Some of you know, many of you don't. So here is the formal announcement. I'm starting a new job on March 15th. I'm going to a start-up company where I'm going to be 'head' of IT. I say 'head' in quotes because it is still a very small company at the moment that has big plans you can probably guess the size of the IT department once I start.
Breaking Up is Hard to do
Since April of 2006 I've been working for NetApp and it's been the most challenging, exciting and best 4 years of my professional career. I've gotten to work on some significant projects over the past couple of years. It's been fun and I was well compensated. NetApp is perennially on the Fortune Magazine's Best Places To Work list. This year they are #7 last year they were #1 (I only think we got that because Google canceled afternoon tea that year). With perks like bagels or fruit every morning, free coffee and tea including a professional espresso and cappuccino machine and add on that the stock options and bonuses I've gotten and how well the company is doing this year. It is a excruciating decision to leave NetApp.
Aside from the bidding war I was swept up in for our home, this is the hardest decision I've had to make. After weighing all the pros and cons it boils down to one key thing. I'll have the opportunity to run IT for a high tech company that is run by a proven entrepreneur who's track record speaks for itself. It's a huge career builder and if I didn't take it I'd always be wondering "What if". That's no way to live.
Avere - Italian, Verb, (transitive) To have.
I'm going to a high-tech startup named Avere Systems. They provide "Demand Driven Storage (TM)". What is does is allow you to have greater control on scaling your storage capacity separate from performance. You can store your bits on large, slower, cheaper disks from your existing storage vendor. You can use their backup, dedupe, and other neeto cool technologies. And you get killer performance by using Avere's products to sit in front of your storage and cache the data on fast low latency internal storage. Avere's special sauce is in making the management of the cached data and the storage seamless as well being able to scale and achieve crazy performance with shockingly little hardware or disks.
Until I learn more what i can and can't say about it. that's about all you are going to get out of me. I'd hate to leak some NDA info and get fired before I even start!.
Single Car Family Experiment
The new office is too far to bike to work which stinks. It's 18 miles which I suppose is do-able, I don't have to travel any restricted access highways or anything, but I don't want my daily commute to be 3 hours. My days are going to be long enough as is.
There isn't any Public Transit that works which bugs me. Cranberry Township is surburban hell when it comes to not needing a car. It's not walking or bike friendly and there are no busses around here except for the downtown express buses. There was a near perfect bus route that was canceled 2 years ago. It would of picked me up less than 2 miles from my house and dropped me off less than half a mile from the office. There is also a proposal from 2 or 3 years ago about expanding bus service for Cranberry Township but it does not seem to have any legs. They proposed a very similar route that would of made my day.
I was going to wait till I started the new job to see if i could snag rides from a co-worker and if that didn't work out I was going to look for a beater, I really like not having 2 car payments. The key word here is "was" because tonight I'm picking up a car that pretty much fell in my lap. The car was too good of a deal to pass up to wait and see if I needed a car in a few weeks where I'd never find a deal like this one. More on me buying a 15 year old car some other time, lets just say It's not something I thought I'd be doing as of a few months ago.
The New Lifestyle Experiment
The biggest impact here is going to be going to the gym at lunch. The gym I just joined is too far from the office. There may be a discount at a gym near the office so I'll have to see which gym is a better investment for me. If I stick with my current gym I'm going to have to make a strong effort to get there 3-5 times a week like I am now. There is a good time slot after Allison goes to bed, but at 8pm I'm not really thinking about hopping in the car to go to the gym. Maybe I become a early bird... maybe...
As for my new diet, I expect that I'll be able to keep with it. If anything I expect that there will be less temptation at the new company than I have today. For example today I had to turn down free bagels and free pizza, oh and the full fat cappuccinos are always standing in the corner trying to get me in his club.
Craft Beer Radio
Plans have us continuing to get back to our near weekly schedule. However trips for this coming year will be cut back probably only SAVOR since it can be done over the weekend. As long as they will have us again this year.
Baby
Oh yeah, because there wasn't enough change going on here. Stay Tuned.
All in all I'm excited as hell. Wish me luck, success and to become obscenely rich on this venture! I'll be happy with the first two but that third is nice bonus.
