Well, tonight’s the night. In just a few hours the calendar here turns over to a new year, 2007. So here I sit, looking back at the year that was and marvel at the good fortune I’ve had these past twelve months. 2006 was overall a very good year for me as I was afforded great opportunities, and was able to share in some great moments in the lives of my friends. While it was a hectic, busy and stressful year from start to finish, I don’t think I’d trade a single second of it considering where everything ended up.
February – Despite misgivings about my previous place of employment, my manager and coworkers did their best to make life at Big Insurance Co livable and worthwhile. In February, I was able to snag a week-long security training course down in Florida. So in the depths of winter I was flown down to Orlando for 6 days of training. The best part? The training was held IN the Disney World Resort. I stayed at the Port Orleans Hotel, and in the evenings after classes were done, I tooled around all the parks. I don’t think business trips get better than that. In the end I learned a LOT of great network security stuff and came back tanned, relaxed and much happier with my job.
April - You know what? In all of my childhood, I never went to Disney World. Not once. So it was a little odd to be, at the age of 23, going there twice in the span of a few months. There was a vendor conference my team needed to send a member to, and I was the only one with the spare time on my plate, so I got a second trip to Orlando, though this one was just a 2-day deal that didn’t leave me time for the parks. Again, I learned a great deal about web content filtering tech and had a good time.
While I was in Florida this time, I got the news that my friend Dan’s wife Bella had just given birth to twin boys, Luke and Owen. Very exciting
May - Even though I had been sent to Florida twice in the previous months, I knew the time was coming to start looking for new work. Rumors were flying (some of which I knew were true due to projects I was on) that large amounts of reorg and outsourcing were about to occur. It was somewhere around this time that Stardock had posted some job openings, and having chatted with folks like Cordelia, KarmaGirl, CariElf, WishX and KimK for about a year or so at this point, I started asking if there was any room in the company for me. Cordelia was an absolutely huge help in this, spending several weeks going back-and-forth with me trying to build a solid cover letter and resume, and then more or less acting as my champion internally to get the wheels moving. By the end of the month I had an interview set for the first week of June.
June - June came, and I offered up some vague reason why I needed a few days off to my boss, and headed out from Connecticut to sunny, tropical Michigan. After some kind of insane flight delays (a 2 hr delay because the pilot went missing) I landed and went through a half-day interview process involving lunch, and a rotating group of people coming around to ask me questions. By the end of the day, at dinner I was told an offer would be made. The following Monday I had the offer and I turned in my notice to Big Insurance Co.
The crazy part was my start date was July 12th. So the rest of the month was dominated by making travel arrangements to come out and get an apartment, then get my stuff moved, close out accounts in CT and open new ones in MI. All of this on top of continuing to work at Big Insurance Co until the end of the month so I could tie up projects and transition them to other team members.
July - First week of July I made a quick trip home to PA for the 4th and associated festivities. Drove back to CT on the 6th, packed up the last of my stuff on the 8th, and on the 10th I was moving into my new apartment in Michigan. The 12th, as planned, was my first day of work at Stardock.
To be honest, the rest of this month was more or less a blur. It was filled with learning what the hell I was supposed to be doing, getting a feel for the company and the area I was living in, and just trying to get my bearings in general.
August - As I became more at-ease in my role as Internet Evangelist (a title now handed over to Island Dog), I had to take my first few days off. Another of my very close friends from back home, Liz, was getting married at the end of the month… in Texas. Through a series of planning mishaps, and money issues, I was the only non-family member of hers to make the trip. As result I was the Maid of Honor. So for an extended weekend I ran all over the Dallas/Ft. Worth area with Liz trying to fix up and arrange the last wedding details left. It was something else seeing her get married, seeing as how everyone figured she’d be the absolute last to make that plunge!
September/October/November/December - The fall became a blur. My time at work was dominated by the GUI Championships and managing content for WinCustomize.com and starting to try and keep an eye on JoeUser for feature-worthy content. I made a trip home in November for Thanksgiving and again at Christmas, but outside of that, work took up my time. In this time I was also shifted from “Internet Evangelist†to “Web Czar†since my work was mostly focused on our internal sites and web projects. This is a pretty big step for me as I am shifting from having a tactical focus of arranging content on a day-to-day basis, to having to think further out, to start concerning myself more and more with ongoing content, with traffic stats and advertising issues. I’m starting to get my head around what all is involved, and this upcoming year is going to be pretty challenging and exciting for me.
So that brings us to the end of 2006. 2007 looks to be another interesting year for me as I will be really digging into my new role here at Stardock. I’m already more familiar and comfortable with the area here in MI than I was in CT after two years living there. My friends and family have all seen a drastic up-swing in my mood and outlook since making the move out here. It feels like I’m finally on-track and progressing with my life, whereas CT was more just treading water immediately following college.
On the slate so far for this upcoming year is to visit Liz again in Texas, try and make a trip out to Boston to see my friend Tricia, find an apartment that doesn’t scare me (I was woken up yesterday morning by cops screaming at someone to get down on the ground and place their hands over their head… directly outside my bedroom window. This is the second time I’ve been up-close-and-personal with the police since I moved here. The first time was a week after I moved in and a cop came to my apartment looking for the previous tenant who evidently vanished into thin air right after moving out.
But all the best-laid plans are often tossed out the window at the first opportunity as life loves to throw curve-balls. I couldn’t have predicted even half of the events of 2006 happening at this time a year ago, so who knows where life will lead me in the upcoming 12 months? I’m sure it’ll be interesting no matter what
I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year!