Entrepreneurs are the main source of jobs and new wealth in the modern society. In US almost all the new jobs are created by companies that have been formed since 1975. As a matter of fact, the companies that dominated the Fortune 100 list then have all shed employees and have smaller payroll now than back then. Familiar names like IBM, GM, Ford, US Steel, GE, Honeywell are much leaner now than they were back then. Giant retailers like Sears, JC Penneys, Macy’s have been humbled by the likes of Amazon and eBay.
In the summer of 1995 I rented a 16 passenger Ford Van took 8 kids and two adults on a 30 day, 6000 mile western drive that spanned ten states. This trip pre-dated smart phones, GPS and Google maps. I and my daughter meticulously planned the trip using Delorme Software package on a PC. Software not only helped as plan the route, it also helped us make the reservations at Best Western Inns along the route. Software also highlighted all the sites worth seeing within a 20 miles of our main route.
Kids included Raj-Ann, Ben, Charu, Jyoti, Arpit, Randeep, Simmi, and Navneeta (all cousins). They had to be over 9 years of age and had to be able to take care of themselves. My sister Ruby and my brother in law Mark Holt joined on this epic tour. Each person was allowed one duffel bag as every thing had to fit in the van and we planned to do laundry at least every third day.
We traveled through California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado and Arizona; in case of Nevada and Wyoming we were in and out a couple of times. We saw great Salt Flats, great Salt Lake, Sundance , The Mormon Temple in salt Lake City; the Promontory point where the Pacific Central and Union Central railroads joined each other in 1868; National Parks or National Monuments visited included : Grand Tetons, Yellow Stone, Devils Tower, Mt. Rushmore, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado national Monument, Arches National Park, Bryce canyon, Zion National Park, CanyonLands and Grand Canyon. We stopped in the Old West town of Deadwood, where Wild Bill Hickok and Annie Oakley are buried. Wooley Mammoth Pit in Wyoming where hundreds of mammoths were trapped and buried in a land slide was one of the many interesting side tours. Visiting Crazy Horse monument was another one.We visited Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Hollywood, Universal studios and Hearst Castle. We traveled on the storied Route 66. On average we drove only 200 miles a day and made numerous side trips to take in local sites. We visited, Winnemucca Nevada; Salt Lake City, Provo and Ogden Utah; Jackson Hole, Sheridan and Cheyenne Wyoming; Rapid City South Dakota; Sidney Nebraska; Denver, Vail and Grand Junction Colorado; Los Angeles, Hollywood, Santa Monica and San Simeon California.
I have included maps of the trips in the photos. It was a fun filled trip with Yellow Stone and Grand Canyon without the doubt being the highlights of the trip. Trip was run with a military precision and went without a hitch for the most part. It has been 21 years since the tripand kids still talk about it from time to time.
I flew a 9 hour training mission on B52 Bomber (https://www.wired.com/2016/04/gods-green-earth-b-52-still-service/) in July of 1976 from Fairchild Air Force Base ( http://www.fairchild.af.mil/ ) in Spokane Washington. I was a system engineer at Singer-Link, which was designing a flight simulator for B52 (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/us/b-52s-us-air-force-bombers.html?_r=0) at the time. The flight was a part of our introduction to the plane. B52 was already in service for 24 years at the time. It is still flying with USAF.
B52 was a part of the nuclear triad that included nuclear submarines and ICBMs that US had as a nuclear deterrent. It was designed to be a high altitude, long range bomber and with aerial refueling could stay airborne for very long times. It is powered by 8 jet engines and is massive in size and carries a very large payload. During the Vietnam war, which had just ended, it would fly from Guam for bombing runs over Vietnam. It carries two set of crews; one doing the actual flying and the other resting. Plane had three stations: pilot and co-pilot, a down stairs station for the radar and fire control and a third station in the back for a gunner. Gunner station is not accessible to the pilot during the flight.
It does not have any creature comforts at all. I rode in the radar station and was seated on what essentially was a wooden stool for the whole mission. It was freezing cold as it was the lowest point in the plane. AC intake was next to my feet and it blew very cold air up my legs. Incidentally, men’s urinal tube was next to my left year.
We flew all over western United States. We went south to Nevada Firing range and made several practice bombing runs. We were refueled in the air. After 9 hours of very uncomfortable flying we returned back to the base. Since plane had been refueled, it still had plenty of fuel. Pilot decided to do ‘touch and go’ runs. Pilots have to do a certain number of landings and take offs to stay current on the plane. After several of these, I finally had to pull my plastic bag as I could not handle it any more. This flight is probably one of the most uncomfortable thing I have done in my life.
During my Singer-Link days I had ‘secret’ security clearance and was a part of teams that designed many Air Force and Navy simulators, including E2C, F4 Phantom, F111, C130, EA6B and Tornado. I flew on several different planes during those years.
I finally left Link in 1979 after 9 years. I was itching to get in to commercial world. Silicon Valley was already a hot bed of entrepreneurship and I felt stifled working for a defense contractor which was totally decoupled from its surroundings. I had become a master of hardware design but I was not sure I would fit in the commercial world. We already had microprocessors (8080 and Z80) by then. I had no experience with them as we were only allowed to used mil-standard parts which were always a few years behind.
It took me no time to find my footing in the commercial world. By the end of 1981 I was itching to try my luck in the start-up world. I along with two friends launched Excelan as networking pioneer in the spring of 1982.