Boingo from the 80s. The fervor and sprit of Rob and the band is what I saw from Boingo in the 80s.

Last night was the 10th DMP show I have seen (do I get a award?). I have now driven from Arizona to California 10 times just to see a band. How pathetic is that? I guess I am a familiar face now. Before the concert, the “trumpet guy” (inside joke there) Jake came up to me and shook my hand. It was nice of him to remember me. I found out later that he lives in AZ too. Hey Jake, next time we can carpool!

This is my first mixed review of DMP. Driving home, I had a lot of time to think about the show and would like to share my thoughts. As disjointed as I can be, I will try to keep focused on two main points in this review: technical stuff and spirit stuff.

I want to start of by saying last night was another GREAT time. As usual Rob and crew put on an intense show. They had many “new “ songs and a couple surprises. The show opened up with “Insanity”. I am pretty sure this is the first song I have seen them perform from the “Boingo” album. The performance was great. The band was tight sounded great. However, The main vocals were not there. I could not hear Rob singing at all. By the end of this song, they got it together.

The problems with the main vocals seem to go on all night. Rob’s microphone kept fading in and out. One point during “Grey Matter” Rob was singing and I couldn’t hear him at all. I would imagine this annoyed the hell out of some people. For me, I could have cared less. The crowd was singing to every song and the combined energy of the band and the crowd made up for the sound issues.

The Surprise of the night (besides the dude in the yellow Vegas Showgirl costume) had to be the performance of “Don’t go in the Basement”. What a great song AND they nailed it. Great job guys. Another nice surprise came when they performed “Water”. I have a lot of basic rules in my life. One of them happens to be any performance I see with a Mandolin is brilliant.

Once again the horn section was tight. Performance wise, they did not miss a beat with the new trombone player. He is a great replacement musically (that comment means something as I am a low brass player). However, I missed Darin’s enthusiasm. Darin brought a lot to the show and he was missed.

At some point during the show, Rob thanked the crowd. He pointed out a few people and then pointed right at me and said “and you, I’ve seen you at a lot of shows, thanks”. Rob, I thought we had a moment last show (at the Belly Up) when you blew me a kiss. Bummer, such is life J.

This review would not be complete without commenting on Mike Ryon, The lead guitarist (“Bartek”). I watched him and listened for his stuff tonight. I got to say Mike is a brilliant player. He is so focused on playing and ads a lot of his own stuff when he can. Mike is a great musician and does a remarkable job trying to fill the shoes of the best guitarist in the world.

Overall the show last night was brilliant. Another 2 ½ hour marathon complete with a mosh pit and a stage dive. The energy and enthusiasm of the band and the crowd made up for any “technical” issues. It was great to see a packed house, hear some “new” stuff and get a chance to slam dance. Great job guys! (Sorry for not having a set list, I was busy abusing my body on the dance floor)

I got home to Phoenix just in time to host a Radio show on www.radiofreephoenix.com (replayed 10/29 @ 3 PM AZ time – 2 PM Cali time). I led the show of with Cry of the Vatos. 26 years later and I still can’t get enough of this music.

DMP - 8/19/06

(Originally Published 8/20/2006)

I packed 3 t-shirts as possibilities to wear to the DMP show last night. I had my Oingo Boingo “Dead Man’s Party” tour (Circa 1986), my farewell shirt or my new Dead Man’s Party shirt. While trying to figure out what shirt to wear, I had an epiphany. DMP is their own band; they are coming into their own as performers. While they play only Boingo music, they have a style and passion that separates them from an ordinary “tribute” band. These folks are talented musicians playing the music of my youth. (Thus, I picked the new DMP shirt). Editors note: in actuality I would have worn the shirt from 1986, but the damn thing doesn’t make it over my belly!

DMP had another impressive outing at the Belly Up last night. While the ideas of ”Fantasy set lists” and “obscure Boingo song you want to hear at the Halloween show” are floated around, one group is bringing us Boingo in a way it was meant to be. It is sooo nice to have semi-monthly Boingo performances back in my life again.

First, the obligatory set list (courtesy of OSJ):

01. The Winning Side
02. Just Another Day
03. Little Girls
04. Good For Your Soul
05. On the Outside
06. Dead Man's Party
07. It Only Makes Me Laugh
08. Running on a Treadmill
09. Nasty Habits
10. Capitalism
11. Little Guns
12. You Really Got Me
13. Only A Lad
14. Private Life
15. Nothing to Fear
16. Insects
17. Not My Slave
18. Gratitude
19. Reptiles & Samurai
20. Wild Sex
21. No One Lives Forever
22. Country Sweat
23. No Spill Blood
24. Ain't This the Life
25. Controller
26. Who Do You Want to Be

Encore

27. Grey Matter
28. Cinderella Undercover
29. Violent Love
30. Goodbye, Goodbye

I know my past reviews have been very broad, so if you have the time, I’ll try to give a detailed review.

Overall, I love what Rob does with the flow of the concert. They start off with the obligatory slow and mellow stuff. They got to play “Dead Mans Party” I suppose, but, I personally wish that song would die a swift and painless death. Sometime mid-show, they crank it up and don’t stop till the end. I applaud the energy and drive of the whole group.

Tonight, I started the show stage left, sitting right near the horn section. I can honestly say they are so tight really make DMP. Not only are Bruce, Darren and Jake (the trumpet guy) spot on, the three of them are incredibly talented musicians that appear to be having way too much fun. It was noted that this was Darren’s last gig with DMP. I hope this section survives. It’s not hard to find a replacement t-bone player, even a talented t-bone player is easy to find. But, the boys will have a tough time finding someone that brings the talent, drive and fun that Darren has added to the many shows I have seen.

Back to the show… Some time around Nothing to Fear I was summoned to the dance floor. I got off my big fat ass and went dancing. The dance floor was packed (anyone want to bet we were on the brink of breaking some fire regulation) and everyone was having a good time. The next 10-12 songs were a combination of pushing, shoving, and dancing akin to the best dance shows I saw in the 80s. Rob even blew me a kiss during No One Lives for Ever. If I were a chick, I’d be floored. Instead, I suppose I’m a little creeped out. I do find it funny that all of us 30 and 40 year olds are out there on the dance floor, knowing we should be slam dancing, but not having the courage or energy to start a pit.

The only negative for the evening came during the performance of Grey Matter. I know the bells are someone iconic symbol and need to be worshiped when they are on stage. The problem is that the sound guy seems to think a lot about them too. Way too much bells.

In closing, I would like to encourage all Boingo fans to get behind DMP. These guys love the music and are very good. NO ONE will ever replace Danny’s voice, but Rob is doing a great job adding his own style to the voice and performance. For those who never saw the real Boingo, the evolution of DMP is the same thing Boingo went through in the 80s. These guys are doing it in their spare time, though.

The small venue dance concert is the only way to see Boingo music performed. I am so glad DMP cares enough to keep the legend alive and am proud to be a fan.