Well,
My final day at PCS was last Wednesday. On Monday I took the opportunity to clean out my office as the remainder of the week was going to be pretty hectic as I wanted to attend Underwater Intervention 2007 (UI) in New Orleans. It has been a couple of years since I’ve had the opportunity to go. The last time I went to the show was 2004, and it was pretty dismal as the offshore business was pretty slow at the time. That certainly wasn’t the case this year as the offshore oil and gas business is growing great guns. The show had more people in attendance this year than I’ve seen in a long time. In any event, on Wednesday, I went and finished cleaning out my office, and left before lunch to go to UI. It was bittersweet as I certainly don’t relish being out of work, but it was also a relief as my time at PCS hasn’t exactly been productive.
As UI was very busy, I got to see a lot of people I haven’t seen in a long time in order to reestablish contacts. Everyone asked me what I was doing, and I said I was a free agent. Luckily, Buddy Mayfield of Outland Technology has graciously provided some contract work to tide me over until I find a suitable permanent gig. I’ve done freelance work for Buddy for years helping him design his lights, cameras and ROV systems. We are going through all his products and making certain his documentation is complete. I’m even looking at new product design for the future. It’s good to be busy. I’ll post some pictures when I’ve got something to show. Yesterday I did a major change to a housing for his new LED light modules and today I’m starting to design a new grabber for his ROV. I want to do a modular design that Buddy can build up grabbers to suit customer requirements in one, two, three or even four functions. The design process has just started with the identification of appropriate electric motors.
The employment opportunities seem to be bountiful, so hopefully my free agency should be limited in duration. Three opportunities involve start up entities around my services. Two of these I’ve been working for several years, with the third surfacing just a couple of weeks ago. The new opportunity happens to possibly include the three company roll-up I talked about in the fall. An associate, with whom I had been discussing another opportunity last summer, called me a couple of weeks ago about become the focal point of a new engineering capability for his organization. We talked at some length and I decided to see if they were interested in talking about the roll-up as it fit their strategic goals. All of us met after UI last Wednesday, and I thought the synergies were good. In any event, I’m not getting my hopes up, as all are still fairly embryonic and may not develop in time for me to take advantage of them. Additionally, I’ve got a recruiter in Baton Rouge that has decided to find me a job. Darren Smith of GoodPeople has been very active on my behalf, and it’s been good working with him. He has provided a lot of good information, and we have had several really helpful conversations. Thanks, Darren!
Just today, I got an e-mail from someone at Shell asking me to submit information to them for possible employment. Shell has been one of those places that I wanted to work for years ago and just couldn’t get there from here. I’m going to send my information, but I’m not particularly optimistic
Jourdan participated with his school in Mathcounts over the weekend. His school, Lake Castle in Slidell, came in fourth place. The competition was fierce, and it was an accomplishment to come in fourth. In addition, he is also competing with the chess team this spring. Jourdan is playing on both the 6th and 8th grade teams so he plays on both days of the weekend when there is a match. So needless to say, our weekends have been pretty busy doing either Mathcounts or chess. That’s okay, it’s worth it!
There isn’t much more to report at present. The sale of the house has thus far proven to be nonexistent. The offer we were supposed to get from the couple from Pennsylvania never materialized. Evidently they were scared off by the cost of homeowners insurance, so they decided to buy something significantly less expensive. The market down here has pretty much died, although our agent swears it’s going to get better as we get nearer to summer. I just hope we can get it sold before hurricane season.
I’ll see you soon!