Derelict…

I wonder if it is my lack of readership that has caused me to fall off into the abyss of most blogs out there.

Anyway… life has certainly been moving on without my posting… but here is a “quick” recap of things since last August.

• QuakeCon: Best and worst con ever. Best in the sense that I managed to get along with everyone for once and really enjoyed the entire time I was in Dallas. Worst in the sense that virtually everyone at the event cried the entire time that file sharing was blocked. Being a long term volunteer for the event, I don’t want to comment on the decision, but the community reacted very badly and not seldom in poor taste. The entire event was kids whining about DC++ (they even managed to get the headline comedy show to join in with a few chants) and trying to be clever about getting around the NOC – here’s a hint: don’t use DC++ – while all the older and tenured alumni bitched that no one was playing games. Add on top of that one of the main internet pipes went down and separately the traffic shaper died seemingly taking DHCP with it… it was just a very whinny event. Of course the volunteer staff then reacted incredibly poorly to some things compounding the problem to the point of a near revolt. I think I had more fun watching the whiners than anything, but we did get some good games of QL going.
• New Job: I find it very hard to criticize my old job at Cisco. I very much enjoyed my work and loved the people I worked with (and for). It is also hard to say I wasn’t valued enough as an individual considering I made more by myself than the “average American family” (although, I question where that statistic comes from). However, after about a year, I started noticing most of the people hired around the same time I was were getting promoted to the next engineering grade (which typically did come with more money). I started wondering why I (and one of my co-workers) was left off the list. All of my reviews had been extremely positive and the quality of my work was virtually never questioned. I had initiated several projects to improve our code base on my own and even learned the OpenSSL API at home to aide in the redesign of a subsystem that was 10 years old and was the worst case of jamming a square peg in a round hole I’ve seen. Still… my manager was suggesting a promotion for me was possibly a year away. I had a number of conversations with my management about my status, but one all-hands meeting really kicked me over the edge. Over the last year of my time at Cisco, the company had been recovering from the recession and promotions and raises had been forthcoming, but not so much in my business unit. It was actually to the point that many engineers were pissed. So, during the Q&A I asked my SVP, “You said that you’re proud that it is so difficult to advance in our BU, do you think that you might be driving away quality engineers with that mentality?” I don’t remember his exact answer, but it was short and was basically, “No I’m not worried. If they want to leave they can leave.” So, with that I opened up conversations with a head hunter who had contacted me a week before. Not to make the rest of this too long, I did end up moving to a new company, Hatteras Networks and am much happier for it. I’ve been working longer hours, but I feel like I matter to the company and that my work and ability is valued… Looking back… Cisco didn’t have to pay me any more money to keep me… just recognize the work that I had done and was continuing to do. Yes that meant a promotion to a new grade (since that is how Cisco values their employees) but I really don’t think that was too much to ask since nearly everyone I knew hired around the same time as me had been promoted nearly a year before.
• Marriage!: Anyone reading this was probably at my wedding so I don’t think I need to rehash of all of that. I will say that everything went great and I would definitely do it again if given the choice (with the same person of course). Even my dad managed to remain civil (for the wedding, the rehearsal almost blew up…). Thank you to all of those that came and to those that sent their well wishes. Having you all celebrate with Theresa and I was great.
• Honeymoon: This was only good because we wanted it to be (it was our honeymoon dammit!). I would not recommend anyone stay on the islands in the Bahamas for any length of time. The resort we stayed at was supposed to be luxury, but was not. To give you an idea, we had a king size bed with 2 queen size sheets. Outside the resort, I couldn’t walk 100ft. without someone trying to give me a deal on something I didn’t want or try to give me a bullshit story about something I didn’t care about in the first place and then demand a tip. On our first day into Nassau, we walked through a straw market and ended up on a wharf. While we were walking, a guy walks up to me holding a necklace, I told him I didn’t want it but he insisted it was free. I ceased my opposition since it didn’t seem to be worth the fight so he proceeded to put one on Theresa too. He then demanded a tip… I pulled out $5 and handed it to him and he had the audacity to say, “And 5 for the lady.” I reached my limit pretty quick with that and told him if it was a tip that was all he was getting. While we were there we also couldn’t help but notice that everything was over priced by at least 100%. We stopped at the HardRock Cafe for lunch one day and my burger cost $14. It helps that there is no sales tax, but really? Complaints aside, Theresa and I made the best of the time we had and did enjoy ourselves. The weather was decent so we were outside a lot. The food at the resort was decent for being an all-inclusive place. They even had 2 sit downs that we managed to get reservations at. On our last night there, it even turned out the resort was overbooked so they asked for volunteers to go to the Sheraton for the night… which we gladly did. 🙂
• Thanksgiving: Nothing remarkable this year… which after last year is a blessing. Because of our wedding, Theresa and I couldn’t go up to Ohio this year so we invited everyone down with us. Unfortunately, no one came so it was us and the dog… but I’ll take what I can get. It was pretty good anyway.
• Christmas: This was also remarkably drama free this year. I’ve no idea how that happened. The only part that sucked was the fact that I was driving somewhere every day and it got old pretty quick. Theresa and I have decided that holidays are going to be on our schedules from now on… in NC if necessary to get people to understand just how much of an onus they put on us. Sorry to my friends if we end up staying down here next year 🙁 Family is really a pain sometimes.

There aren’t any other huge things that have gone on, at least not in comparison to a wedding. I did finally upgrade my desk at home to something more mature than a desk I used when I was 6. I might get more pictures later… for now:

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