End of Year Wrap Up

It's been an eventful year... not all of them good events... but never the less.

1. Lotusphere 2008 - My seventh Lotusphere. While at the conference I finally got the blogging bug - by the number of posts during the year (22) it wasn't a severe case but it was a start.

2. The SAP CIS system go-live at work in March - survived the event without losing my sanity. The system has been up and running now for 9 months - made it thru end of month, end of quarter and end of fiscal year closings - not without issues but the bills are getting printed.

3. My daughter's graduation from from college in early May and my son's graduation from high school three days later - I'm very proud of my kids. They're both turning into great adults and are a joy to be around. It was great to see them walk and it's been great to see them move on to the next steps in their life.

5. My daughter's wedding at the end of May - I have to give full credit to my wife for pulling this off. I did my part but she was the CEO. Everything looked beautiful, tasted wonderful and went off without a hitch. We enjoyed spending time with family and friends and have developed a great friendship with our daughter's new in-laws.

6. My company was acquired by a much larger company - wondered at all the reports we were doing on infrastructure, support and licensing.

7. Attended the VMWorld conference in Vegas in September - huge conference. Striking differences from Lotusphere - some better some worse. Didn't have the same community feel to me as Lotusphere but then my first Lotusphere was very overwhelming and it took me until the second before I found my niche in the community.

8. The corporate merger was completed in October - we prepared to move forward with changes - discovered that there would be some reorganization in "shared services area" which included IT, should have seen the writing on the wall at this point.

9. Went on vacation to Sanibel Island with my wifes family to celebrate her parent's 50th anniversary - had a wonderful stress free week of beach walks, bicycling and visiting with family.

10. Returned from vacation the second day of December to find out that the reorganization made my position "redundant" - I have to admit I was caught flat footed about this. They've given us out-placement help and a severance package to help with the transition but after 15 years with the same company the transition isn't going to be easy.

11. Hit the job market in early December.


I know this isn't the best time to be looking for a job but I'm at peace with it. I'm hoping this is a door opening to new possibilities. I've had several interviews and I'm hoping something comes up soon. I'm signed up to teach a management course as an adjunct professor starting in a week, it's not much pay but it is a chance to see if I want to move in an academic direction in the future.

I will be there in spirit with you at Lotusphere in a couple of weeks but not in the flesh. I will be reading your blogs, Tweets and Facebook posts so try and keep all of us stuck at home in the loop. I have a couple of other blog posts planned for the next week with some technical content.