I've had a few people asking me where I've been lately. The answer I'd really like to give would involve being taken away from this planet to fight a war for an alien race based on my scores on a video game.....
But that's been done, I think.
The truth is rather mundane, as it turns out. I took new employment with a company (8.7 miles from my house). This new job doesn't require a plane, nor does it require bi-weekly drives to Atlanta (much as I liked seeing the crew there). Don't get me wrong, though. I really liked working for my old employer. They have some seriously classy people working for them that I will always respect and admire. I just have a wife now who basically can't take me traveling 100% of the time anymore, and absolutely refuses to move from where we live now. Only option was to move on, and this new job sort of popped up literally out of nowhere. Which is a cryptic way of saying I was recruited by a buddy specifically for his development team. However.....
It was originally going to be straight development gig (write yer own joke), but it turns out that the QA team needs help more than the development side of things. I am in a situation where I can mold and fold the QA automation program at this client in my own image, much as I did the one at a previous employer.
The upside of this is that I can make a big impact in a goodly amount of time as the only automation engineer (using QTP and writing some ad hoc tools of my own). Definitely more impact than that I can make as "just another developer". Also, did I mention it's 8.7 miles from home? Now that, dear and constant reader, is one heckuva nice commute.
The downside of this is that there is a ton of work to do, and a lot of it won't involve doing development outside of a testing environment. The other part of the downside is that this place handles SSN and lots of personal information.....which means no chat programs, web-based e-mails, or even blogging on pain of death...or firing. So, I've been getting home at night, worn out and too tired to really get on and blog. Yes, this means I a lot of my other posts were posted at work...during lunch and breaks of course.
In the coming weeks, I have to get so many things going again. I have to get disciplined to work on coding projects outside of work to remain able. I am also going to start playing my guitar (the real ones, not the plastic ones) a lot more in the hopes of finding another band. Beyond that, I think Sheri and I are going to create some genetic blends of ourselves.
It pays the bills, I guess, and it beats being on the road.
Wish me luck!