Taking the cue from Cinnamon H., I am going to give this a try. One of the following statements is not true. This is a long list and I even avoided some of the more exciting aspects of my life! The statements below are true to the best of my memory with the exception of one. Find the bogus claim below:
As a baby, my parent's misassembled my crib and I fell through
I currently have one more US Patent then my father
I first had my picture in the newspaper at age 7 (+- 1 year)
The middle school I went to was on a graveyard and is allegedly haunted
I went to California between semesters at college with a group selling cookbooks door to door
I lived in a park in Orange County near members of the Mexican gang called the Cholos for 2 days
For several years I have commuted 3000 miles for work
I was lead singer in a punk rock band
I have played musical instruments of one kind or another for almost 40 years
As a teenager I went to Washington DC on a Congressional internship program
I invented some of the most popular software ever written (bet it is on your machine right now)
I have not been able to find a job and therefore I have not been an employee of a company since March 2006 (meaning I am basically unemployed)
I have been programming computers and digital devices for 35 years
I built an analog computer for a science fair project before attending high school
I raised guide dogs for Guide Dogs for the Blind
Two of the three guide dog puppies I raised now guide blind people
In 2002 I was named one of the top 100 IT people in the country by Computerworld Magazine
I am a college dropout but have 3 US Patents
I participated in making a full length film starring the rock band The Police
You can see the back of my head in concert footage of Tom Petty at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles
I have gone from rags to riches twice making a million dollars or more only to lose it all
Once while playing in a bar frequented by bikers I saved the band from being beaten by launching into a song by the Doors after a bottle was thrown at us for playing new wave
In the current century all job titles I’ve held have been “C” level executive positions
I was inspired to go to California by whatever means after hearing the story of how Apple Computer was founded
I have an autographed script from the show Star Trek from a rejected episode about “Space AIDS
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Comments: 42
Melissa, thanks for the nice words. It is a pleasure knowing you. I am going to email you about your daughter's article.
The Police did a film called The Synchonicity Concerts. It never went into wide-scale distribution, presumably because of poor performance in the market tests. It was mixed at Warner Hollywood. I was invited on set by Bob Wilson, the Executive Producer. Bob pitched a neat business idea to me that day.
Ellsworth Middle School, no longer in operation, is in South Windsor, Connecticut in an OLD part of town boasting several hundred year old homes. The school was on a graveyard and the night cleaning staff complained of strange sounds. When playing soccer or other ball game, you would sometimes have to go into the graveyard!
Good guess though!
I remember learning something very interesting about music videos in that production. Many times the video captured by the various cameras and the audio feed from the sound board do not sync up exactly. When this happens you have to do something called a "punch" where you digitally edit the sound by stretching it a little so you can resync the audio and video. It was fascinating to learn about the making of rock videos/movies. Bob Wilson, besides forming Radio and Records Magazine (R&R), was CEO of a company called Concert Cinema who were pioneers in rock video. Don't ask me how I can remember all this stuff!
Just a random guess.
Good guesses and good strategy. The devil is in the details.
3000 miles: rather insane, but when I lived in Beaverton, Oregon the company I cofounded was in Boston. Once I moved to Boston and left the Boston company, my next job was for a company in Seattle. So every few weeks for approximaely 25 months I flew cross country!
You've covered almost all of them. My clue is the devil is in the details.
I have 3 patents and my father has 2. So I have one more then him.
And yes, I had always dreamed of California but after hearing the Jobs/Wozniack story I was hooked.
Hey, ask your dad if he did work on the TF30-P-xxx series of engines.
Take care.
I am hoping to prove that statement true in the next couple of years, but I have to find a new job first! Actually, I have the product ideas, I just need investors. Anyone want to take a ride to the top of the food chain with me?
In fact, the only engine I know he worked on was the JT-9D, which was the revolutionary engine that powered the first 747s. Someday I'll tell a story about that, since it is a classic case of how thinking of a problem "outside the box" can yield major breakthroughs.
My dad, David Sadowsky, is one of the coinventor of two patents for Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, division of United Technologies. He is retired now and works as a math teacher in Connecticut. A funny story:
When I was a teen, my dad came home with a new fishing boat and small camper. I said "what's all this?" He said "I got a bonus at work". I said "really, how much and for what?" He said $10,000 for receiving a patent on an improvement to the JT-9D that saved billions of dollars in fuel." I said "and they gave you a measly 10 grand?" Remember, I was just a kid. 10k sound huge but out of proportion for the value of the invention.
My invention of LiveUpdate, resulting in a patent and patent bonus, ended up being worth close to a 100 times bigger then my dad's over a 4 year period (to account for vesting of options from the award). It was one of Symantec's first patents in a new patent program so the awards were very large to inspire busy engineers and architects to spend hours with a patent attorney. I found the process fascinating and have done about 12 patents since then, of which 3 have issued.
The point is when I say "have a patent" I should clarify and say "am listed as the inventor" on the patent. My website at richsad.com has links to my three issued patents.
I came very close a second time until the stock became worthless when it was delisted. I apologize if I ever stated something that claimed that time counted. I don't count times when it is purely on paper but the paper is not liquid. I only count it if I have the right to sell the equity. I have learned the hard way not to count chickens that aren't hatched!
You know, I got ripped off for $5000 bucks while in the Air Force for an idea on a Pratt and Whitney engine. I told my boss about an idea I had to cut down maintenance time, save material, etc. and asked why we couldn't do it. He just said follow the manual, and then took the idea to the AF and PW. They approved it, changed the manuals and gave HIM the five thousand bucks through a suggestion program I knew nothing about. They had a big ceremony and everything for him at the base. That was in 1975 approximately and a lot of dough back then for a broke and married military guy, living off base, and making 300 a month gross.
I learned a hard lesson with that. I feebly tried to complain to him and was totally blown off...
Oh well. Thanks again.
I had an idea once. I will publish this in another article someday. The idea was pretty crazy but I saw it clearly in my head and I KNEW it was real. I didn't trust too many people with it because a) I thought it was worth BILLIONS and b) people would think I was insane. But I did trust my team, who was building the commercial version of LiveUpdate from the prototype and design I had given them. They believed in it because they knew me. But one of them offhandedly said something to my boss who was the CTO at Symantec. He thought it was certifiably insane and had serious doubts about my ability to do my job. Anyway, about 3 years later the same team (most of it) was still with me and one of them saw a US patent issue for the exact idea I had told them about. It was not stolen from us, it was a case of two different people putting together the same trends and facts and envisioned the same future-state.
thank you
Very rich life indeed and SO happy to know you Rich.
I couldn't guess right either