Been away for a bit but I'm back. The last few weeks have provided much needed mental stimulation with the occasional over-stimulation thrown in.

Before this journey began I had been working on an engineering project for a non-profit the wife and I belong to but it went on hiatus for a few months, go figure. The very few who knew about it had taken the secret squirrel oath at the time and figured it was now gone forever to the place my memory disappeared to...

Time passes and most of my memory returns with the exception of the 3 month block of time during which I worked on this project, that is forever gone along with the deceased brain cells where they resided. One day a few weeks ago I found an unfamiliar composition notebook like I always used for making project notes. I recognized my prestroke writing but the notes didn't mean anything to me, lots of math and vector graphs I couldn't decipher. So being the curious type I ask the wife if she knew what these notes were for. She told me they looked like my simulator notes...apparently I had been working on building a vessel simulator to replace the one our group pays about $17K each for...I'm intrigued.

Throwing myself into this project was both frustrating and cathartic. Frustrating because I tried to restart where I left off and the math skills are gone for now anyway, cathartic when I realized the futility of that and restarted from ground zero and the realization struck that I had been over thinking it in the past. I didn't need all the engineering, what I needed was integration of existing products into a new product...otherwise known as don't reinvent the wheel.

It took several weeks but we now have a working product which we demo'd to the board of directors for the organization to their delight. One board member told me he'd heard I'd had a stroke and found that hard to believe, I told him to check back when the fatigue set in and the deficits become more pronounced. Now instead of buying a proprietary vessel simulator for $17K a pop we can give a build list that has a $1300 price tag for buying all readily available parts and have more functionality. We figure this will spread through the organization quickly and save us a boatload of money.

We are not defined by what we can't do, rather we need to adapt our skills and abilities to our new and redefined us and use these revisions to the best effect. In some regards this has made me better in others, less so, but being Scott 2.0 isn't all bad.