Interlude

Originally the plan was to take two weeks loitering down the West Coast on my return to San Diego. But while I was in Canada, I got confirmation that an on-again off-again consulting job in Las Vegas was definitely on. So, after three quick days in the Seattle area, I parked the van and hopped a flight to Vegas. At the end of a very worthwhile week at the convention, I flew back to Seattle and began an abbreviated trip south.

I returned from Canada to the U.S. on a Wednesday, and had to fly to Las Vegas the following Sunday. There were three important things in the Seattle area I wanted to do, and just enough time to get them done. The first was to see my cousin Tom and his wife Kathy who live on Bainbridge Island. Avid readers of this blog may remember Tom and Kathy from my post about attending their son's wedding back in August. Though not much time had passed, I at least wanted to show them my new RV. Thursday I drove from Bellingham down to Tacoma, back up through Bremerton, ending up at a RV park in Poulsbo, just north of Bainbridge. That was certainly the long way round; I could have taken a ferry from north of Seattle directly to Bainbridge, but for a vehicle my size, a one way ticket is nearly $50. Besides, the drive north from Tacoma to Poulsbo turned out to be very scenic.

At the RV park in Poulsbo, there was a windowless aluminum trailer parked in the stall next to mine. It was longer than my van, wider than my van, and nearly as tall. It peaked my curiosity. Soon a man drove up in a mini car (Toyota Fit or even smaller), lowered the tailgate of the trailer, and drove it in. The car was only one-third the length of the trailer, so I imagine the rest of it is packed with motorcycles, ATVs, jetskis, and who knows what else. I looked for the massive tow vehicle that would be needed for such a trailer, but it was nowhere to be seen. Then in the next space over from the trailer, I noticed a Greyhound Bus-sized motorhome - a Prevost, which is a premium brand. So this couple was towing a trailer the size of my van with a motorhome the size of a bus. That's living large - the diametric opposite of what I've chosen to do.

Tom and Kathy were just finishing a very difficult renovation of their house, so I didn't want to intrude too much on their time. We had breakfast together at the Streamliner Diner near the port on southeast Bainbridge. Great food, and we had a lot of catching up to do. After breakfast I gave them the tour of the RV. They both were very complimentary. Kathy in particular became more intrigued the more she learned.

After breakfast, I retraced my route back to Poulsbo with the goal of driving all the way around the Olympic Peninsula in a counterclockwise direction. There were two things that made that less than a stellar plan. First the weather got progressively worse (though I did see a double rainbow at one point), and second, it's a lot further around the Olympic Peninsula than I anticipated. The mountains that I'd hoped to see were completely fogged in for the entire day. I guess you really shouldn't count on sunshine when you visit a rainforest. The only decent pictures I took were at Ruby Beach on the coast:

Except for Ruby Beach, I didn't stop at all that day because of the rain. Yet, as I checked my progress on a map, I was getting further and further behind where I'd expected to be. Though I'd planned a five hour drive, I still had miles to go after seven hours. I seriously considered stopping short of my planned destination, particularly since that RV park hadn't required a reservation. But I plowed on and finally, just at sunset, I made it to Nisqually, which is at the due south position on the Olympic Peninsula. The nice thing about this RV park is that it's within walking distance of two local restaurants. As a reward for persevering through the long drive, I chose the one that served beer. It was a watering hole frequented by locals, who were in high spirits and quite entertaining to watch.

My goal for the next day was to join up with my in-laws, Lisa and Rob in Issaquah. Once again, you may remember them from a previous post. I was surprised at how quickly I got from Nisqually to Issaquah, and arrived mid-morning. I got to show off my RV to Lisa and Rob, then I took them for a ride to do some errands and have lunch. The highlight of that tour was a stop by the Big Block Brewery. Big Block Brewery is the garage of a private home, but it's set up with a bar, tables, and chairs, and through a window you can see the stainless steel brewing equipment. For a home brewer, they have an amazing selection of about a dozen different beers, and the ones I sampled were all great. That evening, Lisa, Rob, and I went to dinner at a very good restaurant near their home. It was a pleasure to have their friend, Kay join us, too.

I couldn't believe my luck in finding an RV park just a few miles from Lisa and Rob's house. This was an important selection because I would be leaving my motorhome there unattended Sunday night through Thursday night. Thankfully, the park had a very secure feel to it, and I met my (long term) neighbors on each side and they agreed to keep an eye on the RV. I slept there Saturday night, packed for the trip (which feels very different when you're doing it in an RV), ate breakfast at Lisa and Rob's house, and hung out there until Lisa took me to the airport.

You may be wondering what kind of retirement I have if I'm still doing consulting work. Well, the founder of this company is someone I'd worked with before and when he started a new company, he came looking for me. I explained that shortly I would be on extended travel away from San Diego, but he and his co-founder were fine with that. The job sounded like fun ( and it has been) and would take just a few hours a month, so I decided to accept it. Primarily, I'm a technical writer for the company, understanding their technology and explaining it in clear terms for the patent attorney, potential investors, customers, and the media. Not all that different from what I did as a university professor for thirty years. I also provide a technical check on new ideas that come up, and perform calculations to fill in the physics behind them.

The company's nascent (and only) product at this point is called the B3 Bypass. It's a new design for a circuit breaker to use for solar panel ( or any alternate energy source ) installation that reduces installation cost, allows much greater power capacity to be installed, and saves installers a bunch of headaches. The convention in Las Vegas was Solar Power International, and everyone from mom and pop installers to the biggest companies in solar power would be there. The management of our company thought it was vital that I attend to explain our technology in our booth and to field any really fundamental questions that might arise; I agreed it was worth interrupting my trip. As a bonus, my daughter, Kelcy, is doing some mechanical engineering consulting for them, and she was at the convention, too. Here's a picture of Kelcy helping to set up the booth:

and here's one of me standing by the demo unit of our B3 Bypass:

For such a small company, we had a big contingent (nine people) at the convention. We all stayed in a rented house a few blocks off the Las Vegas strip and got along great together, going out to dinner after hours. Though we were in a back corner of the convention hall, we had a lot of traffic by our booth. Every one of the installers that saw our product said it was a great idea and couldn't wait for it to come on the market (hopefully in the first quarter of 2015). We also had executives from some of the big companies (think licensees) come by, and quite a few investment bankers. Two visitors were particularly notable for me. One is a guy who helps write the National Electrical Code; getting his acceptance of our technology is crucial. He had his arms crossed over his name tag, so I didn't even know who he was until I was halfway through my spiel, but by the end of it he was saying the problems we would face are commercial, not technical. That's fine with us. The other memorable visitor was an older bearded gentleman. He caught on very quickly to what we were doing, asked some very insightful questions, and said he liked it before sauntering off. Another fellow that had been walking around with him leaned over to me and said, "You do know, that's the guy that invented Bluetooth." I figured yeah, like Al Gore invented the internet. But I had Kelcy look up his name on her phone, and it really was the guy that invented Bluetooth.

One evening after the show, Kelcy and I went to see the Blue Man Group, something neither of us had done before. I was amazed that we could make reservations in the morning and get into that evening's show - and be seated in the fifth row. I don't want to give too much of the show away, but I will say it builds to a crescendo near the end with so many things happening at once, including audience participation, that I went into sensory overload, chortling with childish glee. 

My plane back to Seattle left Friday afternoon, the day after the show was over. Kelcy had driven over from San Diego and offered to take me to the airport, so we had some time to kill. So, Las Vegas, entertainment capital of the western world, and what do two engineers do? We went to the Atomic Testing Museum. It was a very good, thorough telling of the history of the making of the atomic bomb and all the tests that occurred up through the 1990s. There's also a healthy dose of the technology too. For instance, I learned that they could actually image the atomic fireball as it developed in underground tests using a device called a pinhole camera.

When I got back to Seattle Friday night, my RV was just as I left it, and I slept there that night. I had a farewell breakfast at Lisa and Rob's, then got in the RV and headed south. It was now October 25th, and I had to be back in San Diego by the 31st. With little time to spare, I headed straight down the I-5. My stop the first night was in Salem, Oregon, and the second night in Yreka, California. I had never driven the I-5 through Oregon before, always staying either on the coast route or much further inland. It was a very pretty drive, one I recommend everyone take at least once. And I make this recommendation in spite of the fact that it rained continuously. In fact, I hit quite a squall at one point, whipped by crosswinds in the forty to fifty mile per hour range. I could definitely feel their effect on the van, and I had to be vigilant in my driving, but at no point did I feel like I'd lost control, or even strayed from my lane. I'd say they were no worse than I've dealt with in an SUV. I also want to note the landscape between the Oregon-California border and Yreka. It's all crinkled up with extremely steep hills and valleys; it looks like something out of The Hobbit.

There was just enough slack in my schedule to pay a visit to my friends, Wade and Cheryl Hurst, in Jackson California. That will be the subject of my next post.