Launching my baby bird

Posted on June 6, 2007 by drdzoe

This has been a season of great changes. But this weekend was probably the greatest. Julie and I packed the van and drove one bed, four chairs, seven cartons of miscellaneous items, and our son Andy to Charlottesville, where he is working this summer.

This is not Andy’s first summer working in Charlottesville. He has, in fact, worked there for the past three. But this time, he is doing it as a college graduate, and he is not planning on returning to our home as a resident. Our little bird has left the nest.

I have mixed feelings about this. There’s the obvious fact that I’ll miss Andy a great deal. He has grown to be a fine young man, with a lovely dry wit and a wide range of interests and talents, and I always enjoy his company. His absence certainly makes our home a poorer place.

But I have always viewed this as the end goal of parenting: to bring a new adult to the point where he is ready to face the world on his own, capable enough to take care of himself and others, and decent enough to make the world a better place by his presence. In this, Julie and I have succeeded, and I feel a great deal of pride.

After a long day of heavy lifting, Andy took Julie and me out to dinner. It’s an old tradition amongst our circle: when your friends help you move, you treat them to a meal afterwards. Andy’s been on enough moves to know the drill. And it was a fine moment to see him step up into that responsibility, to treat us to this last meal together before he goes off to make his place in the world. A little funny, to be the one treated. But a joy to be the guest of such a good guy.

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Making it up as we go along

Posted on May 30, 2007 by drdzoe

In the start-up life, there is no infrastructure, and your opinion on everything matters.

Think of all the things that are provided for you in a big company.  There are standard offices, someone buys furniture, internet connectivity is provided, the telephones just work.   From the perspective of most employees, all of this just happens.

But at a start-up, nothing just happens.  We have to figure out all of this stuff, and everyone can offer an opinion.

Take internet connectivity as an example.  Back at AOL, the internet just worked.  I don’t know who set it up – as long as the socket in my wall worked, I was happy.  But here, we have no MIS department, so Michael is in the corner arranging DSL or a T1 or some other connection with providers.  And if I have an opinion (which in this case I don’t, as long as our connection is fast enough), it will be carefully considered before making any decision.

Or a matter on which I do have an opinion: office space.  We haven’t actually got offices yet – we’re squatting in a conference room in our lawyer’s office.  So we all get to go visit some possible spaces.  What’s more important – avoiding a bad intersection, or the nice sports club down the hall from one suite?  Being walking distance from a number of good lunch spots, or a slightly lower rent?  We all get to have our say.

Once we pick out a space, we all decide how to lay it out.  Go for a windowless private office, or have a nice big bullpen for development?   Have a nice desk, or perhaps a big overstuffed chair?  (Yeah, I’m considering not having a desk at all.  I work in a recliner when at home – I’m in one right now.  I like the working-in-a-den style, and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t do it here.)

Plus, one lovely coincidence.  Our current leading candidate office space is at 8260 Greensboro Drive.  That probably does not mean much to you, but it was the location of my office in my first job out of college.  Julie and I even belonged to that sports club I mentioned, way back when Julie was doing water aerobics working around her first pregnancy.

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Andy is graduated!

Posted on May 24, 2007 by drdzoe

I’m actually fairly remiss here. Last weekend, Andy, my oldest son, graduated from U.Va. And somehow, I never posted. Congratulations Andy! Needless to say, we’re very proud. Also needless to say, it seems a bit strange to have my oldest no longer in college.

We had arranged for Andy and Kate (both of whom were students at UVA this past semester) to extend their stays in their dorm rooms through the graduation. As a result, Kate and Diana stayed in her dorm room, while Julie and I stayed with Andy in his. Andy’s room was not as cramped as you might think, as he had one bedroom in a suite of two rooms. Julie slept on the couch in the living room of the suite, while I slept in the other bedroom.

In order to show that though graduated he can still worry his parents, on Friday night Andy told us that he was heading over to the psychology department to work on some things that he’s going to be doing there over the summer. (Andy’s lined up a summer job at the university, one that shows promise of being extended into a full-time job past the summer.) He told us not to wait up for him.

At around five AM, I woke up. Andy was not in his room. Julie and I conferred, and around 6:00 AM I wandered over to Gilmer Hall, home of the psych department. The doors were locked, but I must have looked suspicious, trying to get into Gilmer, as the university police soon showed up. I explained that I was looking for my soon-to-graduate son, and that he was working all night before graduating in Gilmer Hall. (Yeah, right, I could see them thinking.) So the three of us wandered through Gilmer’s halls, looking for Andy. And all the while, I entertained a series of questions that left me with the realization of how little Andy tells us.

“Who is he working for?””Someone in the psych department.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“What office?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does he drink?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

“I don’t know.”

We never did find Andy. (Later, he claimed that he had been behind a locked door working in an office. I suppose I’ll have to trust him on this.)

Anyway, he’s graduated now, with a BS double-majoring in Computer Science and Psychology. Go enjoy some pictures of the occasion, on the web at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdzik/

You can recognize Andy easily. He’s the graduate wearing jeans and a t-shirt under his gown.

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Off to a good start

Posted on May 22, 2007 by drdzoe

So yesterday, I’m sitting in an all-day meeting with my fellow starter-uppers to nail down details of how we’re going to work together and what we’re going to build. A lot of requirements discussions, diving deep into the product definition. And a lot of fun – there’s nothing quite like starting with a blank sheet and beginning something brand new.

It’s a meeting much like many that I’ve been in over the last several years. But at some point, I realize that there’s a big difference this time. Absolutely everyone who has a say in what we’re going to build is in the room. We don’t have to check with anyone else to make a decision, there is no chance that our plans will be overridden by some executive somewhere, we do not have to run things by Integrity Assurance or Legal.

Not only that, but there are only four of us. Four is a great number for this kind of meeting – everyone can be heard, everyone can influence the decision, but we can still move quickly through the agenda. It’s all really exciting, and things are moving forward quickly.

All of which is to say that I’m really enjoying the start-up life. Yes, I’m only two days in. Yes, there might be all sorts of troubles to come, and there’s certainly going to be a lot of long days.

But I’m working with some great people, and there’s no artificial barriers to what we’re doing. What a blast!

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Start of the adventure

Posted on May 17, 2007 by drdzoe

After ten years of working at AOL, tomorrow is my last day. I’m joining a start-up as the VP of engineering, something that sounds a little less impressive when you realize that for the next six months at least there will be no more than 3-4 engineers working for the company, and I’m one of them. Still, it will be fun.

I fully expect I’ll be keeping a blog covering both the adventure itself and any technical details that interest me along the way. As of now, I’ll be starting that blog right here. This may continue elsewhere – I haven’t really decided that yet. With things changing at a rapid pace for me right now, I’m not sure when that will be settled.

But wherever that is, I’ll link from here. So if you are here because you used to read one of my AOL blogs – welcome. If you want to follow what I do in the future, keep an eye on this space.

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