Klagenfurt, Austria

I'm working on a home-use laser skin resurfacing device in collaboration with Philips, so I went to Klagenfurt to meet with the Philips engineering team. This is the conference room we were stuck in all week:
Got to see a beautiful sunset as I flew in over the Alps into Klagenfurt.Here we are getting on the little plane in Munich to make the short trip into Austria.This is what a plastic part mold looks like.
The hotel I stayed at was called the Palais Porcia.
It was located right in the middle of town on the town square. The gathering of people by the statue is a nice little outdoor coffee and ice cream stand; great place to hang out on a beautiful sunny day.
Klagenfurt was very clean, easy to walk around, and lots of areas like this to find food and people watching.
Here's the view of Klagenfurt in the distance from a lookout tower on the Worthersee. I didn't want to call a taxi for the ride back so I met a nice young couple visiting from Romania who drove me back into town.
Here's the small one terminal Klagenfurt airport as I walked out to the plane to head home...
This is a video of one of the machines assembling a lady-hair-puller-outer-device, see if you can understand the explanation in German:

Consumer Electronics Show 2009

This was my first time at CES; I got to see all the new technology... 1/2" thick LCD tv's, robots, cell phones, netbooks, MIDs, and amazing car stereo systems. I was there to develop relationships with Chinese manufacturers for a consumer product and a server product I'm working on.

Indoor Skydiving

Our engineering group went indoor skydiving at iFly today for a team building activity. Indoor skydiving is definitely not as relaxing as real sky diving, but it's a good way to refine your technique. You get 2 one-minute rides in the wind tunnel with a guy inside making sure you don't get too out of control. It was interesting to compare the terminal velocities of different body types -- our group ranged from 65 - 130mph.

We are the 5th fastest growing company in the Silicon Valley!

Reliant Technologies has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the US.

• 157th in the US
• 5th in the Silicon Valley
• 8th among top 100 health companies

Kathy Lee Gifford's Fraxel Treatment on the Today Show

Thermage Buying Reliant Technologies

My company is getting bought out by Thermage. It looks to be a great combination of two similarly-sized leaders in the aesthetics industry with complimentary products -- and may mark the beginning of more much-needed consolidation in our industry.

NEW YORK (Associated Press) - Thermage Inc., which makes an anti-aging skin tightening device, said Monday it will buy laser skin resurfacing company Reliant Technologies Inc. for $87.5 million in cash and stock in a move to boost sales opportunities in the U.S. and abroad.

Thermage will pay $25 million in cash and issue 23.6 million shares, valued at $62.5 million based on the company's closing stock price Thursday. Thermage also will assume $7 million in debt and provide $5 million of bridge financing to Mountain View, Calif.-based Reliant... (read the full article)

This doesn't mean I'll be making any money from the deal, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Fraxel on the Today Show... Again!

They start talking about us at 4:45...

The Today Show

Looks like Meredith Vieira is in the office next to me interviewing a doctor today so maybe we'll be on the Today show soon...

UPDATE! Here's the TODAY Show video:

Reliant Christmas Party

This year's Christmas party was at the Dolce Hayes Mansion in San Jose. We won a free night's stay so it was our first full night out since Luke came along (thanks to Natalie's mom for babysitting!). Here's the picture they took of us as we walked in -- we're not washed out, we're actually that pale now because we spend all our days inside taking care of Luke.

The food and drinks were great, the dancing was fun, and Natalie raked it in at the Casino. She turned our fake $1,000 into a fake $60,000 on the craps table -- hopefully she'll be able to do that in real life next time we're in Vegas! It was good to meet all my co-workers spouses; this is my boss and his wife:

A Day in Milwaulkee

My boss and I had to make a quick trip to Wisconsin this week to visit one of our suppliers. We flew in to Chicago and drove the hour and a half north to Milwaukee. My 10th time in Chicago -- and 1st time leaving the airport.

First stop, of course... the Miller Brewery Tour.They make a lot of beer here. Half gets sold in Chicago, the rest goes to 9 other states. Brew kettles...
Cases ready for shipment.We also toured the historic caves before the most important part, free beer for taste testing.

Reliant Investor Roadshow Presentation

If you're into watching investor roadshow presentations, follow this link to see the CEO of my company give a great 25 minute presentation detailing our business plan and explaining our Fraxel skin resurfacing technology.

Tri-Party Day

We like getting in as many parties as we can each day -- especially when they're all at different times so we can enjoy all of them without double-booking. Today's parties worked out well with a 10am wedding shower, a 2pm company family picnic, and a 6pm housewarming party. We even fit in a pumpkin patch in between.

Here's some pics of the company party; they had everything, rock wall, water-balloon toss, raffle, bbq, 3-legged race, basketball toss, horseshoes, etc. It was fun to get to know everyone better and meet the families. This place even had a corn maze (or a maize maze?) that we'll definitely have to come back to.













Natalie picking pumpkins...Our cat tries to attack Natalie's foot through the glass coffee table. By the way, does anyone want a really cool cat? We're not sure what to do with her when the baby comes along.

Dave's New Gig

The office driveway:Two weeks into my job at Reliant and it's going very well. I'm a "Systems Engineer & Program Manager" in product development. Here's a few pictures of some people you may recognize who've been treated with our product:
I don't know who the marketing girls are, but they seem to be doing a good job at getting our name out there. We make the industry leading laser skin-resurfacing product called Fraxel. It's the safest, quickest, and most effective way to get rid of acne scars, age spots, malasma, and wrinkles. You should all go get a treatment. =)

Natalie off to work for her last week

Only 1 more week of work for Natalie! Then 2 weeks of rest until the due date. She's still landing big accounts even though she's supposed to be winding down.

Employed

I'll be working for a great medical device company after a couple weeks of rest and relaxation (i.e. chores). More details later...

I'm a free agent

Had to start restructuring the startup today, a disappointing day for all of us at PAN_TA Systems. We were successful technology-wise and were very close to making it big so many times, but that's the nature of a startup, you win some, you lose some. At least we're going out knowing that we gave it our all and accomplished a lot with minimal resources. Above is the whole team and below is a picture of the hardware group on a Sunday night after completing the assembly of one of our world record breaking supercomputers:
Time to send out some resumes...