I got to thinking about my work patterns and what I've been getting accomplished. It far exceeds what I thought I would be remotely doing 10 years ago, even 5 years ago I've blown away my wildest "reasonable" expectations of the future. In some cases I've clean knocked down my "dream scenarios" of what I wanted to be doing in 5 years. The only problem now as I move forward at light speed is, what's up for the next 2 years, 5 years, and beyond. It always helps to live in the here and now if I know which here and now I want to live in, and to know that one needs to know which direction they're going. The irony of rockers always saying, "ya gotta live in the here and now!" What a paradox.
Currently I'm working diligently on Web Analytics at my current employer WebTrends, and I might add they're doing a great job and I'm having a blast working on the various projects I'm contributing to. I'm also working on several side projects, as anyone that speaks to me outside of work knows, and they've gotten to a place were I'm actually focused again and not under the gun. For the last few weeks, WebTrends, life, side projects, and the lack of getting a single beer to just slow down and unwind was about to leave me unwound. It seems, when it rains it pours, is definitely a truism.
finally though, things have wound down a little bit and I've taken today and tomorrow as a vacation day. My plans are to get things straightened out and see what direction I'm heading on a few of my side projects, think about my heading for WebTrends, and just things in general. I'm also intending to get that beer and just unwind Friday night with the regular crew of .NETters and other PDXers that I normally chill with. So if you're reading this, drag yourself downtown to Berbatti's or Bailey's this Friday night and come and have a beer or three and let's talk.
Other than that, the remainder of this entry is just collections of rambling thoughts and odd conversations here and there.
My WebTrends Strategies
First off, I'm going to have a ton more blog entries based upon my work from a technical aspect at WebTrends. I'll also probably write more about the directions the various teams and I will push forward technologies for implementation for existing and new customers. With the momentum we're building these days we're going to have some huge, and awe inspiring projects in the very near term.
One of the projects that I'm working on is checking out various partnerships and how we can integrate even better. One of the things I'm really stoked about is working with SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) and prospectively more work with SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services). On that note I'm starting to check out what is going to be coming down the pipe with SQL Server 2008 and how we can build things that currently work with SQL Server 2005 but will easily migrate to 2008. Most reporting services and integration services work seems like it will be a fairly straight migration path.
In addition to this I have a brown bag lunch team that I meet with and we're working on some secret stuff. Hopefully we'll be able to release it to the world in about 1-2 months. That you'll just have to stay tuned for.
Personal Projects or Coterie
The groups of people I've been working with and organizing in my spare time is growing. Hopefully we'll be a truly full fledged team that can develop at the drop of a dime (figuratively). We're definitely getting stronger and the more connections I'm making the easier it is to put together full fledged projects in extremely short order. It is truly amazing what can be done with multiple, extremely high level, competent people. We're not missing any of our John Galt Persons (Yeah, it IS an Atlas Shrugged reference).
Code Projects and Efforts
The other thing that I've actually wedged a little time back into my day for is the ASP.NET MVC. I do believe this can definitely take a ton of projects by storm and allow for a massively more maintainable and prospectively easier to scale web applications. But we'll see as time moves forward, so far, things seem to be pointing in the direction I'm thinking they'll head.
I'm done rambling on now, I'll be back with topical content soon enough, but for now all I wanted to do was just to sit and reflect for a few and get a bearing.
