Between the Lines

It Wasn't Itsy Bitsy

I'm a bit nervous leaving my house again knowing that my security system cameras may send me spooky videos. A couple months ago I was in San Francisco in a meeting when my phone buzzed with an alert from my security system, so I took a look. I was a bit shocked and surprised to see a big spider climbing over my camera. It continued to send me spider selfies for the next few days leaving me a bit nervous... Read more →

Last week

I took a road trip last week from Oregon to Utah to visit my kids and camping along the way. It was a good way to clear the head and also catch up with my kids. Here are a few photos of the beautiful and dramatically contrasting landscape in the western US. I camped at Clear Lake Oregon in Central Oregon where the water is of course crystal clear, but really cold due to being fed by a natural spring... Read more →

Proud by Design in Portland

What an amazing weekend of Portland Pride, with Autodesk as a sponsor again. We have a booth all weekend and in the parade Sunday. We had or Autodesk soapbox derby car for pride that was designed and built by employees and then will race at Portland Adult Soapbox Derby August 17th. Everyone loved climbing in the derby car for photos and also making bracelets and notebooks at our booth. Read more →

FAA Highlights Changes for US Recreational Drones

There are some big changes coming in the United States to people flying UAS (drones) recreationally, especially in cities and controlled airspace. I am writing this blog post from an area of class c airspace in downtown Portland Oregon. It basically levels the field for recreational and commercial part 107 UAS operators. There were times where I as a commercial operators couldn't fly in a controlled airspace without 3 months of an airspace authorization and waiver requests or more recently... Read more →

I love to Ride my Bicycle I Love to Ride my Bike

May is national Bike month and Portland Oregon is one of the most “Bikiest” cities around. Several of our employees commute to the office by bike and I have once again joined them as a I am a fair-weather bike commuter. I rode 7.73 miles in this morning to the Autodesk Portland office on mostly dedicated paved riding paths along the beautiful river. I would have made faster time, but a railroad crew felt it necessary and wise to inspect... Read more →

Reddit Accolades

A photo of me was posted on Reddit today with some some Autodesk Portland colleagues with the subject “Who are you, thank you very much”. We volunteered to clean trash from our local Portland neighborhood at lunch with SOLVE Oregon. Someone noticed & wanted to say thank you. They posted a photo of us cleaning up trash on our lunch hour with a large cat looking out the window and watching us. We love our new Portland office neighborhood and... Read more →

At the Heart of Travel

A little 5 year old girl snuck a heart she colored in my luggage 12 years ago that I only found when I was tired and far from home in Europe. It was one of the sweetest gifts a dad could ever receive from his daughter. I take that same little art everywhere I travel ever since. The heart went to Washington DC with me last week. Its been a little weathered from the travel and I placed in a... Read more →

Signs of Change

It is a great sign to see in the construction industry. I seen this inclusive sign yesterday during a visit to Factory_OS in Vallejo California. "Men and Women at Work" . when I posted this photo to Twitter @shaanHurley I got some replies saying it should have been now People at Work. I think People at Work would be great, but I personally believe this sign was intentionally including Women included in the sign wording. Read more →

Painting a Better Future

Friday during lunch, I picked up more interior paint for my home. I went with a recycled paint thinking it was good paint and the right thing to do. If nobody uses recycled paint what's the point of recycling the excess paint. Metro is an Oregon government entity that gathers up the paint from paint stores and municipal waste and recycling centers all over Oregon and then tests, mixes, and blends it to some selected colors as the brand Metropaint.... Read more →

Portland Oregon Had a Dusting of Snow Tuesday

Many locations on the West coast of the US that normally don't get snow, got it yesterday. It wasn't much, but enough to cause havoc and close schools. This morning is was 24 degrees Fahrenheit –brrr. They are saying a storm coming from Canada this weekend may blast us with cold air and up to 4 inches of snow. The neighbors, Hoffman Construction are constructing 5MLK building and let me know the state of their current work floor level is... Read more →

Doggydesk

I have been with Autodesk over 21 years, and two of my 3 children have grown up only knowing only Autodesk. Autodesk was founded back in 1982 and for most of that time we have had offices that allowed dogs in the employee office with some rules to assure safety and good behavior. My daughter when she was really young used to tell people that her daddy worked for “doggydesk”. It was always cute when she said it. This is... Read more →

We Do Research

My group within the Autodesk organization is changing its name from Office of the CTO (OCTO) and will now be known as Autodesk Research. OCTO for a group name is super geeky and reflects reporting structure but not what we do. We will be named Autodesk Research because research is what we do. We always had fun with the acronym of OCTO as an octopus mascot, but now the octopus is on to bigger and better things and will be... Read more →

What a Weekend with a Lunar Eclipse of the Super Blood Wolf Moon

What a long name, but an amazing and rare lunar event combination that won happen again for many years. I hiked up wearing show shoes on Oregon’s Mount Hood and sat up near the Palmer Glacier and cooked a dinner on my backpack stove and enjoyed the amazing show as the clouds parted to show a clear sky and big bright moon. The super full moon was so bright I didn't need any headlamp to hike in the snow and... Read more →

Pizza Economics and AutoCAD Fields

I read a startling research item by Mashable that may not have been apparent to everyone. It wasn't apparent to all of us Autodeskers who have a long tradition with Beer Busts at special events and Autodesk University. There is about 28 more square inches of pizza in the single 18” pizza (excluding the great stuffed crust debate). Yes, on a normal thin crust pizza you get more ordering the 18 inch pizza instead of 2 – 12 inch pizzas.... Read more →

FIRST FRC Mentor Day

Today is mentor day celebrating volunteer mentors for FIRST Robotics teams. I can speak as having been mentoring a FIRST FRC Team 1540 Flaming Chickens of Catlin Gabel in Portland Oregon for the past few years on why YOU should also get involved. The high school students tell me I help, but I'm not sure they are getting the better end of this volunteering deal as I get so much from being continually inspired by these students I could never... Read more →

Happy New Year

I hope you had an amazing end of 2018, and are starting 2019 with a renewed energy an excitement for what will come this new year. I spent my end of 2018 the same as last year solo hiking and goofing off on the beautiful Oregon coast. It was amazing that the normally foggy, windy, and rain weather for the past New Years has given way to amazing weather and sunset. I spent the last day out in the forest... Read more →

Happy Holidays

No matter the holiday you celebrate or not, I wanted to wish you a nice time as we at Autodesk begin our annual week of rest. We are taking off the time to see family, friends, and perhaps catch up on email and sleep. The Autodesk Portland Office is extremely festive thanks to our Enterprise Data Management Team filling our large data panels with fireplace videos and a drinking actor Nick Offerman running in a video loop instead of the... Read more →

My Autodesk Global Month of Giving - ChickTech

ChickTech is a non-profit organization supporting women and girls in tech with community, education, and inspiration. ChickTech is dedicated to retaining women in the technology workforce and increasing the number of women and girls pursuing technology-based careers. It’s a great group of people and cause and they just lost a major source of their funding and need everyone's help. I'm challenging everyone to help ChickTech as they are not just helping Portland young women to get into STEM careers, but... Read more →

Who Lives in a Pineapple Under the Sea

RIP ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ Creator Stephen Hillenburg. Myself and my kids always got a good laugh from SpongeBob cartoon episodes and the theme music was an earworm that would get stuck in your head “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea “SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!”. It is sad to hear the creator of this whimsical and loved series has passed. I even modeled SpongeBob in 3ds Max years ago for some fun. His legacy will live on in the hearts and minds... Read more →

Consider Helping Others

A couple weeks ago at Autodesk university I ran into a longtime friend and colleague. He was at AU with his wife and two cute young daughters. I found out his home was one of the thousands destroyed in Santa Rosa California last year. It was heartbreaking to hear all of the details of what he and his family went through, but it gets more difficult. Many like his family were left paying monthly mortgage payments for a home that... Read more →

O’l Blue Eye

It’s a funny and frustrating story, but perhaps it makes sense if you had seen me over the past year and wondered “why do Shaan’s eyeglasses have one blue tinted lens.” Last fall I got my annual eye exam and new eye prescription and when figuring out my glasses and lenses I was told to get a blue tint to reduce eye strain from reading electronic devices like computers and phones which emit blue light. It made sense as blue... Read more →

Paul Allen 1953 - 2018

The tech world and the US Pacific Northwest is reeling from the loss of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen yesterday. Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen died at 65 from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In addition to being the ideas person with Bill gates when they founded Microsoft, Paul Allen was also a huge philanthropist as well as a sports team owner of teams like NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and part owner of the Seattle’s Sounders soccer team. He... Read more →

Throwback Thursday Revit Style

think it change it build it Revit! I was recently gifted with some historical Revit early days shirts by Autodesk colleague and early Revit team member Rick Rundell. I believe the shirts are from the Revit 1.0 days circa 2000’ish. I'm going to give you a look as well as an opportunity to get one of these fine early 2000’s classic in BIM apparel.Imagine wearing this to your local Revit user group (not the child tee shirt as that might... Read more →

Sweet Layover Last Evening

On my flight back to my Portland Oregon home from Toronto I had a 55 minute layover in Salt Lake City. My kids live near there including my youngest, my amazing 17 year old daughter. My sweet daughter drove to the airport and waited outside security just to see her dad. Awe, that made my week. Sadness is the 3 bottles of fine Canadian maple syrup in my carry on baggage that I wouldn’t be able to carry back through... Read more →

What a Difference a Week Makes

The smoke from the west coast forest fires has cleared up in Portland Oregon. Here is a composited image from our Autodesk Portland office showing two weeks ago versus now. Read more →