Transitions

[randychase]

Change is the one constant. The world changes around you.

A capsule of history-

I started out working in the shipyards as a high steel worker. I kinda liked and hated that job. It was a bit mind numbing, but it was challenging. I reached my first transition point, when I fell off the ship while climbing back up a ladder and cracked my spine. Time to do something else. I was 19... what to do? I picked drafting.

My first "drafting" job quickly became an engineering job doing stress analysis on nuclear stuff. Funny how quickly that transition worked. But I saw that there was a better field to be in... Electronics. So I switched to that in 1977.


The late 70s. Back in those days, it was a good time to be in engineering in San Diego. A lot of military work was here. There was more work than there was skilled pcb designers.

There were some well known design houses, centered in the Kearny Mesa region of San Diego, home to some major companies. Eventually a community of sorts developed around this area. Those who worked for Tex Engineering, Dynapac, Mesa Design, etc. Or worked captive at Loral/Conic, Cubic, General Dynamics, Spectral Dynamics, and many more. We saw each other at certain lunch hang outs. Discussed the going rates. There was even a brick and mortar store where you could buy Bishop Graphics supplies... tape and mylar. We kept the repro camera houses hopping... like Mesa Reprographics.

In the late 70s, almost all of us were doing tape on mylar board layout. Rubylith. X-Acto knives. Swivel cutters. Bestine. Red and Blue. Pin-align mylar, 5 mil and 7 mil. Ruled grids and light tables. Colored pencils. Pentels and film lead. Templates. It was skill and an artform.

The third transition, striking out on my own.
In 1981, I figured out I did not like working for other people and went out on my own, leaving a company called California Instruments (after some time at Loral). I became a self employed PC Designer. Since my earlier background was mechanical engineering, I found myself in a bit of a niche. I could do the chassis layout and the board layout at the same time. I think I did about 50% mechanical and 50% board layout in the early 80s. I did a lot of work for a companies RD Instruments, APLabs, Thermoscan, Dura, Pyxis, Robot Research (now Sensormatic), Sony, Hybritech, and many more. I really enjoyed the challenges of being a one man show.

Each client thought you worked mainly for them, and the hard part was juggling the schedules. I worked weekends and nights, normally taking off time during the midweek to go to the beach or skiing or whatever. It was a good time. I was almost always busy, which was a reflection of the times. The local joke was "what does it take to be a qualified PC designer or drafter?" "can you fog a mirror when you breath? You are hired." I also liked working on different types of projects... high volume cheap consumer items... single expensive military jobs. I raised my rates and kept very busy.

My definition of success in those days? Not how much I made... just if I could keep working for myself and enjoying the lifestyle I had.

Sometime in the mid 80s, I noticed a trend towards computer aided designs. Around this time, I was also getting a little tired of hand taping and I wondered if this new trend would bring back some interest in my work. Also, personal computers were getting cheaper and more powerful. They even had hard drives and use math coprocessors!

[randychase]

Around 1987 or 1988, I got a seat of PADS. I had looked at alternatives. I had a few other programs to play with. McCad on a Fat MAC. Schema. P-CAD. E- something or other. AutoCad based programs like Great Softwestern and AutoBoard. But I liked PADS the best. Why? Because it seemed a great value. Heck for $495 you could buy a PADS seat, even fully loaded it was under $2000. The company seemed genuinely friendly and folksy even.

I started using PADS on my DOS machine and never looked back. With the functions keys on the left side of my Northgate keyboard (I still own 3 of these), I could fly. End trace with F8. The autorouter was simple, but worked very well. We went through the transition to CAD and it was good.

Around the same time, we got together with a few other people and started the first San Diego PADS User Group. I was the first president. Not sure why I was in that position, I later regretted it. Eventually I quit being involved as the User Group seemed to be a more a tool of the local VARs. I didn't want anything to do with that, I was interested in a user group that could share things and problem solve, and everyone would win. Oh well...

I kept at my business. I was still incredibly busy. I had more work than time and was able to pick and choose my customers. I was not interested in becoming a large company...remember my definition of success? I just wanted to keep going and so I did. One major difference between my business and most others, I did not bid on almost any work. Almost all of my customers were using me exclusively and I just did the work and billed them. 90% of my customers never asked for quotes. I continued to work for Monitor Labs, Torrey Pines Scientific, Touch Controls, SPAWAR, Navy, Genprobe, Measurement Systems, Nanogen, Kontron, Qualigen, Sigma Systems, Vektrex, and more....

Financially, it was a good time. My overhead was low. Software was still cheap. I found some good utitlities to use like PADSLINK and was able to be very productive and deliver a better product, specially since I was an AutoCad guru, and with AutoCad and PADSLINK, I could do crazy things with PADS that other people could not do.

Fast forward to the late 90s. A few things happened. One, was the creation of PCBstandards and my alliance with someone, that in the end turned out to be a mistake. I started PCBstandards because I hated the waste caused by a community of software users that did not communicate. PADS was not helping and each user would find out bugs on their own, develop their own board outlines and library parts. The goal was an online resource where people could share parts and data. An easy way to search for information and solve problems. This is how this site was created. But as I said, I aligned with the wrong person. He had data, but in the end, it was data to sell, with dreams of making millions of dollars. Or it was data just copied from someone else. We were getting complaints and pissed off people demanding to know why there research papers were on my site, with someone else's name on them. For example, check out this document-
http://www.merix.com/DFMrevb11904.pdf Done in 2004 Seems to be done by them.

Now check out this one, zipped up as a PDF-
http://www.pcblibraries.com/resources/files/GenDocs/DFM%20Guidelines.zip

Word for word. The newer doc includes the Merix company doc. But now with someone else's name on the front.

Whatever, but I did not want a part of it. Ethics can be a slippery thing if you allow it to be so.

There were other issues also, some of which I was warned about, but I unfortunately ignored them, and by the time I saw that this was not going to work, there was no easy way out.

So in the end, that partnership (such as it was) dissolved and he went his own way and to a new site where they could actively develop products for sale. I was a bit disilluisioned about the whole experience and let this site flounder.

And at the same time, there was another factor at work here. The factor of out sourcing and a new trend. And not all the blame is on off shoring either. But the fact was, the work was drying up. Service bureaus were getting smaller or going away. PCB houses were also closing up their doors.

There was a number of factors happening here:

1. Electronic integration. You could do on one chip, what used to take hundreds and hundreds. Check out your computer's video or sound card. Normally one major IC. It used to be hundreds. It is a lot easier to lay out one board with one part on it.

2. The tools. Electronic engineers used to hand off the designs (often relunctantly) to the designer with a lot of rules. Now with better tools, the engineers can layout the boards themselves and many do.

3. Less hardware, more software. A lot of logic ICs were replaced by one GAL. A lot of ICs and hardware boards were replaced by software. Less and less hardware solutions, the answer was often software.

4. Off shoring. Yes, a lot of work went overseas. The electronics business moved over there. Who was now making the TVs? VCRs? It was much more a global market rules by global companies and they looked for skilled engineers that charged a lot less.

In the end, there was just less work to go around in this industry here. Less customers to pick and choose from. There was even some wage and fee compression as people were fighting over the remaining work.

I noticed that a trend was taking place on this site. More and more the requests and IPs that were downloading all of the free data, were overseas. China, Philapines, Vietnam, India, Russia. Less and less from the US market. At times, we had hardly anyone from the US downloading anything. At times, the overseas guys were killing my server with all their downloads. I don't begrudge a man a chance to make a living, no matter where on the globe he or she lives. But this struck me as odd that I was in the position to help out those who in effect, were taking away the careers of many people I know.

[randychase]

So I could see the handwriting was on the wall. I saw no reason to not believe that off shoring would stop its trend and the net result was not pretty. What to do? Time for another transition?

I was also not happy with the new directions of PADS after getting swallowed up by larger and larger fish and now it was a part of Mentor. Prices were a lot higher. Licensing was worse. User groups were less personal. Blah. I got off the maintenance bandwagon. Screw it. I will stay with V 5.01 PowerPCB. :)

I decided about 4-5 years ago, that the answer lay in getting out of the pcb design business. I kept hearing from my partner how PCBstandards had to make a lot of money so one of the library developers would be able to stop laying out boards. But truth be told, I needed to get out of board design.

But I have been doing it for so long. Could I just do something else?

During the last 15 years, one of my hobbies was racing cars. And it so happened, that I wanted to videotape my racing. I shopped around for an inexpensive solution and there wasn't any. I decided to make my own. What followed was a hobby of sorts for a couple years. Developing my own camera mounts. Camera systems. And I started offering them for sale. I figured I could at least get a tax write off, right? Racing was expensive. Writing off the tires would help a lot.

To my surprise, I started selling a good amount of product. Not enough to retire on, but enough to think maybe there was a foundation here to build on. I was still trying hard to make two worlds work.. this camera business... and my pcb design business. That was very hard because both were almost full time businesses.

Around 2003, I decided it was time to really see if I could make the transition. We rented out a large booth at Los Angeles Auto Show and had a great show. It was hell, but we learned a lot, made a ton of great contacts, sold a lot of products. And we were off and running.

For 2004 it was still a struggle. Often we made just enough it seemed, to enable to buy more inventory. And trying to keep product in stock was a constant struggle. At the end of 2004 though, the business had done well enough I could buy the Lotus as a company car and we arranged a booth at SEMA.

SEMA 2004 was an even better show for us. More contacts. Better contacts. And we found out about another show called PRI, so off we went to PRI in Indianapolis in December 2004. And then again in December 2005.

We were working on some new electronic products of our own, including a solid state TIVO like device you could carry in your pocket. Word had gotten out and at the PRI show in late 2005, I had 6 or 7 major companies asking me to sit down with them at a meeting table to work on some business arrangements.

We made some deals with companies all over the world. Some major companies and major names in car racing. We started taking pre-orders for our new recorder.

[randychase]

And now, we have this new product. One laid out by myself with PADS. Case done in AutoCad and Solidworks. Everything made in the USA. Designed in the USA. Programmed in the USA. Supported in the USA.

We have deals now to sell thousands of these, we just have to continue down the production path and move from our pilot production run to a full production run. And we are busy making some new products. We can now afford to hire our own contractors. :)

We anticipate being over $1 million in sales for 2006.

That is the transition.... from pcb design service bureau to manufacturer. It was not easy, in fact, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. It was not cheap, I invested a lot of my own money. But in the end, I created something that I think is pretty cool and has equity and value... and can help other people too.

Someday, I might come back to the idea of a better resource for PCB designers. I had some ideas. But not right now.

So what will happen with PCBstandards? I don't know. I am busy with other things. I like that there are free resources here, but I don't think it being updated enough and it certainly is not being promoted at all. If someone out there is interested in the site, let me know.

Thanks for reading. All in all, I have enjoyed the ride.

[Colorado-PC-Dude]

Randy,

First off, congratulations on the business venture. It's always great to hear a success story (though I still envy the Lotus :))

PCBStandards may be going away? :eek:
If shutting down is the road you decide take, then I better say thanks for all the work you've done here while I still have the chance. It truly has been appreciated. That being said, this forum, while not as active as in days past, is still fairly active. Besides, where are the football nuts gonna talk football at work?

Ben

[Tom Frayda]

Randy-

Congratulations on the success of your cameras and PDRs! They sure are slick and deserve every bit of recognition they get. Heck, I'd like to own one someday!

Thank you for all the hard work you've put into this site over the years. It has been a phenomenol resource for many, many people and I'm glad it survived this long as the free resource that it was originally chartered to be. Altruism, I think, is a good thing.

Best of luck to you in your latest transition. If you do pull the plug on pcbstandards, maybe we'll all just meet up again around the next curve.


Tom

[Skip Yutkus]

Randy,

Great news congratz, geesh, I wish I could get rich! (lol), but in defense of the PCB design profession - it's alive and well, and there are a lot of opportunities still, sadly, I have to attribute that to a lot of people who chose other paths when it appeared that all hope was gone - at least from my perspective, (recently unemployed), it appears that start-ups and even some of the biggies are either bringing the design function back, or keeping it here, I was only unemployed for about a month and managed, (through a lot of persistance and friends), to get 3 offers to choose from - so if anyone out there is unemployed - just keep the faith its illusive but not gone.

Skip

[randychase]

Update:

And thanks for the replies.

Development of one's own product is not an easy path. Nor a cheap one. And there have been a few surprises along the way.

One of the most frustrating aspects is time and schedules. I have a lot of people asking me for a unit, and I can't build that many. I decided a while ago to only build so many (200) units and use those as pilot units.. to see if there were any major problems.

The first major problem was schematic-pcb related. Specifically, using the Orcad schematic to generate the sacred bill of material. With hundreds and hundreds of parts, that makes some sense. And then create another spreadsheet for the final assembly parts such as case, overlays, hardware, etc.

BUT... one item was missed. On the schematic, the LCD is shown.. but the part number is really for the LCD connector... which makes sense. We never told the assembly house to buy enough LCDs... and it turns out, they are the longest lead item. Argh...

Also, we found a strange bug that caused the units to not work in the field. Turns out that the sunlight was charging the LCD and causing a reverse current to shut the unit off. Wow. Fortunately, there was a software fix.

So anyway.. we built 200 units. To my surprise, they were almost perfect out of the gate. Everything fit on the pcb. The units fired up. Software was loaded. They work! The connectors line up with the holes in the metal. No surprises! Yay!

So now we are making 1000 units ( a good number are already sold). Still a small step up as implement some minor changes and enhancements. We hope to be looking at 10,000 units in a follow on build.

Not so bad revenue considering the MSRP of the recorder is $375.00.

I worked on PADS this weekend making some tweaks to my recorder. Felt funny to use the software since it has been a while.

[Jack Olson]

Hey Randy,

You don't know me, but reading your story brought back a lot of memories.

I started in 1987 on PCAD 1.3 (Red Green and Yellow colors only) on an IBM-XT.
I missed the whole tapin' thang... I'll never forget the day we got the upgrade that added Magenta Cyan and White - - - DOUBLE the colors, life was grand.
We had a very dynamic PCAD Users Group just north of you, in Irvine
Since then I've been AccelEDA Veribest Expedition BoardStation man.

Anyway, I just got this new job at GE in Kansas City, and now I'm a brand new PADS user. We got to talking about decals and libraries today on the listserver which is how I found you.

ANYWAY, I just wanted to thank you for offering your libraries in the "Free stuff" forum. I can't imagine starting from scratch (no one should HAVE to)

THANK YOU

Jack (aka "the new guy")

[Jack Olson]

P.S.

PLEASE don't take this site down until I have a chance to read all of the "history"!!!

[randychase]

No worries. It does not cost me much to keep this as it is. If people want to add to it and take from it, that is all good.

[randychase]

For what it is worth, I read the PADS listserv one in a while and I read it today. It is an interesting discussion, but most people really do not have any idea about what really happened back in the day. Oh the stories.... :) Suffice to say I was not willing to be put in the position of having my company put on the line from a lawsuit, or from being tied in with someone that had grandiose plans to make millions.

I do think we have here a good starting point for anyone's library in PADS. In any case, a library needs to be checked and modified for your own standards. Regardless of what any marketing guy tells you, there is no perfect pristine library. Back in the day, it was often touted "we" had the perfect pristine library... well, until the next time it was fixed. :)

[randychase]

Small update.

We took a trip to England last month. A few people requested some meetings, such as McLaren and Renault and Lotus. Looks like we are selling recording video systems to a couple of top Formula 1 teams. That is very cool. We set up distributors and retailers in the UK and France and the demand is very good. They just asked that we raise the price as it is too cheap for their market.

The UK was awesome. Had a great trip and saw things that most people would never have a chance to.

Flew back and then flew to Kansas for the SCCA Solo Nationals. Spent 10 days there. Flew back to San Diego and then flying back to Kansas this week for the SCCA Runoffs. And now getting ready for the SEMA trade show at the end of this month. It is all a bit hectic!

Things are moving along well in regards to the business. I have not had much time to read the forum or do much in PADS, but I did do a small job for a customer as a favor. I am still quite happy not upgrading PADS by the way. 5.0.1 works for me.

[randychase]

Another update.

We showed the products at SEMA show in Las Vegas and the Performance Racing Industry show in Florida. Quickly sold 1/4 mil in days. Looks like we are off an running.


Going back to England next month.

[Skip Yutkus]

CONGRATS! :D

Sounds like your really in business now. Just remember us grunts out here when you're in your penthouse suite!

Skip

[randychase]

A quick update for anyone that cares.. :)

We are on pace to sell easily over a million. perhaps over 3 million based on the last 3 months. And this is the off season. So we are trying hard to gear up for the demand, hired a couple people, get organized, get more inventory.

Flew back to England a couple weeks ago. Attended the motorsports show there and we were invited to put video recording systems on the celebrity kart event. A lot of well known racers in the UK participated. I will be flying out next week to the Superbowl to do exactly the same thing. There is a celebrity kart event at the Superbowl.

I am getting tired of traveling! The pace of the business and its growth is also a bit much, but no one ever said it would be easy.

Anyway... that is the fish report with a beat, live from Sunset Strip.

[Alan Bradshaw]

hi Randy,

You don't know me, but reading your transitions piece and the others has been an enjoyable trip down memory lane for me, and I would just like to thank you for that.

I have been laying out PCBs for more years than I care to remember, over here in England. I started with black tape and rub downs at 4:1 and yes, I even did some work over the kitchen table too! I progressed from there using a Racal unit, then into Orcad, Pads, Orcad again, Allegro and now back to my greatest love - Pads. I only wish I had been on your West Coast and not ours. It sounds a much more exciting trip.

I have met some excellent people during my trip through life and maybe next time you are over here you might get near where I am.

I am curious about a couple of things though - what is this "product" that you have developed? and what was it about your trip to England that really "did it" for you? The reason I ask this is that I had the opportunity last year to spend a couple of weeks alone in San Jose and it was quite an eye-opening experience for me.

If you don't want to reply in the forum, no problem.

Good luck

Alan

[randychase]

The product is our Compact Flash MPEG2 recorder we developed for motorsports. We made 1200 of them and sold out in just over two months, now making 8000 more units. More info at our site at www.chasecam.com



The UK was a great experience. I am planning another trip there in August for 10 days. Spending most of them time in London, Winchester, and East Anglia staying at Bury St Edmunds. Looking forward to those full English breakfasts. :)

Did you come out to San Jose for the user's group thing? What was eye opening? Are you meaning in regards to culture?

Best regards!

[Gizzmo]

Man that would be sweet on my bike or my car, very cool!

[Alan Bradshaw]

Those English breakfasts mmmh! My favourite.

I have yet to find an employer who would ship me 5000 miles to attend a work related promo , so no I wasn't there for the PADS event, much as I would have liked to.

No, the reason I was there was Allegro, a training course and then the second week was a "press the flesh" thing at the local offices.

My main eye opener was the culture shock thing. I have been watching American TV programs all my life but they only gave me a small taste of what to expect.

Driving in America is a breeze, everybody has such good lane discipline, turning right against a red is a must but the only problem I had was finding places. The turns were marked in a different way to here in England, so it took me a while at first to get used to it.

One thing that will amuse you is that on TV, characters would say "head North on I-whatever" now, that's normal for you guys but being a Brit, it confused me until I got to the first highway in San Francisco when I arrived and the sign was marked North and South. No such thing in England. Eye-opener time. And the fuel prices! Need I say more?

Eating out was great for me, I love my food and if you met me you'd see the result (sedentary occupation and all) wherever I went I was looking at the top of the menu instead of finding the cheaper meals, it's true what they say, eating out in America is a real pleasure. (and the portions!)

The only gripe I had was the beer was too cold! Even in the "English pub"...

Enjoy your trip, East Anglia is one of our beauty spots full of quaint villages and country homes to die for, in case you didn't know.

I can't see me making the Gooodwood Revival so good luck to you there and I'll be looking out for the Chasecam in my local stores. It looks great and if I got one I could show my wife what biking is all about.

[randychase]

The good stuff and bad stuff continues... :)

Bad stuff. It is hard to get enough product to keep inventory. And ordering more seems like we always run into that one item that is not available for 12 weeks. Or there are delays in something like our membrane keypads. Argh. We have 3000 units that were supposed to be built by March 15th. Then April 1st. Then April 15th. Today I heard May 1st. Ack...

Good stuff. Sales are good. We are moving next week into a 3000 square foot engineering and marketing offices about 4 miles away. That should make our business more organized. We are still scheduled to move international fullfillment to a 4500 square foot building in Cerritos.

More good stuff. We brought on a technician that is working miracles. Yay. We have some new things in development that is quite exciting.

[solectek]

Randy,
another person you wouldn't remember from a long ago Pads Convention...however, I love success stories, and yours is a great one because it shares the common roots with many of us!!! I loved the trip down memory lane, all the way from the light table forward.

Keep us all posted; it's good for the soul!!!
Donna Perry :)

[randychase]

Another update. :)

We completed the move into our new facility. As much as we tried to do that as painlessly as possible, it still was a lot of work and money. But it has been worth it. We have a new building with all kinds of work space.

At least we thought we had tons of space... we have used most of it. We have brought on some more help, specially in the production dept. And we built the last batch of 3000 video recorders and filled our backlog. Yay!

Some other good news. We have signed up deals with some good racing teams and a few television studios. Look for our products to be seen on Discovery Channel in September.

And for the latest in transitions... we are looking into starting a new car dealership in Southern California. Not sure where, maybe Laguna Hills or near there. Exotic cars only. Because I just don't have enough to do.... :)

[Colorado-PC-Dude]

Holy Crap! I drop out for a year or so and all of a sudden Randy's looking at corporate jets! :)

Seriously though. Sincere congratulations to you Randy. It's truly awesome to hear that one of the good guys is getting ahead.

Ben

[randychase]

Thanks Ben!

We will hold off on the Corp jets for now. :)

Things keep going up and up. Was flown out to Australia and was part of the Champ Car race out there where we had some good business meetings. My equipment is now mandatory in some racing series and we are looking at other racing series for the same requirement.

Just did the SEMA show in Las Vegas last week and we won a record 18 awards for best new product in Racing and Performance. Yay!

A major manufacturer will announce at the Performance Racing trade show in Florida next month that ChaseCam is the official supplier of video recorders and that we are required equipment in their racing series also.

Also looks like we are going to get the nod from Porsche Motorsports.

Red Bull Racing Formula 1 is using our stuff and want to work together.

Renault Formula 1 is going to be using our stuff as soon as we deliver it.

A new movie will come out next year called Deathrace which will use our stuff for in car footage. We are also on a few different TV shows coming out. We were used on the Gillette Young Guns shootout for example.

We are getting a deal with Robby Gordon who used our stuff at Dakar Rally.

MANY teams at the Baja 1000 are now using our recorders.

The list goes on and on....

So yeah... I have not had much time to check this forum out. I read the PADS listserv every so often, but I was never able to sign up to it and I never cared enough to follow up.

I also read the Broncos forum every so often. The AFC west is a mess.

[randychase]

Hey, its been a while. I do an occasional board spin on our products, and maybe 3 layouts a year as a favor for friends. But otherwise, I am totally out of the pcb business. It is just one part of our product. An important part.

Which reminds me, I could use the services of someone that is an EMI expert at knocking down radiated emissions on video circuits.

Back to the topic, business has been going well in spite of the economy. 2008 sales increased 50% over 2007. We signed a deal with Jay Leno and Leno's Garage. Spending some time up in the garage has been cool.

Me and Jay
http://a9.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/107/l_757b165bd082305b308ce0e28177b3b8.jpg

NBC fillm crew filming Jay and I
http://a961.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/31/l_15dd8fde2b58525a3d1356d60a0477c0.jpg

With the Jaguar from Leno's Garage at Monterey Historicss. To the right is Nancy Cartwright, voice of Bart Simpson.
http://a502.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/93/l_9862fe0658d5e0e41679f4c9fff4f40d.jpg

[randychase]

We are working with a number of teams including LEXUS

http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/6/l_341e9b8a98bb4f819f7cf51c5d2be605.jpg

Porsche
http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/5/l_2b2a89c5234c4460acc750ad65aef3e8.jpg


Team Remington Caddillac
http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/5/l_93493c2f7acc4c6793ad31550ea425ab.jpg

[randychase]

And since this is all about self promotion... :) :)

I sold the Lotus and bought this Noble M400

At Deals Gap North Carolina
http://a250.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/7/l_f70978bcaf0ca7171a5d03e692fdd3c1.jpg

http://a57.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/125/l_40877a0a89c78110fb26817873f36a18.jpg

Still racing it
http://a952.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/23/l_5366e2dd745d4caea9ecf4e063274faf.jpg

[randychase]

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[Colorado-PC-Dude]

Randy,

Sweet new ride dude! It's great to hear that your business it taking off. You lookin' at those corporate jets yet? :D

It's been a while since I touched base here and I thought the trnsitions thread would be as good a place as any since I am once again transitioning. The economy took me out of work yesterday, but it's not as bad as it could be. At least I'm in Colorado which has a better than average unemployment rate and a lot of technical positions. I've even got a prospect that could put me back in the PCB design arena. It'd be a hefty commute though.

Anyhow, all the best to you and all the others here.

Ben