Five Years Ago Yesterday

Five years ago yesterday I returned home to Tucson after a 14 month exile in Las Vegas.  I have not been back to Las Vegas since and if I never see that place again I'm fine with it.  I really hated living there, and if you've been a longtime reader of this blog you'll know that my pet name for that place is "Trashcan".

Anyway, some good came from that, although some of that good wasn't realized until much later.   I might not now have my present job if it weren't for my being up there and working where I worked.  That company went out of business almost a year ago, and I could spill some beans, but I won't.  I've got co-workers where I'm at now who were my co-workers up there, and those who were let go last March got letters threatening them with lawsuits if they said too much.  I never got that letter but I'm not saying very much as it is.  I don't need to.  The reputation of that place is forever trashed.

Meanwhile, I am enjoying my job and I can't remember ever enjoying a job this much.  The people that we have are what makes this.  The culture is that everyone goes out of their way to help everyone else, and what this does is create a feedback loop to where success is the rule and not the exception.  I can't understand why more companies don't see this.  My first employer here in Tucson runs anyone 55 and over out of the company (they do keep a few older dudes for tokens).  A major aerospace firm that you've heard of but I won't name runs people out when they hit 35.  Big tech?  Almost all of the companies in Silicon Valley has that kind of practice.  Well, enough of that.

Weather here in sunny southern Arizona has been very good lately.  I sometimes take the company laptop out on the back patio and work there during the afternoons.  In a few weeks the evenings will get warmer and I will likely be out there longer.

On another front, I think I might be going thru a second childhood.  I spent the past few weeks learning some of the advanced features on my 2 meter (ham radio) handheld.  I knew it could function as a scanner, and I started playing around with that some.  Before I knew it I was programming aircraft and business channels into it and learning the memory bank features.  I even started, just for grins, spotting aircraft, looking up their tail numbers online, and spreadsheeting them.  I then did some online research, found that Uniden/Bearcat had discontinued an analog model last year, but you could still get some new from some dealers that had them still in stock.

I placed an order, it arrived this week, and now I'm learning how to use this radio.  It too is a handheld, but does not transmit.  The Yaesu FT60R (handheld) will scan some frequencies that the Bearcat won't, and vice versa.  They each have different sets of bells and whistles too.  

Now I find myself wanting a digital scanner, as well as a handheld digital ham radio.  I use 2 meters to chat with some local friends, but in the digital realm there are three different systems.  DMR, or Digital Mode Radio, System Fusion by Yaesu, and D-STAR by Icom (and now Kenwood).  D-STAR, from my research, is the most difficult to program.  System Fusion is easier, but I'm not sure of what the repeater infrastructure for that system is.  With DMR I might have to set up a hotspot.....the radio would link with the hotspot, the hotspot to other hotspots, and then talkgroups with other ham radio operators.

I don't know enough about the talkgroups to know if I really want to venture that.  Yet, radio is a neat thing, and I like the idea of owning lots of radios.  Yes, they're toys, and I like my toys.  Oh, and there's a portable shortwave I'm looking at too.  It's all good and it's all fun.

Anyway, I haven't forgotten about my surgery.  I have a few more days before I get the COVID test and I find myself getting out of the house at least once per day before I test.  Quarantine isn't exactly my idea of fun, but the toys should make it more bearable.