…Well it’s not often, but when I do, it’s usually much needed.

I do admit – I check my email every morning before everyone wakes up. But once I get the emails done, and make a call or two, I’m done for the day.

Most senior executives I know would love to unplug for a week or two…but let’s face it, it is hard to let go for even a day. I go through the same thing but finally came to the realization that I was comfortable stepping away for my much-needed vacation because I have a team that can manage the day-to-day business without me.

The truth is, it’s been awhile since I’ve taken a vacation. If you’ve seen the news recently, you’ve probably heard about the pending acquisition of Cypress by Infineon. As you can imagine, the amount of time and effort that went into that was insane. But it’s going to be well worth it.

I definitely needed to recharge, so I decided to take just over two weeks off.

I love hearing about what people at Cypress did on vacation. They have an excitement when they talk about the adventures they came across and they have even more excitement about their projects at work after they’ve taken some time away. (😊) I am exactly the same way.

Vacations come in all shapes and sizes from short to long, from active to passive. Personally, I need to stay busy because I have a tendency to get bored easily; and as my friends and family can tell you, that is just a huge mess waiting to happen.

This year, the primary focus was to spend quality time with my daughter, Lea.

The first couple of days were spent having daddy-daughter dates. Our first outing found us at the coolest full-service movie theater in our area – no better way to watch Toy Story 4!

 Since I now had some downtime, we figured it would be fun to finally set up an Xbox One racing game that I have had my eye on for a while. Between my assembling skills and Lea giving directions and orders, we had an awesome and extremely responsive setup. Luckily, Lea shares my love of all (really just the cool stuff) things automotive.

As much as I am the coolest dad ever, I knew that Lea would get bored with just her and I for two weeks. So, after a few days with just the two of us, we invited two of my nieces to hang out. My sister has two daughters, Mia and Sarah, that get along very well with Lea.

Once Mia and Sarah arrived, they quickly formed “Team Girls”.

Team Girls did everything together – they tried different types of food, hung out at the pool and of course, had to get pampered for an hour or two at the spa.

As a personal victory, Team Girls crowned me the King of the best egg breakfast. That meant I made any kind of eggs they requested; especially the poached eggs which obviously I made better than their mom…double victory for me!

Being the ambitious guy I am, my girls and I decided to take a short road trip to San Antonio. We walked around town along the river, had some BBQ and even picked out a few souvenirs. It was my first trip to San Antonio, so the girls and I got to learn a little history and have some fun together.

After our day in San Antonio, I knew I had to do something extra fun to make sure they didn’t get bored of me. Once we got home, we dusted off the 3D printer and got to work. Everyone wanted something printed – we made an infinity heart pendant, Dave the Minion and a flower! We watched the printer layer by layer and I explained how each part and piece of the printer worked. Even the Raspberry Pi Zero W, which has a Cypress combo chip on it for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth/BLE functionality. We watched it for hours. I think the best part was actually seeing the three of them so captivated by the process.

While the girls played, I worked on a project or two of my own. I won’t give away what my project is, yet, but it did get me into ModusToolbox™, Cypress’ new fully integrated IDE, which combines the power of our compute platform with our connectivity platform. Using our application notes and example projects on Github, I was able to get my project running with FreeRTOS and all the bells and whistles, which Cypress provided in the development kit.

Can you guess what my project is? It definitely has something to do with my garage.

Between that and the Manticore dashboard project I have running in parallel, I did run out of desk space, which meant we had to make an IKEA trip.

While IKEA was quite the adventure, I emerged with a new desk and made a workstation in the only nook of my house that Lea hasn’t taken over with toys.

Having successfully kept Lea and I busy for the first week of vacation, it was time to embark on the second leg of our vacation – a trip to Lebanon. Lebanon holds a special place in my heart because it’s where I grew up; it’s where many of my wildest dreams were born. Although I do not visit often, it’s a profound experience to share my story with Lea, and now I’d like to share that story with you.

Check back regularly for my next blog sharing more about who I am and the experiences that helped shape me into the individual I am today.