Random Web Links for 2008-02-22

• Mysterious Creatures Found in Antarctica - giant sea spiders? scratch the deep ocean around Antarctica off my travel plans.
• What Do You Actually DO For A Living? - AllFinancialMatters - I push buttons, talk and think. You?
• YouTube - mygrammymoment's - cool contest where people had to submit 60 second videos of them doing an instrumental version of the Foo Fighter's song The Pretender
• Wiretracks(tm) - your home will never be obsolete again! - I wonder how hard it would be to do this with stuff from your local hardware store
• Tools: Easily Compare Wholesale Mortgage Rates Online - interesting tool
• Apple Now Offers Recycling - great idea
• Confessions of a Software Developer* | Aaron Lerch - I totally agree ... my list grows way faster than it shrinks
• A Roadmap to My Search For A Home on Blueprint for Financial Prosperity - good wrapup of one person's path to getting a house
• Prequalifying vs. Preauthorizing vs. Preapproving Letters - post about what the different letters mean and with some good links
• ikea hacker: stolmen bike rack - great idea which I will probably try when we get our house
• Legal: Find Legal Forms and Info at The Public Library of Law - I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like an interesting resource

I Quit!

I did. I quit my job.

Well, sorta. Yesterday I officially turned in my resignation and what amounts to ~3.5 week notice. Surprised? Don't worry, I have another one ready.

As some, but not many, of my short list of readers know ... over the past few months I have been spending a lot of time reevaluating my current situation, where I am right now from a career and personal development point of view, and where I want to be in the near future. After a ton of thinking, I decided that staff augmentation consulting with my current company wasn't going to get me where I wanted to be.

Just before, and mainly after the holidays, I started looking around and tried to get a feel for the local market, how in demand my skills were, and what kind of time frame I could get things done. After talking with a few companies and doing a bit of research, I ended up interviewing and was offered a new job. W00t for me! :-D It has been a stressful few weeks of negotiating, trying to keep various organizations ignorant to my actions, and keeping up with my normal everyday work. But now it is over.

[A special and big thanks goes out to those of you who I bugged for advice, vented to, or just bounced ideas off of. Thank you.]

So, why am I leaving? For the past 3 years I have been doing client-site consulting work for large corporations (world's largest aircraft engine manufacturer, a big insurance company, and the world's largest genetically modified seed and herbicide producer). Its been really good work, I have met a ton of great people, and had way more experiences than I would have had working for any one of the companies. I am glad I did it. However, going forward I wanted more stability from a management and a project perspective. Also, I want the ability to branch out, technologically speaking, and work in some areas I wouldn't be able to with my current job. Basically, I had a good job, but wanted a better one.

And, where am I going? I have accepted a position with a small software development company here in town: Asynchrony Solutions. They do all internal custom application development for a wide range of national clients and government agencies. They are very much focused on quality and agile methodologies from their project management practices (Scrum, XP), to their development methodologies (pair programming), to their testing (TDD). They seem like a close knit group that works and plays hard together (daily Halo 3 games during lunch, softball team, jeans & t-shirts, etc). Also, since their projects are somewhat shorter on average and they are focused on team building, there will be a lot of opportunities for me to work in new technological areas and learn new things (RoR, .NET, SOA, mobile, etc).

-------------

I will post some more details over the coming weeks and after I officially start ... but thats the story for right now. The next few weeks will have my trying to focus on finishing up my current project work and hopefully training a replacement. Wish me luck. :-) If anyone is curious for more details, just drop me a line.

Flowers and more Flowers

The last few days have been all about the flowers. This past week I took roses to Em's work for Valentines day. The night of, we went out to dinner to Big Sky Cafe and had an amazing dinner. To read what he had to eat, click here.

Today was my Mom's birthday; Happy Birthday Mom! I spent the day with my parents and we took in the Missouri Botanical Garden's annual Orchid Show which was pretty amazing. The shear number of different types of orchids they packed into that green house was amazing. How they can be so similar to each other and different than your average local flower ... and yet unique was pretty cool to see. Some of my MANY photos are below and more are on my Picasa "STL" album with the same description...

I am hoping to take pictures frequently at the botanical gardens this spring and summer. They have some amazing collections there. Also, they have a few other locations around STL that have various exhibits that are pretty neat.

Not much else happened in the last few days besides some good times with our friends and family and the normal work stuff. Em gets President's day off, but not I. I will be at work as usual ;-)

Random Web Links for 2008-02-13

• People Search: Out Your Criminal Neighbors with FelonSpy - scary
• Bed-Making Tips from the Pros - brilliant!
• Credit Crunch: Mortgage Meltdown Isn't Just A Subprime Problem Anymore - unfortunate ... but did you really need the 740k mortgage in the first place? I feel sad for people in this situation, but those who didn't get duped by a broker still took on more house than they could afford, on an assumption of the future ...
• Shopping for Fish (Bitten) - great use for of technology
• How to Keep a Half Used Tin of Paint - wikiHow - great idea if it really works
• Tax rebate winners and losers: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance - I guess this makes sense...

All sorts of things

The past week or so I feel like I have been going a mile-a-minute. Some of the highlights have been ...

The other night I went to another different Java User Group (link to my thoughts on my other blog) meeting and hearing a very interesting talk on Domain Specific Languages. I also posted some info about my first project with Python.

Em and I attended out first Fish Fry of the season at Sacred Hear Church and were very pleased with the experience.

Em and I went by a Lowes the other night and began trying to get a very rough idea how much various home improvement projects might cost (hardwood floors, new doors, appliances, etc) and get a good idea of some of the things we will need to buy when we buy a home (e.g. a mower). Its amazing how fast this stuff adds up. I am trying to put together a list of probably early home expenses and rough estimates and will post the link when I have a bit more data.

Also on the home front the other weekend Em and I looked a few more houses and have gotten to the point where we have a pretty good idea of what we want and what we can get in a number of areas around town. Or next step is to talk to a few banks and try and get some financing information together. I am also putting together a big list of questions/thoughts I have been having. I will hopefully keep it up-to-date with the answers I find .... which might be helpful to other people if they are thinking of staring their own search.

I started, stopped, tried to continue, and got fairly confused about our taxes. Having worked in multiple states, in several locals, and having some strange investment data has me confused. I am hoping to work through it this week so that I can submit it early. My guess is that we will have to do the long form and not e-File, so I want to try and get it in as early as I can.

Yesterday Em and I went on an adventure up North of town to try and see some of the bald eagles who summer along the Mississippi River near Alton, IL. We saw around 6 eagles at various random spots along the river and Em saw another swooping down to get a fish. We were pretty lucky on our first time out together since we didn't have any particular places to look in mind and went looking in the middle of the day.

On our way back we dined at a cool local restaurant in Grafton, IL ... The Fin Inn. We both had some good fish dishes, but the selling point of the restaurant was the fact that they have some HUGE AQUARIUMS next to the tables and you have very large native fish watching you as you eat. This might not be for everyone, but we enjoyed ourselves. After we left it was dark and I got a couple good shots of the very unique bridge near Alton that goes over the Mississippi River.

The Mississippi River while looking for eagles


The Clark Bridge at Night

Finally, today we ate brunch at the Adam's Mark downtown to celebrate my Mom's birthday which is next week and tonight I made some great Beef Short Ribs that were amazing. Falling of the bone and fork tender. Mmmmm.

Thats all for now ... I need another nap. :)

(Oh, one other thing. I updated my New Year's Resolutions post. I am doing well in some areas, not so great in others ... but I am fairly happy so far)

Random Web Links for 2008-02-06

• Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 DIY Home Projects - some interesting DIY projects (especially the knife block and hidden bookcase door)
• Average Net Worth Values - fivecentnickel.com - interesting figures ... also in how people report "net worth" and how statistics can be misleading
• Investing Versus Paying Ahead on Your Mortgage: Which Makes More Sense? - We don't even have a house yet, but thoughts like this already go through my mind. I may need help ;-)
• Power Strip Cover - ugly but looks like a good solution for the average back-of-desk
• pfblogs.com - want to read personal finance blogs, they got 'em
• How to Keep your house from burglary | eHow.com - if your worried about your friends and family burlarizing your home, you have bigger issues
• Maxablaster mega-flashlight is a step away from lightsaber - Engadget - another crazy strong flashlight

Snowday!

Em works at a school so snowdays are somewhat common for her.

I, on the other hand, are not used to this.

My client closed its STL sites for the day for safety reasons (large amounts of snow). I have to use up a vacation day, which stinks, but I should be able to make it up in OT next week so that they will cancel out. All well, 3 day weekend! :)