Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2021 12:14:02 -0500
From: Gabriel Barna 
Subject: Brief summary of my adult life

Brief Summary of my Adult Life


Leaving Outremont High School was the fledgling start of my adult life.
Graduating from the ?brain class? of 1964 pointed me to a technical program at
McGill University. After my first year in Engineering, I changed ? for reasons I
no longer remember ? to the Honors Chemistry track. In my last undergraduate year,
I met this really cute nursing student; and we have been together now for the
last 53 years. Graduate school came right after, providing me with a Ph.D. in
Chemistry in 1973. Near the end, I submitted 81 applications for a job in
industry ? I had no desire for the postgrad/teaching track ? and received a single
positive response from Texas Instruments in Dallas. Made my career decision
easy.

In November of 1972, we moved to Dallas and started the predictable, interlaced
life of career building, raising a family and having some fun on the way. The
most immediate non-linearity was in the ?fun? category. I started two activities
that the ?good son of a Jewish mother? should not be doing; riding a motorcycle to
work and flying gliders. Meanwhile, our $36K new nest became filled with a son
and a daughter, by 1978. During those early years at TI, I worked on a variety
of projects in Central Research and completed a very significant mental
transition. I arrived at TI as a ?scientist? with a freshly minted Ph.D. and had the
slightly misguided attitude that my education was somewhat superior to that of
all the engineers at TI, who were just ?making stuff?. By the early 80?s ? working on a
Solar Energy program with Jack Kilby (Nobel prize for the integrated circuit) ? I
have proven to myself and TI that making things work is really the most
professionally and personally rewarding thing. This led to me working on a
variety of other projects that paved my way up on the Technical Ladder; Senior
Member of Technical Staff in 1985, and TI Fellow in 1995. Clearly, my future was
secure; I was becoming a ?lifer? at TI. This stability paid off both financially and
emotionally ? I no longer had to worry about a job as I was approaching
retirement.

During these early years, the ?raising family? track was proceeding at the normal,
predictable pace. Innumerable soccer practices and games for Andrew,
synchronized swimming meets for Adrienne. We resumed skiing - my favorite sport
since childhood - with family skiing vacations in Colorado. They both ended up
at Baylor University in the mid 90?s. This track ended horribly with Adrienne?s
death in a car accident in 1999.

The ?fun? track in these early years was of course limited by my available free
time. I was a member of the TI Camera club and learned the fundamentals from
some incredibly talented photographers. My fingers were routinely blackened by
the wet processing of the B&W images. As for my love of flying, I continued
accumulating ratings in gliders (up to Flight Instructor) and then in power
planes (up to IFR and Flight Instructor), purely for the intellectual challenge
of it. I found the IFR training to be more challenging than anything I have ever
faced before; the simultaneous need for flying the airplane, navigating,
communicating with traffic control while flying in the blind and processing the
information from all the instruments; a major intellectual feat. My ratings
provided for several family vacations with me flying the family all the way up
to Northern Ontario, Betty?s hometown. Scarry/interesting memories and stories
abound.

Our ?predictable? life was blown totally off track by Adrienne?s death in 1999 and ?
followed a few months after that ? TI offering me an Expat position at CEA in
Grenoble, France. We both jumped at that opportunity with both feet! The 2-year
position turned into a 4 year stay in Grenoble; literally the best times of our
lives. Language skills helped, I was reasonable fluent, and Betty could make do.
We made a number of close friends in the area; we still go back and visit them
every few years. The food, wine, people, mountains, skiing ?.., life was great!
Given the French custom of long vacations ? added to my official vacation time
from TI ? allowed us to travel all around Europe. We skied the Alpes routinely,
along with our closest French friend who was an Olympic skier contestant in the
time of Jean-Claude Killy. I was able to take great mountain pictures and even
did some gliding in the updrafts of the Alpes.

This assignment (boondoggle??) ended in 2004, when we returned to Dallas. Bought
another new house and settled in for 3 more years at TI. In 2007, I ? and 500 of
my closest buddies ? were retired, as IC manufacturing and development was farmed
out to China. I tried a few consulting gigs; I was not hungry enough to pursue
that track. So, ?fun times? returned, and we started traveling big time. At least 2 ?
3 major trips overseas, each year after ~ 2011. Most of these were photo trips,
where I lugged 35 pounds of gear with me. While Betty is not an avid
photographer, she really did enjoy the neat places we visited. We travelled from
Norway to Patagonia, from Africa to the Far East. I accumulated over 1200
?portfolio? quality images, available on my site:

https://barnaphoto.smugmug.com

Besides the travel, after retirement I have spent a decade as a volunteer math
tutor for adults and kids. I consider this to be a ?feed forward? act for the
benefit of the math instruction we all received from Mr. Russell in high school.
Plus, it was a very emotionally and intellectually rewarding task. I spend a
fair amount of time on my investments ? something I have been personally doing for
at least 30 years. Recently, I purchased a Tesla Model Y, having a great time
driving/playing with this new toy.

57 years gone since high school. Much older and maybe a little wiser. It?s been a
fun ride!


Gabe Barna, 2021