so when i first moved here, to california, the silicon valley i was looking for a job in high tech. it was january 1999, the dot com boom was in full swing, but i didn’t have a degree. nonetheless, i found a job as a ‘staff engineer’ (read: grunt) at a company that a guy from church was forming. it was called petrasoft research, and the goal was to take on short term contract work. we did so until the end of 99, when a friend of the owner got vc money to fund his startup, and we closed up petrasoft and went to work for the new company – lightsocket.com. now this is where the crux of things happens. i got my first taste of real startup life. i put blood sweat and tears into lightsocket. build their office network from ground up until we got a real it guy. set up source repositories. physically wired all the offices. replaced the phone lines that we accidentally cut. moved furniture. set up furniture. got in early. stayed late. lightsocket’s big idea was to create an extensible platform for collaboration technology. this is similar to, but not the same as something like webex. so imagine this: it’s a special server that manages all the collaboration stuff that you need. starting sessions, joining other peoples sessions, tracking what tools/applications are being used in what sessions, etc. and a basic client that connected with the server and provided the user’s side of the collaboration stuff. then on each client, you could plug in whatever ‘sharable’ applications you wanted to use. you could write wrappers around just about any application and make it sharable, or write your own using the framework and api provided. also it’s cross platform, so you can run it on windows/mac/unix equally (yay java). this was all based on a project called ‘habanero’ at the university of illinois urbana/champagne, and as part of the startup, they hired 5 people from illinois to work with us to develop this new platform. so terry, mario, vil, jason and al all sign up and join the rest of us, stars in our eyes, convinced that we’re going to make it big. long story short, 10 months later we close up shop, no severance, no notice. come in on a monday and right into a meeting. “no money. sorry.” (sense a little bitterness there?) everyone scatters and tries to catch their breath, while dealing with the stinging blow of reality. the illinois contingent goes to work for cisco. the san jose contingent scrambles to find work, any work in the post-boom depression of silicon valley. some do. some don’t. the company closes.. or does it? last week an ex-employee sends me a little note, saying that lightsocket.com is back. after checking out the web site, i find that they have released two ‘plugins’ for the aol client – that allow you to surf the web together and collaborate on several applications. over aol. all i can think is ‘what a waste’. this could have been technology that changed the world, changed the way people worked and learned, but it’s been reduced to a co-browser plugin for aol. any vc’s looking for a good investment? i can get the illinois guys back together and we can make it happen for real. no ceo’s. no marketing/sales. no golden parachutes. no over-priced contracts and vp’s. no signing bonuses. if you want to start a company that produces nothing other than accounting irregularities, i’ll refer you to some ex-executives i know. if you want to invest in something that can actually be something, then e-mail me. one of the co-founders wrote an article for salon magazine about the death of lightsocket, you can read it here. i’ve moved on for now, but there’s rarely a week that goes by that i don’t still think about that time in my life, and often as not i rage about all the things that i think were done poorly. all the things that could have been done differently. the changes of direction that weren’t needed. the revolving executives. and i think about my dreams and hopes, and how much i wanted it to succeed. and it still could, as long as we don’t stop hoping.

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i play in my church’s band, and we practise every wednesday night which is cool, since for the last 5 or 6 years the only time i seem to ever even get my guitar out is for practise & church. our bass player is fantastic. his name is titus and he’s an artist. (no, seriously.) he’s a painter and he’s currently doing a 25 piece set of paintings that are reflections of black people as appearing in 19th century art. really funky stuff. anyways, this morning i was thinking about him and how he’s really doing it.. living his dream. he’s always wanted to be an artist, and he’s finally starting to make it. he’s got a show coming up in february to display his new series, and he’s got some patrons that regularly buy his art. then i started thinking about me, and how for as long as i can remember i’ve been just coasting through life. just doing enough to get by, not really giving my all in most things. i’ve become a lot more consistent in recent years, but i’ve still pretty much just dealt with things as they come. now i’ve got a family and a house, a 9 to 5 job (none of which i could have possibly imagined 5 years ago) in fact, during high school and college i thought that one of the worst possible fates would be this. now i love it, but sometimes i wonder if there’s something that i’m missing. occasionally i get a drive to do something, to make a difference, make myself known, but i lack direction, and most notably, my passion seems to peter out quickly. and now i’m coasting and really feeling like i lack direction in my life. i love my wife & daughter but is there something that i should be working for? some bigger picture? a forest that i can’t see? a huge pile of tired cliche’s that i can’t see over? ;) man i’m starting to harsh my buzz, i’d better knock it off before i get down on myself.

“care to join me in a belt of scotch?”
“mr hutz, it’s 9 in the morning!”
“that’s alright, i haven’t slept in days!”

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damn i’m starting to get really tired of being sick. my daughter started sounding congested saturday night, and by sunday night i was feeling it too.. yesterday was like walking around with my head swaddled in cotton. oh yeah. you can feel my enthusiasm i’m sure. if it wasn’t for tylenol sinus then i’d be immobile right now. i’m counting the days until i get time off. july 10th is my date. circled in bright red on my calendar, and i get 5 days off. (after having to work the 3rd and 4th :() of course, of that 5 days, only 2 are really holidays, since i have quite a long trip for a cousin’s wedding that weekend. fly to chicago. fly to toronto. rent a car. drive 6 hours. hotel. mixer. sleep. wedding. family stuff. drive 6 hours. fly to denver. fly home. exciting times eh? at least i have my g4 anda couple books to keep me company. as long as i’m feeling better by then, i think i’ll be ok.

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i wrote 2 blogs when i was on vacation, and here they are, a couple weeks late :)

later..

back from the beach.. there’s some stuff that you don’t remember when you don’t swim in the ocean very much.. i live about 30 minutes from the pacific and the last time i went there to swim was 2 years ago. the nearest place to swim from my house is one of the many beaches at santa cruz, and the pacific is mighty cold there.. in the summer the ocean might get to a whopping 64 or 65 degrees at the highest. for people who are used to heated pools, that’s damn cold. the ocean down here was about that cold, but bearable.. maybe 63 or 64 degrees (and it’s only may) but it was exhilarating. so the first thing that you don’t remember is how cold it is. the second thing that you don’t remember is the waves. even a couple dozen feet out from shore, where the water depth is maybe 4 or 5 feet, you can get 10 and 12 foot swells. (yes, that’s 6 to 8 foot waves). that’s pretty cool, as far as i’m concerned. as long as you’re not foolish about it, it’s a lot of fun. it’s getting on towards evening and i’m getting tired, even though it’s not quite 8pm, but i’m gonna wrap things up, but before i do, i’d like to talk about some of the super-cool stuff that i aquired at legoland: some starwars lego!! an imperial shuttle, (complete with crimson guards!) miniature xwing, tie bomber, and a couple other funky lego dudes (including lego darth vader and lego emperor palpatine. pictures will follow, when i am done putting them together. later all :)

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i wrote 2 blogs when i was on vacation, and here they are, a couple weeks late :)

well i’m doing a delayed blog: i’m writing this in encinitas, ca, on my 2nd(3rd) day of my vacation.. i was hoping my airport card would pick up a random wap and i’d be able to surf and update and stuff but i didn’t. i’m watching high fidelity and writing this on openoffice (w00p). i’m so happy, i get 3 full days with my wife & daughter, havin a ball! we are in our hotel, caitlin is having her afternoon nap, and i’m jotting down some thoughts. friday we left about 2pm, a little early, and my friday consisted of: email, code some from home, dr appointment, get a perscription for antibiotics (mmmm z-pak) and then fight my sinus infection for 8 hours in the car :( yesterday we went to legoland and then toured encinitas and carlsbad (a little touristy, but cool) and this morning, we did the rest of legoland. in college, my roommate rob was a huge lego fan. i always thought it was cool, but never was engrossed into it, but rob… well, the last time i saw his apartment, he had moved out the coffee table and entertainment center in his living room and had the hull of a 12-foot battleship that he was building.. out of lego. i’ll see if he’ll send me some pictures to put up. while at legoland, they have this place where people are working on new exhibits, and restoring damaged ones, etc. that, of course made me think of how some people really pursue their ‘dream job’, and that would be rob’s. sitting in a little room, putting together funky lego designs. gotta go to the beach, will check in later.

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