I am building this page on the road somewhere in western Pennsylvania. Sherri and I are staying at her mothers house for a short while. We should be returning to Florida in a week or so.
The communications industry has been hit hard by the economic downturn with hundreds of layoffs in the plant where I work. I am usually at work 10 to 12 hours a day lately doing my best to stay employed. Unfortunately no job is totally secure, and the expenses associated with Sherri's mom have forced a careful optimization of Tubelab's expenses. So for now, Tubelab is operating with a fraction of my time, none of Sherri's, and limited funds. The budget for new projects is very limited so except for small parts all development projects in 2009 will come from my "junk box" which fortunately is well stocked. There is no budget for transformers or other costly parts.
When the economy started to slow down last year, sales of PC boards dwindled too. This forced the delay in the launch of the Tubelab SPP. Fortunately it is nearly ready. For now future products must wait until the current new project (SPP) pays for itself.