I worked for IBM for almost 7.5 years. Being exposed to one of the largest companies in the world was an interesting experience. The amount of knowledge and information that I had access to was amazing. Perhaps not surprising was the lack of individual training. There are too many people for the company to customize training per person. Luckily for me I always wanted to program and have a true passion for development. I quickly amassed a large library of technical books ranging from Knuth’s series on algorithms to Java frameworks. I didn’t finish all the books I bought, but knowing that something is available for reference when I needed it came in handy quite a few times.

Eventually I realized that I wasn’t moving forward at IBM. It was unfortunate that I ended up in that position. I always thought I’d stay my entire career at IBM and retire with them. I find that I have somewhat traditional notions about work. Most people have no qualms about finding new jobs to climb the professional ladder. Leaving IBM was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made so far in my career.

In the fall of 2006 I moved to a small company in Houston as a technical lead. It was a decent bump in responsibility from IBM, which was the reason for leaving. For the past 2.5 years I have spent much of my time outside my comfort zone. Leading a team wasn’t new to me, I did it multiple times at IBM. The difference was the rate of change and the need to keep ahead of the curve. I’ve since become more comfortable with the responsibilities that I have and have done well.

As of May 1st, I’ve been promoted to Software Architect. This has been an end goal of mine since college. It’s satisfying being able to make it just under 10 years, but it is just a beginning. I have a long career ahead of me and I don’t plan on resting any time soon. Currently I’m following the Software Craftsmanship movement with interest. It fits with my philosophy of life and work in general. It will be interesting to see how well it does over the next few years…

The title is a reference to a Decembrists song. They have become my favorite band over the past few years with their quirky sense humor in their songs. Their latest album, The Hazards of Love, is amazing. It’s one of the few CDs that I have where I listen to the entire thing in one sitting regularly.

I’m really liking it. It’s put me outside my comfort zone though. I talked more (and to people I don’t know) yesterday than I normally do in half a week. It should be good for personal growth, but has been uncomfortable at best. It’s weird. I guess I haven’t been around people I don’t know for so long that I’m not used to the ‘getting to know you’ dialog that needs to be done.

Yesterday I took two sessions, one about comfort with change and how to deal with it and another on better use of retrospectives. Today I’m taking sessions on making teams more effective and better ways on making the speed/quality tradeoff when developing software. Both are extremely applicable to my current job so should be great.

I didn’t bring my camera, but others have them. The hotel where the conference is located is really nice, and I’m digging the Phoenix weather. Should have brought sunscreen, but I’m not out in the sun too much. It would be really nice to live out here, but I say that about any place that I travel to. Must be something with Houston (ha).

The hurricane itself was worse than I would have thought given how far we are from the coast. Power went out at the house around 1:30 AM. After that point, the only lights we had were from the glow of transformers popping around the neighborhood. They made an eerie sound close to what the monster in Cloverfield made. The hardest part of the storm didn’t hit until 4 AM. The odd thing was the power tried to come back on around then, but was browning out. I remember opening my eyes to see my digital alarm clock flickering (the ‘1′ would partially come up, then go out, then I’d see portions of the ‘12′ of ‘12:00′ pop up for a brief moment). I immediately ran (immediately in the sense of being groggy and sleep deprived) to the switch box in the garage to turn off the power to the house. I couldn’t see out of the front door to the cul-de-sac except for the slight glow from our neighbor’s front electric light flickering like a gas lamp. One thing I didn’t think about was the pressure difference between the outside and the house. I was pushed back the second I opened the door to the garage since it’s more open to the outside. Just walking to the breaker box was difficult with the wind curling around the garage doors.

The only other disconcerting effect of the hurricane was feeling the building shake from the more powerful gusts. In the future, we won’t be sleeping on the third floor during a hurricane. We took a quick look around once the wind started dieing down around 10 AM the next day. So far, there doesn’t appear to be any major damage to the house. There is a slight leak from inside the exhaust out of the AC. The cap probably came off in the high winds. If that’s the extent of the damage, I’m extremely happy though. We have running water that has been tested, food for quite some time, and friends that are kind enough to let us use their network access. Now we just need to get power restored to the homes in the surrounding area. We made out very lucky compared to other families.

Really, a hurricane isn’t carnival:

Last week Warren and I kept tabs on Gustav when it looked like it was going to be a sequel to Katrina (almost to the day). Now we have Ike bearing down on Houston. I was really hoping it would veer to the east like Rita did, but this time Houston isn’t as lucky. We’re looking at a 1 – 2 AM landfall of Ike just to the west of Galveston. I’ll be making sporadic posts today and possibly tomorrow depending on access to the Internet. Warren will be posting as well, including through twitter once the power goes out.

I’ve found a wealth of links that I’m using to keep up-to-date:

• Brendan Loy is posting again (you’ll remember he posted quite a bit during Katrina).
• Eric Berger handles the science blog at The Chronicle. He has a live chat this afternoon, and has been doing a fine job providing information about Ike.
• Andrew has been posting and has been more conservative on the hurricane. Contrast that to some people that have been hyperventilating for days.
• Live feeds from the major networks in Houston
• wunderground always has great information.

10:45 AM CDT: The water surge is really beginning to hit Galveston. Note how far away Ike is at this point (200+ miles). Water service has been turned off to portions of the city because of salt water contamination. Many of the feeders around I-45 are now flooded. People on the island should be leaving, not taking pictures on the seawall with their cell phones.

The Kemah boardwalk is overtopped by water. People are already being arrested for looting (idiots).

Personally, I’m thinking of making a Disciple of Khaine because the game mechanic seems interesting. We’ll see.

Warren, his sister, father and I harvested over 200 lbs of Cynthiana grapes two weekends ago. He has taken graduated from wine kits to the real deal. We had a great time, and it was good to get outside and do something physical for once. I’ve been stuck behind the keyboard for most of the year and stretching my legs felt good. It wasn’t hard work and was over in a few hours. Cynthiana (aka Norton) grapes are a difficult grape to use, but does well in the area. This part of Texas has a few issues with a disease that kills most of the ‘noble’ grape lines, so it’s hit or miss.

In other news, I’m taking the next week off on vacation. We’re going to Austin for a few days but nothing really major. I had hoped to spend the week playing the beta of warhammer online but it doesn’t start until the 7th (doh!). Oh well, I have a ton of technical books I want to get caught up on. In either case, I don’t have to worry about work and can just take it easy.