A lot of folks have been asking for the specifics so I figured tonight is as good as any to explain my move back to “Katapult”:http://www.katapultmedia.com. Keep reading for the big picture.
I try to keep personal things off this blog but it is industry related and it’s my blog so I say what I want! 
I can only pray Steve had everything together and is in Heaven right now coding on Windows Vista Angel edition. Steve died in a car wreck a couple weeks ago and it hit me pretty hard. He was roughly my age and in the same industry.
Have you ever met someone you feel could get an eskimo to buy ice? Steve was that kind of person. He could get the ocean to buy a drought protection insurance policy or a squirrel to sign a joint venture contract with Planters. He was definitely always on the move, mentally, and always had his entrepreneurial hat on.
Steve was also the first actual client of “Katapult”:http://www.katapultmedia.com when we made the official change from JDev, Inc. He kept me WAY BUSIER than I banked on being but we were doing some cool things so I didn’t mind. He introduced me to “Four Peaks”:http://www.fourpeaks.com, which has some good food and is where he ALWAYS wanted to meet for lunch. Good times.
Steve, you will be missed. Visit me in a dream and let me know how that Vista Angel edition is working for you.
RIP
First, I forgot my laptop at home. Ah well…they had one ready for me. It felt weird being without my laptop…like really weird but when they slapped a fresh Dell Inspiron 9400 on my desk……..well……..that all went away. 
I’ll be getting a desktop with some sweet monitors too (I’ll take some pics of the office here soon…it is kinda cool).
Anyways…enough of the gadgetry. Everyone, that I met, is super cool at Limelight (LLNW). I mean they went out their way to help me make sure everything was setup (albeit a bit after I made it in) and numerous people went out there way to ensure I had access to everything I needed.
I’m in the UI Dev’ “department” (a corner of the dev’ office area) with Jake and Dave. They are cooler than a fan, both very quiet though. I’m used to people talking to me all day (namely Tia, my wife, and Lil’ John) or at least some form of chatter. 
Although I could hear people talking it was usually muffled in some way.
LLNW has a lot of stuff going on. I had my first assignments (yes, plural) given to me today and I ALLLLLLMOST completed one today between having no desk and using the previous developers laptop to setting up on a desk to learning the old code to porting everything from the old laptop to my new one to having to upload some test files my manager needed to see (nothing I coded; they just needed it online to test)….{phewww, taking a breath}….I dang near made it. There was a list of 12 updates to a simple app and I have all but…mmmm…4 or so. {snaps fingers} I wanted to have a huge triumph today but coming close was good enough, at least they seemed happy.
So, those’re all of the highlights. What about the lowlights?
My only gripe is having to deal with non-classed Actionscript. The project is Flash 8/AS2 but all of the code is implemented in includes. “FusionCharts”:http://www.fusioncharts.com/ wasn’t difficult to use or anything but I had to mod some of their code to implement event dispatching (they use asfunction; ewww). It took everything in me not to rewrite the entire app as a class-based app but I refrained. This is just a “demo” anyway so I’ll probably end up rewriting it.
Yep…that’s all of my lowlights. Well, having “endless” amounts of snacks readily available is kinda a bad thing. (uh oh waist line) lol
LLNW is doing some sweet stuff. I don’t even know everything that’s going on (not even close to it) but just a few mini-discussions with some folks opened my eyes a bit to the “massiveness” of their infrastructure, goals, and responsibilities.
Oh…1 more thing…THEIR SERVER ROOM IS UBER-GEEKY! I smiled all the way through it. LMBO. I don’t know why but I love server rooms and their setup is super sweet. It even includes an air-sucker-outer (so in case there is a fire, suck the oxygen out…fire has no choice but to go out). NICE! Love it!
This is going to be fun!!!!!
Well, it is 12:30 and I gotta get some sleep. I can’t stay up late like I used too. Tomorrow is a day of multiple meetings as well as some doc signing. Hopefully I get to code a bit between all of that.
BTW, I won’t blog about specific projects I’m working on unless they are public and I have approval. It is just a formality and cool by me.
I’m at the airport squeaking out this post before group A finishes and group B (my group) starts loading. I wanted to get here earlier and write this eloquent post about how my life is about to transcend…{insert scratched record noise}…WHATEVER…I’M GOING TO CHICAGO! lol
See you there! Keep an eye out for a lot of posts this week. I blog a lot when I’m at conferences and they usually include “WOW…THIS IS SWEET!” type posts. I’ll try to keep’em a bit to the point this time around.
Uh oh…group A is moving fast…gotta run! {insert Speedy Gonzalez running noise} lol
I love to start a year off with a win. I’m not highly pleased with my teams performance but it wasn’t just terrible. My expectations were higher for Carson Palmer. I wanted to start Ben but chose not too. The way I saw it…Bengals played Baltimore so if Carson stunk it up the Ravens D would get the points: win win for me. Well…it wasn’t as great as I thought and Ben CLEANED UP yesterday.
Oh well, the week was a success. I’ll make my adjustments for next week and see if I can come out on top again. The results shown below:
