It has been an unusually busy summer.  There have been many visits – both with us going places and with people stopping by on the way through.

I gave notice at PGP early this year.  During the ensuing job search, they announced they would be purchased by Symantec.  I was convinced to stick around until the purchase date (June 7th).  In the meantime I made a couple of trips up to the bay area to help wrap things up.  We were lucky to find a consultant to take the baton long enough for my project to be completely decommissioned (which should happen in the next couple of months.

In the meantime, I found a job at PipelineDeals.  It’s an awesome little (just 6 of us) "startup" (4 years old!).  We’re based out of Pennsylvania, so I went out there for a couple of weeks to get to know everyone.  It was a good trip, and I got to do a little site seeing in Philadelphia.  Since then, we have opened an office in Seattle – so toward the end of the summer I visited Seattle!  Got to do some good site seeing, there, too.  And visited my sister up in Leavenworth.  I was lucky and had good weather for both trips.

PipelineDeals has been great to work for.  Great group of guys.  Great software base.  I’m coding in Ruby on Rails, which I really enjoy.

We’ve caught a couple of classic movies I’d never seen at the Fremont SLO Rewind: ‘The Odd Couple’, ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3D’.  Lots of fun to see ’em on the big screen.

In August we spent a few days in San Antonio, where Ellyn attended a conference.  Remind me not to go to San Antonio in August.  Yeah, it was hot.  And humid.  And the Alamo — just not all that impressive.  The following weekend we attended a 3 day wedding event in a valley east of Sacramento.  It was great to hang out at the river and just relax for a few days.  And the following week we spent with friends at the UCSB Family Vacation Center.  Which amounts to hanging out with friends at the dorms for the week.  It’s a pretty good time.

In the meantime, I’ve been going through the "Seven Languages in Seven Weeks" book (in more like seven months) with a group, here in San Luis Obispo.  And we’ve been going through the process of planning and approving (with the city) new retaining walls, fences, and the removal of about 60 cubic yards of dirt in the back yard.

Oh, and we’ve adopted an outdoor cat.  I call her "puss puss"; Ellyn calls her Gracie.  The vet says she’s about 3 years old.