SPAM-A-LOT

Went to see Spam-a-lot today. Primarily it was the Holy Grail on stage but there were a lot a little pieces from other Monty Python scripts in it. I particularly liked that they started with the song Finland. Always fun. If you get a chance you should definitely go see this.

I think it is time to head to new York again and catch a few of these on Broadway. Maybe I will try to get a consulting gig in NY just to catch a few (and make a little money :-)).

Life's Been Good

The last few entries have been a kind of jot them down cause I am thinking about them. I will put in some notes on WSS and WCF later this week.

Right now I am listening to the Eagles Live and in particular the version of Life's Been Good by Joe Walsh. Obviously they were having a good time when that was recorded.

I have created a playlist of all the tracks of music I own and randomized it. It is funny all the different music I have accumulated over the years. Weird hearing Weird Al followed by Arlo Guthrie and then Poison.

Can't remember now when and why I bought some of these but they are still pretty good.

---

Currently I am listening to Eagles Live Disc 1 by Eagles

Times, they are a changing.

My friend Dan Cambron has left Micron to take on a job at HP. Sounds like a really cool job doing emulation of HP Printers. My other buddy Andrew Hanson has just taken off too, Both guys are very good senior architect types. I wish them well in thier new positions.

I am definitely going to try to stay in touch but it gets harder when you get busy. I was shocked to see it had been over 10 years since I last talked to Grady. If nothing else leaving Micron has caused me to look up some of my old friends and make me want to stay connected with my current crowd.

Now if I could just figure out where Tom Klotz went to. I guess I will have to go to the opening of the Tiki bar at Pax River and see if I can find him...

Incredible People

In my 25 years in the software industry I have met a lot of really sharp people and some not so sharp :-). So since I have been layed off from Micron and focused on getting my health straight I have been using LinkedIn to try to get back in touch with the people I have known. That brings me to thinking about the really stellar ones on the list. Some of these are:

• Joe de Witt at Micron. Joe is a Incredibly sharp architect and business man. He has that rare ability to find the technically correct answer that is also the best solution for the business. He is also one of the most socially conscious men I know. He has a passion for doing what is right. Joe can teach you how to be a better person by example alone.
• Grady Bryant at VeriSign. Without a doubt one of the smartest people I have ever met. I have watched Grady rewrite entire TCP/IP stacks in weeks while keeping his cool around a screaming client. If you have ever had the privilege of working with him you know what I mean. No surprise that he is the VP of R&D at VeriSign.
• Dan Cambron. Dan taught me more about Object Oriented programming in two years then anyone else I have known. I must admit I thought I knew what I was doing. He showed me I still had a lot to learn and then proceeded to be one of the best mentors I have ever had. Truly a exceptional software engineer and architect..
• Herb LaFond. Herb is beyond a doubt one of those rare individuals who is a born leader. He balances a strong technical skill set with a incredible set of people skills. He is one of the best project managers I have ever seen, He taught me more about how a good process can improve software quality in two years then I have learned in the last 25. Anyone of his team members will tell you the same.
• Doug Lawson. I first met Doug when he came to Micron to talk about some of the products his company has sold us. In too many meetings with vendors you will meet a technical guy that just does not have the depth you need. That is not the case with Doug. I have talked with about everything from Development Processes to BTB to network protocols for PLC's. It got so bad that the sales guy for the account started limiting our discussions so they could actually cover the business that brought them to town. Doug is truly an exceptional individual that I am proud to know.

This is just a small list of the exceptional individuals I have met professionally. In my 47 years I have also had a list of friends (which all of these definitely count as) that have been just as great Susan LaFond, Robin Callahan, Deb Lafond, John and Helene Myers, Kim and Kevin Labrum, Jerome Pioux, Tim Blaylock, Colin Robertson and others to numerous to mention.

Sometimes you just have to be amazed at how great your life can be.

Home Office

Well I have spent the last three weeks since I was layed off from Micron building my home office and setting up some partnerships and contracting jobs, What a zoo.

I did learn some interesting things and finally came up with a configuration that I am happy with. First some notes on the home network.

1. I bought two My Books for San storage. That brings me up to 2 TB of NAS on the home network. Cost me about $1000.
2. I upgraded my switch to a 10 Port Gigabit Switch for my connected devices. Cost me about $50.
3. I got a new HP 2840 as my All-in-one printer on my network. Nice color laser printer/fax/copy/scan device. Cost me about $1000 with a two year service contract.
4. I got a new Dell Precision M90 for development. I plan on putting 64 bit Vista and 32 Vista on it for development OS's. Cost me about $2000 with the 3 year in home service contract. (http://outlet.dell.com/)
5. I got a port replicator and Dual 24 inch Samsung Monitors. I got addicted to those dual monitors at Micron, but wanted to upgrade them a bit :-). Cost me about $500 a monitor.
6. I got a new Dell Precision M65 for a Server. I plan on putting Windows 2004 Server 64 bit on it along with SQL Server, Oracle and any other database and server tools I want to play with. Cost me about $2000 with port replicators and 3 year at home service contract. (http://outlet.dell.com/)
7. I also spent another $500 on a new chair and a APC battery back up system.
8. Finally I upgraded my Internet Service Provider to the 5 megabit cable service. Micron's DSL will probably go away the beginning of August. The cable modem is wireless and wired so I can develop pretty much anywhere although the probability is when I am home I will be in the office. Cost me about $50 a month.
9. I will keep my old corner desk and set it up as a office desk. That should allow me to have 3 different workstation areas. One for the M90 and the dual monitors. One for the M65 server and a space reserved for a dell laptop to run Linux. This will run about $1500.
10. I also plan on picking up a new Fujitsu Stylistic at some point to take with me on customer calls. This will be about $4000.

So the total cost to set up a maxed out home office (for my needs) was a one time cost of $13,000. Should be all tax deductible for a cost of starting up the business. For now I am holding off on the Linux workstation and the new stylistic until I have money or contracts to warrant them. My current out of pocket expense are at $7000.

Most of this is highly portable and allows me to pick up the office network and take it with me if needed. The goal was to get a nice home office environment but still have something I could take with if needed.

Next I went after my Email and Document Servers. I decided to go with Google Apps for small business and bought the upgrade for my email. 10 Gig of email should do me since my other gmail account has never got close to using the 2 Gig I get for free. I will also use this for testing some new products I want to develop around the gdata API's.

The nice thing about Google Apps is it let me change around the settings for drcarver.com domain on WebHost4Life and point different cname and aname entries to a mix of google apps and WebHost4life services. I will use the sharepoint services on Webhost4life to create collaborative sites for different projects all hooked off my Sharepoint sites.

Finally I went with a hosted Subversion server. I did not want to have to back up everything at home and I wanted something that would be available on the net in case I was collaborating on a project with several others. I liked the integration of Trac with each repository, but now I have to figure out how to effectively use that and bugzilla.

So it looks like my yearly cost to run drcarver.com as a development/contracting service will be as follows:

• Google Apps for domains $50
• Web host for life basic services $120
• Subversion hosting $120
• Sharepoint sites - $20 per year per site
• Cable Internet Services $600

Total yearly cost will be about $1000 with better connectivity then I got from Micron or that I paid for when I had my consulting company 10 years ago. Unreal.

So far my costs are about what I thought they would be. My monthly costs of living are pretty manageable so I should be able to survive for 5 months or so with no other income. I plan on working some contracting gigs over the next few months to replace the capital costs for the start up and fund the rest of the toys.

Unemployed...

Well I was layed off from Micron on July 9th. Ironically my 10th year anniversary with the the company.

I have decided to go back to contracting and consulting. No more working for the man. It should make for a interesting next few years until I retire :)

New House

I am having a new house built, and it is taking up most of my time at the moment. Going to be a geeks paradise though. I will have to see what all I can get in it.

I did manage to get my colors in part. Crimson and Grey. Go Cougs!!!