(* Psst, like so many e-mails in my Drafts, this has been sitting since 14-March. Deal. *)
This week has been like no other in my life. Monday morning I awoke to a beautiful morning in Prague, Czech Republic. I had spent a wonderful weekend there with a great friend, and former colleague at StepNexus, Inc. I flew home to Austin from Prague by way of London's Heathrow Airport and Chicago's O'Hare Airport. A long day, and all I could think about was Prague on the way back to Austin. Yeah, Prague. That's it.
Prague was immediately preceded by a week in London for the purpose of celebrating the 10th Anniversary of MULTOS. Sadly, that week also coincided with some very difficult decisions being made within the owning organization, StepNexus. We'll get to that in a bit. But there was some really cool stuff in between...
So I land in Chicago and breathe in the fresh air that is 'unlimited' internet on my Hotspot account at ORD's Admiral's Club lounge - ahhh, Twitterbuds are a Twittering, and with SXSWi going on back home in Austin, there was no telling what this week would be like. Sure enough, there's a Tweet sitting in my box, "how about lunch on Tuesday"? Me, turn down a lunch out? Not a chance. I picked up @karasoluri and @khaynes, and their new SXSWi buddy, @vero, and we were later joined by none other than @whurley. Good times.
I worked a bit at my favorite coffee shop, Dominican Joe, and I get a Tweet and a call from @adelemcalear and @collencoplick who were also at SXSWi, launching their new company, 99directions. Colleen called me and said, "Let's get BBQ!" "Oooook, I said.", but of course if you know me, you know that I could eat BBQ indefinitely. Cutting to the chase, I jumped the HP/@scobleizer bandwagon and crashed their BBQ at The Salt Lick. County Line on the Lake for lunch, The Salt Lick for dinner. Beat that with a stick. I can't.
So that was a day of opposites: Lunch with @whurley and sitting next to @iJustine at dinner. Talk about opposites, those two. Well, @whurley does have nice hair, too.
Also on Tuesday morning, I received an e-mail from a fellow that I was trying to meet up with for a drink for over nine months. We'd had a good chat on a ORD/AUS flight and I told him all I knew about smart cards in about (* cough *) two hours, and he STILL wanted to talk biz with me later. Finally did. That happened on Thursday the 13th. Very cool. Hopefully more on that later.
And on Friday, the wheels fell off of the good ship StepNexus. On Monday, I posted this to a wee-wittle news group I'd created so share work-related news to those interested in my industry. That caused a little bit of a stir, but as you may indeed read, it is entirely truthful and actually very positive on my former employer. They just weren't ready for the aftershocks of pulling the plug on the company so abruptly without a communications plan in place. Gotta have that, kids.
All for now. I'm lining up work for April, and still open to ideas for what I should/could be when I grow up. :)
-- Mike
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Mike, I've always enjoyed tweeting with you but I'm beginning to realize that you're a good writer in longer form as well. I can "hear" you when you write.
ReplyDeleteYou've had more upheaval than a guy ought to have in a short time, but glad to see you are--for the most part, anyway--keeping a positive attitude. Look forward to seeing you at this week's tweet-up.
Golly, Connie. That' high praise from someone who can actually write, such as yourself! :) It's been a bumpy road for many, many months now. Some of it has been of my own making, other parts of it completely out of my control.
ReplyDeleteI guess that's life. I figured I'd might as well keep my chin up about it all, because it's hard enough without dragging my chin around on the ground.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for commenting. I might eventually get the hang of this blogging thing. More people read it than I ever expected. Almost feel responsible to keep it up to date. :)