This morning marked the beginning of my 2000-mile trek to California. Unfortunately, just an hour into the drive, I hit a snag.

I was cruising down the freeway, enjoying the beautiful morning, when I noticed the “low voltage” warning light on the dash. “No problem,” I thought. “It must be a broken belt. I’ll just put a new one on.” And so I pulled off at the next exit and stopped at a gas station. When I stopped, I heard a loud “THUNK!” “How odd,” I thought.

When I opened the hood, I found all of the belts to be in perfect condition. The actual problem was much worse than I feared: the crank pulley had fallen off the crank.

I got out my toolbox and began taking things apart. Here’s what I believe happened: the bolt holding the crank pulley on the crank loosened up, which allowed the pulley to fall off of the crank. The pulley and crank are keyed, and the loosened pulley wore away the key on the crank and the channel on the pulley enough so that they no longer engage.

So what now? I believe that a new pulley will engage enough of the key to be functional. Unfortunately, there are no Subaru dealers nearby. Fortunately, my dad is coming to the rescue with a new pulley. I’m glad that the problem occurred while I was still relatively close to Minneapolis. I would have been in a world of hurt if the failure happened in the middle of the Nevada desert.

I am currently sitting at that gas station, mooching off of a nearby beauty parlor’s WiFi, so at least I can stay entertained for a while.

Here’s to hoping that the new pulley fixes the problem.

Today was my last day of work. Today was also my move-out from my townhouse. Only one of those events merited a card.

In honor of my departure, a group of my colleagues got me a really nice card and gift:

The notes in the card were all touching in their own ways:

One stood out:

The nod to the xkcd “Sandwich” comic really amused me.

I had the best coworkers in the world.

Meetings at my company generally start five minutes late. If you show up at the scheduled time, you’ll just be sitting around for five minutes shuffling your papers until everybody else meanders in a twelfth of an hour later.

That tardiness really irked me when I started. It still does, but since I’m leaving in a week, apathy has set in heavy, so whatever.

Unfortunately, things were a bit worse today. I hurried back from lunch to get to a one-on-one transition meeting, in which I was to impart my hard-fought knowledge on my replacement. I showed up to the conference room at the scheduled start time to prepare a bit before the expected arrival of the other half of the meeting, five minutes hence.

Well, those 300 seconds came and went, and the meeting still consisted of me, a whiteboard, and an empty chair where my coworker should have been. The dilemma: is it correct to leave, or is it better to stay?

I stalled for a while by drawing on the whiteboard, checking the missing person’s cube, drawing some more, checking my mail, checking my e-mail, checking my mail again, and finally just sitting in the conference room reading EE Times. It’s not that I didn’t have anything else to do, but I didn’t want to abandon hope that the other person might soon show up. In hindsight, I suppose I could have left a note for the person to come find me in my cube, but that didn’t occur to me at the time.

And so I kept waiting.

Finally, my one meeting invitee rolled in, 55 minutes late. Wow. I mean, that takes skill.

I’m not sure what’s worse: the fact that she was nearly an hour late to a 90-minute meeting, or the fact that I waited.

It turned out that she had lost track of time while at lunch, so her egregious tardiness wasn’t intentional. She was extremely apologetic, and we ended up having a good discussion, one that will continue next week. In other words, it all turned out OK.

Still, 55 minutes?

For the past few months, the question I have been asked most often by my family and friends has been: “Have you told them yet?”

Until last week, the answer was “no.”

I feared that when I told my employer that I was leaving to go to grad school, I would be turned into a lame duck, ostracized, or worse.   That’s why I waited until three weeks before my departure to reveal my plans.

Happily, the news went over well.  Each person I told initially had an pained expression, somewhere between “shock” and “deer in headlights.”  After a brief pause, their faces softened into smiles, and they congratulated me and told me I’d be missed.  Whew!

Now that my office knows, I can write about my decision here on my blog.   Therefore, for those of you who don’t know, I am happy to announce that I will be attending Stanford University starting in September.  I will be working towards an MS in Management Science and Engineering.

Three more weeks in Minnesota.  I’m nervous, but I’m also really excited.   It will be an adventure.

“Ice cream!”

Screeeeetch!

I’d never seen a Honda Insight turn so quickly. But then, perhaps one never had a sufficiently compelling reason.

Vince and I pulled into the ice cream shop’s parking lot. We were returning from an extended-weekend backpacking trip on Minnesota’s North Shore, and we had intense cravings for food that wasn’t dehydrated or in bar form.

Over the previous 2 days, we had backpacked over 33 miles: 15 on the first day, 16 on the second day, and 2 on the third day. That might not have been so tiring were it not for the extreme, repeated elevation changes and the unusually warm weather. On the other hand, the high peaks provided excellent vistas, and the lack of rain kept the trails pleasantly dry.

Our path took us from Brighton Peak north to the Cascade River. We passed through cedar, birch, and pine forests, next to beaver ponds and rock cliffs, and over rocky rivers and mellow streams.  At night, the stars shone brightly, accented by flourishes from the beginning of the Perseids. It was tremendously relaxing.

Despite the beauty of nature, it was great to get back to get back to good ol’ civilization, where we nursed our blistered feet and rested our tired legs.  And ate ice cream.  Deliciously cold ice cream.