Making a Difference

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to mentor a young woman who is considering Aerospace Engineering as a career path.

I don't talk about my Day Job much on this blog.  Mostly because what happens there is not for me to share.

I am a degreed Mechanical Engineer and have had the opportunity to work on many flying objects.  But my path to becoming an engineer happened because of one very short conversation with a community college councilor.

I wasn't really prepared for college, and I certainly hadn't been prepared for engineering school.  As a result, I make it a priority to spend time with early college students, high school students, and occasionally even younger people to talk about careers and future plans or goals when the opportunity arises.

I'm not part of any formal program.  I'm just willing to share my experiences and listen to young people whenever I have the chance.

I've always thought it's important for kids to have multiple adults to talk with, observe, and listen to.  I've also always thought that the best leaders do so by example.

I'm very impressed by the STEM opportunities made available to kids these days... and very proud of the progress made for women in STEM careers since I was choosing my direction in life.

We have a long way to go, especially with the current rhetoric in and around our government.

If you are a woman over the age of 18, please exercise your 19th Amendment Right this week.

If you are a non-white man over the age of 18, please exercise your 15th Amendment Right this week.

If you are anyone reading this post, please ensure you are working for the greater good, for unity, for peace, and lifting others up.

Helping others is good for you, but it's especially good for them.

Four Years

I realized earlier this week that right about now, four years ago, my life would begin undergoing a significant transformation.

Four years ago I was in the process of being outsourced.  As in, my job would be the same, my desk would be the same, but I would cease being an employee and begin being an outsourced serviced provider.

I was starting to realize that with this new outsourced situation there was no professional reason to stay in New Mexico.  The job I had did not require me to physically be in the office, most of the time.  So Hubba and I realized that we could think seriously about moving back to Colorado.  Something we had talked about doing "someday" for many, many years.

Certainly there were lots of personal reasons to stay, but we were no longer tied to a location because of the jobs we had.  Hubba had become location independent several years earlier and I was soon to be as well.

The outsourcing was official on Halloween, President Obama was elected a few days later then Hubba and I took what turned out to be the last vacation we would have... at least so far.

A couple of weeks after that was Thanksgiving and the time that we officially made our decision to return to Colorado.

We went through all of the steps to ensure our house was ready to go on the market by spring.  It sold rather quickly.

In the meantime I was layed off.  A couple of job changes later and I have now been with my current company and client for 3 1/2 years.  I have spent a lot of time on the road for them, but not much this year.  Which has been really nice.

Day job stuff aside, the reason we came back to Colorado is that we love it here, one of the best veterinary schools in the country is here, the training opportunities for Hubba are extensive and we have family and friends nearby.

For the farm, the first step was to find it.  Then to get the alpacas here. Then to actually raise, birth and breed alpacas as the farmer, not the agistor (boarder) and to get our guardian dogs in place.  The next step now is start bringing in some income.

Right around this time, four years ago, when we were embarking upon our path back to Colorado, the economy was in a bad state.  A lot of people blame it on the current President, but jobs were already difficult to find (I had been looking),  housing prices had already dropped (people said we were crazy to sell at that time) and since alpacas are really a luxury item, their price was down as well.

We have not tried to sell any alpacas, but we have not bought any since then either.  We have been focused on growing our herd slowly and organically.  With the blessing of our 3 girls this year, I feel that starting in mid-2014 we will be able to offer more than just males for sale.  Hopefully by then the price of and demand for alpacas will have recovered somewhat.

I think that once we are able to start selling our livestock, we will be able to fund some of the infrastructure improvements that are required in order for us to grow at a faster rate.

Also in early 2014 we expect to have our first litter of Tibetan Mastiff puppies available for sale.

I have been working on my shearing skills.  I have a small group of regular clients.  While I haven't been actively marketing my shearing services, I did gain a few clients last spring and am hopeful that I will gain a few more this spring.  I have also made some contacts so I am now able to refer clients to other qualified shearers if I am unable to meet their needs.

Over much of this year we have been working on an upgrade to our website.  It really is "this" close to being ready.  I can hardly wait to share it. :-)

The next task, I think, is to prepare our fiber.  It's one thing that I have a lot of but all of it is still raw and not yet ready for sale.  I have a relatively local mill that I'm anxious to try... and with my not travelling as much, I might actually be able to fill orders when they come in.

It's been a long and expensive road so far.  We have a ways to go before the farm is supporting us.  But we have learned a lot, invested a lot and each year we get a little closer to living our dream full-time.

The Point of it All

There has been a lot on my mind lately.  So why has my Brain been so quiet?  Well, I think it's because the lot has been about the why, the point, the bigger meaning and I don't have all the answers yet.

The last few weeks have been especially challenging.  Many, many things have not gone according to plan.  I plan projects for a living, so I know things don't usually go according to the plan, but these last few weeks have been especially challenging.

The interesting thing about all of these set backs and challenges is that the outcomes have been generally positive.

• Emergency surgery on Noodle saved her life.  She gets her stitches out tomorrow and can go back to being the full-fledged puppy and protector that she wants to be.
• A hail storm took most of the fruit from our new trees and shredded much of our veggie garden.  There was no property damage, the peach tree still has enough fruit for eating and the veggies seem to have recovered.
• My combs and cutters were "lost in the mail" on the way back from being sharpened in Oregon.  I was able to replace them with new sets prior to my shearing appointments and found a local resource for sharpening.
• Equipment failure during shearing, twice. Yes, twice.  The switch on my 4-year old handset failed halfway through shearing an alpaca.  We finished shearing her by hand.  I bought a new handset, which failed on it's second alpaca.  Again, we had to finish shearing by hand.  The second handset is undergoing warranty repairs now, so hopefully I'll be back in business next weekend.  The good news is, that we've been able to reschedule and I may have a new mentee.
• Compiling the technical requirements for my day job project and the subsequent fit/gap analysis have taken a lot longer than anticipated.  I don't think the overall impact will be significant but it will be nice when we're in the throws of development.
• A family of raccoons tried to move to the farm yesterday.  The dogs and alpacas were not pleased.  While I went out to see what was going on, The Alpaca Dog pushed by (or maybe over) me, went behind the hay pile and came out with a raccoon.  He killed it and promptly went back for the next.  When it was over, he had killed three raccoons, my neighbor and I killed the fourth and the momma raccoon has not been seen.  The good news is that The Alpaca Dog has no wounds from the incident and is now current on all of his shots.
• Flight delays.  Ugh.  While not causing a significant impact, they have caused me to miss my shuttle home several times.  This has me looking for a day job that is not only interesting and meaningful, but also allows me to sleep at home every night.

So, what's the point of all of this?  To show you how good I am at seeing the bright side of things?  No.  I think it's to remind me why we're doing what we're doing.

It would be pretty easy to take each of these challenges as a reason not to do what we're doing.  But I've been trying to think of them as hurdles in a foot race.  Hurdles are meant to slow you down and help you focus on what you're doing.  They're not meant to trip you up, even if they do sometimes.

So I've been journaling.  A lot.  Refining the vision.  How it feels.  What it looks like.

Change is never easy and we are changing the way we live our life.  We have big goals and are making progress toward achieving them.  There are gates to navigate and milestones to hit, but the point is to make a difference and achieve a dream... actually the point is to achieve a couple of dreams.

Sasha Dichter

An example of why Sasha Dichter of the Acumen Fund is on my short list.