Michael Jackson dies

No this isn't another one of a thousand posts reflecting on Michael Jackson's life. Rather it's about the process surrounding how I/we found out the news.

At work about 2 PM Pacific, someone shouted the first news about Michael Jackson. I forget if it was that he'd had a cardiac arrest, was rushed to the hospital or something else. Shortly thereafter someone yelled that he had died. As a group we spent the next 20 minutes using the power of the internet to get the latest and greatest news. We used out local IRC chat to sent around the latest news link. I found Crowd Eye incredibly useful as I could see what other people we're tweeting. We all found TMZ breaking the news first and for 15 minutes it was the only source aside from those quoting TMZ. While we knew it was 99% likely true, none of us believed it until we saw got confirmation in the LA Times blog. Meanwhile I was getting breaking news email updates from CNN which we're all "old news".

The thing I've found most interesting about his death is how open people are about their hatred of the man just minutes or hours after he died. I.e., their feeling are so intense, or perhaps their tact so lacking, that they can't wait a day to share their negative thoughts. I'm no fan of the Michael Jackson of the last 15 years but for God sakes, the man just died and people lost their father, brother, and son.

New job

This post is long overdue. Sorry.

I started a new job four weeks ago working for Serena software. We're building Agile on Demand which is the product you see featured on the front page of the web site. It's a tool for managing Agile software projects that you'll access via your browser. The job is great, the people are great, and I feel like I'm making a real impact.

I left Ascentium at the end of July. Basically after being there for a year, my mom still couldn't remember the name of the company I worked for or what I did, so I decided to help her out. Seriously though, it just wasn't quite what I envisioned. When I interviewed and accepted the position, I really liked the people, though doing consulting would be a good experience, but was a bit apprehensive about the consulting structure and tracking hours rather than tracking work completed. And it stayed the same throughout. I liked the people and still do and miss the ones I don't see on a daily basis. And it was great when I was full-time on one project from January through March. But once that project abruptly ended, it was constant chaos trying to fill my hours and figure out if projects were real or just planned. I knew I'd be working on a number of projects and some would be short, but I always figured there'd be a backlog of waiting or upcoming projects to jump on and possibly people would be fighting for my time. Instead there just wasn't enough work and I felt like a contractor searching for work at times. I was salaried and still got paid but in the slow weeks didn't feel it was fulfilling enough. It's a good place and I'd even go back as a contractor -- I get paid when I work, I have free time when there isn't work -- but it just wasn't the right fit for me at this point.

Being back in the product world, rather than projects, I feel happier and am actually excited to see this huge pile of automation work we have to do. Oh, and I'm a pig. Mom, that should be easy to remember, but maybe it's not something to share with your friends over Rosh Hashanah dinner.

Geneology and Family Tree

At the end of 2007, a friend turned Monica and I on to Geni, where you can create a family tree and make all of your relatives members and then can add to the tree and add their relatives and so on and so on. Essentially it's viral* family tree.

Monica and I each had family trees that were put together from our father's sides and were able to add a lot of relative beyond what we might know off the top of our heads. Then my parents both got involved and talked to my grandmother and filled out as much of their families as they knew. And slowly we're adding some (geographically) distant cousins who are adding their families. And we're searching on the internet to see if we can find people.

One of the neatest parts of searching for information was having my mom go through her old records and searching the Ellis Island records and finding the official records where my grandmother (mom's mother) and her brother and parents came to the United States. It's also somewhat surprising to find information that conflicts.

I hope as time goes by other members add to the tree. Anyone who is married into the family has a whole tree to add. And I'm going to start searching Facebook to find many of my third cousins who I don't know at all.

If you're in my family, let me know and I can give you access to the tree. Or think about starting your own family tree.