An update on my life...

Well, where to start?

Jenni has finally completed her PhD between about 3.5 years at University of Chicago and 2.5 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. Needless to say, it's been a tough 2.5 years of travel, phone calls, credit card bills, and it's been very difficult on Chompers and Dusty (our 2 dogs). The 6 years is about standard for a PhD in the life sciences, and based on her peers, I already know Jenni's going to be very successful in whatever endeavors she chooses to pursue in her career. Jenni has spent her graduate time working on yeast genetics in relation to cell death (apoptosis) as a means of understanding the signaling pathways that regulate cell death. This is a relatively new and unexplored area of cell biology and has direct relation to understanding certain types of cancer. She defended her thesis on June 8th and is going to officially graduate on August 25th from the University of Chicago! SWEET! Jenni becomes the second "Dr. Brace", beating my sister to the honor!

Ok, that's enough talking outta my ass for now!

So, what's Jenni up to now? She has chosen a lab at Northwestern University in Evanston where she will continue her work in yeast genetics, this time in a lab that already specializes in the field. It will be a huge boost to her work as she will finally have experienced researches in the field to work with every day.

So where does that leave us? Well, for those of you who haven't had an update since I worked for PrairieComm, a small private company that made TDMA and early UMTS baseband chipsets, that company was purchase in early 2005 by Freescale Semiconductor for approximately $22 million dollars. While this may seem like a decent price, keep in mind that there were 55 million outstanding options and considerable vested interest by venture capital firms that meant the net profit for everyone was $0.00. Again, consider that we had offers as recent as 2003 and 2004 to sell for the equivalent of $45-95 per share and you can understand why even somebody as low on the scrotum pole as me was bitter about not cashing in while we could. Excuse me while I go take my vicodin.

Today, I am still working for Freescale Semiconductor, Inc (NYSE: FSL), the former fab and silicon design arm of Motorola. Now a publicly traded and increasingly successful company, I work in the Wireless and Mobile Systems Group's cellular division as a member of the Software design team based in Lake Zurich, IL (otherwise known as closerToWisconsinThanChicago). Our group does hardware design, implementation, and verification. Personally, I work with the HW and SW teams to design the optimal interfaces to both the HW and to the client software, ensuring both HW and SW meet specification (according to the global standards of 3GPP) and assisting both teams with design and verification as needed. YAAAAAWN!

Jenni and I are in the process of purchasing a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house in Wheeling that we hope to be able to transform into a beautiful home. It needs some updating and some work, but that will be good to keep us busy. We had spent the better part of 2 months searching for a house, bidding on a 103 year old Victorian rehab project in Des Plaines before walking away at our stop-point in negotiations. After the disappointment, we took a couple weeks off from house hunting before I went out and saw about 8 places one Sunday early this month. I found a beautiful huge townhouse in Des Plaines that was about 2300 sq ft and had a full finished basement. I was sold...

Until I went back and saw this house in Wheeling for a second time. The second time around I was really able to see the potential. A few modifications here and there... new floors, windows, remove a little non-load-bearing wall here, and we could very easily have ourselves a beautiful single family home with a yard and no association dues... That was it... We made an offer the next day. Keep in mind Jenni had never seen this home, and she was just going on what I told her and on faith.

Well, a few weeks later, we're getting ready to close August 11th, finalizing our mortgage details, and now that Jenni has seen the home, we are both so excited we hardly sleep at night. Too much to do in too little time.

Over the next month we are going to be busy beyond belief. We are moving Jenni back to Chicago this weekend, followed by closing and moving on the 11th and 12th of August, followed by our friend Christy's wedding in Iowa the next weekend, followed by Jenni's graduation the next Friday and then we are leaving for Hawaii for a 7-day cruise that Monday to get us through the Labor Day weekend with barely any energy left, I'm sure.

So, that is where we are today, awaiting the finalization of our first single family home purchase, eager to start our "2nd Marriage", and anxious to start a rehab of the home to give us a place to settle down for the next 4-5 years. It will be nice to not have people living upstairs, no roommates, and a yard and garden to make our own.