Back to Work

I've been largely silent for the past two and a half weeks, mostly because we did indeed decide to ship our product on May 22. That bought most of the engineering team an immediate two week recovery break (and the rest their break after the localized releases shipped on Friday), and hopefully the company a return to profitability.

Now that I'm on the train, I'm kind of looking forward to going back to work. I can't wait to start another year of what I hope will be successful feature development and lots of bug fixing. I'm lucky to love what I do, as Al reminds me occasionally. It's fun and exhilarating and challenging and rewarding, and I get to work with really smart, creative, and energetic people on a product that web professionals actually need and want.

This love for my current career not withstanding, Al and have been discussing our dreams for our next careers in more detail lately. Since it's my goal to run a B&B, we've been trying to think of other home-based businesses that could complement the B&B business (and supplement the income gained from it). We've come up with a few, including providing black & white film processing and darkroom services (I've staked out an area of the house that I want to turn into a darkroom for my own use, and theoretically we could use it to provide services for others); wedding and pet photography (I know, weird combination, but two subjects I find immensely interesting to photograph); and cake decorating. Yes, cake decorating (I think this comes from an enduring love of frosting). Al has suggested that I could exploit another niche market with these interests by specializing in cake photography. :)

In any case, it's nice to have a dream for what I might do next. For the first time in my life, I'd actually have an answer if someone asked me, "where do you see yourself in five years?"