Talk-Polywell.org

... Thank God Almighty I'll be retiring in May. My wife finally delivered her notice to her employer, so I can go public. My employer had already been told to expect it.

Actually, its a career change, back to consulting. All by choice. It really is nice to get your life arranged for minimal expenses with enough squirreled away to feel no fear about the future. What Simon says about the relationship between fear and freedom is true.

My first tweaks to my personal website are up. Not much content change so far. I do notice a lot of new hits over about the last week, as word and hints have leaked out.

I hope to be able to support fusion, but am also interested in energy efficiency. One piece of new equipment just purchased is a FLIR i7 Thermal Imager, which has been quite a hit at work. They NEED one.

I also expect to set up an HDTV studio, maybe make some documentaries or STEM instructional videos.

http://www.tomligon.com/atehome.html

Planning a long vacation as well?

Not a long vacation, but probably a summer of carpentry and dry-wall. I'd come to the realization that I was going to be a cube-rat for life at my job of the last ten years. Its a good company, but when I signed on we were a little start-up of 20-ish people. Now they're on the high side of 160, inside of an international corporation with 20,000 people. I've lost count and no longer know what everyone does, whereas in the early days I knew everyone and every chip in every product.

I've vowed to have my own office, my own lab, not go begging for tools and instruments, expect my chair to be where I left it, and above all, to never again have to carry a company ID card so my co-workers will know I work there. Plus, once we move to the mountain cabin for good, the commute will be a 30-meter walk. Mind you, the mailbox will be about 3 miles round trip, but a good workout on a bicycle, uphill all the way home.

I expect to spend most of the rest of the year in construction, training, and IR&D.

Ah, to be excited at the prospect of engineering again! As opposed to butting heads with people who all think it is their job to tell me I'm doing mine all wrong. "Oh, we can't release that procedure. You used Ariel 10 instead of Calibri 11, and your indents are wrong."

The FLIR will be used for assorted heat storage studies, among other things. I'm already stocked with thermocouples, will be expanding my data acquisition capacity, and just got my first heat flow sensor to play around with. I'm planning a special-purpose guarded hot plate as my first project ... a technology demonstrator to hopefully produce a couple of white papers and show people what I can do.

Sounds really great. You're living the dream I have for my own retirement.

Congrats Tom!

Sweet!

I am very happy for you and your wife.

Will you get a bicycle with gears for the mail run?

I have a 3x7 mountain bike., but I have not ridden it in years. For about a year the 3x7 was loaned out to a cute little French girl interning with our company.

I will probably use it to determine the proper gearing, but then swap chainring and rear sprocket on the 1971 Schwinn cruiser. The old Schwinn is not actually singlespeed, it just has one gear for any given ride. The rest stay in a box on a shelf.

Ahh. I did not know about the box.

Congrats on the "promotion", Tom.

Its amazing how useful a thermal imager can be. We use one at work (an i60) to check breakers and in-use power outlets for issues. Its saved us from some potential problems, an may have paid already for itself already.

Any plans for building something in the barn? A birdie told me the barn has some heavy beams, good for supporting some serious weight......

Great news Tom, best to you and yours. BTW that Mcdermmit writer (Deepsix) wrote a lot of books, pretty good stuf, I read most of them.

Between Jack McDevitt and Charles Sheffield, I've seen my name used in more SF novels than I've written. One of my goals is to fix that problem.

Maybe I'll make a Ligon Converter to process fusion fuel?

The garage will not blow away in a stiff breeze, that's for sure. I spotted the foundation today on Bing Maps.

I am so happy to hear that, Tom!
All the best for your retirement and future endeavours!

Congratulations Tom and Mrs Ligon!

If you have a fast enough internet connection, get a few cameras in the workshop and give the public a live show on occasion: http://www.justin.tv/home

I would watch that like Discovery Channel.

The cabin is incommunicado at the moment. No phone, no internet, and no cell service (it is a mile inside the northern border of the National Radio Quiet Zone, and a notorious dead zone). However, I believe I can legally use Wild Blue. That is not a lot of bandwidth, so live camera feeds are probably out until Frontier gets off their butts and gets fiber optics in there.

I do intend to have a high-def TV studio in the lab, though, and will probably make a short or two for Facebook once I get it set up. I'd like to get good at making professional-quality documentaries.

Tom,
Try not to piss off your neighbours at Sugar Grove. If they find out I know you...