Joe’s big summer vacation

As I’ve noted here, my big Mixx adventure is at an end.  It was a terrific experience, but it’s over now.  And as of now, I’m done with UberMedia, the current owners of Mixx: my employment with them ended on this past Tuesday.

So what’s next?  Time for a vacation!

For the first time in years, decades, I’m going to take a summer off.  And at the end of the summer, I’m going to figure out what to do next, which mostly means to find or make an opportunity to do another CTO-like thing.  (I really enjoyed being Mixx’s CTO.  I loved the start-up life.  I want to do it again.)

So what exactly am I going to do with these great gulfs of time stretching out over the next couple of months?  Well, it’s not going to be a leisurely summer.  So far, I’ve got plans to do the following:

– Travel.   Julie and I are going to New York for a couple days next week to see Sara, Marjorie, and Gary.  In mid-July, we’re taking the family to London for a week.  And in October, we’re going to Egypt – I’m really excited about that one.  And we’re still thinking about fitting in one more trip in August or September, possibly a road trip somewhere.  And there’s plenty of day-trips that I want to take.

– The beach.  Gonna spend lots of time at our beach house, and a lot of that time sailing on the Chesapeake.  The week of the Fourth of July, of course – that’s a family tradition.  And we’ve got guests lined up for two weekends in September.  And the kids have guests coming too – Kate had some friends to the beach last weekend, Kate and Andy are having friends over the Fourth, Diana is talking about having friends down sometime.  I’m sure we’ll schedule a lot more time at the beach, though I’m not sure when.

– Bunches of web projects.  Julie and I are putting together a website for a friend who is launching a set of rules for miniature wargames.  I’m building another site for a stealth-mode startup with some friends.  I’ve got yet another friend who is working on an online game that I’m going to help.  Julie and I have a few other ideas that may or may not come to fruition.

– A little consulting on the side.  I have a friend who runs a tech consulting agency.  She has a possible short-term contract that I may do some work on.  It may involve a little travel – yet another trip.

– Miscellaneous stuff.  I’ve got several thousand old photos that I’m getting scanned, and organizing them takes time.  I’m redoing a room in my house as a library and still have some work to do.  My home office is a frightful mess.  I recently got a new camera and am trying to learn to be a decent photographer, moving beyond point-and-shoot.  I’ve got a bunch of miniatures to paint.  I need to read up on the history of Egypt to make the most out of that trip.

Add it all together, and my summer off may be one of the busiest periods of my life.  What joy!