Attending a Jeopardy taping, Masters style!

Note: I'm skipping over a lot of the basic bits about attending a Jeopardy taping, since that was all covered in an earlier post you can read here.

Ever since we attended our first Jeopardy taping last year, we have been on a mailing list that announces upcoming opportunities to attend another one. What we had attended previously was a standard show - the contestants were totally unknown by us. We both felt that it would be fun to see a taping of a special show; maybe a Celebrity Jeopardy episode or a Tournament of Champions episode. Normally though, they don't tell you what sort of show will be taping.

Last week we got an email announcing ticket availability for the taping of the Masters tournament - we were surprised they were that specific!

The timing wasn't ideal - there were things going on that week that meant this would have to be a quick trip, plus we were heading to Yosemite the following week (not a problem for Mrs Notthat, but for Mr Notthat, that's a lot of traveling and excitement in a short period of time). After talking about it, we signed up for the Wednesday morning shift (a bit unusual - there were three shifts on Wednesday, which works out well mathematically since there are six contestants that open with a round-robin style first round). We were actually going to see the very first two games of the tournament, and would get to see all six players*. 

This was going to be so cool.

Big differences from last time

By far the biggest change was that there were no longer any COVID issues. (Last year we had to prove we were vaccinated and wear a mask at all times in the studio.) 

Another change was that we had to sign an NDA where we promised not to disclose anything about the games we watched. (The games we watched will broadcast on May 1, so we don't have to wait nearly as long as we did last time to see them.) It's possible I'll say things in this post that they would rather I didn't say, but I think I'm pretty safe. (I will be watching for black helicopters though.)

Pre-taping bits

Last time, we arrived about an hour early, and sat around until our scheduled arrival time before anything started happening. (I remember not even being sure we were in the right place - there wasn't anyone around to ask.)

This time, we arrived about 25 minutes early (our scheduled time was 9:45). There were a LOT of people already there and many had already been checked in and received their wristbands! (My guess is that this was only because we were the first shift - later shifts likely didn't work that efficiently.) 

There were people that showed up after us, and I suspect some of them did not get in to the taping (they overbook, just like the airlines). The moral is to get there at least 30 minutes early.

The line to check in.

We filled out the NDA, showed our tickets, and got our blue wristband. (Orange wristbands meant you were someone pretty special, probably a contestant's immediate family or something like that. Purple wristbands meant you were also pretty special. Orange and purple people got in to the studio first. Blue wristbands were ushered in last and placed where ever there were were seats to be filled.

It feels like if your nickname is The Lightning Bolt, standing in a line shouldn't be a thing.

Mrs Notthat is really good at recognizing people. She gasped a bit when she realized that standing in front of us, with a purple wristband, was none other that Brandon "The Lightning Bolt" Blackwell, who we knew from the show The Chase. He also won the Jeopardy Teen tournament back in 2008, and had been in the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament that just finished (he did not win it). It was cool to see him there, just like a normal person. But with a purple wristband.

The metal detector line and a photo op of sorts. Plus, a bonus celebrity!

The next step was to stand in the line to go through a metal detector. I like to take pictures of people taking pictures, so I grabbed the above shot. The amazing thing is that woman in the brown jacket you see looking off to the left, just ahead of the guy in the white shirt. She is none other than Alison Betts - at the time of me writing this, she is a five-game winner in the normal tournament that is currently being broadcast. It was great to see her there, but it was also a bit odd since mortals have no idea how long she is going to keep going (her episodes were taped at least a month ago - it's possible she is pulling a Ken and is still going, or she lost at some point).  Once we were in the studio, we recognized a few other previous contestants. That was pretty cool!

Waiting to get to hike to the studio, looking at the Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune store.

After we got through the metal detector, we were sent over to a visitor area that was connected to a store with lots of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune stuff. Last time we were here, I remember being surprised that there wasn't a merch store - I now realize that there was one, it was just closed due to COVID restrictions. 

We stood around there for a while before we were organized into color groups; the orange people headed out first, then the purple, and finally us blues. (Tip: We had no idea what was going to happen as we were milling around there. Knowing what I know now, as a blue person, I would hang out near the far wall, like you were going to the toilet, as close to the toilet doors as possible. Those ended up being the first blue people to get seated - earlier seating gets you a better seat, but man, all the seats were pretty good.)

The masses heading to the studio. The orange and purple people are WAY out front. We were nearly at the very end of the blue line.

Once we reached the studio, we ended up standing around for quite a bit. Mrs Notthat chose to soak up some sun.

It's a bit of a walk to the studio. We had a fair amount of time to stand around outside the studio once we got there, so I asked one of the people herders what they did if it was raining - they don't want to have to deal with dripping-wet people or umbrellas. It turns out they use a shuttle bus to drive people to the studio, and it is a LOT more work for them. Fortunately, that does not happen very often.

Finally going in to the studio.

We were told MANY times that you can't take pictures in the studio, and they really wanted people to turn their phones off. When I took the above picture, it triggered a new round of "no more pictures" warnings. 

Once you are in the studio, there are a number of people keeping an eye on all of us - I suspect you could probably take a picture or two if you are particularly sneaky, but there was no way I was going to take that chance - I'm sure you would be told to leave.

The actual taping

So that's about it - there's really not much I can say. 

The actual taping goes pretty fast. There are times you desperately want to yell out the answer/question, but holy cow would that cause trouble. Since this was a Masters Tournament, there were more odd shots and such that had to be done, so it took longer to get through the two shows than we had expected. (Ken also had to redo a number of lines that had not quite gone perfectly the first time. Also, there were shots of family members in the stands, which took a surprising amount of time to capture.)

One funny thing - Jimmy McGuire, former member of the Clue Crew who is now a kind of MC for the taping, was busy doing his thing, keeping the audience pumped and coordinating between the host, contestants, and the crew. At one point, I heard him refer to Mr. Jennings as "Kenny." I have no idea why this struck me as super odd (it's possible there is a member of the crew that he calls Kenny just to differentiate between him and Mr. Jennings, but I'm pretty sure he was referring to Mr. Jennings). Ken has always just been Ken - calling him Kenny or Kenneth just had never occurred to me before.

After the taping

One thing that happened while we had so much time standing around, was that Mrs Notthat found out that there was a studio tour in the afternoon at 1:30. We figured that we would be done with the taping in plenty of time to get some lunch then go on the tour. (My biggest worry about the tour was that it would make our escape from LA a lot more challenging since it would put us closer to rush hour. My biggest worry was reasonably justified.)

Our tour passes.

As it turned out, we got back to the parking garage from the taping just in time to check in for the tour and head out on it. (I was really glad we had eaten a big breakfast.)

The tour was fine - lots of interesting bits and such - but I had trouble not thinking about the traffic steadily getting worse and worse. 

Outside of the John Williams Music Building, which contains the Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage. I loved that big red treble clef!

Then a surprising fun thing - as a souvenir, they took a picture of each of us in front of a green screen and super-imposed us over a Jeopardy backdrop later. The coincidence of the Jeopardy bit and us having just sat through a Jeopardy taping was pretty impressive.

The photographer took a second shot saying that if we had won Jeopardy, we wouldn't look so surprised, but I can assure you that if we won Jeopardy, we would be very surprised. I was glad they printed this one.

Another kind of funny thing - while on the tour, our guide was informed that there would likely be some openings for the 4 PM Jeopardy shift** - Mrs Notthat really wanted to do that, and it would have been fun to see, but it meant getting a really late start for heading up north and going another couple of hours without food or water. I don't do that well without food and water for that long of a time. Also, our goal was to get at least a couple hours towards home - we really needed to get back by mid-afternoon the next day, and this would make that much harder to do. So we passed on that 4 PM shift.

And that's about it. After the tour, we took surface streets to get on the Pacific Coast Highway (highway 1) to get out of town. It would have worked out pretty well except there was a massive slowdown at one point due to a lane being closed by a landslide that looks to have been there for a while.

It was a quick trip, but a successful one. We will have to do this again in the future.

That's it - move along…

* The Masters contestants are:

• Matt Amodio
• James Holzhauer
• Mattea Roach
• Yogesh Raut
• Victoria Groce
• Amy Schneider

** They normally don't want you to attend multiple tapings on the same day, but we were told that in this case, it would be fine since we weren't going to be taking a spot from someone else. Probably. 

PS: If you are interested in attending a Jeopardy taping, click here to get details and dates that are available. (There are lots of shows taping in May.)

Kaya never saved Timmy

Note: This is kind of long, but there are a lot of pictures. It also could be triggering if you've ever suffered the loss of a loved dog or cat.

Kaya was a great dog. She never rescued a baby from a burning building, she never warned us that Timmy had fallen in a well*, and she had never learned to pick up her own poop.

No, her superpower was that she could eat. And weirdly, in addition to the normal things dogs eat, she loved to eat broccoli stems, asparagus ends, and bananas.

Her second superpower was being exuberantly adorable.

OK - this may be her being a bit too adorable.

Back in October of 2011, we were finally ready to adopt a new big dog, following the loss of our previous big dog, Teddy. You can read about him here. 

We found Kaya from a post on Craig's List. She was a one-year-old black lab/boxer mix - the family that she was with was having to move to a place that didn't allow pets, so she desperately had to find a new home. We loved her from that first meeting - she was definitely a full grown puppy with a ton of energy.

Mrs Notthat on Kaya's gotcha day, being a bit surprised by the length of her tongue!

The grandkids really liked playing with her.

A very young second-born grandkid losing at tug-of-war.

We were pretty active with trail races and hiking/running, and that fit right into Kaya's wheelhouse - she was a pretty good trail runner.

Mrs Notthat trying to keep up with Kaya.

Kaya's kryptonite was the sun though. All that black fur made direct sunshine her mortal enemy.

Kaya had had enough on this hike.

She ran a number of 5Ks with us. I tried to run a sunny 10K with her once that involved two loops (one of the races at the Brazen Dirty Dozen event in 2016). As we were finishing the first loop, she was excited and practically sprinting to the finish, where she knew there was food. A LOT of food. When I turned and started heading back away from the finish for the second loop, she put an end to that nonsense.

Kaya finding some shade and being perfectly content with a 5K. "Bring me some BBQ!"

About a year and a half after Kaya joined our family, we added Princess - an obnoxious little fur ball that easily matched Kaya's energy, but with about a quarter of the brains. They got along great together, with Princess absolutely convinced that she was Kaya's big sister.

Kaya and Princess sensing that there is food somewhere in the house.

One of Kaya's favorite things to do was splash in water.

Mrs Notthat and granddog Dove avoiding the puddle. Kaya wondering why it's not a bigger puddle.

She loved going for walks after a rain when the curbs were filled with water - she would just splash along in them as happy as a fish.

Kaya never understood why some water tasted so salty. This was with the grandkids, Mrs Notthat, and Princess, who would go through a lot of trouble to avoid touching water.

Kaya did really well around other dogs, although as she got older, she could get a bit cranky around high energy dogs, especially once she started to lose her hearing - she didn't like getting surprised.

Kaya with the old arrow-through-the-neck gag.

One fun thing was that she mostly tolerated the cats that we added in 2017.

Kaya sharing her bed with, believe it or not, our cat named Kaya! We didn't name either of them, but were astonished how this worked out.

Back in July of 2023, a little sore spot appeared on Kaya's belly that we didn't think too much of. At first we had her wear a shirt to discourage her from licking it, then finally switched to a cone once it became apparent that she was still licking it too much and it wasn't healing as fast as we thought it should.

Kaya trying to be a Giants fan, but man, where was their offense?

At first, the spot seemed to be healing, although maybe that was wishful thinking on our part. In the end, the spot kept slowly growing. Kaya did not seem the least bit bothered by it, other than wanting to lick it. She was still her normal active self - it was amazing how puppy-like she would act for a dog that was around fourteen years old!

Me bravely walking our two dogs and our granddog, Jax.

Kaya found a puddle!

Somewhere around this time, her vet started her on some medications and an ointment for the spot.

Kaya, Princess, and Mango all coexisting on the deck at the end of summer.

 

Kaya in a shirt and cone. She did not enjoy the cone, but it seemed to bother her a lot less than it would have bothered me.

By December, it became clear that the spot wasn't going to heal, and arrangements were made to get it removed, which happened in January. That's when we learned that it was cancerous, and that likely more would be appearing over time. But also, it appeared that it was pretty isolated just to that area, so maybe we would get a break for a bit.

Kaya generally refused to lay completely on her bed - for reasons that only made sense to her, she generally liked to lay half on/half off of it. 

We didn't get much of a break.

Within a couple of weeks a new spot started up. Unlike the last one, this one grew fairly fast, and its location made it a bit uncomfortable for Kaya to do one of the things she loved most that didn't involve food - walks around the block. So we set up another appointment to get it removed. The weekend before the second surgery, Kaya was acting very normal until Sunday evening, when it was like a switch had been flipped.

She suddenly found it difficult to stand or walk. She wasn't hungry. Even laying down, it seemed to be a struggle to get comfortable. I took her to the vet on Monday morning and a quick check revealed that the cancer had spread internally. A lot. 

Kaya resting her head on my hand while at the vet. She was so ready to be done.

I was glad I got to be with her at the end. I had to carry her from the house to the car, and once we got there, lift her out of the car, but surprisingly, she was able to walk into a little grassy area and pee a bit. Then, even more surprisingly, she walked into the office - it was like she was determined to be dignified while out in public, and getting carried by me was very not dignified.

Once it was all over and I left the room, the first thing I noticed were the candles at the front desk. I had noticed them on previous visits but had never seen them lit - there was a sign explaining that if they were lit, someone was having a very bad day and to please be respectful. 

Seeing them lit as I left nearly broke me. If people were wondering who was having a very bad day, they certainly were able to figure it out at that point. 

Then, a final funny thing (at least to me) happened. When I left the vet office, I saw a trail of poop balls from the little grassy area to the curb by the front door. I thought that was odd, and then it dawned on me that those were a last gift from Kaya, left as she walked, with her dignity, from the grassy area to the office. I grabbed a bag and picked them up, knowing that it was weird that this was making things a bit better.

The grand old girl Kaya saying goodbye. But she still wanted to know who Timmy was. And what a well was, for that matter.

It's so hard when a loved four-legged family member leaves. There is a huge hole left in the house. 

Princess knows something has happened, but seems OK. She is also getting up there in years (twelve or thirteen - nobody really knows), but being a little dog, and a mutt, she is still very healthy and active. She will get a lot more walks now (I couldn't bring myself to take her out for a walk while leaving Kaya at home once Kaya got to the point where walks weren't possible). She is still fine with longer distances - I'm going to try her out in a 5K on Saturday and see how she does (we can easily stop at the halfway point, but I doubt that will be an issue).

Heavy sigh…

Hug your fur babies. A lot.

That's it - move along…

* For you kids, this is a reference to an old trope that Lassie, a collie on a TV show named after her, often would come dashing into the house, letting the parents know that their idiot son, Timmy, had fallen into a well. Apparently there never was an episode where that happened, although Lassie letting the parents know that Timmy was in trouble really did happen remarkably often.

A 2023 Notthatlucas running wrap-up

Mrs Notthat and I basically stayed the course in 2023, with our running resumé looking very much like 2022. We did take a few trips (some planned, some not so planned) that cost us a few weekends, but still managed to be around a lot running events.

Let's start with some fairly boring details.

Mrs Notthat

• Total events participated in (running or volunteering): 39
• Total Byxbee parkrun events: 34
• Total Brazen events: 3 (Coyote Hills, Rocky Ridge, and Quarry Turkey)
• Total other events: 2 (Wharf to Wharf and Xterra Lake Tahoe)
• Total miles run: 120.8

With regards the Byxbee parkrun events, Mrs Notthat ran 33 of them - for one she only volunteered. For seven of those she ran, she also got a volunteer credit (parking marshal, first timer's briefing, or tail walker).

Me

• Total events participated in (running or volunteering): 47
• Total Byxbee parkrun events: 39
• Total Brazen events: 4 (Coyote Hills, Bear Creek, Rocky Ridge, and Quarry Turkey)
• Total other events: 4 (Schoolhouse Rock, Western States 100 [volunteer], Wharf to Wharf, and Xterra Lake Tahoe)
• Total miles run: 99.1 (Seriously? I couldn't find another 0.9 miles to run somewhere?)

With regards the Byxbee parkrun events, I ran 23 of them - for 16 I only volunteered (course marshal, time keeper, and RD [eight times!]). 

The event that wasn't

One race that's left out of all of this was the Brazen NYD event, which is the one Brazen event that I've never missed since it's first one in 2010. Sadly, the ridiculously wild winter weather forced that event to be cancelled due to mudslides, flooding, and extensive trail damage. The Brazen NYE event was allowed to happen the day before, but the rangers quickly regretted that as the weather rapidly got out of hand.

Picture by Nywdlab (not his real name) from the Brazen 2022 New Year's Eve event. That is not supposed to be a creek crossing.

Picture by Nywdlab (not his real name) from the Brazen 2022 New Year's Eve event. At least the trail (if you can find it) is paved at this point. That bench got little use that day.

So it was wise to cancel the race set for the next day.

Some Byxbee parkrun stuff

Byxbee parkrun continued to be our primary running event. (Click here to read my thing all about parkrun.)

In 2022, they had 52 events and averaged 61.1 runners per event (3175 total) - two events had over 90 participants. 

That changed a lot in 2023 - there were 53 events and an average of 100.1 runners in each (5305 total) - one soggy event only had 27, but there were a stunning 39 events with over 90 runners and 31 over 100, with two topping 140! 

This increase meant the event had to add a few more volunteers to keep things flowing - there are now 14 to 15 volunteers for each event. Fortunately, the parkrun community has stepped up and managed to fill those spots.

From July 22 - "two two" day where we are encouraged to wear tutus!

I finally reached my 50 run parkrun milestone in April (Mrs Notthat had hit it in November 2022, and will likely hit 100 in 2024). I likely won't get to 100 until 2025.

The other milestone we hit was the 25 volunteering one. We take different approaches to volunteering, with all of mine being with no run credit, while nearly all of MrsNotthat's were done so that she could get both a run and volunteer credit (as mentioned earlier). I'm currently more focussed on hitting the 50 volunteer milestone (I'm currently at 41) than the 100 run one.

Me as the far course marshal, with the Duck of Turnaround.

One of our goals is to run a few other parkrun events around the country. While Byxbee is the only parkrun in California, there are 64 others scattered around the country. And MANY more around the world. It would be fun to see how some others do it.

Some Brazen Racing stuff

One afteraffect of the pandemic is that Mrs Notthat and I have gotten a bit lazy when it comes to trail races. Many require us to get up very early to drive an hour or so to get to them - the pandemic eliminated that requirement and we really got used to not having to get up absurdly early on weekends. 

But, man - there is nothing like the atmosphere of a reasonably large trail race, with the stresses and anticipation of longer distances and challenging terrain. Byxbee also has a great atmosphere, but it's much more casual and low key. And sometimes it's nice to stretch out to a 10K or fight through some hills.

Fortunately, Brazen has several events that are reasonably close to us, which still means getting up a bit early, but not that much earlier than Byxbee. And we are able to get our large trail race fix. 

It was weird how that cranberry smelled like mayonnaise.

In addition to going to a few of their closer races, we drove to the legendary Rocky Ridge event - home of one of the toughest Half Marathons around (we ran the 5K, which is also pretty tough) - since it was Brazen's 300th event!

Mrs Notthat, our daughter Weird Haired Mom, her boyfriend Nhoj (not his real name) and his Oscar the wiener dog, and me. And we even spelled "300" correctly!

Brazen doesn't (at least publicly that I know of) track milestones. 

But I have a spreadsheet.

When I heard that The Canadian (Enirehtak, not her real name) had managed to finish her 300th Brazen event, I decided to go see how many Mrs Notthat and I had done. Counting the 2024 New Year's Day event, I've been at (either running or volunteering) 194 events (17 as a volunteer), and I have a reasonable chance to get to 200 in 2024. (This is out of 307 events they have put on. Mrs Notthat is up to 168.)

The other runs

As always, volunteering at the Last Chance aid station at the Western States Endurance Run was one of the highlights of the year. 

Eidnam, not her real name, getting the Last Chance Car Wash experience.

A surprise event was what we will always think of as the Ringo Starr 5K. We drove up to Lake Tahoe to see Ringo and his All Starr Band for a Friday night concert. Because I can't help myself, I poked around a bit to see if there were any running events going on, and indeed, there was the Xterra Lake Tahoe 5K on Sunday!

Mrs Notthat and I both won age group awards (the pint glasses). I am not going to mention that, as it turned out, everyone that ran the 5K ended up winning an age group award. 

And for the first time in several years, we ran the Wharf to Wharf race in Santa Cruz. Mrs Notthat manage to talk Anrapa and Immas (not their real names) into joining us!

The four of us along with nearly 16,000 others playing at the Capitola Beach!

And lastly, The Canadian talked me into running the Schoolhouse Rock 5K on the Sunday after having run Byxbee parkrun. This was hard for me, but really fun since we got to see several Byxbee regulars there as well!

The Canadian and I before we started at Schoolhouse Rock 5K.

Wrapping up (finally)

All of our runs were 5Ks, except two 10Ks for me and one for Mrs Notthat (I will always consider Wharf to Wharf to be a 10K, even if it is slightly short). My hope for 2024 is to add a few more 10Ks, and maybe even a Half Marathon or two, to the mix. I'd love to recover some of my lost "speed" as well. Those kinds of goals require more training than I've been doing, and now that I'm retired, I'm hoping to be able to do that necessary training.

Although sitting in a recliner and watching game shows is pretty attractive…

That's it - move along…

CH- CH- CH- CHAAAANGES! Probably a good thing. But I really don't like changes.

[Note: This is going to be long and boring with very few interesting pictures. Honestly, there are much better ways to spend your time than reading this.] [Although there might be a few interesting bits here and there.] [Probably not though.]

Back in June of 1977, I graduated from the San Juan Basin Vocational-Technical School's two-year Electronics program. We spent as much time learning about vacuum tubes as transistors, and a very small amount of time learning about those newfangled integrated circuits. And no time learning about microprocessors since, for the most part, they didn't exist. 

I studied and got my First Class FCC license, which meant I could legally work at any broadcast station. But mostly I learned to fix TVs and other electronic things. I loved (and still love) having that as a super power, although it makes me sad that many things are no longer repairable.

Our class of '77 that went to Denver for FCC certification tests. (I'm in the center back row.) We made the local newspaper!!!

When I graduated, I went to Colorado Springs where my buddy Kcir (not his real name) was already working. I looked in the help wanted section of the newspaper and saw an ad for an employment agency. I went there and they set up two interviews for me: A long shot one with a company that was really picky and another with a store that needed someone to install car audio bits and CB radios.

I still have a CB radio (collecting dust in the garage). I was "The Cosmic Cowboy" in southwest Colorado. I once talked to the Rubber Duck - CW McCall!

The long shot worked out (much to the surprise of the employment agency), and the rest is some odd definition of history.

It has always boggled my mind that I managed to convert my vo-tech education, that included absolutely no writing classes, into a job as a technical writer for Apple Inc. Granted, this didn't happen overnight, but this is not how you envision career arcs to work.

I'll get into that career arc in a bit, but the main news is that I'm now retired. After a bit over 46 years working various jobs in the tech industry, I'm now able to just sit in a recliner and watch game shows all day. My initial goal was to wait until I turned 65 and could get Medicare, but then I realized that a more practical goal was to wait until Mrs. Notthat turned 65 (yes, I robbed the cradle a tiny bit - I'm nearly a year older than her). That happened this spring, and I finally took the leap at the end of November.

This wasn't a slam dunk of a decision - I had a pretty sweet setup, getting to work full-time from home on things that were mostly interesting and challenging. But I was noticing that I didn't attack new challenges with as much zeal as I used to. It was becoming harder for me to do some of the more boring and tedious bits of the job. 

But it's done. I flipped the table and walked out on November 30. 

There was a cake. A REALLY nice cake. It was not on the flipped table.

OK, let's get to that career arc thing.

June 1977: Ampex Corporation (Colorado Springs)

This was that long-shot job. There is an excellent chance you've never heard of Ampex Corporation. There is an even better chance that you have benefited in one way or the other from the things they invented. 

The area they hired me to work in was as an electronic technician on their new one-inch video tape recorders. (Up to this point, broadcasters had to rely on video tape recorders the size of a Ford Pinto that used two-inch wide tape - these were reel-to-reel machines where an hour of tape could weigh 30 pounds.)

Ampex VPR 1 one-inch video tape recorder - my introduction to professional video!

This was well before VHS or Betamax. 

After a year or so, I started getting opportunities to travel a bit for work - I spent several month-long stints in the Bay Area (where the Ampex headquarters was) helping to bring up new products. I even spent a month in Rome, Italy as a try out for being a field service engineer there (I bailed on that after realizing I wasn't as much of a hotshot as I thought I was). 

Finally, in…

August 1980: Ampex Corporation (Bethesda Maryland)

… I took the leap and became a field service engineer for the Mid-Atlantic region. This was an awesome job (for a while). I quickly knew where all the TV stations were in the area (Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and DC), as well as all the government facilities that had Ampex equipment (there were a LOT). There are many stories I could tell from this period, from having my company car stolen on April 1 (it made the news), being quickly ushered into a safe room due to an "issue" at the US Chamber of Commerce, spending enough time at the CIA headquarters that they got me a badge, spending enough time at the Pentagon to be able to find my way around proficiently (and standing in the center area while a newly elected Reagan gave a speech) - this was not a dull place to work.

It has always amazed me how often name gets spelled incorrectly.

Better than all of that though, is that this is where I met the soon-to-be Mrs Notthat - she worked in the same field office. Soon enough, our daughter (destined to be Weird Haired Mom) was born (oh man - another story) and the erratic-ness of the job got to be a challenge.

So in…

November 1984: Ampex Corporation (Redwood City California)

… I became an instructor, teaching one or two week classes to people that bought our stuff, showing them how to use and repair it. This position involved a fair amount of travel, often for two or three weeks at a time, but it was almost never spur of the moment type travel - it was planned and manageable. Occasionally Mrs Notthat and WHM got to come along on the international trips.

The sign along 101 that had been there forever, which is sadly now gone.

This was a pretty awesome job, but Ampex started to flounder a bit (they had totally missed the boat on consumer video recording, even though they held many critical patents on the process, and were missing the boat on the new digital TV boom that was just starting). So in…

September 1987: Abekas Video Systems (Redwood City California)

… I was lured away to an upstart competitor that was formed by three previous Ampex people - a company that there is even less of a chance you have heard of - Abekas. 

A fun thing was that, in addition to teaching classes much as I had at Ampex, I actually got a computer, and for the first time, started writing user manuals. (Ventura Publisher ring any bells for any of you? This was pre-Windows.) I still did a lot of travel, but the writing bit was a nice change. I had no real background in writing at all, but there was a great editor there that was able to point out how bad I was at this, but even better, point out ways I could get better.

One thing that happened after a few years was that I became a manager over a few people. Any of you that have successfully managed people, especially while doing a real job at the same time, are heroes. That was a rough time for me - I really didn't enjoy writing reviews and such and I didn't enjoy working with budgets. 

But I got better at it. I learned some survival skills. And then in…

December 1998: Accom Inc. (Menlo Park California)

… Abekas was bought by Accom, which was interesting since Accom was largely founded by the same people that founded Abekas (but had been bought out of Abekas by another company a few years previously). 

Many at Abekas were laid off at this point, and I was actually hoping to be one of them. But I was retained. I told the owner of Accom that I would likely quit rather than join them doing the same thing I was doing at Abekas, and he assured me that he had other plans for me.

Abekas had previously bought a Polish company that was in the cutting edge of virtual studios, ELSET. The idea was you could have a set with a green screen as the background and maybe a desk for the people to sit at, but then use a computer to generate a virtual background. This was all very clever and VERY complicated, but I enjoyed jumping into it and learning all of its peculiarities. 

This person is standing on a plain, green stage - SGI computers are providing the background. The trick is having the background track any camera moves and setting objects to be in front of or behind the person.

This was a tough job though - many long nights and weekends spent working through all of this, plus a LOT of travel. By now, our son had been born, WHM was getting older, and travel, even planned travel, became hard. This was an amazing experience - working with the Polish engineers was a highlight of my working life - but it took a pretty huge toll.

In December of 1999, Abekas sold ELSET to a competitor based out of Israel, ORAD. That would guarantee an even heavier travel load, so I bowed out, and in…

January 2000: Spruce Technologies

… I became a tech writer (almost no travel!) for Spruce Technologies, a small company that made DVD authoring software for professionals. DVDs were a hot new thing - at the time I started there, I did not own and had never even watched a DVD. I had no idea about how you could do all kinds of clever things with them using menus and other tricks to create some pretty wild experiences. 

One of the user manuals I worked on for Spruce.

This was a great job - it was a fairly small company so I ended up doing a lot more than just writing user manuals and online help. It was a blast. 

In 2001 rumors started that we were up for sale. People were nervous. Some ambitious plans had not born the fruit that had been expected. There was serious competition. There was a layoff. (I survived it, and gained the office plant that I still have.)

Our authoring software was based on Windows NT, so it felt likely that we would logically end up with a Windows-based company. So naturally, in…

July 2001: Apple Incorporated

… we found out that Apple, who had their headquarters just down the street from us (I did not know that at the time - I was seriously into Windows at the time), had bought us. This was a massive surprise, but Apple's current DVD authoring software, DVD Studio Pro, was based on their OS 9 operating system. The new OS X operating system was going to require a complete rewrite, so it wasn't that big of a deal to start with a bunch of Windows engineers.

A lot of people were not kept as part of the acquisition, and I had large doubts that I would be kept, but I was - I think a few people said nice things about me, although I joke that there was an accounting error involved. 

Starting at Apple was really something:

• It was the first time since Ampex that I was at a company with several thousand employees. It took some adjusting to get used to that.
• It was the first time I was working at a company most people had heard of. I started getting contacted by people I hadn't talked to in years, asking about employee discounts.
• I had to learn to use a new operating system. Ever since Abekas, where I first started using a computer, I worked with Microsoft DOS and, later, Windows. My home computers had all been (and were still) Windows. We had an iMac at Spruce for testing our authored DVDs, but that was the extent of what I knew about them. 

I started in the help writing team for the Pro Apps - Final Cut Pro, Compressor, Motion, Cinema Tools, and mostly, DVD Studio Pro. After a few years, I moved over to the tech writing part of the Productivity team, which started with the iWork apps then slowly grew to include several other apps.

My first, and most obscure, Apple user manual.

I loved working at Apple - there were normal challenges like long days and weekends, and office politics like at any large company, but there was also the huge satisfaction of working on applications that were used by millions of enthusiastic people. (Granted, that also means that millions of people are going over the help and user manuals, and will eagerly point out any issues they find.)

All of that makes it amazing I got away with my proudest accomplishment at Apple:

My primary editor at the time ("Hi Nitsirk, not your real name") would not shut up about two things: The Giants (which was OK by me), and lemurs. All lemurs. Anything that had anything to do with lemurs. 

(Fun disturbing fact: A bit after this manual was out in the wild, I had a dream that the Lemur Preservation Society sued Apple over this since it was spreading wildly false information. When I talked to them, they said that they actually thought the text was funny, but they had to make a point, and were sorry that I was likely to get fired over this. It was not a great dream.)

And that's about it. A bit over 46 years of working in technology (I left out all the jobs I had in high school and before that. Many of those are worth their own posts.)

The obvious question is what am I going to do now. I don't really know. There are lots of projects around the house that will keep me plenty busy. It will be a period of adjustment, and I'm confident I will adapt.

But for now, there are game shows to watch.

That's it - move along…