Sharing my engineering experience has been a fire in me for thirty years.  My children have all graduated and are moving on, and I now have an opportunity to create my American dream.  Electronics has been my passion since I was a young boy.  I’d dream of cool gadgets and widgets that would make James Bond proud.  I was one of the lucky ones.  I’ve always known what I was cut out to do in this world.  I would like to dedicate my very first blog to the two heroes that have inspired me in this life, my grandfather and Nikola Tesla. 

Where to start … Without a doubt the single most influential person in my life was my grandfather.  He was the most compassionate, thought-provoking man I’ve ever met.  He had an insatiable desire to learn about everything.  Even at the ripe old age of 90, he still had that teenage twinkle in his eye as he educated himself on topics such as self-improvement, the theories of space and infinity, evolution, etc.  To the end, he was a Renaissance man.  He bought me my first two electronic books, and penned words of encouragement in them for me, back in the early 80’s.  They were simple yet thoughtful.  These books, along with my inquisitive mind, put me on a journey which I have never regretted.  I was lucky to find my passion at an early age.  I would just like to say:  thank you Pap, your fire and zest for life burn deep inside of me. 

My second hero is Nikola Tesla.  As engineers, we all know of his amazing technical capacity.  If you get the chance I would strongly recommend picking up a copy of Margaret Cheney’s Tesla: Man Out of Time.  After reading this, I was convinced that Tesla dabbled in almost every modern invention there ever was.  The man was brilliant.  Tesla enjoyed the pleasure of breaking problems down into their fundamental pieces and solving them.  He, like my grandfather, was a purist driven by knowledge.  It’s a beautiful thing when that lightbulb goes off in your head after months, sometimes years, of not understanding something … there is NOTHING quite like that.  We’ve all had those moments of enlightenment.  Do you recall how it felt?  I’d like to challenge each one of you next time to stop, if just for a moment, and revel in the glory of knowing you just solved a formidable task.  Congratulations! You just saw the light.  You just saw the Spark!