#2… I’m switching jobs. Yup….for those of you that know me, I will be changing employers after 7.5 years at Lightwave. Bittersweet indeed. I will miss everybody there that I worked with, but am happy to depart after 3 patents, half a dozen successful laser designs (e.g., models 110, 112, 142 as seen on the web site) and too many tools and fixtures to count. Viva la Barracuda!

#3… Lightwave has been acquired by JDSUniphase. The announcement came 21st. As I leave, the company is in the throws of acquisition and “figuring things out” in order to move on to the next step as part of a larger entity. Interesting times, for sure.

After breakfast, proceeded to spend hours and hours in my yard. I find that 3 weeks in springtime without mowing the lawn is enough to lose my dachshund. Beyond mowing, I had hedge trimming, weed whacking and various other yardly duties to perform. My stupid back makes these things take a long time, as all that bending over tends to cramp me up and make me walk funny. Regardless, I managed to get all those paving stones in place and the dirt shoveled (“planting season” is soon) and the wood on the wood pile. This busy boy even had time for a sunburn.

The reason behind all that yardwork really was procrastination. Procrastination from TAXES. Simply put, I am just one of millions of people who hate TAXES. The tax code for this f—ing country is downright stupid. Why are there thousands of possible deductions? What the hell is AMT anyway? Why do I have two different Capital Gains tax rates? Why do married couples with 2 wage-earners get dinged? How come a kid is a tax deduction? WHY IS TAX CODE USED TO ENFORCE THE SOCIAL AGENDA OF POLITICIANS IN WASHINGTON???

That aside, thank the powers for TurboTax. Sure….there may be better…but (1) it beats the pants off of manually doing it in Excel, (2) it is far cheaper than H&R block, and (3) I find that I can do my taxes with a beer to calm me down and still come out with the right answer.

Still not done with my day, it was off to MemChu (Stanford slang) to watch a buddy sing with the Stanford Early Music Singers. Great concert, beautiful music, excellent acoustics.

And then back to Steph’s for an evening of web-work. Steph was out playing a late hockey game (10:45) with ATeam2. Turns out, it was another messy-game-a-la-Logitech-Ice. In the first period, Steph’s 10 person team had a player kicked out for allegedly being “third man in”. I say “allegedly” because I know the person who was kicked out and there is not a fighting bone in her body.

But most importantly….Steph just got back from her game and told me SHE SCORED A GOAL. (Disclaimer from Steph: she keeps saying it’s a garbage goal and it ‘doesn’t count’ and she’s trying to be modest and all that stuff, but I don’t listen to her). Being a “hockey wife” I get all happy when Steph scores! Way to go Stepher!