Your postdoc lasted HOW long?

This is the fifth of a series of articles on my adventures and misadventures from my way-too-long 24 years in academia. See the first article here.

After completing my less than stellar PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Davis (UCD), my options for post-PhD employment were limited. Further limiting my options was the fact that my then-wife Shirley (name changed for privacy) had just completed her master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at UCD and had gotten accepted into University of California, Berkeley’s (UCB) PhD program in Electrical…