Between the Lines

Farewell To Dr. Richard Leakey

The world lost a tough impactful warrior this a week, Dr. Richard Leakey. Without Richard Leakey who was a world renowned paleontologist turned conservationist, there may not have have been a science rich research work, or perhaps a single living elephant or rhino remaining in Kenya. And we certainly wouldn't have had my friend, another world renowned paleontologist and anthropologist as well as Autodesk university speaker, Dr. Louise Leakey. Statement from the Leakey family I am grateful to have met... Read more →

Happy 2022

Happy New Year, everyone! I had a nice two-week annual holiday break and spent time with friends and doing several outdoor adventures. I have family visiting (hopefully depending on airline flights) later this week including my two sons, mother, and brother. The past year 2021 had some high points, but a lot of tough challenging parts and I am optimistic and working for a much better 2022. Here is to hoping for a better year for everyone and hoping I... Read more →

Happy Holidays!

It is that time of the year wear most Autodesk employees take their holiday week of rest and the holiday break. We will be back around the week of January 3rd , 2022. During this time we spend time with friends and family, catch up on home projects, enjoy the holiday we celebrate, ring in the new year, and recharge. I will be personally spending a lot of time outdoors skiing both downhill and cross country, snowshoeing, fat tire biking,and... Read more →

This Happened – Meet Coho

I got a new puppy named Coho, named after the famous Pacific Northwest silver salmon. His name is fitting as he is a silver labrador retriever and he jumped on the river the first day I had him. He is full of energy an a love bug who will grow big since his father was 110 pounds. Meet Coho He is going to be a handful, but we needed each other. Here is a bonus 360 photo from Sunday of... Read more →

Tough Past Week of Loss for Me

I lost an amazing friend, former romantic partner, and someone that cared about changing the world. The world was a better place with her in it. I can’t make sense of it all, and hurting so deeply. Brenna was a beautiful, smart, thoughtful, amazing person and someone I absolutely needed in my life. She was an attorney that decided she could make a difference in children's lives by doing divorce mediation to get parents to work together in the best... Read more →

Autodesk Company Day of Rest

Today is a company day off at Autodesk. Autodesk recognizes that employees can feel burned out dealing with the past 18 months juggling life, family, and work. They have been providing employees some days to recharge and refresh, or just time to take with no email since the company is mostly off of work as well. I started early with a nice chilly kayak paddle on the Deschutes River last evening. #Autodesklife Read more →

Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall

Happy Autumnal Equinox everyone! This is the first day of Fall. Last evening, I headed about 20 miles outside town (Bend Oregon) to the Cascade mountains to capture some photos of the last summer sunset. Of course this change of season also means the inverse for my friends in the southern hemisphere who are now entering spring existing winter. Read more →

Weekend Adventures – Clear Skies

After weeks of extremely heavy wildfire smoke, the smoke cleared up this weekend here in Central Oregon where I live. I got out for some local bike rides on trails along the Deschutes River as well as a paddle on my paddle board. It was an amazing and well needed escape. Read more →

Bizarre Day

One of those bizarre days, unusually hot weather, wildfire smoke filled skies, and I just joined a Zoom meeting - and found I was already in there. Is this a Black Mirror episode? Did I cross some sort of time space continuum or portal? Read more →

Weekend Water Escape

I have been moving the past week to Central Oregon in Bend, luckily some friends convinced me to escape the boxes and house projects, to go paddle boarding for a half day and have some fun. I really needed that escape from moving and the fun time in nature on the water. Read more →

Hot Summer

If you are on my side of the equator, in the Northern hemisphere, you are no doubt in the middle of summer. And chances are if you are on the west coast of the U.S., a hot one due to a high pressure induced “heat dome”. In the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., where I live, it has been hit with unprecedented heat and shattering records up to 119 degrees F or 48 degrees C. The Pacific Northwest is known... Read more →

Weekend Snapshots – Walla Walla Win95

I was in the Walla Walla Washington region the past weekend, and went flying practice one my 97mph FPV drone over some nice open fields. In one photo taken during a flight, it looked similar to the old Windows 95 screen background image. Read more →

Ducks and Lambs Oh My

The past few days I have been moving after recently selling my home. For some strange reason animals have been drawn to my house including wild baby ducks under my deck and a baby lamb.Perhaps it was the way the neighborhood was saying “good bye” to me. On Wednesday I heard a “quack” out my window while in a work meeting from home, but we get ducks and geese flying over this area often and thought nothing of the random... Read more →

What a Garden!

Last weekend I attended a small gathering for a bonfire and party. I was taking some aerial photos of the event and the most amazing private garden I had seen, and in my neighborhood. I hope to get a nice tour in the near future of this amazing and peaceful and uniquely designed space. The small building located in the center, is a greenhouse. Several birdhouses around the garden, a pond that was covered, and small houses on the peripheral.... Read more →

Throwback Thursday- What a Long Strange Trip It's Been

Fun historical Autodesk fact. The singer/guitarist for the band Grateful Dead Jerry Garcia once visited an Autodesk office. Read more →

I'm Vaccinated!

(above) Photo of board where people placed their stickers they had to wear with their waiting times after vaccination. I have had both vaccination shots of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. While I had some minor side effects like low energy and aches in joints on the first vaccination, with the second I really hydrated myself for the second and had virtually no side effects other than minor discomfort in my arm for 24 hours. I do hope you too get... Read more →

Spring Break on the Oregon Coast

I just returned refreshed from disconnecting and enjoying the beautiful Oregon Coast for spring break. The time was restorative with sunny fresh ocean breeze days watching the ocean waves, exploring tide pools, adventures, and watching sunsets. I also received my COVID first vaccination yesterday. Cheers, Shaan A low tide hike into the Devils Punchbowl. I love sunsets. Read more →

One Year Ago

One year ago, we gathered in Zoom for a Digital Happy Hour to deal with the quarantine and isolation together to laugh,to talk about the fear, to toast, and mostly to connect. We had no idea it would last this long and those that we have lost in the past year. I will never forget rewarding with ice cream a young daughter of a participant to present to all of us on her LEGO architecture. Here was my invite text:... Read more →

And I am Back on the Internet

I have been without power, internet an phone for almost 9 days due to a severe ice storm last week in the Portland Oregon area. The weight of over an inch of ice on all the trees caused many large trees to fall taking out all utilities for hundreds of thousands of people. Everything has been restored as of late Sunday. Not much has stopped me in 17 years of blogging, but that was almost a complete block of my... Read more →

Portland Ice Storm Got Me

I live in the SE Portland Oregon area between Milwaukie and Gladstone up on a hill. It’s an urban –rural translon suburb of Portland. Last Friday we were hit hard with about 4 inches of snow and then several days of freezing rain on top of that. Portland doesn't normally get snow, but occasionally we will or the occasional freak cold storm that comes out of the Columbia River gorge. The recent storm was a Polar Vortex out of the... Read more →

Throwback Thursday – Dinosaur Mornings

After almost a year out of my work office, I am really missing my colleagues, the offices, and the creativity that goes on there. Google Photos reminded me yesterday, of a morning 10 years ago in San Francisco Autodesk office when I walked in early morning, and what I witnessed. A giant inflated dinosaur in the office walkway. After deflation The inflatable fabric dinosaur was created using a prototype software that would take 3D models and generate a 2D pattern... Read more →

Starting 24

Today is my anniversary of joining Autodesk from being an Autodesk customer and ended up moving down to the San Francisco Bay area. I had thought a couple years leaving industry as a mechanical designer using Autodesk software would be for a couple years improving the products I used and then back to the design, fabrication and construction world I would go, but I stayed at Autodesk. What kept me was the amazing colleagues, great company, the best customers, and... Read more →

Happy New Year - 2021

Like most Autodesk employees I have just returned from our annual week of rest and holidays, plus a bonus few days this year courtesy of our leadership wanting employees to relax after a challenging 2020 which felt like never ending Zoom meeting and unpredictable situations in life and work. I'm grateful that Autodesk thinks about the challenges of their employees and those that have been cooped up for months with many challenges as well as the mental exhaustion and feelings... Read more →

Thank You cough cough

My heart goes out to all of my fellow western united States residents dealing with the concerns and fear due to unknowns and unsubstantiated conspiracies circulating on the internet, and some experiencing the loss of homes and life due to the unprecedented wildfires. I wanted to thank those that read my previous post about the fires including one that was 1.5 miles from my own home and several sending private offers of assistance and a place to stay if evacuated.... Read more →

Vacation and NW Fires

I took last week off of work to drive from Oregon to see my 3 adult kids that live in Utah, including one that is attending the University of Utah as a senior in engineering. I also got to see my cute sweet granddaughters. Due to Covid 19, I haven't seen my kids and grandkids since January. We had a couple dinners in parks socially distanced with masks since my daughter in law is currently pregnant. It was so good... Read more →