Thursday, May 22, 2014

California Dreamin'

We made it!

It's been a hell of a 2 months, but we are finally here and getting situated.  At this point you've probably heard the story, but I'll give you a quick recap.

For the past few months I'd noticed the funding on my current project getting tighter and tighter.  I knew it was just a matter of time, so I started looking at other options.  One day I saw a post from Russ Angold on Linkdin looking for an electrical engineer to head up their Ekso team in the Bay Area.

"Should I apply?" I asked Jeremy.

"Sure, why not." He said. 

Well fast forward a few weeks and I landed the job two days before I was told that my project funding would be out in three weeks.  Perfect timing. 

Though I wasn't (and sometimes still aren't) convinced it was a good idea, we decided that if we didn't move to Cali then we would look back on this opportunity 10 years from now and say "why didn't we go."

So we sold the house, packed our stuff, and headed on out here.

Two weeks after moving and I can say we are getting used to the area.  We live in Oakland, but up in the hills with a great view of San Francisco and the bay.  Our house is about 700 sq ft smaller than our Houston house, but we rented a storage place and we are getting used to the limited space.  Honestly, there were rooms in our old house that we never really used anyway, so it's not so bad.  Plus we've really downsized and purged, which felt great.

As for my job, well, that's going great.  I'm full time now (did a few half days to start) and I'm loving the people and the work.  Our building is open and airy and has windows... a whole wall of them.  We even have TWO, yes 2, women's bathrooms.  Check out the bathroom signs


I've already have lots to do and people are all pretty excited that I've finally arrived.  I hope I can live up to their expectations!

Also today I got to take the Ekso GT for a test ride, okay walk.  It's pretty cool and it was really interesting feeling this exo vs the X1 exoskeleton that I worked on at NASA. 

What's even cooler is that people are coming into the building all the time to work with the exo and work with the PT's in our group.  It's amazing to see people up and walking in such a short amount of time.  I'm really excited to be part of this team and to be part of a project that will have such a lasting impact on mankind.