June 2005

Summer Report

Well it's been a whirlwind first half of the year. I've been commuting to Houston to work for TD Williamson redesigning some pipeline tools for their Offshore Services Division since the third week in January. It's good to be busy, but being away from the family for half the week hasn't been a lot of fun.

The sprucing up of the house continues. We decided to replace the original Formica counter tops with granite. We contracted this out to a local stone dealer and now we have a kitchen full of Ubatuba granite. It looks good and will definitely improve the saleability of the house. We haven't yet put the house up for sale because of my working in Houston.

Melanie has been running back and forth across the lake to help her Dad a couple of times a week. Since Jourdan's out of school she is staying the night to minimize the mileage on the car. They have been organizing all the paperwork that's been collected over the years and getting all the affairs in order. It's been quite a challenge for her, but I can't imagine anyone else with the fortitude to see it through like Melanie. She's something. Once she set's her mind on something, it's going to happen. No and's if's or but's. She's quite a woman and I love her dearly.

Meghan's switching her major to Criminal Justice has paid off in a rapid escallation of the quality of her grades. She came home with a 3.875 and was ever so proud of herself. We were too. Congratulations darling. She's catching up on some english courses this summer at SLU in Hammond, LA. Other than that she is bored to tears in Slidell because all her "homies" have stayed at school this summer to take more courses.

Jourdan finished fourth grade at Lake Castle Elementary being fourth highest in his class. We are extremely proud of him for all his accomplishments. He's becoming quite the young man. The other day he and Melanie were at my grandmother's house. My grandmother had just gotten her computer back from service (in which they did nothing) and Jourdan got it out of the car and hooked everything up for her. She was some proud of her smart great grandson.

I acquired a demo Nikon CoolPix 5400 digital camera to accompany my Nikon D70. I've been wanting a smaller camera and I got a deal on this one. The plus is I can use the Speedlight and CF memory from the D70. I can carry it with me to Houston to catch anything photogenic (Houston, photogenic?) that I might come across. There hasn't been much yet... It's definitely time to update the photos as I've acquired many more since the last update. Hopefully soon....

My existing laptop (a HP Pavilion XH-365) had really gotten problematic, so I decided it was time for a replacement. Initially I ordered a D-800 with a Nvidia Quaddro video off the refurbish list at Dell. Unfortunately when I fire it up, the video is a Geforce, which is definitely not what I ordered. Many hours later after dealing with Dell's Customer "Support", they wouldn't rectify the problem. All they were willing to do was refund the purchase price. So it went back. A week or so later I was perusing e-bay and came across a a deal for a Dell M70. It was a brand new in box machine and I saved about $600 over buying it directly from Dell. It's got a Nvidia Quaddro video so it's ideally suited for running SolidWorks. It's an awesome machine, but it's definately heavier than the XH-365.

I've done some minor editing of typo's and stuff here, but nothing else has been added.

Until next time!

Me!

General Information

This is where you can find all of the important information regarding how to contact me, how to find me, or any other personal information which people might need to know. I have placed this info here so I can simply tell people "check my website".

Who is Chris Dubea?

I'm an electro-mechanical design engineer whose has spent the last innumerable years designing, building and operating submersible vehicles called ROV's (Remotely Operated Vehicle). In the past the design and construction of ROV's involved a significant amount of custom designed hardware and software, but in the last 5 years or so, most everything you need to build an ROV is available off the shelf, so what was once the ultimate design test for an engineer has turned into an integration project.

Currently I am working as a Project Manager at Project Consulting Services; PCS is an offshore Oil and Gas transmission pipeline design and build firm. I assist in the deep water installation by providing expertise in the ROV phase of the project. If you would like to see a cv of my current work send me an e-mail.

In my private life, I'm the proud father of two children, Meghan and Jourdan. Meghan is a Senior at Ole Miss majoring in Criminal Justice and Jourdan is a very active soon to be sixth grader at Lake Castle Elementary School in Slidell LA. I've been married for over 24 years to my wonderful wife, Melanie, who has taught me more about love than I ever dreamed possible.

I spend what little free time enjoying my family, sight-seeing in New Orleans (my home town), digital photography and woodworking. I've been doing woodworking for over 20 years, but have only recently got back into photography after a 20 year or so hiatus. You can see some of my pictures here. The photos certainly aren't exhibition quality, but I'm enjoying taking pictures again. My initial photographic experiences where primarily during college. Hopefully I can find all the old black and white negatives and scan them to add to my collection. We'll see.