Between the Lines

Wildfires Here

Lightning struck on August 1st, about 30 miles west of me in sunny Bend, Oregon starting what is now called the Cedar Creek Fire. Sadly it is a beautiful area surrounding a crystal clear water lake where kayaking you can see over 60 feet in visibility. Read more →

Between the Lines Blog and Coho the Dog Birthdays Today

This Between the Lines Blog is turning 21 years young today! This blog started in 2003 as an experiment, became very popular with thousands of unique page views a day 4389 posts 5389 comments, and over 20 million viewers. I have continually been blogging since launching even when on vacation, sick, sabbatical, or in the Amazon jungle. Thank you to everyone for reading and contributing to this blog over the years. If there is something I can do to improve or make your experience more entertaining, educational, or perhaps and Autodesk topic related guest blog post, please let me know with an email. August 21, 2003 Getting the feel for this Blog. My silver labrador pup named Coho also coincidently turns 1 years old today, at a bouncing playful 99 pounds. Thank you and I hope to see you in a month in New Orleans and Autodesk University 2022. #AU2022 Shaan's AU 2022 Events Notification List Autodesk Community Conversations at Autodesk University 2022 in Person and Online Autodesk University 2022 Free Digital Passes Read more →

My Labrador, Coho, Turns One Next Week August 21st

From 8 pounds when I got him and now Coho is a 99 pound Silver Labrador. He has been a real bonus and entertaining, active outdoor adventure buddy, and best friend addition to my life. I had no idea he was going to be this big, but that's ok with me if he can’t fit on my kayak or SUP. When he was a puppy, and ate much less. Read more →

Portland Adult Soapbox Derby is This Weekend

Portland Soapbox Adult Derby this Saturday, August 20th. This is the world’s largest gravity race event. I will keep you safe, laughing, and accepting high fives, snacks, and cold beverages. Read more →

2022 Portland Adult Soapbox Derby Course Marshal Again

Look out Portland! I will be the bullhorn & radio abusing course marshall again in top of the action-packed course section 4 aka “blood alley” at the 2022 Portland Soapbox Adult Derby Saturday, August 20th. #pdxsoapboxderby Read more →

Been Out for the Past Week for Holiday and Vacation

I really needed the downtime with so much going on. I spent the time with friends and Coho the 90-pound labrador puppy, projects around the house and garden, getting my dental implant reinserted (ouch), and a lot of time outdoors and on the rivers and lakes. A few photos from the outdoors portion of the week off since I'm fairly confident you weren't interested in photos of my dental implant issue, but just in case. Outdoors: Read more →

Down the Melting Neon Rabbit Hole of AI-Generated Art

I have recently been experimenting with a new technology, I know, I'm a techy geek and your are not shocked that I'm geeking out on something new. There are many new technologies harnessing AI to generate images based on words and instructions you feed it like Dall-E, Dall-E Mini aka CrAIon, and Midjourney. I got on the beta of Midjourney. Midjourney runs using Discord (desktop or mobile) as its interface using the bot to send the commands to their trained... Read more →

Hardware + Travel = Potential Problems

I have been limping along for 3 weeks after a series of multiple laptop hardware failures. The last one left me using only my phone for a week and a half and having to make several computer store trips in Lyft in Atlanta Georgia and so many phone calls with support personnel for the laptop manufacturer. Luckily I am back up and on good hardware with some redundancy plans now thanks to the Autodesk Hardware support team. So may posts... Read more →

Weekend Hike Along the Upper Deschutes

It has been about 4 weeks since my knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus. I have done great with little to no pain and getting back to everything active that I enjoyed before, and more. I hope to get back on my mountain bike and kayak this weekend. Last Sunday I took the big pup Coho for a 5-mile hike along the Upper Deschutes River. It is so beautiful along the river just a few miles from where I... Read more →

Daylight Savings Time

There are two things harder to reset than a clock with daylight savings time than a microwave, and that’s kids and dogs. My dog Coho a six month old 75 pound Silver Labrador is whining with his leash at 4 pm now, instead of 5 pm. Not even my microwave clock is this tough to reset forward an hour. Read more →

On the Mend

On Friday February 18th, 2022, I had, surgery to repair a tear in my left knee meniscus. I’m doing great, and even walking short distances now. Read more →

Bizarre Weather Year

Thursday was a record high temperature at 74 degrees in Bend Oregon on February 10. It is normally a high of 30-40 degrees for the high temperature. We have had geese migrating back north, honeybees out, trees blooming, and even a few hungry mosquitoes biting us humans. Bizarre weather for early February, and two months ahead of when the weather and nature’s spring activity would occur. I had a few feet of snow at my house just three weeks ago... Read more →

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 →