We’re in the Grand Canyon, and they chase the elk around the camp site. We’re at home, and they just want to run around in a circle around the kitchen island for the next hour. And when it’s bed time they just a bottle of milk, a story, and a kiss goodnight.

I’ve gotten so good at worrying about big things, complicated things, stressful things. And these kids just force me to get back to the basics – what interests me? what excites me? what inspires me? That’s the foundation that I should start my day from.

The rest is really just noise.

And so the last few nights have been all about soldering, programming, editing, searching, and finally uploading. It all started with a PCB board, and a bunch of parts.

This is probably the first time I’ve done any soldering since the Golden Solder project I did in ECE200. Now those were the good old days. And yet, as I was working through each component, and getting it on the board, it felt like I really knew what I was doing. I didn’t, but at least the ego is still in tact. Resistor bands were read, and placed appropriately. Chips were put in based on the etching on the board. And the wiring I copied from the directions. But in the end, everything looked exactly as it was supposed to, and I was quite confident that it was going to work when I tried it.

Then, on to finding the notes!

Turns out that there’s a fantastic project out of the University of Iowa that has sound files of notes on an instrument. So I hopped on over there, grabbed the files for the piano, and got to editing.

It was a bit frustrating because there is about 3 seconds of track, but only 0.75 seconds (on average) of a note being played. Audacity came to the rescue! I edited up the files, saved them as WAV, and uploaded them to the SD card reader. I was ready to rock and roll.

Last step was getting the library installed, and the music playing. As for that, I’ll let this video do the talking…

Up next is getting it to work with 11 buttons, and having the Arduino component of things finished. And then… 3D printing

Amelia has heard, “I love you” since the day she was born. I would like to think that all children do, but I know better than that. When she was about three months old, you’d say, “Amelia. I love you!” and she would squeal in delight. Since she’s been talking both Micky and I have tried to get her to say I love you back at us, and…

today it finally happened

I said to her, “Amelia, say I love you to daddy”, and she said, “I love you”, and then immediately was quite proud of herself. She had a big smile on her face, and I immediately bear hugged and kissie monstered her to pieces.

And that’s why it’s all worth it.

It’s really amazing how quickly we got used to not having a schedule, demands on our time (outside the babies), and responsibility. But we’re back, and it’s full steam ahead.

We’ve run the numbers (and boy are they big numbers), and realized that we’re going to have to rent for one more year. That’s quite tough for me as I’m really looking forward to a permanent place. I’m very much over renting from folks. But, without a good idea of how much school is going to cost, and how much we can really afford, it would be really foolhardy to just jump at the first thing on our radar. Patience and common sense prevails.

Amelia is doing really well. She’s started art lessons, a weekly indoor gym class, continues music and swimming, and is also massively in love with running around and being chased. I wonder when I’ll ever be able to keep up with her energy most times.

Luka is growing bigger and bigger. At their last check up we learned that he’s only a few inches shorter, and a few pounds lighter than his sister. Poor Amelia. When Luka gets bigger, I’m sure he’ll get his revenge. I’m just really excited that they’re both tall. Luka is trying to stand up now with no interest in crawling. Hates being on his stomach, but loves being up on his feet. He’s quite strong too in the legs. It all happens way too quickly.

Played soccer again for the first time in a long time. My knee feels good. My play didn’t suck. It’s the little things these days

I’ve also become a fitness nut. I got a FitBit from my mom as a Christmas present, and I’ve hooked it up with MyFitnessPal, and when we get the scale back I’ll hook it up with my Withings, and I’ll have this epic digital health tracking system going. Calorie conscious decisions are going to help me get down to 175 by May. Gotta look good in those bathing suits now!

That’s all for tonight then. Until the next one, keep smiling.

I’ll be building it using a bunch of fun technologies that I haven’t had a chance to play with yet. The microprocessor will be an Arduino. I’m really excited to play with the Arduino as the breadboard was my favorite part of undergrad EE. If you don’t know much about Arduino, then I’d check out this TED talk from the guy who I think is the founder of the project.

To make the actual piano, I’ll be using a 3D printer. I’ve been scouring the web for open source CAD software, and hopefully (the goal for this week) I’ll have the piano laid out this week. Then, I’m going to have to find a 3D printing company to rent some time and/or order the parts. I’m thinking a baby grand that hides the Arduino, and has 2 octaves worth of keys surrounding middle-C, but we’ll see

I want to document as I build it so that one day Amelia can see how it was all done, and maybe someone else will pick it up, and build their own. And hopefully you guys will enjoy seeing it go along the way.

We’re back in San Francisco!

We’re living in Noe Valley, which is an amazing little spot in San Francisco. We walk to Whole Foods, one of a million coffee shops, restaurants, or bars, two different parks, a library, and the highway is just minutes away. It’s ideal. This is where we’ve decided to start to look for housing, and I think Micky and I are both really excited about it.

It has taken from Tuesday to Saturday for the kids to adjust to the jet lag. I have to give both of them massive credit as I think they did a wonderful job. It helped that we’re such awesome parents, but no need to rag on myself :-p

(Oh, I just thought that Wednesday should be Weight Update Wednesday… good one)

Work is going well, and opportunities are definitely there to be grabbed. Simultaneously, my personal project, Amplifize.com, has a strong community, and is a really great place to hang out if you like talking about cool web content with a group of self-labeled smart people

My uncle Aydin Yardim from my dad’s side came to visit this weekend, and we had a great time. He came Friday night, and Micky had cooked lasagna, and we ate fancy dessert from Whole Foods. I made a Winter Squash Penne with Mint Salad from Jamie Oliver’s “15 minute Recipes” cookbook. It took us an hour :-/ with 2 of us doing it :-/ :-/

Another interesting first this week… Miss Amelia fell flat on her face and got a nasty bloody nose. Mr. Luka has 2 bottom teeth.

Oh, and NC State beat #1 Duke to go tops of the ACC!

So I’ll leave you with a bit of a slide show, a big smile, and a lot of optimism for the year ahead. I have new year resolutions to write up, a cool project for Amelia’s birthday to work on, and a secret, new project that I hope to launch in February to look forward to. It’s going to be a great 2013!

First thing first, Amelia has got to be one of the unluckiest little girls when it comes to health. Both times she has been in the UK, she’s had a really nasty bug, and this one just wiped her out. She even became lactose intolerant for 10 days. Everyone ended up being sick except for Micky who was a complete rockstar of a nurse! That’s when you know you’re the lucky one…

We have in the time since I last updated:

• Celebrated many birthdays – My birthday. Micky’s Aunt Monica’s birthday. It’s been a really good month of getting wiser if not older to go with it :-p

• Visitors and new countries – James Kellermann visited from Creedmoor, NC. We got him up to London for a day, and then over to Lisbon. Photos coming soon, but that darned camera, and its darn cable However, this was James’ first trip out of the country, but it won’t be his last… especially since they have pizza everywhere

• Paris, I love you - Micky and I did a child-less trip to Paris. It was fantastic. We stayed on Ile St. Louis with the Notre Dame in our front yard just 500 yards away. We ate a lot of food, and it was delicious. We walked for miles, and it was breathtaking.

  For my birthday, Micky got me a cooking lesson at a school in Paris. It was so much fun, and I learned to make scallops. Pictures forthcoming once I get that damn wire. We also made pumpkin soup, an almond tart, and had cheese to top it all off. Quite fancy I’d have to say

  We also went on the ferris wheel in Tuillery Gardens, which I’ve never done, and climbed to the first floor of the Eiffel Tower.

  At the end of the three days, we arrived back at the car to realize that we had lost the car keys, and waited at the train station for 6 hours while the car got towed, and we got a new car to head home in

  Oh well, it was a wonderful trip anyway

We’re now home for a bit before we head off to Turkey. Oh, and here are the photos from Bonfire night in Rye. Thanks James for helping me download them

Things are absolutely phenomenal this side of the ocean. We’re all setup in Churt, things in Air Street are going fantastically, and the family is bonding.

Highlights include:

• Bonfire night in Rye – A super old British town with a castle celebrates bonfire night with tons of folks in costumes marching through the streets with torches on fire, and then lights a massive bonfire with a fireworks show. I got some AWESOME photos, but I can’t find my card reader, and so the uploads will have to wait

• Cousins bonding in Camber – Amelia and her cousin Martha took a morning walk along the beach at Camber. Check out the Cousins in Camber video.

• Amelia + Freddie - Amelia made a new friend, and they had a ball dancing in the streets of Lewes with their mummies (who are also friends).

  

We also got to bond with Grandma a bit, and now Grandpa is here for a few days. The house in Churt is just ideal, and we’re really excited about Uncle James coming into town this week.

It’s only just started to get fun

I’m also working out of the Telefonica Digital offices over the next couple of weeks. This is going to be a ton of fun, and I really feel like the BlueVia team and I are going to get a chance to sink our teeth into some juicy problems to solve. Simultaneously, I get to work with the TUCore team, and that’s going to really help drive the OpenTok platform much deeper, and bring much more core technology forward into the API. The details to all of this will be fodder for another blog post though.

Back to the adventure!

We landed Tuesday afternoon, and the trains into town were massively delayed. I decided not to go into work Tuesday, and instead headed down to Hassocks. We went to rent a car, and I drove. It’s a stick shift AND on the left side of the road. Bad combo

We got the chance to see Mike before he left for Mallorca (where the TokBox product team is buying a villa), Dan before he left for Singapore (which is too hot), and we’ve seen Lisa, the girls, Wendy and Geoff, and even…

My first professional soccer match! I went to the Brighton/Leeds match with my brother-in-law-in-law Paul. I don’t really drink, but if I’m with Paul, then I’m drinking. We got to the match, got into the club suite, had some great drinks and conversation, and then watched Brighton tie Leeds 2-2 (a game they definitely should have won). The speed of the game was amazing. The skill level quite impressive (and this is just a Championship match).

Loved it.

Now we’re all setup in Churt in our little cottage, and watching “Love Actually” on a perfect fall evening. Super happy. Super excited. Let the adventure begin

I call it the high point because it was a period where I felt like I was locked in, and able to execute at a fantastic level. Context-switching between coding the project, evangelizing the API,  and doing my day job was as efficient as could be. By the end of September, when I left to get married, I was on a high that I genuinely appreciated after two years of sloshing through in a bit of  a lost state.

I fully transitioned into the product team by March, and was thoroughly getting my ass kicked the next day. Right back in that lost state, I got bullied into decisions I didn’t agree with. I didn’t understand how to successfully create accountability, deliver ownership, motivate, or execute. And that didn’t change for some time. It was de-motivating, and difficult, but I found a bunch of small wins along the way to help push through it. Small wins are the flotsam of a drowning PM, that’s for sure.

But then funny things started to happen. I stopped feeling bullied, and instead turned meetings into really intelligent conversations where folks could disagree. I found the guts to suggest crazy ideas, and bold initiatives. I started defining the discourse and language of my meetings, and then my colleagues, and finally my company.

And then I arrived back to that high. And let me tell, after the slog of everything else it’s a good place to be.