Slashdot

Update- tried posting this earlier, didn't notice the radio buttons for "publicize, publish, post" so I think it went to the bit bucket. So Here it is under the "post" option. Thank goodness I copied it to notepad before saving.

So it's been about a year since my last JE! I have been lurking around, and recently commented in dexterpexter's journal since she was asking for updates from "the circle". Apparently a few others (including FK and Sam) were also lurking and jumped in. So.. since there are at least a few still out there I thought I'd post an update, in case anyone still has me on their friends list and wants to know what I'm up to!

I'll start where I left off on my last JE. I mentioned my wife was expecting and we had a few "complications" early on. I'm happy to report everything went very well, and she was able to have a VBAC (Vaginal Birth after C-section). It was quite an awesome experience, I got to help deliver our new baby girl (Jocelyn), who is now going on 10 months. My wife had a little bit of a tear, but she's recovered quite well from that (I was jokingly going to get a shirt that said "I tore mommy a new one" but thought better of it).

Things continued to be crazy with work. In addition to politics being the primary focus on my job as the director of software dev (which was burning me out- way too political of a company), I was asked to travel the very next week after my daughter was born for a project, all the way to the west coast. I grudgingly went (with colleagues wondering why I was "distracted" while there). After that experience I new it was time to move on. I had a retention bonus that required me to stay with the company until Sept. 15th. I gave my two weeks notice not long after that, and now I'm with a consulting company called "Perficient", which is based out of Livonia (between Ann Arbor and Southfield, MI). I'm helping build the business in the Northwest Ohio / Southeast Michigan area which means I don't have to travel, and if so it's only regional. I haven't had to do any "flight" travel since I joined the company in Oct- has worked out really well. My official title is Engagement Manager / Technical Architect- so in addition to managing a small team at a few clients in Toledo, I also get to continue to work on the technical side- really my ideal job for this point in my life. And, we're always looking for good people and have offices all over the US.

Other updates in no particular order... My oldest daughter (now 4 1/2) started pre-school last year and loves it. She's doing really well. Hard to believe she'll be in Kindergarten very soon!

I'm still playing xbox, been doing Call of Duty 4 lately. I get in trouble every now and then when I'm not paying attention to the time :)

Still getting settled in to the house we built a few years ago- thinking about finishing off the basement now that I'm pretty sure I'll be staying in the area for a while.

Life has been pretty busy with 2 kids but my wife and I are managing pretty well. She's working part time as an environment consultant, and her parents are still helping watch the girls on the days she is working.

We're also still active with church, and leading music for the service. Our church merged last year with the church I used to go to (it was the "sending" church).

Anyway... please say hello and give me an update if you're reading this! Would be great to hear from old friends.

It's been a while... Thought I'd hop over on to /. and say hello and post an update.

First the big news- we are expecting our second child early April. We found out that we are having another girl! Very exciting. I told my wife that I'm definitely going to have to make a "man room" so I can get away from it all. But before that I have to get something done for the baby's new room. We're pretty behind right now- don't have any idea what we are going to do for her bedroom. And we don't have any names picked out yet, either.

The pregnancy was a little tough right around the beginning of the second semester. We found out my wife had a bit of a torn placenta (she had some real light bleeding). Fortunately that tear healed up well.

Lately, work has really been eating up my time. I've had 3 bosses over the past year, and the latest one started last week. Our company has been in a turn around situation but it seems like we are making progress. Despite all the crazy stuff, I have a really cool opportunity with a project coming up. We're going to be implementing some enterprise technology and I'll be overseeing the project (and it's probably not going to be Microsoft technology). I've been in management for about a year and a half now (As of last July I stepped into the Director of Software Development role)and so far it has been a good challenge and very rewarding. Getting away from the technical side has been tough, but I still am spending a lot of time on technical architecture and get to mentor developers on my team. I try to spend some of my spare time writing code, but there isn't as much spare time as there used to be- and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Well that's about it for now. If you have any questions, drop me a comment. I promise I'll check slashdot for at least a few days to see if anyone is still reading :)

It's been a while since I've updated, so here is one for the fans who are still with me.

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, just not visiting slashdot as much lately. I check in about once or twice a week to read journals, mostly lurking in the shadows. Seems like a lot has changed, but a lot has stayed the same :) With the new site, it now renders OK in Internet Explorer, so I may be checking it more often. I usually hit Digg now for my technology news, as most of the stories on Digg show up on slashdot about 2-3 days later.

I've also been blogging on Xanga (I refuse to go to myspace) mostly. If you know my first name, the first letter of my last name, and my the answer to the universe, you can easily find my xanga if you want to see what I've been up to.

Lately, work has been kind of interesting. They announced some layoffs, primarily due to changes in the business and our prices/costs being high. As a result we are going through a pretty big cost cutting strategy. I'm a little nervous but despite all that, there are actually some pretty good opportunities opening up. Unfortunately there just isn't much at all in the Toledo job market if I want to move on. The good news is that Google just announced building a large facility in Ann Arbor which is only a 45 minute drive or so. So that may open up some opportunities, as much as I would hate to move to / work in Michigan. However, it could also encourage high tech companies to move out this way. If things don't work out here, I'd probably be looking for something in a different area all together. My wife and I discussed this a little bit and we would like to stay in Ohio, but would consider Cinci and Columbus (my parents being in Columbus).

In other news, I have been getting involved with geocaching. It is a ton of fun. I highly recommend you check out the web site to learn about it. The idea is to use a personal GPS (GPSr), punch in coordinates found at the geocaching web site (that happen to be all around the US and even world), and go on a "high tech" treasure hunt. A friend of mine has been doing it at work and got me hooked. I've found about 7 caches so far. It is a great excuse to get outside- something I've enjoyed doing since I was a little lad.

Well that's about it. See you in January. :)

It's been several months since I've last written, so I thought I'd give a quick update. Did you miss me???

Things are going pretty well. I have been busy with work, the holidays, etc. On the work front I have been getting my feet wet with managing the day-to-day software development. It's definitely a change from being a developer, but a pretty good one. I still get to stay technical but I spend a lot of time on the "people" side of things too.

On a related note, I think the IT industry is starting to bounce back a little bit, which is a positive thing. Now days a developer really needs to have the ability to learn the business.

Outside of work I have still been doing a lot with .NET development. Even more so now as I feel the need to keep my coding skills up-to-snuff since I don't get to develop as much. I am now in the process of playing around with AJAX, Atlas (Ajax + ASP.NET), continuing my adventures with Media Center, and now doing some work to get add-in applications working on the Xbox 360 extender. I did end up getting an Xbox 360- right after Christmas. Got pretty lucky and scored one at best buy (long story).

Xbox 360 has been great. I'm really impressed with the xbox live part of it... The game downloads are great. Lots of cool "arcade" type games that you can get cheap (to the tune of $4). I have downloaded just about all the demos and so far my favorite arcade game is called "Geometry Wars". It's actually a game that they put in Project Gotham Racing a while back, and decided to make an HD version and release it for the 360. Really addictive and I will most likely end up downloading the full version. Another cool thing about Xbox live is that you have a profile, get awards for doing certain things in games (that then updates your profile). You can chat with anyone at any time, and even have actual chat rooms. The wireless controllers are also really slick. Can't say there is much I don't like about it so far.. I have had absolutely no problems with lock ups, overheats, etc.

Anyway, hope everyone else is doing well. I will be out in Cincinnati the 20th and 21st. If anyone is in the area and is interested in coming to a code camp, please let me know. If you are intersted, check out the link. In addition to .NET, we will also be covering non .net development stuff like Python, Ruby on Rails, Oracle, etc. I will be co-presenting on Media Center development and Xbox 360 integration.

It sure has been a while since I've been writing a JE. I am still lurking here and there, though not as much lately.

I'm not packing up and leaving, but I have started a blog on another web site that I am putting more of the day-to-day type stuff on. Such as church / spiritual things, family things, etc. Even so I still plan on journaling the geeky/techie stuff here on slashdot. And of course, dropping comments here and there and keeping up with all the "Drama". Sometimes it's a bit much to keep up with, but I can't help but keep coming back for more.

If anyone wants my new blog site, let me know.