Pulp Free

It was bound to happen… But this one wasn’t really planned. After 9 years working for Citi (Citicorp Mortgage, then CitiMortgage, then Citigroup, and then Citi… If you can keep them all straight!) - I’ve decided to change directions and take on a new opportunity with Hewlett-Packard (you can call them HP if you want…)

For my time at Citi I really did have a great job starting out doing Web support (dare I saw it… Technical Webmaster) - a few years of UNIX Engineering (I’ll always love you first, AIX) - developed a great Enterprise Applications Management team (long live WebSphere) and the last several years as their Infrastructure Architect & Engineer. I’m really going to miss the 4 years of running Precise the most! (We’ll see how that looks in a few months…)

However - on Monday I’ll be starting as a Solutions Architect for HP and I’m sure to have new opportunities to enjoy. What is a Solutions Architect? A quick search of Google will lead you to a few Web sites… Some really funny guys on the Web say that “they don’t do much!” - I have to laugh at that… But I think in reality you can say that there are a lot of people out there that “not doing much” can be applied to. Me - I’m really looking forward to just absorbing a lot of new enterprise software technology, getting my hands dirty with new hardware platforms and other corporate cultures and just helping my team deliver value. (Is this job interview over yet?! LOL)

In all seriousness, though… it’s going to be a great challenge. I couldn’t have gotten here without a lot of great people. I’m expecting plenty more of that at HP - making working there just as rewarding…

After one of the most terrifyingly mediocre Mexican lunches that I’ve had in probably years, I had the opportunity of a lifetime present itself to me today.

This:

Plus this:

Led to an extra 25 minute lunch outing in the attempt to obtain the privilege of spending an extra 30 cents a gallon for E85 fuel (based on comparative MPG of regular gasoline). My only hope that when we actually arrived at this oasis of fuel stations that:

A. The lines wouldn’t be too long
B. There would be some E85 left

Amazingingly enough, there was only one fuel pump and nobody was around using it!

Probably the only real benefit… um… of getting this fuel… well - hmmm - we couldn’t come up with one. Oh yeah - we’re saving the planet by utilizing a product that makes the US less dependent on foreign oil. What about:

• You can’t find it.
• You’d probably have to buy a new car or truck to use it
• Contains less energy than gasoline making you have to fill up more often (about 1.4 gallons to every 1 gallon of gasoline)

It was a delightful post-lunch drive complete with Waylon Jennings honky tonk music (hey - we were driving in a pickup). How long this effort continues will require a little more research into practicality. Not that I’m not interested in the long-term survival of our American Way Of Life - but at some point it needs to make dollars and sense.

Ahhh… Yes. You can stop asking the question now. “When are you getting married?”

May 4th, 2007 - 6pm ceremony, 8pm party!

And since the geek in me wants to make sure I get there on time - I’ve been looking for something like this:

(Sorry, Wedding is already over)

It’s an automatically updating countdown! (Cheers from the geeks, please…) More news will be updated in the future so stay tuned…

(And yes, please comment on those atrocious wedding bells… I tried my darnedest to find them!!)