The beat goes on I missed a chance at last week's Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley to touch base with an old contributor of ours (well, not chronologically old, just fondly old). His story says a lot about our industry.	Brian Fuller Editor-in-Chief
David Knuth had been chatting with my colleague David Blaza and we just failed to connect in the chaos of the week. Knuth, you may recall, was our Phoenix symbol after the collapse of 2001. He approached me after one particularly ESC event to thank me for making it easy for him to take classes at ESC to keep his skills fresh. (The thanks really should have been directed at the ESC folks, but who am I to turn down a compliment!?) He was an embedded engineer not embedded anywhere at the time: he was out of work. He wrote such an eloquent email that I proposed he write "Diary of an Unemployed Engineer." He did, and it was a great series, heartfelt, thoughtful, touching. He started writing in the summer of 2003 and by the holidays of that year, he'd landed a job. We caught up this week by email. Intellibot Robotics is the company I've been with since December 2003. Prior to that was the 10 months of unemployment while Intellibot (different name, same product) went through bankruptcy. The business is still slowly growing. I have a team of 7 engineers now and am having a lot of fun, but management isn't as fun as being right there at bare metal. We have three different robotic floor cleaners for commercial customers (not like the consumer Roomba). It's the kind of job that is really challenging, drawing on all types of engineering: EE, SW, HW, mechanical. My dad is doing well and is a couple years from retirement. He's been receiving some pretty special treatment from one of Rockwell's customers for the good work he does. That's great to know that somebody notices. My family is all well. Four kids and a wonderful wife keep me busy and makes for a happy home. My oldest son is getting interested in understanding what I do, so I enjoy teaching him about technology, both good and bad, and the history of how we are where we are. The "how we are where we are" though is a bit sad, for Knuth. One can tell there was once a great buzz in the valley, with all the high tech companies busy inventing our future, but today it seems different. It's like visiting a historical ruin. In any case, I still love checking in out there. If you missed any of Knuth's series, here are the links: 'I saw the writing on the wall, but I loved my job' Of anxiety attacks and a personal restructuring A dream deferred is realized-but not as expected Resume poses thicket of existential questions Fending off despair half the battle Posted by Brian Fuller on Apr 11, 2007 04:35 PM in Industry

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