congrats, stovall!

I just have to give a shout out to my friend Jon, who finally (FINALLY!!!) left "that company" for a great new job at Rackspace. So now, instead of looking at spreadsheets all day long, he will be doing amazing things with his exceptional design skills.



Cheers, Jon! I wish you the best!

congratulations, aaron!!!

Congrats are in order for my good friend Aaron, who has gotten a fantastic position with Ironport | Cisco, and will be moving to SF with his GF Shannon in September. This makes JR and me giddy with delight - it will be great to have old friends in our "new" city.

They were here visiting just a week or so ago, and they went to all those great events with us: the opening of the Dark Matters showing at YBCA, and the Laughing Squid party at Flora Grubb Gardens (see my earlier post). We also dropped by Jenna's for one night of Brett's Birthday Week extravaganza, and had a great time.

When they headed out, they ended up on the plane from hell, and were stuck on the runway for four hours in Disco Plane 2, Electric Boogaloo. Seriously. FOUR HOURS. Of that! I would have lost my mind, and that would be after having a seizure.

Aaron has been quite the jetsetter, because the day after they got back to SA, he turned around and came back out here for a full day of interviews, and since it's a great company and work environment, he fit in and they loved him. Of course, he couldn't get out of SF without more plane trouble, so after JR dropped him off and got back to work, he called to ask JR to come get him, because his flight had been canceled and he couldn't get out until the next day. That sucks, but it gave us an evening to celebrate with a positively glowing Aaron.

I can't stress enough how excited we are to have Aaron and Shannon moving out here. It will be fun helping them find a place to live, and then introducing them to all our favorite SF spots. And it doesn't hurt that that makes one more smart and talented person leaving that company - you know the one.

So congrats, Aaron! You rock!

"i work at an internet company"

I'm losing track of all the funnies from a friend of mine about working at a company that has made it it's mission to be an "internet company"...

• I can't read Twitter because I work at an Internet Company.
• I can't see Flickr because I work at an Internet Company.
• I can't use Campfire because I work at an Internet Company.
• I can't see YouTube because I work at an Internet Company.
• I can't use Gtalk because I work at an Internet Company.
• I can't see Vimeo because I work at an Internet Company.

What's next? "I can't access the internet because I work at an Internet Company."???

This just begs for a "redneck" kind of joke:

"You know you don't work at an internet company if..."

things even i know

Tonight we met some friends at the Saucer for a few beers, and we met someone that started working with them recently (at that company). This woman was drinking red wine. At some point during the conversation, after she was on her second glass (and who knows how many she had before we got there), she mentioned that SHE'S 4 MONTHS PREGNANT, so she shouldn't SMOKE. I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to DRINK either. Every time she ordered another glass, someone who joined us asked if that was okay for someone who's pregnant, and she'd respond, "Sure it is." She finished 3 glasses of red wine, moved next to the guy that was smoking so she could at least get some secondhand smoke, and finally got up to leave. Someone was complaining that she was leaving early, and here's the best quote I've ever heard from a pregnant woman:

"If I have another one, I'll really be drunk."

Ah...Texas.

Wait til you see photos from our trip to Bass Pro Shop Outdoor World. Yeehaw!

sxsw interactive 2007

I'm gonna be there, are you? If you are, let me know in the comments or if I don't spot you there, swing by the Google booth and say hi!

JR (of McAfee) will be there too. As will Lee, of frogdesign.

Funny... first time I get to go to SXSW Interactive (in Austin - an hour from San Antonio, where I lived and worked for 6 years) is when I move to San Francisco. All I'm sayin', you know, is ... makes you think.

speechless

I got the news this weekend that the COO of my former company has left the company. He'd been there 20 years, and every single person I know was positive he was the next CEO. He's wicked-smart, down-to-earth, and just an all-around nice person. Now that I think about it, maybe that's why he left the company. Maybe they don't take people like that at the CEO club. Or maybe, like me, JR, Lee, Jerod, Bo, Luke, etc., he saw the writing on the wall and decided this was no longer a company he wanted to be a part of. I don't know how the air was up where he was, but at our level, it was toxic.

I think all of us stuck around as long as we did in the hope that he was going to be able to change that. I think that's part of why some good people are still there. Who knows. There were times when I wasn't sure if he was fighting to make it better or if he was part of the problem. I think his leaving shows he's one of the good guys, and I'm sad for those left behind*. But I'm happy as hell for him. Best of luck!

*Plus, every time a good person leaves, I think an angel gets their wings. Or something like that. It's one more crack in the hull of a ship that may or may not be seaworthy, if you get my drift. But that's just my opinion.