Yesterday was my last day as VP of Engineering for G5, I was able to transition the team over to my new Director of Engineering, Brian Ricker, who started in January. I spent 16 months at G5 building up a team, and then having a chunk of it scatter to the winds. It was a very good experience in both management and self discovery.

For the moment I am currently “unemployed”. It’s a short moment, and it’s not really accurate, in addition to my full-time work I also have significant involvement with the following companies:

• Confreaks, LLC – Founder, Principal – Conference recording services
• TechConf, LLC – Founder, Partner – Organizers of the Los Angeles Ruby Conference, and with any luck another conference latter this year, watch for an announcement.
• NW Ruby, Inc – Founder, Director – Organizers of Ruby on Ales

So March is still going to be a busy month, on the 1st and 2nd is our 2nd annual Ruby on Ales conference in Bend, Oregon.  March 14th and 15th I’ll be in Salt Lake City, Utah recording Mountain West Ruby Conference, and at the end of the month Kelli and I are headed to New York City for some vacation time and to go to Oprah’s recording of her “Life Class” with Depak Chapra.

In the mean time I’m finishing up the courting process with AT&T and should be joining a group there in the near future, more on that as we get it solidified.

Looking forward to 2012 (although we are 1/5 the way through it) is going to be an incredible year.  O’Reilly dropped out of the RailsConf organization, so Confreaks will be working with Ruby Central in April to record RailsConf for first time.  In May we’ll be returning to Los Angeles for @veganstraightedge’s second run of FarmHouse Conf.  I have three outstanding proposals for conferences in June, and if they come through I’ll be bringing someone on full-time to run the operational aspects of Confreaks.  July is clean, August will start up with Cascadia Ruby Conference in Seattle followed by Madison Ruby Conference in Wisconson, that’s about as far out as I have clear vision on.  With the exception of Ruby Conference in October.

At TechConf, LLC we are investigating doing another conference in November, but the details are still being worked out.

I’ve also started and am toying with ideas on how to make my RC hobby fund itself.  I’ve started a youtube channel for Rapid Rhino RC and am playing with some other ideas as well.

My flight is going to be boarding soon, headed to Seattle for the 10th Anniversary party of Seattle.rb, a group I’ve been fortunate enough to have some ties and involvement with for the last three years or so.

For those I worked with at G5 it’s been a good experience, and I look forward to continuing to work with many of you in different roles and projects over time.

On the family front my fourth daughter will be graduating from High School this spring, meaning four girls in college in the fall.  It’s extremely fun to see each of my daughters continue to grow and develop.  My grandsons are getting older, if you’ve watched my youtube channel you’ve seen a few of them pop up in videos here and there, it has been fantastic living in Oregon and being just 3 or 4 hours away from them.

Now I’m out of time, thanks for reading, and good luck with the balance of 2012.

Family, General Posts, RC Cars, Ruby | 1 Comment »

Well we are at the end of the 2012 Los Angeles Ruby Conference, it has been a great event! Two days of workshops, followed by a single track conference with 190+ attendees.

This year I handled the introduction of each of our speakers as we went through the day. About half way through I realized just how much I personally have gotten out of my efforts with TechConf, the company that JR Fent and I formed to run the LA Ruby Conference and out of my efforts with Confreaks.

We have an amazing group of people in the Los Angeles area and the ruby community at large, and I’m proud to be an active member of them both.

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For those of you who accidentally find my blog or get linked to it from a tweet or some other means, you’ll find that this post is a rather radical departure from the things I’ve written about in quite some time. ie. I’m not talking about Radio Controlled Rock Crawlers. I am going to talk about my professional life.

This morning in our weekly Executive Team meeting we were discussing the value and appropriate use of a new information collaboration tool that we have adopted at the office – Jive. Specifically we were talking about the Executive Team ‘Space’ and what content was appropriate. My take was it should be a single space that employees could follow that allow them to see the thoughts and values of the individuals who make up the Executive Team. This is the group that is leading the company, why not provide insight into the individuals that are moving the company forward? The general consensus of the team was that it should be a unified voice of the team, not that information which helps define the individuals who are part of it.

It was not without dissension, but overall we decided to move forward with the unified voice…

Note: There is nothing restricting any of us from posting our thoughts and comments in our own blogs (personal) or our individual blogs in the corporate space, the decision was simply that the collaboration for the Exec Team should be unified, and that our non-aligned thoughts, comments, etc… Should be done in other sections of the tool.

What do you look for in your business leaders? A unified voice at all times , or strong individuals who achieve just in time agreement?

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This is some footage I took on Saturday 12/3/2011 at a gathering of CORCRC (Central Oregon RC Rock Crawlers).

We all had a good time.

RC Cars | No Comments »

So this is what my Earthquake is looking like these days.

My Earthquake 8E

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I’ve managed to break a few things in the last few days on my Wraith.

Today it was the driver’s side c-hub.

Earlier in the week I managed to snap a drive line:

I had an extra driveshaft that came with the car, so I swapped that in.  Haven’t decided on what I’ll do to upgrade the driveshafts.

On the c-hubs I spent $7.00 and bought a set of stock plastic ones from D’s Hobbies (thanks for opening the door at 5 after 6 PM guys!) and have a set of Vanquish Products Red Aluminum c-hubs on order.

RC Cars | No Comments »

I haven’t written on my blog about my Wraith since I got it.  One reason is I’m having too much fun wrenching, driving, and fabricating for it.  The other reason… I’ve been updating my build thread on http://rccrawler.com instead.

So if you’re interested you can follow that at:

http://www.rccrawler.com/forum/axial-wraith/342805-rapid-rhino-axial-wraith.html

My Wraith with it's new red & blue color scheme

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So I received my REM anonadonized aluminum parts for the bandit and have gotten just about everything installed.  Currently not using the rear A-arms because I couldn’t find the toe coupler that was the right length.  I believe I’ve fixed that problem, just havn’t taken the time to tear it apart.

Here are some updated photos with it decked out including some integy red springs on the front shocks.

RC Cars | 1 Comment »

So I got out an old Traxxas Bandit and decided it was time to bring it back to life.  This is going to be my 2WD Racer

First upgrade – new tires and wheels.

Before:

My Bandit with original tires and wheels

After:

My Bandit with New Wheels and Tires

So next steps are to put a Castle Creations Sidewinder SCT ESC and a Neuv 1410 series brushless motor into it.  More soon.

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So I broke down and went out to Cooper Racing and Repair and purchased the Axial Wraith tonight – looking forward to some rock crawling with other RC Crawler enthusiasts here in Bend, OR this coming weekend. Watch for more photos.

Here are a few pictures to see the beast I’m talking about:

So far it has been a blast has four front working head lights and two tail lights. I’ll be adding a driver and eventually a custom painted body as well.

RC Cars | No Comments »