Less than three days until the movers show up and I am starting to panic.
Kevin and I moved to Virginia almost 10 years ago, with the idea of staying for four years and then high-tailing it back to Az where we belonged. We had all of these plans to visit NY, Niagara Falls, see the changing leaves in NE, Boston, Philly, the beaches of the southeast, Disney World, see the fireworks in downtown DC. It was basically going to be an extended working vacation. But then we found out about Max (yay!) and my ability to actually do things was turned upside down. We also found that we LOVED it here and couldn’t stand the thought of going back to hot, brown, dirt-y Az permanently. Virginia has trees and green and water and grass and SNOW and flowers and Fall and summer and it was all so great. What’s not to love?\
(Ha. The first week we were here, there were two stories about dead newborns found in dumpsters and the local NBC station broke into an episode of Friends for a breaking news report that the Redskins had acquired Brad Johnson. I turned to Kevin and asked, “What the hell kind of place did you move me to?”)\
Here we are almost 10 years later, moving to Savannah, which has trees and green and water and flowers and summer and the BEACH. I am excited about the move. The kids will have a backyard to play in. Kevin will have a great, challenging job. I will be only 15 minutes from the beach. But I am sad to leave Virginia. No more Babba (Kevin’s mom) just down the street. No more snow to play in. No more Wegman’s. No more AOL school for Brian. No more 5 minute commute for Kevin. I won’t get to see and enjoy my wonderful house all fixed up.\
Less than a week to go. I’m happy, sad, excited, nervous, stressed, and busy.
I am cleaning out Max’s schoolwork basket from this year and found another gem I had to share. The assignment was to choose from that week’s focus words and create sentences. This is what he wrote. I am underlining the focus words.\
1. A chick grows down on it’s skin.\
2. Black is not a color.\
3. I once fell out of bed.\
4. My freedom is not going to be given away.\
5. I’m going down a road to my choice, I fell of that road last week onto a black trampoline.\
Another assignment was about perseverance. They had to write a goal and then four steps it would take to reach that goal. Max’s goal? “To get out of Daisy’s club and join the Mutu team.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. His steps are equally hilarious, but that is for another day.
I am really busy! Will talk more later.\
PS- Happy birthday, Dad. Love you!!
It’s already begun, and I hate it. You know what I’m talking about, the primaries are over, we know who the candidates are going to be, and they’re taking their first ham-handed swipes at each other like boxers who’ve never met during the first round. There are jabs, feints and dodges, but the things you originally loved about your candidate get compromised. That punishing left uppercut is muted and turned in a jab.\
OK, forget the metaphors. The race to the middle has begun. The compromises and purely political tricks to try to woo the middle (who aren’t paying attention anyway) have started, and I hate it. The operatives, salivating for months, are now pouncing – pulling out all manner of diversions to show that the opposition is really a fan of terrorists, a tax cheat, a Bad Guy™ or gasp, an elitist.\
Can it please be November already? I’m tired of politics. I’m truly tired of playing political games and scorekeeping when our country is in a deep deep hole created by stupid and evil men. We need big solutions, not petty bickering. We need real change, not compromise. For Senator Obama, I believe in your because you believe in change. Don’t compromise that now. You’re not going to attract the middle by pandering to them. You got us all excited because you passionately shared your vision. Don’t dilute it by playing games and compromising that vision (your FISA stance is disgraceful). And Senator McCain, I loved you. In 2000, I crossed over to vote for you in the Virginia primaries. You were an honest man. What happened? Stop listening to Karl Rove and the idiots that got us into the mess we’re in now and take back the fire and honesty you had eight years ago.\
Please, let’s make this race about the future and taking our country back. I’m afraid it’s going to be about inspiration versus fear, and I don’t want any part in that. Let’s make it grand vision versus grand vision, not who paid their taxes and “terrorist fist jabs” (come on, that’s the stupidest damn thing I’ve ever heard).
I know I’ve been rather quiet since leaving AOL and joining up with Music Intelligence Solutions, but as you can see from Jen’s entries, we’ve been busy. I’ve been going back and forth to Savannah, trying to both get to know the team, the vision and the plans we have for launching, and at the same time, designing architecture, doing training and helping folks get up to speed on scrum and other stuff. It’s been a lot of late night, long conversations, whiteboard sessions (note to self, get a bigger whiteboard), and late-night epiphanies while trying to get to sleep.
I keep thinking about what I learned over thirteen years, and the people who took their time to mentor me, and the excellent managers I had who showed me how to deal with both pressure and conflict. I keep thinking about one of the first technical meetings I had way back in 1999 about AOL Search. We were just getting started with the project, and I was the front-end guy, and one of the only people involved who knew AOLserver and Tcl. So, there I was in a room with two PhD’s, with them asking me what I wanted the API to look like. Joe Dzikiewicz and Tom Donaldson sat there and asked lots of questions, we drew on the whiteboard, and I was freaked the hell out…
There are hundreds of people I should thank for helping me over the years. I tried to count up all the people I worked with at AOL, and it’s easily over a hundred and I got close to two before I stopped. But, the person I keep coming back to is Joe. He was one of the first computer scientists who took me under his wing. I don’t have a degree – everything I know about technology is either self-taught or through experience and others helping me out. I’ll never forget an IM Joe sent me while we were working on AOL Search. It went something like:
I think I scared him; but, he very patiently explained it to me, and then sent me off to figure out how to implement it.
I learned so much from Joe, and from the hundreds of other people I worked with at AOL – from my first manager, Judy Winger, who “saved” me from getting fired from a really stupid e-mail I sent to the wrong manager (well, that manager was the intended target, but…), Priscilla Serling for encouraging me to take the job in Virginia, to Robin Vinopal and Mark Robinson who taught me so much about how to treat the people who work for you, and to Bert Arians and Alan Keister for giving me all the room I needed to try new things. And all the nerds, geeks and smartasses I worked with.
It’s only now that I’m gone and have a couple weeks away that I see how lucky I was to work with all the people I did.
I’m having a blast at MIS trying to implement all the stuff I learned over the years at AOL, and all the stuff I wanted to try but couldn’t, either because of upper management (I can only say that I learned a whole lot about what not to do from AOL’s upper management over the years) or because I wasn’t in a place to do it. It’s been a lot of fun seeing my new team embrace all the things I’m throwing at them (and I’m throwing a bunch, everything from The Cluetrain to web standards).
It’s going to be an adventure, and before I get too far along in it, I have to say “thank you” to everyone I worked with at AOL. Without you, I wouldn’t be here, and I’ll be forever grateful.
Kevin just twittered this: Getting scared of @jclawver’s to-do list for me tomorrow…\
Ha! Which, he should be afraid because tomorrow is the only work day I have from this week.
The internet has been super cranky and unreliable, so no real updates. Sorry. (That’s aimed at my folks, mostly.) It’s also been a pain for Kevin, who hasn’t gotten out of the habit of working 24/7. 🙂 When the internet connection does work, you should see Kevin and me jump into action. It’s pretty funny.\
And for some reason, my long distance isn’t working, which is a super pain too.\
Blarg.
Kevin found us a house to rent in Savannah. Yay! Along with the necessities, it has a big backyard for the kids, a 2-car garage to fulfill my storage desires, and a guest room. (Only 15 minutes to the beach, people!)\
I’ve been mourning Wegman’s, our fabulous grocery store. Maybe Savannah will have a great grocery store, but I am not holding my breath. My parents, who live in So Miss, only have two shopping options: a Super Walmart with a bad produce section and a small corner store with a bad produce section. This is why I am not expecting much in Savannah. (Anybody from there and can tell me I’m wrong?)\
Even though we’re moving in a couple of weeks, the kids still want to eat everyday! I had to go to the grocery store for basics like milk and cereal and Popsicles. Apparently canned green beans don’t work well for breakfast or dessert.\
I’ve done the first and second stage of packing- things we don’t use often and things we can do without. I even started on the third stage- stuff that fall under Kevin’s purview and I have no idea what it is, what it does, and whether it is actually worth keeping. I need to move on to the fourth stage now: oddly-shaped, fragile objects. Ugh. But, you know, I am kind of anti-stuff right now, so if it all breaks- oh well.\
Brian has become a little stand-up comedian. “Why did the car drive on the airplane?” Why? “To get to the airport.” There are lots of variations of this- car, boat, airplane, motorcycle. They are all silly, but Brian’s delivery is FAB! I am really sorry Kevin is missing this.\
That’s all folks!
I labeled a box of books today, “Grown up books.” I was afraid to use the word, “Adult.” I am not sure who would be looking at my boxes, but whoever it is, I don’t want them to get the wrong idea about me.\
After the new show Swingtown premiered, I am sort of afraid to move to the swanky, suburban house we picked. And if you don’t know why I am afraid… Well, that’s probably a good thing.