Category: Work Page 1 of 9

Looking my age

By Dad

On Wednesday, August 28, 2024

In Retirement, Work

I was asked to send a headshot for the updated website by the marketing team at Thrive Bioscience where I work. I have thought a lot about the fact that I am approaching 70 years old for a number of reasons, partly Biblical and partly that is when I will, God willing, start receiving social security. If I do not retire from full-time work at that point, just because of the nature of life, it should not be too much after that. The thing I noticed with this picture is that I am not only getting old, I am looking old. I embrace that. Since when I was in my mid-thirties, it slowly dawned on me that it is a gift to enjoy the age you are. And, since then, I have. I love being 68 for a few more weeks. It makes it so much more satisfying because Lorena still looks like a teenager.

Advancements

By Dad

On Tuesday, August 20, 2024

In House and home, Work

There is nothing really earthshaking to report today. I had a good day at work, a good day with our (Lorena and my) exercise programs, a good day with advancements in the completion of the apartments, and I did not gain a ton of weight. All is good. Today was just a regular day and I am grateful for it.

A needed coffee mug of the first order

By Dad

On Monday, August 19, 2024

In Mexico life, Software, Work

My entire Mexican experience informed me that the only coffee available for general consumption, even at the finest dining establishments was Instant Nescafe. I was wrong and Tío Lauro very graciously showed me the error of my ways. In his trip to Veracruz he drank the spectacular local product that is some of the best coffee in the world. In addition, he filled a sorely needed deficiency in my working life. As is the wont of many programmers, it is difficult for me to work without a mug (read mug, not cup) of coffee at my desk. Lauro arrived in Monterrey with a much needed mug of the Café de la Parroquia from Veracruz. I am forever indebted.

Nice minor events

By Dad

On Sunday, July 28, 2024

In Retirement PhD, Work

Lots of good and interesting minor events happening right now. My name got added to the Adjunct Professor list on the University of Nebraska–Linclon website, I got some cool new Thrive Bioscience bling for Christian and I (a winter vest from Land’s End with the Thrive logo, and I got a title change with new cards that feature the title change and the PhD suffix. Small favors can be nice.

Thrive corporate meeting

By Dad

On Friday, July 26, 2024

I am flying home froym Boston to DFW after three days of corporate meeting with new Thrive Bioscience Branded Vests for Christian and I, a new title (Vice President of Algorithms), and new cards with my new title and PhD appended to my name on the cards. I ate way too much but came away with new energy and optimism about our company. I am working with a group of very nice people. Hopefully, I can continue to make myself useful for a few more years.

Six years at Thrive Bioscience

By Dad

On Tuesday, July 16, 2024

In Retirement, Work

I officially started work six years ago today at Thrive Bioscience. I had actually contracted there for a very brief time before I started. It has been a good enough experience, I want to continue working there as long as they will let me. In the end, it is all about the people. Thrive has great people. In addition, they have allowed me to bring in my own talented contractors to work with me. It really does feel like we are on the verge of something big. I had planned to retire at 70, but for a company this good, I am willing to rethink that a little if I am needed.

Artificial intelligence

By Dad

On Friday, June 14, 2024

I would like to know who created this, because I would love to give them credit for saying out loud (well, in an image anyway) what many of us really believe, at least on a day-to-day operational level. It seems like many of the imaging AI/ML people who characterize themselves as experts in Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence when in reality, they know little about Computer Vision other than how to throw pixels at existing high level tools. Maybe it is because I am old, but it is a challenge to sit and listen to drivel about Computer Vision that is really only informed by the ability to use a tool without really understanding the underlying concepts.

Friends and colleagues

By Dad

On Thursday, May 30, 2024

In Software, Technology, Work

We flew to Oregon last week to get together with all my siblings for the first time since our parents funeral, seven years ago. Part of the trip was set aside for a meeting with two colleagues of mine with whom I have worked for almost 40 years (Frank Evans) and around 30 years (Dr. Mark Singer). We got a meeting room in Tualatin, Oregon to discuss the technical aspects of work they do for me as contractors in my day job. It is a gift to be able to work with them. In our field, there are none better both technically and in terms of good will. I am writing this as a marker by which to honor and remember them–we are all old and live far apart–them in Oregon and me in Texas, so this might be the last time. I hope not.

Tío Lauro in Brazil

By Dad

On Friday, May 17, 2024

My brother-in-law, Lauro has had some pretty amazing jobs. Right now he runs a team of several groups of engineers located throughout Latin America. Right now, he is visiting a couple of those teams in Brazil. He and his family lived in Brazil a decade or so ago and he truly loves it there. All things considered, though, I think he has gotten to the point in his career (like I did), where travel is more of a chore if you are doing it for work. Sitting on airplanes for double-digit hours at a time with only work at the other end is pretty lonely and tiring. I am grateful to not be doing it so much anymore. Still, it can be enjoyable if one has a good group of people at the other end.

House visit (with our builder)

By Dad

On Friday, May 3, 2024

In Christianity, House and home, Retirement PhD, Work

Lorena and I had a really interesting day today. First, I had a meeting with a professor from the Guadalajara campus of ITESM (important Mexican university system). There is a great chance we will be able to work with him as part of my day job. He is a gifted researcher and just an impressive individual.

After that, our builder, Brad, invited us to visit a house he had built in Granbury. The owners were beyond gracious in showing us their house. Our (famous) house designer lives just across the street and he came out to see us after we went through the house tour. We cam away from all of that with stars in our eyes. Everyone seems to know about the exact lot we have purchased and believe it was a brilliant move. That is yet to be determined, but we were VERY inspired and we LOVED the houses in that neighborhood–mostly all designed by our house designer.

THEN, I had a Signal message from Christian waiting for me when we got home from the house visit. It was the picture Christian took of my professor Troy after my PhD dissertation defense. All of it is all good.

Grateful.

Christian earns a challenge coin

By Dad

On Saturday, March 9, 2024

In Family, Science, Work

Christian was given one of the coolest challenge coins ever for some of the research he has accomplished in his job. He got one from his professor when he was getting his PhD, but this seems like a much bigger deal. They gave it to him after and invited talk he gave on that research. He is scheduled to give and even more important talk in a few months. It really is amazing to see him performing at this level.

Valentine’s Day lunch

By Dad

On Wednesday, February 14, 2024

In Family, Work

My wonderful bride is headed off down to Mexico to visit her mother who is having some medical issues. She and her brother Lynn are going to go over all aspects of their construction business, investigate plans for their next project, and most importantly, figure out how long it is going to take for Lynn’s crew to get our house on the hill in good enough shape so that we can go start spending a bunch more time down there. Lorena and I went to DQ for lunch to celebrate Valentine’s Day before she left. Notice she dressed all in red for the occasion and I wore my red Nebraska ball cap.

Bacteria imaging work

By Dad

On Saturday, January 27, 2024

In Science, Work

I am working through the weekend to finish some algorithms for a demo one of our sales people needs to do on Monday. The purpose of the demo is to show that we can measure bacteria in images with sufficient precision and enough features (contour roughness, 3-D, inferences, shape analysis, texture analysis, etc.) to inform the customers about the things they want to know including differentiation of bacteria types, size, growth rates, etc. Honestly, I love doing this kind of task. It seems like when there are “hair-on-fire” moments, ideas seem to percolate a bit more than at other times. I think that might be because as the results from one algorithm are available, the knowledge derived from that can inspire new ideas.

Bacteria and fungus weekend

By Dad

On Friday, January 26, 2024

In Science, Work

We have a big demo coming up at my day job that has to do with the ability to measure different types of bacteria and one type of fungus in an time series of images. Of course, I have only gotten this one image so far, the whole time series is to follow soon, so the clock does not start ticking on the demo development until I have downloaded all the images. What that means is that I am almost certainly going to be working all weekend long, late into the night on these things. This probably should make me sad, but frankly, this stuff is really, really fun when one can get it to work and I am pretty much looking forward to the work–or at least the end product if I can get it right.

Working in DC

By Dad

On Thursday, December 21, 2023

In Family, Friends, Work

We met Kelly’s boyfriend, Adam for the first time, last night at a little party in her apartment. We plan to be together again tonight along with Adam’s aunt and uncle. It was a pleasant evening and we were very impressed. He seems to be a very thoughtful person, both in the sense of kindness and in the sense of consideration of ideas and situations. We are very much looking forward to the evening tonight, too. In the meantime, I have found a great place to work with a beautiful street-level view of Washington, D.C. in its fall/winter glory.

Christian presents his research

By Dad

On Monday, October 30, 2023

In Science, Work

Christian is scheduled to present the research from his work to at the 2023 Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers (ACSSC 2023) this morning. The title of his presentation is “Online Null Adaption on a Digital Controllable Reflectarray Receiver.” He has been working on this work for quite a while now, but it is finished and he has now moved on to something new. He took the seven hour flight (SEVEN HOURS!!!!) from Boston to San Francisco, then drove down to the conference center in time for the first plenary talk yesterday. Of course, he stopped by In-N-Out for an “animal style” hamburger on the drive down.

Frank recommends wine

By Dad

On Saturday, October 7, 2023

In Friends, Work

Back in the late 1990’s I worked for a company named ESI on a new product. There were problems with the product and I worked many hours, often through the night to resolve them. I was in a small group and was the only one who could do the work. I am not sure my boss even knew I was doing that. But my friend Frank, who worked in a completely different department on the other side of a very big building saw. I was getting pretty down about it and was not sure I would ever resolve the problem¹. Right in the middle of all that, Frank showed up with a bottle of Duck Pond Pinot Noir wine from Dundee, Oregon, just up the road from where we lived, gave it to me and said my efforts were not going unnoticed. I appreciated that beyond words. I am not sure what year was the vintage, it might have been 1995, but it was amazing. I liked it so much that I asked him about it later. He told me that Duck Pond had always made a great bottle of Pinot Noir being located in the red hills of Dundee, but for some reason, that one year was just off the charts better than anything they had done before and it had not yet been discovered by the wine snobs. That weekend, I went out and bought a case of it. It took us several years to finish the whole case and every bottle was as amazing as the one Frank gave me. Lorena and I found a bottle of the 2021 vintage so we could share it with the family. We have no idea whether it is as good as the first bottle, but the memories were worth the price of purchae.

With a little help from Frank and Mark, I eventually worked it out. ↩︎

Frank and Mark

By Dad

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023

In Friends, Science, Work

I have been working with a couple of guys in different capacities for close to forty years. The last twenty years or so, I have used them as consultants for difficult machine vision work. I never would have imagined when I first met them that we would still be working together so many years later. They are both exceptionally talented machine vision algorithm developers. When I talk about Frank I say that he is pretty much the Mozart in our field, and he is. In addition to machine vision and among other things, Frank is a truffle hunter. He and a friend wrote a book titled “Field Guide to North American Truffles.” Mark, in a very different way, is just as talented. He got his Ph.D. in Physics from a co-author of Albert Einstein, has an Erdos number of 3, and is indispensable when it comes to the math of image processing. The synergy created when they work together is with par in the little technical world in which we live. I am amazed they still love to do this at 75 plus years of age and even more amazed that I get to do it with them. They are part of the reason I am loathe to retire anytime soon. Even more importantly, I am glad to call him my friend.

Christian is a scientist

By Dad

On Saturday, September 30, 2023

In Family, Science, Work

I love this picture of Christian. This picture was taken when he was 20-years old and two years and change into his Ph.D. He had come to visit us when we were living in an apartment in Lewisville, Texas. During those years and even now, we see Christian in this mode. Thinking. It is hard to overstate the difficulty of the research program onto which he had embarked. The difficulty and importance of his work has accelerated since he received his appointment at MIT. His work is hard in ways that few people are equipped to understand. He is one of those few who are able to move between the development of difficult theoretical solutions to their implementation in mechanical and electrical hardware and the software that drives it all.

BIBLE: New Testament read #38 (New Living Translation) — Complete

Dr. Christian Chapman, 25

By Dad

On Tuesday, September 8, 2020

In Education, Family, Retirement PhD, Work

Christian hit a half century a couple of days ago. He got his PhD from a tier one university at 23 and now works at the pure research laboratory of an elite university on the East Coast. We are quite proud of him. It is a hard age, but he is navigating it well. In a few weeks I will be able to announce another accomplishment for him and for me. He is helping me with my retirement PhD effort and, believe it or not, with my day job.

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