www.intermod.org

Washington DC and the Newseum

The Newseum is a museum dedicated to journalism, the news business and the First Amendment. Opened up by the Freedom Forum a decade ago, this lavish building on Pennsylvania Avenue was populated with six floors of amazing exhibits about the history of the free press. Sadly, I guess they overspent, and it's hard to compete with "free" (the Smithsonians nearby), and they are closing their doors at the end of this month.

I went there once about 5 years ago and it was fantastic, but I only had two hours or so before we needed to move on. So I was determined to someday come back and spend more time thoroughly exploring it. Well, with the impending closing, that opportunity was about to vanish, so I made a trip up to Washington DC last weekend to see it again.  See photo album on Facebook.

I also did other stuff, though.  In fact, my original plan for the DC trip was to have at least one other major reason for going, perhaps a band reunion tour that wasn't making it down to Atlanta.  But by the time the end of the year (and the imminent closing of the museum) came along, the Newseum visit was really the only major reason.  In November I did have the bright idea of going to see a Supreme Court argument session, but a quick check of the calendar showed that the only two dates remaining in the year that I could attend (Mondays) were in direct conflict with a work trip that I had just booked.  DAMMIT.  That may have been my one chance to ever do that.

So I winged it.  On the evening I arrived in town, after settling into my (dreary but well-located) AirBnB, I bundled up for the freezing weather and headed out for an epic nighttime walking tour of the city.  I walked from Dupont Circle to the Kennedy Center for the Arts, where three shows were about to start in their respective performance halls, the crowds were gathering, and I had some great people watching.  Then I walked to the Lincoln Memorial and read his two speeches featured there (Gettysburg and Second Inaugural), both characteristically short.  From there I strolled slowly through the iconic Vietnam Memorial, Maya Lin's powerful and controversial wound in the earth.  Finally I made my way to the recently renovated Washington Monument, thinking it might actually still be open for entry at 9pm, but alas no.  Having walked four miles by then, I took the Metro back up to Dupont Circle and Kramerbooks bookstore, and finally a late dinner at the conjoined Afterwords cafe where a serviceable jazz trio was performing.

The next day, I spent four hours in the Newseum, and still didn't finish.

I left the Newseum in mid afternoon because there was a jazz show I wanted to check out.  Rhizome DC is a little DIY arts space in the northwestern suburbs.  For my Atlanta art friends reading this, it's much like the old Eyedrum or actually more like the Norton Arts Center in Hapeville, if you ever went there.  It's in an old house, with the band literally setting up in the front room and the audience in folding chairs in the next room over, viewing through a large opening.  It was very cozy and welcoming and I'm glad I went.  The touring performer was Mars Williams, leading a trio of local musicians through his material of Albert Ayler inspired Christmas songs.  Yeah, you read that right.

Then it was back into the city for the only museum that was open late, the National Portrait Gallery.  We went there during our last trip, but I felt like I hadn't spent enough time in there, and anyway it was the only museum still open.  Good stuff, including a couple pieces by Nam June Paik.

Finally, I decided to take a shot at seeing a band in the historic 9:30 club.  The club was founded in the 1980s as a home for the burgeoning DC hardcore scene, hosting local and touring bands such as Minor Threat, Black Flag and Bad Brains.  The club had long ago moved to a larger space (maybe twice) and by now has probably lost a lot of that character, but what the hell, I'll try.  I couldn't care less about the DJ/electronic act that was headline, Thievery Corporation, and the show was sold out, but I'd give it a shot anyway.  After dinner nearby, I hung out at the entrance, talked to a couple barfly types (or rather listened as they talked to me), and almost got some tickets but in the end they fell through.  That's fine, movin' on. 

The next morning, I packed up and heading back to the Newseum to finish off.

After a couple trains back to BWI, I enjoyed the little known observation deck there, endured some flight delay drama, and made it back home.

Regrets, to be addressed next time:

• plan to spend a lot of time at Arlington Cemetery
• see the new African American Museum; hopefully next time they'll have improved their dysfunctional ticket system
• attend a SCOTUS argument session, per above

 

Big Ears Knoxville 2019

Sharon and I made our annual spring trip to Knoxville for the Big Ears music festival.

Last year we decided that next time (this year) we would go for the more expensive festival pass that enabled us to skip the lines (well, the general admission lines).  We bought them as soon as they went on sale, before they had even announced ANY of the artists, because that's when they are the cheapest -- Big Ears ratchets up the price over the 3-4 months prior to the festival itself.  So, we had good access and didn't have to wait in lines.

Also this year, great weather!  Hardly a drop of rain the whole four-day weekend, not miserably cold, we'll take it!  Better than last year for sure.

The rundown:

Thursday:

Peter Gregson -- solo cello in a cathedral

Rachel Grimes: The Way Forth --

Lucy Negro Redux -- Nashville Ballet with Rhiannon Giddens

Theo Bleckmann: Music of Kate Bush --

Susie Ibarra, YoshimiO and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe --

Altered Statesman --

Bob and Eric's 1st Period --

Mercury Rev --

Earwig Deluxe --

 

Friday:

Joan La Barbara, Alvin Lucier and the Ever Present Orchestra --   (with Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O'Malley)

Harold Budd and Nief-Norf --

Carl Stone --

Aurora Nealand, Bill Frisell, Tim Berne, David Torn --

Spiritualized --

Triptych: Robert Mapplethorpe photos with Roomful of Teeth --

International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) -- in a cathedral, I showed up late and they played a short set, so only 10-15 minutes for me

Mats Gustafson and friends -- Fire! is MG plus Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin

 

Saturday:

Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble: Cellular Songs

Kara-Lis Coverdale: Pipe Organ Concert

Starfilm by Johann Lurf

Mosaic Interactive: Dreams

Dragnet Girl with Live Score by Coupler

This Is Not This Heat

Mosaic Interactive: Rituals

Nils Frahm

Jerusalem In My Heart

Sons Of Kemet

 

Sunday:

Tim Story presents The Roedelius Cells

films by Jodie Mack: The Grand Bizarre and Hoarders

Vijay Iyer and Craigh Taborn

Richard Thompson with the Knoxville Symphony Strings: Killed In Action

 

 

Lessons from a long sabbatical

A full year ago, I left my job to take some time off and prepare to make a determined career shift.  I talked about a lot of that in this entry from February 2018.  Now, a full year later, I have indeed landed a job in the desired tech sector and am starting tomorrow, and so wanted to take the time to reflect on the past year.

Going into the "sabbatical", my intent was to tackle a couple personal projects that had been getting delayed endlessly, and to generally be able to "say yes" to a lot of opportunities and invitations.  While I did intend to get back to work, I did want to take some time off and not focus on career for a little while, before circling back and ramping up work again, but this time in a new field.  I therefore spent the first five months primarily focused on personal projects, including one project in particular, and then after that I started looking at job opportunities.

However I really was (and am) determined to now work in a tech sector that is personally meaningful, and so I remained focused on a very small number of companies in that space.  I am also firm about staying in Atlanta for now, and in fact not wanting to even commute too far, and set the Perimeter (I-285 ring around the city) as the limit on how far I was willing to go.  My focus on a particular tech sector and my geographic limits really did filter down the possible companies to very few. 

In fact, starting in 2017, I had already started reaching out to two specific companies.  I got introduced to an executive at each firm, and invited both (individually) to meet me at my workplace and get a tour -- where I was working at the time is a very interesting place and a frankly thrilling place to tour.  Nothing concrete came out of those meetings, but it got me some face time with those executives and gave me some insight into their respective businesses.

I was also open to joining a startup company, which is risky of course, but I felt I was now in a position to take that risk.  However, it's hard to find these companies, and hard for them to find me.  I went to startup battle events, talked to people, went to conferences and networking events, tried to keep up with news, but never did find my way in there.

By the fifth month (August) I had finished a number of personal projects, had done lots of fun things, and was feeling ready to get back to work.  My general demeanor during the first five months was "I hope nobody offers me a job because I don't want to go back to work yet."  Starting at the fifth month, that turned into "if somebody hired me now I'd be OK with that", and that is when I started looking for specific positions, within the two major constraints mentioned above.

Right away, on literally the first morning of this second phase, I saw that one of the candidate companies had a position open that I thought I'd be a good fit for.  It was a bit of a shock, actually, and took me a day to process that, yes, it was time to really get back onto the work treadmill.  I also needed to hurry up and apply some pending minor updates to my resume and website.  However a day later when I went back to properly apply for the job ... it was gone!  What?!  This was at one of the two companies that I had been talking to since 2017 (mentioned above), and so I immediately reached out to the executive at that company.  Without really explaining why the position opening had disappeared, they invited me to come in for an interview, which I did, having a long talk with the CEO and a manager.  A couple weeks later I followed up, and they said they had decided to "go in a different direction" or something like that.  Of course I assumed they'd hired somebody else, but I later met with my executive friend and learned that they had actually decided not to fill the position at all.  Expanding that part of their business was something they had been discussing internally, and apparently they had changed their mind about expanding that business and therefore hiring anyone at all.  I think that company had had a contraction in business and was tightening their belts.

I resumed my general hunt, attending meetings and conferences, working on personal projects.

In October (month 7), a position opened up at the other company I had been following (the other executive of the two mentioned above).  This was exactly the kind of position at that company that I thought I'd be a good fit for, a great way to transition into their business and make use of those skills of mine that were "portable".  I went though a series of interviews, which all went great, although in the last interview with an upper management executive, he seemed kind of "checked out" like he was really disinterested.  A week or so later I followed up, and they had hired someone else.  That was a huge disappointment, because I really thought this position was a great path for me to segue into that company.

That was a bummer, and I stopped pressing on those original targets for a while.  I tried some hail-mary passes to other companies in another area of interest, that were definitely a stretch, but they were at least local.  I mostly focused on personal work and started to plan for the upcoming holidays.

At the very end of November, beginning of December (month 9), I discovered a third company that fit my needs.  Not only were they in the right tech sector, and located ridiculously close to home, but one of their product offerings was the type of system that I had been the expert in at my previous employer.  I reached out to them (once again going straight to the president), and after some persistence, got their attention and was brought in for an interview.  I hadn't approached them about a specific position, but when they invited me in, they had provided a position description document.  I studied that document, and while I certainly satisfied many of the requirements, there were several areas where I did not.  Notably, the position description mentioned the need for expertise in a couple software packages that I either A) had no experience at all with, or B) hadn't really used in decades.

Since at this point we were approaching the end of year holidays, we pushed that first interview out to January.  That then gave me a chance, after returning home from our own holiday travel, to really study up on those two software packages.  I spent a week intensely learning (or relearning) how to use them, so I could say "yes" when asked about them in the interview, and even be prepared to demonstrate my knowledge.  I also decided to pursue a particularly relevant professional certification used in that industry, and that ended up taking another week or two.  Actually there was a fair bit of drama in getting that cert; buy me a beer and I'll tell you the story.

I went into that interview very well prepared, and the interview went great, talking to two executives at the company.  It's a very small company (single digits) and I'd be helping the one engineer they had (a cofounder of the company) to deal with the pipeline of work.  Their comments at the end of the meeting sounded very positive, and followup emails sounded good, and I eventually got  chance to sit down with the president (the other cofounder) as well and had a great conversation with him too.  This all looked very promising and a nearly perfect fit, but it was definitely going slowly.  It sounded like they were still a couple months away from being ready to expand and take me on, which I OK with as I was still happily working down my personal project backlog.

In the middle of this, in early February (month 11!), one of the first two companies reached back out to me and said they had a position in mind for me.  Well, that was a nice surprise -- they called me.  On the phone, with just a sentence or two from them describing the position, I confirmed that I was still interested, and they brought me in to have lunch with two top executives (and I mean top, C-suite execs). It seemed that my cultivation of one of those executives, going back nearly two years, was finally paying off, since it really seemed like he wanted to hire me and just needed my help to convince everyone else.  So I met with his boss, CTO of the global firm, which went very well.  Just days later I was brought in for a series of interviews with the engineering managers that I'd be working with.  Some of those interviews were a little dry, which one could chalk up to engineers not being people persons, but I was also paranoid that this would somehow scuttle the process.  You never really know, right?  After a few days of quiet, they called me back and offered me the job!  Whew!

My first day is March 11th, tomorrow as I post this, which will then have been exactly one year from when I left my previous job -- and career.

So, what did I do in that year?

First and foremost, I got the bulk of work done on my father's memoirs.  I'm sure I'll write a separate post about this later this year, but for four years (hmm, probably five by now) I've been working with my elderly father on assembling a book about his life, an autobiography.  Since we started this, he's been writing material and I've been collecting it, but I wasn't making much progress on my end.  There was a ton of basic copy editing to be done, and more general editing that really required long term focus.  For example, some of the stories about his life (chapters, if you will) had actually been written twice -- once early on, and then all over again more recently.  I would need to review those two versions and merge them.

I had spent 2017, before I left my previous job, trying to make progress on this particular project, but found that I wasn't really getting it done with just with an hour or two on weeknights and weekends.  It was going to take real focus, for days on end, to plow through the 500 pages of material.  So literally on the first day of this sabbatical, I sat down with all of the papers and computer files and started organizing the whole thing, eventually setting up a copy-editing process that worked.  Four months later I had finished the bulk copy editing and fact checking, and then moved into formatting and preparing for print.  That part went relatively quickly, once I learned the basics of book design -- especially the design of the "front matter", the first dozen or so pages at the front of a book that you take for granted, but which actually have designs and purposes that have been honed over the centuries of book creation.

I got the print run back from the printer (Bookbaby) with a whole week to spare before our annual family reunion, and was able to distribute copies to the family.

Now, I did have to cut a few corners to get the book done on time.  The two big corner-cuts were A) a nice book cover design and B) including pictures and other image scans in the book.  The book I had produced had neither of those, so I'm calling what I got done in July 2018 the "first edition", and will have a second edition done by July 2019.  Most important, I got the major, difficult copy-editing and book design work behind me; the rest of the work can indeed be chopped up into 1-2 hour sessions on nights and weekends.

That was the first project, and what drove me to realize that I needed to take some time off between jobs.

The second priority was a long-delayed house repair project.  We have an old house built in 1910 -- it's not historically significant or anything like that, but it's a cool old house with lots of charm.  Less charming are the leaky old windows in the older part of the house, and I've long been wanting to get them restored.  I had considered doing them myself, but not really.  Problem is, apparently restoring old windows is really hard to do -- everybody just replaces them instead, which I absolutely refused to do.  Windows contribute to the exterior look of a house the same way eyes do to your face, and anything you replace them with won't look quite right.  Window restoration contractors do exist, but they are incredible hard to find and interminably busy.  The one regional expert I kept getting pointed to was A) booked for months, B) insanely expensive and C) wanted to remove the windows (boarding up the house) and work on them in his shop for 4-8 weeks.  Yikes!

I'd been trying to get this done for literally two years and kept failing to find a contractor that could do it for a reasonable amount of money and with a reasonable impact on our lives.  I eventually found an independent contractor, literally one guy, who would do the work.  And so for two months, he came to the house every day and slowly dismantled, restored and reassembled the six big old windows in our house.  Besides giving him access to the house and securing away the pets, it was useful for me to be onsite the whole time to answer questions or witness discoveries.  I didn't help do the actual restoration work, rather made sure he had what he needed (including access) and then just observed and guided as needed.  The contractor was the expert in old house restoration and I just let him do his thing.  In the end it was still expensive but half the price of the top guy in town, and didn't require boarding up the house for months.

Those were the two big priorities going in.  Other house projects:

• new sidewalk in the front of the house (contractor coordination, and prep cleaning by me)
• new gutter installed over back door entrance (contractor coordination)
• new rain barrel fed by above gutter
• new solar-powered garden water pressurizing system fed by above rain barrel (an ongoing "science project"!)
• planned to replace an old HVAC unit, but the quotes came in so high that we are punting on that one ... 

Car-related fun activities:

• kept up with the progress on the first Electrify America site in metro Atlanta (lots of trips to Kennesaw)
• went on a little two-day roadtrip into NC and TN with an EV friend, checking out the first Electrify America charging sites in the southeast
• went to an NHRA drag racing event in Commerce Ga, unfortunately damaging my hearing
• went to the annual Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta in Braselton GA
• went to the annual Atlanta Concours show at Chateau Elan to see a bunch of classic cars including a friend's new restoration
• test drove a Tesla Model 3, only because Tesla sales kept pestering me, I swear :)
• worked a few more EV outreach events than usual, including a trip to the state Capitol

Other fun activities

• explored the new Proctor Creek trails
• saw an amazing presentation by Stephen Wolfram at Georgia Tech
• attended the annual space exploration conference at Tech
• went on a group "birding" hike with a friend
• built and mounted two "pinhole cameras" to capture the sun's path for six months 
• went on a hike of Providence Canyon and visited Pasaquan again
• saw a bunch of bands, caught up with old friends
• welcomed family to town and visited the always astonishing Georgia Aquarium
• went on a weekend field trip to mines near Augusta with the Georgia Geology Society
• was able to put more effort than usual into our annual moon party!
• kept up with countless missions to deep space and the burgeoning commercial space launch business
• attended the incredible and sobering refugee exhibit put on by Doctors Without Borders
• traveled to Chicago to visit family (and see Hamilton)
• traveled to NJ/NYC to visit family and be a tourist
• traveled to Germany and London!

Other professional-ish activities:

• attended a number of startup-battle kinds of events, looking for startups I might be interested in
• attended a technical (energy-related) conference in Charlotte NC
• attended a day-long product training session for the company that later hired me! 
• attended the always-excellent "solar summit", a day-long conference held every year at the Carter Center
• got more involved in "energy access", trying to get electricity to the 1.1 billion people that have none
• attended every local professional chapter meeting, being able to stay long and talk to people, no work conflicts
• got more involved with the local chapter of Engineers Without Border, which so far seems pretty dysfunctional
• gave a presentation at a private corporate conference about the business I used to work in
• helped promote the Solarize Atlanta program (ended in December)
• visited a commercial solar power system with a colleague who was inspecting it for final signoff

And now, back to work.

Europe trip, December 2018

Here's a rundown of our Christmas trip to Germany and London. Not a full writeup but at least a log of what we did. Photos can be seen on Facebook ...

The trip was centered around a big family reunion in Bavaria, in the Chiemgau region east of Munich.  Nearly all of the Americans were traveling over to Germany for it, and all the Germans would be there, about 40 people in total, all congregating in Traunstein and Mietenkam.

Day 0 / Tue Dec 18th: departed from Atlanta on a direct overnight flight to Munich.  Chris can't sleep on airplanes, so took advantage of the on-demand movie system: The Post, A Quiet Place and Fahrenheit 451.

Day 1 / Wed Dec 19th: arrived in Munich, met by Renate.  Chris split off and headed to Stuttgart by train, and Sharon stayed with Renate in Munich, ending up at "The Heuweg" with Sabrina and Marc (and Samuel and the dogs).  Chris went to Stuttgart to visit Teresa and Nils, and meet the boys Theodor and Fridolin for the first time.  Chris stayed awake until 7:30pm and then crashed hard (having been awake for 30-ish hours straight by that point).

Day 2 / Thu Dec 20th: Sharon explored Munich's Christkindlmarkts with Renate and Cornelia.  Chris spent the days with Teresa and the boys, including a visit to the Christmas market in central Stuttgart, jammed with people and with lots to see.  The boys rode the little train and we had gluwein of course.  We finished the day with a dinner at a restaurant in their neighborhood.

Day 3 / Fri Dec 21st:  Chris took the train back to Munich and was met by Renate at the eastside train station.  After a quick visit to Renate's apartment to spend some time with family cat Sasha, we all ended up at The Heuweg and enjoyed a dinner there.  Family friend Nora stopped by and we got to catch up on how we've been.

Day 4 / Sat Dec 22nd: Sharon and Chris split up, taking separate cars with Sabrina (and Samuel) and Marc, respectively, out to Mietenkam where the family reunion was happening.  Marc dutifully drove his Porsche 911 at 240 km/h (150 MPH) when the autobahn allowed for it; normally he'd drive faster but the winter tires are speed limited.  In Mietenkam, we settled into the "Fischerhaus" next door to Andreas and Monika's house, and welcomed Teresa and family when they arrived.  Later in the evening we all had dinner together at the Hotel Sperrer in Grassau, in the back dining hall that Andreas had rented out for the family.  It was a good thing we had that big room to ourselves, because the kids were going freaking NUTS.  Julienne and family showed up early on, having flown in from Chicago.  After dinner, we stopped by the Mietenkamer "Hausl" just as Jennifer and family were pulling up, having flown in from San Franscisco.

Day 5 / Sun Dec 23rd:  Our last chance to get supplies before the Christmas holidays, everyone went grocery shopping et cetera, and then we met up at the Christmas market in Traunstein, where we enjoyed more gluwein, feuerzangenbowle, Bosna sausages and roasted almonds.    We stopped by the Municom "bistro" where Cornelia was marshalling forces to prepare the little dining hall for the big family dinner happening in two days.  Chris got a loaner car (a VW van) from Andreas and we drove back to Mietenkam, and we all eventually all met up in the Fischerhaus again and enjoyed a dinner prepared by ... someone.  It was all a blur.  Somebody prepared food, I think Teresa and Nils, and we thank them for it!

Day 6 / Mon Dec 24th:  Chris went on a hike with Teresa and Sabrina and kids, and then on a detour with Andi.  At some point Renate arrived from Munich.  Christmas Eve is the traditional day that Germans really celebrate Christmas.  In the evening, everyone gathers around the tree, there are readings from the Bible, and then the kids get to tear into their presents.  We had a beautiful evening, with gifts exchanged, a meal of my mom's "Super Bowl soup", games for the kids, and general merriment.  A little later in the evening, Julienne and Chris were invited next door to join Andreas and Monika (and later Andi) for another dinner, this one of duck.  Oof.

Day 7 / Tue Dec 25th: Christmas morning is when Americans traditionally celebrate, so the two American families in the Mietenkamer Hausl down the street hosted a morning(-ish) event for the kids.  Afterwards, another hike around the environs, before heading into Traunstein for the bug family gathering.  More German family had arrived in town and we were all gathering at the Municom "bistro" for a proper reunion and meal.  Nearly forty people!  The only people missing from the entire extended family were Oliver, now too old to travel from California, and Susann and Serafine who were planning to attend but had to turn around and head back home upon news of a suddenly very sick pet.  Cornelia dutifully took lots of photos of the historic gathering and we all had a fantastic time catching up with each other.  More gifts were exchanged -- among the adults we all had "Secret Santa" assignments.

Day 8 / Wed Dec 26th: Most of the family gathered at the Chiemsee shore for some fun there.  Chris and Sharon split off to take advantage of their one opportunity to get up into the Alps and do some sightseeing.  From Mietenkam, we first drove up into Reit Im Winkl, a ski resort town on the Austrian border, and wandered around there watching cross country skiers passing through.  Then we drove east along the Alps to Berchtesgaden, a historic and extremely scenic town tucked among the mountains, and explored the Christmas market there, open for the final day of the season.  Sharon found some more Krampus / Perchten knick knacks and we noshed on more food.  Then we drove down into Salzburg and enjoyed the old city center there, ending up once again at the Stiftskeller at St. Peters, a courtyard restaurant that was founded in the year 803 (not a typo).  On the way, we stumbled onto the astonishing Petersfriedhof cemetery next door.  With evening falling, we drove back into Germany and to Traunstein, where the family was gathered again at the bistro for a "leftovers" party, and we returned our loaner car to Andreas. The little VW van did a fine job and we greatly appreciate Andreas' generosity in lending it to us for a few days.  Since we would be leaving the area in the morning, as were most of the others, this is where we now started to say our goodbyes, and started to plan the next reunion -- perhaps Fasching in Mainz in February 2021?

Day 9 / Thu Dec 27th: Travel day!  Chris and Sharon were heading to London to have a couple days there before going home to Atlanta.  Andreas took us to the local train station, and thus commenced a long 10-hour train trip across central Europe.  Five train stations, four trains, millions of people, and apparently millions of germs, because by the end Chris was feeling pretty sick.  But we made it to London, got to our hotel, and got some rest.

Day 10 / Fri Dec 28th:  Chris had full-blown flu and Sharon was heading downhill.  But after a morning of sleeping in, we decided to head out and salvage what we could of our London trip, and at least get to the top two sights on our list.  Sharon's top priority was the Wellcome Collection, a medical museum, an amazing collection of artifacts gathered by a wealthy tycoon.  Then Chris' top priority was the Tate Modern art museum and specifically seeing Christian Marclay's The Clock (click for explanation).  We accomplished that, saw a bit of the museum including the "tanks", and then headed back to the hotel for rest.

Day 11 / Sat Dec 29th:  Chris's health was improving but Sharon was in terrible shape.  Chris headed out and managed to see some sights, but it was less fun doing it alone.  The two major destinations today were the Greenwich Observatory and the Borough Market, both equally astonishing and wonderful, followed by a visit to the Imperial War Museum and the Holocaust exhibit there.  After heading back to the hotel and checking in on Sharon, Chris headed back out for some evening wandering, combining some bus rides and riverfront walks to see a few more sights including the Tower of London (from the outside) and the Tower Bridge.  The CityMapper smartphone app was very helpful in navigating all this, providing excellent guidance on transit routing and status -- fumbling with paper maps and train schedules is definitely a thing of the past, and much more time is spent simply enjoying the trip instead of struggling with travel logistics.  You just need a phone with internet access, which is another thing that has gotten easier to pull off in recent years.  The evening ended up with a long taxi ride, where Chris spotted and hailed one of the new electric taxis that are now appearing in London, and had a long chat with the taxi driver, who was quite proud of his shiny new EV!

Day 12 / Sun Dec 30th:  Travel day!  The usual train out to Heathrow was shut down for the day (for planned reconstruction) so we took an expensive taxi out.  Checkin and security was uneventful -- what a nice contrast with CDG in Paris, which has been a disaster every time!  Our plane departed on time, and Chris got through another three movies: Death Of Stalin (fantastic!), The Party and RBG.  We were both in pretty bad shape by the end, and very very happy to be back home after a final taxi ride.

So, the Germany segment of the trip, the bulk of the trip, was fantastic, and the London part was pretty terrible.  We'll have to give London another shot someday in the future.  Here's a list of places we had planned to go in London, noted for next time:  Brixton Village, Gasholder Park, the Old Operatory Theater, We Built This City, Horniman Museum, and a Premier League game (e.g. at Wembley Stadium).

Big Ears Knoxville 2018

Sharon and I again went to the annual Big Ears music festival in Knoxville, Tennessee.  It's such a great festival that it really doesn't matter who's headlining -- we will just go.

I'll forget who we saw this year, so ...

Thursday:

Prototype film screening (C&S) -- hyped, terrible

Anna Thorvalsdottir / Intl Contempory Ensemble (C) -- meh, fine

Susanna (C&S) -- killing time, really, and it was pretty bad

Duet For Theremin and Lap Steel (C&S) -- ATL hometown buddies made good!

Godspeed You Black Emporer (C?) -- didn't really care for them before, and now still don't

Friday:

Bang On A Can All-Stars "Field Recordings" (C) -- really good!  was bracing for insufferable pretentiousness

Nief Norf & Wordless Music "Brimstone and Glory" live score -- fantastic, a festival highlight

Algiers (C) -- really incredible rock performance

Arto Lindsay (C) -- either a disaster or a Brazilian poly-rhythmic delight, not sure which

Jenny Scheinman et al (C) -- fine

Jaga Jazzist (C) -- please kill me

The Thing (C) -- only caught the end but it was good, nice to see Mats Gustafson again, some 20 years later

Jason Moran "Fats Waller Dance Party" (C) -- pretty good and fun, and that singer, hoo boy

 Saturday:

Rushes Ensemble (C) -- "seven bassons" is better than it sounds, a festival highlight

Kid Koala's Satellite Turntable Orchestra (C) -- a crowd pleaser and he's an engaging performer

Aine O'Dwyer performing William Eggleston (C) -- pipe organ in a church, surprisingly fun and funny, ask me about it

Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda (C) -- utterly unique and spellbinding

Diamanda Galas (C&S) -- the headlining reason that mandated our attendance to this festival; electrifying

Four Tet (C) -- no

12-Hour Drone (C) -- a logistical mess but Duet at least made it work during their hour

Sunday:

Tyshan Story Trio (C) -- fine

Suuns (C) -- their recorded output is fascinating but this left me flat; however I only had time for like 10 minutes ...

Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei (C&S) -- extremely talented and engaging peformers but also slick and somewhat saccharine

BANGS (C) -- kept falling asleep, and also I now hate the Bijuo balcony seats

Nief Norf peforming Steve Reich (C&S) -- fine

Lightning Bolt (C&S) -- yee haw, that's a good way to end a festival

 

 

The Next Chapter

After 16 years at my current employer, I'm finally moving on.  I gave notice last week.

Long term, I am making a career change to a different technology sector.  In recent years I've been increasingly interested in energy technologies, in particular because I truly think they are going to change the world.  I've decided it's time to put up or shut up, and fortunately I've been saving money for a very long time so I can afford to take this chance.

Medium term, I will be spending the next couple months working on some long-delayed personal projects, while I also reach out to some folks in my newly target tech sector.

Over the past year I've found that I'm just not capable of getting those personal things done on my own time.  I work too hard at the day job -- I can't help myself, it seems, from continuously working on the next thing and never carving out time for any personal stuff, even just 30 minutes or so.  And at home I tend to either focus on shorter term tasks (i.e. fixing some broken thing, paying the bills) or simply vegging out.  So I've decided that the only way I'm going to make progress on these things is to quit my day job.

I actually did this once before, in 2001, and back then it took me longer than expected to get the next job.  As a result, I swore that I wouldn't do that again, and for the past two years I've been quietly looking for the next thing will continuing at my current job.  But in the last few months I've come to the realization that I don't make enough time for non-work efforts like finding a new job or even just home projects.  If I slid from my current job directly into the next one, all those personal projects would continue to languish.  And of a lot of those projects are quality-of-life things that I've been trying to get done for literally 3-4 years.

So while I do have very specific ideas for my next career move, I haven't been putting enough effort into making those ideas a reality.  And I've decided that I need to clear out my workday to make that happen.

Of course, there are things that are pushing me out of my current job from the inside.  I see a lot of corporate dysfunction, which you probably would eventually see anywhere, if you worked somewhere long enough.  And I will probably encounter it again at my next job, but I plan for my next job to be closer aligned with my personal interests, and so I think I'll be willing to tolerate it more.  Certainly, when starting over at a new place, you start with a clean slate and simply aren't aware of the dysfunction lurking beneath the surface.  Since I expect my next job will be a much smaller company (one focused on the cleantech sector), at the very least it would be a different set of problems than the ones I'm encountering at the huge company I'm at now.  Anyway, it just seems to get worse and worse at my current workplace, and that's just another sign to me that it's time to move on.

I've always felt like a fish out of water at my current workplace, but that concept crystallized for me a few years ago.  It's weird, I remember when it happened.  Nearly six years ago, I somehow had the realization that I just couldn't "relax" and fit into the lazy work culture I saw around me.  I had actually tried it for a while, "kicking back" as it were, and just couldn't do it.  In May 2012 I guess a lightbulb turned on over my head -- I decided that I personally was happier when working my ass off, and so I started doing just that, and there was plenty of work to do.  By 2014 I noticed that my efforts weren't really being rewarded by the company -- I mean, a 3.5% raise for working your ass off vs a 2% raise for sitting around?  These are pathetic numbers but frankly what one has to expect in a large company, especially when working in a non-management role.  So that's when I decided I need to move on, but I had a huge project I had to get done first, and that project literally took me from 2014 to 2016.  Then in 2017 there was one more "smaller" project, that I decided to stick around for, but I've now wrapped that up, and it's time to move on.

I like to think I'm doing this because I still have some ambition in me.  I want to work in cleantech, instead of just following the news about it, and I have some specific ideas about what cleantech niche I want to work in.  Eventually I can see spending both my professional time and my free time in this sector, in that I can see charitable applications for the technology.  For example, it could deploy to the third world, or to disaster areas, and help start (or restart) the local power grid.  I can see that this stuff is going to change the world, and I want to be part of that.

First, though, I need to get through the next four weeks, wrapping up at my current job.  Then I'll spend a couple months work on the long-delayed personal projects, and then I'll dive back into the corporate world, this time doing something that's personally meaningful.

Wish me luck!

Jawbreaker et al in Chicago

The folks at Riot Fest aimed their bazooka of cash at Jawbreaker and convinced them to reunite.  Naturally, I wasn't going to miss it.

Gotta document who else I saw while there, some good, mostly bad.  Riot Fest is a "punk rock" festival, with a lot of throwback bands, but it's pretty heavy on the shitty corporate punk of the 90s.  I spent a lot of time avoiding terrible bands and their fans.

Nonetheless, there were some highlights.  The image below is the printed schedule I was carrying around in my back pocket during the weekend, checking it constantly to decide who to see next.

FRIDAY

Saul Williams -- came out and lectured us (no music) for 30 minutes.  It was good.

X - seen only from a distance since they were playing on one of the two massive main stages.  They dutifully played all the hits.  Seen several times before, and I'll just remember those shows instead.

Buzzcocks - ditto as with X above; it's just Pete Shelley with a backup band, and a little painful to watch.  Actually Steve Diggle may have been up there, but I was waaaay too far back to make him out, and the camera just sat on Pete, so time to move on ...

Chon - I relaxed in the grass near this more remote stage, and was treated to the jam band noodling of this presumably stinky quartet.

Ministry - played newer stuff I guess, because I didn't recognize a thing until they closed with "So What".  And once they were finally playing something I knew, the animated dude next to me ruined it by offering me a joint to buy and then getting pissy when I declined.

New Order - only caught a little bit of their set, kind of dreary like Buzzcocks, being so remote and all the camera attention on one guy.

Nine Inch Nails -- I really tried to get closer to the stage (huge main stage) for this one, not so much to see the band (seen 'em in 1990) but to get a feel for how to get closer to the stage for future bands.  Dear God there were a lot of people to plow through. This festival was huge.  I weaved through people for a while and still never really got close.  Noted.

 

SATURDAY

Peaches -- got there in time to catch the tail end of her set.  Ha, tail end.  She is freaking awesome.  I have regretted missing her perform in Atlanta like 15 years ago, and happily she's still killing it.  Very obscene, femme friendly, extremely fun.  (Weeks later, Sharon and I would make sure to see her at the East Atlanta festival, and she was just as good.)

Shabazz Palaces -- I liked their recorded material enough to want to see them, but I guess it didn't translate to stage.  At least not for me, and I'll admit I didn't wait for long.

Bad Brains -- yes, no shit, Bad Brains.  They're basically ancient by now, and HR is possibly not much longer on this earth, but they still did a great job. They played all the hits, and the crowd was super appreciative.  Dude from Lamb Of God showed up halfway through the set to close it out in true hardcore style.  This is probably on Youtube.

Danzig -- worst thing ever.  I can not understand why people like this guy.  No, it's not funny.  See also: Donald J. Trump.

The Regrettes -- indeed, I have regrets.

Gogol Bordello -- playing main stage, so I couldn't really get close without some effort, which I felt no need to do since I'd already seen them twice years ago.  They are great, for sure, but it just seems like schtick now.  I'm so jaded!

WuTang Clan -- KILLED IT.  They were playing one of the side stages, thankfully, which made it a lot easier to get close, and daaamn that was a lot of fun.  I'm not going to pretend to know their material, but I've certainly know of them since the early days.  I staked out a good spot near the side of the stage, and just before they started, a gaggle of fratty bros careened in and were generally being assholes.  Meh, this is their world not mine.  But those bros did know their Wu-Tang, singing along with every bit, knowing every word.  OK then!  At some point one of these very amped-up but very-stoned meatheads decided I was cool and kept giving me fist bumps and offering me weed.  Actually a couple people did.  Great show.

Also, to open that show, the WTC invited a couple dozen community activists from Chicago to come up and be recognized for their heroic efforts in reducing the rampant violence that has been plaguing Chicago.  The centerpiece was a 10 minute spoken word play / speech / performance by a group of teenagers; it was absolutely incredible, and for the life of me Google won't tell me what the name of the troupe was.

After that, I watched Queens Of The Stone Age from an impossible distance, for about 5 minutes, and then I was outta there.

 

SUNDAY

That Dog -- arrived in time to catch the last 15 minutes of so of these ladies.

The Voluptuous Horror Of Karen Black -- one of my must-see bands, and they delivered!  Frontwoman Kembra Pfahler is the sister of Jawbreaker drummer Adam Pfahler, and I'd seen them before in the 1990s, so I knew what to expect -- a rock and roll freak show.  Insane makeup, huge wigs, heavy guitars and drums, theremin played well by a very pretty gay dude, and lots of goofy banter.  Normally they play only NYC and LA, so this was a rare opportunity for sure.  A great show! 

The Orwells -- recommended by a friend, and also by some dude at the festival wearing a tshirt that said "who the fuck are the Orwells" in huge letters, so I dutifully stopped and asked him that question.  They're from Chicago and they were definitely good.  Front man has a lot of snarl and swagger and steals the show, but the band behind him is great too and stands on their own.  Which we got to see when the frontman stomped off near the end of their set to go climb the stage rigging ...

Versus -- another must-see band for me.  This band is why I drove to Raleigh NC several years ago, and that show was fantastic.  This one was more muted, probably because they were just another band in a rather expensive music festival, one that wasn't really geared to their style (indie pop, Merge, etc.)  They had the smallest audience I saw of the entire weekend, and their set was necessarily limited to 30 minutes.  Still, I love the sound of this band so much.

Dinosaur Jr -- played You're Living All Over Me in entirety, and I gotta say it was great.  It just creeps me out a little when bands are asked to play an old album all the way through -- it seems insulting to ask them to do that.  In between songs, they did an instrumental minute of Husker Du's Diane (think bass chords) in tribute to Grant Hart, who had passed away a couple days prior, but I'm not sure that anyone in the crowd recognized the tune.

GWAR -- new vocalist, replacing Oderus, R.I.P.  They played the smallest stage but to a massive crowd.  The usual spectacle, although they seem to have upgraded their red liquid delivery technology.

Jawbreaker -- the whole reason I was here, saved for the very end.  I worked my way up to within decent range of the stage very early, during the prior band's set, which means I had to listen to the awfulness that is the Prophets Of Rage and their pandering cover tunes.  But it ended soon enough.  Happily, Jawbreaker opened with the one song that eeeeverybody knows and that I haaaaate (1, 2, 3, 4, who's punk blah blah blah), which was awesome because it got that shit out of the way so I could enjoy the show without living with the cloud of that thing hanging over me.  Haha, I know.  Anyway, the show was completely surreal, seeing them on a colossal stage with not only a bazillion people in the audience, but with literally hundreds cramming the backstage around them (on three sides).  Everyone was there to be part of it, watching these three guys pour their hearts out once again.  They played a couple very early songs (Kiss The Bottle and Want), nothing off Unfun I don't think, a bunch off 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, a bunch off Dear You, and closed with Bivouac.  Blake's voice survived.

Looking at the schedule, I did see lot of the other bands, but apparently they were all utterly forgettable.

No regrets!

 

Iceland / St. Petersburg trip preview

We're going on a trip!  Back in 2006, for our 10th anniversary, we went to Japan and New Zealand (via what ended up being two separate trips).  In Christmas 2014, for our 20th anniversary, I (Chris) gave Sharon an inflatable globe and a magic marker and told her to pick where she wanted to go.  After months of obsessing about it, she decided on southeast Asia -- Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, that whole peninsula.

Then 2015 went by.  I was too busy with work to go on a big trip, but knew that the project I was working on would eventually get to the point where I could travel again.  By the end of 2015 the end was in sight so we started talking about the trip again.  Again we both agreed that our heart was just not in it, at least not a full-blown, epic trip to southeast Asia.  So we reevaluated, and somehow stumbled across the idea of Iceland.  It started out as a "quick trip" to Iceland (it's not as far as the rest of Europe) but then snowballed.

So, here's the plan:

Iceland

Arrive in Reykjavik (via JFK) and spend two days exploring the city and acclimating.

Rent a campervan (from snail.is) and hit the road.  We will be driving the Ring Road that encircles the island, taking 7 days / 7 nights to see everything that we can.  We will be so far north that, at this time of year, it never actually gets completely dark -- the sun sets for a while around midnight, but it only gets dusky, never completely dark.  So with all that daylight we should get lots of sightseeing done, in theory at least.

Then we spend a full day getting from Iceland to the other part of the trip, via a short stop in Helsinki.

St. Petersburg

I have wanted to visit the Hermitage for many years, ever since seeing Russian Ark in the theaters.  We'll be in SPB for 3 full days, and the Hermitage will be the centerpiece of that visit, but we'll also see lots of other things, of course. 

Back to Atlanta via a connection in Paris.

 

EDIT: the trip went great!  Unlike previous trips, we never wrote about it here, rather posted pictures to Facebook.  Ah, the scourge of Facebook.  If you want to see pictures and read the stories, go the Facebook profile of either me or Sharon, go to photos, and look for the two photo albums we put together there.

Toronto

Time for the annual MLA trip!  Sharon has an annual professional conference that she goes to, and every year it's held in a different city.  I always take vacation days to tag along and do sightseeing.

Rundown of what I/we did:

Friday May 13th:

Arrived at airport to discover that our cell phones didn't work.  I realize that we are outside the US, but this is still North America and Canada is on the same NA freqency band plan as the US.  And I have a brand new phone!  Seriously pissed about this, and it put a huge logistical dent in the rest of the trip.  And a dent in my wallet as I compensated with various technology purchases.

Met up with my Dad and his fiancee in Don Mills for dinner.

Saturday May 14th:

The weather sucked so it was a good day to NOT be doing a lot of sightseeing.  Went to brunch with more family and that took up the day through 3pm.  Sharon got sick and crashed at the hotel.  I went out to get my bearings in this town and did a little necessary shopping:  bought a burner phone for Sharon (my work phone was functioning) from a tiny storefront, and bought a Toronto city guide from a chain bookstore in the huge Eaton Center mall.  I really needed that book, since I hadn't actually done a single bit of trip pre-planning.

Sunday May 15th:

Weather continuing to suck (cold and rainy) but it's going to get better on Monday.  Sharon was at her conference in the morning, and I took it easy at the hotel.  In the afternoon I visited my Dad to deal with his accumulated computer problems.  Actually saw a snow flurry on the way there.  I am now a pro at the Toronto transit system, which is quite good; thank God for NextBus. Had dinner with the folks and while Sharon attended more conference functions.

Monday May 16th

OK, here we go, actual sightseeing.  Today would be my one day of bumming around by myself.  alas it was a Monday so most museums were closed, but the Royal Ontario Museum was open so I took advantage of that (tattoo exhibit, bat cave, Judiasm exhibit and much more, and kooky architecture of course).  Then walked through U of Toronto campus (past some sort of track meet) to a bikeshare stop and then biked all the way back downtown.  Which was easy because Toronto slopes gently downhill towards Lake Ontario to the south.  Biked all the way out to the water, dropped off the bike (penalties kick in after 30 minutes) and walked along the waterfront until I found some food.  Well, it was a pastry shop, but they had poutine which was good enough for my needs.  Picked up a bike again and biked out to the edge of the tiny (and somewhat controversial) downtown airport, then back to the hotel.  Actually, I just went straight into the conference center to see Sharon doing her poster presentation -- sneaking in with the counterfeit badge that Sharon made for me!  From there, we hurried over to the Bata Shoe Museum, which was really good. Then we caught a streetcar down to Chinatown, and after a couple stops in cramped asian goods stores, we found a restaurant that took credit cards (we were attempting to make this a cashless trip) and settled down with some hot pot.  After dinner, we took the streetcar down to the CN Tower, by way of the waterfront, intending to go up the tower, but a storm rolled in so we skipped that.  Instead, we walked a few blocks over to the historic and beautiful (and colossal) Royal York Hotel where we enjoyed a cocktail in the Library Bar (after some people watching in the ornate lobby).  Back to the hotel and some serious planning for Tuesday, which would be jam packed.

Tuesday May 17th

Second day of good weather and serious sightseeing.  Took a streetcar out to the Distillery District, walked around and did some shopping.  From there we walked along the Esplanade to the St. Lawrence Market, chock full of fresh meat and produce vendors on the main floor and all sorts of crazy dry goods on the lower floor.  Had a peameal bacon sandwich, because that's what you are supposed to do, and it was lunchtime.  Walked towards midtown, stopping briefly in the Hudson's Bay department store where I had a brief fantasy of buying a light coat (I need one) but quickly changed my mind.  Walked through the huge and surprisingly pleasant Eaton Center mall, then through Nathan Philips Square past both the old city hall (1899) and the new city hall (1965) and ended up at the Art Gallery Of Ontario.  Clock ticking, we spent an hour there and then hustled back to the hotel for about 45 minutes of rest before heading back out to dinner date with family.

Wednesday May 18th

CN Tower, finally.  They have one of those glass floors, which I am genetically incapable of standing on.  Airport.  Home.

 

Regrets / to-do next time:

Toronto Islands

Mirvish Village

Casa Lomo

Ontario Science Center

Tot The Cat Cafe

sailing on Lake Ontario with family, visiting Lake

Niagara Falls

baseball game or hockey game

High Park

botanical garden

 

Big Ears and Knoxville

Big Ears (website/wikipedia) is an annual music festival that takes place in Knoxville in early spring every year lately.  It's not a rock festival, more like a jazz / electronic / weird music festival. Here's how Atlanta music writer Chad Radford described it in 2015:

... The annual weekend of jazz, modern classical composition, minimalism, and improvised music rattles the street signs and storefronts of downtown Knoxville. Why these nebulous strains of experimental music are placed on the same lineup isn't spelled out in an easy explanation. Big Ears' website steers clear of pushing the festival as a forum for any particular musical genre. The festival's identity is as much of an enigma as the music and the audience that will descend upon Knoxville when Big Ears returns .... Big Ears' unifying aesthetics are steeped in musical abstraction and impressionism, and include a spectrum of sounds from droning ambiance and elegant string arrangements to squelching feedback.

Two years ago, some of my friends went to it and came back crowing about how great it was.  ONE year ago, I really wanted to go but could not for some reason, and that weekend seemingly EVERYONE I knew was up in Knoxville having fun.  So this year, dammit, I booked the weekend and was going no matter what.  And Sharon was coming with me!

Here's a rundown of everything we were part of:

Thursday:

drove up from Atlanta (more on that below) and arrived in town at around 7pm

Knoxville Symphony Orchestra performing John Luther Adams

Sun Ra Arkestra with Marshall Allen

dinner at the nearby Public House while waiting for a line of storms that never came

Yo La Tengo, performing an hour of drone!

and THEN the storms finally came, and we had to run home through it.  We were completely drenched!

Friday:

Tony Conrad short films: The Flicker, Landscape Is A Wish for Motion, Weak Bodies and Strong Wills, Beholden to Victory, In Line, Palace of Error, I've Never Been, Teddy Tells Jokes, Straight and Narrow.  Mr. Conrad was supposed to be present but had taken ill, and in fact passed away just days later.  R. I. P. Tony Conrad.  This collection was fantastic!

nief-norf

lunch with Scott and Frank

Lou Reed "Drones" (six guitars in continuous feedback, with bean bags)

John Luther Adams piece in an old church

Eighth Blackbird with Bonnie Prince Billy and Bryce Dessner

dinner at Cru Bistro

Outside The Dream Syndicate with Faust -- was supposed to be with Tony Conrad, but in his absence it was just the Faust duo (Diermaier on drums and Péron on bass) with a few more backing musicians, including Laurie Anderson hiding behind the amp stacks!

Yo La Tengo and Lambchop, in a show that would not end, with a moronic audience member right behind me

Saturday:

We split up, and I took it easy for the morning.

Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass

The Necks

dinner someplace?

Sunn O)))

Kamasi Washington

drinks with Scott and Frank

Sunday:

John Luther Adams composition for countless percussionists in a park that used to be a quarry

Drove home!

 

And now the drive ... I really like to drive my own electric car whenever possible.  However it does have range limitations -- it can go about 80 miles on a full charge, and then you need to stop and plug it in for "a while".  How long depends on the type of stations.  Increasingly, we are seeing "DC Fast Charging" stations appear around the region, and so last year I wagered that by now, March 2016, there would be enough DCFC stations along the route for me to make the run in an electric car.  And indeed, just weeks before the Knoxville trip, a couple new stations went online on the I-75 corridor.

At right is the map that I sketched out when planning the trip, mostly to assuage Sharon's reasonable concerns but also as a quick reference during the trip. In that map, the orange markers are for DCFC stations, and the black numbers are miles between stops.

We drove up (north) along the western route via I-75, and then drove down (south) along the eastern route via the Great Smoky Mountains.  On each route, two of our three stops were relatively quick DCFC stops (30 minutes each), and one stop was using a slow charging station (about 90 minutes).

There was some drama along the way, no doubt.  On the way up, the car seemed to get confused and kept giving me ludicrously low range values -- sort of like your gas needle suddenly plunging to empty.  I could see though that the range was good and we made it with no sweat (well, little sweat).  On the way down, one of the charging stations in the mountains was non-functional, so I lost some time there.

In all, though, the trip was a success, and this is just the beginning.  Every year the DCFC infrastructure grows by leaps and bounds.  As I type this, the I-85 corridor up to the Carolinas and beyond is just about online.  Electric vehicles are about to clear the last hurdle -- road trip capability.

See you in Knoxville next March!